It’s peak harvest time, and I had a bounteous day yesterday, Labor Day, starting with meeting bink & Maura at my newly discovered coffee provider--the "refuel" (gas 'n' stuff) station with a fancy coffee maker that grinds beans per cup. If you bring your own cup, any size, it's only 99¢. Turns out, lots of other people go there just for the coffee too.
We sat at their picnic table. The man and dog mural advertises the chiropractor next door.
It was bink & Maura's dog Astro's tenth birthday too. Here he is several years ago, below, with the girlettes, who are celebrating with ice cream.
I. Presenting. (Is that you, Auntie Vi?)
This week will be the two-year anniversary of Auntie Vi's death on Sept. 10, 2021. She was ninety-six years old, like the queen and Tony Bennett.
BELOW: Vi on her last birthday, a month before she died, with her neighbor Lance:
Vi grew up poor during the Great Depression. Abundance was her life philosophy. (From Latin abundantia, "fullness, plenty".)
"Not for me," she always said, "but to share."
Last year sometime between Auntie Vi's birthday (Aug. 7) and her death day, I'd found a white cotton shower curtain, exactly the kind I'd wanted for my new apartment, neatly folded on top of a trash can. I felt like it came from her--it was just the sort of thing she'd have given me as a housewarming present if she'd been alive.
A year later, biking down a nearby alley after coffee yesterday, I found a crock pot, well cared for, complete with instructions and pot liners. I'd been thinking it'd be handy to have one for cooking meals for my coworkers--to slow-cook meats and to save me heating up my apartment.
(I serve the food at work in a crock pot, but I didn't have one at home.)
Again, it was exactly what Auntie Vi would have sent me a check to buy. She loved cooking and sharing food. After her husband died when she was seventy, she'd worked part-time in a kitchen/cooking store for a while.
And that's my blue Croc ^ next to the crock pot set out by the trash cans for the taking. There was lots of good stuff in the alleys yesterday--a big house/apt-moving time--from flat screen TVs to a sectional sofa to door hardware (knobs and locks). I took some of the last, to be spaceships for dolls.
II. Swinging
Working on the collage board at home all afternoon, I ended up with many unused bits of paper, some of which became their own pieces. At the end of the day, I'd put together four. Not all equal.
My favorite, below: "Penelope I, Pont. Max." [pontifex maximus: Latin for "supreme pontiff", from pontifex, meaning any high or chief priest--or ruler, like Julius Caesar]
In real life, Penny Cooper wouldn't even consider being pope.
"It's just a funny picture, it has nothing to do with dolls."
But if she were to be pope, she says she would "give away all the money like it says in the guidebook, and make sure the office supplies are top notch. This one broke."
She says the Vatican should shop at Phil's Stationery, as featured on Orange Crate Art.
I just now updated the photo of the clown collage I'd posted yesterday with the most recent iteration, now with acrobats. The woman and child acrobats came from the same photo as the man (below, right) I'd put in the Dessert Delivery collage.
I like the idea of all three boards having some connection. I'll bike the clown board over to Emmler Bemmler later this week, when the weather cools
off, for her to work on again. I'm not sure if
she's started the third board. If not, I'll take it and get it going.
_________________________
III. Humming
Right now, sitting outside my door this morning, I can hear the
humming of cicadas and my neighbor's a/c. Marz came by with scones earlier, and
she's sitting here too, reading Blood, Sweat, and Chrome, a book about the making of Mad Max: Fury Road a favorite movie, and its director, George Miller.
I was going to go into work today, but when Marz showed up, I decided to take a holiday. This Labor Day fell on my Monday off (because I worked Saturday), so it didn't make a three-day weekend. As a part-timer, I don’t get paid for holidays, but I can make up the hours on another day.
It's going to be another hot day (92ºF/ 33ºC), but a cool
front this evening is supposed to drop tomorrow's temps by 25 degrees. I
love this time of year--even the heat is bearable, because temporary.
I have lots of veg from the farmers market to cook up--I'll try out my newly found crock pot. I'm going to make a vegetarian posole for the first time. Suggested by friend K. (thanks!), posole is a Mexican soup/stew made with hominy––I can buy some at the nearby Mexican grocery––and guajillo chilis, which I happen to have. I'd bought them to make hot chocolate, but I almost never drink hot chocolate.
This recipe uses pinto beans instead of the usual pork or chicken.
Have a good week ahead, everybody!
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