Nom de Plume

One late, late night when I couldn’t sleep, probably because of too much caffeine, I ended up on a site that detailed how to roast your own coffee beans. Freshly-roasted coffee, they claimed, can’t be beat — and once you try it you’ll never go back to storebought stuff, which is often months old. Even better, you can use an old popcorn popper (they recommended the Poppery II). And the best thing? Not only will your coffee taste better, but it’s cheaper too.

And yes, I bit. Even though apparently coffee connoisseurs are no less irritating than avidly hip wine people. In fact, descriptions of coffee would make the head of the snootiest wine snob swirl in ecstasy: spicy, plum notes, vanilla end, chocolate finish. There’s even something called cupping, which of course brought to mind gory images of leeches and bloodletting.

The next thing I knew, I was the proud new owner of a Poppery II popper acquired from eBay and 4 pounds of green coffee beans from Sweet Maria’s. They were the site that suckered me into this new hobby, but I figured that for all the advice so freely given, it would be churlish not to order from them.

So, I hunkered down. It was just me, my popper, and 4 pounds of green beans. And you know what? It is easy. All you do is throw the beans in, plug it in and wait ’til the beans start popping for the second time. Granted, it’s a bit messy, but that’s okay. And, believe it or not, it doesn’t smell that great either, even though one would imagine great billowing wafts of rich fragrant smoke. Actually, it just smells charred.

And it does taste better: it’s fresher, rounder, somehow. It’s certainly more satisfying, though I think I had good luck with my first 2 pounds. I started the second 2 pounds three days ago and don’t like the flavor as much. Which means that — oh dread! oh horror! — I’m going to become an irritating coffee person and start tossing about froufy words like bouquet and aroma and finish.

As for cheaper, it is that too. Two pounds of green beans cost approximately 10 dollars — about the same as a pound of already roasted coffee. And that, my friends, is the excuse I used earlier this evening as I placed an order for 10 pounds of green beans.

I won’t be sleeping anytime soon.

Rei Shimura, the indomitable Japanese antiques expert and detective, is back and solving mysteries with her customary aplomb. Even better, she’s in Japan again, a huge relief after her last adventure, in which she was stuck in Washington D.C.

Rei and her lawyer boyfriend are having problems (be’s a boozer) when she’s approached by the Sackler Gallery to return to Japan and investigate a former lover for international art fraud. Before you know it, she’s working for that secret government agency that cannot be named, navigating Japanese culture — and we’re having the time of her life.

I do like this series.

Somewhere, out in the ether in a blog post, I read an entry in which people were discussing music. Going around in a circle, people listed their favorite bands and musicians until, finally, one woman said, “I don’t like music.” Everyone was stunned. And then the author went into a riff about not being able to understand not liking music. I wish I remembered who posted it and where.

In any case, I could relate. It’s not that I don’t like music precisely; it’s more that I think silence is completely underrated. When Steve comes home from work, he always does two things: grabs a beer and flips on the stereo. By this point, I’ve been alone all day working, and I’m happy to see him. But at the same time, the blaring stereo often makes me feel itchy and overstimulated.

This is a problem. If Steve has one passion, it’s music. I’ve often thought that he feels about music the way I feel about books; he can identify any song playing at any given time on KEXP the way I can rattle off authors by title, or title by author. For me, the past couple of weeks have been wonderful; we still haven’t put the stereo back together since getting the floors redone. Steve has been listening to a walkman CD player, and I’m free to enjoy the silence.

I don’t know if this is a phase I’m going through, or somithing more insidious, like a slow progression into being able to tolerate less and less in my personal space. Don’t get me wrong; I listen to NPR and podcasts. But there’s something about music specifically that grates on my nerves.

It will, perhaps, come as no surprise to you to learn that I was a snotty child.

When I was 9, I spent a summer with my grandparents up in Julian while my mother was in language training prior to our move to Bucharest. I whiled away my time hammering pieces of wood to my treehouse (they promptly fell off), writing short stories (don’t ask), and slogging through The Mists of Avalon. At some point, I got a letter asking if I wanted to join some kiddie book-a-month club. And for some reason, I was incensed — so incensed, in fact, that I penned a letter to them explaining that their books were far too juvenile for me, and that I was reading The Mists of Avalon, and “enjoying it very much, thank you!”

Apparently, I was a better woman at 9 than I am at 32.

After reading The Once and Future King (and deciding to become an armchair Arthurian scholar), I checked out a bunch of other related novels. This was one. And by golly, it’s a hard slog. I started three weeks ago, got sidetracked with Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills (both fun), and finally lost all patience with it last night. It’s a feminist retelling of the tale — which is great, except the only way to give women power in an age when they really didn’t have much of it is to imbue them all supernatural powers. In fact, they all seem like new age earth mothers, babbling about reincarnation and previous lives and Wicca that’s called something else. Next up? Mallory’s Morte D’Arthur.

Well, okay, a tug rope. But I suckered you into looking at yet another picture of Harry.

I was stunned to learn that Wendy Wasserstein just died. She was both an icon and an inspiration to many of us who were at Mount Holyoke in the early to mid-90s. I remember how The Heidi Chronicles made us all chuckle knowingly; we had the same struggles, and the exact same love-hate relationship with our college of choice. Although older, Wasserstein spoke for us in many ways and her voice will be missed.

The blogs of late are filled with recommendations for a little gadget called “Thumb Thing,” which helps you read a book single-handed.

Which, I have to confess, falls into the WTF category for me. Steve says my hands are mutated, but it’s perfectly easy to read with one hand — and also, how do you turn pages with the Thumb Thing anyway? So here’s a little tutorial on how to do both.

1) Hold book.

2) Slide page.

3) Flip over.

4) Start reading again.

There you have it! For those of you wondering about the book in question, I wouldn’t recommend it. The Known World stinks.

My branch now offers free wireless. I love this city.

Harry is fat.

I’d like to blame it on the prednisone — and yes, that contributes — but really it’s because he has more bones, pig ears and treats than he can handle. I figure at this point, we’re not worried about cholesterol, the long-term effects of obesity, or even of mobility. (On the mobility front, he’s losing muscle in his hind legs.) Still, it’s gotten to the point that random kids point to him and say, “Mommy, that dog is fat.”

The thing is that I am feeling decidedly porky right now too — and that leads me to my worst fear. You know how dogs and their owners often look alike? I am terrified that I’m going to wake up one morning and look exactly like a pug.

A fat one.

Th heather is galloping over the steps.

Witch hazel in bloom. The fragrant one is in the front, but this still looks lovely.

Bonsai view with flash.

Last week, when we were staying across the alley because of redoing the floors, a digital scale stared at me balefully until I stripped down and stepped on it. I even parked my gum.

And I still passed out cold.

Because, you see, somewhere along the way, I have become a Fat Person. I’m not really sure how that happened, though I guess I’ve suspected. Really, I’ve been in denial. So I ran out, bought a scale of my own and stocked up on Fat Flush goods.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Fat Flush, it’s yet another diet plan. I picked up the book last summer (in a brief attempt to undeny my denial). The first two weeks consist of a detox in which you eat lean proteins, veggies, fruit, “cranwater” made of unsweetened cranberry juice and water, and flax seed oil. The longest I’ve managed to stay on it was four days before sugar and caffeine withdrawals hit. Hard. I will say, however, the results of even four days are pretty immediate.

This time, I said, I’m serious. And here I am, a full week done. This evening, a neighbor who I haven’t seen in a while said I looked skinny. Naturally, this made my day, so I rushed home and asked Steve what he thought.

He got that funny look on his face. You know, the one guys get when they realize they’re screwed no matter what they say.

“Uh, did you tell her you were fat flushing before she said that?”

“NO,” I said emphatically. A pause. I tried to stop myself, I really did. “So you can’t tell a difference?”

“Uh-huh?” he said hesitantly. “Is that the right answer?”

“No, seriously.”

“Yes, I can.” He was firm.

“No, you can’t.”

“Zia,” he said exasperated, “I don’t notice if you’re fat or thin. You always look good to me.”

“So I’m fat.”

“You are a gorgeous woman, the light of my life, at the pinnacle of her beauty.”

Yeah, yeah, that sounds great. The only thing was that he was deadpanning, his voice completely flat. That, and he was pretending to read a notecard cheatsheet off his palm. I raised my eyebrows.

“A radiant specimen of joy and light?” he offered hopefully. I shook my head.

“I know! You’re a blossoming flower!”

“Blossoming flowers are fat,” I harrumphed.

Then he started laughing.

Last week, I took Harry in for a checkup, and he seems to be doing fine. The vet gave me a prescription for two full months of prednisone, instead of the one month supply as we’ve been doing.

This seems to me to be a good sign.

Funny, though: I keep hanging on to the original empty bottle. It’s as though keeping it will keep keep further degeneration at bay, while throwing it out is tempting fate.

We opted not to go for it. It’s in good shape, etc., but let’s face it: it would sit in the yard for three months, make our neighbors hate us, and generally bring down property values.

Steve was totally depressed coming back to our house after staying at Geoff and Michael’s place while the floor was redone. Part of that is due to the fact that their bedroom is the same size as our living room and the other reason is that their bathroom is utterly gorgeous. Needless to say, they don’t have a blue tub and toilet.

So I hopped onto Craig’s List and found a clawfoot tub in good condition for a pretty good price. The problem? It’s 62 inches, and there’s a jog in the wall by the tub that renders it too short. Steve was resistant. But he still carved a hole in the drywall to see what was behind it. There’s nothing. Which I guess galvanized him to action. He just called to tell me he’s found a guy on his site who will tile for us. And we’re going out to see the tub tonight.

And of course, he will eventually say the whole thing was his idea …

When I posed the question to Steve, he laughed. Okay, scratch that. He really snickered. But doesn’t the dining room look nice and clean?

The filch being yours truly and not that I stole Christmas, I stole this Vietnamese lacquer liquor cabinet over Christmas from my mother because she didn’t want it. It’s been in my car ever since we got back. And now it’s sitting on freshly refinished hardwood floors. It may not stay where it is, but hey — now I have a back seat again.

In true 50s fashion, the era of the mixed drink and when my grandfather bought it in Vietnam, the entire front swivels around to display a bar.

“We’re going to have a lot of fun with this,” quoth Steve.

Turns out they’ve already put down three coats. So the floors are finished!

They’ll be putting the third — and final — coat down today. We should be able to move back in tomorrow night. Because it’s so wet, probably won’t move furniture back in until the weekend.

Steve is filled with woe because we’ve gone 26 days of straight rain — only a few days short of the record, which was 33 days sometime in the 50s. He’s moaning about SAD, depression, and lack of light. I pointed out that he was in sunny Southern California for nine of those days. To which he said it didn’t count and informed me that the only way to soothe his sunlight-starved soul is to give him nightly foot massages and backrubs.

If we’re doing the trite Shakespearean references, the appropriate quote might be “Out damned spot” instead; the oak in the living room is somewhat water-damaged. At first, we were going to stain it, but it was so DARK. So we’ve opted to stay with the Swedish finish, spots be damned. It will look like old flooring, rather than new. And that’s okay by us.

They’ve put on the first of three coats, and it looks amazing. We should have done this months ago. I’m gung ho about renovation now. Last night, over dinner, I said to Steve, “Let’s talk about what we’re going to do to the kitchen now.” He, not-so-kindly, pointed out that I haven’t even gotten around to painting the bathroom.