2/2&3/10 - Steppin' in it....

Yesterday was one of those cold rainy days that keeps me snuggled up in bed with my laptop, kitties, and pooch 'til noon. When I finally did arise to find sustenance, the leftover quinoa wasn't gonna do it. So I whipped up a dilly scrambled egg, arugula, & ham sandwich on wheat toast with a thick shmear of cream cheese. It didn't take Andi long to coax me into the damp, chilly outside world where I spent a good 45 minutes tramping around the muddy yard in my rain boots begging her to come back inside. For some reason she kept creeping through the tangled hedge along the property line to investigate the neighbor's front yard—I suspect she may have left behind a hefty poo pile to match yesterday's backyard deposit. By the time I got her back indoors, I'd stepped in shit and she was covered in mud—a dog bath suddenly became the next item on the agenda.

Martha had listed "Tweet and blog" and "yoga" on her calendar. Well I don't tweet, and I failed to make a blog entry yesterday, but I did manage to get most of the way through a 50 page manuscript on the semantics of ecological discourse while intermittently fucking around on Facebook before heading off to power yoga class.

By the time I got home, I was smelly and starving and had a fridge full of leftover Persian rice to contend with. I had some radishes and tiny turnips kicking around in the veggie drawer & recalled a recipe for sauteed radishes in yogurt sauce that I'd seen posted on my local online farmer's market site a couple of times. It called for a layer of hard-boiled egg chunks, topped with cooked diced radishes (I threw in the turnips and some chopped beet stems to boot), and drowned in a lemony, spicy yogurt sauce. It was a perfect accompaniment to the leftover rice and I went through two piled-high platefuls. Charles, however, was grossed out by the concept of cooked radishes and wouldn't even try it. I abandoned him to fend for himself with a pile of week-old sweet potatoes and a piece of reheated mystery meat while I retired to a tub of lavender-infused hot water with a steamy mug of Sailor Jerry-spiked chai tea.

The rest of the evening was occupied by the season premiere of "Lost"—more aptly known as "Daddy Issues Island"—and I ended up editing Charles' Langston Hughes research paper 'til I was too tired to think about this blog. Much of this morning was taken over by the paper too. My husband is a middle management slave for a customer service call center where he regularly puts in overtime—AND he's taking night classes toward a M. Ed so he can be a high school English teacher. Yeah, he busts his ass big time & I do what I can to make it easier for him, which means keeping him properly fed & clothed & serving as his personal research assistant & copy editor.

Outside it was a beautiful sunny, almost balmy day, unfortunately, between Charles' paper and my real-job editing duties, I didn't get to enjoy much of it. Martha's calendar for today lists an appearance on the Today show which I tried to find online—she must have bombed, 'cause it didn't get posted. The calendar also says, "Polish shoes and take pairs with worn heels or sole guards to the cobbler." The only shoes I wear regularly are flip-flops and faux Crocs, so I translated this command into "Clean the dog shit off the rain boot that's been sitting on the back step since you stepped in it yesterday afternoon." I half-heartedly headed outside with a bottle of spray cleaner and a handful of paper towels, filled a watering can at the rain barrel, found a sunny spot in the back yard, and used a few twigs to dig the encrusted feces from the deep treads of my rubber boots. It was in there pretty good and I actually had to refill the watering can to get it all rinsed away by the time the sun descended to the treeline and it neared dinnertime.

I hadn't forgotten about the duck. I'm right proud of my ability to stretch a single fryer hen into a week's worth of meals, and I figure I can do the same with this bird. Since I'd ripped off all the fat, I figured it's not right for roasting, and I wouldn't want to waste prime breast meat in a boil pot, so I carefully cut them off to pack away in the freezer. I'm pretty damn good at this butchering thing and I figure when the shit goes down we'll be OK as long as I can get someone else to kill, decapitate, and defeather the little critters. Although if the shit's gone down, I doubt we'll be worried about putting aside prime cuts—we're more likely to stake a whole carcass over the fire pit and pray the zombies don't get to us first!

As for now, the carcass has spent the entire day in the crock pot brewing up a hearty broth. I'll soon be tossing in some turnips, carrots, and what's left of that magically endless pile of family farm beet greens to make a stew (maybe thickened with a duck fat roux?)—and there's still plenty of Persian rice to suck it up.

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