Grilled, crab-stuffed Alaskan Rockfish. Baked beets (from our garden) and goat cheese. Locally grown tomato and cucumber with avocado. Cabernet from Napa.
Get this: Cheetos White Cheese Puffs for dessert!
…
Hard to accept it’s already August 15th. And 67 and sunny to boot.
I know, I know. Don’t have to tell me. We’ve lived here almost 25 years you know.
This is what happened.
One cheery, cloud-free day at our beach house I felled a small alder tree that had grown up on the border of our driveway and the neighbor’s driveway. The topmost portion of the tree, only the thin and frail branches, fell across a small patch of Fireweed growing along the neighbor’s driveway. Yes, I agree Fireweed are pretty, and yes, technically, the tree fell on their property; and yes, it did flatten but did not break — I verified this later — said Fireweed plants. Mea culpa. Now, it just so happened the neighbor was outside at the time and witnessed this. Well, she came at me like a Comanche warrior, and laid into me like I had just been arrested for kidnapping her daughter, throwing her down a deep well, and dancing about wildly dressed in women’s clothes threatening to kill her.
I just stood there, nonplussed, taking the brunt of her verbal assault.
When finally I recovered I said something to her, that her husband had previously given me permission to fell the tree, causing her to turn and snap at me like a wounded animal. I don’t recall what she said. Then she stomped off.
Slowly I dragged the tree onto our property. It wasn’t a large tree, maybe five inches in diameter, but it was partly occluding our peekaboo view of Resurrection Bay to the south. And now it isn’t!
Happy Wife was nearby and heard this go down. We both later agreed it would have been an ideal time to bark back at her, to point out the insult in our backyard, that ton or more of excess stone and gravel that a contractor under their hire had carelessly pushed onto our property, crushing what I’m sure were dozens of innocent Fireweed plants which will never again see the light of day.
But we didn’t. Because that’s not the way we roll. Generally speaking.
Resisting the temptation to escalate a war can make one feel magnanimous, but at the same time a willing victim as well. We resolved that we wouldn’t say another word about it, unless we hear her bring it up again. In that event, I dream of thrusting a spade in her face and demanding she remove the insult from our property, one toiling shovel full at a time, while Happy Wife and I look on from the comfort of our hot tub, sipping wine and giggling lightly as she struggles. </dream>.
Presently enjoying reading, The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II.
I had no idea Mark Twain was a war deserter. Early in the book the author writes that Twain, “famously deserted from both sides.” I understood “both sides” to mean he had at different times deserted from both the union and the confederate causes. Goggling around, I quickly found evidence (search for deserter) that he had in fact deserted a southern militia during the civil war after only two weeks of service, excusing it later in writing by saying he was unfit to be a soldier, but if he ever served in the union ranks and deserted there, too, I couldn’t find any evidence.
I agree with one review that the book is long-winded on the details of the experiences of the three deserters around who the story is told. But so far (~20% in) I like the book; I find it well written, relatively unbiased and non-judgmental with regard to deserters.
Ah, those quirky Alaskans.
(Picture linked to article if yur dying to read more).
I call it Rod’s Funbox.
Decant into quality ice-filled shaker the following:
4 shots (or so) quality Tequila.
2 shots Triple Sec.
2 shots lime juice.
Shake vigorously.
Place shaker on ice in Funbox. Fill two tall, lime-rimmed glasses with ice and place on ice in Funbox. Place litre of Jose Quervo margarita mix on ice in Funbox. Put sliced, fresh watermelon in container on ice in Funbox.
Take Funbox to front yard boardwalk, wait for Happy Wife arrival.
Say goodbye to July:
Happy Wife slept in a tent in the cool grass of the backyard last night. With Harry. No, I didn’t kick her out of the house, because no, we didn’t have a fight.
“I’m hot,” she said.
“Well, of course, dear, you know I think you’re smokin’.”
“No, not that hot. I mean it’s too hot in the house to sleep.”
Sure enough it was pretty stuffy in our bedroom (upstairs), must’ve been 80? Downstairs was cooler but evidently not cool enough.
Summer is a harsh mistress for the snow bunny.
Harry saw and inspected it first. Seen on the bluff trail overlooking Cook Inlet. One of our usual places for a morning hike, just minutes from home. Sure, this unprecedented, glorious summer weather we’re having has a lot to do with it, but I must say I never jade to the simple pleasure of my morning walk with the dogs. Even when coming on fresh evidence that we were not alone. And I don’t mean the small children playing on the sand dune this morning, not 300 feet from where I took this picture.
The mottled quail egg looks like earth from space, except instead of oceans of blue, oceans of pooh.
Good thing we didn’t eat the shells then.
Instead, said shells were gently cracked, allowing gooey albumin and yoke to decant into thumb-pressed depressions in the breakfast stratta, which was then returned to the oven to bake for an additional five minutes or so. While we waited we talked about the morning news, and were saddened to learn — fearful really — that J. J. Cale had died. Fearful, because when artists you came up with start passing it’s like hearing the whoosh of the Reaper’s scythe overhead, your own head. Finally, with coffee in one hand and a bowl of stratta in the other, the five of us repaired to the sun-splashed deck. The morning was still and quiet, save the last boats of the day’s fishing fleet departing Seward harbor.
Only two forkfuls into the stratta and a collective Mmm went up. When food is good nobody speaks.
Earlier last week I made dinner for Happy Wife. I started with a potentially award-winning bloom of broccoli I picked from our garden, and stir-fried a mighty nice (if I don’t say so myself) beef & broccoli dish. Served over rice dusted with sesame seeds and sliced shoots pruned from our Walla-Walla onions. Our neighbor recommended the pruning; said doing so would redirect the plant’s energy into growing the fruit and not the shoot. Because it rhymed it seemed like wisdom.
We ate outside on the deck in the warm evening air, unpestered by mosquitoes!
Harry held rapt by something in the water:
Minutes later, down the beach away, I saw people swimming in the ocean. Big deal you say? Let me remind you that even with the unusually warm summer temperatures we’re experiencing this year — with no end in sight — the water in Alaska is cold. My estimate of the temperature in Resurrection Bay is ~45 degrees, possibly warmer, but even so cold enough to turn one blue after ten minutes or so.
I took Otis for a ride to Exit Glacier, aptly named since it’s nearly outta here. At the site of this photo 115 years ago I could have leaned Otis against the glacier’s head wall:
Cool glacier; cool outwash plain; cool Fireweed; cool bike; not so cool out-of-shape, aging white dude:
