Doesn't she look nice in our purple kitchen?

I have my cat back. She’s got a urinary tract infection, which means I get to shove a pill down her throat twice a day. She loves that. But, it’s just so good to have her home. I just talk to her in silly voices and kiss her fluffy neck and tell her how much we missed her. Oliver hisses at her because she smells like the vet’s office. Jesse throws her little stuffed gray mouse. Welcome home.

Daisies from the party

Last night was our pod dinner party, summer edition. I spent all day preparing for it, cleaning the house, shopping for the food, cooking. The menu:

Appetizers: caprese salad (mozzarella with tomatoes and basil from our garden), crusty bread with roasted garlic, and yellow teardrop tomatoes from our garden.

Main: Chicken with roasted garlic cream sauce, rosemary red-skinned potatoes, green beans with lemon and almonds.

Dessert: chocolate torte, recipe compliments of my wonderful mother-in-law.

Jesse came home early from work to help me move some heavy things out of the dining room and to return two of the dining room chairs he’d borrowed for something in his office. On the way home, I had him pick up a few things from the store I’d forgotten. He saved the day! Then, he spent the evening holed up in his office while us ladies gabbed nonstop and laughed uproariously, sipping green tea Ginger Ale out of champagne flutes.

I gave the girls an optional “assignment” if they wanted to further develop their leadership skills on top of what we’re doing in our pod meetings. They teased me unremittingly for how teacher-ish it was of me, and I grinned. Then I forgot to tell them my good news—I’ve been given three Intro to Lit classes at UNCW for the fall!

Sometime after 9:00, the girls left and I washed the dishes and Jesse ventured out of the office for the slice of torte I’d saved him. He gave me a sweet card congratulating me on my new job. After the china was put up and the serving platters dried, I ran myself a bubble bath and started Anna Karenina and felt very very happy.

Appenzeller cheese tartlet. YUM.

On Sunday, I turned twenty-seven. Jesse calls twenty-seven “the year of significance” because seems like in movies something big always happens to the main character in his or her twenty-seventh year.

Friday night, Jesse and I ate stir fry and then walked around the outdoor mall where all the rich people shop. I had birthday money and Williams and Sonoma was having a big sale on Le Creuset. I walked away with a giant blue pot, the most gorgeous Dutch oven I’ve ever seen. Saturday evening, I spent nearly three hours in the kitchen, cooking a Julia Child chicken recipe with a mushroom cream sauce in my Le Creuset, roasting Brussels sprouts, and making Appenzeller tartlets.

“Tartlets” has become a new favorite word around here. First of all, because the word is just so fun to say out loud (go on, try it!). It sounds even better when said three times in a row. I don’t know why. And second of all, because they were really good. They’re basically little baby quiches, with a homemade crust (lard and butter!), sweet cooked onions, prosciutto, and the tangy Appenzeller, which I’d gotten at Harris Teeter for super cheap (the other blocks were going for $8 and $9, and I got this one for $2, but it had to be used right then).

Dinner was glorious. Who knew enamel-coated cast iron could be so exciting?

Sunday was our last Congo team meeting before the trip. More on that later. The afternoon was shopping for Congo odds and ends—bug spray, hand wipes, medicines of all varieties.

Then, we had a birthday dinner at India Mahal with some folks from small group. The girls sat at one end of the table, the boys at the other, and us gals talked about a trip to Spain, and I have no idea what the boys talked about, and we ate plates of curries and stacks of naan and paratha and everything else, and it was just so pleasant to be surrounded by friends, talking about travel, the sun still hanging on as we paid and walked a few doors down to the little Mexican grocery. A few of us went back to the Paschals’ place and watched a movie. Brandon and Kara brought me gummy bears and chocolate.

I don’t know how significant the year will be yet, but it sure has started out fun.

Is there anything better than a stack of books and a cat in the window?

Yesterday, A.’s mother was home, sick, so he and I spent most of our time outdoors, to try and let her rest. We took a forty-five minute walk, and he was remarkably good and only got restless toward the very end. The weather was perfect—just on the edge of chilly, but bright and clear. A. spent most of the walk pointing out every vehicle, along with their color. “Hello, white truck!” “Goodbye, blue truck!” (Which sound more like, “Hewwo why tuck!” and “Bye, bloooo tuck!”)

At home, he’s got a library book about heavy machinery, which he loves, and at one point in our walk we passed a big truck obliterating some tree stumps, and A. called out, “Backhoe! Loader! Backhoe! Loader!” (“Loader” is for “Front-end loader.”)

We also spent a good amount of time in their backyard, which is more garden than yard—a tangle of roses, azaleas, and camellias under a canopy of Japanese maples, loquats, and a couple giant oaks, all with stone and brick paths snaking through it. It’s idyllic, especially on a cool spring morning, all dewy and soft light, the birds singing and swooping down to the bird feeders for a morning snack.

They’ve got a couple tiny chickens and a white rabbit who live back there too. Yesterday, as A. and I inspected a set of irises, the bunny hopped up to us and stared and A. was captivated and excited but trying so hard to be quiet and still until the dog ran up, wanting to play, scaring the rabbit off. Later, the chickens came within arm’s reach of me and then wandered off under a tree to scratch for bugs. What a life, I thought, a two-year-old boy with fine blond hair and a yard with flowers and tiny spider webs and a bunny with one ear flopping over and tiny chickens clucking.

The rest of the afternoon was errands, lunch, a chat with Simona, more errands, garden stuff with Sharon, bill paying, and another Congo meeting. It was a little rushed, a little crazy, but today the weather’s good again and the garden will get more attention and I’ll get to write. And there is a stack of books that needs my attention, and I’ve got no intention of making them wait.

Let’s back up. The past few days have been a whirlwind—fun, nearly every moment of them, but packed. Thursday, I got up early to clean the house, wash linens, make the guest bed (er, futon), pick up a pork tenderloin and some good balsamic vinegar from Harris Teeter, and prep said tenderloin so it could marinate for the rest of the day. I watched A. for the afternoon, playing outside with him and the family’s Australian Shepherd, feeding him peas, and singing to him while stacking blocks. Every time I finish singing him a song, he claps, grins, and says, “Yay! Yay!” I have no idea how I managed that, but let me tell you, with that reaction, I’m singing all the time now. Sometimes, when I forget the words to “Hush Little Baby” (I can get started, but then I forget what order things are supposed to be given…) or run out of alphabet- or farm-themed songs, I resort to Elton John.

Thursday afternoon, about a half hour after I came home from watching A., Beth and her mom Cheryl drove up and we commenced the requisite hugging-and-squealing phase of the visit, which we followed with a house tour (about thirty seconds is all it takes to see the whole thing) and conversation in the living room. We then started dinner, popping the tenderloin in the oven and starting in on the mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, green beans, and bread. Jesse came home and we poured lemon Italian soda into champagne glasses and got out the tablecloth and had ourselves a nice little dinner. Jesse ran out to the store afterward to grab ice cream, which I’d forgotten earlier, and we had brownie and hot fudge sundaes. We stayed up late playing card games and something called Speed Scrabble (fun, fun, fun).

Friday morning, Jesse left for work early and Beth, Cheryl, and I had a lazy morning at home. We took our time getting up and getting ready, and then we set up a waffle bar for breakfast. Aunt Joannie got me this fabulous waffle maker for Christmas, the kind you flip over to make two waffles at once, and it’s red and shiny and, apparently, it makes The Best Waffles Ever. I took my mom’s suggestion and separated the eggs, beating the whites separately and folding them in at the end, and the waffles were light and fluffy but with perfectly crispy outsides. Yum. We improvised a blueberry-lemon syrup and we whipped cream and served the waffles with strawberries and macadamia nuts. Beth had brought a tea called Lady Grey, and we drank nearly a pot of it as we sat around the table, making and eating our waffles, and talking—so much talking!

Beth and I have known each other our whole lives. Our parents lived next door to one another in Nitro before we were born. Then we showed up, three months apart, and we’ve been friends ever since, even though both our families left West Virginia when we were children, even though we’ve not lived in the same state since we were four. Beth is kind and mild mannered and smart. In college, she majored in chemistry and French, and now she works in a hospital pharmacy, in a place so clean she wears a hairnet and cannot wear any makeup for fear it might flake off and contaminate someone’s IV bag. That fact alone puts her job into the category of Jobs I Will Never Do, but Beth does it because she’s not as vain as I am and has a very lovely complexion anyway.

Beth and her mom had to leave in the afternoon, so we took leftover veggie soup to the church and had lunch with Jesse before they headed out of town. After they left, I did a little copyediting and then went shopping. Because it was Friday and because I had a gift card and because it was warm enough to wear a skirt and flip flops, and that made life oh-so-good. At the mall, I found sales and managed to leave with $10 still on my gift card, and I drove to Ulta to pick up some makeup I was running out of (no hospital pharmacy for me) and I kept the windows down, which made my hair unhappy, but I didn’t care, because it made the rest of me happy and my hair is unhappy so often that its desires cannot be taken too seriously.

And then that evening I nearly forgot that Jamie Oliver’s new show was on, but I remembered in time to see three-fourths of it (so good!) and found the rest of it on Hulu today. (You can watch it there if you didn’t catch it.)

That brings us to yesterday, when we got up early and left for Charlotte to help Joannie move in to her new apartment. It’s in a fantastic part of town with a shopping center across the street that has a Target, a Harris Teeter, a movie theater, just about every kind of restaurant you could want, and dozens of other shops, including one that rents out audio books. Lovely! Mom and I cooked chicken fajitas for dinner and we drove around the area to see what we could see and we cooed at Joannie’s cats and tried to reassure them everything was fine, even though they were not quite sure what was going on. Jesse and I left after eight that night and made a wrong turn, which meant we pulled into our driveway about four hours later, just about cross-eyed with fatigue. And Oliver and Gracie were waiting at the door, meowing for dinner, which, they made clear to us, was far too late for their liking.

The reason for my early morning was a dentist appointment. I don’t dislike dentist appointments in the same way some people do, but, generally, getting my teeth cleaned, poked, scraped, and x-rayed doesn’t rank very high on my “Things to Wake Up Early For” list. But, I dutifully show up at my dentist’s office every six months because that’s the kind of person I like to believe I am. I once went three years without going to the dentist, and this was cause for some embarrassment and a general sense of dismay when I finally got an appointment and had to admit I’d not been to a dentist in three years. But then the hygienist said she couldn’t believe it had been that long since my last cleaning and pronounced my teeth in good shape, and I felt enormously better. My teeth are not particularly attractive (I was one of those kids who didn’t need braces, so now I admire the perfectly straight post-braces teeth of my peers and smile for pictures with my mouth closed), but they are clean. I don’t, however, floss. I feel you should know that, lest you think I’m someone I’m not.

Now that you know my dental history and the condition of my teeth, we can move on. I left the dentist’s office and spent the rest of the morning watching the two-year-old I babysit. We played outside, took a walk, worked on learning the shapes, talked about colors (“What color is this?” “Boo.” “Yes! Blue! Very good! Blue!”), and read a stack of library books about ducks and numbers and heavy machinery. When I came home, I poked around online looking for information about education for two-year-olds because I want to make sure I’m maximizing the time I spend with him. If I could be nanny-and-teacher, that would be a win-win for everyone—the parents would get more for their money; the little boy would learn things and become a prodigy and star in a YouTube video where he names all the states and their capitals in the order they joined the union; and I would feel productive and useful. Today I felt we did a good amount of educational play, and I do think it’s important to have times of objective-free play, but I’d like to learn more.

The rest of the day was a chiropractor appointment and a variety of errands and chores. For dinner, I made vegetable soup, cleaning out my veggie drawer. Basically, if it was in my fridge or freezer and was some variety of edible plant, it went in the soup. Oh, plus macaroni. Super easy, super tasty, and it made the house smell great. Tomorrow, my friend Beth and her mom will be in town, and that means tomorrow morning will be another early one for me. But this time, I’ll spend those pre-dawn moments cleaning my house and setting up the futon and buying a pork loin and some good balsamic vinegar for dinner. Much better—sorry, Dr. L—than a visit to the dentist.

At any rate, Jesse and I spent half the day on Saturday driving around kind of aimlessly, waiting for the rental company to get back to our realtor so he could get the codes to show us the houses. We snagged some wraps from a Trader Joe’s and ate them in the car, sharing a little jug of orange juice and finishing the meal with a couple of old chocolates the store had been giving away, pretending they were for the Superbowl, when really it was obvious they were just leftovers from Christmas.

Then, around 2:00 we finally got to see the first house. We spent the next several hours inspecting place after place, taking note of the carpet and the location of the laundry rooms, the noise levels, the quality of neighborhoods, and so on. I took notes on a little pad of paper, and after each house Jesse and I spoke our thoughts into a voice recorder. At the end of the day, we had settled on the two best possibilities, and we sent notes and pictures to my aunt. Now we wait and see…

So far this week, I’ve just been at home, doing chores and writing. Yesterday I went through some of my kitchen drawers, getting rid of things I never use and making room for some new gadgets from the Pampered Chef party. I washed everything—all the tools in the drawers, all the utensils in the holder next to the stove. I washed the cabinet doors. Then, I did laundry and baked this bread. Just call me Susie Homemaker! (By the way, you absolutely must try the bread recipe—it was freakishly delicious.)

Today I’ve spent the day writing. And reading about writing. And writing some more. I’ve got some shrimp thawing for dinner, and I’ve discovered this blog, which has me transfixed (the author survived a plane crash and is rebuilding her life and finding joy in the simple things—I found it via The Thin Chef, which also introduced me to the no-knead bread recipe, so bonus points to Kate for finding awesome things!).

Tomorrow my respite ends, as there are children to watch and groceries to buy and another Pod meeting to plan. But before that, I’ve got dinner, and small group, and LOST. Good day.

Simona’s hair is light and wispy, wavy in just the right way, and it always looks perfect, like a halo. I once saw her after she’d spent the day at the beach, and her hair had taken on a windswept look that stylists spend hours creating for movie stars in movies about coastal romance. When I spend the day at the beach, my hair stands straight on end, the frizz propping up the rest of my hair in what I can only describe as Wind Tunnel Chic (well, without the “Chic” part). Simona speaks in an almost-whisper, with such a calming voice I always feel like everything will be just fine, if only because she is in the world. She talks about spirituality, about reality, about Congo and Darfur, and she quotes literature and tells me about philosophy, always having the decency to pretend that I already knew the complex concepts she’s outlining for me, listing off philosophers as if I know exactly who she’s talking about and might chime in with a reference to the philosopher’s third book, which I just happened to have read last week (when she talks about Kierkegaard, however, I do get rather animated). And in return for her brilliance, I tell her about my book, the fits and starts and endless rewrites, and she does not think my existence invalid because I don’t have a full-time job with benefits.

Visha’s hair is straight and strawberry blonde, and she’s got this wonderful radio voice, distinctive, a little husky, memorable. She’s spunky and fiery, but incredibly and unfailingly reasonable. She knows how many female directors have been nominated for Best Director in the Oscars, and she has trained two very large dogs into thinking that she—petite, adorable Visha—is bigger than they are. I think she’s magic. And funny, dear heavens, have I mentioned that Visha’s hilarious? If you know her, you already know she’s got a sharp wit, but you also know that she’s unendingly kind. Though I’ve given her plenty of ammunition, never once has she used that humor to make fun of me or to make me feel anything other than entirely good and happy. She cries for people with Alzheimer’s, and she pulls off the side of the road to care for dying dogs hit by cars that long ago sped off. She works at a bookstore, has read probably more books than said bookstore has in its inventory, knows all about experimental film, rails against injustice, defends the defenseless.

How lucky I feel today, not only to have such friends, but to have hours to run down my phone batteries with them, to listen to them and to talk about writing with them, to find out what they think about plot and beginnings and the plight of the MFA workshop. The three of us are trying to do the same thing, really, to struggle with the words on the page, to find the balance between art and life, to find where the line is and to cross it.