Sunday, November 8, 2015

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The weather around Sherwood Cottage is cooling. There was a frost warning this morning, in fact, and I understand why; the window of the house are dewed with condensate as the warmer air inside makes contact with the outside-chilled glass. We will soon be putting film over the windows again, hoping to stem some of the draftiness of the house and create pockets of dead air that should help keep the place snug. I will have a running battle with the cats to keep the film intact, so I should probably invest in another roll of clear packing tape before long; how Ms. 8, more mobile this year than last, will influence the battle is unclear to me. At some point, she will be an ally, but at present, she is a force of chaos in the home. Learning is a messy business, after all.

The Mrs., Ms. 8, and I took a little jaunt away from Sherwood Cottage yesterday afternoon, heading down to the City of the Vacant Seal to do a bit of business. It was a nice excursion; it was good to do some trading that our hometown does not facilitate, and I needed to get out of the house for a bit. Ms. 8 seemed to enjoy herself, as well, getting a new dress that she has already enjoyed wearing, as well as squealing with delight at the odd treat of some fast food. (It was not the only shrieking she did, to be sure, but happy shrieks are better to hear than sad or upset ones, and I have had to hear enough of each to know the difference well.) There was some annoyance at various spills, and not just on the parts of the Mrs. and me, but the drive down was nice, and the drive back, looking over the wind-swept plains at the sunset, was scenic; I am glad we made the time to go and return.

Dinner was a noodle soup, using the college-standard ramen noodles to ballast a miso broth flavored with two types of mushrooms, cilantro, basil, and green onions and served with fish. I added seaweed paper, sesame oil, and liquid aminos to mine; the Mrs. had chili paste in hers. Ms. 8 ate the otherwise-unadorned base. Each of us seemed to enjoy it, and there is a helping of soup left over; it should make a decent enough lunch for one or another of us. (The thought occurs to me that I have not written about food in a while. I have been eating, to be sure, but I have not been doing as I really ought to do and cooked outside to ease the burden of cooking inside. Now that the weather is cooling, perhaps I ought to see about setting up to smoke some more meat. And maybe this will be the year I try to smoke cheese, as well.)

Work continues, of course. One more stack of papers demands my attention, and a freelance piece beckons. Job applications still call out for completion, and any number of other projects look at me reproachfully as they sit, undone, in queue. It would behoove me, then, to attend to them.

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