A Note From Her Familiar

Tho' I'm not a black cat, and Jane isn't a witch (occasionally substitute a b) I am her familiar.

I was here before the Lab, I was here before German Girl. I've been here since the beginning of time.

I've been around the block a few times, got into a few fights. Vision in both eyes is overrated. So are fangs. I still rule this hood and this house. I have my hiss. And a hitch in my back leg.

It's Halloween morn. The moon is setting and my fur is getting ruffled thinking of the night ahead.

We have a pumpkin with a face on it, we have bowls of candy, candles will be flickering, the Lab will be barking then wagging it's tail. And me, I'll be waiting, to pounce, to hiss, to make all the little children cry.

This is my night. Fear me.

( I'm sure Jane will be back tomorrow with some saccharine post about how sweet it was, but you will know , you have been warned)

Boo!

Halloween. This year I have to decided to dress as my garden. The colors and textures are perfect.

If I croched a shawl out of bronze fennel appliqued with sedum blossoms.

And trimmed the edges with callicarpa berries.

Clothed my limbs in black like the trident maple.

Made a necklace and earrings out of the winged euonymus and a ride from the scotch broom.

Topped it all off with a mask made of a black elephant ear .

Would you know me?

I'm Queen of The World!

(The Lab and German Girl)

Well let me tell you, the Lab is over the moon after her first foray into blogging. She didn't expect everyone to be so welcoming. Plus she received comments from 2 canine superstars of the blog world, The Hound and Flossie. She has a huge crush on the Hound, well who doesn't and even though Flossie is much younger (maybe a touch of jealousy here) Nika still loves to read her posts and snicker at what she gets away with.

We both had a fun day yesterday while waiting 8 hours for the service tech to show up and work 2 and a 1/2 hours on the washing machine , which still isn't fixed. We read the comments, made minestrone, went for several squirrel/ rabbit hunts aka walks, bought some wallpaper on ebay, and talked about the day she can buy her own computer and write her own blog. Because it's bad enough I have to fight the cat for my chair much less the dog for my keyboard.

As I write this the Lab is lolling around on a sheepskin, noisely banging a bone on the floor and impatiently waiting for me to finish so we can go look at the Hound's blog again. Jeeze, puppy love.

And Now: A Brief Message From The Lab

Pssst, listen to me now, I don't have long. Don't pay any attention to Jane's complaints about living in squalor ( she's so OCD). The house has never looked better. The bed is now on the floor, no jumping necessary and it's easy to get off ASAP when someone comes knocking at the door ( I'm the greeter). There are boxes full of treasures stacked everywhere and if I just keep sniffing I might find a hidden treat.

The shades and curtains are gone from the windows and have been replaced with batik sarongs. These are darker and allow us all to sleep later. Though the humans don't seem as happy about this as I am. Jane keeps saying that all we need to do now is start burning incense.


I must be quick here, I'm a very slow typist, another 10 minutes of granola baking and we're off for a walk!!!!!! And then it's time for breakfast!!!!

The best news of all is the clothes washer repairman is coming this morning, sometime between 8:00 and 12:00, so not only will I have a new man to bark at, Jane can't go running off with her fiends, I mean friends and leave me all alone. (though I do have my favorite toy Asterix to keep me company)

Oh happy squalor, oh lovely disarray!

Under Construction

Because I love all of you and fear for your sensibilities, I will not post pictures of our house. We're in the middle of a little construction project and starting Friday night our bedroom moved into the living room and the bathroom moved into the hall and we were either huddled around the dining room table or (until this morning) enjoying the relative order of the kitchen.

Our bedroom ceiling has been dry walled, our east facing wall completely re-plastered and a very pregnant wall in the bathroom has been cut out and replaced with dry wall. Our house is over 70 years old and has (had) the original plaster. We will now live for a week in boho squalor until the workmen return next Saturday to paint.


In all this, the kitchen was my haven. That is of course until the washer popped a valve this am and water poured out and into the kitchen. My floor is now very clean. A neighbor washed, dried and folded our laundry and through it all the sun kept shining and we kept breathing and laughing and dashing outside as often as possible to breathe fresh air. And quite frankly I kept sneaking outside and taking pictures of the garden to both distract myself from the chaos and to have something to post about. Blogging, one of my other great denial tactics.

That iris just won't quit will it?

The Accidental Chef Goes West

Not too much going on this week, still trying to recover from Saturday. This involved lots of sleep and a trip to the chiropractor. So you have several option here, look at the pics of a very few flowers I have stashed around my house, read the post or ignore the whole thing until I'm up to speed. But, if you've gotten this far...


Sometimes after the gold rush, my friend Peaches and I left Nantucket and flew off to California, San Francisco to be exact. We decided to look for jobs as domestics. This seemed romantic to us. I snagged a job as a live in domestic chef and she became a nanny for a big $$$ brewery family. We had one and a half days off a week and lived within blocks of each other in Pacific Heights. I was responsible for staff (butler, personal maid) breakfast and lunches ( add in various housekeepers, laundress etc.) and dinners for the family. Every morning I prepared a tray of 1/2 a grapefruit and coffee and sat by the bedside of Madame as we planned dinner. Then, off I went to shop and meet Peaches for a coffee. There was no budgeting, there were many, many dinner parties, out of season fruit and vegetables were preferred and my gi-nornomous kitchen had a incredible view of Alcatraz ... well you get the picture.

I was in HIGH clover. I was sent for cooking lessons with a very old, very wise, classical French chef Josephine Araldo, who took a liking to me and when there were seriously VIP dinner parties she'd sneak in the employee entrance and help me cook. I had a huge Vulcan stove and 2 wall ovens, marbled counters for pastry and a china filled pantry bigger than the house I live in now.

After dinner I was out that servants door in a flash, partying it up in the city by the bay, though I could often be found at 2:00am, back in the kitchen practicing pie dough. My nemesis then, my nemesis now.

If only I hadn't started dating the son...

A Day In The Life

What no florist ever wants to hear at 4:30 on a veryveryvery busy Saturday is that a hotel is calling wondering when the 45 centerpieces will be delivered. On Monday I reply, and though I try to stick to my guns I cannot sway them. Our client said the party was the 18th, she was wrong, it was today at 6:30. My boss and mentor said, what will we do, I said let's make 'em, no biggie. The flowers were conditioned, the containers already prepped by our flower cleaner. All we 3 designers had to do was veryveryvery quickly make the centerpieces and get them delivered by 6:00.

(We call the basement the hell hole)

Done. At what cost to our complexions I can't imagine. Then we got to trot upstairs to our other design area and do all our Monday morning office flowers, and a few more random corsages and boutonnieres for a big homecoming dance.

We were very tired, we were very merry. At least until mother of a teenager attending the homecoming dance cried when told we weren't making any more corsages and offered us $50.00 to make one. We made it, sheesh. No crying in floristry, unless it's by us.

The front staff referred to the retail area as a war zone. The Lab was with us all day and getting kind of grumpy because she wanted a walk and we were acting all kinds of busy.

But we're home now and GG is making something delicious out of leftovers and I'm hot out of the bath and sitting down and writing this in an attempt to make sense of my day.

Impossible. But now my weekend has begun and I predict a beautiful sunny Sunday with a pedicure on the horizon.