Author: Karen

Incredible Progress

Karen

We’re 6 business days into basement construction and we already have framing, plumbing, and lights. I was really nervous about working with subcontractors but everyone our general contractor has sent over has been so nice and really seems to know their stuff.

The plumbing work wasn’t too noisy but the dust was terrible, even with sheeting up. (We’re going to be cleaning up for months.) But dust is a small price to pay for not having to excavate the Mariana Trench ourselves: They ran into a footing when they started digging so there were two days of concrete cutting and jackhammering:A framed basement with a deep trench with a sewer pipe in it. Tools and pickaxes are scattered around.

But it got done and filled in and the lights went up and now they just need to concrete the trench and do a day of HVAC, and then we’re ready for inspection! The basement trench filled back in with dirt and cleaned up.

A framed basement with 6 bright lights in the ceiling.

Reading Cookbooks

Karen

Like I said yesterday, I’m revisiting all the cookbooks I have to look at the chicken recipes. Re-reading Laurie Colwin’s More Home Cooking, I found this bit–about reading cookbooks:

Cookbooks hit you where you live. You want comfort; you want security; you want to not be hungry; and not only do you want those basic things fixed, you want it done in a really nice, gentle way that makes you feel loved. That’s a big desire, and cookbooks say to the person who’s reading them, “If you will read me, you will be able to do this for yourself and others. You will make everybody feel better.”

 

Chicken Dilettante

Karen

After 25 years of it, I officially stopped being a vegetarian sometime last month and now I’m learning how to cook chicken. I stopped eating it before I really had to cook for myself, so there’s a whole new world of recipes and tips that I’ve read about but never put into practice.

In other words: Time to be a dilettante!

So far I’ve learned that when a recipe calls for skin-on chicken, they really mean it, because that’s what browns and keeps it moist when you cook it. I’ve had success with braises and slow cookers but that doesn’t keep me from trying things like this: Smitten Kitchen photo of beautifully brown roast lemon chicken(the Smitten Kitchen version ^ )

 

…and getting this.
my version of roasted lemon chicken. It looks underwhelming and doesn't have beautiful brown skin. This is how we learn we need the skin! (I know that looks pink but don’t worry, the meat thermometer is my best friend in these experiments.)

Anyway, this is a fun new learning curve that also, finally, gives me enough protein in my life. I’m a little surprised by how okay I am about buying and handling meat, talking about skin, thinking about the chicken as a creature but still eating it… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Such is the power of protein, I guess.

Checking On The River

Karen

Our Sunday visits took us further west than we usually are so we walked a section of the Jordan River Parkway to mix things up. Every time I see a body of water, I think we need a SUP or a kayak because how fun would it be to float down that under the trees?
View of a river with thick trees in green and yellow across the bank and some fluffy weeds in the foreground

Of course, you wouldn’t see the Virginia creeper on the bridge doing the most from a boat. (That is an unedited photo; the light was making those stems just radiate.)
Virginia creeper vine in fall colors growing on a steel bridge. The berries are on a bright red stem.

Friday Links

Karen

1. Do you want to look at 800 years of English handwriting? You know you do.

2. A detailed guide on how to leave the leaves where you can and what to do with them when you need to clean them up from places like drains and sidewalks. I did not know this: “The space under a tree is an especially critical place to keep leaves since many butterfly and moth caterpillars drop down from trees into the leaf litter to pupate and overwinter.”

3. A Butlerian Jihad against AI sounds pretty good, honestly: Screenshot of a post that reads, "me as a kid reading Dune: I appreciate the detailed world-building that justifies why everyone fights with swords and has mental powers, but the idea of a Butlerian Jihad against computers is pretty silly me in 2025, trying desperately to find the three (3) places you need to go to to disable the latest helpful Al assistant that's inserted itself into my work chat and is advising me to do things that would be a breach of federal law: Oh Now I Get It"

Spooky Season Reading

Karen

I’d forgotten about all the different Ray Bradbury spooky short story compilations out there until I saw this quote from the intro of The October Country:

“October Country is that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and mid-nights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain…”

Reading the summaries of the stories in The October Country, I’d also forgotten just how weird Bradbury can be. Guess it’s time for a re-read!

It’s Happening

Karen

Construction on the basement started yesterday and the framing is already done (!). Three guys were here from 8 to 5, plus the general contractor to get everything going, plus a visit from the plumber and the floor guy. Concrete cutting starts tomorrow and the door guy is coming for a consult tomorrow afternoon.

I was already feeling pretty good about the decision not to DIY this whole thing but the speed at which the framing happened really solidified that feeling. I am so glad I didn’t try to do this myself while being employed and watching a senior kitty–just the framing would have taken me weeks.
The same unfinished basement with studs over the insulation and a room framed in. A man holding a cat looks up at the ducting that has been framed in

Speaking of senior kitties, we had to bring Toby down to show him all the scary noises had stopped for the day. 🙁 I don’t think any of us will enjoy the concrete cutting but hopefully it will get a little quieter for him after that.

A Poem For That October Light

Karen

I found this yesterday (via the Muppets and poetry account, lol) and it’s so good… Corn like cellos! Or chiaroscuro! “These days are songs, noon air/ that flows like warm honey, the maple trees’ glissando/of fat buttery leaves.” Exactly what it feels like right now.

 

This Time of Year
by Barbara Crooker

when the light leaves early, sun slipping down
behind the beech trees as easily as a spoon
of cherry cough syrup, four deer step delicately
up our path, just at the moment when the colors
shift, to eat fallen apples in the tall grass.
Great grey ghosts. If we steal outside in the dark,
we can hear them chew. A sudden movement,
they’re gone, the whiteness of their tails
a burning afterimage. A hollow pumpkin moon rises,
turns the dried corn to chiaroscuro, shape and shadow;
the breath of the wind draws the leaves and stalks
like melancholy cellos. These days are songs, noon air
that flows like warm honey, the maple trees’ glissando
of fat buttery leaves. The sun goes straight to the gut
like a slug of brandy, an eau-de-vie. Ochre October:
the sky, a blue dazzle, the grand finale of trees,
this spontaneous applause; when darkness falls
like a curtain, the last act, the passage of time,
that blue current; October, and the light leaves early,
our radiant hungers, all these golden losses.

That Long October Light

Karen

It certainly makes golden things more golden…

A senior orange kitty sleeps on his bed with slanting sunlight on him. He looks mad we woke him up for the picture.
Grumpy old man <3

 

(Also, I’m back! Taking a week off made me miss posting, which makes sense–I’ve been doing this for 19 years now.)

Friday Links

Karen

1. I dunno, friends, I’ve felt pretty uninspired this week and I think my sentence structure is moving from “conversational” to “unhinged.” I might take next week off of posting to see if I can become a little more hinged? Or I might keep posting through it, as one does.

2. Speaking of unhinged, I know this is supposed to be satire but I’m 100% convinced it’s accurate. Is Trump’s TV Lying To Him?

3.More of this energy (sound on)

@freedc20009 #freedc ♬ original sound – freedc20009