Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Boston people: ice cream

Mon, 12 Aug 2024 19:41:18 GMT

JP Licks now has both peach and cucumber ice cream. Last week, they only had the peach, and I'd given up on cucumber for this year, but I looked at the list of flavors at the Coolidge Corner store, and cucumber was on the board, right above peach.

So, I bought two pints of ice cream, and hurried home with them, since I'd forgotten to bring an insulated bag with me. That meant I just bought the pints, and hurried to catch a trolley, rather than also getting a dish of ice cream and eating it on the trolley platform, letting trains go by until I finished my ice cream. (I don't think there's a rule against eating ice cream on the green line, but I can't mask while eating ice cream, or anything else.)

I just looked at both the JP Licks website and the phone app, and neither of them mentions the cucumber ice cream; both do show the peach.

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Tomato sandwiches

Sat, 08 Jul 2023 00:20:07 GMT

cattitude and adrian_turtle went to the Copley Square farmers market today, and came home with three kinds of berries, a loaf of challah, and some yellow tomatoes.

Therefore, dinner was tomato sandwiches, and they were excellent.

We will be having raspberries for dessert in a bit, and strawberries probably tomorrow. (There's also a watermelon, from the supermarket.)

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it's getting hot again

Fri, 19 Aug 2022 16:11:29 GMT

I stayed indoors all day yesterday, for no particular reason, and then at about 8:00 I checked the forecast for Friday-Sunday. Friday (today) in particular was forecast to be hot, so I got cattitude and adrian_turtle to go for a short walk with me after dinner.

I woke up a bit early this morning, and instead of trying to get back to sleep, I got up and had tea, and sat for a little bit until I was awake enough to be hungry for breakfast. I had yogurt, pulled on clothes, and walked over to the nearby Whole Foods. (The Star Market opens earlier, but is a bit further away.) I got a few useful things, including more non-dairy ice cream sandwiches, because I (mistakenly) thought we had none left.

Those ice cream sandwiches are for Adrian and Cattitude. I'm happily eating (dairy) ice cream, and currently have peach, ginger, black raspberry, chocolate, and chocolate orgy. That is a lot of flavors, but I'm buying pints of ice cream if I'm near Lizzy's, or sometimes Tosci's or JP Licks, and expect to be able to get the ice cream home before it melts. Insulated shopping bags definitely help.

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tomatoes

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 00:08:10 GMT

I just picked the first half dozen cherry tomatoes from my garden. Those will go nicely with steak and a salad of farmers market lettuce.

It looks like a few more will be ripe tomorrow or Saturday. There are also more cucumbers of varying sizes on those vines, but none seem to be ripe yet.

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farmers market

Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:13:09 GMT

I have been to a farmers market for the first time this year. I decided that the risk of taking the bus down to Harvard on a Sunday morning, and a market set up for social distancing, was low enough to be worth it. The Sunday market starts at 10 a.m., so I could avoid the heat of the day. The buses both ways were uncrowded, and other shoppers as well as the vendors were being good about distancing.

I have:

cucumbers, one large and two pounds of the little Diva cucumbers

lamb and sweet potato ravioli

a red-leaf lettuce, having asked the vendor to give me either a red- or a green-leaf lettuce, whichever she thought was better

blueberries

raspberries, and

cherry tomatoes.

Strawberry season appears to be over, and I didn't feel like paying $6 for a box of local cherries.

I bought a lot of cucumbers, because I don't expect more from the garden for at least three days. We have three boxes of the ravioli, and I have offered one to Adrian.

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Adrian visited us this afternoon

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 01:26:02 GMT

adrian_turtle came over this afternoon, for hugs, conversation, and an early dinner -- early so she could walk home before it got dark.

We tried to figure out how long it had been since her previous visit: at least since February. Me going to visit her is a very good thing, but so is her coming over here to spend time with both me and cattitude. (Or the three of us having dinner at her place, or seeing each other elsewhere, but her visiting us in Belmont seems most sensible now, between the pandemic and the hot weather.)

The meal included lots of fresh local strawberries. Cattitude went to the farmers market this afternoon and came home with four pints. Having eaten one and a half pints, and sent one home with Adrian, we still have as many berries as we're likely to be able to eat while they're still good.

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strawberries, and garden stuff

Fri, 12 Jun 2020 02:00:46 GMT

cattitude came back from the Belmont farmers market with two containers of strawberries, which are good even though with the current rules he couldn't choose which containers to get. We have eaten about a third of the berries so far, not counting a few that were already overripe, and will probably finish the rest while they (or most of them) are still good.

I transplanted another tomato seedling today, in the process confirming that the tomato cages I bought really aren't suited for container gardening. This involved putting the plant in one container, failing to get the tomato cage around it, and then dumping it out (gently) and putting the plant in a smaller container. Which also barely works for the tomato cage.

It started raining before I finished, and I lost track of which of the other plants I gave plant food to, but any I missed should be okay. This was the second or third rain of the afternoon, this time without thunder, so the plants all got plenty of water.

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July in Somerville

Wed, 04 Jul 2018 18:22:23 GMT

It's July, which means JP Licks has cucumber ice cream. I bought a quart over the weekend, and will get more when I eat that. (This year I will try to remember to buy another quart around July 25, rather than going back on the 31st and hoping they have some left.) In general, I prefer Toscanini's, but AFAIK they don't make cucumber ice cream, and they change their flavors more frequently and less predictably.

Somerville's Independence Day fireworks were postponed (because of thunderstorms) from June 28th; they are now scheduled for tomorrow, July 5. So far this year, that's two patriotic holiday observances rescheduled (the other being the commemoration of the raising what may have been the first American flag, on January 1, 1776), and one canceled, the Memorial Day parade, which had been scheduled for a week before the holiday.

We're in the middle of a heat wave; I may not leave my air-conditioned apartment today, despite the lure of a farmers market in Davis Square. Yesterday the city email alert system sent out a message about the heat wave, listing places to cool off, including "Family-Friendly Activities": three public pools and one ice skating rink. (many of which it noted are closed today).

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strawberries

Wed, 13 Jun 2018 00:27:31 GMT

It is strawberry season. cattitude went to the farmers market on the Harvard campus this afternoon, and came home with two quarts of local strawberries.

They are good enough that we had eaten all but three berries from the first quart before sitting down to (the rest of) supper tonight; I don't know how many will be left in another twelve hours, but there's a farmers market in Davis Square on Wednesday afternoons. The strawberries on sale there last week clearly weren't ripe, but I am taking that evidence that one of the vendors who comes there grows strawberries, and am hopeful for tomorrow.

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Velma (roadnotes), and some miscellaneous updating

Wed, 06 Aug 2014 04:50:23 GMT

I visited roadnotes in the hospital yesterday, and again today. They removed her breathing tube while I was there yesterday (though they made me and baldanders and I leave the room for the actual process), which made her feel a lot better, and made communication much easier. (She'd been writing brief notes on a pad of paper, but they were hard to read, not like her usual neat handwriting.) She's likely to be in the hospital for another couple of weeks, recovering from the surgery and rebuilding her strength.

I did about half a workout yesterday afternoon (when I got back from the hospital) and the other half this morning. This isn't quite as emotionally satisfying as doing it all at once, but I suspect it's equally good for me.

On the way back from the hospital this afternoon, I got off the bus a couple of stops early to pick blackberries. I ate a bunch as I gathered—ripe, sun-warmed berries are wonderful—and put some in a plastic bag to bring home. Either nobody else is gathering there right now, or the berries are ripening incredibly fast. Possibly a bit of both; yesterday was both hot and sunny.

( gym details, in case you care )

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Seasonal pleasures

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 01:49:32 GMT

Yesterday morning, I was gathering mulberries in the local park, near a sidewalk. Someone saw me and asked whether they were sweet. I said yes and explained that she should look for the black or very dark purple ones, because those are ripe. She thanked me and headed toward the subway; I picked and ate a few more berries and then went home.

And for dinner last night, we had raisin French toast with fresh local strawberries. Raisin French toast because I stopped at a bakery on my way home Tuesday evening, and they were out of plain challah, but had a raisin challah left. I got home and cattitude said that it would make good French toast. He was right. (It would have made good French toast with maple syrup, too, but while I brought the syrup to the table, neither of us used it.)

This morning in the park, we saw a turtle on the lawn, with her head up, looking around or maybe sniffing the air. She was holding still when we first saw her, then started moving, slightly away from the water, and then away from us and parallel to the bank (we may have startled her). She then walked back to the edge of the salt marsh, started to walk down the concrete slope, and then slid the rest of the way to the water. I'm guessing that she had finished laying eggs before we got there; if she was looking for a good place she will probably try again tonight. I'm not expecting baby turtles: even if she found a male to mate with, the buried eggs are likely to be dug up by dogs, raccoons, or skunks. (These turtles, while I'm happy to see them, are neither native to the area nor threatened, so I'm not going to find a park ranger and see if they can do anything to protect the nest.)

And this afternoon I met drcpunk and our friend L. at the Grand Central Oyster Bar for a late lunch of matjes herring filets. (I had one piece of herring and some crab soup; drcpunk had two pieces of herring; and L had one piece of herring and some herring salad. Then drcpunk and I had ridiculously rich desserts, a chocolate cake with golden raspberries, served with curry creme anglaise [sic, a very mild curry, and it actually does work] and whipped cream alongside. Then I bought a cup of tea (must maintain caffeine levels), and we walked over to Bryant Park and talked until it was time for me to go to the gym.

I had a pretty good workout with Emilie (though she showed up significantly late, because of baby stuff, and since she had to teach a class after our session she owes me ten minutes which I hope I will get next week, assuming the baby doesn't insist on being fed at exactly the wrong time again). ( numbers, as usual, mostly from memory )

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But it's summer

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 01:45:35 GMT

I have been a sensible hobbit this evening, and declined a dinner invitation in order to spare my knees (after overdoing things last weekend). This is annoying: the fun things get sacrificed because I have to go to work, with the commute that involves. (Yes, I've got one that's basically stairless, and that is an incredible help, but it's still at least a mile on foot every workday.)

But at least it's early August, and I made dinner mostly from a cucumber and cherry tomato salad: vegetables from the Greenmarket, a mix of different-colored cherry tomatoes and one large cucumber. (Dressed with olive oil, vinegar, dried basil and thyme, the Penzey's shallot pepper mix, and a little salt.) I had a glass of milk with that, and afterward found myself thinking "I hope cattitude is having as good a dinner as I did". When I was still hungry a bit later, I cooked some basmati rice (that part was james_nicoll's fault, indirectly) and added a small amount of leftover smoked duck, which was also from the Greenmarket, but is less seasonal and feels more like a self-indulgence than two-for-a-dollar fresh cucumbers or the four dollars for a pint of really good cherry tomatoes.

When my knees are a bit happier (or I have less else on my plate) I will try to catch up with womzilla, <"lj user="supergee" site="livejournal.com">, and nellorat.

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More early summer thoughts

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 18:30:56 GMT

cattitude and I spent a little while watching swallows in the park after lunch; the first I've seen this year, and swooping low, back and forth. I saw the red on the underside of the wings once, and the yellow a few times. We went on when the insects that were attracting the swallows found us.

On my way home Friday, I saw the season's first fireflies (one at a time, a total of four in a few blocks' walk in the park), and called Cattitude to come downstairs and see them.

Strawberries, of course. The privet is in bloom, as is lots of clover.

And it's annoyingly hot and humid.

Few young birds: the plants are running early, but the ducks and geese don't seem to be. I have seen two goslings and one duckling so far. And some of the starlings today might have been fledglings.

Because of centuryplant's post, yesterday we went looking for dragonflies. I saw a few, but not close up.

[I have OS install stuff to do, oh frabjous day!]

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Fireflies

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:28:59 GMT

cattitude and I have just been out in the park watching fireflies.

He'd seen one or two earlier in the week, while he was outside in the evening. These are my first of the summer. Not one or two, but lots: dozens, I'd say. I caught one, let it crawl on me a moment, and then let go: not for any special reason, just that it's a thing I do in the summertime. And then went back to the park bench and watched the pale lights flicker above the lawn.

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