Well, it’s going to be getting lighter every day from now on, which is a good thing. This has been a very dark winter solstice here at LivingSmall. Everyone warned me that the holidays would be hard, and they were right. I’m off today for Colorado, to spend the holidays with friends. I’ll be back next week.
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I should have paid closer attention when I came home last night, but I’d been to a party and I figured the dogs had just been hanging out downstairs on the guest bed, because, well, it’s the guest bed. This morning, however, it was clear something was up. Raymond had been scratching at the door intermittently during the night, which was odd because he’s three, and long past not being able to make it through the night, and when I got up at seven-thirty, he bolted out the door in a way that isn’t typical for him. I was lettting…
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I knew I was in trouble when I caught my connecting flight in Salt Lake last night and didn’t find out until I got on the plane that we might be diverted to Billings. Although cleaning out Patrick’s storage stuff wasn’t nearly as bad as I (or Sally, or Hippie) had feared, it was still exhausting and all I wanted was to get home, pick up my dogs, and spend the evening on the couch watching part 2 of Angels in America. Luckily, the storm lifted enough that we landed in Bozeman, where I found messages on my cellphone from…
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Just a quick entry before I take off for California (to deal with Patrick’s two storage units). The Birthday Party was a wild success — everyone came, they ate almost all of the Ham As Big As Montana, they drank everything, and fun was had by all. Robert-the-Painter made three cakes — a tray of carrot cake cupcakes, a flourless chocolate cake, and a lovely lemon curd and blueberry tart. Jim and Geri and Tim and Linnea gave me a rhinestone tiara, which I may never take off. There was champagne. And then there was Julie, who I have known…
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I turn 40 next week — on Wednesday, the 10th. Patrick and I talked a lot about what to do for my 40th — for a long time I wanted to go to Vegas for the National Finals Rodeo. As some of you know from earlier posts, I have a deep and abiding love of rodeo. The NFR is the rodeo of rodeos, and it’s in Las Vegas, a place so fabulously weird that it seemed appropos for a 40th birthday. But then I moved here, and I have so many nice friends that I didn’t want to trek to…
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Literally, that is. It’s quarter to eight in the morning and we’ve only just attained the grey light of early dawn. Of course, overcast skies don’t help with that, but just as in the summer we wallow in the glorious light and the endless evenings, most of which seem to be spent around barbecues and on back decks, when winter settles in here, it sits down upon us like a broody hen, fluffing it’s feathers down around us, plopping us into darkness for these weeks on either side of the solstice. While Patrick was really affected by the lack of…
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A weekend spent with new friends and old — people who allow me to be in exactly the space I’m in, whether that’s having a good time at a party, or getting the thousand-mile stare at the Bar and Grill because we’re sitting right where I last saw Patrick. People who say “how are you” and don’t mean it as code for “are you over it yet.” People who when I say that I currently feel like a house that’s had all the windows and doors blown out, just nod and hug me and we all keep going. Eating delicious…
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I got an email from a reader of this blog this morning, taking me to task for being angry and unkind in The Anger Problem. Oh, and for writing beautifully about being angry and unkind. Well duh folks. I’m angry right now. I’m trying to work through it, but anger isn’t kind, anger isn’t pretty, and unfortunately Patrick’s death has, as I warned it probably would, significantly changed the tone of LivingSmall … so if you were one of those people stopping by for another nice dispatch about my happy life in my little Montana town, and what was growing…
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This is in the pot-roast family of foods that are good for times when, shall we say, one’s energy levels might be uneven. When you’re having an up afternoon, you can do the cooking, then those other times of the week when you’re not feeling so swell, you can simply reheat. I adapted this from Nina Simonds book Asian Noodles — her recipe is for Cinnamon Beef Noodles, and what I wanted was something more pot-roasty. So, here’s what I did: I chopped up a handful of scallions, a thumb-sized hunk of ginger, a handful of garlic cloves and sauteed…
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“Anger is one of the most difficult defilements to overcome … When I was a young monk I gave many sermons on anger and how to control it even as my own anger caused me to lose my temper repeatedly. I’m calling it ‘my’ anger, but that isn’t quite right. Anger would invade my mind and overwhelm me, and I let it do that despite the fact that inevitably made me feel miserable. When I was angry, I felt pain in my chest and burning in my stomach. My eyesight blurred, my reasoning was unclear, and ugly, harsh words came…