… that I live in this particular small town. Because tonight there were four, then six, then ten of us at the local bistro for dinner. Because on Sunday nights they’ve started doing all-you-can eat dinner with a big bowl of salad on the table and then a parade of their fabulous wood-fired pizzas. Because dinner conversation was all about Brian Schweitzer’s inaguration as the first Democratic Governor of Montana in 20 years, and about how when the Governor came into the Ball, it was the Plains Tribes drummers who drummed him into the ballroom, not something anyone ever saw…
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This morning my friend Nina called and asked, with that sort of tense tone in her voice, what I was doing. Why? I said. Do you need a rescue? Turns out, she was in the car with the twins, who had a pediatrician’s appointment, and her husband (who is writing for TV trying to support them all) had a sudden deadline at eleven. She needed an extra set of arms. Well count me in. There’s no cure for a case of low-level January depression like a two month old baby that needs a snuggle. I did have to check my…
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Blogging has been slow here at LivingSmall because I just haven’t felt like I had anything interesting to say. It’s been a weird month — I’ve been a tiny bit depressed — I have to say, I sort of thought this grief thing would get easier at some point — like after I made it through the first anniversary, or got through the holidays — but it still just sucks. And trying to write this book isn’t helping — I mean, last January was SO horrible what with the crying on the couch with the dog in my lap, and…
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I have a perfect bowl. My cousin Elizabeth made it for me many years ago. It’s exactly the right size for a single-girl meal, and tonight, after a very blinky day brought on by one of those nuits blanches a full moon sometimes brings, I made some dinner in the Perfect Bowl. It was very monkey-brain in my house last night — I have a totally different job at my Real Job, and I don’t really know how to do it yet. So, it was one of those nights where one thinks about everything including many things one has no…
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Last weekend it was five below, this evening I was sitting out on the front porch, enjoying the latest New Yorker on a fifty-degree evening, in a sweater and a light jacket. Lovely to get some fresh air again. Lovely to have daylight last past five o’clock again. No matter how dark December sometimes seems, the light and the warmth come back as always ….
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When last week’s article in the Boston Globe about food blogs came out and it listed Pim’s full name, I got to wondering. So I googled her and it turns out that Pim, of Chez Pim, and I not only work for the same very large computer company, but we’re in the same division, and even in the same building (which considering there are about 45 buildings on campus, is pretty interesting). Who knew? So I emailed her, and she IM’ed me this morning, and we made plans to go out next time I’m back in town. Small small world…
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My grandmother is ninety four today. Ninety four! She’s still got all her faculties, although she’s got a glass eye, and an artificial hip. She started a lending library in her little farm town in Illiniois at ninety because she’d “retired” and she needed a project. So she got a lot of people to donate books, and she got a donated building, and she catalogued all the books. If you want to borrow a book from my grandmother’s library, basically you just write it down in the notebook, and you bring it back when you want. It’s a great little…
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Here it is! In the back of my car on it’s way to the first of the three parties it graced over the weekend (yes, the car is dirty — I have two dogs, but that’s why I put the newspaper down). Part of the reason I made a croquembouche this year is because one of my all-time favorite Martha Stewart episodes was the one where she and Julia Child made croquembouches together. Martha was over on her side of the counter carefully and precisely arranging her cream puffs, while over on the other side, Julia was sort of flinging…
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I got a tree today — I’ve been kicking around whether or not I wanted one this year — but there I was at the grocery store, and there was a perfectly lovely little tree for fifteen bucks, and so, I have a tree again. I have a little issue with my inner Martha Stewart — and it sometimes manifests itself in the desire to create my platonic ideal right here in my living room. This year’s tree is about a six on the Martha-meter — it’s not as elaborate as some trees I’ve decorated in the past, but there’s…