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for want of the right tool to bend a pipe
Sunday, January 21 2024
Late this morning after the usual Sunday routine, Gretchen started making stuff in the kitchen. She proceeded to make that rather horrible tomato-breadcrumb soup into the basis of a noodle bake with an improvised mix of whole wheat and non-whole-wheat pasta. I was skeptical, and in the end I felt the original sin of that breadcrumb soup still manifested in the noodle bake, something I normally go crazy over.
All this kitchen work was in anticipation of the arrival of Fern, who has become one of our better friends after housesitting for us back in February while we were in Costa Rica. She brought some weird pistachio cookies she'd bought at that Indian grocery on Broadway (near where Fern lives and our Brewster Street rental), and we quickly decided they were a bit a weird. They were very oily and so unsweet as to be on the cusp of savory. Since our house was so cold, we ate our food over near the woodstove, which I'd been stoking as best I could. As I said, that noodle bake wasn't Gretchen's best work, but some cauliflower drenched in faux cheese sauce was something of a winner. While eating these things, we discussed both Fern's relationship with her housemate, who is extremely non-confrontational and a bad self-advocate who nevertheless enjoys complaining about how she's been exploited by various people over the years. Then Gretchen mentioned the middleschoolesque cattiness of one of her newer friends, who actually said of one of Gretchen's other friends that she (this friend) didn't belong "at the cool table." Mind you, this woman is in her mid-to-late 60s. This all sounded very Los Angeles to my ear, but then again this woman kind of looks like an older Los Angelena.
Despite the cold, Gretchen and Fern went on a long walk that took them beyond the waterfall on George's land to a pond (41.916832N, 74.117802W) Gretchen likes to hike to over a mile away (as a crow could fly) to the southwest. Neville went along with them for part of the way, but eventually he split from them, returned home, and climbed atop the tuffet in front of the woodstove to warm up.
When Gretchen, Fern, and Charlotte returned, Gretchen wanted to know my thoughts on why I do what I do with respect to things like renewable energy and battery-powered equipment. Fern had been telling her about the back-to-the-land types she's been studying in the Pacific Northwest, and apparently they also like to use solar power and battery-powered equipment, perhaps because it makes them less reliant on fossil fuel supply chains. Some of them even have manifestos on the topic. For my part, I explained, there is no manifesto or any one reason. I said that I like how quiet and peaceful battery-powered equipment is and that I like how little it seems to disturb nature. I also like working without the mess and expense of fossil fuels, particularly when doing the kind of small-batch work I typically do. If I were a lumberjack, though, I'd probably learn to love a gas powered saw. This led into a conversation about the Amish, about whom Fern (as an Australian) had less knowledge than most of our friends.
Later this evening, Gretchen and I watched two episodes of Jeopardy! and then tried to watch Killers of the Flower Moon but gave up about a quarter of the way in because we couldn't get subtitles for the Osage being spoken by the Native American characters in the version of the movie I'd obtained via Bittorrent (one of the many reasons we don't pay for things that you probably do pay for).
Charlotte being very long today. Not all dogs can do that with their legs. Neville cannot, for example.
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Neville.
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Fern getting ready to leave and Gretchen looking irked. Lester the Cat was happy to see Fern.
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