CurlyShavings

Distracted by a reorg at work today, a colleague and I went for a walk at lunch and ended up at the Euclid Arcade to get Vincenza's pizza for lunch. As we passed the cutover from the Euclid Arcade to the Colonial Arcade, I caught a glimpse of Anne DeChant, a frequent performer during Friday lunch. That's a pleasant surprise.

I was already looking forward to good food and good conversation, now I could add good music to the mix.

After picking up our pizza (I got two slices of Chicago Artichoke, my favorite), we walked over to the cutover and sat down opposite the Baseball Heritage Museum to talk, eat and listen.

Once we figured out the new org chart, we turned to listen. She's good. I don't always understand nor agree with all the lyrics but good live acoustic guitar is still good listening. We listened to "I love you Carolyn" and a few others before needing to head back to the office.

As we left (and dropped a couple bucks in her guitar case), we chatted a little bit, as always. One of her songs will be on TV tomorrow night. What she didn't tell us was that in April, she's moving to Nashville. That's an unpleasant surprise.

Her next time to be at the Euclid Arcade will be March 7th. I'd better schedule lunch with my colleague now.

Sometimes, early in the morning and even late at night, I have a furry shop assistant who observes, it is true, more than she assists.

Here she is, crouched under the edge jointer and behind my coil of hose for the dust collector. The lumber behind her is rejected from the Southern Yellow Pine workbench that she's helping me with.

Sandie joined our household from the Cleveland Animal Protective League in December 2007. She spent the first three weeks cowering in our basement. So much so that I wanted to change her name to Grendel, the monster that inhabits the deeps.

Since then, we enclosed her in our tiny first-floor bathroom for a week or so, bringing her out so socialize throughout the day. She now has free range of the house. She's still a kitten (six months at this writing) and still pretty independent. She does appreciate certain peoples' company from time to time.

Overall, I appreciate having her around.

We like to eat.

I don't remember the reasons we first cooked this version of Buffalo Chicken Wings but I do remember that the oven was so finicky (so old), that we couldn't get the temperature correct. It would be 100°F, then I'd bump it up a tiny-tiny bit and it would be 500°F. It was awful.

So I bought my wife a new oven. 14-billion BTU burners with a thermo-nuclear oven. It's a high-tech, 5°F-increment, stainless-steel oven. On sale. Display model. Free removal of old, free delivery of new. Consumer Reports, etc. Snow Brothers, here in Cleveland.

Here's the recipe as we recorded it. It's the fourth version because it changes each time we make it. I got tired of re-writing the card each time so we just left it "Buffalo Chicken Wings IV". The card talks about things like what the temperature was the first time we baked it. The real temperatures and times are in parenthesis.

Take a bowl of chips, drizzle some of this on top and then add the cheese (Grated Asiago works well). Don't eat in the living room. If you want the text of the recipe, drop me a line. For barbecue sauce, we used Stubbs and Hot Sauce Williams. Sometimes we reduce the butter and forget the chili powder. And we never seem to have the right amount of ketchup.

See, we never make the same recipe twice!

Be patient with your boaters and let them rant. Most of them will get over it come December.

When my task at work is to craft something with words, to write something more meaningful than a simple response to an email, I sometimes run aground. As one might expect, a shorter, more pithy piece is easier to complete than a longer, more enduring work, but they are both hard effort.

Similarly, the shoal, the sand bar that blocks my exit from safe harbor into the wider water is harder to traverse depending on the words that must be written. Or perhaps the bar and the water over it remain the same and it is the weight in my craft that grounds the hull on its way to deeper parts.

Whatever the case, the price to pay to cross the bar and write what my work needs written seems, ironically enough, to be more writing. I find that when this writer's block is struck, a short piece, a few words soon sees me over.

Sitting down to "do" performance reviews for my team first requires a short crafting of words in an unrelated theme. Writing a job description is preceded by a series of paragraphs on something more organic than roles and responsibilities. And writing my own performance review demands repeated iterations of rowing out a kedge anchor and straining at the capstan to get me over.

On the other hand, crunching numbers to create reports and graphs, while lengthy and easy to accomplish, requires writing unrelated sentences and paragraphs at the completion of the task, rather than before beginning. More of a cleansing the palate or holystoning the deck than clearing for action.

Frustratingly, I sometimes kedge off to begin the real work, the paid-for writing, before the distraction piece is completed. Unlike today. Today, I saw the shoal first and began this piece, not knowing what I am to write when it is finished.

I'm trying to get my reading organized in Goodreads, a really neat site. Doesn't integrate with the blog (yet), but that's where I'm tracking things at the moment.

I like a bit of weather.

That sounds silly, given that we always have weather, of one sort of another. Maybe what I mean is that I appreciate different weather that gets you jumping. Or maybe what I mean is that I enjoy the fact that the weather is always changing. It's like visiting someplace new just because the weather rolled out a new fog for us to enjoy.

My enjoyment is probably helped by the fact that I take RTA, Cuyahoga County's public transportation. I can stand in the rain at 6:18 am, catch a bus to downtown, walk to the old May Company building and be inside by 7:00 am (most days, unless I stop for coffee).

Well, after a very productive lunch discussion yesterday (Tuesday), I walked over to my 6th floor window (shared with all the other people on the north end of the floor), looked out over Public Square and couldn't find Key Tower. Some cat just took it away. Gone. Not even a hole in the ground. The Solders and Sailors Monument was still there and I think I saw Old Stone Church (both pictured nearby). But Key Tower was just gone.

I figure that the scenes all existed before I started carrying my wife's camera, but somehow, with it in my satchel, I caught more of them.

So here are two pictures of downtown Cleveland in the 2/5/2008 fog taken around 1pm, facing northwest from the sixth floor of the old May Company building.

And a zoom shot of a Cleveland Mounted Police Officer taken from the southwest corner of the southeast quadrant of Public Square (near the Soldiers and Sailors monument). He's situated on the southeast corner of the southwest quadrant, with Tower City Center behind him.

My eldest niece caught me over Thanksgiving weekend working on an embroidered handkerchief for my eldest daughter and asked for one. Silly me, I thought I could finish both by Christmas. I finished the monogram last week and added some flowers on the corners in the days since then.

Originally, the corner with the double flowers didn't look very nice and so I undid it. In the process of doing that, I severed one of the fibers in the handkerchief. And then the marks I used to show where I was sewing didn't come out. So I ended up needing to redo the flowers anyway! One of them is done completely by eye. No points for guessing which!

Once again, this represents many, many leftover lunch breaks and a couple of sits around the table at Scout meetings. Overall, it was quite a lot of fun and I hope she likes it!

Cleveland Heights has just amazing architecture within its bounds. St. Paul's Episcopal Church is just one example.

This picture is of their bell tower. It is reported to be 150 feet tall and holds Seabrook chimes.

Boy Scout Troop 22 meets in their dining room every Monday night at 7:30. This past Thursday I had the chance to descend even further and go into the basement. You're so far underneath this building that you'd expect it to be nothing but a crawlspace. And yet you're so far underneath this building that you're under the parking lot and the room is a voluminous cavern.

The way the building is organized does allow for a rather enormous boiler room. But I'd like to emphasize the word enormous.

The architecture (not the boiler room!) is just incredible. You can read more about it in this Cleveland Heights Landmark Brochure, landmark #12, pg12.

Thanks to Christine over at Really Bad Cleveland Accent, I found a scone recipe that I could accomplish. Check out her blog page for the recipe; I won't reproduce it here. I followed the instructions (mostly) but substituted some home-made blueberry jelly instead of the rose hip jam. My family heads out east of Cleveland somewhere a couple times a summer to pick blueberries. We get dozens of pounds, eat lots, bake pies, turn some into jellies and jams and freeze the rest (the majority). This was jelly from the 9/2006 vintage, yum.

As frequently happens (to me, anyway), I was assured last night of the existence in our house of all the ingredients. So when I got started at 6:00 am this morning and found half the baking powder and half the half-and-half, I was disappointed. Even more so since the flour, sugar, butter and salt were whirling in the mixer.

Our local Dave's (Cedar & Fairmount) opens at 7:00 am on Saturdays. I was one of the first in. Got the baking powder, half-and-half and saw some lemons on sale. Turned around and had things in the oven very quickly. RBCA should consider some silicone baking sheets; the scones slipped right off, including the caramelized blueberry jelly that escaped.

I set up a tray with a pot of tea, some mugs, plates, forks, sugar (for the tea), spoons (for stirring the sugar) and a basket with bread blankets for the scones. Oh, and some napkins `cause the scones were looking (and ended up not being) messy.

My wife was stirring (this is now nearly 8:00 am) and the little one (15 months) was bright-eyed when I brought this steaming tray and sat it down on the bed. I think I freaked her out with the tealight/candle.

The three of us got help with that batch when the eight-year-old joined us. Another batch (this time with red sprinkles!) an hour later saw everyone full. Including the little boy pictured nearby.

Ever since I captured the St Ann Parish bell tower with the fading sunlight behind it, I've been fascinated with interplay between the tower's environs up there, the "stuff" around it (sunset, fog).

One of the ubiquitous honey locusts in the neighborhood becomes my tripod; I brace the camera against it to keep it from wobbling too much.

The USNO tells us that the "phase of the Moon on 9 February" was "waxing crescent with 8% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated" and that we had "New Moon on 6 February 2008 at 10:44 p.m. Eastern Standard Time."

When we left the Cleveland Home and Garden Show at the I-X Center last night, we observed what my oldest daughter calls a "bananamoon". I wondered if it would hang up there long enough for me to catch it at St Ann's. And it did. Another few minutes and we'd have missed it, though.

The architecture is just incredible. You can read more about it in this Cleveland Heights Landmark Brochure, landmark #8, pg9.

Regarding tides:

Those are the things in the water that keep the moon in orbit. I've never quite understood just how they work. You mostly can't see the moon during the day, so they can't be very efficient.

Many, many years ago I sorta promised to myself that I'd buy flowers from just about any street vendor selling them. The theory is that since I'm always thinking of my wife, I'd see them, think how she'd just love some and so bring a few stems home. It's a good reminder device and she seems to appreciate them.

Last week I bumped into a fellow outside Tower City and purchased five rather nice-looking roses (two pink and three red) for ten bucks. I've got two daughters (pink ones) and one wife (red ones). Yesterday, I had to do some certified mail at the PO there and bumped into him again. He seemed to remember me and when asked, told me that last week's prices wouldn't work this week since tomorrow was Valentine's Day. Good for him, I said, let the demand drive up your prices. I purchased three stems (still ten bucks!) and proceeded across the Square to my bus.

While waiting for the bus with my three red roses, I heard, out of the corner of my ear, a woman's voice commenting about roses in Spanish. Now, when I was six, I learned some rudimentary elements of Spanish. And when I was in elementary school, I was bathed (externally) in it. And starting in high school and on through college, I ingested it; lived and breathed it. And then, sort of lost the opportunity and lost the ability.

Except during times like these. Something snaps (I can almost feel it) and suddenly, I can speak Spanish again. So I turned to find this lady's Spanish voice and replied, in Spanish. Not only did it surprise me, but she seemed stunned. We chatted for a few minutes and then my bus came. I almost chose to miss it, I was having such a great time. I won't say I was being particularly fluent or witty. It was an effort to keep going. I was merely conversant. As I was leaving, she asked me where I was from, Central America? No, just Texas. I'm not sure I'll even know if she detected a slight CA accent in my voice (I doubt it). Certainly possible, many of my high school friends are from Guatemala.

So I was surprised by Spanish. From an unknown lady passing by on the Square commenting on some red roses. And by my own Spanish. From somewhere equally unknown inside me.

If only I'd known that happiness could be bought like a pair of socks, indeed, as a pair of socks.

My first clue should have been when my German Aunt & Uncle gave me a pair of black and one of blue wool socks with a nice pattern on them. Different from my standard blue, black or brown socks, I should have guessed that the good feeling I got while wearing them was related to my wearing them.

So one day I Googled for "funky socks", migrated to "argyle socks" and found the Men's category at SockDreams.com. I ordered five different pairs that day, three of which can be seen nearby.

They arrived Monday while I was at work. The next day while wearing a grey/green argyle (not pictured here), I heard from a co-worker how glad I must be that my black trousers reached my shoes (covering my socks). Wednesday was easier since my stripes matched the sweater I was wearing. In our weekly one-on-one meeting, my manager commented that I seemed noticeably happier. I informed her that she'd never guess why, and so flipped off my clog and twiddled my striped-covered toes over the edge of the table at her. She just busted out laughing. That was the day I was challenged by a colleague to wear the green argyles next. In desperation, I wrote the Sock Dreams website, asking for help in matching with my trousers and shoes. Contrary to their response (which arrived after I'd left for work Thursday), matching argyle socks to the rest of one's ensemble (men don't wear "outfits") feels quite tricky. I ended up choosing an olive pair of linen trousers and my black clogs.

Today, Friday, was blue argyles, blue shirt, khaki "Dockers", brown RedWings and a navy jacket. Nice.

While I suspect my happiness will be somewhat fleeting, morale was indeed higher this week. Stored in my dresser drawer for another day to be enjoyed, again and again. Who knew that happiness could be bought—one pair at a time!

Today is the little Boy's birthday (fifth one!) and he wanted to go Geocaching. (He's in the front row, far right.)

The day started last night with the really cool eclipse. Then we all camped on the floor in the living room with the fireplace going. Oh, and somewhere in there we baked Benjamint Brownies and ate most of them. For breakfast, we finished them off. After lunch we hunted four geocaches:

1. Doan-Cha Hear Piper Callin' ?


2. The Jack of What?


3. Shaker Grove


4. Who Shot Jr. ?

It must be nice to have one's life so well in order.

My friend Lee Bush and Erin Kufel recorded a few tunes and put them up on YouTube with some others recorded over the years.

Boy, would I love to see these two at the Euclid Arcade. There is frequently live music there on Fridays, near the cut-over from the Euclid Arcade to the Colonial Arcade, in front of the Baseball Heritage Museum.

I think my favorite is this one, below.