I counted eight different kinds of flour, EIGHT. They are:

All-purpose
Buckwheat
Garbanzo Bean
Almond
Millet
Oat
Chestnut
White rice

And I even own wheat germ which doesn’t actually count as a flour but it needs to be baked rather than eaten.

The bananas in the freezer were also threatening to stage a revolt. Clearly, something needed to happen. I had made a lentil and hot italian sausage soup earlier in the weekend, it’s hot and satisfying and will feed me all week. But then seeing all the overages, I needed to do something. I made banana bread with the last of the dates and a ton of walnuts, pizza dough, and rice pudding with plums and orange peel in the absence of raisins. The new vegetables will undergo a quick prep later, maybe tomorrow. When I complain of not having any food in the house, I need to come back and read this post, even if I needed onions something desperate since I had actually run out.

Now back to reading… even if it isn’t cold enough to really love my time indoors.

In the end, we’ll just have to see what happens. What I’m most afraid of is my one Window That Never Closes will leak into my pristine bedroom. The next most frightening thing are the rodents and roaches that may invade buildings as they run to high ground. And I have to go to work Monday no matter what. The Evil Empire has all but threatened me with my job. I hate their nannering emails, as if employees were children to be controlled rather than professionals to be inspired. Damn them.

In the mean time, I have movies, red wine, and dozens of books, candles, crackers, flashlights and a tub full of water.

Of the natural disasters, even with my fear of deep water, earthquakes still win due to their sheer unpredictability. Cheers, East Coast. Drink up.

I imagined pieces of fig bouncing off the bread only to be nabbed by the fearless squirrels that feast on everyone’s leftovers in this busy city park. I was impressed with the beauty and portability of a sandwich. Bread on both sides (either a loaf cut in half of two slices) and the filling in the middle. The ultimate, portable meal that’s been utilized time and again by the traveler or the busy and overworked. It’s said the Earl of Sandwich struck upon the concoction when he was trying to work and needed a free hand. Its sheer portability gives the item its right to call itself a sandwich. Anything without this does not. Open-faced sandwiches are colorful and fun but there is no portability or ease of eating them. Their multiple toppings teeter on the brink of oblivion if they’re picked up, almost forcing the luncher to pick up a knife and fork, taking the lunch food into the realm of upper crust snobbery as in Seinfeld’s Mister Pitt eating a candy bar with utensils. Is this the right way to treat a lunch food? I suppose the tartine could be engineered in some way to encourage the toppings to stay on it whilst lifting it like a noble savage instead. 

I guess something could be done like serving it hot, maybe with cheese, the melted goo acting like a sort of glue to hold things on. But then I guess something else already exists, a slab of bread on the bottom and the main event being the topping instead, the hot cheese holding everything on. But then it exists under another, noble name– pizza.

I went to see the last Harry Potter today. I can’t believe it’s over. The movie is almost entirely a climax and loose ends get tied up and suspicions explained. It was short, though, and I don’t think many people would have minded if it were 30 minutes longer.

The 1300 show was the 3D, so I went to that one, not so much because it was 3D but because it started earlier and I didn’t want to wait another half hour. Maybe if I had read Roger Ebert’s review first, I would have waited for the regular version. Regardless, I paid $12 and it’s a sign of how rarely I go to the movies that it wasn’t until I read his review this afternoon that $12 was kind of expensive, wasn’t it.

It’s a glorious close and I’m glad they haven’t dumbed down such a complicated story too much. Even the wand ownership thing (which I also was confusing in the book) made it in there. A few well-placed lines explained everything. I may have to read this book again just to figure out if Harry does have to break into Ravenclaw Tower or if I just made that part up. And didn’t the Baron kill the Grey Lady in real life, before they were ghosts? Wasn’t there something there, too?

Anyway, nice job, all. I still hate the epilogue, though. I hated it in the book and I hate it even more to *see* everyone, who is still obviously just out of teenage, parenting. I see hair and clothes haven’t changed in nearly two decades. Ugh. In future, I won’t sit right to the end.

BTW, the Batman trailer is exciting :)

The new Race Street Pier

It’s been so long since I posted here. I don’t know if it’s inertia, boredom, busyness, or Facebook. Things have happened that are postworthy, I just haven’t done it.

The dog days of summer are here and the extreme heat turns the city into a smelly, soupy mess wherein cockroaches rule the sidewalks and drains, the ice cream vendors cash in as if it were Christmas, and the population leaves town each weekend for the shore, abandoning the city to the the tourists or those too weary to drag themselves away. Or the unfortunates who have to work. I’ve been one of those unfortunates. I usually wait out the summer by working very long hours and cashing in on the overtime and waiting for the first cool of the fall. I plan that autumn getaway like a prisoner plans his escape, never knowing if it really will happen, but ready the moment there’s an opportunity.

I tried out the new park today, the new Race Street Pier. It’s a pleasant place right over the water, blessed with the breezes of property near to bodies of water (in this case the Delaware River). It’s a little strip of pristine cleanliness (maybe because it’s new… give it time) right against the huge pylons of the Ben Franklin Bridge. It has a little of everything, plants, grass, and benches and a lot of sun. The new trees aren’t old enough yet to provide much shade and I got a fierce burn in spite of my 55 SPF. But I suspect most people were there for the sun and breeze. It was quiet, no dogs and few kids. It’s a little strip of silence, the only sounds being the inoffensive white noise of the the 95 and the rumble of the NJ Transit train on the way to or from Camden. There’s a little market at the condo development about a block away in case of some badly needed cold drinks, but otherwise it’s kind of a food desert and that makes it hard to cope with in this city of Iron Chefs and a new restaurant every week. Rittenhouse has the enviable chain of eateries right on its doorstep and the Washington West has some nice fast food/ drinks places nearby and great stretches of lawn. But Rittenhouse is always packed and Washington West has had its every inch peed on by the neighborhood’s vast army of pets. The Race Street pier doesn’t have those crowds yet. Maybe it just hasn’t been discovered. It’s a non picturesque walk down Race and across the busy Columbus Avenue to get there and maybe that’s saving it from the crowds for now. The locals go somewhere else and the tourists don’t know it’s here… those not on the obnoxious duck tours that is. But if you bring your own food and drink and have slathered on the SPF, it’s a great place to sit and relax in the breezes of the river. I felt I owned a little part of it when I saw one of the trees had a plaque thanking the OCCA.

I finished the last of my mystery book and thought about September. I think I may be bound once again for England. I don’t know why. I could go anywhere. I could go to Croatia or Peru but I think that with the death of Greece as an option, I’m for England again with its gorse and rain and chilly politeness. I haven’t been back in years, not really, and my excuse is I need more pictures, this time in digital.

In other news:

• The Flavia de Luce novels are a riot. Thank you, Alan Bradley!
• Here’s to being done with two huge, anxiety-provoking work projects.
• I am making ratatouille this weekend for the first time this summer. And here’s to sweet Lancaster corn.

Because every human on this Earth someday comes to the conclusion that they should take care of themselves.

Thanks to a local business and some string pulling, I was able to get myself a great birthday gift. I used it today to write a lengthy scene. I was envious at the girl at the next table because she had a MacBook Air (a thing of beauty) but I had the IT thing of the spring. The iPad 2… in white. It weighs next to nothing and sits well my fashionable, moderately-sized purses. And that’s what I wanted, right? What I need for it is a word processor app I can use without being online. Even TextEdit is far more sophisticated a word processor than most apps since they’re good at handling chunks of data in useful ways but not so much at writing scenes of fiction. The keyboard is completely useable, though. Maybe not for marathon sessions of 10,000 words + but certainly enough for lengthy scenes and blog posts. The only thing that’s hard is the absence of the tab key and the extra work required to write dialouge. Dialouge is hard enough on a normal keyboard at my iMac, with its many syntax needs. On the iPad, where you have to switch out between so many instances of the keyboard to get to all the keys you need, it can be infuriating. But I bought it because everyone wants it, its perfectly capable for notes, it looks awesome, the apps are great, and its my birthday and I wanted it. So there.

GoodReader and Evernote are standing in for my writing needs right now but I can’t wishing with all my might Google (or someone) would write an app that mirrors (and syncs) with the fabulous Google Docs. Evernote is close but it doesn’t have the same tools to handle large text files, great for notes but not hardcore text. Google Docs is the answer, but I’d like to use it without being online, some kind of a standalone version of it that would sync with the server as soon as a connection to the web was made. I can only dream on. Better food apps are needed, too, like a cheese compedium. Come on, Max McCalman, you can do it (or a techie paid to ghostwrite it for you)!

It’s mild outside, just a jacket necessary. The rain falls eagerly sometimes and then it stops as if to take a breath. The clouds hang low but there’s nothing bleak about them, just a weary silence that invokes novels and cheese plates and baking and bowls of ice cream. The rain is washing the city clean. It brings out the old architecture in high relief, it makes the colors bright. It’s washing the winter away.

But let me say, just because this is my blog and I can do whatever I want, Happy New Year. 2010 saw me get a minor job promotion, finish two novels, and I finally got to see the world’s best Greek ruins. Hopefully, 2011 will bring Greece itself.

Rock on.

The year’s ending and everyone who’s anyone in media and otherwise is coming up with Top Ten Lists from what’s been most reported to the Top Ten Tweets. I kid not. I saw the Top Ten Numbers on CNN this morning and laughed when the income of the most happiness was revealed. Is that number weighed for region? $75,000 in New York City is a lot different than $75,00 in Kansas City.

While the top ten lists verge on annoying, I always read them since it reminds me of what happened this year rather than all the others and pulls out incidents in the avalanche of time that helps postmark life. I came home and made quince jam, otherwise known as membrillo. Why? Well, I felt bad because I let one of my other quinces go bad and because Spain won the World Cup and four years of bragging started in July. That’s why.

Heard from my fratellino today. I’m planning a Scandinavian foray. I’m proofreading my novel. Life goes on.

• I wish there would be a new attending entitled L—. (This one’s come true when the powers made the exception. I thought I’d start this list one up.)
• May the two mysterious leaks in the building be found and fixed at our minimal cost. I went to the budget meeting today, can’t you tell.
• This story needs an ending and it needs to not sound like a second grader wrote it because it does right now and it’s making me question my excuse to live.
• I could live without another major European bailout.
• I don’t want to see Sarah Palin anywhere other than a punchline. This wounds my soul. It may be a good thing because then I’m moving to Argentina. You think I’m kidding?
• I want there to be a new Trader Joe’s in my neighborhood… after they build the coffeehouse of my dreams two blocks away.
• Out of Afghanistan and Iraq.
• The end of the Philadelphia mafia called the PCLB. We want alcoholic freedom!
• A circle line in Center City. Now I’m really asking for miracles.

The Mevlana Mosque and Museum in Konya, Turkey

It took me a while to post, thanks to being busy, shellacked, and decompressing. This was the weirdest yet most rewarding trip I’ve ever taken. It was with a tour group but the country was so fascinating, so different from anywhere I’ve ever been that the two, the complacency inherent in being in a tour group and the daring in being in Turkey, balanced each other out. Beautiful, cosmopolitan Istanbul is easy to be in for someone who lives on the Eastern seaboard and has a list of her favorite cities. The hinterlands of Turkey, on the other hand, were another thing altogether. It was the first time I felt that I am no longer at home. Headscarves were actually very common, the language is bewildering, and after dark the streets make it clear it’s a man’s world.

History has been written here, though, by those with the guts to write it. Alexander and Julius Caesar, the sultans, Asia minor, Anatolia, the Crusades, Hector and Priam, all words written into legend, words that are legend. They’ve been through here. The hills and mountains and olive groves in places look like they must have looked thousands of years ago. History speaks and lives and breathes here, against a backdrop of small farmers, minarets, and open markets. Tourism is a large part of the economy but Turkey hasn’t sold its soul. I had the feeling we were catching it just before the old world vanishes. I can recall that in a short list of missed photographic opportunities: the hills on the way to Konya with a little village in the plains at the bottom complete with red roofs on the stone houses, Hieropolis perched at the top of the calcium deposits at Pamukkale and the modern village at the bottom, our tour bus crossing the tracks behind a train with a shepherd and his flock of sheep walking along the one-lane road. Oh, baby. If this is Asia, then I want more of it, though there is still a time and place for the warm and familiar places like the Piazza del Popolo in Rome.

That’s where my fictional characters are talking right now, and I must return to them. CIao, a piu tardi.

The latest crash– potentially devastating– was Friday. I laughed. I had to. It’s a detail that can’t be helped and you can’t make things be different just by will alone. I’ll never forget the look of their faces. I sat there stunned than, but then, the next day, I laughed and I’ve kept on laughing. This trip is coming right when it’s most needed. When I get back, everything will be different.

It’s the unexpected that happens and I didn’t see this one coming, though I knew somewhere in my being that something was wrong. And that’s what it was.