Madtown Lakeside Stroll With Pumpkins

Things have been pretty rote lately. Going to work, going to bed early, watching season 7 of Curb Your Enthusiasm (which is awesome, by the by). Very funny, for Curb watchers, this business about Tagashi's favorite black swan may be one of my all time favorites. "Listen moron, I'll tell you what swan-killers don't do...".

I registered for some continuing education classes to work on a Substance Abuse Certificate through UW-Madison that I thought was last weekend. I learned on Friday morning that I had mixed up the dates, but we had already booked a hotel. Since we paid in advance, we decided to go to Madison for a little mini-getaway. We woke up late and made our way to Madison in mid-afternoon where we dined at a great little Laotian place called Lao Laan-Xang. Awesome veggie egg rolls with marinated tofu, nummy!

We walked through Library Mall, up Bascom Hill and over to the Lakeshore Path and all the way out to Picnic Point and back. Afterward we stopped for an ice cream treat in the Union. Babcock Chocolate Peanut Butter remains my favorite. Yes, I recognize this is not vegan food. I'm really in a low place in that regard. However, I'm still maintaining as a strong, strong vegetarian.

We stopped in the UW Bookstore where I bought a Bucky decal for my car. It only took me six years to get a hint of my UW pride back. We got visitors' passes to Memorial Library where I showed Ry my favorite study spot in the 2nd floor periodicals room (a lot smaller than I remembered). We moseyed up State Street looking in store windows and stopping in a few on the way.

Finally, we ended up on the square at Harvest, where we enjoyed a scrumptious and locally sourced meal. It's been a while since we engaged in any really fine dining and it was a lovely treat. There were two young college students right next to us on what appeared to be a very awkward and expensive first date. We walked back down Langdon street to our car passing fraternity houses and droves of students walking to parties. One enterprising young fellow offered us $5 cups and the opportunity to watch girls dance around a stripper pole. Indeed, there did appear to be young gals (fully clothed) dancing around a stripper pole in their living room with purple party lights flooding out the front window. We took a pass on that, obviously.

The next day we intended to go for a bike ride on the Glacial Drumlin Trail but it was too cold. Instead we opted for a slow drive home on Highway 18 where we visited a small pumpkin sale out of someone's front yard. We picked out three pumpkins for our front steps and two pretty little acorn squash.


Ry checking out some punkins.


Punkins in the trunk, bikes on the roof.


Silvio is now comfortable enough to go everywhere he's not allowed and to start acting naughty, which he has.


Ry's first take at sourdough English muffins.

A New Knudson Family Member

And not the baby kind, for those of you that may have just gotten ahead of yourselves. Today we welcomed Ry's old cat Silvio back into the family. Silvio lived with Ry for five years until we had to give him because no cats were allowed in our residence hall apartment. Apparently he was in need of a new home again and we got the call asking whether or not we'd be in a position to take him.

Since giving up Silvio Ry had been very vocally basking in cat-free life, saying that he was so glad that he didn't have to clean up any cat hair and that it was gross how they climbed all over everything. He said he never, ever wanted a cat again. I still held out hope that someday maybe we could get one, or at least some kind of pet but had mostly come to the conclusion that our house is too small for a dog. The night before we got the call I was looking at little grey cats on the Humane Society website, hoping to very passively entice Ry into a new one.

We took a few days to deliberate and to weigh the pros and cons. Silvio was always extremely active, sometimes very aggressive (I have a big bite scar on my leg to prove it) and very vocal. We thought about the house and how we'd keep it in order, whether he'd break our things, whether he'd eventually be compatible with a baby. In spite of all of the questions, I still wanted him and Ry essentially left the choice up to me.

Last night we went out for dinner at a restaurant with a patio called Senor Luna that we saw along a bike path in New Berlin. On the drive there we got a big chuckle thanks to a middle aged man driving a bright yellow Miata with a license plate that read "MENTOR". He was jamming out thoughtfully to Steve Nicks singing "Landslide" and then pulled out a rag to buff finger prints off the door while he was waiting at the stop light. This scene was just too much for each of us. Senor Luna was nothing spectacular, but we enjoyed sitting outside and drinking margaritas. We kept laughing because I was wearing my sunglasses with mirrored fronts and Ry could not stop looking at himself and making goofy faces into them. Afterwards we stopped at the pet store to by supplies like food, litter box, toys, etc.

We spent this morning cleaning up the house and put away a few valuables that we were worried Silvio might break, such as the clay candeleria from Mexico that sits on our mantel. He was dropped off at around 1:30 and we've been watching him check things out. He was very timid and quiet at first roaming from room to room. Overall he seems a little mellower, a few more years might have just done him some good. He's still vocal, meowing every time he enters a room to announce his presence. He loves our big windows and has found a few perches that will probably be permanent.

In other news, Ry has been experimenting with a new whole wheat sour dough starter he created from the original starter my friend Kathleen gave him in Durango, CO on our summer road trip. We've been rich with bread and it's starting to taste more sour with the new recipes Ry is trying. Not sure whether I mentioned the starter before, but it was a pretty spectacular gift. It's been alive and well in Kathleen's family since 1963 when a customer who needed dental work couldn't pay for it and traded Kathleen's father the starter in exchange for the work.

I've been mostly going to bed early without doing much else after getting home from work this past week. This afternoon I tried out a new recipe from Vegetarian Times that I had been excitedly waiting to make. It was a kasha black bean soup. When I initially identified the recipe as something I want to try, I had bought all of the ingredients. However, by the time I got ready to make it I had already used them. So, I subbed out red bell pepper for hot fresh banana peppers and black-eyed peas for black beans. It only took about a half hour to make and was a spectacular lunch for a cool afternoon. We paired it with Ry's crusty homemade bread creation from this morning and voila!

Since I've been getting questions about the vegan pledge, here's where we're at...we've still been eating mostly vegan, but have integrated dairy items (mostly cheese) just a few times a week. It's simply too hard when you're not always in control of where you are and what they will have available. Sometimes it's just a nice treat. I'm trying to look at it in a less rigid when than when we initially committed. We are totally meat free, we feel much better, have lost weight and are still mostly vegan, most days. We've made good progress and that good progress is not negated by dairy every now and then (mostly weekends).

The other thing I started working on is a new hand sewn baby quilt for my old boss Michael. He and his wife are set to have a baby this fall and I haven't been able to work on one since little Chloe Hetzel was born in February. It will take me some time to complete, but I've posted pictures of the preparation and pinning process.

Finally, my drive to and from Whitewater has been just lovely over the past week. It's starting to look a little bit like fall with a red or yellow tree popping up every now and then. Also, I've been some great wildlife including sand hills cranes in flight, hawks, a woodchuck and a lovely cream colored horse mottled with red spots. I can't wait for fall colors to hit in earnest. This is by far my favorite season of the year.


Ironing the fabric after I washed it and pre-shrunk the organic cotton/bamboo batting. All supplies from Drawstring Studio, which has an Etsy shop and a local brick and mortar store in Bayview. A friend Danielle owns this, so...go buy local and support her great fabric store!


Cutting off a little excess batting after I sandwiched it smoothly between the two layers of fabric.


Pinned with the edges folded over.


Silvio, our new/old addition.


We are so crazy for fresh food it's a little ridiculous. Fresh goodies from last week's West Allis Farmer's Market.


The Kasha Black Bean Soup turned Kasha Black Eyed-Pea Soup.


A slice of Ry's homemade bread with natural peanut butter and Bonne Maman Wild Blueberry, my favorite delicious brand of French jams. The variety I love most is Four Fruits, if you are going to give it a shot.

Fire Pit

We gathered on our patio for a camp fire gathering with a few friends, family and our new fire pit last night. The evening was filled with much conversation, a fair amount of alcohol, a few Sweet Dreams cigarettes, homemade cookies, chipotle potato chips with spices that Ry somehow got in his eye, a little debate, a can of Colt 45 that served as a "talking stick" (epic fail on actually making that work, but it made it even funnier) and a ton of laughs.

It's amazing how little it takes to bring people together and how we're all willing to sit at a campfire for much longer than we would around someone's couch or kitchen table. There's something mesmerizing and comforting about watching flames. I think it was better than any night out at a bar or fancy restaurant could ever be. I'm thankful for that simple fun and togetherness. It was the first time I've seriously belly-laughed in quite a while.

Freedom

What a loaded word. Means so many things to different people. And I guess considering the day and the associations attached to the word, it may not be appropriate that my title has nothing to do with the concept itself and more to do with a novel that explores the concept in a way, at least as it's relevant to our post-post-industrial-techno-global-consumerist-scared as hell-the-world is going to end-amped up culture at the moment. So, later in the post I'll be getting to Jonathan Franzen and his new novel nine years in the making, Freedom. But what would a Megan post be without an existentially tinged life update.

Obviously, I've been preoccupied, as evidenced by the lack of writing here. But there hasn't been much occurring in our home life because I've been just too busy with work. For those of you that know me, what else is new, right? I'm learning that you can take the girl out of a stressful work environment and put her in a new, moderately stressful one, but you can't make her stop stressing. And as it turns out, she can't quite make herself stop stressing.

So, as my hubby would say, I'm dutiful, thoughtful, care about quality and am maybe more than a little bit perfectionist. But my fixation on all of that is not helping me feel sane or helping the work float thoughts away at night. I'm working on developing a new way of being related to work, but it's going to take some time. Adjustment to new situations is especially difficult for me. I always feel that I should be able to do everything right, the first time, right away, but of course that's not reasonable. I need to give myself the freedom to make a mistake and evolve without torturing myself. It's going to take some time and I hope that I can learn to exist with work in a way that also lets me achieve a modicum of calm in my life. I'm asking you to please help remind me.

Onto the book, Ry ran to the bookstore for me and got it on the second day after its release. I'd read the story about Franzen and his new "Great American Novel" in Time magazine. And my connection to The Corrections was so strong, that I wanted Freedom now. I devoured all 562 pages of it in a gluttonous Labor Day reading extravaganza ignoring all sense of normalcy such as showering, getting dressed, cooking, doing housework or talking with people. It was an escape but also an intense fixation. Ryan respected this little obsession and left me alone with it, knowing full well that it would probably make my mood dip once I was done. This is what usually happens when I read novels with ferocity, I'm let down and missing the characters and wanting it not to be over when I finish. The more intense the reading process, the more intense the let down, really.

When I finished I thought about picking it up and starting all over again. But alas, Ryan had started reading it while I wasn't looking, so that wasn't an option. I've spent a good amount of post-Freedom time thinking about its contents. I also listened to half an interview segment with Franzen on NPR's Fresh Air only to determine I'd rather read Franzen's beautiful novels than listen to what he has to say. So, what is the book about? And is it worth reading?

Yes, yes. Read it. It's a spot on description of our modern society, yet it's still personal, funny, cynical, full of humanity and hopeful at the same time. It's about what freedom means to us personally and what we "give up" when we commit to certain choices that guide us down life's path. It's about the yearning for those other paths and people, but the let-down that inevitably comes from trying to re-capture what we cannot have anymore and come to find out we may not have ever really wanted in the first place. It's about how we see ourselves, our contemporaries, our heritage and how we are connected to those that raised us and made us who we are. It's about America and how we cannot sacrifice what is right for part of what is right attached to a war or disgusting corporate interests because we think that's our only option at doing good. It's about marriage, commitment, love, families, sex. It's about the environment and lovely little birds. It's about everything modern. It's about characters and a story that suck you in without being pretentious. It's about a lovely vocabulary and a little bit of black humor that exposes a big heart for troubled-everyday people.

In short, it's wonderful. And you should read it, now. And afterwords you should read The Corrections too. And then we should talk about it, because I desperately want to talk about it with someone. As for the claim of next Great American Novel, I'm not so sure. I'd love to hear what others think in that regard.

And one last exciting thing on the home front: we got a rockin' vintage mint condition '50's table ($150) that fits perfectly in our kitchen and a brand new fire pit ($35) from Craigslist. Boo-ya consumer economy. Reusable goods for sale out of a fellow Milwaukeean's home are where it's at! You'll all have to come over and enjoy then with us soon.


Ry working some bread dough.


The new table.


Freedom, with a bunch of other junk on the table.


Funky detail.