So, no one really expected me to get through that whole list, right? Because there was just no way…

I did not, for instance, go to the movies. Nor did I deal with the clothing situation. I got several loads of laundry done, but I probably have two more to do. Plus, this afternoon topped out around 80 degrees, so who wanted a sweater for that?

I also didn’t bake or do a lot of reading. And the major failure for the weekend was not coming up with the housecleaning game plan. Clearly that will have to be a high priority for early in the week.

But I did make progress in a number of other categories. I started listening to Christmas songs to work on my mix cd. I did a bit of knitting, although I probably could have done more. Luckily, there’s plenty of time to squeeze that in with other activities during the week.

Yesterday, I spent much of the afternoon at the garden and the library. I harvested a bunch of the tomatoes, about a third of the peppers, and a handful of chard, but if things didn’t come off the vine, I didn’t force them. This week’s forecast isn’t looking too cold, so I figure that they can have an extra week. Also, I discovered that while my fall lettuce seed planting failed to take, my August planting of summer squash (they call it that because you plant it in the summer, right?) elicited at least one tiny yellow vegetable. Currently it’s the length of my forefinger, so I’m hoping it thinks big thoughts in the coming week. There’s a second one, but I have my fears for its reaching maturity, as it’s still in the fuzzy stage.

The library also was productive. I came home with six videos, an Enya holiday cd, and three books.

Today was a day of feasting. It began with a trip to the farmers’ market, which is always a treat for the senses. We found milk and sweet potatoes, but no celery. I bought yellow cauliflower and potatoes for a recipe I saw online. I picked up a pomegranate on the spur of the moment. I purchased broccoli to make into some cheesy soup and some cheese for sandwiches to replace the hard lump in the fridge that inspired the broccoli purchase. We brought it all home and then promptly left to enjoy a day out in the sun.

We opted to go out for brunch to a place where we could sit outside. Rudi and I each suggested a spot and both ultimately had to be dismissed because they were on the wrong side of the street. Ultimately, I remembered Bread and Brew, which was just a couple blocks’ walk away. They had room on their deck, and if their service didn’t wow us, their food did. I opted for a vegan mushroom soup and a mixed green salad — both of which were very fresh and quite filling as a pair. Rudi’s omelet included not just the salmon he’d expected, but also a plethora of roasted root vegetables. It reminded us a bit of O’Rourkes’, our favorite weekend brunch spot in Middletown, so I fully expect we’ll be back for future meals.

Sated, we walked toward Georgetown to enjoy the rest of the afternoon. We wandered through the neighborhoods, examining interesting architectural details on the houses. We crossed M Street and headed down the towpath to look at the dry-docked canal boat, the muddy canal, and the mallards. We admired the thick stems of the wisteria that cover the arbor in the Francis Scott Key Park. (They had to honor him with a park after they accidentally bulldozed his birthplace while building the bridge that now bears his name.)

We paused at Dean and Deluca to buy fancy sodas and a rare variety of apple (of course, neither of us can recall what it was now, although it was delicious — just that right blend of tart, crisp, and sweet) that we took down to the waterfront park they’ve built out of what used to be a big parking lot. The day was glorious and lots of families were out, providing excellent opportunity for people watching. A quartet of 20-somethings played a board game on the grass. Two young girls followed every dog that walked past them, but ignored the boy on the bike who wanted more than anything to be the center of their attention. A man and boy rough-housed nearby, with just the man pretending to get close enough to tickle him dissolved the boy into fits of joyous giggles. Boats cruised along the Potomac, as the sun hovered over Roslyn.

On the way home, we stopped at Baked and Wired, because you shouldn’t pass a cupcake shop without going in. The barista there is always friendly and she wears the coolest clothes. Today’s outfit included a black tutu and a black and yellow plaid halter top. Rudi and I ate our pumpkin cupcakes and drank our tea along the canal and before walking home through Rose Park’s growing twilight.

The crowning achievement of our day of feasting came tonight when Rudi took part in the Paper Chef, which is sort of Iron Chef-like in that it gives you four ingredients and asks you to prepare something that includes all of them. Usually three go together without much fuss, but the fourth ingredient is meant to turn your thought process on its side. This month’s combination mandated that our dinner tonight needed to include pasta, chevre, beets, and … peanut butter. I don’t want to scoop Rudi’s official post, but I will note here that it was delicious and I was much impressed with his cooking prowess.

So, that’s it. Another weekend under our belts. Fewer than two handfuls left in the year. How did you spend yours? Was your weather also splendid? I’m eager to hear.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (©, Walt Disney Productions)

From the fly leaf: “From Screen to Book

“Two modern classics for children are The Magic Bedknob and Bonfires and Broomsticks by Mary Norton. Recently Walt Disney Productions purchased these two books and set about making them into a single motion picture.

“Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi wrote the screenplay for Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman composed the music and wrote the lyrics. (These are the same four men who wrote the screenplay and songs for Mary Poppins.) The screen story is built around that fabulous apprentice witch Eglantine Price (played in the film by Angela Lansbury), but all the adventures are new. This book is based entirely on the screenplay.”

My take: When I last visited Karen, she took me to a local used bookstore that was going out of business and selling off their wares for $5 a bag. Clearly when you have that kind of incentive, you pick up some odd choices. (I once, for instance, picked up during Middletown’s buck a bag sale a book based on The Partridge Family.) This wasn’t particularly odd, but I didn’t peruse it as carefully as I might have otherwise and merely added it to the pile.

So I didn’t notice the above caveat, which now means I will have to seek out Norton’s source material and to see how certain details were Disnified. I have some things that I’ll be keeping my eyes open for, but it could be that Norton (who also wrote The Borrowers series) included them in the original novels.

That said, this was a cute enough story about three orphans evacuated to the countryside from London during World War II. Carrie, Charlie, and Paul are foisted upon a local single woman living alone in a large house when she comes into town to collect her mail.

Unable to refuse what she is informed is her patriotic duty, Eglantine Price takes the children home and feeds them all sorts of healthy and natural foods that would probably make a modern vegetarian proud. (I assume cabbage buds are Brussels sprouts. She also feeds them rose hips, glyssop seed, elm bark, whortle yeast, stewed nettles, squill tea, and mangel-wurzel jam (a type of beet which the children assure this modern American reader is generally considered cattle food).

Unexcited to discover they’ve been placed with someone so ill-fitting as a surrogate parent, the children plan to escape back to London. That is until they witness Eglantine crash landing her broom in the back yard. Realizing she might not want this episode broadcast to the neighbors, Charlie decides they are going to stick around to blackmail her instead.

Hoping to get cash, the children instead end up with a magic bedknob that will take them anywhere they like. Accompanied by Eglantine, their journey takes them to London to find her witchcraft correspondence course teacher. When he turns out to be a second-rate con man, where will she turn to find the elusive spell that will finally enable her to contribute substantively to the war effort? Will the children stay in London or will the lure of magical travel lure them back to the countryside? And will Eglantine turn Hitler into a white rabbit or something worse?

The story isn’t particularly well written and, as I noted above, there were some aspects that felt a little too Disney-like to ignore. But it was a quick read, provided you with a definite feel for a specific time in history, and fueled my curiosity to seek out the original Norton novels. I can think of a worse way to spend an evening.

Pages: 212

Although I haven’t given this weekend’s activities a lot of forethought, I would like to accomplish a few things:

1. I need to get down to the garden. It’s probably time to harvest the final tomatoes, whether they’re ripe now or not. Plus, I should have some more peppers that are ready. The chard has been a staple and I believe there ought to be some lettuce ready for harvest.
2. A trip to the library. I owe them a few bucks for a video I forgot to return, and I’d like to borrow some new things.
3. Come up with a cleaning game plan for the next month. Rudi has scheduled a bike ride the morning of our holiday party, which means that we cannot count on getting the majority of it taken care of that day. People seem to keep tidy houses on a regular basis, so I’m sure that if we just plot it out (and stick to it), we could, too. At least for a month.
4. Deal with the clothing transition. All the clothing I own seems to be out right now. There is not enough room in the Burrow for that to continue. This task will also probably necessitate laundry.
5. Bake. I have several pounds of apples in the fridge. It’s time for the apple crisp. Possibly also some apple sauce, depending on some of those apples. I have a pumpkin in the kitchen, too. Ooh, and quince and plums in the fridge…
6. Knit. Mum’s shawl only needs a bit more work. And I should really get around to weaving in all the ends on my fingerless mitts, rather than just wearing them with the yarn tucked inside. (I’ve just been thinking of it as extra insulation…) And I just have to knit the foot of my sock to have a new pair done. And Christmas is something crazy like 45 days away! Oh, and I should email Heidi to ask what size her twins are so I can get started on the sweater she asked me to to finish for her last spring.
7. Read. I picked up a large number of used books last month and should probably work on reading some more of them. And I bought a new novel tonight while at a book reading.
8. Hit the farmers’ market. We’ll definitely need milk. Also, sweet potatoes and celery, if it’s there (or celeriac, if it’s not). And maybe some ricotta to make a lasagna…
9. Start the Christmas mix cd I’ve been talking about making for several years now. Rudi will be gone most of the day, which makes it a fine time to poke through the collection. Generally, I’m a no holiday tunes person before Thanksgiving, but leaving it that late in the season almost guarantees that it won’t get made.
10. Maybe we’ll go to the movies. Since Rudi’ll be away, tomorrow is out, but perhaps Sunday. There are several films out I wouldn’t mind seeing.

I guess I should stop there or there will only be disappointment in Mudville come Monday morning! Who knew you could plan so much without planning at all?!

What are you hoping to do this weekend?

Three beautiful things before the end of Thursday:

1. Sarah and I have been hunting for cider doughnuts in the greater D.C. but have been unable to find any to satisfy our seasonal craving. While up in Connecticut, a google search revealed doughnuts for sale at a farm two towns over from my folks’. The whole family piled into the car and a drive through the countryside brought us to a family farm within 20 minutes. We ate the bag of doughnut holes on the ride home and consumed a bag of full-sized cider doughnuts the following day, but I saved a bag to bring back to D.C. so that when Sarah recovers from her bout of piggy flu and ear infection, she, Rudi, and I can have a little party.

2. The best part of being sick when I was a kid was that I could watch tv all day. Recent television programming has done away with daytime syndicated reruns, instead relying on talk shows and news programming and stuff that generally no one wants to watch, even when they’re healthy. One of the only good things about the digital tv transition is the addition of RTV, which shows old programs. Tuesday, a stomach bug kept me home from work, giving me the chance to take advantage of this benefit for the first time. I watched Kate and Allie, Bachelor Father, Adam 12, Dragnet, and Marcus Welby, M.D. in between naps. It totally redeemed the sick day.

3. I was upstairs in the bathroom when I heard my mother scream. Flinging open the door, I was relieved to hear nervous laughter coming from downstairs.

“Maybe you’d better stay up there.”

“Spider?”

“Nope.”

“Mouse?”

“Nope.”

“Snake?”

“Yep.”

“In the house?”

“Uh huh.”

I trooped downstairs. A baby garter snake had accidentally let itself into the front hallway and was trying to figure out how to escape. It had wedged itself into a narrow fissure below the front door’s threshold and periodically would wave its little head and flickery tongue out in a desperate bid for freedom.

I grabbed a magazine card and got down to try to ease the snake into coming out where I could rescue it.

“I’m surprised you don’t have your camera out,” I remarked to my mother.

She disappeared, but returned in time to hand me a section of newspaper to scoop up the snake when it slithered out from under the door and tried to escape behind it, much to the delight of my parents’ two cats.

Mum opened the screen door, but once I was outside, she asked me to pause so she could snap a shot of her interloper.

“Wait! Just one more shot!” she called out, as the snake, impatient with the snapping shutter, dropped from the newspaper to the ground and slithered away.

(Admit it, bloggers… Doesn’t it sound familiar?)

What’s been beautiful in your world recently?

It’s been a year since Rudi and I packed our bags and headed to France.

It was an amazing trip.

This year’s travels have been more prosaic and more domestic, with trips to New England, Chicago (for work), Portland, and Salt Lake as our destinations.

I’m starting to feel that wanderlust kicking in…

Our annual meeting is in San Diego this coming year, so it’s likely I’ll be sent there for a few days, which I hope to combine with some time spent seeing the California friends. I also believe we’ll have to head back to Salt Lake so Rudi’s mom can have some assistance as she recovers from surgery next year, but I’m hoping that’s not the extent of our travels.

So, I thought I’d ask: If you could travel anywhere in 2010 or if you could recommend one spot to go on vacation, where would you select and why?

No place is too random or far-fetched to suggest. I’m really interested to hear where you think would be a fantastic destination. Do you have a dream trip?

Dear Voters of Maine,

As of 1 a.m. on the morning after the election, you’re letting this New England girl down. I hope late-reporting districts and absentee ballots will show you to be a more compassionate people than the early returns suggest you to be.

Sincerely,

soe