What am I doing at midnight?

--still digesting the Panang curry I ate for dinner (with a half a doughnut chaser)(don't judge), and  just having finished watching 13 Going on 30 and am therefore reminded that ugh, movie industry, don't signify magic by glittery swirly dust! and maybe just stop making time traveling/timewarp movies? (and also Mark Ruffalo was SO CUTE in that part). 

And remembering that last night I watched the first 25 minutes of How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days which might be the stupidest movie ever made. Although maybe it gets better after the 25 minutes? Somehow I don't think so.

Thinking of a blog post. 

Listening to the historian making paper-rustling noises while sitting at his desk. 

Looking for a cover image for my upcoming book (!!!)(anyone? a cover image for a book called flicker?). 

Lying next to the dog. 

Thinking about the day and a half worth of work stuff I need to do tomorrow, i.e., in one day. 

However, thinking also that I will make pancakes in the morning, so: some things are more important than others, yo.

Getting it done: a letter.

Dear the middle of the night:

--or more precisely, 2:30 a.m., which I know precisely because I checked. I checked my cell phone when I awoke because my head was hot and maybe I felt my cold having a small insurgency in the skirmishes of the night. I guess that's what they are. I know I felt I was fighting something.

So one more DayQuil, a swig of water, a settling of covers, a small storm of thoughts. I thought: at least I can spend the morning at home. I thought, I only have one class, I can get it together for that. I thought, If I'm actually sick, why not stay home? And that last was the thought that I tied around my finger to remember in the morning, when I awoke again at seven. It was not exactly a reprise of the dark hours, but it was a variation on a theme: one more DayQuil, a swig of water, a storm of thoughts--and I was up.

Middle of the night, it was precisely there, in your 2:30 a.m., that I came to my senses. If I'm sick, why not stay home? I clung to this sensible thought as if I were in a fever and the thought were the promise of water. So I sent an e-mail to the class and to my chair, and settled in.

And even though I had awoken in you, the middle of the night, the 2:30 a.m. locus of my ill epiphany, I had a day that looked like an exemplary page from a Covey planner:

• graded a discussion.
• conversed via e-mail with students.
• brokered a tentative agreement in an e-mail with a colleague.
• narrated and captioned four short instructional videos.
• ate soup for lunch. (soup is always exemplary, in my opinion.)

Because of my sick, ergo stay home day, I believe I am on the mend, the middle of the night, though I may yet greet you a few hours hence. Even so, you shall not fell me.

be it so resolved,

htms

Things of which I do, and do not, approve.

I do not approve of

• hot wind
• running out of ice
• a hot laptop. Literally hot, as in it made my hands and wrists hot.
• hot hands/wrists
• nightly neighborhood fireworks. For the love.

I do approve of

• cherries
• Sunday
• reading the entire New York Times
• white beans. And green beans. In fact: beans.
• these daisies, at midnight:

 

 

 

and also these guys:

 

 

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The thick of it.

Hello, September 9, with your aggressive late night e-mails and pursuant troubles galore. Hello, days scheduled from dawn to dusk, already. Hello, the collision of this possible event with that fixed event, and hello, that sweaty feeling that I'm forgetting something. Hello! I hadn't exactly forgotten about you, the thick of it, but I certainly didn't remember how you sidled up, almost silently, and hung around my doorway like a doom.

*

Yet there is beautiful weather, although there are also gusty winds. Yet there are interesting classes to teach and a good crop of litmag students; still, more and more meetings. Yet there is Beatles Rock Band (aka the birthday pony) and leftover birthday cheesecake that I may or may not have eaten for breakfast. And many, many tomatoes, and weeks and weeks left of the farmer's market. And mostly not waking up in the middle of the night because of The Troubles incumbent upon me because of being a faculty leader (aka, FL, which means . . . anyone? anyone? F*** Lisa?). Mostly not, the thick of it, mostly just sleeping with the window still open.

*

It just got so busy so fast.

*

And still, the thick of it, I will be able to keep riding my bike for a little while after dinner for a few more weeks. As long as dinner is early, and before the late night e-mails commence.

Cake at midnight.

I try not to whine, but sometimes it just doesn't seem fair that cake can't be a part of everyday life. Amanda Hesser, in her "Recipe Redux" piece in the NYTimes Sunday Magazine, mentions that back in the day, people used to make cake every couple of days, "after the previous one vanished to crumbs."

I will pause, so that you may reflect.

A new cake twice a week, let's say, just to be reasonable. Which would mean you would eat a little cake most days of your life. Why wouldn't that be a good way to live?

This observation inspired me to leap up from my Sunday-evening-prone position to whip up Teddie's Apple Cake, which was the 70s era cake featured in the piece. You bake it in a tube pan because it's a heavy batter and needs the extra surface to rise the little bit it's going to rise. Also, in a plus, cakes that are baked in tube pans have that attractive hole in the middle thing going on. Anyway--the recipe called for raisins and walnuts in addition to a whopping 3 cups of sliced apples (we have a whole box of McIntoshes we're going to turn into applesauce sometime soon). I substituted dried tart cherries for the raisins and left out the nuts--I love pecans, but I decided to go nutless in case one of the picky eaters (hint: this category doesn't include either me or the historian) might deign to try a slice. The recipe also only uses cinnamon as a spice, but I might try making the spices more complex if I ever bake this again--and I might.

The cake came out of the oven at about 11:15. That's right, 45 minutes short of midnight. I let it cool for about 3.5 minutes, then cut two slices out of the cake still in its pan, one for me and one for the historian. It was lovely. The apples tasted like they had almost melted and the cherries were splendid.

I might try the other recipe featured in the article too--it's a reimagining of the flavors, etc., of the old recipe, made by Boris Portnoy who's a pastry chef at Campton Place in San Francisco. It's a Spiced Soufflé Crepe With Sautéed Apples--the apples are sauteed in butter with thyme, an idea that I've never thought of but it seems like I should have. Apparently you make a batter, put the sauteed apples in, and bake it--the batter rises spectacularly, and then when you eat it, there's a crisp top, the melty apples, and a custardy bottom. I think I might start this recipe closer to dinner time, however.