Bathing

Imagine this bathing area without the artwork or wicker. Or the bent-up metal blinds. Or the Dutch husband #2 (the previous owner's, not mine) out on the adjoining balcony. You can see him through the window.

Imagine soaking in this luxurious tub. It's spacious, it's warm. So very inviting. Can you imagine that?

Good, because no one can actually use this tub. It's a 200-gallon Jacuzzi with a broken heater. How big is your water heater? Our tops out at about 40 gallons. We can't find anyone who can fix it. Parts cannot be had. This has never really concerned me, since I prefer the hot tub under the stars anyway. My plan is to someday remove this useless hunk of fiberglass, install a smaller, one-seater soaking tub, and put another door out to the balcony. Someday this will be a lovely and spacious bathroom.

But for the moment that Jacuzzi lurks in the dark corner of the bathroom. Why dark, you ask? Because code says you cannot have a light fixture above a bathtub. And this tub takes up fully 20% of the bathroom real estate, and there's cedar paneling on the ceiling above the tub. The township building inspector made the builder (previous owner's husband #1!) take down the light fixture, so instead of repairing the ceiling, he installed cedar tongue-in-groove paneling. I stopped looking at it about 2 weeks after it was determined that it couldn't be used for a reasonable soak, which would make it about 2 years ago. It was approximately this same time that I stopped cleaning it. I use the side of it as a clothes rack from time to time. Okay, all the time. Otherwise, it's a void in the room.

Today I thought of a good use for the otherwise-useless Jacuzzi. My puppy has been swimming in the local ponds, the ocean, the reservoir, and our pool for the past year or so and hadn't had a bath in at least that long. She never smells bad, but she was feeling kind of dusty. I love to pet her, but don't particularly care for having to scrub my hand afterwards, so the time had come. I had the bright idea of taking her upstairs, carrying her into the tub (it was unlikely she could escape on her own) and using the shower-head (which can be seen at the right of the photo) to wet and rinse her. She didn't even mind me picking her up so much. Since there is a seat (two, actually) in the Jacuzzi, I had excellent support while lifting her in. She's not small - she probably goes about 65 lbs. at the moment, but since she didn't fight me it was no problem.

When the water finally got to tepid, I wet her down and began working in the shampoo. She needed a bit more wetting, so I picked up the shower head, which promptly separated from the hose. Completely, and irreparably. No biggie - I could still use the hose end to wet her down. She began to get a little nervous when the water began backing up in the tub. It was not draining because it was clogged with dog hair. Soon everything was covered with dog hair - the cedar paneling, the tub edges, and me. No matter. This has never been a delicate affair. Even back in Illinois, where I could set up a beach chair in the middle of the basement floor and wash her near the floor drain, I would come away looking like Patricia Arquette in Human Nature.

Since there was no shower head, all I had to work with was a small stream of water, so it took quite a long time to rinse the pup. She was unhappy with me. She started to scale the tub walls and was almost out at one point, but I was able to grap a hold of the hair on her back and drag her back to her torture. Then she'd back into a corner so I couldn't rinse her rear, or try to sit, or turn around. She clearly had had enough. I was in total agreement. But I had to towel her down a bit first, and lay the rat towels (oldies with holies) on the tile floor so she wouldn't slip, and then I coaxed her out. She was anxious about it, probably because I'd screamed at her and yanked her fur the last time she tried that route. Nevertheless, she's adaptable, and stepped out of the tub with a lot more poise that I had.

Mission accomplished. Once bathed, Inti likes to run around like a mad dog and rub herself on the carpet and tonight was no exception. I don't know if she was happy to be clean or just happy to be away from me. Whatever. I looked back into the tub and realized another thing I never liked about it: the drain is actually a smidge higher than the rest of the bottom of the tub. Oh, this was some quality craftsmanship!

I raked all the hair that I could out of the tub, and took a shower. (There was as much dog hair in the shower stall off me as their was in the tub from her.) Before exiting the bathroom I took one last look at the behemoth in the corner. That ugly bastard has got to go. And I don't see any point in cleaning it again.

Celery and Stilton Soup

Celery and Stilton Soup

1 head celery
1 medium-size onion, chopped
3 Tbs. butter
3 and ¾ cups light vegetable or chicken stock
2 egg yolks
2/3 cup half and half
1 cup crumbled blue cheese (recipe calls for Stilton, but gorgonzola works fine, as will just about any strong bleu)
salt and pepper to taste

Reserve inner leaves from celery and chop remaining celery. Melt butter in a large saucepan. Gently cook celery and onion in butter, covered, until soft. Add stock and bring to a boil. Simmer 20 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Cool slightly. In a food processor fitted with a metal blade or a blender, process mixture to a puree. Return puree to pan. Reheat gently without bringing to a boil.(It’s far easier to use a wand blender, and you don’t have to wait for the soup to cool.)


To finish soup, beat egg yolks and half and half in a small bowl. Stir a small ladleful of hot soup into the egg mixture and pour back into pan. Stir in crumbled bleu cheese, stirring constantly until soup thickens. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with inner celery leaves and serve immediately.

If soup is to be held, be sure to reheat gently.

Canon

Today on the trail Jill and I saw, in the distance, a very large horse. I immediately pegged it for a draft horse, and as we approached we could see that his coloring was really vivid - pristine white and deep mahogany, almost black. When we were within speaking distance of the rider, we asked. Turns out Canon is part paint, and part draft. He was gargantuan, and immensely calm. He wanted nothing more than to be near our faces and accept our adulations. We patted his mane, his nose, his brows, his cheeks - nothing at all perturbed this guy. After a few moments of admiring him, I remembered my manners and introduced myself to his rider, Diana. She told us how difficult it was to keep his white white - seems Canon likes to roll in the dirt whenever he can. But today he was spotless, from his immense and lofty shoulders to his gigantic hooves. His hair on his white socks was quite long - yet it too was pristine. Evidently he loved attention, and had no concern about Dylan's stroller or the impatient dog that was traveling with us.

I wish I could say the same thing for that dog. Inti whined and growled - not a vicious or angry growl, but the annoying sound she makes when she's jealous. I was commiting a terrible faux pas - I was fawning over some other, very very large puppy. Jealous? She was positively pissed off. Canon wasn't concerned, and neither was Diana. As for myself, I didn't particularly want to see Inti get any more annoyed. Canon could probably have squashed us all with just one hoof.

We have enough property to have up to three horses here, though we'd have to apply to the Pinelands commission to clear any of our woods. For a moment today it seemed like a grand idea. Then the moment passed, and I came back to my senses. It's enough for a couple of the neighbors to have horses. I can visit them whenever I want. There's even a baby just two doors down. I can bring an apple, some carrots, and enjoy myself while chatting with Marilyn P. I already have enough manure to relocate.

Night Lights and Alarm Clocks

Though I'm hardly an insomniac, I do spend a lot of time walking around the house in the middle of the night. This has been true for as long as I can remember: even in the dead of winter, when the house is cold, I will wander if I cannot sleep. It might just be a short walk to the bathroom, and those trips are probably the majority. But there's something about the darkness and stillness of the middle of the night that has always appealed to me. There is a hushed sense in the hallways, sleepy silence even in the empty guest rooms, and lovely dancing moonbeams filtered through the trees. The cat, if I wake her with my footfalls, comes to greet me in the hallway or on the stairs with soft purring and her distinctive chirps. Usually the dog doesn't stir. None of my dogs have ever stirred during my nightly perambulations, which used to make getting back into bed a challenge.

I like to look out the windows or peer down into the foyer to see how the shadows from the streetlight look at this hour. As familiar as my home is to me, in the darkness it is an entirely different landscape. The nightlight in the laundry illuminates the kitchen island bookshelves. The woods are perfect blackness outside my office window on moonless nights - there is nothing at all to be discerned. The whiskey barrel fountain out front sounds entirely different at night - not the rolling, bubbling sound of the daytime but a distinct bell-like tinkling sound. I have no idea why. But I wouldn't know any of these useless facts if I didn't wander at night.

This morning I didn't venture out into the hall. I peered out the northern bedroom window for quite some time, but there was little to be seen. On the other side of the room, near my side of the bed, I stood at the balcony door and listened to the local rooster begin his morning song. The moon must have been right overhead, as I've never seen such a short shadow of the white oak that stands just outside our bedroom. The balcony rails were illuminated, but cast no shadow on the decking. The light was cool and almost blue and I wanted to know how my skin would appear in such a light. I stepped outside to watch and listen for a moment.

Now, I've known for a long time that there is more than one rooster out there. We are surrounded by corn and chicken farms out here - not big operations, but family acreage and truck farms. This morning I heard the closest rooster calling out: urh-ur-ur-ur-oooourh. In the near distance another bird returned his call. Then from another direction, yet another rooster. The calls sounded identical, but they were clearly coming from different directions and distances. In the otherwise hushed morning I heard seven - no, eight - must be nine or ten different birds, some of their calls faint and almost imperceptible between the more local sounds. I wonder: do they wake one another? Is there a purpose to their calls? Is this just a territorial bugling, do they rile each other up the way barking dogs do? There was not another sound in the night, no wind, no distant traffic, no crickets. I stood for a moment in what seemed like a sea of rooster calls, all of them soft against the darkness. I suppose if this sound were to be coming from my backyard, it would wake me. But this morning the sounds soothed me almost to sleep. I noticed, just before I dropped off into morning slumbers, that the crowing had stopped.