FALL! FaLL! fAll! FAll! faLL!

I get very excited by fall. I actually get a buzz off of the air, no really I do! I love it more than any season. I was on the phone with my friend Kate and I said "Hi Kate Happy Fall! (Sept 3rd) "Its not Fall yet!" she said. Well I don't care Kate's of the world I want Fall as many days as I can have it.

We are planning a big fundraiser at work called Apple Fest, which is a lot of work and is pretty stressful yet all of the events surrounding Apple Fest are Fall related and sometimes in the meetings I get secretly excited, not so much for standing around at the kiddie carnival all day but all the talk of apple desserts and pumpkins makes me a bit elated that summer is over.

So on one of my Fall obsessed days I was taking a "small short break" (term brother Alan coined at age 6 or so to avoid homework) from my work and I was thinking about all the things I like to cook in the fall and throughout the winter. Pumpkin curry soup, stuffed acorn squash, sweet potato tacos, beef stew with kale....apple pie.........and I dawned on me.....BREAD. I have never made bread before. It has always seemed a bit mistifiying. The yeast, the rising, the certain # of minutes you have to mix it and knead it....it seemed out of reach. But I decided after looking up some recipes that I was ready to undertake bread. In honor of fall.

Here are some highlights of my FIRST bread making.

I was a bit worried at first that I had just made a vat of glue....

But at last it was working out....

Here are my 3 risen loaves....

and finally my 3 finished loaves!

They looked good and tasted good.

I will never eat at Denny's again.

Well I have dry socket. 

Bucket. 

It is not that bad, it's getting better but I still have to go into the dentist to get my "packs" changed. So this morning very early (8am and it's Saturday!) Linda and I went to the dentist. My dentist has a very soothing voice so soothing that it borders on condescending. There was one other patient in that early and the dentist saw her first. You can pretty much hear everything everyone says. So I could hear the dentist use his soothing voice to explain everything. And the other patient was screeching and and wailing, but had I not been in the dentist office and heard that I would have immediately assumed that this woman was having very loud sex with someone with a very soothing voice. 

As a reward for basically nothing after my appointment we went to Starbucks which on the west side of town is across the street from Denny's. On  whim I was like, "Linda hows about I take you out to breakfast??"

Linda had the Heartland scramble (Heart attack scramble) and I had the "Build your own Grand Slam" which consisted of pancakes, hashbrowns, and 4 sausages. I got about 1/3 of a bite down and I immediately knew I was coming down with a case of "traveler's complaint" ... big time.  The only thing that kept me holdin' on til the end was the elderly couple behind us The husband basically didn't say anything, but the wife was remarking on everyone they knew. Here is an actual quote...

"Agnes has not aged well, but Betty...Betty Pendleton has...real good"

and 

"Dorothy...she's a WIDOW...she has a son though."

Oh Denny's, I really don't have the stomach for you anymore.

a night out with the slugs

All last night I thought something was going to happen. Maybe it was because Linda's brand new 2009 Toyota Matrix was rear ended by some D-bag Boner 23 year old (*#%*#Q*(&$(#. But really everyone is ok so we ate our dinner and went to bed and it was no big deal. Linda's car will be fixed and if we need to, a call to Michael Hupy will be in order, simple as that.

As I lay trying to go to sleep I just had this feeling "something" was going to happen. The air seemd thick, and opressive, I couldn't fall asleep no matter what I tried to think about or not think about.

I did fall asleep, finally. And when I woke up this morning I stumbled toward the bedroom door and did the first thing I always do in the morning, let the cats out of their bedroom. I opened the door. At this point usually I am bowled over by Begonia. NOTHING. I open the door wider, Ray was sitting on the ironing board looking out of a screenless window down to the one story drop below to the forest floor. Well its not really a forest but it is a heavily wooded area that gives way after about 110ft to a lawn of the yard beside us. You can barely see through to their yard. It is a steep enbankment that makes our first floor apartment berooms windows seem like they are actually second story. Begonia was not in the room. I snatched Ray up and walked back to the bedroom and said "Linda you need to wake up NOW".
She was immediately awake.

"Begonia got out the window, or fell out"

I put on my not fit for the outdoors purple bathrobe that doesnt stay closed and my glasses and crutched my little self outside. Now any of you who know Begonia know that he used to be indoor outdoor and would come home to a shrill call of "Biiiiiiiiiiiii-gooooooooooonnniaa" I would yell it really high and he would scramble out of whatever bush he was in and come home. But it has been a solid year since he has been outside for more than 4 seconds.

Linda came out and scaled down the brick wall to the wooded area below. She retrieved the screen and looked around while I let out my soprano "Biiiiiiiii-goooooooniaaaaa". It was 6:18 am.

I called for a while and Linda made sure she couldn't see a sign of injury (blood). Linda could barely make it back up the stone wall. We went back in the house to be sure he wasn't just sleeping in the closet and we would feel like idiots. But alas, Linda noticed definate deep scratch marks on the window sill. He had FALLEN out, tried to prevent it but ultimately fell.

I was about to start crying when Linda said "I see him!!" I looked out there he was in the woods coming toward the window.

I dashed outside and told Linda to hold off. When Begonia is scared he only really trusts me and no one else. I called my little call and Begonia hopped the same wall Linda couldn't scale with ease. He was panting and growling, while at the same time rubbing all over me. After a few attempts with my "barely there" robe flapping around SURELY showing my ...area.....he let me hold him long enough to get him inside. He was wet and seemed to have "slugs" (we are fairly certain thats what they were) on his stomach as well as burrs and other leaves. He panted for a solid 45 minutes until he calmed down enough to just be breathing really hard.

The report I got 10 minutes ago from Linda stated that he was currently eating a spider. No harm no foul, Begonia is ok. AND I made it work on time.

one thing i can't stand

i have been sick before, VERY sick. near death.

BUT the thing I hate more than anything...read...find most annoying, is having a sore throat. I hate it. nothing is worse. It is just so unrelenting and grating, it even messes with my eating/swallowing which is what i hate the most. I have this minor residual sore throat from my wisdom tooth removal I am guessing, but I am on the Cadillac of antibiotics so there is not much I can do. 

Things are ok though the cats are sitting by the screen door waiting for that little mouse with the gray fur and pink ears. Last night I drank raspberry tea and read halfway through the Virgin Suicides. That's a book to read over and over. It is the perfect summer into fall book. Everything is all thick, heavy summer air and crickets in that book. Everything is dusk or bleached midday. I love it. 

Books I read every Summer:

Perks of being a wallflower

Virgin Suicides

Sellevision

Godmother Night

The Secret History(which is also a good winter book)

Finally.

So we have been slowly moving into our new apartment for like a month, and save a few things left to do we are finally settled in.

We had looked at houses for a few months but none could compare to this ... apartment... we found. It was also a much larger scale than a lot of the houses too. We are loving it.

finally home.

I took 3 days off from work last week so that I could entertain my mom and my brother in Linda and my new apartment. My mom's visit consited of us going to the thrift store and home depot and setting up a sweatshop in my dining room where my mom and I made curtains (3 rooms worth) and recovered 4! of my dining chairs, which because of their shape was NO easy task. I love those chairs but they were ORNAGE dark rusty dirty orange, I got them for free from an office I used to work at when no one realized what they were, and I did.  We got all the curtains done and the chairs as well, and of course as soon as my mom walked out that door my serger stopped working properly and I couldn't finish the shower curtain. 

I stayed home from work today despite the fact that I have been gone for 3 days and all of my clients are probably in crisis, because that is what happens when you leave. But yesterday I developed a wretched case of MY PERIOD complete with back pain and for some reason my arthritis decided that it would act up as well so I stayed home to swallow pills. Which aren't really doing anything. I woke up and I just couldn't do it, i couldn't go in. Then as I lay there I thought of all the things I had to do and I suddenly thought I might be able to go. THEN I got up. Nope. Now I remember why I called in.

My brother is still here even though my mom left, he is being picked up in a week by his friends and taken to Ohio to go one some roller coasters. If I sound unsure of his plans that is because he is even less sure of them, even though he is in constant contact with them via cellphoneemailtextvoicemailIMtelepathy. Alan is in that age (almost 21) where you can just get up and go. Do I remember those days? Yes, sometimes with longing, and sometimes I look around at my home and good relationship and I don't miss it that much. 

like we're sisters.

yesterday was my first expereince with being filmed for anything besides one of jv's film assignments.
Mandy my friend from the UK came to Madison to be filmed speaking with me about my amputation. The film will air on a series in the UK called "Extraordinary People". Overall I feel the expereince was a good one. We did have to film us "first" meeting about 3 times. We were filmed speaking with eachother regarding life, medical issues, my amputation and her decision whether or not to have one. Then I was interviewed alone, and they got some really hilarious shots of me "living life" in my apartment. They asked if there was anything they could film me doing. Since our apartmetn was so clean there wasn't a lot to be done. So the director suggested..."how about groom your cat" (said in british accent) So I picked up Ray and was filmed walking into the room and walking to the dining room where I proceeded to groom Ray on the dining room table. Possibly the most UN genuine thing I could have done. It was ridiculous. I was standing in front of the table and there was grey fur literally flying everywhere, my arm was getting covered in hair and Ray was in such ecstacy that he was pulling the white table cloth into a ball with his claws. Then I had to "naturally" (read abruptly) stop brushing pick him up and walk out of the room.

The show is to be aired in August and I will hopefully have a copy on dvd mailed to me before then. The director definately had a spin he was trying to get on it. And so I really hope that they are true to my words and dont edit out the parts that didn't fit with his idea. He kind of didnt have a clue about disability. Just the Hallmark version of it. which was annoying. We'll have to wait and see.