use real butter

This afternoon Jeremy went about cleaning the whole house while I prepared dinner for our guests this evening. I have to say that Mr. Jeremy is an uber-swell guy. I don’t clean the bathrooms. He does. AMAZING. He probably does about 65% of the laundry, and he does 50% of the vacuuming, picks up 75% of Kaweah’s poops, and he does 80% of the dishes. On top of that, he never has a mean word for me and he is super duper.

autumn fruits for an autumny dessert

Maia and her husband drove up from Golden. She’s a friend of mine from high school (and junior high, and elementary school). She also got us set up with our realtor and helped us shop around for a broker. We had been meaning to get them out here for a while, but our schedules were full up until this weekend. I’m so glad they could come out. They are really fascinating and have moved around a lot – Prague, Buenos Aires, NYC, Boston, Golden. As we poured wine, we learned that Maia wasn’t drinking because she’s expecting! She’s due around the same time as S. which means I’ll have to add two more knitting projects to my already delinquent project list for two other kids who will be in college before I get around to their stuff… Her hubby is a freeheeler too! I think this is a requirement to live in Colorado :)

Tom and Kelly are both huge fans of food. You can tell they love to eat, but they don’t like cooking. I know for a fact that they are especially fond of baked goods. So tonight after we got home from tree harvesting, I make a cranberry nut dessert. Well, I made two: one for Tom and Kelly, and another to take to the office. There are other bakers in our workplace, which is kinda nice as it spreads the cheer and the labor. When I was at Cornell, I baked for the department fairly regularly for a time (also to keep myself sane until I decided I hated most of the people in the department in my fifth year). Feeding people is an intimate act – a motherly act. This is where you take ingredients that are generally unappealing on their own (with the notable exception of sweetened chocolate), and combine them to create something wonderful, something to bring pleasure to others. Our basic human needs include food, sleep, shelter, water. I find food to be the most gratifying both in intake and in giving. It is an act of love, of thanks, of friendship.

I just realized that Halloween is Monday! Better stock up on candy – for the kids and for ourselves. I wanted to give away glo-sticks, but upon deeper introspection, I discovered I really wanted to give them to me. Probably best not to get any. I love love love Halloween. Our CFO brought a bunch of pumpkins in from his garden this morning for co-workers to take! I picked a funky little mottled one that wouldn’t be too heavy to carry home on the bus. I felt so happy to be riding the bus home with a pumpkin – felt like childhood.

mmmmm, pumpkin…