Canned debate

 Or, how my Calmer Half wins the fight we didn't have. Because old age not only brings treachery, but patience and cunning.

A few years ago, my love bought some kitchen jars for me that he thought were what I wanted. They were beautiful, with olivewood lids and silicon seals (things I like). They also sucked, because the lids come straight off when I pull up, so any attempt to grab from the top results in broken glass and spilled grits. Also, the mouths were too small to get a half-cup measure in. 

So, rather than get more of them, I promptly started using quart and half-gallon mason jars for other grains, sugar, and ground flours. I didn't get rid of them, because I wasn't going to waste money already spent. Same reason for the mason jars: I had them, and why waste money when I've already got something that will do? 

It wasn't an ideal solution, but it was the duct tape and safety wire solution of kitchen organization. My love got these lids for the canning jars to make it easier to pour, clearly designed to turn the jar into a sort of sippy cup, and they made it better. However, the flours still clump, and the much smaller hole means it's a pain when things clump.  

A few days ago, my darling overheard the smothered yelps of pain and growl of frustration as I smacked the glass jar into an arthritic hand, and hurt myself more than it moved the clumped almond meal inside. I was grumbling (endemic to weather change and arthritis acting up, not this particular jar) as I then started rolling it on the cutting board to try to break up the clump so I could pour out a third of a cup.

He came out of his office and asked if he should get better lids, or more of the pretty jars instead? I recognized a "problem! fix problem!" air about him, and decided truth would be more useful than tact. Unfortunately, I didn't so it in a gentle, kind, or loving manner. 

You might even say I attempted to bite his head off and gnaw on his jugular. My darling simply waited it out, like a stone calmly letting a wave break over him, as I snarled that I did not like either alternative, and did not want him spending more money to improve makeshift containers I already disliked in the first place. When I was finished, he simply asked, "What do you want?"

That was the right question.

I finished pouring the almond meal, and cradled my hands to my chest as I grumbled that what I really wanted were vacuum-sealed plastic containers, but I wasn't going to spend the money on them, which is why I was making do with the glass jars in the first place. 

I got this puzzled look, completely ignoring the way I was snarling and focusing on the single relevant fact. "I've never heard of these. What are they? Can you show me?" 

So I limped over to his computer, pulled up amazon, typed in kitchen vacuum storage containers, and then informed him that I hadn't done any research because I wasn't spending the money, and I was going to go get a painkiller now.

As I made a cuppa to take the painkiller with, I heard faintly from his office, "Ouch! Yes, I see what you mean about the price!"

I thought this would be the end of it, but no.

An hour later, he's in my office. "Love, I just sent you three links, to three different sizes. Which would you prefer in the pantry?" 

As I was in much less pain by then, I was much calmer, and just looked at him with puzzled disbelief. "Love, didn't you see the price tag on them?"

He gave me this look like when I'm supposed to be somewhere in fifteen minutes, and haven't started drinking my tea or finding my clothes yet. "If I'm going to reorganize the pantry, then best we start with the containers we'll be using when we're finished. Decide what you want, so I can get that out of the way." As I opened my mouth to object, he shifted to a guttural tone of pure command. "You are NOT hurting yourself again."

...and that is how he preemptively wins the fights we don't have.

Teaser art...

 I've been sending snippets to Cedar Sanderson, as she's one of my alpha readers. About the point the team is far underground inside the ruins of an alien city, she sends me this feedback:

getting ripped

I finally experienced the rite of passage for female weightlifters: I popped a shoulder seam on my shirt.

Women’s shirts are not make for significant upper body muscle. Once we start to develop muscle in our pecs, lats, delts, biceps, and triceps, the women's cut shirts with the cute capped sleeves get tight, and then it give way at the weakest seam.

So I carefully deployed a seam ripper… wait, no, couldn’t find mine. So I grabbed the lovely hand-forged damascus knife that was an anniversary present from Calmer Half several years ago, and used it as a seam ripper to remove the sleeves to make a tank top.

Fittingly, the shirt has a line drawing of a feline all curled up, with:

I don’t want to adult today.
I don’t even want to human.
Today, I want to cat.

Sounds about perfect for someone who works swing shift lifting heavy things too bloody early in the morning, eh?

May you all find time to cat, and your own sunbeam.

Shopping, not Buying

The Farmer's Market in Itchy Paw Falls recently had a large number of vendors split ways with its old location, so this morning I met up with two friends to check out who decided to move to the new location. 

Some days, you go shopping with Serious Intentions and a list to buy. 

Some days, there's mochas and strawberry lemonade popsicles and salsa and a sticker of an armed kewpie doll (glock in a shoulder holster) and a little ceramic whistle that sounds like a song bird...

One of the candle vendors had been next to CV Walter when she was selling her books at the art walk. When we checked out his booth (first time he & CV had seen each other since then), he had a new candle based on her books. Cross-pollination happens in the arts! How cool is that?

We also met a friend's kid, who is now an adult and an artist in her own right, holding down her own table. Which was another layer of fun, because first, we weren't expecting to see her there - we'd been referred by another vendor as "you've got to check her art out" and "She's cool." Second, because this meant four artists could stand there and talk shop about table rents and intellectual property and markets... And walk away having bought stickers she made, because we really liked them! (And now I have an easy and clear identification mark on my new laptop.)

We briefly lost Cedar Sanderson when we hit a table selling botanical things... It wasn't the dried flower wreaths, the floral bath bombs, or even hibiscus sugar, which I found really intriguing (I've seen vanilla-doped caster sugar for dusting the tops of pastries and cocktails, but never hibiscus-doped caster sugar before.) No, it was the vintage botanical being used as a prop for the goods. Next thing you know, she and the vendor are geeking out about old herbals and other antique botanical books and where they've found them... 

Given that I had stopped to have a conversation about what blooms at what time of the year and how much you had to hold back in the supers for overwintering a hive in TX vs. North Carolina with one of the local apiaries, I just stood back and grinned. Okay, and egged CV Walter into getting a little ceramic whistle that sounds like a songbird. 

Because cat harassment!

Want something new to read?

If you liked the other things I wrote, you might like this. It's not so much a romance, really, as it is about the problems that come after the happily ever after. Like meeting the family that he doesn't talk to, and finding out that there's more than one feud going on. It's about finding out the hard way that when you've been out defending the homeland, and not being there, home changes until it isn't home anymore, and the people there become strangers with a shared history in the thirty years Between Two Graves.

Of course, there are a couple firefights as well, because it's me. 

The blurb:

He swore he wouldn't be back while his parents lived...

Now, almost thirty years later, AJ is going home.

Ordered to attend his mother's funeral in the rugged northern border of the Empire, AJ is baring old wounds to his new wife, and burying familial feuds.

But the past won't die that easily, and grave secrets will threaten all the survivors and the women they love. Because the Feds are after AJ's unwanted inheritance...

And they're willing to risk a war to get their hands on it.

Currently available in ebook, print edition to follow very shortly (I accidentally introduced a formatting error and it spread. The cleanup to get chapters and page numbers to agree is tedious, and I love my detail-oriented husband very, very much for all the assistance he's giving on this.)

All bank angle and speed

 As below, so above...

This morning, there was a swarm of gnats hovering above the front yard like a bait ball of feeder fish. Unfortunately for them, they were swarming directly in the approach path the barn swallows use to get to their nest on my front porch.

The air was full of flashing wings zooming in and out like dolphins taking out the bait ball, right outside my front window. 

And Ashbutt-cat in the windowsill was losing his everloving fluffy little mind...

It did not get better when I opened the window so he could hear the excited twittering of birds maintaining comms for situational awareness and coordination. No, it got worse. Much worse. 

Formative books of my childhood

The subject came up, yesterday, of formative books from childhood. Everybody usually has one or two they can think of... I promptly went and pulled my favorite off the shelf, because it has been following me around all these years. 

Yes, Dad gave this to me when it was brand new. See the publication date. 

Yeah, that might explain a thing or two about how I turned out...

Love you, Dad. And thanks.