Cool weather and cool times

A few misc. thoughts to start:

I am continuing to regularly update my House Ideas post.

I never tire of Scouting NY. It is full of such cool photographs and stories.

I am in the market for a small coffee maker. Most of the time, one or two cups will do just fine. If you have any recommendations, I'd love to hear them.

I finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, which I mostly loved, which I knew I would, except that now I feel guilty every time I eat a banana. Which I just did. I really want to be better about eating locally, but I don't want to give up bananas. I am working on this. It's a process.

Because I apparently cannot stop reading books about food, I know I am going to end up reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. I am bracing myself for this one, though. I am easily influenced and know it's going to make me go through a dilemma about whether or not to go vegetarian. But I kind of like putting myself through such dilemmas sometimes. As someone who unapologetically loved his first two books, I know I'll like the way it's written.

This review makes me really want to read Craig Ferguson's memoir.

And now for a weekend update. It was a nice weekend. I went to the farmer's market and got lettuce and a loaf of whole wheat bread and organic potatoes and organic satsumas.

Class let out early so we could attend the book festival, which was fun, and what's not cool about seeing Ernest Gaines in person? I bought Printz winner Looking for Alaska and an anthology called How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity, chosen because I liked the title and because I am very charmed by David Levithan. So far, I've only read his chapter, which begins the book, and it made me cry.

Following the book festival was high tea at my favorite cafe, where we were served four courses of awesome. It was a delight.

Back at home, the afternoon was one of open windows with the chilly, fresh air blowing in, the baking of white chocolate macadamia oatmeal cookies (which I ended up dreadfully overcooking, oh well!), Brandi's album on the stereo, and a visit with a friend. I also took the dogs out for a long walk in the late afternoon. They were hellions, but it was great to be outside in the sun and actually get some exercise, of which I have done exactly none for weeks.

It got down into the low 40s on Saturday night, which was kind of bananas. I slept in until 7 on Sunday morning when Zuko could be contained no longer, so I got up, released the hounds, and then went back to bed until 9. It was the first cold morning since right around the time I got my new bed and comforter, so snuggling in it in the cold felt so decadent and luxurious and heavenly. It is a cloud. I love it.

Lamenting the rock hardness of the cookies of the previous day, I evaluated the ingredients I had left on hand and made a giant batch of simple sugar cookies, which I have to tell you, were melt-in-your-mouth good. Note: if you stick to the wee teaspoon-sized balls, which I did, do NOT cook longer than 7 or 8 minutes. You will be sorry. Also, I creamed my butter and sugar with an electric mixer, which I never knew I supposed to do (oops). But it worked. They were perfect and tiny and very buttery and divine. I will never make store-bought sugar cookies again. Never!

Once I was done with my baking extravaganza, I pumped up my bike tires and went out for a ride for the first time since the last triathlon of the summer, also known as the last week of August. Wow. It was a little cool outside, but it was sunny and felt kind of magical to actually ride it again and be back among the exercisers. I totally felt like one of them all spring and summer, but then I left the group for about six weeks or so. It felt good to be back. One uber-cyclist in a cycling suit on a super whizzy fast bike and I came to a bridge at the same time and I said, "Sorry!" as I bumbled clumsily in front of him and he chirped, "Don't apologize, I'm the maniac out here!" And I said, "I'm kind of slow!" and he cheerleaded, "At least you're out here riding!" And that was that. He smiled at me later as we passed each other again while I was in the midst of yelling "ASSHOLE!" at a pushy car. Oh, drivers of cars. A little patience as we cross an intersection. Is all we bikers ask.

I attended a party for my friend who's selling jewelry, where I overindulged in cocktail meatballs. I don't even really like meat. But they are so good. Then it was book club, with Persepolis and yummy homemade bread and chili and nice people.

Tonight in the works is a dinner of new potatoes from the farmer's market roasted in a hot oven with olive oil and minced garlic and salt and pepper alongside some whole wheat angel hair with tomatoes and broccoli florets and chicken and purple onions. And I might need to eat three or four satsumas for dessert. And Every Little Step is on its way.

In the mood for swoony romance what with the colder weather and all, the only thing to do yeterday was see Bright Star. The actors who played Fanny Brawne & John Keats were very pretty and good, the overall look of the film was gorgeous, and even if it was all made up for all I know, it was utterly heartbreaking. There may have been noisy, copious weeping. I kept thinking back to when I visited the Keats-Shelley house Rome in 1998. Here's what I wrote in my journal that day at the age of 23: "All I have to say is that the Keats-Shelley Memorial museum was 100% amazing. Locks of Keats's hair, original pages of 'Lamia' and 'Ode on a Nightingale,' his last letters to his sister before he left for Italy which talked about how he wanted to fully recover -- and the room where he died. So young. So sad. Moving. Awesome." For years, I had framed postcards I bought there of his gravestone and of this image, sketched by his friend as Keats lay dying. I'm not sure what I did with them. Anyway, my thoughts on the movie are all wrapped up with how I felt visiting that place all those years ago. Overall, it wasn't a perfect movie, but it was very lovely and very romantic and very sad, if that sort of thing does it for you. (It does it for me.)