Peeking into the rock

When I got Zluta I got her for her personality. I've been telling people I got her because I knew she'd be a pain in the ass--demanding lots of walks and exercise and playtime. It's true. And she does. She demands a lot. Though as she gets older she also hangs out companionably with me for hours too. I've mostly convinced her that coming when called at the dog park is a lovely, joy-filled occupation but she has a new evasive action she pulls in the yard at night. I rarely let her out after dark because I'm afraid she'll mix it up with the wildlife (mostly rats, raccoons, and opossums, at night: but fox and coyote and even mountain lions have been seen within a block or two of the house. No, I live in an urban neighborhood, I promise, it's just that there's open space in it that connects by way of the San Lorenzo River and various other bits to highly-impacted wildish habitat).

But lately I've not always gotten the back door closed before I wander upstairs and she notices access to the dark yard. She goes out quietly and just hangs around until we cajole or force her inside. Sometimes I can't see her at all because she's ghosting around in the foliage and she seems to know this and keeps shtum for a long time. Once I find her she starts evasive maneuvers and will not come just because I call her. I can always flush her by throwing windfall apples in the opposite direction from where she is. She can't resist chasing them for long. It might take a few lobs before she falls for it though. Once she does that, it's only a matter of time before I get her on the deck by lobbing apples up there. The first one in that direction might not do it, but the second will.

She knows the jig is up at this point. You can see it in her body language and the fact that she drops her evasive efforts. When I catch up to her at the base of the stairs or on the deck she goes into the posture that says "I know you're going to pick me up. I don't approve so I'm not leaping into your arms but I will lift my body a bit to make it easier because that's more comfortable for me."

Last night she didn't sleep with me at all. This is interesting because she usually sleeps almost the whole night with me, and sometimes sleeps part of the night with my roommate K and part of the night with me. She slept on the livingroom couch downstairs all night, something I don't like to allow because if she wakes up alone down there she gets weirded out by some noise and starts barking in the wee hours of the night. Or if I get up to pee she hears me and wakes up disoriented and starts barking. But last night she was quiet all night--I know because I slept not one minute. Between the dexamethasone and a glass of jasmine tea and overeating from the stress of meeting the sleep doctor yesterday I couldn't even close my eyes. The sleep doctor was a weird thing. I have had excellent luck with all my doctors the last few years, in that I've not only like their medical practice but our conversations have been mutually pleasant. With this doctor, I have nothing to complain about as far as he goes, but I kept feeling like I was insulting him or making other gaffes in our conversation. It was exhausting.

At least my meeting with his scheduler was pleasant.

I'm going to have a sleep study on August 18. I started having my doubts about doing it now because of the chemotherapy and things like the dexamethasone adding their own level of disruption to my sleep, but Dr. Takahashi Hart said the information they'll be gathering will be informative either way and anyway they don't expect me to sleep well during the study. He says if I do sleep better during the study than at home, that's information too. Like I said, I felt that he was being polite and appropriate, and giving me enough good quality information and asking me for questions and opinions, but I felt like I was rubbing him the wrong way, which is an unsettling feeling. I did say I'm skeptical about sleep apnea because it sounds like a one size fits all solution these days, to which he said, you could say "but almost everybody wears eyeglasses too." and I said he had a point.

On another front, I made a plain cake (one of those buttermilk types though I used whole milk yogurt because that's what I have) and put lots of thin cut rhubarb in it and I think it is the most successful rhubarb thing I have ever made. I used more sugar than I would have because rhubarb, but I could have gotten away with less sugar. I'm pretty sure anyways. I can taste sugar again. Somewhat. Sweet things no longer taste nasty, flat and bitter. And kale tastes almost normal. But I still have a strange plastic taste in my mouth that makes me mistrust my senses.

There was a reunion potluck for Good Beginnings people last night, which is where I had the tea--I thought it wouldn't make any difference but zero hours sleep is substantially less than four! I hadn't seen some of these people for twenty years, but we fell right in and told each other our stories. I as always talked too much.

This last year the jam supplies have just about come out even. Once again I have tackled the lemons late, and once again I swear I will make lemon marmalade earlier next year. This year there is added force to the vow because I have come to understand that there is less pectin and more bitter in the lemons in May than there is in March.  The marmalade works fine though.

This year I am making very small batches more often. It sounds like it would be more work, but I think it is less nerve-wracking and does less bad things to the kitchen and my life. Also it means I can use the smaller amounts of fruit that drop into my lap for no reason. Like: the Grey Bears bag usually has one of those enormous boxes of strawberries which disappear in seconds if you have childen but are more challenging if you are a single old lady who doesn't eat cereal or ice cream. This is four cups of uncut berries or three of cut. Meanwhile, my rhubarb -- which I planted for the nice fellow as I don't care for it much (or mind it, really) is producing a small and steady amount of stalks which I dutifully pull, trim, and stick in the feezer bag I have dedicated to them. So today I made a small batch of jam: three cups of strawberries, one of rhubarb, and most of a lemon (for pectin, mainly). Most of my jam is running just over three quarters of a cup of sugar to a cup of fruit, but the rhubarb and the lemon are something to contend with, so I did it with four cups. And it came out very nice, with four half-pint jars and a bit less than a cup to put into a bowl for immediate snacking.

So the tally so far: 4 jars meyer lemon peel and blood orange marmalade, and four jars of strawberry-rhubarb-lemon jam. I'll make another two or three different batches of lemon marmalade, and probably more berry jam next week, depending on what the Grey Bears bag has in it. Since I liked the rhubarb with the berries, I may also do a batch of rhubarb by itself (or rather with candied orange peel I have from Christmas time). And I may also stick a box of berries in the freezer to wait for the next batch and make an all-berry jam.

I like feeling free to experiment with combinations with these small batches. If you're only going to lose four jars at most, it's a lot less intimidating than losing a flat's worth of fruit. Not buying flats anyway. My rule for a while has been: jam is made with fruit I grow, forage, or get as a gift. On that note, I'm tantalized by the pruple leaf plum around the corner. It's dropping its fruit, but the tree has gotten large and the plums smash on the pavement. I suppose I could go after it with the pole picker, but that entails geting over my shyness to ask the neighbors if I can go in their yard, and I don't know how many I'll get anyway, as it's not a heavy bearer and it is freakishly tall.

Also around the corner, at the house that used to be the high water house, there's a low fence with two kinds of passion vine on it: and one of them is l;oaded with fruit. When it comes close to being ripe, if it does that while I am not in Prague, I'll try to ask if I can pick some and give them jam in return.

Other forageables in the neighborhood are, of course, the yellow plums around the other corner, crabapples on Emma's old corner (I made very nice crabapple-jalapeno jelly out of them last year), manzanitas up the block from the yellow plums (but somebody else got them last year), a thing like a crabapple whose name I can never remember at the base of the Laurel Street hill, another wild plum tree on the steep path from the high school main campus to the gym, and another frustrating plum tree towards the top of Laurel Street Hill which has I believe prune plums and some of them reach the ground whole. Another neighbor has a quince tree, and the folks across the street have a fig tree. Nobody around here grows apricots because the climate is just barely okay and the ground water kills them. The same is true for peaches. But the plums from Woodstove and Sun produce a jam that is very like apricot. Also there are more manzanitas, which bear a little later, up on bay Street where the weird narrow park is that's dedicated to old-time Italian fishermen. Also, there are blackberries in various odd corners, naturally, and more plums at University Terrace Park, and I have the Satsuma plum tree and the apple tree.

So jam should not be difficult. Even being gone during the biggest jam month (JUly). My plums and apples come later than anybody else's.