Sunday night stuff

* I got the binding all sewn on the new quilt but it's getting overcast out, and it's not a good time to photograph. Maybe tomorrow afternoon? If the rain moves out.

* I'm not complaining about the potential for rain though. Because:
- It means we are not having a drought
- If we get decent rain tonight I don't have to wrestle the hose to water the research plots tomorrow
- It will put a damper on the homebrew fireworks shooting-off. And yeah, I admit I'm a bit of a grinch about this, but in my dense little neighborhood (where there is maybe 10' between houses), it's just not cool to listen to people shooting off fireworks in their yards - or worse, in the alley behind my house where I can hear it v. well from my bedroom.

I grew up in a state where most fireworks were illegal, and the ones you COULD buy, you were supposed to sign an affidavit saying you were taking them out of state. (That was actually one of my early introductions to the skirting of certain laws: my dad was generally law-abiding but he thought the fireworks prohibition was stupid, so he signed the affidavit but of course shot them off in our neighborhood - granted, we had far, far more land than what I and my neighbors have (we had close to an acre; most of the houses here are on 1/8 acre).

And yeah, as a rule-following and literal-minded little kid, I found that whole thing kind of agonizing. I remember my dad once jokingly telling me "Watch to be sure the cops don't come!" when he was getting ready to shoot off some bottle rockets and I remember being terrified that they would, and what would I do then? (Of course, in reality? If the cops showed up their reaction would probably be:
1. "You be careful out there, okay?"
2. "Hey, can I light one off?"
3. Maybe, if they were really having a bad day, giving my dad a written warning and telling him to stop

But I honestly thought he was going to get into big trouble. (I was also somewhat scarred by his outburst of "Do you want me to go to federal prison? Because that's what happens when you don't file your taxes!" when he was working on them and my brother and I were being loud. Yes, it scared me into silence but now as an adult I wish he had been a bit gentler about it, or at least realized how literal-minded I was as a kid and I had literal visions of him being dragged off in handcuffs and it being *all my fault.* Never mind that it's possible to file an extension, and I didn't know that until I was a tax-filling-out adult myself.)

And yes: I still have problems with the idea that there's a Permanent Record somewhere that my transgressions or failures are getting recorded in.

But anyway: most years here it's darned dry by early July, and I always worry about a stray firework starting a fire. No idea how likely that is but I still worry. (And I don't like the noise)

* I may need to look at my cookbooks again. I am hitting the doldrum point with food where little appeals to me and I can't think about what I want to cook. So I wind up eating kind of blah stuff (dinner tonight was some cheese, and a serving of that jarred red cabbage stuff, and one of the muffins leftover from the church breakfast this morning). Then I saw a "Food Paradise" program about noodles and realized I probably could have done a simple pasta with an oil, garlic, and Parmesan sauce. I could even have cooked some spinach in it - I still have some.

(I might see if Pruett's carries pancetta or prosciutto - since I have found I can eat v. small quantities of cured meat from time to time now, I could see making a pasta with prosciutto and spinach as the additions.)

What I really want is someone to cook for me. Without going to a restaurant though, that's not going to happen.

Part of it, I am sure, is that it's less appealing to cook (and eat) when it's eleventy-hundred degrees out like it is for most of the summer here. 

* I need to get back to working on the too-many-knitting-projects and finish a few. I pulled out a pair of socks ("Rosa Rugosa" from The Knitter's Curiosity Cabinet) I started over break and had tucked away. (Part of the problem is I clean stuff up - like before piano lesson - and then I forget what all I have). I need to get back to Celestarium too. I want to start new stuff but I need to finish something first, I think.