Sudden Oak Death

My oak has fallen prey to Sudden Oak Death. Ok, that is a dramatic way of saying that I have fallen off the novelling wagon.

I diverted my attention to more enduring pursuits such as baking oatmeal cookies and making wrapping paper.

Cookies

I set out bowls of walnuts, currants and chocolate chips for the kids to personalize their cookies. And afterwards I had bowls of walnuts and currants. Some of the cookies, to my surprise, were leaking hot green goo when I took them out of the oven, like failed radioactive waste containers. I am told it was actually Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans.

You win some, you lose some.

Paper

Making the wrapping paper was unbelievably satisfying.

I ordered large art portfolio folders from Amazon. Never mind Sudden Oak Death, the shipping of these folders required the ritual sacrifice of an entire forest. These flat folders, ordered at the same time, arrived in two separate appliance-sized boxes. The empty space was filled up with yards of crumpled brown paper, which did not keep the folders from being bent. I kept the paper. If I recycled it I'd have to do some sort of confession and atonement.

And today we made a whole roll of wrapping paper with sponges and paint. I left it out all day, and as it dried I'd roll up the painted part and unroll the unpainted part onto the table.

There were no rules. Except maybe that the dry part of the sponge goes toward your hand and the painty part goes toward the paper.

I admit that I did more painting than anyone else.

It is kinda satisfying to express your creativity on paper in a way that is meant to be torn up and thrown away.

100

I am squeezing out my Nanowrimo words 100 at a time. Detail by tiny detail.

I did manage to eke out 1400 words this way while driving to and from a hike in Sunol Regional Wilderness.

We hiked the Indian Joe Creek trail to the Cave Rocks.

Evelyn and I have to have our hobbies so we don't feel idle while on a hike.

She ran ahead to work on boring holes in rocks with her pocket knife and I lagged behind to take photos.

Greta was trying to be in front for a while. She kept saying, "I'm the leader!" and trying to block her sisters with her stick. Eventually Ev, Clem and finally, even Mike got past her. Instead of crying she said, "I am the leader of the way back! And that means mom."

My macro lens forces me to look at little things with as much interest as big things.

I was on a hunt for pale green points and new mushrooms. I also particularly like seeds growing out of cow pies--that whole circle of life thing.

And tracks. And bones. I hit pay dirt with a very clear dog paw print in a cow pie with pale green points sticking up out of it.

Clem found a sheep knucklebone. She had learned earlier in the week how to use one to hold the top of stick in place when you are spinning the stick with a bow to start a fire.

Look how well it fits the hand and there is that indentation in the middle for the stick.

I brought along my notebook in case I was inspired to write 100 words on the trail.

I was. But not 100 words of my novel. I remembered the 100 Species Challenge. I thought we might be close to knowing 100 plant species that grow nearby already. Evelyn read Edible and Useful Plants of the West cover to cover and the kids have taken a lot of nature classes.

The other day in the car on the way to a class they were trying to name every plant as it passed. Eucalyptus, coyote brush, eucalyptus, madrone, coyote brush, redwood, coyote brush, oak.

So I took out a notebook and we began to write down the names of plants we could identify.

I love plant names, ever since I sang parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme as a kid. You don't even have to know what they are to enjoy the sound of their names.

Here is our list: Poison oak, blackberry, bay, sycamore, oak, mistletoe, huckleberry, coyote brush, stinging nettle, hemlock, miner's lettuce, manzanita, madrone, thistle, redwood, soaproot, duckweed, wood fern, sword fern, buckeye, sage, willow, cordgrass, hazel, snowberry, chinquapin, monkeyflower, gingko, pine, sourgrass, mexican bush sage, maple, magnolia, jacaranda, rosemary, wild cucumber, gumball, horsetail, bamboo, palm, cottonwood, aspen, birch, cattail, tule, oleander, holly, eucalyptus, california pepper, walnut, juniper, poppy, forget-me-not, mule ear, lambs ear, ivy, nasturtium, bougainvillea, camilia, yarrow, dandelions.

We didn't hit 100, and I didn't get enough 100 words done to hit my goal for the day. But I did hit a milestone. I cut and pasted my new material into the rough draft. I'm violating both the letter and the spirit of Nanowrimo this year by continuing the book I started last year.

Last year I was a winner.

I hit 50,000. There was a harrowing hour after I uploaded my text and discovered that the Nanowrimo website counted 49,650 and I had to pound out 350 more before the deadline, but I did it.

I've been working on the draft over the last year, except when I wasn't. And even though I've been falling short and not getting in enough 100 word chunks every day, yesterday I hit a milestone: one thousand 100s. In other words, 100,000 words.

So does the acorn grow into the oak.

An oak sorely in need of shaping and pruning. Next month I'll bring out the editing shears.

Ancestor Supper

We ate our traditional Ancestor Supper a day late, on Nov. 2, this year. We celebrate our ancestors by eating foods they liked and telling stories about them. On Nov. 1 we were too beat to cook and Mike declared that our ancestors ate Thai takeout and drank Belgian ale.

But we decided to have another go at it on the 2nd. It's a laid-back celebration, or can be.

We got the idea from my friend Maria. If I remember correctly one of her ancestors liked Fresca, so they share a can of as part of the festivities. I like the easygoing spirit of this holiday. The food doesn't have to be fancy, just meaningful.

Last year we invited a friend to join us. He brought a 6-pack of Heineken in memory of his dad. We had a small glass of Heineken each and a martini onion for my mom's dad, Albert Edward Payne, who used to fish the small onions out of his martini, suck them dry and then give them to us to eat.

This year one of our ancestors cooked the dinner. My mom. And she made it fancy. A real feast: roast chicken with stuffing and gravy, baked potatoes and sweet potatoes, broccoli, crab cakes, sad cakes, and rice pudding.

My mom's mom, Ruby Payne, as a child in Liverpool, took a baked potato to school for lunch in winter. Mom tells us that in the morning Ruby put the hot potato in her pocket to warm her hands on the way to school. At lunch she'd eat the potato, plain and cold.

It wasn't much of a lunch.

Her stomach must have been empty and her shoes were too full. Walking to school in those tight shoes permanently deformed her toes. I remember marveling at the toes and the story as a child.

As mom was telling the potato story Clementine took a baked potato out of the bowl and gave it an experimental bite.

For my mom's dad this year we had rice pudding. I remember him making it. But mom recalled that he liked to stir it several times during baking so the browned milk skin that forms on the top got well mixed in. I called Clem away from a movie to stir the rice into the evaporated milk. Tonight when I served the pudding (we were too full last night!) she said, "This is the one I helped make, isn't it? Oh, I want some!"

Mom made sad cakes with her 5 grandkids. Pastry dough with currants, sugar and a squeeze of lemon in the middle. I loved seeing the gran hands with the grandchildren hands making a recipe that the kids' great grandma Ruby learned from their great great grandma Maria. Clem and Greta and their cousins, Amelia and Elliot, made their sad cakes with currants. But Evelyn brought home two handfuls of huckleberries from Huckleberry Botanic Preserve.

My friend Maria's grandfather's twin brother helped found Huckleberry Preserve. Thanks, Maria and your ancestors, for the park, and a cherished family tradition. Wish we could have saved some Huckleberry sad cake for you, but it went fast.

The Man Ate the Chocolate

Nanowrimo is here, so everyone is typing and scribbling. Evelyn is gloating that she has written 908 words and I have only 769 when I am supposed to have 1,666 from yesterday and be well into today's 1,666.

Even Greta is writing. She dictated this story to her Gran.

The Man Ate the Chocolate
By Greta

There was a piece of chocolate called Hersheys, but it is called milk chocolate. But its name is Hersheys. Hersheys was talking to a pumpkin and a cat bit off his head.


Then a man said to the cat, "Don't eat that chocolate. Because I want to eat that chocolate."


Hersheys put on a new chocolate head and the man ate him all up. He was gone now.


But the pumpkin rolled on and on. The man catched the pumpkin and wen tto his home and carved the pumpkin. It was Halloween! He put a candle in it.


He lighted the candle so everyone could see the alien face. Then he got a plastic pumpkin and went trick or treating. He knocked on everyone's door and he got candy.


They were surprised to see a man. He said, "Thank you and Happy Halloween, Tree House!"

The End

Evelyn set a goal of 12,000 words.
Clementine set a goal of 1,000 words. She wrote 200 today.
As a grown-up I don't get to choose my goal. So 50,000 for me.

And I can't count blog entries.

I Love This!

Greta ran back from the fifth or sixth house and shouted out, "I'm Greta and I'm three and I love this! I love Trick or Treating!"

Candy still is the closest thing to pure joy for her.

Ev and Clem's Aunt Jenny and Uncle Chris sent a box of candy. In it were Pez dispensers and Pez candies. Maybe by confused association with Tic Tacs Greta called the Pez "Lunatics". The four of us were reading in bed and Greta spilled her candy.


"There are lunatics in the bed! I need more lunatics!"


Ev and Clem and I couldn't stop laughing like lunatics. Clem was howling, "She thinks the Pez are lunatics."

"Ok," Greta said grudgingly, "I'll call the lunatics Pegs."

We carved pumpkins at my sister's house and mom came down from Tahoe to Trick or Treat.

Greta was a fairy princess, so in other words, no costume. She told everyone she was the most beautifulest.

Clem was a Nac Mac Feegle. Treat yourself to The Wee Free Men on CD if you haven't already. We are forever grateful to Stefani for turning us on to Terry Pratchett.



As for Evelyn--her Nevermore sign fell apart at Park Day and she didn't get around to making another one. But she still cut a fine figure, even if her Uncle thought her costume was Mainway Novelties' Invisible Pedestrian.



Evelyn's favorite part of The Raven:

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

I was remembering how much fun it was to go to school on Halloween and feeling a little sorry that the kids were missing out on that. But I was told by many moms that kids aren't allowed to wear costumes at school anymore.