Friday, November 15, 2013

Foolish Frugality

Our heavy frost of earlier in the week has been replaced by temperatures in the 70s and predicted to go to 80 by Sunday, so I spent some of the day carting plants back outside and discarding those left out that had frozen--vinca can easily be replaced. Everything else seems to have come through intact--even the dusty miller that Jacob insisted he had to have. We hid the Boston fern and plumbago in a sheltered corner of the porch and watered them thoroughly and while they don't look happy, they don't appear damaged.
Greg carried in my lush pot of basil for me, and I brought in the skinny one from the deck. It seemed senseless to carry them back out, because eventually they'd have to come in, and I know I'll start over in the spring with new plants. We've had about enough pesto around here so I decided to preserve the leaves, using a method I'd read about online. Blanch the cut basil in boiling water, then plunge into ice water. Dry, pull of the leaves, and freeze in a single layer. The whole process took the better part of an hour--talk about the watched pot that never boils! And want to bet I never use them? That's what I call foolish frugality.
My whole day was a foolish waste of time--thinking I had nothing to do today but pick up Jacob and keep him overnight, I piddled my way through the day and accomplished nothing. I did finish the book I was reading. Now I'm feeling more ambitious. I've made salmon cakes for supper and cleaned a small head of broccoli. After Jacob finishes his allowed time on the iPad, I'll enlist his help to pot some herb samples I got on my last trip to Origins and to make mini-muffins for the freezer.
Then I've got a manuscript to read one last time--a reader worries about the shift from past to present tense and what she/he sees as one big gap in logic. I can easily work around that but must read for tense. There is also the allusion to a possible affair between a female high school teacher and the student she coaches in both math and basketball. The reader said this had to be brought to the publisher's attention but the publisher is fine with it. One line in particular bothered the reader--the other boys were jealous just based on their suspicions. Well, come on, that's how seventeen- or eighteen-year-old male minds operate. A senior editor said she thought that line added veracity, so I feel vindicated on that score. After all, we read about this every day in the paper.
Still don't like that it gets dark so early.

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