Doc

The spooky tree

Out walking on Saturday, Doc and I discovered a tree we’d never seen before. It’s right on the other side of the creek from us. I’m pretty sure it’s a mesquite tree, although it’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen. The trunk is probably 3 feet in diameter, and it’s incredibly gnarled and twisted. There are big thorns on the lower branches, but none that we could see on the upper ones. The bark is twisted too, and in some parts looks like it was shredded and then glued back haphazardly on to the branches. It’s spooky. It’s beautiful. I went back after dark and took some pictures.

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shining!

have you seen “shining”? it’s the feel-good movie of the year! a movie about a boy, looking for a dad! (let me know if the link quits working; i’ll find another) in other news, sometimes you can still surprise someone you’ve known for 11 years. a couple of weeks ago i picked up some oranges i’d bought, as we were unloading groceries, and started to juggle them in the kitchen. it shocked the hell out of doc. i mean, if you possess a skill such as juggling, even at a rudimentary level like mine, wouldn’t you think that at some point, in the 11 years you’ve known a person and in the eight or so that you’ve lived together, you would have already revealed that you possess said skill? apparently this was not the case. the good news is, even though i don’t seem to have actually juggled anything in the past 11 years, i was able to keep the oranges in the air for a good 30 seconds before i dropped one.

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bacon weevils

so the conversation went something like this: me: i love food.doc: me too. it needs to be tasty, and in my belly.me: yeah!doc: and i say a little thank you to all the tasty animals before i eat them. “thank you, mr. pork chop, for the delicious meal you are about to become.”me: “thank you, bacon!” [thinking about how we don’t call our meat by the names of the animal that it comes from, usually] “mom, where do bacons come from? do bacons live on the farm?”doc: haha! no, bacon comes from big bacon fields. they’re like big cornstalks, except instead of a cob it has two strips of bacon reaching up towards the big blue sky.me: it grows crispy??doc: well, when it starts out they’re kind of floppy and sagging towards the ground, but as the season progresses towards harvest, they crisp up and start to stand up straight. and then it’s time for the bacon harvest.me: <drool> yes, but there is one thing that the farmers must take precautions about: bacon weevils! they have to send in crop dusters.doc: they spray the fields with hickory smoke to prevent the bacon weevils. they’re not so much of a problem these days, but people have gotten used to the taste so they bacon-crop-dust now as much for the delicious hickory flavor as for the bacon weevils.katy: [trying to think of something clever but failing]doc: and all the juices and grease run down into the stalk. you can break off 6 inches of bacon stalk and walk around sucking on it.katy: like a slim jim!

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6th anniversary

doc and i have been married officially for six years, as of yesterday. and together for ten. wow. ususally, it doesn’t feel like it’s that long. i usually don’t even think about the length of time we’ve been together. i guess that is probably a good thing, that it means our marriage and our relationship is working well. not that that surprises me. 🙂 it does make me sad to think that a number of our friends have not fared so well lately. i know how lucky i am. doc is sick with some sort of icky cold. he woke up this morning and could only croak out words. i got him some nyquil and orange juice. right now i’m making a big pot of soup from chicken broth, leftover turkey, carrots, celery, and garlic. it smells great. hmmm. i’m flipping through a neighborhood coupon mailer and see an ad for garage door repairpeople, “the spring replacement specialists.” and that’s what is broken on our garage door. maybe i should call them. they’re specialists! i’m pretty sure we can’t repair a garage door on our own. in fact, we can’t even lift it and have been parking in the driveway for a few weeks. it broke as i was at work, on the phone with doc. i heard the crash sound over the phone. he walked out into the garage, saw the broken metal cord, and walked around to the front of the house, after saying that he thought maybe someone had tried to break in through the garage door. and then… the phone went dead. i couldn’t get him back on the line. i was on the verge of calling 911 when he called me back. he’d gone too far away from the phone’s base station.

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