Daily Archives: 3 May 2007

Thursday Thirteen – 0705.03

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Thirteen Things about MissMeliss

13 Things That Begin with E

  1. Earl Grey: I was drinking this tea long before I ever saw Captain Picard make his trademark replicator order of “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” I like that you can smell the bergamot in it as the leaves first begin to steep, and I like that it’s strong, and distinctive, and still more refined than say, Lipton’s Orange Pekoe. I take mine with milk and sugar.
  2. Easter Eggs: As a very small girl, one of my favorite things to do was color Easter Eggs with my mother. I have such vivid memories of watching the tablets from the Paas kits fizzing away in their vinegar water, of dye-stained fingertips, and of the magic you can do with a white crayon and a little bit of patience. I didn’t color eggs this year, because it felt silly to do it just for me, and I really wish I had. But I like Easter Eggs of another sort as well – the surprises that you find on a DVD if you play with the menus enough. While these are often just credits, sometimes they’re pretty cool little digital trinkets.
  3. Echoes: Acoustic magic. Enough said.
  4. Ectoplasm: This comes up because I’m dabbling in a story about a romance between a human and a ghost (well, poltergeist) but it’s always been an intriguing word to me. It rolls of the tongue so readily, carrying with it an air of mystery and a spark of something sinister.
  5. Education: Formal or not, education is crucial. I don’t believe that all answers are found sitting in a college classroom. Personally, I felt stifled in school, even among the “gifted” kids. It’s not an environment in which I ever thrived, or could thrive. But I read constantly, I try to stretch myself (improv, writing, exploring places), and I have no patience for stupid people. Ignorance, after all, is curable. Stupidity is not. It’s more than just knowledge though. Education extends to cultural awareness. I think it’s the height of arrogance, for example, to visit another country and not at least attempt to learn and use the local language – I’ve seen so many of my parents’ ex-pat friends who refuse to learn Spanish, and it frustrates me.
  6. Eggplant: I think you have to be Italian to truly appreciate the eggplant. Oval, and delightfully purple outside, cool green and pale ecru inside, the eggplant is a fleshy vegetable that offers a distinctive flavor. Breaded and fried for parmegianni, or chopped up and stewed into ratatouille or caponata, it’s a taste I grew up with, and one of those things that just equals “home” to me. Also, love the color. Eggplant purple always makes me smile.
  7. Elderberry Wine: Robert, this one’s for you: “Well, dear, for a gallon of elderberry wine, I take one teaspoon full of arsenic, then add half a teaspoon full of strychnine, and then just a pinch of cyanide.” — Aunt Martha, in Arsenic and Old Lace.
  8. Electronics:Give me my Zen, my laptop, my cell phone, or knock me unconscious. Electronic toys are my second most favorite playthings. (The absolute favorite is words.)
  9. Elements: In the weather sense of the word. I like weather, for the most part, when it is wild – wind, rain, that sort of thing, but there’s something to be appreciated in a hot sunny day, as well. In the more traditional sense – earth, water, air, fire – it’s all about balance. I could use more of that.
  10. Email: Nothing – NOTHING – is better than an actual snailmail letter, but email is fabulous in its own right. I love the immediacy of it. I love that it costs next to nothing. And I love that it doesn’t waste paper.
  11. English Muffins:Technically, I suppose, there’s nothing English about them, but these wonderful breakfast breads, toasted to crunchy perfection and slathered with butter and maybe a little marmalade, are one of my edible guilty pleasures. I love the sourdough version, but the raisin kind, with sharp cheddar cheese melted on them, are great for an afternoon snack on a rainy day. Also, they go great with Earl Grey tea.
  12. Entertaining: Whether it’s hosting a dinner party or playing on stage, I get a kick out of entertaining. It doesn’t have to be “funny” either – a story can still entertain when it’s dark, after all.
  13. Erasure: Erasure’s music was an integral part of my college experience. Truly. To this day, they’re tunes are scattered among the files on my Zen, and on my hard drive, and I have a couple cd’s of theirs as well. Kicky electro-pop with a ‘tude is always welcome on my playlist.

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Rambling

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Sometimes, you just have to ramble.

I was up with the birds today. I’d say “up with the sun” but as we haven’t seen it in days, I’m hesitant to use that phrase. Fuzzy had an early meeting, and I had a project to finish – it’s now essentially finished, and since it was the project from hell, I’m glad to have it behind me. I’ve been whining about it for two weeks.

My lungs and head have been feeling pressured all day, and finally around five when the tornado warning was announced (yes, another one), I realized it was a reaction to the atmosphere. Rain, wind, thunder lightning. I used to love these things – I still love these thing – but my head and lungs don’t agree today.

By 6:30 or so I was convinced we’d get nothing – the warning had expired, we were down to a watch. And then the leading edge hit – winds clocked at almost 100 mph, driving rain in voluminous quantities – another half inch and my pool would have been overflowing – and the screechy sound of things sliding around outside.

As I wrote in my LiveJournal, I’m not generally afraid of weather, and, in fact, once the very worst was over, I was out snapping pix of the lightning through the rain – a ghostly image – water flickering blue and silver – the power had flickered off briefly a couple times, my cell had no signal – and mostly I was enjoying the storm, but there were moments when I was convinced the windows were going to implode. (Why yes, I was standing at the 2nd story window, watching the mayhem. It’s not like the actual tornado SIRENS were going off.)

After everything settled, I went outside. (It’s still raining, even now, still flashing lightning and rumbling thunder, but it’s just a rainstorm now, not a threat. Does that make sense?) The deck chairs were scattered across the yard. One was almost into the pool, its ottoman already submerged. We’ll fish it out in the morning – it’s too dark and cold and slimy to deal with tonight. Not that the pool is slimy – it’s just…well…it’s a Fuzzy-job and he didn’t get home til 10.

When he did get home he brought with him a steak for me, and stories of seeing a semi flipped over on top of a car, and the news that two of our trees were no longer trees, exactly. The peach tree was bent in half, and broken, one of the plums had been sheared off at ground level. And I mean sheared. A chainsaw could not have made a cleaner cut. We drove a circuit of the neighborhood, and then came home and I ate steak while we watched Lost.

Fuzzy had already eaten, with clients.

And now? Now I’m tired, and my head still hurts and I am going to turn off the lights and watch the lightning until I fall asleep.