Kitchen window with condensation. It started raining in earnest late yesterday afternoon, and although it had stopped by the time we came out of dinner, the air, as you can perhaps see, was saturated. It's cooler today, though: 85F, really not bad for July, even if the humidity is an impressive 96%. Looks as though we'll have cloud cover for most of the day, too, so it won't feel as hot as it would with the sun bearing down. I think I'll try to take a longish walk with Dora later this morning --- it seems to be misting out there now, and she's still tucked up asleep in her crate, but when we're ready, we can take the opportunity not to die of heat stroke outside.
Today's agenda:
Well, it's Friday. I've done my three Substack essays for next week (Christina Rossetti, Walter de la Mare, Emily Dickinson) and don't really need to knock myself out any more. I might do some poetry exercises, just to see what I can get going. The writing has been pretty flat of late.
And then I need to call my mother, and do various household tasks.
I'm pretty pleased with myself that, thus far, I have resisted the urge to buy clothes. I'd said I was observing a no-buy through the end of the summer, and so I have --- and I have not suffered for that one bit. My husband is always afraid that I'm oppressing myself with some kind of puritanical code of conduct, but truly. I appreciate his concern for my freedom and flourishing, which is very generous, but truly, I'm fine. I am not suffering any want whatsoever. I have no shortage of clothing, as these posts here make --- I believe --- abundantly clear. If I'm having to work to wear the dresses I have more than once every two months, then truly, I have enough dresses.
Not that I don't want more! There are always more dresses to want! Sometimes I am sorely tempted! But really.
The thing I am tempted by, as I always am at this time of year, is the idea of fall. All spring, in the variable weather, I dream of bare legs, sandals, utter simplicity. And as soon as I get that, what do I do? Start mooning after tights and boots, that's what. It's the human condition. Our hearts are restless, &c. It's kind of stupid, but what are you gonna do?
I always exclude things like tights and underwear from no-buy rules, which is good because I have, in fact, bought some tights. It pays to be ahead of the game here, because Snag sells out of things. If I'm going to want some super-opaque tights, or some cashmere footless tights, or whatever, in November, then I had better buy them now, when there's not a run on that kind of thing.
So in fact I have bought some dark-brown super-opaque tights (wish they'd had these in merino, but they didn't), to wear with the brown linen dress I wore yesterday, with my Cinnamon Rose linen dress, and various other things that might look at least as good with an earthy dark-neutral leg as they do with gray or navy. I also bought some "blood red" super-opaque tights, because I had wanted that color last year, and it was sold out. AND I bought a pair of footless cashmere tights in black, because that's the only color they carry in cashmere, and I think I might wear those a lot through the winter.
These will arrive, and I'll put them away with my other tights to wait for cold weather --- and we'll all be waiting a long time, but once it comes, I'll be ready. I should take the opportunity, too, to mend some things. I think my navy merino tights have a hole in the toe, which I meant all last winter to mend and didn't. They're otherwise in great shape, and I don't see any need to replace them --- just a little stitching, and they'll be ready to rock and roll again. NO DISPOSABLE CLOTHES!
Meanwhile, wearing today (again, per my Sunday plan):
*Secondhand Flax linen skirt, bought February 2024, last worn July 10
*Secondhand Eileen Fisher merino tank, bought January 2023, last worn (fairly briefly) July 9
*Thrifted tencel button shirt, bought December 2023
*Thrifted Crocs sandals, bought in April by the Texasgirl and given to me
I wasn't sure I'd like all the different colors going on in this outfit, but I think I do. The tank is bright, but everything else is muted enough that it seems to blend, not clash. I don't know enough about color theory, especially how registers of color work or don't work together, but to my eye, my shirt and skirt are in the same register, though they're different colors. They don't match, but green and purple are complements, and in the same rather muted register, they seem to harmonize. (ETA: green and pink are also complements, so the whole thing links up). It's okay, I think, for my tank to be more saturated and intense, to make kind of a focal point in this triad of colors. And then my sandals are a muted contrast that seems not to compete with the other colors.
That's my position, anyway, and I'm sticking with it.
Also, if Instagram is any indication, we're all posing with our coffee mugs these days, so here is mine.
Coffee mugs are IN.
Anyway. The rain seems to have stopped. I guess maybe I should do something now.
Oh, but wait! I was saying the other day that I hadn't seen many hummingbirds, but I was just buzzed by one, this very second, as I sat here in my office window. It came zooming up, hovered a minute studying me, then zoomed away. Welcome, little life! I'm glad to know you're there.
LATE AFTERNOON UPDATE:
I have
*Walked the dog twice so far
*Done a fairly lame poetic exercise
*Written some fiction (honestly, a lot of it is pasting in bits of an old draft and making them work in the new one, with new insights that I have had, but I have done some actual writing)
*Read a chapter of Don Quixote
*Finished a section of When the Going Was Good (moving now from Brazil in 1932 to Abyssinia in 1935)
*Done some bicep and tricep curls and some other reps with 5-lb weights (because I am feeling limp and lame, I tell you)
*Talked to my mother --- my travel arrangements for next weekend mean that the Artgirl and I are going to come in too late to be present for something we had initially thought we could be there for, and I am perhaps unreasonably bummed and depressed about that, but we will have a nice visit regardless
*Made the bed, re-started the dryer (no drying on the line this rainy week, no sirree), brought in the two button shirts I had reclaimed from the donation bag, washed, and hung up to dry. Do I need more clothes? No, but I might possibly have some fun wearing these before I decide, again, to get rid of them.
*Thinking about a very simple dinner, to use up as many of our existing groceries before buying more. If I still have some riced cauliflower, I might make cauliflower fritters with some red cayenne pepper sliced in thinly. Or if I don't still have riced cauliflower, it's looking a lot like omelettes.
AFTER-DINNER UPDATE:
What did I make for dinner?
I did not in fact have riced cauliflower, so that ixnayed my fritters plan . . . sort of.
What I did have were rolled oats, quinoa, and flaxseed, plus whey protein, eggs, kefir, and about a half-cup of very large blackberries off the vine.
So I used my food processor to grind the oats, quinoa, and flaxseed into flour, added two eggs, kefir, and probably easily 3/4 cup of whey protein powder (unflavored organic raw-milk whey powder --- what I could find with no sweeteners, flavors, or fillers), plus a little Neufchatel cream cheese for more body. I chopped the blackberries roughly, because most of them were really big, and added that to the batter.
Then, using a 1/4-cup measuring cup, I dolloped batter onto my cast-iron griddle, where I had melted a good amount of butter, and I fried those babies up. We had them with a little maple syrup, and they were quite good. I haven't made breakfast dinner in long, long time, but it seemed like a good idea for a Friday night when I had a lot of blackberries to use up.
In a while we're going to start rewatching Season 7 of Foyle's War --- our Comfort War, and now our Comfort Post-War Years.