med rare, please

Ever have one of those experiences that leaves you scratching your head and feeling like you just stepped out of a David Lynch film? Recently, Happy Appy and Hubby had dinner at the CNN-Omni hotel restaurant in ATL, and our experience went something like this:

Waiter: Are you ready to order?

Us: Yes, we are.

Person 1: I'll have the Prime Rib, medium rare.

Waiter: Yes, and you sir?

Hubby: I'll also have the Prime Rib, medium rare.

Waiter: Very good. And you ma'am?

Happy Appy: I will have the Lamb, medium rare.

Waiter: Oh? Really? Well ma'am, I am quite surprised. I would think you would have your meat well done.

Me: Hm?

Waiter: Well you see ma'am, in my experience, people with lighter skin gestures grandly towards the two fair-skinned, blue eyed individuals at the table order their meat rare or med rare, while.....


...and Waiter continues, encouraged by the shocked looks on our faces which he must have mistaken for interest.....


Waiter forging on: ...while people with darker skin and he looks me directly in the eye order their meat well done or med well. And this is because....


this guy is really clueless

Waiter putting his size 12 foot into his mouth: ....this is because people with darker skin were from the servant class. And we he winks at me were used to eating the leftover meat from the master's table. And so when the meat was consumed, it was well done. And this is why people with darker skin order their meat well done.

Finishes with a grand gesture and big smile, quite pleased that he can share this bit of insight with me.

Waiter: So ma'am, would you like your lamb well done?

Me after scraping my jaw up off the floor and reattaching it to my skull: Um, no. Med rare, please.

grinning like the scamp she is!

Cuppie, rescued from a basement. After more than a year of tender loving care from her new owners and her dog-brothers , Cuppie blesses us daily with her sunny disposition, frequent bossiness, and overall zest for each and every precious day she spends out of that basement!

on suffering

Long periods of well-being and comfort are in general dangerous to all. After such prolonged periods, weak souls become incapable of weathering any kind of trial. They are afraid of it. Yet it is a fact that difficult trials and sufferings can facilitate the growth of the soul. I know there is a widespread feeling that if we highly value suffering this is masochism. On the contrary, it is a significant bravery when we respect suffering and understand what burdens it places on our soul.


- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Grapehouse Daylillies

Despite a late freeze in April and no rain in June, the lillies still bloomed.

"Consider the lillies and how they grow; they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like on of these." Luke 12:27

When Your Dog is Sick....

Leave him outside. No. Matter. What.

Ordering Trees From a Catalogue

What You See:



OK, so I really didn't expect full grown trees...but 6" cuttings, barely rooted? The copy stated 3 foot trees, and I wanted 3 foot TREES!


What You Get (note the tuft of baby pampras grass in the pot next to the "tree"):

Apple Tree Deadwood

Yesterday, in the middle of a summer rainstorm which the gardens and crops desperately needed, Mr. Kuma needed to "go". Howling madly in the other room, crying like a lost child, he was difficult to ignore. Mr. Kuma is the only one of our three dogs who requires the leash - for our sanity. He has a penchant for small furry woodland creatures. And sheep. And goats. All of which co-exist peacefully with our little pack - until Mr. Kuma gets loose.

So Happy Appy engages in one of the highest acts of love a dog-owner can - a leashed walk in the middle of a late evening drenching.

Then I notice the appletree deadwood, still standing in the middle of the yard, bathed in liquid light.

Rain Rain Rain (Yay!)

This is my first serious attempt at a blog.

Happy had planned to go outside and work in my little garden, but it's (thankfully) raining. I love the sound of rain, the feel of rain, the thunder cracking across the sky. Waxing poetic over the summer storm as I am also unplugging the power cord from the mac and running it on battery power.

Hubby and Happy Appy bought this house a year ago. The original house was built in 1920-something (the newspapers on the cellar ceiling are fascinating, if you don't mind reading up-side-down). Our electrical box looks to be dated sometime in the last century - but not touched in the last four decades. Electrical box is an elevated linguistic term for the box in the cellar that houses the fuses and wires.

At first we were charmed and thought the flickering lights meant the presence of a benign ethereal house-guest, but we've since deduced that it's simply really really really old wiring.

The Grapehouse Garden Spot, before the rain: