"blizzard" in tucson

Tuesday afternoon Colin (along with half the city, apparently) got a notification on his phone that there was a blizzard warning for Wednesday. Facebook blew up with people laughing about it - someone, somewhere, clarified that it was for Mt. Lemmon, not the valley.

I had to force Joley to put on a long-sleeved shirt that morning. She'd been running around outside in short sleeves for at least a week.

By midday Wednesday, we weren't joking about the possibility of snow anymore, and instead there was that sort of tingling in the air - everyone kept peeking out windows at the frigid rain, hoping it had changed into flakes.

I happened to be standing by a bank of windows overlooking the cafeteria when it changed over. The kids went from huddled miserably under awnings to dancing in the open, taking pictures of themselves making silly faces with snowflakes on their heads.

I stood later in the library and watched it come down and tried to capture it on my phone. It was too wet to stick, then, and I won't subject you to those pictures, with the florescent lights suspended oddly in the sky from the reflection of the library windows.

It stopped and started perhaps four times throughout the day. These pictures were taken when I got home. The whole thing was rather surreal and magical - I've seen snow in Tucson before, once every few years or so, but never this much.

The cold rather killed the remaining oranges, though.

I'm forever fascinated by snow-lined branches and the patterns they make. It was always my favorite part of snowfalls in Flagstaff.

Sign of the imminent overheating of the earth or not, it was a lovely day.

the hummingbird tree

Joley got a bicycle for Christmas, and the first time she returned from a ride around the apartment complez with Colin she started going on and on about showing me "the hummingbird tree."

Once I took her out, I was amazed - one of the apartment complex residents has set up hummingbird feeders in several trees outside his house. It was impressive enough without the birds flying around, but we happened to be there this past Saturday evening right as the sun was setting, which was apparently prime time for hummingbird dinner.

(Forgive the poor picture quality.)

The man who monitors the feeders was outside and talked to us for several minutes. He has twenty-four feeders spread out between a few trees and the hedges across the road, and he had more last year - forty-two in total. He makes four gallons of sugar water a week to maintain the feeders, and the ratio he uses is one cup of sugar to four cups of water. He said the most hummingbirds he ever had feeding at one time was about a hundred.

It was the most incredible thing - I've never seen that many hummingbirds gathered in one place before. Some of the feeders had six or seven birds around them. They zipped from feeder to feeder, flying within inches of us, and they chirped constantly. I never even realized hummingbirds made noise beyond the buzzing of their wings.

He told us that some of the hummingbirds migrate from Central America all the way up through Canada. He pointed out the iridescent feathers on the males, and the two different species of birds that were feeding at this time of year, and he told us with a mournful face how last year when it got down to 16 degrees, he got up in the morning to find nine dead hummingbirds on the lawn.

These feeders he set up for breeding season. Apparently the males get territorial and only let the females they mate with eat from their feeder, so spreading them out like this allows everyone to have an opportunity.

It felt sort of magical, and I wanted to share it with you, especially as this man's goal in life seems to be share his hummingbirds with the world. He stands outside waiting to talk to people who pass by - as we left, he was already talking to another couple who was out for their evening exercise.

how to fake homemade spaghetti sauce

Forgive the poor photography.

I don't cook much, but there are a few things I can do really well. Breakfast is one of them. Faking homemade spaghetti sauce is another.

You need as many of the following items as you can round up:

• Sweet Italian sausage
• Jarred spaghetti sauce of your choice (I am partial to vodka sauces)
• Red wine (Chianti, Syrah, whatever's around and reasonably full-bodied)
• Veggies: tomatoes, mushrooms, tri-color bell peppers, asparagus, spinach, broccoli (frozen versions work fine if you don't have fresh handy)
• Sugar
• Olive oil
• Oregano, basil, mediterranean spice blends, salt and pepper, ground red pepper
• Minced garlic (I am lazy and use the jarred version)
• Pasta of choice (whole wheat versions are healthier!)
• Romano cheese, for garnish

I tend to buy the sausage and put it in the freezer until I need it. Put the sausage (frozen or fresh) in a large fry pan on medium heat with a quarter cup or so of water, and cover. Turn occasionally to keep from getting too brown. (You can use mild or hot sausage, but I find the flavor isn't as good. You can also start with chicken: use olive oil, salt and pepper, and basil to flavor it before adding the sauce.)

Once you can't see any raw sausage just by looking (20 minutes or so), pour in the jarred sauce. Add a few glugs of the wine (pro-tip: if you've cooked with it, a glass of it automatically goes well with the meal). Pour yourself a glass to have while you cook and feel more Italian already.

Now's a good time to put the water to boil for the pasta.

The worst part of jarred sauce is the acidity. The sugar combats this. Pour some in your hand - a tablespoon or two - and then add it to the sauce. Taste (you're using a wooden spoon just like grandma's, right?). If it's still acidic, add more.

Throw in large amounts of your chosen spices. Rub them together in your hands before you add them to make the flavor stronger. I like to add the pepper (red and black) so it's a bit kicky. I add garlic to taste, too - store sauce is never garlicky enough.

Let it simmer covered for 20-30 minutes. Add more wine or water if it starts getting too thick. Throw in your veggies now or later, depending on how crispy you want them, and put the pasta in the boiling water about ten minutes out from the sauce being done (you can always let the pot boil awhile with nothing but water in it if you didn't get the timing right).

Once the pasta's cooked, check the sausage for doneness. I always serve the pasta and the sauce separately so that people can choose how much sauce they want (put a bit of olive oil on the pasta to keep it from sticking). Garnish with finely grated Romano cheese - it's way more flavorful than that hackneyed Parmesan.

Greens with a few dashes of olive oil and balsamic vinegar go well.

If you've done it right, no one will believe you started with a jar.

things I like this week, vol. 39

I have it on good authority that this performance is entirely improv - that these dancers never choreograph a performance (unlike most professional dancers).

. . .

It's the entire text of The Great Gastby on a 20x30 poster.

. . .

My friend Bree, photographed for an article on the local brewery Borderlands. Her fiance is the brewer. Their beer (and I don't like beer) is awesome.

. . .

Angelina Jolie in an interview for Vanity Fair in 2010, talking about her kids becoming teenagers:

“I had some great advice: ‘You’ll know they’re teenagers when they close the door.’ And when they start closing the door, don’t talk to them, listen. Because there’s nothing you could say. You’re not going to be able to tell them you know better. You’re not going to be able to correct them. . . . You have to raise them right before that. Then you need to listen for a good five years, just keep your mouth closed. Just be their friend—don’t try to always tell them they’re wrong.”

. . .

 I would like to spend my entire summer like this - swimsuit, nailpolish, turban, everything. From a blogpost about American designer Claire McCardell.

. . .

There's part of me that read this article and the accompanying NPR interview and wanted to become a street musician.

. . . 

Although pianos are hard to transport and I could never be as fast-fingered as this guy.

. . .

Casey Legler, who is a woman working entirely as a male model. So awesome.

. . . 

Simple and elegant roses from a Slim Paley post . . .

 

. . . which inspired me to get these the following morning . . . 

 

. . . which looked about the way Sauvignon Republic's 2012 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc tasted, which is to say, like grapefruit and sunrise. I highly recommend it with your next brunch - it's $8 at Trader Joe's. 

saturday morning, early january

I've been cursed the last few days with a bone-crushing exhaustion and a simultaneous inability to sleep when I want to. I'm either fighting off a cold or still sleep-hungover from staying up till 5 am on New Year's.

Although I can't drift back to sleep this morning, I find myself unwilling to leave the comforting seclusion of our bedroom, and so I have been reading--a blog post about Internet hatred and an article about the Uruguayan president--while Colin and the cat sleep on beside me.

This is the sort of peace I crave: the relative quiet except for his regular breathing and the cat purring; the warmth of his limbs and torso nestled with mine; the cat curled up in a furry pile on my stomach or curved around my head on the pillow. My kid is watching Netflix in the other room, but if it's early enough, she'll drift in and rest her small head on my shoulder and sleep contentedly for an hour or two.

Even when I am mentally far away--contemplating solitary confinement or teenage suicide, reading about other people's problems to distract me from the work stress that is preventing me from going back to sleep in the first place--they are here, warm and loving, supporting me even while they dream.