Tag Archives: awesome

Starting a New Category: Foster

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The failure of our nation to take care of the people living here leads to an inevitable crisis for animals. Around here shelters are overwhelmed, and people who have lost their homes sometimes have no choice but to turn the animals loose on the streets.

Even if a family manages to retain their home, they can’t afford the cost of spaying and neutering their fuzzy companions, and suddenly they have a litter of puppies to deal with.

The solution to this problem is a fundamental shift in the way wealth is distributed in our society. In the meantime, there are wonderful dogs that need homes.

I wrote here about Winston, a pup we were fostering (and marketing) who has found his forever home. That road was bumpier than we thought it would be, but he is in a good place now.

After that we started working with a local rescue, Adopt My Block. Dan, the frontman for the operation, is a tireless lover of dogs who genuinely understands that helping your neighbors is a good thing. He spends his days delivering help to people who need a boost to care for their beloved pet, and to providing financial support for getting the dogs fixed. It started on his block in San Jose, and has grown to be a terrific force for animal welfare.

They are a rescue, as well, and they pull at-risk dogs from the local shelters, and help bring dogs into a safe place before they even reach the shelters. If you want to support boots-on-the-ground animal welfare, you can’t do much better than Adopt My Block (503(c)).

Riding shotgun with Dan right now is a chihuahua-pug named Billy. He lived chez Muddle for a while and I have no idea why he hasn’t been adopted yet. He is lanky and tan, with glam eyeliner and a curly tail.

His energy and love cannot be reproduced by science. He loves children, he loves other dogs. There’s a ten-year-old kid out there who will love this guy so hard it hurts. And he will pay it back double.

We hosted Billy for a couple of months, and while we did not get to experience the final hand-off to his new home, we got to see him develop from a dog who is afraid of the sky (long story) into a fine and happy pup, ready for anything.

That transitional period may be our role, and I’m down with that, Giving stressed-out dogs with behavioral issues a place to just relax and learn to trust agin. Probably when they are ready, like Billy, they go back into the focus and promotion that Adopt My Block provides.

I’m telling you right now — Billy (you don’t have to retain the name) is an exceptional dog. Just adopt him already!

But now we turn to Stripes. (You really don’t have to keep the name.)

He comes from the same overwhelmed home Billy did. He is smaller; he tips the scales at about 8.5 pounds.

What a handsome fellow! It’s been a month and the little guy doesn’t trust me fully yet. On the couch after dinner, he will flop over me and wriggle in delight to the scritchens and rubbins. At pretty much any other time, I am not allowed to touch him. This is an ongoing thing, and it’s how we can help him.

One thing in my favor: I can throw a ball. This guy loves fetch. Chasing down the ball, maybe catching it in the air(!), and bringing it back for another throw is what life is all about. Some dogs are coy when they get back with the ball, playing possession games, but Stripes just drops it in the location he would prefer the next throw to come from and leaves the rest to me. He is the most pure fetch machine I’ve ever met.

We rented a space through SniffSpot to give him more room to chase, and let me tell you, that little guy can motor.

Today we took Stripes to a local park and there were many people and many other dogs and he was great! He’s still cagey about people getting too close (except for Francisco), but that is OK. You could adopt him today if you are all right with the gradual trust process. Honestly, that might always be a thing with this guy. But when you have that trust, you have a little buddy who will be by your side through thick and thin.

Sometimes a dog who is a problem in the shelter just needs a little time and space to remember what it means to be a dog, and how awesome that is. I think, for now, that is our role. Giving pups protection and love until they are ready to meet their forever family.

If you want to follow the dogs we foster, on instagram it’s Gilfoyle’s pack. Tune in, root for the dogs, and help spread their message. Especially the latter part – anything you do to expand the reach of the channel will put you squarely in the running for sainthood. If you’re into that kind of thing. Either way, it’s for the good dogs.

In this age of constant noise, I’m giving you permission to be a little bit louder about something that matters. Be a little louder for the creatures (and people!) who can’t be loud for themselves.

And adopt one of these great guys. The link again: Adopt My Block. If you don’t have room right now for a new dog, you can still slide them a few bucks to acknowledge that what they do goes far beyond an ordinary rescue. They are on the streets supporting families so their canine pals are secure and fed.

Animal welfare begins with human welfare. If you don’t feel inclined to support a dog-related cause, maybe find one that helps humans directly. There are plenty! For the love of Jesus, for the love of Buddha, for the love of the capitalist illusion that a rising tide that floats all boats, find a way to be good.

Be good. And adopt one of these fine fellows, already.

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62 and Counting

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It’s my birthday today! I’m 62. Just look at the awesome Dino-age volcano cake the Official Sweetie made!

There was a while where birthdays didn’t mean so much. Another day older and closer to death, as the kids say. A wise friend of mine refuted that idea a long time ago; he reframed the idea not as getting closer to death, but to chalking up another day of life.

I appreciated that outlook, and I mostly lived it, but having incurable (but under control) cancer makes me appreciate each day, each week (as Official Sweetie and I reload my meds) and especially each year as gifts to be celebrated.

I am here. The barbarians are far from the gates right now, but they are out in the woods somewhere. My outcome from the cancer therapy puts me way out on the good end of things. I’m busting the curve. Just yesterday I saw that my PSA remains undetectable. One of my doctors said he hadn’t seen numbers like mine before, when the cancer was in the bones.

Birthdays mean a little more now. The medications I take guarantee that life will never be what it was before. But this morning I said “Elevator Ocelot Rutabaga” and welcomed another muddled year.

Thank you all who have wished me well. I hope the new muddled year brings you happiness. Your support, from near and far, means the world to me.

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Artemis

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To say that the Apollo missions were formative to who I am now is an understatement. Of course the visceral response to a mighty rocket taking off was cool, but the tension of the first landing, imperfectly conveyed over the television, taught me lessons about technology, engineering, and bravery.

I had One Small Step pajamas; I had a banner with Snoopy on the moon, arms stretched wide, declaring “The Moon is Made of American Cheese.” I was stupid to the jingoism in the banner; I was super-stoked by the idea of my favorite cartoon dog being on the moon.

I watched today’s launch with similar wonder and anticipation. There was a shot, at roughly T minus 2:00, where they showed the nozzles of the four engines pivoting, that my preteen-space-geek and my jaded-engineer self met in a moment of wonder. They can adjust the trajectory! It would be like steering with the rear wheels of a car. Can you imagine how that moving mount can operate while under eleventy-billion meganewtons of thrust? The friction must be insane! Can you imagine software needed to control it?

I remember that same shot, back in 1969, of the engine nozzles, ready for 120 seconds of glory (don’t quote that number). I was almost vibrating with the anticipation of those mighty rockets blasting off the pad. I’m older now, but apparently I have not lost that joy.

Honestly, compared to the space shuttle, this was pretty simple. But the countdown was frozen at ten minutes when I tuned in, I think by design. I listened as each lead said “go”. I felt the excitement build in the control room. That excitement can be toxic; it will make people who want to say no say yes instead.

All the team heads said go, and the clock began ticking down. At about 33 seconds before launch the commentator said, (something like) “control has been passed to the vehicle.” The rocket was now in charge of launching itself.

It did.

Just as when I was a child, I watched the massive rocket ride a pillar of fire into the sky, and when it was a mere fiery dot, I wished for better cameras. Cameras on the rocket itself, sending data back to Earth in a way not possible last time, helped to fill that hole.

Thousands of rockets have launched since back then. Probably over a hundred with people on them. But this one is going to the moon. It’s different. Apparently the moon is not interesting enough for intrepid robot explorers like the ones we set loose on Mars. It a place for people to go, for humans to leave footprints that will outlive humanity itself.

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Lady Byng, ? – 2025

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I love all dogs. I’ve been blessed in my life to share a home with many of them, from the very gentle 80-plus-pound pittie Chiquita, the kindest and gentlest soul to walk the Earth, to the 5 pounds of nervous chihuahua energy that was Spike. They were all the best dogs, and I mourned their passing.

But Byng was different. She chose me. The Official Sweetie and I were at the shelter, and she was in a cage at the end of the row. I stuck my fingers through the bars to scritch her head, and she pressed up hard against the metal to make it as easy as possible for me. But I couldn’t stay all day there. When I stopped, she looked up at me and put her little paw through the bars, and put her hook through my heart. You can’t possibly be done. She was right. We brought her home.

At the shelter they called her Beyoncé, but that was not who this little girl was. We named her Lady Byng, after the hockey award for a player with high skill who doesn’t get penalties. NHL’s Miss Congeniality. Sometimes it seemed the name didn’t fit: while she was always graceful, and a fierce competitor, I think she might have spent some time in the penalty box for teaching puppies how things work in this league.

She chose me, and I was hers. And only hers. At the dog park, I was popular among the canine population. Always ready to play chase, or throw a ball, or just to give some good, solid, lovin’. A few other dogs would rush to greet me when we arrived. But if Byng felt like I might like another dog a little too much, intervention was called for. If I threw a ball and another dog chased it, she would head that dog off on their return path with teeth bared to prevent them from bringing the ball back so I could throw it again.

She had no patience for amateur dogs. Puppies and whatnot. At the park she was the schoolmarm and would brook no impertinence, no matter the size of the other dog. Great Dane? Sit your ass down, kid. Other people there would laugh and thank Lady Byng for educating their dogs. “Respect the lady, Diesel.”

At home, there were other dogs, and she was fine with them as long as she was closer to me than they were. I was hers, and she shared only grudgingly.

She had been living on the streets before she was captured and brought to the shelter. Having been hungry, she was world-class at figuring out how to get food. We started teaching her tricks, and she could jump, run, weave, or dance her way to a treat. Always at breakneck speed — and I mean that literally; we had to take “roll over” off the trick sheet because she would throw herself over so violently while keeping an eye on the reward that she would injure herself.

But the best times were the quiet ones, when my restless hands scritched her noggin, and her back, and then she would use her paw to guide my hand to her belly. The belly! Belly rubs were the best of all rubs. A good rubbin’ on a full belly was all she asked for out of life, and what she worked her whole life to achieve, and in return she gave joy and (in her mind) protection. She was Daddy’s Little Girl, no doubt about that. I thought sometimes I was going to rub the fur off her belly.

When I go to work tomorrow, I will not ask Lady Byng to take care of mommy, the way I have for the last twelve years.

I don’t want to talk here about the last weeks. There were ups and downs, and then it was over. I hope, but I can never know, that she knew it was me holding her and scritching her at the end. “She’s gone,” the vet said.

But she’s not gone. She is everywhere in this house, though that will slowly fade. Right now, reminders are everywhere. I cried when I poured out her water bowl this morning. But she won’t really be gone until I am gone, and all the other humans she has charmed are gone.

It is simpler when you are a dog; there is no urge to Be Remembered. No need to erect a monument with your name and a couple of numbers on it, to be sniffed at by other dogs. Our pack has done miles in the nearby cemetery, and while the humans read the monuments and consider their mortality, the canines just sniff, and march, and pee, and have a good ol’ time.

She would dance when we opened the fireplace, and the moment her red velvet pillow was ready she would settle in (as fast as possible) to quietly enjoy the radiant heat of the fire. I think, now, that wherever I see a hearth, I will also see a red velvet pillow.

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Winston Needs a Home

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The official Sweetie of Muddled Ramblings and Half-Baked Ideas has a heart the size of a planet. She monitors the web site of the shelter across the street to see if there is a neglected dog with special needs, that no one would ever adopt. She bonds with those dogs, sight unseen, because she is empathetic and she wants all living things to be happy.

Winston, honestly, sounded pretty dire. Half of his legs didn’t work. His mobility was forever impaired (spoiler… I just took a break from typing this to have a very kinetic funtime with that poor immobile guy), and he had other issues as well. His weight was listed at 10 pounds, which made him an ideal subordinate for Lady Byng, our dog in residence.

It has not worked out that way, but for the best of reasons. Winston has put on some weight, he can run (if you ignore the occasional face-plant as effortlessly as he does), and he loves people. Big dogs, not so much.

He is a people-pleasin’ bundle of fun, and it breaks my heart that he and Lady Byng don’t get along. But that’s the way in the canine world.

Can you seriously say no to this guy? No, you cannot.

He has some special needs: he has seizures, but Official Sources to Muddled Ramblings and Half-Baked Ideas assert that while they are really effin’ scary for the humans who love him, that he should be OK.

He also hates big dogs. I blame the other dogs for being too big.

Winston loves to play, and in that photo you see Rope. He has Rope. You do not. You want to tug about it? He is ready to tug.

Someone out there needs Winston in their life. Please, for the sake of everyone, help us find that person.

Oh, dang! I forgot to tell y’all how to meet and/or adopt the little guy. To spread the word to your friends, https://www.instagram.com/whataboutwinston_sj/ is his very own instagram account filled with more amazing pics of Winston, along with the contact details with the shelter. Spread this far and wide!

Seriously, whatever you are doing now, stop that and share that link wherever you do social stuff.

If you’re all fired up and ready to meet him yourself, this link will get you to Winston, with all his details.

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So, I Cooked a Thing

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I love a good chile relleno. But even in New Mexico, the experience of a truly great relleno is rare. Much of the time it’s all cheese and fryer-grease and does not celebrate the magic of the chile itself. What you want to taste is the chile, with a supporting cast. Not just some greasy cheese bomb.

I have been thinking about this for a long time. Thinking that I could put a little grace note on a few hundred years of tradition. I thought (and actually still think) that I can make the best relleno ever.

Where I grew up, the chile relleno was the measure of the restaurant. Easy to make a good one, brutally difficult to make a great one. I worked in the pizza biz.

Recently I found myself at a farmers market and there on a table presided over by a friendly family were some big, fat poblano peppers, gentle and capacious, just begging to be stuffed. Suddenly I declared, “I will make chile rellenos.” I chose two poblanos and found soft cheese at another stall, and my fate was sealed. I would be cooking beyond my ability.

I started with a definition of goals:

  • lighter: the outer coating can’t be heavy with oil; the stuffing must be more dynamic than just a chunk of cheese.

Huh. Sometimes you start making a list only to realize there is only one thing on it. For a long time I have imagined the perfect relleno: a magnificent pepper, stuffed with cheese and whatnot, and fried in a light, crackly, tempura batter.

Then came the air fryer, and the hope of a newer, even more awesome relleno was born. I am not a chef. I am not someone you should take food advice from, unless it’s about over-easy eggs, but I have some things to say about chile rellenos.

I made air-fried chile rellenos with a fun (not)-meat and cheese stuffing, in a tempura batter. It was an adventure, and mistakes were made. Lessons learned, and whatnot. The result was not the best relleno I ever ate (not even close!), but it carried with it the promise of being the best.

First step: roast and peel the peppers. The classic method is to roast them over open flame until the skin blackens, then peel. There’s no open flame in our kitchen, but the air fryer (or a convection oven) is an excellent tool for this job. After a few minutes on maximum heat, I pulled them out and put them in a bowl sealed with cling film to let them sweat for fifteen minutes. The outer peel was ready to jump right off!

Two fat poblanos, one peeled, the other ready.

While they were sweating, so was I. I didn’t just want cheese in the stuffing. I loves me some cheese, but good food needs balance. My support crew set me up with some Impossible meat — it acts a lot like beef, but is made from plants. I browned that up and seasoned it gently with paprika and a little cayenne. I accidentally nailed the seasoning; the spice was subtle and slow.

The soft cheese we got at the farmer’s market was also excellent. It was time to stuff some peppers!

Looking promising! Immediately after I took this pic I added more cheese. Man, that was some good cheese.

I probably should not have cut the peppers all the way open like that, even though I saw instructions online that did it that way. Or maybe I just put in too much filling. Is that a thing? Anyway, some big ol’ chunks of cheese and the seasoned meat and it was time to (air) fry.

I had also read that you don’t mix up tempura batter until right before you are ready to use it.

Mis en place for the batter

The thing about tempura, apparently, is keeping the gluten from getting all worked up. There are a lot of strategies for this: use flour with less gluten, keep the water cold, and substitute vodka for some of the water.

This is where I made my biggest mistake. The instructions clearly said to whip the egg in the bowl before adding all the other stuff. I did not do that. My sources also said that I should make sure not to overbeat the mixture after the flour was added. Gluten again. I was too shy about getting in there and whipping the egg into the mix after the fact of my mistake, so my “batter” was runny and the egg was not fully integrated.

I dipped my peppers into the mix and not much stuck. A bit did, though, so I laid them incision-up in the air fryer. Meanwhile, my coach went to work on the batter and got it closer to the proper consistency. There was no getting the peppers out and re-dipping, though, so I periodically spooned more batter on top of the peppers as they cooked.

You could argue, I suppose, that my “special recipe” is supposed to look like that…
Spanish rice, chile relleno, and cooling cantaloupe.

They were… not the greatest chile rellinos ever. The first disappointment was the pepper itself — too sweet! Not much spice at all. They were tasty, but not the vehicles for a savory dish. The blobs of cheese didn’t get as melty as I would have liked. That is probably due to the very large volume of the peppers; it takes a long time to get up to temperature in the middle. The batter… well, you see it up there. I’ll get that better next time.

They were also, by a long, long way, not the worst chile rellinos I have ever had, and quite possibly they were the healthiest. I got close enough to my ideal to validate it, even if I wasn’t actually that close.

The Official Sweetie of Muddled Ramblings and Half-Baked Ideas declared them the best she had ever had. They were also the first she had ever had. My top ranking has held up, however, in comparison to rellinos we got at a restaurant, though our criticism of the professional food diverged.

Tases diverge, and that’s awesome. I once postulated opening a chile-rellino-focussed restaurant that would allow the patron to choose the pepper (hot to mild, different flavors), the filling, and the batter from lists of options. I would choose a hotter pepper than OSMRHBI, but we would both choose a filling with seasoned not-meat to accompany the cheese. BRAIN FLASH! JUST RIGHT NOW AS I WAS TYPING! Use those lovely sweet poblanos for dessert rellinos!

After all these years it still seems like an excellent way to get poor quickly. Even better if someone else runs it and I just get to eat there.

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Two Subversive Things I Saw Today

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A story about a young snow reporter headed for greatness: Special Vermont Resistance Edition

A country music video with Willie and some glam guy singin’ about how it’s OK to be queer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BirJMnMcfBs

Carry on, comrades.

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A Good Day for Hot Chocolate

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Many Christmas gifts combined for a festive and warm beverage.

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Good Night, Jimmy

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Flags are at half-mast today, recognizing the passing of the greatest former president this country has known.

He was a politician from the South, and he was not perfect. His wife Rosalyn snapped him back to the path of righteousness, and he never forgot that.

His presidency was marred by his desire to do what was best for the little guy. He wanted working people to have good lives. A doomed enterprise from the start. But when his presidency was torpedoed by Ronald Reagan illegally negotiating with the Iranians (seriously, it was a flagrant disregard of our laws), he was forced from the presidency and in that moment he found true greatness.

It is probably not possible to count the number of homes people live in now that he personally helped build. It is not possible to measure the effect Jimmy Carter had on democracy in other nations as an election observer.

Jimmy Carter deserves his rest now. There will not be another like him in US Politics, and more’s the shame, even if he proved why someone like him should not be president.

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The Good Life

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Nothing like brushing the snow off a table and sitting down for a local brew.

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A Memory of a Funny Man

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Back when I was studying Physics at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (they have since simplified the name), I took more than one class led by Albert Petschek. The school’s physics program was well-respected back then, in part because more than one McCarthy refugee found their way to the faculty.

Albert, it seemed to me, spent most of his time in his barren little office with the lights turned off, just thinking. Then he would publish a paper. That is obviously an oversimplification, but there is no denying that Albert was a really smart guy.

Early on I noticed that during his lectures, he would pause sometimes, maybe after describing the math of heat flux, and scan the class while holding an inscrutable face.

Then one time, perhaps in my junior year, he paused and I laughed. I was the only one, and Albert beamed at me. I had got his joke. This whole time the dude had been doing stand-up, but you needed to understand thermodynamics or quantum electrodynamics to get the joke.

Later I heard him say, “My brother is the smart one, but I am the witty one.” He said it with a smile, like that itself was a joke.

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Changing Habits

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Recently I have fallen into a disturbing pattern: work harder than I should, get fried, and play computer games for a couple of days to recover. Fall behind at work, and repeat.

In this cycle you will not find “exercise”, “write”, or “be otherwise creative”. It’s a bad cycle.

Meanwhile, if it weren’t for a massive back spasm I had a year ago and the ensuing tests, I’d be in a very bad place now, mortality-wise.

I’m alive; the barbarians will return to the gate someday, but right now they are deep in the woods. But they will be back, and in the meantime I can’t be spending my life staring at a computer screen clicking on beautiful graphics to the benefit of no one.

I’ve been on the bike a few times since chemo; 15 miles is (usually) not too bad. And hey, that’s how far I have to ride to get to work! If I can’t consistently carve out time to ride, I can repurpose time I already spend commuting. (I still don’t go into the office very often, but that is going to have to change.)

I’m not ready to do TWO fifteen-mile trips on the same day, but that’s what the bus is for.

But still there’s that burnout lost time to Civilization VI and Stellaris and Nethack. playing those games is really just wallowing in the burnout. All those games are decision-intensive, just without real consequences. I decided last week that when I felt the urge to fire up one of those distractions, I would Do Something Different.

Like play guitar. I bought a nice Gibson 40 years ago, and I’ve never gotten good at playing it. I have no illusions that This Time Will be Different, but doing finger drills or playing random blues licks seems like a much better use of time than deciding whether to build a battleship or a temple in Memphis.

Also (I profess) doing something creative, and different, will allow me to recover my analytical mind more quickly as well. Let that part of me rest while I do the spider drill or play along with any pop song based on 12-bar blues. Physical skills, creative challenges.

The guitar sits now within easy reach of my workstation. I spent a few bucks on a little headphone amp, but no more investment will be forthcoming until I prove I will be sticking with the plan.

Look at that beauty! I am so excited right now. Today I started what I hope will be a long-term relationship with a Local Guitar Shop (and the small dog that protects it). I love the shop already, with its focus on community.

It’s easy to be enthusiastic out of the gate. The only time I ever got even remotely competent playing this things was when I lived in a beautiful house with terrible people (I should probably tell that story here someday). I would close the door to my room and play. Playing was shelter then, a way to turn my mind to a better place. While I don’t need shelter in the same way anymore, The ability to turn to something completely different is (almost) always a good thing.

I’m working to break free of habits that have their roots in laziness and, honestly, depression. Finding a new challenge that is not like the old challenge. Looking up at the observatory at the top of Mt. Hamilton and saying, “I’ll get there.” Playing shitty chords that never seem to include the A string. That is a better life.

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The Home I will Likely Never Build: the North Side

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I know I told you last time that I couldn’t wait to tell you about what is downstairs, but I want to take a brief side trip first. We came in through the garden on the south side of the house (there’s probably a small cemetery tucked behind some trees; that’s where you’ll find me soon enough), and I’ve shown you how a home built of earth embraces the sun.

This is at its very core a home that celebrates craft, and the hands that built it. The first thing you saw on your visit was ironwork made by a human being. The signs of humanity are all around you now, and everywhere, if you look closely, you will see the personal marks of the people who built this home, whether by stacking adobe bricks or programming the elevator. The tiles in the bathrooms reflect the minds of the people who created them.

I hope, of course, that this will inspire the residents of the home to create their own art. This home is inspirational, or at least aspires to be. On the north side of the home is the less glamorous, less cozy space where actual magic happens.

I imagine it is a large space, perhaps physically separated from the main building. The floor is open and the light is from the north, coming in through large windows that can be blacked when necessary.

This might be the first structure built, to provide the space and means for the artisans and craftspeople to build the main home.

It smells like clay in here, like paint, like sawdust. The kiln, in its corner, is perhaps the only tool with a fixed location. One day the wood shop might be deployed, the tools needed for that day rolled out and carefully leveled, while on other days it might be the potters wheel or the bench for the glass blowers.

OK, the kiln, the glass furnace, and the forge for iron work are probably all fixed. But on any particular Tuesday this might be a photo studio, or a robotics lab. I delight in the fantasy that we, the residents of this home, will ultimately decide that we need two studio spaces.

There is also, on this side of the house, a very large vegetable garden. Unlike the sanctuary enclosed within the walls on the south, this garden grows food and is based on two principles: 1) we are obligated to make the most of the waste water from the house, and 2) tomatoes are best when eaten within minutes of harvest. That goes for other vegetables as well, but tomatoes are the poster child of “better fresh-picked”.

Space allowing, a modest orchard seems like a good idea as well.

In a previous episode I flew past the kitchen, which is essentially a studio with tools devoted to the medium of food. I am flying past it once again, because I have nothing to offer in that place except vibes. Kitchen science is real, and while I embrace it, I am not going to extend it, except for the hand-crafted cabinets.

The home — our home — is not just filled with the work of artists and artisans, it is where those people live. Where we live. Writers, painters, architects, musicians, and on and on. This is where we celebrate the accomplishments of our peers while we challenge one another. The studio here is never empty, there’s always something going on in the kitchen, and the garden is well-loved.

That last sentence reveals the depth of this fantasy, but understand: I believe it.

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The Home I will Likely Never Build: The Common Room

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After a peaceful stroll through the garden, and an appreciative look at the sun-facing side of the house, you have now walked inside. I recently discussed the overall philosophy of the architecture, but so far all you really know about this room is that it has floors, a fireplace, and a predictable assortment of furniture.

The trick with structures that live only in your head is that they are always changing. Without getting too specific, however (there will be no floor plan), I would like to share with you the room I have long imagined as the lungs of this home. (We will find the heart later.)

It is a large room, but the acoustics are surprisingly soft. In part this is because there are very few truly flat surfaces. The walls curve gently; their corners are rounded, suggesting they were carved, rather than constructed. The base colors are earth tones, reflecting that the walls are literally constructed from earth, but everywhere are bright splashes of color.

A staircase sweeps up one curved wall, its treads richly-stained hardwood, the bannister held by a lattice of cast iron, perhaps created by the same artist who made the gate that was your first introduction to this place. You can check for the artist’s mark on their work if you want to be sure.

There is a small door that leads to the space under the stairs. It matches the stair treads. Under-stair spaces have always been a little bit magical and mysterious to me (I grew up in a home without one), so I want to turn these spaces into hidey-holes, comfortable enough for a visiting grand-nephew to roll out a sleeping bag. Every under-stairs space should have at least one secret compartment, trap door, or other hidden surprise. Lights that respond to secret gestures, things like that.

“Secrets” are a feature in this home, even if everyone knows them. (Or do they? The possibility that there might be more secrets is pretty intoxicating. I will encourage the people who make this home to put in secrets not even I know about.) The secrets are the source of legends, stories that are passed through generations, gaining momentum with each retelling.

You have already met the fireplace and the cozy furniture that circles it. Behind the sofa there is a large table, magnificent and wood. It feels like it was made exactly for this place (it was – the craftsperson left their mark), and affords plenty of space for a great feast or a Warhammer game, or whatever tabletop games the kids are playing now.

Perhaps beneath the table the tile of the sun-warmed section of the floor has given way to wood as well, durable hardwoods that will last for a century (with a little care), but already the floorboards creak a little under your tread. Pure artifice, but the kind I enjoy; a reminder of the rustic foundations of Southwestern architecture.

And in every Southwestern home, you must look at the ceiling. Exposed beams, as round as they were when they were trees, cross the ceiling, supporting a lattice of wooden slats above. This is the most simple and iconic ceiling style, in other rooms you will discover the many, many variations on this simple theme that are possible. Here, the dark wood of the ceiling gives the room a cozier feel, more intimate despite the room’s size.

Over the table is a chandelier – perhaps also wrought iron, perhaps not (we will save the inevitable deer antler chandelier for another space). It creates a brighter pool of light even when the subtler lighting for the rest of the room is dimmed.

There is music here, as well. There is a sound system that does what all good sound systems do, but without being gaudy about it. Speakers are discrete but effective, and can get plenty loud when the need arises. The vinyl collection will probably live in a different room, closer to the heart.

Sound, but… huh. No television. There will be places for watching TV in this house, but this is not one of them. And when you really start looking hard, you will also see there is no plastic. That tells you two things: this room is built to last, and this room is a fantasy. But ultimately the goal is to employ no material that won’t still be viable 100 years from now (solar panels grudgingly excepted).

Of course with a big banquet table there must be a kitchen nearby! On the far side of the room from the curved glass wall is a curved adobe wall with a bar that communicates with the kitchen just beyond. The “main kitchen,” we will call it. (You have already seen the outdoor kitchen.)

While I will leave the details of the kitchen to the architects, from the common room you can get some of its vibe: Windows letting in northern light, stone countertops, and hand-carved doors on cabinets specifically crafted to follow the easy contours of the walls. Modern appliances, island, breakfast nook, and all that. A bright and comfortable place that still feels hand-crafted.

The curved south face of the house is also one of the walls for the “hallways” that extend to either side of the common room. On pleasant summer nights there is no wall at all, and the bedrooms open directly into the garden. Doesn’t that sound nice?

Perhaps later we will explore a bedroom or two, but “nice chambers, fireplaces maybe, quiet as only foot-plus-thick walls can grant, beautiful and varied ceilings, breezes” sums them up pretty well. For bathrooms, “hand-made tile, good light, elegant fixtures built to last, easy to clean” is the bullet list. The water reclamation system is actually more interesting than the water closets.

But around behind the stairs going up, you find two things: elevator doors, and stairs going down. I am very excited to tell you about both of those things.

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Sunday is Pill Day

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I may have mentioned before that I have cancer. Barring a medical breakthrough, I will always have cancer. There is no remission in my future, just control.

This means I have a lot of different pills to take, at particular times of day. So I have one of these:

It’s a weekly pill planner. During chemotherapy, I had the primary medicines to fight the cancer (roughly four of them), the medicines to fight the side effects of the primary medicines (variable from 4 to 8, depending on how I was responding to the medicines), and the medicines to fight the side effects of the medicines that were to fight the side effects of the primary medicines.

And also the pills I was already taking for other stuff.

Not all of the medicines listed above are in pill form, but you can see that things were pretty complicated. Now that chemo is over, the pill regimen is more routine, but it is still an important part of every Sunday afternoon that the Official Sweetie and I sit down with a paper bag filled with pill bottles, open up all the little doors in the pill planner, and fill it up.

For a while things were complicated enough that it really did take two people to work out the rules for each day and get the right meds teed up. Now, it’s not so complicated that a single person could do it.

Except for the part when all the little doors are closed, the pills ready for another week, and Official Sweetie and I exchange a high-five and a kiss, and say, “another week.” Another week survived, is what we mean. It’s a moment of thankfulness, a moment of celebration. Another week of life. It’s like having 52 birthdays a year.

Here’s to another week, my friends.

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