Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.) Click images for enlarged versions.
- Weather
The first few days were warm, especially Wednesday, with the high of the week, 74.3°F. Of course we took advantage of this to eat a late lunch/very early dinner outside by the lake. Saturday and Sunday’s highs were much cooler, 55°F and 47.8°F respectively. Overall, the average high temp this week was 62.8°F, the average low not bad at 46.5°F.
And we received 1.13 inches of rain!, falling on Thursday and Saturday mostly, with a bit on Friday and Sunday too. We’re back to “low” fire danger here in town for the moment, but the NH Drought map shows us as “abnormally dry.”
- Beginnings/Firsts
Cocktail-related firsts: For the first time ever, I was able to buy a bottle of (green) chartreuse, an herbal liqueur made by Carthusian monks in Grenoble, France, from a secret recipe of 130 herbs, flowers, and plants. Some of the ingredients may include cinnamon, mace, lemon balm, dried hyssop flower tops, peppermint, thyme, costmary, arnica flowers, genepi (that sent us down another research rabbit hole; it’s made from artemesia flowers), and angelica roots. It’s for sale here only briefly in the fall (and there’s a worldwide shortage with increased demand and reduced supply), and I think I got the last bottle at our liquor store. It’s pricey but will last years in our house (though it may discolour after a few, per Reddit).
I’d been looking for a bottle of chartreuse for a few years, wanting to try The Last Word cocktail, which requires it, and the day after we bought it, I made the cocktail. Delicious and refreshing, and it reminded me a bit of Corpse Reviver #2, though I’m not sure why — except both give citrus and herbal vibes — so I asked AI 🙄 and it confidently gave me plausible-sounding reasons why they might seem similar to the palate. I did not in fact use equal measures, as the original recipe calls for, because I was following a tweaked recipe from Richard Godwin, who uses twice as much gin as the other ingredients (he thinks equal measures makes the cocktail too sweet); I tweaked his recipe further to use 30 ml gin and 20 ml for the rest and it didn’t taste sweet to me.
Food-related first: As if that weren’t enough, the quince that I foraged quite a while ago seemed ripe (smelled lightly perfumey and felt softish), so we looked up ways to use it. We tried a taste of it raw, because some say it’s pear-like, and boy is it astringent and unpleasant. Poaching in syrup or sweet wine seemed the consensus way to go, so on Thursday I covered it with some sherry that’s been sitting around waiting to be cooked with and poached it for 1.5 hours, which seemed the minimum allowed by the internet, but this quince must be small because by then it was almost falling apart. And honestly, still not that great, though edible. The smell of it, or maybe the smell of simmering quince-infused sherry, is not appealing at all to me. Check that experiment off the list. It’s pretty inside, though, innit? Maybe we’ll end up with one growing in the yard since we threw the seeds in the compost.
- Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi) in addition to others elsewhere in this post
These will be some of the last of the insect photos until next spring, unless we travel to warmer climes.
Merlin-heard birds, 2 Nov – 8 Nov, in our yard (bottom row) and at lake (top row):
- Wandering
Walked around the lake on Monday and on Sunday. Walked in town and on a short wooded trail on Tuesday after voting. Walked in town, mostly the 3.5-mile walk, all the other days.
lake
wooded trail
in town
- Curiosity & Discoveries
The quince (see above) counts as curious, and its taste a discovery.
I spotted this box of Lucky Charms cereal in the grocery aisle. Cotton candy? Three new unicorns? I haven’t been keeping up.
- Creating
Yes, I’m doing it. I wrote three new poems on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. I read a novel and edited photos for 3.5 hours on Wed. I read again on Friday and Sunday, and on Saturday I planned, pulled data, gathered photos, organised, wrote, edited, and published last week’s Liminal Living (yes, they’re compiled and written the week following and are post-dated to make their publication dates consistent and easy for me to find).
- Repairing and Maintaining the human(s), the cat, and the cars
Human: I worked out four times (4 hours) using the Body Electric streaming program. I’m still doing the reputedly Chinese-grandma exercises, too. I walked more than 11,000 steps on six days, more than 12,000 on five days, with two days in the 14,000s. I saw the dermatologist for my 6-month visit on Tuesday and had some things blasted (one on my request) and one tiny mole removed for pathology (came back benign, whew); also had a nice discussion with my dermatologist about his precautions and about an election ballot question. I could move to once yearly visits but for now I’m sticking with semi-annual. My husband and I ping-ponged for 40 minutes this week.
Cat: Nothing to report, except that he moved back to the primary bath litter box for a couple weeks and is now once again using exclusively the guest bath litter box. He’s allowed.
- Nesting
Cleaning/Maintenance: I vacuumed the kitchen, bedroom, walk-in closet, and cat’s bedroom condo (using attachments) on Monday. I also cleaned the stovetop that morning. My husband cleaned the Winix air purifier filters on Wed. I ran a load of clothes laundry on Friday. On Sat. I cleared out and organised the dining room hutch — table linens, tableware, candlesticks, candles, etc. — which I hadn’t done in years. My husband cleaned out a kitchen utensil/junk drawer while looking for a toothpick.
Financial/Admin: On Sat. I signed up for part D (drugs) of Medicare. Next week: tackling medigap insurance and cancelling marketplace insurance. I caught up on email for two hours on Sunday.
Food: We had the leftover tortellini dish from last week for dinner on Monday. I bought a spinach quiche at the regional co-op on Tuesday, which we had for dinner that night, with air-fried Brussels sprouts. We ate out (outside) at a harbor restaurant on Wed. afternoon, and that counted for lunch and dinner. My husband had his restaurant leftovers (shepherd’s pie) on Thurs. for dinner while I had more of the spinach quiche. Friday we each had one of the last two pieces of the spinach quiche, with Old Bay-garlic shrimp, air-fried Brussels sprouts, and raw carrots and humus. I roasted root vegetables on Sat. (beets, potatoes, carrots, shallots, parsnips, garlic, our herbs: thyme, parsley, rosemary), which we had with another batch of Old Bay shrimp. Same on Sunday but this time I remembered the rice and we also added a piece of sourdough bread each. Speaking of which, my husband made three sourdough baguettes on Friday. And remember, we poached that quince!
- Garden
My husband spent a couple of hours in the garden his week, getting ready for winter by bringing things in, cleaning up the shed, and mowing (chopping) some of the leaves. I spent perhaps an hour in the garden, mostly taking photos and observing. I also harvested rosemary.
garden this week
- Sleeping & Dreaming
Sleep was OK this week, with a (Samsung Fit 3) sleep score of 87.4 (range of 82 to 94) and an average night’s sleep of 7 hours 14 mins, a bit scanty. REM sleep took up 14 hours and 15 mins, deep sleep only 6 hours 46 mins, which isn’t really enough for optimal physical recovery (for me). Dreamy dreamy, and I made quick notes of a few of the dreams.
- Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching
Reading
BOOKS: I finished a novel, The Unknown by Riley Sager (2026), to which I gave a 2-1/2 star rating. For the first three-quarters of the book or more, it’s two ghost stories, one set now, one set in 1926, both on an island in a lake in Vermont (but Vermont as a setting doesn’t come into play, it could be any remote spot anywhere), complete with seances, spooky sounds, and strange and disturbing disappearances, and then comes the twist(s). The contemporary story is told by an aspiring young actress, Marin Keane, who’s on the island with other actresses and a director to get into character for a week (by wearing old clothes, cooking in an old kitchen, having no cell phones, no electricity, no potable water, etc.) before shooting a film about the 1926 ghost story, which we learn about in interleafing chapters by reading the diary of Daisy, one of the women on the island in 1926. The twists are interesting but maybe only by contrast to the rest of the book, which draaaaaaagged.
OTHER
I’m fond of Jeanette Winterson’s writing, including this: Small celebrations: How to avoid the awfulness of everything, in the 8 Nov. issue of her newsletter Mind Over Matter. From which: “The problem with memory is that you remember. And, without going for nostalgia, I have lived in better times. Yes, you are right, we are not in danger just now and we are comfortable enough. That will change, I expect. So it’s good to prepare now for queues and holding pens and boredom and faceless officials just doing their job. The systems that put humans at the bottom of any consideration. So, what I am thinking about are the small celebrations. The regular little wins we can keep at the front of our minds to hold onto the present. The good present – as an antidote to the many messes and fails of modern life.”
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I’m not fond of writing that’s focused on pregnancy or parenting but I do like this essay’s format and voice: Slouching towards induction: A Maybe Baby guest column by Olivia Dunn, on 3 Nov in Maybe Baby. It’s funny and moving. “Everyone is doing that thing which drives me insane: glimmer in their eye, they say something like: ‘get ready’ or ‘just you wait.’ ‘You’ll be pretty busy in January,’ they might say, unable to stop themselves. ‘Two kids is a lot different than one,’ they instruct me, as though I am an idiot who can’t do basic math, a person who already can’t get a single thing done when one child is at home.”
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avant-garde tomato basil shrimp & grits recipe I might try, with a few tweaks (via Eliza Morrill on Instagram):
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Listening
- Connections & Community
Local Support: I voted in the midterm local, state, and federal elections on Monday morning.
I shopped at the regional co-op on Tuesday while I was in the area. We had dinner at a local restaurant on Wed. afternoon and bought a bottle of wine at a local independent wine/pantry shop. I had lunch with a friend at a local bakery/café on Thursday and bought some items (10 napkins, one pillow, $30) at the pop-up holiday shop at a local consignment store. My husband and I had lunch at a local bakery/café on Saturday and shopped at the local farmstand (Brussels sprouts and Maine Harvest celery root & red pepper humus).
eating out on Wed. at lake harbour:
consignment store holiday shop (just a small sampling):
Relationships: We had surprise news from a nephew on Monday, resulting in a flurry of communication, including a phone call with my sister for 20 mins that night. I had lunch out and visited the consignment store with friend RL on Thursday (2.5 hours). Salon met on Friday with six of us for 2.5 hours (I walked to and from with friend ED). Took one of the homemade baguettes to friend ND on Friday. Chatted with neighbour SL on Wed., 10-min catch-up on Fri. with friend LV in a parking lot, waves and quick hellos with neighbours & friends LT, BF, LL, BB, BT, SS, et al.
Donations: Donated to my sister’s team’s walk for the Alzheimer’s Association this week. Renewed our Currier Art Museum membership.
- Endings
Harvest: Harvested rosemary this week.
Endings: So sad, Winifred the rabbit died unexpectedly on Friday night. I’ve followed her and her mom (Megan Cottone) on Instagram (as thebeagleandthebun) as long as Megan has had Winifred (before, actually), who was the most sociable, personable, demanding bunny. I loved watching her zooming around the house, chomping her veggies, hanging with the cats, stomping her little paws, and being cuddled. Megan and her husband, their cats (Ted adored Winnie), their beagles, and possibly even their hermit bunny Willow are all grieving, as are many of us from afar.
In non-emotional news, I finished the ‘Season’s Turn’ (New Yorker) jigsaw puzzle on Thursday. It’s one we picked up at a town yard sale in August, and it had all the pieces!
- All This Useless Beauty
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