We Now Return to Your Regularly-Scheduled Blogging

(This is a blog post I started writing way back in January, right after we'd returned from our Christmas/India vacation.  The point of it was to summarize our entire trip, but it was just as the sickness and doctor's visits were starting, and so I was frequently distracted and never got around to finishing it.  I've considered attempting to restart the story, but my memories of the trip are dimmer, now, and I sort of like this little snapshot in time, saved right at the point where we knew something was afoot, but had no idea what it could be.  So I'm leaving this as is; perhaps at some point I'll go back and record my impressions of India for posterity [maybe a little prosperity].  For now, enjoy a short story about our cat and a brief glimpse into home life in New York.)

So, rather than prattle on about the intricacies of The Husband's gastrointestinal tract, let me instead share some stories about family, holidays, and the joys of traveling with an angry cat.

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Given that we would be gone for over a month and didn't have anyone to cat-sit the little hellbeast for us, we decided to bring Pannekuchen to New York, where I could foist him off on my mother while we did our little bit of globetrotting.

Now, I have to give Pancakes credit, as he wasn't absolutely terrible to fly with.  In all fairness, he was probably less trouble than many children.  Once we got him onto the plane and stowed safely underneath the seat in front of me, he calmed down, only howling uncontrollably during takeoff, landing, whenever we encountered turbulence, and anytime he could either see or hear us.

After the Dark Times of flight were over, Pannekuchen got to enjoy all that winter in New York has to offer, including snow (consensus:  he is not a fan), indoor puddles of melted snow (also not a fan), my younger cousin (probably a fan, given how much they chased each other around the house, possibly encouraged by my suggestion that Pancakes likes to eat children), and, most importantly, other cats.  After a rough start and much growling (a noise I wasn't aware he could make), he eventually reached a truce with two of the cats and actively befriended the third, Algaecat.

BFFs

We also got to enjoy all that winter in New York has to offer, including snow, cold, limited internet access, and nothing but Christmas songs on the two radio stations that work (thank goodness for my mother's new car and the free Sirrius radio, which was still always set on one of its 20 Christmas stations).  There were Champion of North America Wii bowling tournaments and I repeatedly bested my mother in pretending to play music while also pretending to be a Rabbid.

One of the best parts about going home during the winter is the fact that hearty, winter fare tastes much better when it's blizzarding out, so we made chili and vegetable barley soup and mushroom risotto and Brussels sprout salad and bruschetta and spiced gingerbread and Christmas cookies (the only time of year my mother consents to bake).  I ate my requisite bag of cheese puffs and learned that sourdough pretzels are fantastic with hummus.  We snagged some lovely, new, hard anodized pots and pans (which I have used and love) and an enameled cast iron dutch oven (which brings our total of heavy-cast-iron-dishes-that-will-be-a-pain-to-move to five).  And then we left.

A NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

Summer in Arizona, to be blunt, is terrible.  It is truly horrifying to wake up at 8am and have it already be 95ºF, and for it still to be in the triple-digits at 11pm.  Two weeks without air conditioning in the car didn't help matters; it actually got so hot in the car once that my eyes STARTED BURNING.*

The other problem with Arizona summers is that they drag on.

I thought I smelled brimstone.

Seriously, they seem to never end; you'll be taunted with a day or two of pleasant (read: mid-90s) weather, and then your dreams will be crushed with an extended heat wave.  So, in an effort to retain some of my quickly dissipating sanity,∞ I went home to WNY for some family time and a much-needed respite from the heat.

And New York did not disappoint.  My first day home, I woke up, made a cup of tea, and sat out on our back deck and crocheted for a couple of hours.  This was what I was working on:

Let us hope certain family members do not read this blog, or else the jig is up!

And this was what I saw whenever I looked up from my yarn:

Is it still leaf-peeping if it's my backyard?

The next day was cold and rainy, which was pretty much exactly what I was hoping for.  You know what's good on a cold, rainy day, apart from yet more tea and several hours spent reading whilst cuddling with cats?

This.

After much cajoling, I managed to get a ride down to the Cider Mill, where I acquired a cinnamon sugar doughnut, a buttermilk doughnut, and a quart of cider†.  The cider was gone within a couple of days.  The doughnuts barely lasted 30 minutes.

That night, as part of my on-going effort to teach my family the value of vegetables, I improvised a little vegetable barley soup, full of good things like kidney beans and turnips and cabbage and broccoli and onions and carrots and celery (and barley).  I also got to bust out the crock pot, the likes of which I haven't used for years; the soup turned out good, after an extended cooking to get the beans to soften (crunchy, undercooked food seems to be a trend, here).  With a good hunk of crusty bread, it's a pretty solid way to end a chilly day.  Also, the weather started cooperating.

It's nice to be back in a place where one can stand in the middle of a main road and not get run over.

This was also the night where I taught one of our cats to play tetherball.

Not very athletic, this one.

It was a good game, until the RattyCat fell over and refused to get back up.

Friday involved more tea, more cider, a trip to the farm stand, the worst allergy attack I've had in months, the consumption of A LOT of Benedryl, an 8pm bedtime, and 12 hours of sleep.

Fortunately, this left me well-rested for Saturday, when my mother, my grandmother, and I drove up to the Finger Lakes to go to the Windmill (a large outdoor flea/farmers'/craft market) so I could get some good apples, visit wine country, and go to the best ice cream place in New York.

We used to go to the Windmill a lot when my family would go camping on Keuka Lake, the smallest (and most y-shaped) of the Finger Lakes.  My brother accumulated quite the Pog collection from there¥, and I always buy lots of vegetables and baked goods from the Mennonites.  This time, not only did I get some excellent apples, I also got this sweet apron:

Me?  Owls?  What a surprise.

Apron Owl is watching you master cakes.

and adopted this hand-carved decoy, named Rutiger, who joins Declan as our guard ducks.

Quack.

Onward we went to Seneca Lake, where we visited my favorite winery and I loaded up on my favorite wine.^  It's also quite pretty there, up on the hill overlooking the lake.

Mmm, future wine.

We also stopped at a couple of other wineries, but enough booze:  what about the ice cream?  Well, after over 150 miles of driving (and several missed turns), we arrived.

Oh, my mother will be displeased with this photo.

This is it.  Cayuga Lake Creamery in Interlaken, NY.  (Incidentally, we saw our third Finger Lake of the day:  can you guess which one it was?)ª

The ice cream selection:

The ice cream:

Don't be thrown off by the forced perspective: the ice cream cone was not as tall as the building.

This was mine: after much indecision, I decided on a scoop of sea salt caramel on top of a scoop of gianduia in a homemade waffle cone.

The verdict?  Delish.  And pretty reasonably priced, too; they were substantial scoops, and I actually feared I wouldn't be able to finish mine.£  Was it worth it?  Opinions most likely differ amongst the travelers that day, but I'm certainly glad I went.‡

Sunday morning found me waking up well before dawn to catch my flight home.  Arizona decided to greet me with sub-100º temperatures, which I appreciated.  The Husband and I have already planned an apple pie-baking day to celebrate my glorious return (and my bounty of apples), and Pannekuchen seems to have made a new friend.

Not shown: five seconds later when Pannekuchen tried to bite Rutiger's beak.

*Also, having to wear mittens when it is 115ºF so you don't burn your hands on the steering wheel while driving?  What?  No.
∞I'm going to say it looks like this: 

†This is normally where I would go off on a ranting tangent about how unpasteurized cider is so much better than pasteurized, and how things have never been the same since the fascists took unpasteurized cider off the market just because a few kids and/or old people got sick or died or something, but it's not like there wasn't a warning on the label and I drank the stuff for years and never got sick and the problem is today's kids being all mollycoddled, and besides a little exposure to bugs or bacteria is good for you and GET OFF MY LAWN, WHIPPERSNAPPERS.  But I won't.
¥Seriously.  One summer, that's all he bought.  I'm still not sure that he ever knew that Pogs were used in some sort of game; if he did, he certainly didn't know how to play it.  We keep a lookout for them, as the stall is still there (though it now sells marbles and rulers and cassette tapes).
^The 2008 Lemberger, if you're curious.
ªIt was Cayuga Lake.  If you didn't figure that out, you might want to go back and re-read the previous sentence.
£I lead a rough life.
‡Not least because this means that I am now winning in the (unspoken?) competition between The Husband and I over visiting all of these ice cream places.  IN YOUR FACE, HARD J!