Melt and Pour

Like ultraviolet rays memory shows to each man in the book of life a script that invisibly and prophetically glosses the text.
-- Walter Benjamin

Sunday, November 4, 2001
One year ago: Vanguard
Two years ago: Weblog Hype

This afternoon, Jack's daughter H--- and I made soap! Well, maybe it's more accurate to say that we melted soap. We used the clear glycerin soap blocks, melted in the microwave oven, then poured into the molds I bought at a goodwill thrift store a short while ago. It tickled me that the molds were really for making jello snacks! but there were neutral shapes that work well for small soaps. We made batches with cucumber melon, lavender, and "euphoria" scent -- very quick and easy. I think these will make good Christmas gifts.

Jack got a phone call from the crisis center where his older daughter A---- was staying -- she'd run out the firedoor when no one was looking, so she's effectively on the lam again. It doesn't sound like the police will press charges, though they'd picked her up the other day for sleeping in a car that was reported stolen.

For an early dinner, we had pasta with meat sauce, and brown and serve bread with garlic butter. I took apple slices to the Potlatch meeting, stopping for caramel sauce on the way. Should I make some from scratch for the hospitality suite? Those apple cutters make it easy, for sure. I think I saw a recipe for making caramel sauce or dulce de lece in the crockpot, which would be less expensive than buying the sauce and could be done ahead.

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Meeting results: Kate will be chair for now, due to some health problems on Jane's part. Jane and Luke will be at Orycon! This is good news. Luckily I'm not behind in my duties. But I need to make sure that committee members give me some material for a website update.

It was raining hard both ways, driving to and from the meeting. We are really in the true Seattle fall weather now.

When I got home, Jack and H---- were watching toy story 2. After it was done, H---- did the dishes. I mostly left her on her own for this (I'm sure it would be annoying to be closely supervised) but did have to tell her to handle the leftovers. "What should I do with them?" "Put them in a plastic container and put them in the fridge." Seems obvious to me; would it have been so at fourteen years old?

H--- invited Jack and me to admire her newly-straightened room. She'd found the light-bulb ring I gave her some time back, and put it into use on one of the ceiling lights. I have a bunch of scented oils, so she sniffed them all and selected one. Everything looked great in her room, except the big pile of comforter, pillows, and huge stuffed animal that took all the room on her bed. I'm sure she'll figure out how to sleep on it, somehow.

I cozied up in bed and read Frank Rich's Ghost Light, which I started last night. I like the memories of DC in the late fifties and sixties. He's about ten years older than me, so our memories don't match up exactly. But he does a great job examining how life circumstances affected how his interests and obsessions developed.