Some Library Love Cocktail (A Thanksgiving Antidote)

"Would it be cheating if you went to another place called The Library?" asked the loving compadre. Last night, we headed out The Library Alehouse in Santa Monica. We drank tasty beers. 

My library is in the process of being shut down for the winter. Water turned off at the street, pipes inside emptied, things covered and put away. It sounds so romantic, shutting the summer place down for the season. But sometimes, I wish I could pick the building up and move it a hundred miles outside of Los Angeles. Other times, I appreciate that it is planted in the middle of nowhere and the solitude that affords. Mostly, I'm proud to be a part of the "stock" that comes from there, the kind that reaches across the table or the aisle or whatever necessary to stop things that are to no one in the room's benefit, like the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have menaced the land 30 miles east of Burwell.

For now, with much gratitude for all of these blessings in my life, I'll cook my way through Thanksgiving and the rest of winter here in California (poor, poor me) in anticipation of the next summer season filled with lake-going and puzzle-playing friends and family out in this lesser known region of Nebraska. I made a drink for you, library, and raise my glass to next year!

The hot water will be ready in 2012.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some Library Love (A Thanksgiving Antidote)
Burwell General Store
Serves: 1

Somehow, these ingredients are almost always available on the bar at the library.

Ingredients:
2 oz Rye whisky, your choice, Pendleton is usually stocked in Burwell
1 oz Cointreau
6 oz boiling water
2 turns cracked black pepper
1 orange wedge
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp cane sugar, optional

Method:
In a clear heat-safe mug, add water, cracked black pepper, cinnamon stick, whisky and Cointreau. Squeeze orange wedge into mug, drop it in and stir contents. Add sugar if you desire a sweeter drink, let steep together for three minutes, then serve. Put on a sweater and curl up on the couch with a good book.

Photo Post: Kitchen at the old library, 2010.

Oh how I miss the kitchen at the old library, 2010.

Photo Post 12/2/10

This was a great night.

Flight rules.

I don't remember sitting on my mother's lap in my uncle's Cessna the time I threw up all over everything as we were making a quick VFR descent through clouds, but everyone else in the family does. So began my entrance into a family whose patriarchs have flown their own planes or lent these skills to the government to fly bigger, faster planes. Once, after listening to Radio Lab interviewing pilots on out-of-body experiences, I called my father and asked him if he ever felt such a thing.

He said, "Oh, God, no. I've never pulled more than four Gs".

Cram Field in Burwell doesn't get much traffic. This is perhaps a problem of location. I stopped at the field today because for the first time in a long time, I saw a plane sitting on the tarmac. Also because I not-so-occasionally have dreamed of getting my pilot's license.



The terminal was empty.



I checked the board, the flight was not yet listed.



Perhaps there's a deal to be cut with my husband: he can have a motorcycle if I can have a pilot's license. That deal would make me the first female in my family to have her pilot's license. It would also make us one of the more dangerous marriages in existence. This is the first he's hearing of this idea, so I'll let you know how that goes.

Too much stuff, too few uses.

Chances are, if you are reading this, you are one of the most privileged people in the world, in terms of economy, education and opportunity. As I pack up and prepare to shut down our home in the Sandhills of Nebraska, the process serves as a reminder of the amount of work and maintenance our standards of lives require.

In these parts, as recently as four generations ago, entire families settled this land by plowing large patches to plant and building tiny sod houses on the corners to dwell in. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter, sod houses made wonderful homes for centipedes and spiders while only providing adequately for the families who lived inside. Historical recounts tell of four or five people living their lives in these dwellings, roughly eight feet by 12 feet if it was small, single-roomed construction, which was often the case. Eight feet by 12 feet is about the size of my bedroom here, and I often catch myself thinking that it is way too small to use as a bedroom.

A constant reminder of Sandhills heritage stands at the Burwell park; a sod house built by community members some time ago. It is just like the land it was built from, strong-willed and stoic. And frankly, it makes me feel guilty sometimes, walking by it to return to 3,000 square feet of over-furnished home.

Part of the problem with home is it contains too much stuff. This has been a problem for a while, especially after two households recently combined into one. This week, my loving compadre sent me this New York Times article about stuff which walks through one couple's journey of paring down their posessions. The idea is so potent, it generated a sense of relief just from reading about someone else doing it.

For now, I'm shutting the place down and will be back on the road for work, but something else my loving compadre challenged me to do was make a list of 100 things that I would live with in the recent future. It is a great idea, because there's only one suitcase going with me.