Tough.

A close friend of mine was hit by a car while riding her bike yesterday. She’s in the ICU at Harborview. She has a pretty bad brain injury. Please keep her in your thoughts. She needs all the support she can get. I went to see her, she was asleep. I was scared and only stayed long enough to find out I couldn’t leave flowers.

 

Update 10/26: H is doing as well as she could be. As far as I know she has finished most of her rehab and is working her way through the lingering effects of a brain injury. She’ll be moving back to Seattle again and is back at school already. Her recovery was remarkably quick.

July-uary? It doesn’t work as well.

Today I made potato salad and lemonade. Sounds like summer, right? It definitely doesn’t look like it outside. Hopefully the weather will at least be tolerable on the 4th. My plans include sitting in my backyard with friends all afternoon. Hopefully we’ll work some eating and drinking and music in there as well.

I also made a playlist of music from 1996-97 that I wish I had been able to appreciate instead of being 8 and rehearsing Spice Girls dance routines.

Tomorrow I plan to attempt a fancy layer cake with real buttercream frosting to serve to my friends on Sunday. A boy is coming over to help. It’s a baking date. I’m a nerd. It’s okay, I know.

Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread

Today I made banana bread. It was delicious. With summer finally here, I totally didn’t need to turn the oven on and heat up the house, but it was worth it.

I used a recipe from Simply Recipes that is super easy to make. Seriously. I know, there are a ton of recipes that say they’re fast and easy and don’t use a bunch of dishes and they’re usually wrong. I didn’t even read past the ingredients list before I started making it and the only reason I needed more than the mixing bowl was because I don’t have a microwave to melt the butter, plus my bananas were frozen. Yes, I keep overripe bananas in the freezer just for banana bread. It’s a habit I picked up from my mom and since I prefer my bananas partially green, I tend to accumulate ripe ones quickly.

I added some bittersweet chocolate chunks to the batter before pouring it in the pan because that’s what you do with banana bread – load it with chocolate. It was done in just under an hour. I started eating it warm because I’m impatient, but it really is better at room temperature or cooler.

The story goes that my mom was in the middle of baking banana bread when she went into labor with me. Four hours later, I was born. No one remembers if she finished the bread or not. I guess it’s unlikely.

Late evenings.

This sort of night was destined to be spent on a porch with friends and music and cocktails. I was meant to be wearing a sundress that closely resembles one I had when I was 8. And I don’t think it was all that unexpected when I kissed him before I left.

It’s finally summer!

Raspberry Buckle

I made this the other day. I ate too much of it in one sitting. Then I shared it with a couple of people who I like a lot. There’s still a bit left and I hope my roommates eat it before I do.

I used a Martha Stewart recipe and only made a couple changes. 1) It didn’t call for any vanilla and the thought of a yellow cake without vanilla is appalling. Shame on you, Martha. So I added 1 tsp vanilla extract. 2) The recipe specifies a 2 quart baking dish, and I have no idea how big that is. So I used a  9 inch square dish because it only makes a small amount of batter and I didn’t want the cake to be super thin. 3) A lot of my raspberries were past their prime, so I only used about 10 oz which worked well for the smaller baking dish.

The edges got a little crispy and were delicious. As it sat, the whole cake absorbed some moisture and those crispy edges turned just a bit chewy and still delicious.

This cake pairs well with thrift store shopping with a close friend or a cloudy bike ride to a beach with a nice boy.

Teehee

I made plans for tomorrow afternoon with a boy I met in real life who then gave me his number. This is how real life works, right?

In progress

Making a raspberry buckle. It’s in the oven now. More on this later.

Cataldo

I saw these guys play at The Sunset last night, minus the keyboard and banjo but plus a trumpet. They called their music “tender folk rock” and it was and it was what I needed right then.

Expectations and bike repair.

How do you tell if your disappointment in people is caused by too high of expectations or their lack of effort in your relationship? I’m trying to believe that the people I care about care for me, too, so I’m assuming that a lot of this is due to me thinking they should do more than is reasonable. I know I’ve been sparse. It’s just so frustrating to be last on the list of priorities for so many people that I really love.

On a related note, I’m starting to think it might be a better use of my time and money to just pay someone to work on my bike than buy beer and sit around waiting for my friends to run out of time to do it. Or maybe I should just start investing in tools of my own.

Afternoon into evening:

First, I’ll be bringing some long overdue beer to Fritz at Dutch Bike Seattle to thank him for the help when I was stranded with two torn valve stems on my spare tubes and to see how the new shop is coming along. Next, to R+E to put some fenders and a rack on the touring bike. Then back to Ballard to see Lesli Wood play at The Sunset. And finally, if I’m up to it, Cake-Aroke at The Highline.

Link crazy!

UPDATE: So 1/4 completed. Fritz wasn’t there, but I dropped off beer. The beer I brought to R+E in exchange for help with my bike disappeared and help never materialized. I did see Lesli play and Larry bought me a drink. Now I’m going to bed.