intertext

What is it they say about March coming in like a lion? He came in like a dragon last night! We were bombarded by winds that I wouldn't be surprised to hear were hurricane force, hitting my little house with what sounded like fists from about midnight to just after 5:00 am. I slept only fitfully; the winds were south-westerly, which meant that they were coming straight at my bedroom window. It literally sounded as if trolls or mudwraiths or some Big Bad from Buffy was pounding on my walls, shaking my roof, hammering my window. I was amazed to see no damage this morning; even the pile of branches put out beside the road for pick up by the city had not been blown away.

My poor younger beardie Robinson slept as little as I; I got up at about 4:00 am to find him curled up in the geographical center of the house - the hall axis from which the living room, kitchen and all the smaller rooms lead off. He must have felt he had nowhere else to escape, only coming to his bed in my room when the wind died down. Old Chums was perfectly happy - deafness has its advantages.

No newspaper this morning - perhaps they all blew away! So now I sit here, sipping a mango smoothie, hoping to gather some remnants of brain and energy for the day. I have about 70 essays to mark if I'm to return them to two classes tomorrow. I find myself inventing excuses (my grandmother died, my laptop was stolen, my car was broken into and all your essays were stolen) and then wonder to myself at the tyranny of students today. I would no more have asked a prof when an essay was coming back than... well, plagiarized, or even whined about a grade. I pursued a grade challenge once when I thought I had been genuinely screwed and that my 1st class honours was at stake; now, students seem to make minor careers out of whining. But that's probably a topic to be pursued in another post.

brisingamen writes today about the high winds in Britain. Here on the far side of Canada, on the Pacific coast, we too are experiencing a gale. A heavy south wind, which is unusual for this time of year, when our prevailing wind tend to be westerly or south-westerly (we learn to fear "outflow" winds from the east in winter, not because they come from Mordor, but because they most often bring snow). I was woken with a jolt this morning by my window blowing open with a bang; luckily it didn't make the dogs bark, but Robinson got up and shuffled around edgily - he still hasn't quite got over the Halloween fireworks. A huge branch of a great Gary Oak in the park had blown down - luckily noone was under it at the time - and there were news shots at lunchtime of a large oak tree in, guess where, Oak Bay, burning down. I didn't catch whether this was as a result of lightning or fireworks or some other cause but it's sad in any case...

Brisingamen was also writing about her comfort food, leek and potato soup. Strangely, I had been thinking about making a thick _onion_ and potato soup for the weekend, and yesterday made one of my favourite comfort casseroles, a kind of tomato version of scalloped potatoes. You cook onions and garlic together with either chopped fresh tomatoes or I usually use a good quality can of diced tomatoes and lots of basil, parsley and some oregano. Then you layer that with thinly sliced potatoes and grated cheese and bake in the oven until the potatoes are all soft and have absorbed the tomato juices - it is good if you pour a little extra tomato juice over it so it is really soft and gushy. Serve with a green salad and some bread if you really want a carb fix. Yum :)