A superb weekend!

I can't really write right now because I have no fingertips. They have been stolen by the sandpaper demon and every key stroke hurts like bloody fire. F - oooooooo, I - fk #$%^@%** grrrr, R - aooooooo, E - omg I really should just stop writing.

But someone has to post pictures of our amazing Maple trees ablaze and the spectacular colors of the valley. 

And I have to brag about my homemade Alfredo that was just to die for for. 

So $^#%%@^~#**# here I go.

Maple Avenue

Yup. Those are our maple trees. We did goooood. And noooooo, for the 1000th time Mr. Scrap Metal collector man (they certainly are a special breed of people...), YOU CAN NOT have that radiator. Although I think we just decided to part with it and go more stream line (it's been waiting on going back in the pastry shop once it's done). So now - we are accepting offers. I really just want to see someone wrestle with the thing. It's like the weight of an elephant baby. Maybe someone could replace it with an elephant baby. I would love one of those. 

Our view is meh. Mediocre at best.

Great thing about Alfredo is that it's completely guilt free! 

Melt half a stick of butter in a saucepan. 

Add 1 cup of cream and simmer for 5 minutes.

Add 1 1/2 cup of grated gruyere cheese and stir until melted. 

Add 1 crushed garlic clove and lots of parsley.

I tossed the fettucine and the sauce with lots of fresh spinach and served.

No guilt - non whatsoever. And don't forget the Parmesan on top!

James put finish paint on the trim on the front yesterday and today it was the bay window. I sacrificed the skin on my fingers to the porch. Today I am painting it!

I took a little break in porch restoration and went up to our neighborhood look out point on Palazzo Lane.

Things we love about Clintondale. Our Gunk view. Apples! The fall colors. And even some birds.

Oh heck! Just one more. The ridge at dawn.

It's been quiet about the birds lately. Mostly sparrows hanging out getting fat on our seed. But all of a sudden they came back. 

I saw this little guy this morning. We haven't seen Juncos since last winter!

And this guy must have missed the train to Florida. The Blue Jays are back too doing crazy flybys and hootin and making a racket in the trees. 

We only really watched one movie this weekend and the angry critic says it was good. Not great. Could have been great but took a silly turn at 1 hour. It's a French movie called Un Prophete. A young Arab ends up in prison for what we know not. He commits a crime in there in exchange for protection. On one hand he is smart and starts to study but on the other hand he realizes he can make it big  in the crime world with the connections he's making inside. And it goes from Shawshank to a mobster pic. The title suggests an inspirational story of finding your roots . That would have been preferred. But its subtleties still make it very worthwhile.

Last weekend we did a double feature. Sam Mendes' Away we go (self proclaimed loser couple get pregnant and take  a roadtrip to find the perfect place to raise their child) and Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock (chronicling the events that led up to the Woodstock festival, and it should have ended when they got there. Instead we have to watch the protagonist doing acid and opening his mind and our interest dwindled FAST). It was a mediocre night I guess. Away we go was better than expected and Taking Woodstock was just as silly as expected. 

Best in awhile was Howl. In the theatre. Allen Ginsberg's (played by James Franco) poem comes to life by cool animation, recreated docu footage and courtroom drama. Verrrry good.

I've made no secret of the fact that I've been unhappy with my bizniz lately. Quoting in my head "hell is Hollywood and satan is a studio exec". But maybe the disappointments, straight up blow offs and cancellations all led up to this. I will be on the road until Christmas on cool, interesting gigs. Firstly, a travel job in the States - North Carolina, Yellowstone National Park and Detroit. And with no room to breath, off I go to Mexico City to prep a camera package and then I continue to the Chiapas region to work on an offbeat, creepy little indie in the vein of Nick Roeg's Don't Look Now. I'm excited. And I'm taking the Gazette on the road with me. James will get much done at the house and I will come home just in time to decorate the tree and throw the ham in the oven. 

Outsmarted by a groundhog

I just stepped in one of his damn holes in the garage and almost twisted my ankle. I don't think it was his intention but I really wish he could just dig elsewhere. There's so much dirt around. C'MON!


It was a rainy weekend and our painting was put on hold. Instead we took on some yard work and watched movies.

This morning we got up and were quickly on the go up to Shokan where we buy our paint. We took the scenic route through the mountains which are already turning beautiful colors. Through sweet, sweet Stone Ridge and gorgeous Hurley.

Our first destination was Woodstock and food. We ended up at Oriole 9 where I had a tasty omelette and James had lentil soup and a Cuban sandwich. With happy bellies we continued down Route 28. We stopped in at Woodstock Landscaping to see if we could buy some Rhododendrons that we are planting where the half bay window was. They were very helpful and we left with 4 bushes.

We were looking for a hardy, flowering evergreen and our research brought us to PJM Rhododendrons, the best ones to grow in the area. This is the north east corner of the house and it gets little sun, but these guys are supposed to like it. Early fall is a good time to plant them and next spring they will hopefully go CRAZY with purple flowers.

I also stuffed 2 Hydrangea (haha! very silly homepage but oh so informative! I link a lot of these things so my Swedes know what I am talking about) bushes in the ground by the pastry shop entrance. This is NOT the best time to plant these so I'm going to have to pay extra special attention to them during the winter but I just HAD to do it. Ask any Kallerusian - patient I am not.

I've always had this useless skill at being GOOD at puzzles. We can't have them in the house - I get too obsessed, but today it came in handy. We keep digging out stones in the yard. They are everywhere! A lot of them a really pretty and today I used some of them to make an edge for the Hydrangeas. 

Big things are happening next week. We are insulating the pastry shop and the upstairs bedroom and bathroom. The dudes are coming from Foamco and will spray the walls to the outside. Then we will take a deep breath and start planning for sheetrock. In preparation for the spraying we had to cover up the opening to the crawl space that is above the kitchen and dining room. Could be our least favorite part of this house, but a little cool too cause the beams still have bark on them. James braved the nastiness and we stapled up some paper.

When I made tomato soup I bought plantable basil at Hannies and finally got to use my sister's herb sticks. 

IIIIIII know I could probably remember that this here is Basil but the sticks make the pot so much prettier. The mugs are also by her. And go here to see more of Kajsa's stuff!

And the weekend movie review by the angry critic... 

We tried to watch Boondock Saints and it's so bad it's not even funny, like funny-bad, so we turned it off and I packed it up in it's nifty little red envelope and James had to hold me back so I didn't run off to the post office in the middle of the night to mail it back to the slimepit from wherest it came. I suggest you just watch the documentary Overnight instead, which is about the dope who made the movie. Now THAT is funny. 

So instead we gave Taken a try. And that was at least FUNNY-BAD. One guffaw moment after another and the best inspiration we could ever get for writing screenplays. This sh*t gets made? Whu? Oh boy. Alright, so Liam Neeson's daughter gets kidnapped by the first guy she meets off the plane in Paris. But thank god, Liam is an EX CIA agent and he won't stop until he finds her. Yawn. 

Today we were slightly redeemed by That Evening Sun, mega slow Southern drama that some bad marketeerers would mislabel a thriller. When it's really just an emotional, simple story about forgiveness, redemption and letting go. Yeah to Hal Holbrook and Ray McKinnon!!!

We also plowed through Das Boot. In 2 sittings. Boy that is a long movie. But boy is that a good movie.

Finally, an early fall portrait of 19 Maple Ave. 

Fall will be nice but I'm not ready to wear pants.

I was around all week long, happily unemployed. Got stuff done around the house and knocked off season 2 of Big Love. 

We are playing catch up on the outside. Want to be in the same place with all the windows, trim and porches. Which right now means primed and sanded and ready for a 1st coat of real paint. And we are getting there. 

My big accomplishment is the big porch. Primed. Phew.

No easy task with all those curves, crooks and nannies.

James primed 2 of the last windows and the basement door on the north side.

One titanic task was to finish the little porch and it finally got done. Up to primer that is...

The new rule around here is IF you walk through this entrance you have to LOOK UP and compliment us on our extraordinary work on this beast of a restoration job.

We experimented with GREEEEEEN. James painted a patch on the outside of the laundry room to see what SPACE will look like.

 I think we have settled and we like it. Space it is.

I don't now if these are the morning glories I planted or if someone had the same instinct as me but they are popping either way. 

OK. What else. I prepped the weekend menu during the week by "graving" a piece of salmon. I also cooked up a giant pot of borscht. That became thursday supper when James arrived. This time cold with chopped up hard boiled egg and cucumber. We ate it again for friday lunch and I added a side of kielbasa to please the tall one. We ate gravlax for saturday dinner with boiled potatoes and hovmästarsås. The left over potatoes and kielbasa went in to a pytt-i-panna for sunday brunch. Which is your left over scraps fried up with some onions and an over easy egg on top. 

We watched movies too. 

RocknRolla. Pretty silly. Mildly entertaining. Another Guy Ritchie too cool for school affair.

The Two Escobars. Great documentary about Pablo and Andres Escobar. One druglord and the other a soccer player. We watched Cocaine Cowboys the other week and THAT was AWESOME and this was a nice follow up. 

We gave In Bruges about 45 minutes and then it had to go. An absolute awful mess. Are you being funny? Is this a comedy? So why the sad classical music? And killing a 10 year boy accidentally is never funny. Same goes for Colin Farrell... Bye bye, you go back to Netflix now.

But The Messenger made up for it. Both James and I are in the credits on this one. Great little movie about two army officers who deliver the news to the next of kin of fallen soldiers. 

The one I really have to recommend though is Sin Nombre. We saw it last weekend and were both blown away. It's (very) BRUTAL and BEAUTIFUL and simple and real and just never misses a beat. A perfect chain of events that made for great story telling. You can give me that over and over and over. Like last year's absolute favorite: Crazy Heart. And Jeff Bridges is always a treat anyway. Mmmmmm...

Mmmmm... Treat....

Oh. Where was I?

Going back to work... A little passion project (somebody else's passion project...) but a chance to get to work with American Society of Cinematographer's member Nancy Schreiber, one of the few ladies there. Which means this year, I've worked with 3 of the most prominent female directors of photography in the biz. Lisa Rinzler, Eller Kuras and now Nancy. I like those stats.

And lastly a friendly Hudson Valley reminder...

This is the PRIME TIME to come visit our lovely area. Activities and beauty galore!!!