The Lion Gate and beyond after the first real snowstorm yesterday.
If tomorrow is the end of the world today will have been fine. Flustrating as it was on some fronts, it was otherwise perfectly fine. Better than fine. A crystal blue sky with a few puffy clouds, snow so cold it squeaks, a neighbor in the morning with his plow cleared the driveway. Jasmine green tea with ultimate ginger cookies for breakfast, a leisurely morning reading, a quick trip to Grand Junction for a doctor visit with a happy outcome. The wrong size tires with a long wait at Big O, but an unexpected visit with a friend in the waiting area. Pink sunset on the mountains, pink sky, home just in time for the first stars. The 26 degree difference between high and low temps typical most days all year… but this morning the low was -1.
Little psychedelic tree with ancestral ornaments; this year, stars, angels, sparkle.
Growing up, it was a live tree, cut, in water, always all the same decorations, every last one of them. Only lately I’ve learned I can pick and choose among them, follow a theme. There may not be another Christmas, so I’ll make the most of this one, pull out all the stops, put everything on the table. A trunkful of ancestral ornaments and gew-gaws, a few new decorations of my own. A night of jazz, a manhattan, some candles, and I’ve made Christmas at Mirador again.
Auntie made this tree more than fifty years ago! Packed in soft bags in a wooden box handmade by the Colonel for most of every year.
The guy with the camel was always my favorite attendant at the creche. And I mean always. I’ve set up this set-up for as long as I can remember. Fifty years, at least: we got it in Germany, I must have been about three.
Lemon cream puffballs…
… at the cookie exchange.
It’s been more of a holiday whirlwind than usual, juggling deadlines and celebrations. Tomorrow we’ll have our Last Party, celebrate the Endo’ Times for at least the second time. Just in case. Comfort foods, like meatloaf, mac n’ cheese, broccoli—??? When did broccoli become a comfort food? Some time in the past few years, at last, I’ve developed a taste for broccoli. Cheese. If the world doesn’t end at least we’ll see the return of the light. More good food this week:
Ruth’s hens eggs, fried in red pepper rings, with spinach from her greenhouse. An excellent breakfast.
The chef next door’s Tom Kha Gai, maybe I spelled that right: in any case sublime Thai soup, a taste sensation.
For these foods, and for these ancestral decorations, both of which bring sustenance, I am profoundly grateful; for the friends and family they represent, I give thanks.