Tag Archive | Kennedy Center Honors

Grapefruit

Dec22

I’m grateful today for grapefruit! I’m grateful for Kathy for so many reasons, for so many years, but today especially that she sent me a bag of grapefruit from the tree in her yard. Citrus trees in your yard are certainly one good reason to live in Florida. These days, between fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, and the governor, I can’t imagine ever moving back there; but I’m sure grateful for the years I lived there, and the lifelong friends I made there, a couple of lifetimes ago.

Salty Dog cocktail: 1.5 oz gin or vodka, 3 oz freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, shaken on ice and poured into a glass whose rim has been pressed into the grapefruit and then into a dish of flaky sea salt. Yum!

I know she sent them with some misguided sense that they would provide me a healthy breakfast. Instead, I squeezed the first one into a salty dog for this evening’s cocktail. I finished the bird puzzle, and then watched the Kennedy Center Honors when other Florida friends texted to remind me they were coming on. I’m grateful for this annual televised celebration of the arts, that our president was once again in attendance after they were boycotted by the previous administration, that JFK was a staunch believer in the importance of the performing arts, and that I grew up down the road from the Kennedy Center (50 this year) and enjoyed many events there during its early years. I’m grateful for the moving performances in tribute to Joni Mitchell, Bette Midler, operatic bass-baritone Justino Díaz, Motown founder Berry Gordy, and Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels; and grateful for these five sublime artists. Grateful to have a TV, grateful for internet so I could stream the show, grateful, grateful… I don’t wish to break this habit.

Continuing Education

Jun7

Just the simple fact that I keep on learning, something, every day, at least one thing; I’m grateful for continuing education. For example, no wonder my cookies turn out so flat, even when I follow the recipe to a T: I always let the butter get too soft. So chilling the dough in the fridge before I finish even mixing it turns out to be a prize-winning success.

I’m so grateful for the latté ritual that makes the Sundays of this pastoral life hold meaning: ok, not the only thing, but ‘my’ Sunday morning latté is definitely a ritual worth appreciating.

I’m grateful for the national celebration of the arts that is the Kennedy Center Honors; this year it was filmed all over the grounds in the leadup to the final production. I’m grateful to Mary and Chris for both alerting me to the broadcast; and I’m grateful for the technology I have learned to engage with to bring it into our lives. I’m grateful that I live in a rural community that has benefited from Midori’s initiative to bring music to the more random and isolated communities in the country. Our little Blue Sage Center for the Arts, which I’ve watched evolve since its inception into a place where, Cousin Jack was just asking me today, world-class musicians come to perform, grateful that Midori is one of these, grateful to learn more about artists I barely know, and those whose names I’ve known for most of my life. It’s a special place where I live, and I’m grateful for the palpable sense of community that enticed me to stay here, all those years ago.

It was a beautiful presentation that only kept getting better, until at last … well, I’ll leave it that the Garth Brooks segment, which was last, was also the most powerful for me. Grateful, especially, that I can enjoy and participate in this celebration without leaving the comfort of my living room.