I’m so grateful for my little kitchen, and all the magic that happens in it. Much going on in there this week, from tamarind-millionaires-shortbread to bean salad to BLT. I’ve lost track of where or when I picked up this recipe for millionaires shortbread, but found myself with all the weird ingredients at the same time: shredded coconut, tamarind paste, sweetened condensed milk among them. Above, the tamarind caramel before mixing, and below, after it was baked on top of the coconut shortbread, me pouring the melted chocolate-butter on top.
Time had to pass before the confection was set, so I enjoyed another splendid sunset with rainbow, and then enjoyed the tasty treat for dessert.
The first fire in the woodstove last night when it got unexpectedly cold after three days of blessed rainstorms. Wren wore her thunder shirt most of that time, and plopped down in front of the fire the minute it was lit. The hummingbirds still linger and vie for nectar with the yellowjackets, but they’ll both be gone before long. The mystery of the empty birdbath was resolved this morning when I looked out the window to see a doe drinking it down.
The three-day version of the mock sourdough wonder bread succeeded as well as the first effort, and I froze half the loaf to serve later this week after company arrives for awhile.
I’m getting a jump on food prep so I don’t have to spend too much time in my little kitchen while my guest is here, and made this beautiful improv marinated bean salad. The directions come from Samin Nosrat. I love her approach of suggesting ingredients and letting you do the rest how you like. I used kidney and pinto beans, cherry tomatoes, and fresh parsley and oregano, macerated red onion, and sliced cabbage from the garden, with a light olive oil and prosecco vinegar dressing. So simple, so delicious!
And finally, after the bread had cooled enough today to slice it, the first BLT of the season.
I woke this morning and considered how all the conditions of my mostly contented life have been dependent on tens of thousands of beings, human and otherwise. I’m grateful that this reflection has become habitual. I intended to focus on my blessings and sift attention away from my sufferings. But one negative thought led to another and I was soon swept onto a bad train and carried far from my intention.
Baking molasses cookies and then exercising for an hour with Mel both helped derail the glum train, and then a long meditation reset my perspective back on the right track. Just in time for zoom cooking with Amy.
It was so good to see her, it’s been a while. We started Tomato Night with a spontaneous tomato martini. We smashed a couple of cherry tomatoes into the shaker with a splash of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of salt, and the regular gin and vermouth, with another cherry tomato for garnish.
While eight ounces of cherry tomatoes roasted with olive oil and salt (for tomato butter), we mixed pesto with cream cheese and cut puff pastry to bake upside down tarts. Sliced tomatoes lay on parchment paper drizzled with olive oil and balsamic awaiting their pastry tops.
A quick egg wash, and into the oven for twenty minutes. While they baked we pulsed the roasted cherry tomatoes with salt and pepper, and mashed them with softened butter.
The tarts came out perfect, and we flipped them over to serve.
I toasted a slice of sourdough to dip in the butter, Amy had ciabatta. We sat down together miles apart for dinner. I’m grateful for the anchor of awareness flowing through the day, for the ability to consciously choose where I place my attention.
Let’s get the food shot out of the way first, because simple and delicious though this lunch was, it wasn’t the highlight of the day. Pretty much the same thing as the past two days, except with havarti instead of cheddar, no egg, and some chopped tomato and apricot included with the onion greens pesto, mayo, and bean mashup. I’m grateful I’ve learned that good food doesn’t have to be complicated, fancy, or difficult.
And in fire news, it was mostly cloudy with some drizzles today which must have helped the firefighters across the western slope a lot, and certainly made for a more comfortable day for those of us with challenging lungs.
But for today’s big JOY: I was beside myself this afternoon to discover that some of the tadpoles have actual legs! At last!
I needed a second opinion, so I asked Topaz to investigate since she could get closer to the water than I could. She confirmed my assessment, and suggested I bring down the husband camera.
There are two legged-ones who show up in this video, one near the beginning and one at the end. I might have missed another one or two…
Husband camera confirmed, and I was especially delighted to catch this one with just the bare beginnings of legs. Most of those I observed tonight, maybe three percent of all the tadpoles, had slightly better developed legs than this one.
As though mama is keeping tabs… As far as I know, each of these images is of a different tadpole. I’m grateful for the gift of being able to observe the miracle of metamorphosis in real time in my own backyard.
Morning, noon, and evening, neither rain nor hail nor fire nor smoke can keep me from doing grasshopper patrol around the patio and through the garden. Sometimes I use the hose and sometimes I just sweep with my hands. I’m grateful I’ve managed them as well as I have, despite not starting quite early enough; now they’re big I have some strategies in mind but I was waiting for the grasshopper webinar today to decide my next step.
They’ve once again demolished all the rabbitbrush in the yarden, stripping the leaves of what little grew back on this massive bush this year, after they completely denuded it last summer, killing the lower half.
The beautiful little rose bush I nursed along and finally potted up last month was thriving on the patio table, alongside three tiny citrus trees. I checked them several times a day for the slightest sign of grasshopper predation, intending to bring them inside at the first bite.
I failed miserably with the tiny trees: one afternoon I noticed a single leaf damaged, so I set the tray near the door to bring inside—but I forgot, left it out overnight, and the rock squirrel who haunts the patio ate all three down to a toothpick. The rose continued to thrive—until yesterday. Midday it was fine. Evening rounds it was missing three-quarters of its foliage. So I whisked it inside to the sunroom table and administered first aid.
I was relieved to sit down for an hour at lunchtime, amidst heavy smoke outside, to a PPAN (People and Pollinators Action Network) zoom webinar called “Pollinators Meet Grasshopper and Mormon Cricket Management.” Sharon Selvaggio, a pesticide reduction specialist with The Xerces Society, gave a riveting presentation on the complex relationship between grasshoppers, pollinators, and ecosystem health. The Xerces Society, a conservation organization working to protect the natural world through the conservation of invertebrates, educates about the unintended consequences of widespread pesticide use.
Ever wonder why honeybee populations are in steep decline? They’re a canary in the coal mine for native bees and other pollinators like butterflies and moths. APHIS aerial spraying of pesticides to control Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets, and katydids) in the Midwest and western states is a contributing factor in the decline of many pollinators. Sharon leads Xerces’ work in seeking sustainable solutions for grasshopper and Mormon cricket management, especially on public lands. She offered some alternatives to pesticides for the home gardener.
Great news! Having a low tolerance for snapping their little heads off, lacking chloroform as my zoo friends use, and not (yet) interested in freezing and frying them, she gave the answer to what to do with them if I choose to pluck or vacuum them off plants in the cool hours while they’re sluggish: drop them into bucket of soapy water! (Ack. I still hate the idea of killing them. Which do I hate more? Killing insects or losing the fruits of my labors? Probably losing my garden.)
Speaking of the garden… I made the onion greens pesto finally, with the chopped greens, some parsley, garlic, lemon juice, pecans, and parmesan cheese. So simple, so delicious!
I was grateful it was cloudy and a little cooler today, so I could also make “Vichyssoise light.” I’d been putting it off because I didn’t want to heat up the house, but you can’t make cold Vichyssoise without first cooking it. I sautéed the onions in butter, added a chopped potato, chicken broth, salt and pepper, and simmered for half an hour. Then I took it off the heat and stirred in a couple tablespoons of yogurt and a big splash of milk and blended til it was smooth and creamy. By then I was too hot to eat hot soup so it went into the fridge for tomorrow. But I did lick the spoon and it’s delicious!
The wind shifted to the west this evening and blew in some fresh air. I was able to cool off outside without a mask and leave the doors open to get a cross breeze through the house for a few hours. I took the opportunity to pick the rest of the un- or less-damaged apricots and harvested more than expected. Another garden success in a scant year!
A screenshot from the Watch Duty app yesterday showing the South Rim fire perimeter, evacuation zones, and the two planes and one helicopter working it at the time. The blue dot near the top is where I live, nine miles as the crow flies from the fire. I’ve been relying on it so much in the past week that I felt compelled to pay their reasonable membership fee; getting the little purple aircraft moving in real time was an unexpected bonus.
I’m grateful for the nonprofits that make the world better, like Watch Duty, PPAN and Xerces, and for endangered government agencies, like APHIS and the National Weather Service, that use science to serve diverse human needs; and I’m grateful for the technology that puts warnings, forecasts, and other helpful data at our fingertips.
I’m grateful for the Weather Underground app, with all the bells and whistles selected: radar, cloud cover, fronts, heat, hail, severe storms… and for knowing where I stand in the midst of it all, once again that little blue dot near the top.
The Fire Moon, or as some would call it, the Buck Moon, full on Thursday night through the smoke haze.
I’ve got onions protected from grasshoppers in two net cubes, and this morning while it was still cool, I wore a wet cloth mask outside to remove the cube, thin the onions, and replace the cube.
Later I trimmed the onions and divided them into proto-bulbs to use instead of leeks in some vichyssoise, coarsely chopped greens to make into pesto, and finely chopped greens for garnishes and salads this week.
I grated one of the two little cabbages I’ve harvested, and some store bought carrots, to make coleslaw and put some in a sandwich with leftover roasted chicken.
The air by then was clear enough to eat lunch outside, though I could see smoke billowing from the South Rim fire beyond the apricot tree. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park Facebook page shared several photos of the fire, and reassured people that the Visitor Center had not burned, and also that the fire had not jumped the canyon: they’d gotten a lot of calls from people on the north side worried about the thick smoke. Here are two of those images from the park’s page.
It’s startling to see that it’s spotting down into the canyon. It would take some precision water drops to put out those fire spots. It could easily spark from there to the other side with a few exploding embers. I started packing pet supplies into go-bags this evening just in case.
The smoke continued blowing due east rather than northeast, so by evening the air quality here had improved from 150 to 50. We were able to visit the tadpoles and spiders at the pond for awhile, and leave the doors open until bedtime to get a cooling breeze through the house.
For dinner, I used up some frozen corn that was open making this cheesy grits dish, sautéing a few of the onions in butter, adding the corn, then two cups milk and two cups water, and when it boiled stirring in slowly a cup of grits. When that had cooked into a creamy porridge, I added more butter, grated cheddar and parmesan and topped with a dash of homegrown paprika and chopped onion tops.
After supper, we drove up to get the mail, and a better view of the sky. Above, the South Rim smoke cloud settled over the West Elks, while below, the Sowbelly haze colored sunset, resulting in gorgeous clouds overhead. It was just another full day alive, for which I’m profoundly grateful.
I’ve been exploring expectations today, and looking at some of mine which are realistic, and some which are unrealistic.
Sometimes I don’t recognize my expectations as expectations. Because the phoebes and the scrub jays fledged a short distance at a time, I thought the bluebirds might peek out of the nest cavity for a day or two, and then flutter down a little way. Kathleen said no, they’ll just fly straight out. Some research seemed to confirm that, saying “the first flight is awkward, in a straight line with nonstop wingbeats… from 10 to 55 yards,” and that a parent usually accompanies the fledgling and remembers where it perches. But I also read that sometimes they can’t fly that far, or drop straight to the ground if they’re weak. I stirred together what I read, what Kathleen said, and what I’d seen of other species in real life or on nest cams, and created a safe landing zone with various perches across the patio outward from the nest. Then I waited and watched.
I selectively remembered bits of information to form an expectation of how and when they’d fledge, and arranged my days to be sure I wouldn’t miss it. In fact, it started without my recognizing it. I missed a couple of hours yesterday and most of today, but I think I actually saw one first flight yesterday, and thought it was one of the parents. When I came home from an appointment this afternoon, I may have caught another one out the corner of my eye while I was on a phone call. But I still dwelt in my expectation of what it would look like, and it wasn’t until I noticed a fluttering bird in a treetop with the male bluebird that the truth dawned on me. My expectation of how the bluebirds would fledge was sketchy and unrealistic.
Meanwhile, the scrub jay babies are learning to fill up at the feeder, play in the water bowl, and peck at grasshoppers. And the house finch chicklets are chasing their parents around through the trees and onto the feeder begging. It’s very busy in the yarden.
As far as my healing hip, I’ve kept pretty realistic expectations for the most part. After nine months, I got complacent and over-exerted getting up from a tadpole pedicure last week, and have been limping ever since. I finally called the doctor and they wanted me to come in today. I realistically expected that I’d get a competent evaluation. It’s realistic for an American to expect quality, affordable healthcare, and for a senior citizen such as myself to expect Medicare to pay for most of it. But sadly, that expectation is gonna have to change if the regime gets its budget bill passed.
Because the setback pain extended from the hip to the kneecap they x-rayed my knee as well. I was grateful to learn that it looks strong and healthy, except for an arthritic patella.
The One Big Bad Bill delivers nothing but grift to billionaires and corporations and misery and privation to regular Americans. Yes, I’m exaggerating, but not much. I am sure there are some provisions which will benefit some subgroups of American citizens, but most of us will lose bigly. Ag experts say the bill has the worst farm policy they’ve ever seen; despite claims it will reduce the federal deficit it will increase it by trillions; national parks and forests, wilderness areas, and pristine watersheds are among the millions of acres of OUR PUBLIC LANDS, which we as Americans own collectively for the common good, that are slated to be sold to the highest bidder for privatization, logging, development, raping and pillaging. Imagine drill rigs smack in the center of Yellowstone. Countless miles of critical habitat and wild lives will be destroyed as well. Essential ecological balances will be tripped and climate chaos will explode exponentially. I’m not really exaggerating about this part.
Is it realistic to expect I’ll have this sweater finished by autumn? Yes it is.
And millions of Americans will lose Medicaid with billions of dollars and hundreds of direct and indirect benefits on the chopping block. Older Americans will see Medicare benefits dribble away and costs rise from a hidden provision that will require cuts to Medicare over the next decade. Private insurance premiums will skyrocket. And this brings me to Colorado District 3 and our so-called representative Congressman Jeff Hurd. His was arguably the swing vote that pushed this bill through the House initially, after he promised his constituents that he would not vote to cut Medicaid.
His district has the largest number of Medicaid recipients in the state. You can look it up. I’m sick of thinking about his betrayal. If you live in CD3, this article is a must read to understand why you might lose your rural hospital – and why I and my community are flooding Rep. Hurd’s offices with phone calls insisting that he vote against the Big Bad Bill when it comes back to the House after the Senate approves it, in time to be passed by July 4. That’s next Friday. His phone number is 202-225-4676.
Obligatory so-simple-so-delicious photo of homemade frozen waffles, happy bacon, a mangled though still runny local egg, sour cherries, and organic maple syrup, yesterday’s brunch.
If you live in rural America, or if you get Medicaid benefits through your state health department, or if you are enrolled in Medicare, or get ACA subsidized health insurance, you need to understand what’s at stake here, and let your senators and house reps know how you feel about the prospect of their gutting your healthcare. You can use the 5 Calls app to easily identify and call your representatives. 5 Calls provides a short script for each of a number of up-to-the-minute issues to choose from. These calls matter. Save our healthcare, save our rural hospitals, save our national parks, save our democracy, save our sanity. Is it realistic to expect my words to motivate you to pay attention and start making calls? I don’t know. Is it realistic to expect our representatives to pay attention to our concerns? I’m not sure but I think so. Is it realistic to expect our elected officials to defend our rights if we stick our heads in the sand and say and do nothing? Absolutely not. We have very little time left to try to influence our Senators and Representatives before a final vote on this catastrophic bill. Make some calls.
Beautiful evening light this week leading up to Summer Solstice has been enhanced, sadly, by smoke from some distant fires.
These hot days I caught a craving for popsicles, and was grateful to have a six-mold in the pantry; grateful also to have plenty of rhubarb from next door. I cooked a bunch down with sugar to make a simple compote I could freeze and use as needed, and needed some right away. I blended it with fresh strawberries and the juice of half a lemon, froze the pops overnight, and enjoyed one down by the pond the next morning. So refreshing! So simple, so delicious!
The first rhubarb treat I made a couple weeks ago was an upside down cake, which was also pretty simple and delicious. I saved a few stalks from the compote pot to bake one more of these this week.
Meanwhile, down at the pond, the Palmer’s penstemon are blooming, and Tadpole Pedicure training’s been going great!
Wren found a second garter snake, bigger than the first one, in the curly rush yesterday morning. And the first cherries have ripened on the new little tree.
I’m curious how the gazillion cherry blossoms matured into just a handful of cherries, and will be interested to see what happens next year. Maybe it was insufficient water at a crucial stage, or some other horticultural error, maybe birds were picking them off all along, or maybe it’s just the growth habit of a young sapling to thin its fruit. I shouldn’t be surprised: the apricot and peach trees both drop a lot of early fruit.
Today was so hot, and so windy, I had to stay inside from mid-morning until evening. Red flag warning all day and for the next couple, and a faint persistent haze on the horizon. ‘Fire’ shouldn’t be a season, but it is. I took the opportunity make waffles I’ve been dreaming about for weeks, a whole batch to freeze for quick toaster reheating, and three for brunch.
This Dash mini waffle iron is a delight to use, heats fast as soon as it’s plugged in, cooks a waffle in just a couple of minutes, and the light pops off when the waffle is done.
I fried some thin-sliced pancetta for a little protein to go with the extravagance of waffles topped with Greek yogurt, rhubarb compote, fresh strawberries, and maple syrup.
It seemed brunch was no sooner finished than it was time for Zoom Cooking with Amy. We made potato-onion crisps that didn’t turn out quite as crispy as I’d hoped, but were still tasty.
Thinly sliced potatoes and onions layered with grated provolone and parmesan cooked at 375F for twenty-five minutes. I tossed some pancetta on top of a few just for fun. They were very tasty, but a lot of effort for the end result.
The leftovers will be fun to play around with, though. I hope they’ll crisp a bit more with reheating. I imagine topping one with a fried egg for tomorrow’s breakfast, and they could make a base for huevos rancheros, or top a hamburger, or serve as a crouton atop a soup or salad. I think if I ever make these again I’ll use a lot less cheese. That might deliver better crunch.
It’s been an emotional week. I’m sad the benevolent pope died, adding one more layer of global uncertainty. I learned of the death of a significant ex and through his obituary of the prior deaths of two of his siblings I was fond of. The DOGE disaster continues to wreak havoc on the country. Friends are suffering various losses in ways I can’t ameliorate. The mental/emotional tension before, during and after a couple of fraught conversations with neighbors sapped more of my energy and attention than I would have wished—but certainly far less than it would have before developing mindfulness skills.
There’s a big stew of suffering swirling inside. Finding peace in the yarden has been extra important. Most mornings I’ve sat at the pond for coffee after meditation, and enjoyed the blossoming crabapple, the frogs, and the tiny dingo’s delight in following her nose and her whims around. Sitting quietly for awhile each day with water burbling and leopard frogs gurgling keeps things in perspective. There are at least six fat, happy frogs in the pond. I’m grateful for this sanctuary and all the conditions that allow me to savor moments of peace and joy.
I’m grateful for making time to finally cook this so simple, so delicious chicken florentine that came together in about half an hour.
I made myself eat only one portion last night so I can enjoy leftovers for three more meals, which I did for lunch today: In the next-to-last giant spinach tortilla, I rolled up lettuce, chicken florentine, avocado and mayo for a yummy wrap.
As I wrestle with my personal patriarchal demons, Mother Nature nurtures me. Is there a more feminine shrub than the lovely lilac? I think not. You’d think I’d have learnt by now to be comfortable with aggressively assertive men, having grown up under the Colonel’s temper. But maybe that’s why it’s still so hard. And the National Abusive Relationship we’re all in is a constant low-grade trigger that I keep trying to write about and shying away from. One of these days I’ll find the words…
Other good things that kept me in balance this week included some wonderful connections with old friends, being ready for the first hummingbird who arrived just after noon, and seeing the little cherry tree in full bloom. And satire:
ROME (The Borowitz Report)—A man who fell asleep during Pope Francis’s funeral was “already going to Hell,” God clarified on Sunday.
Although snoozing during the pontiff’s funeral was “beyond rude,” the Almighty said that the man clinched his place in the netherworld “decades ago.”
“If I hadn’t already made up My mind, the last hundred days would have made him a slam dunk for eternal damnation,” He said. “I mean, deporting a two-year-old? Come on.”
The Heavenly Father said the man’s decision to wear a blue suit at the funeral “wasn’t a factor” in his going to Hell, but was nevertheless “incredibly assholic.”
In another observation from the funeral, God noted, “Interestingly, Sleepy Joe Biden managed to stay awake.”
I’m grateful for this beautiful Sunday. I felt cranky most of yesterday. Because I wasn’t able to attend a Hands Off! rally, I planned to watch live coverage throughout the day, but couldn’t find any. I was expecting news networks to have cameras on the crowds in every major city, but the legacy media was suspiciously absent—Sadly, once-realistic expectations are rapidly becoming unrealistic. At least social media provided my crowd quotient.
I was thrilled this morning to read estimates of five million Americans out in the streets, and that good news came on the heels of a vivid adventure dream. Dan Rather offered this link to a CCR classic song, “Fortunate Son,” in his Reasons to Smile column from yesterday. The song is eerily relevant. I couldn’t stop at one CCR song, so I played Creedence tunes while I watered the houseplants.
The day kept getting better. I attended Upaya’s Awareness in Action zoom with Valerie Brown later, and Wren and I walked to the canyon after lunch for the first time this year.
Ice Canyon still has plenty, and a precious little Townsendia all curled up like a globe cactus is already blooming.
While we sat on the bench a golden eagle circled down to check out the possibility of a snack but flew on over us when it realized Wren had protection. I enjoyed a good long talk and a hearty laugh with my cousin, which also helped dispel the gloomy undertone so many Americans are feeling. I mean, Social Security, seriously? “Understaffed agency sent into ‘death spiral’ as employees warn Musk-led cuts will lead to structural collapse” reads the subheading of this Guardian article this morning. Are US media paying attention?
Tonight was a planned Zoom Cooking with Amy, and I’d been looking forward to that. We started with these little—I’m going to call them Doge Deviled Eggs—they’re not eggs, because who can afford eggs anymore, am I right? We saw this idea on Instagram a month ago: boil baby gold potatoes til tender, let them cool, scoop out the middles, mash up with anything you’d use in deviled eggs, and fill ‘em up again. Mel said it sounded like an awful lot of trouble, but it took less than half an hour not counting boiling and cooling. And they were delicious!
Next we crisped some prosciutto in butter, sautéed shallots, and tossed in frozen peas, fresh (store bought) cheese tortellini, along with chicken bouillon and cream, et voila! A marvelous one-skillet pasta eleganza.
It really was so simple, so delicious. After we concluded our lovely dinner, I was thinking about our culinary history together. It goes back to the earliest days of our friendship. In seventh-grade French class we had to perform a skit on stage that neither of us has forgotten. She was the French waitress, and I was the bumbling American tourist at the café. We don’t remember the entire dialog, but I pretended to know how to read the menu and ordered escargots. She questioned me (in French of course), and I insisted Oui, oui… er… (and here’s the punchline) avec syrop! We thought we were so funny, and we still laugh about it. Snails… with syrup!
I’m confident that our spring tortellini was much tastier than that imaginary meal 54 years ago. Wren curled up under my desk in the new bed Garden Buddy made for Topaz. I’m grateful I managed to find my joy throughout this day. I am indeed a fortunate one, but not like in the song.
As the coup continues to unfold, I am hearing from friends and about friends of friends who are losing their jobs in the great federal purge. It won’t be long before Mump supporters feel the pain: but will they be able to admit where it’s coming from? Meanwhile, here in the kaleidoscope, climate chaos keeps the colors and textures of the changing season spinning.
I woke up Saturday morning in a vivid memory of the dim halls of the Pentagon when I was six and the Colonel took me there to get my social security card. My breath caught as I thought of his admonishment then. I don’t recall the words but the message was loud and clear: This is who you are now: memorize this number and never let anyone take it from you. Well, I no longer have to worry about identity theft since that’s just happened to every one of us now.
Another sunset, another casserole. I’m calling it the Three Soup Casserole, and this time I added chopped broccoli and my new favorite Penzeys seasoning, Wauwatosa Village.
This gave me a couple of meals for the week, one for the freezer, and some to share with a neighbor. It is truly so simple! And pretty darn tasty, too.
Simply spending time in my kitchen cooking and baking to nourish and treat myself and others brings me comfort and peace. I’m also staying engaged with the resistance in the ways that suit my constitution and current abilities, including amplifying accurate information and upcoming actions. Monday, for example, there’s a “Not My President’s Day!” protest near you. And everyone is jumping on the “No Buy New Year” bandwagon, more about that later.
But once I have done in a day what I’m capable of contributing to the greater good, I allow my attention to return to my simple life, the result of all the choices I’ve made in every moment leading up to this one, and I let myself rest in contentment, with profound gratitude for the conditions of my little life in every moment flowing into the next. As I slice pats of butter to finish the casserole, I slice extra thin to use less butter now so that a) there’s more butter for later because who knows how long we’ll have it, and b) my heart really doesn’t need an entire stick of butter on a single casserole. I slice slowly and feel the butter, and lick my finger when I’m done carefully placing all the pats and taste the butter, and appreciate the butter, because that’s the truth of that moment.
When I serve myself a portion, I taste all the ingredients and savor the nutrition, and feel in my body my gratitude for this food, and for having enough to share. When I vacuum the rugs, I appreciate the machine, the rugs, the electricity, and the sun that provides it, and each element that transforms the sunbeams into vacuum energy; and I appreciate a clean floor.
And the Saturday burbles along with a meditation here, a short walk there, a few conversations; evening comes noticeably later now, and then dark, some mindful entertainment on TV with little Wren, and gratitude for turning into a warm bed. If you also have one, I hope you appreciate your good fortune as much as I do mine.
Like magic, I wake up alive and it’s time once again for breakfast ritual. This morning it was truly simple, a couple of big soft ginger cookies and a hot latté, made even more special by switching to an old favorite mug I haven’t used in awhile. A special friend gave it to me, and I pulled it out when it dawned on me that a tall mug would probably keep the latté hotter longer than the wide bowl I’ve been using (also a special gift) — and it did! Simply using this mug, this special plate, infuses the breakfast ritual with meaning. Even the preparation of the beverage this morning was more of a meditation than usual, as I contemplated the essence of elements: distilled nectar of the vanilla orchid, boiled sap of a Vermont maple tree, steamed fruit of the tropical evergreen coffee shrub. How they all made their ways here! to this moment, in this kitchen! It’s a miracle.
I can see that tonight’s theme is food, sigh. I started a post about drag queens a couple of days ago but it got unwieldy and I’ve had to set it aside to keep working on, so I return to my other happy place. Lunch. Except for days I can’t, I make a point to have lunch right around noon, and take a break from whatever else I’m doing to sit and enjoy a cheese sandwich and a good book. I’m grateful for the old Kindle, and today I’m especially grateful for the recently deceased author Tom Robbins. Some of his earlier novels delighted me and I believe imparted a sense of adventure that wouldn’t have sprung naturally from my upbringing. I was sorry to hear of his passing last week, and immediately checked out his last novel, Villa Incognito, which I hadn’t yet read. Like all his novels, it’s hard to say what it’s about, but it does resonate strongly with me at this time. I highlighted many passages about the folly and corruption of man, and the nature of god or gods.
Ice cream is a gift from the gods, which no one can deny. I’m grateful when I have some in the freezer, and even more so when I have both chocolate and vanilla, so I can swirl them together and savor every smooth spoonful. After more spring cleaning today, and exercising with my long-distance exercise buddy, I got back into the sunroom and planted seeds for three varieties of onions, bulbing fennel, and two types of cabbage. I’m late getting them in, but I’m recommitting to growing as much as possible of my own food this summer, now that I have a new hip and am getting some energy and mobility back.
And then, the kaleidoscope outdid herself this evening…
