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Category: Quotidien

Five Things That Made Me Happy Over My Birthday Weekend. And a Picture

Back Deck 3.0 Until this past week, the deck had been a weight around my neck, an unfurnished waste land that reminded me every day of all the things I had not done, and empty void that fed my doubts and really accomplished nothing except to fuel my doubts. Last week however, instead of pulling weeds, I spent some time scrubbing built up pollen, mildew and various seasonal stains off the outdoor furniture. Then I moved the furniture that has been here and there and everywhere, most recently on the slate patio, to the deck, the space on the deck that had once held the outdoor dining table, but that too was relocated (deck 2.0). I’d been looking at deck furniture for years, but nothing clicked. Then, at a friend’s house, I realized I had been asking the wrong question. I had the furniture I wanted for the deck, I just had it in the wrong place.

Another corner of the deck. These chairs have been here a couple of years. The pillows were meant for the furniture above, but didn’t work there and make this corner more cozy. The brick pieces came with me from Hyde Park, were rescued from the original Vassar Brothers Hospital when it was torn down, and moved by me to this location last summer. I sat in these chairs enjoying my birthday breakfast, looking out at a deck that no longer looked like a barren wasteland of empty promises.

Savory Pastry: I made an onion tart, with local onions, cream and eggs. Creamier than a quiche, more custardy, it was light and delicious. I didn’t have the right size tart pan for the recipe though, so I actually made several smaller tarts, in a mixture of sizes, some more successful than others. I enjoyed working with pie pastry, I enjoyed the process of making the tarts. This particular tart was too shallow; the deeper ones, with more filling, are more appealing. But again these are minor details. I feel inspired to go through the boxes of baking supplies which have been languishing, unopened, since George died in 2012.

Farmers Market Saturdays. I have always loved farmers market days. It is more than just shopping for me. I like to wander around once, then come back and make my choices, although sometimes I just have to grab things when I see them. I love talking to the farmers and makers. I love the process of imagining what I can make. I love coming home and planning, dreaming of food and future meals either alone or with friends. Market days are imagination days, creative days, and this year especially, when I do not have my own garden, they are all the more necessary. I miss my vegetable garden, even as I know I don’t yet know how to work out the details of resurrecting it. That will come in time. In the meantime I still have the market, always have the market. I never had a large garden. I’ve never wanted to not go to the market. I want my Saturdays to revolve around this, what is local, what is here. For me, life has always, at least as long as I remember, revolved around food. What we eat, how and why we eat it, is a large part of what makes us human, and what brings us together as a community, connects us to each other and the world in which we live. Increasingly I reject the commodification of food because it feels like the commodification of life, and we are all more than that.

This week at the market I was cautious. I avoided buying too many peaches even though I dream of making peach butter. I knew I didn’t (don’t still) have the energy to make peach butter now, but I might one week. I did buy shishito peppers because I don’t have peppers in my non-existent garden. I blistered them in a hot skillet early the next morning, and they sit on the counter, there for the taking and noshing.

Macarons: On my way out of the market I bought a chocolate lavender macaron and I ate it while I cooled down in my car. Pure bliss.

Limelight Hydrangeas: The limelight hydrangeas are just beginning to open. Really, is there anything more to say?

And I promised a picture.

This is what 67 looks like, looking forward to a sixty-eighth year filled with hope. I feel hopeful, like my current self is more in touch with both the promise of my youthful self and the acceptance of limitations of my older self than she has been in a while. Odd talking about myself as an other, or even a group of others. Well, none of us are mono-dimensional after all. I am a universe of cells and ideas and thoughts and dreams.

July 7, 2025
A Letter from Garbo

Good morning!

This is Garbo reporting for my mom, who has been "under the weather", a term I don't really understand as the weather has been just fine — cold and sunny and crisp — the kind of weather that makes me want to run and play. Mom must mean something different though because she has been miserable and sick and droopy, spending days in bed, sneezing, coughing, sleeping, and moaning. I have been worried about her and do not want to leave her side.

Mom is better today, but I am worn out from looking after her. She did say her head still hurts and I could write this post for her because she can't "think". But I know she is better because she woke up, jumped into the shower humming. She hasn't hummed for at least three or four night cycles. And she stripped all the soft things off the bed and hauled them down to the big box in the basement that makes swishy noises.

We even took a walk this morning! Not a long one, just as far as the white house down the street with the pillars on the porch. They have a dog there I like, he is white like me, but a little more rambunctious. Once he ran out to play and wouldn't go back in and everyone was running around trying to catch him. He is not allowed to play with me anymore. I want to play with everyone. But he doesn't live there all the time either, I am told his mom lives elsewhere and brings him to visit.

But the walk was exciting because so much has happened in my neighborhood since I was last able to sniff around. We hadn't been out of sight of my house in days, so I had a lot of catching up to do. Mom tells me that if she manages her energy well we can take another walk later. What is it with humans and this idea of managing things anyway? I do like walks though.

Mom tells me I am getting distracted. I am supposed to tell you that she will be back writing soon. She had (has?) something called Covid but she is getting better. I know she is getting better because she sat on the sofa last night and knitted for hours, the first time she has done that in days as well. She would pet me occasionally as I rested my head on her knee, but not often enough. She is knitting this thing called a shawl and she can only pet me at the end of rows. Those rows take an awfully long time.

Mom also tells me we are going to go to the studio today! She is going to work on a baptismal towel. I left my turkey toy in the studio and I miss him, so I will be glad to play with him again. But for now, I need a nap. I do hope your day is filled with runs in the sunshine, sleeps, snuggles, and belly rubs.

Garbo.

January 2, 2024
Brave New World

So much has happened in the last month I cannot even begin to catch up. At the same time it is as if nothing has happened at all. I am still here, in Knoxville, life still goes on, all is well. It is a life of little excitement, and that is often all to the good. But even that is ambiguous. I am excited. I am excited at small things, and increasing energy, at the ability to vacuum the cobwebs out of the corners of the ceilings and the light fixtures. I am excited that the various piles of life, the things neglected, are less neglected now, and that energy grows steadily, in small increments. The truth is that even joy takes energy.

Two weeks ago, well almost two weeks ago, I cleaned out the garage. This took most of an afternoon and it was dark by the time I finished. The box in the middle (green stripe) is now gone. The pile of black things in the driveway also. That was a floor-standing bike rack that worked in my apartment, but not in the garage because it is meant to lean against a wall and the floors of the garage slope slightly toward the center in order to drain any errant water that might find its way inside. Sold.

I abandoned the garage in the early summer. Oh I walked through it to get to my car. But it was filled with dirty shovels and bags of dirt, spills on the floor, cobwebs I hadn't the energy to tackle. Mess and nature were taking over and this fed my own bitter inner voices. How could I live here two years (almost 2 1/2 years now) and not yet have put up shelves, of organized the garage, have kept up with the mess? My inner voices moved beyond gentle admonitions to chiding to shrieks of outrage and disappointment.

But wait. I was in the middle of planting when suddenly I simply could not. it was not a question of what I would rather do, but one of what I actually could do. The question was "do I lift this shovel from the floor?" "Do I sweep up this dirt?" Or do I use what small remaining bit of energy remains to drag myself up the steps and back into the house. "Do I even have enough energy for that?"

Wait! I have lived here 2 1/2 years, but over 1 1/2 years of that time I have been dealing with other issues, health issues, energy issues, the push-pull of dreams versus the reality of limited energy. It is time to cut myself some slack. I can be happy with neat but not organized. Yes, there is more that could be done. The possibility of more always exists. I have always been subject to the whims of "more is more", to gluttony, not just in having, but in doing. I was trained from early childhood for a life of gluttony: the gluttony of doing; of being; the need to be "smarter than"; the push to be "more accomplished"; the drive to achieve. The call of "more" is yet another trap.

There have been other progresses. The espresso machine started leaking. It started leaking at the worst possible time, when my energy was low, when my brain was also trapped in a pit of molasses. It could flood the kitchen cabinet between my first and second expresso if I grew roots in my chair, if I allowed too much time to elapse. And then……. The flood and its aftermath would overwhelm my energy levels and send me back to bed, exhausted and coffee-less. But this was but a small crisis, a crisis of luck and even privilege in a world of greater crises.

A month later the coffee corner is back in business. The biggest source of the leak has been addressed, although there are still a few small adjustments to be made, as there are also a few small tweaks to be made adjusting the grind back to my normal house espresso grind after a month of grinding coffee much more coarsely. I can live with tweaks. To live is to master the need for constant tweaking of one's hold on reality.

Some piles have simply been shifted to other piles, it is true.

I cleaned out my closet. I dreaded going in there. I didn't know what would fit, what would not. I wore the same few garments over and over again, and I was happy with the cohort of limited choice. But the closet still loomed. In the last month it has all been addressed. Everything, from undergarments to coats and everything in between has been tried on and divided up. The standard divisions were strictly maintained: keep, donate, mend or remake. Surprisingly, it all came out pretty evenly. About 1/3 of the contents of my closet remains, although that is more heavily weighted toward shoes and accessories.

Above is the pile of potentialities: things that need mending, things that can be altered or remade, things that show promise of transformation because the fabric or the yarn can be reused, reconfigured, reimagined. Of course, in the immediate future this just means one more pile in the studio.

I haven't sorted the studio out yet. It remains more a house of dreams than a fully functioning work space, although I am beginning, just beginning, to work there again. My hands itch at the prospect while simultaneously protesting as they struggle with fine motor skills. Every day my hands and my head come a little closer together. Every day dreams and reality butt heads. Every day the walls shift, even minutely.

November 22, 2021
Five Things Friday

I weeded a section of flower bed yesterday and I planted 9 plants. I hoped to do more but rain and tiredness won. After today I will be able to lift 10 pounds again, or more, and that will make gardening easier as well. It sounds like such a little thing, but if I plant 9 things every day, and perhaps some seeds in the vegetable garden, everything will be planted and in before the chemo kicks in and steals my ambition. There will of course be days when it rains, or I have to many appointments, so a little fudge factor is included. It is a manageable goal, and manageable goals are good things right now.

Otherwise, it has been a long time since I have done a "five things" post, and it seems about time.

Gifts from friends:  I posted this photo on Instagram earlier this week. A few things that brightened my life following surgery. Each of these is perfect, kind, distracting, soothing — but more than the things itself it is the thoughts and kindnesses even the smallest kindnesses, that remind me of how fortunate I truly am.

Jar Weights: After my fermenting session with Owen, I was thinking about fermentation weights and the impracticality of the glass weights that came in the fermentation kit I gave Owen for Christmas. Or at least they seemed impractical to me. They fit in the jars, but as a single piece, nearly the width of the wide mouth jar, they seemed like they may be difficult to remove, at least to someone with arthritic hands like myself. I wondered if anyone made weights for mason jars that were like the weights that are made for crocks — in two pieces. Lo and behold there are such brilliant people in the world. I love these. I haven't used them yet, but garden season, and fermenting season will soon be upon us.

Yarn and Knitting: I now have two cardigans in process. Yes, I started something new and relatively mindless, something suitable for tired evenings and post-anesthesia mental fog. And even though I am supposed to be knitting down the stash, which I am, more yarn arrived. In the April box from L'Atelier were the yarns to finally start my blanket squares. Those are the yellow and green yarns at the top of the photo. More amazing to me were the yarns that came for a new sweater project, the variegated yarn and the three yarns right around it. Notice how perfectly they coordinate with the current stripe in the sweater I was knitting as I attended the zoom and opened the box, with the blue and wine yarns. Of course I will not be wearing these garments together, but they are my happy colors, the colors of this moment in my heart. I don't have a picture of the sweater, or I would show you, but for me, the idea for a garment always starts with the yarn, with the color, or with the fabric if I am sewing. I never start out thinking "I need this dress", I start out with "oooh isn't that lovely, what does it want to be?" Of course my wardrobe could use some specific item-oriented planning as well. But that is not today's topic.

Mirror Reflections:  I continue to be fascinated by reflections in this rolled glass mirror, which was admittedly placed in the hall to reflect the light, not for photography sessions. But still, but there is something specific about the lack of clarity, the breaking up of the image into separate panes, the reminder that everything we present to the world is exactly that, a shifting mask. Oh, I should stop philosophizing. Even though I need a mirror where I can take good photos, especially as I start sewing and fitting, I still think I prefer the vague. This mirror reminds me of fog, something else I love, and the way it shifts our perceptions of the world around us.

Friends, Flowers, Impromptu Moments: Flowers, dropped off by a talented friend. Wine and conversation with other friends. The impromptu note. A new favorite cracker. A prayer. A silly text GIF. It is our community that sustains us, soothes us, strengthens us, each according to his or her own gifts and focus. I am constantly surprised. I think that is what I wish for, to be constantly surprised by people, by life, by the good that surrounds us, often untapped.

April 30, 2021
Brief Break

I am declaring this week a blog break while I attend a couple of seminars.

More later.

February 15, 2021
Monday Miscellaney

2021 has gotten off to a rather slow start here, at least in my personal socially-distanced bubble, but there are signs everywhere of new life about to burst forward.

I decided to reopen two previous blogs, the knitting blog, PurlsAndMurmurs, which I actually revived in December and the Sewing blog, SewDistracted, which I just started up again this month. My goal is to write at least three blog posts each week, one to each of the three blogs. I think this is possible, and will be good for me (yes this decision is all about me) although there was a period last week where I questioned whether I was being too ambitious. I suppose the question of ambition really depends on my purpose and intention; branching out actually seems to help me focus more on what I need and want these blogs to be, with less angst spent on what some part of my ego thinks they should be. The fact that I need to make progress in order to record progress also serves as a strong motivation to stop equivocating and start doing something, anything.

The blog is a record, a public record yes, but the writing and recording of it has always been as much about my own personal record keeping and the format suits me. Hopefully it brings some benefit to someone else, There are links to both blogs in the side-bar on the right of this post, but I have included them above as well. I have not yet decided about posting Facebook links, but it is a possibility.

I am behind on garden planning, and behind on planting as well. I have been unwilling to dig in the cold, and the somehow the sun has always appeared on days I am heavily burdened with other obligations. It will work out, and although it has been cold and damp, it has not been so cold that the shrubs are in danger in their pots. Again, hopefully simply admitting I am behind will provide adequate motivation.

A new computer arrives this week. This is a necessity as my old one stopped working in July. I couldn’t figure it out and eventually put it aside, which may have been a good thing. I have been working exclusively on my iPad since then, but the things it does not do well are beginning to weigh heavily. I spent much of last week trying to trace out the problem on the Mac and backing up recalcitrant data. At one point it appeared I might get the old computer up and running, but that hope proved short lived. It is possible that, in my oxygen deprived mental state last July I let something in which should have been kept out. No recriminations. Focusing on the computer, and the process of saving and consolidating has overflowed into a new organizational flurry which will continue for the rest of this month and until I get everything up and resorted again.

Amidst this flurry of administrative work, cuddles on the sofa with Poncho has been a necessary part of my winter rest and recovery phase and a necessary part of my own reawakening campaign. If I can’t yet fully get out of the house, I can at least make progress on getting out of “self”. When I adopted Poncho it was all about me. I needed a puppy to cuddle. But apparently at least some deeper part of my psyche realized I needed more, and I fell for this older, ill, disabled dog. I needed to get out of my own head and start relearning how to commune with other living things, to be attuned to their needs and to refine that dance through which taking care of others is also our path to taking care of ourselves.

Poncho is daily growing calmer and more confident. He is less needy and more cuddly and playful. So am I perhaps, certainly more open and more aware. I cry more easily, but I also giggle, dance, and smile. I am more outwardly focused. Last summer and fall took a toll, But, if we allow it, after any descent into darkness (or difficulty) there is a rise into light. Oh how I love metaphor, and ritual, not in and of themselves, but because of the way they refocus our attentions out of the self, away from the way we let the stories we tell ourselves blind us, and into something new. As usual, the more open we become, the more we allow change to blossom, to allow growth, the more we are able to expand, to focus, to be more ourselves.

Until next time…

January 18, 2021
Making and Mending

Over the weekend I finished knitting the trim on oversized boxy linen tee. I have named it summer sunset, although that is a little bit of a stretch…

Weaving in myriad yarn ends took a full evening of knitting time and I also admit that I approached the finishing instructions — to toss the thing in the washing machine and the dryer with a bit of trepidation, even though I had done exactly this with my swatches, and I had the data to prove this was the right course. But most of my knitting choices do not lend themselves to wash and dry, and I have felted a sweater or two in my time, so experience and knowledge were at odds.

Needless to say the sweater turned out beautifully. I actually think this will work well as a summer top for all but the hottest and most humid days, but also as a layering pieces in spring and fall, perhaps even the warmer days of winter here in Tennessee. I an already imagine it with a pink-coral turtleneck and brown chinos…. but today is too cold and I am not inclined to play dress-up.

After the sweater was done I started dismantling a blanket I had knitted at the end of 2004 and into early 2005. The colors don’t really go with this house, but that was not the reason for disassembly. The blanket was too large, and I was finding it impractical. I had knit it extra big, because George was a bit of a blanket hog, but now this larger-than-king-sized blanket blanket dragged on the floor off my queen-sized bed and felt cumbersome for a solo sleeper. It also required mending and was too large and heavy when wet for me to wash it.

I spent most of the weekend taking it apart. Lint and cat hair covered every surface and my sinuses were acting up a bit. I initially thought I would start this back in August, but health issues interfered, and Moises thought it was a perfectly cuddly bed. This weekend I paid the price in sinus congestion for allowing him the luxury.

Now I am washing the individual components. Once that is done I will lay them out and think about how to reassemble them, making necessary repairs as I go. There are several threadbare spots and holes. I don’t really like the way I assembled this the first time around, so my plans are different for this iteration although I don’t know what I will do with the old border, which I removed in its entirety. I do not plan to reattach it, but it is in such good shape that it seems a waste to discard it, and I am sure some idea will eventually surface.

I had thought that this would be my “next” project. But I see now that it will take several days just to wash the many squares, laying them out n my sweater-sized blocking board. I will need something to tide me over until I can start the process of renewal and reassembly. Which means, I suppose that I will be sorting through project boxes again later today.

Last but not least, I made a minor repair to one of my favorite winter coats. The separating zipper tape on this cashmere duffle coat was pulling loose and it had become difficult to zip. I did not make this coat, but I have always loved an unlined duffle, and almost always had at least one in my closet. This one is several years old and is by Kinross. When it finally wears out, I shall make my own, but at the moment, minor mending will suffice.

Last night my eyes were too tired last night to be able to even see the eye of the needle, much less thread it, so I put it all off until this morning, when I thought I would go to the studio to use the powerful embroidery magnifier. Luckily this wasn’t necessary. Freshly rested, I threaded the needle and repaired the coat in less time than it would take for me to walk out of my bedroom and over to the studio; in less time, in fact, than it took to make my first cup of coffee. This is good, because it is chill enough that I want to wear this coat again today.

December 7, 2020
A Few Things That Made Me Happy

Working this colorful wrapped stitch in Prism lace weight linen.

The beauty of the fallen Japanese maple leaves on the ground cover below.

A simple salad supper, a craving one evening despite the cold weather. A salad inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi, adapted for rose celery from GirlnDug farm. Shrimp. Feta. Happiness.

More autumn color. Ginkgo leaves have really captured my imagination this year, especially the way the color seems to concentrate the autumn light, but I had never been able to capture any fragment of that sense in a photo. Until this one taken in the waning afternoon light.

This week I learned that one reason my eyes were always tired is that my prescription had changed, and was in fact too strong for me. One eye no longer needs a prescription for distance vision, and the other only a slight prescription. We decided to see how I would adapt if I tried to return to contacts, this time wearing only one, for reading, while my stronger distance eye went uncorrected. Bonus: For the first time in years I can actually see to put on makeup. But I am not yet sure I am used to seeing my face without the protective layer that glasses provide. Not yet certain how this will work, or if I will be back in my glasses in a couple of weeks, but the irony is worth noting with a bit of self-compassion. When I stopped wearing contacts and started wearing bifocals, I missed my face; now, I miss my glasses and feel exposed.

Snipping a few herbs early one morning I was entranced by the frost on the leaves of oregano and chervil.

Music has not stopped. Although I still miss live performance, zoom has been wonderful. I have subscribed to the Norwegian Digital Jazz Festival through the Big Ears website, and I listened to this concert earlier this week. I have replayed it at least once (one of the advantages of zoom, although I still miss the way the vibrations of music in the air change a space). The Eivind Aarset Quartet is more to my taste, but I still found Hedvig Mollestad fascinating and enlightening with the way their music seems to dance on a precipice, blurring lines between free jazz, heavy rock and prog. At times powerful, occasionally beautiful, certainly perception-changing. Tonight Big Ears is presenting a concert by the Bad Plus and I am looking forward to it.

I finished the bottom trim on the boxy linen tee and I have to admit I love the way it is turning out. This is not exactly how the pattern was written, as four colors were used in the sweater, but I only have 3 remaining. It took me a little fiddling to align the three colors in a way I found pleasing, but now I am happy with the results. I have not finished the neckline yet simply because Poncho decided to move up in the world, advancing from lying at my feet, to joining me on the sofa. I approve, but Moises is not yet convinced. There were a couple of evenings in front of the tv, dog on one side, cat on the other and no knitting in between.

And there it is, actually a pretty good representation of my week. Not much happened. Not much needs to happen. Life is good.

December 4, 2020
The Battle of the Beasts

It is a very mild battle to be sure, but the lines have been drawn.

Moises is fascinated by Poncho’s food. He wants to eat Poncho’s food. This is odd because M has never shown any interest in any food other than his own. He didn’t eat Tikka’s food. He doesn’t eat people food. But now things are different. Perhaps it is just simple jealousy.

Poncho pretty much ignores Moises, and Moises has come to learn this. Except when it comes to food. Poncho smells that this cat has been around his food dish (although the dish is ceramic and perhaps does not smell, but the wood floor surely does), and he has started taking a few bites, then walking a foot or two away and peeing. This has nothing to do with needing a walk, and everything to do with marking territory. “My food! Stay away!” says Poncho.

The problem is that cats don’t necessarily follow dog rules.

Today we saw a bit of an escalation. Moises went right up to Poncho and tried to sneak his head in the bowl. Poncho pushed him aside. Moises backed off. Poncho took a few steps from the bowl to mark his space. Moises saw his opportunity and seized it only to be chased away by Poncho. Luckily I had towels at the ready, having already set up “oopsie stations” in the house, simply because my house is twice the size of Poncho’s former home and accidents will happen, although they are already happening with far less frequency.

This is not an accident however.

The whole scenario is really rather humerous. No one is biting or scratching. One simply has to laugh. The solution, at least for now, is that Moises will have to be locked out of the kitchen when Poncho is eating. I had already learned that if there is no cat there is no pee-behavior.

In the meantime, Poncho and I have gotten more and more in sync and are doing fine, except for this morning perhaps, but I am siding with Poncho on this one. When I left the kitchen a few minutes ago, Poncho’s food bowl was surrounded by a semi-circular ring of towels, which had been laid out on his marked perimeter. I can’t pick them up and mop because Poncho is lying on the towels guarding his bowl. He is alert and wary. He might not see the cat, but he can smell him and he knows where he is.

Soon enough, a temporary cease-fire will occur, at least until the next meal time, and life will continue on its merry way. Change is a bitch, isn’t it? But in another day, or another week, or three, it will all be forgotten. Poncho will have adapted. I will have adapted. Moises as well. The world keeps changing. More often than not that change is not the one we wanted, and so we just laugh and try to keep up.

Here come my weary soldiers. It must be time for me to go mop up

November 16, 2020
Just Another Day In Just Another Week.

It has been a busy week, well not quite a week, but who is counting? And we have all been busy, busy with the stuff of life, whatever that stuff may be. It is not my place to either hold up my life, nor to judge the choices and/or circumstances of others. I continue to struggle with blogging, with subject matter, and privilege, with the idea that we way we present ourselves to the world is a gloss, an edited version of ourselves, even more so on the web than in our day to day lives.

But I spend too much time thinking. And perhaps I spend too much time writing about merely one side of life. Maybe I need to write about the more quotidian things, about the basic boring aspects of life that we all have to deal with, boring as they may be to write about. I suspect however that no one wants me to post a picture of a vacuum, of a bucket of water and a mop. Perhaps we read to escape the mundane. I too. But why do we think the necessary and the quotidian is less worthy than the exceptional?

So here is a day, yesterday, in fact. But even that, of course is edited. What is shown? What is not? What is worthy of mention? What is not?

I usually wake up somewhere between 6 and 7. There have been periods of my life where it was earlier, and times when I have slept later. I make the bed. I make coffee. If Moises has been out overnight, I let him in. I sit and write out whatever random thoughts arise. Yesterday I also read a letter that arrived a month ago, when I was in hospital, and which I had misplaced. It was, then, a special kind of treat. I found the letter on Thursday, and colored in the card stock, an act of active doodling, before reading the actual letter.

Next I usually meditate, dress, and eat breakfast. Yesterday that meant scrambled eggs with broccoli raab and fresh tomatoes from the garden.

As I walked back from the vegetable garden to the house, I admired the Coreopsis.

Then it was time for daily household maintenance. Yesterday that meant dusting and vacuuming. It also meant that I finally started on a thorough cleaning of the stove and stove vent. Started, but did not finish, alas. Completion of that task should be accomplished today, and since it is raining, there are fewer distractions. I also managed to ignore the crystal on the dining table. A cabinet had to be emptied so that a faulty lighting circuit could be repaired. I fully intend to wash all of the glassware before returning it to the cabinet. But not yet.

I had to run to Walgreens to pick up medications and a few other items. By the time I returned home my stomach was rumbling and my blood sugar was low. While I warmed some soup, I quickly made mayonnaise.

My reward was a lunch of tuna salad rolled up in sesame leaves and spicy eggplant soup, a soup made from my own tomatoes and eggplant.

After lunch, and zooming with friends, I went back outside because I thought I had noticed an azalea blooming. I moved this azalea, Marshy Creek Humdinger, in early June as it seemed to be growing smaller and more frail in its previous location. This is the first time I recall seeing it bloom.

A nap, my stretching routine, and a late afternoon walk helped me finish out the day. I read until it was time for dinner, when I reheated some chile verde and sliced a couple more small tomatoes. After cleaning up I watched and listened to The Bad Plus streaming from the Bijou Theater and knitted.

All in all, it was a good day. It was a pretty typical day. Increasingly I think a good day is just this, what we do, what we need to do, to nourish and sustain ourselves, body and spirit.

October 10, 2020