Monday's Last Call

The Apricot chicken and couscous were a hit tonight for Monday night dinner.

The escaped criminal is still on the loose.

I am still carrying the phone with me until the battery runs out. (I usually NEVER touch the phone)

Headache has finally subsided.

Two of my closest friends are endless flirts and get phone numbers from people they don't even want them from. (this makes me want to be depressed...but they are 100% different from me, so I won't. I just won't!) I am me. (breathe)

Dog is sleeping.

It's time for Old Christine...which has grown on me, I'll admit it.

There's not enough mint-green tea in the universe, much less my pitcher.

No bed bugs.

:)

A triumph! Old Fashioned Oatmeal Honey Apple Cake

Well, a new blogger "friend" has tempted me to try baking and I actually came out with a success. Recipe from my cooking light magazine, and it's pretty tasty. Don't know if the Monday night dinner crowd will love them, but I didn't end up throwing it out. That is success in this kitchen. I've just never been a fortunate baker.

Today, a new outcome. I am pleased as punch!

I love...

the sound of rain on the roof.



the smell of garlic cooking.



seeing the kitties play.



enjoying a nice glass of wine.



a fabulous meal in a hole in the wall place.



walking on dirt roads.



getting lost (briefly) in the woods.



sunflowers.



cheesecake of any kind or flavor, plain and simple or ritzy glitzy.



friendship.

poetry.

the icing on cake.

fresh figs.

climbing mountains.

sleeping in hammocks.

travel.

reading and writing.

all sorts of other things.

What do you love?

The Grapes of Wrath

I began the day making muffins, and ended it drinking wine straight out of the bottle. Sometimes the best laid plans still fail you.

The muffins were wonderful. Banana pistachio walnut made from scratch. Muffins are the only baking endeavor that ends on a positive note for me...because I like to go my own way with cooking and baking is a much more conformist art. So, cookies turn out like sugary weapons, cakes become pancakes and pies...well, they brew over and cover the oven in a gooey mess. Muffins then, are my only friend in the baking realm. And they turned out beautifully...like they do.

I finished a muffin for breakfast, took the dog for a medium walk, and came back to a phone call from my NC friends. Frantic, they were trying to tell me that there is a convict loose in the tiny town where I live. To top that off, it's already a foggy rainy day (usually one of my favorites) but a little dreary crime scene like, and gloom and doom began to descend. I decided to just start cleaning, get my mind off of it and move on with my day. But, somehow, the cattle dog was tipped off by my internal fearfulness, and we proceeded to spend the day with him going off randomly in barking fits (my dog, bless his big heart is so quiet by nature, that this was quite alarming). So, that I put my vacuum down, heart beating, and try to peek down the steps to see if someone is at the door. Looks clear, so I tiptoe down the steps and go around the house half-bent over to make sure no one is around. This happened many times. So, stress level built and built and built.

I got an update call a couple hours ago, and they said he (the convict) had been seen in the town next over. My friend who called said he knew the guy and went to school with him and he was a very nice person. So, aside from the fact that he stole a car and shot an officer, he is a great guy.

This did ease my unease...but I still had wine for supper, straight from the bottle, and really, I think it's better that way.

Cicadas and grasshoppers and crickets, oh my!

Tonight at dinner there were four of us. My work friend brought her friend and we met a mutual friend at a new restaurant called Raphael's. There were a lot of saltines as garnish, but otherwise the food was lively and good. Our food came on plates, but we saw other folks get big platters of shellfish, paella, pork and onions. I thought, and said, afterwards that you must need to be in the "know" to get the cool stuff. Our plated food was nice...but again, the saltines. They came with the salad, and also with the crabcakes. And for the life of me, I can't think what saltines have to do with crabcakes.

Talking about saltines...I will say this in their favor. If you ever find yourself in NYC, go to McSorley's Bar. There's a pot-bellied stove, an Irish mojo and one of the best appetizers you can get with two pints of dark beer. They send out a sleeve of saltines, some white cheddar sliced, thinly (see through) sliced onion and HOT HOT HOT mustard. And you spread a bit of mustard on that saltine, layer cheese and onion, take a bite. It is a steamy heaven that screams for the beer chaser. Love it, every time.

Anyway, my work friend...who is a friend, a real friend. I always have trouble making that connection with people I work with...but I could find no one dearer. So, she is the artsy cool type. Her friend was a farm girl who is now a city girl and loves to cook. And our mutual friend is a new friend to us...but a teacher and a little scientific minded girl-woman. And she spurts always the most interesting ideas. Tonight, it was the eating of bugs. The next evolution. Possibly the only way we'll be able to eat in the future.

And I wonder could I do it? Could you?

Dirt Road Dog & Flower Pot Kitty

Who are We?

Laying your face in your hands can be a very comforting thing. Also eating an entire Cadbury mega-bar can be a comforting thing. Slowing down and watching the pup and the kitties play can be comforting. And I am certain that there are many other things. My week has been anything other than comforting. And today, topped the barrel off (I use this analogy because of the winery where I spend my days and hours-it seems appropriate.).

Do you think sometimes that there are people in this world that were just born to be good? Just couldn't help it if they tried? I mean, they go meekly through life and they make mistakes, sometimes tell lies, take parking spaces, muddy up the kitchen floor, yell at the dog...but still the goodness seeps out of their pores like a good stiff shot of garlic? Those kind of people. Maybe at some point early in life, they even killed a man...but it was a tragic mistake and the world paused only briefly over the fact? I want to believe this. And I think of it, because there is a man that I work with who sweats humility, perfumed rapturous purity of heart, goodness like even Santa never dreamt of. And knowing what little I know about his life, I think he's probably thrown a punch, taken too much change, or runover some woodland critter. But, I forgive him for it immediately. His soul or substance requires it of me. Just looking him in the eye, I feel salty, raw and inhuman, guilty for all my bad thoughts, for every mistake, for the utter core of me that feels gutteral and seething with impurity.

I am making this man out to be quite a character, huh? But, I never really see him...he works elsewhere. I run into him at big meetings or picking up paychecks, and I rarely give him a thought. But, today because of the day, I really absorbed what he felt like in passing, what the smile on his old griselled face seemed to convey. He isn't really old, but he looks like he's lived through a lot...so I don't know. Anyway, I started this paragraph to say that he's really not my story, but he is used here to make my point (which I may get to one day or another).

This man is nothing like me. If I walk past a doorway with someone standing in it, I leave an essence of carelessness behind me. I feel like the bad in me bubbles into small volcanoes almost constantly. Yet, really I don't do anything bad...not so bad, not VERY bad. But, I have always felt the badness at my core. And as much as I work to walk through the world and leave goodness, I feel it might be impossible. I received such a mean email today from a friend of a friend. She misunderstood a situation and she attacked me over it. And in her misunderstanding, I believe she could be called right or even possibly justified in her complaint. But, she never found out the story and she gave me words that felt like daggers. And I can dismiss them, I can...I can let go of them because she does not know the story, cannot judge the outcome. But, it made me think that no matter how I try to live my life...I sometimes leave a bad interpretation. I know what you are saying...it's someone else's interpretation. But, I wonder what my soul says. I really do. That this man who I do not know, can give me the sense of forgiving...because I know, I KNOW, that even if he did it, he didn't mean to...and this isn't through knowing him, it's just through his presence. But this friend of a friend knew me, and how could she think so wrongly of me?

How can you give off such a wrong impression, when you give every attempt at the right one? Do we all make mistakes the same way? Are we all accountable in the same way? I don't easily point a finger and never have. Maybe that's why people sometimes feel pristine to me...it's the mystery of them. That I enjoy and do not necessarily want to discover. I've never felt so right that I could hurt someone intentionally. But, that's just me.

I guess I am done with this for now. I have some pictures to share of the "family".