Sabbath gifts

This evening Denis and I sat on the back porch for a little while, each with a cup of hot tea. There are frost warnings out for northern Minnesota tonight and it was already chilly enough that I wrapped up in an afghan. We sat recounting our weekend -- I was here and he was in St. Louis. A rabbit settled beneath the hedge and closed her eyes, but her ears still twitched. A humming bird came to the feeder right in front of us and we could hear his feathers give a tiny rumble as he downshifted to hover mode. Denis said he's like a semi that does jake braking. He drank, sat on the clothesline, drank again, sat back down, scratched his ear with a leg. Flashed to the nasturtiums, ate a couple gnats for protein then, gone. A bird with a “Purpose Driven Life.”

We pray to receive the coming week as from God’s hands, to be as content with our limitations, work, pleasures, finiteness as the creatures we witnessed tonight.

Zucchini

First good thing. Am much happier now than I was a few minutes ago having just eaten a slice of fresh zucchini bread. Anita’s been baking and the scent rises to my second floor office. As far as I’m concerned it’s still too early in the season to resent the giant, naughty zucchini gardeners pawn off when you're not looking.

Second good thing, I see it is nearly dinner time and I’m not cooking! We’re grilling at Kosmo’s tonight and I hope she remembers that a bunch of us are coming over and she’s providing the car-nay. So. More joy. It’s not that all of my life is about food. Really, it’s not. But at the end of a long day to find that someone else is redeeming zucchini and lighting the fire is, well, a grace. And for good measure: a poem:

Zucchini

O dread species!

overachiever, overpopulator,

you bore me to death.

At night while the stars hone their points

you multiply and inflate into obscene gestures.

You are the season’s homeless.

We pass you among us like orphaned children

until our sense of charity dissolves

under the sheer weight of your numbers.

Then do we stack you like firewood

and pray for lightening to strike.

- Robert Samarotto

It's like this...

Remember last winter when we whined and cried for fresh like this? Wes made us Victory Garden Chicken Soup. The flavors subtle and green, softly satisfying accompanied by the crunch of fresh bread. Saying good-bye to him for a season - easier when time slows for wine conversation and mannerly dogs laying their heads on your knee saying, Friend, I only just met you, but as you can see, I love you.

I've been away

Been distracted. Busy. Tired. Lacking bloggerish energy. But I'm coming back, I think.



But here’s my favorite comment from Paige and Anson - other than…”Grandma, I’m going to miss you soooo much” -- Anson, 5 Paige, 3 were embracing in the kitchen. Both were laughing, dancing, falling down together.
Paige says: “Anson loves me very much.”
Anson clarifies: “No I don’t. I was just huggin her.”

After a week of not eating more than two bites of anything I made, except Kraft macaroni and cheese. (I wasn’t offended.) Today jackpot. They left for home today, staggering off, stuffed like little snakes having each eaten five large buckwheat pancakes with maple syrup, one egg over easy, four pieces of bacon, two glasses of juice.

Distribution will not be equal

A friend from Hawaii writes that a branch bearing sixteen ripened avocados fell off their tree, and she would gladly share them if only I would come across. Her husband carefully logs numbers and guards them from scalpers. So there may be no better reason for a trip to Hawaii. Just yesterday I was spared some envy and slightly assuaged with a pretty good one for Minnesota store-bought. Rare. It was large and dark, evenly acned, made you want to press your thumbs in like that gross scene with the eyes in Blade Runner - not a good idea. And don't look up the scene on youtube. The peel lifted smoothly and the inside it was that perfect green to yellow and easily turned to the consistency of Pantene Hair Conditioner when I mashed it with a fork. I added fresh lime juice, minced garlic, hot pepper flakes, salt and spread it on lightly toasted bread, placed a slice of ripe tomato on top, grated parmesan cheese, and broiled it for a minute or two. mmmm. We ate it on the back porch in perfect temps and looked at the flowers blooming wildly as if they know time is short. But a mere branch of sixteen? And today she says that three of them made four pounds of guacamole? I faintly writhe.