I suffer from chronic monkey mind on my best day.  And I’ve never had even a hint of a sense of direction.  I can get lost anytime, anywhere.  This time I got lost in the kitchen and didn’t bubble up to the surface for four days.   Why?  I don’t know. Blame it on the rain. 

 

I remember having the bright idea to make cookies to take to some people at work.  Keep in mind that I do not have an oven, only a convection microwave.   Undaunted,  I whipped up 9 dozen assorted cookies—and none of them Christmas cookies.  Then I decided to make a little lunch—fried chicken, Japanese potato salad with radishes and cucumber, corn on the cob. 

 

And then I had to get dinner started—beef stew and homemade bread.  Of course dinner needed dessert—gingerbread with homemade pear preserves.  (I don’t can, so I only made one jar.)  I remembered that my father was jonesing for peanut brittle, so I made 3 pounds of that. 

 

By that time I was inspired.  I found a recipe for homemade peppermint marshmallows for hubby’s late night hot chocolate, and one of my mother’s mystery recipes which turned out to be ginger snaps.  My step-daughter phoned and asked me to send her some fudge.  I made 5 pounds while I was going that way. 

 

I got a few hours’ nap, blew off work,  and started all over the next morning with buttermilk biscuits and country gravy, taco salad, churros, cream puffs…..  This is where I lost track of time and any pretext of sanity.  I can’t even remember what  made after that.  It didn’t matter.  I was in the moment.

 

You’d think the caring souls that share my domain would have done some sort of intervention.  Oh, helllllll no!  They just bellied up to the breakfast bar and egged me on—like when the distraught person is on the roof and the crowd below is chanting “Jump! Jump!”  Worse still, every one of them can eat like a black hole without gaining a single ounce, except the dog, who is now comatose.  Hubby is widening the doggy door as we speak.

 

I finally stopped cooking late Sunday night—only because there was simply no place left to put anything and I had run out of sugar.  I still have to body slam the refrigerator to get the door to close.  It’s taken me three days to catch up on my workload, but everyone is happily munching and asking when I’m making the Christmas goodies.

 

Guess what gift I got in the mail today?   The 40^th anniversary edition of Julia Childe’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 648 pages of  exquisite culinary compulsion.  I’m happy as a pig in a wallow. 

 

There’s just one other thing that I really want for Christmas …

                                                                                                            LYPOSUCTION!

 

 

 WISHING ALL OF YOU SAFE AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Maybe I’m just simple-minded, but it really is the corny, cliché stuff that gives me the warm fuzzies. 

We took a little ride up the coast last weekend, stuck our toes in the sand and shared a thermos of hot clam chowder and some crabcakes warmed on a rock by an open fire.  That might not work for Suzanne, who  phoned me yesterday from cruiseship poolside on her way to Cabo.  But I thought it was romantic, and I doubt Suzanne’s sunset was more serene.

 

 

Not to say that “money can’t buy happiness.”  I wouldn't know.  But I do know that If I wait until I get enough money to be happy, it’s never going to happen.  It’s not a fancy home or flashy car or designer suits I once coveted that excite me now.  It’s going for a walk in the rain…

 

 

Reflections in our river at flood tide…

 

 

My favorite fishing hole...

 

 

Or  just sunlight in the sycamores.

 

 

These are the memories I will share with my grandchildren.

Best of all, I have an old dog to walk with me, and an old love to come home to. 

 

Bon Voyage, Suzanne.  Enjoy!

 

The good news is I just got a happy new camera and lots of happy new pictures.

The bad news is I can't post the pictures. I have less than a page so far.

Even if I pay the "premium membership" fee, I can post another 12 pics if I'm lucky.

Question is, how do I crunch the numbers on my photos?

What is it about November?

 

As Charles Kuralt  once said, “There is melancholy in the wind and sorrow in the grass.”   

 

Maybe it’s the poignancy of the autumn leaves, falling like the golden words of long-dead poets, that afflicts me this time of year with a strange, sad wanderlust.   I’m incapable of coherent thought or speech.  Just blinking seems to require more energy than I can muster.  Yet, I crave long walks down untraveled roads, even in the rain.

 

I finally had to take a break from my lackluster little life.  With dog and husband in tow, I played hooky.  Delicious deliverance!  The rain devolved to a fine mist just perfect for a day trip down some back roads.

 

Nature rewarded us with a vainglorious display of her fall fashions and entertained us with the ineluctable migration of birds.   The air was heady with the dark tang of new wine.

 

I could feel my obstinate, unwieldy little mind letting go in response to some deep and kindred chord.   Like falling in love all over again, I remembered….

 

THIS ONE is the most precious of all moments

 

 

 

        It”s  about mid-morning here, and about mid life for that matter.  I'm just slogging through the day's mix of mayhem and miracles-- that mortal muck that is both mire and manna. 

Sometimes the rain comes to wash it all clean. 

Sometimes the sun bakes it all hard.  Always

there's me and an ever-changing parade of fellow muckers, laughing, crying and wallowing in the delicious delirium that is the stuff of life.

         So come on in.  The fire's warm, the coffee's fresh

 

                                 

 

 …….and there's bread new-baked from the oven.  It's ok if you forget to wipe your feet—or your tears.  Lend me your thoughts. Teach me to savor the small moments, for they are my rainbows.

                                           

 

May you find safe harbor,

                     Bupu