Feeling mellow and content tonight, after a nice (and easy) supper, a good visit with Jean and Jordan. It’s been a lazy day. In fact, it’s been a lazy week. I read an article this morning entitled, “Ten Things You Can Do Around the House to Avoid Writing,” and I thought I didn’t even need that article. I’d been procrastinating nicely on my own. The article made me think of Erma Bombeck (remember her?) who famously said when she rolled a blank sheet of paper into her typewriter, she’d rather go mop floors than write. This article suggested making an elaborate recipe—I did that tonight with--wait for it--marinated kale. More about that another time. Or folding laundry—I don’t do that so much. Walk your dog is pretty much out for me since I need the walker—I doubt Sophie would like that. Erma’s classic mop the floors is there, along with taking a nap. Now there’s a distraction I can agree with.
I do have a complaint though.
Has anyone else noticed with dismay how big onions and potatoes are these days?
Onions, even my beloved sweet onions, as big as a baseball. And the last couple
I’ve tried to slice or dice are hard a rock. And potatoes five or six inches
long. I tried to bake one for my supper last night. Used the British method and
baked it at 200 for two hours—did not faze that potato. I tried to split it,
fluff to let the steam out, as the British do, and I could not begin to split
it. I upped the temperature and put it back twice, until it was nearly eight o’clock,
and I was hungry. I could cut it, but it sure wasn’t fluffy and tender like you
want your baked potato. What I had for dinner was essentially toppings—sour cream,
bacon, green onion, grated cheddar with an occasional bit of potato thrown in.
Delicious, but not substantial and probably not very good for you. I was so
desperate to eat that my final trick was to try to bake just half the potato—didn’t
help at all. I told myself I’d bake the other half for lunch today, but I was so
disgusted I threw it out.
One problem is that of
necessity I order most of my groceries delivered. I try to add a note that say,
“Smallest onion you can, please—none of those humongous ones,” but it rarely
does any good. It’s just not the same as picking out your groceries yourself. I
try if the timing is right to ask Jordan to get them on her occasional grocery
runs. But I think someone—farmers, grocers, whoever—has gotten carried away
with the idea that bigger is better.
While I’m whining, here’s
another complaint. I love seeing on the computer pictures of classic libraries.
Some are old, with intricate railings around tiers and tiers of shelves, and
you can almost smell the books when you look at the picture. Other pictures
show elaborate home libraries, still tall with many tiers and a moveable ladder
to get to the top ones. I hereby declare that much as I love books and reading,
I do not want any book badly enough to climb one of those shaky ladders to get
to it. I also love old things and ways as opposed to modern days with
everything machine and computer driven, but I’ll make an exception for
libraries, even ancient ones. Surely someone could devise an automated system
that would deliver those books to you. It’s one instance where I’d exchange a
bit of the picturesque for practicality.
I admit to a lifelong fear of
height—acrophobia. I read somewhere that people with a fear of height always
want something to hold on to. That wouldn’t do it for me. I wouldn’t climb a
ladder to the fifth tier of books, even though I could hold on to the ladder.
Jean lives on the seventeenth floor of Trinity Terrace, and when I’m at her
apartment I stay clear the other end of the room from the balcony, just in case
some magnetic force would pull me out to that open space. Friends Subie and
Phil live on the third floor, and I’m much more comfortable there. I’ve often
thought I wouldn’t sleep comfortably on the seventeenth floor, but then I
remember I have slept on floors that high or more in hotels. That’s another story,
but I won’t go into it—a funny story about staying in a Hyatt with babies who
could climb. Suffice to say I like my feet—and my bed—firmly planted on the
ground.
On that note I’m going to
retire to my comfortable bed in my comfortable cottage where I can open the
door and let my dog out on good, green earth. A tree man was here the other
day, seeing what our trees need (don’t even ask!) but when he came into the
cottage to report on what he’d seen, he looked around and said, “I really like
your set-up here.” So do I. I thank the Lord every day for my cottage and my
comfortable life—and then I feel a bit guilty about all those throughout the
world who are living in horrendous conditions. Let us all pray for peace—in Ukraine,
in Gaza, at our southern border, in many African nations where there is
turmoil. Throughout the world.
