Rainy day blues

 

Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and green onion--supper!

I must have intuitively known the weather because I slept outrageously late this morning and then wakened to another rainy, dreary day. Perfect for staying inside at my computer. After our terribly hot dry spell this summer, the gods of rain seem to have settled on us. We’ve had so much rain that a couple of pot plants without good drainage are suffering from root rot. But my new native plant bed is growing—I think it will be fine next spring.

This morning even Sophie pretty much decided inside was best. I cranked the heat up just a notch, got a cup of tea, and settled down to work. I’m grateful these days that there’s not the great volume of political email, though Ralph Warnock is sending out enough emails to make up for twenty candidates. I’m cheering hard for him, so I don’t really mind the emails, but I don’t read them all. I know the principle: repetition in marketing (and I suppose campaigning) is the key to success.

A long morning at the computer, a snack of leftovers for lunch—pinto bean salad which was an interesting experiment and a good cucumber salad plus leftover pot roast. After my daily nap, when Jordan wanted chicken casserole, I got everything ready to cook—chicken defrosted in the fridge, the stick of butter that she asked to be defrosted (it just went back in the fridge). Got the canned soup from the cupboard, and even the hook for opening those pop-up cans my old hands can’t handle (that is the most useful kitchen tool I’ve found in ages, so thanks to Priscilla Tate for telling me about it.) I got out dinner plates, the salad bowl, saw that there is enough clean lettuce, laid out flatware, even changed out of the clothes I’d slept in. In short, I was all ready to whisk dinner on the table.

And then it cancelled.

After a while, I put everything away, except I kept out the salad bowl because it’s a bit difficult to get to, and I put the canned mushroom soup in it (still in the can, of course) because why put it back in the closet only to get it tomorrow. I decided I needed a little splurge after that abrupt change of plans, so I added a scallion and some diced smoked salmon to my eggs before I scrambled them. Lesson learned: whip up the eggs first, then add those solid bits. Whatever, it was delicious. Topped by a couple of the Central Market chocolate truffles I keep in the fridge. It’s the indulgent life.

It's going to be a busy week, so my solitary day today was okay. And I did distract myself periodically today with the news—glad to hear that one major network has projected Katie Hobbs the winner for Arizona governor over Kari Lake, an election denier who has thrown her whole loyalty to trump. It’s fun for me to read the various theories about what happened with the midterms, and why the outcome was so unexpected. Everyone and his brother has a theory, and no one knows who is right, if anybody. I did like independent columnist and college sophomore (or junior?) Gabe Fleisher who admitted at length that the pundits, including himself, got it all wrong.

It's almost eight-thirty, and I still have to wash my few dinner dishes, do some work on the neighborhood newsletter, and then I can settle down with the current mystery I’m reading—one of the latest in the long-running Murder, She Wrote series. This one is The Queen’s Jewels and most of the action takes place on a crossing of the QM2 from England to New York. Fun reading.

Have a good week, everyone!