Day 60

I've been ordering fresh produce from a local cooperative, and yesterday's delivery was a bonanza of greens and lettuces, radish and baby broccoli, a scattering of herbs and lemons, a grapefruit, some blueberries and onions and a couple of tiny worms. The rendering -- the washing the drying the organizing the storing -- of all this fresh produce gets my tiny little mother mind™ thinking about convenience and waste and the myriad depressing ways a lot of us live, saying we're too busy or can't be bothered or whatever. Whatever. I'm no farmer girl, no rural girl, no grower of my own vegetables nor do I have any desire to do any of that. What I do love is fresh food, recipes and cookbooks and puttering around in my kitchen doing domestic things. I also like fancy things -- half and half in a glass bottle, tiny little jars of pot de creme from France, a weird Italian green that tasted salty like the ocean or what I imagine a cactus (it looked like one). I don't have much to say other than I've been depressed in a way that I can't remember being depressed and I'm very much aware of the luxury in that statement and the unoriginality in the condition. I'm angry, too, but I'm made of anger in no small part and as the gray takes over my hair I will try to be as exuberant as unapologetic because it's all about letting go letting god letting.






as much as i try to be an easygoing, stretch your wings and fly type... i just can't stop trying to burst people into flames

a card that a beloved sent me



People I'm Currently Trying to Burst Into Flames In No Particular Order, Except for the First Three:

Donald Trump
Mike Pence
Mitch McConnell
Men with submachine guns
Men who assault women
Men who kill black people
Men who shoot children
Men who beat up women
Men who make stupid jokes
Men who harass women
Men who are religious zealots
Men who date girls
Men who refuse to apologize
Men who can't get their shit together

Feel free to add to the list.

Saturday

Oliver is selling lemonade at the corner today for $.75 a glass. He squeezed the lemons last night at 11:00 and made simple syrup with The Husband. He wondered if Henry might go door-to-door and take orders and then deliver, but Henry, being Henry, said, Nah, I don't like working like that. So, he's in his room, playing video games or watching violent movies with lots of sex.

Just kidding.

Sophie is having a sleep-fest which she does periodically and which I believe is her body's way to cope with a period of particularly brutal and multiple seizures. I periodically poke my head over the door and watch to see whether her chest is rising and falling, and then I feel somewhat sheepish to still be doing that and then I realize that it's perfectly reasonable given our situation and Sophie's troubles and then I wonder, for a bit, if I'm irrevocably damaged and then I realize that we all are in one way or another but that life just keeps on blowing its breezes and throwing its lemons and pushing out mint.

It's another beautiful day in Los Angeles. I'm going to finish The Interestings and start on The Mouse-Proof Kitchen by Saira Shah. It's a novel about a couple living in southern France with a disabled child, and I believe the writer herself has a child with seizures. I know that someone (maybe here?) told me about Saira Shah a long time ago, and I pre-ordered the book on Amazon. It was downloaded to my Kindle the other day, and just this morning I read a review. I also might finish spray-painting two metal chairs that I picked up at a yard sale and that I'm working on, slowly, ever so slowly, because, really, I'm more like Henry when it comes to that kind of thing and would rather say Nah, I don't like working like that. As for sex and violence, I prefer the former.

Reader, how is your Saturday shaping up and what are you reading?