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Gratitudes
Kass's warm and lovely post, which reminds me to reflect.
A purring fuzzy cat sharing my chair.
A weekend with family and my oldest friend and his fiancee. I got to talk more with her this time (we'd mostly met in large groups so far, and she's a medical fellow, so when she gets to a quiet place in the country she's usually sleepy, which I wholly understand. My sister's in the same crazy race.) I already knew I like her hugely and respect her, but we'd never had a chance before to watch bats at dusk and walk around the barns and sit on the back steps and talk. She's amazing. They cooked salmon for us for dinner, too, and my dad made corn pudding with corn we'd frozen and a salad out of the last of the garden.
A day spent driving through the mountains from mist to sun, with the trees almost translucent in crimson and lemon and flame and ember-orange. This time of year, driving is almost dangerous — it's so hard to keep my eyes on the road.
An hour to explore a town I knew only in glimpses, and an Italian market with olive oil labelled entirely in Italian — and sandwiches with red peppers and artichokes.
Conversations with co-workers I value, and one who said he had learned a lot from working with me. (Man, I wish he wasn't leaving. But he'll do well where he's headed, and that's a gratitude too.)
An hour at a local arts center, mostly in a solo show of paintings versed in country things — Ayrshires and Holsteins in hazy midsummer pasture, a corn chopper, fields of half-melted snow in March glowing in late light, sun on the river. The curators knew and loved him, and the show is a retrospective in his memory, with letters from his friends. They say he used to live and work above a garage on a back road with his dog and a radio tuned to the BBC, bathe in the stream, quote Yates and Keats and French philosophers casually. I wish I'd known him.
Coffee with a former intern who has just moved back here from the city and is much happier.
Stretching myself to be social online in ways slightly beyond comfort (pat on the back).
Roast chicken in the oven. Upside down. Can you turn over a chicken like turning around the bread pans, so both sides cook evenly?
A purring fuzzy cat sharing my chair.
A weekend with family and my oldest friend and his fiancee. I got to talk more with her this time (we'd mostly met in large groups so far, and she's a medical fellow, so when she gets to a quiet place in the country she's usually sleepy, which I wholly understand. My sister's in the same crazy race.) I already knew I like her hugely and respect her, but we'd never had a chance before to watch bats at dusk and walk around the barns and sit on the back steps and talk. She's amazing. They cooked salmon for us for dinner, too, and my dad made corn pudding with corn we'd frozen and a salad out of the last of the garden.
A day spent driving through the mountains from mist to sun, with the trees almost translucent in crimson and lemon and flame and ember-orange. This time of year, driving is almost dangerous — it's so hard to keep my eyes on the road.
An hour to explore a town I knew only in glimpses, and an Italian market with olive oil labelled entirely in Italian — and sandwiches with red peppers and artichokes.
Conversations with co-workers I value, and one who said he had learned a lot from working with me. (Man, I wish he wasn't leaving. But he'll do well where he's headed, and that's a gratitude too.)
An hour at a local arts center, mostly in a solo show of paintings versed in country things — Ayrshires and Holsteins in hazy midsummer pasture, a corn chopper, fields of half-melted snow in March glowing in late light, sun on the river. The curators knew and loved him, and the show is a retrospective in his memory, with letters from his friends. They say he used to live and work above a garage on a back road with his dog and a radio tuned to the BBC, bathe in the stream, quote Yates and Keats and French philosophers casually. I wish I'd known him.
Coffee with a former intern who has just moved back here from the city and is much happier.
Stretching myself to be social online in ways slightly beyond comfort (pat on the back).
Roast chicken in the oven. Upside down. Can you turn over a chicken like turning around the bread pans, so both sides cook evenly?