Full and happy

Los Angeleno by birth, Northwesterner by choice, Second-hander by nature. Librarian, housebound chef, father, and lowly subject ruled over by the needs and whims of a very old house.
Partial to Mexican, Italian and Vietnamese cookery but will eat damn near anything. Collector of many strange things..the result is chaos and anarchy and a very pleasant place to live.
There is pleasure in accumulation, not just "collecting": music, books and film, in all their multi-formated glory. Outsider artists and those kinds of prints you would recognize if you took liberal studies classes in college. Cooking implements and gadgets for recipes still untried or those ventured. Glasses for most types of libations. Flowers in the garden, herbs in the pot.
It's a life of the senses and a good home life reflects that. Walking helps take in all the rest. Requires no special equipment, opens up the pores, brightens the taste buds, clears the decks for further adventures, puts on the miles, widens the eyes and helps fuel the imagination.

Live boldly, play graciously and love with all your heart knowing that true love comes only once or twice in this lifetime. Speaking of which..donde estas, Empress of my Heart?

Salud!

"Lack imagination and miss the better story" Yann Martel

"Life is a great adventure and I want to say to you, accept it in such spirit. I want to see you face it ready to do the best that lies in you to win out. To go down without complaining and abiding by the result....the worst of all fears is the fear of living." Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.

"Not I - not anyone else, can travel that road for you
You must travel it for yourself" Walt Whitman


And above all, friends should possess the rare gift of sitting. They should be able, no, eager, to sit for hours-three, four, six-over a meal of soup and wine and cheese, as well as one of twenty fabulous courses.

Then, with good friends of such attributes, and good food on the board, and good wine in the pitcher, we may well ask,

When shall we live if not now?

-From Serve it Forth,
M.F.K. Fisher


Sunday, October 4, 2009

Achingly, wonderously

I went out and about in the fall weather today. It would have been all too mundane to waste away the day doing yardwork and I was aching for something more along the lines of an exquisitely mundane experience so I took a drive instead, went all the way to Tacoma, ended up at Point Defiance Park. Wandered the Dahlia Trail, took in the poetry encrusted concrete waterfront walk, watched the white horses wrestle with the wind and the tide in the Sound, talked to smiling dogs, said "hola!" to highlander indios fresh off the truck. I sucked in heartily of the tanginess of the smokey city air, ate burgers that resembled those of my youth and spent oh too money around town like the misbegotten sailor I used to be.

Yeah, today I took into account the softness of the autumn air, avoided yard work like the plague and because I was either foolish or mad or a combination of both was blessed by the season. What a benediction. It was a good day to be alive and out and about. Hope your day was half as nice as mine.

Salud!

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