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


Thursday, December 3, 2009

It's the little things...

It's the little things, like..

..knowing that my Christmas tree is up and that I have a month or more to thrill to it..
..having a full fridge and being able to groove on fried eggs on top of day-old enchiladas after a pot of presspot coffee..
..finding all the old Christmas things up in the crawlspace and knowing that their emotional content, once as fatal as Kryptonite, has mellowed and are worthy of digging through once again with the family by my side..
..watching The Fantastic Mr Fox with my boy, who is no longer really even a boy, and enjoying it thoroughly (even though I put up a really great argument for Ninja Assassins and could have easily just watched that by myself, instead, since they both started at the same time)..
..knowing that the huge upholstered chair I found second hand in Boise works in this little house of mine, and that my good friend The Hot Dog King has the same one at home and probably paid ten times what I paid for it back in the day when he was well heeled in California and that my cat loves it to death (I am sure that it came from a cat friendly home considered the "abrassions" on the legs..is it time for an extra cat?)..
..waking up warm and toasty under the covers inside knowing that frost has been laid down thick outside overnight..
..discovering the joys of "Two Buck Chuck", Trader Joe's famous (maybe infamous) three dollar wine from the Charles Shaw Winery of California..
..finding Indonesian masks and Russian fairy tale prints (sadly, the latter torn from some quality book or another) at the Helpline thriftstore, all to be wrapped and placed under the tree for me..
..thrilling to the idea of and gearing up for a holiday party here at home and planning one, maybe, two, more drives to Boise before Christmas..
..having good friends who, even after everything I've been through and knowing the full story behind my travails, have stuck with me thick and thin..
..witnessing the selflessness of the community behind all the hard work at the food bank and knowing that, without their support and generosity, that the hungry in the South Kitsap area would be hungrier and colder than they already are..
..hearing the overly laid down yet infectiously joyful Christmas tunes everywhere I go these days..
..knowing that the weight gain that I have seen come back into my life these last few months would really irk my doctor, thrills the secondhand stores (more pants to buy! Probably the same ones I unloaded at the beginning of summer!) and affirms that while I have not gained that weight through sloth or not caring about myself that my mantra "I will live until the day I die!" is fully engaged and actively seeking even more good times to gain weight about..
..seeing moonlight on the water and sunrise splashing on the Olympics both at the same time right outside my living room..
..hearing raves about the "Tommy's chili" I still continue to make for The Hot Dog King, even though he is seriously in arrears..
..knowing that the kids and the family are happy, healthy and well taken care for Christmas (in a big way) even though I am outrageously broke and close to being busted..
..finding job opportunities out there that lead me to believe that there could still possibly be one more Christmas miracle waiting for me..
..running into old friends out in town who are still happy to see me, regardless of everything..
..knowing that I gave my all to love and that while love let me down for the moment I will never give up on love..
..knowing that the ton of movies, the raft of wine and the full larder I have laid up over the last few months gives me peace when I find that the world is too filled with angry souls, boring people and far too much angst than is necessary..
..knowing that there are little gals working major chain coffee houses who are out there spreading misinformation to travelers about fifty cent refills on coffee and then finding out that that only applies to in-house purchases and then only within a halfhour of purchase and then finding out that there are all other gals who will override that rule ("..just this time") and who willingly show smiles when you commend them on their bravery for overriding rules for the sake of good customer service (and leave them a tip, besides)..
..the overwhelming assortment of used Christmas loot to be found at second hands these days (oh, and you should see the six foot, Fifties plywood Santa I found at St Vinnies the other day..what a kitchy score that was!)..

..but mostly it's the joy in living I am feeling right now that is filling my heart and life with so much meaning. Sure, I could be worried, actually, I should be worried, but I am filled with hope and baby, hope dies last. Things will work out because, well, just because they will, and that's one big thing to top off all the little things that are bringing peace, joy and happiness into my life these days..

And what about you? What are you finding to be happy about these days?

Salud!

1 comment:

dulcigal said...

I'm happy that you're finding joy...