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


Saturday, August 3, 2013

Home to a cat


With a cat around you don't have to worry about coming home to an empty house. You go away for a few days and you might come home to a somewhat pissed off roommate, but at least you are coming home to something.

I got back yesterday afternoon from a three day conference in Spokane. It was nice to get out of the neighborhood, to take to the road, to drive again. It was great to feel sun on my face, to talk to old colleagues, to blow the taxpayer's high dough on professional enlightenment, to eat good road food, to find and revel once again in small adventures. It was a 24/7 experience of taking in the moment, whether that moment was speaking before a crowd, hanging out with other librarians in the presidential suite or walking the streets of a faraway city in search of decent plate of Greek food and a well maintained bookstore.

All in all getting away for a bit does what it's supposed to do..opens up the mind to new possibilities but also pads the way to appreciating what you left behind. For me a few days of travel is only as good as that moment I experience every time I come back home from the road, when I hit that downward slope on Sidney, see the sweep of the Sound before my eyes, knowing that my home is only a minute away.

I thoroughly enjoyed mussing up someone else's room, eating food someone else prepared, having a channel changer to click and wine to sip that other folks paid for. I loved finding cookbooks far from my usual haunts, eating chow that was easy to criticize, listening to speakers that helped me both better understand and tell my tale, and finding interested ears for my tawdry tales. It was more than good to get away, but yesterday as I pulled into the drive I was equally happy to be back home again, home to my little house, my bills, my overgrown yard and especially to my somewhat irked cat. Irked? Yep, I have the bite marks and scratches to prove it.

I suppose if I had a gal waiting for me here at home I could have gotten bites and scratches out of her, too, but that cat is lot less hassle and bit easier to maintain.

Yeah, nice to be home again. Irked cat and all.

Salud!

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