Coupling

This is how trains do it. 

Loving Family Food

Overweight and morbidly obese are defining words for me. My 76 year old mother came to visit last week along with Lisa, my baby sister, and two of her youngest.

One afternoon it was so warm that the batch of sourdough bread I was making for supper had to be baked early. The neighbor kid smelled it, as did Loverby as he arrived home from work.

Hot bread doesn't have a chance. We all hovered in the kitchen where we demolished a large pan of buns slathered with butter and peach freezer jam. Appetizer course before supper. We were breadless for supper, no apologies.

The next night, mom was delighted to discover the freezer full of blackberries. She is famous for her pie.

She baked two lovely, flaky berry pies. Dessert was a french vanilla ice cream dollop on the side melting away from the warmth of the crust.......

Food feels like eating love. Swallowing, chewing, drooling love.

Fast food, prepackaged food, Costco crap, processed and refined foods don't tempt me.

Real food made with loving hands and passionate hearts, plated and served with joy; irresistable.

Family, friends and food just go together fantastically. Right? The last 'f' word is FAT. Unfortunately.

My chin has tripled and my stomach is splayed out across my thighs as I sit. I have no lap at the moment.

I am unable to walk, jog, or bend over, but perhaps I can waddle out to the garden and water?

Driftwood Day

The heat was nearly turned on today. Once again, I reclaimed my practical nature and put on socks and a cozy sweater instead. One more sunless day.

Our lawn looks like a pasture that needs cut and baled. The peas are leggy. Two rows of spinach bolted before they became edible. A rhubarb bed collapsed in on itself with rotten pithy stalks. A bed of peppers and basil haven't grown an inch since I planted them long ago. Pretty midget garden.

We have a generous crop of fungus popping up everywhere. It is equivalent to cancer for the garden and yard. I have no ideas for chemo or radiation treatments. They don't resemble anything you buy in the store, so I believe they are poisonous. Why can't they be $15.00 a lb portablellos?

All of our walls inside are either red, dark green, or a rich butter yellow. As I sat cross legged on the couch feeling like I was in a dark cave, I considered painting everything white before next winter. A crying jag erupted at the thought of sterile walls. White walls make me itch.

Craig came home during this breakdown. When he figured out there weren't any hopeful dinner smells  coming from the kitchen, he quickly went to plan Q. Plan B, C, or D weren't even considered.

Plan Q includes many things. First, he dries my tears as he leads me to the bedroom. The door is locked. I get tucked gently under warm down quilts. We snuggle skin on skin until life starts flowing in. Endorphins start flooding. Love blooms. Relief and release of real and imagined worries fly away.

The afternoon seemed brighter somehow, even though the sky was dripping still.

We got a wild hair to go out to a local beach and look for driftwood for a project we're working on. Maggie and I climbed around on heaped up, beached driftwood of all shapes and sizes. I filled a few bags and the back of the pick-up bed with treasures.

I recovered my equilibrium somewhere between the sheets of our marriage bed, balancing on piles of castaway wood, and take out pizza. Grey is never nice, but it does sometimes have delicious texture.