"Postcards are my favorite form of commuication" - Molly

For details on Greta's adventures in the Netherlands this summer, please see a new blog, Speaking in Dutch*.

okay, for real this time

I tried to do this last December. But like any addict, sometimes it takes an intervention to change behavior. Someone wise observed last week that most of my life is currently centered around processing information for other people and perhaps not for myself.

And I've been thinking about how it's been hard this year to be present with the people I care most about. And also how I often use this blog as a way to update those people without actually having to be present with them. Which is pretty much cheating - it gives the illusion I am communicating with people I love, but this is a delusion. And really, what I want to be doing with people I care about is hanging out with them. Not to go all Wendell Berry on you. But the man is wise.

So about an hour after that observation was shared, I decided to stop this blog for the next three months. It's easier to give up something for three months than for forever, all at once. And on August 20th I am embarking on a cool trip and will most likely upload some fun pictures.

If you are friends with me, you should do the following:

1) Call me up and invite me to dinner. I'll bring the salad. Or dessert. Or whatever. There's not enough potlucks in the world, and I miss you. Lots. So call.

2) See number 1.

3) Write a letter. If not to me, then to someone else you like. There's not enough letter writing going on either.

If you are not friends with me, then you should do the following:

1) Email me and invite me to dinner. Um, except unless I actually know you, we're gonna have to meet in a public place. Like a restaurant.

2) See number 3 above.


Love you, peeps.

XOXO,


Gretzky

sunny spring spinach salad

when it's sunny out i like making salad combinations out of what's in the fridge. also when it's not sunny out. this weather is making me crazy. The combo below is p.d. good. Let's be honest, I don't know if you can call it salad with the eggs and bacon additions, but if you use a ton of spinach, we'll roll with the salad label.

1) Boil 3 eggs. As in hardboil.
2) Cook maybe 7 slices of bacon in a pan over med heat til crispish. Put on paper towels to drain.
3) Drain pan except for about 3 Tbs. Add 2 Tbs. olive oil.
4) Put pan back on stove over med.
4) Add 1/2 chopped fine red onion, 2 cloves minced garlic, 1 tsp. sugar, salt, pepper. Cook til onion's soft, about 3-5 minutes. Take off heat, add 6 Tbs of cider vinegar. Or balsamic vinegar. Or white vinegar. Whatever you've got is fine.
5) Get a whole ton bunch of spinach and dump on plate. Pour some of the dressing over it while still hot. THIS IS THE BEST PART. It cooks the spinach just a little bit.
6) Add a couple slices of the eggs, and a wee bit of bacon, crumbled.
7) YUM. Serves 4-ish, depending on how hungry everyone is.

the art of losing / isn't hard to master - elizabeth bishop

This school year flew by so fast I didn't realize I was leaving some things and people behind without thinking about it.


One Art

Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.


--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

"You've come to assume / protective color"

for K8 on the road to Wenatchee: 

How to See Deer 

by Philip Booth

Forget roadside crossings.
Go nowhere with guns.
Go elsewhere your own way,

lonely and wanting. Or
stay and be early:
next to deep woods

inhabit old orchards.
All clearings promise.
Sunrise is good,

and fog before sun.
Expect nothing always;
find your luck slowly.

Wait out the windfall.
Take your good time
to learn to read ferns;

make like a turtle:
downhill toward slow water.
Instructed by heron,

drink the pure silence.
Be compassed by wind.
If you quiver like aspen

trust your quick nature:
let your ear teach you
which way to listen.

You've come to assume
protective color; now
colors reform to

new shapes in your eye.
You've learned by now
to wait without waiting;

as if it were dusk
look into light falling:
in deep relief

things even out. Be
careless of nothing. See
what you see.