Lactose and the Quirky

I have an affinity for lovely cheeses, and was thoroughly in my element in England. My bi-weekly trips to Cambridge were made to visit the cheese monger to ensure that the fridge always had a ration of Stilton, Leicester, Edam, Brie, and "hard" cheese. Now that the U.S. has finally caught up it's a pleasure to go to our farmers market and find quark, Portuguese Dry Jack, Cheddars and other delights, in additon to fruits and veggies.

Having recently raided sausage factory, my lunches currently consist of bits and pieces--bread or crackers, sausage, cheese, fruit, and alas, soda (not wine!). Others I work with think I'm just too frugal to buy a sandwich or burger. Some even think I'm quirky. Tomorrow, lunch will be ledt over Caprese, sausage, french bread, and iced tea. A sweet Pluot and (golf course) blackberries will round out the meal.

So sorry for the Quiznos and Carls set. Eat your heart out!

Time Happens

The alarm bell goes off when you go into Forever 21.
The clerk at the Gap asks you if you are shopping for something for your granddaughter.
You have to have a breast lift to wear a Bebe shirt.
Your husband answers you by saying, “Yes Ma’am”.
You wish you were driving a car that didn’t talk to you.
You talk back to the instructions from the Navigation system in your car.
You have no interest in the feminine products aisle in a drug store.
You have to make a choice between sneezing and not sneezing, on a sneeze-by- sneeze basis.
Your children don’t laugh anymore when you do something out of character.
Comfortable shoes don’t look so unfashionable anymore.
You read the small print on the restaurant menu to see if they offer a senior discount, and then ask the waitress if you don’t see one offered, and then order from the child's menu.
You invite the kids along on vacation so they can do the driving.
You store single serving dried plums (prunes) at your desk.
Coordinating your outfit is no longer a requirement, it’s an option.

If any of this sounds familiar, it's time you thought about eating less, exercising more, complaining less, laughing more, and taking time to smell (plant) the roses.

High Desert

We drove along at a fast clip, the trip from Gorman to Palmdale always a ho-hum leg of our journey, with the desert scrub, sage, and yucca dotting the landscape in the foreground, and the high desert mountains protecting the horizon in the distance. Sand, pavement, scrub, sometimes wind.

This spring, the shock of what opportunist plants and flower can be came to us with a slap to the senses. Rioting waves of California poppies, goldenrod, and lupine filled in the void between the sage and scrub in every meadow and vernal dip in the landscape. The orange from the poppies so electric, that it shocked our eyes with violence of their color.

The lupine seemed to find its way into every rocky crevice, seeking out the sun on the sides of the mountains. From far away, the color of the lupine blended from dark blue to lilac, and from purple to the dark gray of the rock. The waves of poppies hugged the base of the hills and mountains, and the goldenrod and lupine shared the upper spaces with a dusting of color that almost seemed like it was a mirage from the sun’s intensity.

We took pictures, but they don’t do justice to what the desert shared with us.

Urban Legend

The girl behind the counter gave me her best welcome-to-Starbucks-may-I –take-your-order-God-this-is too-early-I wish-I-was-home-in-bed-still-asleep smile. She sporting what I think is the prerequisite for hiring as a barista: the “body piercing”, a small gold ring in her right eyebrow. “Let’s see the grandkids get a hold of that someday.” I smiled back, “Grande half-caff, room, please. My smile was more a quick spasm or jerk of the face muscles, something boring between a nervous twitch and an involuntary seizure.

The coffee came. I gave her my card. The sound that came out of her made me wish that she was at home-in-bed-still-asleep. “Oh, I’ve never seen this one before. When did we get this one? She chirped. “It’s the 9/11 card. The Walt Whitman card--Nations”, I said. She continued to look at the card. “It looks like it has a poem on it”. “Yes”, I said, “Nations.”

The next week, same barista. “Cool card” she said. “I read the poem.” “Cool”, I thought. “It’s a quote, but a good start. One barista down”.

"Here is not merely a NATION, but a teeming nation of NATIONS."