Meandering

Yesterday we made the most wonderful discovery- the Evans Orchard booth at the farmer’s market had greasy beans. Both Tracy and myself grew up on greasy beans. They are the beans we think of when we think of and crave green beans. Greasys are the best, the best, but they’re more and more difficult to come by.
There’s a waiting list at Evans for people who want them by the bushel for canning. Needless to say, we bought a huge bag of them to cook up with our fried new potatoes and sweet corn, a meal that we rounded out with cornbread and tomato slices. Every week, I forget about the cole slaw.
The smell of those beans cooking is like a time machine for me. It’s the homiest, most nourishing aroma. And they taste even better the second day, so we had leftovers tonight.
But back to yesterday, food is pretty much all we did. We had an early lunch at Winchell’s

then bought our produce, went to Wild Oats for the remainder of the week’s necessities, and there you have it.
We must have done something in between the time we ate lunch and the time we ate dinner, you know, in order to be hungry, but I can’t remember what that might of been.
We even went to bed early. Woody and Peepers joined us for hours of snoozing and three episodes of Six Feet Under. It was a delightful way to pass a Sunday evening.
Lest you think my life has become nothing but eating and sleeping, I did something very cool today. I interviewed a remarkable woman for an article that I’m writing. She earned her Master’s degree when she was sixty years old and went on to have a twenty plus year career in social work, and not just a career, a career that has truly changed the world. She made me think about how much room there is in a life for meaningful work and and how you really don’t have to adhere to anyone else’s time line and how the very most important thing is to stay true and refuse to stop, refuse to disengage.
She also made me think about the nature and power of compassion, and she gave me a sliver of glinting hope, that maybe we humans might stop blowing each other up one day and solve our problems with kindness.
I wish I had her energy and vision.
Instead, I have greasy beans, but as I have mentioned, they are also good.
In other news, there are two more pugs in our neighborhood and they are sweet as pie. (The pugs also have lessons for us, you know.) They are elderly and Woody seems to understand. He loves to see them, but he doesn’t jump on them and act wild the way he does with dogs his own age. He sniffs them gently, and the three walk in slow circles together. Twice now Woody’s leash has unhooked itself and hooked on to the female’s collar instead, like some sort of strange pug magic trick. Luckily, Woody has yet to notice these flashes of freedom, he’s so enamored of his new neighbors.
I was hoping I might think of some way to wrap up this disjointed rambling post, some sort of zing at the end to help it all make sense.
Sorry. No such luck.
The time has come to dress in gnome pajamas and curl up in the bed.