Ordinary Time

One of the reasons that I read so many books this past week is that it was only me and P. in the house, and P. has a full time job. J. took everyone up to his aunt's Beach house in Michigan from Thursday to today. There was no way our budget would extend to hiring an animal sitter, so I stayed home to care for the animals. While it would have been fun to be at the beach, don't feel too sorry for me. I don't actually mind having a string of days where I'm virtually home alone.  But everyone returned safe and sound around dinner time. It's good to have them home, but I'll admit the first few minutes of seven extra people felt a tiny bit overwhelming. They all had a great time and most have already taken themselves off to go to bed. It was a tired crew at dinner this evening.  I'll get a few blog posts out of their trip in the next few days. I'll warn you ahead of time that there are a lot of pictures. But for tonight I'll leave you with a couple of pho...

This afternoon I decided that I needed to do something about the sweet basil. The plants look great and they're huge, but just growing the plants is not why basil is in the garden. Pesto is the reason we have basil in the garden. Step one was heading out and collecting some.  I guess it's more than some.  That bowl it's all in is one of my largest bowls. It's at least 12 inches across. It's not a small bowl. So far I have washed it, pulled off the leaves, and dried them. They're now in the refrigerator waiting for tomorrow when I shall make a lot of pesto. I don't know how many cups of basil leaves I have, probably more than twelve. It's going to be a lot of pesto. (I'm not complaining, by the way.)

The perpetual question of, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" baffles me a bit these days. Living with more farm yard-y types of animals is illuminating sometimes. Let's take ducks, for instance. Everyone makes jokes about having their ducks in a row (or not) as if this is some stellar achievement. I hate to break it to you, but having your ducks in a row is a very low bar. Ducks walk in a row. They just do. I think it would be far more difficult to get them to not walk in a row, though short of perpetually walking through their row, I'm sure how you'd do it. Aim higher, folks! Now, if you got your chickens to walk in a row, that would be impressive.  Chickens do not walk in a row. They will sometimes run together as a clump, but far more often, they just wander about looking for bugs and thinking their little chicken thoughts. I often think they must day dream, because sometimes they just stand there, not moving. This happens most often when standing in the mi...

My blog this week seems to be about me writing about the books I've been reading. Today's installment is Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto. I'll admit that for the first several chapters I wasn't sure if this was a book I was going to finish. The main character, Vera, I initially found more than a little grating. And then I realized it was (yet another) book told from different character's points of view. That's been a thing recently and I'm pretty much over it. If I had known this ahead of time, I might not have even picked it up.  But forty or so pages in seemed a bit premature for dumping it, so I persevered. I'm glad I did because I'm the end I found the book charming, even coming to terms with Vera. It actually ended up being less about the mystery and much more about the characters. I'll also warn you that you might also experience cravings for Chinese food as you read it.  There is one thing that annoyed ...

Months ago, a friend had shared a photo from the book, Still: the art of noticing by Mary Jo Hoffman. I was intrigued, so immediately put it on hold. I finally arrived recently and I have been enjoying looking through. The photographs are stunning.  One thing I've found interesting, though, is that in one section, she has decided the year into two week spans. I think this is genius. First, because I think we humans have difficulty with moving through larger slabs of time. Currently, for instance, I'm feeling as though summer is endless and I have been fantasizing about twenty degree weather. (True story.) But the idea of breaking summer up into smaller bits feels more manageable. For instance, the author call the period between July 17 and August 7 as the "Time of Indolence". This seems about right to me, especially with another heat wave heading out way. When it is unbearably hit, indolence is about all one can manage. But then, on August 8, comes the "Time of R...

I just finished reading The Second Chance Convenience Store by Kim Ho-Yeon. Originally published in Korean, it has been recently translated into English. Basically, it's a story of how kindness makes a difference and changes people. It's also an interesting glimpse into Korea and Korean culture, which I found nearly as interesting as the actual story. So if you're in the need for a short, light story that is an escape from current events, you might want to check this one out. 

The pond plants that W. gave us are thriving and a side benefit is that the frogs love it. My new past time when I walk by it is to see how many frogs I can find. They love to hang out and sit on the pond plants or float in the water with just their eyes and noses showing. I think it's cute.  Can you find out little froggy friends?