Nothing like working on a day off, even if you don’t actually go into the office. At least I could do it with the windows open and the breeze blowing in and stops for reading and playing and walking. Got a lot done, though. I hope it makes tomorrow easier.
The pear trees are in bloom. If I miss a photo of them again this year I will be very upset with myself, though I can’t get out to take it again until Friday, so keep your fingers crossed that those pretty white petals are still on the trees and not on the ground by then.
Who was the idiot that scheduled a 5K run/walk the evening of my first day back in the office?! Oh. Yeah. That was me. Smooth move, calendar queen.
I called my friend Emily this afternoon to catch up only to find out that she was in labor! She talked to me on the phone for about half an hour, pausing every now and then to get breathless and squeaky. She was in waiting mode: for the contractions to be close enough together that there was no way the hospital could send them home after they finally got there. I really hope that she’s in the middle of delivering her baby girl right now, with no complications.
The dandelions are gloriously present, filling every green surface with a pattern of bright and cheerful polkadots. I hated dandelions when I was a kid, because my father made me weed them. We had this vicious heavy little 2-tined fork that we used to stab the earth with right by the root so that we could get the whole thing out of the ground. Now I love them. I don’t care if they are pernicious weeds or that they look so scabby after their prime. They’re so happy-looking, smiling back at the sun with their little sun-flattery-faces.
My front garden bed badly needs weeding, but I haven’t gotten the motivation to attack it yet. Stray pop-up pansies have snuck out from former potsful and surprised me all over the place. Pansy escapees! Violet refugees!
Yesterday, we celebrated Walpurgis Eve with friends. We’ve been attending their bonfire barbeque for 10 years (except for the 2 years where I sang with the choir instead). Last year it POURED rain. This year, thankfully, it was sunny and beautiful, albeit chilly. We ate hotdogs and potato salad and a big bowl full of vegetables with lemon pepper. My new favorite: sugar snap peas. YUM!
It’s weird. I HATE peas. Hate them with a passion. Green peas, that is. I have no real quarrel with yellow peas or chick peas, but I really don’t like peas. (We won’t even get into the abberation that is black-eyed peas) Oh, if they’re in a casserole or dish that is served to me I will eat them but I don’t like them and I never serve them myself. I like snow peas in the pod though, and while I’m sure I must have had sugar snap peas in the past for some reason they have come like a revelation recently. My mom asked for them as a side dish (served with oyster sauce) one night at dinner when we first arrived in Boston, and I tried them and then had to physically restrain myself from eating them all out from under her nose.
So when I was in the grocery store yesterday stocking up on salad stuff, I saw a little package of them and grabbed it immediately. “These will be perfect in my bowl of cut-up veggies with lemon pepper,” I thought to myself. Crunchy, crispy yumminess in tidy little bright green packages. And Martin and I discovered that sugar snap peas, if dipped very lightly in the potato salad so that they got a little of the crème fraîche sauce (mmmm…crème fraîche!) on them…just a little mind you, and THEN dipped them in the lemon pepper, they weren’t just good, they were damn near divine. So, even though I don’t like peas, I have discovered that I DO like peas! How’s that for an about-face?
What discoveries have forced you to re-think your opinions lately?