Turning51

I stared this post a little bit ago and then forgot I hadn’t posted it. It seems very out of date talking about snow. Boston is having better weather now, but for awhile there, my sister Emily was getting an insane amount of snow. While that was going on she sent me a bunch of photos, including her heroics keeping her many ducks alive. It wasn’t easy!

So to circle back not all that many weeks ago, here are some storm pictures from Emily. She had to move her ducks out of their coop into the garage. That must have been a ton of work and chaos!

Here’s poor Bryan, looking dwarfed by the feet and feet of it. Like, where to even start?

Their backyard was waist deep. Now how’s she going to house train a new puppy?

Here’s a cute picture of Emily’s puppy, Oreo:

This was amusing: she titled it, “Unauthorized use of the doggie door”

So no, my sister does not routinely cage her children, lol.

In early March Emily wrote the sad consequences of their harsh winter, “Our snow finally melted. I went outside to find 18 of my fruit trees (every single apple and fig tree and half my pear trees) killed because the rabbits girdled the trunks because the snow banks were above all my rabbit protectors this year. 6 years growing apple trees all ruined in one winter.“

I would have been darn upset to lose that many trees. It takes so long to get them mature enough to produce fruit.

Meanwhile it hit 100º in Tucson when my brother Mark and his son Jonathan visited the night of March 20. They were on their way back to San Diego from the Phoenix area, and stopped over for the night. They had gone to Phoenix to talk with Mark’s ex-boss and also friend, who had recently taken a new position there.

I would be very happy if Mark or Jonathan ended up with a job up there so close to me, but I don’t think the desert is their first choice. Mark might not mind too much, but I don’t think the rest of his family would be very thrilled with it. Mark says Yang likes it green. I think of Tucson as green, but it’s a year-round, pale bluish-sage green; not the sort of vibrant, intense spring green that Yang is probably talking about. Jonathan is graduating this spring with his degree in computer science and looking for a job and willing to move wherever.

The evening they were here, Mark, Jonathan and I went to dinner at one of my favorite spots with an outdoor patio courtyard where a local band was playing. I danced a little, but it was really too hot. The next morning I made popovers for breakfast, we took a walk, and hung out in the pool. Shortly after lunch they were on their way. I hope to see them again soon!

And not to neglect Steven – I hope to see him and his family and our parents later this summer in Ann Arbor.

Here’s today’s cute puppy photo of JoJo:

As part of my recent book-induced*, back-to-the-(sustainable)-farm sentiments, John and I went to a local farmer’s market yesterday morning. Really not sure what this sign means. I don’t think they’re selling chicken eggs for $8 apiece. My farm box eggs are $5.99 per dozen, which beats grocery store prices nowadays.

We walked the isles, admiring beautiful lettuce, over-priced strawberries, Bavarian baked goods, handmade soaps, local honey, etc., and then, this:

I tell ya, people will put anything in brownies. In this laid back but mostly straight-laced boomer** town, apparently it’s garlic. With no mention of magic mushrooms or other speciality herbal ingredients people sometimes put in brownies. Just garlic. Garlic?!

Garlic brownies sounded terrible, so of course I had to buy one. I mean, who would pass up the chance to taste a garlic brownie? Not me, that’s for sure. The chance of a lifetime for the low, low price of 8 bucks.

The woman selling them at the farmer’s market rhapsodized about how sweet black garlic is – it’s not garlicky at all! Apparently there are dozens (hundreds?) of kinds of garlic. I don’t remember the overly large number she said, but I was dubious. I mean, how different – actually different – can various kinds of garlic really be from each other? This particular kind was, according to her, sweet.

She claimed that she sold a lot of her black garlic brownies every week. They were a hit! People’s favorite! She had regulars who came to that market every Friday morning specifically for her black garlic brownies. Hmmm. Is she sure garlic is the only unusual ingredient in those brownies? I’m having trouble imagining someone saying, “Honey, hurry up, we have to get to the farmer’s market before all the garlic brownies are sold out!”

She let us try a little bit of roasted black garlic so we could see how amazingly sweet it was. It tasted like roasted garlic to me. She claimed it wouldn’t even give us garlic breath, it was that sweet. Later John and I did the kiss test and proved her wrong. I’m guessing maybe she’s lived and breathed garlic so long that she can’t smell it anymore.

Wisely, she did not offer a taste of the brownies, or I wouldn’t have had to buy one to find out what it tasted like. Although John didn’t even try the black garlic brownie I bought. He was confident that he preferred his brownies made with sugar, not garlic. But I bought one, and tried a bite. Turns out they aren’t as terrible as they sound. But they do have a distinct undercurrent that is unmistakably garlic. I guess I’m not a black garlic brownie convert.

I still have most of the black garlic brownie (funny I didn’t eat it all). Callan is coming for a visit tomorrow and doesn’t read this blog. Guen does read it, but if she doesn’t say anything, maybe I can innocently serve Callan a bit of garlic brownie and see if I get a reaction, lol.

Here’s today’s cute puppy photo. Still trying to find those elusive eyes.

*The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

**I just coined that. Tucson – it’s not a boom town, it’s a boomer town! Ha, working on my humor, can you tell?

I’ve had a lovely morning. A few of you have given me feedback that my last post seemed sad. And yes, I am sometimes sad. It’s part of the human condition. I shared my sad, now I will share my happy.

John finally has a new iPhone – it is even better than mine! He had been using the oldest iPhone known to man, because he liked how small it was. The new ones are considerably larger, and don’t fit as well in his pockets. But the touch screen on his old phone was getting increasingly unresponsive and it astounded me that he put up with it as long as he did. I would watch him stand there and jab at it fruitlessly. On a good day, I laughed at him. On a grumpy day I would exhort him to get a new phone already!

He finally gave in and upgraded his phone in order to get the superior camera. That was exactly the same reason I sprung for a new phone about a year ago. I wanted the significant camera upgrade.

He started the data transfer process last night, and this morning announced that his new phone was ready for action. I thought for a moment where might be a good place to play with a brand new fancy phone camera and suggested we head to the botanical gardens.

I volunteer at the Tucson Botanical Gardens every Monday morning, but rarely make the time to go back as a visitor to simply enjoy the space. We had a wonderful walk and didn’t end up taking very many pictures because we were busy just enjoying being there.

After we got home, John went out to lunch with his friend Sam, and I decided to make myself an omelette.

I had only just begun on the omelette when my farm box arrived. It was my first farm box, having only signed up last week. I think I used to get farm boxes of produce some decades ago, probably back when I was working on my Master’s in Environmental Science, submersed in learning things like the environmental costs of commercial agriculture.

Back then, you just got what you got in your box. There were no online options to pick and choose. I remember getting a few too many turnips for a few too many weeks in a row (I mean, why do people even grow those?) and deciding I really couldn’t afford farm boxes if I was just going to throw half of it out.

Nowadays you can add and subtract things to your box online before your order goes in, so you can get exactly what you want. Providing of course that it’s in season. Tucson in the winter is a fantastic time and place to grow things – all kinds of fresh greens and other garden crops and herbs can be grown outside all through the winter here. Not to mention the amazing citrus.

I also ordered some locally made bratwursts, salsa, and jam.

Not a turnip in sight! It was a beautiful box. And under all that color lurked a dozen farm fresh eggs and mushrooms too. I eagerly incorporated some of it into my omelette.

The bread was from the farm box too. It was good, but it was the jam that took the prize. It was jaw dropping astounding. The moment I took a bite I bolted up out of my chair to go check the ingredients to see what in the world could create such fantastic jam.

Maybe it’s the vanilla? Although we don’t want to underestimate the line, “produced in a home kitchen…”

I almost didn’t even buy the jam with the boring name, “Triple Berry”. Meh, I wouldn’t have bothered except I had recently used up my previous jam and wanted something more interesting than the Smucker’s red raspberry that John uses. I had planned to buy Terrapin Ridge Farms raspberry chipotle sauce when I was at the local upscale grocer earlier this week, but they were out.

By the way, that little trip to the grocery store was nice too. We almost never go to the mall, but John needed to get his phone at the Apple store. After we got his phone, we stopped in at the nicest grocer that I’m aware of in Tucson, AJ’s Fine Foods, and bought sushi for dinner. It was a tad expensive for grocery store sushi, but still much cheaper than going out for dinner. The grocery store has outdoor seating on a beautiful patio, and by chance we timed it perfect for the sunset.

There was almost no one on the patio, just one table with a couple of moms and a few young children celebrating something together, so it felt festive but not crowded or chaotic.

The problem was, I didn’t actually feel very well. I oscillated. Should we stay and enjoy the warm windy sunset with the sound of happy kids nearby, or should we just take our sushi home?

There’s no right answer. As you know, I have some chronic health issues. One of the hardest things about frequently not feeling particularly well (but rarely actually awful), is deciding when to stay and when to go. Pushing myself too much can be disastrous, yet if I didn’t push myself at all, I’d almost never leave my house. And I do enjoy little outings. So we stayed, long enough to eat our sushi, but didn’t linger long. It worked out and it was good to feel like we had a bit of a date night.

That was the other night. So back to this morning and my amazing farm box.

As I mentioned, last time I bought weekly farm boxes was probably 30 years ago when I was steeped in the adventure of environmental science graduate courses. Back then the local farm box contained too many turnips and was too expensive for a singe mom graduate student.

What prompted me to try again, all these years later, was a book I recently finished, The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. It’s an old book, you might have read it. It’s about where our food comes from. It’s surprisingly interesting, and motivated me to try to buy from small local farms when possible. The advantages aren’t just for our own health, but also the farm animals, the overall environment, the economy and our communities.

As I get older I have been becoming more concerned about being a positive force in this world, not only with my time, but also with my money.

There’s your happy post! And on that note, here is today’s cute puppy picture:

There are eyes in there somewhere!

I’ve been wondering for awhile why I’m not blogging very often anymore. I am not too busy. Certainly I continue to keep myself busy enough; I’ve never been one to sit around being bored. But lack of time is not the problem. I have been writing this blog for 9 years, steadily and consistently posting during years when I was working full time, during years when we’ve been moving, changing jobs, remodeling, fighting cancer during a pandemic…surely I have enough time to write now, compared to how overwhelmed I used to be.

Or perhaps my life has become too easy? Do I not have anything to write about anymore? I don’t think it’s that either. This has always been an everyday sort of blog, not an adventure blog. (A search in this blog on the word “salad” brings up over 20 posts, the word “grocery” brings up more posts than I want to count.) With the exception of my unintended adventure with cancer, I haven’t been living an adventurous life, particularly during this last decade. Well, I had a few adventures in my 20’s, I admit, but I eventually settled down. Recently it is as if I have settled more down.

I do not feel like I’m depressed, but I have noted that I seem to be less funny than I used to be. Less dry humor, less irreverent humor, less silly humor. Altogether less humor. Am I subsequently less motivated to write because I know how boring I’ve become? Or because I now bore myself so much that my writing has become a task of drudgery? There might be something to that.

But ultimately it seems like what’s missing is the chatter in my head. I used to go about my day carrying on an internal dialog with an imaginary audience. I would then eagerly find a time to write down what was echoing around in my head, thus transforming my imaginary audience into a real audience – you.

Those thoughts, words, phrases, entire sentences and paragraphs came unbidden while I was driving, doing housework, cooking, or doing anything that didn’t require a lot of thought. It was all there in my head before I sat down to write. These thoughts were running in caged circles, knocking at the edges of my head, asking to be let out, to get recorded before they were lost, even though I knew they weren’t of any great importance. As soon as I could, I would sit down and let them run free across the page.

That was my writing process. I never sat down to write before I had something to write. Instead, I was eager to find a moment to grab my computer and record what I was already saying to you in my head. Only then would my brain let go of those thoughts and let me move on to new ones. Which leaves me wondering why I’m not saying much to you in my head anymore?

Part of it is I am worried about some of you, which is making me feel like my everyday ups and downs aren’t very important compared to the challenges currently in your lives. I’ve been writing this blog for almost a decade, and now some of my older readers are in their 80’s, facing the changes that old age brings. Meanwhile my younger siblings, two of whom are much younger than me, are facing the challenges of middle-age life.

I am worrying about you, and in particular I am worrying about your children and grandchildren. We have several struggling young people in my family, and in John’s family, and in my kids’ extended families. Nearly all of the family units close to me have at least one struggling child, teen or young adult, all of whom have been in my thoughts a lot lately. My general sense of care, concern, worry and helplessness does not put me in the frame of mind to chat happily about JoJo and Biscochito’s latest puppy antics.

Perhaps I feel guilty, privileged, useless, old. Or perhaps the chemo has dulled my brain. Perhaps I should just write anyway, even though my words no longer sing in my head. If plodding is where I’m at, then I guess I can plod.

Meanwhile, my puppy continues to be impossibly cute: