For some time now, a suite of afflictions (I omit the very unpleasant details) has prevented me from handling any truly solid food. A couple days ago I prepared a standard comfort sickroom food, plain white rice. My first solid food in a long time. And it was good. I still have no taste for anything more complicated. So I look forward to Thanksgiving (just a few weeks from now), and my now-standard Thanksgiving meal — see below — and it just seems unimaginable to me now, like fantasy food, though I have dreams about it.
Archive for the ‘My life’ Category
Fantasy food
November 5, 2020Patio report 10/25/20
October 26, 2020Four photos (by Kim Darnell) from yesterday showing the current state of my patio, including a bird feeder pole system and its four stations for feeding birds of different sorts: two more hanging feeders (to add to the three feeders installed previously), a hummingbird feeder, and an open pan, a few feet off the ground, filled with seeds and nuts.
More comforting presents
October 26, 2020(About my life, though with a linguistic note along the way)
From Ann Burlingham in Pittsburgh, locally sourced gifts to comfort me in very tough times. In particular, cookies from Barlow Bakes in Ford City PA; and a flour sack tea towel (from the “love, Pittsburgh” site) with text on Pittsburghese.
Three comforting presents
October 21, 2020In very difficult times — my list of physical afflictions has expanded considerably (you don’t really want to hear the details), leaving me little time in the day to write postings on my blog — friends and family have given me presents to comfort me. Three recently (with an advance notice of a fourth to come in the mail in a surprise package).
Feeling more one-headed
September 23, 2020The Zippy from 1/30/20, which I’ve been saving for the appropriate occasion, which has now materialized, as a follow-up to a note in my posting earlier today “Great progress, grave threat”:
Zippy’s crucial observation, in the first panel:
Sometimes, the two-headed dog makes me feel more one-headed!
Roughly, if you are far from (what counts as) normal, then someone who is further out than you are can make you feel almost normal.
Great progress, grave threat
September 23, 2020Two recent items about great progress in the acceptance of lgbt people in my country, with an alarm bell in the second about grave threats to us. First, a posting about a piece in Out magazine. Second, a comment on the Queer Linguist(ic)s Network (QLN) on Facebook.
Mushroom days
September 21, 2020Some nice canned mushroom soup a couple of days ago [added 9/25: Amy’s Soups mushroom bisque with porcini] reminded me of Kennett Square PA, a pleasant little town in the land of mushroom growing that my family used to visit once or twice a year, to enjoy the extensive Longwood Gardens there and to have some mushroom dishes in the town (I always had brown mushroom soup, aromatic and tasty). Lovely memories.
(#1) In the Historic District of Kennett Square
More presents
September 11, 2020This time from two of the three Burlingham sisters, Kathryn and Ann. Kathryn’s was probably not intended as a birthday present, but it arrived at the right time, and it was certainly a present. Ann sent a koala surf rescue birthday card (from the La La Land company in Australia) saying nice things about me, and then separately a package of three raw milk cheeses from the East Hill Creamery in Perry NY (Ann gets around).
The post-celebratory day
September 7, 2020The fourth installment in the story of my 80th birthday. The core of the story:
The day itself was quiet but pleasant (though I refused to go out of the house for any purpose, since it was a goddamn oven out there). Kim Darnell brought me a large assortment of salmon-based sushi, plus a collection of tartlets, mostly with fruit — enough for two substantial meals, the second of which was my breakfast today. Mostly I spent yesterday responding to birthday wishes, of which there were many hundreds. I know an awful lot of people.
A surprising development was that for this birthday I got not one, but three (different) Jacquie Lawson ecards (charming brief animations developing a scene or story, accompanied by music, usually classical music). Details below.
Celebratory day
September 6, 2020Today, September 6th, is both National Coffee Ice Cream Day — my favorite flavor — and also Lafayette’s birthday (1757), a most satisfying confluence of occasions. Meanwhile, it has brought me some extraordinarily warming good wishes from people appreciating things I have said and written over the past roughly 60 years, on my own celebratory day. Today I become an old man.
(Is there a ceremony for this? Would I have to do it in Hebrew? That would make it a deeply serious ritual, but totally out of my range, as a lapsed Episcopalian, formerly Lutheran. The Book of Common Prayer, alas, lacks a rite for this occasion. On the other hand, the Lutherans and Anglicans (and many other Christian denominations) have music for it; see below.)