Dr. Olga to the Rescue

It has been heavenly this week, mild and with much lower humidity. Almost everyone is in a good mood. People are sleeping soundly and running around energized. It’s lovely to be outside instead of walking into a sauna full of bugs.Last Saturday we had a fairly short but potent thunderstorm that left us an inche and a half and helped every growing being. We got lost in the darkness and heavy rain visiting old friends of mine in a part of Wellfleet tht a maze of badly marked streets with no streetlights. We finally got there. We brought a salad nicoise I made and wine. They provided everything else. We had a wonderful and stimulating time. Good food, great conversation and a renewing of contact.A couple of days later I saw one of them, my very old friend Kathy. I’ve known her since she was seventeen and we’ve gone through a lot, including her long prison term when I stayed in touch and went to visit her in Bedford Hills. She is one of the best, kindest and most earnest people I have ever known. Her life is devoted to trying to make the world a better place.We went out Wednesday night, something I dislike as it interferes with getting to work the next morning and staying alert all day. We were invited for drinks and hors d’oeuvres outside. The hosts live in a pretty place with fine landscaping and a water view, but it got dark rather soon and we were eating who knows what in the darkness. That’s how I broke a tooth. Nobody but me knew I had broken the tooth and I still have no idea what the hell I broke it on. It was a front tooth and I was terrified I would lose it or be disfigured. My dentist Olga got me in the next day at noon and fixed it so that I look normal and can eat normally. I am more grateful than you can imagine. I do have to take some care of it as it’s more fragile than it was. She warned me about biting down hard on anything now.We have canned enough Italian sauce and enough tomatoes. We have to decide this weekend if we need more hot sauce or simply sauce. We have been sharing out heirloom tomatoes with friends. Today I’ll start drying tomatoes in our dehydrator. I’ll be drying tomatoes all week, hoping to end up with three containers, one for Dale and Stephen who like them and two for us – I’ll be adding that to pasta dishes.I’ve begun freezing sweet and hot peppers. The zucchini is probably finished, but we had plenty this year. I only wrote one poem this week as I was answering many long questions from Moment magazine. They just sent five more. It’s also time to start working on Rosh HaShonah. I do a small service for friends along with a celebratory dinner. I have to get it together before the 10th of September, Erev Rosh Hashonah.My friend Gigi and I had lunch Tuesday. This was such a social week that we decided to stay home and work in the garden this weekend. I’m peopled out for the moment. The cats felt we were gone far too much. Wait till we start traveling right after Rosh Hashonah. Because we finally had rain, we have mosquitoes now. We went just about all summer without a single bite. Now we’re getting bitten every time we go out the door.I finished Tara Westover’s memoir EDUCATED. It was very moving and made me remember some things from my own crazy childhood. I recommended it to Melenie since although their childhoods were wild in different ways, she could see how Tara handled the childhood perspective of things that in a mature adult were would insane and horrible but that’s just how things are to a child.