Old Friends

My two oldest friends came this Memorial Day weekend. They stayed in town. A friend from London owns that house on Duck Greek and usually comes this time of year, but her husband is very ill and she canceled plans to come now and hopes for August only this year.  They opened the house for her, arranged for what needed to be fixed. As Eleanor is allergic to cats, we brought take-out from Moby Dicks’. There’s no more delicious seafood than Moby Dick’s serves.

We had a wonderful evening of real conversation. It was fun, enlightening at times. Saturday, I gave a tour of progress on the Herring River Project. Jeff is as very involved in ecological issues as Eleanor is in green energy. They are both as politically active as they were when I met each of them, not together at that time. It’s fascinating to see how each of us has evolved [still very much on the left] and how we are each of us handling old age and its many infirmities and problems.

My friend Indira, who is also in my poetry group, gave me a bunch of summer savory. That was my only failed crop, so I was glad to get them. I planted them over the weekend. I also planted the nasturtiums I have been soaking. And three sunflowers in my front raised bed. The porch is full of flowers now, red small flowered begonias, grape hyacinths, blue and purple pansies. Many herbs. I have an herb garden just outside my vegetable garden but also grow herbs on the deck out front. Very convenient when I’m cooking to run out the door and clip off what I need.

Much of my planting is now done. This weekend, we start freezing spinach. That’s my least favorite freezing session. I have to carry boiling hot water to the sink to drain when the spinach is ready to cool down. It’s difficult, heavy and dangerous.  Unlike freezing beans, for instance: a task that is easy and undemanding. Patty pan squash are just as easy to freeze after I cook and pureed them. But spinach, which I love to cook and eat raw or cooked is something we both enjoy in the winter, but hell on wheels to freeze.

I am making chicken cacciatore tonight.  I do a lot of Greek and Italian cooking.  Even more in summer but all year round as I can. 

This week my poetry group should meet on Wednesday. And this week, I see my cardiologist. I always had a strong heart and no trouble with it before I caught  Covid. We both had it very early, when we had no idea what had hit us. Woody had it for two weeks; I had it for three weeks at least. No taste buds, no sense of smell. I could have poured a bottle of Chanel #5 on my head and wouldn’t be able to smell anything.  I’ve always wondered if my heart was somehow effected.

Trump rushed blindly into the usual Middle East quagmire. Presidents keep starting Middle East wars that drag on and on and they announc the wars won when the situation is worse than before they barged in. We no longer have Middle East experts in the State Dept or CIA as Trump hates them all. He distrusts anybody who is an expert. He hates scientists, columnists, reporters, anyone who uses their brain. He believes that if he says something, it is so because he wants it to be. Billionaires are mad for oil which is killing us and the planet, but oils = $$$$$$$$$ and power. Solar doesn’t make oodles of money nor does hydroelectric power, wave power, or wind.