in between

Well that was weird good luck! Storms and tornadoes just before my flight landed in Madison, turning into a snow event a few hours after I came home. So that today, I woke up to a beautiful layer of snow. over the farmette lands.

Not skiable snow. Too wet for that. Still, in put me back in thought to the mountains.

 

 

 

The mountains came fully to me several times today. At breakfast, I opened a jar of sapin honey: that's from the pine forests of the Rhone-Alpes region of France. There's really no reason to bring a jar of honey home, except that that word sapin on the jar makes me smile. (And I lit a candle that has the scent of a "Montana forest." I cannot tell the difference between the scent of a Montana forest and a Morzine forest, so -- good enough!)

Ed came down sleepily. 

 

 

 

We caught up in the way that I just couldn't last night. I dozed off at least three times in mid-sentence and finally at midnight I gave up and went to bed.

Today isn't a day worth describing in greater detail here, except that it was in fact a good day for me, with small exchanges and lots of chores, but in my view, small exchanges are not nothing! And I chatted to my doc who applauds enthusiastically my desire to seize this time to travel. We talked about my next trip and the one after that and she confessed that she'd been scheming about ambitious trips for her family as well. We all need to scheme to fill our lives with all that we regard as important. 

At home, I am back to cooking dinners and planning menus for the week and by now I know this about myself: travel does not plunge me into greater cooking ambition when I return home. This time, I thought vaguely about baking something with blueberries, but in the end, I let the memory of all those tarts stick within that part of my brain that controls my reserves of smiling activity. Anytime I need to muster up a grin, I'll think of those tarts. No need to bake any at home. [Too, just because some food was my favorite, doesn't mean that everyone here will now regard it as theirs as well. Indeed, I used to bake blueberry tarts a while back. The popular consensus was that apple or raspberry or even strawberry were better. Preferably with creme patisserie and a delicate crust. But that was then. Fruit tarts don't stay grand long enough for me to bake them for just Ed and me. Crust gets soggy after a day or two.]

In the evening I wrote two reviews of hotels I stayed in. That's usually my end chapter of a trip: leave a few good words of praise where praise is due. And the candle burned and Ed made pop corn and we felt grateful for all that we have here every day of our lives.

With love...