Discovery & Some Rhetorical Questions

How have I not known about this blog and it's recipe for bacon ice cream?

Or this recipe, from the same blogger's cookbook, for coconut saffron ice cream featured on David Lebovitz's blog?

And, why does D.L.'s blog make me not want to live in Paris?  

And how excited am I to take 7 teenagers to NY on Saturday (my birthday, so they'd better be nice)?

So, that's me up there with my laptop, and here are the things I'm doing with it right now:

1)  Looking up summer recipes--chicken mango slaw, ice creams, bbq sauce, refreshing beverages.

2) Planning NY itinerary--Fela, fireworks, Evensong at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Dumplings, Coney Island, St. Ann's Warehouse, Yoga to the People and much, much more.

3) Teaching 2010 online at Salt Lake Community College.

4)  Summer tutoring for Lula, Cecy and Mo.

5)  Preparing a show in this space with C for Seattle in July.

I'm always on my laptop.  I love my laptop.  It's a problem.

More later.

the same, and different

So many things are different this year.

So many things are the same.

Last year, I carried around many more pounds.  Last year I worked less.  Last year was better and worse than this year.  This year, the spring is colder.  This year I do more yoga.  Last year I had all my kids home for the summer.  Same with this year, but the kids are different. Last year, I had never published a book.  Last year I wrote many more blog posts than I have this year so far.  

Something about getting older makes me appreciate the cycles more than I used to, the constancy and the change. 

Here's me, pounds lighter, with a published book, reading from it in Amsterdam:

 

Last year, I cooked more, and I worked less.  This year I'm cooking differently.  Fewer carbs, fewer sugars, more animal, which goes against what I've always believed about eating healthily and ecologically.  Last year I cooked a lot more pasta.  Here's last summer's pasta:

This year, I have all of these same flowers in my garden, but at this same time last year, the lilies had bloomed, and this year, I'm still waiting for them.  This year Eva's flower arrangements sit on top of a white oval Ikea table, and the wallpaper is torn down, but not replaced.

Last year there was no oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, though our waters were in danger already.

Here are my eco-inspired poems in Poets for Living Waters.

This year I want to think about different and same, not better and worse.  

Here's to peace in accepting the way things are, not the way I wish they would be.  

Happy New Year in June!