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Small Pleasures

Have you ever forgotten about something and then when you rediscovered it you were all happy inside?

Yesterday I was putting away the groceries and discovered a bottle of one of my favorite drinks here (nothing exciting, just iced tea) that I'd forgotten that I'd bought. It just made me happy to see it and know that I had it in my house, available to me. Nothing life-changing, but then when you live half way up a mountain, having items in your house is much more convenient than either walking up the hill, or down... just to come back up.

I remember finding a $5 bill in a winter coat once as a kid - left over from the year before. It made me so happy I started trying to do that at the end of every winter. Except, sometimes I forgot to do it ... and then I was let down the next year when I discovered I'd forgetten to do it!! So much for 'planned spontaneity'!

Comments

Mmmmmm! I forgot I had ordered food the other day, and then all these groceries showed up at my door!

It was very exciting.

Papaya, mango, apples, oranges, plums, streaky bacon, eggs, milk, yoghurt, cottage cheese, fresh herbs.

It was kinda like finding a fiver in my pocket, except instead of a fiver it was a load o' groceries, and instead of my pocket, it was my kitchen.

You're sounding v. mellow these days, little sis. Very blissful and all that. Good for you!

Hmm. I think what I'm trying to do is give people a more 'holistic' view of what I do and how I feel here - instead of seeming like I'm on a constant manic high or low by just talking about the horrible and the wonderful... :-)

Heh! I understand. I don't want to write something totally mundane in my blog - I mean, we all live life every day, right?

And so does everyone else, right?

So why would they want to hear about, say, the party I went to last night where there was some guy who insulted the host so I went and was big and intimidating to him until he just up and left?

Or about how I'm trying frantically to lose weight by swimming and running and exercising my ass off, but am still really struggling, mostly because when the farmer's market is open, I can't resist hand churned butter made from milk from cows whose names I know by old Scots women who are standing right across from me selling it to me, or scallops caught by a diver that I know, or vegetables grown by an actual farmer who is actually selling them to me, and who knows I like to make fried green tomatoes so he keeps a consignment of green tomatoes just for me and sells them to me at half price because he thinks I'm crazy?

Or the old couple, who are these insanely old man and woman that sell homemade bread and quiche and pasties and it's obvious that the old woman does all the baking? It costs more than the store, and sometimes she overcooks the bread or whatever, but I simply cannot resist. She's kind of like Gramma. She's just so sweet. And she refuses to believe that I cook and used to try and give Carol cooking tips. I used to think that kind of sexism was irritating, but when it's such an innocuous small minority, it's almost quaint. Carol and I always had a laugh about it...

I miss Carol, by the way.

And that's just one more thing that I'm hesitant about putting in the blog, because it's not a highlight. It's not something that I think that other folks want to hear about.

But here you are, writing about just such things, and I am totally interested.

fyh, you had me worried there for minutecause it's pretty rare that I write about anything other than the everyday mundane happenings!
Good luck trying to swim off those pounds. I'm trying to power walk/ jog away from my cholesterol...and stop eating saturated fatty foods.
Eric and I spent our anniversary with Maya and Leah and it was really fun to see them again... and Maya does theatre, so we're gonna try and go to her next show!

Hey, Nae, I thought you were going to publish your ant recipe on your blog. I promised to give it to someone, but now I can't remember who I was going to give it to. And I have lost 20 pounds. No one can tell, but my pants fit better. It's really hard when you love food. And it's take me since January -- six months?

The recipe for Ant Annihilation is up.

Death to all Formicators!!!

Hey Mara! i love your recent entries...it's so nice to read you in that place, and see that side of life, I can relate to you though, being in the Holy Land really is very intense, with ups and downs, the mystical and majestic, Massada zealots and the Sea of Galilee, Baha'i Holy Places, and then staples and leaking pens, struggling with a sentence for hours on end to make sense, and then again a realization about your life that makes you tumble deep in thought for days, only to emerge and go watch a block buster movie, fighting with a cab, going to a Holy Shrine, getting up in the morning, having a migraine. It's like that everywhere, I know, but here, the ups are really soaring and the downs come down crashing and it's all so much more intense for some reason. So i pull out my baby pictures very often, I'll admit to you...and there I am at 3, 4, 5 and 6 years old, holding a giant cat sitting on pink stairs, standing in a shallow natural spring, or up to my neck in colorful wildflowers, or chasing butterflies...magical moments, small pleasures, reminders of beautiful life that I treasure.

How true! All of it!

Oooh! Hey, Violetta, are you going to be posting often?

'Cause I like your style.

Vicarious and poignant.