The Best of March

The beyond delicious fried egg sandwich at 
Gather—beyond describing or replicating, too.  They say " cheddar cheese, chicory, aioli, pain de mie," but there's a certain alchemy at work as well.  And a soupçon of bacon never hurts a bit.

Rediscovering The Crown of Mexico, the book my parents gave me almost fifty years ago after our Spanish class had visited Chapultapec in Mexico City.  Learning that the palace I was fascinated by had been "The Hill of Grasshoppers," where Montezuma built his summer palace, before the Austrians Maximilian and Carlotta came to reside there.  What I remember best is a quiet swan towing a long train of ripples in the park there, in a black and white photo one of my classmates took, the photo as important as the swan itself, or all that history.

Bonnard again, with more to come!

The sing-along Pirates of Penzance, better than champagne for the spirits, and twice as bubbly.  I'm always happiest singing a low bass, and so make a splendid Pirate KIng.

Exploring Campbell's historic downtown; meeting friends at the coffee shop but further down the street finding a fun tea shop where I deliberated long and finally bought oolong and green with flower petals and rose hips; white with peach and muscatel flavors; green with tangerine, mandarine, and sweet orange notes.

Mozart's Haffner Symphony, also restorative.

The orange morning buns at the café on the lake at Shoreline Park.  The lake is an important part of the recipe, of course, with sailboats, coots, the sparkle of sun on a lovely expanse of water bringing back the memory of other lakes in other places, countries, lifetimes.

Reading over and over Quentin Blake's splendid Cockatoos book.  Chuckling too over well-loved old Peanuts books and Eloise and George Booth's characterful dogs.

Anticipating Kona, Canterbury.

This thought, these words:

Of course time is running out. It always


has been a creek heading east, the freight


of water with its surprising heaviness


following the slant of the land, its destiny.


What is lovelier than a creek or riverine thicket?


Say it is an unknown benefactor who gave us


birds and Mozart, the mystery of trees and water


and all living things borrowing time.


Would I still love the creek if I lasted forever?

"Debtors" by Jim Harrison, from Songs of Unreason

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Sunlit Things