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Continued...


I'LL WAGER, READER DEAR, YOU NEVER OPENED A POSTAL PACKAGE to find walnuts. On second thought, if I'm betting on it, let me amend that to walnuts in the rough--good English walnuts in the shell. Oh, and I'll stipulate further: they had to be sent by friends, not just from some mail-order company! And, uh...one more thing. Along with the walnuts, there had to have been included a homemade pick (I received one, and it was fashioned from a nail; but this one--this one showing up in my wager--it could have been made from anything at all. I won't be a stickler about that).

So there you have it, Dear Reader. Ahem, are you stepping up to call my bluff? If you win this wager, I'll send you my pick. It is far superior to yours, I'll bet. Yeah, I'll bet you my box of walnuts...oh, wait, dear me, it is time to stop gambling with my windfall!

(Because--unlike you--I did receive walnuts in the mail, and they are from friends, and, by George, I do need that pick made by George!)




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I spent the afternoon engrossed in a project that's completely new to me. Never before have I worked on a design for two gravestones; well, to be honest, not even for just one gravestone.

The consensus was two markers for the graves of my parents, and it was I who suggested that the design flow from one to the other. Good idea! my siblings agreed. Go ahead and show us what you have in mind! So I'll show you, too, Dear Reader, when I've got it done...
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Tea is my hot drink of choice and brewing loose tea is what I prefer. A few weeks ago I came across this big glass mug at the thrift store. It's as large as a small soup bowl, and perhaps it is meant for sipping soup. But I've started brewing my tea leaves in it and this has bumped up the pleasure of my tea-drinking considerably. Every morning, now, I take delight in my see-through bowlful of tea.


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On this eve of Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful for you, Dear Reader. I am ever so thankful for you!


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SAY, IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I dropped a salmagundi in your lap, Reader Dear. Here comes one now,* and please don't act as though I didn't warn you:

First off, here's what got dropped into my lap--it was the job of serving refreshments to two hundred people. Refreshments, I said (I see you turning pale)--Finger foods only. Just a little something after Sunday's morning church service--not a sit-down meal! (Although, I can't pretend I didn't quake just a little, nonetheless.) So, on Saturday I backed my U-haul up to the door at Costco. Well, actually it was just a cart; but it was a haul--four kinds of fruit and big fat muffins and loaves of sweet bread. The muffins were of such a generous size that I planned to cut them into fourths...and the loaves into twelve servings each. I figured one bag of oranges would do it; I counted about thirty-two inside the mesh, and I'd cut them into eighths...that would be two- fifty-six; and let's see, not everyone would eat a slice, some would eat two. But what about the pears? They were giving out samples, slurp, slurp...and, oh, they were quite delectable! One bag of eleven...hmm. Well, you can see, Dear Reader, my brain had the bigger job here, while my muscles got off easy. Eventually, however, calculations were complete and the haul got hefted to the trunk of the car. And then out again. And finally to the serving table. (Skipping over numerous steps in the interim...in which I took The Yard Man with me to unload it all at the church on Saturday night, and then coerced him into stopping at the grocery store so as to pick up a few more pastries of some sort, and maybe a big bunch of bananas, because, well...what if I didn't have enough?!)

Fortunately, it was all quite sufficient. In fact, what I had was an overabundance--a surplus, indeed--of oranges! On Sunday morning, as the line of partakers had moved down along the serving tables, the oranges, so gorgeously red, were overlooked for grapes and pears. They were passed by for bananas, and passed by for pastries. They appeared to be little pariahs.

Everyone mistook them for grapefruit! I'd surmised. After all, hadn't I gotten that very idea myself, with a shock, when I'd cut into the first of the oranges and found it delightfully ruby-colored? But, still......I puzzled over this as I cleared up the leftovers. The oranges were so yummy...didn't word get passed along? Every scrap of pear was consumed, and just a few bananas and grapes survived to the end. But the oranges...at least half lay uneaten.

"Yeah, they thought it was grapefruit," my Yard Man agreed, when the big job was over. He was helping me load into the car the pumpkins and flowering plant I'd used for decoration."That must be it, cause they sure were good oranges!"

"Yes, they were!" I said. And then I accosted a friend walking by, "Don't you think the oranges were good?!"

"Actually," she said, and she looked a little sheepish,
"I didn't eat any."

"What?! Why not?! Did you think they were grapefruit?" It was just so puzzling. I know she's fond of oranges.

"No," she responded. She was hesitating; something told me the mystery was about to be revealed!

"Then WHY didn't you eat any?" I begged to know.

"Well," she said, "I couldn't set down my plate, and I couldn't take the peel off the orange slice with just one hand, so I didn't take any. "

Ah, Dear Reader, thus shone a very large light! This was the lesson learned: Holding a plate of finger foods and eating them, too, should not require the use of more fingers than a person possesses!




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*There was a glorious sunset this evening. But the sun went down before I got this salmagundi fully concocted! I'll have to add more ingredients another day.

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OH, DEAR READER, THIS MORNING I HAD CAUSE TO stop and consider my greediness --how it is that I don't wish to give away even one tiny increment of my time if I feel that it is going for naught. And then, if I'm forced to give, I fantasize about throwing a tantrum. About stomping. About fussing. I think about yelling, "Hey, chop-chop, get the lead out!"
"Did you notice who got here first?!" I think of squawking to employees of big box stores as they dawdle and take phone calls, and service a string of walk-up-later customers while attending to my order.



"DO IT. JUST DO IT, ALREADY! SHOULD IT TAKE A WHOLE HALF-HOUR," I want to roar, "to cut two little pieces of tile!?"

Ah, yes, I thought of roaring. I relished the idea. I was smiling patiently and murmuring, "That's okay." But inside was a great big roar.
That is my confession for the day, Dear Reader. Now you know.



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TODAY WAS NOT THE DAY THAT IT RAINED. No, that was back on Tuesday when the clouds stayed open most of the day. Lucky for me, I got to go out with a friend. We had lunch together. But this poor guy, a neighbor of mine--I was shocked to see he went out with the trash!

















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YES, I KNOW THAT NOSTALGIA HAS EVERYTHING to do with choosing my childhood home as "Most Beautiful Spot on Earth." I couldn't expect many others' points of view to jibe with mine on this. It's a bit like calling one's own mother the sweetest and best--but of course!












Yet when the sun drops down the western sky and transforms the whole place into a cathedral of color and light, one whose organ music is tranquility and the gentle slapping of waves against the shoreline, the cries of water fowl, I stand on the pier
and want to shed tears at such magnificence; is it any wonder--any wonder, I ask you, Dear Reader of mine, that I'd be looking for others to fall on their knees here, as well.



Do I sound a tad melodramatic?
All right, all right, maybe just a wee bit.
I didn't weep,



though it really was one of the most stunning sunsets I've seen in a while.


















And I took lots of photos to prove it.



Except, uhm, that's not true.
I took lots of photos just because I couldn't stop myself.

















Until I got to this one, the crowning peak of the sunset.

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