Urban Trees IX

….or, taking a day off with a new book.

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It’s a Sign. All photos Copyright by G, 2008.

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Himself: Said the office was quiet. Had a good day as a research specialist. Walked to a meeting. Attempted to salvage the Photoshop 5. It didn’t. Herself: Swam, errands, began reading The Tenth Muse: My Life In Foods by Judith Jones….I found the book at an estate sale. Food: Baked potato, roasted asparagus, tossed green salad, 1 point WW desserts.

After all the healthy stuff, I ran all my errands. New ear plugs….ones that work, Tar-jay for the red shirt and G’s lunches, got fifteen copies of my 101 word tiny story for school today, then it was off to Vons for their honey baked ham and next door to look at gold hair clips.

Through clouds of dust I ran to the hair store. Von’s is putting in an electronic barrier around the store to discourage folks from stealing their shopping carts. The owner looked familiar. While I was working my way through college as a custodian at SDSU’s Aztec Center, he owned the bar. I was the only person in half an hour to brave the dust to enter his store. I bought one gold and enamel hair clip while we talked.

Then it was home to pop G’s lunches in the freezer and lunch myself in my newly recovered chair. I grabbed the book on top of the pile and found that I’d picked up the new Judith Jones book. She writes of her discovery of real food as a child, life in France, to a life as one of Knopf’s editors. I was mesmerized by her words as she wrote of becoming Julia Child’s editor. There she was on the cusp of America’s change from the “cook it fast and easy” mentality to the new wave of cooking that Julia brought to us all.

As she described that first volume, that first beef burgundy that all of us made, I was right there with her sautéing my bacon in a separate pan, caramelizing my onions in another until my sink was filled with used pans of all kinds. For hours that wonderful French beef stew would fill the house with glorious smells. Yet in minutes it would vanish into the mouths of the hungry that filled every corner of the house in those days.

So there I was, not only transported back in time to a wonderful world of new cooking, but I was enjoying my vastly overcrowded blue and white summer living room as the sun poured through the big doors. Fresh cool ocean breezes kept the room cool. Later as the smell of a simple baked potato filled the house, I kept reading comfortably settled into today while memories of yesterday’s meals filled corners of my mind with smiles.

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Port of San Diego, Urban Trees. With links to five years of trees.


Imagine


Prelude