Ok, east coasters, avert your eyes. That goes for you, too, midwesterners. In fact, let’s just say if you live someplace that actually has winter, cover your ears and say, “lalalalalala I’m not listening” or something. But the rest of you, look!
Wow!! This is the hail that fell on our back deck this afternoon. It’s been stormy weather around town today – alternating blue skies with sheeting rain, hail, thunder, lightning and gusting winds.
Lately the weather here has been grey and sentimental, but this, this is bold and capricious! Very exciting. It does hail here from time to time, but the thunder is thrilling. I’ve heard it thunder here only a handful of times since I moved here – and when I say a handful, I mean that literally; you’ll hear one good clap of thunder, and that’s it – show’s over, folks, please make your way to the exits. Today we had TWO claps of thunder, so we’ve met our quota for the next three years.
It was a good day for cooking, so I baked a chicken using the easiest method in the world. Basically, you poke a couple of lemons all over with one of those turkey skewer thingies, and pop them in the chicken (after you’ve rinsed and salted and peppered it) and bake it. It couldn’t be easier, but it always comes out perfectly moist and delicious. My friend Susie gave me the recipe a year or two ago, and it’s my favorite way to cook a chicken now.
Tonight I also cubed and roasted some butternut squash and sweet potato, and for dinner we layered shredded spinach (raw), couscous, roasted veggies, basil, chicken (veggie burger for Tom) and then a few dollops of Jalapeño Chutney from the farmer’s market. The chutney adds a nice flavor – sweet and spicy at the same time.
Anyway, I thought I’d throw that in there just because it ended up tasting good and I know I’m always looking for new ideas for dinner, and I’m bound to forget this one. Some day I’ll come across this post in the archives and think – ooh! That sounds good.
To fill out my random assortment tonight, I’ll also mention another TED lecturer I checked out yesterday – Chris Abani. He’s a writer and poet from Nigeria, and his stories are powerful and funny and horrifying. Not always an easy listen, but a number of excerpts from the talk I heard yesterday have lingered at the front of my mind all day today.
One was a great line from his mother, who used to say, “Anything a man can do, I can fix.”
Another was this observation:
“What I’ve come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion. Every day acts of compassion.”
I like that “simple accumulation.” Today we listened, or complimented, or remembered, or thanked, or noticed – and added to that accumulation.