If I didn’t already have a birthday, I wouldn’t mind having this one.
Today is the drawing for the really Big lottery. If you don’t have objections to gambling, it would probably be a good idea to rush out and plunk down a dollar. I think it’s a cheap way to entertain myself — imagining how to spend all that moolah. For all practical purposes, I’m a multi-millionaire all the way up to the time the last number is announced.
Only in the good ole U.S. of A.
I went to the Sanibel Bookshop today.
It’s a typical indie bookshop in an up-scale beach town: displays of hard-bound best-sellers, lots of local authors, a deftly-curated kid section and gifty things –coasters, stationary, candles and the like. The two staff are the kind of competent and earnest types served up by a Junior League.
“Yes, it is my first time… Uhhh no, really, I’m fine… Just lookin’… Yeah, I sure will, Thanks.”
Left on my own, I sidle up the aisles and check out the wares. I want to buy Mary Oliver’s new book of poetry, Dog Songs, for my sister who has gotten a new dog. But it’s not there. But there is book by the poet/author Pablo Neruda called The Book of Questions.
To the staff’s credit, they simply ring it up, they don’t go on and on about much of anything. I like that a lot.
Pablo Neruda died in 1973; this book is 320 questions that compose 74 sequences. (Translated by William O’Daly) And I tell you, it’s JUST WHAT you need to simmer down during a hectic holiday season.
Here are 3 of the his 320 questions. Sit and wonder.
If I have died and don’t know it
of whom do I ask the time?
Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?
And what is the name of the month
that falls between December and January?
(Sketch – Andre Alvez)
But I do know this:
I’m going where the sun keeps shining
Thru the pouring rain,
Going where the weather suits my clothes.
Backing off of the North East breeze
Sailing on a summer breeze
And skipping over the ocean like a stone.
I love this Nilsson song. And when I hear it, I see Dustin Hoffman slumped in his seat on a Greyhound bus with Jon Voight fussing over him because he really wants to believe their lives are just beginning instead of ending.
I mean, it is so grand and so tragic. But apart from all that, really doesn’t it make such good sense to go to a place where the weather suits your clothes?
We’re here.
Some people love casseroles, some, decidedly don’t. I land squarely in the former. Witness what I just ate heartily in a rv park outside of Troy, Alabama:
Truth be known, had I not tweaked this from the instructions on the Broccoli Cheddar Cheese Mac Pasta Packet, I’d likely be singing a different tune. I mean, who adds raw onion and green pepper to a mac dish that only cooks for 10 minutes?
Sure, it makes it a 2 pan dish, but let’s face it, totally worth it. And who doesn’t add mushrooms and a white wine and butter to up the flavor? Pepper generously and dust with salt.
It’s better than I remember. Sig ate Grape Nuts.
PS: Yes, it is snowing on my blog. It’s December, after all.