Three Beautiful Things 10/15/14: Humid Walk, Pretty Good Day, Eggplant Sandwiches

1.  I have experienced the humidity in June, July, August, and September in the area we recently moved to.  Today caught me by surprise.  The temperature was what I'd expect on an autumn morning -- in the 60s.  But, it was humid and so when the corgis and I went on our morning walk around Greenbelt Lake, I was not expected to work up quite the sweat I did on a morning with a temperature I thought of as pretty cool.  Ha!  Live and learn.


2.  As you must know by now, the third grade class at Robert Goddard French Immersion Elementary School where the Deke teaches has been a difficult group from kindergarten forward.  One of the mothers is a behavior specialist and, thanks to the Deke, she came to the school and made a presentation to the staff about child development and working with difficult children.  It helped the Deke a lot, as did two other things:  she's developing good relations with a couple of other staff members and the parents of this difficult group are totally in support of the Deke's work and her efforts.  When the Deke slid into the car today, for the first time in a long time, maybe the first time this school year, she said, "I didn't have a horrible day.  In fact, it was pretty good."  Everything about her was lighter in the evening and having this "pretty good day" was a boost to her morale.

3. I was going to make ratatouille for dinner tonight and, somehow, as I reflected upon the ingredients, I flashed back to Labor Day, 1997.  The Deke and I were just starting to see each other every day and we went to Opal Creek for a hike.  The Deke brought these delicious eggplant sandwiches for our lunch and I thought about how we hadn't eggplant sandwiches since.  So, I went to the Co-op and bought an eggplant, tomatoes, fresh basil, and two ciabatta rolls.  Once home, I made eggplant slices, salted them, soaked them in olive oil, fried them, cut the rolls in half, toasted them using a cast iron skillet and built a sandwich of fried eggplant, tomato, feta cheese, and fresh basil leaves.   My cooking often makes the Deke happy, but she liked this eggplant sandwich more than anything I've fixed in recent memory.