1. I think what I miss the most not having a kitchen is enjoying old fashioned, not instant, oatmeal in the morning with almond butter and a little real maple syrup and milk. It will be a while until I can get back into that routine again, but in the meantime, I'm doing all right with toast or a toasted bagel in the morning. This morning, though, I wanted a little more and I went over to Best Shots and had a plate of eggs and hash browns and link sausage and English muffin with a a few cups of bracing coffee. If I want to be served a breakfast big enough for me plus another half of me, I go to Sam's -- and Sam's breakfasts are really good. Best Shots serves a slightly smaller breakfast. For me, the proportions are perfect and the food is excellent. I was perfectly satisfied with breakfast this morning -- a good feeling.
2. The Deke and I are actively, patiently searching for a dining table, possibly a dining set. Today we perused different sites on the World Wide Web. It's funny. Back in the old days when we lived in Greenbelt, we had this lightweight black rectangular dining table from IKEA. I'd love to have a table that looks similar, is more substantial in weight and build, and has benches. When needed, I'd like to seat two people on each side of the table on the benches and two on each end in chairs. We might find something that fits this description. We are figuring out what we want the length and width of the table to be. We are looking for a geometrical sweet spot where the table doesn't take up too much room, but can seat a family dinner, too. Fortunately, we have plenty of time to look and we have Mom's dining table in the meantime -- and, who knows? It might work just fine.
We also discussed what we might want to hang on our newly painted living room and kitchen walls. We both love abstract art because we both love color, forms, and lines. We are also thinking of other kinds of paintings and photographs.
We have both agreed that our walls will be wordless. We both want to focus on a few well-placed and chosen images. Again, we have lots of time to work this out.
3. The Three Beautiful Things post I wrote yesterday provoked some very satisfying responses. Jim Etherton and Bridgit Lacy both commented that the post introduced them to Howard Nemerov and they enjoyed reading him. That made me very happy, and, at the same time, I thought how returning to Nemerov yesterday after many years of not reading him was like being introduced to him again. In my old age, I am much more appreciative of his poem's strong beats, his meter, and his explorations of mortality struck me more deeply than they did back in 1974. His philosophical/metaphysical musings in "The Blue Swallows" are much more satisfying to me these days, especially his ruminations upon how we humans strive to impose order upon our perceptions of the things of the world. The mind goes to sleep. It accepts received ways of ordering the world around us. Nemerov would have us awaken, not impose "unreal relations on the blue/Swallows". When we see the real relations, see the real swallows, when we "find again the world", we will peer into a reality where "loveliness/Adorns intelligible things."
I wrote a bit about my Zinc Plant accident yesterday, too. Until yesterday, I didn't know what Roger Grosvenor remembered about what happened and he wrote it out and our memories are very similar. It heartened me to read Roger's account. Tom Tierney's comments helped me see that he grasped the gravity of that accident and that also heartened me. And, Liz, who visited me nearly every evening (maybe it was every evening) when I returned to the hospital six days after the accident with toxic pneumonia, remembered how scary that day was. Liz was not only a great comfort to me, but she lifted my spirits with her humor and I loved the long talks we had. After I was released from the hospital and when I moved to CdA, Liz helped me out countless times with rides to the hospital where I was administered regular inhalation therapy.
I was nineteen years old then. I was in a mortal situation that was way over my head. I've looked back on the second half of 1973 and how good Liz was to me and I've shuttered because I was ungrateful, oblivious to what a good friend Liz was. I'm no longer oblivious and my gratitude is boundless. It's one of the great things about nothing ever being over. All these years later, I can feel and express the gratitude I might have been incapable of extending forty-four years ago.
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