1. Because we were having family dinner at our house today, I needed to get at least the surfaces and the floors of the kitchen, living room, and bathroom cleaned. This kind of work goes very slowly for me as I've grown older and, true to form, it took me a few hours to complete tasks I used to be able to do in an hour. <Shrug> The key to this and other similar changes in my aging life is to accept them and work within the limitations of my ever-changing physical capabilities.
2. Christy was the brains behind tonight's dinner. She wanted us to have a taco salad with tortilla chips and condiments along with watermelon.
I volunteered to bring Christy's dinner plan into being.
I had some reservations about expanding upon the recipe I found to make a taco salad -- should I bake and shred some chicken thighs for the salad? Cook and cool some white rice? Include Kalamata olives? Cilantro? Since I made the salad on Sunday, should I wait to but the broken tortilla chips in the salad until today, Monday?
To all of these questions, I responded "yes".
It worked.
I even received clearance from those present to make a taco salad again, should we ever decide to have another one for family dinner.
3. We've been taking turns giving each other an assignment to complete as a way to focus our after-dinner conversation.
For this evening, Christy assigned us to present a piece of writing about summer food or to just share a story.
I knew my approach to this assignment was out there a bit, but I think my reading of Victor Hernandez Cruz's poem, "Problem with Hurricanes" went over all right.
Paul, Zoe, Carol, and Christy did a much better job completing the assignment.
They all talked about memories of food in the summer. Paul and his friend Rory pilfered leftovers from their church's refrigerator in Meridian. Zoe remembered food at our mother's house. Mom rewarded her for doing yard work with a Root Beer Float ice cream bar and let her eat radishes after Zoe had planted the seeds. Carol and Christy (who read a poem she'd written) both reminisced about summer food at our grandmothers' houses and food we ate during our vacation visits to Orofino.
I'll just say that what stood out for me, while listening to them, was the memory of how much I enjoyed anything we ate or drank from the local Orofino Creamery, whether it was ice cream, half and half, milk, cream, or other delights.
We had Butterfinger ice cream bars for dessert tonight. They were tasty and refreshing. That said, I would have loved to have served a dessert from the Orofino Creamery!
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