I've been meaning to blog for days. Days, I tell you. And yet...I haven't. Chris and I are still doing the one step forward, three steps backward sinusitis dance, although he seems to be feeling the closest to fine I've seen in a month. Symptoms are waning, but exhaustion is the overriding theme of the past week or so. Simple tasks make one weary and naps are requisite. I meant to write over the weekend, when we had the most glorious (to me, anyway) weather -- dipping into the high fifties at night and barely reaching high sixties during the day, necessitating a scramble to the back of the closets for some toasty fleece to wear on a walk into town for lattes. It felt like a teaser of fall, my favorite season. Odd that as everything is dying and changing, I feel the most alive and alert.
Saturday we made our most energetic foray in weeks, walking the mile or so to the farmer's market, where we browsed the sea of perfect yellow and green squash, plump tomatoes, freshly dug new potatoes, bushels of fuzzy peaches with fantastic names like "flaming fury." We picked up some late-season raspberries, peaches, free range eggs and a number of other goodies and Sunday morning I made us a leek and zucchini frittata which, admittedly, both sounded and looked better than it actually tasted. I could have taken a heavier hand with the seasoning.
There is a conventional wisdom out there that I can't cook -- I know; I started it. The truth is, I can cook. I just don't generally like to. Plus, I'm not a good recipe follower...I'm the sort of cook who's always substituting this or that or putting more of this in because I feel like it. It usually results in a fine dish that can't be truly replicated -- I'm famous for soups and stews that are tasty but always slightly different.
The farmer's market trip put me in the mood to become one with the food and after whipping up the frittata, I set about making ropa vieja on Sunday afternoon. It's a terrific Cuban dish perfectly suited to my tastes of throwing things together. We dined well Sunday night, big bowls of brown rice, black beans and tasty ropa.
Now it's Thursday again and I'm not entirely sure where the week has gone. I slept for part of it -- paying for Sunday's burst of energy with an absolutely drained Monday. Just getting work done, taking care of business (as they say) and resting.
Oh! And I really, really did want to write a lengthy and adoring blog about how fantastic the Crowded House concert was at The Michigan Theater last week. Suffice it to say that they sounded really, really good and no matter how hoakey it sounds, when you can lead a packed theater of people off mike to sing your ENTIRE song ("Four Seasons in One Day") for you, it must be an amazing feeling. I will say, though, the crowd did look a bit like they were shipped in from an early bird buffet -- when did everyone get so OLD? (Chris did note that it's been about 30 years since Split Enz hit the scene...might explain all the groovin' grampas out there...)
Tonight, we're heading to The Ark to see Raul Malo, the lead singer from The Mavericks. I don't really know much of his stuff, but Chris is a big fan and, really, any concert at The Ark is a delight. Plus, we get to have dinner with our good friend Birgit before hand and that is always, always a treat.