First post in a while; I cooked tonight.

The meal was pre-prepared — something S. had ordered as a kit to cook on Valentine’s Day (which was a week ago) — but it was still well put together. The kale salad was complicated (I typically just go with Gomasio, Vinegar and Avocado … cherry tomatoes if I’m feeling festive) but the ingredients worked really well together. The gf, v, Alfredo was the shocker though. Always ambivalent toward parsley, the bitterness of the fresh cut sprigs cut surprisingly well against the alfredo tonight. As favorite people of mine would say at sea, “fuckin’ yumm!’

Unclear if I’ve been using sketchy parsley or just sub-par alfredo all my life but I am making a note of the combination here.

New digs!

I write this under the stars from our porch here in Oakland’s Lakeside. (Sirius, at least, is visible)

S. and I are finally moved-in to our new place. We picked up keys a week ago today, and had movers transfer numerous boxes and articles of furniture from yon to hither the following day. The three days that followed were spent cleaning up the former abode and disposing of years (a decade’s?) worth of tired accumulations. Because of this, I can report with informed sincerity that Alameda County’s waste disposal services are not wanting. (the Public Administration geek in me was highly impressed)

Since Friday we have mostly been working through unpacked boxes, finding homes for the items within, while acclimating the dogs to their new space. (We would take them with us to the old spot while cleaning)  They are handling it like champs. I am having a much more difficult time with all of the plants. Finding the right spot for a new plant or two — even when the species count is triple digits — is relatively easy in a given space, but finding the right spot for all the plants, suddenly, in a different space, is proving challenging. The simple truth is that we have too many plants. Some of them will die (and I’m okay with that) as a result of the move. For the most part, they have all been in subsistence-only conditions for the last week. Interestingly, I have observed radical growth from a few, despite the decline in the conditions they are used to. Stress as a catalyst for growth — hardly a new concept in biology but I rarely get to see it in that context. And it is lovely to behold.

In any event, tonight — with the living room mostly put together and our offices largely assembled to face the coming work week — we addressed the kitchen and I was able to cook a meal, the first meal, at the new abode. I write this, a testament to the fact that I can, no longer being focussed on the packing and preparing of the move to come, or the move that is ongoing — only on the move that just was. I am looking forward to settling down for a bit, improving things, and figuring out how we can make this place uniquely appropriate to our lives and sensibilities.

-30-

 

currently reading: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Richard Hofstadter

last viewed: Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms

last full listen: Fender Rhodes Piano playlist by Spotify user 11152966639