Garden of Thought

I seem to have fallen back into the belief that nothing in my life is interesting enough to bother posting it, which is stupid as I always enjoy reading other people talking about everything from making sandwiches to walking their dogs.  Life sure is busy for someone who is apparently doing nothing, heh.  Spent a good part of today in yardwork, trimming fruit trees and various other whacking that is needed as spring is already springing along.  My daffys are 6 inches up and the snowdrops and crocuses are fully blooming and here I am with still one more plum tree to do.

My folks finally found a home to buy down in the middle of the valley near my old alma mater, Western Oregon - it was a 'college' when I was there, since then upgraded to a 'university'.  There are renters in the place, though, so they have to wait until April to be able to actually get into it and have gone off in their camper to the coast in the meantime. so at least it's quiet here again.  I'll drive down tomorrow afternoon and check out the town, I'm sure it's different than it was in the late 80s when I was last there, it will be interesting to see what's changed.

So. Life. Made a big pot of meaty spaghetti sauce with plenty of olives and mushrooms for dinner, topped off with whole wheat oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.  We didn't mean for them to be whole wheat, that was a flour-bin mixup, but they're pretty good that way.  Time to go watch another ep of 'Riders of Berk' - enjoying catching up on those.  There must be hundreds of black cats named "Toothless" out there by now.

Spent yesterday and today packing and hauling and driving etc. to help in the end of year college-kids-come-home thing, very grateful to sit down for a few minutes... until memories of a slice of chocolate cake I saw at a cafe kept coming back to haunt me. A Ghost of Dessert that May Have Been.

Baked a chocolate cake. Rationalized it as being a 'sort of holiday' because there was moving boxes involved and after all, it was 'kind of healthy' (non-fat, with fructose to boot). With extra chocolate. Lots of it. Daaarrrk chocolate.

It is now dinner time and all I have cooked for my family is a large chocolate cake.

Um. Yeah. Heh.

I've had a houseful of guests since Friday, five college people plus my own to make 10 altogether, and it has made me realize what I consider 'normal variety' in foodstuffs can apparently be a bit overwhelming. Take breakfast for instance:

"Well," I say cheerily, "You can have eggs, fake eggs, toast, cold cereal, hot cereal, fruit...let's see, we have these cool Japanese cereal packets you put in a cup, there's chocolate chia seeds, or oatmeal..."

The guest blinks a few times. "Uh. Oatmeal would be fine."

"Great. Flavored packet, steel cut, rolled or porridge style? I have wheat germ, flax, raisins, currants, cranberries, dates or dried blueberries you can add...I have these weird little things I found that taste like strawberries but they're really a flavored cranberry. And golden raisins. Hm. I think we have almonds or pecans, too. Here's some cinnamon, and brown sugar of course. Unless you prefer fructose, white sugar, maple syrup, agave or splenda?"

There is a slight pause.

"And we can make coffee or tea," I continue, pulling out an assortment of colorful mugs for them to pick from. "I have caff, half-caff or decaf, drip, espresso or french press. And the teas are over here. There's stevia and honey for the tea, too."

They prod weakly at the array of over twenty kinds of tea. "I think I'll just do coffee. Espresso."

"Fine!" I say, getting the espresso set up. "And there's a dozen squirty bottles over there of flavors like you find in a coffee shop. Soymilk, half-and-half, milk? Flavored soy creamer?"

They look glazed over.

I get the distinct impression they just have oatmeal packets and plain coffee in their cupboard at home.

They are very nice people, and willing to try something different at least a little bit - they even bravely tasted the bubble-tea-flavored jelly cubes I brought home from the asian market and liked them. Hopefully they'll be a little more adventurous as time passes on, if I haven't shell-shocked them.