MAGICAL SOUP

I was going to go straight to bed when I got home from contra dance this evening...but I didn't. Why did I go to contra dance when just yesterday I was sick as a dog, as they say?
I had made myself some magical, healing soup from root veggies, herbs, onions, garlic and things fresh from the garden. I've eaten it three times now...so I can only think that that's what has gotten me feeling better. I'm definitely not perfect but clearly on the mend. I did not boo-hoo once today : )

When I was coming into my dark backyard coming back from contra dance, I looked up and saw two planes in the cold vastness of space. Now I'm aware that in reality they were miles apart but to my eye, they were passing closely...closely enough for the passengers in each plane to wave and smile to one another...then whiz on to whatever their own lives are.

Seeing these planes and imagining them the way I did gave me a chilly feeling, somehow. Even when something seems so very close, it can be miles and miles apart and all the smiles and good feelings get lost in that icy vastness and then life goes on. It turns out that illusions can be pretty powerful. In my eye, the planes were just a couple of hundred feet apart...but of course this was just an illusion...I think there are a lot of things like that. We see what we want to see or more accurately, what we expect to see. This probably doesn't make much sense...but to some, it may. However illogical, I want to imagine those passengers, sleepy but with the interior lights on seeing into that other plane and getting excited and smiling and waving...for that one brief moment it felt real.

But back to soup. I can only say that letting yourself be guided toward what might help you when you are ill seems like a good thing to do. I know that I gain strength from the earth and the soup was of the earth made from local ingredients while I was in the throes of feeling sorry for myself and so-o-o wanting not to.

So was it the soup or the intention? I don't know. But better I am.

If you are beginning to feel sick, remember to take good care of yourself. Ask for help and accept it, if that's what you need.

Thanks for reading.

So-o-o-o Sick

One thing about feeling this crappy is that all one can do is lie down and try to rest...however, your head hurts, your nose is not working and there is fever. I am barely, barely able to read, so it's not been a total loss.

I finished Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid Chair and promptly cried my eyes out..which I am prone to do when I am sick. It was a love story...just leave it at that.

Then I started on Nancy Horan's Loving Frank, a semi or mostly fictional novel explaining the relationship between Frank Lloyd Wright and the woman who "broke up his marriage" (and her own for that matter) that is the true part and I'm yet to discover the rest. He truly did leave his wife and she her husband and they were, thus far it seems that they are the buzz of Oak Park...I am excited (about as excited as one in this state of decrepitude can be) to see what's next. I love FL Wright and his architecture. The way she describes him is reminiscent of something in my life from times past. What a charming, amazing, artist. It really isn't that she is describing him so glowingly, although she is. It's that she is describing the unbelievable magic that transforms them as they are together. And the writing is so luminous and clear that I have cried already several times and I am just on page 54.

I got up and stumbled around the kitchen gathering together all the root veggies I could find and threw together some soup. It helped, I think.

I have made a pallet on the floor in my living room cause I am never able to be in my bed when I am ill...it seems wrong. The bed is a place of comfort, sleep, pleasure so I always make some kind of pallet on the floor when I get sick. I guess I didn't realize how odd that seems until I wrote it down...oh well. It has allowed Oberon to sleep with me, which he does not do at night. He is happy. And I? I have read on this floor pallet in the caress of the bright, strong sunlight all day as it's beamed it's warmth into the door on the south side of the house. That has felt wonderful.

Now, I shall watch as the night gathers round this little cottage. I'll have to close the door and put the electric lights on which I don't like. And the night will go how it goes. In the morning I trust I will feel better...probably not well but better. Hopefully, well enough to go to work.

I am cooking some cranberries and will combine with some peaches and some honey and some spices and this will be what I look forward to for the evening...pretty pathetic huh?

Pardon me while I start boo hooing again.

FRIDAY NIGHT AND WELL...HERE I AM

I know that in fact, I could be having a much more miserable Friday night than I am having. However, this one seems pretty crappy.
I have been struggling to beat a cold that I caught somewhere, for the past couple of days. I've been denying that I felt something coming on... Alas, the little bastard bugs have taken up residence...they've gotten me, I think.

I am sneezing, coughing, feeling pressure all over my sinus area, feeling totally without energy and there's no one around to ask me if I want some hot tea. It sucks! If I want some hot tea, I have to drag my sorry ass into my little kitchen and make it. If I want a hot water bottle so I don't feel chilly in bed, I have to get up and get a hot water bottle. See, there I go feeling sorry for myself. That's how I am when I am ill.

I am truly the world's worst patient and it is probably better that I am alone. I get grumpy, depressed and moody when I am physically sick. Well, it happens so seldom that I just have a hard time believing that I am actually getting a cold or flu or whatever. I become angry that I am experiencing symptons, so I get all cross...and sad and feel sorry for myself. Boo hoo.

Oh well, I guess I'll go into the kitchen, slowly, slowly, and prepare myself a cup of hot herbal tea and have a couple of droppers full of valerian and see if I might feel a bit more chipper in the morning. I'm hoping this is the worst of it and I'll feel better tomorrow.

ETHOPIAN RESTAURANT

Have a look at this yummy food.... Here's the platter of veggie food I shared and to the right is the bread that is used as a utensil.

What a treat to eat at a lovely Ethiopian restaurant. My friend and I had lunch there recently and I gotta say that I like ethnic restaurants in general but this one is particularly fun because you get to eat with your fingers!

Ethiopian food is one of the world's cuisines that uses a type of bread to pick up food and eat it. There are several cultures who eat with their fingers using some type of bread to pick up the food and put it into the mouth. This is what you must do at this restaurant because there are no utensils brought to the table. Oh, I suppose you could ask for a fork or spoon to be brought to your table but come on, when in Rome...or an Ethiopian restaurant, do as they do.

When you visit Meskerem Ethiopian Cuisine at 3210 S. Grand in the grand old city of Saint Louis, MO why don't you try the vegetarian platter, as my friend and I did. And go ahead and eat with your fingers...just pretend you're about 8 or 9 and you'll just do fine.

Enjoy the pictures my friend took of the delicious Ethiopian food here at Meskerem.

Should you want to contact them to see if they are open or to make reservations here's their phone number: 314-772-4442.

Happy dining.

TODAY I NEED A REMINDER

You know, I don't usually need a reminder of how wonderful my life is, how lucky and blessed I am with what I have and how honored I am to have the people in my life that I do have.

(If YOU are reading this, you can stop reading now...I'm writing this for me just because I need to do it).

Today, I need that reminder. Oh, indeed, I need that reminder today. Everything I did today, every place I went reminded me of this: "yes, Lois, you are living alone."

At my newly-favorite crepe place there were smiling couples doing nothing more than what couples who are in love do...just enjoying their time together, eating, talking, being happy to be together. Simple fun experienced by lovers... but today it was just too much.

At my work at least two couples came in looking for plants...the joy they seemed to feel in being together was apparent. They held hands, they smiled at each other, they shared private observations. It was so nice to see...and suddenly, so sad. Sad, 'cause that isn't happening in my life just now.

I guess for a long time I've been waiting. For what, I'm not sure. But I'm thinking that I am done waiting. I have lately been reminded of how lovely it can be to enjoy a man's company (and I'm not talking sex, here, I'm talking company...although sex might always be at the back of one's mind).

So, today brought a lot of thought about how I go about getting the kind of companionship I want. I think in the past I settled for less than I know I deserve. Everyone really deserves the kind of person they want. I don't want to settle again. I want the real thing. I want to hold hands with someone I care about as we walk down the street, doing nothing but simply enjoying being together.

I've been hanging out with myself for a long time now and I think I am aware of both my gifts and my faults.
I know that I'm a cute enough gal, not beautiful but I won't put someone's eyes out. I'm pretty smart. I can be pleasantly entertaining. I know how to give and take in conversation and in other aspects of a relationship. I can be a bit pushy. I love debate. Etc. etc. etc. So, I know who I am but do I know who I want to be with? Now that's another question.

Maybe that's why I do not meet anyone. Maybe I am too picky. Well, so be it. I'm not willing to be with some beer-belly, conversational grunt who's most exciting evening includes a big night of football in the bark 'o lounger. I just don't want that at all. I want a brilliant, sweet, kind, interesting, responsible, compassionate man with a big view of life. Asking too much? I don't think so. I know there are men out there just like that.

Hell, I've even given up the idea of meeting someone who shares my ideas on vegetarian living. Now, that's a big one for me.

I guess I just had too many reminders today of how happy two people can be and what fun it can be to hang out with someone that you care for...just doing simple things, just doing nothing. The contrast of my life and what I imagined their's to be was big.

So, I'm officially not waiting any longer...whatever in the Hell that means. I just know I am SO ready for that person who wants to know me and wants to be known by me as deeply as two human beings can know each other.

In my life, in the past, when I have really put my intention out there, something happens. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I haven't lost that ability.

Oh, and what does this have to do with this particular blog? Well, nothing. I just needed to write this down somehow to make it real...it was just causing me such distress and writing it down helps sometimes. And...

at the new crepe place...the eggs are, indeed, free range (according to the manager) so if I feel the need for an egg some morning, finally, a place where I can have one. There, there's the connection to the blog.

CREPES

I don't know why but early in the morning I like to sit in a cafe with large windows, drink coffee, eat something yummy and watch people going by or those inside the cafe. It is one of my biggest pleasures in life. If it's raining multiply that by some large factor. God, I'm a simpleton. Easy, easy. That's just the way it is. Simple things please me.
Simple things, not simple people. I kinda wish it was the other way around.

Having traveled just a bit, I'm always happy to find a little eatery that has a somewhat European feel. Well, of course, nothing but Europe is Europe but I am pleasantly surprised and dumbly happy when I find a place that touches that "European-feeling" spot in me.

In fact, an ex boyfriend and I used to comb the cities we visited for just that perfect little place to sit and eat. We did that whether it was a city close by or in Paris. It was great fun.

Getting back to the present, there's a crepe place in Maryland Plaza that fills that bill for me. I think it's called Crepes and more or Crepes, etc. or some such. It's just across the street from Straubs and a bit further East. Easy to find. It's gonna be my new favorite place to sit with a cappuccino and baguette before I go to work on Sundays and Mondays, since I work in the CWE, presently.

I visited it twice in the last week and the joy I feel sitting in this type of place is almost indescribable. I don't really understand why I love doing it but I do. Last visit there were two people sitting near me; a younger woman and a more professional, business/creative-type guy. They seemed to be having a serious conversation and I made up such a great story about them in my head. Maybe that's what I like. I can sit, watch other people, make up stories and drink coffee.

The place is crisply appointed with lots of white, a huge chalk-board wall with all the offerings of the place and pretty darn comfortable chairs. The service is friendly and solicitous. But perfectly so.

Join me for a coffee sometime or visit the place when you have a chance. I hope it gives you as big a thrill as it does me. Simple, silly pleasures...thank God for those. I guess one must take it where one can get it.

Oh, and I'll be adding a photo at some point. Yes, I know Steve, take your camera! I must develop that habit.