Sweet Spot (Antje Duvekot)

Good but very low-key week... exactly what I needed after the breakneck pace of the last few.  Zoom with Nancy and Judi, a library pick-up, volunteering in the community garden this morning.  Much weeding, and joyful satisfaction!  We harvested apple bananas (yes, that's a real thing!) and papayas for the food bank, saw many peacock butterflies (thanks to Claire for the ID), and even spotted, amidst the chicken wire (to keep out the iguanas), a chrysalis... 😃

On my way out, I stopped into the farmers' market in front, and bought beefsteak tomatoes, two different kinds of sweet potatoes, Gala apples, locally-made vegan coconut yogurt, as well as baba ganoush.  The first thing I did when I got home was make a tomato sandwich (to quote songwriter Guy Clark:  "only two things money can't buy, that's true love and homegrown tomatoes"... ❤ )  Yum!

I've also tried to catch up on my reading, because putting together the TCC newsletter was taking up a lot of my discretionary time; it was a fun challenge, but I do get grumpy when I don't consume words on a regular basis.  Reinstating a feature I haven't used in a while:

NR:  House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

It is indeed Feel Good Friday (cutting it close again!) and, as is tradition, five items below of beauty, interest, and humor to brighten/enlighten your day/weekend/week.  Enjoy!

~ Baking That’s Simple, but Always Satisfying:  In her new monthly column, Genevieve Ko shares easy, streamlined recipes, like handmade crisps and cookies, so you can feed your loved ones (and yourself) effortlessly.

~ Books Don't Cost A Thing: A #GoodbyeFines Playlist:  It's one fine day at the Library! On October 5, The New York Public Library announced that we're closing the book on late fines. That's right—NYPL no longer charges late fines on overdue material. 

~ Urban Food Forest at Browns Mill:  This site is Atlanta's first Community Urban Food Forest, as well as a new model for a City of Atlanta park. The food forest will produce a wide variety of fresh, flavorful, and healthy nuts, fruits,  vegetables, herbs,  and mushrooms, which will become available for public consumption.  Located in an area identified as a food desert, the site was a working farm as recently as 2000. Neighbors still talk about the land’s former owners, Ruby and Willie Morgan, who left excess produce from their farm on fence posts for neighbors to claim and enjoy. 

~ Designed to remind us of stories worth sharing:  At Anecdote, we’re making fragrance a conversation piece. Inspired by personal recollections and cultural trends, each candle is an everyday luxury designed to remind us of stories worth sharing.

~ William Steig’s Books Explored the Reality That Adults Don’t Want Children to Know About:  Writers for young children have a nearly impossible task: to amuse both the kid being read to and the adult doing the reading. Doing one or the other is hard enough, and only a select handful of geniuses can manage both. William Steig is one. 

SONG:  Sweet Spot by Antje Duvekot

BOOK:  Yes! I AM by Opal Murray (my dear friend Opal from the UUCFL asked me to review her book; I agreed, and was beyond relieved that it was a lovely read.  Don't be surprised if it ends up in your mailbox in the next few months... 💗 )

POEM:  Field Guide by Tony Hoagland

Once, in the cool blue middle of a lake,

up to my neck in that most precious element of all,

I found a pale-gray, curled-upwards pigeon feather

floating on the tension of the water

at the very instant when a dragonfly,

like a blue-green iridescent bobby pin,

hovered over it, then lit, and rested.

That’s all.

I mention this in the same way

that I fold the corner of a page

in certain library books,

so that the next reader will know

where to look for the good parts.

QUOTE:  "Be amazed. Take a step back and look at your life with gratitude every now and then. Be amazed. Squeeze every last ounce of goodness out of what is around you. Savor it. Soak it up. Luxuriate in it. Be amazed. When you’re burned out, bone weary, and bedraggled, use amazement to fill yourself back up. Seek out those situations, people, and activities that remind you of what it means and how it feels to be amazed." ~ Leslie Ralph

Homegrown Tomatoes (Guy Clark)

Inspired by a discussion with a friend last week: "only two things that money can't buy, that's true love and homegrown tomatoes" - who would have guessed there's even a novel based on the song lyrics?!?).

SONG: Homegrown Tomatoes by Guy Clark

BOOK(S): Truelove & Homegrown Tomatoes: A Novel by Julie Cannon

Grow the Best Tomatoes: Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin A-189 by John Page

POEM: Highway Five Love Poem by Ruth L. Schwartz

for Anna

This is a love poem for all the tomatoes

spread out in the fields along Highway Five,

their gleaming green and ruddy faces like a thousand

moons prostrate in praise of sun.

And for every curd of cloud,

clotted cream of cloud spooned briskly

by an unseen hand into the great blue bowl,

then out again, into a greedy mouth.

Cotton baled up beside the road,

altars to the patron saint of dryer lint.

Moist fudge of freshly-planted dirt.

Shaggy neglected savage grasses

bent into the wind's designs.

Sheep scattered over the landscape like fuzzy confetti,

or herded into stubbled funnels, moving like rough water

toward its secret source.

Egrets praying in the fields like

white-cloaked priests.

A dozen wise and ponderous cows

suddenly spurred to run, to gallop, even,

down a flank of hill.

Horses for sale, goats for sale, nopales for sale, orange groves for sale,

topless trailers carrying horses,

manes as loose and lovely as tomorrow in our mouths,

and now a giant pig, jostling majestic in the open

bed of a red pickup.

QUOTE: "Let no one think that real gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation. It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart." ~ Karel Capek