food

By the time I got around to having breakfast this morning it was time for lunch. It’s been like that, lately.

So I made a sandwich.

[hippy hairs, tomato, avocado, turkey, white extra sharp cheddar cheese, mustard, purple onion, gluten free bread]

[Odwalla lemonade, Pellegrino, mint from the garden]

[I tend to be a bit heavy handed with the mustard…Kettle baked salt and vinegar chips on the side…]

Thanks to a local bakery, local like 10 minutes by foot from my back door, I am on a freshly baked gluten free bread list and I pick up my loaf once a week. It’s actually awful stuff, keeping in mind that I’ve spoiled myself for a few years by baking my own bread, from scratch, on a weekly basis. But, if I toast it a bit I can almost pretend it’s delicious. When I build a sandwich with it, it tastes quite good and it feels strong to have a bready substance in my body. As for the meat, you know I don’t really like to eat anything we haven’t harvested from Idaho and Wyoming lands, but our freezer is empty and I’ve been working really hard lately; climbing, running long 9 mile loops in the mountains, an interval weight class at my gym once a week (which has been AWESOME for my chronic rib displacement issue) and biking — when that’s all said and done my body is really craving meat. Lots of meat. So I’ve been buckling down and consuming poor little barnyard fowl in the form of sandwich meat and sausage (as well as fish). I still can’t seem to eat enough. Ever. How does one fill a bottomless pit, anyway??? Impossible (say it with a French accent)!!!

In other news, this ship was sinking this morning. Seriously. Struck-by-an-iceberg-all-hands-on-deck-ready-the-lifeboats-geez-that-Atlantic-Ocean-is-frigid- SINKING. I embarked on an endless search for sodium bisulphate all over town. Everybody was out! Rather frustrating. I finally found some in Chubbuck (a neighboring town) at a Lowe’s hardware store and I was so annoyed with having wasted so much time that I swore a bit in my head and at one point I even stomped my foot. Poor behavior for a lady. I know. But I’m not perfect…

I tried to sit down at a coffee shop for a calm little latte and a bit of letter writing but I felt guilty sitting there leisurely when I have (had) a handful of gardens that are full of weeds, six pairs of earrings to package and ship out, a kitchen full of dirty dishes, dogs that need exercising, bills to pay, emails to answer and sodium bisulphate to hunt down. The panic was rising. Rising all around. I was swimming in the thickness of it. Then I sent a SOS text to a friend and she talked me down off the ledge. Everything is fine now. Everything is fine. One thing at a time. One day at a time.

The most beautiful thing I’ve seen today would have to be the small flock of sparrows inside Lowe’s. They were perched on a shelf in the seasonal section. I sat down in a patch of orchids over in the plant section and just watched them and leaked a few tears. Then I stood up, paid for my sodium bisulphate and drove home. Now that I’m here, the gardens don’t seem so weedy, I’m not quite so overwhelmed, someone patched the hole in the starboard side of this ship and we’re seaworthy once again. We’re going to keep cruising through these cold waters. I can see a big white albatross coasting about on a curl of wind, straight ahead.

Land is near.

I’ll do my best.

I’m doing my best.

Tell me about something beautiful you’ve seen today.

I need some beautiful.

I need a truckload of beautiful.

Love,

The SS Plume

SOS & Sandwiches

The Story of Lunch: