Part II of an extremely occasional series brings us this article from today’s Salt Lake Tribune: “Jacob’s bad luck – is it…Satan?”.
(“Now, Karen, having the Prince of Darkness sabotage your political campaign is NO LAUGHING MATTER.” Gosh.)
Part II of an extremely occasional series brings us this article from today’s Salt Lake Tribune: “Jacob’s bad luck – is it…Satan?”.
(“Now, Karen, having the Prince of Darkness sabotage your political campaign is NO LAUGHING MATTER.” Gosh.)
My roommate Todd has started living with me again, although he leaves for vacation tomorrow morning and I am NOT HAPPY about that. (Are you reading this, Todd?)
I was cleaning out a filing cabinet this week and found a stash of notes we’d left each other over the last three years. Profundities like, “Just because you were disappointed doesn’t mean you were wrong” are followed by, “Sorry I left the dishes again.”
But it was very comforting to find that. For some reason, it made me think of this Robert Hass poem. (That’s the inspiration for the image today.) So read, be comforted, and do the dishes for your roommate.
Found this link to barbecues on the Coudal Partners site, one of which made Michelle remark, “Nothing says a good night’s sleep like drying meat,” which then reminded me of a Michelle quote from a while back: “I once ate forty to fifty pieces of deer jerky in one sitting.”
Meat!
Part I:
Go outside. Especially if it’s a lovely evening and your apartment is empty because your roommate is STILL GONE, making you want to get a dog which would at least give you something to talk to besides yourself. (ARE YOU READING THIS, TODD? I’M SERIOUS. I’D NAME HIM BUDDY. WE COULD HIKE TOGETHER.) I recommend parts of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail: Up above City Creek, as mentioned yesterday, or around Red Butte, where I went last night. (I somehow got off the trail and ended up at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Lots of patios for a hospital.)
Part II:
If you’re hiking in the grassy foothills–or really, if you’re just about anywhere–heed the advice of today’s picture.
The trailhead from Sunday’s little hike is at 18th Ave. and Hilltop Road. I know, because I went back yesterday evening. (Because if the day was long and you haven’t seen your roommate in almost a week and you’re full of nameless anxiety, you should not stay in your apartment and shop online.) I’ve always loved seeing the light on the foothills here; I’m glad it finally dawned on me I’d probably like being in those foothills in the evening light, too.
Almost as good as foothills for cheering you up: Jim Coudal’s recipe for the perfect martini. I think I’ll try it tonight.
Why, yes I did.
All the linden trees are in bloom in the neighborhood, which of course made me think of Proust having linden blossom tea and a madeleine, thus summoning his childhood memories of such and inspiring all twelve volumes of Remembrance of Things Past. (No, I’ve onloy read the first one.)
So I made madeleines. Hooray, we have an Office Snack of The Day again!
Yessterday evening I met up with an old friend and her friend, and we all went for a hike in the foothills. We took a “shortcut” to the trailhead (on 18th Avenue and…um…Liberty Road?) and then walked up, and around, and finally down into City Creek and back home to 10th Avenue on the pavement. But the grass was still green on the foothills, there was wild rhubarb by the stream, the evening light was high and clear and yellow–and we got to talk about Robert Hass’s poems. So a good evening.
Here’s a quote I found from The Enormous and Ongoing Inspirational Quote Project that seemed to relate:
Why should all the major religions of the modern world include a crucial encounter with wilderness—Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed in the desert mountains, Siddhartha in the jungle? And why should the predominant modern view of the origin and development of life have arisen from the five-year wilderness voyage of a Victorian amateur naturalist named Charles Darwin? …Placing Darwin in the tradition of Moses and Jesus may seem heresy from both the Judeo-Christian and scientific viewpoints, but I think the roles played by the three figures have been similar. They wrenched their respective cultures out of a complacency that amounted to self-worship and thrust them in new directions that (if not always entirely beneficial) enlarged the human perspective. Moses forced his society to accept a unifying law; Jesus forced his to accept the unity of all humanity; Darwin forced his to accept the unity of all life. I doubt whether any of the three would have been able to influence his society if he had not been fortified by a season in the wilderness.
David Rains Wallace (b. 1945), U.S. naturalist, essayist. “Tracks in the Wilderness,” The Klamath Knot, Sierra (1983).
The quotations I’ve been looking through to include on the inspirational site we’re building range from dreadful (“Hem your blessings with gratitude so they don’t uravel”) to just plain unsuitable:
The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
Self-respect—The secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
(The image is from Despair, Inc. Brilliant.)