opus

my sister sent us red roses this week and they sit on the kitchen table, opening. there are tall stalks of white somethingorother, the stalk-y kind of flower ive forgotten the name of, but they perfectly offset the color and the quiet exuberance of roses. it's a great pairing.





on christmas day, we made christmas quesadillas for breakfast on yellow corn tortillas: chilis, gruyere and parmesan, scallions and rosemary, cooked in with little scraps of bacon. it's not all that important, but we enjoyed it, and washed it all down with fresh-juice mimosas.





for lunch, or "christmas dinner" i pulled out the tuna and we had seared tuna tartare with just a hint of wasabi and ginger and a mean butter lettuce salad. the bread board and cheeses rounded it out...why am i telling you about our food? food is good. i like food. it's one of the few objective things i can talk about without launching headfirst into some diatribe, im trying to get us there gently! ;) (uhoh, you say?)





more objective news: there are a pile of rome apples in the kitchen still that we havent gotten used up. today they will become a compote or a crumble, depending on who wins. im betting on the compote. would it be terrible to throw some basil in? i know mint would be better, but basil might just knock us into the new so completely that we like it.







in the neighborhood yesterday, i could swear i heard the bleating of lambs. im not crazy, and im not living in farm country so its worth mentioning. serious! urban sheep, man! or something resembling their sound. i will not even discuss the rooster, which i am now certain is my karma to always be in the vicinity of--just cant escape the fuckers. (pardon me if youre a rooster)







this morning my daughter woke up and asked for coffee, which wasnt very hot anymore cause it was late, and said"mom, i hate to burst your bubble, but you're not dying." (we had a funny night and woke up in the middle of it. the moon was still strong and interruptive and had me saying things you say at night, even to the wrong person.) sounds funny now but she may be right.







the thing about cataloging a year, and looking into the next one is, i remember every detail about where i was, how it felt, all the full-frame life events that came to bear on it.





over the holiday, juliet has read flaubert and wharton, just hangin out. i took a shower. and changed the bulbs. and hung a mirror. and took the trash out and got the mail. and swept, of course. i cant seem to read right now. or write.