Feast Days 04/22/01

Feast Days
Subj: Mindwalkers - Feast Days
Date: 4/22/01 10:42:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time

The past week has seemed to be filled with feast days - feasts for the tummy and feasts for the eyes.

I have had marvelous meals of cheese and whole grain Wasa crackers and chicken, grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with Dijion mustard, and Elsa whipped up on two separate occasions the best omelettes I can recall eating - perfectly cooked eggs folded over chucks of ham with three cheeses and a generous dollop of sour cream. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water and I have had plenty to eat (grilled chicken thighs, chicken flavored rice, sugar snap peas and cranberry jelly). I had several evenings where I toasted my happy life with perfectly blended whiskey sours, a treat that is hard to beat.

Elsa and John went out to Strasburg after work on Friday night, to a special reception at the PA Railroad Museum, and then had supper at our favorite Lancaster-area diner - Jennie's.

Jennie's has been a Lockphy Murphart favorite ever since John and Elsa discovered it during their honeymoon. I think that it is lovely that whenever they go back, they not only are sure of getting a wonderful meal, but it always brings back happy memories of their honeymoon, and of many stops we have made there since. This time, Elsa did not get her regular order - an open-faced hot turkey sandwich - choosing instead the braised beef tips over Pennsylvania Dutch noodles, with chow-chow and rhubard sauce as her vegetables.

Guess what she brought home for her dear old Mom? A goodly amount of the chow-chow and rhubarb sauce. I had part of the rhubard sauce today - deeeelicious. Nice and tart, the way God made rhubarb, none of this sweet stuff that most restaurants serve, with the zingy rhubarb doctored by adding strawberries. Tomorrow, the chow-chow.

Anticipation is wonderful.

As for the feasts for the eyes... My world from the big chair in the living room has been shades of pink. The azalea has broken out into magenta. The orchid-colored rhodedren is making its debut. The weeping cherry has been a glory of pink blossoms. From the kitchen window, I can see the white-pink blossoms of Linda and Gerry's magnficient magnolia. Inside, one of Marie's surviving African violets is knocking itself out with a glorious display of rich blue-purple blossoms.

To top it off, Elsa took me out on an early evening ramble. To see all the magnolias and the pink cherry trees and the white cherry trees and the still blazing forsythia made my heart sing with joy.

I think my favorite part was looking down Newtown's State Street, both sides of the street lined with white cherry trees in full flower, the lines of flowering trees converging to a single point down a ways. It felt like I was in heaven.

I am very grateful that Elsa and I have gotten past another series of bumps in our road. It is not easy for two very different people to live together - being mother and daughter complicates it even more and having such opposite communication styles makes it even more difficult.

People have commented on how descriptive I am in my postings. Actually, if you read what I originally come up with for postings, you would have a short read. I tend to be practically monosyllabic. It is Elsa who pushes and prods - yes, even somewhat badgers at times - me for more details. I do think it is going to get better on my end, that I am relaxing more, which helps loosen up my memory.

Connecting with long-ago memories and present-day thoughts is being aided by a new adventure, one that I am enjoying immensely - writing an interactive journal. Elsa writes on the left-sided pages, while I use the right side. It is a lot of fun and I am learning about using more verbs and adjectives in my thinking and composing. I strongly recommend the magazine, Personal Journaling, which has opened my eyes to a level of thinking and writing I never thought possible. I am having a wonderful time and I think Elsa is too.

Well, it is time to head up the wooden hill.

Love to all - Kay Lockhart, journal writer and feaster