A very good way to start a Monday: wake early, meditate as the sky brightens into reds, take pot from oven where supper’s chicken carcasses simmered overnight and finish into aromatic stock, drink good coffee, write in journal, make bed, hug wife, rouse the teenager.
Late-season hit peppers at the Carrboro Farmers Market yesterday means I am makingam making one last batch of hot sauce. This will go straight into bottles, some goe today’s post-soccer potluck and some for family in Cleveland.
Thank you Tottenham Hotspur for showing up to the match today. Great win!
Than you @frankm for reminding me that I can use Drummer to post to Micro.blog. This and previous posts are just that.
It’s been a couple of months since I last updated my Now page. I’ve been thinking about making a Where page, and a New page.
I arrived early for last night’s pick-up soccer game so was there when the lights popped on to illuminate the field. It had rained most of the day. The game was fun. Did not score but I played well enough.
Found this anole underneath a concrete block on my work pile out back. It was slow to move in the cool autumn air so I snappwd this portrait.
I am trying to eat more beans. Recently, I ruined a pot by over salting. Today, I’ve cooked the beans to mush. Still learning.
The red fox nabbed one of our hens today. I ran outside, fox dropped chicken, neck was broken and it died shortly after. I buried it in the woods and locked the three remaining hens inside the coop.
While we were driving through the vineyards of Napa Valley last week, I told Erin that I expected the Republicans to quickly propose a constitutional amendment to allow Trump to run for a third term. Wouldn’t you know it, today’s headline says Trump is already joking about another term. #madness
From Napa to Sacramento to Pt. Reyes National Seashore and across the Golden Gate Bridge to San Francisco, this has been a fun week away. So good to see our daughter, Anna. We were mesmerized by beauty of the land and sea but also horrified by the misery of the homeless. Headed home now.
Most Saturdays I visit the Carborro Farmers Market (North Carolina). Today I am on the other side of rhe country at the Davis Farmers Market (California).
In a surreal bit of timing, I’ve spent the last few days in Napa Valley. While my present state of mindfulness is bliss - a serene inn with Bouchon Bakery croissants at the door each morning, good wine, perfect weather, time with Erin - I feel a lingering worry for the future. #rested&ready
It’s been a busy few days with family visiting from Austin, Wilmington (NC), and Rhode Island. Today we went to the food truck rodeo at Durham Central Park. Beautiful day, fun times, good food and drinks. Last night was dinner at Acme in Carrboro. Tonight a show at Cat’s Cradle.
Just registered for the Uwharrie Mountain Run (Feb. 1, 2025). I’ll run the 8-mile race this time around. Previously I did the 20 and 8, and both times it was cold!
Microcast from Carrboro Town Plaza just after I cast my ballot.
Josh Ritter is out with a surprise mini-album, ‘Heaven, or Someplace as Nice’ and he sent a special vinyl pressing to 21 record stores across the country. See list [here](mini-album ‘Heaven, or Someplace as Nice’). I’d love to visit these on my travels, but how to bring home records safely?
Today’s news cycle has included quite a few articles (like this from WaPo) about the Trump rally that was interrupted as a couple of attendees passed out. The reports focus on the seemingly bizarre behavior of the candidate, who played deejay and “swayed and bopped” on stage for nearly 45 minutes.
I’m quite against Trump and the Republican Party this election, but I didn’t immediately smirk at this. Something that happened near me recently made me pause and consider the room, so to speak.
The other night at the Cat’s Cradle Back Room, as the Wildmans played, I noticed I was smiling, feeling happy and relaxed and delighted by the beautiful song by this young sister and brother.
But then, a woman in the back of the room suddenly yelled out, three times, and dropped to the concrete floor. People around me looked around in confusion, a man knelt beside the woman, the bartender grabbed a phone to call 911.
“Is everyone ok?” asked Aila once her song was finished.
“No,” replied a few people.
But the woman was conscious and being attended to, and people in the front weren’t quite aware of what was going on. So Aila looked at her brother, Elisha, and together they said, OK, we’ll play a song to help the mood, and they launched into a jiggy Appalachian fiddle tune. I was struck by how well they handled the disruption and used their music to lift up the mood.
But I found myself rattled, so I walked to the corner of the room and leaned against the wall. A song or two later, I returned to my spot in the middle of the floor. The woman who’d fallen was gone—I don’t know what happened to her—Aila was singing a covers of These Days and Fade Into You, and the energy of the room was back in the happy frequency.
I guess I just wanted to share my awareness of the energies and emotions that can flow through a crowd. When this incident happened, I marveled at how social we humans are. How connected we are. How quick our concern for another spreads, how swift we are to help the individual and the community.
I know who I’m voting for this election (I hope to celebrate President Harris). The people at that Trump rally don’t share a lot of my views, but for a moment some of the surely felt what I felt. That’s a connection on which we can build.
Yesterday I finished reading If You Can’t Take the Heat by Michael Ruhlman. Today I wrote a blog post about how much I enjoyed this teen/YA novel and why I liked the Cleveland references. 📚
More enjoyable live music this weekend at Cat’s Cradle: First the energetic reggae-jam-rock collective The Hourglass Kids (with the frenetic Appalachian thrashers Bongfoot) Friday, then the young brother-sister group The Wildmans (with Appalachian Americana singer Dori Freeman Saturday.