A sunny, lazy day

I planned to get up early and go dig in the garden preparatory to planting beans – and I did get up early – relatively, for me, I mean. However, I was still in bed but awake with my cup of tea and the newspaper, when Rebecca called and said, “Let’s walk to Chinatown. I need a pestle.” You know that I can deny my girl nothing, not to mention that it seemed like a more fun thing than digging in the hot sun, so of course I agreed. On the way we passed some lovely poppies and cornflowers (much more beautiful than this picture indicates). We stopped in at the Viet Wah – a funky pan-Asian grocery store where some time ago I got the CookJoy I showed you at that time. There is always something there that I never knew existed, but realize that I desperately needs as soon as I see it. In this case, it was a ceramic serving dish with fish on it, which would have been perfect for the Pope’s Risotto (see below). Then I remembered that last year, some time before Christmas, I had purchased a lovely flowered serving platter – metal, inexpensive, beautiful – and when I showed it to Rebecca, she was suffused with desire and envy. Naturally then, being able to deny her nothing (see above), I gave it to her for Christmas. It was a cruel wrench, I can tell you. So today, I said, “Let’s go and see if they still have those tin plates.” They didn’t. My heart was sore. But then, I looked up, and, mirabile dictu, there at the very top of a stack of shelves and at the top of a stack of pots and pans was one plate like thing, the bottom of which seemed like it might be my very plate. However, there was no way to get at it. Rebecca boldly said, “I can climb up the shelves.” And she did, just like a monkey. It was indeed my coveted plate. I was thrilled. Rebecca was pleased with her pestle too, but not as happy as I was!