Rosh Hashana
The perfect day to start my #365delights.Â
Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is a week of
celebration, and also a week of reflection over the past year–a time to
think about what you hope the next year will bring.
I have a lot of plans over the next year (see #creativity). One of which is to pay more
attention to the positives in my life (hence my new philosophy, as my father put it, “don’t throw
the piglet out with the mud”). #365daysofdelight is one way to encourage seeing
the positives.
The definition of a delight is “a great pleasure.” A delight, to me, is
something that I notice each day that brings a smile to my face, makes
me feel warm inside, or encourages pleasure. Although Ross Gay talks about
delights as quick like a hummingbird, I include longer experiences in my definition.
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10/1/23
A great walk in perfect weather to an outdoor Czech and Italian restaurant, La Trattoria Bohemia, for delightful salads and potato pancakes.
The first thing to hit my senses were the beautiful colors in the salad, red tomatoes, bright green arugula, olive colored capers, white anchovies and mozzarella. It was sweet from the balsamic and olive oil dressing and tomatoes, salty from the capers and anchovies and slightly bitter from the arugula.
The potato pancakes were light and fluffy and not at all greasy. Topped with apple sauce and sour cream they were a perfect accompaniment to the salad.
Pippi was an angel, only barking at one way-too-loud motorcycle.
All-in-all, a lovely beginning to October.
9/30/23
The first rain of the season (it’s a delight now, but check back in with me in a month and I may not have the same attitude).
The rain only lasted about an hour and it was pretty light—just giving the air that pleasant wet feel and smell.
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We had a dry summer so we need some rain this winter, but not so much that there’s flooding. Climate change is a trip.
9/26/23
Who said that shopping for groceries could be a delight? You can if you shop at Corti Bros in Sacramento. It’s a wonderful gourmet grocery store with everything you need to eat healthy and enjoy. It was named the top grocery store in California by a Bay Area newspaper and has been written up by the New York Times.
It’s worth it just to go for the produce–awesome bunches of greens, fantastic red and perfectly ripe heirloom tomatoes, all kinds of squash including the ones that look like flying saucers and the round green ones, and much much more.
One of the highlights for me are the butchers. They are warm and friendly and usually know just what I want (kind of like Cheers where everyone knows your name). When I’m lucky they have Market Steaks, the best cut of beef at the lowest cost. They have all kinds of marinated meats, perfect for the grill–pepper steak, citrus chicken, Korean short ribs, Thai chicken. I’ve never been disappointed and it gets us out grilling. There fish is fresh and varied, you just have to watch the prices.Â
My other favorite area is the deli counter. They offer a spicy pate that I eat on tomatoes and often make the trip for. I crave the French feta cheese and they have amazing breaded eggplant and chicken that you just pop in the oven and put a little bit of sauce on and you are ready for a terrific lunch. The sausage is the best I’ve had and they have every kind of cheese imaginable.
Their eggplant and roasted red pepper dips are great for sandwiches or to eat on veggies.
I often buy low calorie tofu noodles and rice to keep my meals’ carb levels down and they offer many many different types of pasta sauce. They even have homemade ravioli.
You can smell the fresh sourdough bread as soon as you walk in the store and it doesn’t disappoint. Crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside and it is often warm, fresh out of the oven.
One of the things that Corti Bros is most well-known for are the sandwiches. I lean toward the veggie sandwich, piled high with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, avocados, pickles, peppers, cheddar cheese, mayo, and mustard, oil and vinegar on a sourdough bun. All I can say is “yum”.
The only problem with Corti Bros is you can’t go hungry or you end up with way too much to pack in your freezer and fridge.Â
Unlike Trader Joes, I’ve never run into any problems parking and it’s six minutes from my house.Â
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9/25/23
Sometimes from negative things come delights. In our neighborhood, a group of kids were burning gay flags.Â
Neighborhoods allies put out 100 gay flags in their yard with a sign saying that property was damaged and that we should ban together and support each other by putting flags in our front yards and driveways.Â
When I walked by and thanked them, they said, “we have our community back.”
Now Pippi and I, every time we walk around the neighborhood, see dozens of gay flags and feel supported by our community. It’s a really warm and fuzzy feeling.
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9/24/23
Yoga has become both a delight and pain in many muscles that I didn’t know even I had. I started my yoga training in Iyengar yoga which emphasizes precision and alignment. This is slow and specific with very little flow between the poses. It didn’t really cause my body any aching or an increasing heart rate when I practiced.
I recently switched to Vinyasa yoga and Yin yoga. Vinyasa yoga is faster paced with an emphasis on the connection between breath and movement. It definitely raises my heart rate and I end up sweaty during every class. It feels more like the type of exercise my body craves. I’m familiar with about half of the poses from my Iyengar training. I’ve jumped into about four beginning Vinyasa classes a week and although I don’t know all the poses, I’m really enjoying it. And, the people at my new studio are warm and friendly. It’s the first social situation I’ve been in other than one on one meals out since the pandemic started.Â
Yin yoga consists of slow, long-held yoga poses, stretching mostly the lower body and the spine. It sounds easy, but for me, with my tight body, it’s quite challenging.Â
Although with each of my new classes, I feel a bit achy afterwards, it’s the good type of pain.
Most days, as I sit cozy on the couch with Pippi reading a good book, I have to drag myself to the studio. As soon as I grab my mat and walk through the doors of the studio, however, I know I made a good decision. As I chat with the other students and then start the class, I know that this is the right place for me. Yoga is a lot more fun in class than sitting alone and doing it over zoom, doing my physical therapy alone (although I enjoy PT with my physical therapist) or hopping on the Peloton-type bike. Â
Yoga is a bit challenging in other ways. My tremor from my medication is obvious and I am the only one in the studio still wearing a mask. But, so far, it’s been well worth it.
9/23/23
The doorbell rang and I heard the delivery truck speed away. I opened the door to yet another one of my greatest delights, a new book, most of which are middle grade and young adult (YA) books since that’s the genre that I write (I think that’s an excuse, it’s about the attention span that I now have). I already have six overflowing bookshelves in my office/music room/guest room of kid’s books, meditation books and books on animals. I even have some books on animals meditating. They look really cool with some of the bookshelves vertical and the others horizontal.
I love the way books look, especially series, and I often revisit them as I write reviews in #booksilike and recommend books for my friends and their kids. I just started the painful process of “finding new homes” for my some of my books by gifting them to a 15 year-old kid I recently met who loves books as much as I do, if that’s at all possible. I have to admit, when I really want her to read something and I can’t quite get rid of it, I buy her her own copy.
Sometimes, especially when I travel, I think about switching to an Ipod, but I love the feel and look of the paper book, especially series, and can’t quite yet get myself to make the transition.
Most of the books that I like to read have some sort of cultural focus ranging including different ethnicities/races, religions, nationalities and disabilities. I just read a great series about a kid with cerebral palsy and a couple of books by an Irish Muslim lesbian all of which I will be reviewing on #booksilike soon. And as you’ll see, I love series. I enjoy seeing the development of the characters.
That said, what is better than a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble (from American Express frequent buyer points cashed out) to support my addiction? So far, I’ve bought a “Mary Berry’s Quick Meals” cookbook, Ross Gay’s first book on delights–“The Book of Delights– that started me on this journey of a delight a day, a book about a Latina kid with mental health issues (soon to be reviewed on #booksilike), a series of graphic novels featuring brown and black middle graders, and a series about a Latina middle grader. What fun…getting books in the mail each day can’t think of a better delight!
9/22/23
Perfect weather. I started out in a short sleeve shirt and quickly changed into a blue tank and jean shorts as the sun beamed from behind a cloud keeping me comfortably warm. Pippi also seemed thrilled with the weather as she pranced along on our walk.
Now that Pippi needs to go out every 90 minutes (she’s on steroids), we are spending a lot of quality time together outside with our 20 minute walks all day long and then our two mile walk every night. One way to get my steps in.
About two minutes into the walk, we ran into an adorable black French bulldog (don’t tell Pippi I said that) with her youngish blonde owner. They barked hello, smelled each other and moved on by.
I could smell fall coming, that musty fresh smell.
The colors of fall were just starting to show, a few red, orange and yellow leaves along our route.
The first Halloween decorations and pumpkins are popping up all over. The people in my town are very into decorating for the holidays, always making our walks more interesting.
Pippi was in a meandering mood, checking out all of the pee-mail at every tree and telephone pole. I let her have complete control of the route (within reason…I made her stay on the sidewalks). She often chose going kitty corner, as usual. We walked in about a mile loop before it started to get a bit too hot for Pippi