5/365

The text exchange included,
"I am sure that you have had a busy week and you probably prefer to just chill out..."
"hanging with y'all is an entirely different kind of people time :-)"

Time moves at a different pace when spend the afternoon with a baby. Perhaps, especially so when you have a few years behind you, and you don't worry over every cry and grunt and squeak. Maybe even more so when your week up 'til now was filled with long days and lots of people and plenty of cold. An afternoon in a warm and familiar home with a baby- that's good medicine.

Perhaps the easiest, the most peaceful way, to spend an afternoon is simply to hold a little one in arms. I sit in my favorite chair and hardly move, for nearly four hours. Oh sure, one feeding and later another and some rumbles require a couple of diaper changes along the way. I get up once to make a new bottle. Eventually I set him down and cover him up. I pull out my book, but really, I keep watching. After he sleeps for a bit, I do consider something besides the two of us and go to the kitchen to help with a little dinner prep. But really, this afternoon is mostly chair time. It is mostly about the baby.

When he's awake and back on my lap, I wait for his wandering eyes to suddenly focus on mine. The pay-off is the instant when he centers his attention and after a moment, his lip curls into a little smile. His fingers curl around my pinky. When he's eating, it's watching the rhythm of his cheeks moving, seeing him zone into some distant fantasyland of contentment. He slows when his eyelids weigh heavy, too heavy to keep blinking, and he gives in to sleep.

This guy, he can sleep anywhere. He startles occasionally when some noise interrupts the quiet, but he never yelps and settles again quickly. We wonder, does he dream? I think, when will he start to remember? I pray and hope that he always knows such peace. After a time of snoozing, his eyes open suddenly and he returns to consciousness. And we start the routine all over again. It's all the entertainment I need.

I'm humbled to share these hours of easy. The afternoon is all privilege and I leave grateful. And ready for the next call.

358/365

We had two days of almost too much, too much good food, too much good company, too much sweet fellowship if such a thing were possible.

We meet my aunt and are surprised by my cousin and my kids hear exactly all the same biases from him that I have uttered for years. We laugh out loud! I might have even said, "Go Aggies!" (but for one day only, says this Lobo fan!)

We surprise the couple who loved me as their own when I was a college student and ever since. Surprises are the best! George gathers us to pray before leaving. We circle up and hold hands and I listen to that so familiar voice and my heart swells with gratitude.

We sit with friends 30 years long and catch up on today while our kids play games together. Sometimes when you are growing up you think about how great it will be when your kids are friends with your best friend's kids. Amazingly, I've known that wonder a couple of times. When it really happens, that's like whip cream and a cherry on top.

We worship in the church where we married 27 plus years ago. Yes, new faces and a beautiful new (to us) pipe organ. But a few familiar faces show themselves too, and we sing Christmas hymns on Christmas eve and see the same distracting view of blue skies and the mountains to the east, besides.

We stuff, STUFF, ourselves when welcomed like kin to the family-owned favorite burger join on the east side of the mountains. The food keeps coming and we just keep eating. We couldn't have been shown more generous hospitality. I can't eat one bite more.

Except then it was Christmas eve dinner, and I do. All the traditional New Mexican fare, and who wouldn't try one of everything? We go for a walk around the neighborhood looking at lights, searching for the traditional luminarias. Electricity is no substitute for folded paper bags with sand and a candle. But still, it is good.

Finally, we end Christmas eve with the one constant. No matter where we are, no matter who we are with, Christmas eve ends with new pajamas. We finish the day with exactly enough.

354/365

(DPP20- O fair New Mexico, we love, we love you so...)

So, just to be clear, I basically am eating my way through New Mexico.
First stop, Clovis, New Mexico, at the Java Junction for a latte. We figured that the money was better spent on coffee than the Rock and Roll Museum. I only second-guessed myself for a moment.

We had our first green chile cheeseburger in Moriarity, not even waiting to get to Albuquerque. And green chile enchiladas followed that same evening. With sopapillas, of course. Only a New Mexico can appreciate the delicacy of a fresh sopapilla dripping with honey alongside your chicken enchiladas drenched in green chile sauce.

The days since have included green chile stew, pizza with green chile, posole, green chile chicken noodle soup, tamales, tres leches cake, another green chile cheeseburger, more green chile stew, more posole, biscochitos, and fresh tortillas. It started slow but eventually I fell completely off the Healthy Living wagon.

Dare I say, totally worth it. I've lived a lot of places, and I'll wager New Mexican food against any cuisine in the world.
O fair New Mexico, I'll miss, I'll miss you so...

348/365

DPP14-

(with prior planning, you might just get your guy to take you to the Festival of Lights.)

I love a parade. I love a drive to nowhere. I love stopping to take a picture. I love Christmas lights. My guy- not so much any of these things.

Every year, the little town right next to the border puts on a big light display- the Hidalgo Festival of Lights. It cannot be compared to any other display that I've ever seen. "5 million lights, 500 displays!," they boast. Every year, they announce a new theme, but in addition to the new display, they bring back all the old ones, so it turns into an eclectic mix of anything and everything, all lit up Christmas.

This year, it is an "Intergalactic Christmas" in homage to the new Star Wars film. And as such, there was a display with nearly life-sized Hans and Chewie and Luke and Leia and R2D2 and C3PO and Darth Vader and Darth Maul all singing Christmas carols in a show of intergalactic peace, next to lit up x-wing fighters and ti-fighters and rovers. Across the street are the Toy Story characters. Down the road you'll see minions and Angry Birds and the Justice League superheroes with a Hidalgo police office figure. There are the 12 Days of Christmas. There is the Butterfly Garden. There are dinosaurs and skateboarding elves. There are the symbols of Texas, a huge armadillo and a boot and a yellow rose, all lit up. There's town mascot, the World's Largest Killer Bee, lit up right there in front of the town hall. There are Christmas trees and candy canes and presents. There are even a couple of nativity scenes along the way.

But of course, as my guy reminds me with a groan, there is also traffic. And people. People who cut off the flow and cut into the line. There is the inevitable figuring out where exactly to get in the queue. There is the slowing down and the people who shine their brights into your rear view mirror the entire way. (um... that was me one year. I am sorry. It really was a mistake...) The first time I mentioned visiting the lights this year, I'm pretty sure he ignored me. The second time, on our way back to Mexico one evening, when I asked, "How 'bout driving through the lights tonight?," I received a flat-out, end of conversation, "No." But the third time, the third time, that was the charm.

We didn't actually drive the entire 9 mile route in and around the town this year. We visited on a weekday at 6:30, before the crowds, before the traffic, swelled. We parked and walked just a few blocks and around the square. We sat on bleachers in a crowd of Winter Texans and listened to a boys' choir from San Luis Potosí sing Mexican villancicos. And it was all good. We made it home without one single conflict! I love Christmas lights. And I love my guy.

DPP 2017

 It's that time of year! I checked the archives and reminded myself that I first participated in the December Photo Project in 2009. The DPP has become a holiday activity that I really look forward to- and this year is no exception. Already I see familiar names on the list. (Hi Emma!!) Thanks Rebecca Tredway for getting it going again this year!

Hey you Photogs! Join me!! Find all the details at the December Photo Project Sign Up page.

317/365

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need," Marcus Tullius Cicero reportedly said. Cicero might have made questionable political alliances back in the days of the Roman Empire, but certainly, I wouldn't argue with his wisdom on two of the necessities of life.

Now, to be sure, I will never claim to be gardener myself. In fact, I tend to have anti-garden tendencies, so much so that my family counts keeping a single hanging basket alive past the 4th of July as a victory. Oh, I have Really Good Intentions. I used to spend winter evenings paging through seed catalogs, garden dreaming of spring to come, and never actually ordering a thing. I love to wander the nursery aisles, picking flats of young plants for a garden bed. I so admire my gardening friends- Trish who would take me and my littles on the seasonal garden tour and knowingly tell us every name of every plant; Julie who tells me that she "doesn't have much this year," and still manages a fresh produce and floral bounty the likes I'll never ever see.

Therefore, when my mom, the Ultimate Local Hostess, suggested a visit to the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, I was all in. The morning did not disappoint. We arrived at the cusp of change, and so saw the best of both the end of fall and a sneak preview of Christmas. We strolled through the deep gold and oranges and bronzes and greens of fall, the mums and marigolds and sage and cornflowers showing off their November beauty. We followed the Yellow Brick Road through the Pumpkin Village, where every known gourd seemed to be on display,
forming huts and houses and a welcome to the Merry Land of Oz.

But we also fast-forwarded into the holiday season with the 12 Days of Christmas gazebo displays. Each scene depicts a verse from the Christmas carol; animals and costumed figures and lights and music wait at each stop. The sharp-eyed (and it took a few stops before we figured this out) were treated to additional treats- even the weather vanes at the top of the gazebos gave a hint of the verse of the song.

Finally, we toured A Tasteful Place- the edible display garden on the grounds. We spied red peppers and purple eggplants hidden among the leaves. We admired impressive stalks of brussel sprouts. We refrained from snipping off tastes of the freshest of lettuces and perhaps understood just a little better how Peter Rabbit found himself lost among the cabbages.

For a girl who lives most of the time in a dusty place, that often seems more brown than green, a morning in the gardens was blessing, indeed. Perhaps the next stop should be the library...

310/365

“So they all went away from the little log house. The shutters were over the windows, so the little house could not see them go. It stayed there inside the log fence, behind the two big oak trees that in the summertime had made green roofs for Mary and Laura to play under. And that was the last of the little house.” 
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods

Just to be clear, I don't remember life without Little House. I can remember going into Plaza Books at Coronado Center in Albuquerque and picking out the next installment in the Little House series. I can remember sitting in the very back space of my mom's Volkswagen Beetle reading Little House books.  (Yes- that would be me seated directly over the engine at the very rear of the car. Yes- that would be me seated without any safety restraint system. Yes- that would be childhood in the mid-1970's.) I can remember reading through the series, and finishing The First Four Years, shelving it, and then starting back in The Big Woods once again. I was The Target Audience of the TV series. I could take my bath, wash, rinse and dry, and be back on the couch before the commercial break ended. 

My kids will attest with nodding heads, the lessons and experiences of Little House have stuck with me to this day. Mary and Laura and Carrie didn't have a VCR in their covered wagon across the plains, and we'll be just fine on our cross-country move, too. Could I too be content with an orange and some stick candy and a corn husk doll at Christmas? That one girl who was such a spoiled bully in elementary school- she was such a Nellie Oleson. I can't look at a grasshopper without thinking of the plague that hit Pa's crops on the banks of Plum Creek. When an Omaha winter seemed to last forever, I knew it was nothing in comparison to The Long Winter in Dakota Territory. The thoughts of Ma making and keeping a home as a pioneer on the prairie have long been a comparison point for me- if Ma can do that, well then surely, I can face the challenges of 21st century life well.

I don't remember how my dear hostess Arlene learned of how I adore all things Little House, but when she did, she promised that she would take me to the cabin. Arlene has many many good qualities, but if there were none other than this promise, she would yet be endeared to me! And so, when setting the itinerary for this trip north, a trip to Pepin filled the space for Monday. 

The Big Woods Cabin sits about 7 miles northwest of Pepin,Wisconsin. It is the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Well, to be honest, it is the replica of the cabin. Goodness, when you think about it, what cabin really could survive 150 years? I found two things about the site fascinating. First- the cabin no longer finds itself in the Big Woods. In fact, at this point in history, cornfields surround the little cabin. But second- the cabin is open all day, every day, completely accessible and in wonderful condition. Doesn't that renew a tiny bit of your faith in society? 

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote, "“The true way to live is to enjoy every moment as it passes, and surely it is in the everyday things around us that the beauty of life lies." Our day-trip along the Wisconsin Scenic Byway was such a delight! To meander with friends and enjoy the views along the way, to savor good food and good company, and even to fulfill a piece of a childhood dream- what more can you ask of a day? 

300/365

This hasn't happened in a while.
My friend and teammate looked up over her computer screen and says to me, "I'm thinking Pupusas."
Pupusas.
Yeeeessssss.
It's Friday.
And it's Pupusas.
And it's my friend.
It takes me about one fraction of a second to respond, "Let me ask."
I text my guy.

Now, in my mind, I'm thinking He might say no. He might just want to stay home. I have the leftover rotini. It will be fine...

One minute later, which, just in case you don't know my guy and you don't ever try to communicate with him, is a Personal Best record time of response, he sends back, "Sounds great"
My response? "Wootwoot!!"

Las Pupusas del Itacate wins my Best Restaurant of Reynosa vote. It's colorful- indoors and out. Traditional tables and chairs fill the cozy inside space. A myriad of roosters and other Mexican art fills the spaces and walls. (ok. so maybe NOT all the chunches (that's Costa Rican for "stuff") are really Mexican. And how do folks in India know about loteria, anyway?) We play I Spy and look for something new every time we dine.

And the food. It's really good, always fresh. I order the jamaica, every time. A tray of pickled purple cabbage and green cabbage and spicy carrots with jalapeños and green and orange salsas come to the table when you order. The tacos ala plancha come with plenty of meat and taste great, more so when you add a slice of avocado and the salsa and cabbage. The namesake pupusas are a favorite. On Friday and Saturday, they serve posole, steaming hot bowls of hominy stew with pork, ready to be topped with radishes and cabbage and lime and ancho chile sauce. Oh, and bonus!- all this goodness and the bill comes in very affordable, besides.

We nearly always arrive to an empty dining room, our American dining habits never quite in sync with Mexican norms. On the coolest evenings since spring, everything worked together to create a sweet night. Sharing a Friday night meal with two of my favorite companions, easy and unhurried, was a great end to the week.
Great idea, Kimmy.

299/365

Normally our grocery store offers the usual roses, daisies, mums for sale. Who knew that giant marigolds, in balls of bright orange splendor, could be a thing? The scent of marigolds transports me to childhood, and tending the garden, deadheading the blooms once they dried.

But many other pictures went untaken on this day. Vendors sell their wares on the bridge at the US/MX border. Businesses flash by as I travel down the interstate. A cart collects groceries that will later provide four meals. Tomato meat sauce and then pasta bubbles on the stove.

A phone call provides the speediest of summaries and a promise to pray is later fulfilled. A chile relleño plate and a giant glass of tea with a wedge of lime- I share the corner of a table with one of my best confidants.

Tables stacked with bibles, Spanish and English both, ready for the evening activities. Plans confirmed, prayers uttered. "True" and "False" written on the board, ready to be slapped with flyswatters. Faithful and eager faces gather around, diligently repeating, repeating, repeating tongue twister words. Political commentary offered when we least expect it and the grins and laughs that follow. Hugs from all as we exit at the end of the night.

Watching two of my favorite shows with two of my favorite girls. A bowl filled with a brownie and coffee ice cream. A silly, lazy, ridiculously furry dog lays at our feet. The numbers on the clock turn much too late while I bask in dim and silence. All in all, a multitude for which to be thankful, more than I can number well.

259/365

I lined up my cards.
I piled up my beans.
The kids next to me prompted me when I missed a square.
The kid next to me won a package of toilet paper.
The lady across from me won a bag of rice.
I traded my cards.
I tried bottle caps.
I'm really not superstitious.
The kid across the way, the one who kept launching beans that bounced off my head, won the jackpot.

The quest for a win continues.

257/365

Some of my very earliest childhood memories include trips to Octopus Car Wash. I remember pulling up to the gas station when full service was still the norm. The guy at the pumps would fill the tank, regular please, and check the oil and ask what car wash package we wanted. We always chose the option with the fragrance, and that was back when they really sprayed some sort of scent towards the floor mats of your car. I wondered how much our squirt lowered the level in the colorful bottles of potion displayed above the hoses.

After the fill-up, my folks would pull the car around to the wash, and we'd hop out quick so the guys could climb in and start vacuuming the interior. Next stop was to the cashier to pay, and for my sister and I, a chance to check out the gumball machines and pull the knobs and make sure some stray candy wasn't waiting behind the little shiny metal door. Some times the cashier, always a nice looking girl it seems in my memory, would give us a sucker, too. Sometimes we would really hit the jackpot and my parent would buy us a root beer from the vending machine. Then we would race to the steps in front of the windows and wait for our car to cruise by. OK, well, let's be honest, probably most of the time, we would race to the steps and then elbow and jockey our way to the top. And as long as we're being honest, I should probably confess that most time I would probably elbow and push my sister off the steps entirely. I was a bully. So sorry for that, Kimberly.

On good days, we'd take our turn down the row of steps and follow our car through the rinse and wash and rinse and wax cycles, until we walked out to the dryers. It was loud out there, and nobody could hear anybody, and I would always wonder if the car behind would hit the car ahead on the conveyor belt. We'd watch a teen jump into the back seat of our car and spray the windows and wipe them clean. The guys on the outside would dry the bumpers and the lights. Finally, in what seemed like a really long time to wait, someone would wave and we'd hand the guy the stick that showed we paid and climb in again, the damp clean car smell permeating the air.

I still love the car wash. Now I get to pay at a machine by swiping my card. Now I line up my wheels to the belt and follow the sign and put the car in neutral and take my hands off the wheels and wait for the spray. I always think they could give a better effort in cleaning the bugs off my window, and yet, I keep coming back. I always second guess if I have rolled the window all the way up. One day I'll probably really mess up and roll the windows down instead. I wait for the long blue carpet rags to slap the car with suds. I always second guess if I should have paid the couple of dollars extra for the wax that shoots out in colors, and then I always wonder what happens when the wax gets on the windshield... I always get to the end of the tunnel and wait for the blowers to shoot the water droplets off the window, all the while checking the rear view mirror to see if the next car coming from behind is getting too close. I drive around to the free vacuums and get all manner of sand and dirt and organic growth off the floors. I hope not to suck up something that shouldn't be- like the tiny black baby sock that I pulled out of the attachment this week, surely inadvertently lost by a mom trying to regain order in her chariot mini-van.

I almost always hum the chorus to Car Wash, "working at the car wash, yeah."

The car wash- making this customer happy since 1973.

249/365

You might tell me, I like tacos. Sure. I know. I grew up eating tacos, too. But, my gringo friends, even you Hispanic friends who grew up in the United States of America, I'm here to tell you, you don't REALLY know tacos until you've eaten street tacos, that is, tacos sold on the street in Mexico.

Yeah, I know the gringo taco. The crispy shell heated toasty in the oven. Hamburger browned on the stove top with a package of spices and a cup of water added. Lettuce, tomato, onion, yellow cheese. Maybe some salsa on top. Hey! This taco has its place. I make them myself; honest, I do.

But friends. Mexican street tacos.
Bistek and carnitas and picadillo. Barbacoa on the weekend. Corn tortillas hot off the griddle, even better, fried in front of you. Onion and cilantro chopped fine. Shredded cabbage. And salsa. (I take the green. Almost every time.) Don't ask the guy if the salsa is hot. I promise you he'll tell you, No, no pica mucha. He's probably lying. Oh, he's not deceiving you on purpose. He'll swear that really, it's not hot. To him, nothing short of a hellish spice inferno would be hot. Pace Picante Sauce is water to him.

Start with a handful of napkins stuffed under your plate so they don't blow away. You'll need them, because the juices from the meat and from the salsa will drip and somehow, defying the rules of science, these thin sheets of paper shrink when they absorb. Don't forget your soda in a bottle, thin rivulets of water from the cooler dripping down the outside wall. Probably the tacos will come to you in a plastic basket- give back the plastic basket when you finish. After you finish scooping up everything that fell out with your fingers. After you finish licking your fingers because you want to taste every last bit.

Tacos. More tacos.

225/365

"You're not from here," said the checkout guy, as he looked skeptically at the two thick red-green stalks. "Only people from up north buy this."

Yeah. No kidding. One time, oh, seven and more years ago, my friends would beg me to take a bagful home from church, the garden bounty they were delighted to share. On Saturday (my Nebraska and Iowa friends, please sit down because you will gasp and need a deep breath...) I paid an obscene $4.98 a pound for that south Texas produce rarity. Is it a fruit? Is it a vegetable? It is rhubarb.

Honestly, it wasn't a choice. Because what says summer better than Strawberry-Rhubarb pie?

I don't remember eating rhubarb as a kid growing up in New Mexico. My Grandma Cole was a pie maker extraordinaire, so surely she would have made that variety... But I remember the first time I had Strawberry-Rhubarb pie. I think it was the summer before 5th grade. It was brought over as dessert for a meal from friends when my Grammy died. I sat at the table downstairs and watched the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, and ate pie. Apparently this kid didn't lose her appetite easily. A pie never tasted so very good.

I can't remember how old I was when I started climbing on the kitchen step stool chair to be right next to my grandma while she made pies. And then I married into a family with Grandma Lorraine, the pie-making matriarch who delighted to share her crust recipe with an interested granddaughter-in-law. But it took moving to the Midwest before Strawberry-Rhubarb got back in the rotation. (cue "happy baking music") Really, tell me what's not to like about rhubarb? Rhubarb pie, rhubarb cake, rhubarb pastries, rhubarb punch... rhubarb all summer long.

Then we moved to the US/Mexico border. (cue "screeching halt")
Which brings us to the moment of The Happy Dance in the HEB produce section when on a Saturday rhubarb makes its surprise annual appearance.
Even if it is $4.98 a pound.
Sigh.

It was worth it.

(Here's the recipe that guided me this year- Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Improved. But (confession), I changed my usual crust recipe for all-butter and regretted it. You're right, Grandma Lorraine- it's got to be Crisco.)


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205/365

Recipe for One Good Day-
Morning latte,
Hatch Green Chile Egg Potato Sausage breakfast taco,
Morning shared in Reynosa with the best company, the best,
Bridge line confessions,
Bookstore escape with only one title,
Spinach Mushroom Piadina,
New library card (which deserves it's own post. The friendliest customer service, bright light crisp, a new book to go, and MORE OVERDRIVE!! Yes, this is true- not the dream where I wake up and owe money...),
Wish shopping,
Making her new purchase fit in the back,
Large unsweet tea with lemon,
11 hours uninterrupted,
Home again, home again,
Back down the road,
New shower curtain and bath mat,
Steak with my favorite electrician,
Home again, home again.

Finish heart happy and deeply content.

186/365

Never take for granted the friends who let you invite yourself over to their outside-the-city-limits home to blow up your leftover not-advised-for-the-cul-de-sac fireworks.
Never take for granted the friends who zealously stuff the back of the Normandy full of grass and paper to get the box to light, and who risk life and limb to rip open hot cardboard to find the hidden fuse.
Never take for granted the friends who cheer when the spark finally flies and who whoop when the mini tank rolls off the deck and onto the asphalt.
Never take for granted the friends who use up a full pack of matches to light the Flying Pig because you were too cheap to buy a punk.
Never take for granted the friends who yelp as loud as you do when the Ladybug screams into the air and at the same time, are thinking how to put out a potential grass fire when it lands on the opposite side of the canal.
Never take for granted the friends who laugh with you and love you well.
Those friends, they are golden.

183/365

At least a dozen gradually softening tubs of creamy cold goodness, cavity sweet toppings, syrups and whipped cream and a cherry on top.
Tables full of young to old, sharing stories and telling tales.
I dare to dream that eternity will be something akin to this, sitting around with my favorite saints, with nowhere else we need to be.
And maybe a mug of coffee in hand, besides.

133/365

Out the door and turn left,
past the ballcaps,
past the jewelry, silver sunbeam shiny,
past the offers for medicines,
past the offers for dental work,
past the offers for pedicures,
past the cheese and avocados,
past the bright paper flowers,
around slow sidewalk strollers carrying micheladas so early in the day,
around the little girls with chicles,
around the ladies with nopales,
around the blind woman leaning against the wall with her cup extended,
around the shoeshine man.
One more left turn to Texitas,
one order of tacos,
shells crisp from hot grease,
carne molida seasoned just so,
cilantro and lettuce and onions and white crumbly cheese,
tomato sliced thin and avocado creamy on top,
spicy green sauce tucked in between,
para llevar, por favor.

131/365

Half-price frappucinos
and a meet-up at Target
and friends at the door
and tables pushed together
and girls who make me laugh
and boys who make me smile.

126/365

My first taste of shaved ice came in Oahu. Don't call it a snow cone. The premium shaved ice, the five cone rating by Holliday standards, can be found at Matsumato's on Oahu's North Shore. It's not like any other. In fact, it may ruin you for ordinary snow cones for the rest of your life. They shave blocks of blue ice into powdery snow. The syrup flavors in technicolor. A little scoop of rich vanilla ice cream at the bottom of the cup serves to both keep the syrup from dripping out the bottom of the cone and to create a final taste sensation. When we were stationed at Pearl Harbor for a blur of 11 months, I probably visited Matsumoto's 12 times.  If you go to Oahu, you must go to Haleiwa. Really, you must.

And now, in some crazy form of six degrees of separation, my twins work for Kona Ice. They never lived in Hawaii, and only know Matsumoto's by one blessed visit. But thanks to their crazy mom, they know raspas, the Mexican version of shaved ice. One coincidence leads to another and then my twinsees are making shaved ice in a food truck. Their mom beams.

It was a Saturday funk, I'll say, a low of lows. But the sun was bright, and the Texas tradition of Market Days drew me out. That turned out to be good medicine. My Sarah's sweet boss comp'd me a cup and I flavored it Mango Cherry. I spotted a dear friend across the way and brought one to her. Who doesn't love a shaved ice on a warm day? Find one, friend. It will do you good.

113/365

“You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for another. The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to us the beauties of others.” C. S. Lewis

What are those qualities that attract one person to another? I'm not really sure why I have won the favor of my little friend. But her gifts of crayon-colored church bulletins after the worship service and the  firecracker blossom plucked from the front lawn make my heart swell. It is a sweet thing, to stop and bend down to kindergarten perspective and see the world with different eyes.