Sunday, September 2, 2012

The Puttering


All weekend, no matter where we go, the question always comes: Any big plans for the day?

I wonder, always, how they might define "big".

We've answered with a millions different shrugs and smiles, anything to wrap the conversation onto the next step, anything not to have to define the piecemeal days we find so comforting.  It's hard to to present the walks (long and short), the card games, snacks, market trips, coffee pauses (the weekend calls for pots, plural, daily), films, books, etc., in a way that shows someone what these days really mean to us.  Today, instead of fighting it, I answered "puttering" to the kind clerk at the market down the street.  He smiled at me through his Flock of Seagulls haircut, furrowed his brow as if trying to define it for himself, and instead of jumping in as I am often wont to do, I just smiled back and he in turn smiled again.  He didn't need to know and I didn't need to tell, but it was better than bumbling out "oh nothing" and not meaning it one bit.

We have been puttering, and with the holiday we will have one day more (so lovely).  What does that include these days?

-walks to the market, coffee shop, water, antique mall, record shop, and museum
-coffee and scones outside in the museum's courtyard
-new music on repeat, new records being flipped and played, flipped and played
-countless hands of Phase 10
-cleaning, always cleaning
-clean linens in each room
-watching 84 Charing Cross Road for the billionth time

and tonight...

-pulled pork tacos with pork that's been slowly cooking all day, homemade corn tortillas, fine, tangy cabbage slaw, and freshly made crema

-vanilla bean cake and warm compote made from local peaches, served with cool, lightly sweetened cream

-our current favorite wine - Bookwalter Subplot 26, local and amazing.  How can you beat a description like this:  Our Subplot blend is a complex wine that provides an aromatic symphony of fresh fruit: red fruits like Maraschino cherries, vine ripened raspberries and even black currants are wrapped with the subtle hints of savory herbs, brown sugar, vanilla extract, cloves and pencil shavings.  The wine enters the palate sweet and has a generous, round mouth coating mid-palate. Flavors abound; red and black fruits, figs, plums, dashes of nutmeg, crushed cashews and waffle cone are blessed with a hint of dried herbs and cola on the finish.  

...more Phase 10....I just know it.

Puttering has heart - a rhythm to its madness - it soothes and it occupies us.  But for now, the music has stopped, so the record I must flip...


2 comments:

  1. puttering is a fine art in my book. and don't you love when you have to stop to flip the record over? it's one of those little moments i so love.

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  2. Lovely. And now I will go find that wine - it sounds like something I must have before I go again.

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