Snippets from a Saturday

My attention feels increasingly fragmented as we get further and further into the house-buying process.  Right now I don't want to blog too much about the house-buying process--I have irrational fears of jinxing it all.  So, let me connect some snippets from my Saturday here, the snippets that didn't involve discussions with the seller, discussions with the loan officer, the downloading of documents, the fretting about interest rates, the terror that comes with big financial purchases, and the dread that comes from the juxtaposition of the start of hurricane season and Oklahoma tornado footage.

--My favorite part of Saturday:  I returned to my memoir!  I decided that much the blog post that I assembled for Friday's meditation on the Feast of the Visitation was better than what I had put in the memoir manuscript, so in the morning, I put the chunks of Friday's blog post into the manuscript, and I kept part of what was there, and got rid of some of it.  Then in the afternoon, I did a bit more revision on a few other essays.

--This kind of revision is good for times of fragmented attention.  I'm not reorganizing the whole manuscript or doing those kind of tasks that would take sustained attention.  With revising blog posts into essays for a memoir, I can dip in and out and make quick decisions and do the formatting that is required.

--We sorted more stuff.  We haven't moved since 1998.  A lot of stuff has come into our house since then.  We are aggressive in our quest to make sure that only the stuff that we really want to keep comes with us to the new house.

--Despite the stormy looking skies, we did some grilling.  I had a head of cauliflower that I bought because it was on sale.  I want to like cauliflower:  I know it's a nutritional powerhouse of a vegetable.  But even when I have it on hand, I often don't want it (I feel the same about salad greens).  But I also don't want perfectly good produce to rot in the refrigerator.  So, I cut up the head of cauliflower and made up foil packets.  I drizzled olive oil over the packet, sealed it up, and put it on the grill.  After the grilling, I sprinkled fresh-grated parmesan cheese over the cauliflower--wow!  I ate the whole thing!!  I now have a new favorite way of cooking cauliflower.   

--I wrote an old-fashioned letter.  One of my favorite undergraduate professors is not online, so I use old-fashioned ways of keeping in touch.

--My favorite memory of that professor is when we went to a small college several towns away to hear Helen Caldicott give an anti-nuke speech.  I think there was a whole conference, but I mainly remember the Caldicott speech.  Caldicott was a famous crusader in my circles, so the chance to see her in real life in rural South Carolina was too good a chance to pass up.

--But let me confess what I really remember:  we went to the conference in my professor's VW bus.  I returned and said, "I GOT TO RIDE IN THE VW BUS!"  And I had friends who understood.

--My small, liberal arts college barely survived a financial crisis in the 1980's.  To help survive, faculty were let go (my, how familiar).  My favorite professor took her severance package and went on a pilgrimage.  Perhaps the seeds of my fascination with monasticism were planted then.

--Back to my Saturday.  Once the stormy looking skies delivered real storms, I turned off the electronics and took a nap.  Ah, the joys of a nap!

--We finished our Saturday with a quick trip to Target, which was delightfully empty.  There's a joy to getting this chore done.  It's not the same joy as a nap.  Perhaps more of a contentment.

What joys will come today?