Musings On A Monday Evening

I am so tired of what's happening politically and so tired of this heat wave (I grew up in the desert and never wanted to experience such heat again), that I find myself searching for some comforting topic. Certainly politics leaves much to be desired. We have the executive office of the United States stating their exclusion from any kind of oversight or accountability. Geez, how many euphemisms for a dictatorship do we have to hear before we finally understand what Bush et al are doing.

Then the nuclear issue keeps coming up, along with other very non-sustainable energy ideas. Let's face it, the world is in love with the production of waste. From computers to fashion to communication to food, we keep producing short-lived throw-away items. No wonder so many energy executives sit on both energy industry and waste industry Boards of Directors....

And of course the endless War on Drugs keeps ruining the lives of young people, minorities, and low income people, keeping many of them in prison much longer than murderers are kept, costing the taxpayers zillions of dollars, and invigorating crime and criminal regimes. I may as well beat my head against the wall for the same headache I get just thinking about this inane, self-serving, irresponsible, and not scientifically based policy on drugs. Does anyone really care that crime, taxes, and negative social stigmas would be greatly reduced, or even disappear, if we just got rid of the War on Drugs????

One of my happiest moments, and being, essentially, a positive person, came this week with the announcement by Jim McDermott, that he has added his name to H. Res. 333, calling for Articles of Impeachment against that ego-maniacal draft-dodging crook, VP Cheney. Thank you Senator McDermott: your insight, integrity, and responsibility to the American people is exemplary in a world gone mad.

So, all that being said, I found my comfort today in the banal, making Monday Lunch for my working friends as well as for myself. And it was a good lunch! Yummy, Scottish Highland Beef and homegrown spinach risotto with lots of garlic and onions and fennel and oregano. A basic green salad with Spanish sherry vinaigrette included tomatoes, cucumber and Bulgarian feta. I couldn't resist a rosemary and garlic foccacia to accompany this feast. And for dessert, cherry clafouti, the classic French, early summer dessert, that all French women have memorized, just like Americans with their burgers on the barbecue.

And following lunch delivery, I worked again (well, volunteered again) at our new International Visitor Center, which provides me with the opportunity to meet people who, passing through our beautiful neck of the woods, stop to ask about Boundary County, about our environs, and about traveling beyond our horizon. I love to tell them about this region that I love so much!

It's so wonderful that the small miracles and beauties of life are still there to be appreciated.