In a rare straying from vegetarian cooking I tried this NYT magazine recipe last night, and X deemed it “excellent,” as did I! That’s mushrooms and breadcrumbs on top. Copious butter, and some white wine, white vinegar, and lemon juice round it out.

From the department of Don’t Tell Anyone: Sometimes I think X thinks of me as some kind of household appliance. But it’s OK because sometimes I think of him as some kind of a pet.

If I had wings, and I could fly, I know where I would go.

But right now I’ll just sit here so contentedly, and watch the river flow.

X checks out a sculpture in Waterbury Center. This on a return from our bike along the Stowe rec path. There is darn fine biking in this state.

I have off tomorrow for Juneteenth! This was a big surprise that came at 3 PM today.

You know you’re in the right job when one of your first thoughts is “But tomorrow I was looking forward to _____”. And you know you’re in the right life when you can shake that off and say, “Time for that Monday!”

When I was a teenager, I was rightfully paranoid about getting pregnant. After a few pregnancy scares in my mid-teens, I went straight, and from then on it was condoms, condoms, condoms. I went on the pill in my late teens. But I couldn’t quite believe that taking these little pills was really a trustworthy way to avoid pregnancy. I could SEE condoms. So I still insisted, condoms, condoms, condoms. It took me years to come around to the realization that these little pills were known to have well over 90% efficacy; and then I finally laid off the condoms, when in trustworthy relationships.

Something similar has been going on this year. All year it’s been mask, mask, mask. Then I get two shots in the arm. Can I really believe that those two little shots mean I’m protected, and protected from infecting others? I can’t actually see the shots doing anything. I can SEE masks, and I can obviously see staying home doing nothing. So even since my long awaited V-Day, I’ve been careful, careful, careful. No indoor dining! And trips that I’d been looking forward to… should I really be running around the country, to NC, to NYC, to ME, weaving school even?

Maggie and I had wanted to celebrate our birthday together in NYC. I was more fine with the idea when it was distant, but now it’s coming up. She wants to plan indoor things. I told her I only wanted to do outdoor things. She said then it wasn’t worth planning anything. And it was OK, if I wasn’t comfortable coming down, it was fine, she honestly wasn’t mad. Not at me.

Then I’m like, when am I going to be OK with this? What threshold of cases will make it all OK? It hit me when I saw a headline today about the Canadian border *possibly* reopening soon. If it reopened tomorrow, would I go to my long-missed Canadian haunts? With my prevailing attitude of fear – no, I wouldn’t. Dammit, what’s it gonna take, Tytania? When will you live again? I’ll tell you when. At some arbitrary point. Someday you will just start to feel OK doing shit again.

Why not make that point now?

It’s on.

A random scene from the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail, and refreshments at a less random spot in Mo’ville.

Vermont Summer is even more spectacular than I’d remembered.

Today makes up for yesterday.

I would have enjoyed my salad at Big Spruce more if – well, let’s put it this way! I LIKE cilantro – but it’s an HERB, not a salad green, people.

Oh, this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow
And as long as it does I’ll just sit here
And watch the river flow

What a pathetic excuse for a day off. I read some periodicals, I did some sudokus, I pitted a huge bag of cherries. & I futzed around with my colored pencils thinking about Weaving School in August where I’ll be attempting a warp-faced rug, which I will call Ruggy McWarpface, for my studio/playroom/office. Not getting too far.

First Farmer’s Market of the year, and I bought some perfect, delicious radishes; and I did NOT buy salad, because… I’VE GOT MY OWN!

So, we are choosing to still avoid public indoor dining.

This has forced us to be a bit creative… where is there outdoor seating, that is open on a given night, that will take us in, that we haven’t already had this week, that has halfway decent and healthful food… Well, sometimes X out of Y ain’t bad. We ended up at Hoagie’s in Essex, of all places. My salad greens were past their prime. The food was really not good, but the overall experience was stellar. We were the only ones out on the patio for some mysterious reason. We had draft beers. Service was quick and the right degree of attentive, unlike our other forays this season to more understaffed locations. And we took a leisurely walk down suburban side roads afterwards, saw new things, with an occasional open field to appreciate.

That was last night; Saturday night was kind of similar. I did something I had been itching to do, which was choose a restaurant out of some 183 different ones in Chittenden county, using a random number generator. It ended up pointing us to takeout Vietnamese in South Burlington. We ate at picnic tables down Community Drive way, and took a leisurely walk, seeing new things we don’t see every day. That food wasn’t the best Vietnamese ever, but it was better than Hoagie’s wilted lettuce.