The Witch and Good Food

I seem to have achieved one of my life goals without even realizing it; without, in fact, even realizing that I had any life goals. No, life goals have just never been the kind of thing that I have. I tend to have things more like life drifts, or life just happens, or holy shit, what the fuck have I done now life altering decisions. But not goals, per se. However. I was out messing around in the garden this morning, watering the flowers, when I realized that there was a squirrel living in the porch. Yes, in, not on; a brick has fallen out of one of the porch columns and the squirrel, and probably his/her entire family plus some extra friends and maybe a couple of servants, have moved in. The squirrel was angry at me for trying to tidy up the porch a bit and for watering the hostas that have just begun to sprout, which probably means that there are baby squirrels down in the column. "Shut up," I told the squirrel, "I lived here first. And I could block that hole up." The squirrel glared at me from his hole and I thought, oh god, I have turned into one of those women I used to admire in children's books, the eccentric, possibly magical woman who lives in a kind of falling down house who says peculiar off center things to herself that might just mean something to a passing 11 year old. Mmmm hmm.

I always wanted to be that woman and live in a tumbledown cottage in the woods, and I seem to have managed it. I guess a somewhat tumbledown brick bungalow in semi urbia is the best 21st century American equivalent, that I can stand anyway, since I have to be within 5 miles of several drinking establishments or my soul will wither and die. The squirrel on the porch, the collie dog, the crazy fearful cat - it's all pointing to honorary Witchdom. I went out to the back garden where the newly resurrected Fish did a back flip out of the water at my approach (god knows why; it's not like he associates me with food or anything) and I looked at the oregano growing in the pond. Yes, it's true: I have aquatic oregano. It's very happy underwater, too, and when I went to look at it a little closer I realized that there are now big old frog eggs floating about on the surface of the pond as well.

I told the bees about it. The bees have been extremely busy with the redbud tree and I've been trying to help them by thinning out the demon honeysuckle (honeysuckle is Satan incarnate of the vegetable kingdom.) The bees don't like this much because it shakes the redbud, so I stop every so often and explain to them in a kind and reasonable voice that what I am doing will ensure more flowers for them in the future. So far they haven't stung me and what strikes me most about this is that until I decided to write about it, talking calmly to the bees in full English sentences didn't seem at all weird to me. Although, okay, yeah, it is. And there you have it: squirrel, fish, frog spawn, bees, and me, who talks to all of them.

In other news I fired up the little grill, the cheap anthropomorphic Asian grill I fell in love with at CVS a couple summers ago and bought when it went on sale. I grilled two chicken breasts (marinated in tamari, lime juice, fresh grated ginger & fresh smushed up garlic) a bunch of asparagus (cut the tough end off. Put the asparagus on a big piece of tin foil. Put about half a stick of butter, in pats on the asparagus. Liberally salt & pepper & squeeze a half a lemon over it, wrap up securely in foil, grill.) and a hamburger. I only ate the hamburger and half of the asparagus (well, okay, and a quarter of a chicken breast) because I wanted the leftover chicken to eat tomorrow or whenever, but oh god, it was all so incredibly good. I always feel like I'm wasting the fire if I don't grill pretty much everything in the kitchen when I actually go to the trouble of lighting a fire and all, so I put some potatos wrapped in foil (with olive oil, salt, pepper and a big sprig of fresh rosemary) on to it to cook overnight for yummy potatos for breakfast. Ahhh summer.