Toward Future Dishes

We replaced the Kenmore range purchased in 1988 with this new Maytag model. Technicians from the small appliance dealer did a good job delivering, installing, and explaining it. More than once they referred me to manuals dropped on the counter. Although it will take time to understand the features of the range, I will attempt to live up to the promise this technology offers. I expect to prepare many future dishes using the device. The inaugural meal was black beans and rice.

A future is not always assured. I took a spell while tending the covered row of herbs and vegetables, then made a retreat indoors. I have had two conversations about such episodes with my medical practitioner. He said if they were infrequent and do not persist, there was little to be done about them. Easy for him to say. Most days spells recede behind the proscenium arch where the curtain is down more than up on my aging frame. From time to time, spells appear as players to complicate life. We are in act one of what can be expected to be five. Here’s hoping I live to denouement and a final, dignified curtain call and bow.

This is the longest I have been away from posting since I can remember. My spouse will be spending a week with her sister who is moving from a rental to a house in July. There is a lot of packing to be done. While she’s gone, I hope to finish planting the garden, organize for summer, and begin regular writing again. I hope to be done with the intense rasher of friends who died this year. Appliances died in equal numbers, yet it is not the same.

I miss my friends, appliances not so much. Appliance transitions brought discussion with banks, business owners, sales folks, delivery drivers, and technicians. It is a way to go on living whereas my dead friends and family offer little engagement for the future except in memory. As we age, we do the best we can.

On the way home from the grocer I stopped for gasoline. After fueling, I pretended I was in Thomasville, Georgia again and bought a Yoo-hoo chocolate drink and lottery ticket at the gas station. Playing the long game, I bought a Powerball ticket instead of a scratch-off. If we can’t see a future beyond the now, then we will never live a long one. Validating the statistics of lotteries, my ticket was not a winner in Monday night’s drawing. At least we have the new range and the prospect of delicious meals.