veggietable update

Tonight we managed both broccoli and mushrooms (she was convinced that she liked them in stroganoff) and I did nothing, nothing, nothing all afternoon. Well, nothing me related, but sometimes it is just that way. I fell off the novel wagon, but there are still a few hours left in the night to read a few short stories and at least nominally dispatch my daily book.

K. is moving. I don't think I know what to do with myself, beyond inheriting, on a trial basis, a slew of plants and a more permanent basis, certain pots and pans, including a pressure cooker (I will have to resume legume use) and a beautiful hand-crafted copper plate from outside Patzcuaro, that I will have to mount on my wall, but am relatively inept, manlessly. I say that, but I am quite sure that if and when I actually get around to it, I will go buy a wall mount and be just fine weilding a hammer. I always loved woodworking, I may reinsert myself into the world of carpentry one of these days, when at least one degree is flailing behind me still stupified by its brazen defeat. B. is moving too, and J. needed help last night on the last 4 chapters of her dissertation, theoretically due today. I am still up and waiting for tonight's drafts. No one ever calls me. Not really, and if they do, it is usually to see if I need help, so of course I feel terrible when the one night that my phone manages to turn itself off unbeknownst to me I get not one, but several calls for help. I feel like a bad friend.

But today I made up for it by being moral support as K. got her keys and we checked out her new place, envisioned furniture arrangement, and lunched on vietnamese food. When we got back, I whipped her kitchen into a boxing frenzy and we were finished packing it all up in about an hour, at which point we indulged in a stiff drink. Ok. I had the stiff drink, I am beginning to aquire a frightfully pleasant taste for vodka, and seeing as all she had else to offer (not being a wine drinker) was beer, what could I really say? She sent me home with a few odds and ends, several new pairs of earings, a flask of cachaça, a serrated bread knife (I have been meaning to buy one) and no desire to do work. Instead I talked to Jenny, assuaged my guilt about being unavailable last night and finally did take a few pages of notes. Not enough, but whatever.

I. was wonderful and since the rain cleared up, I took her out for the treat that was promised two days ago, I swung by the liquor store for more boxes and dropped them off with paper bags at K.'s door, and stopped in on my other departing neighbor B. who is juggling two men and two kids and a new job and a downsized apartment. I sure am going to miss having readily available company. I guess it is just in time for me to cloister myself in a frenzied sprint to the finish line, and yet, the panic has not set in. I feel amazingly serene, and poised, I believe this may well be what they call denial, but I'll take it. I. listened, and ate up her whole dinner, and drank her milk, and showered with me before brushing her teeth, and ticked off the reasons one by one that it was more important to have love and good nutrition and someone to read good books to you than to receive presents, and I smiled because, of course she is parroting me, and I couldn't be prouder if I tried. So we read the chapter and she said that she is getting to be a bigger girl now, and will try to sleep on the other side of the bed as if we weren't there together, instead of encroaching on my space paulatinely through the night. We will see, we will see... but now I work.