Weather back to “normal” – upper 70’s during the day, low 60’s at night. It seems to me that we’ve had more cold days this year than normal but the temps have not been as low. It’s normal for us to have a frost or two in December and a solid freeze or two in January but we’re going into February with the garden still churning out summer stuff – green peppers and tomatoes.
We did the von Trapp thing I mentioned and I have to admit it wasn’t as bad as I expected – musically. The event was in a church that seated about 400 people and it was full. So there was the appropriate amount of coughing going on. The average age of the audience had to be 80 so there were plenty of walkers, people swinging canes and portable oxygen generators. I think we got out without catching anything. The singer was Elizabeth Von Trapp, the granddaughter of one of the originals in Austria. She had an awesome sound system, a good voice and was an excellent guitar player. That surprised me a bit. It lasted an hour fifteen, close to my limit. The other good thing was that I had been dreading getting out of the (over full) parking lot. Nancy doesn’t move very fast and Esther, our hostess and Nancy’s quilting buddy, is a social butterfly and a member of this church forever so I foresaw a lengthy exit process – dodging wheel chairs and barge like cars. As it turned out, we were close to an exit and Esther was in the lead to get out quickly. Her schedule is to be in bed, asleep by 7 and then up at 3AM so we were already past her bed time. We were one of the first to get in the car and had cleverly parked in a direction and location that allowed a quick exit. We were pulling out before the next wave had started their engines.
Still picking and eating from the garden big time. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, snow peas, carrots, and of course loads of salad greens – lettuce, swiss chard, and kale. We make lots of soup and freeze it. Today we made a batch of roast cauliflower soup, tomato/pasta sauce and the kale/cabbage/bean Tuscan bread soup. This time I let Nancy decide what was meant by a “generous” pinch of chili pepper flakes. This batch will be slightly different than the last one since I picked a head of Chinese cabbage in place of a conventional savoy variety.
Tom and Tina are hosting their annual super bowl soiree but we opted out this year. They have a full house and we’re the only oldie ( but goodie) attendees. Tom has a few games running during the game with payoffs for various game milestones and Nancy always participates and more often than not, wins a few bucks. Tom will buy her tickets and call as events unfold so we’re there in spirit.
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