Open Culture, a web site and mailing list that talks about free (as in beer) things in life. Like books, education resources, stuff like that. They recently talked about “tending your garden.” This comes from Candide. You know, the one with Doctor Pangloss who goes on and on about how we live in the best of all possible worlds. In view of that, I thought I would talk about some of the wonderful things around us. About the good things found in these times.
Traffic, Have you noticed? You pull up to a place where you want to make a left-hand turn. You used to wait. And wait. Perhaps long enough to consider making a right and going a different route. Not anymore. Now you pull up. Traffic to the right is waiting at a light. Traffic at the left has not arrived yet. It is time to go. And go you do.
Driving. With the smoke, we didn’t do much driving. I just got back from filling the car. “Is five gallons right?” “Yep, that is.” Five gallons for the month. Because the last time I filled it up was on August 28. And that was in Salen, about 55 miles away. And we went down to visit my mother-in-law as part of the usage. Actually, that was five and a half gallons. For a month. If you are about to retire you can enjoy some of that not spending on gas.
Food at home. No mistakes here – we love to eat out. But not so much anymore. There just is not any places to eat out anymore. So we cook at home. Fortunately, we both cook well so we have been eating well. We also live close to Bob’s Red Mill. Bob’s is a place where they mill flour. They are world-class winners for their oatmeal. But they also have seitan, high gluten flour, cornmeal, polenta, pea flour, garbanzo flour, and a wide range of other foodstuffs to experiment with. Which we have and are enjoying.
I cannot remember the other things that are, have been good. it is a running cup overflowing for us.
— MichelRpdx :: h3k