Visions of a vegetarian diner

For lunch I made, basically, hash, with leftover boiled potatoes, an onion and a block of tempeh. Like much of what I cook for myself these days it was seasoned liberally with home-blend seasoned salt and a large quantity of chopped scallions, and because it looked like it wanted shredded hoop cheese and sour cream, I gave it some. Good stuff. Digging in I had a vision of a vegetarian diner, which would have the same sort of no-nonsense attitude, simple food and bottomless cups of black coffee one ought to be able to expect from a diner, but which would not serve meat.

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The subject line for today’s email from The Dispatch, referring to Signalgate, is a quote: “They are lucky that no one was killed as a result of this.” Funny, I thought the point of the thing was killing people. Given the context, that is the single dumbest thing I have read or heard in a solid month. But a good reminder why I no longer give The Dispatch money.

Five birds on a branch, 8”x12”.

chip carving of five small birds on a branch, in various postures

My dog, looking uncharacteristically glum

Sometimes both sides are right. Plastic straws are an environmental menace. Paper straws are useless and stupid. Solution: Drink like a grown-up.

Watching a junco make jerky little head bobs: do larger animals actually make smoother motions, or do we see their small jerky ones in contrast to their scale, as part of broader wholes, and perceive them as graceful — or miss them entirely? Now I’m sitting here trying to find a deep awareness of the way my hand moves toward my coffee mug, which raises another potentially interesting question about the line between meditativeness and stupidity.

Abba Anthony said, ‘A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, “You are mad, you are not like us.”’

–Sayings of the Desert Fathers

Today’s Pennsylvania Dutch word of the day is Gaardengraabfiewer, literally “garden-digging fever.” I don’t have context for it, but I take it to mean that desperate itch, felt too early in the spring, to get out and start working. Honk if this sounds familiar.

At my window feeder this morning: goldfinches, bluebirds, a white-throated sparrow, a brown-headed nuthatch, a robin struggling to stay on the perch, an equally large but more delicate-footed gray mockingbird, and of course the ubiquitous house finches. I will not make some fool claim about a peaceable kingdom, as in fact the house finches are little bullies and the mockingbird took evident pleasure (or am I only projecting?) in driving two of them away. But I did observe that the mockingbird then sat on the power line and watched while the nuthatch enjoyed the space he had opened, so—who knows what they are thinking?

March here and now is neither reliably in like a lion nor out like a lamb, but altogether like a passive-aggressive cat who may just as easily curl up purring on your lap or scratch out your eyes, and there is no knowing which until it happens.