Kale yeah!

Sometimes I sit at my round white spaceship dining table, look at Spokane’s riverfront skyline, and think “I am having An Urban Experience!”

Tonight I made a kale/quinoa/corn/pesto/roasted cherry tomato concoction from the treasure trove of 101cookbooks.com, then sat on my balcony with a full plate. Technically the balcony is supposed to have a railing. But I appreciate my landlord’s laidback approach: just don’t fall. I told him I was planning a back-to-school rave out there. 

Today was perfect hot weather. I spent most of it putzing indoors: firing up the Swiffer, unpacking some books, hammering nails in the wall to hang a small diptych by my friend Emily. The first panel shows the back of a billboard, and the second panel extends a marbled sky. I didn’t realize until today that the panels are a little asymmetrical, which makes me like them even more. "Landmark" is now one of the first things you see as you enter my apartment.

I met Emily when she lived in my hometown. She and her husband Eric now live in Ohio. Last summer I stayed with them for a weekend in their blue house, walking around their pond, eating roasted pork and a caprese salad, I believe, outside with neighbors under the trees and stars. I was still a wreck from a breakup earlier that summer, and so grateful for Emily and Eric’s hospitality and easy company. 

I was going to take a picture of the kale tonight, but Dickens is cuter in his makeshift playhouse. I fear this blog may not escape the gravitational pull of kitty photos! I can argue that Dickens is part of my life-stuff, way snugglier than my tea kettle. The best things in life aren’t things, isn’t that what they cross-stitch on little samplers or write in big font over an inspiration-in-the-cubicle photo of a boy in overalls hugging a puppy? In his essay “Asymptosy,” Patrick Madden calls clichés “sceneryless shortcuts” of language. But it's late, and dark outside, so the scenery doesn't count so much right now. I’ll let my sentimental proverb stand.

I posted last month that I couldn’t decide about the coffee pot situation, but as you can see from the photo, I swerved for the cheapo one. I can always demote this to the office and spring for the fancy ones if I have a change of heart. The coffee almost doesn’t taste like plastic.