The garbage truck is slowly making its noisy way back down the other side of the street. The plastic cans don’t make the same racket that the old 50 gallon barrels of my childhood did; even then the trucks came up the alley, not the street. Alleys were the domain of us kids then. We…
I wandered into the dark kitchen at 3 AM. Automatically, I pushed the button on the pot to start coffee, before I turned on the light over the sink. On the stove was a cast iron deep, fry pan. A dishtowel was draped over it, and the towel swelled upward pregnantly. I had started…
The cheery blossoms outside the bedroom window are distinctly white in the vague, grey light. It is daylight, but the sun has not come over the Cascades to the east yet. I have my coffee, a good mystery, and a fever. I’ve just finished a breakfast of ham, scrambled eggs and fresh cornbread. Lyd is…
Breathing I miss our daily newspaper. Like many people, I suspect, I had not foreseen that the internet would see the end of local print. We quit taking the paper when it got down to only a few pages and the delivery service became sporadic at best. It was not a pleasant end, rather like…
The poet William Stafford woke early most mornings, I am told, and reclined on his couch, covered with a knitted throw. He would drink a cup of instant coffee while he thought and composed. His early rising was a habit, so I believe, of the time he spent in an intern camp during the Second…
In the kitchen, the sourdough starter has started to bubble. There is a faint smell of yeast. On the window shelves along the south side of the family room, egg cartons filled with potting soil and tomato seeds are warming in the morning sun. Above the sink, the bottoms of plastic bottles hold more…
I’ve just pulled a loaf of bread from the oven. I made wheat bread because I have some whole wheat flour I’ve been meaning to use and what better time than when the store shelves are empty of bread and flour. As soon as it was out, I cut off the end, piled on…
I just put my sourdough starter back on the refrigerator. It’s day two for the starter and just fed it for the second time. It is day thirteen for the lockdown. I’ve begun the starter because yeast has been one of the items that disappeared during the initial panic buying of last week, or two weeks ago now really.
barelyaboomer 