Sunday Salon, July 5th

Summer!

Weather: Sunny and hot. We are experiencing a temperature record, five days in a row over 90 degrees Fahrenheit. It is lovely only because we have air conditioning. As the picture shows it is sunglasses-hat-lavender-berry weather.

Eating our way from the holiday weekend: We just finished a brunch of waffles and fruit compote. Yesterday we gorged ourselves on tri-tip beef roast, fresh boiled beets, corn-on-the-cob, new potato salad, and peach-a-berry cobbler. Everything was so delicious.

Berries: I love living in the Puyallup River valley because we have ready access to lovely berries every summer. Yesterday we dropped by the local berry farm and purchased a half-flat of raspberries to make our last batch of freezer jam, and we picked up a mixed half-flat of boysenberries, blueberries, and kotata blackberries. The boysenberries are especially spectacular this year. If you look carefully at the photo you can tell the difference between the top right berries (boysenberries) and bottom right (blackberries.) Yum.

Lavender: We only have two clumps of lavender in our yard but we are contributing to bee health...our clumps are alive with bees. The flowers are so fragrant right now. The small bunch you see in the photo has been hung the upside-down to facilitate drying.

Recipe of the week: Cous cous (or quinoa) salad. I messed around with some ingredients from the yard and the fridge and came up with this delicious summer salad. Check out the recipe.

Grace: reflecting on the eulogy President Obama gave at Pastor Pinckney's funeral when he delivered these words

"According to the Christian tradition grace is not earned, grace in not merited, it not something we deserve, rather grace is the free, and benevolent favor of God as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings. Grace. As a nation out of this terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us, for He has allowed us to see where we have been blind. He has given us the chance where we have been lost to find our best selves. We may not have earned it, this grace, with our rancor, complacency, and shortsightedness, and fear of each other but we got it all the same. He's given it to us anyway. He's once more given us grace. But it is up to us to make the most of it, to receive it with gratitude, and to prove ourselves worthy of this gift."

I challenge you to watch the whole eulogy here at C-SPAN. (I'm crying. It is so moving.)

Confederate flag: during the eulogy President Obama spoke about the perils of  people continuing to revere the confederate flag. It think that John Fuselsang helps us recognize the problem and has a perfect come-back to folks who think they can't let that flag go. Take a look ( 2 minutes)

Books read this week:

• Deep Down Dark by Hector Tobar...audiobook. About the 33 Chilean miners who survived for 69 days under ground before being rescued.
• March, Part Two by John Lewis...a graphic novel about the extraordinary life of this public servant and his involvement in the the Civil Rights Movement. (Book 2 of 3.)
• Vivian Apple at the End of the World by Kaite Coyle...another audiobook. What if the religious folks are right and there is a rapture?
• Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon...an advanced reader copy of this YA book about disease and first love.

Currently reading, all YA:

• Dime by ER Frank...teen prostitution, a difficult book to read.
• I am Princess X by Cherie Priest...half comic, have prose; a mystery.
• Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman...audiobook; an inside the mind view of mental illness

Stay cool (or for my readers in the Southern Hemisphere, stay warm)!