Spring, Edward Tulane, Everything pizza

 Spring's nearly here. First crocuses

I give them one day before robins tear them up to get at the delicious pollen 

And I finished the Ann Patchett essays, just wonderful reading. About people who seem a bit different to outsiders, particularly to relatives, I speak as one, she points out "It's not who we're trying to be, it's who we are." So true in many contexts. One of those comments that stay with you.

I particularly like a writer who refers to other experiences  I can explore -- Donna Leon and food and opera references,  Barbara Pym's Protestant church protocol, and anthropology, here Patchett's references to writers. 

I read the wonderful poet Lucy Nealy as a result of Patchett's writing about her, and today I listened to The miraculous journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate di Camillo because Patchett pays attention to her (a Newbery winner, Steve!).

It's a so-called children's book, but good writing is for everyone, and I listened and knitted and cried and knitted and smiled and knitted and was glad I'd met rabbit Edward, alias various other names,  on his adventures. 

It reminded me too, that in our own lives some episodes read as adventures later, but seem to be anything but at the time. Our lives don't have a fictional arc, or any discernible shape usually, so the story arc of fiction is such a satisfying gift.

I have another diCamillo to read on my Kindle, too. 

Meanwhile, food is always needed. Today it's pizza with everything. A Misfits dough, tomato paste, the rest of the garlic spread, meatballs, spinach, mozzarella, mushrooms, Parm cheese on top. 

Everything but the tomato paste was Misfits, come to think of it. And I saved the oil and butter mixture from cooking the mushrooms, full of flavor, for future use.

A comment in passing on the current effort to seat a new woman, a WOC at that, on the Supreme Court

So familiar to any woman who has worked in a male dominated environment.

But hope springs eternal

Slava Ukraini!