Wish You Were Here

 I live alone. I have no problem with that. I really enjoy my solitude. I have the whole house to myself. I can do pretty much anything I want. I can stay up as late as I want. I can play my music whenever I want. Well, you get the idea. Living alone is great.

But sometimes I wish you were here. Today was one of those moments.

Today is the last day of my extended weekend and tomorrow I go back to work. So today I spent the early evening cooking and preparing my meals for the coming work days. After work I have no time to do anything other than eat dinner, shower, and go to sleep. So on the last day of my weekend I devote myself to cooking for the coming work week and having all my meals ready.

For my breakfast I made peanut butter and honey sandwiches. I also sprinkled ground cardamon into them. I got this from Ayurvedic medicine. I also like to add sliced banana to them. But I was out of bananas today.

For snacks I just put together some slices of smoked all-beef salami, New York deli style. I also got a few thick slices of smoked Gouda cheese and Ritz crackers.

 

For dinner I prepared sauteed vegetables and curry chicken. I made saffron rice as a side to go with my curry chicken and vegetables. To this I added some pita bread. I chose pita bread instead of naan simply because naan is not as readily available as pita bread.

 

As I made my dinner I played The Marias. At this moment I'm still listening to them.

Cooking my dinner and listening to The Marias is so dreamy. My kitchen has two large windows that look out onto my yard. It has a small light over the sink that dimly lights up the stove and counter. This dim light ads to the dreaminess of the ambience.

It was this combination that made me wish you were here.

Actually this happens most times when I cook dinner. The view out my kitchen window in the early evening, the dim light above me, and some easy music like The Marias or deep house music sets the tone for a dreamy romantic evening.

Wish you were here.

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P.S. I'm guy addressing a female reader. If you're a guy reading this post keep going, move along, nothing to see here.

Much is Still Happening V

 Yes, much is still happening as I continue to settle into my new home in California's central valley. Far away from Oakland, in the Bay Area where I grew up.

Yes, it certainly looks like I heeded my feeling from a couple of years ago.

Before starting this post I went back and viewed a few of my earlier posts and came across this one:

"I Need to Leave," posted August 3, 2022.

Back when I made that post little did I know that I would follow through with my feelings two years later.

As I wrote in that post, many years earlier I had had the same strong feeling come to me. The feeling to leave. To go somewhere else. But back then I didn't heed my feeling. I stayed and got into a lot of trouble. Then many years later that feeling, that urge, to leave came again and this time I did leave.

Now I'm in the Central Valley and I'm enjoying the quieter, slower, more rural life out here. Instead of spending my weekends going out and partying I spend them working on my various projects around the house. Lately I've been doing a lot of yard work. I have a very nice size yard and have decided to make it into a small park. I have already cleaned out 95% of the weeds. I have trimmed all the rose bushes trees (except one). I have an outdoor kitchen with a picnic table. Recently I added a park bench and two flower beds where I will be growing the California Poppy.

The poppy is native to California and it grows wild in parts of the east bay (my former home). It sprouts out and blooms every spring. I have not seen it here near my new home so I decided to plant it in my yard. It grows well in this zone so in spring I will have a bed of golden poppies.

I also have saffron growing in my yard. It's the world's most expensive spice and I'm growing it. 

 

I'm not certain if my saffron will produce flowers this coming season but it should produce flowers next season.