Greetings From Hogwarts

Okay, I'm not really at Hogwarts. I'm posting from the campus library at Washington University, St. Louis - which bears more than a passing resemblance to the institution where Harry Potter and his merry band make their mischief whilst attempting to avoid their untimely/early demises at the hands of Dick Cheney. I mean Voldemort.

It's an odd thing, not having regular access to a computer. Or a car. Or a teeVee. One can truly isolate to a degree one wouldn't think possible. Walking around St. Louis without the general forms of communication, transportation, etc...reverts one back to the Luddite days of book reading and quiet solitary walks through the red and gold leaves that have found their way to the ground. People use more rakes than leaf blowers here, and that scrape, scrape, scrape sound is rather frightening in its relative unfamiliarity to the sound of the L.A. gas-powered leaf blower.

St. Louis is actually quite beautiful, though the unpredictability of the weather (no ocean around to do any regulating) is wacky in terms of the getting used to it. One day it might be 20 degrees, the next day 60, the next day, 65 degrees with thunder and lightning and a Tornado warning (last night) and snow flurries tonight. Kewl.

The prognosis for my sister sucks; Stage 4 pancreatic cancer really doesn't have a lot of happy ending evidence and Cranky Liberal put it best when he said, “Sometimes life is just going to kick your ass and be really cruel. Where you go from there is up to you.” He's right. Bearing that in mind, we had a lovely Macrobiotic Thanksgiving dinner (yup, I've been doing my research into the large amount of anecdotal evidence out there on the benefits of a macrobiotic diet with cancer patients and am becoming quite the macrobiotic chefette) and we are learning how to take each day for what it is, without expectation of result. Some of us are, anyway. The father character is doing what my mother refers to as "hiding behind his eyelids" and is still being as inappropriate as humanly possible when given the opportunity. I guess we all handle our grief as best we can, huh?

Thanksgiving Dinner Menu, macrobiotic style:

Butternut Squash soup with shredded carrot, parsnip and shallot garnish
Almond encrusted Filet of Sole
Kale, steamed with walnuts and cranberries
Mashed adjuki beans
Mock stuffing, made with brown rice, rye & wheatberries, sauteed veggies and herbs.
Fried tofu & tempeh
Acorn Squash with brown rice syrup and maple syrup glaze
Vegan carrot cake

Yup - it's not just brown rice and seaweed. Who knew?