pumpkin carraige

I've got some pumpkin abundance. They're in season and I keep getting more before I use the ones I have. This blue pumpkin came from a stand on the roadside outside of Bright, VIC. A quarter of it went into a 'pumpkin masala' which taught me some things about making Indian food. Or just showed me how few of them I know now. It's mushy but fresh and spicy.

The seeds are in the process of becoming pepitas, roasted cajun-style I think. Retrieving these seeds from the flesh of the pumpkin was a sensuous activity. When I know where something came from I want to consume all parts of it, to experience it completely, to dig right through it and all its textures and components. This was one such occasion. The seeds are big and fat and healthy and they pop out of the flesh with little encouragement. Very satisfying, a feeling of harvesting the fertility from this big body. I got to dig the last few rows, which are sort of rib-like in their arrangement, out of the flesh with my fingertips.



photos by the man with whom I shared the experience. iphone loves to blog.

ghost kitten

She forgot to hide her tail, otherwise I would have believed her.

nice biscuit

lifted from the no of all nothing

When I was in literature school they taught us that this man was a very good one for thinking about syntax, which is a delicious thing to think about. When I was in music school we sang his poem. This is what it was.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

the bit that spills over for me:'and for everything / which is natural which is infinite which is yes'

yes.

stoutly

Bicycle mechanics with beards and grimy fingers are for lovers.

so much special all at once

This is a celebration cake. It's divided into several celebrations that I didn't even realise I was celebrating (the recipe yields 2, and I could have halved it...).

It's this girl's birthday. She is mucho special, for reasons I know in secret and for the ones she will happily tell you. Here is her cake, to be shared among an office full of people who I know are lovely but simply couldn't be with today:



It's also another girl's birthday. She is Lauren and if she has any web presences I don't know about them yet. But I do know that she is very special in some circles whose opinions I tend to respect, and that makes me feel like we are connected in this web of special-ity that is constantly being built up around us, ladies that we are in this land of the foreign and the familiar. Here is her cake, bearing her initial:



Tonight is also the night where Penguin Pete makes so many musics in a room. I think it will be beautiful. I have seen him before and he is doing some tiny squeal boom box rumpus room comfort sounds. They are special too. This is Penguin Pete making some sounds:



This is his cake:



So much love goes directly from my bursting heart to Bobby and Lauren and Pete. Directly.

And so that's the story of how one little cake celebrated so many things on this day of common excesses, which happened to be a day I randomly decided not to go to the grindstone of my wagework and decided to live instead.

p.s. This is Lauren's cake and Pete's cake looking like Ls and Ps, which is what you get in Australia when you drive somewhere with very little experience.

Rae St, 9:41 a.m.

Lucky Lydia is very loved.

the uniform

For some time I, like any good domestic enthusiast, have been collecting a rather amazing set of $2 aprons. This in itself is not a feat; any good thrift store will always have some, it's just up to you to go and pick the one that's prettiest. The few times I have had the opportunity to cook a meal in my kitchen with many, it's been lovely to see everyone finding one that fits their needs. And every time I wear one, I think why, oh why is this not just a dress instead?