The 3rd house in astrology is associated with writing, conversation, personal thoughts, day-to-day things, siblings and neighbors.
Sunday, July 25, 2004Pesto presto
I was at a farm stand today and they had huge bunches of fresh basil, so I took some home and made a couple of big batches of pesto. If you put it in jars and cover it with a layer of olive oil to seal in the pesto, I find it keeps for months (see notes under the recipe), assuming you don’t eat it all before then. Pesto stirred into hot pasta makes a delicious quick meal for busy weeknights. (No, it’s neither low-carb nor low-fat, and it’s got all that garlic, so don’t eat it before an important date or meeting!) I like it with either steamed broccoli or Romano beans from the farm stand, and a glass of chilled pinot grigio.
Fox trotting
When I was driving home last night I saw a red fox run across the road. Beautiful! I immediately thought of the last time I saw one, trotting along the road in southern New Hampshire as I was on my way to an ill-fated date. I had been re-dating a guy I used to know who I thought might have grown up in the interim years, but who was evidently a hopeless drunk. Not a violent one, mind you, but increasingly tiresome. Smart and entertaining company when reasonably sober, he’d become a stupid, slurring redneck when really drunk. I think he was opening up a third bottle of wine (he consumed all of the second one himself) when I decided I had to leave. Escaping involved leashing my dog, getting on my coat, choosing the right words to make it clear I was leaving but that wouldn’t piss him off, gathering all my assorted stuff in hand (except my favorite CD on his CD player, but I thought “Hell, I’ll buy another, so long as I don’t have to chew my own arm off to get out of here”) and getting out the door without him stopping me. Well, that was the last time I saw him.
So the date wasn’t nearly as fun as the poem I ended up writing that got posted at WGBH’s “Here and Now” program website during one of their poetry challenges. Reading it now, I think I could have done a much better job writing it, but here it is.