I’m still kind of in love with Ngaio Marsh’s character Detective-Inspector Alleyn, but it’s less obsessive now. This is thanks to a little meditation on the subject yesterday, in which I realized that part of what gets me all excited about Alleyn is that he seems so consummately comfortable with his life and who he is. I’m in a place right now where I wonder every day who I want to be and what I want to do with myself, so the fact that he is well-respected, well-admired, and at the top of his game at a career he loves (not to mention tall, handsome, eloquent… etc etc!) really hooks my imagination right now. Same goes for his wife Troy, who seems somewhat less good-looking but no less accomplished and comfortably situated in her life. Sigh. Enough of my romantic daydreams and wistful wishings.
I had a really lovely morning today. Woke up at eight, and by nine Margaret and Jackie had arrived for a hike up the hills at Runyon Canyon. We made a big loop (the “anti-clockwise” route described on Runyon-Canyon.com [now defunct]) at a very respectable pace, despite it being quite hot outside already, and arrived back at our apartment about an hour or so later, energized and very hungry.
Jason joined our group then, and we set off in Jackie’s car for the farmers’ market. We found our brunches and drinkables of choice*, settled ourselves at a table, and set to with gusto. Afterward we wandered the market in very high spirits, accumulating fruit, vegetables, cut flowers and potted plants as we went. Then we came home.
All this doesn’t sound like so much set down on paper, but it was just so relaxed and pleasant a morning — half a day spent outdoors in the sunshine in the company of friends, surrounded by freshness and colors and good food, live music, and no cares or obligations to weigh on our souls. These sorts of outings to me are just perfectly what weekends should be.
It has just occurred to me that I have been rhapsodizing about farmers’ markets ever since I started this journal, and probably even before. They are just some of my favorite places I have ever had the good fortune to be in. I wonder if this dates back to gloriously happy Sundays spent at the Davis farmers’ market with my family when I was little and we would visit my grandpa in Sacramento?
*Chap chae and an odd apple-beet-carrot-ginger juice for me, chicken enchiladas and extraordinarily delicious lemonade for Erik, chicken-cheese pupusas and strawberry lemonade for Margaret, beef tacos and orange Sunkist for Jason and chicken kabobs and watermelon lemonade for Jackie.
[This post was imported on 4/10/14 from my old blog at satsumabug.livejournal.com.]
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 