Make Hay When The Rains Come

Ha....Monday again. Life is just a series of Mondays! Think there's a book that needs writing, Monday Again. There would be a hamster on a treadmill on the cover as an analogy - the repetition and circling of our lives, sometimes with imperceptible forward movement. This weekend was terrific, fabulous! Laughing at myself right now - trying on for size being one of those people who just put on a big smiley face when asked how they are, and respond, "Wonderful!" regardless of what's going on. They must have read some motivational book  on positive mental attitude and are living the advice to fake it until you make it.

Truth is weekend was fine, not great but fine. Friday, singing at Schaller's - just me - not a hilarious way of spending a Friday night, but I got some good practice in, it was better than staying home alone, and the people there are nice. Saturday, dinner for Victor and his partner Con on my deck. I made a Mediterranean feast for them. Appetizer was an assortment from the Whole Foods olive bar, then zucchini fritters with homemade tzatziki sauce (I strained Greek yogurt in a chinois for six hours), the main course, grilled lamb patties (I had the butcher grind a leg of lamb) that were delicately seasoned, pita bread still warm from the Pita Inn market, an heirloom tomato from Whole Foods (special trip there for the perfect tomato), rice pilaf made with onions, pine nuts, tiny currants and allspice, a Greek salad with, what the man behind the counter assured me was their best feta out of the dozen varieties they had. Dessert was my lemon, white pepper, ginger cake with salted caramel ice cream (another special trip just for that that). All in all, five stores for the one meal that was deceptively simple. It was a perfect evening on my deck, twinkly Italian lights, temperature just below 70 degrees, the end-of-summer drone of cicadas. Perfect.

Yesterday more frenetic cooking - made 54 lemon squares for a benefit Carla and Alan had in their fabulous lakefront mansion - for the Chicago Cabaret Professionals of which I'm a member. It was a lovely, low key event - glad I went and glad to help out Carla.  That was the weekend. "Twas fine and I hope yours was too.

Oh, and the being on time initiative - failing miserably!!!! This is going to take more work than I thought! Seems it's a deeper embedded habit to try and cram too much activity into the hours preceding an event. This weekend found me exhorting a cake to cook faster so I could be on time to my voice lesson (couldn't leave until it came out of the oven), and then cutting it close once again and driving like a mad woman so that trucks were slamming on their breaks and blaring their horns at me as I cut them off in an effort to trim minutes. Or waiting until the last minute to make the lemon squares and then begging them to cool faster so I could powder them with sugar and still be on time to the party.  Hmmm...got to crack this "being on time" nut!

Today, I'm trying not to be dispirited. Woke to gloom and rain, a quiet house, wrote the huge list and trying to muster enthusiasm to take it on with the same vigor I've enjoyed in the past few weeks. There is something so daunting about Mondays and the week that looms - the life that looms. And then it occurred to me, as I was sitting with my coffee looking out to the drippiness of the day - it's not so hard to make hay when the sun shines, but how about when it rains? Do we put our lives on hold and wait for sunshine? What if it rained for the entire harvest season? Would there be no hay? I'm thinking the farmers would figure out a way to bring in the hay, even if it meant having to dry it in the barn with a crackling fire to dry the air. And maybe they would, at first, be annoyed at the added work but, if they were jolly people, thinking they might find a way to make it fun. Maybe they would roast marshmallows over the drying fire, make up new songs about making hay when the rains come, have some nookie with their sweeties in the newly dried hay before it was baled, and then, much later, look back nostalgically to the summer of wet when they were forced to make hay in the rain.

Today feels like fall. These days all feel like fall. So, if it's going to be fall, I'm going to do fall right. As soon as I finish this blog, I'm going to put a fire in my fireplace which is only feet away from my office and enjoy the woodsy smell and the crackling. (Weird, I know to build a fire in the summer, but who cares!) I've got a monster butternut squash in my kitchen that I will halve lengthwise, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt, pepper, freshly grated nutmeg and garlic powder and then roast at 370 until it is fork tender. It will fill the house with a cozy, comforting smell.

Challenge today could be thinking about making hay when the rains come. We all have crosses to bear. We all suffer - it is the downside of being human. Thinking there is an art to Living Well, despite our suffering - that our lives are the hay - it still needs to be harvested regardless of the conditions. Alternative? Let it rot in the fields? No...not for you nor for me.

Peace,
Sarah