Vegetables and Ballet Slippers

Hello, loyal readers. Sophie started ballet class this week. I must tell you, if you are feeling low/blue/in the dumps/clinically depressed/etc. please seek out and watch a beginning ballet class. It is one of the funniest things I have ever, ever seen. These kids are 4-6 years old and have yet to tell their rights from their lefts (me too...), they follow each other more than they follow the teacher, and since none of them know what they are doing, this results in some pretty funny movements. All that said, Sophie loves it. She dances around quite happily and is a good listener.

Also this week, we received our first installment of our Community Supported Agriculture. It was a huge box containing three varieties of tomatoes, Peruvian purple potatoes, green and purple beans, nopales (!), a small watermelon, basil, and two kinds of zucchini (lots of zucchini!). The food tastes great and is making me try new recipes in order to deal with the bounty. Our own tomatoe crop is also doing great. Sophie and I were up at about 7 this morning harvesting today's pick. We've got some green beans too, but I only find them when they are huge and stringy, not that good to eat.

My book recommendation this week is for Ron Carlson's Five Skies, a terrific novel about three men working in the mountains. There are extended descriptions of the construction project they are working on and even though I didn't understand most of that, the characters were so well-developed and compelling, that I kept reading. The ending was...well, of course, I won't tell you, but I recommend it whole-heartedly. We also saw the movie Sicko this week. I know that Michael Moore is maniupulating me the entire time, and usually I am resistant to that (yes, even by liberal types I already agree with), but this movie was a strong indictment of our healthy care system -- it made Canada, England, France, and even Cuba seem more compassionate than our own US. Health care reform is something we can all get behind, since we all need health care, right?

Okey-doke, so Sophie is outside attempting to swim in a the wadiing pool and I said I'd go out with her as soon as I finished this, so finish I will. Until soon...hope all's well and wonderful with you.