Happy Mem Day, apps on the porch, home tomorrow

Hoping you're all having a good Mem Day. It's hot as hell here in LC, my friend in Montana got snow this morning, and my aunt in CA says it's cold and rainy. Say what? Anyway, we were super productive today- gardening, weeding, cleaning, cooking, visiting and so forth. The watermelon pickles are on their second go-through of boiling/brining, and tomorrow, I'll can them. This massaged kale salad had quite  nice kick of garlic and the fennel/peach shebang served as a nice counterpoint to that punch. Mmm.mmm...

And don't y'all love LA lizards!?! They are so cute and sly. Have you read, "I Am Better Than You"? Great book. V. old. I had to buy a library copy for our home but so worth it.

Fantastic reading, watermelon mania

Did y'all see either or both of these articles? The first, by Michael Wolff, is from the current issue of New York Magazine and is about aging and dying in the modern age of the American medical complex. What rights or lack of do we have, both the sick and infirm and the families of those individuals? How do medical interventions prolong life and nudge death away yet leave many suspended in a netherworld which surely can't be considered living.

The second, by Samantha Shapiro, is in today's NYTimes Magazine and, like Wolff's article, focuses on American medicine though through the lens of childbirth. She asks similar  questions regarding agency and decision-making: why are women in the U.S. urged towards medicalized births that often make them feel as a simple vehicle of biology rather than an empowered being able to grow and give birth to new life?

Both are excellent reads on the control/loss of control, safety and security and the very lack thereof that Americans in our medical system, albeit at opposite ends of the life cycle, face. ````````````` We've had watermelon mania over here this morning. My mom loves pickled watermelon rind so I made about 10 cups for her and they're pickling now. I'll can them tonight. With the excess of remaining flesh, I made watermelon-lime-mint lassis (yogurt-fruit drink). Delish, and I will post this incredibly simple recipe for you.

Thank god it's 5:00 here...

As you probably surmised, something was seriously wrong with Em-i-lis today. Server problems. Again.Enormously frustrating, T managed to migrate my site remotely from our failed home server to a host. We still have total control but cannot restore the past week's posts until we return to DC on Monday night. So, my heartiest apologies if you were planning to make radish fritters, pistachio yogurt or any of the other yummies I've written about and posted lately.

Today was another hot one on the bayou. Tons of extended family came over, and the little cousins all had a blast: water balloons, water guns, spy games, watermelon, burgers, lemonade and so on. I made a blackberry pie, sweet potato fries, and a huge green salad and enjoyed seeing everyone. Having not made up for all the sleep lost during last night's attempted camp-out, the boys were, by 3p, full-scale, on-the-edge, I-don't-like-them-right-now whiner heads.

Despite the crushing heat of mid-afternoon, I dragged the kids out for a walk with my dad. Jack turned back, but Ol, Dad and I persevered. Here are just a couple shots- a magnolia in bloom, and Poppy and Ol in front of some Spanish moss. When 5:30p struck, I opened some wine, and thankfully, my parents took over through bedtime. Amen!