Relating

The weather is changing.  Leaves to be raked, plants to be brought in.  Drastic differences in daytime highs and nighttime lows.  Our northeastern states are bracing themselves for Hurricane Sandy, which the media has dubbed “Frankenstorm.”  The storm is due to hit Delaware on Monday evening.  It will move north from there, dropping rain and snow, knocking out electricity and causing a ruckus just in time for Halloween.  I know my northeastern friends, who are like family, have prepared themselves.  One cannot live in Maryland, New York, or Connecticut and not take a storm like this seriously.

Just finished reading Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain.  I’m fairly certain that I had read this book before, but it would have been a long time ago.  Its publication date is 1959.  The same year that William S. Burroughs published The Naked Lunch, Hunter S. Thompson published The Rum Diary, and Ian Fleming published both Goldfinger and For Your Eyes Only.  My Side of the Mountain is the story of a young boy who runs away from New York City to live off the land in the Catskills.  I enjoyed the resourcefulness of young Sam Gribley, and could relate to his preparations for winter, but was frightened by the absence of a concerned parent (probably due to the horrific news stories recently about children gone missing and unhappy endings).  Sam’s story ends on an unbelievably upbeat note…

I’ve also been reading quite a bit by a New York blogger, 66 Square Feet.  Marie blogs eloquently (and so darned poetically) about gardening on her tiny terrace, cooking and eating the foods she grows there, and navigating, often on foot, her amazing city.  Her blog is a delightful love-letter about New York, her feline friend Estorbo, her spouse the Frenchman, and sometimes about her roots in South Africa.  Marie, Estorbo and the Frenchman are preparing for Sandy’s visit to the coast…carefully tended plants have been moved to safety, ingredients for simple yet elegant meals have been procured, beer and wine are to be purchased to soothe the soul.  I can relate.  If this storm were hitting Alabama, Eric and I would be doing approximately the same thing.

We are having NY strips, roasted rosemary potatoes and field greens for dinner.  Eric is under the weather, so this calls for blood...