On My Way to the Library

On my way to the library everyone was out milling about in parking lots. Some people were wearing scrubs, holding clipboards. There were fire trucks and police and blocked off roads. I asked some people sitting outside on the benches at Kennedy Manor what was happening. They said there was an earthquake and now they're checking the buildings. The mood was festive because it was a beautiful afternoon and everyone was chatting. Most people knew they would probably have the rest of the day off.

At the community garden I picked my fresh basil and flat leaf Italian parsley. A big black lady came in with her daughter and a little white poodle. I held onto Lily so the dogs wouldn't start wrestling. She had a basket of okra. I love okra, I said and ate it when I lived in North Carolina but nobody seems to know about it around here. The woman said she finds it for sale at Price Right. She said she was born in South Carolina. She gave me all of her freshly picked okra. They look like shooting stars to me, I said. I told her that what I thought was going to be cucumbers has turned out to be little watermelons the size of party balloons, growing in my plot.

I came home and made a partial pesto out of the pile of basil using olive oil and salt and garlic because I didn't have walnuts and cheese. Then I sliced the okra into disks and sauteed them in olive oil and onions and mushrooms and pea pods. Then I added some leftover water from steaming carrots (for my carrot cake) and I added corn that I cut off the cob. I sprinkled it all with soy sauce. It was a spectacular supper.