Well, it's really happening

I should be doing something productive rather than writing this, but I am feeling very scattered. Eric has made the plane reservations. He and I and the cat are flying to San Francisco at the end of August, and I'll be home a week later, and he won't. Well, he'll be home, but he won't be here. I'm looking forward to having him show me his adopted state, and have mixed feelings of anticipation and terror at the notion of meeting friends and family of his. That part is basically all right; it's how strange things will be after that, I think, is making me so incapable of connected thought. Well, that and the great amount of stuff there is to do to prepare.

I've gotten in some book-glaring time. I glared at both of them, just to be fair. It wasn't terrifically productive.

In other minor matters, the long cool early summer tricked me into buying food to cook, and now it's getting hot again. I did make a really nice seitan dish yesterday, based on a pork recipe from Barbara Tropp's book on Chinese cooking (thank you, Daedala, for pointing it out to me). The original is pork and spinach. I didn't have enough spinach, so I added bok choy and snow peas. The original wants either Chinese chili sauce or crushed red peppers; not having either of those, I put in two fresh serrano peppers and a goodly dollop of sesame chili oil. That produced a miracle: David said the degree of heat was just right, and I was able to eat the dish with pleasure.

We're having a dry spell. Monarch butterflies are laying eggs on my milkweed. Daylilies, coreopsis, daisy fleabane, hosta, scabiosa are blooming. The phlox, both Starfire and David, is just starting, quite late for it, but looking vigorous. If it doesn't rain soon, I will have to water the lawn.

I am rereading Mary Renault's historical novels. It's been years since I could do that, and it is a great pleasure.

Pamela