Local Colors

It is becoming hot again, after a lovely week of cool mountain air. Max pants on his morning walk, and the unicorn meat eating cats are lethargic. My apartment stays cool until about 3 in the afternoon, and then heats up.

I burn sandalwood incense in the kitchen, just because I love the scent. Nothing is on tv, but I do morning reading from BBC and CNN. Not that I think that CNN is dispensing news, but I like to catch up on the latest trends...

I have borrowed the film: 12 Years A Slave.  I can't find anyone to watch it with me, despite the rave reviews. So I will watch it alone. And despite only being on Season 2 so far, I can keep up with Game of Thrones in its 4th season on HBO. A minimum of characters have survived the Red Wedding, so that I can keep up. Thank God Jeoffrey is dead!

The man I love is suffering the same side effect of Lamictal that I did: horrible loss of memory. What is the point of striving to have a good life if you can't remember it?

The last poetry reading of the year at Liminal is over, and the Local Colors festival was fantastic, although I didn't see anyone I knew, except Pearl Fu, who is retiring this year. Local Colors is Roanoke's celebration of residents who are immigrants to this country, or descended from immigrants. Pearl, who is a local realtor, has been involved in some way, with this festival, since 1995. On this, her last year, she wore traditional Chinese dress, and was pulled in a gold 'rickshaw' to the stage.

Of course, there were too many delicacies from too many countries to try, so I settled for chicken tikki marsala, the national dish of India, and one of my all-time favorite foods. But it meant that I had to pass on baklava, Bavarian creme cake, baba ganoush, dim sum, corn dogs, and a host of foods, too many to count, which gave the festival a delicious air.

A friend donated a "new" sofa to me, and the animals and I enjoy it very much. Believe it or not, it's a Ralph Lauren sofa, beige with red flowers. Unfortunately, it's stuffed with geese down. Which means the cushions will never collapse as the 'fill' deteriorates, but it did cause excruciating pain to some geese. I try not to think about it.