In honor of Pi Day (3/14), spouse B made a maple pecan pie in our special “pi” pie plate. If you can’t make it out from the photo, the rim has the value of pi printed out to a hundred or so decimal places.
Yes, we are just that geeky!
We actually have two pi pie plate because my sisters each saw them and thought of B and bought them for Christmas gifts. We use them often but lots of times the rim is covered by crust so you can’t see the numbers. Not a problem with the maple pecan pie, though!
Hoping that everyone has some pie today – or something as yummy!
Silver Birch Press has just published my tanka, “Natives“, as part of their BUGS & INSECTS series! Many thanks to Melanie and SBP for including me in this months-long series!
I really appreciate that SBP includes author notes. Here, it’s a chance to talk a bit about native plants and pollinators.
Please feel free to comment here or on the post itself, if you are so moved. Also, you can click around and read some of the diverse work centered around bugs and insects in this series or re-visit past series. I’ve loved participating in a number of Silver Birch Press prompt series over the past several years and hope to submit to more in the future.
For One-Liner Wednesday this week, I’m following up on my Stream of Consciousness Saturday post which mentioned the Valentine’s Day dinner B prepared for daughter T and me.
Individual beef Wellington, which looks huge because it is on B’s grandparents’ china, back when plates were a more reasonable size (not pictured: the roasted potatoes and butternut squash)tiramisu – this is T’s piece with the cocoa, which B left off mine as I, sadly, can’t have it
We only got about a foot so can’t compete with Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday photo, but click on the link to check it out – and to join in with One-Liner Wednesday and/or Just Jot It January.
I started Top of JC’s Mind in September, 2013, and, sometimes, I like to take another look at some of my older posts.
It’s an eclectic blog with lots of topics and you could rummage around in old posts, too, if you like.
Sometimes, I am looking back for specific topics or events. There are also threads that weave in and out over time.
For example, I wrote a lot of comments on the eventually successful campaign to keep shale gas fracking out of New York – which had a brief, ugly reprise in the more recent effort to add CO2 fracking to our state ban. There are also renewable energy posts, including posts on heat pumps, solar panels, and EVs. We are proud to be an electrified household powered by the sun!
There are poetry posts, including posts from my residencies with the Boiler House Poets Collective at the Studios at MASS MoCA which began in fall 2015.
I’ve written quite a lot of COVID/pandemic posts. I’m humbled that one of the local historical societies has been printing those posts to place in their archives for possible research in the future.
The most poignant posts for me are the ones that involve my family. I wrote about my parents in their final years. Those posts were helpful to me at the time as a way to process what was going on but are also good to look back on from time to time.
While I’m admittedly not a great photographer, I’ve tried to include some photos. It’s handy that, during the years of Top of JC’s Mind, we have had family living in Hawai’i, and later, London. Even an amateur can take decent photos in those settings. I also like to take photos in the western Massachusetts/Southern Vermont area where I lived as a child and teen.
So, I invite you to take another look at Top of JC’s Mind.
Spouse B, daughter T, and I are spending the holidays in London with daughter E, her spouse L, and granddaughters, 8-year-old ABC and 5-year-old JG. The photo above is of ABC and JG’s bedroom window decoration at dusk on Christmas Eve. Dusk comes early in London this time of year!
This is an exciting Christmas for our London contingent because they just moved into their first house of their own a couple of months ago.
Christmas Eve day was largely dedicated to finishing up gift preparation and baking cookies. B and E made lasagna for dinner, a nod to the Italian side of our family and the many years we made lasagna for Christmas dinner to accommodate E and T singing in the choir on Christmas morning because the lasagna could be assembled the day before and baked after church. For dessert, we had cookies and pandoro, an Italian sweet bread which is covered in powdered sugar and baked in a mold so that it can be cut in slices and arranged to look like a Christmas tree. This was not part of the Italian Christmas tradition that made it across the ocean to the US but it was so delicious that we will try to order it next year.
When E and T were young, every Christmas, my parents would give them Fonatanini creche figures. E’s figures were being stored in our basement but, now that she and L have their own home, we took the opportunity to bring them out to them. Here they are on the mantel, with a zebra addition courtesy of ABC and JG!
My parents, known here as Nana and Paco, have both passed away. They both got to know ABC, their first great-grandchild when she lived in the US for her first couple of years before moving permanently to London. Paco got to meet JG just once, when they were able to make the trip over from London a few weeks before he died. I love, though, that the creche figures they gave to E are part of their first Christmas in their new home. It feels as though they are blessing the house and their dear family.
I’m writing this early Christmas morning. Our plans include 8:30 Christmas mass, followed by gift exchange and an afternoon dinner at L’s parents with 20-some family gathering.
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate and wishes for peace and joy to all!
Joanne Corey 