Goat cheese

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This past Thursday was my last day working at the mountain for the season and, this weekend, I celebrated my break from mountain life with plenty of tequila, gallons of wine, and as you can imagine lots and lots of goat cheese. Tequila and wine, not local. Goat cheese, very local.

I was going to write a post about the local meat we purchased at the farmers market, and how it was frozen, so we ended up buying more meat at Brackett's so we'd have something to feed the people coming to our house for supper. And, how I spent four hours this weekend mowing, vacuuming, mopping, wiping, and folding in order to get as much activity as possibly while whipping the house into some semblance of clean. But then I remembered something.

Today is Father's Day. I don't need a special day to remember my father, the same way I don't need Valentine's Day to remember my husband. I don't celebrate holidays or birthdays--well, within reason, of course. If you offer me a slice of cake, I'll eat it with you. I mean, I'm not a barbarian. But, I don't generally go out of my way to celebrate specific days on the calendar.

My father passed away in 2006 after a very brief but not quite merciful fight with cancer. Week before Christmas, we got the phone call to change our holiday plans. First week in February, he was gone.

I think I'd prefer to go that way. Give me some time to clean out my hard drive, to allow for my friends to organize a fundraiser or living memorial with a pantload of live music (you hear that, friends?), to have a chance to say goodbye and clean out all the crap I've accumulated over the years. I don't want to be in an airplane thinking, "Well. This is it. I hope nobody notices how many episodes of Charmed I saved on my TiVo."

guess what we ate on the boat?

When my dad was nearing the end, we kids twisted and contorted ourselves in the hospital hallways and waiting areas at night in order to get some rest. My pretzel of a sister somehow wedged herself into a phone booth with one of those cheesecloth hospital blankets over her head. My resourceful and charming brother found an empty room and convinced the nursing staff to let him sleep there. I don't remember being physically uncomfortable in the ICU waiting area but I do remember I couldn't eat anything solid, nor could anyone else for that matter.

We were in a hospital on the border between Washington DC and Virginia--an area neither I nor my husband had spent much time. Groom disappeared one evening and came back an hour later? 20 minutes later? Three hours later? I have no idea. All I know, suddenly he was gone and suddenly he came back armed with hummus, feta, pita, grape leaves, and goat cheese. Lots and lots of goat cheese. All soft and easily swallowed foods. My sherpa husband had found a Middle Eastern restaurant somewhere in DC or Virginia and came back with enough takeout to feed the entire family. I still don't know how he found this local spot and I still don't know where it is.

sherpa

What follows is related, so bear with me. I wake up every morning singing a different song. This morning, it was "Here with Me" by REO Speedwagon. (Note to self: Delete The Hits from iTunes account when I am diagnosed with a fatal illness.)

This means very little to me, just a weird quirky thing that happens in my brain. Except, I used to work with a guy who was convinced it meant something. Britney Spears "Oops I Did It Again" meant something. Roger Miller's "King of the Road" meant something. Kermit the Frog singing "The Rainbow Connection" meant something.

If that's true, then my stupid subconscious was stupidly anticipating this stupid Hallmark holiday by making me crave so much stupid goat cheese and my stupid brain is nostalgic and sentimental. My father passed away the night of the goat cheese mission. And, I couldn't eat goat cheese for two years after he died.

I wonder what all the arugula means?

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