Zig Zags

Last week I sent John to the store to pick up Heather’s prescriptions. He came back with beef sirloins, chicken breasts, pork chops and salmon steaks. It was apparently a meat sale he couldn’t resist. I re-wrapped and froze everything else, but it seemed such a shame to freeze fresh salmon.

Lemon Pepper Salmon

4 filleted salmon steaks

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

2 cloves garlic, minced

Juice of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons honey

1/4 teaspoon crushed pepper

Season salmon on both sides with salt and pepper. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat oil and butter. Add salmon and cook until bottom is golden – five minutes – then flip. Add garlic, lemon juice, honey, and red pepper flakes. Cook until salmon is cooked through, another 5 minutes, spooning sauce over salmon as it cooks. Serve with lemon wedges.

Raspberries

Last Christmas we gave our neighbors foaming hand soaps from Bath & Body Works – an unusually perspicacious gift, considering what’s happened since. When I purchased them, I made sure our own shelves were fully stocked as well. But that was eight months ago, with a lot of hand-washing going on. A month ago, I’d nearly run out and was using the bars of Irish Spring I’d bought to keep rodents out of my food storage. (Note: Irish Spring CAN also keep hands clean. It’s just much less FUN.) The store’s website had hand soap on sale, but the shipping cost made the sale price sort of pointless. I briefly considered an excursion to the mall to pick up soap in person. But the six nearest shops are DEEP inside airless buildings full of people who don’t believe in science, face masks, hygiene or personal space. Then I remembered there’s a Bath & Body Works at an open-air shopping center downtown. Problem solved.

Scrap Squares

Sour Cream Blueberry/Banana Bread

1 cup mashed ripe bananas

2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped pecans

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 stick butter, plus more for greasing

1 cup blueberries

Grease 9x5 loaf pan; heat oven to 350F. Stir together flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nuts. In a separate bowl, blend together eggs, sour cream, vanilla, butter and mashed banana. Pour wet mixture into dry and stir until just combined. Gently fold in blueberries. (If you break the berries, the bread will be green!) Pour into prepared pan. Bake about 60 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool 30 minutes before turning out of pan. Finish cooling completely before slicing.

The Jolly Roger

Inside my local grocery there were large bins between the check stands and the exit. Non-perishables placed in these bins would go to the local food bank. Are the bins still there? I’ve no idea. I haven’t been inside the store since March. I know most shops don’t accept returns for fear of COVID contamination. The local good will takes donations by appointment only, and the items sit in “quarantine” for a while before anyone will handle them. I suspect there are more people going hungry today than in March, but I’m not sure how to help. Some creative New Yorkers are less blocked than I. They’ve rounded up more than a dozen used refrigerators, painted them and planted them in boroughs all over the city. The new paint reads, “This fridge belongs to you, and so does what’s inside. Take food. Leave food. Be well.” Is it safe? Maybe not. But it IS feeding people.

Bug Jar Top

“Take time to think prayerfully about these facts: You are an elect son or daughter of God. You are created in His image. You were taught in the spirit world to prepare you for anything and everything you would encounter during this latter part of these latter days. That teaching endures within you! You are living in the eleventh hour. My first recommendation is to learn for yourselves who you really are. Ask your Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ how He feels about you and your mission here on earth. If you ask with real intent, over time the Spirit will whisper the life-changing truth to you. Record those impressions, review them often, and follow through with exactness. I promise you when you begin to catch even a glimpse of how your Heavenly Father sees you and what He is counting on you to do for Him, your life will never be the same!” – M. Russell Nelson

The Proposal

For 114 days the only way Mary Daniel could see her husband was through a window. Steve, an Alzheimer's patient in Jacksonville, doesn’t understand about the coronavirus pandemic. He doesn’t know his memory care facility is closed to all but essential employees. He only knew Mary wasn’t there anymore. It made him inexpressibly sad. When a dishwasher position came open, the care center offered it to Mary, who jumped at the chance. "I told them, 'I'm gonna be the best dishwasher you ever had. I want to be here. I need to be with him.'" Since July 3, Mary has been scrubbing dishes, mopping floors and cleaning the kitchen. “I did a COVID test, a TB test, a drug test, and 20 hours of video training," she said. But it’s all worth it, because after her shift she can be with Steve. He recognizes her, even with her mask. “When he said my name, we both cried.”

Three Dozen Log Cabins

In the 1940’s, bus #142 was part of the Fairbanks Transit System. In the 60’s it was hauled into the Alaskan wilderness by a construction company to serve as shelter during a short-lived road project. It sat abandoned and forgotten until 1992 when an ill-prepared, inexperienced tramp stumbled by. 24-year-old Chris McCandless meant to hike solo to the Bering Sea. Thick Alaskan brush halted his trek, but by then the Teklanika River was too swollen to cross back to civilization. He starved here, about 30 miles from the nearest road. Within weeks of the body’s discovery, Jon Krakauer published an article romanticizing McCandless’ life and death. Then there was a novel and a feature movie. Suddenly bus #142 became the object of pilgrimage to many more “free spirits,” several of whom also died or had to be rescued as they tried to reach it. June 18 a National Guard helicopter airlifted bus #142. For now, it’s safely in state-owned storage.