For the last six (going on seven) years, I have lived a country away from my mom. I always send her a card and call on Mother’s Day, but I can’t take make her brunch or invite her to wander a Farmers’ Market with me. However, this Mother’s Day, Scott and I got the opportunity to spend some time with two of my favorite local mothers. We went to brunch with my cousins Dan and Sabrina (mom to the adorable Derek pictured above, as well as the baby girl she’s currently got cooking) and my cousin Angie (mother to three adult children who all live in Los Angeles).

Of course, as it always is when we all get together, Derek is really the star of the show.  He has grown into a really outgoing, playful little person. He loves playing peek-a-boo and is a big fan of throwing things on the floor so that you’ll pick them up for him.  He’s a really good eater, and happily chowed down on flour tortillas, spoonfuls of beans and other tidbits. I took a bunch of pictures, which you can find here.  Anyone who is not related to us may find this set of images a bit boring, but if you know and love Derek, you are certain to be fascinated.

Once in a while, when I have down moment and no other commitments, I enter my sister’s name into the search box in Google. Most of the time the links I find aren’t new to me, but occasionally I discover something new about Raina (it is slightly odd that the world’s most popular search tool becomes a way for me to keep up to date with my younger sister).

Last night, while Scott and his friends played a role-playing game around the dining room table, I took my computer into the den, to catch up on some work and blogging. In a down minute, the thought occurred to me to Google Raina. I discovered that in the time since my last search, she had collected a Wikipedia page, as well as a slew of videos on YouTube. It was delightful to discover a stash of moments that were new to me. One particularly fun item is the clip you see below, of Raina singing her song, Truth or Consequences. This is a favorite of mine, and it’s nice to see it performed live.

No matter what the calendar actually says, when you can find local strawberries that look like that, summer is “officially” here.

I realized today that I have been complaining a lot.  A friend emails, asking how I’m doing and I start typing out a litany of grievances.  I walk into the apartment and immediately start bemoaning the state of clutter and disarray. People ask me how the new job is and I tell them about the problems instead of all the good things.  I’m finding that complaining begets further complaining, until I’ve worked myself into state of abject misery, where the haze of emotional funk is so powerful that people can feel it vibrating off of me from 10 feet away.

I realized that I was becoming Philadelphia’s loudest crank this morning while writing an email.  A friend had sent a short note and had asked how things were going.  I started to write back a list of issues and grievances before stopping with a start, almost as if someone had smacked me in the back of the head.  I suddenly understood that it wouldn’t be fun for him to read a grumpy email, and I didn’t particularly want to be the person who would lay all those irritations down on the feet of a friend.

The crazy part of this is that my life looks pretty darn good these days.  Things with Scott are really wonderful and living together has been amazingly easy.  I have a job that isn’t unpleasant, where people are friendly and kind, where they seem to like having me around and where, in just another month, I’ll have health insurance again for the first time in nearly two years.  Things at Slashfood are going well.  People keep watching Fork You and coming out to our live shows at Foster’s Homeware.  And I made a successful batch of yogurt the other day.

Why do I always focus on what I perceive as the negative or wanting aspects of my life?  I seem to have lost the ability to be appreciative of the things I have.  So, I’m trying to change, just a little bit.  I am going to try to be aware of the moments when I feel myself heading into the land of whine.  I am going to make a conscious choice to tell people I’m doing well, instead of saying with a sigh, “I’m okay.”  And I’m going to start searching out those moments of human interaction and positive connection, which used to be such a large part of my blog.

Last month’s egg-oriented Fork You Live is finally up and ready for your consumption!  I’m not quite done writing up the recipes, but I should have those up over on forkyou.tv by the end of the day.  This was a fun show to film and the episode turned out to be really entertaining.  I hope you enjoy!

For a lot of years, I didn’t really think of Farmers’ Markets as a place where one actually did any food shopping.  I considered them a treat, a supplement to regular trips to the grocery store, where you bought highly priced peaches, an unnecessary loaf of bread and a single bunch of fancy herbs.  That all changed for me last summer, when I started walking down to Headhouse Square every Sunday morning to wander the Shambles and buy produce. I started shopping at the market because I liked the idea of being someone who supported local farmers and growers, but it soon became an unskippable part of my week.  If I was away for the weekend, I mourned my missing veggies all week long.

I discovered that during July, August and September, I could spend $20 and come home with bags overflowing with corn, tomatoes, lettuce, nectarines and zucchini.  I could eat happily, share with friends and still have food leftover at the end of the week.  This produce was so much better than anything I could find at the Center City vendors, even at my favorite, local Sue’s Produce.  It tasted better, it smelled fresher and it lasted so (so) much longer.  It also satisfied a need I had deep inside to connect a little bit more directly with my food.

I grew up in a family that always had backyard garden, and for the summer growing months, we hardly ever bought any vegetables.  The 24 square feet of tilled soil churned out tomatoes, spinach, squash, basil and string beans so abundantly that it was a struggle to keep up.  We became those people who pushed vegetables on friends and strangers, shouting out to people who walked past the house, “Excuse me, could I interest you in a few cucumbers?”  People were perplexed but frequently appreciative.  I remember one time, a friend from New York was staying for a day, and just before she left for the airport, we ran out to the garden and picked a large zucchini.  She made room for it in her suitcase and called later to say that she had cooked it with salt and garlic immediately upon arriving home.

I live in an apartment where I have absolutely no outdoor space.  I don’t have a place to grow tomatoes or zucchini.  I do have friends with a local community garden plot (thanks Angie and Thad!), and this year they planted some patty pan squash plants for me (if you haven’t tried patty pan, I recommend that you search for them this summer.  They are pale green or yellow and are shaped like flying saucers.  They are best eaten when they are the diameter of a saucer, as the skin is still tender and yielding.  They should be cut into wedges, steamed and served with butter and salt).  However, I still miss the earthy abundance of a personal garden.  While not entirely the same thing, going to Farmers’ Markets soothes many of the places that my lack of outdoor space leaves irritated

Today was the first day of the Headhouse Square Farmers Market for the season.  I’ve had it noted on my calendar for over a month.  Last night, I set my alarm especially to get myself out of bed and down to the market.  It took me a little while longer than anticipated to get going this morning, but I finally headed out into the city around 11 am.

It was one of those perfect, spring days. People were out on the sidewalks, wearing cute summery clothes and flip flops, drinking iced coffee as they wandered. Walking down to the Headhouse Square Shambles, I took a rambling, zig-zaggy route that led me down blocks and alleys that are not part of my ordinary travels.  I sometimes forget that there are so many lovely areas of Philadelphia, with appealing (if ankle endangering) cobblestone streets and small city backyards.  As I walked down a stretch of Addison, around 10th Street, I noticed a black and white cat staring at me from a large picture window.  She was sitting on the ledge, the curtain caught on her tail.  I stopped walking for a moment to commune with this cat.  After a moment of quiet eye contact, she turned her head, seeming nearly regal, as if to tell me that the audience as over.

The market wasn’t as full of vendors as it was at the peak of summer growing season last year.  It was something of a disappointment, as I’ve been reading about the bounty of the farmers markets that people in other areas of the country have been experiencing and so I was hoping for something similar.  I was able to find some green garlic (which you can see above), as well as some delicious garlic turkey sausage (that I cooked up tonight into a sauce for whole wheat spaghetti), local lavender honey, some fresh, tender salad greens and a dozen speckled, genuinely free-range eggs (I’m hoping for vibrant orange yolks).  I had a long conversation about reusing egg cartons with the man who sold me the eggs and promised that I would bring his container back the following week.

When I had been at the market about fifteen minutes, the crowds in front of me broke briefly and I spotted my friend Roz’s head.  As I tried to push my over to her (the market was really crowded), my cell phone buzzed with a text message from her.  Thanks to Twitter, she knew I was down there and was looking for me.  We ended up gathering a couple more people and spending the rest of the morning at the market, listening to Hoots and Hellmouth play, munching on some snacks and enjoying the not-too-hot sun.

I am in something of a personal blogging drought.  I feel like I’ve lost all ability to write interestingly or with any sort of meaning.  I have moments where I think a blog post might just be flickering through, but then the light dims and I can’t make out even the outline of idea.  So, in lieu, some random updates.

A couple of days ago, I got an email from my sister.  The subject line was, “My new house!”  Inside the email were pictures of Raina sitting in a pale pink Volkswagon van, grinning broadly (this has been the car of her dreams for some time).  My mother wrote back saying, “I’m so proud?”

A couple of weeks ago, I submitted several of the essays from my thesis to a literary agent.  She responded yesterday, saying that she had enjoyed reading them and thought I had a strong and appealing voice.  While she didn’t think she could represent me, it was the nicest and most complimentary denial I’ve ever received in my life.

This week has moved so fast that I am feeling a little dizzy with the fact that tomorrow is Friday.  In fact, I am agog that it is already May (and that my birthday is in two weeks), boggled that Scott and I have been dating for five months (and living together officially for one month) and that I am heading into my seventh summer in Philly.

Last week, the weather in Philadelphia achieved that Spring ideal. It was bright, sunny and warm and the air made no demands. It gave people the ability to slough off extra layers and walk outside with appreciation in place of the regular disinterest or irritation. Over the weekend, our climate perfection slipped away and, after a day of soaking rain yesterday, this morning dawned feeling decidedly more like early October than the last days of April.

As I walked to work, the cool air and cloud-filtered light took me back to elementary school, on those first fall mornings when it was starting to get a little chilly outside and the warmth of the classroom came as welcome relief from the brisk, damp air of the playground. Crossing the street, I felt totally awash in nostalgia for the easy days (although I would have denied the assertion of ease back then) of 3rd or 4th grade.

There are many things that nearly never change in my apartment building.  Bud has been at the front desk since 1982, the steps leading up to the pool have always been painted a watery turquoise color and the same five people have staffed the community room polling place for every election since I’ve been voting here.

Although I don’t know any of these poll volunteers by name (unless you participate in building activities, it’s hard to learn names around here), we know each other by sight and, though it took them several years to warm up to me, we’ve gotten to the point where they recognize me as someone who belongs and so they are quite friendly when I show up and sign in. Because I was there during the middle of the day, there wasn’t much of a rush, however, the couple of people in line ahead of me were in their nineties and so took an inordinately long time voting.

During the wait, we started to chat about the turnout and the number of people who were registered in the building.  Apparently, there are more than 600 people on the books for our precinct, but nearly 100 of them aren’t eligible to vote because they’ve either moved or died.  People stay on the books for years after they’ve died, because there’s no good system to purge their names from the polls.  We checked to see if my grandparents were still on the books, but they had been removed.  However, my Aunt Flora, who died nearly two years ago, was still registered to vote (the potential for corruption is fairly huge here, especially since they weren’t asking for identification when people checked in).  They were ridiculously pleased to remove her name from the books and to have a reason to mark down next to why she could be deleted from the rolls.

When I finally got my turn in the voting booth, I stood there for a moment before starting to push buttons.  While I miss the ease of Oregon’s absentee ballots, there is something satisfying and connecting about going to a polling place and casting my vote behind a little blue curtain.  I was fairly satisfied with the results of the election, although I was surprised, based mostly on the favorable and energetic reception that Barack Obama got when he was in town, that Hillary Clinton won by such a large margin.  It will be interesting to see how things turn out.