Chicago Has Fresh Organic Fava Beans Too Monday Morning Check-In Post

How Are You??!!

I thought for sure that I’d eaten my last fresh fava beans a few weeks back when I grabbed a few pounds of them at my last Ojai Farmers’ Market. It was an every Thursday and Sunday ritual for me, gathering up organic fruits and vegetables into my bags from the farmers I knew by name and making delicious and healthy food with them all week long. So imagine my delight when I saw these beauties at a grocery store here in Chicago.

“You have fresh fava beans!” I excitedly yelled to the young man stocking the produce.

“Yes!” he replied, “we just got them in for the very first time this week.”

Seems like Ojai has come to meet me in Chicago. I double-shelled them and threw them in a salad with some organic asparagus. After a week of vacation food, (we’ve been eating like we are on one) it felt so good to eat a green salad.

Our movers came last Wednesday. The good news is that our stuff got here faster than we thought. The not so great news is that some of our boxes arrived crushed and clearly some had come open and then were retaped closed by the movers on this end.

So far the only breakage we can find is a mug and a glass (both favorites of Jon’s), and there are a couple of things missing, a comforter, a blanket, and part of a small piece of furniture. None of it is a big deal and we did buy the extra insurance, so I’ll be filing a claim.

There was a time when something like this would have wrecked me and sent me into tears and anger. I’m pretty “whatever” about it today. It’s just stuff and a minimal amount of stuff at that. I mean, Jon and I have not even had a fight about it yet. I probably just jinxed us.

The doggies love it here. They have been alternatively sleeping a lot (10 days on the road was big for them) and then loving having more people around, even Teddy. There is a patch of grass in the backyard here, and one of their favorite things is to lie down in it and chill out. There was no grass in our Ojai yard. I let go of two of their dog beds, bringing the two remaining with us on the truck, Theresa had two for us when we arrived, immediately replacing the ones we’d left. The magical and generous replacement of all we left behind continues.

“I saw one orb in the other room,” my friend Heather’s nine-year-old daughter told me while she and I were hanging out in our bed with all three dogs. Heather, her daughter, and her mother were our first visitors to our new home this weekend.

“Just one,” she continued, “because you are new here and they have not yet fully come in. I opened a faerie portal for you. I sat there and thought about all good things for you and Jon and the dogs and invited them in.”

“Thank you for doing that! You mean the room next to this one?” I asked her.

“Yes, the one you’ll be working in,” she replied.

“You think I should use that room for my work?” I asked her. I’d been wavering between that one and the one we were in.

“Oh yes, definitely,” she said.

I’d tuned in the day before and it was pretty quiet. “Where is everyone?” I asked and then got in response, “You’re going through an adjustment right now, you’ll be back online once you’re ready to start working again.”

I’ve had this experience before, where it all seems to go quiet, it always happens when I am going through some major change, internally or externally. I’ve learned not to react with any concern and just ride it out. It was so helpful, however, when the nine-year-old faerie in human form confirmed this for me.

The only room I have not yet sorted out in the apartment is the space I will be using for my work. It is currently a bedroom, and I need to move the bed out, get a desk and some comfy chairs or a couch. We have been sharing Theresa and Vasken’s internet, and it’s the one room where the wifi does not reach (the metaphor just hit me regarding what I shared about my otherworldly connections, I am cracking up right now).

Yesterday we headed to the northern suburb of Deerfield to attend a musical that Heather’s mom Sharon performed in at the retirement community where she resides. Heather and her daughter flew in from L.A. to attend it. Heather and I went to high school together, so I’ve known her and her mom for forty years. Heather and I were cast in Alice in Wonderland in the fall of my senior year of high school, Heather, a sophomore and new to the area at the time, was cast as Alice and I, the Mock Turtle, a depressed half-cow/half-turtle.

In our scene together, I had to sing a song and Alice and the Gryphon had to dance to it. There was no music nor choreography given in the script and our director, who was punishing me at the time by casting me in this role, said, “Go figure something out.”

Heather, the Freshman boy who played the Gryphon, and I sat in the stairwell behind the theatre and we did just as instructed. It took me mere minutes to realize how talented, creative, and encouraging she was, and we became instant friends as we made up the melody and the dance.

Sharon was the youngest cast member in the show at her residence, “The Cohn Mutiny”, with the oldest in his late nineties. We sat with Heather, her daughter, her brother Steve, and our friends Ann and Barry (also very talented beings) whom we had not seen since we left Chicago. The last encounter we had with them was here in this building we once again occupy. They left with Jon’s amp, some microphone stands, and some plants. Barry said that Jon gets a mention every time he uses any of it.

The show was wonderful, using classic Broadway show tunes with the lyrics rewritten by the resident writer and director. We laughed and applauded and it seemed so appropriate that my first social outing was a theatrical one.

We’re going to have deep dish pizza again today, ONLY because the pack from L.A. needs some Chicago deep dish and then we are declaring a moratorium here for at least a week. I have not even mentioned the Lox and bagels feast from Kaufman’s Deli we devoured with them on Saturday.

How are you?? Please drop me a comment below and let me know.

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