Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Mustard


Today I pretended that I had just crossed the Oregon Trail one hundred and fifty years ago. I imagined that I had passed through sun-scortched desserts and endless plains, bone-chilling mountains and over deathly jagged peaks, survived cholera and typhoid, all with crummy shoes, on foot, ill-clad, or bumping along on a wooden box seat with no shocks. In my head, I had spent a year smelling like animal dung, getting bit by mosquitoes, and sleeping on the cold, hard ground. Fear of Savage attack would have been a near constant companion;I would have seen death and loss. And... our rations would have been meager and mundane.

So I continued my day dream... In it, I was just arriving on the beautiful coast, welcomed by a humble, yet homey Inn... where I got to take a warm bath for the first time in months, after eating a hearty cornbread and pork meal, covered in the delicious delicacy of mustard seasoning. Mustard, something so tasty and flavorful and such a treat, a welcomed and divine burst of lovely flavor. Then, my whole family was treated to a happy evening indoors, serenaded by the melodious echos of guitar and fiddle music.

.....And All this was brought up because we are out of Ketchup. I heated up an old corndog this evening, which I prefer to eat with Ketchup - but since we were out, I had to make up this story in my head so that I could enjoy it just as much with Mustard. Then I took a bath, and now I am listening to Joni Mitchell. It's all about perspective, isn't it, I tell my little heart. :-)

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