Ode to My Sister
My dear sister, Christine, passed in August of 2020. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss her. Her daughter, Reta, wrote this poem that perfectly describes her. She has penned the words where I’m bereft of poetic vocabulary.
Dates, Yum!
Dates are a delicious staple in Middle Eastern cuisine, whether used as a pick-me-up mid-afternoon snack with a demitasse cup of coffee, the first menu item in breaking a religious fast, or the main ingredient in desserts.
An Honorable Gift for my Dad
March is my dad’s birthday month. He had Alzheimer’s in his last years and was lost to our reality most of the time. We missed his wit and academic wisdom. My mother had always surpassed him in the brass-tacks wisdom department! Be that as it may, the world my father inhabited in the grips of Alzheimer’s wasn’t this one, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t real to him.
Don’t Sweat the Dead-stuff
I’m learning not to sweat the dead-stuff in my garden! Every year, I fret that my flowering shrubs and perennials have been killed off by our crazy Texas weather! I say to myself, “this is the year that the ice storms are going to be the killers!”
This Is my Father’s World
I so enjoy having children visit my garden. They absorb droplets of joy like a bird drinking from a birdbath. I especially love their inquisitive follow-up questions to whatever I’m saying to them!
Kibbeh El Hazeeneh (Sad Kibbeh)
This dish is served on Good Friday or during the Holy Week, meaning the week where Christians commemorate the suffering of Christ. It is a week of fasting when meat is not eaten which is why this kibbeh is totally vegetarian.
Clubhouse?
As a very young child, we lived in an apartment in Beirut, Lebanon on a school campus (BBS, Beirut Baptist School). My parents had started this school in the garage of the apartment building which ran parallel to a main thoroughfare leading to Beirut’s old downtown.
March Garden Perennial Checklist
If you didn’t get a chance to thin out and transplant your perennials in the Fall, the optimum time, do it now!
Worn Hands
Worn, wrinkled, spotted, and knobby hands on top of my equally worn, wrinkled bible praying and praying some more.
Seed Harvest, A Winter’s Job
On a brisk, cold winter day, when skies are clear and the afternoon sun is targeting my back porch, I pull up a chair with my back to the massaging warmth and process seeds from my previously harvested blooms.