Surprisingly there was still white cosmos to be had in the flower border, an armful of a felled six foot stalk whose branches I sheared with the surgically sharp scissors they keep at the CSA. When a little girl saw that I was marching to the border she too grabbed scissors and ran ahead - and latent mom gene in me kicked in and told her to be careful with those sharp scissors. But she didn't hear me, she was wrapt, bent over cutting some purple fuschia plumey thing neither of us knows the name of, and she was very impressed with my enormous branches white "daisies," as she called them, and I complemented her on the pretty nosegay she raised her hand to show me. What a delightful little girl. All smiles, innocence, and girlish gap teeth.

My mind cannot let go a riddle and I've been given a good one and it's good and encased now you'd think it'd be rubbed smooth from so much wear and consideration but no it's as intractable and mysterious as ever. It's like a piece of jewelry, a beautiful smooth stone circled with wires of threaded silver. I don't know. E.D. said the best riddles are those you can't solve right away, or words to that effect. Yes - but eventually they give the solution don't they? 10/21 - 0; 10/22 so far - 0. And who's Houston? Do I know you? If it's one of my - well what relation are you? Daughters of my cousin. Am I the great-aunt then? So who are they then, what's the term? Well if it's one of youse - then don't tell your Ma. If it's M - well then, hi. And if it's A - well then.

Oh sweethearts I don't have much today. D & I had a huge dragout fight last night, that Edward Albee could have taken notes from. The day after such a tedious argument I am always numbed out, cold - that "formal feeling." I don't know what to do. I guess I'll sink inexorably like a carp in the mud or whatever the Bovarian metaphor is. Aw, it's okay, I'm not in that bad a mood though, not really. How can I be after all those fresh flowers plus beautiful soft lettuce and tiny new potatoes and gruesomely gnarled sweet potatoes and a bag of MacIntosh and two red onions and a small cauliflower and a head of broccoli and a bunch of broccoli rabe? Plus ice-filled rose in my glass. Oh darn - I forgot to grab my "small handful" of fresh cilantro - that would have been nice, but people were clumped at the corner there and I wondered if my "bowlful" of lettuce, packed by my hand, was more lettuce than they intend me to take - sort of like "packed" brown sugar in a cookie recipe (which I did bake yesterday, by the way, chocolate chip, from scratch - I don't do nothing.)

Saw a wonderful film at the festival yesterday, Another Year, by Mike Leigh. A wonderful, slowly unfolding slice of life film, very low key, you get to know the characters. I instantly recognized a main character as one of the actresses from East Enders, a million years ago now it seems, and indeed she plays a good time girl with a heart of gold who's having a hard time coping with getting older, being on her own. Wonderful performance. She's perpetually on the outside looking in, perpetually on the make when there's a man she's remotely attracted to (no matter how - usually not - appropriate or available), perpetually cheerful, hopeful - laughing through her tears. I felt for her, and it was fascinating to watch her through the film. One is supposed to view her friends, an older Married Forever couple as comfortable with each other and within their lives as a pair of old slippers - and yet I wondered - where's the Worm in the Apple with them? The married relationship was affectionate and workable as an old fortress - but so sexless, apparently. I don't know. Good movie, very truthful - it showed something very very cold and heartless at the center, profound alienations...

Perhaps you're the one who smiled right at me at the supermarket one early morning when I wasn't feeling so hot. And maybe I'd seen you at the park with your dog once before. I think I've ruled out the consultant, though I found myself googling "Ta." Because - who says that? I learned it was from a British WWII-era radio show, plus something some character from a Winnie the Pooh Disney film would utter. No clue really there. Why wouldn't I remember you? Well it is possible. I'm not exactly Borges' Funes the Memorious (repository of everything) though close. I would actually with great alacrity and certainty say that I am just that but I recall about a million years ago when I was a paralegal at a Wall Street law firm, a young paralegal named Kathy insisted, absolutely insisted, that she had worked under me the summer previous, and I had absolutely no recollection of her whatsoever. She did have rather bland, mousey features, but she wasn't so unmemorable (actually I can conjure her thin pinched trim appearance now). She really made quite a big deal of it (in a small way) and I was really embarrassed - I didn't remember her at all. It crossed my mind at the time, and does now, if she wasn't putting me on, but what a weird, gratuitous thing to do. My little Oliver Sacks-ish moment in my life. The paralegal who mistook her coworker for - a brand spankin' new coworker.

Oh Lord. Wherever you are - I hope all's well.

XOXOXO