Oxtail
Slabs of oxtail jelly, Penny’s fresh-baked bread, chicken-liver paté, a side of lightly sautéed, sliced brussel-sprouts, a nice domestic gewürztraminer. I make a mental note to have pickled beets the next time we do this.
Norway
Widdershins
The gantry above the vehicle ramp advertises the short route to New Jersey. A dubious claim—leaving aside the question of why one would want to go to New Jersey—but it stirs a memory of an epic bike ride.
Lent Lily
The experiences of that winter and spring went into the writing of my novel Luggas Wood, including a mention of the daffodils, and many people and situations encountered then, and this I have decided is the problem with that book.
Sour desert
I have been corresponding with Katia Kelly, the blogger in Brooklyn who uncovered Paul Manafort’s fiddle in Carroll Gardens. Not about that; rather about the fate of a church building at 297–299 Carroll Street.
Special Meetings
The women were saved to a place of emotional gratification not otherwise on offer in their lives. The men were saved from the filthiness of their natural desires. It was all about sex, really. Their disappointments they kept to themselves. Washed in the Blood of the Lamb. Trusting in the Promises of God.
Emigrants
Olav kept much to himself, and who can say whom he might have visited, living or dead, on his frequent, lone peripatetic jaunts around the city. Maybe he knew perfectly well where Josefine was buried, and what had happened to her husband.