What's up today (e-mail to a friend written 12/22/06)

I asked Gyokuko to help me this afternoon to measure where to put the patches on the kesa, and she got a big smile on her face. "Exciting," I think is the word she used. She expressed delight at having a "new baby."

I'm really glad that we're getting to a time where we can completely take it easy, now that the schedule is relaxed. I'm still feeling basically okay (maybe a little dizzy), but I'm not interested in going out to do anything very ambitious. I'll probably help Gyokuko with Christmas dinner tomorrow, no Sunday, assuming that I'm still not sick by then. And I'm finishing up a few things on the website. I'm beginning to work on flyers for Kanzeon Festival, Kanzeon in the Kitchen, and Jukai, but none of those is particularly pressing, so they come under the category of fun at this point.

And it's time to think about lunch. You know, yesterday I cooked lunch and dinner, and didn't stress too much about either of them. Part of the trick with lunch was that I started soon enough that I had plenty of time to think about what to do and when to do it. And dinner of course was Gyokuko's brainchild, but again we started early enough that we were able to be ready with no problem. Once I got clear on what to do and when, it was easy enough. Today I'm not sure what to do -- there's soup stock from last night (Gyokuko threw the ends of the celery and asparagus into a pot with some water and boiled them for a while), so soup would be the logical choice, probably just a basic tofu and vegetable soup. I can do that, but need to get on it. We used almost all of the bread yesterday, so maybe I'll just put out crackers. I don't think there's time to make apple muffins. Maybe tomorrow.