Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death–ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.

James Baldwin

I got new shoes! I’ve loved loafers the whole of my life and have had a veritable rainbow over the years, but never this shade of green, so there you go. They are Solovairs should you have any interest in the same. I get no graft if you make a purchase, just the pleasure of knowing you made a great decision.

Fall colors continue to dazzle in the back garden. Enjoy…

Also back garden related, before the first frost, Greg picked the last of the peppers and tomatoes, mostly green, some red. We made more cowboy candy with the peppers, me slicing, Greg preserving, and, thankfully, they are not nearly as spicy as the last lot. There were quite a few tomatoes, so I did some interweb searches for ideas. First, I decided on a green tomato chutney, for which I am waiting on organic golden raisins, so I’ll let you know about that later.

This ugly concoction is a marmalade gotten from the New York Times. I thoroughly perused the comments and determined an additional lemon was key to flavor. Sweet baby Jesus, this stuff is delicious! Should we be lucky enough to have another nice haul of tomatoes next year, I will make it again, most definitely, with one change. It called for thin lemon slices, but I’d prefer them quartered, as there would be a more even distribution of flavor and easier to manage with the spoon. Done and done.

The light, the color, the feast for the eyes that is fall. It has been another banner year of and yellows, ambers, and apricots. How lucky I am to live where I do. In peace, in comfort, in relatively good health.

I say relative good health, because, while my surgery went swimmingly, and I’ve fully recovered, something new came up. After I took my tumble that temporarily wrecked my knee, I thought I may have hurt my hands. My palms were suddenly tender and lacked their full range of motion. Turns out, you can be a non-smoker, avid exerciser (walking, biking, yoga, weight lifting!), maintain a healthy weight, and still get arthritis (damn genetics). I am now learning to adapt different moves, so they aren’t painful and taking on new challenges to build more muscles to support aching bones. A new normal, but also a little depressing, so I’m going to loop around to the beautiful images end enjoy them. It’s the best I can do.