Transported

It was going to be a trip to the grocery store like any other. My list with the items written in the order that I always walk the store, indicated the route clearly; some produce, the Mexican food isle, the dairy section, pumpernickel bread...and done. I had the produce section to myself, except for a mother and a spirited three year old that was doing laps around the island with the root vegetables while screeching a Sesame Street song.

Rather than interrupt the merriment, I delayed the bagging of the Yukon Golds and took an unscheduled detour through the International Foods isle to give the pair an extra moment to move on. Serendipity, fate, luck, coincidence, call it what you'd like but amidst the crescendo of a heavenly choir, bathed in a glorious light beam from above, there it was. My eyes couldn't believe themselves, let alone me believing them. Never before had I noticed their presence on the shelf, perhaps this was their debut.

Tonight I made a small bowl full and ate it, still warm, a teaspoonful at a time. Every bite took me back to a different place; my childhood,* where we dressed our jelly, baked puddings and stewed dried fruit with heaping spoonfuls of it on the occasions that we made dessert. You know that scene from Ratatouille, where Anton Ego takes a bite of the ratatouille and time-warps back to his mother's kitchen table as a child? Exactly like that.

Had I ever had an inkling about that buried taste memory, I could surely have gone on line and bought some years ago. To find it in such a coincidental manner made it taste so much better anyway.

My passport renewal is underway, expedited. Relief. The picture I have to look at for the next ten years isn't too horrible. If I were taking passport pictures, I'd make sure the person looked nice with no stupid hairs sticking up or things in their noses. Why don't those passport snappers care?

*spent in a former British colony


If you're new to my journal you may not have seen the snow flake from last year. Even with 50 inches of snow thus far this winter-twice the average-I'm still waiting for a sprinkling of these near perfect, single flakes to try this shot again.