HA is still gone but, if all goes according to plan, she’ll be back tomorrow. It sure will be great to have her home.
Since I have had to take care of my own cooking, I have reconnected with something that has been a tradition for my entire adult life. I have always been fond of making a late, relaxed Sunday breakfast. It’s nothing fancy, usually just bacon and eggs with coffee and hash browns, though sometimes I branch out and do a veggie omelet or pancakes. When my children were growing up, we favored biscuits and gravy while M was still at home, or the deliciously alliterative buttermilk biscuits, bacon, and berries breakfast when it was just me and J. Since coming to the island, though, HA has done the Sunday breakfasts. She makes fancier fare than I do and, truth be told, she’s better at it. Today, though, I thought it would be fun to make one of the old traditional Sunday breakfasts on this last Sunday before HA returns.
I made bacon, scrambled eggs from a nearby farm, hash browns, and toast made from whole-wheat bread I baked last week. For tropical flair, I added an avocado and a pineapple spear, both from our neighbors. Luna the Big Dog™ and I went out to the pavilion and I ate it while we enjoyed the morning sounds from the compound: tropical birds singing and the tinkling of the sheeps’ bells and the clucking and crowing of the chickens.
The weather even put on a show. It was a sunny morning, then a bank of clouds moved in at just our altitude. You could still see blue sky overhead as clouds poured between the trees and flowed onto the pasture. When they eventually obscured the sky, you could still look down the mountain and see the blue ocean. There seemed to be a tug-of-war between the mist and the sunshine, between gray and blue, throughout the meal.
Luna likes to be around for meals, though she’s good about not begging. She’ll lie patiently on the floor and glance my way occasionally to check on progress. When she hears me set down my fork, though, she comes alive and waits for the chance to lick my plate.
—2p