country living

Yesterday I invited a friend here to take a lunchtime walk. She and her husband live just on the other side of the woods, so when we go for walks we meet at an old iron bridge that spans a would-be creek at the base of the hills. I like that my landmarks here are old bridges and giant maples instead of the corner of 18th and Pine or that overpriced grocery store on Spruce that smells only sometimes. I suppose my country idyll is like most idylls: unsustainable. It would get old after awhile and I’d start champing at the bit for art museums and Whole Foods. But for now, it’s just what I need.

As we were walking, I mentioned how impressed I was when I saw this friend’s chest freezer while I was dog-sitting a couple weeks ago (yes, ask me to dog-sit and I’ll riffle through your edibles, inspect your frozen corn, and swoon over your homemade sausage and individual baggies of pesto). Without skipping a beat, she said, “Well, that country living for you.” For a second, I misheard her and thought she said, “Well, that’s good country people for you.” I was thinking about the creepy Flannery O’Connor story of the same name (she was, after all, one of the reasons that I went to grad school in the first place) and wooden legs and arboreal fecundity. I realized that for me there’s a bit of perfect tension between country living and “good country people” that keeps this Kentucky hamlet a gripping place to be.

Mostly, though, I’m cultivating the former. Last night was a butternut squash and chickpea salad from Orangette. It’s a pretty close to perfect salad. I put it over romaine because that’s what we had. It's quick--save for prepping the squash--and I love its warmth and its crispiness.

I then set to battening down the hatches around here. I plasticized the windows last night as J read Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone piece on the Tea Party. I love it when I get to do a project, like pimping out J's ranch with plastic, as he reads to me. If that's country living, I'll take it.