zirconium

athenais's mention of homemade pizza guided me tonight when dinner plans changed. The BYM didn't have time for the ribs he'd brought home from Various Artists Brewing, so he heated up a frozen cashew chicken bowl while I continued frowning at Duolingo.

When I was ready to deal with dinner for myself, I looked at the greens I'd harvested from the yard this afternoon (goosegrass, mock strawberries (including berries and a yellow blossom), and radish tops) and remembered that the goosegrass had tasted like straw when baked on a pizza, so I instead looked for recipes for creamy green soup, and used the one by Gena Hamshaw as a starting point: sauteed maybe a 1/4 cup chopped onion with maybe a tablespoon of chopped ginger, and then dumped in the greens (around 2 or 3 cups?). After a few minutes, I added some chicken bouillon powder and two cups of water and let it simmer for a while. I stuck a Bob Evans tub of mashed potatoes into the microwave and then scooped half of it into the soup pot. Pureed it all with an immersion blender and poured in into a mason jar for tomorrow or Monday.

The pizza: ready-to-bake crust from Kroger, with leftover pasta sauce on one half and goosegrass pesto on the other. I sprinkled parmesan-mozzarella on the tomato side and added onion and bacon to both. I continued nursing the Hi-Wire Belgian Stout I'd opened before heading into the yard.

The notecard I put in the mail to

mrissa today featured Kenneth Koch's "Spring," which lists both pizza and beer among the season's joys. When I got tired of weeding, I sat on the porch with a copy of Into English: Poems, Translations, Commentaries, a book I'd heard about from Marissa back in January. I also read Emily Makowski's profile of Joanne Chory, the geneticist who has dedicated much of her life to studying how plants interact with light -- or, as marymary put it, "how plants can grow in the dark."

Some of the mint had hopped the original border of the bed it's in, so I moved the rocks and pail to enclose where the mint is now. I am not paying as much attention to either horse racing or tennis as I used to, but I still poke my head into TalkAboutTennis now and then, and one of my favorite people there owns 1% of three two-year-old horsies trained by Saffie Joseph Jr. (jockey Paco Lopez) at Gulfstream Park: Bold Article (filly), Tiz the Dude (colt), and Run Brother Run (colt). Tiz the Dude is descended from Tiznow, whose Wikipedia page was a hoot to visit, as it included observations like these:

Tiznow is known as a quirky horse. Especially towards the end of his career, he was sometimes reluctant to work in the mornings, including one occasion before the 2001 Breeders' Cup where he spent 40 minutes resisting jockey Chris McCarron's urging to break into a gallop. In the WinStar stallion barn, Tiznow learned how to unlatch his door to let himself out into the main hall. He does not like the feel of concrete on his feet and will adjust his steps so he doesn’t have to walk over it. Tiznow also does not like cold weather and is usually kept inside if the temperature goes below freezing. "He's a California horse all the way," said Amy Nave, a bloodstock assistant at WinStar.

Horses named Roddick and Nadal have recently won races, and that's added to the fun.

One year ago, I was working at times literally around the clock to clear the decks so that I could attend a wedding in Cancún without dragging my laptop along. This afternoon, I grabbed the fan from that wedding when it came time to practice ballroom moves. (Other classes this week: 2 Zumba, 2 samba, 1 Danzatone, 1 hip-hop. We are finding a rhythm, so to speak...) Next week I will paint my face (assuming I don't meet with another mishap like this morning, when I gave myself a spot burn from flying pancake batter) and wear something more videogenic than the oversize housedress I didn't change out of today. I did put on heels -- something I hadn't done since March 13, the last day I was at the office. (That said, did I resort to dry shampoo and eyeshadow when prepping for my third video meeting yesterday? You bet.)

At Wednesday night's virtual chamber choir gathering, we opted to dance to "Turn the World Around" instead of the sing-together-with-all-mics-muted thing.

This week's mail included both the here's-what's-new kind and the early-birthday-greetings variety. It all delights me. I kept Rae's package on the dining table all week so that its shiny good wishes and promises (embodied in the marigold and zinnia seeds) were within my line of sight whenever I walked toward the front yard: