rich in so many ways

A few thank yous are in order:

1. Thank you, Anonymous, for the peonies.


I felt like a bride walking home through the rain with that bouquet Saturday morning,


and the honeymoon is not over: I get such pleasure every time I pass the feather-petaled pink and white pom-poms spilling abundantly from a vase on my kitchen table.


2. Thank you to everyone who donated for the bowl-a-thon: With your generous support I was able to raise over $500 for VARF. Which brings me to...

3. Thank you to my lovely husband, who served as my pinch bowler on Saturday night when I realized I have more work this week than I can possibly do.

This photo is of someone else's lovely husband, taken by my own.

He bowled, I stayed home and proofread. Which brings me to...

I have more work this week than I can possibly do, so I probably won't be posting much. But the yachtsman has promised a Recommends—let's all thank him in advance, shall we?

bowling for abortions

I just sent the following email to nearly everyone I know; since I know nearly everyone who visits this bl*g (if not personally then, you know, spiritually), you've probably read this. If so, donate twice. If not, here goes:

Dear friends and family,

If there's anything I hate more than fundraising, it's asking for money, but I'm writing to do just that: This weekend I'm participating in a bowl-a-thon to raise money for Vermont Access to Reproductive Freedom, a small, local nonprofit with a ridiculous acronym that helps women who can't afford it pay for abortions. They may not be as easy to love as homeless puppies or polar bears on melting icebergs, but I'd argue that abortions are just as important: not simply a woman's right to choose, but her ability to actually access an abortion if she needs one. And though Vermont is about as progressive as you're gonna get in this tea-baggin' country, it's also a poor, rural state. Elective abortions in Vermont cost between $250 and $1500; the average household income of VARF’s recipients is less than $10,000. So, as my friend Selene Colburn, who is VARF's board chair and really good at math, points out: “If the abortion costs $1,000, that’s ten percent of their average income—and in some cases that is more than these women earned in an entire year." Please consider making a donation, not to puppies or polar bears, but to a woman who will need help doing a very hard thing this year.

Thanks for your time, and if you're interested in making a donation, you can click here.

Your friend [and bl*g mistress, bitches!],
Kate

we're maple people

This Sunday afternoon I'll be on a family bowling outing in the southern part of the state (naturally), but if I was going to be in town I'd make some maple gruel and enter it in the maple cook-off at the University of Vermont.

Curried squash soup sweetened with maple syrup seems obvious. So do spice cupcakes with maple frosting. A variation on farro gruel with a maple balsamic dressing, topped with Doe's Leap feta? Too subtle/gruelish, maybe.

It doesn't matter: I'm not going to be here, but I'm hoping to experience the cook-off vicariously through some of you. The deadline to register is Friday at 5:00, though you don't have to have your (hopefully prizewinning—there are some great prizes) gruel ready until Sunday. Let the best GFD reader win.