Marshmallow Creme Coffee & Black Gladiolas

Sunday morning and M is making my favorite Sunday breakfast: Soldiers, a dish I'd never heard of before M and one that will make me always think of soft-boiled eggs and sticks of toast as his dish alone. I use Frank's hot sauce with them and it is a breakfast that generally makes me happy.

My marshmallow creme coffee tastes neither like marshmallow nor creme, but it is acceptable, if only. The window to my right (a sliding glass door that leads out to a rooftop deck area,) makes for each season practically a part of my bedroom so I wake to what felt all winter-wonderland to me in December and by now, is going a little winter-weary. But Gladys is here and adores watching the birds that I have left food for, even the starlings are still a treat for her, while I feel a bit remorseful that they have found us and in their large numbers devour every kind of food I put out for the various customers of "Cafe Zozo."

A jay just absconded with a heel of Italian bread much larger than his head and I am content, if baffled as to how to get back to the kind of routine I had in Victorian Village with long walks to school and the gym and that supergirl feeling I had of being fit and strong. And writing, more writing has to happen. This morning's paper had an article with a woman who died and whose family could not afford a funeral. People banded together and someone made her a beautiful coffin of aged poplar and blue lining. People raised money for the expenses and while I still feel a bit stung and saddened at the Ted William's fiasco, I needed good news even if it came wrapped (like one of the mysteriously-dead rainbow trout and sunfish of Salon, Ohio) in the newsprint of abject poverty, of people so poor they cannot afford to retrieve their own dead, it illustrated good will and the days seem so lacking in it.
In other news, I am planning a trip out here for my mom soon and I need to get to Florida and see that wonderchild-nephew of mine. For some strange reason, I am loving sending random Valentine's treats out. For The Bear and his lady J, I am sending Trader Joe's dark chocolate almonds with sea salt and turbinado sugar plus a beautiful cumin/caramel/toffee scarf with gold elephants embroidered on it. (Straight from Bangkok and from my bird-boy.) The Bear still feels pretty beat-up by Alex's death and while midnight-dark-chocolate almonds are no cure, they are certainly a Sartwellian-endorsed grief response.
For Penny Rose and Maya I found these necklaces made up of pennies and coral hearts. For the lovely Ms. Lyla Wren, I have sent a red tutu and heart leggings of a valentine's outfit and for Juniper, there are journals and gel pens. I love that all of these children are a part of my world if not my own than good for the borrowing as if anything isn't.