Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Round things in my kitchen

In my kitchen this month I have many round and spherical things, and I don’t mean just round plates! Here are photos to share with the once-a-month link-up sponsored by Sherry at the blog Sherry’s Pickings, We cooked lots of good things for ourselves this month, and for our guests during the last week in June. Also, they cooked many good things for us. However, I decided to write and photograph something different for this month’s wrap-up.

Blueberries and Trader Joe’s candy — little spheres.

A somewhat rounded cardamom roll that Len baked.

Dough for the cardamom rolls rising in a round bowl and making a dome.

Cupcakes

Waffles

Candy (actually spherical)

English muffins and egg yolks.

Evelyn and Tom’s Anniversary cheesecake.

Half a tomato.

A muffin (from Trader Joe’s)

Pizza (technically this is in Alice’s kitchen).

Pots and pans

Water bottles

Pie weights for baking a shell to be filled later. I rarely use these.

Potatoes — not quite spherical.

Beyond my kitchen…

Ice Cream

A highlight of June has been a visit from several relatives. Yesterday, to wrap up, we had ice cream at Argus cafe with Alice and Miriam. All our visitors have now left Ann Arbor.

Monday, June 29, 2026

Sunday with the family

Bonsai at the Matthaei Botanical Garden

Water lilies in the greenhouse.

Bonsai in bloom.

Inside the Bonsai Garden

Left to right: Tom, Len, Miriam, Evelyn, and Hayden

Alice in her living room.

Miriam and Hayden Cook Dinner

Chopped kale and kimchi.

Purple rice, mushrooms, cabbage, and sweet potatoes

Perfect easy-over eggs

Evelyn and Tom will drive home tomorrow morning, and Miriam and Hayden will fly home in the evening. We’ll be left here — though of course Alice also lives here in Ann Arbor.

Sunday, June 28, 2026

Birds at Kensington Metropark

Because people feed birds along the boardwalk, they are quite unafraid, like this dove.

The red-winged blackbird loved the seeds that several people were offering them.
Park policy permits feeding seeds to small birds like these.

A muskrat was very close to the boardwalk. (Not a bird)

This sandhill crane was missing one foot and part of a wing. He was right on the path.
We assume he survives because people feed him and protect him.

A crane family with this chick were patrolling the parking lot at the picnic area.

They closely approached our table, but we didn’t feed them as it’s not allowed.

Friday, June 26, 2026

Visitors today

Birds

Beside a small lake outside Ann Arbor: a kingfisher.

A heron near the water. We drove our visitors out to see them. Miriam has recently developed an interest in bird watching..

The swans again — the cygnets are growing up.

Miriam Cooks

After we saw the swans, Miriam cooked dinner.

Dinner: baked salmon, purple rice, braised cabbage, and sautéed cabbage.

Dessert that Alice brought from
Cannelle Ann Arbor

Thursday, June 25, 2026

Complicated People

Today’s novel is The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout. It’s about one man and his inner life. Here’s a passage that captures the man and the way that Strout portrays him

“[He] thought that now, after all these years, he was finally becoming a grownup. What did he mean by that? That he was finally beginning to understand the multitudinous aspect of people. He was amazed by it, really, now that he thought about it. In his study of history, he had learned about the leaders, and the various groups involved, but he had somehow missed this fact about every single person: that they held within themselves a vast, unknowable universe.

“And he understood that it could make a person lonely; people had to take and give to one another whatever they could. If it was not enough…Well, then it meant one just had to be a grownup.” (p. 185)

This book is about complicated people. I have never really liked complicated people by which I mean people who take their emotional states and their feelings about other people too seriously, and constantly ruminate about them. And who worry about being a grownup (or not). When I was an adolescent, I was surrounded by such people, as it’s a common trait of adolescents. Most of the reasonable people I knew outgrew it during college or shortly afterwards. In this novel all the supposed grownups are complicated people who love wallowing in whatever they feel or what they fear or what they think other people fear about them. I don’t like them. But I did read the entire book, since it’s not very long.