WT....???

Good afternoon Me...or you...or whomever comes across this. 
You'll excuse I hope the sort of crass title of today's post.  It's mainly the thought I had earlier about the fact I had dribbled the day away - unable to take advantage of a HUGE chunk of uncommitted time to sit and write.  I guess it's true. I am not a writer.  I am not passionate about or committed to it.  I am unable or unwilling to sit and do what is necessary in the pursuit of this (so-called) gift I have.  By fluke or happenstance - actually, I think those are synonyms but I don't want to take the time out to check because if I go to a dictionary site I'll have allowed myself once again to be distracted from my self-appointed task - that of writing - I had ALL day to write, read, relax basically because a) I drove the college kid to her classes today and was not going to drive home and back again to put 140 miles on the 2 week old/new/old car, and I had to take said car to the dealership for some service thanks to the "check engine light" which was off when I picked up the car but showed up again a few days later and I got to sit in their rockin' lounge from 8:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.  and I had all that time to write.  Uh - oh - that is a seriously long run-on sentence but if I stopped to edit, I'd never get it written and then I'd get frustrated or distracted and there would go the attempt again. 

No, this isn't a rumination with direct bearing on or because of the farm...it's more like an ongoing thread that runs consistently through my life but does not seem to be turning into anything more than these periodic bursts of written blathering.  Which I am good at.  I should have looked into a radio or talk show gig early on.  Heaven knows if I can do anything it's talk.  I have been quiet for short periods of time throughout my life - shoot, I was even SHY back in the day when I would have preferred to DIE rather than speak in front of anyone, never mind strangers but now I do it on a regular basis.  Today I even asked a stranger if she would be willing to share a cupcake with me.  I was (still am) in Barnes & Noble at the Colonie Mall where I finally ended up after my morning at the service garage and I wanted that little extra sweet treat which as an adult I am now free to get whenever I want just because I want to and so I did, with the straight coffee, small of course to compensate for the extra indulgence and so after taking a little bite, I realized it was too sweet for me to finish on my own and I wasn't going to bring it home with me so I asked this young woman if she'd like to have half of it.  I knew she was interested because when she saw me with the cupcake, she asked what it was and I told her it was the pumpkin cupcake. She then looked at the dessert case and  decided she'd pass.  However, I knew that she would be willing to share because what probably held her back was her own inner voice saying, "no, don't need it, don't spend the money, don't indulge, you don't have enough" or some variation on that theme.  To be clear, I'm not advocating all out indulgence of the epcurion bent or the ignoring of Inner Wisdom, but just suggesting that perhaps she held back on the cupcake because it was too much but 1/2 would have been just right so I figured we'd both benefit and indeed, she was surprised but willing to share and so now 2 instead of 1 indulged a little bit but not overly so and can savor the pleasure of the unexpected.  And the yummy.  I like to share food although it seems others in my life circle would prefer not to.  It's not that either of us are fanantical about our positions; sometimes they share very willingly and I would prefer to keep my treat all to myself but overall, I'm the one who thinks it's a great way to cut calories and stretch the culinary experience.  It's also a reminder of dinner with my parents at Chinese restaurants back when I was a kid and we'd always share because that's just what you did and it seems ok to extend the practice to other cuisines and family/group meals.  Some people totally get this and others don't.  Like my hubby.  First date, I did ask if I could try a bit of his meal but even as the words reached his ears I was reaching my fork over the table and plunging it into whatever morsel had attracted my attention.  Apparently, it was a mark of gallentry on Dave's part that he didn't spear my hand immobile.  Apparently - anyone in his family growing up who committed an act like that would have been engaged in an act of overt hostility.  There was JUST enough to go around for everyone at the table, and almost never enough left over for seconds. You took your share and ate it.  And didn't waste.  I get it...I totally do - but it just didn't occur to me that someone I knew would have been in that position or would still be carrying the repercussions so far into the future.  Not that I was ignorant of scarcity in our world....but hadn't really experienced the intensity of another's formative experience as related to food.  Not that we didn't go through our own waxing and waning of economic stability in my own home.  I just never realized it.  I eventually remembered stories of eating spaghetti for days, or hot dogs as Mom & Dad economized when we first moved into our home in Matawan NJ.  I tended to remember the halcyon (hahah - I just wanted to use that word) days of stead a couple of times a week, (which haha, I didn't really appreciate especially since they'd make us eat EVERYTHING including the fat and gristle which made me want to puke).  I also remembered the days when no matter how many extra mouths were around for dinner, they were always invited to remain.  Dad (who did the cooking - thereby assuring our safety and continued living) would have preferred to have advance notice and ALWAYS let us know how annoyed he was when he didn't get it - still was the utmost gracious host in terms of assuring whomever it was that they were welcome to stay for dinner.  The story of the fishes and loaves almost always was re-enacted in our home.  Not that they would have acknowledged a relationship to that story or its origins but that didn't matter in the long run.  There was pretty much always enough. Since I don't want to succumb to the tendency of whitewashing the memories that nostalgia can distort I'm trying to think of a time when they said "no" to someone staying and I'm sure they did but what rooted itself in my being -as part of my formative years was that element of everyone was welcome at the table. I don't need to state the obvious - but I always manage to - it seems to me that this is what currently reveals itself in my own tendencies to insist that everyone is indeed welcome at The Table.