Popped into Trader Joe’s yesterday to pick up a few things.  I always head straight to the back corner to fortify myself with the tiny cups of coffee they give away and sample whatever the free sample of the day is.  At first I thought the offering was some sort of pie. No, it was a meatball pizza covered in barbecue sauce.  It was tasty, but  barbecue sauce does not belong on a pizza.  

If it isn’t something that an Italian housewife might have as a leftover in her kitchen, it does not belong on pizza.  Not pineapple and ham.  Not curried lamb.  Not hamburger meat in taco seasoning.  Not General Tso’s chicken.  Not sushi. Legend has it that pizza originated as something the Italian housewife offered up on the day she was too busy baking bread to cook dinner.  She just presented leftovers on a flattened piece of dough and cooked it in an incredibly hot oven.  I had pizza in Naples once where it supposedly originated.  A little olive oil.  A little cheese.  Into a huge oven in the wall that was wood heated to about 500 degrees celsius for about five minutes.  To die for.  No confusion.

Most mornings, my routine is at 6 a.m. is to toddle downstairs, feed Roxie, get a cup of coffee, get the morning newspaper, toddle back upstairs, get back into bed, read the paper and work the crossword.  This time of year, it is light outside when I come back up, so I open the shutters before I get back into bed.

This is what greeted me this morning:

O, what a beautiful morning!  Now, if I could just figure out  29 across, “Result of bankruptcy.”  Eleven letters.  Starts with C.

I have been looking through and sorting all the pictures of the dogs in my iPhoto file.  I want, eventually, to organize them into some sort of plan.  That may never happen, but some have risen to the top by their own sheer buoyancy.  This one of Lula is absolutely iconic.

Or everything you see is special.  It’s just a matter of attitude.

If there is one sunny spot in the house, a cat will find it for her nap.

And then some dog tries to horn in on a good thing. It is a dog bed, for heaven’s sake, but no dog with a lick of sense would mention that point.

Roxie inspects the Handsome Man’s new toupee.

Favorite thing on yesterday’s walk.

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils.

Since the times of the ancient stonehenge and pyramid builders and the camel-riding magi, wisemen have been calculating the exact moments for the solstices and equinoxes.  I have my own method.  Spring comes to the 45th Parallel North on the day the sun rises directly behind the big fir tree out my east window.  Happens on the first day of fall too.