a pho welcome

Persons who travel from California to New England in December may well find themselves wondering whether they have made the correct choice. They may question the merit of living where they live. They may also, if they are me, be thinking as they drive down the highway in the final conveyance of the day (elevator, rental car, elevator, airport tram, escalator, airplane, shuttle bus, car that had a mouse in it all week) that a day that began at 5am Pacific time, which was no time for breakfast, and continued through several bags of potato chips on a five hour flight, might well conclude 12 hours later with oatmeal for dinner.

Then again, they may get a pretty exciting text message as their thoughts begin to run in this direction.

Let me back up a moment to say that when we got to Bi-Rite Market in San Francisco, the first thing I saw when I walked in the door was this:

And despite the rude gesture it appeared to be making in my direction, I was so happy to see it that I took its picture. It's a Buddha's Hand, which is a kind of lemon, but maybe you already knew that. I have no idea what to do with one of these, but it seemed to me to bode well.

Back to the exciting text message, which said “I left some soup on your porch,” or words to that effect. However an angel might phrase it.

On our porch, we discovered an hour or so later, was not just an enormous pot of still-warm soup, with noodles and greens and lemons to put in it--could there be anything better when you come back to a chilly house, under-slept and hungry and dehydrated?--but peeking over the edge was this great honking humdinger of a Massachusetts-grown beauty:

Sorry, California. You have a lot to miss about you, but we're home now.