Gacked from kressel -Gratitude meme

I'm modifying it slightly.

Name ten things for which you are grateful. If you can and remember, do it every day this week.

( Gratitude )

Dinner

Tonight my mother and her boyfriend came over to visit.

We took them to a lovely new restaurant near us called "Bar Muda" (or just Muda. It's confusing.) It's dairy Italian, plus an actual bar. And sushi because that's become de riguer.

And, in fact, we had sushi. Mom and Lenny are in their seventies and raw fish is a turn off for them, so we ordered a California roll (fake crabmeat, avocado and cucumber) and a cucumber roll for the table. Those Lenny and Mom enjoyed, although Mom did take a taste of plain wasabi. Hot.

Then we had soup - Lenny and I had cream of garlic (very, very yummy and served in a wavy rectangular bowl.) while Mom and Jonathan had gazpacho. Main courses were - Mom had manicotti, I had linguini with a creamy salmon sauce and bits of smoked and fresh salmon (and they gave me whole wheat pasta, too), and Jonathan had fried fish tidbits with a garlic mayonaise sauce on the side (not aioli - could barely taste the garlic). Lenny? Ate parts of our dinners. :) My pasta was good; Mom's manicotti was delicious. Jonathan's fish - not bad but not as good as the others. He finished my pasta.

They shared a slice of Italian cheesecake, which was soooo good. I had a taste - not overly sweet and quite light, but rich with butter. We shared "peppered fruit " - tropical fruit in a warm caramel black pepper sauce, served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. We also had espresso, which they served with a tiny glass of selzer. Very, very nice. The pepper added warmth the the sauce, which was not cloyingly sweet, the fruit was delicious and the ice cream went very well, and it was perfect for two people.

So it was a lovely meal all around.

(no subject)

I'm reading about Katrina on LJ and we're watching coverage on television, and I can't do anything else (except to donate money to the JDC to help when the time comes), so I took out a book of psalms.

We divide the book of psalms into 30 parts, so you can say the complete book in a month. Tonight is the 24th of the Jewish month. The psalms of the 24th of the month are the psalms of Hallel, the songs of praise - 113-118. We sing them on New Moons and holidays with joy in our voices.

I read them with tears in my eyes.

This storm is not going to bring anything good.