Guess who came to dinner?

After my living room therapy group, Sarah and I had one of the most fantastic meals ever! She BBQ'd our entire dinner on the backyard grill, one of the essentials to be a fullblooded suburbanite.

Wild-caught sockeye salmon is now in season. Here's how one expert fisherman in Alaska prepares it, courtesy of Bill Hess on his Wasilla blog:



Sarah came to town to help celebrate my mom's 88th birthday. As we sat around the kitchen table eating the good food we've had all our lives we discussed the incredulity of all of our ages.

When Sarah told her husband Ethan that Gram turned 88, he said, "88 piano keys." Ethan is the pianist for The Bad Plus. Here he is performing w/his band and also several dancers from Mark Morris in a setting of a Milton Babbitt piece.



When Scott came over the this morning after work I raved about the salmon we had for dinner. He helped us prepare my backyard BBQ. My son Dan had given me some cedar planks to grill it on and I tell you, this humble meal was truly monumental.

Sarah marinated the salmon in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon and garlic. As always she marveled over the cheap price of food out here compared w/New York. We also grilled fresh corn and marinated eggplant slices.

A feast fit for The Demings.

While she was here, she worked hard on behalf of New Directions, writing the beginnings of a grant to the Pew Charitable Trust. I think we have a good shot at getting it.

I particularly wanted to show my little darling the beauties of Pennypack Trust. So before we started work on the grant we went on a knock-your-sox-off walk at Raytharn Farm, a grass-studded meadow that takes to you a beautiful vista.

After the walk we went indoors to say hello to the staff and to buy a jar of local-grown honey. Stick your finger in the honey like Winnie the Pooh and then experience of many nuances of flavor that the bees in the area have prepared. The flavor might be likened to a fine wine in that washes over you in waves like the ocean at sunset.

I have a jar here in my cupboard and Sarah got one to take home.



Here's my latest newspaper article, published by the Times Publishing Co. of Penndel, PA. I think it's only up for a month and then it disappears and new news takes its place, so I'll print it below for you. It appears in one long paragraf, so think of it as an extended prose poem. Or not.

Upper Makefield Girl Scouts deliver books to Camden schoolchildren
by Ruth Z. Deming

Girl Scout leaders Lois O'Donnell, Kate Kay and Dawn Wyatt told the 14 members of their Upper Makefield troop it was time to vote. Time to select which project to work on for the coveted Bronze Award. The choices were tough and included: help with a food pantry, an animal shelter, raising money for a rare children's disease, or collecting books for the less fortunate. Hands down, the girls voted for a book drive. They would collect books for children from poor neighborhoods in Philadelphia and Camden, NJ. Their own school, Sol Feinstone Elementary in Newtown, boasted all the luxuries of a modern suburban school. The girls would send 1,500 lovingly used books - for grades pre-K through eight - to the less fortunate. The young go-getters, ages 11 and 12, set up colorful collection boxes at their school. Soon enough, books began thumping into the boxes; Harry Potter, of course, and other best-selling children's books like the Magic Treehouse series and Cam Jensen mystery series. The whole school was on a mission to collect books for Troop 22018. At the end of the two-week book drive, said Dawn Wyatt, they topped their goal with an astonishing 8,000 books. One Girl Scout mom offered her garage so parents and kids could take turns sorting, packing and labeling the books for future distribution, aided by the DiMedio Foundation for Children, based in Washington Crossing. Much to their surprise, said Dawn, the Philadelphia school district would not allow the girls to accompany the books due to "security concerns." The DiMedio Foundation stepped in and delivered thousands of books to five inner-city schools. But Camden wanted the scouts! So, on May 11th, four carloads of Girl Scouts and their moms drove across the Ben Franklin Bridge into the famously run-down city, once the home of industrial giants like RCA. "It was a fantastic experience," said Dawn, whose own 11-year-old daughter, Katie, is a member of the troop. Wearing their tan-colored vests studded with an array of badges, they walked into the ECO (Environment Community Opportunity) Charter School housed in a refurbished office building. The girls personally handed out the cartons of books, packed in Girl Scout cookie cartons, to the eager school children across the Delaware River in grades K through four. "I was blown away by the school," said Dawn. "The principal runs a tight ship," she said, noting the kids wear uniforms and are models of politeness. Dawn's own daughter remarked she wouldn't mind attending ECO Charter. The ride home was something Dawn will never forget. "The girls couldn't get over how excited these kids were to get the books. The students would stand up and say, 'Thank you so much for these books. We are so lucky.'" Thank-you letters poured in from the Camden students. One child wrote, "Our school is so happy because now we will have nice books to read." The Girl Scouts want to go back. The principal said she would welcome future partnerships. "Maybe," said one of the girls on the ride home, "we can go back and help them plant flowers around the trees." For this troop from the green suburbs of Pennsylvania, the trip to Camden was a lesson on their ability to make a lasting difference in the world beyond Bucks County.