The first and the last

I take a lot of photos. I share some on social media and/or on this blog, but most of my photos are never seen by anybody else. Today, however, is a story of a beginning and an ending, in reverse order.

The photo up top is one I shared to social media last night. I said:

Leo asked me to let him outside, and I followed him out and looked up. I saw the moon in the clouds, all reflected by my solar panels. It’s pretty. It’s also now after midnight, and so, Match 1, and that makes this is my first photo of an Autumn moon. Yay.

March first is, of course, the first day of Autumn in this part of the world, and just like our brethren and sistren in the Northern Hemisphere, some of us may pause to reflect on seasonal change. Or, not. As it happens, the photo up top just happened to be my first of March, and so, a new season.

The photo at the bottom of this post was the last photo I took in February, and, as is so often the case, there’s a story there. That story was actually completed on February 29.

Recently, I was looking at my Facebook “Memories”, as well as my photos on my devices, and I realised that I seldom share meal photos (aka “food porn”) any more, and that’s because I seldom try new things or new recipes. There’s absolutely no reason for that—I just haven’t. Until this week.

I had a bottle of honey mustard salad dressing in my fridge, and I realised I’d never get to it before it expired. I also realised it’d make a good base for a chicken marinade, so last week I bought some skin-on chicken thighs, and Thursday was the day!

I mixed the salad dressing, some garlic powder, some low-salt soya sauce, a bit of sugar (it was too tart), and a bit of oil to make a marinade. In then end, though, I just used it as a kind of sauce.

The result, in the photo below, was really nice, a bit like a teriyaki chicken. I served it with mashed potato and some peas and corn (from frozen). It was really nice, however, the thigh portions had squillions of tiny bones, which wasn’t ideal. I think the other supermarket chain has ones with fewer bones. Still, I had the leftovers for dinner on Thursday night.

The last photo I took in February was a meal, yes, but also something I’d like to start doing more of again: Experimenting with new recipes, and/or new ways of cooking things—like I used to do. The photo up top is also something I’ve shared a lot of in the past. Say whatever negative thing you want about Kirikiriroa-Hamilton, and I certainly have, but some of the most amazing skies I’ve seen anywhere have been here. I don’t know why that is—maybe it has something to do with the distance from the sea?—but marvelling at the pretty skies is something I never tire of.

Sometimes, the most important thing is to focus on what’s good, what’s positive, and what's right in front of us. SO much in the world today is utter shit, maybe we’d all be better off if we focus more on what’s good, like a pretty sky or a good meal we made ourselves. Whatever. Maybe if we do, we can all help make the world a little less awful.