Nora! YOU KNOW there's nothing to be jealous of . . . and if I knew how to make it work, I'd tell you in a heartbeat.  Sometimes it do and sometimes it don't.  pomegranates and artichokes -- one hard and red and filled with small, hard to get at, seeds; and artichokes, softer and duller and wearing that fake armor that's such a tease to eat.  But you know me.  I go for the color.  Then the texture.  I like things that knock up against each other, opposites that, one way or another, sort of highlight what the other one has or doesn't have.  I'm like a bad cook in the kitchen, throwing everything, including a shoe, into the stew.  Sometimes it's good, even the shoe.  Sometimes -- not.  I have had a streak of extraordinary good luck with the work finding readers who like it enough to stick it up front.  But it's all sort of like a bake-off and what tastes good to one judge is barely palatable to the next.  I babble on too long!  What I mean to say is I'm pretty well stunned when this kind of praise/honor comes around.  [p.s. Wish I had a nanny and artichokes in Italy -- yum!]

xoxoxoxoxo
lynn

What a fine piece!

Thanks, Jay.  Thanks.

Lynn   a stunning piece    a well deserved pick..truly stunning..x

Stella -- thank you!  Glad you enjoyed and truly appreciate your comment.  thanks. ~lynn

Reading this again, it brings back many a holiday- so luminous.

I want nothing more right now than lunch in Greece. Instead I have a biscuit to look forward to and not much else, dammit.

you and me both.
thanks, mike.