Dolphins and Yogurt Pie

Whew, the dog days are upon Abkhazia, and I expect they are upon the good ol’ US of A as well.
But I have the sea two and a half blocks away, so how can I complain?

I have been walking-jogging every morning before work. The scale says I have lost 10 pounds, but I am doubting its veracity, 5 is more likely, or maybe I haven’t calculated kgs into lbs properly. Anyway, now that the sea is a perfect temperature in the morning, I will replace the sweaty walk-jog for a swim. This morning the dolphins were jumping.

I can’t wait to be at the right spot and the right time and swim with them. They jump high in lovely patterns….synchronized swimmers. I can almost hear them saying “Wheeeeeeeee”. It is beautiful. I have tried to capture them on film, (and swim fast enough to meet them) but every time I swim to shore and grab the camera, and ready the shutter to capture the moment, they are gone (and every time I try to swim with them I have never been able to swim fast enough or far enough to “capture” them either). It’s a game we play, the dolphins and I. This beauty is much less about the physical wonder and much more about the experience of wonder. The gracefulness, the silence, the sweet playfulness that I experience is “real” for me even though the dolphins are not likely to consider themselves sweet or playful or even graceful for that matter. They are swimming and eating breakfast. What I have absorbed from the moment, my experience of beauty is my own. Others might say, “Look at the dolphins swimming, nice huh?”

My camera is not suited to capture gracefulness or sweetness anyway.


Tonight our Burmese doctor will make dinner- Burmese-style. Yum.

It’s about time for me to make another apple pie, but it is so hot, I thought I might make a cold fruit pie - like a berry yogurt or berry custard pie. Great, except I can’t find any vanilla extract to make the custard. Any ideas? Any recipes? I guess I could use vodka (since there is plenty of it - and it’s cheap) to give the custard a bit of flavor - maybe cognac would be better. Of course a yummy graham cracker crust would be great too, but you can already guess there are no graham crackers, in fact there are no crackers of any kind here.
So I will make a regular flour, butter, salt and water crust, make a custard with some flavorful spirits and add fresh berries…..we’ll see, nothing like making do in the “wilderness”, roughing it.

I think we are going to go camping in a couple of weekends - to the mountains. I am already excited…..cool, beautiful, fun……

Well, off to the office to check the cold-chain - (drugs that require refrigeration). It’s my weekend to check 5 fridges twice a day to make sure they are the proper temperature. Then off to the market I go to see what I can find in the way of “custard spirits” and to get some shampoo - always a trick to make sure I can decipher whether I am buying shampoo, body wash, conditioner or body lotion. Last shampoo purchase ended up with my hair being washed by a lovely smelling body lotion……
It’s all about having a good time, right?