Mint Color Quotes

Great. We can pick out our colors." "What?" "For the wedding. I'm thinking melon and mint. Supposed to be really hot next spring." Cal laughed out loud, the first time I'd ever heard him do that. "It's a plan. See ya, Sophie.

You don't notice the dead leaving when they really choose to leave you. You're not meant to. At most you feel them as a whisper or the wave of a whisper undulating down. I would compare it to a woman in the back of a lecture hall or theater whom no one notices until she slips out.Then only those near the door themselves, like Grandma Lynn, notice; to the rest it is like an unexplained breeze in a closed room. Grandma Lynn died several years later, but I have yet to see her here. I imagine her tying it on in her heaven, drinking mint juleps with Tennessee Williams and Dean Martin. She'll be here in her own sweet time, I'm sure. If I'm to be honest with you, I still sneak away to watch my family sometimes. I can't help it, and sometimes they still think of me. They can't help it.... It was a suprise to everyone when Lindsey found out she was pregnant...My father dreamed that one day he might teach another child to love ships in bottles. He knew there would be both sadness and joy in it; that it would always hold an echo of me. I would like to tell you that it is beautiful here, that I am, and you will one day be, forever safe. But this heaven is not about safety just as, in its graciousness, it isn't about gritty reality. We have fun. We do things that leave humans stumped and grateful, like Buckley's garden coming up one year, all of its crazy jumble of plants blooming all at once. I did that for my mother who, having stayed, found herself facing the yard again. Marvel was what she did at all the flowers and herbs and budding weeds. Marveling was what she mostly did after she came back- at the twists life took. And my parents gave my leftover possessions to the Goodwill, along with Grandma Lynn's things. They kept sharing when they felt me. Being together, thinking and talking about the dead, became a perfectly normal part of their life. And I listened to my brother, Buckley, as he beat the drums. Ray became Dr. Singh... And he had more and more moments that he chose not to disbelieve. Even if surrounding him were the serious surgeons and scientists who ruled over a world of black and white, he maintained this possibility: that the ushering strangers that sometimes appeared to the dying were not the results of strokes, that he had called Ruth by my name, and that he had, indeed, made love to me. If he ever doubted, he called Ruth. Ruth, who graduated from a closet to a closet-sized studio on the Lower East Side. Ruth, who was still trying to find a way to write down whom she saw and what she had experienced. Ruth, who wanted everyone to believe what she knew: that the dead truly talk to us, that in the air between the living, spirits bob and weave and laugh with us. They are the oxygen we breathe. Now I am in the place I call this wide wide Heaven because it includes all my simplest desires but also the most humble and grand. The word my grandfather uses is comfort. So there are cakes and pillows and colors galore, but underneath this more obvious patchwork quilt are places like a quiet room where you can go and hold someone's hand and not have to say anything. Give no story. Make no claim. Where you can live at the edge of your skin for as long as you wish. This wide wide Heaven is about flathead nails and the soft down of new leaves, wide roller coaster rides and escaped marbles that fall then hang then take you somewhere you could never have imagined in your small-heaven dreams.

Past the flannel plains and blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the A.M. heat: shattercane, lambsquarter, cutgrass, saw brier, nutgrass, jimson-weed, wild mint, dandelion, foxtail, spinecabbage, goldenrod, creeping Charlie, butterprint, nightshade, ragweed, wild oat, vetch, butcher grass, invaginate volunteer beans, all heads nodding in a soft morning breeze like a mother’s hand on your check. An arrow of starlings fired from the windbreak’s thatch. The glitter of dew that stays where it is and steams all day. A Sunflower, four more one bowed, and horses in the distance standing rigid as toys. All nodding. Electric sounds of insects at their business. Ale-colored sunshine and pale sky and whorls of cirrus so high they cast no shadow. Insects all business all the time. Quartz and chert and schist and chondrite iron scabs in granite. Very old land. Look around you. The horizon trembling, shapeless. We are all of us brothers.

And you, my best friend on earth, my soul sister who shares Chunky Monkey scoops and beefcake e-mails at the drop of a hat, the woman who made me wear a frothy, ruffled lime-colored bridesmaid dress that added fifteen pounds to my hips, are going to spill your guts to me, aren’t you? (Sunshine) No fair and the dress wasn’t lime, it was mint. (Selena) It was lime-icky green and I looked like a sick pistachio. (Sunshine)

Jelly beans! Millions and billions of purples and yellows and greens and licorice and grape and raspberry and mint and round and smooth and crunchy outside and soft-mealy inside and sugary and bouncing jouncing tumbling clittering clattering skittering fell on the heads and shoulders and hardhats and carapaces of the Timkin works, tinkling on the slidewalk and bouncing away and rolling about underfoot and filling the sky on their way down with all the colors of joy and childhood and holidays, coming down in a steady rain, a solid wash, a torrent of color and sweetness out of the sky from above, and entering a universe of sanity and metronomic order with quite-mad coocoo newness. Jelly beans!

He, on the other hand, had the look of royalty, from his angular face and regal posture down to the modern yet tailored fit of his mint colored button down shirt and khaki pants. Not many men could wear pastels and still manage to look like they could hunt down some predatory animal, cook it up for dinner, and then use its hide to make you a purse.

Past the flannel plains and blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the A.M. heat: shattercane, lamb's-quarter, cutgrass, sawbrier, nutgrass, jimsonweed, wild mint, dandelion, foxtail, muscadine, spinecabbage, goldenrod, creeping charlie, butter-print, nightshade, ragweed, wild oat, vetch, butcher grass, invaginate volunteer beans, all heads gently nodding in a morning breeze like a mother's soft hand on your cheek. An arrow of starlings fired from the windbreak's thatch. The glitter of dew that stays where it is and steams all day. A sunflower, four more, one bowed, and horses in the distance standing rigid and still as toys. All nodding. Electric sounds of insects at their business. Ale-colored sunshine and pale sky and whorls of cirrus so high they cast no shadow. Insects all business all the time. Quartz and chert and schist and chondrite iron scabs in granite. Very old land. Look around you. The horizon trembling, shapeless. We are all of us brothers. Some crows come overhead then, three or four, not a murder, on the wing, silent with intent, corn-bound for the pasture's wire beyond which one horse smells at the other's behind, the lead horse's tail obligingly lifted. Your shoes' brand incised in the dew. An alfalfa breeze. Socks' burrs. Dry scratching inside a culvert. Rusted wire and tilted posts more a symbol of restraint than a fence per se. NO HUNTING. The shush of the interstate off past the windbreak. The pasture's crows standing at angles, turning up patties to get at the worms underneath, the shapes of the worms incised in the overturned dung and baked by the sun all day until hardened, there to stay, tiny vacant lines in rows and inset curls that do not close because head never quite touches tail. Read these.

Why was it always me? What about me made me so damn unlovable? So gullible? My favorite color. Yellow. My favorite ice cream flavor. Mint chocolate chip. You are the light to my dark, Sunshine. Without you, I’m lost. Lies. All of it. Every kiss, every word, every second that I had treasured…tainted.

Spare change. Can't imagine how it got there." She tipped her head in reproach. He exhaled, sounding resigned. "It's not what you think." She turned her hand palm-up between them, letting the coin serve as its own accusation. "I think I know a shilling when I see one." "Look again." She looked down at the coin in her gloved palm, where its embossed face stood out in sharp relief against white satin. Light glinted off the surface, revealing the color to be not the expected dull silver, but a coppery hue instead. Oh. A sharp pang of surprise caught her heart. He'd been telling the truth. It wasn't a shilling after all. It was a penny. A bright, newly minted penny. One he'd been keeping tucked in his breast pocket. Right next to his heart. She drew a shaky breath. "Gabriel." His hands went to her shoulders- but it was his low, husky voice that reached out and drew her close. "You know the squalor I was born to. And you know I promised myself I'd never be that barefoot, starving boy again." She nodded. "I have every luxury a man could desire. Hundreds of thousands of pounds in my accounts. I worked like hell to build a fortune, and yet..." His thumb met her cheek with a reverent caress. "Now I'd sell my soul for a Penny.

Oh what marvels fill me with thanksgiving! The deep mahogany of a leaf once green. The feathered fronds of tiny icicles coating every twig and branch in a wintry landscape. The feel of goosebumps thawing after endured frozen temperatures. Both hands clamped around a hot mug of herbal tea. The aromatic whiff of mint under my nose. The stir of emotion from a child's cry for mommy. A gift of love detached of strings. Spotted lilies collecting raindrops in a cupped clump of petals. The vibrant mélange of colors on butterfly wings. The milky luster of a single pearl. Rainbows reflecting off iridescence bubbles. Awe-struck silence evoked by any form of beauty. Avocado flecks in your eyes. Warm hands on my face. Sweetness on the tongue. The harmony of voices. An answered prayer. A pink balloon. A caress. A smile. More. These have become my treasures by virtue of thanksgiving.

Women did what strawberry plants did before they shot out their thin vines: the quality of the green changed. Then the vine threads came, then the buds. By the time the white petals died and the mint-colored berry poked out, the leaf shine was gilded tight and waxy.

Things I love about spring are these: Blooming flowers on fruit-bearing trees. Fire-red tulips—their first reveal— Followed by sun-yellow daffodils. Trees acquiring new coats of green. Natural waterfalls glistening. The chirps and melodies of birds. Throaty ribbits of frogs overheard. A passing whiff of mint to smell, Oregano and basil as well. Colorful butterflies with wings. Fuzzy, industrious bees that sting. Sunlight waning late in the day. Warm breezes causing willows to sway. Most of all, a sense of things new, Including budding feelings for you.

Or maybe your magic isn't that destructive after all. The rain of Doritos, the bed thing,this...Maybe it's just that you create too big, you know?" When I could find my voice, I said, "Cal, that might be the nicest thing anyone's said to me since we got here." He twirled one of the naked roots between his fingers, and didn't meet my eyes. "It's true." Then he glanced up and gave one of those half smiles I was really starting to like. "And it's also true that I need to find another pot for this guy.I,uh, guess I'll see you at dinner." "Great.We can pick out our colors." "What?" "For the wedding. I'm thinking melon and mint. Supposed to be really hot next spring." Cal laughed out loud,the first time I'd ever heard him do that. "It's a plan. See ya, Sophie.

bookcase. A white roller blind. She’s all the color in this room. Every ounce of beauty. I’m going to hang her paintings on the walls. Going to fuck her against them, too.

Some of the cottages have tiny courtyards surrounded by high stone walls. These walls are bright with flowers: valerian, feverfew, mallows, lace cap hydrangeas spring from the crevices in these stones and flourish in the salty air. If she looks across the river Evie can see Kingswear with its tier upon tier of houses stacked on the hill above the marina: narrow terraced houses the color of ice cream: mint, vanilla, bubblegum, coffee.

Wild Peaches" When the world turns completely upside down You say we’ll emigrate to the Eastern Shore Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore; We’ll live among wild peach trees, miles from town, You’ll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown Homespun, dyed butternut’s dark gold color. Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor, We’ll swim in milk and honey till we drown. The winter will be short, the summer long, The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot, Tasting of cider and of scuppernong; All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all. The squirrels in their silver fur will fall Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot. 2 The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass Like bloom on grapes of purple-brown and gold. The misted early mornings will be cold; The little puddles will be roofed with glass. The sun, which burns from copper into brass, Melts these at noon, and makes the boys unfold Their knitted mufflers; full as they can hold Fat pockets dribble chestnuts as they pass. Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover; A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year; The spring begins before the winter’s over. By February you may find the skins Of garter snakes and water moccasins Dwindled and harsh, dead-white and cloudy-clear. 3 When April pours the colors of a shell Upon the hills, when every little creek Is shot with silver from the Chesapeake In shoals new-minted by the ocean swell, When strawberries go begging, and the sleek Blue plums lie open to the blackbird’s beak, We shall live well — we shall live very well. The months between the cherries and the peaches Are brimming cornucopias which spill Fruits red and purple, sombre-bloomed and black; Then, down rich fields and frosty river beaches We’ll trample bright persimmons, while you kill Bronze partridge, speckled quail, and canvasback. 4 Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones There’s something in this richness that I hate. I love the look, austere, immaculate, Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones. There’s something in my very blood that owns Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate, A thread of water, churned to milky spate Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones. I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray, Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves; That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath, Summer, so much too beautiful to stay, Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves, And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.

I don’t want to talk about me. We never talk about you. I probably don’t know anything about you. He laces his fingers into mine and rests our hands on his stomach. I move my fingertips in tiny circles and he sighs indulgently. “Sure you do. Go on, list everything.” “I know surface things. The color of your shirts. Your lovely blue eyes. You live on mints and make me look like a pig in comparison. You scare three-quarters of B and G employees absolutely senseless, but only because the other quarter haven’t met you yet.” He smirks. “Such a bunch of delicate sissies.” I keep ticking things off. “You’ve got a pencil you use for secret purposes I think relate to me. You dry clean on alternate Fridays. The projector in the boardroom strains your eyes and gives you headaches. You’re good at using silence to scare the shit out of people. It’s your go-to strategy in meetings. You sit there and stare with your laser-eyes until your opponent crumbles.” He remains silent. “Oh, and you’re secretly a decent human being.” “You definitely know more about me than anyone else.” I can feel a tension in him. When I look at his face, he looks shaken. My stalking has scared the ever-loving shit out of him. Unfortunately, the next thing I say sounds deranged. I want to know what’s going on in your brain. I want to juice your head like a lemon.

Why was it always me? What about me made me so damn unlovable? So gullible? My favorite color. Yellow. My favorite ice cream flavor. Mint chocolate chip. You are the light to my dark, Sunshine. Without you, I’m lost. Lies. All of it. Every kiss, every word, every second that I had treasured…tainted. My eyes burned with liquid fire. I couldn’t breathe. Everything hurt, from the outside to the inside, as I sobbed terrible, wretched, soul-racking tears.

Salmon with whisky-maple glaze, surrounded by a trio of colors- peas with mint, carrots with maple and thyme, and neeps and tatties with nutmeg and parsley. Green, orange, white. And we can put the salmon on a bed of risotto and mushrooms.

He opened the back of the Polaroid and slid in the roll of film while his family arranged themselves on the Argent sofa. The upholstery was the color of faded mint, a fine setting for their brown skin, but the camera only took black-and-white photos. John on Elizabeth’s lap, May beside them. May didn’t know how to smile yet—all instructions to do so summoned an unsettling, gum-heavy display that would not have been out of place on a Bowery bum sleeping it off in a vestibule. “Sit still,” Elizabeth said.

Billy was displayed there in the zoo in a simulated Earthling habitat. Most of the furnishings had been stolen from the Sears & Roebuck warehouse in Iowa City, Iowa. There was a color television set and a couch that could be converted into a bed. There were end tables with lamps and ashtrays on them by the couch. There was a home bar and two stools. There was a little pool table. There was wall-to-wall carpeting in federal gold, except in the kitchen and bathroom areas and over the iron manhole cover in the center of the floor. There were magazines arranged in a fan on the coffee table in front of the couch. There was a stereophonic phonograph. The phonograph worked. The television didn't. There was a picture of one cowboy shooting another one pasted to the television tube. So it goes. There were no wall in the dome, nor place for Billy to hide. The mint green bathroom fixtures were right out in the open. Billy got off his lounge chair now, went into the bathroom and took a leak. The crowd went wild.

I paused, causing her to stumble into my chest. My thumb and forefinger grasped her chin, forcing her to look up at me. “Try me.” Ava blinked, her breaths coming out in short, shallow puffs. “My favorite color.” “Yellow.” “My favorite ice cream flavor.” “Mint chocolate chip.” Her chest rose and fell harder. “My favorite season.” “Summer, because of the warmth and sunshine and greenery. But secretly, winter fascinates you.” I lowered my head until my own breath skated over her skin and her scent crawled into my nostrils, drugging me, turning my voice into a hoarse, sinful version of itself. “It speaks to the darkest parts of your soul. The manifestations of your nightmares. It’s everything you fear, and for that, you love it. Because the fear makes you feel alive.

I go to the cupboard. I open the doors to a lacquered red interior the color of the Chinese music box in Aunt Fanniebelle’s curio cabinet. Out drifts lemon, mint, salt, vinegar, and the metallic whiff of blood. In the middle is a line of matching bottles labeled Stump, Ditch, Willow, Lightning, and Urine. Baskets of tiny silk bags tied with ribbons and dried roots are in orderly rows.

All around me, as if the scales had fallen from my eyes, I saw color flushing the slopes, a color I'd never again hoped to see: that green that is the herald of flavor and pleasure, that says: look, says: wait, says: taste: the gates of the underworld unlatched for mints and sorrels and pine-dark needles in shade and the pale sun-swell of the honeysuckle that bells out the triumphant return, after long winter, of a daughter.

Either Jupiter or Saturn was still visible, pale against the lightening sky. The wind was blustery and full of voices. I sat as sun lipped the horizon. The grass changed in the light, from brown to yellowish to green. The grass: it was green. It was the end of March. I'd been in the country for three weeks. All around me, as if the scales had fallen from my eyes, I saw color flushing the slopes, a color I'd never again hoped to see: that green that is the herald of flavor and pleasure, that says: look, says: wait, says: taste: the gates of the underworld unlatched for mints and sorrels and pine-dark needles in shade and the pale sun-swell of the honeysuckle that bells out the triumphant return, after long winter, of a daughter. It was a green made possible by a man who held in his sway horticulturalists and biologists and chicken geneticists and meteorologists who could control the weather itself, and I forgot those wan, distant orbs in the sky as I opened my mouth, I bayed. And then, at last, it was spring.

About sexuality of English mice. A warm perfume is growing little by little in the room. An orchard scent, a caramelized sugar scent. Mrs. MOUSE roasts apples in the chimney. The apple fruits smell grass of England and the pastry oven. On a thread drawn in the flames, the apples, from the buried autumn, turn a golden color and grind in tempting bubbles. But I have the feeling that you already worry. Mrs. MOUSE in a Laura Ashley apron, pink and white stripes, with a big purple satin bow on her belt, Mrs. MOUSE is certainly not a free mouse? Certainly she cooks all day long lemon meringue tarts, puddings and cheese pies, in the kitchen of the burrow. She suffocates a bit in the sweet steams, looks with a sigh the patched socks trickling, hanging from the ceiling, between mint leaves and pomegranates. Surely Mrs. MOUSE just knows the inside, and all the evening flavours are just good for Mrs. MOUSE flabbiness. You are totally wrong - we can forgive you – we don’t know enough that the life in the burrow is totally communal. To pick the blackberries, the purplish red elderberries, the beechnuts and the sloes Mr. and Mrs. MOUSE escape in turn, and glean in the bushes the winter gatherings. After, with frozen paws, intoxicated with cold wind, they come back in the burrow, and it’s a good time when the little door, rond little oak wood door brings a yellow ray in the blue of the evening. Mr. and Mrs. MOUSE are from outside and from inside, in the most complete commonality of wealth and climate. While Mrs. MOUSE prepares the hot wine, Mr. MOUSE takes care of the children. On the top of the bunk bed Thimoty is reading a cartoon, Mr. MOUSE helps Benjamin to put a fleece-lined pyjama, one in a very sweet milky blue for snow dreams. That’s it … children are in bed …. Mrs. MOUSE blazes the hot wine near the chimney, it smells lemon, cinnamon, big dry flames, a blue tempest. Mr. and Mrs. MOUSE can wait and watch. They drink slowly, and then .... they will make love ….You didn’t know? It’s true, we need to guess it. Don’t expect me to tell you in details the mice love in patchwork duvets, the deep cherry wood bed. It’s just good enough not to speak about it. Because, to be able to speak about it, it would need all the perfumes, all the silent, all the talent and all the colors of the day. We already make love preparing the blackberries wine, the lemon meringue pie, we already make love going outside in the coldness to earn the wish of warmness and come back. We make love downstream of the day, as we take care of our patiences. It’s a love very warm, very present and yet invisible, mice’s love in the duvets. Imagine, dream a bit ….. Don’t speak too badly about English mice’s sexuality …..

Boney freckled knees pressed into bits of bark and stone, refusing to feel any more pain. Her faded t-shirt hugged her protruding ribs as she held on, hunched in silence. A lone tear followed the lumpy tracks down her cheek, jumped from her quivering jaw onto a thirsty browned leaf with a thunderous plop. Then the screen door squeaked open and she took flight. Crispy twigs snapped beneath her bare feet as she ran deeper and deeper into the woods behind the house. She heard him rumbling and calling her name, his voice fueling her tired muscles to go faster, to survive. He knew her path by now. He was ready for the hunt. The clanging unbuckled belt boomed in her ears as he gained on her. The woods were thin this time of year, not much to hide behind. If she couldn’t outrun him, up she would go. Young trees teased her in this direction, so she moved east towards the evergreens. Hunger and hurt left her no choice, she had to stop running soon. She grabbed the first tree with a branch low enough to reach, and up she went. The pine trees were taller here, older, but the branches were too far apart for her to reach. She chose the wrong tree. His footsteps pounded close by. She stood as tall as her little legs could, her bloodied fingers reaching, stretching, to no avail. A cry of defeat slipped from her lips, a knowing laugh barked from his. She would pay for this dearly. She didn’t know whether the price was more than she could bear. Her eyes closed, her next breath came out as Please, and an inky hand reached down from the lush needles above, wound its many fingers around hers, and pulled her up. Another hand, then another, grabbing her arms, her legs, firmly but gently, pulling her up, up, up. The rush of green pine needles and black limbs blurred together, then a flash of cobalt blue fluttered by, heading down. She looked beyond her dangling bare feet to see a flock of peculiar birds settle on the branches below her, their glossy feathers flickered at once and changed to the same greens and grays of the tree they perched upon, camouflaging her ascension. Her father’s footsteps below came to a stomping end, and she knew he was listening for her. Tracking her, trapping her, like he did the other beasts of the forest. He called her name once, twice. The third time’s tone not quite as friendly. The familiar slide–click sound of him readying his gun made her flinch before he had his chance to shoot at the sky. A warning. He wasn’t done with her. His feet crunched in circles around the tree, eventually heading back home. Finally, she exhaled and looked up. Dozens of golden-eyed creatures surrounded her from above. Covered in indigo pelts, with long limbs tipped with mint-colored claws, they seemed to move as one, like a heartbeat. As if they shared a pulse, a train of thought, a common sense. “Thank you,” she whispered, and the beasts moved in a wave to carefully place her on a thick branch.

Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.

Blake took off his jacket and blanketed her undergarments on the ground. He unbuttoned his shirt with the carelessness of a man standing in front of his dresser. His hands never hitched. Livia wanted to cheer as he revealed his chest to the sun. But Blake had other plans. He put his chest against hers, and his sun-drenched hands ran from her shoulders to her lower back, pulling her to him with a hard jerk. He was a gentleman, but not necessarily a gentle lover. Their hearts beat as if they were trying to touch from the inside out. Blake ghost-kissed Livia, not quite letting their lips touch. She felt his hot mint breath on her cheek. Blake reached for his pants, and Livia longed to release the button for him, but he needed to do this. He removed his pants and boxer briefs in one swift motion. He kicked off his socks and shoes. All that remained was the mask. Blake and Livia stood apart for a moment before he gathered her again in his arms. With no more material between their bodies, he touched every part of her. He spun her so her back pressed against his chest and he could warm her breasts with his hands. “I always wanted to know if your lips were the same color as your nipples. But they’re not. I think the sun has faded your lips just a bit.” Blake’s liquid silk voice tickled her neck. Livia could feel the scratch of the ski mask. She remembered that the first time she’d heard his voice it was just like this, from behind her. She begged her hands not to remove his mask. They were having a hard time listening. She squirmed until she and Blake were chest to chest again. She kissed his shoulder instead of his mouth. Blake was glorious naked. Powerful.

He’s moved by a desire to describe in words exactly how she looks and speaks. Her hair and clothing. The copy of Swann’s Way she reads at lunchtime in the school cafeteria, with a dark French painting on the cover and a mint-colored spine. Her long fingers turning the pages. She’s not leading the same kind of life as other people. She acts so worldly at times, making him feel ignorant, but then she can be so naive. He wants to understand how her mind works. If he silently decides not to say something when they’re talking, Marianne will ask “what?” within one or two seconds. This “what?” question seems to him to contain so much: not just the forensic attentiveness to his silences that allows her to ask in the first place, but a desire for total communication, a sense that anything unsaid is an unwelcome interruption between them. He writes these things down, long run-on sentences with too many dependent clauses, sometimes connected with breathless semicolons, as if he wants to re-create a precise copy of Marianne in print, as if he can preserve her completely for future review. Then he turns a new page in the notebook so he doesn’t have to look at what he’s done.

Kee Li Tong was one of my favorite chocolatiers in New York. Years earlier, I had a fleeting addiction to her otherworldly crème brûlée truffle, a dainty yet dangerous homemade bonbon that you have to pop into your mouth whole, or suffer the consequences of squirting eggy custard all over your blouse. Now, I discovered, she was handcrafting macarons in wild and wonderful flavors like blood orange, sesame, and rose. How did she create her recipes? What inspired her expanded repertoire? And how did hers compare to Paris's best? Emboldened as I was by my new French history lessons, I asked Kee in her Soho boutique: why macarons? "Because they're so pretty!" Kee laughed. "They're so dainty. I think it's the colors." And, standing as we were above the glass display case, I had to agree. Her blueberry macarons were as bright as the September sky. The lotus flower was the kind of soft pink that's the perfect shade of blush. Kee's favorite flavor, passion fruit, was a snappy corn husk yellow. These were surrounded by greens (lulo and jasmine green tea) and purples (lavender, which was dotted with purple sugar crystals) and some neutral shades as well (white truffle oil and mint mocha).

Elizabeth’s breakfast had cured Ian’s hunger, in fact, the idea of ever eating again made his stomach churn as he started for the barn to check on Mayhem’s injury. He was partway there when he saw her off to the left, sitting on the hillside amid the bluebells, her arms wrapped around her knees, her forehead resting atop them. Even with her hair shining like newly minted gold in the sun, she looked like a picture of heartbreaking dejection. He started to turn away and leave her to moody privacy; then, with a sigh of irritation, he changed his mind and started down the hill toward her. A few yards away he realized her shoulders were shaking with sobs, and he frowned in surprise. Obviously there was no point in pretending the meal had been good, so he injected a note of amusement into his voice and said, “I applaud your ingenuity-shooting me yesterday would have been too quick.” Elizabeth started violently at the sound of his voice. Snapping her head up, she stared off to the left, keeping her tear-streaked face averted from him. “Did you want something?” “Dessert?” Ian suggested wryly, leaning slightly forward, trying to see her face. He thought he saw a morose smile touch her lips, and he added, “I thought we could whip up a batch of cream and put it on the biscuit. Afterward we can take whatever is left, mix it with the leftover eggs, and use it to patch the roof.” A teary chuckle escaped her, and she drew a shaky breath but still refused to look at him as she said, “I’m surprised you’re being so pleasant about it.” “There’s no sense crying over burnt bacon.” “I wasn’t crying over that,” she said, feeling sheepish and bewildered. A snowy handkerchief appeared before her face, and Elizabeth accepted it, dabbing at her wet cheeks. “Then why were you crying?” She gazed straight ahead, her eyes focused on the surrounding hills splashed with bluebells and hawthorn, the handkerchief clenched in her hand. “I was crying for my own ineptitude, and for my inability to control my life,” she admitted. The word “ineptitude” startled Ian, and it occurred to him that for the shallow little flirt he supposed her to be she had an exceptionally fine vocabulary. She glanced up at him then, and Ian found himself gazing into a pair of green eyes the amazing color of wet leaves. With tears still sparkling on her long russet lashes, her long hair tied back in a girlish bow, her full breasts thrusting against the bodice of her gown, she was a picture of alluring innocence and intoxicating sensuality. Ian jerked his gaze from her breasts and said abruptly, “I’m going to cut some wood so we’ll have it for a fire tonight. Afterward I’m going to do some fishing for our supper. I trust you’ll find a way to amuse yourself in the meantime.” Startled by his sudden brusqueness, Elizabeth nodded and stood up, dimly aware that he did not offer his hand to assist her.

Entering his condo, a serene space with a muted color palette— or as Luna called it, “B-o-r-i-n-g.”— he kicked off his shoes and made himself a nice cup of green mint tea. And no, it wasn’t sissy. Just ask Hayder, who’d made the mistake of taunting him, only to gasp for breath as Leo timed a perfect shot to his diaphragm. As Leo explained to the pride’s beta while he recovered, “This tea helps focus the mind, which, in turn, gives me great aim.

In the next five days, Bud Selig, the franchise’s proud new owner, changed the team name from the Pilots to the Brewers, in honor of the Milwaukee minor league team that he had cheered on as a boy. Though he was able to change the name, there was not enough time to order new uniforms with the navy and red colors from those Brewers teams of yesteryear. Instead, the newly minted Milwaukee Brewers were forced to adopt the blue and gold of the Seattle Pilots, a color scheme that the team still wears to this day,

work vehicles and a lone motorcycle, her SUV had the road to itself, which meant she would get there faster. Indeed, the familiarity of turning onto Caroline’s street was a lifeline. Once she parked in front of the mint-over-teal Victorian, she put Tad on her hip and hurried up the walk. The squeak of the screen was actually reassuring. And the smell of time when she stepped inside? Heaven. “Mom?” Caroline ran barefoot from the kitchen, stopped short, and put a hand to her heart. “Mother and child,” she breathed and slowly approached. Her hair was a wavy mess, and her face blushed in a way that made her look forty, but her eyes, moist now, held adoration. Wrapping a firm arm around Jamie, she said by her ear, “We will not mention the show. It has no place in this house with us right now, okay?” Jamie hadn’t even thought about the show, and certainly couldn’t think of it with Caroline’s soft, woodsy scent soothing her nerves and giving her strength. “Mom,” she began, drawing back, but Caroline was studying Tad. “Oh my. A real little boy. Hey,” she said softly and touched his hair. Jamie felt the warmth of the touch, but Tad just stared without blinking. “I think I know you. Aren’t you Theodore MacAfee the Second?” Those very big eyes were somber as he shook his head. “Who, then?” “Taddy,” came the baby voice. “The Taddy who likes cats?” Caroline asked, to which he started looking around the floor, “or the Taddy who likes pancakes?” “Pancakes, please,” Jamie inserted. “I promised him we’d eat here. Mom—” She broke off when Master meowed. Setting Tad on the floor, she waited only until he had run after the cat before turning back to her mother and holding out her left hand. Caroline frowned. “You’re shaking.” She had steadied the hand with her own before she finally focused on that bare ring finger. Wide eyes flew to Jamie’s. In that instant, with this first oh-so-important disclosure, it was real. Jamie could barely breathe. “I returned it. Brad and I split.” “What happened?” Caroline whispered, but quickly caught herself. Cupping Jamie’s face, she said, “First things first. I don’t have a booster seat for Tad.” “He’ll kneel on a chair. He looks like Dad. Do you hate him for that?” Tad was on his haunches on the other side of the room, waiting for Master to come out from under the spindle legs of a lamp stand. “I should,” Caroline confessed, “but how to hate a child? He may have Roy’s coloring, but he’ll take on your expressions, and soon enough he’ll look like himself. Besides,” she gave a gritty smirk, “it’s not like your father gets the last laugh. If he thought I was a withered-up old hag—” “He didn’t.” “Yes, he did. Isn’t that what booting me off Gut It! was about?” “You said we weren’t talking about that,” Jamie begged, knowing that despite this nascent reconciliation, Gut It! remained a huge issue. Not talking about it wouldn’t make it go away, but she didn’t want the intrusion of it now. Caroline seemed to agree. She spoke more calmly. “Your father’s opinion of me went way back to our marriage, so this, today, here, now, is satisfying for me. How happy do you think he is looking down from heaven to see his son at my house, chasing my cat and about to eat my grandmother’s pancakes, cooked by me in my kitchen and served on a table I made?” The part of Jamie that resented Roy for what he had made Caroline suffer shared her mother’s satisfaction. She might have said that, if Caroline hadn’t gone from bold to unsure in a breath. “I’m not equipped yet, baby. Does Tad need a bottle for his water?” “No. He’s done with bottles. Just a little water in a cup will do, since I forgot the sippy.” In her rush to get out of the house, she had also left Moose, which meant she would have to go back for him before dropping Tad off, which meant she would be late for her first appointment, which she couldn’t reschedule because she had back-to-backs all day, which meant she would have to postpone to another day, which

THE RAINS had come, the rains had gone, and the sun was back on its throne like an absolute monarch kept off it for a week by his subjects’ barricades, and now reigning once again, choleric but under constitutional restraint. The heat braced without burning, the light domineered but let colors live; from the soil cautiously sprouted clover and mint, and on faces appeared diffident hopes.

Raspberry Cupcakes (makes approximately 12 cupcakes) I top these with white-chocolate mint frosting. You could also just go with vanilla frosting … but why be normal? INGREDIENTS: 1 cup milk 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 3/4 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup granulated sugar 1/3 cup canola oil 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 6-ounce container fresh raspberries (or equal amount frozen raspberries, thawed), mashed into pulp INSTRUCTIONS: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners. In a large bowl, whisk together the milk and vinegar, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Once the milk has curdled, add in the sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and raspberry pulp, and stir. Then slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ones a little bit at a time, and combine using a whisk or handheld mixer, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl a few times, until no lumps remain. Fill cupcake liners two-thirds of the way and bake for 20–22 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack, and let cool completely before frosting. White-Chocolate Mint Frosting INGREDIENTS: 4-1/2 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped 6 tablespoons margarine or butter 2 cups confectioners’ sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon mint extract or minced fresh mint leaves (NOT peppermint) Up to 1/4 cup milk INSTRUCTIONS: In a double boiler, melt the white chocolate until smooth, then remove and cool to room temperature. If you prefer, you can instead melt the white chocolate in a small bowl in the microwave, heating it on high for a few seconds at a time, then stirring until smooth. (Repeat heating if necessary, but don’t overdo it!) In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, cream the margarine or butter until it’s a lighter color, about 2–3 minutes. Slowly beat in the confectioners’ sugar in 1/2-cup batches, adding the vanilla extract and either mint extract or minced fresh mint leaves about halfway through. Add the melted white chocolate to the frosting and combine thoroughly. If the frosting seems too stiff and thick, add a little milk until the right consistency is reached. Continue mixing on high speed for about 3–7 minutes, until the frosting is light and fluffy. Place in the refrigerator until firm enough to frost, about 30 minutes.

What would she eat? Meat? Vegan? Vegetarian? Pescatarian? More important, would her taste buds be open to spices? I call this research ocular reconnaissance. The woman meanders toward one of the butchers and points to a goliath-sized leg of lamb---definitely a carnivore. I wonder how she'd prepare her meal---perhaps with slices of garlic stuffed into the meatiest parts of the top, slow roasted with rosemary, with potatoes on the side, the juices, the herbs, infusing into everything. Served with a mint sauce? Or is she the type who colors outside the lines and does something less traditional?

Colors and Designs - Trends for Toddlers - Motheringo The summer collections this year are flooded with all the bright colors perfect for the summer look. Offering miscellaneous colors from blues and pinks to corals and mints, the basic colors of black and white would never go out of style. The clothing is enhanced with the use of multiple textures, animal prints, and graphics, from the sparkly sequins to the knits, velvets, and denims, making sure your little one is dressed in a convenient yet trendiest of attires. Another element of cuteness that is enchantingly loved by the young toddlers are the intricate yet bold appliques of characters and graphics on the shirts and dresses. From having the ears or tail protruding out, or the frills with a 3-D texture, young kids are fond of such sensory elements in their apparel.

I opened the lid, and inside was a mint-colored Adler typewriter.

She’s all the color in this room. Every ounce of beauty.

I took a fresh lime, added some Curaçao from Holland, a dash of Rock Candy Syrup, and a dollop of French Orgeat, for its subtle almond flavor. A generous amount of shaved ice and vigorous shaking by hand produced the marriage I was after. Half the lime shell went in for color [and] I stuck in a branch of fresh mint…

All of which is to say, when polyamorous people and organizations fail to speak or act on racial issues that come up, which is usually what happens, people of color note that fact and proceed to bail, often without stating that they are doing so. And then we [white folks] wonder why our communities are so homogeneous.” – Pepper Mint of OpenSF and freaksexual.com

Un scriitor dăinuie în noi atâta vreme cât se apleacă cu de-amănuntul asupra unor întrebări care ne frământă și ne stimulează o seamă de dorințe lăuntrice. Indiferent că ne extragem întrebările și dorințele direct din literatură ori direct din viață, după o vreme ajungem să stabilim o anumită conexiune între aceste elemente și informațiile sporadice pe care le-am dobândit, fotografiile în care l-am văzut ori fanteziile pe care le-am țesut în legătură cu scriitorul respectiv și să ne formăm, astfel, o anumită imagine despre el. Această imagine nu rămâne ca atare, așa cum se întâmplă cu numerele de telefon ori cu adresele pe care le purtăm în minte, ci se modifică în timp, întocmai ca amintirile și așteptările noastre. Așa ajungem să credem că, odată cu imaginea respectivă, s-a schimbat și scriitorul, și aceasta până când ne dăm seama într-o bună zi, odată cu revenirea la cărțile sale, că de schimbat s-au schimbat întrebările și așteptările noastre, nicidecum el.

Ava blinked, her breaths coming out in short, shallow puffs. “My favorite color.” “Yellow.” “My favorite ice cream flavor.” “Mint chocolate chip.” Her chest rose and fell harder. “My favorite season.” “Summer, because of the warmth and sunshine and greenery. But secretly, winter fascinates you.

Meanwhile, on Dudley Road, stalks of rhubarb grew behind the blue-painted shed and roses bloomed on a bush above the cellar window. The swing set creaked. The stones in the garden path wobbled underneath my feet and there were pink sprigged cushions on the white wicker chairs on the porch. Inside, everything was pink and green, green and pink: the walls in my bedroom the color of the center of a raspberry thumbprint cookie, the floors the color of the sliver of green in after-dinner mints; the floor in my parents' bedroom the same, and the walls a smudged baby pink.

Someone once told me that we can only take on as much as we can carry with us.” I curled my legs up under me, watching him in the low light. “Would you carry me with you?” And then, because I couldn’t bear the weight of this conversation, I added, “Like in a satchel or…?” He laughed softly, probably made easier by the whiskey in his hand. “If you’ll let me, I’ll carry you here.” And then he picked up my hand, and kissed my palm, and placed it over his heart. And I felt his heartbeat under my fingers, bright and strong, and his skin was warm, and I couldn’t imagine for a moment that this man could ever be fictional when he was so very here. He had blood, and bones, and a beating heart, and calluses on the tips of his fingers, and a curl that never quite left his forehead, and eyes that weren’t quite green and weren’t quite gray, but a bright mint that was quickly becoming my favorite color. After a moment of feeling his pulse, I whispered, “I would like that.” Because he was right: sometimes people came into your life for brief moments, and changed you forever. I think he was my person.

My coworker in the basement is the color of the sunrise. he has a heart condition his pea-sized heart seldom beats. so we all tell him to walk around every now and then ’cause he’s gotten yellow in the cheeks and we sometimes blow chunks of air into his toothless mouth to bring him back to life. ’cause he’s curled up on his table like on a round bed whining about chest pain with so much moonshine he’s even stopped floating. we shove mint candies down his throat to make him smell nice when he opens his mouth and strapped to him we walk him in dresses and pants all over the school to show he’s a living security guard. the missus teachers have special looks they don’t recognize his face they pass through him every day they ask us if we have a new coworker. only sometimes does his mouth smell of dead swans and we wrinkle our noses and the teachers passing by think it’s from our unwashed socks. my co-worker doesn’t even know if he’s still alive. so yellow a sunrise and his heart like a pea beating hardly ever we slap him we swear at him for making us look like fools at work. but we care about him we hide him in the basement so he can sleep maybe he’ll bounce back. (in english by Diana Manole)

(...but religion, I thought is only sex without color) (like lamb with mint jelly)... and sex, I now think, is religion with no color-- like a bag of liquid on a dead man's chest

My favorite color. Yellow. My favorite ice cream flavor. Mint chocolate chip. You are the light to my dark, Sunshine. Without you, I’m lost. Lies. All of it. Every kiss, every word, every second that I had treasured… tainted.

My favorite color.” “Yellow.” “My favorite ice cream flavor.” “Mint chocolate chip.” “My favorite season.” “Summer, because of the warmth and sunshine and greenery. But secretly, winter fascinates you. It speaks to the darkest parts of your soul. The manifestations of your nightmares. It’s everything you fear, and for that, you love it. Because the fear makes you feel alive.

There was roast hog, of course, braised mutton, and casserole of the tenderest beef. Platters of trout and salmon gleamed like treasure, dressed with mint and parsley sauces. Dishes of glossy prunes and dates shipped from an unknowable country sat amid roasted apples, delicate custards, and jewel-colored jellies.

THE RAINS had come, the rains had gone, and the sun was back on its throne like an absolute monarch kept off it for a week by his subjects’ barricades, and now reigning once again, choleric but under constitutional restraint. The heat braced without burning, the light domineered but let colors live; from the soil cautiously sprouted clover and mint, and on faces appeared diffident hopes. "Il Gattopardo.

The flower display continued through the town. Window boxes adorned the shop fronts, hanging baskets hung from patent black lampposts, trees grew tall in the main street. Each building was painted a different refreshing color and the main street, the only street, was a rainbow of mint greens, salmon pinks, lilacs, lemons, and blues. The pavements were litter free and gleaming as soon as you averted your gaze above the gray slate roofs you found yourself surrounded by majestic green mountains.

I never dreamed I’d find a woman as perfectly suited for me as she is. Alexa loves the color green, but not just any green. It’s a mint green—a sea foam green. The shade suits her well because she has always reminded me of the sea. She is calm like the ocean waves. She is a constant source of light, like a lighthouse. She is hard-working, like a ship in the middle of a storm. She is a safe harbor. She is a bright horizon. And I want to sail into the sunset with her.

The cake is pretty simple; they didn't want anything too fancy. Two tiers. The bottom is the Frango mint tier from the cake contest, but the top is a new one. An almond cake with a whipped honey caramel filling and a layer of thinly sliced spiced poached pears, with vanilla buttercream. The whole cake will get a smooth white fondant coating, and then a detailed lace pattern hand-piped with white royal icing. They've opted out of toppers, so I've made some simple wildflowers out of gum paste, colored with the powdered food colors to look incredibly real.

I fired up the brick oven, reminding myself that garlic has no place in a confection and butter becomes a layer of oil floating atop the cheese. I felt confident and excited; this time I would get it right. I helped myself to the triple-cream cheese (still convinced it it would make a delicious base) and then added a dollop of honey to sweeten it and heavy cream to thin it enough for my whisk. Since my last endeavor, I'd noticed that wine was primarily used in sauces and stews, and so, in a moment of blind inspiration, I added, instead, a splash of almond liqueur, which I hoped would add subtle flavor without changing the creamy color of the cheese. Instead of the roach-like raisins, I threw in a handful of chopped almonds that I imagined would provide a satisfying crunch and harmonize with the liqueur. I beat it all to a smooth batter and poured it into a square pan, intending to cut rectangular slices after it cooled. I slid the pan, hopefully, into the oven. Once again, I watched the edges bubble and noticed, with satisfaction, that instead of an overpowering smell of garlic there was a warm seductive hint of almond in the air. The bubbles turned to a froth that danced over the entire surface, and I assumed this was a sign of cohesion. My creation would come out of the oven like firm custard with undertones of almond and an unexpected crunch. The rectangular servings would make an unusual presentation- neither cheese nor pudding nor custard, but something completely new and unique. The bubbling froth subsided to a gently bumpy surface, and to my horror those damnable pockmarks began to appear with oil percolating in the tiny craters. The nuts completed the disruption of the creamy texture and gave the whole thing a crude curdled look. If only this cross-breed concoction would cohere, it might yet be cut up into squares and served on a plate with some appealing garnish, perhaps strawberries and mint leaves for color. I took the pan out and stared at it as it cooled, willing it to stand up, pull itself together, be firm. When the pan was cool enough to touch, I dipped my spoon into the mixture and it came out dripping and coated in something with the consistency of buttermilk. It didn't taste bad at all, in fact I licked the spoon clean, enjoying the balance of sweetness and almond, but it wasn't anything I could present to the chef. It was like a sweet, cheesy soup into which someone had accidentally dropped nuts. Why was the cheese breaking down? Why wasn't it holding together like cake or custard?

I had my feast out on the kitchen table. Draped over beds of jasmine rice, thin pork chops seasoned with lemongrass showcased charred stripes from the grill. Cold summer rolls with translucent rice paper glimmered with riotous colors from the mint leaves, vermicelli, and shrimp filling. Emerald coriander leaves peeked out amid slices of barbecued pork, in golden, crusty baguette sandwiches called banh mi. I placed a few pieces of the pork onto a plate for the cat. I bit into the cold rolls first. The thin wrapper yielded to my teeth, giving way to the crunchy pickled vegetables and plump shrimp underneath. The mint leaf inside complemented the sweet sauce with crushed peanuts. The two small rolls vanished into my belly. I attacked the banh mi next. The crisp crust highlighted the varying textures of its filling: crisp from the pickled radish and carrots, textures sang on my tongue.

She keeps walking, so I keep following, making our way down a stone path that leads to a set of tiered gardens. It is magical back here, garden after garden, the first filled with herbs like Mama grows, rosemary and lavender and mint and sage. Beyond that is a rose garden. There must be fifty rosebushes in it, all with different-colored blooms. We keep walking, down to the third tier, where there are tended beds like Daddy's vegetable patch in our backyard. "Look at this," Keisha says. She stands beside row upon row of little green plants with thick green leaves. She kneels beside one of them and pulls back a leaf. There are small red strawberries growing underneath. She picks one and hands it to me. I've never eaten a strawberry that tastes like this before. It's so rich, with juice like honey. It's nothing like the ones Mama buys at Kroger.

Strangely enough, the Japanese base most of their traditional desserts on beans. Called an, this smooth chocolatey-looking paste is made from azuki beans boiled in sugar and water. I encountered it for the first time one afternoon when I helped myself to a traditional Kyoto sweet resembling a triangular ravioli stuffed with fudge. What a shock to find a center made from azuki beans, instead of cocoa beans! Sometimes sweet makers choose chestnuts or white kidney beans to make the an, which they craft into dainty flowers, leaves, and fruits that look just like marzipan. Using special tools and food coloring, they fashion such masterpieces as prickly green-jacketed chestnuts with dark brown centers, winter white camellias with red stamens, and pale pink cherry blossoms with mint-colored leaves to commemorate the flower's arrival in April. The bean fudge also fills and frosts other confections, including pounded glutinous rice taffy called mochi and bite-size cakes, made from flour, water, and eggs that are baked until golden. These moist confections go by the name of namagashi and are always served before the thick whipped green tea at the tea ceremony.

The wood floors slope and creak, and every room is painted a different color—buttercup yellow, sapphire blue, mint green.

As the umbrellas went up in a sudden flowering, the sun came out, and we were glad. The pigeons flapped and scratched and cooed; there were shiny puddles on the sidewalk; dogs sniffed the freshly washed scents. Pink powder puffs hung from the trees; wind blew. Poor bedraggled Rosa. The umbrella always seemed blow itself inside out. It was difficult to carry the packages from the market and the umbrella at the same time. I kept juggling. I wouldn't allow myself to drop the fresh eggs, no. Or the green cauliflower, ripe yet firm. The delicate rose-colored tuna wrapped in paper; silky skin, so tender to the touch. It was essential to get to market early, before work, while everything was fresh, before it had been picked over and pawed by housewives. I loved my daily visits to the market, seeing all of nature's bounty beautifully arranged for me to choose from. The aroma of the fresh peas, mint, and basil mingled with the smell of raw meat hanging at the butcher's and reminded me of my early life on the farm.