Every time I write the word “blondies”, I think about the old cartoon with Blondie and Dagwood. When I was young, there was little more thrilling on a Sunday morning than sitting at our scratched white kitchen table, feet tucked up to avoid kicking at the cold linoleum tile floor, and waiting eagerly for our dad to unfold the newspaper (the Baltimore Sun), riffling through the flimsy pages until he came to the colorful section of cartoons in the back. He’d carefully extract the double pages of funnies, as we called them, and spread them out on the table, pushing aside our half-drunk glasses of orange juice and plates covered in the detritus of breakfast: crusts of whole wheat toast, a smear of fried egg from our one-eyed giants (or, toad in a hole, as most people call them), a bit of strawberry jam clinging to the tines of a fork. juice and plates covered in the detritus of breakfast: crusts of whole wheat toast, a smear of fried egg from our one-eyed giants (or, toad in a hole, as most people call them), a bit of strawberry jam clinging to the tines of a fork.

The entire world seems to be glowing with green these days—there’s been so much rain everywhere. Central Park is a riot of vivid jewel-tones, between the grassy lawns and the stately canopy of trees that line the cobblestone sidewalk of Fifth Avenue. I went home to the farm for the weekend; as we turned down the long driveway, the rolling hills of the farm were laid out in front of us, in various shades of dark green, pale green, and bright green. The cow pasture, the tops of the trees in the woods beyond the stream, the high grass of the field above the ponds…all green. (This is the farm where I grew up—the namesake of this blog and where my parents still live, and I still—and forever—will call home no matter where I live.)