Not a whole lot to write about recently. I went to Sacramento last weekend for some Zen stuff led by my teacher, including a one-day retreat which was as good as any retreat (i.e. entirely worthwhile, but not exactly fun). Last Saturday I had a close encounter with a baby deer on the bike: I knew they were dumb, but I didn't know they like to actively jump in front of you, and the wise thing to do is actually to slow to a crawl or stop entirely. This one bounded out and almost broadsided me (which is better than most other ways of hitting a deer), landed short, ran alongside for a few steps about six inches from my boot, squeaked (I didn't know deer squeaked) and bounded off.

Yesterday a few of us went sailing on Kelly's boat, Samadhi V, which has finally had the rigging replaced. She handles like a dream, 55 feet and much faster and more nimble than most smaller boats. We sailed from Point Richmond north to anchor off China Camp State Park, cooked and ate a bunch of food, came back, then went to the Thai place in Point Richmond and ate more food.

And today I gave myself a haircut, just to see what I look like underneath the beard. Hint: about five years older and sixty pounds lighter than the last time I checked.

Tomatoes are in season! I've been so busy purposefully ignoring them because I don't eat them out of season that I didn't notice they arrived. (In fairness, I haven't been to the farmer's market in two weeks.) The cute girls at the butcher's tent recognize me now, and one said she made a sausage-tomato-stuff thing to go over pasta, so I did that with tomatoes, sausage meat, onion, red bell pepper, and mushrooms, simmered till it's done, with fresh basil added at the end. I'm pretty easily amused by food tastes these days: I just pick up a constant stream of fresh ingredients and throw them together in sensible ways.

[Update: the above concoction aged wonderfully and was even better the next day.]