This may not look like much but it is my version of spanish rice with longhorn cheddar on top. Yeah there is something wrong about using my raw milk organic cheese on a spanish rice mix that I got at Whole Foods but it was tasty!
Spanish rice will always remind me of my grandfather Harlow, who Nathaniel will be partially named after (his middle name). When my grandmother and grandfather got married, grandma didn’t know how to cook anything other then spanish rice. So you can imagine that once she learned something new, grandpa, for the rest of his life, refused to eat spanish rice. I can’t say I blame him. So today Max and I had our spanish rice and said a few words about grandpa.
Tonight we went to church. We go to church out in the country as you have seen in prior photos. I grew up a bit out in the country. I didn’t think of it as “in the middle of nowhere” but I realize now that it sort of was. I knew it didn’t have enough life for me but I didn’t think of it like that. Many of my friends growing up lived further out then I did. I remember once when I was a teenager I went out to one of their houses and we played hide and seek in the dark. However it wasn’t really dark because it was a cloudless night and the sky had a million stars in it. I remember being in awe over it. I think I got found rather quickly because of my amazement over the sky.
Well tonight as I was driving home from church, I was on a back road. It is the sort of road that out in Washington one might put on their bright headlights for. I remember learning to drive and my early driving in Washington, I became proficient at seeing headlights reflection so I could turn off the brights before a car was RIGHT THERE. However in New Jersey, you don’t really need bright headlights. I don’t know if it is the difference in my Mazda 626 that I used to drive as a teenager and the Odyssey that I drive now, or if it is just the fact that there is SOOO many people around here so there is a ton of “light pollution” or what it is. But brights for me seem like overkill. I noticed this last week too.
One thing is for certain. I don’t think I am likely to see the million stars in the sky like I did that night as a teenager… at least not here in New Jersey.