dinner tonight

a frustrating, aggravating day, mitigated by being able to cook my sweetie dinner: a roast chicken rubbed with lemon juice and the world's greatest seasoning -- sea salt, black pepper, white pepper, garlic and ginger -- with the squeezed-out lemon sections inserted in the cavity to keep the bird moist, even without basting; and fresh ears of corn on the cob. i also roasted a bunch of cut-up spuds, sprinkled with italian parsley from our herb garden, which we didn't eat tonight but which will provide the basis for a coupla days' worth of potato 'n' egg burritos once they're diced with some onions and sauteed in olive oil. simple food is good.

also gave her part of her b-day present (the actual date is 7.19, but we believe in stretching out celebrations): a used copy of hal willner's stay awake, an album's worth of hip covers of songs from disney movies. she particularly dug los lobos' "i wanna be like you," bonnie raitt's "baby mine," buster poindexter's "castle in spain," and aaron neville's "mickey mouse club theme." she can actually use this disc for music activities at school without having to sweat "inappropriate" lyrics. now i need to chase down some of willner's other productions like weird nightmare (mingus toons played on harry partch instruments!), lost in the stars (kurt weill songs), and marianne faithfull's strange weather.