But I think you'll agree Jo is still a beautiful woman, and she made a lovely toast thanking all of us (when of course we should thank her, for always being there for every single one of us).
Surrounded by her children, grandchildren, all their spouses and five great-grandchildren, she is still the great pillar of our family. We are so lucky!
The little ones were very amusing, each one already such a distinct individual,yet with overtones of other family members that are obvious at least to me. I spent the month before the big party making a (very abbreviated) book of Mom's life highlights, using all my minimal computer skills and then binding the pages in the old Japanese hand-bound style. I knew it was a success when I gave it to her, and by page two she had tears in her eyes - success!
Back at home, we consider ourselves lucky to have had any tomato crop at all, as all around us some fungus, encouraged by the cold and wet weather, decimated lots of tomato patches large and small.
But the big windfall for us was through the generosity of the monks at Blue Cliff. As Master Hanh traveled around the US this past month before returning here for a retreat, he took all but two brothers and two sisters with him. As their garden, MUCH bigger and better tended than ours, was also waning, Brother Vu encouraged us to pick whatever we wanted - and we did. We now have packs of steamed chard, lots of chilis, and some tomato pulp bags as well.
The chilis were my obsession, I had no idea how HOT they would be! After Brian had grilled them black,I spent about an hour peeling and coring them,tossing strip after strip on a plate. 
After a while my hands actually stung (which should have been a clue). But finally I had my stack of fire, the monastery chiliswhich will see me through the winter.
And now that I've used the chard in recipes that call for spinach, I am willing to grow some of my own next year. I don't know if it's just because the brothers and sisters grew these, but they were really tasty, unlike any other chard I've tried. Apparently plants really thrive on meditation too.
