Bug Food, Human Food, Soul Food

Visiting great aunties in Vietnamese American Northern Virginia.

Flowers: Food for the pollinators, in the gardens...

... around a cozy little Buddhist temple, in a house, where one of my great aunts has her permanent altar that we visited for the first time since her passing.

Flowers (of the buttercream variety): Food for us humans, my extended family, gathered around the cake celebrating the 92nd(!) birthday of another great aunt, younger sister of the departed one. We visited with her and her 90 year old baby sister. 

And we were treated to a home cooked feast for the birthday party!

The great aunties, for all their longevity, confront the time robber daily. It's hand to hand combat at this point. So when they're willing to celebrate, as was the case a few weekends back, we're willing to make the journey down to celebrate with them. A weekend away is really but a drop in the bucket of a life; falling a bit further behind in the quest for an orderly household and schedule is but a small price to pay for the temporary suspension of that steady march. That's really what happens when we get together with our dear ones, no? Somehow, everything freezes, even though the event happens. It's a paradox - the feeling and experience of spending time with people, versus the interaction that transpires and the marking on the calendar.

Philosophical musings aside, spending time in one of the ethnic enclaves of my people also means, of course, that we always stop into #edencenter in NoVA to sample Vietnamese food, this time including the new #phogavang.

Belly fed, soul fed (with only a little bit of guilt for straying a smidge from full vegetarianism).