brunch outside

at Cafe Fina: it was, indeed, a little chilly on the legs, but quite definitely sunny enough to be outside.  And it was recuperative: I did all the right things by way of getting up, going into town early - to find that this year, retailers are clearly being very, very careful about what they have in stock - and there were no turkey breasts left at Whole Foods (yes, serves me right, I should have ordered one ... one cannot go by what was there last year - and indeed, much of the entire meat counter was Bare).  Do not worry - we will not starve - I nabbed a very nice piece of salmon from a fish counter that was likewise rapidly depleting.  But of course, my sense of the symbolic resonance of turkey; the ghost of all those Christmases past; my desire, as ever, to recreate forms of stuffing I've been making and eating for decades - this sent me into a desolate spiral of Christmas absences, exile from natal shores, etc etc.  I will recover ... and my sense of tradition was not such that I embarked on some desperate search round all the stores of Santa Fe, and a green chile-covered omelet reset my equilibrium.  It was, however, an object lesson in - well, stuff in which one invests an unsuspected depth of emotional capital.