my mom used to make a dish called beans and meatballs for me. first you carmalize a bunch of onions, then you add some 'american meatballs' (i guess meatballs with reg breadcrumbs) browning on all 4 sides, adding the pork 'n beans last to simmer and mix all the flavors.

i grew up on this meal, once a week - it's about the only thing my mom cooked for us so it meant a great deal to us (my brothers and i).

i used to visit my mom after we had all grown and gone our seperate ways, and she would cook me this dish. now she is hunchback (he back riddled with arthritis) and blind and though she stubbornly stays in her own home alone, she can't do much never mind beans and meatballs.

i made it once for my partner nanci and she was disgusted by it. i can no longer cook anyway.

there's a saying, "you can never go home again" and since i didn't have much of a home, i never really understood that saying. is the loss of beans and meatballs what they mean?

anyway, instead of focusing on an economy i can't do much about, and about the healthcare i need so much but that i could lose as quickly as the next person, and the foreign policy i totally disagree with, or even worry about our future president being gov. palin (what's her first name?) - i've been mourning the loss of beans and meatballs.

as they says in stairway (and probably one of the only clear things they say) - 'the past is gone.'

ok. i give in. the past IS gone.

don't be concerned though. the present is now, and the future, well, the day after that.