The Moon, and sun and our relationship to them have been obsessions to the human race since before the wonderings and findings could be painted on the walls of our first dwellings.
As a time obsessed culture, folks can now decipher and study the oldest studies and tell us the primitive conclusions and beliefs of our ancestors. Now-a-days, people can decipher more technologically advanced figures and findings about our planet, the moon and the sun.
Available to us are the exact exposure of the moon at any given time according to the earth, the axis of the earth and the moon, the approximate age of the sun, as well as the approximate outcome of the sun's ending life cycle and the impact it would have on the entire galaxy in which we exist.
As a woman, I can say that I have recognized the cyclical nature of my emotional/physical body as a monthly phenomenon. I have always been aware of the moon's monthly cycle, but gave it no mind until I experienced life with a fisherman, whose schedule hinged upon the mood swing of the moon through the sky.
I realized that the tides are affected by the angle of the moon in relationship to the sun, the earth.
I started reading about optimal planting times for seeds and tubers and starts and woody plants according to the phase of the moon. As this awareness grew, I noticed that certain patterns occurred during the month, concerning my vulnerability to the negatives in the day, more sensitive to the feelings and positions being expressed to me during the same times of, not the month, but during certain times when the light of the moon is scarce.
This has been an interest of mine, but certainly not a definite belief or path.
But I have done some reading and talking, and after figuring out that the human brain is close to 80% water, that sex hormones are water soluble, and that the synthetic hormones in birth control inhibit ovulation and "fool" the brain into thinking it's body is pregnant, as the doctors say- I found that the body actually goes into a form of temporary menopause, where the moon is still affective, though in different way- I have come to pay attention to the moon, as it changes, so do I. And that is okay.
My cycle starts with the waxing moon. This is generally a time of tug of war between what I feel and what I want to be feeling.
Times of the full moon tend to be good times for revelation, clarity and confidence.
The waning moon reminds me that ovulation occurred, sometime, and I tend to feel run down and negative.
With the New moon, I tend to draw inward, become more contemplative and find it more necessary but less easy to spend time alone.
The crazy witch people- the pagans, have kept the primitive wonderings alive.
The waxing moon is associated with a Maiden Archetype,
The full moon is associated with the Mother Archetype,
The waning moon is associated with the Crone Archetype,
The full moon is associated with the Enchantress Archetype.
All very interesting.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Maybe I have lived here for too long.
Yesterday, for four hours I was jumped by a throng of strangers, all so uninterested and needy, or interested yet plainly unaware of what is going on around them.
Vacationers, O I despise you.
You crowd my counter with your elbows and eyeballs, you dance from foot to foot as you impatiently wait for the string of five orders you bark at me, you glare at and judge the people in line with you, you feel entitled to more baristas in the room so that you don't have to live in the same sense of time as the "locals" here do.
You lean in close to my face as if I have any reason to give a good goddamn and say to me, enchanted with the sound of your own voice, make me a cappuccino, a little on the dry side.
The first wound comes when they frown at me and ask where Lenane is. Well, DitchWitch, she went home when my shift started. FOOOCK. Didn't their mothers or the bear whom they were raised by ever tell them how RUDE that is?
Anyway, yesterday I discovered that I genuinely hate people in general.
And sorry, but lofty pregnant bellies, or those mothers with squealers strapped to their bodies, always acting like I should greet the gremlin too, or comment on how cute it is are my absolute least favorite.
Well, no, I do not think it is cute- I think it is a mini you, entitled to all the consumption and pollution the world has to offer. Good for you, you got knocked up. I swear breeding has taken on a feel of fadishness now that we have so many fancy methods of contraception. Like it's some blessing in the eyes of anyone but the overproud mother when another child is pooped out... come on, we can be honest, its 2011.
Creeps.
My paycheck sucks whether I make more coffee or less coffee. You can shove your dirty mean tip money in your rear.
My boss loves them all like they are her children.
She told me how to educate and barrate them as they order, telling them a double americano is too weak for a 16 oz cup. Really yndy? You don't think these helpless morons have ever ordered coffee before? You don't think that they know what they like? Even if they don't know what they are doing, you really think they want to be pushed around like that?
Maybe there is some kind of upper hand to be had, and I have to be pushy, obnoxious and entertaining. Outgoing, I think they call it.
Ah fuck.
I make good espresso.
I am not Steve Martin, or Big Bird- I do not sing and dance, I do not want to know your favorite movie or your child's favorite color.
Just tell me how you like your coffee, if you like it where the sun don't shine, I'd be happy to make that happen for you.
I dreamed that Bones was being chased by a child on a four wheeler, cornered into tight places to be ran over. I tried to keep him inside. Fred doesn't seem to care that these aliens don't understand the concept of a loved, indoor-out door pet cat. They probably stole Tibbs, or ran him over, thinking these streets are paved just for their SUV.
My dogs don't listen to me, so I have to chase them down and drag them back home by their collars, forced to chit chat and fake smile at the part time neighbors. I hate that.
I would rather forage the beach approach for washed up seal ass than share a grocery store with these folk.
So here we are, it's almost six am.
If you know me, you know that the only reason I am ever alive this early lay in some form of emotional tempest. Now I get to spend an extra three hours dreading the noon hour, which will be the first time I have ever dreaded going to my new job. hmmm.
Writing it all down is perhaps therapeutic to me, I am sure it is lame and negative to anyone happening upon it.
But this is not one of the situations when I feel fire is necessary. (Times when I need to write secret or very personal things, I light a big fire and burn the writing, also therapeutic for moi.)
This is one of those times, I hope the wiser ones can look back on their past and laugh a little, and relate.
I also really really really hope that somebody stranger to me reads this and is offended, hurt and compelled by this, as would complete the cycle of feeling and saying and doing mean things. What?
Mean things are part of the balance. Some damn things are mean without ever suppose-to being mean in the first place... if you follow.
Variety is the spice, my loves.
When I am in the proximity and sort of relationship with a person, when I like a person, and they are honestly just good and pissed off- spewing negative vibes and all this- I am interested, I show that I care.
I'm not saying that it is something I can keep up with if someone I care about is always good and angry, but with a good mix of other such emotions, anger can draw from yourself- or the folks around you all sorts of reactions, gestures, an over all expansion of awareness and understanding.
I have to focus on keeping my mean within the bounds of a cycle, and not one of those slinky coil thinga-ma-bobs. A person has to be creative sometimes, in order to keep the variety of things well balanced.
It's kind of a big deal, for a person to hate their job, so I am going to really try to think about just how much energy I can put into it. If I can't do a really good job of hating my job, I have no business hating my job, and shall cease pouring energy down the toilet doing so. and I will need to learn how to leave my hating behind me when I come home, which is becoming more difficult to do as I begin to feel like I am growing younger by the years, instead of older.
There is room for all.
If my destiny is to be the uncivilized, socially awkward, baby hating shy ass-hole in the corner, so be it.
I will start my degree to become a teacher just as soon as I get fired.
Yesterday, for four hours I was jumped by a throng of strangers, all so uninterested and needy, or interested yet plainly unaware of what is going on around them.
Vacationers, O I despise you.
You crowd my counter with your elbows and eyeballs, you dance from foot to foot as you impatiently wait for the string of five orders you bark at me, you glare at and judge the people in line with you, you feel entitled to more baristas in the room so that you don't have to live in the same sense of time as the "locals" here do.
You lean in close to my face as if I have any reason to give a good goddamn and say to me, enchanted with the sound of your own voice, make me a cappuccino, a little on the dry side.
The first wound comes when they frown at me and ask where Lenane is. Well, DitchWitch, she went home when my shift started. FOOOCK. Didn't their mothers or the bear whom they were raised by ever tell them how RUDE that is?
Anyway, yesterday I discovered that I genuinely hate people in general.
And sorry, but lofty pregnant bellies, or those mothers with squealers strapped to their bodies, always acting like I should greet the gremlin too, or comment on how cute it is are my absolute least favorite.
Well, no, I do not think it is cute- I think it is a mini you, entitled to all the consumption and pollution the world has to offer. Good for you, you got knocked up. I swear breeding has taken on a feel of fadishness now that we have so many fancy methods of contraception. Like it's some blessing in the eyes of anyone but the overproud mother when another child is pooped out... come on, we can be honest, its 2011.
Creeps.
My paycheck sucks whether I make more coffee or less coffee. You can shove your dirty mean tip money in your rear.
My boss loves them all like they are her children.
She told me how to educate and barrate them as they order, telling them a double americano is too weak for a 16 oz cup. Really yndy? You don't think these helpless morons have ever ordered coffee before? You don't think that they know what they like? Even if they don't know what they are doing, you really think they want to be pushed around like that?
Maybe there is some kind of upper hand to be had, and I have to be pushy, obnoxious and entertaining. Outgoing, I think they call it.
Ah fuck.
I make good espresso.
I am not Steve Martin, or Big Bird- I do not sing and dance, I do not want to know your favorite movie or your child's favorite color.
Just tell me how you like your coffee, if you like it where the sun don't shine, I'd be happy to make that happen for you.
I dreamed that Bones was being chased by a child on a four wheeler, cornered into tight places to be ran over. I tried to keep him inside. Fred doesn't seem to care that these aliens don't understand the concept of a loved, indoor-out door pet cat. They probably stole Tibbs, or ran him over, thinking these streets are paved just for their SUV.
My dogs don't listen to me, so I have to chase them down and drag them back home by their collars, forced to chit chat and fake smile at the part time neighbors. I hate that.
I would rather forage the beach approach for washed up seal ass than share a grocery store with these folk.
So here we are, it's almost six am.
If you know me, you know that the only reason I am ever alive this early lay in some form of emotional tempest. Now I get to spend an extra three hours dreading the noon hour, which will be the first time I have ever dreaded going to my new job. hmmm.
Writing it all down is perhaps therapeutic to me, I am sure it is lame and negative to anyone happening upon it.
But this is not one of the situations when I feel fire is necessary. (Times when I need to write secret or very personal things, I light a big fire and burn the writing, also therapeutic for moi.)
This is one of those times, I hope the wiser ones can look back on their past and laugh a little, and relate.
I also really really really hope that somebody stranger to me reads this and is offended, hurt and compelled by this, as would complete the cycle of feeling and saying and doing mean things. What?
Mean things are part of the balance. Some damn things are mean without ever suppose-to being mean in the first place... if you follow.
Variety is the spice, my loves.
When I am in the proximity and sort of relationship with a person, when I like a person, and they are honestly just good and pissed off- spewing negative vibes and all this- I am interested, I show that I care.
I'm not saying that it is something I can keep up with if someone I care about is always good and angry, but with a good mix of other such emotions, anger can draw from yourself- or the folks around you all sorts of reactions, gestures, an over all expansion of awareness and understanding.
I have to focus on keeping my mean within the bounds of a cycle, and not one of those slinky coil thinga-ma-bobs. A person has to be creative sometimes, in order to keep the variety of things well balanced.
It's kind of a big deal, for a person to hate their job, so I am going to really try to think about just how much energy I can put into it. If I can't do a really good job of hating my job, I have no business hating my job, and shall cease pouring energy down the toilet doing so. and I will need to learn how to leave my hating behind me when I come home, which is becoming more difficult to do as I begin to feel like I am growing younger by the years, instead of older.
There is room for all.
If my destiny is to be the uncivilized, socially awkward, baby hating shy ass-hole in the corner, so be it.
I will start my degree to become a teacher just as soon as I get fired.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Randomnesses
Themes of Life as of late:
Wake up slowly.
Wear soft, thick socks, or slippers when you go to pour your coffee and start the fire. Stare into the flames well after it has taken off, or at wall for a good ten minutes before you pay attention to the train cars of thought beginning to zoom through your waking brain.
Slow down, always, slow down.
Allow for slow processing time, the result will less stressful and more direct.
Take time off.
First day of the weekend, tell everyone you've made plans. Wear disguises in public if needed to keep people from distracting you from your meandering day. Stay in pajamas, or shower and dress elaborately in evening wear- spend as much time as you want doing what ever it is that you want. However, knowing yourself, you should do something.
Don't let old hippie guys flatter you, they just want to cop a feel.
Don't let it bother you when people tell you that you should go to college, have three jobs and contribute regularly to an IRA, most likely, they are barfing up sentimental hooey and understand that they like you just like you are, and they hate admitting to themselves that you, at your lowly post, can get along just frickin fine.
If happiness is something that is important to you, sort it out for yourself before you go looking for it in other people. People put this off into the wee hours of their years, for when they cash in the 401K and tend to become madly, madly cranky.
TV is greedy entertainment, books are active, mind expanding tools and they are entertaining. When you can't read, listen to the written word. Watch how your imagination grows and edits the archetypal stories for your own psyche.
You must water the garden, not just sow the seeds, in order for it to give you delicious and sustaining food.
Though so terribly often misunderstood, quiet, too is a virtue.
Wake up slowly.
Wear soft, thick socks, or slippers when you go to pour your coffee and start the fire. Stare into the flames well after it has taken off, or at wall for a good ten minutes before you pay attention to the train cars of thought beginning to zoom through your waking brain.
Slow down, always, slow down.
Allow for slow processing time, the result will less stressful and more direct.
Take time off.
First day of the weekend, tell everyone you've made plans. Wear disguises in public if needed to keep people from distracting you from your meandering day. Stay in pajamas, or shower and dress elaborately in evening wear- spend as much time as you want doing what ever it is that you want. However, knowing yourself, you should do something.
Don't let old hippie guys flatter you, they just want to cop a feel.
Don't let it bother you when people tell you that you should go to college, have three jobs and contribute regularly to an IRA, most likely, they are barfing up sentimental hooey and understand that they like you just like you are, and they hate admitting to themselves that you, at your lowly post, can get along just frickin fine.
If happiness is something that is important to you, sort it out for yourself before you go looking for it in other people. People put this off into the wee hours of their years, for when they cash in the 401K and tend to become madly, madly cranky.
TV is greedy entertainment, books are active, mind expanding tools and they are entertaining. When you can't read, listen to the written word. Watch how your imagination grows and edits the archetypal stories for your own psyche.
You must water the garden, not just sow the seeds, in order for it to give you delicious and sustaining food.
Though so terribly often misunderstood, quiet, too is a virtue.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Laying down in a bed of manure
Mycelium running is a book in the store that i've been flipping through when I'm so bored, I willingly read books about how mushrooms save the world. Bradley's garden is as full of different kinds of mushrooms in the fall and winter as it is of flowers and herbs in the spring and summer: all thanks to the constant applications of horse shit his beds receive all year.
Over the past thirty some-days, I've gone from feeling confident and excited about my job to viewing it as a temporary gig as the shop is bleeding funds, and something that I feel bad for having, as I do more knitting on the clock than coffee girl stuff. I've gone from feeling grateful and blessed by new enthusiasm and understanding about my romantical relationship to wanting to run fast away from it, far enough to be gone by the time I come to my senses. I felt so content with my relationships with my family, so uplifted after seeing them all for mother's day, but now, I feel heart broken at the distance between us, the time between encounters.
To be honest, I don't know what it is, or was, that dumped a pile of poop on my parade.
I ducked out of the friday 13th open mic night, saying that my uterus was cramping my style- but really, I'm feeling like I Hate the sound of my own voice, and while the encouragement from lovelies all over was lovely- is lovely, I do not enjoy singing or pretending to want to be a musician as much as I just wanted to have a thing.
I just wanted to stick it in the earth like a compliment lightning rod, like a premade box so that I could be categorized by people more easily.
I feel a fight with 'red coming up. Its been building for a while as it tends to when I feel crampy and do not keep up on the dishes and entertaining him with compliments and attention. < a note here, how the eff do you people stay married for so long when everyone is constantly feeling either un appreciated, or like the work horse or like the maid?> He found my covert internet research on narcissistic emotional vampires, and how to love them. I think it hurt his feelings because he brought them back onto the browser and left them there for me to find.
My beautiful parents remember my remorse upon getting caught. I feel like hiding, but I don't know when he'll be home, so I could be in for a long, ridiculous crouch in the closet or car on the beach.
I don't even know how to have this conversation.
So I think you're in love with yourself. Maybe I'm inlove with Myself- and I'm just deflecting because I have nothing better to talk about and the sound of your voice all the time talking about your kickassness makes me feel threatened?
What do I look like, the goddamn wizard of Oz?
I listen to Cracker play Get Off This, and I have to say, what I just wrote about music is cranky and incomplete. I want to crawl into the fibers of music and live there. The world of sound is more real to me than the bed of manure I'm choosing to lie in now.
This too shall pass.
Even when it feels so familiar, and we get flashes of past failure in our intuition, this is a new moment.
I believe we live in many dimensions always weaving them together. I believe the work is made from the stuff of nature, which heals it's self, and which does not interfere with things like the freedom to choose. Our choices make dropped stitches, different patterns, new and unimaginable shapes. But the stuff of nature facilitates and inspires. Nature comes at you on it's own terms, and doesn't mind if you do not agree with it, but it will mend the work, and continue to keep the fabric alive even when you are not able to.
My cappuccino friend likes to speak of these things as one river, any time we start to get into the big ideas about life and all that shit, he grunts and huffs something about me being on a completely different parta' tha' river. "Yeeah". He gets my fiber analogy though.
Maybe Fred will someday look back and say, that chick had a point. And I now know how to better communicate my loving feelings toward my ladyfriend.
Maybe he will always refer to me as That crazy you-know-what, which I am sure is how most of my use to be's do.
Maybe we can shed our egos tonight and just be around each other like the old days.
I'm sure he will be tired and cranky as I am, as he was shoveling horse poo all day in the humid breeze-lessness.
Maggie has been ever so neglected lately, and staying home while we all leave to play. Maybe I will take advantage of our seasonally lingering afternoon glare, and take her for a little walk to the beach!
Over the past thirty some-days, I've gone from feeling confident and excited about my job to viewing it as a temporary gig as the shop is bleeding funds, and something that I feel bad for having, as I do more knitting on the clock than coffee girl stuff. I've gone from feeling grateful and blessed by new enthusiasm and understanding about my romantical relationship to wanting to run fast away from it, far enough to be gone by the time I come to my senses. I felt so content with my relationships with my family, so uplifted after seeing them all for mother's day, but now, I feel heart broken at the distance between us, the time between encounters.
To be honest, I don't know what it is, or was, that dumped a pile of poop on my parade.
I ducked out of the friday 13th open mic night, saying that my uterus was cramping my style- but really, I'm feeling like I Hate the sound of my own voice, and while the encouragement from lovelies all over was lovely- is lovely, I do not enjoy singing or pretending to want to be a musician as much as I just wanted to have a thing.
I just wanted to stick it in the earth like a compliment lightning rod, like a premade box so that I could be categorized by people more easily.
I feel a fight with 'red coming up. Its been building for a while as it tends to when I feel crampy and do not keep up on the dishes and entertaining him with compliments and attention. < a note here, how the eff do you people stay married for so long when everyone is constantly feeling either un appreciated, or like the work horse or like the maid?> He found my covert internet research on narcissistic emotional vampires, and how to love them. I think it hurt his feelings because he brought them back onto the browser and left them there for me to find.
My beautiful parents remember my remorse upon getting caught. I feel like hiding, but I don't know when he'll be home, so I could be in for a long, ridiculous crouch in the closet or car on the beach.
I don't even know how to have this conversation.
So I think you're in love with yourself. Maybe I'm inlove with Myself- and I'm just deflecting because I have nothing better to talk about and the sound of your voice all the time talking about your kickassness makes me feel threatened?
What do I look like, the goddamn wizard of Oz?
I listen to Cracker play Get Off This, and I have to say, what I just wrote about music is cranky and incomplete. I want to crawl into the fibers of music and live there. The world of sound is more real to me than the bed of manure I'm choosing to lie in now.
This too shall pass.
Even when it feels so familiar, and we get flashes of past failure in our intuition, this is a new moment.
I believe we live in many dimensions always weaving them together. I believe the work is made from the stuff of nature, which heals it's self, and which does not interfere with things like the freedom to choose. Our choices make dropped stitches, different patterns, new and unimaginable shapes. But the stuff of nature facilitates and inspires. Nature comes at you on it's own terms, and doesn't mind if you do not agree with it, but it will mend the work, and continue to keep the fabric alive even when you are not able to.
My cappuccino friend likes to speak of these things as one river, any time we start to get into the big ideas about life and all that shit, he grunts and huffs something about me being on a completely different parta' tha' river. "Yeeah". He gets my fiber analogy though.
Maybe Fred will someday look back and say, that chick had a point. And I now know how to better communicate my loving feelings toward my ladyfriend.
Maybe he will always refer to me as That crazy you-know-what, which I am sure is how most of my use to be's do.
Maybe we can shed our egos tonight and just be around each other like the old days.
I'm sure he will be tired and cranky as I am, as he was shoveling horse poo all day in the humid breeze-lessness.
Maggie has been ever so neglected lately, and staying home while we all leave to play. Maybe I will take advantage of our seasonally lingering afternoon glare, and take her for a little walk to the beach!
Monday, May 2, 2011
What would Larry do?
My kitten buddy, mouse/snake/bird-er (Big Mighty Hunter), cuddle toy, smile maker, bad day better-er, you get the point- my Cat, is GONE!
Of course I've been sobbing, and casting my stubborn, un-realistic terrible mood over my whole life and the whole world.
I've actually burned out sort of early. There is another thing to be said about getting older.
My patterns don't hold my interest for as long anymore.
Now, I am getting ready for the next part, what ever that is.
And tomorrow is my Saturday, and I got paid today.
So, life goes on and it is time yet again to create a masterpiece of a grocery list, one so strategic, Grandma will be proud.
Last time, I fed us with two hundred dollars worth of groceries for two weeks!
I have become obsessed with re purposing meals, or elements of them.
The last weeks have been full of revelations. I have always read that you should stock up on things like pasta and canned goods and dried beans when they are on sale or in bulk even if you don't think you need them, but this is just a darn inescapable truth on the way to thrifty home eating.
I made sure to budget in a whole chicken, a large beef roast, and a ham last time, which was a bulk of the bill, but those critter pieces and a chance tube of ground beef was the only meat I needed to buy, so I focused on the other elements of limitless possibilities.
We had a beef, mushroom and pea pie with a creamy gravy mixed in from that roast and little fried meat pies.
We had spaghetti and left over spaghetti fritatta for breakfast one day from on sale five lb ground beef, as well as hamburgers, and meatballs which I added sausage to. Also, tamale pie, a first time dish for me. So that's four meals from the five lbs.
The chicken was gone fast the day I roasted it, but I made stock from it for chicken and dumplings, and split pea soup which I made with the left over ham.
I made hash with the left overs from the ham and the last of the potatoes with our freaking awesome caste iron grinder.
Of all of my favorite things to cook, I think the weird ones I make up when I have lots of left overs at hand are IT!
Alas, where would I be without bulk pasta for lazy days of instant gratification when all you want is pasta covered in bacon fat,egg and cheese?
Or the can of condensed cream-of-something soup, generic brand is fine with me-?
And, we shan't forget the on sale bags of frozen peas- of which, I have a stock that would make Costco blush.
Of course I've been sobbing, and casting my stubborn, un-realistic terrible mood over my whole life and the whole world.
I've actually burned out sort of early. There is another thing to be said about getting older.
My patterns don't hold my interest for as long anymore.
Now, I am getting ready for the next part, what ever that is.
And tomorrow is my Saturday, and I got paid today.
So, life goes on and it is time yet again to create a masterpiece of a grocery list, one so strategic, Grandma will be proud.
Last time, I fed us with two hundred dollars worth of groceries for two weeks!
I have become obsessed with re purposing meals, or elements of them.
The last weeks have been full of revelations. I have always read that you should stock up on things like pasta and canned goods and dried beans when they are on sale or in bulk even if you don't think you need them, but this is just a darn inescapable truth on the way to thrifty home eating.
I made sure to budget in a whole chicken, a large beef roast, and a ham last time, which was a bulk of the bill, but those critter pieces and a chance tube of ground beef was the only meat I needed to buy, so I focused on the other elements of limitless possibilities.
We had a beef, mushroom and pea pie with a creamy gravy mixed in from that roast and little fried meat pies.
We had spaghetti and left over spaghetti fritatta for breakfast one day from on sale five lb ground beef, as well as hamburgers, and meatballs which I added sausage to. Also, tamale pie, a first time dish for me. So that's four meals from the five lbs.
The chicken was gone fast the day I roasted it, but I made stock from it for chicken and dumplings, and split pea soup which I made with the left over ham.
I made hash with the left overs from the ham and the last of the potatoes with our freaking awesome caste iron grinder.
Of all of my favorite things to cook, I think the weird ones I make up when I have lots of left overs at hand are IT!
Alas, where would I be without bulk pasta for lazy days of instant gratification when all you want is pasta covered in bacon fat,egg and cheese?
Or the can of condensed cream-of-something soup, generic brand is fine with me-?
And, we shan't forget the on sale bags of frozen peas- of which, I have a stock that would make Costco blush.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
I'm going to be Quiet Today
Above the peninsula off of the south western most coast of Washington state, clouds pooled heavy in the atmosphere.
Days coped up in the little red house gives one a sense of comfort so soft it is stifling.
A sore throat, a slight concussion from ramming into a sharp cornered piece of furniture,
wrapped around in tight coils, directing the course of the meditation.
The days become weeks, marked by the short visit from a friend, the contemplative shower
in mid morning, the rush to gather up one's self a heft the groggy mass into the daylight.
Days weeks, moments days, without a care for the day's name as now there are so so many more to remember.
Friends become as estranged, distant family, forgot.
The lover you live with becomes as a close pal, living in a house just like yours.
Love isn't what you thought it would be, now.
Life, and it's so called time becomes too short, and fat with confusion.
They say open up, and life will too, like a flower open up to your senses.
They say, don't care so much about others and what they think, you will benefit.
They say production, education, moving and knowing the names and functions of all things you touch
are things so important, they define your name.
So my name then, is not the name I was given when I came into the world?
So my name is what I make it?
So I should have this power of creation and sight to become the energy I move?
So many enter my space and judge the energy there, as though they can hear my intentions spoken like words.
They coment and try to put my attention into place for me, with their supposed divine ability.
Always my throat aches with confusion for their well meant gesture for they are always far away from what is.
Or am I wrong then, and they know better about my life and how I should be, with their years and names and qualities they have evolved and created for themselves, and the world as they see it.
To open up, to share is futile. It's impossible to be seen in completion by anyone else, so to base anything on what is deciphered there, is foolish.
Wake up to the rain clouds, let them be, I say.
I can see what is a blessing in my life, I can see the fruitful essence of my little world.
I can feel also, the shadows and foolishly arranged battalions placed in ignorant strategy around my psyche.
There is a time for all things. The sort of dull roar of youth will pull at my insides till I am ripe with confidence, until then, sometimes ache will sound through any blessings presented.
I'm going to be quiet today.
Days coped up in the little red house gives one a sense of comfort so soft it is stifling.
A sore throat, a slight concussion from ramming into a sharp cornered piece of furniture,
wrapped around in tight coils, directing the course of the meditation.
The days become weeks, marked by the short visit from a friend, the contemplative shower
in mid morning, the rush to gather up one's self a heft the groggy mass into the daylight.
Days weeks, moments days, without a care for the day's name as now there are so so many more to remember.
Friends become as estranged, distant family, forgot.
The lover you live with becomes as a close pal, living in a house just like yours.
Love isn't what you thought it would be, now.
Life, and it's so called time becomes too short, and fat with confusion.
They say open up, and life will too, like a flower open up to your senses.
They say, don't care so much about others and what they think, you will benefit.
They say production, education, moving and knowing the names and functions of all things you touch
are things so important, they define your name.
So my name then, is not the name I was given when I came into the world?
So my name is what I make it?
So I should have this power of creation and sight to become the energy I move?
So many enter my space and judge the energy there, as though they can hear my intentions spoken like words.
They coment and try to put my attention into place for me, with their supposed divine ability.
Always my throat aches with confusion for their well meant gesture for they are always far away from what is.
Or am I wrong then, and they know better about my life and how I should be, with their years and names and qualities they have evolved and created for themselves, and the world as they see it.
To open up, to share is futile. It's impossible to be seen in completion by anyone else, so to base anything on what is deciphered there, is foolish.
Wake up to the rain clouds, let them be, I say.
I can see what is a blessing in my life, I can see the fruitful essence of my little world.
I can feel also, the shadows and foolishly arranged battalions placed in ignorant strategy around my psyche.
There is a time for all things. The sort of dull roar of youth will pull at my insides till I am ripe with confidence, until then, sometimes ache will sound through any blessings presented.
I'm going to be quiet today.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Double Dark Americano, Hold the Spazz
Everyone familiar to me knows that given exposure to most mind altering substances, I am bound to give in, and partake.
As a barista by afternoon, every time the weather changes and every two hours, I check the grind. Which entails extracting the essence of espresso beans- not just pouring hot water onto ground coffee!
The rain comes, I check the grind.
The glorious sun comes out, I check the grind.
The breeze finds it's way into the joint, I check the grind.
Knock the grinds into the nice, dry portable in an even manner- make a big messy, heavy mound at the top. Tap everything in place, smooth it off even with the basket lip. Tamp the aromatic sand with thirty pounds of pressure, into a perfectly even cake. The gasket from steam to cake has to be at peak pressure and temperature, to that has to preheat.
Finally the time comes to push the button and count till the shot glass measures one ounce, but, first you bless it- you wipe it clean of any not compacted grind.
If the grind is just a hair too coarse or fine, the thing is shot. ha-ha.
So, being the coffee romantic I am, not a perfect drop goes to waste. The shabby ones I don't touch.
Today, the coffee was perfectly extracted after the shift change fiddling.
When Ben came to the shop with his Bishop, or Pastor, or Preacher- I actually forget the preferred term, the end of the day sun was heating up the place and every other customer was ordering the essence of the mind.
But the grind was off and I couldn't mend together the required kind of time for tweaking it.
Which chaps my ass.
Then, as is customary for some reason with Leigh's cappuccino, my foam started really lacking oomf and continued being pathetic or burnt.
Once Ben showed up.
I tell you what.
When I worked as a teller at the credit union ( I do not recommend it), my till was always off when Ben showed up. Whether it was at the beginning of the day or close to closing, my ability to count failed me as my heart bippity bopped and my cheeks felt sore from trying so hard all day to knock that doofy grin off. Many an embarrassed phone call from yours truly, to some poor credit union sod, explaining mu huge fuck up and manager fixing, when Ben was around. Not to say it was always and only when he was around, but this works for my story.
And I don't know why.
I don't think of naked things.
I don't think of grade school crush things, or any sort of crush things.
I don't think of much.
And oh holy shit, I think I would have made a better Breve blindfolded.
Poor lil guy.
All I can say is, he's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, but not in a romatical way...
However, it's not like I shake uncontrollably and make terrible coffee in the presence of beautiful art, landscape, other abundantly gorgeous Suprunowskis or powerfully moving music. So maybe I was just over caffeinated and glad to see that he's up and around, after that nasty car accident.
There is probably no answer to why this happens.
I would call it a crush, but it is not that involved, emotionally.
Physically, I thought my face would fall off if I tried to stop grinning and blushing, and that I would surely have a fugging heart attack.
But, anyway, click on 'nasty car accident' up there and read about this dude.
I don't consider myself religious, or even interested in religious culture of any denomination or system, any more. I was hungry for it at one time, but it ran it's course and I am now more or less bumbling around Jung's idea of individuation, with a healthy dose of Zen in there somewhere.
Christianity is fascinating. Sociologically for one thing, how it is saturated in social involvement, socially accepted and socially dependent. Culturally, psychologically.
I'm sure Jesus loves everyone, but he loves Ben more, and that's just fine with me.
As a barista by afternoon, every time the weather changes and every two hours, I check the grind. Which entails extracting the essence of espresso beans- not just pouring hot water onto ground coffee!
The rain comes, I check the grind.
The glorious sun comes out, I check the grind.
The breeze finds it's way into the joint, I check the grind.
Knock the grinds into the nice, dry portable in an even manner- make a big messy, heavy mound at the top. Tap everything in place, smooth it off even with the basket lip. Tamp the aromatic sand with thirty pounds of pressure, into a perfectly even cake. The gasket from steam to cake has to be at peak pressure and temperature, to that has to preheat.
Finally the time comes to push the button and count till the shot glass measures one ounce, but, first you bless it- you wipe it clean of any not compacted grind.
If the grind is just a hair too coarse or fine, the thing is shot. ha-ha.
So, being the coffee romantic I am, not a perfect drop goes to waste. The shabby ones I don't touch.
Today, the coffee was perfectly extracted after the shift change fiddling.
When Ben came to the shop with his Bishop, or Pastor, or Preacher- I actually forget the preferred term, the end of the day sun was heating up the place and every other customer was ordering the essence of the mind.
But the grind was off and I couldn't mend together the required kind of time for tweaking it.
Which chaps my ass.
Then, as is customary for some reason with Leigh's cappuccino, my foam started really lacking oomf and continued being pathetic or burnt.
Once Ben showed up.
I tell you what.
When I worked as a teller at the credit union ( I do not recommend it), my till was always off when Ben showed up. Whether it was at the beginning of the day or close to closing, my ability to count failed me as my heart bippity bopped and my cheeks felt sore from trying so hard all day to knock that doofy grin off. Many an embarrassed phone call from yours truly, to some poor credit union sod, explaining mu huge fuck up and manager fixing, when Ben was around. Not to say it was always and only when he was around, but this works for my story.
And I don't know why.
I don't think of naked things.
I don't think of grade school crush things, or any sort of crush things.
I don't think of much.
And oh holy shit, I think I would have made a better Breve blindfolded.
Poor lil guy.
All I can say is, he's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, but not in a romatical way...
However, it's not like I shake uncontrollably and make terrible coffee in the presence of beautiful art, landscape, other abundantly gorgeous Suprunowskis or powerfully moving music. So maybe I was just over caffeinated and glad to see that he's up and around, after that nasty car accident.
There is probably no answer to why this happens.
I would call it a crush, but it is not that involved, emotionally.
Physically, I thought my face would fall off if I tried to stop grinning and blushing, and that I would surely have a fugging heart attack.
But, anyway, click on 'nasty car accident' up there and read about this dude.
I don't consider myself religious, or even interested in religious culture of any denomination or system, any more. I was hungry for it at one time, but it ran it's course and I am now more or less bumbling around Jung's idea of individuation, with a healthy dose of Zen in there somewhere.
Christianity is fascinating. Sociologically for one thing, how it is saturated in social involvement, socially accepted and socially dependent. Culturally, psychologically.
I'm sure Jesus loves everyone, but he loves Ben more, and that's just fine with me.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Story Telling
The truth is, nothing much matters to Rhododendrons.
In the experience of one Waxy Sullivan, the genus tend to have an awful lot to comment on, but truly don't care about much of anything.
Oh, sure, they will let you know if the weather is a bit out of their comfort zone. They shrivel up like over cooked sausage and drop their leaves like dramatic little starlets, heart broken at the end of the scene.
But, as Waxy came to know, they come back every year, with wry new branches needing a cutting!
In fact, a purple star trek Rhodie once gave tell of a 'dendron wide conspiracy when this little show goes on.
People might think the plants need to drop their leaves in order to conserve energy for the cold snap ahead, but oh, they are wrong.
Rhododendrons love being nude.
Nude Rhododendrons without full, lush leaves and endless clusters of blossoms do not appeal to the human species during the growing season, but secretly indulgent, seemingly struggling nude rhodies in the winter tend to coax about a feeling of tenderness in a gardener. Come spring time, before they know it, Rhododendrons every where are snapped out of their hedonistic slumber with the warm touch of woolen gloves and cold, sharp steel.
Snip, squeak. Snip, snip-squeak, snip.She made note that her pruners needed a good oiling.
The thush of cracking dead wood and cool dry leaves made a new song of percussion each time she brought an armful of clipped Rhododendron to the wheel barrow.
The garden of the day for Waxy was on a property some hundred years civilized, on the bay of a puddle called The Willapa.
Oysterville was the place to be a gardener, it had all the necessities. Developed, mature gardens owned by financially developed, matured individuals. No business license required so long as nobody asks- think freelance with the weather. Think fifteen to thirty bucks an hour, depending on the job and tools required. Oysterville was a Rhodie mecca. Waxy finds the villagers endearing and generous, while the Rhododendrons tend to find them smug and dull.
Ever the Rhodie complaint about the lack of attention they received from their keepers.
"Generations of these movers, and ne'er a skilled or an intrested touch."
The particular Rhododendron she was working on stood so tall and broad that Waxy could crawl under it's lowest branches and be completely out of sight. Such a thing occurred to Sullivan as a daydream might fall upon an imaginative and stubbornly bored twenty some years dumb individual. She went about it in phases, incorporating long days of weeding for when she needed to be more conscious of time or when she had some social performance scheduled, as the dream of being hidden under Rhododendrons or old, droopy Cyprus seemed to leave her all day with a craving for it. The things she once dreaded like the monotony of gardening, the loneliness of it, were now things which filled a soothing bath of metaphysical time she never wanted to leave once she 'got in'.
The noon hour became antsy to be embodied, and Waxy had to empty her wheel barrow and bit the rhodie fare well.
The cats at home were glad to be revisited by their upright walking friends and greeted Waxy and Ed with yawns and needy purrs. Ed fed them a fresh scoop of kibbles and started hungrily rummaging through the kitchen as Waxy began scrubbing the soil from under her every part, and polishing her eyes, hair and lips.
At seven minutes till noon, the two of them piled back into the old blue truck, one to the coffeeshop, the other back into the garden. With a kiss sometimes said out loud instead of administered, they parted for a time everyday at noon but never fully in thought.
Ed kept her in thoughts of his future; projects, goals, sorrow and joy.
Waxy thought in broad brush strokes, thickly sprinkled with the glitter of thoughts of Ed.
A dream given to Waxy during a slumber of tangled bones and death depicted Ed and his once upona time lover, Rose. They play acted a scene from Waxy's past when her heart's first desire sat in a pick up truck, getting licked and tickled by a flirtatious and eye grabbing young, but older than Waxy, dark mysterious woman. Ed played the part of yesterday, and Rose played the part of the delicious little snack. Ih ner dream, Waxy sat in the passenger's seat, as hidden as if she were camouflaged in shrubbery, too devastated to speak. When the two retreated into the drunken tent of animal love, Waxy's dream self walked from the truck, to the ocean and sobbed with her whole dream body, creating a tsunami of tears and whale shit, waking her to the second day of glorious sun of the whole year.
This dream clouded her cappuccinos with spongy foam, and her house brew with the acridness of over processing.
Rose was a thing to Waxy, more close to an idea than a person. A thing, symbolizing the life of the man she unexpectedly fell ass over tea kettle in love with in the summer of her freedom, a time capsule of what once was his life, which is very important to her, but a thing that should be buried except for some far distant predetermined date when it is dug up and remembered in the light of day. It should not be spoken to.
But it is. Rose and Ed pass messages in the darkness of cyberspace, as familiar persons in a familiar way.
When Waxy sneaked a peak at the inbox of Ed's note passing device to reassure herself that he had better things to do than keep up a double romance type-thing, she found a message from Rose so riddled with errors and abbreviated statements, she could not decipher it's meaning.
Ed had responded to it with the letter K.
So today at the coffee shop, the barista was confused, dreamily sad and felt pretty poorly about sneaking a peak at the personal device of communication as she had. In between drab lattes and bouts of small talk, Waxy wandered the gardening section of the book shop and learned that Rhododendrons are toxic to most plants, and are known to impair the development of young begonias. She tucked the thought into her mind for morning when she would be weeding the beds in Stanley's garden, around one particularly busy gossip of a rhododendron.
In the experience of one Waxy Sullivan, the genus tend to have an awful lot to comment on, but truly don't care about much of anything.
Oh, sure, they will let you know if the weather is a bit out of their comfort zone. They shrivel up like over cooked sausage and drop their leaves like dramatic little starlets, heart broken at the end of the scene.
But, as Waxy came to know, they come back every year, with wry new branches needing a cutting!
In fact, a purple star trek Rhodie once gave tell of a 'dendron wide conspiracy when this little show goes on.
People might think the plants need to drop their leaves in order to conserve energy for the cold snap ahead, but oh, they are wrong.
Rhododendrons love being nude.
Nude Rhododendrons without full, lush leaves and endless clusters of blossoms do not appeal to the human species during the growing season, but secretly indulgent, seemingly struggling nude rhodies in the winter tend to coax about a feeling of tenderness in a gardener. Come spring time, before they know it, Rhododendrons every where are snapped out of their hedonistic slumber with the warm touch of woolen gloves and cold, sharp steel.
Snip, squeak. Snip, snip-squeak, snip.She made note that her pruners needed a good oiling.
The thush of cracking dead wood and cool dry leaves made a new song of percussion each time she brought an armful of clipped Rhododendron to the wheel barrow.
The garden of the day for Waxy was on a property some hundred years civilized, on the bay of a puddle called The Willapa.
Oysterville was the place to be a gardener, it had all the necessities. Developed, mature gardens owned by financially developed, matured individuals. No business license required so long as nobody asks- think freelance with the weather. Think fifteen to thirty bucks an hour, depending on the job and tools required. Oysterville was a Rhodie mecca. Waxy finds the villagers endearing and generous, while the Rhododendrons tend to find them smug and dull.
Ever the Rhodie complaint about the lack of attention they received from their keepers.
"Generations of these movers, and ne'er a skilled or an intrested touch."
The particular Rhododendron she was working on stood so tall and broad that Waxy could crawl under it's lowest branches and be completely out of sight. Such a thing occurred to Sullivan as a daydream might fall upon an imaginative and stubbornly bored twenty some years dumb individual. She went about it in phases, incorporating long days of weeding for when she needed to be more conscious of time or when she had some social performance scheduled, as the dream of being hidden under Rhododendrons or old, droopy Cyprus seemed to leave her all day with a craving for it. The things she once dreaded like the monotony of gardening, the loneliness of it, were now things which filled a soothing bath of metaphysical time she never wanted to leave once she 'got in'.
The noon hour became antsy to be embodied, and Waxy had to empty her wheel barrow and bit the rhodie fare well.
The cats at home were glad to be revisited by their upright walking friends and greeted Waxy and Ed with yawns and needy purrs. Ed fed them a fresh scoop of kibbles and started hungrily rummaging through the kitchen as Waxy began scrubbing the soil from under her every part, and polishing her eyes, hair and lips.
At seven minutes till noon, the two of them piled back into the old blue truck, one to the coffeeshop, the other back into the garden. With a kiss sometimes said out loud instead of administered, they parted for a time everyday at noon but never fully in thought.
Ed kept her in thoughts of his future; projects, goals, sorrow and joy.
Waxy thought in broad brush strokes, thickly sprinkled with the glitter of thoughts of Ed.
A dream given to Waxy during a slumber of tangled bones and death depicted Ed and his once upona time lover, Rose. They play acted a scene from Waxy's past when her heart's first desire sat in a pick up truck, getting licked and tickled by a flirtatious and eye grabbing young, but older than Waxy, dark mysterious woman. Ed played the part of yesterday, and Rose played the part of the delicious little snack. Ih ner dream, Waxy sat in the passenger's seat, as hidden as if she were camouflaged in shrubbery, too devastated to speak. When the two retreated into the drunken tent of animal love, Waxy's dream self walked from the truck, to the ocean and sobbed with her whole dream body, creating a tsunami of tears and whale shit, waking her to the second day of glorious sun of the whole year.
This dream clouded her cappuccinos with spongy foam, and her house brew with the acridness of over processing.
Rose was a thing to Waxy, more close to an idea than a person. A thing, symbolizing the life of the man she unexpectedly fell ass over tea kettle in love with in the summer of her freedom, a time capsule of what once was his life, which is very important to her, but a thing that should be buried except for some far distant predetermined date when it is dug up and remembered in the light of day. It should not be spoken to.
But it is. Rose and Ed pass messages in the darkness of cyberspace, as familiar persons in a familiar way.
When Waxy sneaked a peak at the inbox of Ed's note passing device to reassure herself that he had better things to do than keep up a double romance type-thing, she found a message from Rose so riddled with errors and abbreviated statements, she could not decipher it's meaning.
Ed had responded to it with the letter K.
So today at the coffee shop, the barista was confused, dreamily sad and felt pretty poorly about sneaking a peak at the personal device of communication as she had. In between drab lattes and bouts of small talk, Waxy wandered the gardening section of the book shop and learned that Rhododendrons are toxic to most plants, and are known to impair the development of young begonias. She tucked the thought into her mind for morning when she would be weeding the beds in Stanley's garden, around one particularly busy gossip of a rhododendron.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Winter's Bone
Winter's bone by Daniel Woodrell was a quick read for me.
The way this man combines a wordy paintbrush with the complicated inter workings of a poverty stricken community in the Ozarks is just like being there. Suddenly this young woman you are reading about is so real and while it pains you to imagine the things she is put through, it is amazingly hypnotic- the twists and turns life tends to take, and you can't stop looking.
During times I was not reading this book, I wondered often, "what's going on with Ree right now?"
I recommend it. The story establishes a close to the earth importance of community without lovey-dovey idealism.
It shows a family ripped to shreds by drugs, insanity, and undeniable pangs of hunger. It shows a violent, scared people teaching and learning lessons the hard way, in the snow and ice. Thank goodness the thing ended with a new light shined on the bad guys, a new future for the good ones.
This southern-esque flavor has me wanting more.
Flannery may be a little more dark than I am in the mood for. Instead of picking a book from my next to read list, I looked around Adelaide's with Cyndy's help and found Carson Mc Cullers, a woman from a 1930's Georgia. The title I chose is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which she wrote when she was twenty three.
So far, I'm loving the insight she displays, rotating through characters as narrators. I enjoy the meaty-ness of the story, but the dialogue seems interchangeable as if some of the characters speak from the same mouth.
Also, as much as I love to sit in the sun, reading something in a southern drawl, I am of a generation far from 1930, let alone 1930 in the south. The depiction of Black American characters is annoying and difficult for me to read. I like the broken grammar and sentence structure which seems to bring the Southern dialogue alive, but I'm snobby to lines like "And so he were l-l-laming his fists against this here brick w-w-wall." which only come from Black characters, whom are given names like Willie and are called lazy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cultural differences. I get it, Carson wasn't trying to be an ass.
I do adore southern writing, but have a difficult time with the cultural differences, particularly hose conserning race, which tend to be a hot topic for the genre.
I will read this through, and stick to more contemporary writers in the future. I like the families, communities, the religious/spiritual undertones and long descriptions of sweaty weather, or as in Winter's Bone, the mean ol winter, at the end of the rut road.
The way this man combines a wordy paintbrush with the complicated inter workings of a poverty stricken community in the Ozarks is just like being there. Suddenly this young woman you are reading about is so real and while it pains you to imagine the things she is put through, it is amazingly hypnotic- the twists and turns life tends to take, and you can't stop looking.
During times I was not reading this book, I wondered often, "what's going on with Ree right now?"
I recommend it. The story establishes a close to the earth importance of community without lovey-dovey idealism.
It shows a family ripped to shreds by drugs, insanity, and undeniable pangs of hunger. It shows a violent, scared people teaching and learning lessons the hard way, in the snow and ice. Thank goodness the thing ended with a new light shined on the bad guys, a new future for the good ones.
This southern-esque flavor has me wanting more.
Flannery may be a little more dark than I am in the mood for. Instead of picking a book from my next to read list, I looked around Adelaide's with Cyndy's help and found Carson Mc Cullers, a woman from a 1930's Georgia. The title I chose is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which she wrote when she was twenty three.
So far, I'm loving the insight she displays, rotating through characters as narrators. I enjoy the meaty-ness of the story, but the dialogue seems interchangeable as if some of the characters speak from the same mouth.
Also, as much as I love to sit in the sun, reading something in a southern drawl, I am of a generation far from 1930, let alone 1930 in the south. The depiction of Black American characters is annoying and difficult for me to read. I like the broken grammar and sentence structure which seems to bring the Southern dialogue alive, but I'm snobby to lines like "And so he were l-l-laming his fists against this here brick w-w-wall." which only come from Black characters, whom are given names like Willie and are called lazy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cultural differences. I get it, Carson wasn't trying to be an ass.
I do adore southern writing, but have a difficult time with the cultural differences, particularly hose conserning race, which tend to be a hot topic for the genre.
I will read this through, and stick to more contemporary writers in the future. I like the families, communities, the religious/spiritual undertones and long descriptions of sweaty weather, or as in Winter's Bone, the mean ol winter, at the end of the rut road.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
A Matter of Time
It's like a burp, or one of those backwards hiccups you get sometimes when you are in the middle of a long, descriptive sentence, only its on the psychological level, and somehow it morphs you into something bad.
A big enough to be frightening muscular, gnarling, huffing and puffing troll-thing now stands where you just were.
There's a circle of faint objects spinning around it's head not because it was just bumped, or smashed with an anvil or anything, the thing is just always disoriented- that's how it comes.
The thing bawls and screams, throws anything not too precious and which is not nailed down, into pieces all over the floors of your life. Rips flesh from idea, and love from bias. The damage is not sufficient enough, strewn next to the troll thing's feet, so the troll reaches out to cut, rip- hurt those around it and when not allowed it's violent compulsion, draws back within you and cuts deep gashes in inconspicuous places.
I have not wanted to write my verbal doodles for a while now, too distracted by the mess left by my bad.
Too grossed out to entertain the thought of publishing my thoughts.
I see now that what ever the mind scientists want to call it, my life will be polkadotted with messy troll shit if I am not diligent!
And if there is a place in this world for plain ol' wanderers, a purpose for the personification of one thousand puzzle pieces from one thousand different puzzles in one box, why shouldn't there be a reason why I stop running from my ugly- face it and try to love it like a painfully ugly mutant of my own design?
It's about damn time for me to quit trying to find the money and the dr. willing to name this thing, and some how free me from it.
Oh ali, you know better!
I am trying to decrease my raging testosterone levels with anti-androgen water pills, in hopes that the hormonal rollercoaster will ease and my ups and downs around you-know-when become less violent, aggressive- agitated. But the cycles we swim in- no reason, good for nothing blues are a natural thing. It's understandable that a conversation might hit at hurts, or whisper to things almost forgot- but there is a force just as powerful as rage, which is a little more complicated to conjure up, and I don't know what I want to call it yet. Grace? Acceptance? Maturity?
It's what it takes to force the amygdala out of it's hijacking terrorist costume, and back down into the brain where it belongs. To take that grouchy snap and breath through it, be honest in a careful, patient way with the folks around you about how you are feeling trollish and maybe should leave the room, or re join the convo at another time.
And it's a matter of time before the fear, and hate and other residue leaving nastiness flush out of your mouth. Those flavors take time to get rid of. Maybe it's a number of laughs achieved within that time, or a song at the right time during that time, or a nice note telling you someone is thinking about you after having isolated yourself from anything nice for a time. I don't know what the magical proportions of good things required to clean up and make you nice after a visit from your troll, or someone else's bad thing. But I do know it's a matter of time.
I will be moving forward into the second week of my re established barista career. I like it there. Though after only a four day week, I am somehow sick of classical piano. I have requested some tasteful jazz. Maybe as I earn my stripes I will plead for Dylan, Nelson and Baez.
The baking thing has been shrunk into a covert operation, where I bake muffins and cakes in Someone's private kitchen and serve them at the store under the guise that they are ligit and legal. They are delicious.
Today it was coffee cake muffins, and Cranberry Orange Pecan bread.
Tomorrow morning, I will talk with Nancy Main about a legitimate baking apprenticeship, complete with some sort of wage for my time.
She is one of these super accomplished women in this area. I hear her name all the time, and about the delicious and smart things she does. I would be an absolute fool to turn down an opportunity to bake beside her, but I am SCARED.
If my inner self was carrying a coffee cup, the thing would shatter into a million pieces on it's saucer before I even took a clutsy step, I'm shaking so bad.
All of the burners on the stove and the oven element are functioning again, thank goodness my man-friend has such handy skills! My bread has been sucking ever since!
Perhaps I will cross stitch a homey framed piece which reads, 'salt your fucking doug, bitch!' for the kitchen. I don't know what it is, but after baking loaf after loaf of homely but workable bread only to find it tastes like glue just chaps my batoot! Of all the other little intricacies I pay attention to, so often the salt alludes me till the end, when I remove the bread fromt he oven and wonder what it will taste like. Oh yeah, it's going to taste like flour. Damn it.
Fred told me the morning after I stayed up late to bake bread for the next day's breakfast, that I yelled out "God damn IT!" in my sleep , loud enough to wake him. Well, I'm glad that i am fairly open about my cursing problem. Had that been the first time he heard me utter the words, he may have been offended.
The garden is going along. Still no potatoes- I think we have maybe missed it.
THe onions are still alive! The broccoli lost two or so of it's ranks in the wind storms, but the ones that have held on have really held on and seeds have sprouted in their midst. I'm hoping for a double harvest- we LOVE broccoli!
Garlic has sprouted and is out growing the onions. The squash are looking pale, but I couldn't keep them inside any longer. Our indoor tomatoe experiment is making me anxious. The Early Girl has four big tomates and has for a LONG time which show no inkling of reddening for us, while the roma has pooted out a whole wopping four toms, none much larger than the top section of my thumb. at least she stopped throwing her flowers all over the place! The poppy seeds I mentioned earlier have gone gang busters behind the house. I am actually wondering if too many of them are viable- a carpet of sprouts I tell you! Hopefully they won't all murder one another with proximity because theose posies are to die for!
A big enough to be frightening muscular, gnarling, huffing and puffing troll-thing now stands where you just were.
There's a circle of faint objects spinning around it's head not because it was just bumped, or smashed with an anvil or anything, the thing is just always disoriented- that's how it comes.
The thing bawls and screams, throws anything not too precious and which is not nailed down, into pieces all over the floors of your life. Rips flesh from idea, and love from bias. The damage is not sufficient enough, strewn next to the troll thing's feet, so the troll reaches out to cut, rip- hurt those around it and when not allowed it's violent compulsion, draws back within you and cuts deep gashes in inconspicuous places.
I have not wanted to write my verbal doodles for a while now, too distracted by the mess left by my bad.
Too grossed out to entertain the thought of publishing my thoughts.
I see now that what ever the mind scientists want to call it, my life will be polkadotted with messy troll shit if I am not diligent!
And if there is a place in this world for plain ol' wanderers, a purpose for the personification of one thousand puzzle pieces from one thousand different puzzles in one box, why shouldn't there be a reason why I stop running from my ugly- face it and try to love it like a painfully ugly mutant of my own design?
It's about damn time for me to quit trying to find the money and the dr. willing to name this thing, and some how free me from it.
Oh ali, you know better!
I am trying to decrease my raging testosterone levels with anti-androgen water pills, in hopes that the hormonal rollercoaster will ease and my ups and downs around you-know-when become less violent, aggressive- agitated. But the cycles we swim in- no reason, good for nothing blues are a natural thing. It's understandable that a conversation might hit at hurts, or whisper to things almost forgot- but there is a force just as powerful as rage, which is a little more complicated to conjure up, and I don't know what I want to call it yet. Grace? Acceptance? Maturity?
It's what it takes to force the amygdala out of it's hijacking terrorist costume, and back down into the brain where it belongs. To take that grouchy snap and breath through it, be honest in a careful, patient way with the folks around you about how you are feeling trollish and maybe should leave the room, or re join the convo at another time.
And it's a matter of time before the fear, and hate and other residue leaving nastiness flush out of your mouth. Those flavors take time to get rid of. Maybe it's a number of laughs achieved within that time, or a song at the right time during that time, or a nice note telling you someone is thinking about you after having isolated yourself from anything nice for a time. I don't know what the magical proportions of good things required to clean up and make you nice after a visit from your troll, or someone else's bad thing. But I do know it's a matter of time.
I will be moving forward into the second week of my re established barista career. I like it there. Though after only a four day week, I am somehow sick of classical piano. I have requested some tasteful jazz. Maybe as I earn my stripes I will plead for Dylan, Nelson and Baez.
The baking thing has been shrunk into a covert operation, where I bake muffins and cakes in Someone's private kitchen and serve them at the store under the guise that they are ligit and legal. They are delicious.
Today it was coffee cake muffins, and Cranberry Orange Pecan bread.
Tomorrow morning, I will talk with Nancy Main about a legitimate baking apprenticeship, complete with some sort of wage for my time.
She is one of these super accomplished women in this area. I hear her name all the time, and about the delicious and smart things she does. I would be an absolute fool to turn down an opportunity to bake beside her, but I am SCARED.
If my inner self was carrying a coffee cup, the thing would shatter into a million pieces on it's saucer before I even took a clutsy step, I'm shaking so bad.
All of the burners on the stove and the oven element are functioning again, thank goodness my man-friend has such handy skills! My bread has been sucking ever since!
Perhaps I will cross stitch a homey framed piece which reads, 'salt your fucking doug, bitch!' for the kitchen. I don't know what it is, but after baking loaf after loaf of homely but workable bread only to find it tastes like glue just chaps my batoot! Of all the other little intricacies I pay attention to, so often the salt alludes me till the end, when I remove the bread fromt he oven and wonder what it will taste like. Oh yeah, it's going to taste like flour. Damn it.
Fred told me the morning after I stayed up late to bake bread for the next day's breakfast, that I yelled out "God damn IT!" in my sleep , loud enough to wake him. Well, I'm glad that i am fairly open about my cursing problem. Had that been the first time he heard me utter the words, he may have been offended.
The garden is going along. Still no potatoes- I think we have maybe missed it.
THe onions are still alive! The broccoli lost two or so of it's ranks in the wind storms, but the ones that have held on have really held on and seeds have sprouted in their midst. I'm hoping for a double harvest- we LOVE broccoli!
Garlic has sprouted and is out growing the onions. The squash are looking pale, but I couldn't keep them inside any longer. Our indoor tomatoe experiment is making me anxious. The Early Girl has four big tomates and has for a LONG time which show no inkling of reddening for us, while the roma has pooted out a whole wopping four toms, none much larger than the top section of my thumb. at least she stopped throwing her flowers all over the place! The poppy seeds I mentioned earlier have gone gang busters behind the house. I am actually wondering if too many of them are viable- a carpet of sprouts I tell you! Hopefully they won't all murder one another with proximity because theose posies are to die for!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Blues is to Jazz
"Blues is to Jazz what yeast is to bread. Without it, it's flat!" -Carmen McRae
Oh wise aunt! The creation of a thing like bread surely enriches the lives of the maker as well as every muncher involved, just as Jazz with it's Blues spikes the souls of it's musicians and the ears of the listeners involved.
About two years ago, I started to bake bread regularly. I'm still killing sourdough starts regularly, though.
For the first year or so, I had been trying to find that perfect recipe, the one that would understand what I needed out of a dough, and would love and patiently teach me the way all, as young girls dream bread dough someday will.
SIGH.
Instead, I have been trying to pay better attention to the consistency of the dough as it develops, after all a certain amount of humidity in the air is all it takes to create a gap between what the recipe says and what the dough needs. The basics of cooking (chemistry) reveal themselves this way.
I have learned that eggs added to the mix gives me changes in the texture of the finished product and in the dough, how it develops. Shortening or any sort of fat seems to produce a moist, stale resistant crumb- as no fat and slow, long rising times produc a dry crusty thing of beauty. I learned that forgetting to add the salt is really, a very bad thing.
Now though, the dear wonderful old oven which ever so darlingly takes up space in my kitchen has blown it's element. Oh yes, three play kitchen sized burners and no oven. I'm sure it's two thousand years old in oven years, so I have decided that I'm not going to be terribly surprised or personally assaulted about it. I just have to figure out how to bake bread in the crock pot...
I have noticed that time seems to pass more efficiently and peacefully on they days that have a bowl of dough in them. Kneading by hand for fifteen to twenty minutes is my favorite workout.
THE SMELLS.
My favorite, absolutely most cherished thing about home made bread is of course feeding it to people. And have you all noticed how satisfying it is to dive in, free of the civility of spoons and forks, to a messy bowl of something- and eat using only clean hands and homemade bread? No matter how homely the loaf!
Oh wise aunt! The creation of a thing like bread surely enriches the lives of the maker as well as every muncher involved, just as Jazz with it's Blues spikes the souls of it's musicians and the ears of the listeners involved.
About two years ago, I started to bake bread regularly. I'm still killing sourdough starts regularly, though.
For the first year or so, I had been trying to find that perfect recipe, the one that would understand what I needed out of a dough, and would love and patiently teach me the way all, as young girls dream bread dough someday will.
SIGH.
Instead, I have been trying to pay better attention to the consistency of the dough as it develops, after all a certain amount of humidity in the air is all it takes to create a gap between what the recipe says and what the dough needs. The basics of cooking (chemistry) reveal themselves this way.
I have learned that eggs added to the mix gives me changes in the texture of the finished product and in the dough, how it develops. Shortening or any sort of fat seems to produce a moist, stale resistant crumb- as no fat and slow, long rising times produc a dry crusty thing of beauty. I learned that forgetting to add the salt is really, a very bad thing.
Now though, the dear wonderful old oven which ever so darlingly takes up space in my kitchen has blown it's element. Oh yes, three play kitchen sized burners and no oven. I'm sure it's two thousand years old in oven years, so I have decided that I'm not going to be terribly surprised or personally assaulted about it. I just have to figure out how to bake bread in the crock pot...
I have noticed that time seems to pass more efficiently and peacefully on they days that have a bowl of dough in them. Kneading by hand for fifteen to twenty minutes is my favorite workout.
THE SMELLS.
My favorite, absolutely most cherished thing about home made bread is of course feeding it to people. And have you all noticed how satisfying it is to dive in, free of the civility of spoons and forks, to a messy bowl of something- and eat using only clean hands and homemade bread? No matter how homely the loaf!
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Girrrrrls
So, Um, Yeah!
Really? Really, that's what you think? That's your position, that's what you're going with?
Really?
I found the fact that the love letters were kept for so long sweet...and creepy.
They were from a sixteen or seventeen year old princess whose very existence was painfully not good enough unless she had a male friend or teacher or parent crammed most of the way up her ass. This transplanted New Yorker gave my sister a run for her money (I mean self esteem) the whole damn five years she spent with her in school, and every other girl who didn't look like a huge German that everyone loved because she was fun and did not pose any competition for the few good enough dudes' glances which she vied for.
What this boils down to is that it reminds me of the patterns and expectations which we develop and hopefully evolve out of after adolescence. BUT, every damn time I attempt to hang around with people my age, and often even when I try to socialize with people much older than myself, I run into these same behaviors over and over again.I'm sure I carry them around as well.
It sticks under my skin. The conversations I over hear at social gatherings just remind me of the objections of the highschool dance team when the fat girl tried to join.
The uneducated and negative judgment of a local citizen, running for office suddenly dissolves when one woman meets him, face to face, and he winks at her.
The conversations about soandso down the road being a lazy and probably a druggie, seem to fade into the past when they later find out that the gentle man has a painful disorder, he can't work while on his doctor prescribed medication, he can't drive or busy-body around town- so he invites people to his home to visit, and from time to time walks the sidewalk next to the school yard and watches the children play.
The new woman in town, trying to get to know so and so's ex, is suddenly a stupid hoe.
The person you are frustrated with supervising at work must be a moron, right? Couldn't be that they are intimidated, have a learning disability, or stress, or malnutrition, or any other number of things, could it?
The little white lies we tell to pump up our image.
The manipulative ways people get other people to do what they do not want to do-because you are "friends".
The sheer fear some of us feel when in the circle of gossip when bullshit needs to be called and you'd rather cackle with the rest of them, the torment some feel for never bonding with the others as they are left out.
The things the swarm of bees buzz when the new-bee has left the vicinity.
Can't stand doing anything alone, can't stand not being told how beautiful they are by a new random person every so often, can't imagine opening your mouth to engage a new someone (unless they look like they would make a good lay, or hook you up with some of what they have).
This binder of notes written by Yuppie ended with highschool- of course it did, right?
She became suddenly bored with the same old guy telling her he loves her. She'll be going away for college, probably never going to see that guy again. Feeling like she needed a boost, she went to a meticulously planned get together and was "entertained" by a room full of young and not so young men, before doing a decent thing, like telling the 'same old guy' that his joyride was over... Youngish boys and girls seem to take themselves and their relationships so very seriously, until they are bored- when they dissolve the thing in an evening, and cry and cry about being called the devil later. How come thinking about how the things you do might make others feel, falls out and stays out of fashion in middle school?
You can be looked up to, successful in academia, cared for and coddled by supportive intelligent parents and role models, involved in activities which boost your self image, emotionally leeching off of your peers, but when it comes to doing the right thing, we would rather sneak off and get drunk, or avoid the situation, or down right lie in the face of our fellow humans instead of tell someone something they don't want to hear.
It's all fun and prom dresses until you use big words in sentences without knowing what they mean. That goes for us full fledged adults too!!
There is a huge, dry lake bed where the lush young beauty once was now, if she has grown up and stayed seventeen. I hope she grew up and graduated with a degree, and has a fulfilling career, or has become a successful table dancer- what ever she wants! What matters when you grow up is whether you have decided to start to look outside of yourself self at the many many beautiful, different people there are in the world, and realize that they have feelings which hurt just as much as yours when they are lied to, or about.
Every so often I jump into a pool and swim and engage and enjoy, and don't feel as though I am being inspected. It is a good feeling, to listen to the things another human has to share, to unabashedly weave your own sentiments into the conversation, to be social.
Other times, I jump in and -THUD- "OUCH! there's no water in this water park, I want my effing money back!"
Most times, I do not crave more interaction for a long long time afterward, but I do need to be acknowledged every so often, and return the favor. We are social beings- as much as I want to tell you that I am satisfied seeing the same four people most days, I am interested in new things, and other people can be great teachers, great models for the characteristics and disciplines which I would like to someday carry with me.
It's like mother has been reminding me for years,
You can't know another person's heart.
And what is important is to know the difference between truth and lies, good and bad, and that you try to promote the good within and around us.
For all I know, if my sister and I had moved to this small community earlier in the development of the other children maybe we would have bonded with them and carried on normal amounts of the bizarre things children and adults to to each other as they develop instead of getting 'inspected' and misunderstood through time, even today.
Maybe not- maybe we would have still called BULLSHIT, and would have been ostracized just the same.
I'm not really trying to make a point. I needed to write this, to get it out from under my skin, to try and pull it out, into the fire of time.I still have nightmares about high school, I still have lunch room cafeteria panic attacks around people- especially teenagers.
Some of the people from my graduating class stuck around the peninsula, or are starting to come back to daddy after the big city did not fondle their fancy as the locals do. I snap back five years and become the frustrated, awkward creep I was in Advanced Algebra as a Freshman, when I run into them or am stuck in a room with them.
I am still and was critical, judgmental, awkward, and constantly annoyed by the people around me.
Uninterested.
Just like shit head up there.
So, um, Yeah! Maybe we could have been BFFs!!!
I still have my own self esteem and dependency issues.
I am trying to keep from drying up, trying to keep the pond full of living, supporting water- trying to beat back the insecure, hateful teenager within.
Someday I might have a daughter, or a teenage relative or acquaintance who would need my interaction and I need to be able to look them in the face and see the person- not my past, or the mean, bizarre games I'm sure teenagers and adults alike will always play.
I need to be able to look at myself in the mirror before a social outing, and see the real things, the life- the here and now- within and around myself, and the people I meet.
If there was a product for sanitizing the brain, Brain Bleach- I would diligently scrub and inspect daily.
Instead, I write, read, plant, stutter and stumble. Practice, practice, practice!
Really? Really, that's what you think? That's your position, that's what you're going with?
Really?
I found the fact that the love letters were kept for so long sweet...and creepy.
They were from a sixteen or seventeen year old princess whose very existence was painfully not good enough unless she had a male friend or teacher or parent crammed most of the way up her ass. This transplanted New Yorker gave my sister a run for her money (I mean self esteem) the whole damn five years she spent with her in school, and every other girl who didn't look like a huge German that everyone loved because she was fun and did not pose any competition for the few good enough dudes' glances which she vied for.
What this boils down to is that it reminds me of the patterns and expectations which we develop and hopefully evolve out of after adolescence. BUT, every damn time I attempt to hang around with people my age, and often even when I try to socialize with people much older than myself, I run into these same behaviors over and over again.I'm sure I carry them around as well.
It sticks under my skin. The conversations I over hear at social gatherings just remind me of the objections of the highschool dance team when the fat girl tried to join.
The uneducated and negative judgment of a local citizen, running for office suddenly dissolves when one woman meets him, face to face, and he winks at her.
The conversations about soandso down the road being a lazy and probably a druggie, seem to fade into the past when they later find out that the gentle man has a painful disorder, he can't work while on his doctor prescribed medication, he can't drive or busy-body around town- so he invites people to his home to visit, and from time to time walks the sidewalk next to the school yard and watches the children play.
The new woman in town, trying to get to know so and so's ex, is suddenly a stupid hoe.
The person you are frustrated with supervising at work must be a moron, right? Couldn't be that they are intimidated, have a learning disability, or stress, or malnutrition, or any other number of things, could it?
The little white lies we tell to pump up our image.
The manipulative ways people get other people to do what they do not want to do-because you are "friends".
The sheer fear some of us feel when in the circle of gossip when bullshit needs to be called and you'd rather cackle with the rest of them, the torment some feel for never bonding with the others as they are left out.
The things the swarm of bees buzz when the new-bee has left the vicinity.
Can't stand doing anything alone, can't stand not being told how beautiful they are by a new random person every so often, can't imagine opening your mouth to engage a new someone (unless they look like they would make a good lay, or hook you up with some of what they have).
This binder of notes written by Yuppie ended with highschool- of course it did, right?
She became suddenly bored with the same old guy telling her he loves her. She'll be going away for college, probably never going to see that guy again. Feeling like she needed a boost, she went to a meticulously planned get together and was "entertained" by a room full of young and not so young men, before doing a decent thing, like telling the 'same old guy' that his joyride was over... Youngish boys and girls seem to take themselves and their relationships so very seriously, until they are bored- when they dissolve the thing in an evening, and cry and cry about being called the devil later. How come thinking about how the things you do might make others feel, falls out and stays out of fashion in middle school?
You can be looked up to, successful in academia, cared for and coddled by supportive intelligent parents and role models, involved in activities which boost your self image, emotionally leeching off of your peers, but when it comes to doing the right thing, we would rather sneak off and get drunk, or avoid the situation, or down right lie in the face of our fellow humans instead of tell someone something they don't want to hear.
It's all fun and prom dresses until you use big words in sentences without knowing what they mean. That goes for us full fledged adults too!!
There is a huge, dry lake bed where the lush young beauty once was now, if she has grown up and stayed seventeen. I hope she grew up and graduated with a degree, and has a fulfilling career, or has become a successful table dancer- what ever she wants! What matters when you grow up is whether you have decided to start to look outside of yourself self at the many many beautiful, different people there are in the world, and realize that they have feelings which hurt just as much as yours when they are lied to, or about.
Every so often I jump into a pool and swim and engage and enjoy, and don't feel as though I am being inspected. It is a good feeling, to listen to the things another human has to share, to unabashedly weave your own sentiments into the conversation, to be social.
Other times, I jump in and -THUD- "OUCH! there's no water in this water park, I want my effing money back!"
Most times, I do not crave more interaction for a long long time afterward, but I do need to be acknowledged every so often, and return the favor. We are social beings- as much as I want to tell you that I am satisfied seeing the same four people most days, I am interested in new things, and other people can be great teachers, great models for the characteristics and disciplines which I would like to someday carry with me.
It's like mother has been reminding me for years,
You can't know another person's heart.
And what is important is to know the difference between truth and lies, good and bad, and that you try to promote the good within and around us.
For all I know, if my sister and I had moved to this small community earlier in the development of the other children maybe we would have bonded with them and carried on normal amounts of the bizarre things children and adults to to each other as they develop instead of getting 'inspected' and misunderstood through time, even today.
Maybe not- maybe we would have still called BULLSHIT, and would have been ostracized just the same.
I'm not really trying to make a point. I needed to write this, to get it out from under my skin, to try and pull it out, into the fire of time.I still have nightmares about high school, I still have lunch room cafeteria panic attacks around people- especially teenagers.
Some of the people from my graduating class stuck around the peninsula, or are starting to come back to daddy after the big city did not fondle their fancy as the locals do. I snap back five years and become the frustrated, awkward creep I was in Advanced Algebra as a Freshman, when I run into them or am stuck in a room with them.
I am still and was critical, judgmental, awkward, and constantly annoyed by the people around me.
Uninterested.
Just like shit head up there.
So, um, Yeah! Maybe we could have been BFFs!!!
I still have my own self esteem and dependency issues.
I am trying to keep from drying up, trying to keep the pond full of living, supporting water- trying to beat back the insecure, hateful teenager within.
Someday I might have a daughter, or a teenage relative or acquaintance who would need my interaction and I need to be able to look them in the face and see the person- not my past, or the mean, bizarre games I'm sure teenagers and adults alike will always play.
I need to be able to look at myself in the mirror before a social outing, and see the real things, the life- the here and now- within and around myself, and the people I meet.
If there was a product for sanitizing the brain, Brain Bleach- I would diligently scrub and inspect daily.
Instead, I write, read, plant, stutter and stumble. Practice, practice, practice!
Thursday, March 3, 2011
I like it. It makes me feel like a drag queen!
What do you do when a beloved family member falls ill?
Not just "ouch- that sucks! Sorry for you" ill. I mean, "Two weeks to go there, big guy!" ILL.
It's an inappropriate thing, to sit and wait for a person to die- there is nothing that you do do, that is more appropriate than anything else. For one of us, there is a trip to Arizona, hundreds of dollars, tears, and the first time reunion in a long time of family and friends at an inappropriate event. For both of us, a zone of reflection, support, reflection of life.
To be shrouded by the hazy, unknown veil of looming life's end is to gaze with complete openness into the face of life- the surface of that clear pond. Beneath the surface of the sheer mirror is a world so close, but unknown- never really known.
Fred's greatest fan, as he constantly reminds me, is his paternal grandmother, DarDar.
The second love of her life has had three brain tumors thriving, unseen for months, despite six months of treatment for Bell's Palsy. The doctors have transferred him to hospice.
DarDar is living in Arizona, with her family in Texas and Washington. Fred will be postponing his visit until a time when he will not be "in the way", as he puts it.
When?
Who knows?
Until then, we are floating in a space filled with music, cleaning, gardening, cooking, eating, and surviving the rain. The song we are listening to now is a strange mix of tones, vibrations and special effects which transports me from my existential grump, to a stage- lights, disguise!
Entertainment, nourishment, that flutter that happens sometimes with the right song- all things to do when awaiting death, I suppose.
It's still bullshit.
This is not a picture of my Vinca, or Periwinkle. It is a picture from the internet that I thought was pretty.
My Vinca is half trampled, but still my first pop of not green color around the house, besides the pathetic narcissus by the front door which has bloomed, as well.
Yay.
The flowers bloom, the beloved do not heal.
Puts a damper on this whole "break in the weather".
Not just "ouch- that sucks! Sorry for you" ill. I mean, "Two weeks to go there, big guy!" ILL.
It's an inappropriate thing, to sit and wait for a person to die- there is nothing that you do do, that is more appropriate than anything else. For one of us, there is a trip to Arizona, hundreds of dollars, tears, and the first time reunion in a long time of family and friends at an inappropriate event. For both of us, a zone of reflection, support, reflection of life.
To be shrouded by the hazy, unknown veil of looming life's end is to gaze with complete openness into the face of life- the surface of that clear pond. Beneath the surface of the sheer mirror is a world so close, but unknown- never really known.
Fred's greatest fan, as he constantly reminds me, is his paternal grandmother, DarDar.
The second love of her life has had three brain tumors thriving, unseen for months, despite six months of treatment for Bell's Palsy. The doctors have transferred him to hospice.
DarDar is living in Arizona, with her family in Texas and Washington. Fred will be postponing his visit until a time when he will not be "in the way", as he puts it.
When?
Who knows?
Until then, we are floating in a space filled with music, cleaning, gardening, cooking, eating, and surviving the rain. The song we are listening to now is a strange mix of tones, vibrations and special effects which transports me from my existential grump, to a stage- lights, disguise!
Entertainment, nourishment, that flutter that happens sometimes with the right song- all things to do when awaiting death, I suppose.
It's still bullshit.
My Vinca is half trampled, but still my first pop of not green color around the house, besides the pathetic narcissus by the front door which has bloomed, as well.
Yay.
The flowers bloom, the beloved do not heal.
Puts a damper on this whole "break in the weather".
Monday, February 28, 2011
Comfort Food
Some leftover chicken and rice soup that Fred made was the inspiration for tonight's chicken and dumplings.
Thank goodness for that guy!
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that if you are low on flour and butter, but have pancake mix and some dairy- you can make the best ever dumplings anyway! I mixed plain yogurt and a drizzle of milk into a couple cups of mix and voila~
Yes, of course I seasoned them! This time, I did not over-do-it, HUSZAA! Salt, pepper, paprika and some smoky mustard. I also added parsley, basil, dried onion, garlic and pepper flakes to the broth which I added to the very rice-y soup. Something that really makes a soup a goood soup (other than dumplings), in my opinion, is the addition of greens such as spinach, kale, chard, cabbage or mustard greens. Also, slow cooking and using slow roasted meat and a wide variety of hearty vegetables helps create a masterpiece of a soup.
The weather outside has been scary loud- wind and rain at the windows like a stubborn old haunt. The darkness out doors and uninspiring wait for spring time ahead of us, has inspired a bout of lethargy which reaches into my appetite. But just look at those dumplings! I can't say no.
Thank goodness for that guy!
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that if you are low on flour and butter, but have pancake mix and some dairy- you can make the best ever dumplings anyway! I mixed plain yogurt and a drizzle of milk into a couple cups of mix and voila~
The weather outside has been scary loud- wind and rain at the windows like a stubborn old haunt. The darkness out doors and uninspiring wait for spring time ahead of us, has inspired a bout of lethargy which reaches into my appetite. But just look at those dumplings! I can't say no.
Friday, February 25, 2011
The Twilight Snowne
Thursday morning was covered in a thick blanket of frozen, white wet. Friday morning smells like that cold sweat armpit smell, warm then cold and now damp.
Though Wednesday's flower bed clearing was far from finished, I decided to busy myself indoors and start restoring the wood coffee table and end table which I industriously picked out of the junk pile of one kind soul. The smelly, dry but dark evil laboratory workshop of a garage was much more inviting to me than the snow.
Sure, I could bundle up and murder ivy in the snow, burn that huge pile of debris, there are plenty of things I could have done perfectly comfortably, to prepare the flower beds and clean up the yard in the snow. Among other kinds of hermit, lately, I am a snow hermit. I want to make snow illegal in Pacific County, but the damn politicians are against me. They probably LIKE snow. I want to live on the coast for it's mild weather, darn it!
For some, snow is pretty. Snow somehow conjures up nostalgic feelings in some. Inhabitants of this wet, dark corner of the galaxy tend to see it as a depressing setback in our journey to the days of warmth and sunlight. I'm sure not all of them see snow this way.
Maggie sure likes putting it in her mouth. Terrorist.
Mean while, indoors where the snow don't go, my tomato plants have exploded from little seedling trees, into flower studded angry hulk sized plants! I have been reading some interesting literature about pollinating these buggars with vibrating devices. Apparently they can't get there by themselves.
The squash are developing their fifth set of true leaves and the broccoli are moving along swimmingly.
Something wonderful happened with one of the squash seedlings!
Back when I was impatiently (not) waiting for germination, I dug up a seed and broke it in half to see if the darn thing was rotten, it wasn't, but instead of throwing the seed away and replanting the pot, I shoved the seed halves back into the soil- like the slob that I am, deep down. Well, this seed sprouted, and though it only had one very malformed seed leaf, it didn't die. This little thingy is putting on tiny true leaves to compensate, and because the plant doesn't have the seed leaves to supplement it's nutrition, I've been lightly fertilizing it. The entire thing is not much bigger than my thumb, while it's seedling mates are larger than my entire hand, I am just astounded that the thing is growing.
I'm contemplating starting fresh seeds, because I am not sure these plants will transfer into the garden.
If this snow bs continues like snowy years in the past, the true warm weather will come on late and a few early warm patches of false Spring will lure my plants out doors, then freeze them- ZAP!
However, if the peninsula can keep it's self out of the freezer, my early planting will not have been in vain, the plants will take to the garden and I will have extended our short growing season by a good couple of months!
I really want my lights back, too. While the Veggies are hogging it, I have plans for sprouting entire envelopes of snapdragons, zinnias and sweet peas to plant around the house. This lady has an undying lust for flowers, but a stubborn checking account, not pleased with the price tag of posies at the nursery, if you know what I mean!
I am not far from the child I was when I sang to the cows and picked the wild flowers around the Ranch. I am fascinated and delighted by bright green sprouting, blooming, climbing things.
The kind smiles of bright blooms, and lofty glances of leafy twigs inspire topics of conversation and boost my aliveness more than most of my daily human interactions. There's an imaginary world not so far from earth, under the rhododendrons. Ivy and black berry vines team up with holly trees and wild sorrel to over take this garden of primrose and crocus, and over there, a circle outlined by huge, wise, ancient redwood!
What would it say if trees spoke? What are the inner workings of a bok choy, as it's stem and first leaves break into the light?
Do peonies gossip? Are Lilacs like children until they reach thirty?
There was a huge Lilac tree (Tree, not bush) at the ranch where I grew up. It was situated quite close to the bedroom window, and I remember climbing out of that window to get tangled up in it's branches and have long talks with Fred. I don't remember a lot of details from my childhood, but I remember naming that tree, and feeling it's oldness. I remember a sweet boy from my all boy (except me) kindergarten class helping me bring an old tractor tire to the base of the tree so we could sit under it together. I don't remember what we use to talk about, but Jamie and I spent a lot of time under Fred that summer, I remember that!
I don't remember snow at the ranch being so horribly kill-joy.
Perhaps that was because it was fun to play "lost orphan in a snow storm" when it was snowing, thoug that entire plot line happens to be depressing as hell. There was also a fair amount of eighty degree plus weather in eastern Oregon, the weather of warmth and sunshine adequately put a thaw on orphan ali, turning her into butter cup tracker and wind whisperer.
I was a weird mix of imaginative, intelligent, mature, sensitive, curious, creative and impatient as a child.
Time passes, and I am an impatient, curious, creative child, trying to navigate the life of an intelligent, sensitive, mature, imaginative adult. Still wearing the ripped flower girl dress of pointless emotionality.
Fighting the need to leave my house of imagination and comfort, to go out in the world of the known and unimagined and put money into the bank so I can pay that damn bill.
I vacuumed the memory chip for the camera and Fred (not the lilac) has requested that I have his supervision when handling his nice things since I break and/or accidentally throw away so many of them...
But soon I will have pictures of the garden and seedlings, and Maggie's horrible healing burn! WEEEE.
Though Wednesday's flower bed clearing was far from finished, I decided to busy myself indoors and start restoring the wood coffee table and end table which I industriously picked out of the junk pile of one kind soul. The smelly, dry but dark evil laboratory workshop of a garage was much more inviting to me than the snow.
Sure, I could bundle up and murder ivy in the snow, burn that huge pile of debris, there are plenty of things I could have done perfectly comfortably, to prepare the flower beds and clean up the yard in the snow. Among other kinds of hermit, lately, I am a snow hermit. I want to make snow illegal in Pacific County, but the damn politicians are against me. They probably LIKE snow. I want to live on the coast for it's mild weather, darn it!
For some, snow is pretty. Snow somehow conjures up nostalgic feelings in some. Inhabitants of this wet, dark corner of the galaxy tend to see it as a depressing setback in our journey to the days of warmth and sunlight. I'm sure not all of them see snow this way.
Maggie sure likes putting it in her mouth. Terrorist.
Mean while, indoors where the snow don't go, my tomato plants have exploded from little seedling trees, into flower studded angry hulk sized plants! I have been reading some interesting literature about pollinating these buggars with vibrating devices. Apparently they can't get there by themselves.
The squash are developing their fifth set of true leaves and the broccoli are moving along swimmingly.
Something wonderful happened with one of the squash seedlings!
Back when I was impatiently (not) waiting for germination, I dug up a seed and broke it in half to see if the darn thing was rotten, it wasn't, but instead of throwing the seed away and replanting the pot, I shoved the seed halves back into the soil- like the slob that I am, deep down. Well, this seed sprouted, and though it only had one very malformed seed leaf, it didn't die. This little thingy is putting on tiny true leaves to compensate, and because the plant doesn't have the seed leaves to supplement it's nutrition, I've been lightly fertilizing it. The entire thing is not much bigger than my thumb, while it's seedling mates are larger than my entire hand, I am just astounded that the thing is growing.
I'm contemplating starting fresh seeds, because I am not sure these plants will transfer into the garden.
If this snow bs continues like snowy years in the past, the true warm weather will come on late and a few early warm patches of false Spring will lure my plants out doors, then freeze them- ZAP!
However, if the peninsula can keep it's self out of the freezer, my early planting will not have been in vain, the plants will take to the garden and I will have extended our short growing season by a good couple of months!
I really want my lights back, too. While the Veggies are hogging it, I have plans for sprouting entire envelopes of snapdragons, zinnias and sweet peas to plant around the house. This lady has an undying lust for flowers, but a stubborn checking account, not pleased with the price tag of posies at the nursery, if you know what I mean!
I am not far from the child I was when I sang to the cows and picked the wild flowers around the Ranch. I am fascinated and delighted by bright green sprouting, blooming, climbing things.
The kind smiles of bright blooms, and lofty glances of leafy twigs inspire topics of conversation and boost my aliveness more than most of my daily human interactions. There's an imaginary world not so far from earth, under the rhododendrons. Ivy and black berry vines team up with holly trees and wild sorrel to over take this garden of primrose and crocus, and over there, a circle outlined by huge, wise, ancient redwood!
What would it say if trees spoke? What are the inner workings of a bok choy, as it's stem and first leaves break into the light?
Do peonies gossip? Are Lilacs like children until they reach thirty?
There was a huge Lilac tree (Tree, not bush) at the ranch where I grew up. It was situated quite close to the bedroom window, and I remember climbing out of that window to get tangled up in it's branches and have long talks with Fred. I don't remember a lot of details from my childhood, but I remember naming that tree, and feeling it's oldness. I remember a sweet boy from my all boy (except me) kindergarten class helping me bring an old tractor tire to the base of the tree so we could sit under it together. I don't remember what we use to talk about, but Jamie and I spent a lot of time under Fred that summer, I remember that!
I don't remember snow at the ranch being so horribly kill-joy.
Perhaps that was because it was fun to play "lost orphan in a snow storm" when it was snowing, thoug that entire plot line happens to be depressing as hell. There was also a fair amount of eighty degree plus weather in eastern Oregon, the weather of warmth and sunshine adequately put a thaw on orphan ali, turning her into butter cup tracker and wind whisperer.
I was a weird mix of imaginative, intelligent, mature, sensitive, curious, creative and impatient as a child.
Time passes, and I am an impatient, curious, creative child, trying to navigate the life of an intelligent, sensitive, mature, imaginative adult. Still wearing the ripped flower girl dress of pointless emotionality.
Fighting the need to leave my house of imagination and comfort, to go out in the world of the known and unimagined and put money into the bank so I can pay that damn bill.
I vacuumed the memory chip for the camera and Fred (not the lilac) has requested that I have his supervision when handling his nice things since I break and/or accidentally throw away so many of them...
But soon I will have pictures of the garden and seedlings, and Maggie's horrible healing burn! WEEEE.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Mother's Milk
My last post was filled with N words, and I'm still not done with them!
Reading cookbooks and glancing over nutritional content/benefits of the baked items in question has left me with my ears ringing. Mental telephone calls echoing through my skull- "oh yay! MORE saturated fat in this one!" and 1 1/2 lb butter block!?" "Processed sugar, wheat flour, saturated fat, Espresso and sugar syrup are going to invade my life!!!!!"
But it will be fun, and I won't be taste testing alone! There are many opportunities to introduce healthy and delicious coffee goodies full of Omega 3s, slowly released sources of energy and that sugary zip, to please the palette (and mind)!
For at least the past twenty years, the scientific world has conducted some very useful research between the relationship of nutrition and our mind/emotional state. We now know that the chemicals in our brains which effect many of our most intimate functions can be manipulated with the use of synthetic compounds, and certain combination of natural substances found in plants. Recently, more attention has been paid to the effects of our food choices in combination with physical activity on our mental state.
Food allergies or sensitivity also show a clear indication of altered function in the central nervous system.
I think it is important to keep an eye on these studies and educate ourselves about our bodies. Those of us fortunate enough to have had particularly nurturing and conscientious parenting also have a great wealth to draw from. The knowledge and habits we acquire as we grow, like mother's milk, are tailor made nutrition guides. My mom always kept an eye on how often I ate, knowing I am vulnerable to low blood sugar freak outs, and whether I was hydrated properly, knowing I will neglect that necessity and become listless, moody. She gave those tools to me through her constant drilling as soon as I was able to talk(back)! ;)
Mommy gave me the common sense to look inside and ask, "are you being shitty because you didn't feed yourself yet today, or is it really because you 'have to do yaddayadda'...?" I know that a lot of the things we tell ourselves before we get out of bed in the morning, and later during that down swing in the day come from regular dehydration and lower blood sugar, and are important enough to pay attention to- for everyone, some more than others!
It has taken me halfway through my twenty second year of life to put down the meds and accept the un-pleasantries accompanying the good harvest each year. For me, the use of medication for my irregularities never completely made sense, but seemed like a responsible thing to do at the time... all those times.
Some folks truly have a wide ranging, low functioning sort of chemistry and rely on medications, and that is an important commitment to make- but balanced nutrition is still required to maximize the effects of the treatment.
I think the medications I've taken don't quite do the trick, or leave me with bizarre side effects like nausea (when I already don't want to eat), or sleepiness (when I tend to sleep too much anyway), because I haven't been making enough of an effort to utilize the tools I was given growing up to nurture my self nutritionally!
I've been without medication for seven months, the first time in six years and I have noticed a much more acceptable experience of life when I think of the food I eat as my medicine. My choices have changed, my tastes have changed. Fred and I have gained an appreciation for whole grains, plates full of fresh vegetables, and simple home made goods.
2 to 4 ounces of the right kind of snack or small meal can modify mental behavior within 30 to 45 minutes!
The amino acid tyrosine is directly related to levels of dopamine and norepinephrine (brain chemicals that facilitate faster thinking, alertness and motivation), and a snack of low fat (fatty foods cause blood to leave the brain and surround the stomach to aid digestion for longer periods, causing lethargy) fish, chicken, tofu, low fat or non fat diary products and dried lentils or any other protein rich, low fat food can get you ready to go!
Tryptophan is the principal amino acid from which seretonin (brain chemical which increases sensations of calmness, less distraction and and an easing of the negative feelings of stress and anxiety) is made. Foods rich in carbohydrates eaten without protien (as tyrosine trumps tryptophan every time), like cooked whole grains, breads, pasta and low protein muffins are good foods which increase our bodies' access to tryptophan.
Both of these amino acids are considered essential, which means our bodies can not synthesize them independently!
Interesting!
Reading cookbooks and glancing over nutritional content/benefits of the baked items in question has left me with my ears ringing. Mental telephone calls echoing through my skull- "oh yay! MORE saturated fat in this one!" and 1 1/2 lb butter block!?" "Processed sugar, wheat flour, saturated fat, Espresso and sugar syrup are going to invade my life!!!!!"
But it will be fun, and I won't be taste testing alone! There are many opportunities to introduce healthy and delicious coffee goodies full of Omega 3s, slowly released sources of energy and that sugary zip, to please the palette (and mind)!
For at least the past twenty years, the scientific world has conducted some very useful research between the relationship of nutrition and our mind/emotional state. We now know that the chemicals in our brains which effect many of our most intimate functions can be manipulated with the use of synthetic compounds, and certain combination of natural substances found in plants. Recently, more attention has been paid to the effects of our food choices in combination with physical activity on our mental state.
Food allergies or sensitivity also show a clear indication of altered function in the central nervous system.
I think it is important to keep an eye on these studies and educate ourselves about our bodies. Those of us fortunate enough to have had particularly nurturing and conscientious parenting also have a great wealth to draw from. The knowledge and habits we acquire as we grow, like mother's milk, are tailor made nutrition guides. My mom always kept an eye on how often I ate, knowing I am vulnerable to low blood sugar freak outs, and whether I was hydrated properly, knowing I will neglect that necessity and become listless, moody. She gave those tools to me through her constant drilling as soon as I was able to talk(back)! ;)
Mommy gave me the common sense to look inside and ask, "are you being shitty because you didn't feed yourself yet today, or is it really because you 'have to do yaddayadda'...?" I know that a lot of the things we tell ourselves before we get out of bed in the morning, and later during that down swing in the day come from regular dehydration and lower blood sugar, and are important enough to pay attention to- for everyone, some more than others!
It has taken me halfway through my twenty second year of life to put down the meds and accept the un-pleasantries accompanying the good harvest each year. For me, the use of medication for my irregularities never completely made sense, but seemed like a responsible thing to do at the time... all those times.
Some folks truly have a wide ranging, low functioning sort of chemistry and rely on medications, and that is an important commitment to make- but balanced nutrition is still required to maximize the effects of the treatment.
I think the medications I've taken don't quite do the trick, or leave me with bizarre side effects like nausea (when I already don't want to eat), or sleepiness (when I tend to sleep too much anyway), because I haven't been making enough of an effort to utilize the tools I was given growing up to nurture my self nutritionally!
I've been without medication for seven months, the first time in six years and I have noticed a much more acceptable experience of life when I think of the food I eat as my medicine. My choices have changed, my tastes have changed. Fred and I have gained an appreciation for whole grains, plates full of fresh vegetables, and simple home made goods.
2 to 4 ounces of the right kind of snack or small meal can modify mental behavior within 30 to 45 minutes!
The amino acid tyrosine is directly related to levels of dopamine and norepinephrine (brain chemicals that facilitate faster thinking, alertness and motivation), and a snack of low fat (fatty foods cause blood to leave the brain and surround the stomach to aid digestion for longer periods, causing lethargy) fish, chicken, tofu, low fat or non fat diary products and dried lentils or any other protein rich, low fat food can get you ready to go!
Tryptophan is the principal amino acid from which seretonin (brain chemical which increases sensations of calmness, less distraction and and an easing of the negative feelings of stress and anxiety) is made. Foods rich in carbohydrates eaten without protien (as tyrosine trumps tryptophan every time), like cooked whole grains, breads, pasta and low protein muffins are good foods which increase our bodies' access to tryptophan.
Both of these amino acids are considered essential, which means our bodies can not synthesize them independently!
Interesting!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
To nourish, to nurture
Today I met with the owner of Adelaide's and her pal, a baker.
The baker has admitted to being not so excited about baking coffee shop snacks, as she likes to focus the use of her professional kitchen for leavened breads and rustic strudel. The meeting was to discuss the possibility of me utilizing the kitchen to provide Adelaide's with goods when it is not in use, and to be a sort of apprentice to the Baker.
It's exciting to have a project like this.
Of course my mind is stretching this little ball of information into a membrane thin sheet, spanning the "oh hell, I hope not" and the "young baker takes world by storm with amazing crumble!" and I am sort of at a loss.
Both ladies, wonderful in their attempt to nurture the community by teaching and walking with the up and coming generation, are sincere in their hopes for the future, but left me a little floaty as I was not given any figures for cost, or any sort of idea as to how/when this all will take place.
These things take time to blossom, I suppose.
Fun!
The baker has admitted to being not so excited about baking coffee shop snacks, as she likes to focus the use of her professional kitchen for leavened breads and rustic strudel. The meeting was to discuss the possibility of me utilizing the kitchen to provide Adelaide's with goods when it is not in use, and to be a sort of apprentice to the Baker.
It's exciting to have a project like this.
Of course my mind is stretching this little ball of information into a membrane thin sheet, spanning the "oh hell, I hope not" and the "young baker takes world by storm with amazing crumble!" and I am sort of at a loss.
Both ladies, wonderful in their attempt to nurture the community by teaching and walking with the up and coming generation, are sincere in their hopes for the future, but left me a little floaty as I was not given any figures for cost, or any sort of idea as to how/when this all will take place.
These things take time to blossom, I suppose.
Fun!
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Crab Man Metamorphosis
The local crabbing industry is a curiously constructed fleet of boats of all shapes and sizes, some owned by local rough necks, others by rich dudes in different time zones. They are loosely regulated from within by collective strikes, when they all impatiently wait to run their gear for an increase in price from the market. Other regulations are imposed by governmental laws and restrictions.
Some crews will run others' gear (harvest crab from another boat's pots, and bait!), and break the strike to harvest what crab are out in the water, whatever the quality or price. It's a pirate ship fleet, in the waters around here from December to Spring!
The three man crew aboard the Joyce Marie had a short season this time around.
The starting date was pushed some twenty days back and last Thursday, February the 10th was the date when the boat owner decided that the season was over for them. The income from the boat wasn't generating enough to fund the insurance.
A usually lucrative time for Fred, this year crabbing was a disappointment, to be put simply.
The few days on their small boat when the tides and weather allowed the guys to do their thing offered few crab, long hours and tons and tons of boobing.
We are glad it is over. Fred took a couple of days in the cocoon of Jack Daniels and computer Risk to change from Crab Man to Fred.
Fred has regular hours of operation, usually from five am to nine pm.
He no longer smells like the lingering aroma of fish guts bait, and he is rested and out going. Making friends with the locals is very easy and he will quickly have a schedule full of "jobs" to synchronize. Today he is working at Bradley's. Bradley has a home and landscape design firm in Seattle, but purchased a home in Oysterville to restore. While the home renovations click along, he has been expertly developing the most beautiful garden I have ever seen. I will have pictures later on because I can do little to describe all that is going on round the home of Bradley in text.
Fred stays busy hauling and spreading mulch over the grounds, building all kinds of fences and structures, paving walkways, tilling new flower patches and always planting, always, ALWAYS!
Usually I would tag along with Fred and MJ (yes, he is glued to his man-buddy's side again!) to Bradley's to help with projects, but Friday night's crab cooking mishap keeps me home with a sick child.
Nine crab, a year's supply of Cod, three functioning burners (60 year old effing stove...$90 to replace!), chatting guests in the living room with Jack Daniels, and I am juggling.
Literally juggling boiling pots of water and oil, crab, batter, collander, oven and conversation.
And a cocktail. Why do I never give the booze it's proper respect?!
And Maggie is tripping me at every step. NO DOGS IN THE KITCHEN!
I tend to duck out of the whole entertaining bit in favor of hiding in the kitchen to selectively listen to the conversation, and have my own with my self in my head about the things I can understand, like mixing and heat adjustments. I avoid the tight rope of socialization by sipping attention altering elixir in my kitchen cave.
I make trips out to the living room as people try to include me in the conversation, which is only polite, and become dizzy and more and more scatterbrained, trying to perform a translation of the situation so as to not take things the wrong way, which I do too much, and keep from not interrupting people when they speak while also not providing input at the appropriate times, which I also do too much.
I'm swimming in my head, juggling, spinning the plates. I am busy, I am dancing between hiding and engaging and I am accomplishing the task of cooking a snack, and crab before they get not-fresh. I convinced that I am doing it right. Convinced that it is all necessary, and that I need to do it all right now.
I think I have written on this blog about the importance of fessing up to your responsibilities. I forgot about the spinning plates that always spin. I forgot about the person I am when no one is looking. I put the performance of what I think I should be before the person I am and I forgot to be the Dog's Buddy.
So Maggie gets scalded when I trip over her with a crab on it's way to the sink after his twenty minute sauna, and I have just enough booze in me to make it the absolute worst thing anyone could fathom happening. I scream and cry and scare everyone off while applying cold water to my dog in the bathroom. I wish someone would whip me and leave me out side for the night for not seeing this coming. Since no one else thinks this logic is correct, I just become more hysterical and not fun to live with.
Maggie is freaked the heck out, but she is drinking water and eating and being a very good pup.
Her burns will be painful and long to heal. The trauma is real, and trails behind like exhaust fumes. I am so sorry, Maggie-wag. Her tail still wiggles, she will get better.
Life experience tells me that I often bite off way more than I can chew. It feels good to surround myself with spinning plates full of activity, creativity, movement but it never seems to get less mortifying when the plates fall.
I feel like I am really doing something when I have piles of different things to show for myself when I am done. But so often, I fail to bring my idea of what it should be into the world and call myself bad names. Or I give up when the speed and precision of a thing cannot last for long, I invariably lose interest, also that good feeling of accomplishing anything.
It is interesting the way it looks from an analytical perspective, as oppose to the emotional one I habitually use.
I see this in the garden path, and clearing project from last summer. I would focus on the garden path with Fred and the work would move along rapidly, and it was my favorite project. Then, as Fred began to work on other things and was confident in my ability to finish the path and clearing, the finished work came slower to me, and I quickly lost interest and fought myself everyday I was out there.
I see this also in my past modes of employment. I get the job and learning the job is exciting and interesting, but the longer I am there, seeing the flaws and difficulties in the system, feeling when the praise wears off and doing an impeccable job goes from appreciated to expected, the gas comes out of the balloon and suddenly the damn thing is worthless.
Nobody was making me wiz around the kitchen, tipsy and halfway horrified of a social faux pas which had not yet happened, or that had happened years ago.
Fred would have been happy to have fish fry for dinner and drinks with friends, then help me cook the crab when things calmed down.
I could have surrendered to the social atmosphere, to the slow relaxed gathering. I chose to avoid what was going on, and retreat into my own world, where a pile of accomplishments are calling urgently.
The days go by and I try to keep the animal house moderately dustbunny less, I cook the meals and try to keep up on the dishes. There is definitely a rhythm and plenty of things to do to keep busy. Life is different from the way I assumed it would be, the demands I'm faced with are not necessarily ones I would ever imagine they would be, but why should that keep me from loosening up and enjoying the ebb and flow of the now?
If I look at my life with the critical eye of my younger hysterical self, I see a clumsy failure.
If I look at my life with the accepting eye of my wise, ageless self, I see a person quite different from the one I expect and that is acceptable.
La Que Sabe, the one who knows, Old Wild Woman, does not judge her heart with hate, or trauma. She knows these things burn through good canvas.
I may not have fulfilled the immature and uneducated notions of the imaginary future I've spend my adolescence preparing for myself, but I'm doing life now. It's different.
There is a Star Trek marathon playing this afternoon. Maggie and I will be watching it together.
I will clean the house and try to start re programing my thought patterns by watching them closely.
I think I will make a potato salad and stuff a cod fillet with crab, shallot and dill.
I will definitely be grateful for my dog, and all of the little things that make it possible for me to do what it is that I do, one thing at a time from now on, let's hope.
Some crews will run others' gear (harvest crab from another boat's pots, and bait!), and break the strike to harvest what crab are out in the water, whatever the quality or price. It's a pirate ship fleet, in the waters around here from December to Spring!
The three man crew aboard the Joyce Marie had a short season this time around.
The starting date was pushed some twenty days back and last Thursday, February the 10th was the date when the boat owner decided that the season was over for them. The income from the boat wasn't generating enough to fund the insurance.
A usually lucrative time for Fred, this year crabbing was a disappointment, to be put simply.
The few days on their small boat when the tides and weather allowed the guys to do their thing offered few crab, long hours and tons and tons of boobing.
We are glad it is over. Fred took a couple of days in the cocoon of Jack Daniels and computer Risk to change from Crab Man to Fred.
Fred has regular hours of operation, usually from five am to nine pm.
He no longer smells like the lingering aroma of fish guts bait, and he is rested and out going. Making friends with the locals is very easy and he will quickly have a schedule full of "jobs" to synchronize. Today he is working at Bradley's. Bradley has a home and landscape design firm in Seattle, but purchased a home in Oysterville to restore. While the home renovations click along, he has been expertly developing the most beautiful garden I have ever seen. I will have pictures later on because I can do little to describe all that is going on round the home of Bradley in text.
Fred stays busy hauling and spreading mulch over the grounds, building all kinds of fences and structures, paving walkways, tilling new flower patches and always planting, always, ALWAYS!
Usually I would tag along with Fred and MJ (yes, he is glued to his man-buddy's side again!) to Bradley's to help with projects, but Friday night's crab cooking mishap keeps me home with a sick child.
Nine crab, a year's supply of Cod, three functioning burners (60 year old effing stove...$90 to replace!), chatting guests in the living room with Jack Daniels, and I am juggling.
Literally juggling boiling pots of water and oil, crab, batter, collander, oven and conversation.
And a cocktail. Why do I never give the booze it's proper respect?!
And Maggie is tripping me at every step. NO DOGS IN THE KITCHEN!
I tend to duck out of the whole entertaining bit in favor of hiding in the kitchen to selectively listen to the conversation, and have my own with my self in my head about the things I can understand, like mixing and heat adjustments. I avoid the tight rope of socialization by sipping attention altering elixir in my kitchen cave.
I make trips out to the living room as people try to include me in the conversation, which is only polite, and become dizzy and more and more scatterbrained, trying to perform a translation of the situation so as to not take things the wrong way, which I do too much, and keep from not interrupting people when they speak while also not providing input at the appropriate times, which I also do too much.
I'm swimming in my head, juggling, spinning the plates. I am busy, I am dancing between hiding and engaging and I am accomplishing the task of cooking a snack, and crab before they get not-fresh. I convinced that I am doing it right. Convinced that it is all necessary, and that I need to do it all right now.
I think I have written on this blog about the importance of fessing up to your responsibilities. I forgot about the spinning plates that always spin. I forgot about the person I am when no one is looking. I put the performance of what I think I should be before the person I am and I forgot to be the Dog's Buddy.
So Maggie gets scalded when I trip over her with a crab on it's way to the sink after his twenty minute sauna, and I have just enough booze in me to make it the absolute worst thing anyone could fathom happening. I scream and cry and scare everyone off while applying cold water to my dog in the bathroom. I wish someone would whip me and leave me out side for the night for not seeing this coming. Since no one else thinks this logic is correct, I just become more hysterical and not fun to live with.
Maggie is freaked the heck out, but she is drinking water and eating and being a very good pup.
Her burns will be painful and long to heal. The trauma is real, and trails behind like exhaust fumes. I am so sorry, Maggie-wag. Her tail still wiggles, she will get better.
Life experience tells me that I often bite off way more than I can chew. It feels good to surround myself with spinning plates full of activity, creativity, movement but it never seems to get less mortifying when the plates fall.
I feel like I am really doing something when I have piles of different things to show for myself when I am done. But so often, I fail to bring my idea of what it should be into the world and call myself bad names. Or I give up when the speed and precision of a thing cannot last for long, I invariably lose interest, also that good feeling of accomplishing anything.
It is interesting the way it looks from an analytical perspective, as oppose to the emotional one I habitually use.
I see this in the garden path, and clearing project from last summer. I would focus on the garden path with Fred and the work would move along rapidly, and it was my favorite project. Then, as Fred began to work on other things and was confident in my ability to finish the path and clearing, the finished work came slower to me, and I quickly lost interest and fought myself everyday I was out there.
I see this also in my past modes of employment. I get the job and learning the job is exciting and interesting, but the longer I am there, seeing the flaws and difficulties in the system, feeling when the praise wears off and doing an impeccable job goes from appreciated to expected, the gas comes out of the balloon and suddenly the damn thing is worthless.
Nobody was making me wiz around the kitchen, tipsy and halfway horrified of a social faux pas which had not yet happened, or that had happened years ago.
Fred would have been happy to have fish fry for dinner and drinks with friends, then help me cook the crab when things calmed down.
I could have surrendered to the social atmosphere, to the slow relaxed gathering. I chose to avoid what was going on, and retreat into my own world, where a pile of accomplishments are calling urgently.
The days go by and I try to keep the animal house moderately dustbunny less, I cook the meals and try to keep up on the dishes. There is definitely a rhythm and plenty of things to do to keep busy. Life is different from the way I assumed it would be, the demands I'm faced with are not necessarily ones I would ever imagine they would be, but why should that keep me from loosening up and enjoying the ebb and flow of the now?
If I look at my life with the critical eye of my younger hysterical self, I see a clumsy failure.
If I look at my life with the accepting eye of my wise, ageless self, I see a person quite different from the one I expect and that is acceptable.
La Que Sabe, the one who knows, Old Wild Woman, does not judge her heart with hate, or trauma. She knows these things burn through good canvas.
I may not have fulfilled the immature and uneducated notions of the imaginary future I've spend my adolescence preparing for myself, but I'm doing life now. It's different.
There is a Star Trek marathon playing this afternoon. Maggie and I will be watching it together.
I will clean the house and try to start re programing my thought patterns by watching them closely.
I think I will make a potato salad and stuff a cod fillet with crab, shallot and dill.
I will definitely be grateful for my dog, and all of the little things that make it possible for me to do what it is that I do, one thing at a time from now on, let's hope.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Adho Mukha Svanasana
Downward facing dog.
Grrrrr... My nemesis!
Yeah, good idea Leesh, go do some public physical meditation and music up the place. Here's what gazing at your navel sounds like, folks.
We've all heard of Brain Farts. Yoga farts happen too. They are pretty similar sometimes, as far as embarrassment factor, but the mental/emotional ones can become mortifying for one with a powerful/bored enough imagination!
I shall never, ever turn misunderstandings, mistakes or bumps in the road, into emotional farts, anymore.
My morning meditation will be the way it felt to not die in that moment, when I tooted in a room full of focusing, silent strangers. Well not strangers, I see a lot of them at the grocery store.
Grrrrr... My nemesis!
Yeah, good idea Leesh, go do some public physical meditation and music up the place. Here's what gazing at your navel sounds like, folks.
We've all heard of Brain Farts. Yoga farts happen too. They are pretty similar sometimes, as far as embarrassment factor, but the mental/emotional ones can become mortifying for one with a powerful/bored enough imagination!
I shall never, ever turn misunderstandings, mistakes or bumps in the road, into emotional farts, anymore.
My morning meditation will be the way it felt to not die in that moment, when I tooted in a room full of focusing, silent strangers. Well not strangers, I see a lot of them at the grocery store.
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