One final entry about my mother. Somewhere along the way she learned how to make a lemon meringue pie...from scratch. She was the minister's wife. Her pie always won first place...and then she found out about boxes and bags...she found that you could buy a box of pie crusts...and so why should she make them from scratch? She had to practice her violin. And she still won first place! My grandmother tried to explain that she was...cheating...but she disagreed. I figure the ladies of the church were just being gracious. She would always win the prize for the lemon meringue pie!

A Post Script:

Recipe for Black Bean Soup

2 tsp. olive oil

2 onions chopped

2 tsp.chili powder

Pinch red pepper flakes

1 can (28 oz.) plum tomatoes, drained and chopped

2 cups chicken stock

1 can Black Beans, drained and rinsed

1 to 1 1/2 cups corn kernels

Coarsely chopped packed fresh coriander

Heat oil, cook onions, chili powder, red pepper flakes...stirring for 5 to 8 minutes

Add tomatoes, stock, beans, corn...Simmer stirring until slightly thickened

Stir in coriander and dollop of sour cream

Now it's really hot...wonderful for a cold...You can either modify the chili...or...and this is what I discovered tonight, you can add some cut up very dark chocolate - mother would have loved the chocolate...it takes away some of the heat...

Today I have a cold...and I made black bean soup...and it had chili and red pepper flakes and coriander...and it really was good because I could taste it. I was thinking about feminism and my mother who was so proud of her cooking. She would have made the soup without the spices...she might even have omitted the black beans. It didn't matter to her. She was a musician...that mattered. What is amusing is that she could convince people that her soup was authentic and that she knew what she was doing. I think she was a feminist...she didn't know she was of the "second sex." In 1940, the year that women got the vote, Ethel Stark created the Montreal Women's Symphony orchestra. My mother was a member. They had no instruments...they begged borrowed and stole them...and more importantly they learned how to to play them to the point where they performed in Carnegie Hall...They didn't know they were the second sex. They didn't know that what they did was impossible. They were musicians. They would do anything to make music.
Yesterday I was talking about her with a new friend. Talk about synchronicity. Said friend's step mother played the bassoon in the Women's Symphony Orchestra. Everywhere I go I meet the alumnae of that group. They wouldn't know that that was the year they got the vote. They would know that that was the year that they created an orchestra.
They wouldn't know that spices were important in soup!

I went to Africa...on a Safari...with a group of people who wanted to see a kill...I didn't want to see a kill but I was on a Safari. One day a Cheetah crossed the road right in front of us and climbed an ant hill...about the size of an exercise ball...He or she...was hunting.

We drove down the road a bit and came across a Grant's Gazelle with his herd...

Those in the van who wanted a kill said, "Ohhhh..."

We saw the Cheetah; we saw the Gazelle...they were very close...

And suddenly the Gazelle looked towards the Cheetah...

Those who wanted a kill said, "Ohhhh...Noooo..."

And some even started shouting, "Don't!"

And I think one person nearly got out of the van...and then remembered the Cheetah!

And the Gazelle moved towards the Cheetah...

And the Cheetah got up...

And the van was silent.

And the Cheetah...left....

And I shouted, "Yeah Gazelle!"

And we never saw a kill!

Later the guide explained that the Cheetah left because Cheetah's won't attack from the front. They don't want to be gored by the Gazelle's horns.

Smart Cheetah. Smart Gazelle. Smart Africa.

I couldn't resist...it is so wintry out. I found this fragment written when I first found out what a blog was: I want to start a blog. I am going to invite Jane Eyre...and kill her...because it is all her fault that people don't tell stories...they worry that they will not be able to tell as good a story as Jane Eyre...On second thought, I think I am directing my aggression at the wrong person...I think it is the Bronte sisters I should be targeting.

I really have many more pictures than I have writing! But I am determined. I found this list of why Miss Machin will never be a permanent teacher at Miss Edgars:

She is irreverent.
She is too old.
She can't keep a straight face.
She has sudden temper tantrums. (I like to call that Irish!)
She can't spell.
She just comes for the soup.
She is still a child.
She has weird fingers and scares children.

Oooops - a very big gap! I'm sorry...I found the following note:

Feb. 6 1988

Dear Mach,

I want my comp with the gum on it!

Yours truly

Doug

Sorry, kid, I kept the note...but not the comp...but I have your pencil!

Mach

The trouble with taking pictures of dogs in the park is that they are all attached to leashes...

I read another good book...The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery... I always envy the single sentence: Is it my impression or is Paloma experimenting with apnea?

Now that's a sentence!

I am momentarily speechless...because I am reading a very good book (People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks) and knitting a scarf. I won't tell you what I ate for supper. That would be plebeian!

The simplest way of changing fiction to fact - change the pronoun and the name...obviously.

As she sits here...writing on school paper...eating bridge mixture... drinking Cinzano...thumbing her nose at her nutritionist who left a message to phone which she is ignoring because she knows the nutritionist is going away for a week...she wonders who best deserves her first letter of the year...it is a toss up...there are many deserving souls...perhaps she could make it a form letter! Let the word processor begin! You won the toss...the rest will get a copy with the name changed...crossed out! Actually you might want the names and addresses of the other recipients...between the lot of you...you could decipher what has happened to Sally.

Three points to be made:
I watch television. I am not ashamed. From the day I saw the coronation of the Queen in black and white, I have watched television. I saw a beautiful clip the other day. Somewhere in England a ballet company is building a new space. The floor has to be spring loaded. The construction workers became fascinated in the process and were so involved that they decided half as a lark and half seriously to take some lessons and do a charity show. The clip was of the teacher showing them the basic moves as they understood the dynamics of the floor. They were skeptical but they were not mocking the process.
At St. John the Devine they had a blessing of the animals. We're not talking just family pets...we're talking exotic animals. When the priest was asked how they handle the situation, he responded, "We place them in order of who won't eat whom!
And finally my friend Sheila's comment at the end of a particularly challenging day: "Another day, another pile of dust."

Old age is fraught with challenges. One has to give up control of the body, of the living situation...Children finally get to dictate the order they have been trying to impose from the moment they became adults. However, there is a certain freedom attached to old age. One can say what one thinks. My friend was out walking with her mom when they met a small dog. After making the appropriate fuss, she turned to my friend and said, "That's a why bother dog!"

My mom had difficulty with the presence of my grandmother.

She had lived with us and cared for us for so long that my mother worried about not caring for her. Long after my grandmother died, my mother looked for her. And so I put up a sign in her living room, "Grannie is dead." It worked. She said that whenever she got that feeling, she just looked at the sign.

A friend told me at one point that his mother worried about what had happened to her house. I told him about the sign and so he put up a sign: "The house is sold...and grannie's dead." He did the latter to honor my sign. One day he visited his mom and asked her if she felt better about the house. "Oh yes," she said. "The house is sold." And then she hesitated..."But I didn't know grannie was dead."

Even we who are retired respect the sanctity of the weekend. Even if we have puttered all week, we still reserve some puttering for the weekend. Puttering produced this picture which I had forgotten about and which I think is rather neat. It was taken in Manning Park. My friend and I disagreed about the hummming sound...she thought it was an owl. I was pretty sure it was a bear. Fortunately we had no opportunity to verify our speculations! I'm pretty sure it was a bear. Owls don't hummm. In any case, we were privileged to be there.

I was right! No more flitter brain!

I'm suffering from flitter brain! It all started when I tried to take a picture of two poodles and a friend. They all gave up...but really I was trying to remember where I put the forty rolls of toilet paper I had bought...I didn't need it but it was symbolic. If I could lose 40 rolls of toilet paper and not get a decent poodle picture, then I was in trouble...I figured that if I found the 40 rolls of toilet paper that would put everything back into order.

Then I would write a note to myself to tell me where they were...and voila! No more flitter brain!

There's nothing like going up a mountain to get a brilliant idea...as long as one can remember the idea when one gets down the mountain. I was asked to show my photos...which delighted me...until I was asked to show my animal photos...but I really like my flower photos...and thanks to the mountain...I have found the perfect compromise...and I even remembered the idea when I got home!

The day that nothing went right: That was the way it happened. The little boy dropped the rubber ball and the world ended.

There is nothing like a well balanced series of sentences:

Mother pours the coffee; I pour the tea. Chester pours his cat food all over the floor. Chester is put outside.

Today I found a Briard. What is significant about that? He is an amazing breed - those ears are butterfly like...and if I had been doing what I was supposed to do, I wouldn't have found the Briard!

The question of the day is what will I do when I grow up?

The second question is will I ever grow up?

The frightening question is have I grown up and not noticed it?

What is a drama queen? Or is that Drama Queen? I was talking to a friend whilst her one-year-old was moaning softly in the background. My friend is a very fine mother so when she said, "She's just being a drama queen. I wonder where she got that from," I knew all too well but I protested. My friend has been accused of being a drama queen. I have been accused in my day of being a drama queen. It is not a nice name to be called. It suggests a certain manipulative, air-headed quality.
My friend has handled a thousand very challenging situations with skill and serenity. She can feed fifty with two minutes notice without blinking. She learned to play the piano at fifteen and sat a performance degree at twenty-four. She has two children and one husband.
I cannot claim any of those qualifications, but I do know that I am Irish. I tend to shout then cope. And I shout in order to stop everyone or everything until I have time to cope. Shouting is effective if not done often. I even laugh as I shout, but inside I am not laughing. We do not know what this one-year-old is being a drama queen about. She is on the verge of telling us any day now! In the meantime, I trust my friend to read her moans and know that she is safe. Perhaps my friend and I aren't drama queens. Perhaps we suffer on occasion from terminal earnestness? That is another path to examine.

This is Ciboulette. She is a Maine Coon Cat...I doubt that she was an only child, but I was. Neither of us are good at confrontation. She has just run sideways down the hall looking over her shoulder. I am pathetic. I don't know how to stand my ground. Instead I throw insults at the back of my opponent. And my insults are pathetic. Your mother wore army boots isn't exactly insulting. So now I am trying to learn to confront...but I would prefer to run sideways down the hall...metaphorically speaking.

There once was a woman who lived in an isolated area and ordered her clothes through a store catalogue. One time she sent in an order for a hat for Henry. The person filling the order had no idea who Henry was and had nothing to go on. She decided to take a chance and sent the woman a generic man's hat.
The hat was returned with a note: You know this won't fit Henry.
I've always loved the faith of that woman. I never knew if Henry got his hat...but it is a wonderful explanation of the relationship between the writer and the reader. The writer is always looking for the the hat to fit Henry.

stripping

i dream of living

in an L shaped room

with bright partitions

Gordon

The truth is that I have kept stuff all my life...and now it's time to share it. Sometimes, I don't know the author, but I really respect the content. This one I suggested, but I didn't write.



Soup Aux Personalite

Take a pinch of funniness.
Melt it with a portion of sadness.
Blend with a morsel of seriousness.
Add a dash of evilness.
Slice a pound of honesty.
Immediately dice an ounce of open-mindedness.Slowly combine the funniness, sadness, seriousness, evilness, honesty and open-mindedness in a large saucepan. Simmer until the soup thickens.


Set aside a large skillet for a juicy piece of responsibility(Preferably boneless with no fat). Let the responsibility cook for five minutes.
While everything is cooking, pour yourself a nice tall cold drink of happiness. When ready to serve, pour the soup aux personalite into a bowl and the responsibility onto a plate.Do not rush into your meal. Take your time and enjoy it. Savour the taste.

Note: This meal makes only one serving.

"All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable. The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one's soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive - you are leaking." Frannie Libowitz

That just about sums up my day...I am...leaking somewhat!

I've been thinking about writing. One creates a character and one assumes the minutiae. Ones character will wash his or her face with a facecloth...naturally! But I was visiting friends this weekend. They left a towel for me...and I thought they had just forgotten the facecloth. Not so. They have British roots and the British do not use facecloths. They don't have a facecloth in the house. It left me...rootless. I recounted the experience to a friend expecting support...but instead she responded, "Oh I never use a facecloth except to wash my feet!"

Finally a third friend agreed with me, but when I laughed and said, "How can one wash ones neck without a facecloth?" she looked at me and shrugged. "Don't you take a shower?"

I reported to yet another friend that my blog for the day was on the topic of facecloths.

She replied, "Oh good - Rudy loves facecloths. Apparently his single material fetish - not shoes etc. but facecloths. I don't get it."

I include a picture of Rudy to clarify.

Moral: Never assume the minutiae!

I've always been fond of E.B. White who with a man named Strunk wrote The Elements of Style. "The mind travels faster than the pen, consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in his blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up."

This was what I created with the text: This is Carolyn's book. I assumed that my friend would modify the text to an appropriate comment...she didn't. In one sense it's sort of neat because we realized that people would go to the librarian and ask, "Who's Carolyn!"

So - this is about writing. I take my lead from Anne Lamott's book, bird by bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life. She speaks of asking an hypnotist how one rids oneself of all those voices that interfere with an activity, be it writing or reading or cleaning house. He responded that one takes them one by one and deposits them in a glass jar until there is only one left. The glass jar can be a metaphor...but it also promises that one has saved the voices for a rainy day.

I'm beginning the exorcism of voices. A friend asked me to design a book label for a project we were involved in, that of celebrating a third friend's retirement by contributing books to the local library. I came up with the following:

This is all happening a bit more quickly than I had planned...but I will just plow ahead and add a picture.