Good morning!
Today I am thinking about Frederic Mompou. He's my favorite composer of the moment, but, then, he has been for years.
Mompou's music (you can get some of it on youtube.com) has the fascination of seeming perfectly accessible, but if you start trying to play "at" it, (as my Mama used to say) you find that playing it, really playing it, is almost impossible to do well. And Mompou has to be done well, or it's garbled. Sorry.
Take the Cancion y Danze Number Once, which I am now struggling with. Only it can't really be called a struggle because that implies a negativity that simply is not there. It is a joyous struggle! One doesn't get tired of trying! One lies in bed and the tunes keep coming up and sorting themselves out in one's head.
What's it like? Well, try on youtube....I should have done that before I sat down to write this to see, but I am pretty sure that there is enough on youtube of Mompou (including himself playing some of his works) to let you know better than mere words could say.
In the Cancion Once, it starts off with a very funereal theme. Life is sad...but even before we leave the cancion, there is a second theme that changes our thinking from pure gloom to a quickening of--remembrance? perception?--of a time of childhood, perhaps. Then back to the theme of mourning but in a higher octave; perhaps some suffering has been relieved.
Then on to the Danza, which in this piece is very short. A child's dance, at once courtly and naive. Very, very precious. The tune develops with all the complete workings of a very old folk tune, which Mompou did use sometimes to start his themes. With heart-rending harmonies and precise meters, Mompou leads us to a reconciliation of our pain and suffering. YAZZYBEL
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
And the Last Wall Is...
Good morning, here I am early.
The fourth wall of my bedroom is the worst.
It's Theo's wall, and there is a lot of medical stuff on it. There's a great midsize bookcase that holds a lot of books, if you like, and in his case also holds papers, envelopes stuffed with lord knows what, and so on. I noticed yesterday that he is clearing out the lord knows what, and that's good I guess. He too has the idea that we are in flux, on the move, unstable.
There's a long table that I set up for his diabetes stuff. That causes us a lot of problems because it has to be used five times a day, measuring blood glucose and then calculating, measuring, drawing and injecting insulin. Somehow that table has become snowed over with other papers and things, including a wonderful balance scale we have with small brass weights to help you weigh things, which has wondrously appeared from the garage after years of my nagging for it.
Then we move on to his bedside table, which holds more stuff of the same ilk (the ilk of the medical stuff, not of the scale). All cluttery and boring. There was a device there that connected by phone to the machine implanted in his chest, but it fell to the floor and got broken so now we have to make a trip up there to be read. It is supposed to tell "them" when his heart fibrillates, and I guess it does.
The great thing about that wall is a huge window that looks out upon the street of Fairway Court, and allows us to see the endless parade of plumbing trucks, handicapped bus journeys, and speeders that are our largest class of movers outside on that street. We also get to see the comings and goings of our nearest neighbors, a busy family who I always say are like "las golondrinas, que vienen y se van," because I never never look out that someone is not either driving up or driving away. Truly!!
There's the bed, a queen sized critter that we bought last year after giving the king away to the Salvation Army. The king just took up too much space, and now we are kind of cramped into the queen. Ah well. And at the foot of the bed, a little armchair that I bought at the across the street neighbors' garage sale for $1.00 and had upholstered for $300.00. And worth every bit of it; it is very useful for oldsters.
Last, there are the pictures other than the photos of my children. There's Benjamin's patent. There's a great picture of Theodore looking wild painted by a friend when we were young. And there is a beautiful mountain scene bought from a thrift shop, and a beautiful seaside scene, ditto. We are great admirers of thrift shop paintings. Really. Lots of them are just beautiful and I love the amateur endeavor.
That's about all there is to say about ma chambre. We spend a lot of time there but it has its needs. We are about to replace that big front window, along with four others on the front of the house, as we revamp prior to probably selling it. We will put in vinyl, say I with scorn. Honestly!!
YAZZYBEL
The fourth wall of my bedroom is the worst.
It's Theo's wall, and there is a lot of medical stuff on it. There's a great midsize bookcase that holds a lot of books, if you like, and in his case also holds papers, envelopes stuffed with lord knows what, and so on. I noticed yesterday that he is clearing out the lord knows what, and that's good I guess. He too has the idea that we are in flux, on the move, unstable.
There's a long table that I set up for his diabetes stuff. That causes us a lot of problems because it has to be used five times a day, measuring blood glucose and then calculating, measuring, drawing and injecting insulin. Somehow that table has become snowed over with other papers and things, including a wonderful balance scale we have with small brass weights to help you weigh things, which has wondrously appeared from the garage after years of my nagging for it.
Then we move on to his bedside table, which holds more stuff of the same ilk (the ilk of the medical stuff, not of the scale). All cluttery and boring. There was a device there that connected by phone to the machine implanted in his chest, but it fell to the floor and got broken so now we have to make a trip up there to be read. It is supposed to tell "them" when his heart fibrillates, and I guess it does.
The great thing about that wall is a huge window that looks out upon the street of Fairway Court, and allows us to see the endless parade of plumbing trucks, handicapped bus journeys, and speeders that are our largest class of movers outside on that street. We also get to see the comings and goings of our nearest neighbors, a busy family who I always say are like "las golondrinas, que vienen y se van," because I never never look out that someone is not either driving up or driving away. Truly!!
There's the bed, a queen sized critter that we bought last year after giving the king away to the Salvation Army. The king just took up too much space, and now we are kind of cramped into the queen. Ah well. And at the foot of the bed, a little armchair that I bought at the across the street neighbors' garage sale for $1.00 and had upholstered for $300.00. And worth every bit of it; it is very useful for oldsters.
Last, there are the pictures other than the photos of my children. There's Benjamin's patent. There's a great picture of Theodore looking wild painted by a friend when we were young. And there is a beautiful mountain scene bought from a thrift shop, and a beautiful seaside scene, ditto. We are great admirers of thrift shop paintings. Really. Lots of them are just beautiful and I love the amateur endeavor.
That's about all there is to say about ma chambre. We spend a lot of time there but it has its needs. We are about to replace that big front window, along with four others on the front of the house, as we revamp prior to probably selling it. We will put in vinyl, say I with scorn. Honestly!!
YAZZYBEL
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
And on around the room....
And on we go....
We have come to the wall opposite the bed. It's the dullest wall, for there's nothing on it but two doors and a tall dresser topped by a TV set.
The doors lead to the hall, which I anxiously watch for a shadow-figure (which I do NOT want to see) as I listen to Coast to Coast AM in the wee hours, and into Theodore's bathroom over which we shall discreetly draw the curtain of modesty.
But this wall is important to Theodore because he picked out that dresser and it has proven to be a good one...it is sturdy and not unattractive, and it is tall enough to hold all his small clothes, with room for a money drawer and a misc. drawer at the bottom. So he likes it.
The wall is important to me too, in the way of a certain miracle on the TV set. I ordered out Moliere's L'Avare and when it came it was all in French. Duh, say you. NO subtitles, say I.
Funny, how when we watch a foreign film with subtitles, we think we are understanding what they are saying. Ah, just get the film without them, and you are promptly put in your place.
I took the film to a showing at the advanced French course of a friend, and frankly, I don't think that any of them but perhaps one, understood it a bit better than I did. And the only reason I knew what was going on (vaguely) is that I'd seen it on the Internation Channel some time ago, with subtitles.
So, I took it home and thought: Okay, don't French babies learn French by watching and listening? And many Mexicans tell me they've learned English just by watching American TV...and they spoke pretty well. So I started watching. When I get dressed in the morning. When I take my nap. When I have a few minutes tidying up the room. I have now watched the film for about seven times, all told, not counting the sleeping time.
About the fourth time through (counting the times on the Internet, the first watching, the group watching) a miracle began to occur. I realized that I was understanding in bunches...a big leap in language learning. Not the random word here and there, but phrases sprang effortlessly to my mind as I watched the story.
Now I'm a few viewings beyond that. Every time I watch it, I grasp more of what is being said. It is truly a miracle. About twenty more viewings, and I shall perhaps be able to speak French in the 17th century, "pristine prose," (from a review on the web), of Moliere. Wow. Wow?
YAZZYBEL
We have come to the wall opposite the bed. It's the dullest wall, for there's nothing on it but two doors and a tall dresser topped by a TV set.
The doors lead to the hall, which I anxiously watch for a shadow-figure (which I do NOT want to see) as I listen to Coast to Coast AM in the wee hours, and into Theodore's bathroom over which we shall discreetly draw the curtain of modesty.
But this wall is important to Theodore because he picked out that dresser and it has proven to be a good one...it is sturdy and not unattractive, and it is tall enough to hold all his small clothes, with room for a money drawer and a misc. drawer at the bottom. So he likes it.
The wall is important to me too, in the way of a certain miracle on the TV set. I ordered out Moliere's L'Avare and when it came it was all in French. Duh, say you. NO subtitles, say I.
Funny, how when we watch a foreign film with subtitles, we think we are understanding what they are saying. Ah, just get the film without them, and you are promptly put in your place.
I took the film to a showing at the advanced French course of a friend, and frankly, I don't think that any of them but perhaps one, understood it a bit better than I did. And the only reason I knew what was going on (vaguely) is that I'd seen it on the Internation Channel some time ago, with subtitles.
So, I took it home and thought: Okay, don't French babies learn French by watching and listening? And many Mexicans tell me they've learned English just by watching American TV...and they spoke pretty well. So I started watching. When I get dressed in the morning. When I take my nap. When I have a few minutes tidying up the room. I have now watched the film for about seven times, all told, not counting the sleeping time.
About the fourth time through (counting the times on the Internet, the first watching, the group watching) a miracle began to occur. I realized that I was understanding in bunches...a big leap in language learning. Not the random word here and there, but phrases sprang effortlessly to my mind as I watched the story.
Now I'm a few viewings beyond that. Every time I watch it, I grasp more of what is being said. It is truly a miracle. About twenty more viewings, and I shall perhaps be able to speak French in the 17th century, "pristine prose," (from a review on the web), of Moliere. Wow. Wow?
YAZZYBEL
Monday, March 25, 2013
Well, you keep going...
Good day....
After you've left my bedside dresser, you keep going down the wall, making a turn to the left (from the in-bed perspective) and skipping Theo's closet, and you come to another dresser. This is a beautiful (to me) old handmade dresser, American walnut. The maker did a beautiful job. And, after he finished, he took a thin brush dipped in black paint and went around the grain of the wood on all surfaces. You can't see the paint lines much on the top and sides, because those areas are now so dark. And you wonder why he did it? Why gild the lily of beautiful American walnut? Well, I love it now, though I have had my doubts over the years. Why not accentuate the wood grain?
I bought that chest from a lady over on that fascinating part of Hillcrest beyond First Avenue amongst the canyons. She owned a largish red-brick house which is still there, though there was a terrible fire in it shortly after I bought the chest. I was glad I saved it before the conflagration. It cost forty-five dollars and was worth every penny.
The dresser top's inhabitants change from time to time, but now there is a beautiful square blue and white china platter with a rock collection on it: a rock from Stonehenge, a rock from Petra,The Rose Red City Half as Old as Time brought to me by a friend, and several small stones of the round and flat ilk that are my favorite size and shape in found stones...and a big egg shaped one with an unbelieveable design IN THE ROCK that looks as if there were a message and meaning in it. Also on top of the dresser there is a small Scottish glass decanter with a thistle cut into it, and a crimson ribbon adorning it. I tremble for it because it is fragile and would break for sure if it went down. Ah well, so would we all.
Over the dresser are, one, a beautiful old old Scottish fly-specked mirror that I bought at Unicorn Antiques in the days when they were over scouring through the lower grade antiques of Scotland. Wish I'd bought everything they brought back. The mirror has become steadily more grayish and speckled over the years, and --so have I, so we go well together.
Also over the mirror are pictures of my children, number one and his wife and children, number two in his wheelchair/recumbrance, and number three as a very young man, among them. I look at them every day and wish I could talk with them, as a good mother should.
There are also cobwebs, which we'll skip, and a basket on the floor behind the door with a yoga mat, dumbbells and other paraphernalia of exercise.
And we have come to the door to the hall (it isn't a very big room) and a good place to stop for the day. YAZZYBEL
After you've left my bedside dresser, you keep going down the wall, making a turn to the left (from the in-bed perspective) and skipping Theo's closet, and you come to another dresser. This is a beautiful (to me) old handmade dresser, American walnut. The maker did a beautiful job. And, after he finished, he took a thin brush dipped in black paint and went around the grain of the wood on all surfaces. You can't see the paint lines much on the top and sides, because those areas are now so dark. And you wonder why he did it? Why gild the lily of beautiful American walnut? Well, I love it now, though I have had my doubts over the years. Why not accentuate the wood grain?
I bought that chest from a lady over on that fascinating part of Hillcrest beyond First Avenue amongst the canyons. She owned a largish red-brick house which is still there, though there was a terrible fire in it shortly after I bought the chest. I was glad I saved it before the conflagration. It cost forty-five dollars and was worth every penny.
The dresser top's inhabitants change from time to time, but now there is a beautiful square blue and white china platter with a rock collection on it: a rock from Stonehenge, a rock from Petra,The Rose Red City Half as Old as Time brought to me by a friend, and several small stones of the round and flat ilk that are my favorite size and shape in found stones...and a big egg shaped one with an unbelieveable design IN THE ROCK that looks as if there were a message and meaning in it. Also on top of the dresser there is a small Scottish glass decanter with a thistle cut into it, and a crimson ribbon adorning it. I tremble for it because it is fragile and would break for sure if it went down. Ah well, so would we all.
Over the dresser are, one, a beautiful old old Scottish fly-specked mirror that I bought at Unicorn Antiques in the days when they were over scouring through the lower grade antiques of Scotland. Wish I'd bought everything they brought back. The mirror has become steadily more grayish and speckled over the years, and --so have I, so we go well together.
Also over the mirror are pictures of my children, number one and his wife and children, number two in his wheelchair/recumbrance, and number three as a very young man, among them. I look at them every day and wish I could talk with them, as a good mother should.
There are also cobwebs, which we'll skip, and a basket on the floor behind the door with a yoga mat, dumbbells and other paraphernalia of exercise.
And we have come to the door to the hall (it isn't a very big room) and a good place to stop for the day. YAZZYBEL
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Voyage Autour de ma Chambre
A voyage around my room....hmmm.
I remember when I thought that book/story was written by Proust and a very serious French-Canadian finally convinced me that I was wrong. I don't remember who is was...I could look it up on the web...(Xavier de Maistre)..but it was a good essay with a good idea.
If we all sat and made a voyage around our room more often we might pick up on our treasures, our trash, our cobwebs...more mindfully. Okay, I'll do it.
I 'll do my (our) bedroom, because that is really "my room" if anything is...
Starting with me in the bed, awake and restless to be up as I always am if awake. I am surrounded by radios,books, hearing devices, phones, and the TV zapper, but I have been sleeping quite comfortably. When I wasnt sleeping in the middle of the night I was listening to Coast to Coast talking about nuclear disasters to come.
Next to the bed on my side is a little Bodart dresser, full of stuff that I am gradually weeding out. I cannot part with my old Weight Watchers booklets; they're often an inspiration and insight. Old medications, hairbobs, and dustballs recently got relegated to the trash.
There are books in there. I'd better keep them there for I'll never find them if I move them. My mother's cookbook.
How to grow your own opium. A few others.
Above the dresser hang religious icons, Mexican silver on black...beautiful. A Black Madonna on tin which I bought at an antique show, thinking it was Mexican. But the more I've looked at it over the years I can see that it's Eastern in its art....she's still beautiful and now I think she's from the Filipines, perhaps, where there was a Catholic culture. Think how the East, the Filipines, Viet Nam, all the rest...have been culled for art over the last twenty to fifty years....anyway, she's mine and I love her.
Well, I've only moved four feet around the room so far. And am writ out. Perhaps the voyage will be resumed at some other time..... Perhaps not.....
YAZZYBEL
I remember when I thought that book/story was written by Proust and a very serious French-Canadian finally convinced me that I was wrong. I don't remember who is was...I could look it up on the web...(Xavier de Maistre)..but it was a good essay with a good idea.
If we all sat and made a voyage around our room more often we might pick up on our treasures, our trash, our cobwebs...more mindfully. Okay, I'll do it.
I 'll do my (our) bedroom, because that is really "my room" if anything is...
Starting with me in the bed, awake and restless to be up as I always am if awake. I am surrounded by radios,books, hearing devices, phones, and the TV zapper, but I have been sleeping quite comfortably. When I wasnt sleeping in the middle of the night I was listening to Coast to Coast talking about nuclear disasters to come.
Next to the bed on my side is a little Bodart dresser, full of stuff that I am gradually weeding out. I cannot part with my old Weight Watchers booklets; they're often an inspiration and insight. Old medications, hairbobs, and dustballs recently got relegated to the trash.
There are books in there. I'd better keep them there for I'll never find them if I move them. My mother's cookbook.
How to grow your own opium. A few others.
Above the dresser hang religious icons, Mexican silver on black...beautiful. A Black Madonna on tin which I bought at an antique show, thinking it was Mexican. But the more I've looked at it over the years I can see that it's Eastern in its art....she's still beautiful and now I think she's from the Filipines, perhaps, where there was a Catholic culture. Think how the East, the Filipines, Viet Nam, all the rest...have been culled for art over the last twenty to fifty years....anyway, she's mine and I love her.
Well, I've only moved four feet around the room so far. And am writ out. Perhaps the voyage will be resumed at some other time..... Perhaps not.....
YAZZYBEL
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
I Remember Landrums!
I was thinking about painting some little Mexican figures, folk-type, on a wall the other day. Don't worry, I'll never do it, I'll just think about it.
But it made me remember Landrum's Restaurant of Brownsville, Texas, my home town.
Landrum's was a restaurant of some elegance, there on Levee Street downtown. It was in an old historical building, which all the downtown buildings seemed to be. Outside its style would probably be described as New Orleans style...white-painted brick colonial building. The inside walls were of brick, also, painted white also.
Landrum's had a great menu and we all thought the food the only place comparable to my mama's good cooking. They had some things that my mama never served at table, like ham steak with grilled pineapple and melted cheese. Well, yummo. I thought it was delicious.
Landrum's had "Mexican food," of the style now known as Tex-Mex--fried corn tacos, enchiladas, beans and rice. All the dishes were delicious. The style of cookery has been refined into "Nuevo Leon" style Mexican food, and I still love it best of any Mexican style food. Meat, beans, rice, chiles, barbecue, goat if you will. There at Landrum's it was simplified to ground beef or steak. None of this Sinaloa-Michiocan style. Just the real stuff. The flavors were right!!!
There was also good seafood to be had at Landrum's, most of that in the American manner. Mexican shrimp cocktail hadn't been served in the good old USA yet. I love Mexican style shrimp cocktail but I love American style too.
Well as usual I got sidetracked onto the food. But my point in remembering Landrum's is that the walls were adorned with hand-painted humorous folk paintings done in oil by "Mrs. McGonigle," the mother of a friend in school. Mrs. McGonigle was an accomplished architect and artist and her contribution to the decor of Landrum's was incomparable.
Does anybody else remember those paintings? I wish we had some photographs of them to remind us of how darling they were. YAZZYBEL
But it made me remember Landrum's Restaurant of Brownsville, Texas, my home town.
Landrum's was a restaurant of some elegance, there on Levee Street downtown. It was in an old historical building, which all the downtown buildings seemed to be. Outside its style would probably be described as New Orleans style...white-painted brick colonial building. The inside walls were of brick, also, painted white also.
Landrum's had a great menu and we all thought the food the only place comparable to my mama's good cooking. They had some things that my mama never served at table, like ham steak with grilled pineapple and melted cheese. Well, yummo. I thought it was delicious.
Landrum's had "Mexican food," of the style now known as Tex-Mex--fried corn tacos, enchiladas, beans and rice. All the dishes were delicious. The style of cookery has been refined into "Nuevo Leon" style Mexican food, and I still love it best of any Mexican style food. Meat, beans, rice, chiles, barbecue, goat if you will. There at Landrum's it was simplified to ground beef or steak. None of this Sinaloa-Michiocan style. Just the real stuff. The flavors were right!!!
There was also good seafood to be had at Landrum's, most of that in the American manner. Mexican shrimp cocktail hadn't been served in the good old USA yet. I love Mexican style shrimp cocktail but I love American style too.
Well as usual I got sidetracked onto the food. But my point in remembering Landrum's is that the walls were adorned with hand-painted humorous folk paintings done in oil by "Mrs. McGonigle," the mother of a friend in school. Mrs. McGonigle was an accomplished architect and artist and her contribution to the decor of Landrum's was incomparable.
Does anybody else remember those paintings? I wish we had some photographs of them to remind us of how darling they were. YAZZYBEL
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Too Many Lobsters
Have you ever watched a commercial from The Lobster House and thought, "No, wait a minute--there can't be that many healthy, fresh and natural lobsters out there being fished up and wolfed down all over the United States!" Where do all those lobsters come from? What happened to them before there were chains of lobster restaurants devoted to serving up millions of lobsters daily to millions of happy diners? They must have proliferated there in their cold briny healthy waters until they carpeted the Atlantic several feet deep. Not.
Same thing with chicken breasts. Look at your supermarket chicken department. Lots and lots and LOTS of chicken breasts, pruned, trimmed, denuded of skin, lying there in huge packages ready for you to take home and cook for Coxey's Army. You wont find your pristine, modest-sized backyard fowl there--but you'll find those chicken breasts by the million. Something is awry in the state of Denmark, folks, and by that I mean Denmark USA.
This is all leading up to a lady I saw at the beauty parlor yesterday. As I was being blowed and combed out, I saw her arise newly coiffed from her chair. She was a lady of my age. Her hair looked terrific. She was a person of some excess poundage, say about like me. But not too bad. She was cutely attired in faded jeans and pullover tee shirt of a nice green. About like me. She then put on a three-quarter length coat of black, adding a nice concealer to all. And took out her pretty scarf, which she artfully draped about the collar area to draw the eye's attention to the top part of her person. About like me.
Too many lobsters, I thought. My cute look is going the way of all flesh. I have to think of a new look and a new hairdo. Skirts, perhaps--but that involves pantyhose or tights because my legs don't look too good. Panic is setting in. My clones are all about me. Maybe my granny's retreat to simple dresses, simple stockings, and lace up granny shoes wasn't too bad an idea after all. YAZZYBEL
Same thing with chicken breasts. Look at your supermarket chicken department. Lots and lots and LOTS of chicken breasts, pruned, trimmed, denuded of skin, lying there in huge packages ready for you to take home and cook for Coxey's Army. You wont find your pristine, modest-sized backyard fowl there--but you'll find those chicken breasts by the million. Something is awry in the state of Denmark, folks, and by that I mean Denmark USA.
This is all leading up to a lady I saw at the beauty parlor yesterday. As I was being blowed and combed out, I saw her arise newly coiffed from her chair. She was a lady of my age. Her hair looked terrific. She was a person of some excess poundage, say about like me. But not too bad. She was cutely attired in faded jeans and pullover tee shirt of a nice green. About like me. She then put on a three-quarter length coat of black, adding a nice concealer to all. And took out her pretty scarf, which she artfully draped about the collar area to draw the eye's attention to the top part of her person. About like me.
Too many lobsters, I thought. My cute look is going the way of all flesh. I have to think of a new look and a new hairdo. Skirts, perhaps--but that involves pantyhose or tights because my legs don't look too good. Panic is setting in. My clones are all about me. Maybe my granny's retreat to simple dresses, simple stockings, and lace up granny shoes wasn't too bad an idea after all. YAZZYBEL
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Raining Blessings
Good morning!
It's raining again this morning. The rain itself is a blessing! In Southern California after a dry fall and winter, it's especially good to have a lot of water falling from the sky.
The grass in the Lower Forty is growing wild. Julio was supposed to come cut it last Monday, but he didn't. Now, if he comes this Monday it will be wetter than ever, and it will bow down under his mower and spring back tall and ready to dry out just waiting for a wildfire spark. Not that we've had one, but I'm just sayin'.
We have had a time of it with the doctors and so forth. Five times in ten days to the ER was just too much, so we jumped up and down and made a fuss and the result is that my husband's Foley catheter was removed and he's on his own again in the dept. of waterworks. I hope it works out as he already seems happier in general.
Add to that five visits to the ER, the equal number of visits to doctors to try to find a solution to Theo's plight. That is a lot of gas, a lot of going, and very little time spent at home except to mess up the place and crash from exhaustion. I don't know what the solution to health care problems is; all I know is that it isn't what's being done. Ninety percent of our problems could be taken care of if we had a good live-in nurse. Hah.
Anyway, the Primary Physician yesterday seemed to think that Theo isn't doing too badly, and advised him to be positive. There isn't much more that we can do anyway, is there--be happy and deal with the crises as they arise.
Anyway, as the earth benefits from our welcome showers of rain, so our spirits benefit from the welcome respite from crises. YAZZYBEL
It's raining again this morning. The rain itself is a blessing! In Southern California after a dry fall and winter, it's especially good to have a lot of water falling from the sky.
The grass in the Lower Forty is growing wild. Julio was supposed to come cut it last Monday, but he didn't. Now, if he comes this Monday it will be wetter than ever, and it will bow down under his mower and spring back tall and ready to dry out just waiting for a wildfire spark. Not that we've had one, but I'm just sayin'.
We have had a time of it with the doctors and so forth. Five times in ten days to the ER was just too much, so we jumped up and down and made a fuss and the result is that my husband's Foley catheter was removed and he's on his own again in the dept. of waterworks. I hope it works out as he already seems happier in general.
Add to that five visits to the ER, the equal number of visits to doctors to try to find a solution to Theo's plight. That is a lot of gas, a lot of going, and very little time spent at home except to mess up the place and crash from exhaustion. I don't know what the solution to health care problems is; all I know is that it isn't what's being done. Ninety percent of our problems could be taken care of if we had a good live-in nurse. Hah.
Anyway, the Primary Physician yesterday seemed to think that Theo isn't doing too badly, and advised him to be positive. There isn't much more that we can do anyway, is there--be happy and deal with the crises as they arise.
Anyway, as the earth benefits from our welcome showers of rain, so our spirits benefit from the welcome respite from crises. YAZZYBEL
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Panorama of Clouds
This morning as I was driving to church, I was treated to a wonderful vista of the most exquisite clouds.
Our weather's been so changeable lately, has it not?
"Yes," everyone over the United States can probably answer in chorus. Wherever we are, the weather phenomena seem so different this year--or lately,--or this week. We don't quite remember when it started being changeable, so perhaps we forget that it was probably always that way. Since we left the Garden of Eden.
"San Diego--another ho-hum day in Paradise," our tourist tee shirts of the 1970's used to proclaim. But even then, one day was truly not like any other, no matter how beautiful they all may have been. Nowadays, it's still ho-hum weather but not quite so much so. Frankly, we never know from one morning to one evening what the weather may be like.
Yesterday and the day before were truly Paradisical, though a little too hot. Especially in my living room, which tends to warm up if given the slightest chance. But outdoors it was just about perfect...calm, sunny, blue-skied, just the way it ought to be.
Cooler and more turbulent weathers are predicted for this evening, and one could see, as one drove along the Freeway 5 to the north, one of the most unusual and striking panoramas of diverse clouds that have ever been around. First, there were on my left, low smooth blue clouds in large oblongs...
higher up, and more toward downtown broken fluffy white clouds gleaming in sunshine...huge stormy white-with-gray clouds hanging up there with nothing to do....streaks and streamers...a few dark dark blue clouds with shapes like flukes: wavy and motile...
I love to drive, but that is the sad thing about driving, you can't crane around and see all you might wish to observe out the window. Now that my husband has been forbidden the privilege of driving (well, almost forbidden; advised against it), I'll have less and less time to gaze about. If I could have seen more, I could have written more and more descriptions of remarkable clouds of this morning than I already have, and they would all be, alas, just as inadequate. YAZZYBEL
Our weather's been so changeable lately, has it not?
"Yes," everyone over the United States can probably answer in chorus. Wherever we are, the weather phenomena seem so different this year--or lately,--or this week. We don't quite remember when it started being changeable, so perhaps we forget that it was probably always that way. Since we left the Garden of Eden.
"San Diego--another ho-hum day in Paradise," our tourist tee shirts of the 1970's used to proclaim. But even then, one day was truly not like any other, no matter how beautiful they all may have been. Nowadays, it's still ho-hum weather but not quite so much so. Frankly, we never know from one morning to one evening what the weather may be like.
Yesterday and the day before were truly Paradisical, though a little too hot. Especially in my living room, which tends to warm up if given the slightest chance. But outdoors it was just about perfect...calm, sunny, blue-skied, just the way it ought to be.
Cooler and more turbulent weathers are predicted for this evening, and one could see, as one drove along the Freeway 5 to the north, one of the most unusual and striking panoramas of diverse clouds that have ever been around. First, there were on my left, low smooth blue clouds in large oblongs...
higher up, and more toward downtown broken fluffy white clouds gleaming in sunshine...huge stormy white-with-gray clouds hanging up there with nothing to do....streaks and streamers...a few dark dark blue clouds with shapes like flukes: wavy and motile...
I love to drive, but that is the sad thing about driving, you can't crane around and see all you might wish to observe out the window. Now that my husband has been forbidden the privilege of driving (well, almost forbidden; advised against it), I'll have less and less time to gaze about. If I could have seen more, I could have written more and more descriptions of remarkable clouds of this morning than I already have, and they would all be, alas, just as inadequate. YAZZYBEL
Saturday, March 2, 2013
It's Saturday
It's Saturday! It once was
Working woman's day to be a woman,
Doing the shopping for groceries,
Hauling the kids,
Getting things done
So she can get home and do some more.
Even an old lady retired
Remembers Saturday.
Sometimes she remembers
That it took two years before she realized
That stores are open on other days.
Old ladies are busy
Even when getting their hair washed.
Their old husbands sit
And wait for them....
"Esta leyendo" I ask the hairdresser.
"No," says he who can see out over the room.
(He seats me that way.)
"Que hace?" I ask. "Esta pensando,"
Says the hairdresser.
Pensando en que? I wonder.
Pensando los pensamientos
De viejitos, es lo que piensa,
The hairdresser and I think together.
We smile, and I pay,
And go out and take my old thinker
By the arm, and we come home.
Working woman's day to be a woman,
Doing the shopping for groceries,
Hauling the kids,
Getting things done
So she can get home and do some more.
Even an old lady retired
Remembers Saturday.
Sometimes she remembers
That it took two years before she realized
That stores are open on other days.
Old ladies are busy
Even when getting their hair washed.
Their old husbands sit
And wait for them....
"Esta leyendo" I ask the hairdresser.
"No," says he who can see out over the room.
(He seats me that way.)
"Que hace?" I ask. "Esta pensando,"
Says the hairdresser.
Pensando en que? I wonder.
Pensando los pensamientos
De viejitos, es lo que piensa,
The hairdresser and I think together.
We smile, and I pay,
And go out and take my old thinker
By the arm, and we come home.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Serendipity
Good morning...long time no see!!!
Today I'll write about cooking without fat. It's a difficult problem in our culture, the whole idea of non-fat cookery. I myself have always been a believer of the criminality of starch, not fat...but I know in my little heart that the flaw is in the combination of the two.
And since I like to eat, I am trying to eat without fat as much as possible. What to eat out? Shrimp cocktail, my dears! Whether Mexican or American style, you get a number of plump cold boiled shrimp and a tomato-based sauce without any fat. A couple of soda crackers on the side are not without the scope of the plan. And, yum yum.
Looking at Drivein's, Diners and Dives, I positively get kind of nauseated looking at the tons, the absolute piles and mountains of fat meats smothered in fat cheeses that the folks are wolfing down. It isnt belated virtue, either. You know I've always told you not to mix meat and cheese!!
Nowadays I hardly eat any cheese at all. I never was a maniac for it, except for the once in a while that I enjoyed a nice little cheese sandwich. Handy for tucking into the purse or bag for a plane flight, or a bunch of them for a car ride. But though one can buy a 'mayonnaise' without fat, fat-free cheese is a joke. It just isnt good, melted or otherwise. And low fat is iffy. Good as one individual item, it can turn on you if you end up with too many "low fat" items and don't add them up.
At the Goodwill, I found the most wonderful cookbook. Most "low fat" cookbooks are compilations of the same old ideas, heavy on the sugar, low on the fat and mostly low on the flavors. The wonderful cookbook I found is called
The Low Fat Cookbook, by Sue Kreitzman. It's one of those beautiful over-illustrated books from the English publishers...trillions of mouthwatering photographs that make even a few grains of salt in a dish look good.
And this book has much more than just photos. Sue Kreitzman has wonderful ideas for flavorful, low fat dishes of all sorts. And here is a great idea that I'm going to try immediately.
"Oil-Water Spray"
Get a small sprayer or mister and make a mixture of 1/8 oil (olive, walnut, sunflower, sesame) to 7/8 water. Shake and spray.
That's it. A simple tip that enables us NOT to be buying those cans of spray oil that have evil canola and evil soy in them. Let's try it.
I'll be referring back to this beautiful cookbook as I try out its very creative approach to cookery. How could I have bought this book at a store or at Amazon? I didnt even know that it existed. But now you know too and can look for one online. It is worth it even if you just look at the pictures. I, however, could only have stumbled upon it at the Goodwill, which I did. Serendipity, baby, serendipity. It's all around us.....YAZZYBEL
Today I'll write about cooking without fat. It's a difficult problem in our culture, the whole idea of non-fat cookery. I myself have always been a believer of the criminality of starch, not fat...but I know in my little heart that the flaw is in the combination of the two.
And since I like to eat, I am trying to eat without fat as much as possible. What to eat out? Shrimp cocktail, my dears! Whether Mexican or American style, you get a number of plump cold boiled shrimp and a tomato-based sauce without any fat. A couple of soda crackers on the side are not without the scope of the plan. And, yum yum.
Looking at Drivein's, Diners and Dives, I positively get kind of nauseated looking at the tons, the absolute piles and mountains of fat meats smothered in fat cheeses that the folks are wolfing down. It isnt belated virtue, either. You know I've always told you not to mix meat and cheese!!
Nowadays I hardly eat any cheese at all. I never was a maniac for it, except for the once in a while that I enjoyed a nice little cheese sandwich. Handy for tucking into the purse or bag for a plane flight, or a bunch of them for a car ride. But though one can buy a 'mayonnaise' without fat, fat-free cheese is a joke. It just isnt good, melted or otherwise. And low fat is iffy. Good as one individual item, it can turn on you if you end up with too many "low fat" items and don't add them up.
At the Goodwill, I found the most wonderful cookbook. Most "low fat" cookbooks are compilations of the same old ideas, heavy on the sugar, low on the fat and mostly low on the flavors. The wonderful cookbook I found is called
The Low Fat Cookbook, by Sue Kreitzman. It's one of those beautiful over-illustrated books from the English publishers...trillions of mouthwatering photographs that make even a few grains of salt in a dish look good.
And this book has much more than just photos. Sue Kreitzman has wonderful ideas for flavorful, low fat dishes of all sorts. And here is a great idea that I'm going to try immediately.
"Oil-Water Spray"
Get a small sprayer or mister and make a mixture of 1/8 oil (olive, walnut, sunflower, sesame) to 7/8 water. Shake and spray.
That's it. A simple tip that enables us NOT to be buying those cans of spray oil that have evil canola and evil soy in them. Let's try it.
I'll be referring back to this beautiful cookbook as I try out its very creative approach to cookery. How could I have bought this book at a store or at Amazon? I didnt even know that it existed. But now you know too and can look for one online. It is worth it even if you just look at the pictures. I, however, could only have stumbled upon it at the Goodwill, which I did. Serendipity, baby, serendipity. It's all around us.....YAZZYBEL
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