Good afternoon!!
It's a gray, cold, very windy Southern California afternoon. It was and is supposed to be raining, but it is not. We Californians do get cynical about predictions of rain; it's understandable when they miss the mark so often.
A radio talk show host, Tim Conway Jr, was betting people last night that not one drop of rain would fall in Los Angeles today though the prospect was 100% for rain. I'm with him, but maybe not quite so drastically. When it says 20% chance of rain, however, I always feel that the chances are better than a prediction of 80%. I don't know why it should be true, I just know it so often happens that way.
I am fighting, not a cold, but an attack of the Flowering Ornamental Pear Trees. They are beautiful small trees, and in February they're covered by a snowstorm of white blooms, tinted with chartreuse here and there. Lovely to look at, but don't get too close (some in every block is too close!)
So I decided to get some chicken and make a soup for tonight. For some reason I can no longer buy a reasonably sized package of cut up chicken. There are either large packages of thighs, large packages of legs, or packages of boneless breasts. I LIKE BONES. So I bought a package of about twenty wings, yes, wings--bought in desperation. Put them into a saucepan with a quart and a half of water, a large carrot cut in six pieces, a large piece of a large onion cut into small pieces, a clove of garlic minced, a few dried herbs, a shake of garlic salt--and about a half cup of cut up tired celery. All of that boiled gently away, and then I went in and took out the wings with my tweakers and laid them on a plate. Then I cut up a largish Mexican squash and put those pieces in. When the wings cooled off enough to trim, I took out the bones and took off the skin. I had a pile of scraps about as big as the meat, but que vale? The meat was bite size and succulent, and I put it back into the pot with a couple of small handfuls of twisted pasta, and then I forgot about it. Oh, and I cut some cilantro and some parsley from the yard and threw those in. The soup is delicious and it will make a great supper in about two hours.
Wing-skin is greasy and I have been trying to skim a lot of fat off the top of the soup with a large spoon. It's hard to do but I have to because "I had a heart attack," you know. Simper.
I can't tell you how yummy that soup tastes. I have had perfectly good chicken soup that tasted bitter from black pepper, or lacked salt, or had that thin feathery taste that it can get--but this soup has none of the above. It is perfect. YAZZYBEL
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Silent Prayer? --or White Noise?
Some Sundays, you go into church, sink down onto your knees, and--draw a blank.
It's true. Sometimes I just kneel there in the chill gloom of an early Sunday morning, and I can't think of a thing. Nada.
That's why standardized, written out prayers are good. Sometimes spontaneity just doesn't work. I think it's because, unthought-of by us, our brains in this modern world are often so full of junk-images, junk-thoughts, and other distractions: have to's and forgot to's and don't want to's....that we are incapable of forming even a simple few words into a prayer, no matter how much we need to.
But then we can't even remember our simple prayers. The only one that ever springs to mind for me is:
Good bread! Good meat!
Good God! Let's eat!
And that is not appropriate or useful at ten of eight on Sunday morning either. The Lord's Prayer should come to mind, but for the life of me I can't get it started at that point.
So here's what I prayed today:
Dear Lord, please forgive me for letting my mind and life to become so clogged up with trivia that I can't even think what I needed to pray for. I am sorry that I can't think of a suitable prayer for this morning. I can't even stop to reflect or meditate at this point because my mind will just fill up again with rusty nothingness and we can't call that praying. (At this point I sometimes can remember Jimmy Swaggart's injunction as to what God wants of us...{1} He wants us to thank Him, and {2}He wants us to praise and bless His holy Name. ) So I tack on those two thoughts, say Amen, and sit back to read my bulletin until the clergy some processing in.
Today was Candlemas, a special blessing of the children day. Candelario, en espanol. And, says the church bulletin, Candlemas marks the mid-point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox; and in the days of agriculture as a way of life for most everybody, it was a very special time because it meant that planting time would be coming up. Get out those seed catalogs and celebrate Candlemas, everybody!!! Amen. YAZZYBEL
It's true. Sometimes I just kneel there in the chill gloom of an early Sunday morning, and I can't think of a thing. Nada.
That's why standardized, written out prayers are good. Sometimes spontaneity just doesn't work. I think it's because, unthought-of by us, our brains in this modern world are often so full of junk-images, junk-thoughts, and other distractions: have to's and forgot to's and don't want to's....that we are incapable of forming even a simple few words into a prayer, no matter how much we need to.
But then we can't even remember our simple prayers. The only one that ever springs to mind for me is:
Good bread! Good meat!
Good God! Let's eat!
And that is not appropriate or useful at ten of eight on Sunday morning either. The Lord's Prayer should come to mind, but for the life of me I can't get it started at that point.
So here's what I prayed today:
Dear Lord, please forgive me for letting my mind and life to become so clogged up with trivia that I can't even think what I needed to pray for. I am sorry that I can't think of a suitable prayer for this morning. I can't even stop to reflect or meditate at this point because my mind will just fill up again with rusty nothingness and we can't call that praying. (At this point I sometimes can remember Jimmy Swaggart's injunction as to what God wants of us...{1} He wants us to thank Him, and {2}He wants us to praise and bless His holy Name. ) So I tack on those two thoughts, say Amen, and sit back to read my bulletin until the clergy some processing in.
Today was Candlemas, a special blessing of the children day. Candelario, en espanol. And, says the church bulletin, Candlemas marks the mid-point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox; and in the days of agriculture as a way of life for most everybody, it was a very special time because it meant that planting time would be coming up. Get out those seed catalogs and celebrate Candlemas, everybody!!! Amen. YAZZYBEL
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Torches, Torches!!
Torches, torches, come with torches,
All the way to Bethlehem.
In January, in Southern California, you should come not with torches, but in order to see them. The aloes are blooming! Tall orange rods burst open from bottom to top with glorious flowers. I love them. I'll take a picture, but as usual probably can't put it on!
I wrote a poem once, Torches, inspired by the autumn trees of northern New York state, in one beautiful year when I was lucky enough to get there at just the right time. It was a resplendant year, best color ever---standing in a shower of gold leaves from the tall trees in the lane where my sister lived, I felt as if blessings of nature were falling down on me.
Our aloes will continue to bloom for a time. There's another slightly different strain that blooms later, so if one had enough of the right ones planted together one could have months of continuous bloom.
On a different note, and from a different ecosystem, the Cape Honeysuckle in front of the bathroom windows in the front driveway is blooming flowers of the same brilliant color as the aloes. We had it trimmed back this year, but it has quickly filled out and is always filled with bees and hummingbirds. One time we drove into the drive, the whole bush suddenly trembled all over, and lots of little birds suddenly stuck their heads out from the clumps of leaves and flowers. I don't know what they were, and why they were there (hiding from us!) but it was such a pleasant surprise to see them pop out.
When I was a child I gave that color (prosaicly named in the Crayola box: red-orange) the name "Linda Red." I chose it because there was an olive-green and I was jealous of my sister. Linda Red was my color of choice, charged with vibrant energy and beauty....now, along with the bush and the aloes....a reminder of the joy and curiousity I always felt on earth. YAZZYBEL
All the way to Bethlehem.
In January, in Southern California, you should come not with torches, but in order to see them. The aloes are blooming! Tall orange rods burst open from bottom to top with glorious flowers. I love them. I'll take a picture, but as usual probably can't put it on!
I wrote a poem once, Torches, inspired by the autumn trees of northern New York state, in one beautiful year when I was lucky enough to get there at just the right time. It was a resplendant year, best color ever---standing in a shower of gold leaves from the tall trees in the lane where my sister lived, I felt as if blessings of nature were falling down on me.
Our aloes will continue to bloom for a time. There's another slightly different strain that blooms later, so if one had enough of the right ones planted together one could have months of continuous bloom.
On a different note, and from a different ecosystem, the Cape Honeysuckle in front of the bathroom windows in the front driveway is blooming flowers of the same brilliant color as the aloes. We had it trimmed back this year, but it has quickly filled out and is always filled with bees and hummingbirds. One time we drove into the drive, the whole bush suddenly trembled all over, and lots of little birds suddenly stuck their heads out from the clumps of leaves and flowers. I don't know what they were, and why they were there (hiding from us!) but it was such a pleasant surprise to see them pop out.
When I was a child I gave that color (prosaicly named in the Crayola box: red-orange) the name "Linda Red." I chose it because there was an olive-green and I was jealous of my sister. Linda Red was my color of choice, charged with vibrant energy and beauty....now, along with the bush and the aloes....a reminder of the joy and curiousity I always felt on earth. YAZZYBEL
Friday, January 25, 2013
Remembering Sadly, and Affirming
Good morning. It's early and it's pouring rain outside.
I have been sad this week because this week marks the eleventh anniversary of the beginning of my son's long paralysis. What a terrible time it was. So many hopes absolutely smashed to the ground, such a valuable life crippled, and then taken eventually.
The rain made me remember something though. That few weeks after Greg's injury, it just rained and rained. It rained as if to keep with the great grief the family were going through as he lay there unconscious and half dead.
But in a month or so, something happened. Gregory came to, and began the great travail that marked the rest of his life. I started playing music for him on tapes. First I got "morning Bach," but then I got a great tape of the Holberg Suite or Concerto by Grieg. A great piece of music, buoyant and optimistic. He "woke up" to that music, and since he was such a musician I know it meant a lot to him. He was unable to speak for a long time due to that awful tube they put down your throat, but I'll never forget the moment that he got his voice back and spoke to all the wonderful nurses who'd been caring for him at the hospital. It makes all the difference to be attending to a mute uncommunicative blob, and to be hearing next in a deep young man's voice, "Jeannine, you are absolutely beautiful!"
That same month I noticed a great rarity. The rains which had come in profusion had also done something wonderful for a lot of our dozing plants. Great lilies which had been gleaming their green leaves for years with nary a flower began to put out huge crimson bouquets of bloom. We had a profusion of flowers from everything from those lilies, to cacti, to the last thing Greg planted before he went into the hospital: wonderful variegated nasturtiums.
Those nasturtiums are still with us, transferred from the big house we lived in next door to this little house here. They bloom and thrive in pots and in the ground, and they are still coming up in the grass all the time. I prick them out with a paring knife and plant them in pots. "Here's Gregory," I say to all who would listen. And he continues to bloom and thrive through eleven years' worth of growing.
That is an affirmation, is it not? We affirm life, and growth, and we praise God, even through our tears. YAZZYBEL
I have been sad this week because this week marks the eleventh anniversary of the beginning of my son's long paralysis. What a terrible time it was. So many hopes absolutely smashed to the ground, such a valuable life crippled, and then taken eventually.
The rain made me remember something though. That few weeks after Greg's injury, it just rained and rained. It rained as if to keep with the great grief the family were going through as he lay there unconscious and half dead.
But in a month or so, something happened. Gregory came to, and began the great travail that marked the rest of his life. I started playing music for him on tapes. First I got "morning Bach," but then I got a great tape of the Holberg Suite or Concerto by Grieg. A great piece of music, buoyant and optimistic. He "woke up" to that music, and since he was such a musician I know it meant a lot to him. He was unable to speak for a long time due to that awful tube they put down your throat, but I'll never forget the moment that he got his voice back and spoke to all the wonderful nurses who'd been caring for him at the hospital. It makes all the difference to be attending to a mute uncommunicative blob, and to be hearing next in a deep young man's voice, "Jeannine, you are absolutely beautiful!"
That same month I noticed a great rarity. The rains which had come in profusion had also done something wonderful for a lot of our dozing plants. Great lilies which had been gleaming their green leaves for years with nary a flower began to put out huge crimson bouquets of bloom. We had a profusion of flowers from everything from those lilies, to cacti, to the last thing Greg planted before he went into the hospital: wonderful variegated nasturtiums.
Those nasturtiums are still with us, transferred from the big house we lived in next door to this little house here. They bloom and thrive in pots and in the ground, and they are still coming up in the grass all the time. I prick them out with a paring knife and plant them in pots. "Here's Gregory," I say to all who would listen. And he continues to bloom and thrive through eleven years' worth of growing.
That is an affirmation, is it not? We affirm life, and growth, and we praise God, even through our tears. YAZZYBEL
Monday, January 21, 2013
Hargrove's
Good morning.
I am inspired to write today thanks to a friend of my baby sister no. 5, who blogged about purchasing her first cookbook when she was in high school, in 1963 or so, at Hargrove's in Brownsville, Texas.
I too am a cookbook collector and I too bought my first cookbook at Hargrove's. It was in circa 1947 and I didnt start really cooking from it until 1949. But I remember the first meal I cooked. I was in high school, and I threw a tantrum and wouldn't come down to dinner. When hunger pangs finally calmed my seething brain, I came down to a clean quiet kitchen, and my mother said that if I wanted something to eat I could cook it myself. The ingredients were right there, simple hamburger meat, and vegetables, and all I had to do was cook and clean up. So I did. What a revelation it was to find my results nearly inedible to my discriminating tongue, raised as it was to my mother's delicious meals. So--at some point later on I bought a cookbook. My first cookbook was Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cookbook and I was very fond of it. I read it continually, like a novel. "Breslin Baked Bluefish," "Cigarettes a la Prince Henry," and that modern-day staple in its pristine form: Spaghetti Alfredo which was then not the disgusting commercial white-sauce and fat concoction it now is, but a fabulous mixture of butter and cream.
There weren't many cultural amenities in Brownsville in those days, that I was aware of. The library was in a state of morbidity. But in the back of Hargrove's Stationery store, there were some shelves...and the Hargrove's had books there. New, beautiful books, lots of them (to my eyes) and they were all for sale and they were wonderful.
The cookbook was the first book I bought at Hargrove's, but it was the first of several. I bought many children's books there when I was teaching because there were no classroom libraries in our impoverished schools. I bought my first ghost story book and just scared myself to pieces reading those incredibly well written classics by M.R.James, Walter de la Mare, and others.
Thank God for Hargrove's. It was a little jewel of culture in a cultureless wasteland. I'm not saying that Brownsville had no culture. It had more than that, it had a treasure which the new generation of citizens seems to have found out. But then, things were just rocking along in the wake of the Second World War, and the Mexicans were the Mexicans, and the Americans were the Americans, and civic responsibility seemed to have gotten lost somewhere in the mix. Things seem to be better now, but what do I know? I haven't been there for some time. YAZZYBEL
I am inspired to write today thanks to a friend of my baby sister no. 5, who blogged about purchasing her first cookbook when she was in high school, in 1963 or so, at Hargrove's in Brownsville, Texas.
I too am a cookbook collector and I too bought my first cookbook at Hargrove's. It was in circa 1947 and I didnt start really cooking from it until 1949. But I remember the first meal I cooked. I was in high school, and I threw a tantrum and wouldn't come down to dinner. When hunger pangs finally calmed my seething brain, I came down to a clean quiet kitchen, and my mother said that if I wanted something to eat I could cook it myself. The ingredients were right there, simple hamburger meat, and vegetables, and all I had to do was cook and clean up. So I did. What a revelation it was to find my results nearly inedible to my discriminating tongue, raised as it was to my mother's delicious meals. So--at some point later on I bought a cookbook. My first cookbook was Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cookbook and I was very fond of it. I read it continually, like a novel. "Breslin Baked Bluefish," "Cigarettes a la Prince Henry," and that modern-day staple in its pristine form: Spaghetti Alfredo which was then not the disgusting commercial white-sauce and fat concoction it now is, but a fabulous mixture of butter and cream.
There weren't many cultural amenities in Brownsville in those days, that I was aware of. The library was in a state of morbidity. But in the back of Hargrove's Stationery store, there were some shelves...and the Hargrove's had books there. New, beautiful books, lots of them (to my eyes) and they were all for sale and they were wonderful.
The cookbook was the first book I bought at Hargrove's, but it was the first of several. I bought many children's books there when I was teaching because there were no classroom libraries in our impoverished schools. I bought my first ghost story book and just scared myself to pieces reading those incredibly well written classics by M.R.James, Walter de la Mare, and others.
Thank God for Hargrove's. It was a little jewel of culture in a cultureless wasteland. I'm not saying that Brownsville had no culture. It had more than that, it had a treasure which the new generation of citizens seems to have found out. But then, things were just rocking along in the wake of the Second World War, and the Mexicans were the Mexicans, and the Americans were the Americans, and civic responsibility seemed to have gotten lost somewhere in the mix. Things seem to be better now, but what do I know? I haven't been there for some time. YAZZYBEL
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Cleveland Sage
Good morning!
This morning as I walked into church, I plucked a little piece of Cleveland sage from a bush that I was passing. The whole landscaping around St Paul's has been changed, in the past year, from old fashioned conventional hedging made of cultivars, into a more natural landscape made of California native plants.
Of all the natives, I love Cleveland sage the most. It has the most beautiful, curative fragrance of any herb or flower that I've ever known. And there are varieties within the race. Varieties of fragrance and form of the plant. St Paul's, I am happy to report, has the best.
Going inside, I introduced Mary, who was at the door, to the beauty of Cleveland sage. I myself didnt know much about it until a few years ago when I used regularly to go and get treatments from a women whose front yard was hugely planted with it. I'll always associate the fragrance with her, and her with the plant, and thank both of them for each other.
Church was interesting because it wasnt bitterly cold today (being warm outside.) And we got to meet the new interim Dean, Rebecca, who preached a fine sermon. I wished I could stay for the forum today as it sounded interesting, a theater piece about soldiers returning from war. But I had to hurry on, and left apace.
Before returning home, I went to Sprouts and bought many good (and expensive) items of ordinary fare...all ordinary except for the almond meal and coconut flour, on which two items I hope to base a new phase of more healthful cookery. The prices of bread, chocolate, dried figs and such were high. As I wrote to a son, I hope to recoup the steady inflation of prices and de-valuing of the USD by purchasing some silver in the hope that it will rise along with the waves, giving me something to cash in when a ten dollar loaf of bread is the norm. I am sure he yawned gently and went back to his customary thoughts. I wish I'd talked about this kind of thing when my kids were little and tended a little more to listen, less to deprecate old Mom's lessons. Ah well, it's a beautiful day outside, and I am spending the afternoon at the Onstage Playhouse seeing Charley's Aunt...I'll have the lingering perfume of Cleveland sage on my fingertips and lots of laughs, I hope, in my bones for you and you and you. YAZZYBEL
This morning as I walked into church, I plucked a little piece of Cleveland sage from a bush that I was passing. The whole landscaping around St Paul's has been changed, in the past year, from old fashioned conventional hedging made of cultivars, into a more natural landscape made of California native plants.
Of all the natives, I love Cleveland sage the most. It has the most beautiful, curative fragrance of any herb or flower that I've ever known. And there are varieties within the race. Varieties of fragrance and form of the plant. St Paul's, I am happy to report, has the best.
Going inside, I introduced Mary, who was at the door, to the beauty of Cleveland sage. I myself didnt know much about it until a few years ago when I used regularly to go and get treatments from a women whose front yard was hugely planted with it. I'll always associate the fragrance with her, and her with the plant, and thank both of them for each other.
Church was interesting because it wasnt bitterly cold today (being warm outside.) And we got to meet the new interim Dean, Rebecca, who preached a fine sermon. I wished I could stay for the forum today as it sounded interesting, a theater piece about soldiers returning from war. But I had to hurry on, and left apace.
Before returning home, I went to Sprouts and bought many good (and expensive) items of ordinary fare...all ordinary except for the almond meal and coconut flour, on which two items I hope to base a new phase of more healthful cookery. The prices of bread, chocolate, dried figs and such were high. As I wrote to a son, I hope to recoup the steady inflation of prices and de-valuing of the USD by purchasing some silver in the hope that it will rise along with the waves, giving me something to cash in when a ten dollar loaf of bread is the norm. I am sure he yawned gently and went back to his customary thoughts. I wish I'd talked about this kind of thing when my kids were little and tended a little more to listen, less to deprecate old Mom's lessons. Ah well, it's a beautiful day outside, and I am spending the afternoon at the Onstage Playhouse seeing Charley's Aunt...I'll have the lingering perfume of Cleveland sage on my fingertips and lots of laughs, I hope, in my bones for you and you and you. YAZZYBEL
Friday, January 18, 2013
Picky, picky
Good morning!!
I was thinking about a common grammatical error in speech that irks me very much, so thought I'd write about it though I may have written about it before.
Everyone's heard (though not everyone has said,)
"The message was for Mary and I."
Oh chagrin !
My mother would have gathered her ducklings closer and told us,
"That's terrible grammar! Would anyone say, 'The message was for I' ?"
And we'd have smiled smugly and gathered closer as we shook our heads for the poor ignoramuses who didn't know any better.
Of course, what the poor ignoramus had been taught, by a poor ignoramus 1980's-on grammar teacher, is that the plural changes the me to I.
Oh, how wrong. We Americans educated in 1940 or before as to grammar know that pronouns have CASE. And the case has to do with the giver or receiver of the action. And following a preposition, the noun or pronoun is the receiver, therefore going into what I was taught is the objective case, i.e., ME. Whether singular or plural has nothing to do with it.
The trouble is that some coo coo English teacher back in the halcyon days of free love and free will had never gathered at my mother's knee, and knew no better. She (I'll blame it on a woman) just made up a law.
So that is why everyone born after W.W.2 knows no better. Well, not everyone. Some folks. They listened to the wrong person.
As long as I am being picky today, I'm here to tell you that there's about 5 seconds' difference between crispy bacon and slightly burnt bacon. Look to it! It makes the difference between harmony and disharmony in the home. It is wrong to set a slightly burnt dish of bacon before your lord and master. So don't do it, even if he is kind and eats it anyway. YAZZYBEL
I was thinking about a common grammatical error in speech that irks me very much, so thought I'd write about it though I may have written about it before.
Everyone's heard (though not everyone has said,)
"The message was for Mary and I."
Oh chagrin !
My mother would have gathered her ducklings closer and told us,
"That's terrible grammar! Would anyone say, 'The message was for I' ?"
And we'd have smiled smugly and gathered closer as we shook our heads for the poor ignoramuses who didn't know any better.
Of course, what the poor ignoramus had been taught, by a poor ignoramus 1980's-on grammar teacher, is that the plural changes the me to I.
Oh, how wrong. We Americans educated in 1940 or before as to grammar know that pronouns have CASE. And the case has to do with the giver or receiver of the action. And following a preposition, the noun or pronoun is the receiver, therefore going into what I was taught is the objective case, i.e., ME. Whether singular or plural has nothing to do with it.
The trouble is that some coo coo English teacher back in the halcyon days of free love and free will had never gathered at my mother's knee, and knew no better. She (I'll blame it on a woman) just made up a law.
So that is why everyone born after W.W.2 knows no better. Well, not everyone. Some folks. They listened to the wrong person.
As long as I am being picky today, I'm here to tell you that there's about 5 seconds' difference between crispy bacon and slightly burnt bacon. Look to it! It makes the difference between harmony and disharmony in the home. It is wrong to set a slightly burnt dish of bacon before your lord and master. So don't do it, even if he is kind and eats it anyway. YAZZYBEL
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