11/29/07:
Sometime this last week I took pictures of a lovely sunrise Jay had brought to my attention, he is good at that. The little picture links to a larger one.
Yesterday was Jay's birthday, he is no longer a speed limit. I sang him Happy Birthday in the morning and gave him a small present and card. I ordered something for him, but it has yet to arrive. I hope he likes it when it comes. We went out to dinner and whilst there my mom called to thank us for a holiday wreath we had sent them, so she got to wish him happy birthday too. As always, a pleasant evening together. Happy Birthday My Love.
When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.— Mark Twain
11/25/07:
“The stubborn past is not to be dissolved by any act of will, and perhaps we ought at last to be glad for that. What happened defines us, always; erase the darkness in you at your own peril, since it's inextricable at last from who you are.
And who are you anyway—with the shadow you also carry, because you are your parents' son—who are you to forgive? They were nearly helpless, as people are; they did what they knew how to do, under the disfiguring pressure of circumstance. They loved the children whom they brought to harm…
And that is close enough to forgiveness, to find that any character in the dream of your life might be you. But you don't know that until you tell the story; caught in the narrative yourself…”
My friend at work, Kate, brings me New Yorkers her mom is done reading and in turn I give her books I've picked up at used book stores and the dollar store that I am done reading and she takes them to her mom. Her mom and I are both liberals, so it works out well. I begin a new job in December, the reading patterns of Kate's mom and I have thus been placed in peril. We shall see.
This week I am passing on to Kate's mom a book I finished quite a while ago but have had sitting on my desk awaiting the recording of a passage I liked, the one at the beginning of this entry. The book is Firebird by Mark Doty. I picked this 1999 book up at the dollar store, a hardcover copy with the author's autograph. What a deal. Mark has a newer book currently on the New York Times Best Seller list called "Dog Years", which you may have heard of or seen. Firebird is a memoir about growing up in the '60s in a family struggling with alcoholism, sorrow and loss. In it the author tells a story about himself as a ten year old singing Judy Garland's "Get Happy" while wearing a top hat and red chiffon scarf. His singing is interrupted by his alarmed mother at the bedroom door exclaiming "Son, you're a boy!"
Mark Doty records vivid, well-told memories of growing up in a struggling family. His personal story becomes more complicated as he discovers he is also growing up in a struggling society, one that prefers his kind simply did not exist.
Freedom means the right to be different, the right to be oneself.— Ira Eisenstein
11/22/07:
Happy Thanksgiving
Hope you had a nice day enjoying good company and food. Unlike the Thanksgivings of my childhood, today was quiet. Jay and I enjoyed lots of good food, with much left to consume later. I talked to my mom, she said there was a dusting of snow in Michigan. The sun here was out and bright, helping the day to begin and end in frost.
I'll be the sun upon your head,
The wind about your face,
My love upon the path you tread,
And upon your wanderings, peace.
—Gordon Bok
11/18/07:
We ran some errands yesterday and checked out some more gas fireplace stoves. As we have discovered, there are many to chose from. We also headed over to Rexville Grocery for their fall wine tasting event. We sampled a couple of wines and concentrated on the offerings of "The Cheese Man", purchasing a chunk of his blue cheese. We also picked up some local bread and butter pickles that are especially good, made by Mount Vernon's Pleasant Valley Farm. We enjoy Rexville Grocery's events, but they draw quite a crowd so we don't stay long.
I have gotten a new job, going back to work as a real social worker. I start the new position December 1st, continuing to work for the state but with the Division of Developmental Disabilities. This will be new for me and I should learn a lot. I had applied for a number of positions and just got a call this last week from UW Hospital, but the position I have accepted works out of the Mount Vernon office and I am looking forward to that. So I expect more will follow about my work saga…
Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.— Anne Frank (1929-1945)
11/17/07:
So, yes, where was I? Last Sunday, the 11th, I made the zucchini bread that included my brandy soaked plums. That bread was really wonderful. I shared some with Kate at work (her mother sends New Yorkers for us to read and so I gave her 3 pieces, one for herself and 2 for her to eat with her mother) and a few bites with others at work. Jay and I ate some then I froze two packages of two slices each for us to have with our Saturday toast breakfasts— after this morning we are down to our last two pieces in the freezer.
Mrs. Becker across the street loves my usual zucchini bread and so I almost always take a few slices over to her when I make it. I also run over some fresh picked stuff or a bit of something I cooked now and then. She likes me to stop in and visit, and she tells me I do not have to bring food to come over, but I know she likes it if I bring the food… I had Monday, Veteran's Day, off and so I took three slices of my new bread over to her that afternoon and visited a bit. She looked at me sideways when I told her the story of making plum brandy and chopping up the strained out plums to put in the bread. She seemed to resolve this in her mind rather quickly and injected a comment about how much she likes my zucchini bread. We talked about the neighbors, about our addition, about how she and her cat don't like it that we got rid of the huge prehistoric-sized quince bushes in the front yard, and somehow we talked about how so many people are now living to be 100 or more. Margaret is 91. She told me emphatically that she herself does not want to live to be 100. I looked at her and shrugged. I told her I wouldn't worry since we really don't get much say about it, we just get to wander around until we're not here anymore. She thought
that was about right. I haven't been back to get a report on how she liked the twist on my bread recipe, I'll let you know if she didn't like it. Click on the picture up left for some life instructions. Later man.
An author doesn't necessarily understand the meaning of his own story better than anyone else.— Alice in the 1951 "Alice in Wonderland" movie
11/13/07:
I have good news. I went to my naturopathic physician yesterday and my cholesterol is significantly
down. Currently I am taking:
1. Cholestoff 2 tablets twice a day, 15 to 30 minutes before a meal— your meals with the most cholesterol (animal products).
2. Policosanol one 10mg tab with breakfast and one with supper.
I have been taking these for three months (along with my usual diet which has a lot of fruits and vegetables, egg beaters instead of eggs, cheese kept to a minimum and eat meat (no beef) only a couple times a week) and my total cholesterol has gone from 264 to
222, triglycerides from 246 to 153, LDL from 170 to 143, and HDL from 45 to 48. For the next 2 months I am going to up the Policosanol to 3 tabs day and then we will recheck it— I am hoping that is good
enough. My blood pressure is fine so I do not have to get my cholesterol down to some crazy number, really just around 200.
My sister Linda is helping me keep in touch with the news. If you click on the save a cow tofu ad it will take you to a news article about how it rains cows here.
The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.— Sir William Osler
11/12/2007:
Today is my birthday, happy birthday to me…
Usually the Veteran's Day holiday, which I get off as a government employee, is the day before my birthday. This year it fell on Sunday so the holiday off became Monday— my birthday! What a treat.
Hope you got to enjoy the day too. Happy Day everyone.
RENT
If you want my apartment, sleep in it
but let’s have a clear understanding:
the books are still free agents.
If the rocking chair’s arms surround you
they can also let you go,
they can shape the air like a body.
I don’t want your rent, I want
a radiance of attention
like the candle’s flame when we eat,
I mean a kind of awe
attending the spaces between us---
Not a roof but a field of stars.
— Jane Cooper (1924-11/2007)
11/11/07:
Last night we drove down to Bellevue and had dinner with my good friend Carol Hammel. After dinner we went to Bellevue Community College to a house concert featuring folk singer/songwriter Carolyn Currie accompanied by a cello player, followed by local instrumental musician Stanley Greenthal and his wife. It was great to see Carol, haven't seen her for something like a year. The food was great, the music fine, and the company wonderful. Jay was kind enough to take me and listen to Carol and I talk at length— thank you Jay.
It was blustery here today; I can hear the wind blowing outside as I type. Back in early September my current supervisor brought a bunch of Italian plums in from home, hoping we would help her get rid of her bounty. I took a bunch home, thinking I would make something and Jay somehow came up with the idea of making plum brandy, so I did. The cut-up plums and sugar have been dutifully incorporating themselves into some brandy in a large glass container in a bottom cupboard since then. I have stirred the fixings weekly until today, when the sugar was all dissolved and the recipe said it was ready. I strained out the plums and put the flavored brandy in a nice blue Badger wine bottle, which it filled to the top. The brandy is incredibly sweet and flavored, a real "girlie" drink now. The recipe said to discard the plums after straining, but that seemed ridiculous to me. I chopped them into smaller pieces and put them in my zucchini bread recipe, using half the spices I usually do and only 3/4 of the sugar. What a surprise! That too is quite good. Luckily I ran across a New York Times article about how, it turns out, you can live longer with a little meat on your bones. That is timely news, given the loaves of yummy bread sitting on our kitchen counters. More later…
Serenity is not something you just find in the world,
like a plum tree, holding up its white petals.— Mary Oliver
11/9/07:
Today's entry is a potpourri of sorts, a collection of miscellaneous or diverse ideas. Of course for me they are not only related but intertwined.
First a little history. The picture to the left is from The Bellingham Herald a while back, in September. It links to an interesting piece about intolerance toward immigrants in northwestern Washington, Bellingham, in 1907. Surprisingly, it seems man never has liked newcomers. Well, maybe that isn't surprising. Nevertheless it is an interesting bit of history that relates to our world today.
Now, second, some pictures of President Bush visiting injured veterans appeared in the news and I found nicely accessible pictures on the United Kingdom's "Telegraph" newspaper's site. The picture to the right of a couple of vets and a mother of one of the vets enjoying a visit from our jovial President links to the article and its photos. Reuters links to their slide show of all the pictures. Digg.com's blog entries regarding the pictures had questions about motivation, conscience, how one sleeps at night…
There was a third idea floating about but I am tired tonight and it has vanished, probably gone to bed. I think we can be sure it was related to the above two pieces of information, maybe something related to how disturbing I find democracy these days. It all boils down to one of those ego things, all about me. As a US citizen I have voted in the elections that placed current representatives, including the President, in power. It is, afterall [Jay says this is two words, but I really like it as one], a representative government. The actions our government takes represent me, just as those actions represent you. Whether the government's policies and actions give you a thrill or give you pause, those actions are taken in your name. But don't be silent, keep on voting, and vote as if your conscience and name depend on it. Vote as if you were going to have to answer for what has been done in your name one of these days. :) On that note, have a good weekend!
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.— Edmund Burke
To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.— Edmund Burke
11/4/07:
We had an enjoyable evening Friday night at the Mount Baker Theatre in Bellingham, with a number of good laughs, seeing The Capitol Steps. The political comedy made for a fun evening. Click on their logo to the left and go to The Capitol Steps' website, where you can click on a picture of "Larry Craig" in a toilet stall and see that skit.
For another laugh you can go to snopes.com for some interesting letters to the editor.
Enjoy and have a good week!
If not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.— PG Wodehouse
11/3/07:
I have continued to move, divide and transplant my perennial plants in the path of house construction. I have some plants I wanted to put around the addition when it was done so I have used one of our raised vegetable garden beds to put them in for safe keeping. The plants near our front entry will also need to be moved, I have all the ones from the side of the house taken care of.
The pictures at the top of the page and here to the left are of plants near the front porch I took Friday, a nice group of sedum turned red for the fall and a tall plant that has dramatic red flowers in late summer that are now turned to seed pods. If you click on them they link to larger pictures that show more. The plant I call flowering grass is still blooming, as it did all summer. It links to a picture that shows it out near a structure that is housing and protecting our fig tree for the winter— check it out.
When I was young, an honest and moral life seemed like a straightforward goal. I now know that it's not always easy to see what should be done and even harder actually to do it. Nevertheless I'm grateful that I still have some time to keep trying to get it right, and to savor each remaining day in my life.— Elizabeth Deutsch Earle, from This I Believe, Edited by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman in association with NPR
11/2/07:
Flatulence Forces Plane to Land
NASHVILLE, Tenn.- An American Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing after a passenger lit a match to disguise the scent of flatulence, authorities said.
The Dallas-bound flight was diverted to Nashville after several passengers reported smelling burning sulfur from the matches, said a spokeswoman for the Nashville International Airport Authority. All 99 passengers and five crew members were taken off and screened while the plane was searched and luggage was screened.
The FBI questioned a passenger who admitted she struck the matches in an attempt to conceal a "body odor," Lowrance said. She had an unspecified medical condition, authorities said.
"It's humorous in a way but you feel sorry for the individual, as well," she said. "It's unusual that someone would go to those measures to cover it up." The flight took off again, but the woman was not allowed back on the plane.
(Excerpt from: 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures)
Jardot's World: November Edition, 2007
All pictures on my page link to somewhere... go ahead, click!
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