Last night, I saw about half an hour of this, though not the whole thing, because I saw a shiny object and chased it and I don’t drink bottled water.
This morning, I looked at the ancient plastic cups from which I drink water-cooler-water coffee and water-cooler water and realized I drink so much bottled water out of plastic my innards are probably a Superfund site. Tonight, I washed out old ceramic mugs for coffee and a quart Ball Jar to minimize trips to the water fountain.
It’s a dilemma in an envelope: tomatillo seeds.
Two summers ago, one tomatillo plant took over a corner of the yard. True, I didn’t know how to cage and support the ginormous beast, but still. Ginormous. Seriously, every day, the thing seemed closer to demanding its own zip code. Now I have an envelope of tomatillo seeds. More than one plant would almost certainly germinate.
The garden is really small. I could plant two or three in pots and place them so they don’t blot out the sun. Maybe. I could give seedlings away, too. They’re like fruit-producing pets you don’t have to walk.
…and hey: Monkeyfister got chickens.
I’ve butted into your business before and I will do it again, but this has to be said: make your own damn yogurt!
Recently, 8 ounce wide mouth Ball Jars changed my ultra-glamorous life. The glass jars that came with my ancestral yogurt makers have become delicate with age and I’d prefer not to take them to work. One day, I was foraging in my vast stores of Stuff Dad Gave Me and discovered the 8 ounce wide mouth Ball Jars. They fit perfectly into one of the ancestral yogurt makers and they don’t break when Topaz pushes one off the kitchen counter. You don’t have Topaz reorganizing your glassware, but the Ball Jars might help you carry that yogurt you’re making to work with you.
Lovely Drusy cannot sniff you without playing kissy face.
Miss Sasha calls and asks questions. Is Jell-O gluten-free? This morning, one of my co-workers stepped into my cubicle and said, “You are a genius, I think. Has anyone ever said that to you before?” A couple of months ago, I was walking to the bank when a woman across the street waved and shouted to me in a peppery mix of Russian and English. From a distance she looked like Auntie InExcelsisDeo, who does not speak Russian and though she speaks no other language avoids speaking English if she doesn’t have to, so I approached with a smile and realized we did not know one another. By the time I put my hand on her forearm, she had called me a genius and by someone else’s name. I said, “Hello, but I am not her.” She said, “I thought you were my niece!” I said, “I thought you were my aunt!” Then I laughed all the way to the bank and checked the name in my underwear – and I was only sure I was me when I wasn’t wearing any. Memory can be overrated but being able to work out a problem is good stuff, so I told Miss Sasha to call the phone number on the box and ask a direct question.
In fact, my co-workers ask me questions all day long.
Beth: Can I ask you a question? I was just cleaning off my desk and I moved something and do you know what size mouse droppings are? Have you ever seen them? Are they small or big? We were having a mouse problem awhile ago, I remember, and I was just wondering –
Hmm. That doesn’t do this justice. Imagine Beth, who is a gentle, lovely person, talking without taking a breath.
Beth: CanIaskyouaquestion? IwasjustcleaningoffmydeskandImovedsomethinganddoyouknowwhatsizemousedroppingsare? Haveyoueverseenthem? Aretheysmallorbig? Wewerehavingamouseproblemawhileago,Iremember,andIwasjustwondering –
Tata: You saw mouse poop and thought of me?
Beth: [Can’t breathe for laughing.]
Tata: Go talk to Hal. He’s lived on farms all his life.
Maybe it’s the decades of working in a library, but I’m convinced that whatever the question, someone – somewhere – has the right answer. It’s probably not me, but someone. For instance, someone knows why this bullshit health insurance debacle has gone so horribly wrong and I am afraid it might be Dr. Marcia Angell.
The library at the unnamed university has always offered slightly odd folk a little leeway with social conventions. It seems likely that if I worked somewhere conformity was key I’d be tied up in a closet by now. Look, I’m just not like the other humans, I have a problem mitigated by heat and my workplace is chilly. It would be spiffy if I could heal up without sticking out like a sore thumb. Today, I bought a Sunbeam electric blanket to add to a pillow, several sporty fleeces and a soft throw. My cubicle is starting to resemble a nest.
Fortunately, most of my co-workers will consider this another antic. I turn up for meetings wrapped up from the nose down. We’ll see how an electrified crimson toga goes over.
A few weeks ago, it dawned on me that the Spanish language channels must carry cooking shows and what could be more natural than for me to watch people cook and understand everything? I found one finally this morning, but I was immediately confused. The host was describing a trip along the Amalfi Coast and I still have enough Italian that I grasped his story and what he was cooking. He kept calling it polpettone, though I could see clearly it was a braciola. In Italian, a polpettone is a giant stuffed meatball. This guy was working with a flank steak. I looked at the program description again, which was in Spanish. The commercials were in Spanish. Then I realized I had everything I wanted: a chef, a storyteller, Italian ingredients, Spanish I could understand. His cooking technique was sloppy. Pete sat down to watch and listen and said, “Oh. Guess I’ll make braciole.“
Tonight, Auntie Mame made time on the stationary bike simply disappear. I’d forgotten how much I loved even the opening credits and how closely my grandmother Gladys resembled Rosalind Russell, which means I will. Watch, as the future arrives, shimmering softly and gliding down stairs.
Pete’s brand new antique English racer. We are willing spring to arrive.
My sisters Anya and Corinne pushed the whole town uphill through failed fire inspections, endless phone calls and dozens of rushed meetings to throw a benefit tonight for Haiti. They assembled a bake sale, a silent auction, an art show, musicians, speakers and the mayor of less than a week into an orderly if passionate response to the destruction and ongoing needs. The process was brilliant to watch. This afternoon, Anya and Corinne burst into the back hallway of the family store and blurted, “What’s for lunch?” I said, “Triscuits, caponata, fresh yogurt and popcorn.” They stared because they were kidding. “It’s just like you to throw a benefit to feed people and forget to eat all day.” Then I nearly had to beat up Corinne when grabbed the yogurt, caponata and a spoon and ran for the door.
Bruschetta on the banquet at Lois’s surprise party while we were hiding.
Let us say you are experiencing a context shift, by which I mean you suddenly are not where you usually are, under circumstances that are out of your control. Perhaps you’re stuck in this new place for your own good; perhaps you find yourself lost and awaiting rescue. Be patient, if you can, with those who seek to comfort you. An hour will come when lightness arrives. Do not forget that someone is longing for you.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the standoff with Iran and all the other obsessions with the mideast are at least informed, if not entirely motivated, by larger geopolitical efforts to maintain stability at a time of impending competition over resources and access to them – oil. Sure that’s simplistic, but it’s at the “heart” of what’s going on in the leadership’s “minds.”
We don’t talk about any of that because it might lead us to get serious about changing our way of life and evidently nobody important thinks that’s the right way to deal with the problem. And frankly, among many of our elites, maintaining a military presence everywhere is necessary to preserve American global dominance. Period.
If it weren’t for really good chocolate, I’d be in tears tonight.
Violet’s on the money:
I think we need to say to hell with Roe v. Wade. By which I mean, we need to take the abortion fight to a different front instead of being blackmailed into voting Democrat so that the next SC justice will be pro-choice etc., etc., etc. As long as we’re locked into that paradigm, our hands are tied politically. I think we need to put abortion on a legislative footing; perhaps the ERA could accomplish that. Simultaneously, women need to build an Underground Railroad of abortion providers and patient transportation (working with Planned Parenthood, for example) so we’re not just at the mercy of the goddamn Democrats. Enough with the blackmail!
We need to be prepared to accept the risk of Democrats losing an election. This is just basic politics, folks. The only way to swing the game is if you mean business. All we’re doing now is enabling the country and the Democratic Party to move further and further right. Think about it: the Democratic administration we have now would have been the nightmare Republican bogeyman scenario a couple of decades ago.
I turned 18 months after Reagan’s election. For my entire voting life, the Overton Window has been shifting to the right and shafting women, People of Color, GLBTQs and the poor as the Democrats cowered and surrendered every bit of street cred earned during the Great Society struggles. I’m 46, and still we hear the same threadbare threat: if you vote your conscience, the Republicans win. I voted for Democrats and Republicans won and win even when they’re out of power because Democrats have become spineless appeasers. Fuck them. Fuck that.
I’m done. Last week, I registered Green.
I love these people, though their website looks like my five year old niece picked the colors.
I have books and time to spend
I have soul and I have friends
I have a home and I have food and
Still I have a bad fucking attitude.Difference Bedlam Rovers
The healthcare debate is such transparently stupid bullshit I’m practically speaking in tongues. Fortunately, while I %@%#)%&@_% and %&@)%!^% $%&!!, other people are saying doing smart things.
A Better World Cafe, housed in an historic brick church, is the fifth restaurant of its kind in the nation, which some are nicknaming “Robin Hood restaurants.”
The original socially conscious eatery was opened in Salt Lake City in 2003 by a former acupuncturist and advocates of the concept hope it will revolutionize eating out.
“It’s about how we’re going to need to change our systems if we’re going to survive as a planet,” said Tina Weishaus, a board member of Who is My Neighbor? The community group based in the Reformed Church of Highland Park co-owns the not-for-profit restaurant with Elijah’s Promise, a New Brunswick soup kitchen and culinary school.
Besides the lack of official prices — only suggested fares — the eatery uses mostly food from local farms and no plastic or Styrofoam. It also composts all food scraps and acts as a community forum by hosting talks and live performances by local artists.
Three blocks from my house: yay!
The Highland Park restaurant opened its doors Oct. 21. The simple dining room, with communal tables and metal chairs, has attracted roughly 50 to 125 customers a day, head chef Rachel Weston said. Three paid staff and volunteers serve food from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays. Advertising has been minimal: there’s no sign for the cafe in the front of the church.
Listed each day on a dry erase board is a menu of roughly a dozen items that change every week or so, with suggested prices. One item, the “complimentary community entree,” is free to everyone. On Thursday the free dish was curried pumpkin chick peas over rice.
A person who can’t pay anything is allowed to eat only the “community entree,” but can volunteer at the cafe for an hour to get a bigger meal with more choices. Weston said all patrons are encouraged to volunteer, to think, for example, “What if I came back and baked bread, or played the piano?”
Supper: you can sing for it!
ustomer Kathleen Logue, 49, said she has been unemployed for two years. But she still paid $6, more than the suggested combined price of $1.50 for a cup of Moroccan tomato consomme and $3 for a medium slice of roasted tomato and Swiss cheese quiche.
“There are people worse off than me,” she said.
Highland Park is an ideal town to host the novel restaurant, said Weishaus, with a mixed-income population that includes residents of housing projects as well as Rutgers University professors. The borough also boasts of progressive policies such as promoting fair-trade products at local stores.
The seed of the idea for A Better World Cafe was planted in January, said Lisanne Finston, executive director of Elijah’s Promise. She was giving a talk at the Highland Park church – commenting that the richest nation in the world should not have to have soup kitchens – when someone in the audience mentioned the new dining venture in Salt Lake City.
That’s the kind of concrete, direct action I need to see and support. It can happen near you, too.
Poor Impulse Control 