Mac 'n Cheese to the Max

Today is a detox day due to the consumption of last night. The Mac n Cheese coook off took place in my kitchen and then there were molton brownie cupcakes for dessert. Oh Lordy...

1. A blue cheese based mac with toasted walnuts on top
2. Mac with gouda, tyme, sauteed onion, potato and about a pound of butter

My contrubution was a light salad with only a handful of crumbled goat cheese and the after dinner port.

Well now it is time to go to work. Another day, another dollar.

A Valentine Soup and Grandmother's Prayers

Thursday night there was a Valentine Dinner Party at my house.

Baguette with olive oil, balsamic, and roasted garlic spread
Keats
Potato Leek Soup from 'Apples for Jam'- quite satisfying
Millay
Green Salad with Feta, Avocados, Tomatos and Balsamic dressing
I Like You
Hand shaped Heart sugar cookies with lemon drizzle
More Keats
Whole Wheat Apple Pear Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream
Singing!

And now for another topic: I read through a copy of 'A Diaery of Private Prayer.'
It belonged to my Grandma Patsy and inside there are little notes and underlinings in her hand. Now it my second time through the prayers I find my hand mixed in with hers. Today the morning prayer reminds me how to love my houshold, my roomates, and my family:

"Accompany me today, O Spirit invisible, in all my goings, buy stay with me also when I am in my own home and among my kindred. Forbid that I should fail to show to those nearest to me the sympathy and consideration which Thy grace enables me to show to others with whom I have to do. Forbid that I should refuse to my own household the courtesy and politeness which I think proper to show to strangers. Let charity today begin at home."

Being Taken Out

Oh what delicious bliss! Last night Bill and Bill treated me to dinner at Lola's downtown. Here's the spread:

Grilled pita with 7 types of dips...yoghurt, fig and calamatta, garlic, gost cheese, bell pepper and roasted coliflower with anchovies

Gin Gimlet

Portabella Kabab with parsley lime rub and onions

Young Goat Tangine with roasted veg's

Beets with Rocotta

Plank girlled fish from the Mediterranian waters

Broccoli with an egg on top and chili sauce

A Very Good '94 Syrah

Brussel Sprouts with Dates and Bacon

Those Greek/Turkish grape leaf rolls with rice, rasins and yoghurt sauce

Oh and then...

Pear Tart with Brown Suger Ice Cream

Fresh fried Doughnut holes with a crunchy, suggery topping

Cold pressed dessert Wine.

The End

My Godmothers, Portraits, Vol. 1

Brenda is an OB nurse at Serria Nevada Memorial Hospital. You can see the hospital from the highway. If Brenda were on the side of the highway you could probably see her too for her piles of greying brown curls shout out to be seen. Her heart is the kind of heart that envelopes other hearts into a warm, maternal place where you can cry and laugh and play poker with cash and chocolate as incentive. I can imagine her lovingly drawing new life forth from between legs bloodied and bare with her curls packed into sanitary submission. She whispers, "Rejoice!" into the the little ears, red and wet and new like unfurling rose petels covered in dew.

Sharon Rose married a Canadian ex-pat with an Italian accent and a penchent for asking deeply theological and metaphysical questions of eleven year olds as well as everybody else. This is her second husband. The first tried to kill her with a kitchen knife. She lost one daughter to a house fire on New Years Eve. Her other daughter is wasting away slowly as she fights a battle with the food gods. The son passes his time in imobililty and on various drugs. Sharon walks her labarinth of lavender and laughs at dinner parties and takes the wandering and misfit souls into her arms and feeds them pasta. In my closet hangs a hand-me-down gold party dress of Sharons. When I wear it I will listen for the echos of her footsteps. Each step sounds out, "Rejoice!", one in front of the other.

Janet and my father knew eachother before they were born. They grew up with fingers stained black each walnut picking season in a sleepy suburb in the Bay Area when the trees used to grow. Their pathes diverged. Janet penciled in her eyebrows, a thin hard line contrasting with the softness of her face. She married young, soon divoraced, and then got her masters in speech pathology. She married again, to a tall quiet man with grown children and a soft voice. Janet loves costume jewelry and keeping her nails polished and long. She loves Bluegrass music and camping in the Winnabago. She loves her extended family, her country and her hairless, tumor riddled dog. From the tips of her shining fingers to the soles of the fuzzy house slippers she tells everyone, loud and clear, "Rejoice!"

Skills

Since I have realized that my true calling in life is to be a Rennisance woman, sans bustier and dirty hair, I have been thinking of the skills that would would be good to have.

1. Knowing Spices- cumin, basil, corriander, tyme, curry, marjoram, rosemary, cinnimon, nutmeg, ginger, etc.... Spices make life more interesting, more flavorful, and ultimatly more delicious.

2. Being able to frame things- I want to cut a perfet mat, it's as simple at that.

3. Living sans car- Well this already has been happening due to unforseen financial circumstances. May God grant me the ability to take the bus (and other forms of alternative transportation) as long as I live.

4. Plucking My Mandolin- "Trying to scratch out a pleasent simple tune without breaking (my) neck."

5. Dancing with My Belly- I am a strong and flexible girl. I need to move with my strengths and and love the lumps. ,

There, five skills are enough to work on for now.

The First Moment

At midnight, standing from my miniscule balcony in Ballard there is light all around. Fireworks set off in front yards and into the night sky are all around. Horns are tooting. There are ones that sound like crying babies and then somewhere in the background there is a trumpet sounding in one long note. All around I hear clappers and drums and bells and shouting into the dark.

On my balcony I sip one last glass of champagne and take a long drag on the one last Parliment. The cold burrows into my fingers and extremities first and then starts to send shivers into my bones. The cig gets snuffed out amid the tooting and bursts of light and I go inside.

A new year, and new frame of mind, a new direction, place and sense of being. My goodness, how lucky are we to be able to start over, over and over again. January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, January... The hum-drum of everyday gets interrupted by the fireworks and the noisemakers, by the excitement of the new and by the weight of the old.

Rejoice.

Lookin Great in 2008 and Doin Good as Grandma Would

In a burst of good ideas the hopes for next year have just been born. Slightly premature we won't be able to take them home until this coming Tuesday, but that's alright. My current mantra, "What Would Grandma Do?" is excited to see the evolution of putting the "What" into action. We look forward to growing Spiritually, Physically, Financially, and Artistically in 2008. We will be making lots of good choices to take good actions that pertain to the 4 categories of growth.

For the past 6 months I have been just keeping my head above the roiling waters of adulthood using the dog paddle and sometimes the life bouy otherwise know as mother's checking account. The days of paddleing and using the life bouy are going to end in 2008. I will, instead, become a synchronized swimmer. I already have the cap so I'll pull it on and practice holding my breath while madly sculling and pointing my toes toward high heaven.

Meanwhile, I'll keep contemplating French Farm culture and Physics. It's amazing the things one thinks about while working in retail.

Multiples

1) There was a pack of old men on the bus yesterday. Their voices were like worn down sneakers trudging down a gravel road or like how I would imagine grumpy, yet freshly fed hyenas would sound. Muttering about the rain and about the best way to get a free ride.

"Have you had that green apple flavor kind?
No, I don't drink that shit. Give me the real stuff.
What do you think of Jose?
How 'bout Jack?
Heh heh heh."

2) Pot-bellied, wood burning stoves, very black with a kettle on for tea.

3) Mountian Dulcimer practice.

4) Yoga Zone with Jen and Jeanie.

5) Notions make suitable ornaments for the lovely 5 footer Noble Fir who has taken his place next to the butter yellow velvet armchair.

6) Murray McMurray mail order fowl.

Those were the good ones, these are the bad:

not enough postage, not enough pasture, not enough Smog, and too many crazy ladies who make messes in the fitting room.

Friend of the Month

Since moving to Seattle one of my goals has been to make one new friend a month. This friend must become more then an aquaintence. So far things have been turning out for the best and I have been learning some good and bad things.

Dear Lauren was October. Our meeting was a practical intervention of the divine in the aqua walled breakroom at Anthropologie in the University Village shopping center. Not only did we both study art, but we also both went to NYCAMS, only a year apart. She knows Clark Street Cafe, the Promanade, the greenery of 28th Street, Gloria, and John Silvis. Our meeting was a stoke of great luck.

Mr. November was that foxy boy from All Aboard 2nd Hand Furniture Store. We first met in September, but it was not until November when he fit in the program. We met becuase of a butter yellow velvet armchair. Now with several visits and a beer or 2 at Prost later friendship with Mr. November remains undefined and at a projected low. He has reminded me that the ability to ask good questions is a very important quality in a friend. I still like the chair better.

On the first of December my monthly friend called me out of the blue just as I sat down for lunch. Jo Ellen has just moved to Seattle and got my number from a mutual friend who thought I'd be a good person so call. The next day we met for coffee and I took her to church. It was good of God to provide in a moment when I didn't know who to be friends with next. If only getting a phone call at the opportune time would happen more often.

I should take their portraits and then at the end of my time in Seattle host a party with all the friends. I think it should be a barbeque and each person must bring with them one of their good friends. There will be hotdogs and coleslaw.

The End

विष thinking

Curried lentil soup with carrots, orange bells, onions, celery, garlic, parsley, ginger, cumin, chicken broth, pepper and of course, lots of curry powder

Garlic Parsley Muffins

Vanilla Yogurt with blueberry cinnamon sauce

Then you have a few glasses of wine and wait for the boy from the furniture store to call.

You think the soup is ready, but the carrots and lentils are not quite tender enough.

After 2 muffins and another glass of wine you think, "well maybe it's alright if the lentils and carrots are not done enough?"

Cheers to another delicious dinner consumed alone!

By the way, being alone is a good/bad idea.

When alone I begin to think about things in a way I never do while with others. I think about ways to lighten my earthly load (i.e. which handbags I can live without.) I plan out menus for meals I would like to have and invite the people I would like to meet. I think about patterns to weave the lightness the spreads out from my toes into. Sometimes I think about how hard it is to be living and how lovely blooms of crimson would look in the bath water. But, then again, each sunrise calls a new day into being. Each new day brings new possibilities to do good or to stamp out the bad.

Good Manners

I work retail. I do judge a womans character by the way she leaves a dressing room. Scattered hangers, inside-out blouses, undone buttons, and various bits of refuse on the floor all point to someone who is generally careless and selfish to a fault. This is the kind of woman who lets her child cry for extended periods of time in public. She does not look you in the eye and tries to return things that have been worn and washed. She is not to be trusted.

One the other hand, a woman who brings her clothes out of her dressing room on their hangers and hands them to the fitting room attendent is someone who deserves a home made pie, a fresh peach, or even a warm hug along with a cup of tea. It is a good idea the be that woman. Pick up after yourself. Button those tiny buttons. Be a considerate human.

It is also a good idea to listen to Rosie Thomas and Smog while at home, alone for the evening, yet again.

It is a good idea to enjoy a fried egg with toast and orange juice for dinner.

It is a good idea to write letters to humans you love. Use real ink and real paper and 41 cents. It will be worth it.

Munching All Around

First you order Tahini stuffed French toast with pineapple lemon sryup along with the Buddha Belly scramble with feta, whole cloves of roasted garlic, bits of tofu, and spinich. There are also some mashed potatoe pancakes, whole wheat toast with homemade raspberry jam and lots of coffee.

Be sure to share.

Next, while at Pikes Place Market, taste everything: chocolate pasta, 18 year old balsamics, raw honey, local apples, aged gouda, blended goat cheese, peppered jerky, and rubarb jam. Smell the teas, the clams, the flowers, and the lavendar hand creams.

Pop in for a Russian turnover and then go a few doors down for some Fair Trade espresso.

Happy Hour time is time for being an Irish pub and sampeling some local brews.

Now for a dinner of appitizers at The Palace: goat cheese fondu with grilled sourdough paired with an apple, arugula, and almond salad. There are also marionberry martinis.

Then spend some time walking all about until you happen to end up and another pub to top off the day with a glass of chocolaty porter.

Perfect!

Toast!

flour
yeast
warm water
honey
milk
oil
salt

mix
knead
rise
punch
shape
rise
bake

slice
butter
eat
perfect

WWOOF

Two days ago and very small "dog" nearly attacked me on an evening jog. It was making a beeline for my ankles and yapping up a storm. Fourtunatly I was able to leap to safety.

Today at work a middle aged African-American lady was cradling her "dog." It looked more like a pint-sized bean bag with fur and I nearly wanted to eat it.

When I was born my father had a Rodesian Ridgeback named Rex. He was red. His legs, they were 14 yards long, his ears, so very wide and around the world in half a day upon him I would ride.

My most recent good idea is to become a Willing Worker On an Organic Farm. I could go all over the world, but mostly I am in terested in the UK, Sweden and Denmark, perhaps Japan?

We shall see, we shall see...

Meander

verb

1. To follow an indirect route or course, especially on with a series of twists and turns.
2. to move in a leisurely way, especially or because of a lack of motivation

noun

1. a slow leisurely walk or journey
2. a twist or bend in something, especially a river or path or street
3. an indirect course or route, esp. one that twists and turns
4. an ornamental design, popular in ancient Greek art and architecture, made by a continuous line that forms square shapes by doubling back on itself

This reminds me of right now. I should go to bed and read up on my Greek mythology.

Wild Mountian

Resturants in houses with mismatched silverware

Clear afternoons when you can see the mountians

Yellow velvet chair

Old man pumpkin faces

Real Like

*not all things that are really liked are in particular good or bad ideas, some are simply ideas.

Lisa Loeb's glasses in her music video Stay "I Missed You"

When Red Bull is acctually necessary

Cashmere lounge pants

Turning on the heater for the first time this year

Yellow Velvet Armchair

"Third time's a charm."

Never having learned phonics