A Moment of Silence for…

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…its own sake. Yes, because despite the huge number of worthy causes these days for which we’re encouraged to meditate for a mere moment, there are few causes more worthy than the good health and well-being that a brief pause for meditation in peaceful silence can help renew in any of us. There is so much need for our attention and efforts to be devoted, and in far larger and more frequent doses than an occasional moment of silence, to vast numbers of those worthy causes.Photo: Hermana's Hideaway

But nobody is fully prepared and equipped for even the least significant observation of those more meaningful causes’ pauses unless we permit ourselves, yes, even require ourselves, to rest and restore our own spirits. Part of my renewal and joy comes, to be sure, from surrounding myself with wonderful people just as I am able to do here. And another, very important, part comes from being able to step back, to lie low for just a little bit, and to be very, very glad that there’s room and time and silence available for me to bask in and be better able to cherish and rejoice in your good company. And to think about what little I can attempt to accomplish before the next such little escape.Photo: Secretive

Big Hairy Deal

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It’s bad enough to have a monkey on your back, but when it keeps returning, that’s another sort of trouble. I’d call it a Boomerang-utan.Digital illo from a photo: Boomerang-utan

I don’t know how chronically ill people manage to keep their sanity, but I know that many do. I am far too wimpy and impatient and irritable to imagine just how I would do such a thing. Having had something I suspect is like an underlying infection this winter that meant that instead of the typical one-or-none quantity of winter colds I ended up with three or four successively worse ones, ending (I hope!) in the latest one that arose from my strep throat and morphed through a head cold on into intensified allergies that I had not even known I had, I got a teeny, tiny taste of the miniature germ-monster version of chronic disease. Every time I thought I’d knocked the junk out of my system for good, wham! It reemerged.

Unlike more saintly persons’, my reaction was to become just that much more irritable and old-lady-ish and self-absorbed than usual. Yikes. If any good can be said to have arisen from the adventure, it is that I had some quality time to focus (as much as I was able to do any such thing) on some thoughts that have been lurking in my mind quite a bit lately about health, aging, and the health care systems of this country and others as they relate to an ever-growing and ever-aging world population. Far from solving the problems of generations past, we seem to be expanding upon them and adding to them exponentially while not devoting anything like a proportionate quantity of attention to improving our use of limited resources in caring for our selves, let alone for the world community.

It’s nothing to monkey around with, I assure you. But all wise-cracking aside, I will share some few of these thoughts further with you in a near future post or two. Meanwhile, I am virtually swinging from the trees with happiness at having emerged relatively unscathed and, I sincerely hope, freed from the ongoing attentions of any neck-hanging apes of the illness-related kind as I move onward again. May more people the world over have such good fortune.

A Very Brief Tribute—and an Invitation

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Life never ceases to astound me, the people in my daily experiences in particular. This Friday evening, for example, I am going to another concert that will involve a whole host of dedicated, skilled, passionate musicians all working together to make history come alive in their performance. There will be wonderful music from greats like George Frideric Handel and Henry Purcell, and less widely known stars who also had connections with the London musical scene in a time when instruments were quite different, compositional and singing styles distinct from what we know nowadays, and the world, even of a metropolis like London, much smaller and simpler than the bright lights and wild energy we know now—yet the stories that the songwriters and performers of that age were telling differed rather less than you might think.The College of Music here at the University of North Texas where my husband conducts and teaches is gigantic, in some ways rivaling the sensation of a city itself, at times. Little London, if you will. Nearly sixteen hundred music majors and their teachers and peers work together to make all of these impressive performances, and of course they are far from limited to early music, though that’s the focus of the concert I’ll be attending. Tonight, there was music of Frank Zappa; tomorrow, voice and instrumental recitals precede the early music performance by the Collegium Singers and Baroque Orchestra; next week, along with many more spring recitals, there will be the Grand Chorus performance of Beethoven Nine and Vaughn Williams, and there are more wind symphony and jazz and chamber ensemble performances yet to come before the school year ends. It really is a bustling metropolis of its own kind, dazzling and almost losing me in its complexity. But again, the stories remain the same. It’s always about adventure and drama, love and longing. We seek to connect through the communal experiences of music.

So if you want to join in and can’t get to the campus, you can always tune in via the live stream, with many of our friends and relatives, by clicking on the link here. Or play or sing your own song, among your own friends and relatives. I imagine your stories will be familiar as well. I think I can hear them across this vast city of ours.Digital illo + text: Maze/Amaze

Does My Big Backside Make My Brain Look Small?

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I know, I know. There are those who might suppose that I actually think through my hindmost end. Most of those persons, undoubtedly, have observed my fine work here at the blog. I like to think that I’m a little more versatile than that. Sometimes. I do not take offense at the idea that my thinking is frequently similar to that of personages sometimes known in the vernacular as “ass-hats”—not a reference, mind you, to millinery designed for Equus africanus asinus—my thoughts can be odd at the best of times. But of course, I would consider it indelicate to accuse any donkeys of thinking as weirdly as I do.

What seems objective to one may be objectionable to another, though the object, to both, might be to subvert overt subjectivity.

See that? I did it yet again, didn’t I.

Is there an intersection or interaction between fact and fiction—or is the connection only full of friction? Can’t say.

But goofy or not, my thoughts are here. And so, my silly friends, are You. Now who’s the nutty one, eh?Digital illo: Butt Thinking Makes It So

Foodie Tuesday: The Gingerbread Woman

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The scent of cinnamon drifting out as I open the door invites me to plunge inside, but I can’t help taking my time. A deep, slow breath: cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice. Ginger. A smack of icy air throws my collar up around my ears and gives me the final push to dash inside, the storm door slamming behind me.

Gingerbread.Photo: Gingerbread 1

Mama loves us. The school board thinks it better we all traipse home, damp and frost-speckled, through the sidewalk maze of shoveled snow than that we stay snugly tucked into the school with a sack lunch, and we kids complain at the bitter wind and the icy ground. Slipping sidelong into the snowdrifts isn’t as fun when we still have the slog back to afternoon class ahead, wet and miserable, blue around the nose and chin or not.

But some lucky few of us have the respite of bath-towel-wielding mothers, a pair of dry socks hanging over the back of the chair, and on top of it all, a homemade lunch waiting for us at home. Lunch with gingerbread. Sweet, so hot from the oven that clouds of spice envelop us at the threshold. So hot that even after we’ve gobbled our sandwiches and soup to get to it, the layer of homemade applesauce on top can’t keep the uppermost layer of whipped cream from melting faster than those last snowflakes in our hair.

Gingerbread. Mother’s love and blessed relief from the cold winter’s day all wrapped up in a helping of almost unbearably delicious goodness. Sigh. Back to school. Repeat. Maybe there will be enough gingerbread left over for after supper, if we hurry home fast enough.Photo: The Gingerbread WomanMy Own Gingerbread with Rum Caramel

Preheat oven to 350°F/177°C.  Blend dry ingredients gently with a whisk: 2 cups [gluten-free, in my case] flour, 1 cup packed brown sugar, 1 cup granulated sugar, a scant 1 1/5 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, spice mix [2 T ginger, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp each cloves, nutmeg, and white pepper, + 1 hefty pinch each cardamom and salt]. In a saucepan, melt 3/4 cup coconut oil and add to it 1 cup molasses, 1/2 cup whole milk yogurt, and 1/2 cup dark rum (cane sugar cola, root beer, or ginger ale is a great non-alcoholic alternative), warming just until thoroughly blended. Add 3 large eggs and beat them in well, tempering the wet ingredients if the warmed ones are still at all hot so the eggs won’t curdle. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and pour into a heavily greased and floured (I used cocoa powder mixed with cinnamon, to keep from building up any unseemly white dust blooming on the finished goods) cake or loaf pan, cupcake tins, or a combination of these, allowing plenty of space for a bit of rising as the batter bakes.

For small portions like the cupcakes, start with no more than 18-20 minutes’ baking; larger batches like a Bundt pan can be checked later, allowing up to nearly an hour for full baking. Check occasionally, removing them from the oven when they seem nearly done; a very little under-baking keeps them nicely sticky and gooey, good cousins to the Britons’ glorious Sticky Toffee Pudding.

While I’m on the subject of toffee, there’s nothing at all wrong with the idea of a caramel kind of topping to accompany a nice, intensely spicy gingerbread like this. So I made some Rum Caramel Sauce: in a nonstick saucepan, I cooked together, until melted, 1 cup brown sugar (again!), 1/2 cup browned butter (I’d just made up a nice big batch of my beloved beurre noisette), 1/4 cup dark rum (see above note for non-alcoholic versions), plus a touch or two of cream to thin it as desired at the last. Terrible stuff; you wouldn’t like it at all. May I have your serving of it?

Lastly, of course, if one is feeling particularly indulgent-and-when-am-I-not, it’s good to top all of this with a heaping spoonful of cream whipped up with lots of vanilla and dark maple syrup. The resulting calorie-free, eternal-life-conferring dessert met with approval at snack time, after dinner, in the late evening, and for breakfast. So you can expect that my friends and I will be outliving all of you. Or at least, dying contented. I didn’t get any no-thank-yous when I offered thirds, anyway. As I’m sure my mama never did, back in the old days of snowy trudges and school lunches.

Wiggle & Giggle

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Welcome to another episode of “All Words, No Meaning.”

I just get these strange, tickly tics at times, you know.

And I was just thinking about my wonderful brother-in-law’s wonderful mother, who once upon a time delighted us by asking in her musically lilting Norwegian-tinged English to explain the weird word one of us had used: “What is ‘wiggle’?” It made us all laugh, not least of all dear Mor. The word itself is funny. The ingenuous way she asked it was so irresistibly adorable that it made the word all the more funny, and we fell all over ourselves snickering and writhing with laughter. “Vot iss viggle?” V words are often special anyhow, I think. They are vivid. Vital. Vigorous.

Violently Verbose Vapidity

Voluminous in velveteen and vivid in velour,

That Venus eating Vindaloo, in the vernacular,

Was very villainous, it’s said, vermillion in her faults,

But veiled in verisimilitude, her vices hid in vaults,

Vile vortices of vermin, varmints, vipers, vexing pains,

And vigorously vinegary vapors in her veins,

Yet always, these vituperative and vast, voracious ills

Veered, voicelessly averted, by her villa’s windowsills;

So virtuous seemed all in view from vane to vestibule,

From valance to verandah, I’d avow that, as a rule,

Veracity had lost its vim, a victim to her vibe

Of viscous, vain verbosity in every diatribe,

And via Violet’s vertiginous, vindictive lies,

Her vow of victory o’er all, valid and otherwise,

Would void the verve of every nerve, veritable or vexed,

And vanquish, make it valueless, in this vale and the next.

Her viands—vermicelli and Vidalias and veal

And vegetables with Vegemite were her most voguish meal—

At last revealed her venomously covert, vile inside,

When Vi’s vast vessel of vermouth rendered her vitrified,

Made vitreous her venal guts, visiting visibly

Those virulent and vengeful, vulgar bits, for all to see.

Vast vanity and venom may vouchsafe the dark crevasse,

But even vampires are revealed, converted into glass.Digital illo: Violet & Vermilion

Always Wear Clean Ones in Case of an Accident

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Photo: Ghost in the Machine 1Ghost in the [Washing] Machine

While rushing through the underbrush in rustling underwear,

Ermina realized she’d run from Things that Were Not There—

She paused to contemplate with rue what might appear insane—

By when her sense returned in full, They’d captured her again.

The moral of this story, if there is one to be had,

Is: when you feel Things closing in, at least you can be glad,

No matter if They’re real or not, or if you’re caught anon,

At least to be returned to sense with underpants still on.Photo: Ghost in the Machine 2

What the Rain *can’t* Do

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We have been fortunate, in north Texas, to get more than the expected doses of rain in the last number of months. It has gone some distance toward ameliorating the statewide drought’s effects on our county and nearby zones. The lakes have risen a little. The trees are breathing an almost audible sigh of relief. The locals swoon over the magical burst of wildflowers every bit as delightedly as the tourists do.

But it’s no perfect cure. A good rain can’t solve all of the world’s ills. The local drought is not isolated or ended but creeping through the nation in an ominous reflection of the receding polar ice caps, drought that is strangely now becoming a pestilence even on the more typically misty and moist California coast and Pacific Northwest. And there are still countries the world over suffering from much longer and deeper droughts.

Rainy weather can, on a smaller scale, also darken the skies of many individuals’ moods, bring soggy sorrow to brows usually brighter with cheer. It can both literally and figuratively dampen the parade of plans made by folk who rely on sunny weather for their sunny spirits and can seemingly call a halt to normalcy in zones like my home region, where a little struggle for water is generally to be expected. Any stretch of overcast and rain longer than 24 hours sends herds of north Texans running around, mooing nervously like it’s the End of Days in the Old West.

Still, rain can’t kill moods and expectations and obliterate optimism without our consent. While I’ve been moody and something of a little black cloud myself lately, being in the proverbial phrase ‘under the weather‘ (in the non-alcoholic version), I was reminded of this submissive and defeatist, even compliant, element when listening to the web-streamed broadcast of the university jazz concert I didn’t feel well, or wakeful, or cheery, enough to attend last night. The vocal and instrumental interlacing of familiar and wonderful jazz tunes lifted my mood more than the start of my medication kicking in had managed to do. They led me to listen to other upbeat music, from further jazz classics to pop, drumline rhythms, and one of those sorts of music that I find is fairly impossible to hear without breaking into a crooked grin: reggae.

It would seem, on reflection, that among those things rain cannot accomplish is keeping a good reggae number from cheering me up, and that is something I will happily and readily forgive the rain for failing to do.

Digital illo: Let It Rain, Mon

Let it rain, Mon.

Pity Me If You Will, but I’ll Admit…

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…I’d rather you throw money.

What, you think because I feel lousy I’ve become less crass and ridiculous? Mais, non! When I’m sidelined by big mean germs and have little strength left in my flimsy carcase, never mind my moral center (if any), what is there to keep me occupied and involved in life besides celebrating those last shreds of my identity that haven’t yet slipped fully out of my grasp? And I’m feeling a little extra bumptious tonight because it’s been a long week and I feel kind of worse tonight than I had in the last three days or so. Apparently, behaving myself and finally going to the doctor and getting started on treatment for the colorful mashup of strep, cold, and allergies that converged on me doesn’t make me feel all shiny and new in a couple of mere hours. What?! I don’t get tough customer bonus points for being stubborn, and a sentence reduction for time served, and stuff like that? Or at least a piece of candy from the nurse at the desk?

Yeah, yeah. I have it so much easier than so many, it’s not even funny, and I know it. But it won’t stop my whinging, wringing my hands as much as my handkerchiefs, and singing elegies of self-pity. You knew it wouldn’t. The world is suffering genuine trials and disasters and I just curl up in my little coracle as it drifts and caroms off the craggy banks of the Slough of Despond as though I were a little pinball of perfect sorrow.

But really, there is room in here with me for a couple of bags of soothing cash.

No? Ah, well. See you when I drift back into port. End of transmission. Over and out.Photo: Defying Logic

A Shell of My Former Self—If I’m Lucky

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It just occurred to me, perhaps because I’ve been maundering about the mansion lately with more than my usual melancholy, to think upon the old phrase “a shell of her former self,” which of course is always said with a sorrowful shake of the head with a kind of doomy delectation. My maudlin state is only self-indulgent pity that will soon pass, as it’s clearly related to my recent bout of battling some sort of ugly internal germ warfare, and I am surely the patient for whom “im-” was coined as a prefix to the category. Why, I hate mooning around feeling like last week’s boiled cabbage even more than I hate getting up early in the morning or other forms of socially correct forced jollity, and that is definitely, in the vernacular, ‘going some.’

I’m quite willing to admit that my present case of strep throat, Black Plague, or common-head-cold-with-flashy-tendencies is not going to kill me, and that it will likely pass before I take up my unlicensed weapons and go rampaging. (You do not want to know what I might think of doing with a hot glue gun outside of my craft cupboard when I’m feeling cranky!) But this knowledge has in no way impeded my crotchety tendencies and air of martyrdom as I’ve slouched about the homestead.

Yet I will concede that a shell is not always the least of one’s components, so perhaps I can allow a certain latitude in my impatient-patient thinking. Maybe if I determine to think of the possibility that the homely exterior is not only armor for the meat of the matter, in a literal way, but possibly has its own beauties, too, I won’t so easily wallow in feeling hollow. I’m not going to produce any pearls out of my irritation, either of the nacreous kind or of wisdom, but perhaps if I can focus my scratchy, rheumy thoughts a little and work up my own little bit of shine somehow, all this grey-tinged groaning might become less pointless and frustrating after all.

Photo: A Shell of Her Former Self

I’m just feeling a little weak in the mussels at the moment. It’ll soon pass…