winding up the merrie month of may

one more month to go

Out Of It

Caterina is out of It / out of the Kitchen

we are Eating Out of the Garden

greens / green things / tumbleweed babies

we are looking for the lamb chop tree

the wine will taste better ~~~~

~~~~in these handblown wine goblets from the Art Fair

oops

rinse glass / set in dish drainer / open wine / pick up glass / break stem in half

sheesh

but it is true / the wine does taste better in the remaining goblet

cheers

favorite wine havent had in years order two cases wait several weeks / it doesnt taste as good as it used to

~~~~~~~~~~
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
???????????????

bummer

Never Ask Why ~~~~~

~~~~~if Reason you Seek

for the Brain is Awry

and

Springing a Leak

Caterina just got high on a sweet crisp raw turnip

she is demo cooking at the opening tomorrow of the local farmers market

she was asked to focus on arugula, asian greens, and sweet turnips

shoppers admire these three / they vibrate from their baskets in the booth

many folks doan know what to do with arugula, asian greens, and most of all

shy away from the sound of the word TurNip

uh no

turns out there are more than 300 recipes for arugula, mostly variations on the salad theme, at epicurious.com

turnips came in last

two bunches of incredibly beautiful small creamy white turnips are delivered / the greens are tall and leafy and darn greeny and freshly dampened

she puts the two bunches on the counter / one bunch neatly tied has six perfect small turnips about the size bigger than a golf ball and smaller than a tennis ball / creamy white and perfectly formed / they looked like a picture of a perfect Pin Up TurnIP

she begins to stew in her own juice / how can she chop the tops off and boil up these babies / just like that / just cuz i googled Sweet Turnips

big sigh

to be cont,, , , ,,,, , ,,,

the texture and mouth feel of agretti / smile

you know how grass is flat bladed ?

agretti is like grass if it were tubes / teeny tubes / very skinny tubes

and not dry inside

rather like how grass would be if it were a succulent

not too juicy / still needs to be dressed with olive oil and lemon

si vuoi

it comes in the length that if it were your lawn you would think it was close to time to mow

~~~~

agretti is also an important ingredient in sushi

~~~~ piccolo mundo

i discovered a group of ex-pats actually discussing agretti !~ today / this very day

what it is it / someone said It Is Tumbleweed !

having fun with red

reds

my favorite colour is REDS

my favorite motto is ~~

when in doubt wear red

~~~~~~~~

fusing glass pieces with a specific result in mind

reds

mmmmmmm/yum

candy red cinnamon bears (current bender) (three bags in two weeks)

mayhem in the morning or sometimes in the middle of the night

this is the time of year the suicide roaches come into the house to drown in the sink

at first seeing them in the sink (them means from 1 to 6 so far) and knowing what i had to do to cooperate with their death wish / well / it was upsetting / i havent even had my coffee yet

turn on the water anyway / lift the drain baskets out so they have a clear shot going down the pipes

ooops / they seem to have changed their minds / yes

they struggle against the water but i persevere / the water gets hotter

another way is to fill the sinks with water the night before / quick and easy for your usual suicide roach

i discover one middle of the night that by 2:30 am when i come into the kitchen for my hot milk and ghee they are already to go / i lift them out carefully although they are pretty much goners by now / and carry them outside where they can go back to the earth

otherwise i fear them clogging my sink trap

i cant think of anything more gross

Caterina is Out To Lunch

she has abandoned the kitchen to Eat Out

she gives up Eat Art for Eat Out

out to lunch

biscuits and gravy at the Moab Diner

chili cheese burger with onion and a side of fries at Milt's

and oh that cream puff at Marianne's

~~~~~~oh wait

sheez back and we are gonna eat baby amaranths and barely toddling tumbleweed

when it is a long way to go before it rolls across the desert and clumps up at fences

the young green tumble weed is bright green and grassy even after rather long cooking / it has the texture and mouth feel of agretti which we loved to eat in Rome

gotta look up agretti / havent thought of it in years

a brief but unexpected intimacy

i was barefoot when my former computer guru stopped by to bring the tangerine flake baby iBook back after a little tune up

he stayed to chat

dont fix your toes, he said, my mother did and she is in constant pain

oh he noticed my toes

he meant my "hammer toes" which a nurse pointed out to me when i was in for cataract surgery / doctor so and so can fix them, she said

until then i thought the knobby knuckles on my second toes was a form of arthritis

nope

hammer toes

i imagine the fixing to involve hammers

at loose ends

dangling

drifting

at least not tied in knots

or tied in Nots ?

there is nothing like a Quote

Eleanor Roosevelt's Wartime Prayer


Dear Lord,

Lest I continue
My complacent way,
Help me to remember that somewhere,
Somehow out there
A man died for me today.
As long as there be war,
I then must
Ask and answer
Am I worth dying for?

when ~~~

~~~you are doing what you werent gonna do
one more time

today's lesson on writing

"Form means nothing when content has no value."

from a letter to the editor, New York Times by

Carol Zoref
Bronxville, N.Y., May 4, 2005
The writer is the writing coordinator at Sarah Lawrence College.

•

Reminder

Only a fool criticizes work in progress

Topics that have been overlooked / postponed / or just ignored

ugly shed is gone

car show

sea of pink

less is more (loss is gain)

farewell to The Last Cat

wait !

it's Mothers Day

in honor of my mother who died recently
Caterina is making homemade cherry garcia
ice cream as she tests the vanilla ice cream
recipe she posted last month

sweet and sour cherries soaked in Kirsch
three kinds of dark chocolate / one with
raspberries

The Poppy in the Tulip Square

the attack on the trade center in 2001 and the attendant thoughts of world war and its scarcities bounced me into a couple of challenges i might not otherwise have considered

sorta like adopting a war cry and a battle plan to cope with unexpected expectations i learned how to can foods / canned every tomato in the garden / every plum on the tree / once that was done it was fall and the ocasion for another challenge / i decided to plant 500 flower bulbs

the challenge here was finding enough diggable areas to plant that many bulbs

there was a Blue collection and an assortment of daffodils/jonquils etc of all sizes and petal types / there were also bulbs that were destined to acclimate and these also had the advantage of being planted two or three to a hole

i bought some groovy bright red gardening tools to make it all fun and easy

there were also 50 tulips 50

all fancy hybrids and what not / these were not guaranteed to bloom more than the first year

in the south side lawn of my house was a plain dirt square about 4 feet by 4 feet / the cement mixer on a square of plywood had occupied this spot for several years / once moved it was free of grass

remembering a neighbor in the Vermont village who had a small square flower garden in the middle of her otherwise lush grassy lawn i decided to prep the square and plant the 50 tulips 50 there.

around the outer edge i planted "blues" / grape hyacinths and anemones

all the tulips came up and so did the blue border / i was thrilled

gradually the tulips gave up the ghost / several orange ones and a pair of whites and a pretty pink streaked white one all have survived since then and bloom anew / the border continues to come up and bloom too

an errant poppy seed germinated and began to grow

i do love poppies / ever since years in Europe where i was dazzled by the fields of poppies (now known as Legionaire poppies) tinting the hillsides and fields with red

i read if poppies are cut before they open they make a nice cut flower for bouquets

we got up early one morning / at dawn and drove out of Rome to the countryside and found a likely field for picking unopened poppies

we came away with armfulls of them / there were literally thousands of flowers / i followed the old Girl Scout rule about only picking a flower once you have seen .............. so many of them

we also came away with our sweaters stuck all over with golden grass debris

the cut poppies did, indeed, last a week or more in big jars of water on the dining room table

now as for that Poppy in the Tulip Square she is flourishing beyond all expectations / she has not bloomed much so far but this year she is truly in her prime

she survives to thrive (smile)

i just counted more than a dozen buds / maybe more / i lost count

i will keep score as each one blooms

accompanying her are a small flock of California poppies / golden yellow and creamy white / that i started indoors

eager anticipation with camera at the ready

~~~~~~~~~

ps / the neighbor lady with the flower square in her lawn in Vermont told me that it was where her children's play house had been

A telling quote

"My creed is that: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so."

Rpbert Ingersoll, noted but neglected 19th century athiest

When daydreams ~~~~~

~~~~~ become retrospectives filter out the gloom, doom, and remorse

congratulate yourself on having lived through it inspite of yourself

survival leads to thrival

thunder lightning

vicious wind

lights out

Going to the dentist

today i had a root canal

compared to a cervical biopsy it was a piece of cake

or was it a picnic ?

hmmm / no, a piece of cake

oh a bit of a picnic too but that was after / my daughter drove me / the root canal dentist was in a town in Colorado 100 miles from where i live (my dentist doesnt think the local dentists have a good enough success rate at root canals / sheesh)

i brought a thermos of chicken soup and daughter brought a salad

we sat on a stump in the parking lot of the dental clinic where i had the soup and she had the salad

then we fled back to Utah quick as prairie dogs

Fish or Cut Bait ?

you gonna keep me (ms blog) going or not ?

let's face it, you think of me every day

you think of topics i wd like and then you dont tell me about them

so what's the big deal ?

let's get this show on the road again

oh, okay