Politickles

i come here to be frivolous
to create a self-indulgent pastiche

to be giddy and mindless and insouciant

otherwise my head will explode

Hints ~ Rules ~ Suggestions

(from the Free At Last series)

you doan hafta do anything you doan wanna

if you think you awta / doan do it

when in doubt wear red

do it All ~ All Waze n Sometimes Never

no long distance calls while drunk

when in doubt lie down

ignore ants is bliss

when in the mind all is think pull the plug and drain the sink

balance through contrast / moderation by extremes

nothing exceeds like excess

be Quick but dont hurry


(a faithful transcription)

connect the dots / detach on the dotted line

dont ask why
if reason you seek
for the brain is awry
and springing a leak

.................................

Some Thoughts on Thinking

I think about thinking
i think about how i am thinking
i think about what my thinking is about
i think if the thinking makes me feel good or bad
is it good thinking or is it bad thinking ?
i think about what good thinking and bad thinking are

i am thinking about thinking

give it up

Today' Advice

When in the mind all is think
pull the plug and drain the sink

Transmission of Dialogue between Aeriseven and Dwadwee Wandrr

~ it begins with chronic melancholy
^ explain please
~ you are this superior being from Aeriseven and suddenly you wake up and you are this squalling human infant / shocked into chronic melancholy
^ i must remind you that you volunteered for this mission / indeed, it was your idea / you were curious about the earth planet and wanted to be a big shot explorer
~ i didnt know how difficult it would be to be a human being
^ you have a tendency to focus on the difficulties
~ of course, when i talk to you i focus on the difficulties to illuminate the problems / it is part of the mission, is it not ? to help clarify procedure and make improvements for the future explorers / remember i am an *Experimental Eggplant Explorer* designed to break new trails, show the way, make it "easier" for later Aeriseven visitors
^ so you feel somehow you are arriving shocked into a state born with regrets / a kind of consumate anger
~ simmering with bitter disappointments
^ oh my, poor you
~ yeah, poor me
^ let me remind you of the choices you made / of the choices you make / it was a brave and courageous act
~ i was bored and wanted a change of scene / sigh
^ oh, foo, you wanted an adventure / you were curious and you cared / you have done a fine job / maybe you have not received enough recognition but you know you have to gain from the process / you pioneered the program and now you must share the information / we are waiting for detailed reports / transcripts of dialogue / recommendations / evaluations / hints / clues / subtle suggestions / you know / c'mon / get with it
~ I am !

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

observation : you can always trust someone who is fussy about her food


(now i know why Joan Didion edits on gin)


(from the '80's)(most likely)

CARE packages

Sometimes when i think i am good at starting things / sometimes too good at starting things / without enough follow through i remember being in high school during the years right after World War 2 when the administration and students of Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, decided to send CARE packages to war survivors in Europe

Here is some history and what CARE stands for :

"We've always been known by the acronym "CARE," but the meaning behind the letters has changed as our mission has broadened. When we were founded in 1945, CARE stood for "Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe." Today, with projects in more than 60 countries around the world, CARE stands for "Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, Inc."

we decided that each homeroom in the school of three grades would send a package every month / i volunteered to be the CARE representative for my homeroom / this meant i collected 25cents from each student (usually about 30 in a homeroom) each month for the nine months of the school year

and i am proud to say that i did it / i did it / smile / all three years of high school

you would have to know me to understand what this means / i find it easy to change my mind / to put off continuing projects i have started / over time i have incorporated ME into my philosophy of life known as The Way of The Improvaho in which i never have to finish anything (or how would anything get done) and Indecision Permits Flexibility but more about that another time

I had pictures of food floating through my head this afternoon / i wasnt really hungry but i think of food anyway / at some point i will go in the kitchen, rummage through the ice box / come up with something tasty / and then i imagined what it must feel like to have those pictures of food floating through your head and not knowing where your next meal was coming from and i remembered sending CARE packages and now i wonder if i am doing as much as i can

there's a lot of hungry people out there in the world

for starters i am sending a donation to CARE and checking out what more i can do, give, or share

http://www.careusa.org/index.asp

maybe, you too ?

The Pleasures of Patience or Today in the Kitchen

I take great pleasure in the patience required for the sequence of steps leading up to firing the kiln

prepping the kiln shelf with kiln wash and a haik brush / a brush with exceedingly fine bristles / i googled to shop for these brushes, recommended in the glass fusing bible / and google asks Do You Mean Hair Brush? / i love google

the kiln wash must be applied in five coats across the shelf this way and then that way and diagonally / then it is dried in the kiln at 500 degrees with the lid propped open a few inches / unless the shelf is prepped properly the kiln wash will stick to the bottom of the glass thus adding another step for it will have to be removed

so far i have been a perfect kiln shelf prepper !

next

assembling and cutting the little bits of glass being careful not to cut my fingers / washing them in a bowl of soapy water / draining through a sieve / spreading out on a dishtowel and blotting them thoroughly dry

using a tweezer or the needlenose pliers (i like these better) to arrange the bits of glass on the shelf / put them in little stacks or whatever

so far so good / my second attention is fully engaged

then the heating up and monitoring the speed with which it reaches 1500 degrees / about an hour / and then controlling the rate of cooling

whew

an added bonus is the kiln is upstairs in the attic-studio

i am having a good work out running up and down the stairs as well as being particularly alert not to fall down them / there is no bannister / the stair well is narrow but there are railings along the opening at the top

i decide to hang some ropes from the railings to grab onto in case of dizziness

an elderly lady in the village where i lived in vermont had a big old house and she lived alone / as is true of many folks in vermont they are a hardy and independent lot and do a lot of heavy labor especially in the winter when it is necessary to brush snow off of roofs (rooves??)

her house had a large porch with windows overlooking it from the second story / inside the windows was a stair railing and on this was a coil of rope / she explained to me that she pulled the rope over to the windows / tied it around her waist and stepped out on the roof which of course was slanted to brush or shovel off the snow

whatta gal

i run out of patience waiting for the kiln to cool enough to remove the bits of glass / i busy myself in the kitchen making ghee and getting flours together to make some dough / yes / some dough / any kind of dough / i crave to make dough the same way i craved to make things out of clay when i was a child

i am making empanadas / more anon

Plumbing the Depths

some old notes :

the Search for Genuine Insouciance continues

(huh what's that?)

Light hearted Unconcern not to be mistaken for a Cold Indifference

Insouciance of the Most Genuine - sincere - and Authentic is aura'ed by affectionate understanding and a generous helping of compassion / smile

(the smile of Someone willing to be side-tracked because for her all paths have heart)

you know, Follow Your Path with Heart / that means whole-heartedly / not half-assed

%%%%%

The process unwinds like a ball of yarn, like opening up a road map
like finding the missing puzzle piece under the kitchen table

The process is a wander ~ an exploration ~ it is not designed to solve problems ~ but to appreciate the mysteries of existence

so there

Serpentine

a serpentine course grows naturally out of an open round, for the leader of the line may digress from the steady circling to describe meandering figure 8's, zig zags, spirals, or what have you

(chaos is not disorder but an invitation to the dance of life)

phase known as new skin for old (shed old skin / grow new tale)

the ecdysis process begins from 10 days to 3 weeks before the actual shedding and is indicated by the snake's loss of appetite (a bloated body might inhibit the process), a bluish cloud over the eyes, a few tears (maybe a lot), a dull cast to the skin, a pimple or two, and a marked negative turn in the snake's (subject's) disposition, indicating some discomfort

to each thing there is a season

i am giving up a whole bunch of stuff / turning a corner / and changing my tune

i'll never admit it weren't fun

~~~~~~~~~~


Remember your insights
Acknowledge your visions

You can't pretend
That you're not where you are

(from Long Pants by Michael Ontkean)

no i dont have permission to copy this and he doesnt even know i have a his book which he autographed and gave to a someone i know who didnt want it anymore / i loved this book so kept it / it was published in / oops / seems to be misplaced / was about 1970something / time to declutterfly my books

All Fired Up and Fully Fused

a successful first firing of my glass kiln !

so much more to learn and so much more fun to have !

"Someone" asked if I were happy

Happy is not the operative word (in this phase)

I am more like Released / Relieved / Relaxed / ReInventing Myself

Re-Creating and Restoring Power

Regurgitating (urp) the deadness of the past

(my pressure relief valve is functioning well)

there is no Rush

but plenty of Quick

as in Quick ! Alive ! and all that Jive !

A little memory from life in rural Vermont

one night last week the old lady who lived across the street died

today her family had the funeral and walked by my house on their way to the cemetary which is across the brook by way of a foot bridge directly behind my house

they buried her there and then came back by my house and across the street and had a lovely family party in their front yard / i have noticed that the folks in this village often have their outdoor parties in the front yard instead of the back / maybe so everyone in town can see what is going on

later i walked over to pay my respects at her grave / there was a pile of dirt remaining so i went home and got a bucket and shovel and brought dirt home to plant tuberous begonias in a big iron kettle

thanks, old lady

i now remember that one of her family placed little wooden tulips at her grave / i think one of the children made them in wood shop

(memory from sometime in the 90's Chelsea, Vermont)

Hocus Pocus Sharpen Your Focus

the way of the improvaho is the path of surprise

revisiting the past

topanga canyon diet :

a joint
a toot
a cuppa joe

sit in the sun
and have some mo'

(sometime in the seventease)

in the mail a clipping from the Topanga Messenger describing a house that cd only have been mine

Happy Trail Spider Works and Bubble Preserve

located at the end of the trail in the thicket of high resolve

'72 - '90

oh that time ! learned carpentry / tiling / how electricity works / plumbing / how to rebuild windows / how to start a restaurant on a shoestring / tune up my car / pour cement / grow pot / fix the roof / what kind of fire wood to use in each of the wood burning stoves / how to keep warm and those were the days when Tony Grant on the radio said if you are with a man to keep you warm at night you might as well have a dog / i created a lovely terraced garden / i shopped in the creek (water most of the year too) for rocks for the walls and walkways / and i shopped at the beach for driftwood and to run along the waters' edge at low tide / and in the house i had the tides phone number / gosh / i lovve that / calling up to check on low tide so i cd go down for a run in deep wet sand

&&&&

i had a lot of dogs / cats / ducks / chickens / angora rabbits

DreamBoat was my wheels

her license plate was the much envied and coveted POTANGA

people not dyslexic asked, what's POTANGA ?

the Improvaho nirvana, i replied

++++

*and when you get there, you say, Now What?"

that's right

??????????

meanwhile the little pieces of glass are in their little stacks sitting on the kiln shelf waiting for tomorrow / i took some pictures / i want to see if i can match the fused ones with the original stack / just for fun / i look forward to lowering the shelf into the kiln / there is barely finger room between how you hold the shelf and the kiln inner walls / there is a litle pyrometer jigger that sticks into the kiln so the shelf must be slightly tilted to pass this / so what / if the glass pieces rearrange themselves i can rearrange them back

priscilla, my glass fusing mentor. sez Never Refuse to Refuse / she sez its like when i was teaching her to knit and then advanced knitting and custom construction we were on the phone all the time and now it is pay back time / she is teaching me how to fuse glass and she reminds me that i told her if she got the knitting wrong the first time take it out and do it again / some people gasp at this suggestion / i think doing it over and over and over / eventually you get it the way you want it and the pleasure of the process is the raising of your skill level / practice makes improvement

what i want to do with the little glass pieces is pour them all onto the kiln shelf and then arrange them in clumps and clusters / oh i cant wait for the tweezers to arrive !

see after the glass is washed and dried touching them will leave organic residue / smile / you want them nice and free of impuritease / while i wait for the right tweezers to arrive (i didnt know there were so many kinds of tweezers !) i am using a pair of needle nose pliers / they work okay / i didnt need to order tweezers or have frank yama order tweezers or have Priscilla send me tweezers

and on that note. . . . . . . . . .

Con Fusion

the little bits of glass are laid out on a clean white dishcloth

they have been washed so they will be free of finger marks and other impurities

tomorrow they are going to be carefully stacked this way and that and placed on the kiln shelf

i will carefully lower the kiln shelf into the kiln so as not to jiggle them out of place

i will close the lid

turn on the heat

crank it up to 1600 degrees

the little bits of glass will melt and fuse together and bring me all kinds of surprises

and then i will carefully control the heat as the cooling off and annealing processes take place

i am so excited

this will be my first firing all by myself !

sizzle

Georgia Cracker Salad

now i've seen everything

Paula (of Paula's Home Cooking / sheez a Georgia gal) hand crushes a tube of saltines into a bowl / adds chopped fresh tomatoes / sliced green onions / and several big gobs of mayonnaise !

a little pepper / not too much salt cuz of the saltines

serve scoops of Cracker Salad on lettuce leaves

when fresh it is crunchy and when it is not fresh it is not crunchy but, Paula says, some people like it like that

well / hmmm

Ritz Cracker boxes at one time featured an "apple pie" recipe made with Ritz crackers instead of apples

i guess Cracker salad compares to Tuscan Bread Salad which is a way of using up stale leftover bread

Giada is Silvana's granddaughter

the lovely cook of Everyday Italian, Giada DiLaurentiis, is indeed, the granddaughter of Dino DiLaurentiis and therefore of Silvana Mangano, known as the sexy star of Bitter Rice in 1949 (when she was 19)

i was tickled to find out by googling / a commenter on a gotham food blog provided the info with expressions of love and admiration / "I love her big head" he wrote

i love her big smile and her liberal use of butter (burro in Italian)

today Giada made Florentine food / for the first time i wanted to make a cake known as Zucotto just like hers

slices of pound cake drenched in brandy (nearly all Italian desserts are soaked in booze) line a deep bowl, then filled with a chocolate/cream that coats the cake slices and then filled some more with whipped cream loaded with toasted almonds / put more brandied cake slices on top / cover with plastic

chill for hours or over night / then turn out onto a platter / sprinkle with cocoa and dig in / it is a dome of a cake / una duomo dolce or something like that

little cups of espresso will help it all go down

espresso with a twist of lemon is considered a digestivo in Italy

just a tiny little cup, that's all

which makes me wonder how Starbucks plunked down at Piazza di Spagna is doing with their giant Americani doses of coffee

can you smoke a Gauloise, for example, in Starbucks in Rome ?

hmmm

Presidential Debate #3

we are making popcorn for this one

Everyday Italian

Everyday Italian is my current favorite cooking show on the food network

La cuoca bella is Giada diLaurentiis / the pretty cook !

i wonder if she is a member of the Dino DiLaurentiis cinema family

one reason i wonder is because my former husband, The Actor, had a contract with the DiLaurentiis Studios back in the spaghetti western days / he was a Clint Eastwood look-a-like

the other reason i wonder is because the production values and camera work on Everyday Italian is far superior to many other cooking shows / some really talented people involved here

extreme close-ups of Giada's hands plucking a perfect bulb of garlic from the bowl / scooping up pinches of coarse salt / even turning off the water faucet / just lovely / and of course the food itself / so fresh and so colourful / so Italian / so many dishes the colours of the Italian flag

red ripe tomatoes / crisp green parsley and basil / creamy white mozzarella and parmigiano

the garlic (aglio) olive oil (olio) sale (sale) pepe (pepper)

this is like a kitchen chant : olio aglio sale pepe ! singing in the kitchen : cantare alla cucina

too darn yum and so much fun

what i learned when i lived in Italy was not how to cook so much as how to eat / how to shop and how to enjoy food and the pleasure of sharing meals with friends and family in liesurely ways / taking time / La Dolce Vita

i learned cooking too / when one is a foodie one is always learning to cook / there is no end to this most delightful process

for example i am trying out Elizabeth David's braised breast of lamb one more time / after the lamb breasts (riblets) are braised with onion and carrots and herbs in stock for three hours / it is cooled / the rib bones are gently removed and then another process is to take place involving slicing the meat / coating it with mustard and bread crumbs / letting it dry / and the grilling it

sigh / i never get that far / once the lamb breasts are braised and cooled enough to eat / well / shoot / i just cant resist gobbbling most of it down immediately

oh RATS / i got so involved in telling about the fn lamb breasts that my Everyday American dinner is kaput / the cream of tomato soup boiled all over the stove / the favorite saucepan bottom is burned and the grilled cheese sandwich is / well / too too toasted

shoot / phooey

not so bad though if you dont mind the taste of char

Today is the Day

Today is the day i would be prepping to go away
tomorrow if i were but we are not

i only mention it now because jeffrey gave me encouragement
by reminding me of similar apprehensions before the river trip

ah the river trip / smile

ah yes / cdnt miss the river trip

but now / the illness set me back and our plans set so far in advance clearly illustrate Life is what's happening while you are making plans

there is the garden to harvest and plant for winter / there is glass to fuse
and fleece to spin

there is lamb breast to braise and parmesan bread to bake / apples to sauce

'sides any decision based on stubbing your toe requires careful re-consideration