links

sites to which i refer in the previous post :

http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/

http://www.catherinejamieson.com/

http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/home.html

you will have to copy and paste

Creeping Up On The New Moon

The Alarm Cat insisted i come out of a deep sleep / i was sleeping on my back so he sat on my chest / he is a big old heavy cat / i was in a war zone and glad to be up to my simple life where i started the day with my new home page / Daily Dose of Imagery on the marshmallow machine and Catherine Jamieson on the powerbook / i learned yesterday on Daily Dose not to read the comments / picky picky

what a big difference from seeing first CNN (corrupted nauseating negativity)

i went to a new site on the Bookmark Bar - David Rees of Get Your War On - there is more to his page than the clipart comic

This is definitely a New Start / New Moon tomorrow

Next it is coffee by the heater (gasfire behind glass) where the heater keeps my coffee warm while i put the drops in my eyes (three kinds of drops four times a day)

My new coffee mug was made to raise money for the local humane society by a local potter / it is shapely blue green with a picture of a dog and a cat / natch / Humane Society of the Moab Valley / i got it when i went to Arches Book Store to get one of their oversized mugs for the son-out-law

The Arches Book Store mug sez : "Oh, DONT GO IN THERE, THATS A BOOKSTORE!" (overheard Father to Son, Spring Break Moab 2003)

This is an excellent big mug for soup or tea when you want to make a double with two bags.

These mugs have superceded former mugs

In my life A Mug or Cup is a memorial or a trophy

For example / the Ocean City Mug is from the first trip i made after the Beloved Murphy died / i made a nostalgic trip to Ocean City, Maryland where i had not been since childhood visits and college/sorority blow outs

A majorly symbolic trip for not only was Murphy, the loyal ally and traveling companion, not there i had to drive All By Myself over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge which had replaced the old ferry boats / it is a long suspension bridge / about three miles over open bay / sometimes i have bridge fear and get the whim whams / i know there are people that will drive you over but i make myself guts it out / the Ocean City cup memorializes this adventure / because Murphy was not waiting for me outside or in the truck i was able to look at every damn cup in the store until i chose the one i wanted

I used that cup until this past year when i bought a hand made cup from a potter who had gone from acquaintance to friend / now i like her cup a lot / it is smaller and has a delicate handle / it is not "thrown" / she wraps clay around rocks and stuff like that to make wonderful shapes

i switched to the Humane Society mug because it is a jot larger / it will hold all of the contents of the One Cup (Italian sizing, not Starbucks) Bialetti espresso maker / and one cup of hot milk

If i make another small pot of coffee in the afternoon i use JoAnne's smaller cup

The book store mug is for cream of tomato (i still use campbells made with milk) soup and a handful of homemade croutons

i clicked Next Blog after Blog for America and got a complex page of graphics, a photo of a tomato plunging into water, and fancy little windows / dont ask the name / much of it was hard to read white font on black and Oh, before that one, something plainer but still not as plain as Skaterina

gosh, Skaterina is really spare in her simplicity / no About Me / no pix / no links / no lists of former entries / hmmmm / oh well

if Skaterina had to learn how to do all that she wouldnt have time for anything else

like experimenting with glass and making something w/o telling her mentor first
like setting up the keyboard and connecting it to garage band
like making fruit jellies
like taking walks again
like making spinach pillows with the newly made ricotta and EGG ROLL WRAPPERS

(will my italian sensibilitease and vivid memories of freshly made spinach pillows from the pasta makers down the street in Rome be able to transcend the egg roll wrapper ?)

Rhymin' Thymin'

two lines / eight syllables each

"I hope that I shall never see
anymore gasbag punditry"

Learning, Practicing

if you were learning to play golf or practicing to perfect your swing you would go to a range and buy a bucket of balls and then if you were still unsatisfied with your progress or improvement you would buy another bucket of balls / and another / and another .....

when i was learning to make bread or pizza dough the attempt would often be a flop but i would bake it anyway and we would try to eat it despite its unappetizing qualitease

i learned to learn / learning is learning How to learn

i learned to keep buying another bucket of balls

smile

i have the kiln cranked up tonight again / i puzzle over the finished, fused pieces, trying to recall exactly how i used each chip to achieve each result / just cant fathom it / just cant figure it out / i have entered that great realm of the Unknowable

i know that as soon as i *know* what i am doing i will *no* what i am doing

there is no end to the fun

well i'll be ding dong derned

Giada makes ravioli with *egg roll wrappers*

! mamma mia !

Today is Drastic, Zen Monastic

a periodic purge of relentlessly tedious routines

designed to refresh the spirit / restore humor / and relieve the boredom of automatic choices

no more twirling with the New York Times / a quick boogie with the Rude Pundit instead

no more fox-trotting with the thigh rubbing gasbag pundits on the televison cable networks

indeed, if it were not for Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) and Giada DeLaurentiis (Everyday Italian) i wd cancel the satellite)

Democracy Now (Amy Goodman) on KZMU is okay

unsubscribe from everything (newsletters, political magazines, non-profits, activist groups)

(er um / except for a couple of cooking mags)

(and it's okay to continue to be sustaining member of the Marijuana Policy Project working for legalization of medical marijuana and states' rights involved thereto)

set up an impenetrable barricade to prevent Any Catalogue from entering the sacred domain

the Last Cat will definitely be the last cat / it will be okay to donate to the Moab Humane Society but dont bring home anything warm and furry that needs to be fed and cuddled / sigh)

ALL books even those i havent read will be packed into boxes and put in the backroom pantry where they will be accessible but not take up so much room

(i never owned so many books ! i was always a library person but when i came to live in Moab and despite the really wonderful library here i began to accumulate books especially collections of old favorites like Italo Calvino / i worried that something might happen to the library and then what would i do ? smile)

book shelf space will be filled with yarns and fleeces that have been hiding out of sight out of mind in baskets in the closet / my Knitting Body yearns to see what she has to work with especially since the Glass Fusing Body has been making such nifty buttons

in fact, Knitting Body wishes just to knit button bands and buttonhold bands ! and maybe she will

~~~~~~~~~~~

okay this is a start

ongoing considerations re Dreams That Havent Come True Yet and whether they have a chance or not / stay tuned in

ps / it's okay to make as many glass doo dads as you want even before you stick them on the bracelets / like spinning fleece into many skeins of yarn you cant have too many possibilitease in either yarn or glass

love, skaterina

Sometime you just have to empty your dance card

more about this later / right now i am engrossed in the audio of Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Boo Hoo I am a Big Baby

just now i was real snarky with the office staff of the local eye doctor who is sposeto see me a week after the surgery but she is making the appointment for the 15th instead of the 11th

she is prolly telling the rest of the staff what an asshole i am

i cry

daughter sez it's good to cry / tears will be good for healing my eye

yes / there is a toxin in the body that is only released through tears

the IV has left considerable toxic residue / i am robbed of my appetite and my pizazz

the twinkle in my eye is gone / my smile no longer dazzles / my hair is limp

poor poor me

the good news is my formerly "bad eye" is now my "good eye" and the formerly "good eye" nervously awaits its surgery in a few weeks

sigh BIG SIGH

Correction

the eye surgeon told me i did NOT have a general anesthesia, just something in the IV to Relax me and that i was awake and talking to him and not to worry he wont tell anyone what i said

smile

The Murky Blur

maybe because i told the nurse who made my pre-op appointment that although i know Cataract Surgery is the most common out-patient surgery and is a snap, a cinch and a breeze i was apprehensive and so she said Well, We Can Give You Something to Calm You Down

and so after dimly hearing the list of Risks ( you might lose your vision entirely and Oh, you might die) they taped my head down and then i expected the cement bags but, No, I was Out Like A Light

when i came to i discovered someone had put a fistful of sharply pointed gravel under my right eye lid / it felt like a word i cannot spell

no one else i talked to about this surgery had a general anesthesia !

my daughter hauled me home where i slept for 24 hours and gave up eating

the good news is i lost a pound

and Oh, i have these groovy Ray Charles dark glasses to wear when i go out

We are the ones we've been waiting for (HOPI)

HOPI ELDERS SPEAK

You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour.
There are things to be considered.

Where are you living ?
What are you doing ?
What are your relationships ?
Are you in right relations ?
Where is your water ?
Where is your garden ?

It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
Do not look outside yourself for the leader.

This could be a good time.

There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination.
The Elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

See who is in there with you and celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves.

For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the Lone Wolf is over.
Gather yourselves.

Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.

All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

The Elders
Oraibe, Arizona
Hope Nation
June 2004

The Eye is Gonna Have It

tomorrow morning is the Cataract Surgery

yes, i know cataract surgery is a snap a cinch and a breeze

it is the most common out-patient surgery performed over the whole Planet

it still gives me the creeps

today the nurse at the pre-op said they would give me anesthesia to keep me still and so i wont leap out of the chair but i will be lying down flat / ugh / she said she had been a nurse for thirty years and that they used to surround the patient's head with bags of cement to keep the head still / um / so i told her that our second president's (John Adams) daughter had a mastectomy without anesthesia

that shut us both up

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

did she really say "bags of cement" ?

Post Election Distress

i had a somach ache

my daughter said I cant stomach the results / smile

yerp

later i packed up all my political books aquired over the last four years

out of sight / out of mind

Moving On

Bisque Binge

the shrimp bisque was so good i made some more

sometimes when you try to duplicate perfection the attempt falls short

not this time !

it was just as good and tasty and loaded with tender shrimp as the first time

most of the shrimp bisque recipeez i looked up on the internets (sic) involved using bottled clam broth

the one i chose to follow made "fish" broth using the shrimp shells / in a TB of unsalted butter cook the shells from about 1 and 1/4 pound of shrimp until they are golden / then add 1/2 cup of Pernod (original recipe / i didnt have Pernod so i used some cheap brandy) and let it cook almost all gone then add 2 quarts of water / simmer uncovered for 20 minutes then strain and press on the shells / set aside for the rest of the recipe

concurrent with the shrimp bisque binge i was flirting madly with fresh little neck clams / isnt it a wonder to have fresh clams from Long Island, New York, in the middle of the south western desert wilderness ? i buy them without a second thought / smile / the first thought that comes to mind is a vision of a car on the side of the road on Topanga Canyon Boulevard with the trunk open and a vendor selling frozen lobsters / i could never bring myself to get one no matter how much i loved lobster

steaming the clams (about 18 of them) in 3/4 cup of water gives you a nice cup of clam "liquor" / this is used in making New England clam chowder but if you are making linguini with clam sauce you can put the clam liquor aside to use in your next go around with shrimp bisque / very tasty and so culinarily interdependent

When you call someone who has Call Waiting

and they are already talking with someone else i would just as soon get a busy signal

then you know they are too busy to talk right now and you can go on about your business

instead they answer and tell you that they will call right back

except "right back" sometimes takes a while

which means i am "call waiting"

Next Blog

if i ever have another blog i will name it Next Blog

have you ever clicked on the little button in the upper right hand corner that says Next Blog ?

take an amazing trip through diversity-land

~~~~~~~~~

WHEN A CHANGE OF DIRECTION IS INDICATED DON'T MISS YOUR CUBIC CENTIMETER OF CHANCE

~~~~~~~~~

a few notes left on the desk by The Fictional Archeologist :

Dwadwee Sez :

be who you are
be true to yourself

Being true to yourself is not necessarily a rigid adherence to principle

Being true to yourself is more like accepting who you are and recognizing your way is as valid as anyone else's - and, get this, need not be explained or justifiied or rationalized to all and sundry as well as to yourself / you can just BE without a whole lot of blabber

Being true to yourself also means you don't lose shape with each human encounter (or interruptions of the flow)

Being fluid fills every nook and cranny while retaining essential characteristics

Being true to yourself means you don't become everyone you meet (unless you wish to tune in by means of psychic absorption)

We are each Unique

once upon a time

topanga celebrations :

mushrooms
black russians
good pot
and
cocaine

music by cole porter

that was then and this is now

i have a celebratory 3.2 beer and a toast to voter turnout

popcorn with The Daily Show

what a wonderful day / no, the election hasnt been called yet / it was a wonderful day nonetheless

The Fictional Archeologist. . . . .

. . . . is pushing and shoving

go go go / she sez / all you care about is GOTV

Getting Out The Vote

dont come back unti wednesday

i will take over until then / smile

go ON

GO

SCRAM

So many topics / so little time

#1 On the topic of declutterflying : it's not the stuff that makes you whole / it's the hole that makes you stuff : what amma gonna do with all these books / cooking magazines ? / too many of muchness

#2 On the topic of Culinary Optionitis / oh so many things to do with shrimp / i make a Bisque for the first time / what amma gonna do with shrimp bisque for 8 people ?

#3 On the topic of poetry forms : my Tanka Pal sends me a Pantoum and a Villinelle / i respond :

"writing a pantoum (5)
creating a villenelle (7)
way more challenging (5)
than a tried and true tanka (7)
i will give them my best shot" (7)

(that's a tanka) (structure of pantoum and villenelle forthcoming / stay tuned in) (will also check on spelling)

(when i introduced the topic of poetry forms at lunch the son-out-law decided he had fire wood to cut)

#4 On the topic of Serendipity : a mild flirtation with roasting brussel sprouts last year caused me to buy some more and then i discovered a recipe for shredding them and dressing them with bacon and pecans / whoever thought of shredding a brussel sprout ? a two pound gift of nitrate/nitrite free bacon from running around pigs brought it all together / never mind

#5 On the topic of The Fictional Archeologist : she feels neglected / she is nagging me / she wants more blog space / i tell her to get her own blogspot / she sez she might do just that

#6 On the topic of La Mia Cugina Italiana / SHE wants more blog time too

sheesh

Tricks and Treats

the kids are coming and i have plenty of candy

i bought all the kinds my mother likes best and when i did i asked the ladies at Walker where i shopped if they thought it was okay to keep buying my 94 year old mother who is in a nursing home candy which is prolly not good for her and they said SURE / get her whatever she likes

okay

so i have plenty of little Hershey Bars / Peanut Butter Cups / Peppermint Patties / and KISSES in different coloured wrappers

in case there were no trick or treaters i can take the candy to my mother

but the kids are coming and i have plenty of candy !

daughter and son-out-law are making costumes for tonights halloweencostumeparty combination wake for The Motorcyle Man who died recently / she is going as a Mud Head and he as a Heyouka / these are native american icons

The Motorcyle Man first brought me to Utah / i fell so madly in love with him that i was willing to live in the middle of nowhere in the mountains with no water, no electricty, no clocks, mirrors

it was ......... sorry.........no words........ but plenty of Zeitgeist / smile

later i will pick up some chili cheese burgers from Milt's where we used to indulge ourselves once in a while coming down off the mountain to town

and i will take the chili cheese burgers as my "potluck" and go to the party/wake as Who I Was When I Met Him

~~~~~~~~~~

happy halloween