Circle of Life

   

I've been driving for Meals on Wheels for years now, taking a hot lunch and bag dinner to old folks....and checking up on them.  After I started, it was about three weeks in that it dawned on me that I might come upon someone who'd passed on or who was incapacitated, fallen or worse.  Yikes!  But I've told myself to grow up; deal with it.

Most of the "customers" are cute and funny.  There aren't too many complainers though many have every right to complain.  There are some who are quite chatty, capturing you with conversation as you try to escape out the door.  There's Fred, who comes bounding out of his apartment up at the Highlands, bushy eyebrows scruffing every which-way, as he jollies you along but always, for a least a year now, asks my name each time.

One of the saddest situations right now is also up at the Highlands.  Two old, old people live together, though I haven't figured out how they're related, or if they even are.  There's nothing that makes their apartment cozy or pleasant or feel like a home.  There's only a hospital bed and TV in the living room, and plastic garbage bags lining the edges of the wall.   

The same goes for the kitchen.....garbage bags full of stuff all over the place.  Are these bags filled with all of their life's treasures?  Or is it just trash they can't get to the dumpster?

Rows of bottled medications line the lower stairs; no one who lives in this apartment is going up those steps.

A man lives in the living room on his bed watching TV.  A woman, who I rarely see except through a crack in the bedroom door, is in the other room lying on her bed.  It's a heart-wrenching scene, these people who seem to be only waiting to die, surrounded by garbage bags filled with who knows what.

As I step out of this sad existence, I hear it.....shrieks and laughter from the daycare across the street.  Children's boisterous voices carried across on the wind....happy and joyful and full of life.  So beautiful.

As I'm heading to the car, I hear the dry scratching of a dead leaf blown along the pavement of the sidewalk.

At home, the wispy branches of the spirea already have little tiny tips of green, waiting, waiting to open in a few weeks.

  

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****     The spicy delicious smell of cinnamon and orange wafting up from the opened Constant Comment tea package.

****  The bright red stems of the osier dogwood on Cedar St. whipping the air against the grey of the winter day.                     

Clouds

 Like everyone else in the world, I've been looking at clouds my whole life.  Puffy and wispy or dark and threatening.  Finding pictures and shapes.  The shifting nature and the shape altering.  Clouds.  Beautiful. Predicting and changing the weather.

I'm trying to memorize a poem and within this poem is a beautiful line, "The sun glinting off the turrets of clouds".  Ah, exactly!

The other day I had an epiphany about clouds.  For as long as I've been watching clouds I never thought  about how this works.  Oblivious.  Taking clouds for granted; not even considering the mechanism.

One morning in early January, feeling especially grumpy for some now forgotten reason, I was driving to Stauffers grumping along to myself, muttering about some minuscule something.  Driving over the crest of the hill on Woods Dr, the sky before me was suddenly aflame in bright pink light, extraordinarily scrumptious.  From the fields below to the top of the sky, my whole field of vision was glowing in neon pink.  It was breath-taking!  With this much grandeur before me I was stunned into gratitude, jolted out of my glum attitude, my eyes tearing up as I wondered how I could let some petty nothing transfix my day with funk when the world could be so beautiful.

On my way home I had expected the clouds to hold some of their same magnificence, but they had turned dark, a little threatening even.  What had been glory only 30 minutes before had turned to gloom.  But oh!  How could I have missed this for so many years?  Now the sun was above the clouds and the bottoms were in shadow, whereas before the sun had been beneath them shining it's light up into the floor of them coloring them with sunrise.  Ha, these were the same clouds, just in a different position in relation to the sun.

I must admit to feeling a little sheepish about this realization.  Did everyone else already know this?  How is it that I'd never thought of this in all the years that I'd been watching clouds?  Ah well, now I know.  

A couple more.....

**** The click-clattering of the ice-beaded branches of the bushes as I brush past them in the early morning taking Rosie out to her yard.

****Rosie lies waiting outside our door for me to get up in the morning. She used to sleep in our room with us but her restlessness makes the chance of a good night sleep impossible.  When I get up in the morning and open the door, her wagging tail always goes "thump, thump, thump" on the hardwood floor.  At the same time Fig is rustling about and his bell and name tag are jangling.  It's like a welcoming party every morning, the sound of our animals greeting me when I open the door.

Relief Etched in Snow

I find the pattern of these curved lines quite beautiful....an abstract image of intersecting arches.  But in this instance there's much more.....

"He's 50 years old....you'd think we could quit worrying about him now!"  So goes the punchline of one of my favorite parenting stories.  I've told it hundreds of times.  It's so true.  When I first heard this as the naive mother of a one year old, I had no idea how the worry and care for our children goes on and on and on.

The other night, a snowy, icy, slippery night, Ariel was driving the 2nd twelve hour leg of her journey home from Denver, CO.  She was driving alone, long hours across the cold winter country.  Far.  (Stop if you feel tired!  Chew Gum!  Break the drive into 3 pieces!).  The solitary distance was worry enough, until the snow and ice developed.  Most of the storm was to the north, but there was enough snow on the roads to be slick.  Scary.  I deployed the Shield of Worry; it was heavy.

Tapping at our bedroom door at 1:30 in the morning, Ariel woke us to let us know she'd arrived.  Certainly, I was awash with relief that she'd made it.

The next morning, knowing that she was upstairs sleeping, home safe, I noticed the tire tracks in the snow; the story of her car pulling into the driveway, backing up and then parking at the curb in front of our house.  Safe.  Again I was overtaken with gratitude, my relief etched in cathedral arcs of tire tracks on the surface of the snow.

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A few days later the tracks were still there in the icy street, the glow of streetlights reflected in the grooves.

A couple of others:

****Standing in the Brown's hallway, listening to the happy sounds from the Soup Party in the next room....the burble of excited conversation and laughter flowing from the wellspring of friendship.

****Lying in my warm bed listening to the wind howl and swoosh through the trees outside.  I know I have to go out there soon, but right NOW, in this MOMENT, I'm cozy in a warm bed sandwich.

Deflated Pumpkin and the Orange is Gone Gone Gone

Being mindful has become a most excellent activity!  Because I'm writing these observations down, I find I'm always on the lookout for wondrous things......beautiful, interesting funny, ironic.  I list many many a day. Way more than I'd imagined.  WAY more.

I try to choose the best three for the week; it's hard to pick.

I've been contemplating the color "Orange" this past week.  Orange is a really quirky color.  Solid and substantial.  Nothing delicate about Orange.  A spunky color.  People rarely wear orange, though.  It's too weird, too offbeat in it's brighter shades. 

You really only see orange in autumn, unless maybe a few zinnias in the summer.  But Orange IS the color of fall....leaves, chrysanthemums and of course, pumpkins.  Wonderfully, solidly Orange.  Rounded and full, pumpkins are Orange in it's inflated and expanded form.

I put 6 little pumpkins....one for each member of our family..... on the window sill every autumn while decorating.  I love seeing them there, a cheerful greeting as I'm struggling to bring groceries in through the back door.

Lately, though, they've been out of place....a color in the wrong time.  This cold season is the color of evergreens and brown and white.  Muted and stark.  Orange is too lively for this time of year.

After the recent brutal cold spell and then later thawing, the little pumpkins have gone soft.  Time for the compost bin.  Gone, Orange is gone, gone, gone til next fall.  Winter is here.  

I stopped by a friend's house the other day and saw this deflated pumpkin.  It was as if this pumpkin were a friend of the Wicked Witch of the West!  The insides had completely melted away into the ground below leaving only the outside skin folded into a slump.  I wondered if this pumpkin was real.  Had to touch it.  It was definitely real!  And rather ridiculous, really.  Insides dissolved, fullness vanished, only the rumpled skin was left behind.  Orange on it's way out.   

Other observations:

****The vibrations of the trains below pulsing through the wooden benches at the 30th Street Station in Philly.  Massive, heavy, rumbling sensations traveling from the tracks up through the benches into my body.  Power transferred.

****The smoothness of a little hill of ice outside the gate of Rosie's yard.  Ice can be so treacherous, but honestly, the feel of this mound of packed snow under the ball of my foot is positively sensuous!  Slick, smooth, massaging the underside of my foot.  Ooh la la, who would've ever thought!  (Is this crazy?)

Full Moon and Snow on Coneflowers

****How the snow piles up on every available surface mounding higher than seems possible.

I've had a few thoughts about how we perceive the world and how we automatically ascribe "good" and "bad" to some situations without really giving it thought.  Take "cold" for example.  You go out and it's cold and you clench up, grit your teeth and call it bad.  A judgment is made.  However, if you can leave the judgment out of it and unclench, just feeling it, the cold just IS.  It can be invigorating and feel tart against your check....but not necessarily bad.  Last week, during the bitter cold, I had a different thought.  There was no denying that to be out in the cold was brutal.  There was nothing Zen about it.  It was freezing!  My coat felt like a cotton shirt.  So!  Maybe this is the clue.....what you wear.  If you have on enough layers and those layers are heavy enough, the cold is not such a negative.  Surely the Eskimos don't go around clenching up and cursing the cold all the time.

 STILL!  I don't want to go to Minnesota in the winter.

A couple of others:

****The slippery sweetness of mango as it slides around in your mouth.

****The line of blue neon light outlining a guitar seen though the windshield in the rain.  Slowly the bright blue line dissolves as the windshield becomes streaked with drops of rain and at some point there is no outline of a guitar anymore, but a field of electric blue dots slowly dripping down.

Cross-section of leek

Everywhere I turn there's something going on, something extraordinary to see or hear or feel.  My list grows and grows.  I wonder will I ever run out and start repeating.  Would that even matter if you can take pleasure in something again and again, new eyes fresh each time.  I think the important part is the noticing.

****Cross-section of leek.  Working on a soup for the soup contest, I was astonished at the beauty of the inside of that leek.  All those dots!  The color shading.  OH LA!

****Rosie's little grunts of pleasure as I'm giving her a good rub under her chin, neck and chest.  She half closes her eyes absorbing absorbing absorbing the love.

****Steve and I walk to Doughsie Dough every Sunday morning and on the way back we always walk down Broad St.  Frequently we pass an elderly, cigar-smoking  man who always likes to stop and give Rosie a pat on the head and wish us a good morning.  The other day, as we again walked past this man, he stopped and we got into a conversation about dogs and how wonderful they were.  He started telling us about dogs of his childhood.....the headstrong doberman and the saint bernard that he slept with in the back unheated room of the house where he grew up.  As he was talking a tear started rolling down his cheek, slowly making it's way past the wrinkles of his face.  Maybe it was the cold, but I really think it was the sweetness of those memories of his boyhood and his animal friends from that time long ago.

ENFUEGO!

ENFUEGO!  ON FIRE (In Spanish)

Yes!  This Little Fig, Figster, Figgy, Figlet is quite the maniac!  Driving us crazy; keeping us entertained.  And certainly a grand subject for mindful contemplation.......

****The ears!  Just look at those ears!  Little twitching radars.  The tawny middle highlights the curve....and makes those ears look as though there are lights inside them.  The camel color of the tawny shades to black upper and lower.  And then the edges are lined in white.  Amazing coloration.

****The Fig hangs out between the shower curtain and liner on the rim of the tub when I take a shower.  Sometimes just sitting, sometimes peering around the edge of the curtain, but if it's ENFUEGO he's madly dashing from one end to the other.  Or he leaps in at one end of the tub and flies to the other end leaping out and doing it again.  I see him through the shower liner, this amorphous and blurry body zipping through the tunnel of shower curtain.

****I cannot get dressed with the Fig in the room.  He chases, bites, bats, attacks anything moving (and many non-moving objects as well).  Try putting on shoes and socks with a dervish working on your feet, socks, shoe laces.  So he does his attack-work outside, sending mouse after mouse through the crack underneath the door.  It's hilarious to watch these little cloth mice (the same ones found floating in the water dish every day) zoom under the door crack.  And then to watch the paw scooping, reaching under the door trying to retrieve that mouse.....oh gosh, it's ridiculous!  Most days I find a mouse or two waiting when I get up.....a mouse mine-field in the dark of the early morning.  

****Since the Fig attacks anything moving......your feet, your legs, your low-hanging hands, your moving lips!....I was gratified and delighted to see a photo included among the best of the year of National Geographic.  It was a picture of a mother cheetah and her cub.  HA!  The cub was attacking the mother's face....hahaha....biting his own mother! on the muzzle. OK, this behavior is only natural.  Fig is so normal!

****Yesterday I received a package in the mail from Ariel's boyfriend.  It was a framed photo that Ariel took over Christmas....or maybe it was copied from one of the hundreds of photos I've texted to the girls since Fig arrived on the scene.  Ha!  That photo now sits proudly on the shelf  among the girls' high school senior pictures....just one of the gang.  (Yes, this is a joke, certainly.  One doesn't want to be seen as a crazy cat lady.  I'll put his photo on a lower shelf soon.  But for now it makes me laugh).

****The Fig's little snores when he's asleep and not ENFUEGO.  Tiny tiny little squeak....puff, squeak....puff, squeak....puff, squeak.  So dear.  So calm.

OK, OK, enough of the Fig.  I had imagined only making comment on beautiful and serious things, but honestly, why not include the absurd or quirky, funny and entertaining?  For heaven sake!  Everything is worth paying attention to.

The Glow

I'm enjoying the fuzzy slow-shutter-speed photos!  Heading back inside after the early morning meditation.

FEROCIOUS women model their FABULOUS Brenda-Tie-Wear

FEROCIOUS!

When I was growing up down there in Raleigh, NC, I had a Chinese American friend named Brenda Tie.....one of the funniest, most interesting people I knew. We probably knew each other since Junior High times but became good friends in high school, and then were part of the same zany group of friends....FOMAS....Future Old Maids of America, when we were in college.

For several years I worked in the restaurant that her parent's owned, the Canton Cafe. (Where I told many customers that, no, I wasn't really Chinese. Or sometimes when they commented that I didn't look Chinese, I'd assure them that indeed I WAS. Hahaha, still makes me laugh).

Anyway, I kept up with Brenda many years after that too, sometimes seeing her when I went back to Raleigh to visit my parents.

Oh! And plus! PLUS! Brenda was one of the friends that invented the High-Five with me!

When my own girls were little, we lived in the woods of Virginia far far away from the leading edge of style and fashion. Besides that, we were more rough and tumble types....sneakers, hiking boots, blue jeans, corduroy....nothing fancy. And really knew nothing of leopard print.

At that time, Brenda's family, she has a husband and daughter, lived in Atlanta. Though certainly not NYC, it definitely far outpaced our neck of the woods, fashion-wise.

Our families exchanged Christmas cards for many years. They always sent those cards with a photo of their family. One year the card came with Brenda and her daughter completely decked out in leopard print. My daughters...and me...were completely boggled and amazed by all that leopard. We'd never seen the like of any such thing! Certainly not in Shifflet's Hollow, or Free Union or even in Charlottesville. We were completely in awe of this fashion statement. And thus it became known in our family as Brenda-Tie-Wear.

Anytime we'd see leopard print, we'd always point it out...."there goes some Brenda-Tie-Wear!" It was exciting......whenever we saw it.

We've made Brenda-Tie-Wear a part of our vocabulary, sometimes giving one another leopard print just for the joke of it.

About a week before Christmas this year, Steve and I were in Target having a fairly important and serious conversation with someone when we both spotted it at the same time. A whole display of Brenda-Tie-Wear! Hats! Mittens! Scarves! We could barely contain ourselves and strained not to go dashing right over, though in the end managed to maintain composure like grown-ups are suppposed to do.

Oh the joy! The whole rack was on sale too. 40% off. Bonanza! So we bought 7 pairs of mittens and 7 hats. One of those sets was for me. Yes, I wrapped my own hat and mittens and put them under the tree for myself. I didn't want to be left out of this very exciting Brenda-Tie-Wear moment. And yes, Curly Shirley, Steve's mom got mittens and a hat too. Of course.

I mean, really, don't we all look just so cute......uh, uh, FEROCIOUS!

Stylin' ferocious women (from bottom and left to right): Anna, Lucy, Ariel, Gwendolyn (Alyssa's friend), Alyssa, Curly Shirley, and myself.

Hooray for Brenda-Tie-Wear!

Jambalaya Commander's Palace!!!

Alrighty O! Last weekend I made Deb's Jambalaya Commander's Palace. I love this dish. Though the first time I made it, the rice wouldn't cook.....I guess I shoulda put the juice in with the tomatoes after all....and maybe even more juice, stock, water.

The next day I added more stock and some, oh yum!, a little more mysterious Cajun Seasoning (Sazonador Cajun....to be even more exotic) and oh my, oh! this is the flavor of my dreams.

Za! So I would offer this recipe with a few modifications.

Plus it makes a TON. I made half and have had it as leftovers, just Steve and I, twice.....plus two lunches for me. And I'm not tired of it. OH! And I froze some too. Thank goodness. But lots and lots. If you ever have to garrison the platoon at your house, this is the recipe you want to use.

Filling, delicious, and lo-o-o-o-ts! And lots.

If you want any of these recipes, just ask. I have them in a special file folder and can copy them easily. Eventually, I'll put them together in a booklet and boy o boy, will we all be eating well.

Cooking with Joy

Here it is.....the beginning of the long cold dark winter. I am at loose ends, can't figure out what to do with myself. Not ready yet to go back to work. After the busy-ness of the last few months you'd think it would feel good to just relax, but quite honestly, it feels mushy, stewing-in-my-own-juices lazy and too weird.

I need a project!

Oh but, ah......I have a project. One that got off to a great start last year, but then stalled out as other things filled the time and hurriedness took over.

The Joy of Cooking project. I love it! Asking each person I know of their favorite recipe, I will shop, prepare and cook that dish, thinking of them and enjoying the process of cooking with mindfulness.

First recipe this year: Poor Man's Lobster Theridore given to me by Sharon. I DID have to write a threatening ransom-style letter to get this recipe, but it was so worth it.

The dish was easy to make and delicious. I didn't feel poor at all! Richer even!

These are the recipes that I've made so far and I have to say, every one of them is wonderful. I've made them again and a couple have become mainstays. The cool thing is that some of them I'd never try without this project. When given a recipe, I MUST make it, no matter how hard or how exotic the ingredients. And you know what?! Some of those flavor combinations are some I've never experienced. Some of the ingredients I've never heard of either.

Yippee! Back to the project at last.

Enough Stripes?

The 'Not-so-good-at Bocce/Pathetic' group.....

Well, here they are! Drum roll please......bum-bum-bum-bum.....The King and Queen of Pathetic at Bocce! A hearty applause for this couple, Robyn and Marty, who lost all their seeding round games. And not by a little bit either! Ha! They lost one of their games 0-9. Holy mackeral, they were bad. Their goal differential was something like -19. Oh heavens. Well, they excelled at being really bad. Kudos to you Robyn and Marty!

OK, but here's the funniest thing. After studying the boards and seeing that Marty and Robyn were the worst team ever, and needing a third game, the Graffers.....you know, the ones who'd already cleared their mantle for the trophy, that Terry, who'd bought a new shirt for the Championship photos (nice shirt, Terry), the Graffers (on left) begged Marty and Robyn to play them. But then, hahahahaha! LOST to the worst team of the whole tournament. Not by a little either....by a lot....1-9. So much for that spot on the mantle.

Here, they are, pictured with Fran and Denny, who yes, were last year's champs, and yes, who made it into the Championship round by the skin of their teeth.....8th seed. And then proceeded to fall off the cliff. They lost 0-9.....Oh My Gosh! From the stars to the stables as the old Italian saying and insult goes.

These two teams representing the younger crowd both went down in flames! It must be noted that the two Annas placed second in the tournament a few years ago....2nd!, not too shabby. But alas, hmmmm.......guys, what do you have to say about this.....

This could be the cause of it all as far as Anna C. and Tyler were concerned. I've never seen such a lame throw! I'd call it more of a "thunk" release than a throw. This is the form you don't want to take. This is the throw you don't want to perfect. Doesn't work at all.

Here's Gary and Grace (center of photo)....another pathetic team. But we can cut them some slack; it was their first year, they'd never played before etc., etc., etc. Yeah, yeah, those excuses will work for this year, but next year you'll have to work on some different ones.

Yes, Nancy and Tim fell into that shaky area of winning two games, but then falling apart. Too much pressure. When they lost their 3rd game 0-9, well, it was sayonara trophy. I have to say, I think these two sweeties are so cute, they win the "cute couple" award this year.

Well, Bruce, with a wife who got her Bocce chops by learning to play with coconuts, I'd have to say, you don't EVER stand a chance.....unless Rosetta practices up with those cabbages.

Ah the Kumer group, Will, Lorie and Joe plus Nick, oh yes. All that stair-stepping, Lorie.....I guess you need to find more stairs. Will thought he was gonna take it. HA! Oh yes, Bocce is a funny sport. You can train all year long, but a weird bounce, an inconvenient divot.....it's a hard field out there. Next year, guys.....

We think the problem with the Diem "B" Team is all the bubble blowing. I mean, really, how can you focus and concentrate while chewing bubble gum, much less blowing bubbles. The funny thing here, this is another team that won their first two games (not by much) and then lost their third game (by about the same).....causing their goal differential to be....... O my gosh! O man, Cody! What a talented bubble blower! You blew a bubble in the shape of your goal differential.....O! Amazing talent! Whoa! Marcy, for a sporty gal, we're all wondering if you're EVER gonna make it into the final round.....

Hahaha! Oh yeah! This team, George and Kathy, finally won "a" game this year.....after a pathetic season last year. That game gave them hope. That win felt so good, they thought they were on to a win streak. But the streak was short lived. Maybe next year they'll take a couple more. Kathy and George remind me of the Cubbies....haha!....a team that perpetually stays in the cellar but lives with the hope that one day, they'll rise into glory. Could happen, ya never know.

Bocce 2011!

The Winners, The Champions of the Bocce Trophy of Glory, the Winners of all the marbles and the Whole Shebang are: The "A" Team, Ariel and Alyssa! Well done! Such focus, such determination.

Runners up, Close-but-no-cigar, the Diem Dream Team got to the Championship Game with dash and distraction. Brittany's wonderful flash of a lovely smile distracted all competitors. Tim was just determined not to be in the "pathetic" catagory for another year. Good job, Dream Team!

Frankie posting his score. O ho ho, right there, at "ball" level, that cute bulldog, Bert, is poking his muzzle.....full of teeth and slobber....right through the fence....congratulating Frank on his great score and ball tossing. Yiyiyi....yikes!

Mary, the Boot, and Sebastian, give the Lucky Boots their full credit. Sebastian, our French competitor, must think we're all nuts. I mean really.....Those lucky boots got Mary and Sebastian into the Finals, but they only went so far. It's odd, you'd think boots would work best in rainy conditions....

Rosetta and her Mona Lisa smile won the "Best Excuse for Pathetic Play" award by telling the story of learning to play Bocce with coconuts. Hahaha! Heck yeah! That'sa REALLY good excuse. Rosetta, practice with cabbages this year, and maybe eventually, you be able to move into the upper eschelons of Bocce play.

More on bocce to come......