The Sun and the Moonbounce

picture courtesy of Spencer Greet


I am going to tell you a tale. A fable, of sorts.

The story is true, but the names have been changed because it's fun to make up fake names for people and have them guess who you are talking about.

Once a year, when the sun is at its zenith, a group of people gather on a Pennsylvania hillside to acknowledge and give fealty to Sol, the sustainer of life on this planet.

There is much ancient ritual associated with this act of homage. Sacred beverages are concocted and consumed. A man in ceremonial robes with scepter held high emerges. Rites are observed. A bonfire is lit with the remains of the sacrificial tree of winter, and spontaneous drumming and dancing in the manner of the ancestors takes place around the bonfire.

The symbol of the Sol-stice, wrought by Hephaestus, he who tinkers with metal, is hung upon the wall. Uncle Luau, the patron of the ceremony, is set ablaze (in a manner of speaking), and his visage is mocked by the facially talented Physiognomon, avatar of mimicry.

And a large vulcanized temple rises on the hillside.

The large vulcanized temple, called a moonbounce to honor the nocturnal companion to the diurnal deity, is a simulacrum of the experience of walking on Luna, the "cold-hearted orb that rules the night" as told by the poets of yore. By so doing, the darkness is conquered and tamed.

The temple is used only by the younger members of the tribe of Sol-worshippers, who re-enact courtship rituals common to the young and buff and nubile, and thereby affirm that life is worth living, at least until your knees give out. Mature members of the tribe may not enter the moonbounce, lest the ceremonies of the exuberant and supple be tainted by the participation of the tentative and creaky, and the vibe ruined.

The youths caper and cavort, and, flinging themselves upon one another, lift their voices in shrieks of delight, except when mischeivous Puck deflates the temple, or Hespera flings water upon them to remind them that youth and time is fleeting, and then there are shrieks of dismay.

At length the young people emerge, because Sol has fled the vicinity, and their elders have declared the ceremonies of the young to be excessive and too lengthy; and the couples who have found each other and have sworn fealty for at least the rest of the evening must be separated, and the temple of the moon is deflated for another year.

And Cupid and Psyche, and Edward and Bella, and Tristan and Iseult and Nick and Nora and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice must resort to the primitive communication that is available to them and text each other until dawn.

The Leftover Packaging and Delivery System

Leftovers are the dinner theater in the dramatic arts of food. They get very little respect, and are best encountered, if at all, with copious amounts of alcoholic beverages, which disguise to an extent how lackluster they are.

However, in accordance with our more prudent and economical lifestyle, we at Casa Frugalidad have happened upon a most excellent system for repackaging and delivering leftovers in a gustatorily satisfactory way.

The omelette.

We have discovered that there is nothing that cannot be incorporated into this eggy vehicle, with the possible exception of spaghetti. Of course, now that I have said that, I have laid down for myself a personal challenge to create an omelette with spaghetti in it.

But I digress.

We have been eating omelettes for several years now, ever since we turned, in desperation, to the South Beach Diet. We had been living on the Beached Whale diet, and it showed. The omelettes have continued as a mainstay in our diets, even though we have passed through the If One Serving of Ice Cream is Good, Two Must Be Even Better Diet, the Let's Just Smother Everything in Gravy and Butter Because It Tastes Better That Way Diet, and my personal favorite, the Gluttonous Consumption of Chocolate Because It Is Good For You Diet.

So, we have turned our leftovers into fine performers in the dietary circus, thanks to the omelette. What, you may ask, are the food items that we have been putting in our omelettes? I am glad you asked that question, even though I would have told you whether you asked or not.

Green Beans. Olives, green and black. Salsa from a jar that was opened a week ago. Cauliflower. Broccoli. Red peppers picked out of a stir-fry by a picky eater. Ham. Ground Beef. Beets. Peas. Cheese, lots of cheese, from cheddar to feta. Canned salmon. Onions, of course, and mushrooms. Pickles. Corn. Lima beans. Bacon. Black beans. Guacamole. Tomatoes. Kale. Spinach. Roasted eggplant (which sounds kind of redundant, come to think of it.)

Basically, if it is in a container in our refrigerator, we will attempt to omelettize it.

Now, of course, we did not put all of the above items in the same omelette. A beet and salmon omelette is a no go, as far as I am concerned, at this point; but who knows, we may boldly go there.

The process goes like this: we open the refrigerator, look in the containers, and if no fungus or other life form has taken up residence in said containers, then the contents are fair game. We may sauté onions or peppers to lay down a base, and then dump in whatever is in the containers, creating a (hopefully) edible mélange of colors, textures and smells.

So far, this system has worked really well, both as a means of cleaning out our refrigerator and using up stuff before it goes bad, and as a way to make interesting combinations of tastes. It is kind of exciting to open up a container, like Howard Carter opening a long-sealed tomb, and exclaim, "Look! A week-old pork chop! And it's still edible!" And then go to work slicing up the pork chop, and putting it into the mix.

We now have a garden going, thanks to Norm's considerable weekend efforts; soon, we hope, there will be fresh peas, and tomatoes, and zucchini, and whatever else he planted. The tired old leftovers may be pushed aside by fresh newcomers on the gustatory stage. But at least for now, they have a starring role, every morning, in our kitchen.

The Temple of Beautiful Things

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet

Every now and then we are fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time.

Yesterday, that place was living within driving distance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Norm, Spence and I went to the Museum to take in the "Cézanne and Beyond" Exhibit.

We have seen many exhibits at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It is a pleasure just to go there; to travel the length of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, park and walk past the Washington Monument fountain up to the Museum is like visiting another world, or country - the Parkway was inspired by the Champs-Elysee in Paris - and at the end of the Parkway sits a classic Greek-Revival Temple of Beautiful Things, itself a feast for the eyes. Yes, there is the Rocky climb up the steps (no running for me) and at the top it is always thrilling to turn around and see down the length of the Parkway to City Hall.

Spence, of course, had his camera at the ready; he took many pictures - of the Art Museum, the fountain, the parkway - but groused anyway that he was being rushed, as artists are wont to do (he didn't get a chance to photograph the Rocky statue as many times as he wanted). We had timed tickets for the exhibit, yet still had to endure a human cattle chute of roped lines for half an hour to get inside the gallery.

It was worth the wait. Nothing feeds the soul like a few hours spent contemplating great art. I always emerge feeling less the savage, more the civilized human being.

The exhibit is stunning; its premise is that Cézanne was the first truly modern painter, and his influence can be seen in other modernists, from those who immediately followed him to present-day artists. To illustrate this concept, the curators brought together works by other artists such as Picasso, Matisse and Mondrian, who need only one name to identify them to even the casual art lover, to painters/mixed media artists such as Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Fernand Léger, and Alberto Giacometti, and photographer Jeff Wall. Although the latter artists are not quite household names they are all significant.

For me there is a paradox in the contemplation of an exibit such as this. I realize that the more I learn, the more there is to know, and my current sum of knowledge about art seems to shrink by comparison to what I could learn.

Part of the thrill of an exhibit like this is to see original works of art that have been reproduced so many times that they are familiar to everyone, like Cézanne's The Bathers. For me, though, the work in this exhibit that sent the biggest chills down my spine was not one of the Cézannes, as stunning as they are, but the Picasso painting The Dream (La Rêve). It is so beautiful in the original that I could hardly tear my eyes away. What the show illustrated was that this is a Picasso "copy", if you will, of Cézanne's 1877 Mme. Cezanne in a Red Armchair, down to the red chair in which she sits. Picasso painted La Rêve in 1932; it is a portrait of his then-mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter.

Speaking of tearing, La Rêve is owned by Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas casino magnate, who was about to sell it in 2006 (for $139 million dollars, doncha know) when he poked a hole in it. He apparently had it hanging in an office, and was showing it to some people when he jabbed it with his elbow. Oops! There goes $139 million...! The sale was called off, which perhaps allowed it to be showed in this exhibit. I have to say that I saw no holes in it.

Spencer's favorite artist in the exhibit was Jasper Johns; he found the works of Johns, who combined collage and painting, to be clever and amazing, especially a work called In The Studio, which mixed two-dimensional painting with three-dimensional objects. Spence also really liked a Jasper Johns work called Map, a reinterpretation of the map of the United States. He also identified with the work of Jeff Wall, whose photographs were displayed in light boxes.

Sadly, today is the last day for the Cézanne exhibit at the Museum.

Our next trip to the Temple of Beautiful Things may be to attend an upcoming photography exhibit, "Spectacle: Photographs from the Collection ." With any luck we will get there in enough time for Spence to visit the Rocky Statue, and take another hundred or so photographs of his own.

Houseguests

Photo courtesy of Spencer Greet

One of the interesting things about living in a semi-rural setting is that the fauna (not to mention flora) in the area never let you forget that you are an interloper.

Here they were, these birds or these ants or these bees, minding their own business and going about their buzzing, flying, crawling lives, and one day some human shows up, cuts the trees down, digs a big hole in the ground, and builds a house, without so much as a by-your-leave.

What about us, the woodland creatures and insects say in an aggrieved tone, which in reality probably sounds like a lot of squeaks and whistles and chirpy noises. You think that you can just come in here and displace us, and we'll just go meekly away and find another tree to live in?

Well, you've got another think coming.

So, here you are, Homeowning Interloper, in this house, and there is the patter of tiny feet all around you. These would not be the feet of any of the house's official occupants, all of whom have fairly large feet.

No, these would be the feet of mice.

How on earth did the mice get in here, you ask. Oh, that's right, the basement door was wide open for pretty much all of January, because the lock was broken and you live on a hill and gale-force winds blew up the hill from the north and slammed into the basement door.

Meanwhile, there are mice out there, thinking to themselves, hmm, it's pretty cold out here. And that house over there has a very inviting-looking open doorway. I guess that means we get to live inside, instead of out in this frozen field. And so, the mouse family moves in, and the next thing you know, they are raiding the refrigerator and losing the remote in the sofa cushions.

Then, springtime comes. And you, Homeowning Interloper, hear strange noises. They are not quite inside the house, but they are not quite outside either. The noises sound like banging or flapping inside of a metal pipe.

That's because birds are building nests inside of your gutters. Yes, your home has become an avian condo. The feathered fiends are filling your gutters with their bird paraphenalia. They seem to work at very odd hours, and wake you with their excruciatingly early-morning activities. By the way, don't expect the gutters to fulfill their intended purpose any longer; they will become miniature Niagaras, loosing a curtain of water right in front of your door whenever it rains.

Speaking of condos, look outside and you will see holes around the size of a nickel punctuating the cedar siding. Those would be the apartment complexes of the carpenter bees, tunneling into the house like so many little Charles Bronsons in The Great Escape. They are escaping the outdoors, I guess.

Then you go down to the finished part of the basement; finished, I say, with drywall and Pergo floors and recessed lighting and everything, and what do you see? What could it be? Why, it is a spider the size of a camel, big enough to hold a saddle and take you across the Sahara. And even though you tell yourself that you have gotten over your fear of spiders, that you are a mature adult now, you back out of the room very slowly and go looking for someone else to deal with this menace.

You notice that the frame on one of the approximately 586 exterior doors to your house is rotted at the bottom, and your friend who is a handyman comes and rips it out and discovers an entire colony of ants apparently reinacting War and Peace in your doorjamb. He proceeds to annihilate the tiny buggers, but you know they will be back, with a vengeance.

Chipmunks, those Disneyesque rodents, run in and out of your stone retaining walls, every now and then stopping to stare at you impudently.

The brick patio, which you neglected to spray with pre-emergent stuff when you should have, now looks like a verdant meadow.

And so it goes. And you realize that in a battle of wits with Mother Nature, you are only half-armed.

Vinho Verde

We are living in impecunious times.

That big, fat life we were living, just a few years ago? Gone. We are now living the chastened life, like Scarlett O'Hara, on her knees in the field at Tara. We are digging up stinky old radishes for dinner, and shaking our fist at the fates.

Well, maybe I exaggerate just a teensy bit.

Actually, our chastening has taken the form of buying cheapo wines at the local State Owned and Operated Purveyor of Alcoholic Beverages. And by cheapo, I mean less than $10.00 per bottle.

Preferably, less than $8.00 per bottle.

I get my little tiny grocery cart and cruise around the state store, trying not to look like some desperate old wino. I check out the Chairman's Selections at the front of the store, which frequently involve getting a $69.95 bottle of wine for only $43.50! While I am sure that these fine beverages are worth every penny, they are still a tad rich for my blood. And, since I have the rarefied palate of a billygoat, I will pretty much drink anything, even though I can tell wine from vinegar.

Then I stroll casually over to the back of the store, where the cheaper featured wines are. Here I am more likely to strike paydirt, which means a quantity of wine that is drinkable by my standards and costs less than a trip to the movies.

My most recent find is a Vinho Verde, from the Minho region of Portugal. Vinho Verde literally means "green wine" because it is a white wine with a greenish tinge. It is a very young wine, barely past adolescence; it has no sage advice to impart, no dark secrets to share. It is light and fruity and meant to be drunk by the end of the day.

Did I say day? I meant year, within a year.

It bubbles a little (wineosaurs call this pétillance) when you pour it into your glass, which is a lot of fun. It is a party-girl wine; it will not remember the silly things you say or do when you drink it. Plus, it has an alcohol content of only 9.6 percent, perfect for my tiny liver to process in a timely fashion.

I found this little gem, called Fâmega, on sale for only $5.99! So, I put six bottles into my cart, and slunk off to the cash register, where a stern-looking grandmotherly lady fixed me with a gimlet eye and asked for my driver's license in addition to my credit card.

Perhaps if she had actually had a gimlet, she would have looked less cranky.

Or perhaps, a sparkly glass of Vinho Verde, if I hadn't bought it all.

Chemical Warfare

OK, I have resisted writing about this for lo these many months. But I just have to get this off of my proverbial chest (not my literal chest, thank goodness, which would be creepy beyond words).

Stink bugs.

They infest my house. The are seemingly everywhere, shuffling along slowly like arthritic old men, clinging to houseplants, hanging on valences, lying belly-up and dessicated on the floor of the mudroom.

Occasionally a stink bug will have a burst of energy and target the recessed kitchen lighting with crazy circles. But mostly they just park themselves. They are apparently not harmful.

The full name for the stink bug is actually the brown marmorated stink bug (marmorated meaning marbled or streaked in appearance; I looked it up). You know that you are smelly when the word "stink" is a part of your official name. They are in the insect family Pentatomidae, and were accidentally brought to Pennsylvania in the 1990s from Asia. They seem to like it here very much indeed.

Since they move with the speed of tectonic plates, stink bugs do not try evasive action when you come at them with a tissue, or piece of paper, to pluck them from their perch. Rather, they depend upon chemical warfare to protect themselves, and emit an unpleasant and surprisingly durable odor that is difficult to describe; it smells something like a combination of shoe polish and old ham. It doesn't wash off easily.

This means that you must treat the offensive little invaders gently, lest they anoint you with their peculiar perfume. You would really like to smash them with a shoe, or some other object that has a broad flat surface and can be wielded with force in a satisfying way. But that would release the stench. Don't think the odiferous beasties are unaware of this.

Vacuuming them with the handvac works pretty well. Then you have to run outside and dump them quickly, and run back into the house hoping that they are not following you. This makes you feel like an idiot, but you are desperate.

How do they get in, you ask yourself. Surely they are not just strolling in the front door whenever it opens. Well, according to entomological web sites, they get in through the cracks around doorways or windows, or from behind the baseboards, and you are supposed to seal all of these openings with calk, or some such.

Right. I might as well try painting my house with an eyelash, it would take less effort. And somehow, I just know that all of the calk in the world will not keep a determined insect out.

Why do they come in at all? They don't seem to be enjoying themselves much once they are in here. Supposedly they come in to avoid the cold winter months (which in Pennsylvania sometimes means the two weeks in January when the temperature drops below freezing). And yet, I have read that their protection system actually contains a kind of anti-freeze, making them capable of surviving the cold.

Perhaps they are just lonely. Or perhaps, like the elderly who flock to Florida in December, the inside of my home is just the warm vacation spot where they come to be with others like themselves, to play canasta and eat an early dinner, and wait for Spring.

Bungle

OK, it's ventin' time.

Disclaimer: the following rant is rated "M" for "Mindbendingly numbing in its picky geekiness." Proceed with caution, and the awareness that your eyeballs will glaze over about half-way through.

What is it with software vendors that they put out a "new and improved" version of their software that eliminates the very things you like about it?

My current annoyance is with Google, or Bungle as I now prefer to think of them. They sneakily replaced the Google Toolbar (for the non-nerdy among us, that is the little bar across the top that has the Google search window in it, plus a bunch of other colorful icons I not only don't use, but don't even know what they do) with a newer version, at least in Internet Explorer, the browser I use.

The old version, Version 5, kept track of all of my search history entries, and I could scroll down through them, a veritable trip down Google Memory Lane. For someone who Googles in her sleep, this is a very valuable thing - I can go back to words I searched on and call up the exact wording if I need to see something again.

This search history feature chronicled for me the minutia of my daily life - topics that came up in conversation, places that I or someone else was interested in, blog information that I needed, whatever. Veni, Vidi, Googli.

Then a new version, Version 6, just came along one day and rudely shoved Version 5 out of some virtual window, without even asking "Mother, May I?" I realized this when I went to the Google history well, and instead of the hundreds of search words or phrases that I have used, I found a total of 11.

Yes, Google Toolbar Version 6 shows 11 entries in history. That's it.

In a state of outraged indignation, I (of course) googled for an explanation. I discovered a web discussion thread filled with other, equally indignant Google users, complaining about the same issue. Then, someone identifying herself as "Maggie" from Google Customer Service helpfully explained that the search history is still on the computer, you just can't see it anymore.

Gee, thanks, Maggie.

One of the complainers then chimed in to say that he had located Toolbar Version 5 online and downloaded it again. It worked like a charm, he said. Except that, every time he logged off and back on again, Version 6 was back, like some annoying salesperson, infesting his computer with its perky, new-and-improved, history-annihilating self.

Software vendors seem to think that they can shove whatever changes they want down the metaphorical throats of their users, and sweet-talk the users by saying, 'Don't worry. This really is better. You will get used to it." (Facebook users know this only too well). Sometimes, they trip all over themselves and make a big mess (Windows Vista users, you know what I am talking about).

Hello. People don't like change, especially to things they like the way they are.

Now I, too, unrepentant and defiant, download Version 5 of the toolbar every time I log back on. Yes, it is time consuming and annoying. Yes, I know that I am standing in the path of progress.

But somewhere, one has to take a stand. To the barricades!

Maggie, are you listening?

The Teeth of the Lion

I look out on the verdant carpet beside the house and I see golden spots all over it.

Dandelions have arrived, in force. They proliferate in every single patch of grass on our property. This is because they are literally everywhere; they are native to all parts of the temperate zone in the Northern Hemisphere, and have become naturalized throughout the globe, including all 50 United States and most Canadian provinces.

Dandelions, or taxacum officinale, are weeds, certainly. No one in our culture cultivates these opportunistic and hardy little buggers. They are considered to be a blight on the landscape, an annoyingly pervasive yellow interruption in the green sward; they are to be sprayed, treated, tamed, eliminated. Rip them out!

And yet, there is hardly a more useful plant in the kingdom of plantae.

Where to begin about the helpful dandelion? Well, for starters, there are the leaves, or dandelion greens, which give the plant its name. The name "dandelion" is an English corruption of the early French term dent de lion, or tooth of the lion, due to the large jagged serrations on dandelion leaves (certainly not as if that majestic carnivore would be caught dead munching on a weed).

The young tender leaves, as well as the unopened buds, can be eaten in raw in salads. Older leaves can be cooked, like spinach. Their nutritional value is similar to that vegetable, as they are high in vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and especially iron (even more than spinach).

Dandelion leaves can also be brewed into beer, enjoyed in many parts of Canada. Other leaf concoctions, such as dandelion tea, have been used by herbalists for centuries to help liver and kidney function. Some of the first mentions of the plant as a medicine are of the use by Arab physicians in the tenth and eleventh centuries.

My maternal grandparents were skilled foragers; my grandmother used to gather dandelion flowers to make wine (also elderberries, but that is another blog). At the time that she was doing this, in the early 1960's, I was too young to taste the beverage that resulted, but all that I can say is that people drank Gram's dandelion wine, seemed to enjoy it, and no one died as a result.

The root of the dandelion also has many uses. When dried, ground and brewed, it can be used as a coffee substitute, especially before meals; apparently it not only tastes good, but it aids digestion, and is a mild stimulant. The root contains a diuretic, which may account for the more current French name for the plant - pissenlit, which literallly means "wet the bed." In Canada, dandelion root is registered as a medicine, for its diuretic properties.

The milky sap of the root has been used as a mosquito repellent.

I have yet to mention the entertainment value of the dandelion, which has provided children everywhere with immense enjoyment. After its life cycle is finished and the plant head has dried out, the little seed stalks, like so many fluffy parachutes, lift out of the dried head and expand into a ball of fluff that can be blown with a puff of air to gently waft away, carrying with them the curatives of centuries, to land and start anew.

My son Spencer was even inspired (and required, as a school assignment) to write a poem about the dandelion, in the fifth grade.

Somewhere around now, I'll bet that you, Gentle Reader, are beginning to feel a little remorseful about your past mistreatment of this noble and healthful plant (I know that I am.) Perhaps you are beginning to respect the lowly dandelion, and wondering if you too can make use of its beneficence.

Well, I for one am ready to go foraging. I can see a whole salad on my lawn.

The Diletantte's Dilemma

There are people in the world who were born with a great talent.

They can write, or act, or sing. They can paint, or carve, or dance. They can direct, or compose, or build, with whatever material suits them - film, food, metal, wood, paper. They can throw, or kick, or run. Whatever the area of endeavor, if the ability gets developed and used, if the person is supported and encouraged, the greatly talented leave the rest of us in the dust.

Aretha Franklin. Michael Phelps. Frank Gehry, architect extraordinaire. Itzhak Perlman.

Sometimes a person has more than one great talent, and then you have Michaelangelo, or Leonardo Da Vinci, or Isaac Newton.

There is another group of people, however. These are the people with some talent, in more than one area.

They can sing, kind of. Write a little. Draw somewhat. Maybe they are pretty smart.

These people are called generalists, and I am one of them.

Of course, being a generalist doesn't have anything to do with telling others what to do, at least in my case; I have never met another human being who would actually do what I told them. But it does mean that you have options open to you in more than one area.

Therein lies a dilemma. How to choose what to do, when you can do more than one thing?

You like to draw, so you draw for a while. But, while you are not bad, you realize that you are no Michaelangelo, or even James Whistler, and you have no patience with yourself, so you put the pencil down. Or, you get distracted from drawing by the desire to sing. So, you do that for a while.

Then, the choir or group you sing with breaks up, or moves away, or you get laryngitis, or stage fright, whatever, and you realize that what you really want to do is write.

So, you write, and that's fun. But, things keep getting in the way - the need to make a living, or to raise children. You think, why am I sitting here writing when I need to get to the dentist, or fold clothes, or go to work?

If only I could focus, you think, and develop my abilities. Maybe I would be one of those talented people, and do great things.

But I am a member in good standing of the Dilettante's Club, so I pick up and drop these hobbies as the caprice strikes me.

There are also areas in which I, to put it colloquially, stink out loud. I tried ballet once, and was laughed out of the dance studio. I do not have a scintilla of athletic ability, as anyone who has ever watched me try to play volleyball can attest. My taste in decorating could most kindly be called eclectic. My organizational skills fall toward the haphazard end of the spectrum. And God help you if I try to take your picture; you will look like a thumb with legs.

For these inabilities I am grateful, lest I spin completely out of control. The small talents that I do have keep me more than busy, or so you would think.

And then, one day, a friend (let's call her Joan, since that's her name) emails me a link to a night school class about the "voiceover" field, wherein you use your voice to convince people to buy things, or you read books to them on CD, and I am intrigued, and touched by her interest. Hmmm, I think; yet another pursuit to take up and drop in a whimsical way. I'll do it!

And so, Gentle Readers, I embark on a new venture. I had my first vocal coaching session on Monday, over the phone; it was a voice evaluation, and apparently I managed to pass the test, filled as I was with the fear and loathing of putting myself out there on display, at least vocally, at a fairly ripe age.

I was also excited by the prospect of starting off in a completely new direction, and learning a new skill, which is one of the things, I suspect, that fuels the dilletante's need to change hobbies frequently.

That, plus a really low threshhold of boredom. And the fear of actually succeeding at something.

As I undertake the quest to become the next voice of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, I will continue to write, about this new enterprise as well as whatever else floats to the surface of my mental pond.

Fit To Be Tiled

It is April, if not the cruellest month then certainly the rainiest.

I have already written about the lush landscape, well watered from the celestial watering can. Today is yet another watering can day, sprinkling but not drenching.

This is a good thing, I know. It will give a good start to the veggies. Later this year there will probably come a time when we will wish for rain, and the hose, lying coiled since last year like a sleeping snake, will emerge from its winter lair to spit water at the tomatoes and the zucchini.

But these rainy spring days are a bit on the raw side (currently it is 42 bone-chilling degrees F.) I am not inclined to be outside more than I need to. I scuttle from car to house and house to car.

Inside, the darkness and the rain seems to dampen enthusiasm for lots of important activities that require actual movement, like cleaning, or laundry, or cooking. And, thanks to a family member who shall remain nameless (she knows who she is), I have re-discovered a really good time-waster.

Mahjongg.

Computerized mahjongg, to be precise. Perhaps the most insanely addictive game ever created.

Regular Mahjongg is an ancient Chinese pastime that can be traced back about a thousand years, although its introduction to the West came in the late 1800s; by 1920 it was all the rage in the U.S., where it is frequently played in Jewish circles. Outside of the U.S. it is sometimes a gambling pursuit, and is still widely played in Asia.

The game as it is played now involves four players; 12 or 16 tiles are dealt to the players, depending on the variation played. It is somewhat like pinochle, or gin, in that it involves collecting "melds" or sets of tiles, and requires skill and some strategy as well as luck.

Computerized Mahjongg, on the other hand, is diabolically simple. There are 144 tiles with various interesting and exotic Chinese symbols on them, arranged so that some of the tiles are stacked on each other, some just layed out in rows. Kind of like a pyramid with legs going out from it.

Your job is to click on two matching tiles that are "free" (meaning, at the edge of a row). Match all of the tiles, and you win. It is actually a form of Solitaire (in fact, the online game I play is called "Mahjongg Solitaire".

The Chinese symbols on the tiles can be grouped into categories such as "stones", "honor" or "flowers"; honor tiles have names like zhōngbǎng or báibǎn, meaning things like passing the test or getting rich; flowers would be plum, orchid, Chrysanthemum or bamboo.

I, however, have made up my own names for them, based on what they look like. So, for me the tiles are called things like "strips of bacon", "party hat", or "lobster".

Crackjongg, as I now think of it, involves no more complicated mental process from me than thoughts like "darn, that lobster I need is stuck behind two strips of bacon" or "what do I have to do to free that party hat so that I can match the hamburger and fries?" Each time I match two tiles ("columns"? "buttons"?
"torpedos"?) I get two points. I rarely get a game to come out perfectly, which means 144 points; frequently my score is more like 72.

Every now and then, however, I do actually win, which allows me exactly one second of satisfaction. Unfortunately, this averages out to about one time in 10. So, the principle of intermittent reinforcement is definitely at play here.

There is a little button at the bottom of the game that is the most troublesome thing of all about playing Crackjongg. When you press it, you instantly get another game. I just know that the next time I play, the game will come out perfectly. Or, the game after that.

This is how I became a Mahjunky. Somewhere, B. F. Skinner is chuckling.

I have one piece of advice for you. Do not play this game. If you do, the next thing you know, it will be dark outside, your loved ones will be hungry, and you will have no clean underwear.

Let All The World In Every Corner Sing!

image courtesy of Spencer Greet

Today is Easter Sunday in the Christian calendar, a day for celebrating Christ's resurrection from the tomb.

For singers and musicians, it is a busy time; Easter services require a church to "pull out all the stops" both in a metaphorical and literal sense. Metaphorically speaking, all of the musical resources at a congregation's disposal are marshalled, from choirs, to brass, to handbells, and, of course, the pipe organ, the "king of instruments." On a pipe organ, stops are knobs that control the flow of air to the pipes; when an organist literally pulls out all of the stops, he or she is allowing the organ to reach maximum volume.

Easter Sunday services are nothing if not loud. But it is certainly a joyful noise.

Norm, Spence and I could be found this morning singing in the choir at our church, the Church of the Loving Shepherd in West Chester, Pennsylvania. All of the stops were indeed pulled out today; there was a delightful brass quartet that provided music before, during and after the service, everything from a reverential piece to Dixieland jazz after the service had ended.

During the service itself, the choir sang the Ralph Vaughn Williams composition Five Mysical Songs, an Easter song cycle set to meditational poems by George Herbert. Three of the songs are arranged for baritone solo with choral accompaniment; one selection is a baritone solo, and the last piece, or antiphon, is a choral anthem.

Anyone who is familiar with the music of Vaughn Williams would recognize his signature in these pieces; they are gorgeously lyrical, yet not easy to sing. Vaughn Williams was a twentieth century English composer who used the varied rhythms, time signatures and chromatic harmonies common to modern classical music. He was an agnostic, but had no difficulty composing music for the beautiful spiritual texts of Herbert.

The Five Mystical Songs is among my favorite choral pieces to sing. Today's experience was particularly meaningful, because it was the first time that Spencer, perennial boy chorister, joined the adult choir, singing tenor along with his versatilely-voiced dad. Spence had sung some of the pieces before, but with the Valley Forge Choir of Men and Boys, as a boy soprano. So, the three of us sang together for the first time.

When it came time for the final song, which shares its title with this blog post, all of the stops were indeed pulled out - it is a triumphant song of praise, with an accompaniment that mimics a swirling carillon of bells ringing. For a choral singer, it is a rare moment when the art that we love the most is trumpeted to the skies. Let all the world in every corner sing!

And what if we did, all of us, in unison all over the world?

Singing has been called the first art; the voice is the original musical instrument, and all cultures, from times before recorded history, have sung. In fact, it is likely that speech originated from song.

I can tell you that singing in a choir allows you to lose yourself and become one with other people in a way more profound than just about any other endeavor. It makes me wonder what would happen if the entire world could stop, and sing even one note, all at the same time. What would that be like? Music speaks to us at such an elemental level; could rage and frustration be suspended at least during that one moment?

As the choir joyfully (and musically, it must be said) shouted the last notes of this morning's antiphon, my heart pounded; I found myself exhilarated and moved - by the song; by the singers I shared it with, including my son and husband; by the musicians; the congregation, and moving outward, by the common humanity we all share, in every corner, all over the world.

Spring Bud

And so it is April, the first full month of spring.

Spring and autumn, at least here in the mid-Atlantic part of the United States, are all about bright color. The colors of summer, while varied, tend to be more muted, and the palette of winter's colors, at least outdoors, tends to be a monochromatic mix of blacks, whites, grays and browns.

We human beings have been able to discern color since our ancestors evolved in ways to achieve tricromacy, meaning that our ocular systems have three different receptors that receive color. This works out nicely for perception of the three "primary" colors, (either red, blue and yellow, or red, blue and green), and the rest of the color spectrum that derives from them.

It is thought that the ability of humans to detect color came about as a response to the need to find food sources when life is lived in daylight. Nocturnal animals, or animals that live deep in the ocean, cannot perceive color as well as land animals because light is necessary for the color-sensing systems of the eye to work. But for diurnal creatures, it is pretty important to be able to tell the difference between the intense red of the poisonous holly berry and the indigo of the delightful blueberry.

Sir Issac Newton discovered that color is an attribute of light waves when he split light into colors by the use of a prism, and recombined them back into white light by the use of another prism and a lens. He also originated the tradition known as "color theory" and invented the color wheel.

Apparently discovering gravity and inventing calculus wasn't enough for Sir Isaac; perhaps he had a yen to be an interior decorator as well, to wit: "Faugh! Art thou mad? Thou knowest that heliotrope doth not go well with turquoise!"

Since then, color theory has evolved to help us understand the nature and uses of color; which colors complement each other, what psychological effect is created by a color. Human eyes can detect approximately 10 million colors, a lot of shades to work with (not to mention naming them - remember the big 64 color Crayola box, with burnt sienna and periwinkle?)

It is interesting that lots of color names derive from edible things - orange, peach, lime and lemon to name a few. Also aubergine, the gorgeous French word for the purplish-brown eggplant.

There are two fundamental ways to create color - by addition, as with light, or by subtraction, as with pigment or paint. Essentially, to create color with light you start with darkness, and add colored light to reach white light (add a blue light to a yellow light and the result will be green; add in a red light and you will get white.) When dealing with pigment or paint, you start with white, and remove colors on the spectrum by using a pigment that absorbs or blocks everything except a specific color wavelength; whatever shows through is the color of the paint (for example, cobalt blue paint absorbs every color except cobalt blue.)

Differentiations between the two methods of creating color have caused some difficulty in the creation of a coherent theory of color usage. However, generally speaking, in color theory there are three attributes used to describe a specific color: hue, saturation and lightness.

Hue translates to the basic color itself - is it a variation of blue, of yellow, of red or green? Saturation refers to the intensity of a color. Lightness, of course, has to do with the amount of light versus darkness in a color.

Of all of the seasons I think that Spring has the most saturated colors. Could there be a more intense yellow than a daffodil?

But if April had a color, for me it would be chartreuse, a tertiary color. Chartreuse is defined as being halfway between green and yellow on the color wheel. It happens to be one of my favorite colors, because it just looks good enough to eat.

The color of key limes, and the pie that is made from them. The earliest buds on the trees, no doubt tasty to some foliage eater. Those little tiny pea shoots peeking up in the garden.

Look around you - at the blooming forsythia, a saturated yellow with just a tint of green that could be called citron; at the young willow switches, more chartreusey; at the new grass, an intense velvety verdant carpet that looks so soft you just want to roll on it forever, and maybe munch some, if you happen to be a cow.

Soon green will give way to magenta, as the redbuds come into their own, and tulips will bring everything from reds to oranges to silky black to the spring palette. And the incredible edible pansies will add violet and blue as well as yellow.

Next week the cherry tree on the front lawn will pop with pink. But for now, the chartreuse landscape is feast enough for my eyes.

The Girls of Indian Summer

There is a song by Stephen Sondheim called The Girls of Summer. It begins:

The girls of summer get burned; they start the summer unconcerned...They get undone by a touch of sun in June, plus a touch of the moon.

Last weekend I got together with a group of women that I have known since St Joe's college days, when we were all girls of summer. One member of the group, Denise, I have known since freshman orientation in the summer of 1973, when I was 17. Jenny, Anita, Rose and Maureen I met during the fall of that year. Mary and DJ I met later, but certainly by the summer of 1977.

The girls of summer get fooled...but soon the summer heat has cooled. And come September they can't remember why things were hot in July..

Back then we were vessels filled full of life and all of its potentialities. Plus beer. And chips.

We spent our summer weekends at the Jersey shore. We hit the beach in the afternoon, heedless of the UV rays, slathering ourselves with what passed for suntan lotion in those days. Our most important daily decision was where we would go that night to meet guys and to watch and comment snarkily when other, less fabulous girls met guys we wouldn't be caught dead with.

Sometimes we played pinochle. At least one of us reneged quite frequently.

Sometimes we woke up in the morning and couldn't remember why things were hot the night before. Or, anything else about the night before, other than a blur of loud music and laughter and intrigue in smoky, darkly lit rooms with sticky floors that smelled of hops.

Not me, it's too easy to fall ...The moonlit sand, a faraway band, and that's all...not me, I don't easily thrill...never did, never will

The song's narrator is too smart, too rational, to be beguiled by the sultry magic of youth, and the folly of an open heart. Clearly not a girl of summer.

The end of summer's at hand, I thought the summer was grand, and here I am with the same undamaged heart that I had at the start...

Those summers were packed as full as we could make them, with work, and play, and friendship that's lasted a lifetime. Sometimes we chose unwisely, and then there were tears and recrimination. Sometimes we chose well, and our lives were forever changed.

The girls of summer forgot to run...the girls of summer were bound to lose..the girls of summer had all the fun...

Now we are the girls of Indian summer. Our lives have known joy, and heartache, and complications we couldn't have imagined in those halcyon days.

We are still together. Our hearts may be damaged, but they are still open. We still have all the fun.

1388

Happy New Year!

Today is the day of the Vernal Equinox, which actually happened this morning at 7:44 am Eastern Time.

It is also Nowruz (sometimes Nouruz), or Persian New Year's Day, the beginning of the year 1388 (modern day Persia is, of course, Iran).

Although the year number of 1388 indicates an origin in the seventh century CE, the holiday's origins go much farther back, to Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Persia, and the Achaemenid empire in at least the fifth century BCE. Zoroastrianism, named for the prophet Zoroaster, is generally regarded as the first religion with a revealed statement of religious beliefs, or "creed", in recorded history. Some religious experts think that the Jewish festival of Purim stems from the Persian New Year.

Interesting little factoid: Zoroaster is the Latin version of the name Zarathustra, as in Also sprach Zarathustra, the Richard Strauss music used as the theme for the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Nowruz is a significant holiday, a time of renewal and rebirth. Preparations including spring cleaning the house (called Khoune Takouni) and buying a new set of clothes. Houses are bedecked with flowers, especially the hyacinth and tulip.

On the last Tuesday night of the year there is a festival of fire (Chahârshanbe Sûrî). This ritual stems from Zoroastrian beliefs and symbolism, wherein light conquers darkness. Bonfires are lit in the streets, and the young and limber leap over them, singing a traditional song to cast out the paleness and weakness of the old year and invite the robustness of the new.

On the day of Nowruz, families seat themselves around the table awaiting the moment of spring's arrival; on the table, or on a side table, are arrayed the haft sin - seven items beginning with the letter S in Farsi, the language of Iran. These items include wheat, barley or lentil sprouts (sabzeh) to symbolize rebirth; a sweetened pudding made from wheat germ (samanu) to symbolize prosperity; the dried fruit of the Oleaster or Russian Olive tree (senjed) to symbolize love; garlic (sir) symbolizing medicine; apples (sib) to symbolize health and beauty; sumac berries (somaq) symbolizing the sun's colorful rising; and vinegar (serkeh) symbolizing the patience of aging. When spring officially arrives, the family exchanges gifts.

It is important that the haft sin display is as beautiful as the family can make it, both for its spritual and traditional value as well as for the pleasure of visiting guests.

After the gift exchange, everyone puts on their new clothes, and family and close friends and neighbors visit back and forth for twelve days. Visits are not long (about a half hour) so that everyone can reciprocate, but lots of food is served, because frequently people will run into other families and friends at a house visit. Among the foods that can be found at a Nowruz celebration are baklava, other pastries and cookies, nuts, fresh and dried fruits, served with tea or sherbet.

Sometimes large centralized Nowruz parties are thrown, to minimize traveling between far-flung families.

It is believed that the behavior of celebrants during the holiday will indicate what kind of a year it will be; genial and pleasant visits bode well, but fights and disagreements augur a troublesome year.

On the thirteenth day an outdoor picnic or festival is held, with music and dancing; it is considered to be infelicitous to stay indoors on this day.

Nowruz is celebrated in many countries that once were part of the Persian empire or were influenced by Persian culture, including Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan; in Balkan countries; by the Kurds in Turkey; by modern day adherents of Zoroastrianism; and Iranians worldwide.

Even for those of us who do not celebrate Nowruz, the first day of Spring is always welcome, and a good time to celebrate. Happy spring!

Foothoosleblank

It is amazing what interesting bits of useful information can be found on the Internet while one is avoiding one's responsibilities.

I just happened to catch a little gem in the New York Times magazine from last Sunday about the sales phenomenon of the Snuggie, aka the blanket with sleeves.

Everyone who owns a television has seen this commercial. People who sit around in houses that are apparently kept at igloo temperatures desperately try to cover themselves with blankets so that they don't suffer from hypothermia, but the blankets slip off, and force them to uncover their hands to use the remote or answer the phone or eat.

But with the Snuggie, the blanket with sleeves, they sit there as happy as clams (if the clams were wearing blankets with sleeves). They talk on the phone, eat popcorn, use the remote, roast marshmallows outside, and go to athletic events, all while wearing the Snuggie.

Of course, the Snuggie is not the only, or even the first, blanket with sleeves. There have also been the Slanket, the Freedom Blanket, and a few other pretenders to the sleeved-blanket throne. But the Snuggie is the king.

Hmmmm.

Well, I say, why stop at sleeves? Why not add feet to the thing - don't feet get cold, too, especially when contemplating marriage to someone who owns a Snuggie?

Picture it - people sitting at an outdoor event, like a football game, wearing blankets with sleeves and feet. Maybe with a zipper up the back. And little rubber grippies on the bottom of the feet, so that they don't slip on shiny floors.

Oh, that's right - such a thing already exists. It's called a blanket sleeper. Babies and small children wear them.

Well, why can't adults wear them?

Think how practical this would be in the winter. They could come in four fetching colors - red, blue, green or yellow - and no one would have to worry about what to wear to work anymore. Not that anyone does worry about what to wear to work anymore, in the land of the perpetually casual.

All buildings could have thermostats set to forty-five degrees F. In fact, there would not really need to be heat at all, unless the temperature gets below forty. Think of the energy savings!

And the Fleevket, or Slebleet, or whatever catchy name the marketers can think up for this item could also have a hood on it, to keep the head warm.

Hoofeesleeket? Blahoofeeve? Sleefeehoodie? Whatever.

I think that I will immediately give up my lucrative day job, and go into business making these things. After all, if Snuggies can sell to the tune of sixty million dollars a year, and they only have sleeves, my idea could really catch on.

Of course, everyone would immediately resemble the characters from a certain children's program (minus the big hips, one would hope).

But perhaps that would be the price we would pay for real comfort. That, plus $19.95.

Yours 'Til Niagara Falls

This past weekend, your obedient scribe and her men visited the land of the maple leaf.

We decided to go to Toronto, intrepid travelers that we are, to visit our friends Jan and Michael. I was last in Toronto as a bridesmaid at their wedding in 1990. Jan and Michael have visited us many times (Michael is originally from the U.S.) and we have often threatened to return the favor, but never quite managed the trip.

This time, however, Jan was celebrating a significant birthday, and of course no distance is too far for us to go to attend a party. The route we decided to follow took us up through New York State to Niagara Falls.

Niagara Falls....slowly I turn...

Spencer had never been to Canada, although he has visited England twice. Norm and I thought it was time he met our neighbors to the north. We also wanted him to see one of the great icons of tourism and North American natural phenomena.

Norm and I had both experienced the falls before, I as a child of about nine, and Norm during his college days. I remembered them as being impressive, especially at night with colored lights playing on them, but was anxious to see them again as an adult, because pretty much everything impresses a nine-year-old.

Michael and Jan were to meet up with us, since the falls are only an hour and a half from Toronto. Repeated cell phone calls were necessary for us to find each other, because for a while we were looking for them on the American side of the border (makes you wonder how we learned to tie our shoes, doesn't it?) It turns out that there is a town called Niagara Falls in Canada as well as in the US.

Finally we crossed the border, where we found the fabulously tacky town of Niagara Falls, Ontario and our fabulous, un-tacky Canadian pals. Then, it was off to the falls themselves.

Which did not disappoint. They are, in a word, magnificent.

Niagara Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America; 4 million cubic feet of water goes over the falls every minute, on average. They are a great source of hydroelectric power.

We were especially lucky to see them in March, when the spray from the thundering torrent turns to snow, covering the huge rocks in front of the American falls. The Niagara River was partially frozen, with large floes of ice slowly breaking and moving in the deep blue-green water. Ice from the perpetual mist glistened on everything around us on the promenade that faces the falls - every bush, every tree, all of the iron railings and benches (it was quite cold, perhaps 30° F at most).

We walked down the promenade, past the American falls to the Canadian Horseshoe Falls (shaped like a horseshoe, don'tcha know.) These falls are much larger than their American counterpart, and you can get very close to the falls themselves, where ten feet of clear green water pours over the crest at 20 miles per hour.

As we approached Horseshoe Falls, we could clearly see the stunning half-circle rainbow created by the spray, stretching between and linking the two waterfalls, American and Canadian. It was a scene of almost unimaginable beauty.

Spencer and Michael seemed to be in a competition to see who could take the most pictures.

As we contemplated the immensity of water and foam, it was hard to believe that someone went over the falls just last week - and survived. Without a barrel. Or clothes, apparently.

After our visit to the falls, we went back to the town of Niagara Falls, and had a late lunch at another Canadian icon, Tim Horton's. Then we dragged ourselves away from the splendor of the Movieland Wax Museum and made haste for Toronto, just around Lake Ontario from the falls.

We settled in to our bed and breakfast, and had a late dinner at the Keg Mansion, a steakhouse located in a stunning 1867 townhouse built by Arthur McMaster, and later owned by the Massey family (Raymond Massey, the actor, spent time there). Apparently some of the Masseys still haunt the mansion, but the only spirits we encountered were Jim Beam and Jack Daniels.

Saturday we walked through Greek Town, and helped Jan turn fifty at her favorite Italian restaurant, Casa DiGiorgio.

Toronto is too big a city to see in a weekend, but it is a lively and multicultural place, with great ethnic cuisine, and friendly people. Now that we have ventured north, we plan to return and spend more time.

What's not to like, eh?

The Unicorn in the Attic

Many, many years ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, I was a young, single girl living in a sparsely furnished yet fabulous apartment with my best friend and roommate Jenny.

It was winter, a snowy one, and we were both casting about for something to do in front of the TV in the evenings that did not involve hard physical exercise, or food. I was looking through a catalog, and happened to notice kits for hooked rugs.

"These look kind of easy to do," I said, and Jenny agreed. We each chose one as a project.

I do not remember what Jenny's looked like, but I remember that the finished project was to be about one foot by two feet - perhaps the area of a doormat. A nice, reasonable project.

My eye was caught by a replica of the famous tapestry The Unicorn in Captivity. The original is one of a series called The Hunt of the Unicorn; there are seven tapestries in the series and they were created between 1495 and 1505, perhaps in Brussels.

Their original purpose is unclear, but it is thought that they were woven to celebrate a wedding; the letters "A" and "E" are intertwined throughout. The tapestries are full of symbolic objects both Christian and pagan, most notably the unicorn itself. This mythical beastie symbolized many things to the medieval mind, among them wisdom, purity and love; some experts believe that the pursuit, capture and bloodying of the unicorn represents the passion of Christ. The original tapestries are now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The hooked rug, like the tapestry, had a lot of vines and leaves on a black background, and of course the unicorn sitting in a fenced area in the middle. I knew a little about the famous tapestries, and thought the hooked rug would be pretty, plus the symbolic unicorn thing would lend a bit of middle-ages chic to our charming urban hovel.

It also reminded me of one of my favorite James Thurber fables.

What I did not realize was that the completed rug would be seven feet long by four feet wide.

When the kit arrived and I unfolded the monster of a canvas, I realized that this was more than a little project for a few evenings. But, undaunted, I started working away at it.

It took more than two years to complete.

When it was finished, two apartments and several roommates later, a testament to my folly and perseveration, I could not bring myself to put it on the floor and walk on it. So, I took it to a framer, and had it clapped between two endposts of wood, to hang it on the wall. A very large wall.

And hang it I did, in my single-girl townhouse that I liked to call "Eclecticon."

Not everyone shared my enthusiasm for the piece. One soon-to-be-erstwhile suitor took a look at it and laughed, "Where did you get that? A medieval garage sale?"

Heh, heh.

Eventually, after Norm and I married and I left my single, bohemian lifestyle behind (for a married, bohemian lifestyle) I retired the unicorn, and it has been in captivity, rolled-up in the attic ever since, a mythical symbol of my carefree and foolish youth.

It had a brief moment in the sun two years ago, when it graced the set of Spencer's seventh-grade play about Eleanor of Aquitaine.

This year it will turn thirty years old, and is becoming an actual antique (not unlike its owner). Lately, I have been thinking about getting it out and hanging it once again, fifteenth-century kitsch or not.

I am sure James Thurber would approve.

The Pleasures of Peas

This morning, Norm realized with a start that Spring is here. Well, almost, considering that it was 20 degrees three days ago, and the Vernal Equinox is two weeks away.

But today it is going up into the sixties here in Pennsylvania, and Norm's immediate thoughts upon awaking were of the garden, at the east end of the house. "When is Saint Patrick's day?" he asked. I told him that it was in about a week, give or take, and he said, "That's when the peas should go in!"

There is a lot of work to do to prepare the garden. It is a raised bed, a twelve by twelve square, and the snow has finally melted on it. Currently, it is a lumpy tangle of dried, flattened tomato stalks, heaved earth, and blown leaves.

Peas, or pisum sativum, are a very old cultivar. They are an annual, cool-season plant, and are quite frost-hardy. Varieties include snap peas, sugar peas, shelling or garden (also known as English) peas, and snow peas.

When I was a child, during the Lincoln administration (well, maybe it just seems that way) you used to be able to buy garden peas in the pod from the market, and then shell them at home. It was enjoyable and very satisfying to open the pod and find the peas within, like little green pearls. You could slide them out into a bowl, pop pop pop off of their tiny stems.

Fresh garden or shelling peas are no longer sold in supermarkets, for some reason, although you can get snow peas or sugar snap peas. So, it seems that if you want fresh peas, and don't belong to a Community Supported Agriculture or CSA where you can go pick the peas yourself, you must grow them.

They need to be planted when the soil is at least 45° and is dry enough not to stick to gardening tools; tradition does say that Saint Patrick's Day, March 17, is a good guideline. They should be planted 1 - 1 ½ inches deep and one inch apart in single or double rows; rows should be 18 to 24 inches apart. Tall varieties need to be staked, but there are many dwarf varieties that do not require staking.

Garden peas are an interesting vegetable to eat. For some reason, etiquette demands that they be eaten with a fork, even though a spoon would suit them much better. They roll around your plate, and playing the game "how do I get these darn peas onto a fork and into my mouth without dropping them all over the floor, where they will roll around and get squished" is a family favorite. If there are mashed potatoes, you can imbed the unruly peas in that vegetable, and contol them that way.

If you could get them onto your knife in a row, you could eat them the way the Three Stooges did, but then you would find yourself eating alone quite often.

Sometimes I try to line them up on the tines of my fork, although I have noticed that if I spend too much time doing this to my satisfaction, other diners at the table will be staring at me with gape-mouthed wonder. And stabbing peas with a fork is a risky exercise at best.

But I digress.

Garden peas contain iron, protein and vitamin C, so they are really good for you. They can be used in everything from soups to salads, but I like them best just steamed with a little butter. Homemade pea soup, made with dried peas and some ham, is a comfort on a cold day.

There is a product out there called Pea Butter, which is essentially smashed peas in a jar, but the idea strikes me as strangely unappetizing.

Nut butter, yes. Peas in a jar, no. That's just wrong.

So, it's off to the feed and farm store for some pea packets. Time's a wastin'.

The Beauty And The Imperfection

Years ago, I used to listen to a Joni Mitchell song that contained the lyric "...you turn your gaze to me...weighing the beauty and the imperfection to see if I'm worthy."

A few years back, Norm, Spence and I went to England with the Valley Forge Choir of Men and Boys, a traditional Anglican choir. Spence and Norm both sing in the choir.

Choirs in this tradition perform a choral service called Evensong, which takes place in the late afternoon, at 4 or 5pm. Many churches in England have resident men-and-boys choirs; some even have choir boarding schools for the boys. During the trip, which took place in July, the Valley Forge choir became the choir in-residence at two ancient English cathedrals - Ripon Cathedral, in Ripon, England, and Carlisle Cathedral in the city of that name.

The group of us who traveled together included the boys and men of the choir, the director and organists, and family members. During the week that the choir sang in Ripon, we all stayed in the choir school, located about a mile outside of town. The men and boys of the choir would go into town each morning for rehearsal, have the afternoon off, and reconvene at the cathedral in the afternoon each day for Evensong.

We family members and choir hangers-on would sightsee in the town, and then take our places in the pews each afternoon, usually about a half-hour before Evensong. This means that we spent a great deal of time in each of the two cathedrals, sitting in quiet contemplation of these spaces both before and during the services.

Ripon Cathedral is very old, especially by American standards - underneath the church are the excavated remains of a church built by Saint Wilfred in 672. It is one of the first stone churches built in England. The current cathedral is the fourth incarnation of that early church; much of it dates to the 13th century.

When you sit and stare at a space for hours, day after day, you get to know it in a different way than when you pass through it in tourist mode. You really get to see what is there. In the case of Ripon cathedral, the church has been rebuilt several times, and when you look upward at the vaulted stone arches and windows of this beautiful space, you can see places where original design was replaced with later design; parts of the church nave collapsed and were rebuilt, but never finished (due to the appropriation of all church funds by Henry VIII).

As a result, the inside of the church is hardly symmetrical. Columns do not match; arches are cut in half; windows partially obscured. You look at these things and you think about the designers of the various renovations, and the stonemasons who did the work. You think about the fact that eight hundred years ago, people sat where you are sitting and looked at these things exactly as you are doing now, and talked about how to finish off this part, or that part, or what exactly to do here or there to merge into the existing work.

You see the design imperfections in the church, and they reveal the humanity of the people who worked on it. You can see their desire to do something wonderful, something lasting, to honor God. You can see the hard work, and the sweat, and the patience that went into creating this space, wherein stone is transformed into something of worth. A thing does not have to be perfect to be beautiful.

The choir enters and takes its place in the carved choir stalls. It sings psalms and gorgeous choral anthems, some of which were written by Palestrina or Thomas Tallis almost five hundred years ago. They are intricate and multilayered, much like the walls of the cathedral.

You look at this space for hours, and it becomes a part of you. You listen to the music of the choir, sung in a place that was built for such sounds, and you lose the sense of time, and consciousness of self. If there are any imperfections in the music, you can't hear them, because the space and its echo transform the music into something beyond mere song.

And the music and the space transform you.

Canine Chess

How many reasonably intelligent adults does it take to fool a dog?

Apparently, more than two.

As I sit here, typing away, I am holding two syringes filled with allergy serum. Our Irish Water Spaniel Joey, a rarefied creature from a small gene pool, is allergic to just about everything. Grasses, trees, mold, fungus, dust mites, you name it.

We discovered this several years ago, when Joey attempted to remove all of his hair by scratching it off. He also chewed incessantly at his feet, and rubbed his itchy snout on any rough surface that was handy, including my corduroy slacks.

Nothing makes your day like being used as a tissue by an animal.

So, doting pet owners that we are, we took Joey to the vet to have our wallets vacuumed, er, to have him allergy tested. Several hundred dollars later, the blood tests came back, and he was indeed allergic to pretty much every surface with which he could conceivably come in contact.

This is a creature for whom we had already shelled out an embarrassing amount of money to have cataract surgery. But he was suffering, in a way, and I was tired of being his personal hankie.

The solution to this latest malady was to administer allergy shots to Joey, starting out with a weak serum administered as frequently as every other day, and months later ending up with a stronger monthly dose.

Not surprisingly, Joey did not much like this regimen. Something about the concept of humans coming at him with sharp implements to impale him did not sit well with him. It took two of us to complete the job, one to distract him and one to shoot him up. I, of course, became the designated dog stabber, a role that I did not relish. But the shots did help, so we persevered.

And so it has gone, for about two years.

Dogs, however, have several advantages over humans, among them incredibly acute senses of hearing and smell. Add to that the fact that Joey is pretty smart even for a canine, and you have trouble.

He began to recognize the subtle signs that I was going to stick him, even though a month would go by between shots. The serum must be kept in the refrigerator; I use the butter bin on the door for this purpose. Somehow, even though I go to the refrigerator dozens of times a day, hundreds of times a month, something about my movements - a certain look I give him, the sound of the butter bin door opening, whatever - sends him right into his crate, where he hunkers down, sphynx-like, and looks at me as if to say, "Okay. Your move." And thus the delicate game of injection chess begins.

Norm and I have resorted to ever more intricate subterfuges to get the shots into him. I circle the downstairs with the syringes so that Joey doesn't see me; Norm, my pawn, gets out the lettuce and waves it around the kitchen (did I mention that Joey is a vegan?); I, the queen, stroll with elaborate casualness to the computer, saying the code words "Norm, I am at the computer checking my email." We wait for a half-hour, and still Joey is in the crate, the king in his castle, with that smug "Just how stupid do you think I am, humans?" look on his muzzle.

It has now been an hour since I took out the serum and filled the syringes. Joey is asleep in his crate, or at least pretending to be. I am about to admit defeat, for now, and refrigerate the syringes. It would seem Joey has me in a stalemate.

But I can be patient, too. The chess game continues.