concocted glimpse

Tomorrow I will be clocking hours at 3 different jobs. First, my ol’ faithful. Second, my new unfaithful, my telephone temp job. Third, my new piano students, a dad-and-son duo. This is the beginning of my life as a job quilter.

Yesterday, four people were already at my bus stop when I approached to wait. They were a set. Three women, two grandmotherlyish, one motherlyish. One wee boy. I took out my book and didn’t notice them much further until one of the grandmotherlyish chided the boy for swatting at some insect with a stick. “Don’t do that! Don’t! The outside is their home!” The other women chimed in with similar peals. He stopped.

After the chiding subsided, the boy matter-of-factly offered “Do you want to know why I was hitting the ants with a stick?”

“Why?”

“Because one of them pinched me.”

“Where?” said grandmotherlyish #1, and peered down to look [less out of sympathy, it seemed, and more out of a suspicious need to confirm].

“Well,” said motherlyish, “that’s when you can use your words, and say, ‘Ant, don’t pinch me!’”

What.

I closed my book, I closed my eyes, I wrapped my arm around the bus sign post. I turned toward the sun. I boggled. Unless the child is secretly Melampus, this was the most ridiculous admonishment. Maybe it’s because I hate ants. Maybe because I know that the ones that live between sidewalks here are xenocidal pests not native to the Americas. Maybe because I think “use your words” is psycho-fraught and infantile even when it’s not applied to conversation with insects.

I like using words. But sometimes a stick seems better.

well. she was a child and I was a child in this kingdom by the sea. and we loved with a love that was more than love. the angels, not half so happy in heaven, went envying her and me. yes. this is the reason. yet neither the angels in heaven above nor the demons under the sea can ever dissever my soul from the soul of my beautiful.

0 • “A Boy, A Girl, and a Graveyard” | Jeremy Messersmith | The Reluctant Graveyard

1 • “Summer Side of Life” | Gordon Lightfoot | Gord’s Gold

2 • “Nobody Knows Me At All” | The Weepies | Say I Am You

3 • “Moscas En La Casa” | Shakira | ¿Dondé están los ladrones?

4 • “I Crush Everything” | Jonathan Coulton | Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow

Brekke

• oatmeal [steel cut, salted, cooked] • hemp seeds • red gooseberries [halved]

Supper

• sweet potato [cooked, skinned and speared] • pile of cabbage [purple!] [oy, need a new chef's knife] • pistachios [roasted and salted] • romano cheese [grated]

I’m thinking about trying a No Packaged Foods experiment — for distraction and for cost comparison. By “packaged foods” I don’t mean whole foods in packages. Spinach in a plastic box would be allowed: It’s in a package, but the contents list is “spinach” — is spartan, is superfluous. Anything that has [or should have] a list of ingredients would be haraam. Whole foods only. The hardest thing to go without, I anticipate, would be cheese. Mmm. Cheese. If I kept this up for more than a month [which is the time frame I have in mind] I’d have to figure out how to make my own. My own cheese … and, like The Pregernaut, my own pickles.

After Roscivs died [which is the same frame as now — confuzzingly enough — he's still dead] Rita sent me this song [and, on its heels, Emily Dickinson # 686]. Apparently the chorus opens up a parallel universe of one-off lyricism, such that when this song shows up on my mental turntable I find myself slipped across into it. I remember and sing the chorus

’cause you’ll keel over / keel over / keel over someday

It’s a comforting sort of song.

TMBG’s “Bed Bed Bed” from “No!” has a similarly slippery multiverse chorus.

The day is done, the sun is down, the curtains have been drawn
and darkness has descended over everything in town.
The covers have been turned and I’ve got my pajamas on.
I’ve had my fun, I’ve stretched and yawned, and all is said and done.

’cause Rosc is dead
dead dead dead dead dead

I’ve done so many things today. There’s nothing left to do.
I ate three meals, I rode my bike, I hung out with my friends.
I did my chores, I watched TV, I practiced the guitar,
I brushed my teeth, I read my book, and then I sat around.

and he is dead
dead dead dead dead dead

Oh it’s pointless staying up for even twenty seconds more
when everything has happened and there’s nothing else in store;
The thing is now to lay my head down, close my eyes, and snore
And so to bed directly I go!

The day is done, the sun is down, the curtains have been drawn
and darkness has descended over everything in town.
The covers have been turned and I’ve got my pajamas on.
I’ve had my fun, I’ve stretched and yawned, and all is said and done.

I’m going to
dead
Dead dead dead dead dead

Dead
Dead dead dead dead dead

I’m going to
dead
Dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead

Once upon a time there were two kings, brothers. Wherever there were hills or dales, their kingdoms overlapped. Stories had developed among the subjects about the kings. One of the kings, Wenceslas, was known as the benevolent king. The other king, Stanislas, was known as the malevolent king. Stories lived, even as subjects died. Gestalt in perpetuity. In one overlapland dale lived a fellow, Joe Bob. He told himself and his family stories of King Wenceslas the Good. By some accounts, Joe Bob was actually afraid of Wenceslas and wanted to curry favor and offgestave displeasure. I don’t know about that. While its motivation was uncertain, however, Joe Bob’s fealty to Wenceslas was not.

At a bro dinner, Stan said “I was to and fro among our hills and dales,” and Wenc said, “did you see Joe Bob while you were out and about? That guy is royally loyal to me.” It was not particularly braggart of him. Just the facts, ma’am. Stan said “I think that he might see it differently if you took away those lands you loaned him.” Wenc said, “I don’t think so. I contend that Joe Bob clings to the stories he tells about me with such a cleaving that he can’t be cleaved from them.” Unfortunately, the bros were bored and not above a little marionetting and a little betting. “Bet you he’ll be cloven,” Stan said. “Bet you he won’t,” Wenc said.

Wenceslas went out and took back the lands from Joe Bob. Joe Bob didn’t make even one peep of displeasure. He slaughtered Joe Bob’s cows. Still nary a peep. He dried up his well. Peeps == 0. He set the plague on his children and wife. Peepless.

Last of all, he took his health.

I saw you last night by the river. I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water,  frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever, in a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky’d been breathing on a mirror.

0 • All the Trees of the Forest will Clap their Hands

1 • Fruit Tree

2 • 25 o’clock

3 • We Are All Connected

4 • If You Go Away

5 • 神の一手

In our yellow house, the front bathroom, Roscivs’ bathroom, had pink fixtures. It had a skylight. We picked a yellow and blue bath set. I’m using that bath curtain. It has vertical stripes in yellows and blues. I noticed that the colors are stronger at the bottom than they are at the top. This is because of the skylight.

She Swallowed the Spider to Catch the Fly

I had some brown rice pasta I wanted to use up (I bought it several months ago) so I bought a (winter, always winter, never Christmas) squash to go on top of it (because squash sauce is awesomesauce).

She Swallowed the Bird to Catch the Spider

I had some raw almonds I wanted to use up (I bought them several months ago) so I bought some green beans to go on top of them.

But I don’t know why she Bought the Beets

They are jewels. They are vegetable garnets that dye your poop.

–

That Tickled Inside Her

So. I went to allrecipes and searched for recipes with almonds and green beans. I found one that suggested that, if I played my cards right, I could also make good use of the bottle of cranberry wine I had (which, as Discerning Reader might expect, I bought several months ago). Bingo. All I had to do — naturally — was change the recipe. Here’s what happened.

Start with two handfuls of almonds, raw, with skins. Slice them up. Begin toasting/frying them in a large skillet slicked up with olive oil. When the toasting is underway, add {{ a pinch of salt • 1 green onion, both whites and greens, sliced  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin • 1 heaping teaspoon curry powder • 6 Tbsp water }} After the nuts are nice and toasted, add {{ ~12 oz fresh green beans • 2 cloves garlic, minced • 2 Tbsp butter • 1/2 cup cranberry wine }}. When the wine is mostly evaporated/cooked in, add {{ a heaping lot of raisins (match to almonds) }}. When the liquid’s gone it’s done.

It might not be obvious, but this was yummy. So yummy I hope I eat it again.

–

I Know an Old Woman who Learned how to Fly

I am bodaciously unimpressed by recipes. They are fail as an artform. They are weak and awkward as atlases. They’re only oblique approximates as journals. Still, this won’t keep me from recommending Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I won’t give spoilers, but you might want to keep your beets peeled for a dressing of lemon, mint, parsley, thyme, and cilantro.

For M.P. in the Phillipines, a Kiva borrower, $25 goes a lot further than $25 goes for me. What is $25, anyway?

Two years ago, I might have gone to dinner ($30) and had drinks ($12) and a concert ($25) for an evening of $67. I would not have batted an eyelash (nay nary a single eyelash, nay nary a single bat) at a $67 evening, an everyday occurrence, an everyday price (and that is counting solo only; for the two of us — and it was the two of us, always — ’twas twice). We might have done it the next evening and the next. We were so wont. A typical triptych of evenings totted to $201 for me ($201 he, $402 us). Only now does it occur to me to calculate it; only now are my calculations calisthenics for strengthening and stretching a dollar, for exploring the purchasing power of Thomas Jefferson’s head. How many angels can dance on it? $201 makes or breaks a month. That much is for a month of mornings, for all afternoonings, for a fort of nightings. It stretches, and stretches, and hopefully stretches some more. Make room for one more angel, please.