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Monthly Archives: February 2014

Alphabet Shrimp

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shrimp

Ingredients –

1 beefsteak tomato, rough chopped, no seeds (you want just the “meat” of the tomato)

Half a bunch of fresh cilantro, leaves intact, no stems.

¼ of a fresh white onion, chopped into small pieces.

Half a pound of medium sized shrimp, peeled, deveined, no tails.

8 oz. of “Alphabet” pasta (Any small pasta will do, but “alphabet” shapes are fun.)

A handful of organic baby carrots, chopped into bite-sized bits.

A handful of organic green beans, chopped into bite-sized bits.

Half a glass of wine (I use white zinfandel.)

A knob of butter

Olive oil

Turmeric

Sea salt

Powdered Galingale (or galangal) (This is an Asian ginger)

Ground Sumac (a tart Persian spice made from dried berries.)

Serves four. Prep time, about half an hour. Cook time, about 15 minutes. It all cooks pretty fast, but it can be tricky to juggle all the different parts at once. You may want to do it in sections.

Some observations –
This involves three different pieces of cookware – a large stock pot, a steamer, and a sauté pan with a glass lid. They are all needed to ensure that everything has the right texture. It is important that the carrots are cooked enough to be tender, the green beans and onions are crisp, the shrimp is tender but not tough, and the tomato and cilantro are not mushy.

Look in an international market for the Galingale and Sumac. Their delicate flavors are worth it. Barring that, you can substitute regular powdered ginger and some fresh lemon juice.

Get organic whenever possible. It is worth it.

Instructions –
Steam the carrots and green beans, with the carrots on the bottom because they take longer. Take them off the heat when the carrots are fork tender. Set aside in the pot with the cover on to keep them warm.

Put a knob of butter in a large sauté pan that you have a glass lid for. Have the heat at medium-low (About at 4 if 10 is “high”.) When the butter has melted, add the onions. Let them cook just a little bit, but not enough to go translucent. You want them crisp, not caramelized. Add the shrimp, the wine, and the turmeric, galingale, salt, and sumac. Three shakes of each, maybe? You can be generous with these spices. Put the glass lid on and let it steam. Stir frequently. It is done when the shrimp go opaque. Lower the heat.

Cook the pasta per the package instructions (usually 5-6 minutes) in a large stock pot. Drain but do not rinse. Return to the pot and move it off the heat. Add the cooked carrots and green beans, and then add the only the shrimp from the sauté pan. Put a lid on it to keep it warm.

To what is left in the sauté pan, add the tomatoes and the cilantro. Stir them frequently until the cilantro has wilted. Then pour all of that into the stock pot with the pasta, carrots, green beans, and shrimp.

Pour in a few generous glugs of olive oil and some more sea salt into the mixture. Stir it all together and add more olive oil and salt to taste.

Serve immediately. Fresh crispy bread goes well with this.

Created by me on 2-7-14.

Links. On ESP and Christianity.

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I once was doing wire work at a friend’s house. We were in a medieval reenactment group together and I was making decades. Decades are like short rosaries. Instead of having five groups of ten beads, it only has one set. These were used during the Reformation by Catholics. It was a way of being true to their faith but doing it secret, because openly being a Catholic then was a ticket to jail or the gallows. Decades were small enough to be held in the palm of the hand. They could pray the rosary while they walked and not be obvious about it.

decade

I was Christian then, but not openly so. Now that I think about it, making decades was perfect for me. The symbolism is striking. I was practicing my faith but quietly. Being Christian wouldn’t mean a jail term or death, but it still wasn’t very popular.

It still isn’t. This is in part because of so many people who say they are Christian with their words but not with their actions.

My friend and I had not discussed our religious practices. We had discussed something else though – a sort of ESP that we shared.

She knew I was weird. I seem to remember she termed it being “eclectic” but I think “eccentric” is more fitting. I’ve always had an extra sense. I’ve always known and seen more than just what was on the surface. I’ve always heard the under-layer of meaning. It is why I tutor people who have learning disabilities. I can understand them when nobody else can.

She had this same sense. Hers was a little different, and she hadn’t acknowledged it as long as I had, but it was still there. Over time, we had shared many experiences about what we saw together, comparing notes.

She saw me making this decade, this symbol of faith. She saw how precise and exacting I was with the links. She knew from watching me that I’d done this a lot. My links are all equal. You don’t get that kind of precision unless you practice.

She looked at me and asked “How can you make something like this if you are eclectic?”

This was the moment. I could show her who I really am, or I could hide.

I took a breath in and prayed for the right words. I could alienate her forever, but I thought she might understand. I had helped them move recently and seen Bibles while I was packing. I knew I wasn’t going too far into enemy territory. But I also knew they weren’t practicing. If they had a bunch of pagan items around then I’d be even more worried about what I was going to say. I wasn’t going to preach to her, but I was certainly going to share with her some of my truth.

I looked up from my work and said “Nobody was weirder than Jesus. He walked on water, he made the blind see, and he brought the dead back to life.” I smiled and took another breath in, and waited for her reaction.

This opened her eyes. Shortly after that she and her family started going to church.

Loving Jesus and being weird are totally compatible. If you have an extra sense, an extra way of knowing, it is a gift from God. It doesn’t separate you from God. It is a way to know God. Using it in the service of others is a way to show love to God.

Kindergarten 2-5-14

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I had a few different students on my list today. We are working on numbers. We are writing them, counting to 100, and just counting in general.

V and S were on my list, but not J. Then there was a new girl, D, and a new boy, M.

J asked me if he was on my list and I gently told him no. He sunk in his chair a little but didn’t get angry like he has in the past. That alone is a good thing. I worry about him and his anger. He gets so frustrated so easily. That leads to more problems that cause more frustration. The sooner he gets that life doesn’t go the way you want it to, the better he will be. Life goes the way it goes and you’d better adapt to it, rather than the other way around.

D wasn’t here today. I didn’t get to meet her. The teacher was sad about this. She’d done a lot of preparation for our time together and it didn’t happen.

S was playing when I found him. I asked him if he wanted to go work and he didn’t. No problem, that just means more time with the rest on my list. He looked tired too, so I didn’t think he’d work hard today.

I went to M. And asked him if he wanted to work on numbers with me today. I’m glad he agreed. I was concerned that since we hadn’t worked together it would seem strange to him to start now. Plus, I’ve noticed him before. He interests me. He seems a little more intense than most of the kids so I’m curious what is going on in his head.

My instructions said that he was having difficulty counting to 100. So after a warm up of counting other things, I asked him to count to 100 for me. He started out ok, and then when he got to 29, the next number was 60. He gave 60 as the number at least three other times, not including the correct time. I’m not sure what his fascination with 60 is.

When he would get to the end of a group of ten, he would pause and look upwards. I waited for a bit. When the answer didn’t come I’d give him a tip. If we were in the 40s, I’d hold out four fingers and ask what comes after four? He’d say five, and then translated it into fifty. I had to do this several times.

We worked on a few more projects and then I went to get V. Since she had skipped working with me last week I a bit to get her to work with me. Two weeks in a row to skip isn’t a great idea. I asked her to work with me. I didn’t make it a question. I didn’t say “do you want to work with me” She smiled and declined anyway. I pointed out that I didn’t get to work with her last week and I missed her. This helped. Perhaps she works with me to make me happy. She’d rather play. But for me, shell work. Sometimes.

It was a bit of teeth and hair pulling at the start, but by the end she did the assignment perfectly. At the first she was trying to distract me. I’m hip to that now. Then she wasn’t doing it correctly not just a little bit but a lot. I’d ask her to put seven beans in a cup and shed put three, one at a time, but then start grabbing handfuls to finish. She has small hands but it was way more than seven. I pulled them all out and had her count them back to me.
Smiling all the time with her impish smile, she counted it wrong again and differently. I kept trying to redirect her. No dice. So I switched to another task.

It was still numbers, but approaching them in a different way. If a crowbar won’t work, try a pair of pliers.

There was a sheet with hearts and stars and circles on it. There were several, and they weren’t quite in a row. The best way to count them was to mark through them one at a time to make sure something didn’t get missed or counted twice.

V wasn’t hot on that. She wanted to race ahead. I slowed her down and insisted that we do it slowly and told her about how sad the different images (stars, hearts, etc.) are if they don’t get to be invited to the party. They all want to go, and if they don’t get counted, they get left out. This seemed to work for a bit. Then she said something that didn’t make any sense. I asked her again, and essentially what she said was would I miss her if she died.

I said that of course I would miss her. I look forward to working with her every week.

I don’t think she meant died, so much as do I notice her, is she valuable. I get the impression that she’s an afterthought at home. I’ve said several times to her how much I look forward to working with her the next week. I want her to stay in school. School, and reading in particular, is the cure for where she is headed with the family she’s stuck with.

I care for her a lot. And then I can’t care. I can’t get wrapped up in this, because I can’t take her home. I can’t save her. If I get personally involved in the situations of the kids I’d get to tutor I’d need a much bigger house and I’d have to quit my job to care for them because I’d have to adopt them all. I do what I can. I give them the tools to help themselves. And then I have to walk away and try again with someone else. I have to hope that the next teacher gives them a few more tools. And then I have to hope that the students pick them up and use them.

So after that, she redoubled her efforts. She slowed down. She got it correct – all of it. No racing ahead, no being silly. She got it.

I celebrated with her, just as if she were my own child learning how to walk, or talk, or read. She can do all of this. She has it in her. I know it.

alone

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I haven’t been alone in a long time. I’m relearning how to do it.

When I moved to my house I planned on learning how to be alone. Then I met Scott and he moved in rather quickly. My planned life of spinsterhood was changed. I’ve not really been alone since, not for any real length of time.

Shortly after we got married he left for the weekend. Literally the weekend after we got back from or honeymoon he left. He drove all the way back to Grandfather Mountain. I cried myself to sleep. It was really hard and it seemed unfair. I’d just gotten him, and then he was going away.

He goes there for working weekends twice a year. It has taken me ten years to adapt to this, to not dread it. Now I’m starting to look forward to it because it means I have more time to work on my painting and writing. I have more time to work on me, instead of working on “us”. I find when we are together, we don’t do our own things. There are a lot of things I am learning I need to do on my own, and I can’t do them with him here. Writing is one. That isn’t a very social action.

Before, when I lived alone in my apartment, I’d be stoned. So I was alone, but not present. I didn’t like being by myself. These days I’m relearning how to be alone but not lonely.

He has to spend time at his parent’s house these days because they are feeble. They really need to go into assisted living. That is a decision for him and his brother. But in the meantime he isn’t around as much as usual. Recently he had to spend the night. I have a suspicion that this will become more and more frequent.

In the past that would have freaked me out. What would I eat? How would I sleep without him there? I’ve gotten very used to him, and I’m kind of using him like a crutch. The more I do that, the less I remember I can walk on my own.

The ability doesn’t leave, or get weaker. We just forget. Not knowing you can do something is more powerful than having a physical disability. If you think you can’t, you won’t even try.

Conversely, if you think you can, you can move mountains.

So I tried. Instead of getting fast food (which isn’t really food) I cooked some vegetables. I had a nice supper and I felt like I had invited myself to a party and the guest was me.

I like that feeling. I’m actually looking forward to him not being here again so I can treat myself again to my own cooking, and have time to craft or read whatever I want.

1000 – a picture is worth a thousand words.

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I hadn’t planned on writing any fiction. I started my blog as a way to explain the symbolism behind my poetry. Then I couldn’t figure out how to upload pictures to it, so I started writing my observations and opinions instead. Then I started writing poetry because well, my Kindle almost does it for me. But I certainly didn’t plan on writing fiction.

There was that time when I was at the eye doctor’s office and I decided to write about who might have lived in the building that wasn’t there anymore. But that was a fluke. I didn’t mean to do that. I was bored at the office, waiting to be called back. It was entertaining me to invent these people and their lives.

But then it happened again.

I painted a painting, but not anything of reality. I put blobs of paint on a canvas and swirled them around until I liked them. I wasn’t planning anything. I just was playing, receiving. I was letting the Spirit guide me.

I was creating, not re-creating. I wasn’t drawing anything specific. In a true way, I was re-creating, in the sense of relaxing. I was letting go of my ideas of what had to be and just letting it be.

Then I looked at it and saw something. Kind of like a Rorschach test but without the creepy business of being in a doctor’s office. It looked like a scene with murky light. I could see a rock. I started to imagine where this was and who would be seeing it. A story was developing.

I decided to set a limit of a thousand words, because a picture is worth that, right? I started to ask more questions. Where is this? How did the viewer get there? Who is it? What is the character’s backstory?

Soon I had a thousand words. It is a very short story. I thought I was through.

Then a few days later I painted a different scene, unintentionally continuing the story. I’d painted other things in the meantime and they hadn’t triggered more of the story. This did. I wanted to know more so I wrote more.

Now I am interested in this character and I want to know what is going to happen next. I have no idea where this is going. I’m not sure how long it will last.

I’m trying to decide if I should stick with the idea of painting a picture first and then writing a thousand words about it. Or, just write, and don’t set a limit, and don’t worry about the illustration.

Most books are written first and illustrated later. This started off backwards, but it still started. I’m amused by it, but this is normal for me. Things never seem to happen the usual way for me.

I want to write more nonfiction too, but I have limited time. I’m wondering if this is a distraction, too. Is writing a work of fiction a way to avoid doing the hard stuff of thinking about heavy topics?

Or, is it just a different way to write about it? I’ve noticed that even when I create predictive text poems, the same ideas that I wrote about in my longer, thought out pieces seem to come through. And they seem to get more “likes.”

In a way this bums me out. I’d like to think that the stuff I pour my heart and soul into would get more attention. But then, this is a fast paced world. People don’t make time to even chew their food. Why would they read something that is three pages long when they can get the same idea from a short poem?

The thought is what matters. The package doesn’t. And no matter how I package it, the thought shines through, even if I wasn’t planning it.

So I’ve decided to write anyway, whatever format it is. Paint anyway, or not. Just let it be. I just need to make time to do it, whatever it is.

The pool of God, and betrayal by the lifeguard.

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Right now, in my relationship with God, I’m about at a seven. When I was at Cursillo, it was at a ten. I want ten again and yet I’m terrified of it.

I feel like I’m being set up for a fall sometimes when I go to my spiritual director. She wants me closer to God, so close that we are together. So close that my actions and thoughts are married with God. Like we are one. Like the whole “I and the Father are one” kind of thing.

I had that at Cursillo, and I got busted for it. I told my priest what was going on and she nodded and smiled, and with her actions told me everything was fine. When I came back from Cursillo and the experiences were still happening, she told me that everything was not fine. She told me that I’d fail the psych exam for the deacon process. She told me that she was putting the process on hold. She told me to stop talking about how God was talking to me, because “it was a conversation stopper.”

I felt betrayed then. I’m afraid of being betrayed again. I’m afraid I’m being set up.

I’m not sure who to trust sometimes. That was an authority figure telling me to not get close to God, that what I was experiencing was crazy.

I know the feeling of being so close to God that it is like we are dance partners. My moves were God’s moves. My thoughts were God’s thoughts. It was amazing. And terrifying. I wasn’t really oriented as to day or time. I wasn’t getting the bills paid. I wasn’t eating. It wasn’t a healthy relationship.

That was many years ago. I knew then that things weren’t well. I went to the hospital to get back to normal. Taking care of myself is important. I don’t want to be a burden to others.

All of this reminds me of when I was working in Waldenbooks. One of the sections I was assigned was illogically arranged. It was the New Age section and it was all by author. I came across stickers put out by the corporate office that had the subjects for that section. I wasn’t making it up. There was an official way to do it. I took the stickers to the assistant manager and asked her if I could do it that way. She said yes.

I spent the next hour taking apart the section and reorganizing it. I had a lot of piles. Then I heard a noise behind me. The assistant manager was standing there with the manager and the most surly and snotty employee. They all stared at what I was doing. The manager told me in no uncertain terms that I had to stop doing that and put it all back in alphabetical order.

I didn’t have the voice to say that I’d gotten permission to do this from the assistant manager. I didn’t have the voice to say that this way would make more sense for the customers. I didn’t have the voice to say that there were stickers from corporate, so I wasn’t making it up.

I was silenced.
I was squashed.

I felt set up for that embarrassment, set up by an authority figure.

I’ve carried that experience with me all this time, and I fear it is coloring my experiences now. At Cursillo I feel like I was set up for betrayal by the priest, who in her encouragement at Cursillo of the experiences that I was having, encouraged me to go deeper in that pool.

So now, when I go to my spiritual director and she wants me to go into that pool again, I’m afraid.

I want to say I’m not afraid of the pool. I want to say that I know I’m safe there. I can’t say this yet because I’ve not been in the deep end for long. Every time I get there I get afraid, or I get told I shouldn’t be there.

I’m starting to feel that the people who have told me that I shouldn’t be there don’t actually know how to swim. They aren’t afraid for me. They are projecting their own fears on me. So when I go to my spiritual director, I’m not sure what side she is on. I trust her so far. She’s not lead me wrong. But I trusted my priest too. I was even grateful that she was going to Cursillo. I thought she’d be a great guide and able to help me if I fell in too far.

I’m trying to trust now, not on the voices of the people that have influenced me for ill in the past or on the voices of any director or guide now, but on the Voice, on the Call that I hear. I’m trying to remember the times when I felt I was drowning in the pool, I knew it and I got help. I didn’t have to be rescued. I was aware, which is rare. I’m trying to remember that now I have learned a lot about how to stay balanced, and how to walk a tightrope in a windstorm. I think I can go into that pool, and go deep, and still be OK. I feel like I have to go deep in order to really hear, in order to know the truth as clearly as I can.

Giving voice to my fears has become my strength.

Poem – Message

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It’s like God
stops you on the street
to hand you a message
and your hands are full
and your pockets are full
and you are late
to a doctor’s appointment.

But it is God
so you want to take the message
so you put down your plastic sacks
because you went shopping
on the way to the doctor’s office
and the lines were long
and that is why you are late

and now your hands are free
but your coat is hard to unbutton
and you want to unbutton it
because you want to put the message
in the
inner pocket
of the coat
so it will be safe
and not get smudged
or lost.

I’d rather not
be like this.

I’d rather be checking in
all the time,
saying
Here I am God.
Do you have any messages
for me?
All the time
not just accidentally
not leaving it so God
has to tackle me
or bump
into me
on the street
for me to
stop
long enough to give God my time.

still point

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Being calm is like being in a small rowboat on a large lake. The motorboats speed by. The waves hit the boat. They threaten to overwhelm it.

The energy from unhappy people is exactly the same. You can choose how it affects you. Do you stand up in your boat and jump up and down, angry that they disturbed your peaceful morning? Doing that only upsets it more.

You can choose to affect them by your actions as well. You can be a force for good by remaining calm. You aren’t adding to the ripples.

When a child falls, he will often look to his parents to see what to do. If they freak out, so will he. If they handle it calmly, so will he. Sick people need to see how to deal with bad situations by watching healthy people deal with them well.

The more peaceful I get, the crazier the world seems to get. It doesn’t seem fair. They should get peaceful along with me. Maybe with time. Meanwhile, I’m trying not to let them rock my boat too much.

This is the same as becoming sober. You don’t notice everybody is drunk until you stop being drunk. Then they are annoying. You don’t notice how everybody reeks of cigarette smoke until you quit smoking.

The trick is to stay calm. Stay sober. Stay peaceful.

Answer the anger with a smile. Don’t yield to it. To yield to it, to agree with it, to follow it is to feed it, to give it energy.

The feeling of anger can be like a bell, calling us to prayer. It can be a reminder to still ourselves and find our center. In this way, a bad situation is sanctified. In this way, pain is a teacher and a friend.

You neutralize a flame with wind or water.

I’m trying to be a calm presence at work, where most of the unbalanced people are. There is still a lot of griping, even though the unhealthy managers are gone. I’m starting to realize that some people aren’t happy unless they are unhappy. Being miserable is their normal. Happiness scares them.

But boy are they harshing my mellow.

How do you know when you are an adult?

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How do you know when you are an adult?

Sometimes there are rituals and ceremonies. You’ve graduated college. You’ve gotten married. You get to see a change has happened. It is celebrated.

Or there are other milestones. You’ve gotten your first “real” job. You’ve moved out on your own. You no longer need a cosigner for credit applications.

In some African cultures, women are marked when they reach certain points in their lives. You can tell who is married and who has had a child for instance by looking at the scars on their bodies.

We don’t have such visible markings here. Our changes are internal. You have to let people know you aren’t a child anymore. The only external mark is a wedding ring, and not even that guarantees that you are an adult.

It is good to be childlike, but not childish. You want to be able to be independent. That is a sign of a mature person.

I knew I was an adult when my parents died. We had a next door neighbor who was at least 70 years old. I was instructed to call her Mrs. Miles when I was growing up. When my parents died, I started calling her by her first name, Margaret. I didn’t even think twice about it. She didn’t correct me either. To call someone by their first name is to say you are equals. Previous to my parent’s death, we weren’t equals. But now we were. I’d gone through a trial by fire and come through (mostly) intact.

The sad thing is that my brother never got the message that I was an adult. He kept treating me as lesser. I was his little sister and he was determined to “keep me in my place.” It didn’t matter to him that I was 25, and had taken care of our Mom the whole time she was sick, and had handled the entire estate on my own.

To him, I was lesser and would always be. In reality, he was treating me as lesser to make himself feel better. He was pushing me down to raise himself up. He couldn’t accept the reality that his “kid” sister had done all the hard work and he’d run away from any responsibility. I’d proven I was an adult, and he’d proven he was a coward.

I refused to let him treat me as a child, and I still refuse it. I refuse to allow him or anyone to treat me in a disrespectful manner. If it means that the relationship has to be severed because of that, so be it. Life is too short to spend with people who are not kind. Life is too short to let people treat you like dirt.

Part of being an adult is putting a value on yourself and not letting anyone bid any lower than what you are worth. To let someone treat you badly is to tell them that is OK.

Now, to treat anyone as lesser is also a sign of immaturity. Part of being an adult is to know your own worth and to establish it. But it also doesn’t mean that you get to treat anybody else as beneath you.

If you are going outside, put a hat on. You’ll be happier.

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Hats are the secret to happiness.

Now, I don’t mean any hat. Ball caps don’t work. You need something with a brim all around, like a fedora.

I’m a big fan of fedoras.

If it is raining outside, your head is dry. If it is cold outside, your head is warm. A wet, cold head is a bad way to spend your day. Best to avoid it. Wear a hat.

If it is sunny, the light isn’t shining in your eyes. You can angle it so you aren’t squinting. It makes for safer driving. Not squinting and not getting a lot of sunlight on your face means you aren’t getting wrinkles. How awesome is that?

Plus, wearing a cool hat is a great conversation starter. You get to meet all sorts of interesting people when you wear a hat.