Brick Burger

Brick Burger
Originally uploaded by Robert a.k.a Bob

Just watched a couple of old episodes of Northern Exposure. First one Holling asks Chris to be a partner in the Brick (because Holling is behind around $9000 in back taxes. Second one Dr. Fleischman is adopted into a tribe because a cortisone shot he gave Mrs. Noanuk made her feel much better. I love the interplay of the characters, the little side stories that play out at the same time.

I remember going to the Brick when the kids were way younger.  I have a photo of them in their bright clothes, leaning against a wall.  Used the image as our Christmas card that year.  We had lunch in the basement of the Brick, and the kids ran around the room.  I imagine what the atmosphere would have been like had Adam been in the kitchen...

Here's a little view of Adam, but not in the kitchen...

Artist's Way Journal - Week Twelve, (Eleven), Day Five

Nearing the end of the Penultimate week, and I feel miles behind.  Actually, even though I haven't been as deeply immersed as I would have liked, I still am getting something out of doing (in my half-assed way) this program.  

Right now it's fixing to storm out there.  Not the 3-5-inches we first expected--Cliff Mass (Prof. of Atmospheric Sciences) set us straight on that one--but a pile of rain and some wind thrown in to make things interesting.  Or something like that.  To me it feels colder than the low 40's, and I still wish I had a wood stove in here

, or a computer out by the wood stove.  

Cliff Mass info:

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mass.html

*   *   *   *   *

Question:  How did it come to be that we can "eat something up," you can "chow down," and I think Bob Marley says something about "eat(ing) down the hamburger" (which goes against the Rasta diet, of course)...

?   ?  ?

  

I wonder what Ireland is like right now.  We got sideways rain while checking out the Dingle Peninsula.  That was the worst day, and it was end of June at the time.  Ooh, there go the lights!  Flickering!!

Photo--driving on the Dingle Peninsula

Artist's Way Journal - Week Twelve, (Eleven), Day Four

I admit, today I'm feeling both overwhelmed and underwhelmed.  I had a minor anxiety attack this morning, which dissipated after I taught Pilates.  (I was pleased with the results.)  Pilates is good for many things.  

I am feeling anxious about the kids.  DD isn't feeling well, and I am worried she might be experiencing a touch of depression.  Granted, she's a junior in a new High School, and her brother is now attending her old school, and is getting used to diabetes.  Stress can make one tired.  Now it seems a sore stomach is involved, so maybe this is why she's down.  She did tell me that Monday was an unusually good day.  I was happy to hear that.  Maybe it's partly to do with being sixteen?

DS is feeling the effects of being behind in his homework.  He would really rather make animations on the computer and look things up on YouTube, and create things with Transformers and Bionicles.  But I'm getting e-mails from his teachers.  Well, one teacher right now...  I'm hoping not to hear from the others.  

Later in the day I taught weight-lifting, and felt better after that, too.  Even though DD is feeling sick, I'm feeling much less anxious.  DS got some Spanish homework done, and is in a better mood.  Friday is near.  Did I also mention part of my nerves come from the realisation that Christmas is less than two weeks away, and I haven't shopped?  

Sleep is in order.  Then a visit to the chiropractor tomorrow morning.  I want to get in some writing time.  We'll see if that happens.  We'll need to make a trip to the local Rite Aid to get new diabetic supplies tomorrow, and haggle with them about contacting our insurance so that they might actually chip in for this stuff.  I guess its marginally better than having no insurance whatsoever...

To bed.

Artist's Way Journal - Week Twelve, (Eleven), Day Three

Strange morning.  Nothing wrong with it except for the fact that it's not warm in this room.  The wood stove is out there, but the house hasn't warmed up enough yet to make a difference.  As I write, I think about multi-tasking I should be doing.  A little vacuuming up of the sheetrock

 dust DH made yesterday (he *

did* mop the floury stuff off of the tile floor), dusting of the fine white powder from my books and (way too many) object d'art, washing sheets, folding clothes, cooking, seeing to the

 sourdough bread dough which didn't do anything other than sag during the night.

To be fair, I must clarify.  DH, having gone into Seattle yesterday for a  dinner with DA, left me with the task of taking the starter sponge and turning it into dough.

Fair enough.  I've made lots of bread over the years, including sourdough.  I didn't get started right away, but the starter sponge was still quite bubbly.  As per the instructions I had in my head I added the honey, oil, salt, flour.  But, because I was "somewhere

 else" I added wheat flour.  No big deal, but our sourdough is usually always white.  Fine, I though, once I became aware.  After two cups whole wheat I finished off with the addition of white flour.  

I was multi-tasking at the time, and probably left the dough to knead in the mixer too long.  At any rate, the flour wasn't integrating well into the dough, so I took it out and kneaded it by hand until it felt even.  Dough seemed fine to me, so I dropped a little oil in the b

ig bowl we use to let dough rise, put in the tight round I formed, put the cover on, and went about doing whatever else I was doing at the time.  

This morning I expected to see a little action.  Not so.  If anything, the dough, as I said, relaxed.  No longer round, but a little flat.  Crap, I thought.  I was hoping this was going to be beautiful.  

So, after the kids got off to school, and I got Facebook, Stat Counter, and the mail done, I set about Phase Two of this bread-making lark.  

To the existing flat dough I added yeast.  (Shhh.)  I sprinkled some on the counter and kneaded it in for a few minutes.  Now, I've done this before to decent success.

  The dough felt good, responsive.  Not fabulously elastic, but passable.  I formed it into another tight round, and into the bowl it went.  This is it, about 30 minutes ago:

Bread's progress, phase 2

Okay, the fire I've stared hasn't gone out.  That's a plus.  Should help with the rising of the dough.  DH left enough wood in the rack to keep me going awhile.  He'll be back later in the afternoon, after helping DA clean out her basement.  That's a whole 'nuther story.  I have many memories of that basement, growing up.  

Fire's still going, and I am reluctant to move away from the front of it.  I have to admit, I'm feeling some renewed creativity.  Being alone in the house with the classical music station on, choral Christmas music playing, house is warming, bread is ... rising! ... I'm in a rare mode.  I hope it lasts.  I know I really should get some housework done...

*   *   *

So, I did get some housework done, and also some reading.  I'm halfway through Ch. 11 in Artist's Way.  Wish I had the book in front of me; there were some parts I wanted to quote for the sake of memory.  My Artist Date so far?  Reading this chapter in the tub.  Good for about an hour, minus the time on the phone talking to my mom.  DH took the call, and handed me the phone as I was stepping into the tub...

The bread is just now formed into loaves, and is rising (hopefully) in the clay pans.  The parts that absorbed the yeast best were puffy, but after 24 hours of waiting, I'm certain the gluten is just plain tuckered out.  Here's how they look now, just about 12 hours after the first photos:

Sourdough, phase 3

So, this is where I leave it for today...

Hopefully tomorrow morning will yield decently risen bread.  This is not anywhere near the way I did bread in the past, but...

GITANJALI

By: Rabindranath Tagore

 

In desperate hope I go and search for her in all the corners of
my room; I find her not.

My house is small and what once has gone from it can never be
regained.

But infinite is thy mansion, my lord, and seeking her I have to
come to thy door.

I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky and I lift
my eager eyes to thy face.

I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can
vanish--no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through
tears.

Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean, plunge it into the
deepest fullness. Let me for once feel that lost sweet touch in
the allness of the universe.

 

Artist's Way Journal - Week Twelve, (Eleven), Day One

Nuts.  I'm so off it isn't funny!  I've missed three days of writing!!  And why?

DH, who isn't working right now, needs a project.  And for years he's fantasized about remodeling the living space in our house.  So, over the past three days we've moved furniture around and around to see how it'll all (potentially) look before tearing into existing walls and moving the wood stove (which will be a job).  Long and short of it--it ain't so easy as it seemed at first.  

So, this is short.  I'll be checking back in tomorrow, hopefully with something a whole lot longer than this is!

Artist's Way Journal - Week Eleven (Ten), Day Five

Checking in with a photo of my Thanksgiving pie:

     *     *     *     *     *

Just went to a great workshop evening.  It was good to be back at it.  I brought a poem I really didn't think I was ready to share, and even though it needs much work, I'm glad I brought it, so that I could get some other perspectives on it.  They helped greatly.

          *     *     *     *     *

Also, the cinnamon rolls DH made that morning:

My poem is in three parts, and what is now part three was in the middle of parts one and two.  It needs more work.  But, I'm going to sleep on it.  Maybe something will come to me.  I'm always hoping for things to come to me in dreams, but wonder if maybe I'm asking for too much.  Perhaps I just sleep too hard; perhaps, I don't recognise what I need when I get it.  

Maybe I just don't know yet what I want...

Artist's Way Journal - Week Eleven (Ten), Day Four

It's been a long day.  I taught two classes at two different time, drove kids from here to there, and even now there is activity in my house.  It's after 10 pm, and DS is doing homework, DD is making cookies for a friend whose birthday was today.  Fortunately, (currently), they are both in agreeable moods.  Not so in the morning when they have to get up...  but being Friday, maybe better than most.

DH finished installing the new lights in the entry way and between the kitchen and dining nook.  Much nicer to be able to see, and it's been years in the planning.  Next is a new wall dividing the living room from the front entry way more completely.  I'm sure I'm repeating myself, but this is not unusual.

Pilates was pretty good today, but I think I lost some momentum with my weight training class. So it goes.  At least I feel better now than I did earlier.  

Crud.  DS just informed me casually that the needle in the needle tip he puts on his insulin pen dropped off.  No problem, he tells me.  It's on the floor, probably on its side.  It probably fell through the floor, he says.  

Note to self:  wear shoes until able to vacuum tomorrow.  

I need another poem.

So, this is a little heavier than I'd planned on, but I like it.  I've got it in a book on my shelf upstairs.  

The Portrait

My mother never forgave my father for killing himself, especially at such an awkward time and in a public park, that spring when I was waiting to be born. She locked his name in her deepest cabinet and would not let him out, though I could hear him thumping. When I came down from the attic with the pastel portrait in my hand of a long-lipped stranger with a brave moustache and deep brown level eyes, she ripped it into shreds without a single word and slapped me hard. In my sixty-fourth year I can feel my cheek  still burning.  Stanley Kunitz

  

This isn't my experience, but I can feel it powerfully.  It's amazing the secrets a family can keep, and not let go.

Well, I'm not in top form today, so I'm heading off to bed.  I swear I shall officially call these my Evening Pages, or my Late Night Pages, or the Only Time I Have A Quiet Time to Myself Pages....

Artist's Way Journal - Week Eleven (Ten), Day Three

Just a quickie before bed~

So, my Artist Date today was in the company of two wonderful women, both of whom are doing the Artist's Way at the same time.  It started out with the three of us meeting at the Kingston Art Gallery (gorgeous, BTW) so that I could photograph some artwork for the cover of Crab Creek Review.  I found a beautiful labyrinth plate in mesmerising shades of water and lavender. I'll photograph it and post it soon.  Just need to remember to do that.  The artist's name is Jim Gregory.  

This isn't my bowl, but a picture of work he does.  

This is a little blurb from his bio:

Jim has worked with glass for over 30 years. As a glass chemist, he makes glass from the raw materials using sand, soda, limestone, and metal oxides for colorants. As an artist, Jim cuts, stretches, blows, and fuses glass to make anything from traditional leaded windows to multi-colored fused glass room dividers.

http://jimgregoryglass.com/JGG/

http://www.kingstonartgallery.com/Main/Home

Chai and a perfect apple fritter for afters at The Coffee Exchange, and great conversation.  I really needed that, and it was so nice just to sit and talk.  These two women are great people, and fabulous poets.  I feel blessed having good friends, both here, and in distant places.  May they be so blessed themselves.  I know they are.

In the background the Celtic Women are singing on PBS.  The fish tank is gurgling and the pumpkin bread is cooling.  It is just good to write.  But now I think I'll shift into hand-writing mode, just to feel the texture of print-making paper sewn into and bound in a simple leather journal.  Being in the gallery today was a spiritual lift.  Friends, art made by local artists, and light coming through the many windows--a morning couldn't have been much better than that.

Artist's Way Journal - Week Eleven (Ten), Day Two

So I need to start reading the chapter.  Chapter Ten, that is.  I will be doing this again sometime.  I'm thinking the spring might be good.  But am I really that naive to think that there would be any less stress then, than now?  Mm.  

Today I discovered, for the first time, that the annual Stair Climb for Cystic Fibrosis is being done in the name of a little girl who died in 1999.  She was probably just a little younger than DS is now.  She was the daughter of a massage therapist where I work, and I don't think I ever knew about this until today.  I just know him as a really nice single guy who does great massage.  This of course goes to prove that each of us has a story that is deeper than anything we might have guessed through our casual everyday interactions.  

And it also serves to prove that life isn't that bad for us right now.  We may get mired down with concern and confusion about diabetes, and how things will pan out, the expense of the insulin and supplies and how totally crappy our insurance is, etc.  Really what we need to focus on is just how truly lucky we are.  No, let's take luck out of it.  Let's just say we realise just how blessed we are.  Sure things are hard right now, but things are a damn sight harder for someone else at this moment somewhere.  

Am I ranting?  Maybe in a way.  But it's not a bad rant, IMO.  I need a poem, and intend to go searching for one.

Here we are:

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS 

 

When despair for the world grows in me 

and I wake in the night at the least sound  

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, 

I go and lie down where the wood drake  

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. 

I come into the peace of wild things  

who do not tax their lives with forethought  

of grief.  I come into the presence of still water. 

And I feel above me the day-blind stars 

waiting with their light. For a time  

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.  

 

 

Wendell Berry

*   *   *

 

Info on the Stair Climb, and the site for Cystic Fibrosis:

http://stairclimb.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=285455 

(Also, be sure to click on In Memory of Jennifer Lynn Thanem...)

Artist's Way Journal - Week Eleven (Ten), Day One

Oh so short today.  I received the good news that one of my poems received a Pushcart nomination yesterday--I was very pleased about that.  

It feels as if I've been very inactive with regards to my poetry and the submission/publishing process.  And, though this sounds like a broken record at this point, it still remains true.  So, what am I waiting for?!

Also received, today, my copies of New Millennium Writings, with my two poems in it.  They look good, and again, it is a bit of a reality jumpstart to see the poems in print, knowing I have several others needing to get out into the world.  

So, off to bed for me...