What We Need Is Here

Butt Kicked, Taking Break

Moving is kicking our butts!  Having survived the packing, hauling, cleaning, and grieving of moving from Home A, w are now hauling, unpacking, organizing, and further downsizing in Home B. I already love it.  But it is no place close to being really liveable (more like camp-able at this point).  Plus I am leaving in a few days to visit my parents for a week, then returning for a few days before heading to Guatemala to visit Joe... then to the Georgia moutains for a family reunion at the end of the month. So... I am going to face the fact that I am not going to be blogging here during July.

I hope you'll hang on and stop by again in August. I am so excited about living downtown, and we have lots of plans for the fall.  Hope July is good to you!

Fortune Cookie

Beware of large projects for which you have little time and few skills. 

Somehow we are going to be moved into our new home by Monday.  Or at least moved out of the old one; God only knows when we will actually be settled in the new one.  I have been painting for four days straight. I fall asleep thinking about pepto bismal pink (the color I accidentally painted the entry while I was trying for a nice, warm beige) and patching plaster.  My husband and I are alternately giddy at seeing things taking shape and threatening to leave each other.

We painted the largest room yesterday - 20x20 with 12 ft. ceilings, 2 doors, 3 windows and a fireplace to cut around - and lots of patching.  It took from 10am till 8pm.  While I was putting things away, I came upon the full cans of paint I had MEANT TO USE for the room - "Spice Delight."  Instead I had painted the room the color I had intended for the hallway - "Fortune Cookie."  Fortunately, it is just fine. In fact, I cannot imagine it any other color but freaking Fortune Cookie. We are so done painting that room. 

Two more days of painting to go. Then the relocation.  Like I said, the new owners take over on Monday, so we need to get moving! 

Attack of the Tomatoes . . . and a Killer Tomato Recipe

First it was spinach, now tomatoes. What's a salad-lover to do?  Buy local! 

While there is some confusion about which tomatoes are affected by salmonella, the fewer miles they've traveled and the less processing they've undergone the safer they are.  So those of us who have been growing our own and enjoying farmers market tomatoes can carry on.  Those of us who are buying from chain grocery stores and restaurants need to beware - be aware.  Local food advocates/activists have long suggested we ask at restaurants when we order where the vegetables came from.  Even if we're pretty sure no one will have any idea, it's a good way to raise awareness of the issue and to even start a conversation about why it matters.  Now more people will probably already know why it matters.

On the homefront, we had a bumper crop of salmonella-free cherry tomatoes as did the farmers in our area. We've been making one of our favorite summer dishes - Pasta Fresca - pretty regularly.  It's easy, quick, uncooked for the most part (so almost kitchen heat-free) and uses that wonderful combination of summer garden bounty - basil and tomatoes. 

PASTA FRESCA - from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home

4 cups chopped ripe tomatoes

6-8 large fresh basil leaves

1 large garlic clove, minced or pressed

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 pound butterfly (bow-tie) or fusilli pasta

½ pound mozzarella cheese, cut into ½-inch cubes

Grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese (optional)

Bring a large covered pot of water to a rapid boil.

Set aside 1 cup of the chopped tomatoes and 2 of the basil leaves. In a blender or food processor, puree the remaining tomatoes and basil with the garlic and olive oil until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

When the water comes to a rolling boil, stir in the pasta, re-cover the pot, and return to a boil. Uncover and cook the pasta until al dente, about 8-10 minutes. Cut the reserved basil leaves into thin strips (with scissors).

Drain the cooked pasta and toss it immediately with the mozzarella cubes. Add the sauce and mix well.  Top with the reserved tomatoes and basil, and grated cheese if desired. Serve immediately.

Carpe the Freakin' Diem

Three years ago, I had an opportunity to go to Guatemala for the first time but was so bogged down with day-to-day life, I couldn’t decide whether to do it or not.  The school gardens I was working in were in the middle of harvest and there were so many things that needed wrapping up at the end of the school year.  I was working long hours and had fallen way behind on house upkeep. The chaos of it all was just overwhelming.  When I told my college-age son Joe my dilemma, his response was to the point: “Go to Guatemala, Mom! Carpe the freakin’ diem.” I did, and it was a life changing experience. In the end, it changed Joe’s life, too. My relationship with the school and community in Ciudad Quetzal paved the way for his later funding to study and teach there. He’s there now for his third summer.

I was thinking of that conversation with Joe while I was cleaning up the rest of his room in preparation for moving.  Our youngest son, Johnny, now has the room, and I was sorting through the last vestiges of Joe’s things and packing up some of Johnny’s before moving on to the next room which belonged to Megan, Anna, Grace and Riley at different times.   I was overwhelmed with memories of my grown children embedded in all the mess; I could imagine each of them around 8-years old: Anna (25) practicing gymnastics, Megan (27) with art supplies strewn everyplace, Joe (22) setting up his tripod and organizing his photos, Ben (20) with his baseball cards spread all over. I was even getting choked up folding little Riley’s (Megan’s 3-year old) winter things, thinking about how big he’ll be next year.  I was flooded with those timeless, unanswerable questions parents are prone to confront during times of transition:  “Did I spend enough time with them?” “Could I have played with them more?”  “Will they remember me as a good mother”  “Was I a good mother??” “Do they know how much I love them?” I missed them so much all the sudden.  I wished I could do it all again.

I am still the same woman who, when they were younger and at home, would do a little dance on the rare occasion they were all out of the house at the same time - and would dream sometimes of a future when they were grown and gone and I would actually have regular time to myself, where I could just be myself and not always at everyone’s beck and call. And I am truly glad that I have arrived here at this place in my life where I have more freedom and can even finally down-size a bit. But I still miss them. And I am awash in all the contradictions.  I am happy and sad.  I am overcome by all the losses and gains.  I wonder how to find any firm ground to stand on when things are constantly shifting and changing.

Later the same day, I got a call from my mother about my father’s recent neurology appointment, confirming he is indeed experiencing the beginnings of dementia. He is not the same as he used to be. He is going too.  I remembered driving with my dad when I was 12 or so, with the top down to our convertible, talking. I probably remember it because it was so rare to have time with him, and very rare to have it alone.  I can hear him commenting on the beautiful day and myself responding with something like “It’s not as pretty as North Florida; I miss the trees.”  I remember him slowing down and explaining earnestly that it was beautiful just like it was and that someday we would look back at that exact time and think how happy we were, that our family was all together right now, and who knew what the future would bring. Something like that.

I wish I could have my dad back. And my children. At all their ages and stages. While I was lying in bed awake last night, staring into the dark and wondering what we are here for anyway, why it hurts so much sometimes, and how we are supposed to live with all this uncertainty, my husband rolled over closer and put his head on my shoulder and took a deep contented breath.  I could feel his curls against my face and as my mind spun through this life we're catapulting through together, I felt I knew at least one true thing: We’re here to love each other as best we can, right now.  We’re here to carpe the freakin’ diem. This diem, right now.   Today.

Perfect Summer Supper

I think so anyway. I admit it’s hard to tell how much of my enamory (doesn’t spell-check, but it’s just the right word) with this meal is from good memories of similar meals from my childhood, and how much is from knowing it’s mainly local or that it’s nutritionally lovely.

My grandmother would have added a ham bone to the fresh black-eyed peas, and sometimes they would have been field peas instead – either way shelled by hand on the porch rocker. I can hear the plunk of the peas against the metal bowl. The corn muffins would have excluded rosemary and included a few extra eggs; I remember hers being very moist and spongy, and that she didn’t work from recipes.  The home-grown tomatoes, like mine, would have been simply salt-and-peppered, the corn local and buttered.  And, there was always meat served up with the veggies at my grandmothers: a slice of ham, a pork chop, or fried chicken.  

Even with these variations, it smells and tastes like hot, summer childhood vacation in Lake City to me. Just right.

Breakfast Al Fresco

Grace and I decided to have breakfast "in the fresh air" one morning this week.  We got up at the crack of dawn to beat the heat. After preparing a fruit salad of market blueberries, watermelon and honeydew, we rode our bikes the short distance to Westside Park.

It was so pretty and peaceful this early in the morning. Besides having fun with Grace - the only other one in the family who appreciates the many benefits of rising early even when you don't have to - I wanted to experiment with picknicking.  We won't really have a "personal" outdoor space once we move into the new house, and I know I'm going to miss our backyard and screened porch.

It wasn't hard doing the things we like to do there. After breakfast, we played a few rounds of the card game "Nine Hole Golf," and went for a little hike around the park looking for birds.  Unfortunately, there weren't many to be seen this morning - just a handful of crows and a few mockingbirds.  I have seen bluebirds at Westside before, which are rare in the suburbs, and I was hoping to show Gracie one.  We'll keep looking.  There are lots of parks and semi-wild places to explore in Gainesville.  And most have picnic tables.

June Garden

When I went out to work in the garden this morning, the title from a book on my shelf – Nature’s Unruly Mob – came to mind.  Sporadic rain, mid-90s heat, and my neglect while I have been packing have let things get a little wild. 

The tithonia had grown so tall it was shading the tomatoes and completely covering the peppers.  A big orange, decaying, volunteer pumpkin (from a seed in the compost) is a shining example of why we don’t grow Halloween pumpkins in Florida, the broccoli was bolting, and EVERYTHING needs water.

The beans are still coming up nicely though, we are getting about 40 cherry tomatoes each day, the last of the corn was melt-in-your-mouth delicious, and the sunflowers are lovely.  We planted two of the giant kind – the traditional Russian Mammoth and “Sunzilla” next to each other to compare. Sunzilla wins! It’s leaves are larger and its stem (trunk) has buds up and down it instead of the traditional one flower on top of the Mammoth.  Both are eye-catching and fun in the garden though, as are the little guys.

I have to say it is a good thing, though, that we are not relying on this garden to feed our family as the neglect has lost us some produce. It was good for the soul though to keep the garden in spite of the moving chaos and the fact that we will leave before everything’s ready to eat.  Grace and I are throwing out sunflower seeds as we remove the spent plants.  Happiness to the new owners.

And I am dreaming about community gardens and SPIN gardens and guerilla gardens in our new urban home (when I am not lying awake obsessing about the termites in the wood floors...). 

The Right Home

As I have mentioned before, our new home will have half the living space (for our family; we are sharing the house with others) and also has ZERO closets.  A lot of de-cluttering is going on here while we prepare for our move at the end of June.  I’ve got quite a bit of orphan stuff that needs a new home.

The easiest thing would be to bring it all to a thrift store and be done with it.  But I have recently become more savvy about what happens to most of the stuff we donate. I think we soothe our consumer-consciences when we drop things off at a thrift store, thinking our trash will become another’s treasure.  But unfortunately a lot of it just becomes their trash.  Take a look sometime at the huge dumpsters behind these places.  Clothing that is out of season, items of which there are duplicates already, and things with limited appeal and deemed not worth the floor space end up out back.  Cindy of Wastewear Daily is clothing herself (very nicely I have noticed) solely on perfectly good clothes tossed into the dumpster.  Even thrift stores have too much stuff.

The next option would be a garage sale, but I really don’t think I have the heart for it.  The whole process - from pricing to setting up to haggling to STILL having to cart off a bunch of stuff - seems overwhelming to me right now.

So far I have found a few great alternatives, one new to me that I am just LOVING: Craigslist.  I had heard of it but never used it before.  It’s quick, easy and free, and it connected me with some interesting people that wanted some of my more obscure items. A film student wanted my old 8mm movie projector and camera, an older fellow who collects cameras wanted my dad’s broken 1950s Argus camera, an elderly woman who is homebound wanted my scrap fabric to make quilts with, and a new grandma wanted my old patterns for little girl clothes.  Almost all of these items would have surely been dumpstered had I donated them.  I even made a few bucks.  In addition, the grief caused by my insane emotional attachment to this stuff is quelled a little by knowing I have found loving homes for them.

I am now going through books – another major attachment of mine – sorting through ones I haven’t read but want to, ones I'm finished with but might be nice to have at the CW House for guests, and ones that I'm prepared to part with. For the last, I’ll try our second-hand book stores first: Omni, Book Gallery, and Books, Inc.  The remainders will head off to the Friends of the Library for their annual book sale.  

Every time I begin to feel aggrieved again by all this hauling off, I have to stop and have a little talk with myself about how I am not being evicted, that I am choosing a new and simpler life and freeing myself of a lot of extra baggage by giving it to folks who will actually use it. Much better than my kids having to sort through all this stuff someday (and probably end up throwing it all in a dumpster). 

Early Summer Salad

What a great time of year this is for local produce!  We've got the last of the cool weather crops coming in, like salad greens and carrots, PLUS warm weather things like squash and cukes.  Then there are  precious early summer blueberries... and you can still buy shelled pecans!  I added the tender ends of the ever-present smilax vine growing outside the kitchen door.  I have to say I have a whole different attitude toward that thing now that I consider it a vegetable instead of a noxious, child-snaring, clothes-ripping WEED. It still grows like a weed, but now it's stubborness and waving tendrils seem kind of touching, like a little kid trying to get your attention, shouting "Choose me! I'm good!"  It's all in the attitude.  And, honestly, it tastes like asparagus, which does not grow here.

I dressed my salad with my old standby - equal parts rice vinegar and olive oil, shaken together with a little salt - this time in a nearly-empty strawberry jam jar.  Just the right fruity flavor. Perfect.   

Responsibility and Happiness: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Lately I have been trying to trick myself into doing “the right thing” by reframing the issue I'm balking at. Instead of “I should ride my bike to the store to save gas,” I’ve tried “I’m going to hop on my bike and enjoy the beautiful weather on the way to the store!”  Instead of “I’ve got to take two hours out of my day to cook all these vegetables,” I think, “I’m going to make something beautiful and healthy for my family tonight!” and instead of “Ugh, I’ve got to haul all these clothes out to the line so I don’t contribute to global warming” (or add to the general warming of my household – it’s 95 freaking degrees today), I go with “How quickly the sun dries all these clothes in this heat!”  The exclamation points are important.  Sometimes it works.

Reframing is a good motivator, and it’s no lie that all these things have a very positive reason for doing them as well as positive outcomes.  It helps me get going, and keep going.

Right as I was beginning to think about this, I read this post from Chile Chews – Change the Focus - which got some interesting comments.  A lot of people seem to be struggling with how to motivate themselves to stay the course and wondering if being more "positive" might help. I like the idea; I do.  And like I said it’s not so much a mind over matter thing as being able to see both sides – the negative and the positive.  But the fact is some days I am just too tired or cranky to happily do anything more than I have to.  And when I just can’t make myself happy, no matter how many exclamation points I try, I think of Wendell Berry. 

Berry is a sweet man (I met him!! And, oh, I could live on the happiness of that event for a looong time), and a person who delights in doing things the “hard way.”  His poetry and fiction entice us to delight with him, to see the world with love and gratitude, as well as clear-sighted honesty.  But he is also a moralist, and this attracts me too.  Here’s an excerpt from The Unsettling off America, a prophetic book written over 25 years ago that he says he wishes didn’t foretell the future of corporate agriculture and loss of the local as well as it did:

"One possibility is just to tag along with the fanatisists in government and industry who would have us believe that we can pursue our ideals of affluence, comfort, mobility, and leisure indefinitely.  This curious faith is predicated on the notion that we will soon develop unlimited new sources of energy: domestic oil fields, shale oil, gasified coal, nuclear power, solar energy, and so on.  This is fantastical because the basic cause of the energy crisis is not scarcity; it is moral ignorance and weakness of character."

“Moral ignorance and weakness of character” – nothing snappy happy about that.  Just the facts. Sometimes it’s hard and we make ourselves do it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.  And that’s part of it, too. The beautiful thing is, almost every single time I do, it makes me feel better.  And when I screw up, I try to think of this handy quote from another poetic fellow who was ahead of his time:

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

So we just keep going, unflummoxed by our past foibles, day to day . We can do it. (!)