Miracle

Yesterday I received a miracle. I’ve probably missed millions of miracles each day. But yesterday’s miracle hit me in the “this is a miracle and cannot be ignored” sort of way.

Funlayo came to bring me a few supplies (milk, bread) because of the overzealous PT session I been to on Thursday. She said she had something special to give me and took out a red-foil wrapped goodie. Then she began to tell the tale behind this tiny package.

She’d been in Helsinki last weekend. While there, she met someone she doesn’t see often, or know well. He came up and asked her if her mother was "Susan". He was looking for Susan. He had contacted someone else about Susan and had been directed to another person with that name. He quickly realized she was not the Susan. But he told Funlayo that when he saw her, he knew that she was the right “Susan’s” daughter.¨

He’s an interpreter and had been working in Turkey with a group visiting Edirne (formerly Adrianople). Among the group were three young women from Iran, who became very excited to know he lived in Finland. They asked if he knew Susan, because they wanted to send her a gift.

Merci Khanumha your miraculous gift has been received.

In the heart

Early decisions can make for some challenging moments throughout life. I encountered a poem when I was thirteen. I’ve no idea who wrote it, or which magazine it was in – I suspect it was in Chronicle of the Horse but I’m not sure now. Definitely it wasn’t in any of the glossy teen garbage that I bought occasionally, and it wasn’t in a school book. Chronicle of the Horse was the only magazine I subscribed to and at that time it was black-and-white slightly better than newsprint quality. I think the poem was on paper like that. I do not remember the entire poem either, which is most unfortunate. It went something like this:

Hold all life tenderly

Lovingly

But not in an embrace

For that is limiting

Hold only in the heart

There was more to it than that and I wish I could do more now to credit the author and publication.

At that transitional age, 13, I saw that grasping someone - the embrace – was no guarantee of keeping them. I have the memory that the poem implied the opposite. Love required allowing the loved one to go. I decided several things more or less at that same time. I would love my loves in my heart and get out of the way if they chose to leave, and that I would not accept a guy who ditched someone else for me, on the premise that if he’d leave one for another, he’d leave me eventually too. I decided I would not compete with another to “get” someone. Instead, I would hold each love only in my heart, and that is where they are.

Musings

I haven't mused in a while - at least not here. It's quite normal for me to muse while walking mutts, or semi busy doing other things that don't take consentration.

The past few weeks have flown by in a blur. My days are fractured and irregular, so anything that requires planning and doing needs the space of time in which to get it done. Because I had to plan an Academic Reading course, something I haven't taught in a couple of years, I needed swaths of time to focus on that.  The planning phase is now over, the first third of the course is done. Most of what remains involves what the students actually do. Therefore I have a breather now.

I began the breather by reading Marked the first of the House of Night series. I was rivited to it for a couple of days - it only takes one consentrated day to read, but having read it once I had to read it again, and then I dipped into some of my favorite sections. Once the first third of my course was over I came home and watched Twilight (Thank you Hanna for the loan of both!). It is spectaculary performed, in spite of its deviation from the book - I assume though I have NOT yet read the books, rather I'm basing my opinion on the unfinished raw version of Midnight Sun available as a pdf download from Stephanie Meyer's website. This latter presents Edward Cullen's take on meeting Bella, and it is supurb! I HOPE that Ms. Meyer's will eventually be able to complete it in spite of everything.

What with all the vampyre and vampire things I began to contemplate a "course" on Vampires in in literature and film. It should be interesting. It would be more interesting if one of the participants were a vampire.

Other than these musings, I have only one other: this Thursday I should be able to see, study and examine a real finished version of the blouse that I am trying to make. Since I only got a few color copies of how the fancy stichery ought to look, and basically no guide lines on how to put it all together, where facings go, where they don't, what sort of neck opening, what kind of button holes, and about 30 other questions, I really can't proceed without a better understanding. I certainly will not waste time doing fancy stichery on something only to find out that the pattern really is wrong in even more places - currently the collar is WAY too long, the cuffs aren't right, so I suspect there just might be a few other details that need close attention. Which reminds me: I need to buy mm graph paper so I can remeasure EVERYTHING.

Two recipies

I do not remember which TV program I saw this recipe on sometime in either 2001 or 2002… but the host(ess) was visiting a posh New York NY restaurant and lemon garlic chicken was prepared. I’ve made this several times since. Here’s what I do:


Lemon Garlic Chicken
4-8 boned skinned chicken breasts
2 lemons, squeezed
5-6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 Tbs oil
Salt to taste

Coat frying pan with oil, sprinkle minced garlic into pan, place chicken breasts on top of garlic. Sauté gently, turn and sauté other side gently. Add lemon juice. Sprinkle salt on top. Simmer gently to reduce lemon juice almost to caramelized state – it is nice to have a bit of the lemon garlic sauce left over. Turn chicken regularly to be sure both sides absorb the lemon garlic flavour as they cook. Rice would accompany this very well and left over lemon garlic sauce can flavour the rice.


This second recipe is more traditionally Finnish, from the eastern part of Finland

Karelian Stew
¼ - ½ pound of beef and the same amount of pork. These can be second cuts and should be cut to bite size pieces. I do not trim the meat.
Onion: 1 large, or 2 medium, or 4-5 small cut in chunks
Garlic 3-5 cloves coarsely chopped
Bay leaf
Black Pepper – to taste
Water to cover

This can be made in a crock pot, or cooked in a glass casserole, but I prefer to use a cast iron pot with a lid. Assemble ingredients, place into pot, put lid on and put the pot into cold oven (unless using a crock pot). Turn oven on, set at 325 F, 140 C. Cook for at least three hours. Add water, add salt to taste. Serve with mashed potatoes.

It is possible to add other things to the stew, but traditionally it is this basic. Things like carrots and turnips would most likely be side dishes: first boiled, then mashed to puree, then allowed to sit a day before being baked as casseroles.