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.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
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:
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Happy Hat
This hat is worked from the crown to the brim. I was using up bits of hand-spun yarn that were sitting around. By and large the yarn was of a similar thickness. I took some care in guessing at how tight or loose to knit so that differences between yarn thicknesses were minimized in the hat. I saved my thickest warmest yarn for the part of me that is always cold: my ears, so that means for the last 6-8 cm (3-4 inches). That is also the part I knit most snugly.
Choose yarn in colors that make you happy
To duplicate this style you need a set of double pointed needles (dpn) and a circular needle (cn). Select needles appropriate for the yarn you use – I chose a size smaller than most would have used because I wanted a dense warm hat.
On one dpn cast on 3 stitches, slide to other end and
Join,
Row 2: knit one, yarn over, k1 yo, k1, yo.
Row 3: knit (six stitches)
Row 4: k2 yo three times, now is time to add two more dpn spacing stitches evenly among them.
Row 5: knit (nine stitches) These nine are the basis of the spiralling pinwheel crown. You may want to add a stitch marker so you know where your row ends.
Row 6: k1, yo to end
Row 7 and all odd rows till crown ends: knit
Row 8: k2, yo to end
Row 10: k3, yo to end (your yarn overs ought to be falling in an ascending spiral)
Row 12: k4, yo to end
Row 14: k5, yo to end
Row 16: and all even rows until crown is large enough: keep increasing one knit stitch by knitting pervious yo stitch before adding next yo
When you determine that the crown is large enough for your hat, cease making yo’s. Knit round without adding. Hopefully your work will be large enough to allow you to switch to cn. Knit without adding stitches until the hat is about long enough. Then use k2 p2 ribbing to complete the desired lasts rows of the brim.
I made my hat extra long because my ears always seem to creep out from under my hats and freeze. The extra length, snugly knit with thicker wool in a ribbed edge, keeps my ears well covered and warm.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Finishing
I have finished Leila’s yarn. Perhaps you know what that means, perhaps you think you know. Here’s a brief pictorial walk through the process I call finishing yarn.
First I spin the singles. In this already posted picture you see the left-overs from spinning singles for the first skein of yarn as well as that first skein.
In this second picture both the bobbins are on the lazy kate. You can tell there is less of the lighter blue. Perhaps there wasn’t quite as much wool to start with, or it could be that the lighter blue single is slightly thicker than the dark blue. Either could contribute to the discrepancy. This photo was taken after the second skein had been plied.
This third, out of focus, picture shows the knot tying the two singles to the leader – the yarn attached to the bobbin. I am ready to ply.
The fourth picture shows how I keep some tension on the two singles until the twist is sufficient to allow the yarn to wind onto the bobbin. The singles go between my fingers, under them, and back up between the next fingers. I keep plying until one of the two singles ends.
The fifth picture shows what I do when one single ends and I still have quite a bit of the other single left. I start wrapping it around my hand, using my middle finger to reverse direction.
The sixth picture shows the full amount of single I still have to ply back on itself. Given that the finished yarn has over 90 meters of the dark blue two-ply, and that some of the original single would be taken up with twist, there must be over 200 meters of singles yarn here. My next step will be to extract my middle finger from this and “wear” this bracelet around my wrist while plying. The single flows fairly freely from two directions, creating a two ply.
The seventh picture shows me winding the two ply onto the niddy noddy to create a skein. My niddy noddy is a handy two meters making it easy to estimate the length of the yarn.
The third skein, still on the niddy noddy, tied in four places.
Next up comes washing. I wash in the hottest water I can get from my tap. Then I rinse in cold water, and follow the rinse with a second rinse this time hot again. The process helps shock the wool into remembering its original curl and should help keep it from seeming to shrink later.
I don’t have a photo of the wet yarn being whacked on the wall. This further helps full the yarn but also helps remove the water from it. Finally the yarn is laid out to dry. There are 216 meters plus 94 meters in the skein on the left with the dark blue yarn. The skein on the right is 368 meters. The only things left to do with this yarn include: weighing each skein, labeling them when dry, and then giving it to Leila.
First I spin the singles. In this already posted picture you see the left-overs from spinning singles for the first skein of yarn as well as that first skein.
In this second picture both the bobbins are on the lazy kate. You can tell there is less of the lighter blue. Perhaps there wasn’t quite as much wool to start with, or it could be that the lighter blue single is slightly thicker than the dark blue. Either could contribute to the discrepancy. This photo was taken after the second skein had been plied.
This third, out of focus, picture shows the knot tying the two singles to the leader – the yarn attached to the bobbin. I am ready to ply.
The fourth picture shows how I keep some tension on the two singles until the twist is sufficient to allow the yarn to wind onto the bobbin. The singles go between my fingers, under them, and back up between the next fingers. I keep plying until one of the two singles ends.
The fifth picture shows what I do when one single ends and I still have quite a bit of the other single left. I start wrapping it around my hand, using my middle finger to reverse direction.
The sixth picture shows the full amount of single I still have to ply back on itself. Given that the finished yarn has over 90 meters of the dark blue two-ply, and that some of the original single would be taken up with twist, there must be over 200 meters of singles yarn here. My next step will be to extract my middle finger from this and “wear” this bracelet around my wrist while plying. The single flows fairly freely from two directions, creating a two ply.
The seventh picture shows me winding the two ply onto the niddy noddy to create a skein. My niddy noddy is a handy two meters making it easy to estimate the length of the yarn.
The third skein, still on the niddy noddy, tied in four places.
Next up comes washing. I wash in the hottest water I can get from my tap. Then I rinse in cold water, and follow the rinse with a second rinse this time hot again. The process helps shock the wool into remembering its original curl and should help keep it from seeming to shrink later.
I don’t have a photo of the wet yarn being whacked on the wall. This further helps full the yarn but also helps remove the water from it. Finally the yarn is laid out to dry. There are 216 meters plus 94 meters in the skein on the left with the dark blue yarn. The skein on the right is 368 meters. The only things left to do with this yarn include: weighing each skein, labeling them when dry, and then giving it to Leila.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Jack
Who's Jack? Jack's the guy next door.
You know verb tenses can be wonderful, but I do wonder whether I should use the past tense or the present tense when speaking of Jack.
As a kid, the "guy next door" was Billy. Gordy lived across the street and Alex and Mike lived up the street. They were part of the tapestry of growing up, playing pirates, cowboys and Indians, hopscotch, and wild bike rides. Except for their names and a few B&W photos, all of them vanished from my life when my family moved to Tryon, NC. Jack did not live next door.
Next door, if I can say that our house had "next door" neighbors, lived three old maid sisters: the Miss(es) Nash, and in the only other house in the vicinity a widow Mrs Capers. In fact Jack lived out in the valley and we never encountered each other until 1998 when I was also living in the valley and first met Jack as "the guy next door."
I am not sure exactly what the guy next door is supposed to mean. Is he the one who teases you all the time when you're both little, is almost a brother but not quite, who as you get older doles out advice on dangerous "boy" topics telling you who to avoid, the fellow who'll fix your car, or knock some jerk's lights out if the jerk threatens you? Or is the guy next door the jerk? It really doesn't matter, does it? Jack and I had missed all those opportunities.
Jack was home fixing up the place. He'd had it rented, but the renters had moved on and Jack wanted to make a few changes before renting it again. Suddenly the place which had been quiet was the typical stir of things being changed. But he wasn't in a hurry to get things done either, and soon enough he vanished back to Tennessee where he lived.
That summer he returned a couple of times to continue working on his house, and he came over to introduce himself and invite me to play tennis or golf. That was when he became the guy next door. He professed himself surprised that he had missed me in school, after all we had gone to the same school. I replied that it wouldn't have done him any good if he had noticed me, unless he would have foresworn baseball in favor of horses. Possessed of the confidence of maturity, he couldn't imagine I, as a young teen, would have been all that immune to his charms. Thoroughly enjoying this natter myself, I retorted that at 13 I had been exceedingly shy, rather ugly, and five years his junior, all of which would have challenged the likelihood of gaining his eighteen year old interest. He considered that notion but seemed skeptical.
Prior to one trip to buy supplies for the remodel, he dropped by to ask if there was anything I needed. I had been thinking about getting a saw. He asked what kind, probably enjoying the fact that I hadn't thought of which kind of saw I needed. He offered a few options. All I could come up with was a good general, all purpose sort of hand saw. Hours later I had a fine hand saw and had learned a bit about saw teeth. It was the first saw he gave me.
The house I was living in didn't have any windows that opened. This particular solution had been taken to help make the place a bit more energy efficient. I hated it. In the summer of 1999, Jack offered to replace one. He'd've replaced all of them if I'd asked (and paid). But the place wasn't mine, so I didn't see a need to change more than one window, providing fresh air and a fire exit.
We exchanged phone numbers and from time to time would call each other. One memorable call came one night when I had crashed on the sofa, exhausted from work. Groggy and irritated at having my sleep interrupted, I answered the phone with a cross "What?" There was a pause, then Jack's voice exploded: "WHAT?! WHAT? That is no way to answer the phone!" At which I burst into tears of tired laughter. Jack had a way of making me laugh.
In May 2000 he came over to help me move to Chicago. I-40 East between the Tennessee border and Canton NC is a nasty bit of road. I took it several times after Jack made the trip to help me move to the city. He kept me sane in the big city with his practical NC feet-on-the-ground humor phone calls and his letters.
He didn't tell anyone he had cancer. He had decided not to treat it, preferring to put his time and energy into living. The first anyone knew about it was when he didn't show up for work one day. Jack ran his own construction firm. His foreman went looking for him and had to rip down his door to find Jack too weak to move. Of course Jack was hospitalized. I found out about it only after the Christmas card I'd sent was returned in January 2001 with a note that the addressee was deceased. Tryon is a small town: what happens to one Tryonite will be known by at least one other Tryonite. I got the details later.
Like many, I believe in "life after death". I have as much proof of it as is available to the rest of the world. For me Jack will always and forever be the guy next door.
You know verb tenses can be wonderful, but I do wonder whether I should use the past tense or the present tense when speaking of Jack.
As a kid, the "guy next door" was Billy. Gordy lived across the street and Alex and Mike lived up the street. They were part of the tapestry of growing up, playing pirates, cowboys and Indians, hopscotch, and wild bike rides. Except for their names and a few B&W photos, all of them vanished from my life when my family moved to Tryon, NC. Jack did not live next door.
Next door, if I can say that our house had "next door" neighbors, lived three old maid sisters: the Miss(es) Nash, and in the only other house in the vicinity a widow Mrs Capers. In fact Jack lived out in the valley and we never encountered each other until 1998 when I was also living in the valley and first met Jack as "the guy next door."
I am not sure exactly what the guy next door is supposed to mean. Is he the one who teases you all the time when you're both little, is almost a brother but not quite, who as you get older doles out advice on dangerous "boy" topics telling you who to avoid, the fellow who'll fix your car, or knock some jerk's lights out if the jerk threatens you? Or is the guy next door the jerk? It really doesn't matter, does it? Jack and I had missed all those opportunities.
Jack was home fixing up the place. He'd had it rented, but the renters had moved on and Jack wanted to make a few changes before renting it again. Suddenly the place which had been quiet was the typical stir of things being changed. But he wasn't in a hurry to get things done either, and soon enough he vanished back to Tennessee where he lived.
That summer he returned a couple of times to continue working on his house, and he came over to introduce himself and invite me to play tennis or golf. That was when he became the guy next door. He professed himself surprised that he had missed me in school, after all we had gone to the same school. I replied that it wouldn't have done him any good if he had noticed me, unless he would have foresworn baseball in favor of horses. Possessed of the confidence of maturity, he couldn't imagine I, as a young teen, would have been all that immune to his charms. Thoroughly enjoying this natter myself, I retorted that at 13 I had been exceedingly shy, rather ugly, and five years his junior, all of which would have challenged the likelihood of gaining his eighteen year old interest. He considered that notion but seemed skeptical.
Prior to one trip to buy supplies for the remodel, he dropped by to ask if there was anything I needed. I had been thinking about getting a saw. He asked what kind, probably enjoying the fact that I hadn't thought of which kind of saw I needed. He offered a few options. All I could come up with was a good general, all purpose sort of hand saw. Hours later I had a fine hand saw and had learned a bit about saw teeth. It was the first saw he gave me.
The house I was living in didn't have any windows that opened. This particular solution had been taken to help make the place a bit more energy efficient. I hated it. In the summer of 1999, Jack offered to replace one. He'd've replaced all of them if I'd asked (and paid). But the place wasn't mine, so I didn't see a need to change more than one window, providing fresh air and a fire exit.
We exchanged phone numbers and from time to time would call each other. One memorable call came one night when I had crashed on the sofa, exhausted from work. Groggy and irritated at having my sleep interrupted, I answered the phone with a cross "What?" There was a pause, then Jack's voice exploded: "WHAT?! WHAT? That is no way to answer the phone!" At which I burst into tears of tired laughter. Jack had a way of making me laugh.
In May 2000 he came over to help me move to Chicago. I-40 East between the Tennessee border and Canton NC is a nasty bit of road. I took it several times after Jack made the trip to help me move to the city. He kept me sane in the big city with his practical NC feet-on-the-ground humor phone calls and his letters.
He didn't tell anyone he had cancer. He had decided not to treat it, preferring to put his time and energy into living. The first anyone knew about it was when he didn't show up for work one day. Jack ran his own construction firm. His foreman went looking for him and had to rip down his door to find Jack too weak to move. Of course Jack was hospitalized. I found out about it only after the Christmas card I'd sent was returned in January 2001 with a note that the addressee was deceased. Tryon is a small town: what happens to one Tryonite will be known by at least one other Tryonite. I got the details later.
Like many, I believe in "life after death". I have as much proof of it as is available to the rest of the world. For me Jack will always and forever be the guy next door.
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