Good News + Pictures I Didn't Post, Nettles, Snippets

This is a hodge-podge post of scattered thoughts.


First time I hit "publish", I forgot to include a piece of good news in the past week: I had a poem accepted for publication! I hadn't submitted anything for ages, but the last submission I made was to Cirque, and they're publishing one of my poems in the Summer Solstice volume! Time to start sending submissions out again...


I'm including three photographs of nettles for the benefit of our friend David, who bravely ate the steamed nettles on a bed of caramelized onions with balsamic vinegar that I served last night, although he was mortally afraid of ending up with botox-lips. He concluded they were delicious--"Now, where can I find some of those?" 
They're everywhere, but if you don't know what you're looking for, how would you know?

I didn't take a photo of the beautiful nettles on caramelized onions, but I hope you can picture it.
I also chose not to take a photo of the mama moose bedded down with two tiny calves right by the highway these last few days. Walking home from my writers' group on Monday, I gave them a wide berth, walking in the middle of the road so as not to come too close. Moments later, mama moose awkwardly lurched upright, put her head down, and moseyed across the highway, leaving two improbably small calves, their umbilici still dangling, milling confusedly on the other side. She stayed over there several minutes. The calves, sensibly, were disinclined to step in the road.
I was so relieved when mama crossed back and rejoined them.  
It just didn't seem right to take pictures. Sorry, guys.

Speaking of pictures, I feel such gratitude for connection. At a time when I'm not very connected even to my own body, and in a limbo of decision-making, it's a good reminder. I'm not a visual person, and I didn't even catch that the photos of the two breakfasts in my previous post, light and dark respectively, were highly symbolic, until my giftedly visual friend Terry pointed it out. Thus artists collaborate, thus our own best work is more than what we make it.

Another picture I didn't post--another picture I can't post: I wish I could record and share the sound of the songbirds these days! The piercing plaintiveness of the golden-crown sparrow threads through the melodiousness of the song sparrow, punctuated by the persistent chirrup of the robin, the kazoo note of the chickadee, the throaty croak of the raven. When I'm outside picking nettles, their threading melodies make me feel the webbedness of air, the multidimensionality of sound, gold threads spangling what we think of as empty space. A beneficence.


I'm not doing great this week, and am realistic enough to recognize the unlikelihood of acceptance of my plea to my naturopath to let me stay home and figure this out myself because the whole 'searching for options' is making me worse with the stress. On a happier note, things are coalescing, and clarity is gradually congealing over my possible destination. I won't be able to update my blog initially, for as much as a month. It'll be a different me on the other side, no doubt.


Thank you to everyone who's pushed their comfort zone and talked with me about this. I feel gratitude to have given so many women the opportunity to open up to me about their own like issues. More gratitude for those offering Phil support.

Nostalgic Eggplant Dip, Eye of the Storm and a DIY Ergonomic Lifesaver

Greetings from the eye of the storm! The wind's been wuthering fit to shake the cabin all day, and I've been working up a storm, of necessity.

So far today, I've written a critical essay for my MFA packet, recorded a lecture for my class (here's the recording software on one computer and my script on the other)...

our cabin, the recording studio!

...written another lecture, done some translating, done a bunch of editing, worked on my creative essay for my MFA packet, read, shopped, made meals, and done some pre-prep for a special food item for a few days from now. Whew!

I think I "earned" getting to write a blog post!
So, I want to share what I did with that eggplant I mentioned, and also to share an unlikely bit of exercise equipment that may save my life in this current deskwork crunch.

When I got an eggplant in my Full Circle Farm box, of course I wanted to make something like I made with my grandmother! But I didn't want to roast the eggplant over the gas like we did, just too hard to clean up here. So, I pierced it in several places and baked it as hot as my little oven can do (450) for an hour or so, until the skin was completely blackened.

I scraped all the innards out into a two-cup glass bowl (that has a handy lid for taking along). Ahem, sorry about the photo!

You can see how it's still full of its own juices and with that wonderful eggplant texture.

Because I didn't char the skin, I added a couple drops of liquid smoke.
Then, the juice of half a lemon,
two cloves of garlic,
a sprinkle of cinnamon and clove powder, of salt, and of cayenne pepper,
two tablespoons of tahini.
At my grandmother's, I "blended" it with a knife, a fork, and a grater. This time, I was very grateful to use my hand-held blender, to make it smooth and creamy right in the bowl. Garnished with a little smoked paprika.

Made me think of my grandmother and also appreciate what I have here. If I'd want to "extend" this, I'd have added a cup or two of cooked chickpeas and made eggplant hummus. With one medium eggplant, this didn't make a huge amount of dip. But honestly, it's so good, so tangy, fresh and "immediate"-tasting, I wouldn't have wanted to extend it!

Speaking of extensions, I need all the help I can get remembering to extend all the muscles that get contracted when I'm hunched over notebook or computer screen. Normally, I'm terrible at getting up and stretching, although a physical therapist told me a couple years ago that I really need to do so every twenty minutes of this kind of work. I'm proud of myself that today I finally pulled out this "stretch helper," which I haven't used for months!

The physical therapist had me lay along a foam roll, to extend my back and shoulders and do core-strengthening exercises. She urged me to get one of my own and do it at home. Being the frugal, resourceful folks we are, rather than buy a foam roller, we repurposed this cardboard roll that had held Bituthene (nasty stinky sticky construction insulation)(thankfully the cardboard isn't stinky). I was skeptical that it would hold my weight, so we stuffed an old piece of French drain down it too, but it sure does hold me with or without.

With my neck and shoulders starting to twinge and tingle in bad old ways, lying on this thing felt so right! As busy as I've been, I've felt motivated to lie on it five or six times already today.
Spending thirty minutes or so per day on the rebounder (in two or three sessions) is also a lifesaver, and I'm off to do that next, and then, some poetry before bed, so I can take the ideas to my dreams!
Do you have any ergonomic lifesavers?
Have a great week!