For some, a day off entails strapping thin strips to the bottom of their boots and careening downhill on snow. But for me, a day off is a tamer endeavor.
No, it doesn’t include running, yet, but it did involve a lot of moving around.
I’ve decided to take at least one day off from external influences each week. Whatever fresh hell today brought, I can learn about it tomorrow. Body-mind-spirit all require relief from the stress of knowing what the usurpers are doing. Seriously, if they don’t break our spirits first, the stress alone could break our bodies. Every day this week I’ve engaged in several forms of activism, and today is a day off to nourish my resilience.
Which of these will be the final whimsy piece in the puzzle?
Another warm, springlike day motivated me to open both doors for some fresh air in the house. With music to help me move, I was in and out all day, cleaning the mudroom, the patios, carrying some things to storage in the yurt, feeling grateful for the wildlife and the woods, and for the emergence of the first tender crocus leaves in the yarden.
Though Wren looks ferocious, she’s just playing with the doe, who stands and watches as Wren charges past her and races around the yard.
Closing in on it, Kathleen’s Rule goes into effect: If you pick up a piece you have to place it.
…and then there was one…
On the evening I finished this puzzle, Changing Light, Changing Seasons by Brad Gorman, I stepped outside to a similar sky. A moment of layered joy.
This week’s best sandwich so far included chicken salad with celery and plenty of red onion, chopped romaine, mayo on both slices of rye, and sweet blueberry jam tempering the heat of the onion.
I’m grateful for fresh, homegrown Florida grapefruit. I saved some seeds from the last one to try to sprout, but then I learned that citrus seeds need to stay damp in order to germinate. So I opened my second-to-last Christmas grapefruit today and carefully supremed it so I didn’t damage a seed.
I’ll save and dry the peels, then use them in a variety of ways from tea to cleaning vinegar. Or maybe I’ll just compost them, we’ll know more later. I harvested four perfect seeds and planted them in four pretty little pots, after clearing space for them on the second shelf on the grow rack.
I’m grateful I was able to keep my attention in my home today: no outside influences, so that I could focus on housekeeping, spring cleaning, fresh air, music, movement and playing with plants, with joy and gratitude, without distraction or distress.
And then I baked. Another project that’s been on my mind for awhile like planting citrus seeds has been maple-pecan scones. This time I added a few dried tart cherries in with the toasted nuts, and remembered the egg wash before I put them in the oven. These turned out perfectly! So simple, so delicious. Then I glazed them with Mount Mansfield maple cream, which sets with a firm shell but remains melty soft underneath. I can hardly wait to wake up alive tomorrow and enjoy one with coffee.
Wherever you are, whoever you are, I hope that you find a way to nourish yourself today: pause occasionally to take a few deep breaths, get outside, move to some music, indulge in a treat; be kind to yourself, and be kind to someone else.
It was time for a puzzle. Time to listen to dharma talks, wise and compassionate podcasts, and good music, and spend a few hours a day immersed in a Liberty puzzle. Liberty… Let that word sink in. It’s been a hell of a week in US government, and there are plenty of intelligent analysts writing about it, so I won’t dwell on the politics of the trumpscape: though I am reminded of my grueling nightmare after his first inauguration and my sense now is that we’re not even halfway through the violence of that dream. My conclusion remains the same: You might steal my nights, you bastard, but I won’t let you have my days.
So I recommit my days to teaching and learning mindful skills to alleviate suffering where I can and to strengthen my own courage and resilience. I spend some time each day nourishing myself with soul food which sometimes looks like a wooden jigsaw puzzle. This week’s puzzle feels especially appropriate in this mind-bending time-warp we find ourselves, with everyone except straight white males in America now targeted for oppression and worse by a politics of cruelty. It’s a painting from 1936 by Archibald John Motley, Jr., known for his joyous depictions of the early 20th century ‘Jazz Age’ and identified with the Harlem Renaissance which celebrated African American culture across the arts.
Some of my companions during this puzzle this week have been Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison and Sensei Chodo Robert Campbell of the New York Zen Center, Robert Hubbell of Today’s Edition on Substack, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., Roshi Joan Halifax of the Upaya Zen Center, and father of western mindfulness Jon Kabat-Zinn. Earlier this evening I listened with dismay to Dr. Jeremy Faust and Dr. Atul Gawande in this 24-minute conversation about the unfathomable approach of the new regime to federal public health initiatives, including halting PEPFAR, the US program that has saved more than 21 million lives by providing HIV medications. The fallout from ending this program alone will kill many people in this country and around the world, never mind the death toll from stopping other global health initiatives with widespread benefits. Is that their goal?
Among the many delightful whimsy pieces this close-dancing pair fit beautifully into the image. Do you see them, below?
There are a fair number of delightful bugs in this puzzle, including this… beetle? fly?
I spent some quality time in the kitchen this week also, including making a retro-casserole called Mamaw’s chicken and rice. It couldn’t have been easier, and I wanted something simple and a lot so I could take most of it to an ailing neighbor. I used organic chicken but everything else was standard cuisine, including instant rice and three cans of Campbell’s cream of soups. So simple, pretty darn good. And I felt good about making and sharing it. More and more as these years grind forward we’ll be needing to take good care of one another in every way we can.
And my final culinary endeavor to wrap up a thoughtful Saturday is a lemon chess pie. I’m still not happy with the laminated pie crust I’ve been practicing with, and think next pie I’ll revert to my regular old short crust pastry. But the lemon custard inside? So simple, sooooo delicious!
No Buy New Year got off to a rough start: I spent $500 at the vet yesterday. But that’s ok, veterinary and human health care is exempt, and so are absolute necessities. The goal of No Buy New Year is not deprivation, but it is a type of renunciation.
Now that I have this fine, manual bread (and other foods) slicer (bought in December), I can finally be happy!
Like many Americans, I have more stuff than I need. I’m getting older, death is certain, time of death uncertain, and I’ve been trying to pare nonessentials from all facets of my life for years with limited success. Why is it so hard to winnow things? Because our American culture (now, tragically exported to most of the world) insists that we need more things, and that having more things will make us happier.
Beautiful uniform slices without the effort or the danger of a dulling bread knife.
I know for certain that this is not true, after five years of dedicated mindfulness practice. If you want to know how you can also know this for certain, you’ll need to take the Mindfulness Foundations Course I teach online. It is so much more than can be summarized in a few paragraphs: but trust me, getting and having more things will not make you happier. Some things have uses, some carry important meaning, and many are not “just things”; but some of the things I have I don’t even remember where they are, and when I run across one I may not even be able to recall why I bought it.
This happened awhile ago with a kitchen tool. I couldn’t figure out what it was for, so I passed it on to another kitcheny friend, assuming she’d make some use of it. Only when I bought a new iteration of a corn cutter did I realize that was the purpose of the tool I had given away. I don’t cut that much corn off the cob, but on the rare occasions I do, I prefer to have the right tool for the job. This new one looks like it will be easier to use, but maybe I should label it anyway, summer corn is a long way off.
Listening to this marvelous podcast with Noelle Oxenhandler on the drive home from the vet added yet another layer of meaning to No Buy New Year. Partly, I just want a more streamlined space to dwell in, but I also want less to clean, less to care for, less to care about. So I’m trying to thin my things, and at the same time let go of attachments. Noelle’s interview gives some insight into the cultural conundrum of continually buying more things while at the same time contending with clutter. You don’t have to believe that everything is Buddha, but her discussion around the true nature of things might help me let go of more of them.
I will, of course, still be buying flour.
Here are my No Buy New Year Rules:
1. Keep a box for things to take to the thrift store, and put something in it every day: clothing, kitchen tools, pantry items I’ll never eat or use, knickknacks frippery and ornaments I can bring myself to part with, anything I can let go of.
2. Letting go also includes cleaning out the three spice locations (turntable, rack, and drawer) and composting everything I haven’t used in two years; same rule applies to the pantry. I’ll check the freezer first before I make a grocery list, and buy groceries only twice a month, making sure to use up or compost as much as possible before buying more groceries.
Tonight’s zoom cooking with Amy is a great example of this strategy: instead of buying new onions or tomatoes, I dug through the freezer to find a bag of frozen roasted homegrown tomatoes and some of last year’s onions, and some pesto. We threw together a simple and delicious puréed tomato soup with white beans.
There was also puff pastry in the freezer, cheese in the fridge, and spices on the shelf. We each created our own version of a pull-apart flower. Mine was filled with pesto, cheddar, and Parmesan cheese, and brushed with egg white which I had in the fridge leftover from a custard I made the other day.
A simple supper with ingredients on hand that will provide several more meals.
3. No new clothes. I have enough clothes. I buy more because I covet a certain color or texture of sweater or pants, or style of shirt. I have enough clothes, enough hats, jackets, coats, gloves. Other people don’t. I have too many clothes. Unless an essential clothing item becomes unwearable from age I won’t replace it; and no succumbing to tactile temptations.
4. No new tools. I have enough tools. Any kitchen, household, or garden tool I ever imagined a use for, I have already. If a new use arises, I will make do with an inventive application of tools I already own.
Full disclosure, I did prepare in advance for No Buy New Year. I bought a couple of high-value items after the election. I don’t think the president-elect will be able to enact all his nefarious plans that will bolster the billionaires and create suffering for the rest of us, but I do think he’ll succeed with some of them. I certainly don’t expect the price of imports (or groceries, or gas, or taxes, or anything else) to go down in the coming year, and I personally prefer not to support whatever economic agenda comes out of the incoming regime.
I think that about covers it. At the moment, I can’t think of anything else I’d be liable to buy this year — oh wait! Plants! Seeds! But I firmly believe that I either have all the seeds and stock of plants to propagate any more plants I could desire or need, or I’ll be able to trade for them. So, I’m ready for No Buy New Year. Wish me luck!
A laugh for the day: the doe is fascinated by Wren pooping. Wren is wearing the donut of comfort to help her recover from an infected scratch.
It’s their third winter together. I had hoped by now they’d be cuddling in front of the stove. I was grateful to see them lying peacefully, but seconds after I took this Wren succumbed to the Topaz vibe and gave up the rug, went back to her pillow. Oh well. At least they’re communicating in their own way.
The broccognocchini that kept on giving. For the second leftovers, I sautéed sliced portobello mushrooms and the next-to-last garden onion, then tossed in the gnocchi and more tomato sauce. Simple. Delicious.
The third leftover meal was even more simple, gnocchi boiled, drained, back in the pot with more red sauce, topped with parmesan and fresh chopped basil from the sunroom. The fourth and final leftover leftovers from the night before came out of the fridge, got a dollop of mayo, half a can of cannellini beans, celery salt, a sprinkle of homemade paprika, a sprig of fresh parsley, and an accidental cat hair I only just now noticed in the picture! Ick. And oh well. Hope I shook it off before I broke up the parsley but I don’t remember. The salad was delicious anyway. And so simple.
And now for something completely different! I’m grateful for a gold star at my three-month post-op visit. How the time has flown by! On the one hip, I mean hand, it’s hard to believe it’s been that long: I still remember that full moon night in the hospital vividly, and how utterly helpless I was when I first came home. On the other hand, it feels like a long journey from then to now, walking around without the cane half the time in the house, squatting to put firewood in the stove for the first time in years, shoveling snow, going up and down stairs like a grownup this week. Because the PT exercises gave me such trouble in my right hip initially, they x-rayed that as well as the left hip last week. The news was great for both hips: mild arthritis on the right side, just a little pinch at the front but a good smooth ball joint, “nothing like the deterioration of the other one”; and good bone growth starting onto the socket cup and top of the post in the right hip. He could see it, I can’t, but I’m willing to take his word for it. Not for the first time in my life, I’m grateful for x-rays.
Driving home after a successful venture out into the world, I was grateful to see this beautiful big buck strolling into the woods along the driveway. I paused and savored the vision. He was like my prize for a good doctor visit, for good healing, for taking care of myself.
I was grateful I wasn’t the teacher this morning, so I could stay in bed a little later than usual. It was cold and grey all day with around five inches of snowfall, significantly more than the half inch predicted. Topaz looks like she wants to go out but she hates snow more than anything; possibly as a result of her unauthorized journey almost five years ago when she lived outside alone for a month in winter.
I’m grateful that I have some twice-baked potatoes in the freezer for easy heat-up going into this solstice season.
Though my pasta dough didn’t turn out quite as well as Bello’s, I tried his simple two-ingredient pasta last night with boiled broccoli and flour, zapped in a food processor. The motor on my small unit started to grind so I dumped out a sticky mass and had to knead in a lot of flour by hand, but in principle it worked! Then I boiled water and simply scissor snipped bits of the dough off into boiling water and cooked for awhile; meanwhile, frying some bacon. I dried the bacon, drained the pasta, and tossed the little broccognocchis into the hot pan, and added a little parmesan as they continued to cook.
Bacon crumbles and more parmesan on top, and it was a delicious – though ever so greasy – dinner. There was enough dough leftover to make three more meals, so one of them was lunch today, vegetarian this time, with an organic roasted garlic tomato sauce, sourdough toast with butter, parmesan, and grated granulated garlic. So simple, so delicious. I’m grateful for playing with my food, and for parmesan cheese.
I gave thanks this week for the wonderful dinner my neighbors shared with me, and for the leftovers I enjoyed creatively all week long. I baked a pie to share with them, Vaughn Vreeland’s coffee-maple chess pie, which looked a lot better than it tasted. Oh well. The laminated crust was great but it shrank so much in the parbake I had to use a smaller pie tin. I’ll try the crust again with a regular chess pie the old fashioned way.
The first leftover day I made a sandwich with avocado, mayo, blueberry jam, cheddar cheese, lettuce and turkey, which tasted a lot better than it looked. Then, knowing I could never finish all of everything and would have to freeze some of it, I threw some of everything (turkey, garlic mashed potatoes, chestnut stuffing, green beans, turkey, and a splash of cranberry sauce) into a pot with a pint of chicken stock, and simmered and stirred until I had a creamy, delicious, chowder-like soup. Which both looked and tasted delicious!
Then I made turkey salad, also including some stuffing and green beans, along with mayo, mustard, and Penzeys spicy salt, enjoying that one day on toast, and another day with the last of the warmed up potatoes and stuffing. I’m grateful for the generosity of my neighbor and for having fun with food.
I had been wanting to bake homemade English muffins for awhile and had the little metal rings in the pantry waiting, when the need to bake them finally arose. I tried them two ways: one instruction had me place the greased rings on a griddle and fill them with dough; the other had me put the rings on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven. In both cases, I filled the rings too full, but the breads turned out light and puffy anyway, and perfectly adequate. I’ll try the griddle method again with a different recipe.
Today’s lunch was ‘eggamuffin,’ a treat from my days in the swamp when my neighbors and I breakfasted together frequently at their trailer. Oh those days in the swamp! I lived in a retired military quonset hut split into a duplex, along with a ragtag assortment of other mostly single residents in other huts, trailers, and a cabin or two, surrounded by live oaks, at the edge of a sinkhole that had filled in with water and was a magnet for herons, frogs, and the occasional alligator. Such a different habitat from the sere mesa I wound up on, both so dear to me in their own ways.
Maybe the best turkey of all this week was the flock of wild turkeys who wandered through the yard this morning! In the thirty years I’ve lived here I’ve only heard them in the woods a few times, and seen a couple outside the fence one time. It was a startling thrill that pulled me away from washing dishes when I caught my first glimpse of one strutting past the south windows. By the time I got to the east window they just kept coming, ultimately more than a dozen of them, strutting and pecking as they went, moving steadily.
I watched, delighted, until they had all moved through the yard and jumped the fence. It crossed my mind to send Wren out there to catch one for us to eat, but she hurt her paw in the snow the other day and wanted to lie on the heating pad and lick it instead. Just as well.
Another lovely morning at the pond, with Wren, Biko, and Topaz snoofing around underfoot as I enjoyed a latte and pastry, both seasoned with Penzeys cinnamon, and pure vanilla extract.
Most of my lunches get a dash of Penzeys Sandwich Sprinkle somewhere, like this smoked gouda and avocado toast. I made the refrigerator pickles with their Pickling Spice, and the salad dressing with their Chip & Dip Seasoning.
An essential aprés-lunch nap…
For today’s lunch I decided to try the vogue ‘chopped salad’ trend. I like my salad pieces small, but I resist some of the food fashions, like ‘smashed’ this and ‘burst’ that, so I hadn’t tried this one yet. It looked so simple on Instagram. They laid some lettuce on a cutting board, piled on a few other things, and started chopping. There was mention of a recipe but who needs it? I piled cherry tomatoes, red onion, artichoke hearts, feta, olives, basil leaves, half an avocado, and some garbanzo beans on top of the lettuce, a dollop of mayo, a dribble from both the artichoke and the olive jars, and shook some Penzeys Za’atar on top, then started chopping.
It was messier than I’d expected, but I persevered, using a dough scraper to contain stray vegetation. Whilst chopping I thought often that it would have been easier just to chop some ingredients separately as usual, tear the lettuce, drop in whole olives, beans, pickles, and tomatoes, making a normal salad and tossing with dressing, and could all this sloppy effort really make a better salad?
I was pleasantly surprised. I really liked the even distribution of flavors and textures, more surface area thoroughly coated with the makeshift dressing, and the uniform pieces which enabled me to eat a smaller forkful packed with flavor. Still just a bowl and a cutting board to clean afterward. Thumb up on this trend, I’ll probably do it again. And of course the ingredient variety offers endless possibilities.
I’m grateful as always for Penzeys. If you don’t know Penzeys and you love to cook, or love to share your love through cooking, check them out. Just in the past two days of meals shared above, I used six different Penzeys seasonings. Every day I use their spices at least once, and I enjoy reading their staunchly patriotic emails. Yesterday’s brought a link to this marvelous video of VP Kamala Harris entering a Penzeys store in Pittsburgh. The customers didn’t know she was coming. It’s worth a minute forty-five of your time.
When the video went viral, it ticked off Fox & Friends, on which one host read aloud from Penzeys webpage About Republicans: “Going forward, we would still be glad to have you as customers, but we’re done pretending the Republican Party’s embrace of cruelty, racism, COVID lies, climate change denial, and threats to democracy are anything other than the risks they legitimately are.”
Penzeys’ manager Bill counted that as a win. He wrote the next day, “There you go. Friday starts like a normal day. Saturday the future President of the United States hugged our customers in our Pittsburgh store. Sunday the words I so wanted every Fox viewer to hear being read on Fox, by Fox straight to all their viewers. What a weekend.”
I’m really looking forward to surgery. I’ve finally come to full acceptance that this is how things are, and now I intend to make the best of it. No more resistance, no more blaming myself for so many choices: food choices through the years, choices that led to so many falls through the years, the choice to practice extreme yoga which led to at least one hip injury. No more ‘if onlys.’ I’ve remembered that millions of people suffer from arthritis, inherited and/or acquired, and I am simply one of many; I’ve remembered that I suffered a debilitating tick-borne illness 35 years ago, one longterm consequence of which is frequently joint degeneration; I’ve remembered that I came by these bones from a father who was crippled by the age of 70 with degenerative spinal arthritis. I’m grateful the intervention to replace this joint has been perfected. It’s still a big deal, but as long as I don’t die, I’m confident I can handle whatever comes of it with equanimity.
Home and yarden preparations are coming along. I get a couple of good hours a day with energy and minimal pain, and feel highly motivated this past week to get things done. I’ve had a couple of potatoes sitting in the kitchen for weeks destined for gnocchi, and finally got that made yesterday. I’m grateful for the little pasta tool that made it so easy, and for the explicit directions that made the dough turn out so tender. Amy and I made the full recipe awhile ago, but this time I just used the dough part of it and made regular gnocchi instead of mushroom-stuffed. I’m grateful for Radio Swiss Jazz, which has become a staple while I’m cooking, and many other times as well.
I froze some of the gnocchi raw, to be boiled later; I’m stocking up the freezer for post-surgery. I boiled the rest of it and froze most of that, but saved enough for a light lunch. I fried them in olive oil and butter, and at the very end tossed in some basil. The basil lost most of its flavor when it crisped, so lesson learned: next time it goes on after plating. Still. So simple, so delicious.
While I’m recommending things, these cookies are THE BEST. I ordered them from Thrive Market, but found the company website with lots of other sweet and savory treats.
Desert four-o-clocks in the morning sun. I’m grateful for the resilience of plants! I think I’ve mentioned this before. So much that the grasshoppers did NOT demolish.
I used up the last of the peaches this morning, with these easy puff pastry peach turnovers. They’d have been delicious plain, but I added a little sweetened cream cheese inside with the spiced peaches for a Danish-like twist. Some of these will delight my next few mornings, but half of them went into the freezer so I can share a taste of the peach tree with special friends coming soon who have missed the harvest.
As I prepared lunch today (below) I reflected on how grateful I am for the wonderful food that I get to enjoy every day. Sometimes I feel self-conscious posting so much food. I’m still discerning the relationship between hedonic sensory pleasure and the concept of genuine happiness that is derived from living a meaningful life in alignment with my core values. The two are certainly not mutually exclusive, but I think I walk a fine line. As the queen of rationalization, I can’t be sure where my values around good food blur into pure gustatory delight. Either way, I want to move to the village in Italy where my friend Maya assures me that the main topic of conversation is food. The first thing everyone asks, she said, is “What did you eat today?” I’m grateful for a delightful and meaningful zoom with her this evening where she shared this gem.
The peaches are small but bursting with flavor. One bite and the juice drips down your arm. The sweet fruit falls away from the pit. They smell delicious. I didn’t weigh the two baskets I picked but they were full. This afternoon I shared some with a few neighbors and instead of getting rid of things I came home with one bag of tomatoes, one bag of cat treats, one large bag of lettuce and basil, two small tarragon plants and two small willow trees. How’d that happen? I’m grateful for great neighbors.
I froze a few, plan to give another few away, and will enjoy the rest of the peaches one way or another. One way is peeled and sliced atop vanilla ice cream, with just a splash of maple syrup…
One more garden success was the few beets I planted on New Year’s Day. It only took them eight months to mature! Their greens succumbed to grasshoppers early after I opened the heat tunnel, but then recovered when I put the screen tunnel over them. I was delighted to harvest a few decent beetroots, with another half dozen still growing now that the grasshopper plague is fading.
In pond gratitude, Wren continues to make new friends (a young garter snake) as I continue to excavate the proper outlet channel. The hard work is done. The net and muck shovel have arrived, and we’ll see how those work for clearing the pond bottom.
Wren enjoyed showing her little friend our pond project the other day while we were puppy sitting.
And Topaz enjoys supervising Wren’s work while I enjoy morning coffee.
In Cheese Sandwich gratitude, I continue to innovate. Above, fromage fort on toast, with avocado and smoked kippers. I’m thankful for my friend who suggested herring as an affordable alternative to salmon, and to my personal shopper for making the effort to find some in the big city. I enjoyed them in a salad also, and just ordered half a dozen tins online. Below, avocado toast with Brie and homemade bread&butter pickles. So simple, so delicious!
Garden Buddy brought over a bag with a notebook of instructions, sample rag strips, and crochet hooks, and gave me a lesson. I’m grateful for her generosity in providing not only all the materials I need to finally learn to hook a rag rug, but also her time and confidence that I’d get the hang of it. My first effort (below) started a little rough, partly because I’m learning, and partly because I chose to start with a favorite old shirt that was so worn it kept tearing apart as I pulled it through the loops.
But I’m persevering! It’s not a perfect circle like Garden Buddy’s are, but that’s okay.
The Pond Project continues. This morning I took the photos above, to show the root masses and silt, and also the clarity of the water once it’s finally visible again. This afternoon, 95℉, I went in and cleared some more slabs of reeds. Below is a slightly wider angle on the same stretch above, after another hour’s work. I built a wall taller than Wren with the rushes I removed.
And then I rested… ahhh! Looking back on the progress: I cleared a canal from the north end where there are steps to enter, along the west side, and across to the southeast edge where there is a built-in bench. I’ve taken the recommendation of an Australian physiotherapist to add water therapy to my exercise routine: I don’t think this is what he had in mind, but the truth is, simply being in the water eases the pain. He said something about about hydrostatic pressure alone being beneficial. I’m grateful that my wrists and shoulders are strong enough now to do this work again, even though I let it lapse another three years, making it that much more challenging.
This morning I baked some burger buns, in anticipation of tonight’s dinner…
I’ve been wanting to try these Mushroom turkey cheeseburgers for a couple of weeks, and finally had time and all the ingredients, including an onion from the garden (more about garden onions soon!) I’m grateful to learn this trick: You pulse the mushrooms in a food processor with a pinch of kosher salt, and then squeeze them finely chopped in a clean towel, releasing a bunch of liquid, and leaving a mass with much the texture of ground meat; then mix in with the ground turkey, make patties, and grill. So simple, so delicious!
