Moving Pictures; or, Heart Like a Puri

Our blogging friend Anita announced a party, and invited us to join in the festivities.

Make puri, she exhorted; just enjoy the making and the eating, and then tell us all about it. Of course, I was delighted by Anita's invitation, and resolved to make the puri within the time frame that Anita had proscribed.

To make a long story short, I awoke this morning, the last day of the party, without having made the puris. I was feeling tired, a little deflated, a little out-of-sorts, and honestly didn't know if I would be able to make them.

I made a pot of rose tea, and added rosewater to my cup for that Extra Something. I sat in my grandmother's rocking chair, she who always was so much of the kitchen, offering the work of her hands from her kitchen at any occasion; for her, just being with you was as good as a party . As I drained my cup, the warm coral-pink cloud of rose from the last swallow of hot tea permeated my very skull, and infused into my very self, it seemed---warm, pink, vital: waking my senses and getting me out of the chair.

Here's the simplest of recipes to get you started, Anita offers cheerfully from her post.
How could I refuse such a gracious offer?


And so I began in the kitchen. I cleaned collards, and then put them in a crock to cook slowly in a pot liquor of smoked almond broth. As Little Guy sliced hot dogs with a Chinese cleaver, I made the puri dough following Anita's recipe, with only a small change: substituting some of the salty smoked almond broth for the salted water originally asked for.

LG went back to his playing as I added tomato paste to the sliced hot dogs in the pot, and cooked the mixture to a lovely reddish-brown. To this, two cans of bacon and brown sugar baked beans were added, and the pot left to simmer.

Though I had made pita breads countless times, and felt at ease with rolling out those breads while cooking them, I felt less at ease with cooking the puris as I rolled them. I decided to make all the rounds first, placing them on a big platter and covered with a towel, and then I would fry them.

As I rolled out the breads, I felt comforted by the crick-crick, crick-crick sound of my ring on the round pin. I felt happy as the dough stretched and turned, as the pin rolled around.

When the first circle of dough went into the hot oil, it bubbled happily and seemed to burst with joy, and I laughed out loud.

Come here, LG, I said, look at this!

Naah, well...okay, he said. Okay, all right, let me get my stool.

LG, perched on his stool, stood at the stove by my side as I splashed the top of that first puri with oil, and then flipped it. He watched with much exclamation as it continued to balloon and as I carefully brought it out from the oil to drain on kitchen paper. We both admired its beautiful, happy golden, glistening roundness. It was too lovely for words.

The next thing that I know, dear reader, LG has completely taken over the stove: he is using tongs to pick up a circle of dough to slip it into the oil; he is using a kitchen spoon to carefully splash oil on the top of the circle; he is checking the bottom, and flipping---his puris are puffing, and we are both wooping and clapping as if we were both tiny children.

I had no choice, dear reader, but to watch him and set the table in between puris.

So with vegetarian baked beans in hand, I joined my family at the table, to eat the collards that I had prepared, the beans and franks that LG and I had made together, and the puris that LG had cooked, for all intents and purposes, mostly by himself, with some salty gherkins on the side. This is the best dinner ever, LG said, happily and solemnly, all at once.

My grandfather had an expression whenever he was in the midst of eating something the he very much relished: there ain't going to be no rind.

So it was at our table today, as we toasted Anita and all those at the party.

From the moment that the rose cloud of tea awoke my senses to the moment the dinner was finished, I was so mindful of not only metta, embodied in the kindness of the kitchen, the kindness of the invitation and the gathering, but of ksanika, also known as point instant theory. This is a way of thinking about time, of the passing of time, and of the value of the moment: each moment is here and then never again; our lives' moments, the stories of these moments, are so very much as a movie, a flip-book---miss a frame, the story is changed, and perhaps even makes no sense at the time. What one needs to remember, though, is just to keep watching. The world is a beautiful place, a magical place, and in the kitchen today, I felt as if I were dancing with it.

I thought of the party, and imagined the individual frames, the moving pictures that were making up the story of a party, the story of a gracious hostess, and equally gracious guests.

I may not be able to see the rest of the pictures, but I felt so much the connection to the story.

Thank you, Anita. Thank you, dear guests and dear readers.
Remember: the plot may twist and turn; but the story is about beauty. It's about magic. It's about the metta that fits it all together.
Eat puris. Laugh together.
Enjoy the moving pictures.

Is Gumbo a Matador? Where Did Brick Get a Trident?; or, Procrastinating with Neroli

Last night I attended the first class of the second summer session of my school. Our instructor discussed her policy with us. We are dismissed earlier than the scheduled time, with one proviso: we are then to follow through to make up the time online by reading and digesting the online resource she provides, write a reflection on the resource, and then post it to a community board. The class is then able to read each other's reflection. Each student must also respond to one other posted reflection, thereby instituting virtual collaborative groups.

Dear reader, I awoke this morning with the Very Best of Intentions. I first replied to your comments. I wanted to write a post, one that addressed my need to cultivate mudita in my approach to this class. (Often when I meet people that I admire, dear reader, for their talents, I feel as if my learning curve will be most steep in order to keep up; in short: I can become intimidated if I am not careful. This is something I would not wish for you, dear reader, so it makes sense that I should work to avoid it for myself.)
I began to read more commentary on mudita. Time passed, as it always does. I resolved to visit the online resource for my class, and so I did. I began to type notes as I read.
Then Little Guy awoke. It was a beautiful morning, so we had breakfast together, and went outside. LG wanted to practice riding his bike without training wheels, and he needed some moral support; a male and female cardinal pair were chatting and flitting back and forth, and in the name of scientific inquiry, LG and I felt it best to take tea on the back porch and observe this charming pair so as to determine possible nesting locations, and therefore, best avoid disturbing the Happy Couple; soon it was time for lunch, and for the prepping of dinner.
One thing led to another, as they say, dear reader, and to make a long story short, we were driving on our way to see the World's Largest Hershey Kiss, Big Guy in tow, as his work shift was complete.
Is it real? LG asked as we approached the Venerated Object, the World's Largest Hershey Kiss.
Dear reader, he was answered by the wall of chocolate aroma we walked into immediately after he uttered the question, several yards away from the Kiss Itself.
Can I tell you in words how wonderful it was to be in the presence of such an object?
To celebrate, I had to buy the boys their chocolate confections of choice at the Artisan Chocolate stand: beautiful miniature chocolate pastries, served on a golden disk, eaten at a table beside the Kiss Itself.
Feeling happy and Good About the World, the boys began a favored activity: riffing on things that make them laugh. Thus, not only was I treated to a bite from each serving of pastry (fudge-filled shorbread, chocolate ganache-coated marble cake), I was a happily captive audience to my boys re-enacting a Mystery Science Theatre clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0n0EsHB0JY
and the gang fight scene from Ron Burgundy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Anchormenweapons.JPG

My homework?
I managed to finally complete and submit it before the writing of this post.

What helped me was chocolate: the World's Largest Kiss-induced happiness, courtesy of LG and BG, and my Chocolate Mainline Happiness, the recipe which follows.

Neroli's Chocolate Mainline Happiness

Bring to a near boil:
1.5 cups water

Add:
1 heaping teaspoon jasmine tea (Earl Grey would also do quite nicely).
2 plump green cardamom pods, crushed.
Steep for 3 minutes. Strain into a deep-walled saucepan, and place the saucepan on a warming burner on the stove.

Chop:
1-1 ounce square of 99% chocolate. I've used Scharffen Berger; it blends ever so nicely.

Add chopped chocolate to the strained hot tea in the deep-walled saucepan.
Whisk vigourously: not only to blend the chocolate, but to whip and froth the chocolate.

Pour into your favored drinking vessel.
Inhale the scent and drink happily, dear reader.

Artist FKAPW, This is for You; or, Things That Make Me See a Glass as Half-Full

My friend mentioned in her posting today that she's accentuating the positive, and so inspired this post.

In no particular order, I present eight of many, many things that make me see the proverbial glass as half-full, rather than half-empty.

Friends and family are a given; therefore, they are exempt from the list.

So here goes, my friend!

My faith practice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo0U83cvaI4

Costumed characters, be they animals

http://www.pigs4ever.com/PotBellyPigPictures/reno.pignic/costume1.htm

http://www.ownedbypugs.com/index.php/pugblog/more/the_3_little_pigs/

or people

http://milwaukee.brewers.mlb.com/mil/fan_forum/racing_sausages.jsp

(Did you see you can actually book these guys for an event? How fun is that?)

Sen and No Face take tea with Zeniba and we discover No Face is a Really Good Helper---good enough to stay for keeps http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/soundtracks/sen/sen_memorial_postcard.jpg

Dominique Bretodeau gets back his childhood secret box and to feed his grandson with his most special favorite, the "oysters" from a roast chicken. http://www.offoffoff.com/film/2001/amelie.php3

Parathas stuffed with pea filling hot off the iron skillet, eaten with rhubarb chutney.

Special edition Mr. Potato Heads. http://www.hasbrotoyshop.com/ProductsByBrand.htm?DCMP=ILC-TFTL627&adtype=ad140-playskool&BR=496&SBR=506&ID=19670

Hot tea.

The scent of roses.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Rosa_damascena5.jpg

Independence Day; or, How MI Theory Helped Save My Life

Visual/spatial intelligence
• Capacities to perceive the visual-spatial world accurately and to perform transformations on one’s initial perceptions.
• End states: navigator, sculptor----Gardner, H., & Hatch, T. (1989). Multiple intelligences go to school: Educational implications of the theory of multiple intelligences. Educational Researcher, 18(8), 4-10.

A system that's neat and orderly and hast to keep struggling to fight off randomness, and when randomness inevitably leaks in, the system is thrown off. Being open to a certain level of randomness, on the other hand, allows it to work in your favor.----Abrahamson, E., & Freedman, D. (2006) A Perfect Mess. New York: Little, Brown, and Company

Dear reader, please know that I do so appreciate your visits here. Such seemingly small acts of kindness are most important, and I just wanted to begin here today by thanking you. You do have the power to impact for such good in the world, and limitless opportunities in which to do it.

I've provided a link to an article speaking about the suicide of a young man, David Ritchenson. He was the victim of an extremely hateful and brutally violent act. He testifed before Congress this April during hearings concerning a proposed hate-crimes bill. He jumped to his death from a cruise ship earlier this week.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/4941295.html

Mr. Ritchenson's story resonated with me. Simply put, I have been on the receiving end of violence. I express it this way, as it is one of the most apt ways I might convey to you in words what occurred. Violence was put forth, and I received it, completely. And this is the thing about receiving something so completely: you have room for nothing else; this, this becomes what is your sustenance.

Perchance, maybe, just maybe, you had digested just enough to make a little room for something different, something good. You can scarcely believe it's there, that little space; it's a secret, you see, like a little life itself within you. Furtively, because, really, it's dubious how long that little space will remain; it's in doubt how long you can keep it, really---you reach for something good, just a little, for there's such a small space, you can only manage a little sliver: and violence hands you your order (but it's not really, it's a dis-order: it's violence's order), and shoves it down to cram that little space full.

It is considered best practice to fill the tea vessel with boiling water before brewing the leaves with fresh, hot water. A hot vessel is considered to bring forth the most fragrant tea.

The method that I eventually deployed to tailor the disorder of violence so that I might stomach it without its poisoning me completely was to visualize other things whilst the violence was active and open. It's not a new method, for many of us in these situations, and indeed, situations far removed and in much happier light, do use visualization techniques.

So whilst, say, I assented to the perpetration of most abjectly humiliating and violent acts lest my-then-toddler child be taken away for the night in a car piloted by one in an alcoholic stupor; or, say, being restrained and used as an ashtray, I would smile, picturing completely in my mind such things as say, the sunlight and shadow coming down on me as I climbed the large tree in my childhood home backyard. Or my grandmother's plump raisin cookies, always wrapped in waxed paper in pairs, flat sides pressed together (like two hands, like namaste) and presented with simple, complete affection. And so I would smile; and so violence would spit in my face or decide to go an extra hour, or light another cigarette.

Who is to say what is a good way to cope with violence and what is not a good way? And does it matter if the violence came suddenly and left, or if the violence was sustained over time? When I wrote in a previous post about wishes that one could communicate with the future in some way, so that the message was, hey, this is the picture---dear reader, I was thinking very much of myself at this time. How I would love to be like Admiral Janeway, and tell that person what will happen. That little boy so fiercely protected is now so grown and smart, so gifted, so himself. That another little boy would come, marvelous himself, with a marriage that is not picture-perfect, but perfectly suited, to someone I saw in my dreams long ago as a child. Summer nights sleeping out with the stars and the crickets and the rain on the tent lulling us all to sleep. That there are classrooms full of lively, funny, wonderful kids. Good friends, great friends. That this person's life will be so different, so good, so full of flavor and sustenance.

Would that have been true for Mr. Ritchenson. I would have loved to have been able to tell him.

I truly believe, my friends, we have infinite chances. We do have infininte possibilities to find what we need, what we love; who we need and who we love: to find home.

"Set a course...for home."

Captain Janeway, Endgame (Star Trek: Voyager)











http://www.wga.hu/support/viewer/z.html

Simple Gifts; or, Excellent Birds, Part Two

When I bought a pound of rose tea at New Man Kam last week, I felt foolish as I watched the gentleman fill my order from the giant glass jar of tea leaves.


One pound of tea didn't seem so very much when I said it. One pound of tea seemed so very much as he continued to scoop out tea from the jar and fill a plastic bag with the leaves. Well, I said to myself, there's nothing to be done. I won't ask him to stop; that wouldn't be quite right. Well, I thought, I will figure something out.


Can I say, dear reader, that last week as I watched the bag fill, I thought, oh, too much.


Now, now as I hold that gaiwan that is Mme de Pompadour pink, that feels just right in the hand, the porcelain hot, the steam and the scent and the taste all floral and pink, all oaky and dark; sometimes images of sun and shade and wild roses looping their canes out of the funk of dark loam flash and fade as I close my eyes to take that first sip, now, now I think: just right.