Fidget

My friend LL has been sharing her locally-farmed-weekly-produce-box with me. She found they sent stuff in the box that she’s not interested in eating, and it’s just her and her husband anyway so they wouldn’t be able to use it all up themselves. As she told the other ladies when she gave me my portion at our Wednesday bible study, “… and you know, KT likes weird stuff so I’m giving it to her.”

This week I got 2 small fennel bulbs, a big bunch of rapini (also known as broccoli rabe), a bunch of basil and half a bunch of radishes - “French breakfast radishes” no less!

So tonight for dinner I cooked Fennel Risotto - carmelized the chopped bulbs to start with and sprinkled some minced fronds in at the end. It was pretty good! I also blanched-and-shocked the rapini as suggested on Martha Stewart Everyday Food. This involved dunking it in boiling water and then in ice water. Then I sauteed it with garlic. But it came out fairly bitter, so I’m not sure I’m a huge rapini fan yet. I roasted chicken thighs with a mixture of butter, garlic, lemon, salt & pepper stuffed under the skin. Mm, that came out good.

To do: make pesto (duh!) and do something with the radishes… maybe some kind of relish/salsa?

Yesterday I tootled around on my bike. I’d waited all week for the combination of free time and nice weather. (After our crazy upper-90’s heat wave last weekend, we had a cold rainy week)

First I went to the church to help sort all the dishes and supplies into the new kitchen. It’s a lovely new kitchen, the other one was very old. The new one has a lot more storage and is all clean and shiny.

Later I rode over to the Knit Shop to hang out and knit. They recently moved to a different unit in the same shopping complex, so they had a sale and I got a book for 25% off. It’s called New Pathways for Sock Knitters, and I had checked it out from the library (had to wait in a long list - there are a lot of knitters in Eugene.) I was already pretty sure I wanted my own copy. I’ve already started the Spiraling Coriolis socks that have a shaped instep in the form of a spiral band that winds its way up the foot. Nifty.

I think the closest I’ve come to being acquainted with a celebrity is my friend Eugen Beugler. I didn’t realize he was fairly famous in the knitting world until after I’d spent a few afternoons knitting in the Shop. He’s a fixture there, and designs lace patterns for Fiber Trends. He’s the most cheerful and gracious 80-something that I know, and I know a few.
Yesterday, we were sitting around the knitting table and the shop was gradually filling up with post-lunch shoppers and knitters. One of the employees brought the laptop over to the table to show EB a project that a friend of hers had adapted from one of his lace designs - it was a beautiful chuppah, for a traditional Jewish wedding. We’d barely finished exclaiming over that when a woman came over and said, “Eugen… is that you??” She’d been a co-worker of his about 20 years ago and he’d given her an incomplete afghan project to finish. Then, an old friend came in and reminisced for awhile about taking workshops from Elizabeth Zimmerman back in the day. EB was mentioned in a recent Interweave Knits article about EZ. We like to tease him gently about what a celebrity he is, all the while so pleased he’s part of our local knitting community.

It didn’t start to rain again until the evening. I was glad to have gotten a day out on my bike.

Last night Barak Obama returned to Eugene to address the townsfolk at the U of O campus. He’d been there about a month ago, and we’d been amazed to see the line of people waiting to get into the basketball arena stretching clear around the entire sports area, a good city block. This time we were on campus again and decided to join the lineup and pack into the library quad for this second rally.

I felt very American, going to see a presidential candidate - never done that before. In spite of (or maybe because of) my lack of experience with campaign speeches, I was struck by Obama’s sincere and personable demeanor. The people there were excited and eager to throw their support behind his ideals of change. The idea of changing how the country is run, the idea of finally solving the problems that have plagued us for decades - the idea of bringing the war to an end. These are admirable goals. Is this “change we can believe in?” If we just believe it hard enough, wave enough “HOPE” signs, will it happen?

We had quite awhile to wait before the speech, packed together with lots of young Eugenians and a smaller number of middle aged ones. A youngish man sitting just in front of us had a Barak Obama campaign image sewed to his jacket. As he stood up, another patch became visible: a cross (Christ) crossed out, in the red “no-smoking” style. I guess that’s not the kind of hope this crowd is looking for. But I believe it’s the only real hope there is, the only kind that’s not just wishful thinking.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” Romans 5:1-5

… as in the movie, a 6-episode mini series. We thoroughly enjoyed it - and the book is totally amazing; I would recommend it. It’s not an easy book to read, but so rich in characters, language and deep thoughts. Seeing the movie reinforced the top-shelf quality of the book for me. BN and I read it aloud to each other last year, and it took a long time, sporadically reading it at bedtime (dozed off during a few chapters!) and in the car on vacation. But by the time we were done we felt so well acquainted with the many characters that the town (or is it a county?) of Middlemarch felt like home. It’s a sign of the quality of the characters that I truly hated one of them, Rosamond Vincy. She is pure evil. The final scene with her and Dorothea did not sufficiently endear me to her to change my mind that she was the most believably selfish person I have ever met. (I mean, read about.) In the movie they portrayed her as slightly more sympathetic. But still right on. Everyone else was well cast, too. I thought Dorothea just seemed a bit too old. She was perfect for the part but if she looked a bit younger that would have been better. Ladislaw was handsome in an exotic way, but you couldn’t read his expression so he didn’t quite live up to himself in the book. Lydgate grew on me - at first I thought he looked too boyish, no aristocratic features. But he did a wonderful job so I’ll forgive him his not-perfect-looks. Mary Garth - perfect. Caleb Garth - wonderful. Bulstrode - what a complex guy! He worked. And Mr Brooke was a perfect match, too. One thing I missed from the book, though of course they couldn’t fit it all into even 420 minutes - was the scene with Borthrop Trumbull auctioning off the antique fender. That might have been one of the funniest scenes I have ever read, especially in a classic novel. Maybe that’s why it was so funny - I was surprised to discover George Eliot had a silly streak.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

I think it’s a basic human desire to be “on the inside,” to have secret knowledge, to belong to the group of people who are “in the know.” Isn’t that what tempted Eve back in the garden? Since the time of Christ, devotees of attaining secret knowlege have been referred to as Gnostics.

I felt a little manipulated, reading this book. Dan Brown is a very cunning author. As the codes, secrets, connections and riddles converge, they reveal concepts that I found very offensive, twisting the truth that my life is built upon. But, one of the main promoters of these ideas turns out to be the unexpected villain, so you are tricked into transferring your disgust onto him while the other “insiders” seem pretty much OK by comparison.

The fact of the matter is, you don’t have to join a secret society to get access to the way, the truth, and the life: “… since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:19-20) No one group of people - whether intellectuals, governments, organized religion, secret societies - has a monopoly on the truth.

I also didn’t like how sex-saturated the book was, but not because I believe sex is dirty and sinful as Dan Brown accuses the Catholics of insisting. No… I believe God gave us sex as a gift, for men and women to enjoy in the context of marriage, as an earthly picture of the union we will eventually have with God in heaven. The church is intended as the Bride of Christ! (That’s the reason Jesus never got married – as the book explains, marriage was an integral part of the Jewish culture and a good Jewish man would always marry.)

“‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and the church.” Ephesians 5:31-32

This is another comfy hat for my friend CG who is on the home stretch for her chemotherapy. Some ladies at church hosted a lovely tea party for her last week and everybody wore hats and brought hats to give to C.

So, it’s starting to get a little ridiculous. This is what I saw when I got up this morning. Or, actually, once I was up, showered, and walked out to the living room - BN chuckled as I looked out the window and my jaw dropped.

It SNOWED. A good couple of inches. What month is it again? oh, yeah… April. April-stinkin-20th!

I just checked the Weather Widget. It’s supposed to get up to the high 50’s later this week. Oh, goody.

There’s a woman at my church, LS, who loves to throw elaborately themed parties. Last night, her home was transformed into “the Hip Kitty,” a beatnik cafe. In the invitation, we had been instructed to write a beat poem and wear our cool threads. We sat 4 to a table and sipped faux martinis and munched hors d’oeuvres. This is what I wrote for the poetry reading:

While We’re There

I declare and how to stare
my wild and more than mild extraordinary child
melt the walk and north to talk
from there to you on shore
what’s in store we’ll try some more if it’s enough we won’t fall short
of his last bale of wool to cushion the prickle
of southern pride and northern cold
before were old
the shortest life is one that took
awhile to save
and knights and knaves can’t solve the crime of misinterpretation
sweeping the nation
under the rug.
We feel unknown but it’s more obvious to seem methodious
and melodic like the tunes you know by sight without a name or a label
to force unstable
and while I’m able I’ll hawk your wares.

While we’re there let’s check the timetable
as we’re able the west was won by the cat’s curiousity.
There’s no you in curiosity
and curios are even farther from the truth.
In my youth I thought it uncouth when muddy dippers
would double dare and howl to scare.
Please believe I’m all that I seem and more besides
and I hate to see you cry.

When we’re through and so will you
show some style of colors dialed.
Drill in to the interaction of distraction come to roost
and must distrust what youth forsooth,
I swear the spare was all that’s there
on the left side of the dashboard mirror.

***

[Thanks to BN for encouraging me to just jump right in and try writing stream-of-consciousness. It’s not hard at all!]

A Seattle blogger coined a great term for the odd season in between Winter and Spring. “Unsprung.” Perfect.

One week ago today it was in the 80’s here in Eugene. As I write this, what is falling from the sky includes a few flakes of snow. I’m just sayin.’

by William Goldman

I remember when I saw the movie for the first time, it was at a girls’ slumber party and I think we must have been in 4th or 5th grade. Me and another girl were so afraid of the R.O.U.S.’s that we had to run out of the room for that part.

So, it was fun to read the book. It’s definitely amusing, but it’s not art. There are a few “aw, sweet” moments. Lots of amusingly silly parts. A fair amount of cheese-factor. And parts get downright annoying, because Mr. Goldman is always piping up with rambling anecdotes about his real life, tinged with the fantasy of the supposed real author of the book, Morgenstern, and the supposed real location of the story, Florin. I mean I guess it kind of works as a foil for the fairy tale, but maybe he just does it a little too much. And the “introductory” material is a bit weird. Made me feel about Goldman as I would about someone that struck up a conversation with me in the airport and started telling me all these personal details about his life. Just a little “too much information,” or whatever. Oh, well. I’d say if you’re a fan of the movie, you’ll enjoy this book.