Meryl Streep

Acting is not about being someone different. It’s finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.
― Meryl Streep

I think the best role models for women are people who are fruitfully and confidently themselves, who bring light into the world.
― Meryl Streep

Put blinders on to those things that conspire to hold you back, especially the ones in your own head.
― Meryl Streep

The formula of happiness and success is just, being actually yourself, in the most vivid possible way you can.
― Meryl Streep

I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me. I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.
― Meryl Streep

I like who I am now. Other people may not. I'm comfortable. I feel freer now. I don't want growing older to matter to me.
― Meryl Streep

No one has ever asked an actor, 'You're playing a strong-minded man…' We assume that men are strong-minded, or have opinions. But a strong-minded woman is a different animal.
― Meryl Streep

Thoughts

The car whether it is a tank or a pod is a metaphor for the separate self. The home is an ego-fortress with the front lawn as its moat. Home decor is one's stage set. This was how I grew up in suburbia and I hated it.

As a pedestrian in the city I have daily opportunities to cultivate my relationships with my community. Yesterday when walking to the market to buy onions I stopped three times to converse with my neighbors. Being efficient has a price I'm not willing to pay.

Dog Nirvana

Dogs possess a quality that's rare among humans--the ability to make you feel valued just by being you--and it was something of a miracle to me to be on the receiving end of all that acceptance. The dog didn't care what I looked like, or what I did for a living, or what a train wreck of a life I'd led before I got her, or what we did from day to day. She just wanted to be with me, and that awareness gave me a singular sensation of delight. I kept her in a crate at night until she was housebroken, and in the mornings I'd let her up onto the bed with me. She'd writhe with joy at that. She'd wag her tail and squirm all over me, lick my neck and face and eyes and ears, get her paws all tangled in my braid, and I'd just lie there, and I'd feel those oceans of loss from my past ebbing back, ebbing away, and I'd hear myself laugh out loud.
― Caroline Knapp, Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs

Fitness is Good Medicine

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/exercise-seems-to-be-beneficial-to-children/380844/

Pancake Meditations

The secret to wholegrain light fluffy pancakes is sourdough!

Robot Tongue

Article

Spindles and Slats

The happy house on the corner of Oak Hill Ave have their Christmas tree up along with their Halloween pumpkins. Their landlord replaced part of their porch with wooden slats and one section will remain as the traditional curvy white spindles.

Dinnerplate Dahlias on Salisbury Street

I took a walk this morning and spotted a yard full of colorful dahlias. I felt like I had landed in OZ.

Television Land

Last night I saw our 1959 Thermador oven on Columbo. I remember as a kid when I saw our Flair oven on Bewitched, and I was so excited. I never paid full attention to the plots but I was always curious about what paintings were hanging on the walls. I do remember that The Brady Bunch had a few Degas in their upstairs hallway and Lucy and Ricky had a country house with a big stone fireplace. I still get distracted by the decor and whether a character forgot his hat on the chair. At night when I am walking my dog the neighborhood becomes a series of lit up doll houses with framed pictures on the wall, and the blue green flickering of TV's.

Hello Broccoli

This weekend a family grocery has just opened on the corner of Diamond Hill Road and Social Street. There are seven plate glass windows filled with produce, and paper towels. We can walk there!

I get sad on Sundays, the family day when we were small we used to spend the day around the table eating and listening to my grandparents and step-father tell stories.

I am glad I live in the city. I walk everywhere and on sad days it's the little "Hello's" that save me.

Kay Ryan

Things Shouldn't Be So Hard

A life should leave
deep tracks:
ruts where she
went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn-out place;
beneath her hand
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks.
The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space—
however small—
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn’t
be so hard.

-Kay Ryan


Age

As some people age
they kinden.
The apertures
of their eyes widen.
I do not think they weaken;
I think something weak strengthens
until they are more and more it,
like letting in heaven.
But other people are
mussels or clams, frightened.
Steam or knife blades mean open.
They hear heaven, they think boiled or broken.

-Kay Ryan

Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (New York: Grove Press, 2010).

Dizzy Gillespe

Artists are always in the vanguard of social change, but we didn't go out and make speeches or say, 'Let's play eight bars of protest.' We just played our music and let it go at that. The music proclaimed our identity; it made every statement we truly wanted to make.
- Dizzy Gillespe

Margaret Meade

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
-Margaret Meade

Spicy Garlic Green Beans

Now that cauliflower and kale are trending I am paying attention to some other green vegetables. I bought green beans and sauteed and slightly steamed them in turkey stock and olive oil, garlic, soy sauce and and hot chili sauce. We ate it with the sliced brined and cooked turkey remnants we picked up at Market Basket. So good!

Peach Paradise Tea by London Fruit and Herb

Job lot has a new peach tea Peach Paradise Tea by London Fruit and Herb. It's great!! We used to LOVE Celestial Seasonings Country Peach tea mixed with black tea to have with milk and honey but then they changed the formula to become overly citrusy. Now we can have this. I have had more tea these past few days than I have had in 6 months! Try it and enjoy.

Sunday Picnic

It is warm and sunny Sunday. We had a picnic under the umbrella-shade of the Maple tree. Sliced peaches, sourdough buttermilk pancakes, bacon and fried bologna. We even brought the electric frying pan outside to cook at the table.

Dream

I dreamed I was playing with a black and tan coon hound puppy. It was still tiny with long floppy ears and four mandalas on its belly. I was falling in love with him.

Apples and Cows

I came to New England to be closer to apples and cows. Today we went to the apple orchard and the dairy farm. The trees are turning yellow and orange!

Sonny Gibbs

For 23 years Sonny Gibbs sold flowers and taught chess at the southwest corner.Story

Anton Chekov

What a fine weather today! Can’t choose whether to drink tea or to hang myself.
― Anton Chekhov

Journal

Thursday I was feeling sorry for myself, that I failed the assistant librarian test, that I am dumb, that I have no friends, never have had any. Loneliness and bad voices were filling my thoughts.

Friday I noticed the variety store hung new colorful triangular streamers and tacked up large red and blue cloth signs out front. I gave into my introverted mood and read my favorite passages of May Sarton's Journal of a Solitude and some of E.B. White's essays from One Man's Meat. I walked a few short walks with Lily. I waved to people sitting in benches under the tree rather than stop and talk. I drank lots of tea with milk and honey and I finally finished stretching the big canvas.

I told myself I make books not shelve them!

When the sun set I could see that my neighbors put up their Christmas tree decorated with shiny read balls and the living room walls were decorated with garlands. We're a month away from Halloween. Maybe its a comfort to them to have Christmas last three months. I would prefer to not have it at all.

Last night it was warm and all the neighborhood teens were out shouting and hanging out on the wall under the yellow streetlight. It was technicolor hues reenacting West Side Story.

I dreamed I was wearing ice skates while walking Lily. I knew this was going to dull the blades. Kids were out of school playing ice hockey in the street with firemen.

People still ask me about my missing straw hat. It is dearly missed. Especially today, when it will be 80 degrees.

Louis Auchincloss

I think my secret is to use bits and fractions of time. I trained myself to do that. Anybody can do it. I could write sitting in surrogate's court answering calendar call.
-Louis Auchincloss

Local Vocal

I've been thinking a lot about the local drug dealer who stands out at the corner day in and day out shouting and laughing to drum up business. Since my office is just above his lair he has entered my thoughts more than once. I have thought about telling him to take care of his vocal cords because he is destroying his voice. In a few years he will be unable to speak above a whisper, my husband says. We should tell him, I say. He'd have to completely relearn how to use his voice, my husband says. I hear him out there hocking his wares from 11:30 AM until 10 o'clock each night. I should commend him on his work ethic. What will happen when his drug becomes legal? I'm worried. I'm not being sarcastic. In fact I have developed the ability to hear his voice above the traffic noise, chatter, and fans. While it lasts.

The Joys of Being an Introvert

Article

Changing Mood

Article

Crazy Cat

I went to water the plants and found my big black oxford shoe in the pot. Sammy loves to play with the laces. He must've dragged the shoe out from under Bill's favorite chair and carried it fifteen feet to the picture window, where it fell into the dirt.

A Crisp Sandwich

Here.

Dennis Rosen, MD

A Doctor, a Rabbi and a Chicken

Baked French Toast

I had a bunch of homemade bread that I had frozen a few months ago. I defrosted it and it was very dry so I decided to slice it up and make baked french toast. I beat the eggs, added buttermilk, vanilla, salt, cinnamon and baked it in a covered iron pot, in a 350 degree oven until done. We had it for dinner. The bread was moist and delicious. It was similar to bread pudding. We ate it topped with maple syrup.

Not Sure

I'm not sure I like this new world
Where robots are the messengers between us.

My orange cat slams into the picture window chasing a sparrow
I laugh, eating leftover curry for lunch at my wooden table

I'd rather write letters on paper today.

William Faulkner

I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.
― William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

Practice

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.

― William Faulkner, Essays, Speeches & Public Letters

Come to Life

Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.
― William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

Dylan Thomas

Poem in October

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.

My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In a rainy autumn
And walked abroad in shower of all my days
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
There could I marvel
My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.

It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sunlight
And the legends of the green chapels

And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and the sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singing birds.

And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.

-Dylan Thomas

George Elliot Letter

Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
-George Eliot [Letter to Miss Eliot, Oct. 1, 1841]

Blackberry Picking

by Seamus Heaney

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
for a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
sent us out with milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots
where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
we trekked and picked until the cans were full,
until the tinkling bottom had been covered
with green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
with thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
that all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

-Seamus Heaney

Sound like Rain

That country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.
- Ray Bradbury

Old Friend

But then fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.
― Stephen King, Salem's Lot

William Faulkner

From a little after two o'clock until almost sundown of the long still hot weary dead September afternoon they sat in what Miss Coldfield still called the office because her father had called it that — a dim hot airless room with the blinds all closed and fastened for forty-three summers because when she was a girl someone had believed that light and moving air carried heat and that dark was always cooler, and which (as the sun shone fuller and fuller on that side of the house) became latticed with yellow slashes full of dust motes which Quentin thought of as being flecks of the dead old dried paint itself blown inward from the scaling blinds as wind might have blown them.
— William Faulkner Absalom, Absalom (1936) opening sentence

Houses in your Heart

No good friends, no bad friends; only people you want, need to be with. People who build their houses in your heart.
― Stephen King, It

Sweet and Wild

Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.
― Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: A Story from Different Seasons

Soothing Asian-Style Soup

I took leftover rice and broccoli and added two ladles full of my home made pork and turkey stock and added a little rooster hot sauce. It was delicious and soothing after a long walk.

Comedy and Tragedy

Horace Walpole the 18th-century bon vivant and 4th Earl of Orford, who once mused, "The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel."

Jim Henson

Follow your enthusiasm. It's something I've always believed in. Find those parts of your life you enjoy the most. Do what you enjoy doing.
- Jim Henson

Curry Coconut Cauliflower Chicken

When I opened the pantry I spotted the curry packages I had bought eons ago at the Asian market. The package read best if used by 1999. Oh well, what's fifteen years for a sealed package? I defrosted a few boneless chicken breasts and sliced them into cubes and simmered them with olive oil, a few ladles full of home made pork stock, and the small package of curry powder. I spontaneously added a cup of shredded sweetened coconut into the pot. On another burner I boiled a big pot of water for cooking a pound of whole wheat pasta. When there were 4 more minutes to go on the noodles I threw in a whole heads-worth of chopped cauliflower so it cooked in the spaghetti water. When it was cooked I drained it all into the colander. Then I threw everything into my foot-wide cast iron frying pan and tossed in the curry chicken coconut mixture and stirred in some almonds. All it needed was salt. It was spectacular.

Late September by Charles Simic

The mail truck goes down the coast
Carrying a single letter.
At the end of a long pier
The bored seagull lifts a leg now and then
And forgets to put it down.
There is a menace in the air
Of tragedies in the making.

Last night you thought you heard television
In the house next door.
You were sure it was some new
Horror they were reporting,
So you went out to find out.
Barefoot, wearing just shorts.
It was only the sea sounding weary
After so many lifetimes
Of pretending to be rushing off somewhere
And never getting anywhere.

This morning, it felt like Sunday.
The heavens did their part
By casting no shadow along the boardwalk
Or the row of vacant cottages,
Among them a small church
With a dozen gray tombstones huddled close
As if they, too, had the shivers.

by Charles Simic, 1938

It's Time

Article

Addiction Industry

The marijuana industry, he said, is in this “to make as much money as [it] can from an addiction industry.”

Dr. Stuart Gitlow, acting president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, said that drug addiction is based on three characteristics:
genetic abnormality
abnormal coping skills
and living in a society where the drug is accepted and promoted.

He wondered why the United States seems determined to legalize marijuana and ignore the problems associated with the drug.
Article

Follow the Sun

This morning I noticed the changing light and shadows. Autumn is nearly here. I am thinking of moving the picnic table to catch the last of the morning sun.

Tranquility

Neighborhood transformed by statue.
Article

Fish Heads

When I was at the market I spotted big beautiful fish heads. Many cultures consider the head a delicacy, my husband reminded me. I'm going to buy them next time because I love to harvest the orphans.
Article

Turkey Ends

Market Basket sells turkey scraps from their deli department. This is my favorite thing to buy there. A package of turkey ends!

The Instant Macaroon

Someone gave us some Silver Palette raspberry fudge sauce for Christmas and it has been in our fridge for years. I just discovered that sweet shredded coconut is delicious held together with the raspberry fudge sauce. I'll call it the instant macaroon.

Sam Harris

Most of us spend our time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search. Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: We are trying to find good enough reasons to be satisfied now.

Acknowledging that this is the structure of the game we are playing allows us to play it differently. How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives.

-Sam Harris

Article

Earthlings

I lost my big straw hat the one Ray gave me a few summers ago. I have looked everywhere. Oh well. I think I lost my head with it because I walked into the big wooden sign on the lawn of Saint Germain the other day while buttoning my jacket. It was embarrassing. I cut the bridge of my nose. When the seasons change I get thrown off kilter. I lose things; hats scarves, earrings, sunglasses. I wake in the night palms and soles burning and itching from allergies. I walk into things. We are mere earthlings being spun around and around.

Listening in the 'Hood

There is a thin brown boy who chirps and squeaks all afternoon on the porch across the street. He is deaf. He stands beside the large scary tattooed woman who screams off the porch and starts fights with everyone. Yesterday 16 people from the complex of red tenements came into the street yelling back at her. I heard sirens and two cruisers stopped under the porch. The police were good listeners, just like social workers but armed and in blue. A woman from the red buildings with shiny black hair, midriff showing, pointed and waved her arms. The policemen listened for a while and the tension finally dissipated.

Gladys Hunt

What is home? My favorite definition is "a safe place," a place where one is free from attack, a place where one experiences secure relationships and affirmation. It's a place where people share and understand each other. Its relationships are nurturing. The people in it do not need to be perfect; instead, they need to be honest, loving, supportive, recognizing a common humanity that makes all of us vulnerable.
― Gladys Hunt, Honey for a Child's Heart: The Imaginative Use of Books in Family Life

Jean Cocteau

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
― Jean Cocteau

Zombie Invasion

In an effort to ward off the cell phone zombie invasion, the Chinese city of Chongqing has unveiled special pedestrian lanes made specifically for cell phone users.
Article

David Lebovitz's Chocolate Biscotti

Chocolate biscotti recipe source
Ingredients

Chocolate Biscotti
50 to 60 cookies

Use a good-quality cocoa powder. You can use natural or Dutch-process for these, whichever one you like. Just remember that the chocolate flavor of the finished cookies is dependent on the quality of cocoa powder you use. So it’s worth using a decent one. I used Valrhona. See notes below on ingredients.

If you like extra-crisp biscotti, you can flip each one over midway during the second baking, in step #6. I sometimes smear one side of the cookies with melted dark chocolate. When dipped in a warm espresso, I can’t imagine anything better.

For the biscotti

2 cups (280g) flour
3/4 cups (75g) top-quality cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup (200g) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup (125g) almonds, toasted and very coarsely-chopped
3/4 cups (120g) chocolate chips

For the glaze

1 large egg
2 tablespoons coarse or crystal sugar (see Notes)

1. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C) degrees.

2. In a small bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.

3. In a large bowl, beat together the 3 eggs, sugar, and vanilla & almond extracts. Gradually stir in the dry ingredients, then mix in the nuts and the chocolate chips until the dough holds together.

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Divide the dough in half. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into two logs the length of the baking sheet. Transfer the logs onto the baking sheet, evenly spaced apart.

5. Gently flatten the tops of the logs. Beat the remaining egg and brush the tops of the logs liberally with the egg. (You won’t use it all). Sprinkle the tops with the coarse or crystal sugar and bake for 25 minutes, until the dough feels firm to the touch.

6. Remove the cookie dough from the oven and cool 15 minutes. On a cutting board, use a serrated bread knife to diagonally cut the cookies into 1/2-inches slices. Lay the cookies cut side down on baking sheets and return to the oven for 20 to 30 minutes, turning the baking sheet midway during baking, until the cookies feel mostly firm.

Once baked, cool the cookies completely then store in an airtight container for up to two weeks. If you wish, the cookies can be half-dipped in melted chocolate, then cooled until the chocolate hardens.

Injera

Traditional injera is tricky to replicate in New York, and Ms. Reta suspects this is because of differences in the water. She has adapted by adding a little wheat flour and barley to the batter before leaving it to ferment for three days. The result, riddled with tiny sinkholes, is spongy yet strong enough not to disintegrate under the juices of the many dishes poured on top.
Article

Rene Defeld

On Johnny's Knee
by Renee Denfeld
Read

Buttermilk Fruit Smoothie

You can use yogurt or buttermilk and fruits of your choice.

Frozen raspberries, banana, orange juice, lowfat buttermilk.

Buzz in blender and enjoy.

Neighbors Rally

Neighbors Rally To Combat Drugs
By Stephania H. Davis, Chicago Tribune Staff Writer.

Gwen Gale moved into her South Side home 25 years ago. The neighborhood then was full of people who worked hard and looked out for each other's children.

Now, some of those children are selling drugs on the same front porches where they used to play, and many of the hard-working people have fled from the violence that often follows drugs.

"I'm tired," Gale said. "Tired of people being scared to live their lives. Something has to be done."

Something started on Saturday with a March to Take Our Neighborhood Back. About 30 residents who live on or near the 2800 block of East 79th Street marched up and down the block chanting, "Up with hope, down with dope" and "Get involved." They carried signs that read "Get to Know Your Neighbor" and "We are 4-drugs, 2-stop, 2-day."

Following the march, the group discussed forming a neighborhood block watch and better ways to inform the police of drug sales and violence in the community.

The small but determined group met at Christian Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, 7859 S. Burnham Ave., where Elder Derrick M. Pagan gave an inspirational talk.

"We may be just a few people now, but if we press forward, people will know we're not going to take it anymore," he said.

After marching on 78th and 80th Streets, the group stopped in front of a house in the 7900 block of South Muskegon Avenue where a young man was killed in September. Residents say drug dealers work nearby.

"This is a chance to make a difference," said Margie Pittman, a resident of the area. "If you stand for nothing, then you'll fall for anything."

The group urged those neighbors inside their homes to come out and join the march. Few responded, but as a light snow began to fall, Shirley Scott emerged from the Muskegon Avenue house.

"This is the main spot, and this is the first time in a long time I have not been afraid to come out of my house," said Scott, who said she and her son have been living in the house for just over a year.

Pittman said Saturday's march will not be the last.

"You see the drug dealers are gone today," she said.

A Linguists Linguine

Reviews of expensive restaurants are more likely to use sexual metaphors, while the food at cheaper restaurants tends to be compared to drugs.
“The language of food is this secret hidden in plain sight,” he said. “We have all this amazing data all around us. How can we not use it?”
Article

Holistic Healing

Article

Garlic Eating Competition

CHIDEOCK, England, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The winner of Britain's World Garlic Eating Competition downed 33 cloves of raw Iberian garlic in 60 seconds, organizers said.

Organizers of the event in Chideock, England, said David Greenman, 34, was two cloves ahead of his closest competitor when the time ran out during the contest, but he was one clove short of equaling the world record.

Mark Botwright, 50, contest organizer and a garlic farmer with the South West Garlic Farm, joked it was "just as well" the champion came to the contest unescorted, as his breath was likely to be less-than-prizewinning after his accomplishment.

"Iberian garlic is really the only variety that is anywhere near palatable when eaten raw," Botwright told The Mirror.

"Nobody was sick during the event but there were a few facial expressions and screwed up faces," he said.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2014/09/15/British-man-eats-33-raw-garlic-cloves-in-60-seconds/8421410784592/#ixzz3DPOkP84y

7PM October 2 Woonsocket Prevention Coalition

Please spread the word this is a great opportunity to come together as a region around drug addiction, preventative measures, and recovery efforts. There will be guest speakers from the community.
7PM Oct 2, 2014 at Woonsocket Middle School. 60 Florence Drive Woonsocket Rhode Island,
HAMLET Middle School INFO (401) 766-3332
http://www.woonsocketpreventioncoalition.org/

A.A. Milne

I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

I'm not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That's the problem.
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Just because an animal is large, it doesn't mean he doesn't want kindness; however big Tigger seems to be, remember that he wants as much kindness as Roo.

“What I like doing best is Nothing."

"How do you do Nothing," asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time.
"Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, 'What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?' and you say, 'Oh, Nothing,' and then you go and do it.
It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."
"Oh!" said Pooh.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Wolf Mother

If I get too much exercise or not enough sleep or not enough time alone, I am CRABBY. It's a fine line that I must monitor. Morning is my best time until the haunted season of the holidays approaches, then it is the worst time. That's when I have to walk many miles in order to refrain from cutting off my head.

John Thorne

Traditionally, Matt and I get Chinese takeout for Thanksgiving, a holiday I actively dislike. Despite its name, Thanksgiving is really the Family Holiday. Even Christmas pales beside it: that day's focus is on giving and receiving even more than togetherness. Strangely though, being alone on Christmas is to be almost hauntingly empty; you feel like a ghost. But being alone on Thanksgiving is rather wonderful, like not attending a party that you didn't want to go to and where no one will realize you're not there. At Thanksgiving, you gather with your family and stuff yourself with food as if it were love—or the next best thing —then stagger back to your regular life, oversatiated and wrung out. Christmas, however, creates expectations that are never met, so you leave hungry and depressed, with an armload of things you didn't want and can't imagine why anyone would think you did.

I know most people don't feel this way, including Matt, but there it is. So, for me to make spaghetti with meatballs represents a considerable mellowing. What happened was that Matt was waxing nostalgic about her mother's cooking (which was, not self-assuredly, almost reluctantly, quite good), and it came to me that a "family" meal rich in associations but without any evocative connection to the holiday would, in fact, make a fine Thanksgiving dinner. Even so, to keep the affair at arm's length, I decided to use Bruce Aidell's turkey and chicken meatballs, straight from the supermarket packaged-meats case, and Seeds of Change tomato and basil sauce.

Everything turned out well, and it was satisfying making a meal that was at once urfamily and yet unconnected with the holiday. I felt as though I was with family, but, happily, not with my own family. Bruce’s meatballs were not really meatball meatballs. They were not juicy; they were not made from beef or pork; there were no bread crumbs or milk or egg. They were, not surprisingly, too lean, too chewy — in sum, they lacked the meatball’s essential soft heart. If I ever do this again I'll have to make my own. The sauce, though, was just what a good spaghetti sauce should be. I did gussy it up with sautéed onion and green and yellow bell pepper, some minced salt capers and green and black olives, garlic, a splash of Zin, a dash of hot sauce, and some minced parsley. But no cheese: we have several chunks of Parmesan in the fridge, but I've taken against tossing it with spaghetti unless that's the whole point.

-John Thorne, The Outlaw Cook
source

Poison

When I was a child I thought all mothers poisoned their children. I distinctly remember being at the breakfast table, age five, and I said, "When I grow up, I'm going to poison my children too!"

Today is the birthday of mystery writer Agatha Christie (books by this author), born Agatha Miller in Torquay, England, in 1890. During the first and second World Wars, she worked at a hospital dispensary; this gave her a knowledge of pharmaceuticals and poisons that would later serve her well as the author of more than 70 murder mysteries, including Murder on the Orient Express (1933), Death on the Nile (1937), and the play The Mousetrap (1952), which has been running continuously on London's West End since 1952, the longest initial run of any play in history.

Agatha Christie once said, "The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes."

September Concord Grapes

Today I harvested Concord grapes from the fence at Mr. Turbesi's old house. They were delicious and made my lips itch. I had a bag with me so I was able to carry a few bunches home for Bill.

Zadie Smith

I think sometimes that the best reason for writing novels is to experience those four and a half hours after you write the final word. The last time it happened to me, I uncorked a good Sancerre I’d been keeping and drank it standing up with the bottle in my hand, and then I lay down in my backyard on the paving stones and stayed there for a long time, crying. It was sunny, late autumn, and there were apples everywhere, overripe and stinky.

By middle of the novel I mean whatever page you are on when you stop being part of your household and your family and your partner and children and food shopping and dog feeding and reading the post — I mean when there is nothing in the world except your book, and even as your wife tells you she’s sleeping with your brother her face is a gigantic semicolon, her arms are parentheses and you are wondering whether rummage is a better verb than rifle. The middle of a novel is a state of mind.

It’s such a confidence trick, writing a novel. The main person you have to trick into confidence is yourself.

Zadie Smith, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays

Ann Truitt

Unless we are very, very careful, we doom each other by holding onto images of one another based on preconceptions that are in turn based on indifference to what is other than ourselves.

This indifference can be, in its extreme, a form of murder and seems to me a rather common phenomenon.

We claim autonomy for ourselves and forget that in so doing we can fall into the tyranny of defining other people as we would like them to be.

By focusing on what we choose to acknowledge in them, we impose an insidious control on them.

I notice that I have to pay careful attention in order to listen to others with an openness that allows them to be as they are, or as they think themselves to be.

The shutters of my mind habitually flip open and click shut, and these little snaps form into patterns I arrange for myself.

The opposite of this inattention is love, is the honoring of others in a way that grants them the grace of their own autonomy and allows mutual discovery.

Compassion is one of the purest springs of love.

- Anne Truitt

source

Walk to the Dairy

This morning I walked to Wright's Dairy with my dog Lily. It's 3 miles away. It was the best way to spend the day as I needed to think and she never minds a walk.

Bill Hayes

When we reached the last room, I asked Katy which picture was her favorite. She led me back to the one that had stumped her in the synonym department. Her sister, Emily, who’s 14 and had been off wandering through the Met’s collection of European paintings, then showed me her favorite piece in the museum: a Monet water lily painting (the first she’d ever seen) from 1919.

This is when I let each girl in on a secret: It can be yours. No different from falling in love with a song, one may fall in love with a work of art and claim it as one’s own. Ownership does not come free. One must spend time with it; visit at different times of the day or evening; and bring to it one’s full attention. The investment will be repaid as one discovers something new with each viewing — say, a detail in the background, a person nearly cropped from the picture frame, or a tiny patch of canvas left unpainted, deliberately so, one may assume, as if to remind you not to take all the painted parts for granted.

This is true not just for New Yorkers but for anyone anywhere with art to be visited — art being a relative term, in my definition. Your Monet may, in fact, be an unpolished gemstone or mineral element. Natural history museums are filled with beauties fairly begging to be adopted. Stay alert. Next time a tattered Egyptian mummy speaks to you across the ages, don’t walk away. Stay a while. Spend some time with it. Give it a proper name: Yours.
Article

Shatter

The name says it all.
Article

Corn, Coffee and Apple

Try corn muffins with chopped apple baked inside. Leave the skin on! Enjoy with coffee.

Corn Muffins

Grease muffin pans
preheat oven to 350 degrees F

combine:
2 eggs
1 cup of buttermilk or regular milk
1/4 cup of corn oil
1 cup of cornmeal
1 teaspoon Kosher salt,
two tablespoons of sugar
1 cup of whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon of baking powder

Bake for 10-15 minutes.

I love to double recipe to bake as one bread in a large cast iron skillet (for 45-50 minutes)

City Sleuth Museum

Here

Pizza Peach Pie Savory n'Sweet

Make a sourdough crust or a pastry crust add sliced fresh peaches, basil leaves and raisins almonds or walnuts, and even fresh garlic and ginger. Try adding goat cheese? PLAY!

Peaches!

Today we get to pick up a crate of "2nds" peaches from the local orchard. I can't wait. It's also 99 cent day at the Salvation army. I am looking for a pastry cutter with character.

Using the Muscle that Tells a Story

Article

Q. What has it been like to do this as an adult, and as an established actor?

A. When I first did it, I was like, “Gee, I’m playing out in public and with good musicians.” But it became, “Gee, I can do this, and it really is fun.” I like offering it to people. It’s different than practicing on your own. Even with acting, even early in rehearsal, I like to have another person there who’s watching, so you’re using the muscle that tells the story. I like this idea of sharing the thing. Music is meant to be like that.

Q. Is it possible, if events had turned out differently, that you’d now be making your living as a musician rather than as an actor?

A. One could imagine without too much difficulty. I’m not careerist about it. Acting was always a mission of passion, and the chips fell nicely for me. But in a different way, I was not out to accomplish anything or get anywhere with music. As I’m still not. We purposely did it under the radar and didn’t advertise, until the Playboy Jazz Festival somehow had us do it several years ago. They said, “We’re going to put you in the program.” And so I said, “Well, we don’t have a name.” I thought of this funny name.

Q. So there was a real-life Mildred Snitzer?

A. She was a friend of my mom’s and my family, and she lived to be over 100.

Q. Does it ever feel like a novelty act, that it’s keeping you from doing more substantial work?

A. First of all, my work of substance, so-called, it feels like I have enough. There’s something that could be low-class, lowbrow, and frivolous about it, and wasteful. But I like it. My sister is a wise person and has devoted her life to the arts, and I recently said to her: “Have I just become a song-and-dance man? Am I trying to work my way down the rungs of sophistication and substance?” She says, “Music, beyond language, comes from someplace deep in yourself and can be offered to somebody in a place that’s impactful.” That was encouraging.

Pizza with a Twist

Last night I dug out the three pie pans I found 2 weeks ago. I stretched my whole wheat sourdough into three of the greased pans and pre-baked them for a 10 minutes, then I brushed them with olive oil, and ladeled on my fresh garlicky tomato sauce and slices of Pepper Jack cheese. I baked them at 450 until the cheese was golden and my nose told me they're done.
We sat outside at the picnic table and shared one for supper. We still have two left!

Mini Corn Muffins Surprise

Last night I decided to use the mini muffin pans I found 2 weeks ago. I made my favorite corn muffin batter with whole wheat flour and Indian Head cornmeal and buttermilk and I sliced up some leftover beef hotdogs and placed one slice in each one. I used Nathan's brand because they were on sale, and my Grandma was from Coney Island and took me to Nathan's when I was a kid. They were delicious and cute!

Gautama Buddha

Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.
― Gautama Buddha

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
― Gautama Buddha

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
― Gautama Buddha, Sayings Of Buddha

Doubt everything. Find your own light.
― Gautama Buddha

Eyes on the Front Lines

Yesterday I heard a strange metallic sound and yelling. I went out on the porch and saw a woman below sharpening a six inch kitchen knife on the brick wall. Then she began waving it around while screaming at a man. That can't be good, I thought and phoned the police. They showed up fast. My pulse was racing, with my kneecaps bobbing. The adrenaline filled me up for the day. I am still trembling. Yet, I do love being eyes on the front lines.

Smell Map

Article

Post Roast

The best part about a roasted chicken are the delicious leftovers eaten cold the next day. For lunch I had baby spinach with red onion and slices of chicken and sweet potato and mushrooms, sprinkled with magic sauce (my tofu salad dressing). Joy to the world! It was fantastic with a few almonds and an apple for dessert.

Bo's Toxic Mask

I love faces. I love to READ faces. When my favorite actress got Botox injections in her forehead, it essentially ruined her career. To me it would be as if a dancer deliberately broke her legs.
Article

The Truth about Fiction

Article

Physical Education and Concentration

Article

Polaner Jam

I never liked jam because sugar is too much for me but POLANER jam available at Job Lot is excellent. It is sweetened with fruit juices. We buy the cherry and the blackberry and apricot and add it to peanut butter toast or to yogurt or as a cooking glaze for roast turkey.

Magic Sauce

I had forgotten about magic sauce. I used to make this all the time. It's a creamy dressing made using a block of tofu, with olive oil, vinegar, soy sauce, and fresh garlic. I buzz it all in the blender and pour it on spinach, salad, chicken, potatoes, tomatoes, you name it. Enjoy.
I made some tonight and we poured it on baby spinach, roasted chicken, and sweet potatoes.

The Catskills

You may remember the old Jewish Catskill comics of Vaudeville days:
Shecky Greene, Red Buttons, Myron Cohen, Totie Fields, Joey Bishop, Milton Berle, Jan Murray, Danny Kaye, Henny Youngman, Buddy Hackett, Sid Caesar, Groucho Marx, Jackie Mason, Victor Borge, Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, Lenny Bruce, George Burns, Allan Sherman, Jerry Lewis, Peter Sellers, Carl Reiner, Shelley Berman, Gene Wilder, George Jessel, Alan King, Mel Brooks, Phil Silvers, Jack Carter, Rodney Dangerfield, Don Rickles, Jack Benny and so many others.Laugh

An Artist

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.
― Charles Bukowski

My Chicken is Performing

My chicken is performing chicken-ness as it roasts away in the oven. It smells great, like grandma's house. Roast chicken was the only thing grandma cooked. I put whole garlic cloves under the skin and threw in six tiny sweet potatoes to bake on the top shelf.

Baking the chicken is inspiring me to clean the house, do laundry and vacuum. The tumbleweeds of animal hair have multiplied. My kitchen linoleum looks like the old Brighton beach butcher shop that Grandma took me to when I was five. It had mounds of cedar shavings on the floor.

Sylvia and I decided:
The best way to heal the 'hood is to pull the drapes.

Wednesday Roast Chicken

I am roasting a chicken. I didn't plan on it but they were on sale and I was feeling good so I bought one on Sunday night. It's 8 pounds. I didn't stay in the mood when I got home and so I began fretting about freezing it until the mood returned. Then this morning I was really blue so I walked Lily right away to snap out of it and I ran into a friend with her dog. We told stories and had some laughs while standing under the tree with our dogs and I was healed. When I got home I mixed up some sourdough in my big plastic bucket. When I went to put it in the fridge to rise there was no room because of the 8 pound chicken. So I decided its time to roast my chicken. Now that she is rinsed dried and seasoned and in the big oval iron pot I am getting excited.

Writing is Performance

Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig.
—Stephen Greenblatt

Home Cooking: Lori Colwin

Lori Colwin is one of my favorite writers.

1. Peel and cut up 4 potatoes and 4 carrots along with a couple of onions and put them in a skillet. Sauté the vegetables in a little butter until onions are golden, season them with salt and pepper and crumble in some thyme or rosemary. Tip the vegetables into a large roasting pan. Add a coffee cupful of water to the skillet and boil it while scraping up the bits. Pour this over the vegetables.
2. Pat the chicken (a 3- to 3 1/2-lb. bird is a good size) with paper towels. Stuff it with a couple of cloves of garlic and half a
lemon. Or, if you feel like it, you can dice up enough good whole wheat bread to make about 12 cups, toss it with 1/4 pound fresh porcini mushrooms that have been chopped and cooked for a few minutes in a little butter and salt and pepper and broth to moisten the bread ...and end up with a stuffing that is both down-home and upscale at the same time. Then dust the
chicken with paprika (gives skin a lovely deep color and the merest hint of smokiness), and salt and pepper. Next set the
chicken in the midst of the vegetables like an ocean liner among tugs. Roast the chicken and vegetables in a 300-degree F. oven. The trick to roasting chicken is to baste every 15 minutes. This is a boring chore but worth the effort. I often like to squeeze half a lemon over my chicken toward the end and I roast the bird at least 2 hours and as long as 3. When the leg bone wiggles and skin is the color of teak, it's time to eat.

Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen and More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen, by Lori Colwin

Lori Colwin

No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.
- Laurie Colwin

James Hilton

Surely there comes a time when counting the cost and paying the price aren't things to think about any more. All that matters is value — the ultimate value of what one does.
— James Hilton

I must be a Mermaid, Rango.

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
― Anaïs Nin

I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.
― Anaïs Nin

Portable Magic

Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.
― Stephen King

Books are a uniquely portable magic.
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.
― Stephen King

Good books don't give up all their secrets at once.
― Stephen King

Fiction is the truth inside the lie.
― Stephen King

Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.
― Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: A Story from Different Seasons

I think that we're all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better - and maybe not all that much better after all.
― Stephen King

A short story is a different thing all together - a short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger.
― Stephen King, Skeleton Crew

A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.
― Stephen King

Humor is almost always anger with its make-up on.
― Stephen King, Bag of Bones

Preventing Diabetes

NYT Article

Fretting and Sweating

I was already beginning to realize that the only way to conduct oneself in a situation where bombs rained down and bullets whizzed past, was to accept the dangers and all the consequences as calmly as possible. Fretting and sweating about it all was not going to help.
― Roald Dahl, Going Solo

Crock of Gold

I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. I've also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It's sure to be a phony.
― Roald Dahl, Danny the Champion of the World

When you're writing a book, it's rather like going on a very long walk, across valleys and mountains and things, and you get the first view of what you see and you write it down. Then you walk a bit further, maybe up onto the top of a hill, and you see something else. Then you write that and you go on like that, day after day, getting different views of the same landscape really. The highest mountain on the walk is obviously the end of the book, because it's got to be the best view of all, when everything comes together and you can look back and see that everything you've done all ties up. But it's a very, very long, slow process.
― Roald Dahl

The prime function of the children's book writer is to write a book that is so absorbing, exciting, funny, fast and beautiful that the child will fall in love with it. And that first love affair between the young child and the young book will lead hopefully to other loves for other books and when that happens the battle is probably won. The child will have found a crock of gold. He will also have gained something that will help to carry him most marvelously through the tangles of his later years.
― Roald Dahl

Different Place

Two hours of writing fiction leaves this writer completely drained. For those two hours he has been in a different place with totally different people.
― Roald Dahl

Absolute Freedom

A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.
― Roald Dahl

A Passion

I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.
― Roald Dahl

With Glittering Eyes

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.
― Roald Dahl

Wild Boar

Wild Boar in Wine Sauce

Ingredients

wild boar
4-5 small sweet white onions (cipollini)
olive oil
celery stalks and leaves
fresh rosemary
About 1 ½ to 2 L red wine
2 carrots
flour to thicken sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

Cut the wild boar into stew-size pieces.
In a large pot, soften cipollini in olive oil.
Once softened, add de-veined celery sliced thinly and fresh rosemary branches. Quench with a cup of red wine.
Add sliced carrots and cook over low heat enough to bring the flavor out of the carrots.
Add the boar and fill to cover the boar with red wine.
Marinate 24 hours in the refrigerator.
Place the pot back on the heat and bring to a boil for about an hour.
Cool and store another 24 hours in the refrigerator.
Place the pot back on the heat and bring to a boil until the boar is tender (another hour worked for Mongiovino frozen boar).
Near the end of the cooking, remove the boar pieces and clear out a selections of boar, carrots and onions to return to half of the wine marinade which has been passed through a sieve.
Take the other half of the wine marinade plus some residues of the sieve which have been mashed to a fine size and reduce, adding flour to thicken.
Just before serving, place the boar on a heated platter in the oven.
Add the remaining wine sauce and thicken further if necessary.

To Be Alive

To be alive means to be awake.
Profecto enim vita vigilia est.
--Pliny, Naturalis Historia, Prefatio, 19.

Deep Breathing

Why Practice Deep Breathing

Body Wisdom

Article

Cucumber Blindness

Last night on my walk my friend Deb told me she had cucumber blindness. "It's when you check and don't find any cukes until one day you discover that they're huge."
She gave us three home grown, garden cukes. They were delicious peeled sliced salted and eaten with Greek olives at supper. It was dark but I had no need for my flashlight since the full moon was out and we now have city streetlights turned on thanks to Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt.

Live!

If you are afraid of death, you are afraid of life, for living your life leads to death. Until you face death and see its beauty, you will be afraid to really live—you will never properly burn the candle for fear of its end.
― Henry Alford,How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People

Henry Alford

Painted seashells, a lurid conch, a Pierrot-themed weather vane, a giant starfish waving an American flag, two raffia chickens with googley eyes, an ambitious amount of tern art: If you had to categorize the contents of the beach house I rented that summer under one artistic school, you’d probably go with Alcoholic Gift Shop.

“Maybe I’ll deep-six some of this stuff in a closet for July and August,” I thought, reaching for a paper bag in which to decant the more vivid items. My plan was, come Labor Day weekend I would re-tchotchke. The house’s owner would never be wise to my slightly aggressive act of biocontainment.

Article

Chicken Coop Designs

http://www.cottagekits.com/citycoops/

Almonds

Almonds rock!

The Pain

The pain never goes away but it retreats. I have not seen my friend in 19 years. I have an eerie feeling I may never see him again. When I "Google" to see how he is, I see a photo of him wrapped in scarves, now wearing black bulky glasses. He's put on a lot of weight. He looks like he's sinking into a pond. He suffered emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of his mother and his male art teacher. He was never able to repair the damage or escape his role. He went to a psychic for help and she said "All I see is locks and doors. Are you a locksmith? I can't get much else. I'll give you your money back." His whole life is on hold as he emotionally takes on the burdens of everyone absorbing the drama and getting angry. His damage is profound. His parents are 80 and 90 year old children. They destroyed their only child, their prince. He is too terrified to work on healing and health because if he opens the door Niagara Falls will gush in. So he keeps the door sealed with 8 two-by -fours and watches the splashing against the porthole, and he swallows the key.

Paul Graham

How to do What you Love

E-Mail a Pothole

I love my City and our Brilliant new Mayor LisaBaldelli-Hunt.

Pothole Complaint Form, Woonsocket
Mayor Baldelli-Hunt is taking a new approach to reporting potholes in the City of Woonsocket. Steven D'Agostino, Director of Public Works, is attempting to have potholes repaired within 48 hours of being reported. If you come across a pothole during your travels through Woonsocket, please let us know by completing this form. Please be aware that potholes (unless they create a safety hazard) are repaired Monday - Friday. If a pothole is so large that it is presenting a safety hazard for motorists or pedestrians and it is a weekend, please call and report it to the Police Dispatch at (401) 766-1212.
Here

12 Hour Shifts

“They’re not small adults, they’re children,” he said. “They have more surface area to body mass. They’re still developing neurologically. Their reproductive systems are developing.”
Just 13, and Working Risky 12-Hour Shifts in the Tobacco Fields
Article

Good Manners

There’s a reason for the proliferation of etiquette classes. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers charm school to prepare brainiacs for business. “Please Pass the Manners” is a Los Angeles program for children and adults, as is “Courteous and Cool” classes offered in the South Bay. Good manners are ageless and timeless.
Article

Jennifer Eagan

When she was 18, she went on a trip to Europe, and while she was there, she began suffering panic attacks. She never knew when they would strike, and spent her time in fearful anticipation. But she found a way through the attacks in writing about them. It couldn't solve the terror, but somehow narrating it made it feel like I was somehow ultimately in control of it rather than the other way around.
-Writers Almanac

French Heritage Festival & Soirée

WOONSOCKET – Today’s annual French Heritage Festival & Soirée is all about spreading Francophile cheer and celebrating the city’s French-Canadian heritage. And you don’t have to be French-Canadian to enjoy the festivities.

The free festival, now in its 32nd year, will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at picturesque River Island Park in downtown Woonsocket, where attendees will be greeted by the smells of savory crepes and Tourtière (French-Canadian meat pie) and traditional French-Canadian folk music performed by Canada's Mathieu Allard Trio and Fluer de Lis, a local band led by Marianne Valentin.
-Woonsocket Call

Peaches and other Southern Delights

Another day of ninety degrees up here in New England. Here are some pin-up shots of peach dishes Here. I bake in the heat.

Folktale Archetype

Sad News Story

Grace L. Park

DREAMING OF FRIENDS
A tiger in my dream chases me, and I wake cold in fear
My mother tells me that people don't give up when they love you.
I dream of the tiger again. This time, we become friends.

from 2014 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

__________

Why do you like to write poetry?

Grace L. Park: "I find that my poetry is strongest when it's from my experiences. In fact, one of my favorite quotes is one by John Steinbeck, who said, 'A story to be effective [has] to convey something from the writer to the reader, and the power of its offering [is] the measure of its excellence. Outside of that, there [are] no rules.' These sijos are two of my attempts to capture some of my experiences and how they've affected me."

Source
Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century

Gar Waterman's Sculpture

Article in The New Haven Independent about Gar Waterman's bronze sculpture for Dartmouth College.

Polka Dot

A brief history of the polka dot.
Here.

Hot Day Colorful Tomato Salad

large ripe tomatoes sliced into wedges
green olives or oil cured black olives
sliced red onion

Combine and enjoy! Eat with your fingers!

A Thing Shared

Rereading my favorite piece from The Gastronomical Me by MFK Fisher. A Thing Shared (1918).

Solar Powered Bra

In my wildest dreams I would have solar powered clothing.
Article

Solar-powered bra 'able to charge an iPod'

A Japanese lingerie firm today unveiled the perfect gadget for eco-friendly sun worshippers – the solar-powered bra.

By Matthew Moore

4:37PM BST 14 May 2008

The bra comes with a detachable solar panel, worn around the stomach, which can produce enough energy to power an iPod or mobile phone as the wearer lazes on the beach, the makers claim.

It is also equipped with plastic pouches that can be filled with water, allowing wearers to quench their thirst without having to buy and then throw away hard-to-recycle drinks bottles.

And the bra itself is made of high quality organic cotton, to ensure its production has the smallest possible impact on the environment.

But the fetching "Photovoltaic-Powered Bra" won't be on shelves any time soon. It is still at the "concept" stage and has several problems that need to be ironed out.

For one, it is damaged by rain – a big drawback for those used to the vagaries of English summers.

The makers, Triumph International Japan, concede that that the bra will not become popular in its current form, as outer clothing renders its solar panel ineffective.

"People usually cannot go outside without wearing clothes over it," said Yoshiko Masuda of Triumph.

Triumph is developing a reputation for innovative, eco-friendly lingerie. It has previously released a bra than can be turned into a reusable shopping bag, and a bra designed to encourage the use of reusable chopsticks.

Googling Houdini

I spent the morning Googling Houdini posters. Try it.

Gargoyle Bride

Story

Group Therapy

My routines come out of total unhappiness. My audiences are my group therapy.
- Joan Rivers

G.K. Chesterton

There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.

All men can be criminals, if tempted; all men can be heroes, if inspired

What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but absence of self-criticism.

It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.

We must not hate humanity, or despise humanity, or refuse to help humanity; but we must not trust humanity; in the sense of trusting a trend in human nature which cannot turn back to bad things.

The poor object to being governed badly, while the rich object to being governed at all.

Whatever may be the reason, we all do warmly respect humility — in other people.

There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

Autodidact

au·to·di·dact
noun \ˌȯ-tō-ˈdī-ˌdakt, -dī-ˈ, -də-ˈ\
Definition of AUTODIDACT
: a self-taught person
— au·to·di·dac·tic adjective
Origin of AUTODIDACT
Greek autodidaktos self-taught, from aut- + didaktos taught, from didaskein to teach
First Known Use: 1748

George Santayana

To be happy you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world.
— George Santayana

Samuel Johnson

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own dispositions will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove.
― Samuel Johnson

Ram Dass: Polishing the Mirror

Yesterday Lily and I went to the library to pick up Ram Dass' latest book Polishing the Mirror. I couldn't put it down. I have always been a fan of Ram Dass since I was introduced to his book Be Here Now. That book blew my mind when I read it in 1976. I remember the day. I was 15. My parents were away for the weekend and I was home alone. I read the book and the top of my head flew off. I am forever grateful and so glad he is still writing.

Raju The Elephant

Freed at last.
Article

Sisters of the Skateboard

The entire world is like a skate park, right?
Article

Louis Jordan – Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens

In celebration of legalizing chickens in the city of Woonsocket, here's the lyrics to a favorite Louis Jordan song:

Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens

One night farmer Brown was takin' the airs
Locked up the barnyard with the greatest of care
Down in the hen house, somethin' stirred
When he shouted, "Who's there?"
This is what he heard
“There ain't nobody here but us chickens
There ain't nobody here at all
So calm yourself and stop that fuss
There ain't nobody here but us
We chickens tryin' to sleep and you butt in
And hobble, hobble hobble hobble with your chin”
“There ain't nobody here but us chickens
There ain't nobody here at all
You're stompin' around and shakin' the ground
You're kickin' up an awful dust
We chicken's tryin' to sleep and you butt in
And hobble, hobble hobble hobble, it's a sin”
“Tomorrow is a busy day
We got things to do, We got eggs to lay
We got ground to dig and worms to scratch
It takes a lot of settin', gettin' chicks to hatch”
“Ohh, there ain't nobody here but us chickens
There ain't nobody here at all
So quiet yourself and stop that fuss
There ain't nobody here but us
Kindly point that gun the other way
And hobble, hobble hobble of and hit the hay”
“Tomorrow is a busy day
We got things to do, we got eggs to lay
We got ground to dig and worms to scratch
It takes a lot of settin', gettin' chicks to hatch”
“There ain't nobody here but us chickens
There ain't nobody here at all
So quiet yourself and stop that fuss
There ain't nobody here but us
And kindly point that gun the other way
And hobble, hobble hobble of and hit the hay”
“Hey, hey, boss man, what do ya say?
It's easy pickings
Ain't nobody here but us chickens”
Songwriters: ALEX KRAMER, JOAN WHITNEY
Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens lyrics © BOURNE CO.

Black Thread

I have a fantasy romance with sewing. It's what I call girl's carpentry. Sewing is like driving a car but better, because you stay at home and usually don't get into a wreck or get tickets. In college I sewed two blouses with the help of a friend. I still have them, and I am proud of them. I have always been sentimental about my clothes. I adore fabric and when a favorite shirt or skirt or jeans wears out I save it for the chance I might repair it or recycle it into something like a quilt or a bag or a potholder. I am seduced by the remnant orphan fabrics at the bargain fabric outlets. Fabric to me is another form of art supplies. The only problem is I rarely sew except for quick repairs. Perhaps I dream too big. I dream of making dresses and skirts and vests. Recently a hem came apart on my new favorite polka dotted skirt. I knew if I washed it before mending it it would unravel and become worse. I sat down at the machine. It was threaded with black. My skirt is white with colorful dots. I decided to sew the hem anyway because I knew another decade would go by if I didn't. I told myself do it. If it bugs you you can change it later. Do it now and wear the skirt today. I was right. Sometimes black thread is better than no thread. I have to chuckle every time I glance at the hem. It makes my skirt look inside out!

Revelation

I thought I was the last one to the table but actually I was the first.

Lori Colwin: Home Cooking

Unlike some people, who love to go out, I love to stay home. This may be caused by laziness, anxiety or xenophobia, and in the days when my friends were happily traveling to Bolivia and Nepal, I was ashamed to admit that what I liked best was hanging around the house.

I am probably not much fun as a traveler, either. My idea of a good time abroad is to visit someone's house and hang out, poking into their cupboards if they will let me. One summer I spent some time in a farmhouse on the island of Minorca. This was my idea of bliss: a vacation at home (even if it wasn't my home). I could wake up in the morning, make the coffee and wander outside to pick apricots for breakfast. I could wander around markets figuring out that night's dinner. In foreign countries I am drawn into grocery shops, supermarkets and kitchen supply houses. I explain this by reminding my friends that, as I was taught in my Introduction To Anthropology, it is not just the Great Works of mankind that make a culture. It is the daily things, like what people eat and how they serve it.
-Lori Colwin Home Cooking

B.J. Fogg, PhD

B.J. Fogg, PhD, a social scientist and behavior researcher at Stanford University, helps people kickstart positive changes in behavior with his project Tiny Habits.

Permission

Enriching our relationship with writing means discovering what allows us to feel balanced and safe enough to begin putting words on the page. We can create a context within which writing happens. One of the ways to do this is to explore what we need to do to prepare, not over prepare, to sit down and write. For one writer, preparing might be steeping a full-bodied cup of Assam tea. For another, it could be a 20-minute meditation. For yet another, a minute or two of jumping-jacks.
Each of us is unique, and it is up to each of us to discover what it is we need, to give ourself permission to write.
- Jane Anne Staw
source

The Outsider

If you've a notion of what man's heart is, wouldn't you say that maybe the whole effort of man on earth to build a civilization is simply man's frantic and frightened attempt to hide himself from himself? That there is a part of man that man wants to reject? That man wants to keep from knowing what he is? That he wants to protect himself from seeing that he is something awful? And that this 'awful' part of himself might not be as awful as he thinks, but he finds it too strange and he does not know what to do with it? We talk about what to do with the atom bomb...But man's heart, his spirit is the deadliest thing in creation. Are not all cultures and civilizations just screens which men have used to divide themselves, to put between that part of themselves which they are afraid of and that part of themselves which they wish, in their deep timidity, to try to preserve? Are not all of man's efforts at order an attempt to still man's fear of himself?
― Richard Wright, The Outsider

Black Boy

My mother's suffering grew into a symbol in my mind, gathering to itself all the poverty, the ignorance, the helplessness; the painful, baffling, hunger-ridden days and hours; the restless moving, the futile seeking, the uncertainty, the fear, the dread; the meaningless pain and the endless suffering. Her life set the emotional tone of my life, colored the men and women I was to meet in the future, conditioned my relation to events that had not yet happened, determined my attitude to situations and circumstances I had yet to face. A somberness of spirit that I was never to lose settled over me during the slow years of my mother's unrelieved suffering, a somberness that was to make me stand apart and look upon excessive joy with suspicion, that was to make me keep forever on the move, as though to escape a nameless fate seeking to overtake me.
At the age of twelve, before I had one year of formal schooling, I had a conception of life that no experience would ever erase, a predilection for what was real that no argument could ever gainsay, a sense of the world that was mine and mine alone, a notion as to what life meant that no education could ever alter, a conviction that the meaning of living came only when one was struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless suffering.
At the age of twelve I had an attitude toward life that was to endure, that was to make me seek those areas of living that would keep it alive, that was to make me skeptical of everything while seeking everything, tolerant of all and yet critical. The spirit I had caught gave me insight into the sufferings of others, made me gravitate toward those whose feelings were like my own, made me sit for hours while others told me of their lives, made me strangely tender and cruel, violent and peaceful.
It made me want to drive coldly to the heart of every question and it open to the core of suffering I knew I would find there. It made me love burrowing into psychology, into realistic and naturalistic fiction and art, into those whirlpools of politics that had the power to claim the whole of men's souls. It directed my loyalties to the side of men in rebellion; it made me love talk that sought answers to questions that could help nobody, that could only keep alive in me that enthralling sense of wonder and awe in the face of the drama of human feeling which is hidden by the external drama of life.
― Richard Wright, Black Boy

Richard Wright

Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.
― Richard Wright, Native Son

Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books...
― Richard Wright, Black Boy

Reading was like a drug, a dope. The novels created moods in which I lived for days.
― Richard Wright, Black Boy

I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all.
― Richard Wright, Black Boy

Having Cake

The exact date when we celebrate our birthday has moved around over the years, depending on when people feel like having cake.
- Writer's Almanac writing about Google's official incorporation

Last Night

Last night I took a walk with Lily after 6:30. I ran into Lucy-dog's mom and her neighbor. I kept walking and went all the way to Edgewater Drive because the air was lovely and my feet wanted to keep going. The moon was up in the shape of a "D". I got home after 8. Bill was home. I boiled a pound of linguine to go with my newly made tomato sauce that I heated up in the heart-shaped pot. It was delicious. I stayed up reading Love Life Elephants by Dame Daphne Sheldrick.

Societies Illness

I read cookbooks for comfort and inspiration. Since nearly all of our friends have eating disorders I mostly cook for us.

Zamboni Driving Lessons

I've always wanted to drive a zamboni!

It might have an exotic Italian name, but any similarities between a Zamboni and the glamorous world of Ferrari and Lamborghini ends there. A Zamboni is ponderously slow and definitely not street legal. Its job is to clean and smooth the surface of an ice rink.
- Nick Kurczewski
Article

I Adore my Thermador

Keeping my sourdough refreshed means baking a lot of breads, waffles and pancakes. We are fine with that but today my oven didn't light up. She has been having a few problems lately. She was built in 1959 and is a brushed stainless steel Thermador in-the-wall oven with retro cockpit dials and nobs. We love her.

My friend MARIO has appliance repair business and he has brought her back to life three times so I am hoping my Thermador is like a cat and has at least 9 lives.

MARIO'S APPLIANCE
968 Elm Street
Woonsocket, RI 02895
Phone: (401) 765-1636
Email: mariosappliances@verizon.net
Web: www.mariosappliances.com/

Frozen Raspberries with Orange Juice

Last spring my friend cleaned out her freezers and gave me two shopping bags of frozen raspberries from her garden. I felt guilty that she had done all of the hard work of picking and sorting.I thanked her profusely. This morning I made a smoothie using the frozen raspberries orange juice and a little bit of yogurt. A perfect breakfast on a hot day.

We need a new WPA

We need a new WPA to rebuild the nation's crumbling infrastructure, a higher minimum wage, strong unions, investments in education, and extended unemployment benefits for those who still can't find a job. When 95% of the economic gains go to the top 1%, the middle class and poor don't have the purchasing power to keep it going.
Article

Literacy Sparks

To learn to read is to light a fire;
every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.
- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

Pooch Power

Recognize and honor hardworking assistance dogs
Raise awareness of assistance dogs
Educate the public about the work these specially trained animals perform
Honor the puppy raisers and trainers of assistance dogs
Recognize heroic deeds performed by assistance dogs in our communities

http://www.workinglikedogs.com/
http://www.puppiesbehindbars.com/home
http://www.neads.org/

Literacy Therapy
http://www.leapreading.org/LeapReading/Home.html
http://orangecountyspca.org/program/canine-literacy-program/
http://www.learningexpress.com/initiatives/reading-with-a-wild-thing-therapy-dogs-children-and-literacy/
http://www.librarydogs.com/all-around_dogs.html
http://www.librarydogs.com/why_dogs.html

Simmering Overnight

I simmered my tomatoes overnight in the slow cooker at 225. Next I will put them through the food mill. It is comforting to have things cook themselves, safely. When the liquids have cooled, I puree the remaining pulp in a little bit of tomato liquid in my blender to add back into the sauce. Important warning: don't puree in blender until everything has cooled off otherwise you will have exploding hot liquids on the ceiling.

Greek Festival in Cranston

FREE ADMISSION:
September 5th 6th 7th Church of the Annunciation / Cranston Greek Festival
175 Oaklawn Avenue
Cranston, RI 02920
Phone: (401) 942-4188
more

Blighted Cities

Some neighborhoods [in Baltimore] have lost two-thirds of their residents since 2000. There are so many vacant lots that the city, now home to more than 200 community gardens and farms, zones for urban farms and allows people to keep pigs, sheep and goats in residential areas. A vineyard has popped up as well.
Article

Mark Bittman

In the 21st century, it is inevitable that nearly every citizen of the world has been and will continue to be affected by the scourge of junk food and liquid candy. Even though intelligent proposals abound, few countries have attempted to curb their marketing or sales. Without limits, the consumption of unhealthy foods will result in higher rates of obesity, and therefore an increase in associated diseases and premature deaths.

If we know how to diminish needless human suffering and mortality, why would we not? As Mexico has shown, it’s the responsibility of government to protect its population from hyper-processed food.

China has the potential to apply the lessons learned not only from its own positive experience dealing with communicable disease, but from the tragic mistakes made by so-called developed nations. It has a chance to turn the tide against disease-causing diets before it’s too late. Sadly, we may need its example to wake up to our own problems.

Article

Health is Wealth

CVS has taken a courageous step. Read

Save the Hemlock

My beloved Hemlock tree has grown magnificently but she has a disease. A case of the wooly adelgid.read I hope we can save her. She is my urban soldier, and guardian of the street.

Using Apple and Citrus Peels

Apple Peels
Citrus Peels

Hot Day Tomato Processing

It's 85 degrees and humid in my kitchen and believe it or not I am inside, boiling tomatoes! The other tomatoes are waiting their turn and are ripening as I am simmering the second batch. I ran the first batch through the food mill and decided to save the pulpy skin and seeds because they seemed too good to waste. I saw this article about using all the parts of the tomato. That said I will utry it in my time tested simple one switch Waring blender form the 1950's because I am terrified of immersion blenders.

My bio dad, who was not the man who raised me, looked like a cross between Dick Van Dyke and Abraham Lincoln. He was an advertising writer on Madison Ave in NYC. One of his earliest jobs was doing the bloop bloop sound effects for Sacramento tomato juice broadcast live over the radio.

I looked out the window and saw an empty plastic bag rolling towards me across the parking lot. I ran out and used it to pick up trash. My neighbors came out and started chatting and joining in. Sometimes the world is speaking to us and all we have to do is listen.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Prepare for Pancake Meditation

Making pancakes is very calming to me. We also like to take pancakes along on picnics, road trips and commutes.

Here's a recipe for a semi dry pancake mix that will be ready (in the fridge) when you are.

Semi Dry Mix

4 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup hand-cranked wholegrain and seed mixture ~I like: corn rice, barley, rye, millet, poppy, sesame and sunflower seeds
3 1/2 cups old-fashioned or rolled oats
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 cup vegetable oil

Keep refrigerated.

To make Pancakes

1 cup homemade mix
1 cup buttermilk, or a combination of plain yogurt and milk; or 1cup liquid whey
1 large egg

adapted from King Arthur Flour

Surfing Rabbi

A former opera acrobat from Bushwick, Brooklyn, Rabbi Levenson arrived in the Hamptons with his dog, Yoyo, last year. He has since planted a flag outside the Jewish Center, declaring it a “spiritual playground” offering yoga, meditation and organic vegetable gardening.

How could the rabbi convince the preteen boys that it was important to memorize a new alphabet and difficult prayers for their bar mitzvahs?

The rabbi offered his students a deal.

“We were studying Hebrew and he said if I taught him to surf, he would teach me Hebrew,” said Jonah Dickson, 12. “It was a little surprising. I didn’t think a rabbi would want to surf.”
Article

Literacy +Theater

Theater brings words alive! Article

Tomato Rescue

This morning I noticed the twenty pounds of tomatoes we got needed emergency rescue. I'm in a race against rot. I sliced off the bad spots. Luckily only one tomato needed a major rot-ectomy. I cut the remaining tomatoes into quarters saving a bunch for tomato sandwiches. Now the tomatoes are simmering in my slow cooker in leftover broccoli water. I covered the pot with a vented lid so moisture can escape. It's a hot and humid day today in New England.

Twin Ballerinas

When I was six there were two girls in my first grade class who were taking ballet lessons. Their parents had made it very clear to them that they were intending to make them into professional ballerinas. Everybody knew! Both girls were very tiny with straight light brown hair and they always wore buns and maroon leotards to school. They were under strict dietary restrictions and daily practice regimes and now that I think of it the two mothers were fiercely competing over their ballerina daughters. In ninth grade one of the ballerinas was in my art class. This ballerina decided she didn't like the life of never having chocolate or pizza or ice cream and having to practice all the time so she decided to quit. She painted a mural on paper of dancing feet using her old toe shoes as brushes. She told our art teacher this is about my joy! She was so excited to finally eat her first candy bar and have fun with friends.

20 Pounds of Tomatoes + A Half Bushel of Paula Red Apples

This morning I took Lily swimming at Harris Pond, her favorite swim spot a mile and a half from home. The rain from last night made the pond cool. She loved it and swam around and drank some water. I was ready to join her but I was wearing a white dress and leather shoes. On the way home I ate some yellow raspberries off a bush and a few apples picked off a tree.
My husband suggested we drive to the Big Apple in Wrentham for apples. Once we got there we decided to get a few heads of broccoli and tomatoes too. Next week we'll get peaches.

Carpenter's Beach Matunuck RI

Our marching band performed last night at dusk for the Children's Light Parade at Mary Carpenter's Beach. People come from all over to spend summer days or weekends in these cottages and share them with their grandchildren. The houses are tiny and inches apart yet loved and decorated - a joyous trailer park feel. The community is close-knit and as intimate as a campground. People face the single-car-width "street" in beach chairs or from their teensy screened porches. Nearly every house is decorated with strings of night lights. Trying to find your cottage is a bit like getting lost looking for your car at a drive in. Luckily the "streets" are numbered. What brings families here is that it is affordable and within walking distance of the sand and surf. It's a delightful Yankee Mardi Gras shanty-town, a Rhode Island clam chowder version of the borscht belt in the Poconos. It's a magical place.

Sin and Flesh Pond

I always wanted to know what the name Sin and Flesh Pond meant when I saw it on the map. . .

Old Main Road, Tiverton RI

On March 28, 1676, a pious fellow named Zoeth Howland was riding from Dartmouth to Newport to attend a Quaker meeting. It was quite a distance to travel in those days, and all the more so because of the dangers en route. Howland had to be careful of wolves and rattlesnakes, and, because of the ongoing war with the Narragansett Indians.
source

Post Parade Pancakes

It was a delight to discover the mason jar full of pancake batter in the fridge this morning after our late night. I made a few dozen pancakes while the coffee pot was brewing, and I was not fully awake. Pancakes are a soothing breakfast especially with a little bit of Polaner cherry jam. But I still get creeped out by their cadaver-cheek texture.

Covering the Uninsured isn’t Hard at all.

Article