The Other Side of the Ocean

Sunday, July 31, 2005

This post is about bras. Too racy or undignified for you? Move on. 

the reason why I am not over-the-edge stressed as weighed against the 100 suggested reasons as to why my house remains, as yet, unsold 

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Rock rock rock around the clock 

(I've got mail: )

Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 18:51:54 -0500
From: Saul
Subject: what r u up to?
To: Nina Camic

[M] has the urge to go for a couple drinks.
Are you in the mood?
We can pick you and go some place fun.

Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 19:33:37 -0500
To: Saul
From: Nina Camic
Subject: Re: what r u up to?

Actually I was about to watch Mean Girls. Should I postpone it one more night?

(other irrelevant details are exchanged, then:)

Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 19:44:31 -0500
To: Saul
From: Nina Camic
Subject: Re: what r u up to?

great, thanks. tshirt okay or are you upscale?

Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 19:56:32 -0500
From: Saul
Subject: Re: what r u up to?
To: Nina Camic

low scale.

(a minute later: )

Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 19:56:18 -0500 (CDT)
From: ang
Subject: Re: Whoops
To: Nina Camic

Would you like to get coffee [tomorrow] at, like 8? And then we can go to the market?
I know the market's less busy earlier but I honestly don't know if I can
get up at like 5:30.

Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 19:57:22 -0500
To: ang
From: Nina Camic
Subject: Re: Whoops

Okay. Name your favorite place and I'll be there.

Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:00:05 -0500 (CDT)
From: ang
Subject: Re: Whoops
To: Nina Camic

Hmm. I usually go to Fair Trade - the one on the corner of State Street at
Gorham, across the street from Tellus Mater & the Jamba Juice.
They're nice there.

Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:05:19 -0500
To: ang
From: Nina Camic
Subject: Re: Whoops

Oh sure. I love to watch others flirt.
See you there at 8. I may show up a little earlier and jot down ideas.

(Bragger! But in reality, I showed up a few minutes late because of this: )

Spotting a Cow at the Crystal Bar on Willie Street

(…and because of this: )

next door, I was shown some prize items for sale by the proud store owner, who opened up the place at around midnight so we could see, for example, this:


for the wall...

…and this:

for the coffee table...

…and this:

for the ???

(…but no. it doesn’t end there; back at home – note the hour please: )

Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 00:43:55 -0500
To: Tonya
From: Nina Camic
Subject: Re: Re:

I just got home. Are you up? Probably not.

Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 00:48:01 -0500
From: Tonya
Subject: Re: Re: Re:
To: Nina Camic

I am up -- finishing my blog post about last night. Call if you want to talk.

(Then, this morning, reflecting on my level of alertness on the drive home after the Crystal night:)

Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 07:23:08 -0500
To: Saul
From: Nina Camic
Subject: Re: what r u up to?

I think I demonstrated what it means to fall asleep in mid-sentence last night!
Thanks again

Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 09:08:57 -0500
From: Saul
Subject: Re: what r u up to?
To: Nina Camic

that was classic!!!!

Hey, I did shop in the end. Flowers for the house showing tomorrow and lots of bags of food that is to turn into snacky things:






...while the stool looks on

Friday, July 29, 2005

A do widzenia for Jeremy 

One could say that I will use any occasion to entice people over for a meal. Tenure decision? Birthday? My birthday? Spring day? Friday? – all good reasons to cook for people.

Jeremy, whom people mistakenly believe I met through the great blogging project, but who is really also sort of kind of a colleague and certainly every inch the greatest of great friends (even if those inches are dropping off rapidly), is about to take off for Cambridge MA. And of course, I needed to cook one last blogger meal before he goes out and punting, or rowing, or whatever it is that he intends to take up on and around the Charles River.

Or, was it that I just sipped wine at the side, while others prepared the food?

Bozzo and Freese, making sure the rest of us eat

No, not exactly. In fact, there were so many dirty dishes after the meal that I had to wonder if in some drunken stupor I kept taking random plates and throwing junk on them just to see how many I could splatter with mush before the evening was done. Except that I did not get drunk.

I also did not take many photos – I was too busy. If you can believe it, I was so busy that I think I forgot to sit down and eat one of the courses.

Brito, putting up with blogger-rations

But Jeremy deserved a super meal.

To you, pal. Stay chirpy.
Freese again, positioned on a notoriously famous kitchen stool

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Deconstructing the day 

Face it: life, for the most part, is made up of a multitude of very tiny steps. Never is this more obvious than when you are cooking (as I am all day today). You organize your tasks (and there are a million steps that need to be ordered and followed) and you take a breath and plunge.

And then you deal with everything that does not follow the logical pattern that you set forth for yourself. You know, things don’t emulsify as they should, your Italian parsley is too bitter and so you need a different batch, the kiwi puree produced too much liquid.

And so you compensate. You turn on noise – for cooking, either a TV talk show or the radio will do; working in silence is a no-no. You cross out steps taken and add new ones to your list. You tell yourself that you are damn glad that you no longer work in a restaurant, because cooking for friends is fun whereas cooking for strangers is stressful. You look at the clock a million times and reprogram your tasks, piling more and more into the afternoon part of your grid, as the morning slips away on tasks that take longer than you would have anticipated.

At this point, the kitchen remains a place of ordered calm.

And the doorbell is ringing and you think – what the hell?? But you have made this deal with yourself that you will never ever not pause to talk to someone who stops by and as you drop everything to put on decent clothes (as opposed to the scrappy t-shirt you have on, along with something that resembled shorts twenty years ago but now could easily be mistaken for men’s underwear), the doorbell falls silent. You go out anyway and you see a neighbor’s 5-year old son (let’s call him Dennis – it’s apt) retreating. Ah. He has a habit of bringing my Times to my door and reveling in the heaped praise that is bestowed on him for his efforts. And when he does not reach me in time, he tosses the little blue sack aside, always missing the driveway, so that the paper habitually mauls what few blooms remain in my dry perennial bed.

And then you bike over to get the baguette and more kiwis and avocados (it’s green, I tell you – yellow and green on your plate today; and of course there will be flowers to eat as well) and you think to yourself – this day, made up of a thousand little details and a grand moment where it all (sort of) falls together – rocks.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

tasty blooms 

Sometime in the middle of each semester I make my way downtown to teach a seminar at the Department of Justice. The seminar is always on Wednesdays, always in the mornings. There are many benefits to rubbing noses with real lawyers now and then, especially those who are representing you and me in the numerous cases filed against the State of Wisconsin. It's good to keep informed about these things.

A secondary benefit is that I get to go to the downtown Wednesday market on these DOJ days. It is scary how you can go with a list of two items and come back with a truckload of foods. What can I do… I am starting to prepare the Last Supper for this week-end, fittingly named (by me) because of a bunch of rites of passage to be commemorated then, though none of them quite as horrific as those about to take place on the heels of this meal (cunningly displayed on someone's lunchbox, possibly as a reminder that every meal could be, indeed, your last):



This post, however, is not about that. It’s about asking vendors for edible flowers. I need edible flowers and not many fit the bill. You can make yourself sick by eating the wrong kind of pea flower, for instance, whereas a nasturtium or a violet will go far to create a culinary masterpiece.

Unfortunately, most vendors are shocked when I press them on this topic. And most are suspicious when I say I only want one particular flower out a huge bouquet laid out there for me. And it is hard to explain the whys and what fors. Why do you want to eat flowers when there are so many truly wonderful other foods there for you, in stall after stall?

If I had to search out the reasons for why I do the things I do – it would keep me up all night and scare you away. Best to just assume that I get these notions and they stick and if an edible flower is one of them, then I will chase it down until it is positioned on the palm of my hand ready to be plunked into … the dish under consideration.

So, just one photo today, taken during a discussion of how I can have more of one kind of flower so that I can EAT IT. (In the end I bought the whole bouquet – so pretty, how can anyone resist...)

Taking care 

In this world, there are people who are destined to take care of you. I’m not talking about parent types. I’m talking about those who peer into your eye and notice that you are indeed far more grateful for that act of taking care than you let on.

I’ve never actually admitted to liking this. It is a rare person whom I will allow to tilt the balance so that I am not the one marmishly looking out for them. People with deep anxieties about life are like that – they appear fiercely independent and they can’t ever owe anything to anyone. I’m not saying this is good or bad and I’m not saying all good friends should assume care-giving tasks. All I am saying is that some have gently pushed aside the recently wobbly sign I find myself routinely hiding behind...



...and I am grateful.

Of course, it would be the case that much of taking care of another for me orbits around food and beverage. And indeed, there have been many lattes and Macaroni Grills and scrambled eggs in the past months that have been direct answers to my often unexpected and often pesty calls for company.

And then there have been these two who have taken the art of taking care to another level: for the past several months, Tom and Suzanne have taken to cooking dinners for me on a fairly regular basis – like just about once a week. And when I bike over there, I am, predictably perhaps, in some state of tumultuous anxiety. So that it takes more than one bottle of wine tucked into Mr. B’s pouch to get us through the evening. And they appear to not mind. Maybe they do mind, maybe they are doing this out of some vow that they made, in the manner of: dear deity (or whatever), if only you allow our hostas to grow, we promise we will cook regularly for any loser who comes our way in the months to come, maybe I wreck their routines – but they do not let on.

I feel that I cannot thank them enough for this period of feeding. Last night, after a supper of gazpacho and blueberry pie (because, of course, they would have picked up from my blog that I am all about blueberries) I biked home late, reflecting on this and I knew that the next blog post will be about the act of taking care: because really, if you have a friend who is resisting being taken care of, don’t take them at their word. Do it anyway. Being looked after, at least for short periods of time, can be awesome!

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Frumpiness then and now 

A long post on age and frumpiness, as written by a blogger who is older than 99% of the bloggers she links to and interacts with

Tonya writes about her weak enthusiasm for older men. Oscar comments that men haven’t the gall to publicly admit their lack of spark for older women (as he then takes himself out of that category, fearing the wrath of all his older women friends, I’m sure). Ehhh, men don’t have to admit it – we know it’s there. And I understand, because I am, unfortunately, equally tough, if not tougher, on older men.

And yet, I think Tonya isn’t completely forthright in her asserting indifference to this category of older guys, since she and I have counted off men we know who are significantly older and yet, by our standards, by any standards – they are damn attractive, both intellectually and physically.

However, the counting was limited to the fingers of one hand.

If it’s possible to find these attractive types, then why are we finding them so rarely? Because as people age, a significant number don’t find it worthwhile to pursue the war against frumpiness, natural proclivity toward obesity, to say nothing of intellectual and emotional slovenliness and self-indulgence.

And just to let you know: things don’t get any easier. Each decade it becomes a tougher war. Take the currently hot bloggers’ topic of body shape and size: I watch with amusement Jeremy’s and Ang’s discussion of how few food points they are allowed on their diets. When you pass age 50, your permissible “points” just to maintain a decent [meaning healthy] weight are so few that you have to admit that some degree of hunger will always be your bedfellow if you want to avoid the bulge that promises to make you look pretty much like the Michelin tire guy for life. Picture me on Mr. B huffing and puffing and looking something like this:



So often you conclude, however, that the struggle isn't worth it. Who wants to be constantly yelling at her or himself for looking with lust at a Twix candy bar. (A couple of days ago I watched my friend eat a chocolate bar in the car and I almost ripped the soft piece of candy from her hand – temptation is everywhere!)

In assessing the desirability of young people I’ll just say what everybody knows: sure, appearance matters some. Yes, yes, it matters a lot. Yes, there are those who hook up with women within minutes of meeting their object of attention simply because these beings are cute and bouncy and they never have a bad hair day.

But even if you are not in that category, even if you consider yourself living in a state of permanent bad hair days, you know that youth gives you a significant boost. Nature has done this for you, because we need to ensure that the human species will survive pop culture’s assault on physical imperfection. Nature has given you some combination of peachy skin and shiny hair and eyes that twinkle and hands that twist lids of jars without hesitation. It’s enough to get the job of finding a mate done.

There really truly is an old Polish proverb that states: men fall in love through their eyes, women through their ears. I don’t buy it. Men will pick out the woman who admires them to death even if she is not a looker. And of course, for women as well, in the context of youth – rarely is a guy’s appearance so totally off-putting as to have her walk away from someone who actually has something witty to say or holds some claim to a powerful position that is oftentimes more sexy than any muscle added during a gym workout.

But for me (and I am sooooo not the only one my age to be saying this) – oh, I am significantgly more fussy now. Significantly more! It comes as a surprise to most men that so many women my age would rather be alone than be with someone who doesn’t have both wit and some degree of physical presence going for him. Frumpiness may not have been as much an issue at age twenty or thirty, but it is now. We who have disciplined ourselves to maintain higher levels of mental and physical energy, we’re less and less interested in those who have caved in and let go. We were the caregivers, the conversation makers, the arrangers once, don’t assume that this is the role we are to take on yet again as you, men of my generation, find yourselves repeatedly in doctors offices or staring blankly with nothing interesting to entertain us with, because you were all about self- indulgence years ago.

So, note this please, you young bloggers: follow those diets, keep moving, and no less importantly: step outside your work boots and develop your interests, your ways of relating to people, to the Greater World Out There! Not because that’ll get you a desirable mate now. You’ll get her or him anyway. Do the above so that you will be an interesting human being when you are fifty or older. Or else you may find yourself spending even more time on match.com then than you are doing now.

UPDATE: In answering a reader's question I decided to insert the clarifier here as well. When I write about physical discipline and vigilance, I do not mean weight. I was careful to write the post in a way that focused on robust health and fitness. I know people are all about weight loss. To me, that is only a proxy for something far far more significant: strength, muscle tone, shapliness, stamina and zest, etc. -- attention to this creates a physical presence that is indeed attractive, knocking down physical frumpiness every time.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Celebrate we will Because life is short but sweet for certain 

Sunday, July 24, 2005

(After Washington D.C.) daughters, redux 

Saturday, dusk. The streets of Georgetown are crowded now. I pause a lot, looking at buildings, stores, people. Sometimes I take pictures, sometimes I just watch. They walk ahead, arm in arm, laughing at their jokes, looking back protectively, patiently, to make sure I haven’t been swallowed by crowds or run over by the meandering cars.

We enter a store and try on clothes. They tell me what looks dorky and what’s in. That looks great on you, they say. No, too bold. Come on, it’s fantastic! The one with the beads. Here, let me pick a top to go with it.

The sales are good. I watch them select things with such care – they are so attuned to the way things go together, often in funky ways, always with an eye toward novel styles.

We sit at a window table at a California-style bistro. Napa cuisine! It is very late. We stuff ourselves with grilled calamari and zucchini flowers filled with pecorino. At the end, we try a California desert wine: good! – says one. sweet! –says the other.

Georgetown at night. Weaving into its depths, we look at mansions and calculate what kind of income would make this part of town affordable. No one in my world could ever live here. Their world is more varied. They hang out for hours upon hours with the homeless in shelters at the same time that they know people who have horses and boats.

I leave their apartment before dawn today. They wake to say good-bye. I’ll see them again in three weeks. But there are never too many days that you can have with those you love. It was for one day really; it could have been one evening, one dinner and it would have been worth the travel, the hassle, the scheduling accommodations. Connections. Rare, beautiful connections to people who are the jewels in your life.

Georgetown at dusk: a Scouts' urban crawl

Georgetown at night: she belongs here somehow


Georgetown at night: Mr. B's soulmate


Georgetown at night: pan roasted grouper, baby summer squash ragout, sweet corn flan, in a pool of basil pan sauce -- a table with a view


blueberry and peach cobbler: fresh and honest

Saturday, July 23, 2005

(From Washington D.C.) getting it right 

Rouse yourself. Don't be a passive reader. Figure this one out:

A mother and two grown daughters have brunch in Alexandria, Virginia. It is a dazzling day by all accounts and Alexandria is totally charming.

The threesome choose this place for brunch. Why? For the important reason that the color of the exterior matches the top the mother is wearing over her polka-dot skirt.




The three place an order.
Question: What did the mother order?

Choice A:

bloody tasty


Choice B:

greens with celeriac and grilled shrimp over mango chutney


Choice C:

blueberry wonderful


Hints:

The mother almost never eats lunch.
When she does order lunch, she rarely has anything apart from plain water to drink with it.
The mother loves blueberry anything.
The mother used to make mean bloody marys for brunches many decades ago.

*******************************
Answer: Choice B.
The mother is having a 24 hour dazzling day (see first sentence). All rules are suspended.

After lunch the mother played with a parrot.



And across the Potomac, all contemplated a familiar sight:

(From Washington D.C.:) three “cities,” three train “stations” 

Staying at the Georgetown Law Center in DC puts me two blocks away from Union Station. For many reasons then (Metro, latte, Metro, latte) I have become familiar with it.

Madison, of course, does not really have a train station. But it has a train. Driving to the airport yesterday, I crossed the tracks and noted a big cardboard sign saying “Trains depart at: 11:00 am, 1:00 pm, 3:00 pm…” etc. I wasn’t sure where they were departing to, and you could hardly call it a station, but in Madison, that’s all you’re going to get.

Grand Central in NY has been splendidly updated, but it has, to me, a fatal flaw: apart from the downstairs food courts, it has no places to sit. Now, maybe there can never be enough seating anyway for the millions who pass through it daily so why bother, or maybe the Mayors Giuliani and at present Bloomberg want to keep the homeless from appropriating seats for their personal use, but given that most people actually arrive at stations more than ten minutes before their train is taking off – it is a nuisance.

At Union Station, seating is abundant. Most is straightforward, in the style of airport stuff, but in some hallways it is not only adequate, it is quite pretty. This morning as I was in hot pursuit of a latte, I saw it in its empty incarnation.

Union (not Terrace, Station) chairs

(From Washington D.C.) 

Friday, July 22, 2005

I love Madison, really I do… 

Thursday, July 21, 2005

A quiet grin and a twinkle 

Are people thinking they clicked on to the wrong blog? Hey, you, over there! Seen Ocean lately? Yeah, same old, same old… No no, really, check it out today: the post title is: a quiet grin and a twinkle.

So it’s been pretty much that kind of a 24 hours, what can I say.

In anticipation of my leaving Madison tomorrow, I got things done today – that in itself deserves a ten minute standing ovation, because it has been rare this summer for me to get things done.

True, the show that y’all had me watch with you tonight was sort of kind of sad, rather than funny (sorry! okay okay, I’ll give it another chance! I understand the subtleties, I do, but it was still sad*), and there were storms in the morning and bills had to be paid -- all ready ingredients for a curl-up-and-sob moment.

But I’m sifting and sorting through the hours and they come out on balance in this direction: ahhhhh (rather than ohhhhh).

(Not a small part of it has to do with the fact that tomorrow I will be with my daughters out on the east coast.)

I also did head out to check on the apartment that will be my home in just a few weeks. I think they are making progress! I do! Like, the sink is in, the spotlight lamps are dangling from the old beamed ceiling, the graffiti on the outside has been (pretty much) blasted away.

Tobacco lofts. That’s the name of the place. Me and tobacco, tobacco and I. A funny and clever combination. Yeah.

enter this way

lofty inside


* The Comeback

this day's storms 

What a difference a cloud (in one's day) makes… For example:


before noon ... and after noon

Where a highly competent individual who has managed complicated moves and even changes in citizenship cannot figure out how to set the AC in her house 

...blackbird has spoken like the first bird 

It is so late… So late that it is no longer Tonya's birthday;

contemplating

Time to make even more changes.

Let’s begin with a new photo for the sidebar. Ann,

skeptical


did you take this one of the Ocean author?


with a latte...

Thanks.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Polish proverbs no. 4, 5 & 6 

Polish proverb no.3 

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Polish proverb no.2 

Monday, July 18, 2005

Polish proverb no.1 

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Yes, well, I have no oomph to write this post, so make of the sentences in between the photos whatever you want 

A lawyer, an artist and a law prof set out for Devil’s Lake State Park. It was 100 degrees outside. At least. The artist was tired, the law prof was completely out of sorts and the lawyer was raring to go swimming.



At a table next to ours we encountered a group of Poles from Chicago. How did I guess they were Polish? Well, the language, of course. And the swimming Speedos on the men! We chatted for a while. It felt like home. Safe. Like, get me out of this world and take me to my homeland. But then, where is my homeland?



The lawyer and I took a canoe out. We left the artist to do his thing. The lake was spectacularly cool and calming. It should have calmed me. It should have.





Back at the shore, we found the artist…. Reading.

Oh sure, he did some watercolor stuff as well. But no big canvases for him today. I knew exactly where he was coming from.



I suggested ice cream. The servers were two Polish students, picking up some money during a summer in America. They hated their employer. Why? The first day on the job he told them: basically, I hate foreign workers, but I have no choice but to hire you. Downhill after that.



At this point the lawyer wanted us to go swimming, but the law prof said no. The lack of oomph was catching up. The idea of changing into swim gear, then out again, was overwhelming. So the swim was scrapped and the great hike took place.



The last time I took this trail was in July, 1981 – ergo, 24 years ago. I was very pregnant with my first child. Hope. It’s all about hope. I’d never in my life felt so hopeful as that month, back in 1981. I could easily say that today I was on a completely opposite slope. Isn’t it funny how one spot – a bunch of rocks around Devil’s Lake can leave such lasting impressions one way or another? Oh, and another thing: then, back in 1981, I was terrified of going into labor, right there, on the cliffs of Devil’s Lake. Now, in 2005, I felt terrified of … nothing.

A long post about not jumping into the pool 

Say you have some major life’s changes in front of you that include, but are not limited to a move. Say nice neighbors convince you to go to the neighborhood pool party which is technically for pool members only, but nice friends get special permission from the board to allow you to come. (And no, it had nothing to do with the fact that the pres of the board is a former student of mine. Though you know you are getting along in your teaching career when the phrase “a former student of mine” keeps cropping up in all sorts of unusual settings, including at the neighborhood pool.)

Say you are in the kind of mood that makes you not show up for things and kind neighbors have noted this about you and so they come knocking at your door just before the pool party. And let’s assume you are sort of glad they did, as the alternative, sitting at home, will most likely lead you to be overwhelmed at all that needs to be done and steps that need to be taken and so you will do nothing but read a dumb book or, even more likely, stare at the computer screen wondering how many seconds have to elapse before the screen saver will require you to reach over and touch the pad so that the wallpaper, which is a pretty photo from Giverny, will reappear.

Say you head out and learn that there will be tons of food and bottomless margaritas and every neighbor you could think of will show up and that after a while, many will jump into the pool, sometimes with their clothes on, as the once staid neighborhood is getting a little more adventurous, -- though I would think that jumping in the pool is a thing that even staid people, even in places like stuffy Stamford, Connecticut do. In fact I know that they do this in stuffy Stamford Connecticut, as the family I au paired for when I was way younger had a pool there and it was not unusual for them to jump into it after drinking too much except, most often, they would take their clothes off. Ah, how the rich and famous love to play!

Say you nod and smile and think how nice your kind neighbors are to do all this for you.

And so you follow them along, with a deceptively sprightly step.

Now, everyone in the place knows you are moving. Why? Because you have a goddam sign in front of your house announcing it to the world. Maybe a dozen plus people have known the whys and whereofs and circumstances surrounding the move. But the rest do not. And of course they ask.

The first time you tell some condensed version of story. The second time you reach for the second margarita and hope they uncover the food soon as otherwise you will get way drunk on endless margaritas on an empty stomach and will be likely to jump in the pool before anyone else does, especially if one more person asks you why you are moving.

The tenth time your answer is way attenuated. It goes something like this: So I see you’re moving? Yes. Why and where? Downtown, because it seems the right thing to do. That usually causes people to launch into improbable and hypothetical ruminations about how that is just such a brilliant plan and they themselves would love to do the same because these big houses require upkeep and wouldn’t it be cool to be closer to State Street – all a ridiculous set of claims because you know they never in a million years would move downtown nor hang out on State Street. I’m not sure even I am likely to hang out on State Street, even though I work a mere minute away.

By the twentieth time you find yourself thinking that perhaps big parties where everyone in the world knows you are moving but few know the circumstances and everyone is eager to learn them, it being a slow kind of summer where no patio burglar has made the rounds and the hot drought conditions have been exhausted as a topic of conversation – maybe these events are not good for a person who tends to drink margaritas as if they were lemonade.

So I pretend I needed to use the facilities, and sneak out the back way and considered taking Mr. B out for a late night run, having with utter strong will and determination put a stop to the margarita drinking and having kept my clothes dry and my sanity about me. But then I think of peddling back home from wherever I would be heading and the vision exhausts me, so I go home and read a dumb book and stare at the computer screen instead.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

from Ocean to table 

Ann’s delightful post about my plunging sweet Hermione into boiling water last night triggered some requests for the recipe for the soup where Hermione reappeared, looking very much like a shark attacking the innocent:

Ann's photo

I am warning you, the recipe requires coordination and patience, though if you treat it like an assembly line operation, you wont fail.

It comes from Alfred Portale’s book (he cooks at the really cool Gotham Bar and Grill in NY).

Chilled Pea Soup with Lobster, Crème Fraiche and Wilted Watercress

Side-note #1: Don’t look for crème fraiche in the store, make your own! The day before, put a cup of heavy cream in a jar, add a tablespoon of buttermilk, cover with lid and leave it out. In some twelve hours you will have beautiful, silky, French cream. Refrigerate it once it gets thick.

Side-note #2: Okay, I substituted what should have been there – fresh pea shoots, which I can only get at the downtown market on Saturdays – with watercress. It works!

Side-note #3: I cheated again in terms of peas. The recipe calls for 4 cups of shelled peas. After shelling three cups, my sprained thumb was killing me so I used as a fourth finely chopped snap peas. Great taste, much easier. Shelling peas in the restaurant where I worked for a bit was always handed over to the very lowest person in the kitchen hierarchy. I actually think that the recipe would work with frozen peas (but only if fresh are out of season, please!) – though then you should reduce the cooking time.

Side-note #4: Here’s the line-up you should have to make it work smoothly: Have a medium bowl with a large fine mesh strainer over it, then next to it a blender, then another bowl set over an ice water bath.

Side-note #5: It says the amount will serve 4. I think it actually is enough for 5 – 6, though the portions of lobster meat grow smaller.

Okay, the recipe:

1 TBSP olive oil
1 onion, chopped
½ rib celery, chopped
1 qt of chicken stock or broth
4 cups of shelled fresh peas
salt and white pepper to taste
up to 2 TBSP unsalted butter

In stockpot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and celery and cook, stirring, 3 – 4 minutes, until softened. Add stock, raise heat to high, bring to boil.
Add peas, return to boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 12 minutes (until peas are tender). Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper.
Strain soup into the first bowl with the strainer. Transfer vegetables to blender and purée, adding only enough of the strained stock to make a fine, thick purée. Add butter and pulse or stir until it melts and enriches the purée.
Scrape contents of the blender into the bowl set in the ice bath. Add the remaining stock, a little at a time, until the soup reaches the desired creamy consistency (I used about ¾ of it).
Cover and refrigerate.

Lobster:

1 1 ½ pound live lobster

Cook it as you would cook a live lobster. For this dish I threw in a half a lemon into the boiling water and cooked the lobster for 11 minutes.
Then cool it under running water so that you can get at the meat.

Assembly:

½ cup crème fraiche
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
salt and white pepper to taste
1 cup lightly packed pea shoots or watercress
(caviar is suggested as an option as well. I omitted it. This soup is already expensive!)

Remove soup from refrigerator some twenty minutes before serving. It should be chilled, but not ice cold.
Whisk together crème, lemon juice and salt and pepper.
Cut lobster into big chunks and toss with crème.
Cook pea shoots or watercress in a small pot of boiling water for 15 seconds, just until wilted. Reserve some leaves for decoration before throwing the lot of them into the boiling water.
Drain.

Then place a mound of the watercress in the middle of the soup plate, lobster on top of that, and ladle pea soup all around the little island. Garnish with fresh watercress leaves and swirls of crème.

You can also just treat this as a great chilled pea soup recipe without the lobster.

food, candles and bells? 

It’s almost three, the last dish is either in the dishwasher or cleaned and put away. I have to keep the house immaculate for showings and so I cannot do my usual-- clean up the mess the next day.

In celebrating Tonya’s birthday here tonight I thought how very few things out there are as good as this: to be able to bring together people and create conditions (via food) whereby they (and therefore I) can let go of the stresses of the day and unwind and relax (and eat food).

[earlier this week, there had apparently been a wedding between these two, or at least so it is stated here and here; I admit to being a tad worried as I saw no bands on any fingers, but the photos clearly illustrate that these guys are in celebratory moods:]


celebrating and reaching out

Friday, July 15, 2005

If someone can write a beautiful poem about a lemon*, shouldn’t a blogger be able to write decent posts about pretty much anything? 

What are friends for if not to humor you… 

speed 

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Allons enfants 

A national anthem should be music without lyrics. I’ve yet to come across one with words that I can embrace and sign on to. Saluting war, bombs (the American version), taking back what’s yours by force (that’s the Polish one) and the most brutal of all: la Marseillaise. Consider this:

…Against us tyranny's
Bloody standard is raised
Listen to the sound in the fields
The howling of these fearsome soldiers
They are coming into our midst
To cut the throats of your sons and consorts

To arms citizens
Form your battalions
March, march
Let impure blood
Water our furrows

Lovely little gem for little French children to learn and sing, isn’t it?

But the melodies are alright. Plain and to the point, one might say. So, on this Bastille Day, I’ll put on a French CD, drink some French Roast café au lait, and, instead of the cut throats and impure blood, I’ll think about only the first two words of the anthem – allons enfants (come, children).

The picture I like best to accompany this was taken by me in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, against a canopy of chestnut leaves. God, I love those gardens (and the museum contained therein, where one can get exquisite prints)!


playing to the chestnuts, beckoning to follow, in song

the song of a wren 

take good care of my… what? I do not have any babies... 

I’m hearing a lot of this: take good care of yourself.

I appreciate the good will in that missive, but I am wondering what it means. I imagine that women who take good care of themselves sit in foaming baths, with cucumber slices over their eyelids.

I never cared much about how my eyelids looked – possibly because I have never seen them – and I am not a great user of the bathtub, so what else is there?

Frankly, when I think of indulging myself, I think of two things, one good, one not so good: exercise to excess and drink wine (not to excess, but still, come on, this cannot be a regular activity). So should I do more of each? If I exercised more, I’d be one of those where AARP magazine will be asking for a photoshoot: look at her! Approaching ancient-hood and still not giving up on life! Eligible for membership (that happens, btw, when you turn 50, so get ready!), and still capable of pulling out a 6.2 5.7* mile run (yes, yes and I am proud of it). Look at her, apart from that bulge on her hip (will you quit asking me about the grapefruit in my pocket? It is my bruise. Bruise. Bruise. Sad but true. It will recede. So they say), she looks… fit.

So, I think I need a new definition of taking care of myself. Were you to ask me what I would want, I may say something like this: chirpy messages and visits, allowing me to pass you on the bike trail, hope, and every afternoon capped with one of these:

from yesterday

*Ocean is an honest blog

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

more on apt films 

Apt, part 2 

Apt (and I don’t mean apartment) 

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Habits 

Today I got up and brushed aside any thought that I did not want the day to begin.

I did not begin the morning with writing a blog post.

I did not go for a morning walk. I ran instead and on a different path.

I immediately mailed a package that had to go out east.

I went shopping for a gift. You have no idea how hard it is to get myself to do that.
Thankfully, we have Little Luxuries on State Street. Still, what to get...

the person is really into tea, so maybe these tea tiles?


She's really in love with New York...

...and she has just come back from London.

No, I think I found something better. All wrapped up now. Only it doesn't quite fit in Mr. B's pouch.

(BTW, I seriously think disloyal Mr. B has a crush on that red thing there, in the photo. He's looking all modest and shy, but really, I think it's all about her now. Ah well, he'll come crawling back when Ms. Crimson turns up her red nose and heads in the opposite direction)

The entire time I was in my office I did not turn on the computer.

On the way home I did not pick up a bottle of wine for dinner.

I took out all the mail from the mailbox, not just the stuff that looked potentially interesting.

I even opened mail that had little windows on the envelope.

I broke down with my habit breaking resolve when the afternoon light started fading. You guessed it, I biked down, as usual, for this:

a late latte

the competitive spirit and the edge of capitalism 

Monday, July 11, 2005

Jeremy, I am sooooo sorry! 

How can you laugh When you know I’m down 

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Spying games 

Daughters 

Saturday, July 09, 2005

...Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets to the ocean* 

thus we salute thee with our early song* 

Oh so early, my song this morning was at the daybreak level of early.


watching the sun crawl up between the branches


I know, Ocean appears to be obsessively geared toward irritating Tonya with coffee posts and photos, but how could I resist this one?

coffee & corn

corn close-up. with wild daisies.


Where am I? I returned to the farm where the old oaks grow on a kind invite to spend the morning there with my camera. The coffee on the deck made it almost impossible to hoist myself out of a blissful state of repose and head out into the fields. But I did, I did. The light beckoned.

birches


yahara r.


The people who live there are working toward restoring some of these overgrown fields and returning them to prairie plants and wildlife. To me, the place is beautiful already, but I see the potential for a better balance. The invasive plants (whose names I always get wrong, so don’t even bother thinking you’re going to learn anything here at Ocean) clutch at the soil so ferociously that it’ll take many seasons to get them to let go. And move elsewhere. Like, to the suburban yard I am fighting to keep in order.

parsnip maybe?


creating a path through canary grass


Under the orange sticks of the sun The heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again**

The morning coaxed me into a better frame of mind, that’s for sure. So I am extremely grateful for the guided trek through fields and forests. Though, in addition to pushing through grass that threatened to swallow you whole, occasionally, you would come across sinister sights such as this:


terrifying oak


I survived. And thrived.

P.S. Being late for the farmers market caused me to reconsider going downtown. Instead, I went to the westside offshoot. Damn it, I liked it! SO disloyal, I know. But the crowds were nonexistant and the prices were better, and even late in the morning, I could still pick up these:



at a dollar a bunch, how cool is that!


* Milton, again.
** Oliver, again.

Friday, July 08, 2005

Why do I love you so? 

Because you are so pretty to look at?

at jo's: sip it with the Times and a round of chess

at jo's: sweeten it (no!) or drink it plain

at jo's: outside, on a summer afternoon

I did the bold thing today. I bought my first latte at Jo’s. Jo’s Tazzina is the closest café to the apartment I’ll be moving to (in the Bassett ‘hood) and in a month or so, it will be my place of choice for a latte.

I have been reluctant to try a cup thus far. What if I hated it, what if the barista was without brewing brains? What if it just did not measure up?

But it did. And oh, are the colors good for camerawork!

[Tonya, I am like an unleashed animal around a latte - I cannot help myself with the camera. Ocean is but a vessel for my coffee-posting crazies.]

Left to die 

Where there’s a will there’s a way; where there’s no will there’s no way. 

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Eat ‘n run 

Ah, kef! How great it is to watch a person work so damn hard and then succeed!

Did you ever have one of those days where you think: okay, it’s just hours. Eventually three o’clock will turn into four o’clock and four will turn to five and so on and so forth. You write mediocre posts and you feel your day is greatly below mediocre.

Then, as dusk turns to very little light, suddenly you get swept up in a celebration of someone’s success. Kef was all about big time success, and tonight one could walk and eat and drink and walk and so on and so forth, and before you know it, her success rubs off and it begins to feel like it’s YOUR SUCCESS! – even though in this case, I did nothing more than walk and eat and etc.


eat 'n RUN

eat 'n run and DRINK

EAT 'n run

Kef: congrats on your Ph.D.! And on so much more (and you know exactly what I mean, my friend).

Revelation, part 2 

(10:00a.m. phone rings, my heart leaps)
Hello??
It’s me.

Oh. Sigh... Don't mind me -- I am only reminding myself of days when I waited for the boyfriend to call. Now again I keep hoping it’s that certain someone…
A boyfriend??
No, a realtor with a house sale offer. Sigh…
Anyway, aren’t you teaching now?

In ten minutes…
You sound desperate! Don’t tell me! You want to meet up for another fix of …coffee* ??
(meekly:) …yes.

And so here we are again, in the late afternoon, only this time the size of the cup has grown. I’d say we have an addiction going here.



*this same person threw out slanderous attacks against the java joes among us here.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Oh come on! Everyone, just quit stealing my thunder! 

Revelation 

Zakopane and Paris: shared fate 

This spring, I had again returned to the mountain town of Zakopane in Poland. Less than 100 kilometers from Krakow, it nonetheless took over four hours by train to get there (something about the tracks being poorly designed). So I took the bus on my way out, cutting my journey by more than an hour, but adding a load of misery as the bus stopped and snailed its way on the winding narrow road.

This is the town that put in a bid for the 2006 Winter Olympics.

Poles hoped for a stunning upset of the frontrunner, Torino. What they got was a stunning kick in the pants in the first round of voting.

Zakopane: still a favorite way of getting around

Today, as the Committee announced its selection of London as the 2012 Olympic site, I have to think that more than the substance of the package was being judged. It is said that this was all Blair’s doing and that has to be right. Even watching from the sidelines, I am often taken in by his speaking talents. My class would be so much better if it were taught by Tony Blair!

Still, I have to feel sad for the Zakopane that never made it past round one and the Paris that kept hanging in there until the end. My Paris photo is now but a sad reminder of how voting so often produces sucky, disappointing results.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Venting with a venti 

A tale of two sillies 

While the country was mesmerized by fireworks, the following conversation migrated from a Madison neighborhood last night:

Can I bring anything tonight?
Shears.
Shears?
For hacking away weeds and plants in my yard.

I have enough in my own.
I have more.

I have more.
(third voice pipes in): I have more.

Mine are out of control.
Mine are out of control.
(third voice pipes in): mine are out of control.

[Let's compare:]


Ocean front & Ocean back




TShow front & TShow back

I wish I lived in an apartment.
(third voice): I wish I lived in an apartment.
I am going to live in an apartment.

Lucky! I’m going to make the change soon.
(third voice) I’m going to make the change soon.
I am making the change. Soon.

Monday, July 04, 2005

I ain’t got no hot water and they shut off the heat Can you loan me some money for something to eat* 

Savannah oak interlude

On the way to Milwaukee’s Summerfest, I stopped at a farm where oak trees three times my age grow along the banks of the Yahara River.

The last time I was excited by something that grew in the wild on a Wisconsin farm was … I can’t think when. But yesterday I was shown wild cotton grasses and gnarly oaks, sweet blackberry brambles and black walnut trees, and the stream that eventually becomes the Yahara – all making me think that there's something to the words “take Manhattan just give me that countryside!”

bridge over untroubled waters



sizing up the oak trunk


Oh, the festgrounds were crowded..



From there it was just a … two hour zip to Milwaukee’s lakefront Summerfest.

Do Ocean readers know about Summerfest? Advertised as the biggest music festival in the country (by what measure? number of performers? number of visitors? number of concurrent stages? number of beers consumed by attendees?), it is first and foremost a bargain! One fee ($12) and you’re in: see as many musical numbers as you want, stay as long as the bands are playing.

Okay, so you have to eat and drink and you can’t bring in your own stuff.

Think you’re going to see photos of your typical greasy fair foods? Think again. With jambalaya, corn on the cob, roasted chicken and strawberries dipped in chocolate, along with seemingly bottomless wine coolers, I had a feast. Of course, the feeling of “this is a bargain” quickly wears off, but hey, you're paying for the food, the setting, the noise, the people-watching!

jambalaya over beer

A Shocked Michelle

Almost forgot. The music. It’s all about who is singing, of course, but the show is also in the audience. Summerfest is 100% Milwaukee. Yeah, I know, the audience is from all over, but somehow Milwaukeeans set the tone. You get the feeling that after the show, they’d like to take off on their Harleys and head into the sunrise, muscle shirts wipping their torsos, barely covering the elaborate tattoos. I felt at home (because of the tattoo, not the Harley).

Maybe I exaggerate a small bit. And I don’t even have many photos to back me up here. I had been so taken with the Savannah oaks that I used up most of my battery life on the farm, leaving me wondering when oh when will I get myself a back-up battery. The benefit? The post will be shorter as a result.



Michelle Shocked was one hell of a singer though and would have been great to take many photos of. The audience as well – especially the delicious views of several hundred Wisconsinites wiggling their butts on command (Michelle’s song demanded it).

"turn away from me and shake that butt!"

What would you be like if three of your boyfriends were driven to commit suicide?

Maybe you’d be singing dark songs to a packed, adoring audience. Like Lucinda Williams did this night.

Oh no, I would not succumb to that kind of thing – where you stake out seats hours in advance just so you can be in the third row, literally at the singer's feet. No, I would not do that, would I? Peer pressure! My fellow Lucinda enthusiasts, like me, were willing to sit through an entire performance of the Hacienda Brothers (you’re kidding! never heard of them? where have you been?) just to claim good seats for Lucinda.

I thought young people could take the loud music in stride. Or maybe she was just blocking the Hacienda Brothers and forgot to take the plugs out afterwards. BTW, cowboy hats are in at Summerfest!

Lucinda was awesome. You have to admire a true comeback, where a singer has a dismal beginning, then gets herself a Grammy in her mid-forties and is drawing huge crowds of young people (okay, and me – but that’s fitting) at the age of 51.

Is it the dead boyfriend thing that makes her face look so defiant? So steady? And is it her history of tough living that makes her look to the lyric book to jog her memory with many of the songs?

Lucinda Williams singing songs from "World Without Tears"

Regardless, she had the audience on their feet. You could not stand still – her music went right from the stage to your gut. Probably the best concert I’d been to in years.

[Thanks, Saul & Mel, for insisting that I go, for driving, for the whole day!]

* American Dream by Lucinda Williams

Sunday, July 03, 2005

The day Ocean's author was rocked into silence 

Saturday, July 02, 2005

Eastward ho! 

This morning I set out for the east side. You might think I was stalking this guy who lives out there, but no. I had another meeting at Mother Fools coffee house and I thought Mr. B might enjoy the adventure.



Hey, what do Ocean and Mother Fool's have in common?

For non-Madison readers, let me summarize it thus: east side people have this thing where they are in love with their ‘hood. Willie Street to an east-sider is like the Black Madonna is to a Catholic Pole. East side people don’t typically like to admit to any great affection for west side people. Phrases like “stuck up” and “snotty” come up. “Homogeneous” is another. And the dreaded word: “suburban.” West siders are soooo suburban.

Within the west side bunch, you have near-west siders, who think they are more like east siders in their funkiness and then you have far-west siders. Near-west siders don’t like far-west siders. They want to distance themselves from the suburban image. And that funkiness complex, too: it comes up.

At this moment I live on the far west side. I got news for you, near-west siders: you’re not more funky than I am, you’re just more rich! Your house costs twice as much as mine.

Me – I like the east side just fine and today I absolutely loved it and felt a great deal of jealousy, verging on rage: they have one of the best bike paths running through it and it is level! No hills, no ups and downs, none of it: flat as can be. Mr. B and I were in heaven.

So there I am, wiling away the morning hours, when a familiar sight comes right into my field of vision:


Oscar? Note the (empty) glass of iced coffee... It has to be!

If this doesn’t appear familiar to you, take a run through cyberspace here.

No, no, Oscar was not stalking me nor I him. It’s just that east siders, they like to band together in public spaces.

My Mo Fo morning made me very very late for the farmers market. So late that Anne of Fantome Farm no longer had any goat cheese left. How can one eat 6-grain crackers without goat cheese? The good thing about being kind to the farmers is that they give you the shirt off their back and, more importantly, their sample containers if they don’t have anything to sell you. Anne: you saved my crackers for the week to come.



Mr. B was happy enough carrying the whole loot home. Uphill -- it being the tiresome west side.

Friday, July 01, 2005

Where Ocean’s author gets in over her head, in rough waters 

I recently met someone who is an extreme sailing enthusiast (in addition to being an in-his-spare-time Hoofer's instructor, for those here in Madison who know a Hoofer when they see one). When he found out that I’d been sailing only once in my life on some little nothing boat in Poland when I was maybe 18, he began coaxing me into coming out for a sailing lesson.

I resisted for a while, but finally and I admit this without shame – I thought: why not? It will at best be the adventure of my life and at worst: a terrific blogging opportunity.

So today I sailed.

I’m sailing away
Set an open course for the virgin sea...
(song sung by Ocean author at the last karaoke attended by her)

My instructor pal is terrific. Moreover, he may at some point log onto this blog and so I will not convey here the full passion of my (negative) feelings toward sailing.

for the love of sailing

In truth: it was not his fault. He is so good at yelling at the crew to get their shit together. And he caught me when I almost was pulled by the rope and tugged viciously to the raging waters below.


is that the Capitol? So far away...

And maybe my attitude was tinted by the weather: today was so goddamn windy that the choppiness I am sure would make a mermaid seasick.

note his task: it was mine for 90% of the hours spent on the sail boat

I did not mind the heavy work either. The bending, hoisting, pulling, swinging down as the sail swept its way across the boat threatening to bang the hell out of anything or anyone in its way – all this reminded me somewhat of working in a restaurant kitchen (another one of those things that took my fancy a few years back) – except that it was like working on plating appetizers on a rocky, swaying floor, where if you did not grip tightly with your shoes, you would be thrown into the oven with the powerful force of a room that refuses to stay upright.

You know when I hit bottom? When I got off the boat, swaying my way in total stupor up the Union Terrace steps and realized that my Summer Without Car meant that I had to peddle Mr. B all the uphill way home.

A Whole Foods moment, part 2 

A Whole Foods moment, part 1 

I'm Nina Camic. I teach law, but also write (here and elsewhere) on a number of non-legal topics. I often cross the ocean, in the stories I tell and the photos I take. My native Poland is a frequent destination.

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