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.

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!

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.

Celebrate we will Because life is short but sweet for certain

What if for years you have used every conceivable strategy to get yourself auditorium seats at Alpine Valley for the Dave Matthews Band concert, with no success, and then, one March day when the summer tour is posted – bingo! – you get lucky? What if you were so crazy about Dave Matthews that you readily admitted that you’d give up most anything (maybe not your son, but pretty much anything else) just to spend an hour telling him to his face how spine-tingling wonderful he is?

I’m describing Tonya, of course. Tonya and I have been great friends for a while now and we have talked about every conceivable topic out there in the course of the years. But not one brings out as much passion, joy, animation in her as the mere mention of this walking god, with his intensely furrowed brow, his strong arms wrapped around a guitar, and a stage presence that makes thousands strain just to breathe the air that touched his countenance.

Last night I got to slide in on Tonya’s piece of heaven: I was there, standing with her in the auditorium next to these prized DMB concert seats (why do they sell “seats?” Technically, of course, there are seats, but I promise, my butt never touched the chair with the designated number – not even for a second. A good pair of flip flops will put you right in the groove for the three hours of standing and five miles of walking from the car park; oh, and don’t forget the exposed skin: bring lots of exposed skin as you will be surrounded by others who have lots of exposed skin – and it will be 100 degrees amidst all that youthful exposed skin, and after one beer, the hot summer evening will seem like a blur of skin, sweat and sultry jazzy pop rock notes).

In truth, I loved the concert. DMB’s music is supremely well suited for a live performance. The lyrics are bold and uncluttered and the jazzy instrumental jams are so good that I found myself thinking – wow, if this is what young America (average concert-goer’s age has to be in the mid twenties) puts at the top of the rock charts, then I’m going to give all that taught youthful exposed skin another chance. Maybe there’s some good stuff lurking underneath after all.

DMB

enthralled

rhythm and skin

sea of fans

(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

(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.)

One tiny plane now flies alllllll the way from the wee little city of Madison directly to DC. Shocking, isn't it?

I enjoyed sitting in the last row (that would be row 12) and counting the number of times people used the restroom in the course of a 90 minute flight. Repeat offenders were especially scrutinized.

How humid is it here? So humid that you’d think DC was built on a swamp. (And so it was.)

How good is the food? I’ll just give you the beginning and the ending, bypassing entirely the moulard duck breast with coriander cassis sauce, sweet potatoes and spicy orange ginger marmalade.
It's all about taste. And color:

chilled cucumber with cilantro, chilies, lime and shrimp salsa


classic strawberry shortcake


espresso of course


Finally, some photographic musings on amusing scenes from an evening walk around Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan.

he's just not into her


he's into her


window lights


window lights, two


Madam's organ at Adams Morgan

I love Madison, really I do…

…it’s just that it’s small. I figured out that in the fall, it will take me something like ten minutes to walk over from my apartment to the Law School, and I will have basically passed the edges of the entire downtown area. I may be a fast walker* but still – not only is the area to be covered not vast, it offers few distractions. And I think I figured out that I can walk the entire distance, cross at legitimate intersections and pass no more than one or two stop lights. That tells you something.

So it’s small. I read with some amusement that Middleton (Madison’s suburb really) was on Money Magazine's list of top ten even smaller towns in America this year. There you could cross the entire downtown in three minutes and you will have passed … not much of anything.

Middleton is where you move to if you want to escape Madison’s urban tempo. You know, because it is so fast-paced in downtown Madison.

So today I got an email message from one of my daughters (both are spending the summer in DC) asking me to select a place for dinner there tonight (I am going for a quick, very spontaneously arranged visit). She submitted four choices. All in one neighborhood. All having menus that leap out at me in their originality. All reasonably priced. Damn! Can’t we go to all four?

I am starved for a neighborhood where people are eating dinner until 2 a.m. on hot summer nights. Places from which I get another note telling me this: we are planning out your day – which of these things would you like to do? – and then follows a list of some ten categories of choices.

I know, I know, Mr. B is grumbling at my side, letting me know that no way would he feel comfortable whizzing around DC’s traffic (as if he was such a safe ride in slower-paced Madison!). And the market, and the lakes, and the green spaces, I know I know. I love my little town, I do I do. Sort of.

But this evening I hit the big stuff. More to follow. From D.C.

* trained to pick up the pace by Madison’s speed demon herself, Ms. kef

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

Because I am away from the house at times when it is sometimes opened up for a real estate tour, I need to not only keep it immaculate (bummer! though it never fails to impress anyone dropping by – so clean! – they say, at once telling me that they themselves live in slovenly rat holes because it is not that off the charts tidy). I also need to keep it cool.

As I am continuing with My Summer Without Air Conditioning and Without Car, I do not normally resort to tampering with their mechanical configurations and idiosyncrasies. I basically ignore them and they ignore me right back.

So when I finally was forced to preset the AC timer so that it would miraculously flip on and spread its icy nets over the cavernous expanse of the house in my absence, I was surprised that it made no sense. It is a new timer, put in just a handful of month ago. I set the day. The hour. The temperature. And when the day and the hour come around, it automatically, out of spite I guess, flips up to 85 and stays there.

Normally I would not even notice. 85, 75 – what’s the diff. So long as it is not 65, I am happy. But people touring the place may think that it is a tad on the overheated side. And I definitely want to place them in the buying mode, not the frying mode.

Incompetence, especially my own, bothers me. I like to believe that if thrown out into a lion’s den I will figure out a way to cope with the onslaught of big fangs and sharp claws. Someone recently told me that I do well with new things and places. They are right. The fact that I cannot deal with a new thermostat control is, therefore, so irritating that I swear it will prove to be the proverbial straw. If you next find me moronically sitting in a corner, chewing on a shirtsleeve and singing nursery rhymes over and over you’ll know why. It was Mr. AC, in the parlor, with a control panel.

...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.

Polish proverbs no. 4, 5 & 6

Okay, SLC, you are not doing a convincing job: there are skeptics who are questioning the authenticity of some of the proverbs contained in the posts below!

Why this cavalier attitude in throwing out the proverbs and sayings? Why aren't I citing sources, providing links? Perhaps because of this:

"Musi to na Rusi, w Polsce jak kto chce" -- meaning:
“You have to” is for Russians; Poles do as they please

So I did, here on Ocean, as I pleased, figuring I do not have to document the Polishness of anything. I’ll just put it out and move on.

After all, the saying goes:

"Wolnoć Tomku w swoim domku" or, in other words:
Thomas, you are free to do anything you want in your own house!

But then, sure enough, in pops an email message saying: That last quote? Not Polish!
The hell it isn’t!
Okay, so maybe others have embraced it as well, but it’s Polish, I tell you! Google it – you’ll find confirmation here and elsewhere.

But actually, I must admit that many Polish proverbs borrowed ideas from German sources and when those sources ran dry, they dug into the Bible, being rather Bible-leaning to begin with. And so there is overlap.

...sigh:

A good painter need not give a name to his picture; a bad one must.

So, too, a bad writer must explain and label things in a more coherent way. The Polishness of the proverbs isn’t throwing itself at you. I should do more to tie the words to the old country, so that you will indeed walk away thinking – now that’s Italian! I mean Polish. Sorry, sometimes it’s a little fuzzy for me as well.

Polish proverb no.3

Yes, another day of SLC trying so very hard to convince you that in Polish proverbs lies the truth about life. So, another one, to give a special boost to Ocean readers:

Even a clock that does not work is right twice a day

Discussion:

I love this proverb! Go ahead, mess up – it tells me. You’ll still hit it right a couple of times, just by virtue of being on the face of the earth.

I already hit it right in the middle of this night: I went on expedia.com and booked a flight to DC to see two very precious beings (I'll take off in a couple of days). Now all I have to do is send a birthday message to the author of this blog and I will have cleared two strikes. Chances are I’ll zip through with a couple more, so in effect, I’ll be even better than the clock that stands still: I will be moving, albeit at a very slow pace.

Rate usefulness of discussion: ***** (too much of the personal, too little of the analytical)

Polish proverb no.2

Continuing on with SLC’s ambitious goal of making you aware of the vast array of proverbs available to enrich and enliven your days, here’s an oldie but goodie, straight from the archives of the Best Polish Proverbs Ever:

When the bitch gets off the wagon, horses have an easier time

(Polish version: “Baba z wozu, koniom lżej” – note that a baba is slightly gentler – somewhere between a woman and a bitch – but I can’t think of another word that captures the derogatory flavor of it, so in my translation it remains bitch)

Discussion:

So often the older proverbs have a certain folksiness to them, with references to pigs, horses, wagons.
But why is this one not gender neutral? Or why aren't we celebrating the departure of that bastard?
Who knows. Fact is, though, that in Poland, two thirds of divorces are initiated by women. [Though you can’t infer much about marital bliss from crude numbers, nor from the very low divorce rates, since the divorce procedure in Poland is complicated and courts will oftentimes not grant a divorce if the judge, in her or his divine wisdom, opines that the children will be better served if the couple stays together.]

Maybe this proverb was born out of a need to console the guy whose woman flew the coop. But I’ve heard it used in a broader context: it’s tantamount to saying “good riddance!” Except that the saying “good riddance” came to us from Shakespeare himself (Troilus and Cressida), whereas this proverb is… well, straight out of the shed where horses and wagons are kept.

In any event, feel free to use the proverb anytime a student drops your class or someone leaves you for another, or you're washing your hands off of some sticky situation. Just shout out after them: when the bitch gets off the wagon, horses have an easier time! Give a smug grin and a dismissive wave and go on with your day.

Rate usefulness of discussion to your understanding of the proverb: *****

Polish proverb no.1

In an effort to break away from writing morose posts these days, the author of Ocean is handing the blog over for a while to the newly established Silver Learning Center ("SLC"), which operates with the slogan: All that glitters is not gold.

The spectacularly unoriginal slogan should clue you in that the SLC is all about aphorisms and proverbs. In its vast and detailed archives, it contains a number of interesting (and authentic) Polish sayings.

Poles are known for their proverbs. Indeed, paremiologists have recognized Polish and Yiddish proverbs as comprising the bulk of the Great Proverbs Out There.*

Sometimes the proverb presented in Ocean will bear some relation to the day at hand. Sometimes it will be of a more general nature. Sometimes it will be accompanied with text (the SLC and I are striking a contract as we speak, detailing its obligations to the blog). Sometimes only with a photo.

FAQs about SLC’s cooperative relationship with Ocean and blogs in general:

Q: How long do we have to endure its presence on your blog?
A: Each day may be the last day (or not), so you really have to check. I am not revealing the terms of the contract. It is going to be a sealed, secret document.

Q: So the readers basically don’t get to follow the progression of your life while SLC is in charge?
A: Whatever made you think that you are following any progression to begin with? The only person that follows my life is me and trust me, there is no progression.

Q: This isn’t like the dreadful kep thing in your June posts all over again, is it? (this question appears less frequently than the others, but is included here for its value as a minority position)
A: I said nothing about kep. I’m talking about a worthwhile organization that will bring you closer to the spirit of Poland and perhaps, inadvertently or advertantly, to Ocean’s author.

Okay, today’s proverb:

A hippo does not have a sting in its tail, but a wise man would still rather be sat on by a bee

Discussion (all participants are Polish, so please view this as a genuine attempt at interpreting their own proverb):

So something can sting but be quite harmless, right? Harm ought to be measured in other ways, correct?
I believe that the proverb misses the point. A sting can go to the heart. Size and choice of poison is irrelevant. Death is death. Bees can spell evil.
I think you are wrong in your interpretation: it simply is telling us that there are greater evils than a mere sting.
Do they even have hippos in Poland? I never saw one. Ever. Not in Warsaw, not in Krakow. How can this be a Polish proverb if there are no hippos in Poland?
Don't be patronizing. We all have seen hippo pictures. We know they are huge and can squash the guts out of you. And we certainly understand bees. They sting to protect themselves. They also bring honey.

Rate usefulness of discussion to your understanding of the proverb: *****

* source of grandiose claim: nlc

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.

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

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

I have been engaged in a back-and-forth email exchange with a person who is supremely skeptical of blogs and blogging in general. I am getting the sense that she regards these posts as serious attempts to put ourselves out there for you, the readers and sometimes (oftentimes? just about always?) she finds them … lacking. And I don’t mean only here at Ocean, though Ocean I am sure also does not measure up. One of her (numerous) claims is that, being a daily event, a blog (like this one) has to be boring, because how many of us have interesting ideas to put out like this on such a regular basis?

Oh dear. It has never struck me that people are basically a dull lot. That we move through the day robotically, that our brains work hard just to keep us afloat as we navigate life’s hurdles. And that at the end of the day, we are spent. And if we then sit down to blog, we spit out garbage, exhausted and bereft of any creative juice (which, if we have any to begin with, has been expanded elsewhere, in some other fashion).

And so here we are, us motley crew of bloggers, forced to put down something, anything, and make a story of it, even where there is no story, nothing worth pasting into the blog, just endless simplistic worries or observations for you to waste time reading when you should be working or talking to people.

I have great faith. I truly believe that if we wanted to devote the entire day and every day to writing, we could flush out limitless numbers of ideas. Take that, you blog-doubting Thomas! If posts are bland and blogs are sloppy, they are that way not because people lack the juice to make something more of them but because, for whatever reason, they choose not to make it a finer expression. You can sketch ambitiously or you can just doodle on a piece of paper. So, too, on a blog. And in this world, there's enough space and time for both the doodlers and the artists and the vast majority that is nestled somewhere in between, to do their thing.

* ...a cup yellow
with miracles,
a breast and a nipple
perfuming the earth;
a flashing made fruitage,
the diminutive fire of a planet.

What are friends for if not to humor you…

You know you’re taken seriously when you post something about wanting to cap each day with a latte and your friend is on her way now as we speak, to drop over, just for that cup of coffee with you. Especially if that friend lives in St. Paul.

This friend is also the one who bought the condo from us when we couldn’t otherwise sell it (as I wrote in an earlier post), probably out of pity and not wanting us to be forever stuck raising a family in closet-like conditions.

And here’s another thing: she went along just to pretest the region of Brittany, France in the year that I had my food tours to France up and running and needed someone to scoot around the northern provinces with me. She even let me drag her to a farm where the woman made fresh camembert from Brittany milk. Predictably, she bought a couple of the cheeses even though she was traveling around after leaving France and couldn’t take them with her. Of course, she then gave them to me.

You don’t all have to go that far to take care of me. But if someday you’re residing at great distances and I say, man I would love company for a latte, follow her impulse. It can lift a soul up up up to have that spontaneous cup, out of nowhere.

speed

You haven't lived until you took the bumps on Mineral Point close to midnight on Mr. B, with only a Cateye to guide you along.

On the other hand, if I do that again, I may not live either. Next night ride: it'll have to be the South West bike path. Mr. B deserves to keep his heart at a steady pace. He's too old for this sort of thing.

Me, I'm scratched from the branches I knocked against in the block I decided to do via the sidewalk. Bloody hell (and bloody arm). People: cut your timber already if it overhangs public spaces!

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

How can you not smile when someone reads the last paragrpah of your post and sends you this message.*

Thanks, earthgirl!

* It struck me that maybe upwards of 50% of Ocean readers glance at blogs on the side, in their workplace. You guys maybe should not click on "this message."

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

more on apt films

My mother’s favorite movie would have to be Pollyanna. You know, the one about the young girl (Hayley Mills, actually; God, I loved her films when I was little – she was spunky; I did not much care for Pollyanna though), who went around town with these prisms and convinced everyone that seeing little rainbows gave you reason to laugh in the face of death, poverty and hatred. [Personally, I thought it was a misplaced message. If you’re sick and dying, you should not have to pressure yourself into laughing at little rainbows.]

Why do I link this “don’t worry, be happy” movie to my mother, the queen of melancholy, negativism and despair? Because her absolutely favorite point, one that she makes again and again is right out of the movie, or, more accurately a negation of it and the Pollyanna spirit.

Thus growing up, Pollyanna became for me a household fixture. I learned early on that it is absolutely imperative that we should all dissociate ourselves from this person of misplaced joy. Often I have heard my mother say with great resoluteness and a touch of pride: “I’m not going to be a Pollyanna about it…” (no you are not! you are so correct! not for you the prisms throwing dumb colors on the walls!)

As a reaction to the anti-Pollyanna fever in my household (kids are such rebels), I quickly became a very happy person, in spite of sickness and adversity and yucky post-war-baby lungs. I mean, I actually looked for cheer. And 3 out of 5 times found it (the other two times: I’d say one had to be thrown to blah nothingness and the other to horrible fear and anxiety, but hey, we’re talking two out of five).

I write this because my blogging overlaps with a period of time that produces more of the latter (we’re talking anxious times here) than the former (chipper and sprightly tones). And this may give the mistaken impression that if I were in a line up and the order was given for the real anti-Pollyanna to step forward, it would be me. I mean, I may step forward because of my dislike of the movie, but not because I don’t have tendencies to find happy colors on a day to day basis.

Let it be clear, I am not into gloom and doom. No matter how many posts will follow outlining the rapid disintegration of my befuddled psyche. It is not in my nature to wallow.

Apt, part 2

In reponse to the post below about movie titles that best describe my days, a reader writes:

Thinking about a title for your movie is interesting, but who to cast even more, maybe? Who would you like to play you?

Back in December, I was interviewed on a British blog (one of those "know your blogger" deals) here. If you click, you'll find my reponses to many questions, so don't. In any case, there are so many, that you surely wont even get to the pivotal one, toward the bottom, where I was asked this and gave the following answer (greatly improved, btw, by the superb editing job of a fellow blogger):

Q: Who would play you in the movie about your life?
A: No one who is already famous. Instead, I would be the breakthrough role for someone who looks smart and irrepressible on screen.

Also interesting on that List of Questions was the following, as well as my response to it:

Q: What is your most treasured possession?
A: Absolutely nothing material. My memories.

I wrote that before I knew I would be sifting through posessions in the summer ahead and letting go of so many of them. Why is it that we always sound so arrogantly confident in making statements about matters with which we haven't had much experience?

Apt (and I don’t mean apartment)

I woke up thinking that maybe I could face up to the creative challenge of coming up with a movie title that would best summarize the state of my soul at the moment.

People seem to like lists, so this morning, instead of staring into space and rhythmically, mindlessly crunching granola, I thought I’d run through some tried and true titles and see if they matched my mood. Of course, I should just make up my own, something like: And what have I done right lately? That would be fitting. But these guys are good too, with minor word changes where needed:

Stop the world, I want to get off

The Hunched-back of someone from Notre Warsaw

Staving off Private Cryin’

The (Small) Apartment

The Great Escape

Not the Best Years of My Life

La Grande Illusion

The Summer the Earth Stood Still

Lost in Transition

Whose Afraid of Getting up in the Morning?