Mending the nets

Winslow Homer, 1882. The National Gallery of Art exhibition.

When life's
a little frayed,
I knit it together.
Tangled thoughts slip and click into
purls.

Addiction

"Knit Wit" by roctopus.

Why I'm a knitting junkie:

1. I must finish a line before I get up and do anything else.
2. I get excited over new needles.

Who's wearing my work:

1. Ivan
2. Sam
3. Chaja
4. Max

Wring me out

"Rainstorm" courtesy of Frank.lin.

Rain every afternoon.
Thunder and lightening between me and my husband.
My one-year-old learns to use a squirt gun.
A nasty bug steamrolls over one son.
My mother-in-law mops up vomit at the movies.
Then, finally, the sun shines and I make soup.

In the bowl:



Photo courtesy of Marcel Levy

Turkish yogurt soup with tiny meatballs

Turkish yogurt soup with tiny meatballs
Adapted from "The Essential Mediterranean" by Nancy Harmon Jenkins

Serves 8

1/2 to 3/4 cup finely chopped onions
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup long-grain rice (I used medium grain)
Boiling water
Sea salt
1/2 pound ground lamb
2 tablespoons minced parsley
1/4 cup minced fresh dill
2 tablespoons minced mint
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon red pepper (I used 1/8 tsp. cayenne)
1 large egg
2 to 3 tablespoons bread crumbs
5 cups chicken broth (I used 7 cups)
1 egg
4 cups whole milk yogurt
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons dried mint

Saute the onions with 2 tablespoons of oil over medium-low heat for about 20 minutes. Add the rice and 1 cup of boiling water with salt to taste. Cook for about 10 minutes or until the rice has softened and absorbed most of the liquid. Set aside.

In a bowl mix the lamb, parsley, dill and mint, lots of black pepper and the red pepper. Stir in the rice. Add the egg and enough bread crumbs to make a mixture that is moist but will stick together. Form into small meatballs, about the size of a gumball.

Combine the chicken broth with 1 cup of water and bring to a simmer. Add the meatballs in batches and let simmer until they rise to the top, indicating they're done. Remove them with a slotted spoon and set aside.

In a bowl mix the egg yolk and yogurt. Whisk in 1 cup of cold water. Measure out 1 cup of soup broth and stir it in, then pour the yogurt into the soup and stir. Simmer very, very gently for about 10 minutes. In the last few minutes add the meatballs and simmer just long enough for them to heat thoroughly.

Ladle into bowls and dribble a small amount of mint butter over the top.

Localicious

Image courtesy of Chris Silas Neal.

What's a gal to do who has sworn off store-bought tomatoes, but who's own small plants are maybe two months away from offering up their first fruit, gloriously red and warm when plucked off the vine? I count the blossoms, longingly press my nose against the fuzzy leaves and inhale their perfume.

Backyard tomatoes are as local as one can get, and the new links in the right-hand column are local, if a bit more broadly defined. I start with the image above by Chris Silas Neal, who's not a local artist but whose poster (inspired by Great Depression-era art) is free to post locally, and then I riff from there ... a song, a birth, a lemony kiss, a free wheeling moment, a backyard bird ... local links I love and local loves that are linked. Each of them a tiny yellow flower filled with juicy promise. Go ahead, take a bite.

From the brass section

Photo courtesy of spcbrass.

A tiny bit of horn tooting:

My essay "In which a heart hurts" is featured on Blogger's Best Carnival. A carnival collects links to blog articles on a particular topic, and is like a magazine with a title, a topic, editors, contributors and an audience.

A final burst of joy

For more joyful images, click here.

In the strawberry patch I pose
freshly painted raspberry toes.

Fulfilling a pledge to take a Joy+Ride this month.

Q&A

Does a falling tree scream? Photo courtesy of slimmer_jimmer.

If a woman screams because she had the following things going on this week: grimy windows, sticky floor, a mother-in-law arriving for a two-week visit, piles of laundry from last week's camp-out, a broken vacuum, a sick toddler, twins turning eight, a cat with an abscess, soccer snack and mold in the bathroom, and no one is around to hear her, does she make a sound?

A possible answer, plus a biology lesson

When the woman screams, a large amount of air passes over the vocal chords, causing them to vibrate. The vibrations cause a compression and expansion of air, creating a sound wave. Sound waves are produced, regardless of what conscious being is there to perceive them. When sound waves hit the ear, they travel down the ear canal, cause three tiny bones to vibrate against the eardrum. The vibrations pass to the small, shell-shaped cochlea filled with liquid. The liquid moves causing hair cells to tremble and shake, triggering an electrical impulse to the brain, which, finally, registers the vibration as sound. That is why we have an auditory cortex in the neocortex of the brain, to interpret the vibrations of a toddler whining or a vacuum breaking. But the short of it is: If there's no ear to capture the noise, then her scream does not exist as sound, only vibration.

A question over evidence

How do we know said woman is justified in her screaming if no one was around to witness it or even hear it? Can you send a scream via the Internet by chopping it up it into a million tiny pieces and then have it reassemble itself on another's screen? Would they hear it?

Answer to evidence and a clarification

It's a philosophical question. Why do you scream? When do you scream? Are you screaming right now? This is an exercise for the mind. The more you use it the stronger it gets. The real question is: If a vibration is cased by a woman screaming and no one can hear or feel it, is it real? The only real answer to any metaphysical question is consciousness. Your conscious thought (the voice in your head asking this question) was the answer to the question all along.

Philosophy is a slippery slope

This is a straightforward question. There is nothing rhetorical, mysterious or metaphysical involved. The question asks whether we would hear the scream of a woman panicking over: grimy windows, a sticky floor, a mother-in-law arriving for a two-week visit, piles of laundry from last week's camp-out, a broken vacuum, a sick toddler, twins turning eight, a cat with an abscess, soccer snack and mold in the bathroom. And the conclusion is that there would, indeed, be screaming and we would, indeed, hear it. It's not rocket science.

An engineer answers, anyway

Yes. Sound is mechanical energy and sound will be created when the woman screams. If no one is there to hear it that does not negate the fact that the woman created a sound and the scream bounced off the grimy windows and ricocheted throughout the house.

A simpler answer

If the woman screamed, would a deaf person hear her? No, because the deaf person's auditory system is broken and wouldn't pick up the the vibrations that make sound. They may feel the lower vibrations in their body, but not the sound.

A personal point of view answer

No matter what, whether heard or not, the woman would make a sound. This conclusion makes sense because if she had all that stuff going on and someone WAS around to hear her throat-ripping panic, she WOULD make a sound. That "someone" could be the woman, herself, who would definitely hear her own scream.

As an example, picture yourself as a child living with your mom. Your TV is rather loud, and tunes out all other sounds. Your mom is shouting to you from across the room. You can't hear her, but she is making a sound. Why can't you hear her? Is it because the TV's noise overwhelms her shout? Now picture the same thing, except the TV is not on, and you are sitting on the couch, deep in thought. Your mom yells again from upstairs. Though no other noise is made except for hers, you still can't hear her. Why? Is it because she is too far away? Whatever your excuse for not listening, she's still screaming at you.

A disputing viewpoint

The scenarios above would make a sound, a lot of sound. Here's my analogy: If a person blows a dog whistle does it make a sound? Not to a human, but definitely to a dog. And in my opinion, that kid is acting like a dog and should get up off the couch and go help his mother.

It depends on certain factors

Just how overwhelmed is the woman and how loud is she screaming? What is her breaking point? Is it the sick kid, the abscess, the roller rink? Could she scream so loudly that it could be heard half way around the world. Also are we assuming that the vibration in the air is not a scream until it reaches our ear? What is the speed of sound and how long does it take to get half way around the world? Is a snack not a snack until we eat it? Is a child not sick until we take his temperature? Sound exists whether we are around or not (as do mothers-in-law). The real question is whether there's anyone around to translate the woman's sound into useful information.

Call in the reinforcements

I think that she does make a sound because if she makes a sound when we are there then why would she not if we were not there? If I stick to her kitchen floor we all hear the sticking sound with maybe small differences. So her scream is not completely in our mind, though she may be going out of her mind. Maybe she should hire a cleaning service or find a therapist.

Is a scream still a scream in an unknown language?

The reason she screams is the same whether she screamed in Japanese while in America. Someone makes that sound and others hear it and understand it, but you don't, maybe because you don't know Japanese or maybe it's because you weren't there. Either way, you will still know she screamed because in the first scenario someone could tell you about the scream and in the second you could probably decipher her emotion over the grimy windows, a sticky floor, a mother-in-law arriving for a two-week visit, piles of laundry from last week's camp-out, a broken vacuum, a sick toddler, twins turning eight, a cat with an abscess, soccer snack and mold in the bathroom...

Inspiration for this piece should go to Edvard Munch's "The Scream" and WikiAnswers.com's "If a tree falls ..."

Memorial memories

Raindrops
pepper playa,
turn hardpan into clay.
Puddles stick to the bottom of
my shoes.



The land sailing adventure also included "A birthday lesson," "First s'more" and "Finally, the wind blew." Want even more pictures? Click here.

Silly soup song

Editor's note: The Slow-Cooked Sentence is devoting itself to song this week as part of its Joy+Ride, a month-long quest that involves planting, polishing and singing.

In the bowl:

Great Big Gobs of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts
Photo courtesy of meganpru

Sing along with me and my kids. I dare you.

The Recipe: Gopher Guts
Serves: One campsite

Great big gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Chopped up monkey meat
Concentrated birdie feet
Chopped up eyeballs
Baked in a pot of blood
And I forgot my spoon!

Great big gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Chopped up monkey meat
Concentrated birdie feet
Chopped up eyeballs
Baked in a pot of blood
And I forgot my spoon!
But I gotta straw!
(Slurrrp!)
(Aaaaah!)

What happens in the backseat ...

Editor's note: The Slow-Cooked Sentence is devoting itself to song this week as part of its Joy+Ride, a month-long quest that involves planting, polishing and singing.

... stays there. Photo courtesy of Larsz.

So today's my anniversary and I forgot.

"I'm happy," my husband said as he reminded me. "I'm happy with you. The kids. The house."

"I think Ivan's in the toilet," I replied.

As he pulled out the toddler, I raised my glass in a silent, solo toast to fourteen years, four kids, but not one of them conceived in a backseat. I shrug. Sex, schmex, and then hum a little of that song from "Fiddler on the Roof."

(Tevye) ...
Do you love me?

(Golde)
I'm your wife.

(Tevye)
"I know..."
But do you love me?

(Golde)
Do I love him?
For twenty-five years I've lived with him
Fought with him, starved with him
Twenty-five years my bed is his
If that's not love, what is?

(Tevye)
Then you love me?

(Golde)
I suppose I do.

(Tevye)
And I suppose I love you too.

Want to know where some great backseat action is taking place? Check out Black Cab Sessions Chapter 60 featuring Calexico. I'm digging the song "Not even Stevie Nicks," particularly this line:

With a head like a vulture and heart full of hornets, he drives off the cliff into the blue.

Ain't it a beaut of a sentence? And there's enough in that song for me to pull my husband into the backseat for our own little session.

Mama's mix

Editor's note: The Slow-Cooked Sentence is devoting itself to song this week as part of its Joy+Ride, a month-long quest that involves planting, polishing and singing.

"Casi05" courtesy of INDEED.

Thirty songs plus half
a day all for me equals
sweet, sweet sanity.

The time's been spent, but I can still share my songs. My favorite is "Half Acre," I can listen to The Kinks all day long, and you've got to check out the lyrics to "A Chat With Your Mother."

• I'll Fly Away, Alison Krauss & Gillian Welch
• Julia, The Beatles
• Mother Nature's Son, The Beatles
• Half Acre, Hem
• Your Mother Should Know, The Beatles
• Ghost Town/Poem For Eva, Bill Frisell
• God Bless The Child, Billie Holiday
• Sunspots, Bob Mould
• I'll Come Running, Brian Eno
• All Mama's Children, Carl Perkins
• What A Wonderful World, With L Dan Zanes & Friends
• Leave It Like It Is, David Wilcox
• Do You Realize??, Flaming Lips
• White Winter Hymnal, Fleet Foxes
• After Midnight, J.J. Cale
• Crazy Mama, J.J. Cale
• Boom Boom, John Lee Hooker
• Hot Potatoes, The Kinks
• Have A Cuppa Tea, The Kinks
• Bonjour, Bonjour, L'Autobus A Vapeur
• Our House, Madness
• You Are My Sunshine, Norman Blake
• That Was Your Mother, Paul Simon
• Mother and Child Reunion, Paul Simon
• A Chat with Your Mother, Sally Rogers & Howie Bursen
• Inní mér syngur vitleysingur, Sigur Ros
• I Wish, Stevie Wonder
• Isn't She Lovely, Stevie Wonder
• What Child Is This, Vince Guaraldi
• I Took My Mom To the Prom, The Ziggens

Participating

"Elephant Hiding in a Strawberry Patch" by Evelyn Leavens.

Joy+Ride is a blog devoted to poetry, photography and inspiration that I discovered via Mamazine, a now defunct site that published one of my essays. This month the two editors issued a challenge to rediscover joy. Here's the idea and its rules:

"It’s easy to lose sight of the joy in our lives, easy to forget we have the means to find joy, that we are in the driver’s seat... For the month of May, let’s make a promise to practice joy even when we aren’t feeling that joyful."

The rules:

1. Make a list of three attainable things that give you daily joy.
2. Open your calendar and find a place to fit each joy.
3. Set your own joy pace, but we suggest once or twice a week, at least.

So in a search for joy, I am:

1. Painting my toes pink.
2. Singing out loud.
3. Planting a strawberry patch.

Which made me think of the joke about why the elephant painted its nails red and instantly brought me a tiny burst of joy because I could remember the punchline! I'll keep you posted on my progress. Wanna join me for the joy ride?

Hue are you?

"Color Wheel Magic" by Mary Anne Ciccotelli.

I recently read "The Commoner" by John Burnham Schwartz. It's the story of Haruko, who becomes the first non-aristocratic empress of Japan. It's a story of sacrifice set in a world mysterious and sealed off, yet still highly public. Schwartz's style is as exquisite as this world, refined, almost delicate, yet hidden in the silky words are burrs like those in this passage:

His tenderness was like a wound that could be bandaged but never entirely protected -- like his body, so badly burned in the fire of 1945 that he appeared more wound than boy. All except his spirit, which leaked out, as if through a dark curtain pocked with rips and tears, in silent, unexpected slants of light that if looked at directly would have dazzled the eyes.

The second example of this beautiful writing is when Haruko describes her girlhood friend Miko. The two short sentences shed insight into the two girls' personalities and their relationship.

If I was the routine blue sky, Miko was the twilight whose darkening colors never appeared in the same shade twice. One waited for her, never knowing which girl would appear.

Two metaphors comparing personality to light, the first shining through a torn curtain, the second to a time of day. After reading them, it got my mind wandering: where do I fall on the light spectrum? Not what is my favorite color, but what hue, tint or shade is my personality? I have one friend who's easy to color code. Her cheeriness, smile, bubbly laughter and optimism despite the drama of her life makes her as yellow as sunshine, as warm as the sand on the beach, as the sweet as the juice of a peach. I have another friend the color of sage, a pungent, yeasty green, pulling strength from its tap root sunk deep into the earth, nourishing and toasty as homemade bread. Incidentally, she's also writing about color this week on her blog. A third friend is definitely an energetic orange, sizzling and intense with midday energy, and a fourth is the color of a delicious wine, a deep burgundy, round and rich and generous with her life.

And me?

Perhaps my youngest brother Dylan decoded my color decades ago. Dylan was maybe five years old when I left for college, so his memories of me are few and far between. In fact, he may have no memories of me at all; he once drew a picture of our family and omitted me. Incidentally, he's provided a coloring page of himself. To find it, click here. Anyway, no matter how infrequently I visited, once home I re-assumed my place in the sibling hierarchy -- the top. Suffering at the bottom of the birth order, Dylan once asked, "Who does she think she is?"

The queen, of course. In purple.

When the world's a stage

"Hovering fly" courtesy of wolfpix.

Can I tell you about something both magical and mundane, about life and death, about a ballet danced in the twilight of my backyard? It involves the birds living in the neighborhood, a giant, brittle willow along the fence line and a thousand beetles that escape from the willow just after sundown.

I was sitting under the tree in the corner of the yard, drinking the last wine in my glass and listening to my husband summarize an article on Somalia. Suddenly I noticed tens, then hundreds, of bugs fluttering above my head, all heading away from the willow, through the backyard and over the rooftop.

Just as I noticed, so did the dozen or more starlings, sparrows, finches and blue scrub jays. They shot off the tree branches, pinched bugs from the air and flew to a telephone line with dinner. I called for the kids to come see. Two and then three times, swarms of bugs left the safety of the willow and were sent into dizzying confusion as birds pirouetted among them. Some of us cheered for the bugs when they disappeared over the rooftop and some for the birds when they nabbed in mid-flight. We watched until the cloud of bugs dissipated and the stragglers were picked off with ease. The birds flew to their perches and we waited with them. Minutes passed. Not a single beetle took to the sky. So we went inside and closed the curtains, leaving the birds staring intently into the empty twilight.

Mothering skills have eluded me

... or Jane and her mom make Emerald City Salad.

I picked up one of my sons from school today at 10:30 a.m. because he'd thrown up. When he climbed into the car he was hiding a smile. Sick? Probably not. But how do I insist that the school keep a kid who's puked?

This 7-year-old has learned to work the system. About every two weeks, I receive a call from the school nurse, Eloisa, who's phoning because he's in her office, again. By now we're in agreement that there must be visible signs of sickness, like vomit or a thermometer that reports a fever. Today's proof lay in the bottom of the trash can, so I came, grudgingly. My toddler's nap had been interrupted, my mouth was set in a grim line, and what does he say when he climbs into the car?

"Was Ivan eating chocolate?"

"He had part of a donut."

"Yum."

So much for the sore tummy. He's spending the day in his room. In bed. Without a book.

I'm desperate, cranky and sick of my life being interrupted by sick kids. On days like this I grab chocolate and plop down in front of the computer for an episode or two of my favorite food show, Cookus*Interruptus, featuring Feeding the Whole Family author Cynthia Lair. My top episodes can be found in the right-hand column. They all involve Cynthia's daughter, Jane, who is a single mom with enough irreverence and sarcasm to light a fire under any pot. On more than one bad day, Jane's saved me (and my son).

Blogus interruptus

H1N1 influenza virus courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Today's blog post suffered from frequent interruptions by children with hacking coughs, which, incidentally, were not caused by the H1N1 virus or swine flu, according to the pediatrician. In the half hour the writer sat at the computer, she received requests for:

• peaches with cottage cheese
• a discussion on how to write a persuasive essay
• water
• a diaper change
• a reminder to report the absences to school officials
• a towel to clean up the water
• toast with apricot jam
• more water
• cough syrup
• string cheese
• a hug
• still more water

By now, the writer was suffering from a headache and a bad attitude, so she threw the wet towel at the computer screen and called it quits.

Going down

"Porco Rosso" by William Montgomery,
from of his daily sketch blog Montgomery Today.

Our family is like a World War II bomber under fire but somehow managing to stay aloft. My husband (who receives credit for this analogy) and I in the cockpit as the kids yell out that the left wing is on fire and the rudder has fallen off. Such were yesterday's conditions as we steered the minivan into the church parking lot.

Half the family was sick, but Sunday was the culmination of two years of religious education, and so the Devil be damned, we were going forward with First Communion. As we walked into church, I stuffed a lozenge in a mouth, tucked a handkerchief into a pocket and uttered a small prayer that no one cough on the Host.

God answered that prayer.

As bread and wine were blessed, the five children receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist gathered around the altar. As I watched, Max slowly sunk from view, then stood again, whispered to the priest, walked a few steps, knelt down and puked. This family was crash landing before the eyes of the congregation.

I whisked Max away to the bathroom, cleaned him up and marched him back up the aisle to accept communion. As Max held out his hands, Christ looked down from his cross and said, "Dude, you look terrible. Go home."

We took his advice.



I'm happy to report that after more coughs, sputters and groans, the family took to the air this morning. Over and out.

Soup, slop and sanitation

"Songs We Sing From Rogers and Hammerstein" illustrated by William Dugan. Golden Press, 1957. Image from Vintage Kids' Books My Kid Loves.

I made clam chowder last night and it was a stinker. Perhaps it was because (one) I refused to run to the store for four stalks of celery or (two) I lazily tossed in the potatoes without peeling them. But whatever the reason, it was bland, boring and kinda dirty tasting. (Even though I distinctly remember scrubbing the potatoes!)

We ate the chowder, anyway.

But the leftovers? Into the slop bucket. Well, to be more exact, ours is a compost bucket, but when I was growing up we raised the occasional pig or two, so our scraps turned to slop. And how our first pig loved that garbage, nudging her nose into curdled milk, congealed Cream of Wheat and gobbling up the crusty ends of peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches. Doesn't that remind you of "Charlotte's Web"?

Wilbur lifted his nose and sniffed. The smell was delicious... He walked to the trough and took a long drink of slops, sucking in the milk hungrily and chewing the popover. It was good to be home again.

While you can go on loving Wilbur, I'll love Star, our family's big, black sow who gave birth to a run of piglets who were so darn cute and pink. Star was smart enough to escape from her pen, so now and then my brother or sisters or I would spot her trotting down the dirt road, a line of babies behind her. We'd yell to mom, who'd hop in the car and chase her down. You know, I can't remember how my mom got Star and her babies back home. I like to imagine her as big and tough as Pecos Bill's true love, Slue-foot Sue, roping and riding that sow into the pen again.

Eventually, Star's antics grew tiresome and the piglets outgrew their cuteness because one day the pig pen was empty, the slop bucket was fed to the chickens and a conversation between a mother and child went something like this:

"What's for dinner?"

"Star."

We ate the pork chops, anyway.

But today -- as the swine flu spreads and worries grow about a possible pandemic -- people are hesitating when it comes to pork, according to The New York Times. Several nations closed their borders to pork and Wall Street analysts predict a drop in pork sales in the grocery stores, the paper reported this week.

Although pigs were the original source of the new virus, experts said the animals don't appear to be playing a role in its transmission now.

"The virus is passing from person to person ... most likely by the spread of respiratory droplets," the Times reported.

So I'm not passing up bacon, nor am I running out to buy face masks. I won't even demand that my children's teacher be quarantined following her vacation in Mexico. But I have taken the precaution of posting hand-washing signs in our home's bathrooms. Should you be overcome by a similar desire, here's one poster and links to the rest:

• Have U Washed Your Hands 2Day?
• Hands vs. Germs (pdf.)
• Be a Germ-Buster (pdf. in English and Spanish)

Have a swine-free, sanitary weekend!

Yearning

The Milky Way as seen from Death Valley, courtesy of NASA.

The earth cracks open and my heart explodes as blue eyes cut the starry sky and a silver river illuminates the world.

My favorite phrases from the Sigur Rós song, remixed. For a complete translation from Icelandic, click here.

And then heals

One day a doctor is propping open an artery hugging my dad's heart. The next day my dad is laying on the grass playing with his youngest grandchild. He's fine. A little tired, perhaps, but happy to dig in the dirt and toss dandelions at a one-year-old.

A few hours after surgery, we brought him Ruby Soup, a steaming borscht infused with garlic and prayers. While eating, he explained how a stent is like scaffolding. The tiny mesh tube was inserted through an artery in his groin, traveled to the blockage and then expanded so blood could once again flow freely.

"The doctor says I need to take statins to lower my cholesterol, but you know what the word on the street is? It's fish oil," he said. "Why statins when you can pack a can of sardines in your lunch everyday?"

That's my dad. Flat on his back in the hospital and he's questioning the official line. Doesn't matter who's line -- cardiologist, cop or wife -- he's going to challenge it.

"The doctor told you not to lift any weight," she said.

"I'm not going to disappoint an one-year-old," he said and lifted his grandson into his arms.

"Well, don't come to me when you starting bleeding out through your groin," she snapped.

Sharp. Stupid. Sweet. Love in a few of its guises, in a few paragraphs.

In which a heart hurts

Anatomical heart by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Today's bowl contains a sparkling, life-sustaining, ruby soup and I hope my father will get to eat a bowl. He's at the hospital today where doctors will dye his blood and watch as it's pumped through the chambers of his heart. If the heart is strong, he'll come for dinner. If it's weak, doctors will operate.

As I sliced beef into half-inch cubes I thought of this heart caged in the chest I fell asleep against as a child. As I cut beets and stained my fingers I thought of that blood, bubbling with oxygen, feeding my father. And as simmering broth turned brilliant red I prayed for the first man I loved.

In the anthology "My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead," Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides wrote about the heart:

"The perishable nature of love is what gives love its profound importance in our lives. If it were endless, if it were on tap, love wouldn't hit us the way it does."

Under the hood of my first car.

Childhood memories of my dad involve muscle: hammering together rabbit cages, carrying loads of firewood to the truck, changing the oil in my VW Bug. The picture I carry in my brain is of his body bent over the engine of our car. Broken down on the side of the highway, he once jerry-rigged it with a crochet hook. The slow speed of his driving and his bloodshot eyes brought the car to attention of police, so trips often included time on the side of the road answering a cop's questions.

Though my dad's still strong and ingenious, he's also old. His hair is the color of winter and his hands are knotted. He's nearing the age of his father who died following a heart bypass, the age of his mother when she suffered a second heart attack. Death lurks in my family's genes. I warn my husband that I'll die first, that I'll die from a broken heart. My grandma almost did. After my grandpop died and she had suffered the heart attack, she asked not to be resuscitated should her heart stop again. One day it did. But forgetting her request, doctors shocked her heart into beating again. She lived for twenty more years and remarried, but the family knew that part of her heart no longer beat, but lay buried next to her lover.

Again, Eugenides:

"We value love not because it's stronger than death but because it's weaker. Say what you want about love: death will finish it. You will not go on loving in the grave, not in any physical way that will at all resemble love as we know it on earth."

I sleep next to the second man I love. On most nights I sleep on his right side, so when I curl up against his chest I can't hear his heart's rhythmic thumping. Sometimes, though, my husband and I lay like spoons with his arm thrown over my side and his hand cupping my left breast, my heart playing a staccato against his palm. If the heart had a song for living, for the joy of filling cavities with blood and sending thin, brilliant blood through unblocked veins and arteries, it would be Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust by the quintet from Iceland Sigur Rós:

The album cover.

I'm playing it today as the soup simmers. I'm playing it.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Loud.

In the bowl:

Ruby Soup

Ruby Soup
Adapted from Smith and Smith Farm's newsletter

Makes 4 quarts

1/2 pound grass-fed beef, cut into 1/2 inch dice
1/4 cup olive oil, divided in half
3 quarts beef stock
4 small beets or one large beet with tops
pinch of red chili flakes
juice of one lemon
1 large potato, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch dice
1 14 ounce can peeled, diced tomatoes
1 small onion, sliced
3 small carrots, sliced
3 cups cabbage, shredded
1 tablespoon tomato paste
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoon parsley, minced
1 tablespoon dill, chopped

Heat half the oil in a stockpot and brown the diced meat. Add the beef stock and tomatoes, bring to a boil, turn down heat and cover. Simmer for half an hour.

Trim and wash the beet greens, discarding the stems. Scrub the beets, cut them in quarters, place in a saucepan with the greens, the chili and a half cup of water. Cover and steam until the beets are tender but still firm, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the lemon juice and allow to cool, then slice the beet wedges into 1/8 inch slices. Set aside.

Heat the remaining oil in a large skillet and saute the onion and carrot for 5 minutes. Add the cabbage and continue cooking until the cabbage has softened. Add the cabbage mixture, potatoes and beets and beet greens to the stock and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste, salt and pepper to state, and continue to simmer for 5 more minutes.

Turn off the heat. Stir in the minced garlic and chopped herbs, cover and let stand 10 minutes before serving in warmed soup bowls.

The bird lady, round 2

The sparrow hawk and its prey.
By Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucien Bonaparte, 1876

The bird lady was out in her driveway this morning with binoculars, searching the skies for a sparrow hawk. In her other hand she clutched a spray nozzle and planned to blast the bird with water if she could only find it. She'd been working in the yard when she spotted the hawk spotting the sparrows in her lilac bush, but before she could hook up the hose, it escaped. She was certain it was nearby.

"The damn thing is good at camouflaging and now I can't get anything done."

Five minutes

Chocolate caramel crackers

Sick kid. No writing.
Recipe link must suffice.
See y'all Wednesday.

The keeper of the keys

Illustration from "Laurel's Kitchen"
by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders and Bronwen Godfrey.

One February day I committed to making a weekly stone soup, a promise to feed my family and one other. My pledge was made in alarm over the number of people lining up in the neighborhood to receive free food each week. Since then, I've made seven pots of soup, sharing the recipes with you and sharing a second set of ingredients with the local food bank.

Between this week's bookends of warm days, it snowed and I made soup, a pea soup the same dusty green as the awakening apple tree and flavored with the ham bone from Easter. It was a deliciously thick with baby lima beans and chewy barley, and we ate it all before I could take a picture. As I thumbed through "Laurel's Kitchen" to pass the recipe along to you, I was diverted by the essay in the front of the book. It's an essay I've read many times, but this time it resonated in a new way given the uncertainty of our world, our jobs, our homes. Written in the 1970s, it was arguing that American women held the key to the food and resource crisis.

A neighborhood that meets its needs cooperatively takes a much smaller bite out of the world resources. Car pools form naturally; a communal garden springs up. Joint wholesale food purchasing comes easy; families may even find they can live under one roof. One lawnmower, one Rototiller, one sailboat does for a whole block. The barter system can flourish: fresh-baked muffins for minor car repairs, knitting lessons from the elderly lady down the block in exchange for a lift to the grocery store. ... Outgrown clothing gets passed around among the children until it's threadbare and gradually, in the evening, people can even be seen out-of-doors, visiting with one another... Women are the people who can best accomplish these changes, by bringing warmth, self-sufficiency, and interdependence to our homes and communities.

Soup weather's thawing, days are warming, lengthening, and so is the food line. I'm getting pulled away from recipes and into the garden where seeds are hidden. What does this mean for me and my promise? Why not turn that future crop of zucchini into a cold ratatouille, you ask? Because I hold serious doubts about my abilities as a farmer. Like a ground squirrel I bury seeds only to forget about them for weeks and then later wonder why the squash isn't growing. But I will forge (or forage) ahead into the world of lighter soups, cooler soups, soups that still hold a stone in the bottom of their bowls.

(What would have been)
in the bowl:

Hearty Pea Soup
(had we not eaten it)

Hearty Pea Soup
adapted from "Laurel's Kitchen"

Note: While the original recipe is a delicious vegetarian soup, I couldn't resist using the ham bone from Easter dinner.

Makes 8 to 9 cups

1 onion, diced
2 tablespoons oil or bacon fat
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 cup green split peas
1/4 cup barley
1/2 cup lima beans
10 cups water
ham bone (optional)
2 teaspoons salt
dash of pepper
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 carrot, chopped
3 stalks celery, diced
1/2 parsley, chopped
1 potato, diced

Saute onion in oil until soft, along with bay leaf and celery seed. Stir in peas, barley and lima beans. Add optional ham bone, 10 cups water and bring to a boil. Cook on low heat, covered, for about one hour and 20 minutes.

Add salt, pepper, vegetables and herbs. Turn heat down and simmer another 30 to 45 minutes. Thin with additional water or stock if necessary.

Through their eyes

The weatherman promised us one single balmy day during the entire Spring Vacation, so while my daughter spent it with a friend, my boys and I hightailed it to the city arboretum. We inhaled the perfume of a Thundercloud Plum, marveled at how blossoms fell like snow from the trees, and had a long discussion about the group of juvenile delinquents wearing vests and hard hats as bright as poppies.

"What are they doing?"

"Community service. They got in trouble because they did something like steal or drink alcohol or spray graffiti."

"How do you know they're not Boy Scouts?"

"Because. They're not having fun. They're not laughing or talking to each other. And do you see that guy over there with the walkie-talkie, he's watching them to make sure they work."

"Oh."

Then I could see the wheels of their brains whirling. The oldest son worrying over the small glass of wine and water he drank at special dinners: Could he be arrested for that? The middle-by-a-minute son hoping he will never get caught. And the baby drawn like a butterfly to the orange vests.

I may be a strong-willed woman raising an opinionated daughter who is training her brothers to enjoy tea parties, but ours is a house of men. There's no sense fighting the domination of balls, karate kicks, Legos and Captain Underpants, which only will give way to stinky feet, loud music, dark rooms and porno magazines under beds. This I know because I had two brothers of my own. On days when I feel buffeted about by this maelstrom of maleness, I think of my grandmother, who raised five (!) boys, of my favorite poem by Billy Collins where he attempts to repay his mother's gift of life with a lanyard, and of my own sons' currency of painted rocks and dandelions. To listen to the poet read The Lanyard, click here.

Oh, shit

Photo courtesy of pauljoyce.

Monday.

How did I get here? Already.

Yesterday was a marathon of celebration, starting at 8:30 in the morning when we went tearing out of the driveway one hour before church began.

One.

Whole.

Hour.

Because if you don't leave an hour early, you won't get a seat. Arrive thirty minutes early and you might be able to squeeze into a pew in the balcony. Arrive fifteen minutes early and you'll be joining the line of people on the walls. Arrive ten minutes early and the doors will be shut and ushers will be telling you to wait for the next service.

Church. For one hour and ten minutes we prayed and sang and sat and sweated and kneeled with hundreds of people, and the baby fell asleep and I escorted kids to the bathroom twice, and then finally it was over. We raced home and grabbed the blueberry muffins (for the first family gathering) and the salad and wine (for the second family gathering), hopped back in the car and went tearing out of the driveway (again). From the backseat of the car came snaps and yanks and tugs and grunts as children fought their way out of tie and shirt and tights and shoes.

Family (divided between two houses and ten miles). For seven hours we ate and laughed and talked and hid eggs and found eggs and drank and ate some more and commiserated over this person's pay cut and rejoiced because that person's job was doing well. Then everything was washed -- sticky hands and chocolately faces and dirty dishes (though the big black pan that held the ham was left to soak). And adults joined kids in a game of four square in the driveway until it was time to go.

Home. Where there were dirty dishes and wet laundry and Easter grass all over the floor, and one kid took a bath, and a Scotch was poured, and the baby dragged a blanket to his mama's feet, and caught her raiding the Easter baskets. And it wasn't until after the dishes were washed, the drier running, the floor swept, the baby sleeping and the peanut butter cups eaten, that I realized tomorrow was Monday, and the kids were on spring vacation, and I had to write something, something for this blog. But my synapses weren't firing because my brain was sloshing around in sugar, and I thought:

Oh, shit.

And then I thought:

A title.

Soup, never simple

How does a Catholic girl get mistaken for being Jewish? Marry into a name.

In fourteen years, I've received a cold call from a rabbi, begged ignorance of Yiddish, been told I should move to the Bronx where there are lots of nice, young Jewish families, asked which synagogue I attended during a craigslist purchase, and now the latest from the Sunday school coordinator:

"You don't have to answer this question, but we've been wondering: With your names -- Rachael, Chaja, Sam, Max -- how did you end up here?"

A conundrum, to be sure.

While my husband would have us all remain happily ignorant of his heritage, it's not easy in a world where rabbis and real-estate agents want to pin stars on the rest of us. So rather than fight the stereotype and protest the label, I've decided to learn about the Jew in us.

With that introduction comes this week's Passover soup, a steaming bowl of chicken broth, thin slices of carrot, snips of dill and matzo balls. (And what's for dinner tonight? Fish, of course. After all, it is Good Friday. Click here for some incredible pictures of Holy Week.)

In the bowl:

Matzo Ball Soup

On the side:

Grilled sourdough with extra-sharp cheddar and fontina

Matzo Ball Soup

Matzo Balls
Makes 8 to 12 matzo balls

1/2 cup matzo meal
2 eggs
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons chicken stock or seltzer (recommended by Smitten Kitchen)

For soup
2 to 3 quarts chicken stock (I used Swanson's)
1 carrot, thinly sliced
sprigs of dill

Mix matzo ball ingredients in a bowl. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes. Bring a pot of salted water to boil. With wet hands, shape matzo into 1-inch balls and drop into simmering water. Cover the pot and cook for 40 minutes.

About 10 minutes before the matzo balls are cooked, heat the chicken stock and carrot. (If you've made the matzo balls ahead of time, add them to the stock and bring the whole thing to a simmer.) Ladle soup and a couple matzo balls into a bowl, garnish with dill.

Homage

"And dirt was cleanly ..."

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious praisebe
poet and maytag

when ivan discovers

that hose + dirt
= mud

it's spring
and the world is puddle-wonderful

when maxandsam come running
from soccer field smelling of lawn and little-
boy stink

it's spring and
the iceCream truck
whistles far and wee.

and chajaandcoins go
scrambling for chocotacos
that dribble and glop

it's spring and
mothersclimbMountains
of laun
dry
and sigh at what they see

it's spring and the iceCream truck
whistles
far
and
wee

The sky fell

Mary Poppins glues stars to the sky. Illustration by Mary Shepard.

Then Jane and Michael saw a most amazing sight. As soon as she arrived at the top of her ladder, Mrs. Corry dipped her brush into the glue and began slapping the sticky substance against the sky. And Mary Poppins, when this had been done, took something shiny from her basket and fixed it to the glue. When she took away her hand they saw that she was sticking the Gingerbread Stars to the sky. As each one was placed in position it began to twinkle furiously, sending out rays of sparkling golden light.

-- Excerpted from "Mary Poppins" by P.L. Travers.

***

Above my head hundreds of paper stars fell out of the blue sky, tumbling and fluttering through the breeze, growing soft feathers and sharp beaks before settling on the water. People, strollers, dogs, scooters, rollerbladers all walked by. They didn't hear the stars laughing, nor see the piece of sky floating at their feet.

"Gull repeat 01" by M.. K... S.......

Turning up the heat

"Sexy Scissors" courtesy of HeadOvMetal.

Five minutes from my house a barber shop offers topless haircuts, or at least that's what the sign said. The word was scrawled in large black letters on cardboard and posted above a painted barber shop sign. It caught my eye as I drove home with groceries.

Topless usually doesn't raise eyebrows in Nevada, but this one apparently was operating in a strip mall that included a Christian bookstore, an H&R Block, a supermarket and a laundromat. I had to investigate. So I bundled up the toddler, deposited the big kids at school and headed toward the strip mall, all the while thinking about boobs and buzz cuts. This was the conversation in my brain:

Is it really that erotic to receive a haircut while checking out titties in the mirror? Would I offer to cut my husband's hair while topless? Hah, I'd probably end up with a chest hairier than his! How much can you charge for such a cut, anyway? Wait a minute. I have given topless haircuts -- to my sons when they were very small. Remember chasing them around the yard with scissors, until I grabbed one of them, stuck a boob in his mouth and, as he nursed, quickly snipped his hair.

The first point of investigation on my walk was Razor's Edge Barber Shop, located across the street from where I spotted the sign. As I passed, I glanced inside: Two men were getting their hair cut by two other men. They all wore shirts.

So I crossed Pyramid Way and headed north to New Image and The Establishment, both located in the strip mall. At New Image, a sleepy woman sat like a lumpy potato in a barber's chair waiting for the first customer of the day. Could I imagine her taking off her shirt? Uh-uh. I kept walking, past a bar, a laundromat, an empty store-front, and then came to The Establishment. The dark tinted windows prevented me from seeing inside.

I took a deep breath.

I opened the door.

My face flushed.

"Hi, I'm looking for the topless barber shop."

"Oh, that was an April Fool's joke," a woman said. "One of the barber's played it on the other barber. We cut men and women's hair while wearing clothes."

"Oooh, I wondered about the sign. Did you get any reaction?"

"Nah. You'd think there'd have been a long line, but nothing. Must be the economy."

Face sizzling, I slipped outside. My cheeks radiated heat, my brain harangued:

What was the point of that, Rach? Heat. Heat. Heat. Embarrassing heat. Erotic heat. Spicy heat. Like this week's soup with smoky chipotle chilies, sliced thin, like lines of burning filament in a bowl, in a blog post.

In the bowl:

Chipotle Turkey Stew

Chipotle Turkey Stew
Adapted from Sunset magazine, January 1999

1 pound cooked turkey or chicken (I used smoked turkey)
6 cups chicken broth
1 onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup masa or flour
15 ounces tomatoes, diced
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 tablespoons canned chipotle chilies, minced
sour cream and cilantro (optional)

Saute the onions. Pour in the broth and bring to a simmer. Ladle out about a cup and whisk the masa into the broth. Then slowly whisk that thickened broth into the main pot. Add tomatoes, oregano, turkey and chilies. Garnish with sour cream and cilantro.

Sweet inspiration

In my home, cookies trump cleaning.

Lately, I've been thinking that the chocolate portion of this blog has been neglected -- not for lack of eating my favorite food, but because I'm eating it too quickly. And, well, once out of sight, out of mind. But I'll try and make amends by sharing my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. Okay, okay, I know I've said that before, but my faithfulness is fleeting and mostly I like whatever is in my hand.

As I've cooked up batch after batch of these cookies in the past few weeks, a fine sprinkling of flour has settled on top of the existing thick layer of dust in my kitchen. For you see, although I revel in the results of spring cleaning -- a sparkling home scrubbed free of grime and smelling like sweet grass -- it doesn't inspire me to action. But these cookies do, so perfectly balanced, crisp and chewy and loaded with warm, bitterwsweet chocolate. And I'm excited about a few other things too, all of which don't require rubber gloves, scrub pads and buckets of soapy water, but go quite deliciously with cookies. Check out "What I'm Loving" at the top of the right-hand column.

The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated, May-June 2009

1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) butter
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli's 60 percent cacao bittersweet chips)

Melt butter. Mix butter with sugars, salt and vanilla. Add egg and egg yolk. Stir in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Form dough into large balls (about 3 tablespoons) and place on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 10 to 14 minutes or until golden brown and still puffy. Edges will be set, but centers will be soft.