Friday, February 4, 2005

Chicken soup

I have to get some pictures of broccoli, and for that matter pictures of--no matter how much they resemble a changing diaper gone bad--pictures of bechamel up. And why? Because I get ten hits a day looking for none other than pictures of broccoli. I feel guilty--no I do--that folks searching for bechamel and for "pictures of broccoli" get my site. It ranks high. Not highly, that would be absurd. I rank high in broccoli pictures and I have not two, not one, but none. For the bechamel...I should appeal to Bakerina, fair Bakerina, I should appeal--a simple link to the best, the most simple, the most elegant bechamel the Bakerina has to offer. I think she would cooperate. I should ask her. She could host this most basic recipe at her site. I could link to it. That's the idea of blogdom.



I don't know why--ok, that's kind of a lie--the spiders of Goodely Oogle send all these folks my way looking for wisdom in a milky, floury--not flowery, and it really better not be floury or one has done something wrong--sauce, but for god's sake, can't there be more pictures of broccoli than my none? Really, in the next two weeks--sooner than that I am too busy with school--but sometime within the week after next I will just put up a shit load of broccoli pictures. For fuck's sake, if that many people want them, it is my civic duty to provide. I may, I will, I think.



Oh, I should holler at the remarkable Bakerina about the bechamel. I had a recipe, buried in a post, over a year ago which included sort of, hmm, erm, somewhat slap-dash instructions? for bechamel. More of a poem about a sauce than a recipe. There was the milk and a bay leaf, a sliver of onion, a puff of nutmeg--that sort of thing. The truth is: bechamel is a handy sauce. Add some shredded cheese--molnay!, I think, anyway. Erm, but anyone, a persistent link. Somehow I need a persistent link obvious to those many few who sadly find my site looking for pictures of broccoli and bechamel. This that pitter flat spalat shat tat, ok, Mary just asked me from where I got the noodles for the soup--which she is now home from work and eating--



"Is it good?" I asked, no really I just asked this seconds ago.

"Yes," she said demonstratively, definitively, declaratively, deluctably, what-ever-the-fucktably? "I love it."



And so, there you have it.



Chicken soup, for the feeling sick your girlfriend, your lover.





Saturday, January 29, 2005

There are no audio clips of cats becoming ready to mate here. Or any audio clips for that matter. None.

I am 6th of 2470 for "audio clips of a female domestic cat ready to mate". Okay. No clips. Not of donkeys discussing cuticle creams or guyabas licking each other on the ear and talking dirty as only guyaba can do. No prickly pears prickling with gossipy heat nor pancakes quietly farting their loving whispery one-notes to butter. No sizzle and hiss. No freaking audio clips. Thanks.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Time and Dog Walks and Dirty Dishes

Thanks to those who provided helpful advice on my burning topic of fitted sheet folding. Despite all attempts to enwisdom me I am still madly twisting the bottom into a tense puffy bow and stuffing it into the drawer swallow by swallow. Perversely, I now have this nagging desire to iron my sheets. No idea why. Well, that's not quite true. It has been god awful and mean shitty cold here lately and the thought of steaming hot linens has its appeal. Still, hardly practical to iron a sheet, race upstairs, fling it on the bed and hope it stays warm while I finish up the others. Just idiotic, but still it nags.



Not a fan of ironed things, but there's a love of the steam and the wavering scenes beind the white column. Something in the intermittent hiss and glide and the secrets which the fabric gives up in buried smells released by the heat. I'm not fastidious. I'm not bothered by wrinkles in the least. I think there must be an alchemist part of me, enjoying the mutagenicity of t-shirts and pillowcases neatly creased as broken glass, stuffed in the bottom of the clean laundry bag, fuming and changing and relaxing under moist heat. Not much threat of becoming an obsessive ironing compulsive: I don't have the time.



Not sure where it goes, the time. Not sure at all. There's a lot of bits spent at the kitchen sink cleaning the latest peanut butter-covered knife and the latest lip-greased cup for tea. The coffee stains and the coffee syrup coated spoons and for god's sake the dog hairs and the dog staring waiting hoping praying for...for what? Jesus Christ, I wish I knew what was on her mind with the breathing and the sighing and the plaintive shedding. Fine dog though, mind, absolute sweetheart, loyal and kind. Furthermore, she keeps Mary's feet warm at times and that's a service worth as is worth.



Mostly the time lately is in being in between, halfway there and needing to be on the way. Not my favorite way to spend a life. I love endless days and endless days only start with endless mornings, whatever say the fans of late night. No day lasts as long as one started before the sun comes up. Every hour then a gift, a cold secret gift, a mysterious fat and wide eyed tight scalped time. Lately I've been rising with the post, good woman who delivers the mail, hitting our stoop at hours almost noon, not the way I'd choose. Up till three and what would I expect--but these hours after midnight are watery quick, weaving quick leaving quick, depleting things. Hours spent on farting and on wishes of sleep. Not the thing at all and a hard thing to change. Time now to get out and let the dog piss, or bark or howl or whatever she's of a mind.

Monday, January 3, 2005

Black-Eyed Peas, Luck Luck Luck

To each who has left me comments recently: thank you. I never went anywhere--just wasn't posting. Please do feel free to use the e-mail link. It is kind of people to care enough to check in after months and holler hey. Thank you. Happy new year besides, god, I really hope so. You all deserve it.



It was a new year and so we ate black eyed peas. Old tradition, new tradition. We used to eat roast pork and sauerkraut, fried apples and roast potatoes. On New Year’s Day Rosalie speculated that might have been Larry’s favorite meal. But then she said, she said, he had so many favorites, liking his food. We did not eat roast pork this year. We ate black-eyed peas for luck, for luck, in this 2005, a good year, it will be a good year. Battered, deep fried cod and black eyed peas and cole slaw, collard greens and corn bread, macaroni and cheese. A picnic round the kitchen oak. I think this must be a Southern belief, the belief in black-eyed peas. My brother asked if the Southerner’s have had such good luck, should we be eating their peas? Not a bad point, but this year we were looking for a little luck, a little calm, a little peace, so my mother with the buying of the peas.



For that matter, I love black-eyed peas, the earth and the grit, the grim stone-faced joy of their taste. My brother consented to eat exactly one, let him have luck, let him. And why not? What’s the harm of hope, of superstition? Two thousand four, a year, a point of planetary position come home again, I won’t blame, I won’t call bad, but it’s been a weird, hard year. The worst yet, some might say, but how to value the living, the dying? I won’t blame 2004, but I'll be looking forward to 2005, hoping time slows a little. I think it should be tired. Let it rest, let it roll slowly in tall weeds, let it bake in the sun, let it chew on old leather and eat paste.



Deaths at Christmas must be as common as any other time, they must be as common between Dec. 20 and Dec. 27 as between May 1 and May 8, don't you think? Still, they suck. My cousins lost their mother, my father's sister, right before Christmas. Same disease as my dad, almost exactly the same progression. Didn't hold off quite as long. Fuck it, I don't care if it's a plane or an asteroid or frozen goose shit, I just hope something gets me without choices, without too much time for contemplation and deterioration. No need to get into it here, but this aunt of mine, and who doesn't, deserved better. Funny, funny, crazy, brilliant, whacked woman.



Eating the black-eyed peas and smiling at the coming year with one hand over one eye, fingers crossed. A good year. God knows I wish one to each, to all even, knowing that for so many it's going to be an uphill slog through hot pink, curdled poodle vomit. But still, we hope, and why not? For each, for all, I hope good, or interesting, or sweet, or fat, or sassy, or slap happy, or horny, or lightly toasted and buttery, hoppy and bitter sweet or sweaty heady whole hearted blooming black passionate swirled rainbow sherbet, ephemerally loving tear-drawing breath-stealing loin-tingling chest-swelling good times are ahead of you, lurking in your water closet, in your pantry, in your closet under all the jeans you bought last year that don't fit; hiding in the strangely inviting trunk of your car--if only you were small enough to install a right-sized couch and lava lamp and move into that tidily sized, carpeted space--or maybe you wouldn't want to--but still I hope in your music which you will play, in the wonderful food you will cook, in the wonderful things you will write, in the wonderful lost moments with your infant you, thank god, forgot to video tape but will remember forever, in these moments, in these moments, in these moments of congealed bacon fat and pregnant diapers, in these moments of innocence, and it will all seem like innocence someday, fucking god damn it, for god's sake do I wish each his or her happiness. Love it, please, whatever moment it is, love it. Do the stupid, do the wise, do the taxes, but love it, love it. Be a little silly, go tell your lover thank you for the smoothness of the plaster and the horse hair, go tell your dog, thank you for the steaming turds and the plastic bags, go tell your roaches thank you for the entertainment. Telling these planets, these hard cold spheres thank you for the death of my father, thank you for the life, thank you for the mitochondria, thank you for the breath, thank you for the altar and the fat, thank you for the memories, thank you for the sweet brilliance of berry juice and strange fruit hairs. Will and thanks and hope and dread, this affliction, hoping this new year at least has some sweetness, some unnoticed moments to fuel future nostalgic memories.



And, I guess, that's about it.