The Cucumber Condumdrum

I am beginning to wonder if I have an unhealthy relationship with my vegetable garden.

 Last year, I was seduced by a zucchini.  For more on that, I call your attention to last year's solitary blog. This year, I’m having trouble breaking from a high-maintenance relationship with cucumbers.  

After purchasing salt and spices, vinegar jugs and canning jars —the out-of-pocket price easily exceeding that of the commercial pickles readily assessable in the grocery aisle—my husband and I sliced, salted, and spiced gallons of cucumbers into pickles. There were the dill varieties, (hoping that one will be the perfect meeting of garlic and dill and crunchiness) and the obligatory old-family-recipe bread and butter variety. I even went out on a limb and processed the never-to-be-repeated (it-only-took-four-days-of-work) sweet gherkin. 

I get it. I was the one who planted four hills of five plants, but still. The vines go on and on, flowering and fruiting, either not caring or not aware of what it costs the harvester slaving away in her kitchen.

What is it about the human gardener species so loath to uproot a still producing vine? Are the dog days of summer interfering with normal brain function? Is an over-developed conscience whispering warnings against slaying the innocent?  Has the gardening experience formed her kind into some pitiable, amateur philosopher, wasting not but wanting to? 

 No matter which way you slice it, it's mental.

In this 2019 growing season, I had my sights set on one thing only: sinking my teeth into an ear of sweet corn. In anticipation, I planted four short rows, behind the four cucumber hills. How many kernels of sweet ears did I enjoy? 

Zilch. Zero. Nada. 

The raccoons ate it all.

They won’t touch the cucs.

Seduced by a Zucchini

Any novice gardener can tell you. Watch your zucchini plants closely. Give it any private time at all you will be harvesting something the size of a baseball bat.

Now if you have a large family, or are one of the many underpaid/underemployed adults in the nation, or are simply a romantic and as such are overly fond of your plants and cannot abide wasting a single one, then by all means shred, dice, peel, bake and saute your days away.  I do not blame you, for I myself uncovered a gargantuan specimen this morning, and instantly gave into the temptation that all other pressing matters must be shoved aside to make room for this one glorious thing.

The day was a disaster.

The first thing I tried was a new recipe for zucchini blondies.  If you come across this recipe, do not make it.  There is a large chance that you will be drawn by the sculpted abs on the woman who posted this farce. But she is not what is on the menu.  And go ahead, add the 1/4 cup of chocolate chips to the scant amount of sugar in this dessert, but the experience will still be a bitter one.

And while I'm on the subject of things not to bake.  Do not, I repeat do not attempt to bake a pie with a store brand ready-made crust.  You will not be doing anyone any favors.  Least of all yourself. My husband—late last winter—came home with two boxes of Kroger brand pie crust.  He was trying to do me a favor (see earlier remarks about favors). In all fairness to Kroger, the box was cleared stamped "Best used by February 2018."  The poor things have been sitting quietly on the shelf in the refrigerator.  I've looked at them often and passed them over.  Still, not wanting them to go to waste or make my husband feel bad, I attempted to make them into part of a blueberry pie for the Forth of July holiday. This made perfect sense because the frozen blueberries that had been patiently waiting in the freezer had also been stamped for use by February 2018.  Long story short, the pie is inedible.  Not because of the berries, but because of the aroma coming from the crust.  Think bacon-lemon flavored.  Americans are crazy for  bacon, but I am not putting any stock in this particular flavor catching on.

Getting back to the zucchini, I continued shredding another 3 cups to make into an "Italian Zucchini pie."  It was cooking next to the bacon-lemon-blueberry pie, so I am afraid to eat it.

On the dinner menu tonight is zucchini noodles (if I can stuff this monster into my handy veggie noodle maker).  Then I have about 700 kitchen utensils, pots and pans to wash, followed by mopping the floor.

All for the sake of one zucchini.

With age, they say, comes wisdom. May I have the strength to never again succumb to the seductive power of a vegetable.

Earth Day and EskieRescue

Earth Day 2018:  The Day I surrendered Caspian 

It is a heart-breaking thing to give up your dog, even if he really wasn’t your dog to begin with.  This may be obvious to all the dog lovers out there.  But I am not a dog lover. I did not have a dog growing up and my husband and I did not raise dogs along with our 4 children. I was my daughter's I-can’t-keep-my-dog-or-I’ll-get-kicked-out-of-my-apartment-foster-mom. For the better part of 4 years.  

The first time my husband and I met the rescued Eskimo Spitz we were living New York State.  The Alpha pup bolted out of doors and ate shoes and never came when called.  But he was an amusing site romping through the snow, seeming to grin from ear to ear, and coaxed in from play only when ice began to wedge itself between his toes.  So when our daughter needed a reprieve, we gathered up the pup and his things.  Totally ignorant of anything dog worldly, a $$$ personal in-home trainer instructed me on the basics of dog whispering - the bare basics. Caspian, she said, was the smartest dog she'd ever met.

Daughter followed pup. At the time, our whole family was in crisis due to circumstances and events I could not wish even on those who so callously inflicted them on us.  But the upheaval had only begun.  It would be several months before it was over, and by then, well we weren’t "in Kansas anymore."  Not even close.  The whole thing landed us, doggie and all, in the deep south of Mississippi.

It is, I suppose, one thing to be a displaced Yankee in Mississippi and quite another to be a fur-lined, long-haired Eskimo Spitz in Mississippi. 

For a couple of years Caspian went back and forth between my daughter (soon off to Texas) and me.  Mostly me.

For my part, I saw to it that Caspian had excellent health care, a large home, large yard, the best dog food and treats (real bacon). He even sported an ice blue cooling vest for outdoor play and had his very own doggie pool.  But I kept my heart locked.  He was, after all, not my dog.

He used his disarmingly good looks to his advantage, like when he wandered into the bedroom and gave me that is-it-time-for-our-pack-walk-in-the-park-I-think-I-heard-you grab-your-driver's-license look.  A simple nod of the head and "yes" from me set-off excited barking and a quick, bouncy, hurry-up-grandmom back and forth run to the garage door.  Outdoors he was a sight to behold in a full-out run, his eyes sparkling and his mouth in an open grin.  And Caspian was I-just-want-to-hug-you cute when he saddled up next me in the garden and gave me that what'cha-you-doing look, then snuck in a few kisses before setting off to explore somewhere else in the yard.

But there were things I didn't like. I could not or would not walk him in the park every day. And he had this howling thing that I called his death aria whenever he lost a toy or was left alone.  And  anyone, phantom or real, who ventured near the door was met with an exasperating frenzy of barks and jumping, and close inspection.  And ever the leader, he always released himself from those commands he deigned to obey.

Earlier this year, my daughter married.  She decided that she was a “bad” dog owner and Caspian should stay with me.  I wanted Caspian to have a home where they did the dog thing right, 100%.  A family that understood this handsome, intelligent, curious, protective, friendly breed and its needs.  A family that loved this beautiful dog and could take them wherever they went, that would not have to board him as much as out-of-state family obligations required me (Caspian has acute separation anxiety, and boarding was traumatic for him).

After all my husband had undergone two major surgeries only a few months apart.  And my father, living 1000 miles away, was so ill and in so much mental anguish.  And two of my close friends and kindred spirits had been seriously ill and died just months apart in  2017.  And truthfully, I had shockingly few tools in my doggie-training toolbox. Caspian, I felt, deserved more, and I was tired. And he was, after all, not really my dog.

Fast forward to today. Earth day 2018.  A brisk walk on lead in the park.  A ball tossing free run at the air field.  Ah, but you saw that right?  Air field. We were there to meet Pilots N Paws.

When I placed Caspian in the plane that would take him to his new foster mom, he tilted his head, his ears back, and looked at me as if to ask, “What’s going on?  Why am I in this thing without you?”

And I said that thing I almost never said to him.  Usually, if I had to leave him I said, “Stay,” followed by, “I’ll be back.”

But not today. Today I said, “Good-bye.”

That tight lid that I had kept on the not-my-dog-fostering-heart burst.  

I cried all the way home.




 

All the Noise, Noise, NOISE!

I did something radical this weekend.

Quietly radical.

I canceled my DirecTV account.  Now it's not that DirecTV did anything to me personally,  nor was it an issue of service quality.   It was all about the noise.  I can't stand the noise - the discussions, the analyses that are nothing more than shouting fests.  I scream.  You scream.  We all scream.  Except it's not for ice cream anymore.  It's about power and influence and destroying each other.

It's not that I don't have any deep-seated and deeply held beliefs: political, ethical, moral and religious.  I do.  And I don't care to have them purposely misrepresented any longer.

I've just decided to turn off the noise, and to grab a book, or take a walk or sit by the one I love and enjoy the silence.

Happy Lent!
Happy Silence!

Mindful Mono-tasking and the New Year

I'm a human "doing", not a human "being".

Everyone's got it—or so they claim. That ability to stand in a crowded stadium and watch the game while taking selfies and searching for your fleeting moment of fame on the big screen. The ability to jog on that treadmill and check your child's homework and determine next summer's perfect getaway even as you set the incline up a couple of degrees.

Get it done. Move on to the next thing.  Rush. Rush. Rush. Multi-tasking is a requirement of the world we live in and yet—I submit—it is a myth that anyone does it well.

It is a troubling aspect of my own life.  I'm sitting at the piano. In my hands is a beautiful adagio, but what I'm really consumed with is that magazine publisher who held onto a manuscript for 7 months and just announced it has stopped publication. I'm cooking dinner and I get an idea for a chapter book and run upstairs to GOOGLE a thing or two and then run back down to the take the burning pot off the stove.

I rush from thing to thing.  I'm a human "doing", not a human "being".  Never living in the moment. Instead planning the future, mulling over the past.

How I admire those with well-trained minds.  Concentration that wins chess tournaments, or churns out 1500 words in a sitting, or memorizes hundreds (even thousands) of pages of music.

How do they do it?

Mindfulness.

Try this.  Clear you mind and think of one thing and only one thing.  How long can you last?  Five seconds, maybe fifteen?

And that, my friends, is why I am still working  on manuscripts started 7 years go, on Mozart Sonata's begun 11 years back and on cross-stitch projects almost as old as my youngest son (actually, the stitching is still in a closet somewhere).




So here's to 2016:
To the attempt to live in the moment
To be present
To be mindful
To mono-tasking,
And to the end of the myth of multi-anything.

Della's Song

Last spring, just after moving to Horn Lake, Mississippi, I met Della on the street. Sometimes she was riding her bicycle.  More often she was walking the dogs:  a sweet, old beagle named Daisy and a pug named Otis that seemed more susine than canine.

Della's hands shook.  She got stuck in the middle of conversations, when the word she was about to speak evaporated, like morning dew. She could never remember my name.

Della and I have much in common:  we were directors of liturgical music; we taught music education in Catholic Schools.  I did so periodically; Della did so for 42 years.  Differences aside, we both love making music.

Last year, Della's son took away her driving license. (Sheriff's deputy's can arrange for that sort of thing, I suppose).  She could no longer attend Mass or sing in her parish choir.  A few people offered to bring her, but you know how that goes.  

Last month Steven and I decided to pick up the slack, switching from our Mississippi parish to Della's beloved St. Paul's in Memphis, Tennessee.  How happy the people of St. Pau's were to see her.  How grateful they were to Steven and me for bringing their Della back to them.  

In a token of thanks, Della gave me a copy of her vocal CD, recorded well before the onset of Parkinson's disease. I cringed. Several people have happily given me their musical CD's over the years. Most are - well - so very average. Della's astonished me. Her voice sounded so much like Olivia Newton John in her prime. 

Della thinks we are doing all the giving in this new relationship. But that's not true. In a world ever in motion, spinning endlessly toward some unseen end, Della moves slowly and patiently through unknown waters with humor and grace.  

Della still can’t remember my name, and she no longer rides her bicycle. Her musical form has changed. She often listens quietly or hums along as the words escape her. But when she does sing, few things on earth compare.

Parkinson's disease:  a chronic and progressive movement disorder
in which symptoms continue and worsen over time.
The cause is unknown; there is presently no cure.

Longing for a Village

There is a story recounted in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers about the city of Roseta, Pennsylvania, not far from Bangor or Nazareth. Italian immigrants settled there in the first part of the 20th century to work in the coal mines. They developed their new city along many of the lines of their beloved village in the motherland.

Scientist and medical experts became interested in the citizenry of Roseta when it was discovered that only a small percentage of the over-fifty population had suffered any heart disease.

Roseta Valfortore, by  RaBoe/Wikipedia 

Diet was certainly not the reason.  Pizza in the homeland was a flatbread with oil cheese and vegetables. The same dish in the states had thicker breads and the addition of pepperoni, salami, and sausages. Rich desserts, a rare treat in the homeland, were served with frequency. The citizens of Roseta, Pennsylvania were not known to jog six miles a day or workout in the local gymnasium. They were under-exercised, over-weight, lived on rich food and drink.  They probably smoked. They did all the things health experts say they shouldn't, and none of the things the experts say they should.

So why were they so healthy? 

The village. 

They lived as a community: greeting one another on the street, sharing meals, stopping in to tell each other news and stories. They had common memories and connections. They knew each other. They were friends.  They were family.

I turn 53 years old, this year.  

I have stage 2 hypertension. 

I am not like the people of Roseta.  I am not obese. I do not each rich foods.  I do not smoke.  I limit my alcohol.   But, having moved so often, there is one spectacularly important way that I am not like them: there is no one here who knew me as a child, no one who knew my parents, my aunts, my uncles, no one to tell stories of my grand-parents.  I do not have the privilege of sharing a meal with someone who can remember childhood with me. There are no family members, no old friends passing by the street where I live.

Steven and I move every few years. so much so that my own children stumble over the section of applications reserved for "hometown."  This tears at my heart. They, too, will have no one to sit a spell with with and re-live childhood memories, or recall the stories and the people of their lives.

The more cosmopolitan among us think families and neighborhoods with lasting roots are quaint and oh-so-charming.  I have come to believe they are essential.

Photo Credit:
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