Resolutions

Today is January 1st. It’s the obligatory day to make New Year’s resolutions.

I have always avoided New Year’s resolutions like the plague. Like most people, I can’t keep them, so why start the year with a list of things I say I’m going to do when I know it will only disappoint me a few short months, weeks, or days later when I fail. New Year’s resolutions are notorious for getting derailed.

But I think this year I will make a resolution: I’m going to stop doing things I don‘t want to do.

All my life I’ve done things I don’t want to do. Obligations of all kinds, real or imagined, have propelled my life down the path of fulfilling the desires and wishes of other people while relegating mine to some place in the background — to be lost and forgotten in the mists of the past.

I’m going to try very hard this year to do things that are important to me.

A few minutes ago I was sitting on the kitchen floor, stroking the back of our ancient cat (who had wandered in to see why I was sitting on the floor), listening to melancholy music and feeling sad and misty for what reason I do not know. Life has been good and I want for nothing — no, I want a whole lot more.

When I was really quite young, my dad put his hand around my shoulder, looked at me, and said, “Son, don’t ever become a mechanic”. My dad was a heavy-duty diesel mechanic and a good one. Whenever he fixed anything, it worked and worked well — usually better than it ever had before. But his work hours were long, his knuckles were always bruised, and although the work came with a regular paycheck his efforts were not really recognized. And he was forever replacing tools that would go “missing” from his toolbox.

Today I was putzing around under the hood of my car, complaining that the tool I really needed was missing from my toolbox. Then I thought, “It’s January 1st.” I closed the hood and went inside.

It’s January 1st. It’s a holiday. I’m taking the day off. This year I’m going to do less of what I don’t like and more of what I do like. That’s my New Year’s resolution.

OK Horoscope, Make My Day

I’ll quite often check out the daily horoscope in the newspaper. Not because I think it is accurate or applies to my life. Usually it bears absolutely no resemblance to my day. Occasionally I can see some vague parallels and on the odd occasion it’s uncannily accurate. (The day it advised me to avoid traffic and electrical machinery, I had an accident with a trolley bus.)

I think I read it more for some kind of inspiration. There is an art to writing daily horoscopes. Some chart readers have it, some don’t. It really has very little to do with the circulation of the planets and stars and much more with the ability to put together an intriguing story or ask poignant question with just a few well-chosen words. Sometimes the snippet can open up a deep philosophical internal dialogue. Usually I’m just happy to find some encouraging words that might apply to my day.

Take the one I ran across a few days ago:

* Gemini *

Business travel could be ahead.

I like the thought of that. I like travel. It’s been a while since I’ve done any business related work. I’m obviously going somewhere interesting and I’m obviously going there because what I say and do will have value. Could be fun!

Handle the financial plan, and work out details.

I’m not sure whether this relates to the business travel or is just meant to apply to me in general. My personal life could stand a little organizing and it would be a good thing to review my financial situation and put it into some kind of order. Or to fix up someone else’s.

Verify intuition with facts.

I don’t know whether I am an intuitive person. I’d like to think so but others wrinkle the corners of their mouths and shake their heads when I bring up the subject of my intuitive ability. I do get lots of ideas, though. Corralling them with facts is probably a good idea.

Indulge your literary side.

Oh, yes, I really need this. It’s been forever since I’ve put up a blog post. I haven’t done any reading lately. My mind craves fiction. What’s wrong with being just a little indulgent?

Your home life benefits.

With all the stress and craziness that’s been going on around home the last little while. it’s nice to think of good things that will happen in my home if I take all these very positive steps. I need all the warmth, coziness, and cuddliness that I can get.

Looking at the stars, I could tell that it would be a pretty good day.

Going for the gusto

It seems to me that Margaret and I often have different approaches to the way we do things. I have noticed this before – for example, on preparing brunch.

Today it’s about pruning the laurel bush.

You know, the cute one just outside the kitchen window – the one that has somehow, without giving any notice, flung its branches 25 feet up into the air, is threatening to push over the fence and attack the neighbour’s house, is shoving its foliage up against our eating nook window and making that whole part of the house dark and dingy all day long. Even the sunny ones. (I guess I must not have been watching.)

So I grabbed my gardening tools and trimmed it a bit.

The thing was still too oppressive.

So Margaret grabbed her tools and trimmed it a bit more.

Now, it’s absolutely amazing!

The kitchen and eating area are bright and airy. The cat keeps staring out the window at the whole new world that has suddenly appeared there. The moss on the siding is shriveling up.

The neighbours stop and talk to us again.

Sometimes, even if it’s only a little gardening, you just have to go for the gusto!

Lonely Gumbo Nights

It must be five years ago that the girls made their first road trip together. To California. To Disneyland. I kept hearing how amazing the Gumbo was at Disneyland’s Blue Bayou restaurant. I’ve never been to the Blue Bayou but I vowed to make that gumbo one day.

There were two ingredients that always put me off. The first was Gumbo Filé, that elusive sassafras-based spiced that apparently is needed to give the gumbo an authentic flavour. Never could find it.

The other was okra. I’ve always been a little bit afraid of okra. I vaguely remember it from my childhood when my mom used to feed me Campbell’s Chicken Gumbo soup. I remember liking the soup and I remember the okra in it, but everything I’ve heard about it since has warned me to stay away from that slimy vegetable unless you’ve been raised with it, in Louisiana, learning its secrets at your grandma’s elbow as she chanted magic okra words while cooking her gumbo in a bubbling pot. As a result, I never considered okra a suitable cooking ingredient.

So, I have a free Sunday and I think that today’s the day to make gumbo. Something new and different for dinner. I’d picked up a bottle of Gumbo Filé in Seaside, Oregon, last summer (go figure) and our local produce store always carries fresh okra. (Okra (bhindi) is often found in Indian cooking.) And I can buy just enough of it – nothing extra staring at me for weeks from the bottom of the crisper.

I’d deboned some chicken a few days ago and so had lots of chicken stock. (No bones go to waste around here.) It was time!

Of course, the girls were all busy. They’d been anticipating this ‘gumbo day’ for years but today, of course, everything came up. (“I wasn’t supposed to have shift today, but they gave me one. Can you plee-ee-eze save some for me?”)

No matter. I’ve got all the ingredients. I’ll make it for ME!

Fresh bread is baked. I pull the recipe from the Internet. I find a bottle of Cabernet. (An invaluable cooking ingredient – you put it in the cook.) On the stereo, the urgent pulse of Tiësto and DJ Timeline has given way to classic Sinatra (from the 60′s. No no You can’t take that away from me….) and I’m shuffling to the beat through the kitchen. The cats stare.

Cook, cook, Stir, stir. (Sauté. sauté.) I actually stay very close to the recipe this time, rather than just using it as a list of suggestions like I usually do. I keep the heat down and don’t burn anything. It comes together nicely.

I ladle it out. It looks good. It tastes good. But is it the real thing? I’m going to have to wait until one of the girls gets home and tries it before I’ll find out.

To be honest, I’m not thrilled. It’s good but not great. Maybe it’s the social aspect that’s missing. Good food should be shared with good company. It makes the food better. Maybe gumbo just doesn’t come together next to the cool, misty west coast waters. Or maybe it’s the audio-animatronic fireflies flitting over the cool evening waters of Disney’s bayou that put the gumbo experience there over the top.

I guess I’m going to have to do a study in gumbos. Maybe search out a few backwater diners somewhere deep in Louisiana. You know, check out the real thing.

*****

Update: I got three thumbs-up from the girls, so I guess the gumbo was a hit. As to its authenticity, all three said its just been too long since their dinner at the Blue Bayou and they couldn’t say for sure if was the same taste experience. I guess they’ll have to go back and see.

Tangents on a mandolin

I was driving to work a few days ago and realized that I really liked the piece of music playing on the radio. It was Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Mandolins in G.

Two mandolins? Who would write concertos for mandolins? Concertos are serious music. A mandolin seems like such a, well, frivolous instrument.

While I’ve heard bluegrass mandolins, I’d never before thought of one as a classical instrument.

And then, who would actually study mandolin as a classical instrument? Can you get a music degree in mandolin? (Apparently yes, though it seems most such musicians work with a number of fretted stringed instruments, primarily guitar, and often combine composition and performance as part of their degree.)

Mandolin by lilac lemur

I’m not a stranger to the mandolin. My father played one. Not proficiently, but well enough that he would pull it out from time to time and pick and strum some old Estonian folk tunes. Occasionally I’d accompany him on the piano. We’d play and he’d try to remember the words to those old songs. The rest of the time, the mandolin would hang on a nail in the wall – supported by a red ribbon tied in a bow around its neck. (I wonder where that ribbon came from – what it meant.) Now that mandolin is buried somewhere in a box in the basement, the pick still stored inside, ready to rattle around.

It seems that I’ve been oblivious to a whole area of music and musicians: the mandolin players of this world. I’m just glad I found them in time to enjoy them.

Here’s the bit of music that got me going: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa8L2C9WK40

Here’s Tuljak, an old Estonian favourite that I use to play with my father, but played in a style I never imagined: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l7cLeYpxDw&feature=player_embedded

And I’ll leave you with mandolinist Ben Bosco playing all nine parts of Handel’s Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. http://www.benbosco.com/arrival-of-the-queen-of-sheba-on-mandolin/

Enjoy…!

Jingle all the day

Argh-h-h…! I can’t believe it’s only a week until Christmas. Where does time go?

Our Christmas tree went up a few days ago, and when the tree is being decorated we need Christmas music. Well, I need Christmas music — so I can dance a bit or conduct my imaginary orchestra with my air baton while the girls (yah, I’ve got enough years on them that I can still call them that) put up the decorations. (They do such a great job.) The music. I streamed it from the Internet.

Back twenty or more years ago, when I was part of the early growth of the cable and satellite TV industry, the new concept was narrowcasting. With all the new cable and satellite channels available, instead of “broadcasting” programs suited for a wide audience of all ages and interests, it had become feasible to “narrowcast” specialty programs to small slices of audience — people with special interests. Cooking channel, auto racing channel, selling-your-home channel — they are all so common now. With the Internet, the concept exploded.

So, back to music for decorating the tree.

I remember years ago when I first ran across an “all Christmas, all the time, all year long” music site on the Internet. Revolutionary then but, wow, has that concept blossomed.

This year we’re listening to AccuRadio’s Christmas offering. Among the several hundred channels of music from this Chicago-based streaming service (hey, there are eight Canadian music channels), for Christmas they offer almost 50 choices!

There’s traditional, classical, jazz, Broadway, rock, R&B and gospel. Wherever your tastes runs. There are channels that feature just a single song — many versions of it though: Joy to the World, Chestnuts Roasting, or themes like snow or jingling.

The tree is done! I’m having so much fun flipping (clicking?) through the music choices. I’m glad we still have a lot of listening time left this holiday season.

Merry Christmas to all of you, dee-dee-dum, tra-la-la.

Braino for my brain

“Da-a-ad…!”

The howl from the kitchen snaked up the stairs to the bedroom.

“Da-a-ad. The kitchen sink is all backed up.”

I rolled my eyes, sighed, and headed downstairs. My daughter looked back and forth between me and the sink as I walked in, her expression somewhere between puzzled and disgusted. I looked down to see barely recognizable chunks of food and who knows what else adrift in a murky sea.

“Yep, it does look like it’s back up a little bit.”

I opened the cupboard below the sink, knelt down, and inspected the plumbing. Don’t ask me why. It’s not as if I could actually do anything with the plastic plumbing that would help the situation. It’s like when the car breaks down, the first thing people do is look under the hood, even if everything under there is completely foreign and unrecognizable. Maybe we just all hope that we will find a big red button there with a sign that says, “Push here to fix the problem. “

I closed the cupboard doors and headed to the garage to get the plunger. I am not a great believer in chemical remedies. If I have to pour something down the drain to help it along, I have a nice natural bacterial product that claims to gently keep the plumbing healthy.

Well, I worked that plunger. Slowly, quickly, forehanded, backhanded. All it succeeded in doing was to move the soup back and forth between the two sinks. I added water. I scooped out water. Nothing was working.

Helpless and frustrated, I gritted my teeth, opened the cupboard doors again, and reached way back into the shadows of its far recesses. Out came the Drano. Fifteen minutes later the drain was gurgling happily as the sink emptied out. I gave the sinks a scrub, took the plunger back out to the garage, and hid the can of noxious chemicals back into a far corner of the cupboard. Maybe I should use my friendly bacteria buddies on a more regular basis.

My brain has felt like that lately. It’s been months since I’ve written a blog post. Whenever I think about it, the same soupy jumble of words just sloshes back and forth in my brain — but nothing intelligible comes out. NaNoWriMo came and went. Gazillions of novels were written all over the world. Me? I don’t think I finished a shopping list.

I have to take some drastic action for my brain. The usual stuff isn’t working. I’m sure I have something hidden in a dark corner or crevice that I could use to get everything flowing again in 15 minutes or so. Maybe, if I had thought to use it a little earlier, I would have written a novel during November too.

Seeing as I’ve never thrown away anything in my life, I must have the right stuff somewhere. Now, just to find it.

Wish me luck.

OK, I won’t give up my day job to become a farmer

I have a love-hate relationship with the green growing outdoors. It’s an ongoing battle even trying to keep the lawn mowed. (I’m not winning.) Why I would struggle to do anything beyond the bare necessities (like keeping the lawn clipped) is a total mystery to me. Why would I even want to think about having a garden?

Margaret, on the other hand, tackles all her projects with a vengeance. And wins. Not long ago I heard the garage door rumble open and out she came, armed with tools, implements, garden gloves, potted plants, bags of… stuff, and God knows what else. She went to work on the marauding plants and flowers that were trying to take over our front walkway. She dug out buried roots. She thrust and parried with unruly branches and snipped and clipped at gangly stems. She hefted potted plants and buried them here and there. I stood back and watched, getting exhausted and achy just watching all the frenzied activity. A few hours and our place has come up several notches in curbside appeal.

Don’t get me wrong. I love growing things and revel being in the midst of them. I just can’t manage them. Earlier this summer I tried my hand at a little bit of herb gardening. I have a few little pots on our back deck. Three to be exact. (Possibly the limits of my gardening capacity.) They contain basil, rosemary, and oregano — two kinds. They are doing wonderfully. I am constantly running out there clipping and pinching leaves to use for my cooking. There is nothing like the smell and taste of freshly picked herbs.

Then I read somewhere that when you chop up green onions you should take the little hairy bottom piece that left over and simply poke it into the dirt and watch it grow. I tried it and now have a wonderful little crop of green onions.

Then I tried tomatoes. Two pots, two different kinds. I have tried this… er… experiment in previous years and the results have been dismal. I don’t know what possessed me to try again.

Well, at least I’m consistent. I watered the tomatoes, made sure they got sun, talked to, even lectured them, propped them up when they were starting to sag, and still they remained sad feeble plants.

What is it about tomatoes that I can never make them grow? Other people seem to get truckloads from just a plant or two. Mine don’t even get close to ripening. I picked a few of them and buried them in a bowl of bananas, hoping those mysterious escaping-banana -gases would ripen them. Hasn’t happened yet. The ones I left on the vine still aren’t anywhere close to being ripe even though the end of the summer and early fall have been quite sunny. I really need a visit from the tomato fairy.

I suppose if I want fresh produce I will do what I have always done: go to the farm market. There I can gently squeeze tomatoes to find the ripest ones. Pick up a few fat lettuce, hunt for crispy cabbage, grab a firm zucchini or two, and come home with a healthy fresh colourful garden bonanza.

At home I think I’ll just stick to herbs.