Le jardin

Today is a gardening day...despite the fact that I am a mere renter, I am creating and planting a new perennial and annual bed, nurturing a new tree , and trying to figure out what the hell to do with the big RV slab in the back yard.  The slab calls for container gardening, of course, and I hope to use its radiant heat and soften its stony edges effectively.  I miss terribly my garden back in Bend,  the lush and fragrant result of years spent toiling in and coming to terms with a dusty, high desert climate.  My new city, Portland, with its rich, primordial muck, loves gardeners, and rewards them generously for even minimal effort.  I plan to document the evolution of my new space...St. Anthony, where the hell is my digital camera cord?

   Gardening tips from this self-taught landscaper, offered from the temperate climes of the Pacific northwest: Buy as many of those inexpensive primroses, which are for sale at almost every supermarket or nursery, as you can and plant those babies in a partly shady spot...they are reliably perennial and will pop up first thing next early spring. usually sold for a buck fifty each or less, these are a screaming deal for what they offer the gardener in reliability and much needed late winter/early spring color.

Check classifieds or keep an eye out for signs pointing you to folks selling plants out of their homes.  These places can yield some amazing and hard to find plants at lower prices than nurseries or supermarkets.  Chances are, these plants will thrive in your garden since they presumably were raised in your vicinity and grow well enough for the seller to give away extras.  I have found two wonderful plants sources this way and I know there are many more out there.  Community centers, public gardens and schools also have great plant sales throughout the spring.

   I am not above digging up plants that have self sown into alleyways.  A friend of mine nabbed a lovely bamboo start and a sweet little japanese maple this way.  I have asked permission to take cuttings from obviously bountiful gardens (this works well with succulent plants) and have never been told to get lost, coming away with starts like 'Angelina'  and 'Blue Spruce' sedums.

Please, make your peace with a few pests here and there.  Don't resort to chemical means of eradication. Even pyrethrum (a plant derivitive), which I think is best saved for indoor and/or potted plants, kills beneficials like predatory wasps, lacewings and daddy long leg spiders.  If your garden has something blooming from spring until fall, it will attract beneficial insects, who will then work together to control pests like aphids, which continue to be the "main bane" of the gardener's existence.  Introducing lady bugs is always a wise move...remember that their larva gobble up aphids too.  These look like tiny black scorpions and their eggs look like grains of sand (I will include a picture of a juvenile, seen above most likely). Be patient...aphids hatch before ladybugs, so give the ladies time to catch up.

   I will leave you with a link to the blog of a nice British lady who has an unusual suggestion for how to deal with slugs...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1169713/Grandmother-cooks-snails-garden-beat-credit-crunch.html

Happy Belated Easter

I was too busy baking on Easter Sunday to post...but I want to share a beautiful sketch, in honor of this Spring holiday, courtesy of my friend Dean who lives as an artist, observer, and chronicler of all things San Francisco.  Dean calls this "Choirboy".

These Words Must Die

 A couple of nights ago, my friend Bryan and I were discussing things that irk us (surprise surprise), particularly modern cultural quirks.  Skinny jeans (especially on men),   bodily cleanses, ubiquitous, rectangle framed glasses, and other carefully tended hallmarks of supposed hipsterdom were the target of our well-aimed ire.  Just as hipness is inevitably co-opted by commercialism, so are many words.  Each time I hear these words, I cringe, especially when I hear myself using them!  

  Therefore, I am compiling an ongoing list of words that need either reassignment or abolishment.  The list begins with:

 

HOTTIE- This one has been floating around for a decade or two.  It sounds like pottie or a slang term for a person with syphillis.  A lazy way to describe an attractive person.

BRANDING-I sincerely hope this term is eventually ushered out with the values that gave birth to it, namely those of the unfettered consumption that marked the previous eight years.  Corporate speak often oozes into everyday lingo, much to my consternation..."thinking outside the box" refuses to go away.

SEA CHANGE- This is a very old term that seems to have made a resurgence of late, with annoying results.  It is a potentially poetic way of describing a sweeping shift, but it has been so overused by the punditry that it has been squeezed dry of its lovely imagery.

  

That is all for now, but rest assured, more doomed words are to follow.  Our culture pumps 'em out on a daily basis!

A Poetic Stab

I have been out of it for a spell...here's a poem that illustrates the experience somewhat.

I've just emerged out of a funk,

that came to stay for half a month

It took up residence in my head 

and used my brainpan for its bed

Its stealth was subtle

like the lull of Morpheus

But its bite was vicious 

like the pain of lust

It planted a garden in my right eye

and cruelly reaped its poisonous rye

The chaff poured out of my grimacing teeth

and covered my body with mock relief.

 Today I shook the chaff from my skin

And here I am to begin the begin

Springtime Transition

Here in Portland, Oregon,  Persephone has just returned from Hades, and none too soon.  She is beckoning us to come outside and play, never mind the weather.  I will be outside today, getting my hands dirty, kicking off the first phase of my new garden design.  

  Much of my winter was spent pondering newly piqued interests.  The mid to late sixties and early seventies have been heavy on my heart and I have been indulging in my fascination with the entertainment scene of that era.  I have enjoyed recently two excellent rock 'n roll documentaries, one of which features brilliant but somewhat bonkers Texan, Roky Erickson, whose gorgeous howl seasoned the proto-psycedelic sounds of the Austin band 13th Floor Elevators. The music is beautifully trippy and filtered through a narcotic fog...Mr. Erickson developed a taste for all kinds of illegal substances which, coupled with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, overloaded his fertile and creative mind almost to the point of complete circuit blowout.  "You're Gonna Miss Me" is the story of Roky's profound influence on rock 'n roll intertwined with the almost Greek fable of five brothers and their well-meaning but narcissistic mother.  Do check it out.

  New interests pop up and old ones evolve...sometimes a girl craves a bit of saner psychedelia than the kind in which Roky Erickson lustfully indulged.  I have long been a student of world religions and anything dealing with the subject is likely worth  perusing and quite likely to be just bizarre enough to keep things interesting.  Film, once again, has offered a fresh take on religion, specifically Hinduism and the Ramayana.  Nina Paley, who has been called "America's Best-Loved Unknown Cartoonist", has created in "Sita Sings The Blues" a humorous, cross-cultural, and deeply personal gem of a movie.  Bursting with color, beauty, and a torchy soundtrack (you will fall for Annette Hanshaw), Paley retells the story of  Vishnu's seventh avatar, Rama, and his wife Sita.  As my friend Dean explained, sometimes a bodhisattva is needed to enlighten those unfamiliar with Hindu mythology.  "Sita" is that bodhisattva, one that will introduce some viewers to a cornucopia of cultural highs, Hindu and non.  The film is available for free viewing online and I will leave this post with the link.  If Persephone has not yet reached your neighborhood, hole up with a cup of tea (or a shot of bourbon) and enjoy "Sita Sings The Blues".  

Here she is: http://www.thirteen.org/sites/reel13/blog/watch-sita-sings-the-blues-online/347/

  

Reclining

At one point in Western literary history, it was commonly understood that no serious writing could be undertaken if the author found him/herself in a “reclining” position. Supposedly Proust paid no heed to this convention and wrote both lying down and bedecked in “bedclothes.” In that spirit and in the comfort of my soft cotton pajamas in my rather remarkably comfy bed from the discount mattress store I offer you my musings on rest, presence and the ego.
I have recently begun the practice of mindfulness meditation. What is this? I’m not entirely sure, but I think it has something to with chilling the hell out. It is about breathing, and becoming present with what you are doing, right now. Sounds easy huh? If you have experimented with meditation you have perhaps experienced how challenge being present in the moment is. Thought about the future, thought about the past, thought about sensation, angry feeling, sad feeling etc. You get the picture. If you have never “meditated” here is an exercise for you. Next time you are doing the dishes, (folding the clothes, walking the dog, performing brain surgery etc.) turn off the radio and turn off the radio in your head. Feel the warm water oozing over your hands, see the beautiful soap suds grow as it merges with the water, hear the trickle of water as it makes it’s journey through the sink. Do not have an opinion about any of these things, just experience them happening. Do not think about the future or the past. Become still inside and experience the universe inside you. Good luck. It is definitely more difficult than it sounds.
The difficulty of course lies within the ego- the mysterious title for all the thoughts and forms we attach our infinite selves to. “I am this or that and this and that belong to me.” We don’t need to look any further than our own distracted and disconnected culture to realize that we are all worshipers of the ego. We base so much of our value and worth on our external reality (jobs, money, status) while allowing our imagination, creativity, and inner peace to wither and die.
Within the last year three real estate developers from my small town of Bend Oregon took their own lives when the real estate market started on it’s inevitable down turn. Where were their minds on that beautiful Bend day? The Ponderosa trees and soft white snow falling upon them, the Deschutes River as it meanders through the center of town, the hug of their loved one, the taste of the fresh mountain air they were breathing. Unfortunately they must have been so identified with their possessions and status that the simple pleasure of living was no longer palatable. They forgot that they are so much more than black and red numbers on paper.
In Eckhart Tolle’s book, "A New Earth", he relates a story about an Indian spiritual teacher by the name of J. Krishnamurti, a spiritual master, and in my mind an anarchist (the only way to be a master). (Krishnamurti’s first action as a newly elected leader of the Theosophical Society, was to declare the society as problematic and unnecessary. Then he left it).
Tolle explains how Krishnamurti, in his later life was speaking to a large group of his students, some of whom had heard his message for many years and yet still had not grasped its meaning. He said, “Do you want to know my secret?” Everyone in the audience became very attentive. Krishnamurti explained, “I don’t mind what happens.”
From this place life can start to be truly lived and experienced without the regret of the past or the anxiety of the future. We can embrace our creativity and REST, letting go of our rigid need to produce something or “become” someone. We are already more miraculous and wonderful than that image of success that we hold in our mind’s eye. So go ahead…break convention. Write your novel “reclining,” read Rumi in the middle of the day, let the sun shine on your face (it is a truly economical activity), care for your child, play with your dog. But REALLY do it, REALLY be there, breathing in, breathing out, taste the moment. For “this too shall pass”-and when the next unforeseeable moment arrives you will be ready to embrace that moment as well; with open arms, open mind, open heart.

Amo Ova

Boil 'em, fry them, fold them into batter...what could be more ubiquitously versatile than eggs?  Sitting humbly in a carton of six or twelve, brown or white, these little gems are packed with nutritional value.  According to the Farmer's Almanac website, eggs contain all the essential vitamins and minerals, except vitamin C, that the human body needs.  One large egg is about 70 calories and has only negligible amounts of the "bad", saturated fat.  That same egg delivers about 6 grams of protein, making this tiny jewel a decent source of this nutrient.

  Mark Bittman, in his wonderful tome Food Matters, A Guide to Conscious Eating, calls eggs "possibly the most useful of all animals products".  Bittman's book touts an almost vegetarian diet with the goal of healthier bodies and planet.  Eggs ride the fence expertly between the carnivore and the absolute vegan...they serve as a perfect medium for veggie dishes galore, giving them body and a richer flavor. 

  I am a fairly recent convert to the "incredible, edible, egg".  Fifteen years ago I could barely stomach the sight of runny yolk oozing across the breakfast plate, defiling the toast and hashbrowns.  Seemingly overnight I began to crave them and soon found delight in that ooze, especially if it was spiked with plenty of Tabasco sauce.  Soon, I was baking quiches, hard-boiling eggs for salads, even scrambling them for breakfast sandwiches (English muffin, one scrambled egg, and a shaving of pepper-jack cheese...divine!).  Consuming an egg or two will most likely leave the eater feeling comfortably full for a couple of hours or so and therefore not distracted by hunger shortly after consumption.  Anyone who has tried to cut calories for whatever reason knows how important this is to successful weight loss, although that is not the focus here.

  Nowadays, eggs may serve other purposes aside from being nutritious, versatile, and filling.  They are also fairly cheap!  Even if you purchase (as you should) eggs from free-roaming chickens, eggs cost about three bucks a dozen (about a quarter each).  I need not remind anyone how important it is these days to get the most for your money.  What's more, eggs can be part of  as high or low brow a dish as you wish, from the most delicate of custards to rustic omelets cooked up with leftovers (my husband calls this "roadkill").  

  It would only be appropriate, after singing the praises of eggs, to include in this post a recipe that celebrates them.  I will leave you with an elegant recipe courtesy of my friend Tony Catalfomo.  What follows is his take on the traditional Mexican breakfast, chilaquiles.  This version is much simpler and quicker!  Enjoy!

Tony's Eggs and Chipotles for One (easily multiplied for more than one)

one large egg

one corn tortilla

one chipotle and as much adobo as you prefer (chipotles are pretty spicy, so modify to taste)

queso fresco or monterrey jack cheese to taste (a little goes a long way!)

optional: refried beans

Cut tortillas into strips.  Fry them until they are crispy in a bit of canola oil, or, simply bake them in the oven on a cookie sheet until crispy.  Be careful not to burn them.  When they are done, if you fry them, place them on a plate covered with a paper towel to drain.  Set strips aside.

  In a large cast iron skillet (or whatever biggish frying pan you have), melt a tablespoon of butter at a medium heat (stovetops are all different...play with the heat on yours until you find the appropriate heat for cooking eggs).  Place a chipotle and a dollop of adobo along one edge of the pan, then cook the egg to preference in the center of the pan as the chipotle heats up.

  After the egg is cooked, quickly place on top of the tortilla strips, then drizzle the chipotle and adobo on top of the egg...if you scramble the egg, you can mix the chipotle and sauce in with the eggs.  Sprinkle cheese of choice atop hot egg mixture and enjoy while still hot.  Chopped green onions also make a nice addition! If you use beans, they can be warmed up in the same skillet if it is big enough, and you can mix the chipotle in with these.

Monday Mental Masturbation

     I need to take a moment and pay some serious respects to the fabulous Cockettes.  They have become one of my latest obsessions, alas, 20 years too late.  I watched the documentary right after Christmas and my delight, as a result, may have been the best gift I could have given myself.  

  If there is one thing to love about American culture, it is the peculiar and delightful knack for nurturing some of the most endearingly theatrical sub-cultures.  San Francisco in the late sixties and early seventies provided the perfect medium for many of them. The Cockettes were definitely the most lovably notorious.

  To love the Cockettes is to love San Francisco, (as well as New York City for sending so many of its creative adventurers out west).  This gorgeous city provided the ideal backdrop for the troupe's fantastical lifestyle that was, basically, life as theatre. The Cockettes sashayed out of the city's thriving commune scene...it was a lifestyle based on sex, drugs, fabulous second hand clothing, and gender bending with a dash of Marxist ideology.  

  Weissman and Weber's documentary plunges the viewer deep into the communal culture of San Francisco.  These were not merely drab, tofu- and- tamari, individual little bastions of commie peaceniks.  They were all part of a thriving network of communally minded folk who did their best to take care of each other. One commune might distribute vegetables, another might be known for the members' mechanical expertise, and bartering was the currency.  They had names like Hunga Dunga and Kaliflower...in fact, Kaliflower, thanks to it's attic "drag room", hosted the nascent stirrings of the troupe that would eventually call themselves the Cockettes.  Of course, Cockette House (one of several buildings which served as home to members of the troupe) was the hub of creativity, expression, and hedonism of every flavor. 

  From within the beautiful infrastructure of San Francisco the echo of its gold rush past can be discerned.  The maritime city was (and is) a delectable melting pot of cultures, not the least of which was (and is) Chinese. The gorgeous Victorian flats that undulate with the hills throughout the city loom solidly in the documentary footage, making the antics of the Cockettes, as they cavort in their communes, seem almost anachronistic.  The mood and style of the Cockette shows had a vaudevillean, saloon-like quality. These echoes and influences of the past also made themselves known through the the performances of the Cockettes, who slinked around on stage as bearded, technicolor geishas in their version of Madame Butterfly, or as hairy brothel madames  in their  own masterpiece, Pearls Over Shanghai. Members of the troupe had fantastical names like Hibiscus, Scrumbly, and Goldie Glitters.  The scene was wondrously surreal, deep fat fried in glitter, and as purely joyous as the most ecstatic, lysergic, dream.

  So, what the hell happened to the dream? By the way, liberal drug use and extremely casual sex are not essential components of the dream, although they may be for some. It did not completely fade along with the Cockettes, of whom it could be said,"This world was never meant for ones as beautiful as you". The dream echoes, throughout certain avenues of popular culture (think Alice Cooper and Motley Crue to Devendra Banhart and Bat For Lashes). It was the dream of pushing boundaries for no other reason than to have fun.  It was the dream of exploring one's inner life and expressing that through fabulous regalia. It was an absurdist elixer delivered as a momentary remedy to the drab horror of what was the supposed American Dream.  Nothing like a little "sexual anarchy" to liven up the culture.  The Cockettes were drag queens of a sort, but they were not all men, nor were they all gay. There were many women who were Cockettes and, having no need to explore their feminine aspects, became fanciful creatures who transcended gender, becoming transsexual versions of themselves.   So it wasn't all about sex, shock, and celebration of one's feminine side.  If it were possible to distill the Cockette philosophy, you might be left with the concept of living with passion in the right here, right now.  

  And that is the grand lesson that Americans can use right here, right now.  America produced these harbingers of the higher-self and perhaps it is time she paid more attention to her more eccentric offspring other than to point, giggle, then look back thirty years later with cheap sentiment.  

  So many Americans are in the ideal position these days (see Time Is Honey) to re-examine the status quo.  Is it working for individual Americans and their loved ones?  Isn't it time to abandon the idea that "this is just how things are done"?  Should America seek out another absurdist elixir to heal the drab horror she experiences today?  Does the culture need to "raid the drag room" and reinvent to its highest self? 

  Certain tenets of conventional wisdom will always have their place and yet others must evolve with time.  Dare I summon the use that tired nugget of corporate jargon; thinking outside the box?  Great advice for pretty much any quibble, but I wish someone would take that fucking box to the curb to be recycled.

   Let us now hail and entreat the fabulous Cockettes. You are the Angels of Light,  purest of muses, lusty slaves to art and art alone. Thou art the horny hobgoblins of  uncut Marxist thought practiced with the visceral passions of the bourgeoisie. Deliver us from boredom, despair, the abyss. With a wink from one glitter encrusted eye, remind us of  our humanity and souls.  Help us break out of the suburbs of our superegos and venture to the west coast of our desires, hills rolling like ocean waves, still abuzz with gold rush and always eager to embrace the new.  The new is what America has to look forward to.  May she recognize this time! 

-Anything I ever learned about the Cockettes came from the Weissman and Weber documentary The Cockettes and Midnight At The Palace; My Life As A Fabulous Cockette by Pam Tent.  I highly suggest indulging in both.

  

   

Time Is Honey

"Time is really the only capital that any human has, and the one thing he can't afford to lose".  I lifted this quote from The Week, who lifted it from the AP. Thomas Edison, who seems to have made the most of his time, wrote these words.  I daresay, despite the redundancy,  this glowing pearl of wisdom is ever so "timely" given the fact that so many of us, for whatever reason, find ourselves with a whole lot of time on our hands.

  I suppose this quote can be understood in a few different ways.   Perhaps Edison is beseeching us to make sure that we always have something to show for our valuable time.  I believe that Edison indeed treasured this thing that is free for us to use, this blessing which can seem so overwhelming when confronted with so much of it.  These days, in a culture marbled with esteem for wealth and the insidious sense that wealth equals time well spent and even virtue, it is difficult to come to terms with how a new definition of "time well spent"  might read. This new facet to the meaning of Edison's words is what I wish to explore in this post.

  To anyone despairing, fearing the onslaught of time, troubled by job loss and financial distress, I hope to offer a bit of a distraction...god knows you need it.  It requires a bit of a mental shift, which can be helped along by a glass (one glass) of wine, a bottle of beer, a bong or pipe hit, or, if you are not inclined toward that kind of help, a cup of chamomile tea.  The point is to relax.  

  Allow me to make an analogy.  Someone drives a nail into the trunk of a tree.  To ensure that damage from the injury does not spread to the rest of the organism, the tree begins to compartmentalize the wound.  It walls off the area in order to maintain structural integrity.  Just for one day, try to compartmentalize your troubles...don't allow them to dictate your behavior for an entire day.  Use whatever relaxation technique you need, break some rules and allow yourself the absurdity of spending the day in a way that flips a rigid finger at convention and decorum.  You may feel delightfully naughty.  Why shouldn't you?  Naughtiness is another blessing that time can give us.

  Imagine the time that you have as a silken robe wrapping itself around your form, as a voice whispering, "hush, hush, now you must just be", a gently humming, green grotto abuzz with fecundity.  Really!  Embrace the absurdity, now one is watching, no one cares.  Stay in your head; by that I mean don't try to surmise what anyone else thinks, entertain any and all of the possibly wild and woolly notions that free float in and out of a mind that is open and serene.  Fantasize.  Speak, sing or belch if you need to. Hell, masturbate if you need that kind of release!  Stare at your face in the mirror and gaze each component.  Then gather yourself together, take a deep breath and go, go out into the world, regardless of weather.  

  Walkabout.  Like the Australian aboriginal rite of passage, go out into whatever wilderness is right outside your door, into your own temporal dimension in which you are suspended as you observe the other three.  The Australian natives believe that their ancestors sang everything into being.  Imagine that everything you pass during your walk about has its own song to sing...even the pristine patch of manicured lawn sings out in a bright tenor, although you will only hear it within you, resonating.  

  Ogle any object that grabs your attention as you pass...if that thing is a person, to avoid discomfort, get a decent look at him or her and take a mental snapshot.  Observe the colors of the day or night, imagine what the colors might taste like or how they might smell. Stand outside a bakery and take the aromas into your soul, past cravings and hunger.  Indulge cravings and hunger, but savor the flavor, eat as if it were your last.  Stroke the coat of a friendly cat or dog.  Think of what it might feel like to bury your face into the fur of a fuzzy squirrel.  Picture yourself locked in a passionate kiss with a sexy stranger. Get dirt under your fingernails, break the leaf off of an aromatic shrub and release the scent by crushing it.  Drink water and feel the gratitude.  Feel the coolness or heat given off by rocks, boulders, or concrete.

  If this all sounds too new agey or like something you might hear Oprah  rhapsodize about, I am sorry. All of that crap is icky to me.  Remember that there really is no dogma attached to this exercise.  It's simply putting into practice the old adage that tells us to take the time to smell the roses.  Nor is this a treatise on positive thinking...there are no secrets here (beware of those peddling secrets).  Smelling the roses does not mean ignoring the thorns...we must acknowledge the thorns, appreciate their function, be perfectly aware of the blood they can draw. Unchecked optimism can be quite destructive.   And while relaxation is crucial to this exercise, so is awareness.  A cozy marriage of the two can produce wonderful insight. 

  And really, isn't that what we all seek? Insight?  Whether we call it the meaning of life, god's will (god's swill?), purpose, whatever, we are not going to find it for ourselves (and it's different for all of us) if we don't slow down, luxuriate in the time we are given, and learn about the world.  In this way we can use Edison's insight into time to discover our own truths.  And so time truly is this free and priceless gift.  We must use it to get to know our world, our environs, stroll through it, not simply walk past...walkabout! 

 

A Blog Is Born

It has been born and it continues to evolve within my feverish brain.  I have decided to divide topics up according to the day of the week.  I have not decided what topic will be discussed when...tomorrow I think I will discuss either gardening, cooking, or both, as well as the politics simmering beneath both seemingly mundane activities.  See you tomorrow, although you don't exist as of yet...leslie a

Welcome to Fijimermaid

 A warm welcome to Fijimermaid, all you surfers who have washed up here for some reason or other.  The purpose of this blog, for now, is to serve as a creative outlet for Leslie and Tara.  We will discuss all kinds of ideas and topics which we find interesting and thought provoking.  Our minds are fertile even if the economy and other aspects of our lives are fallow!  More later, life does beckon... leslie a