Reminding myself of the way prayer is.
I forget sometimes to just make the best salad I can.
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repository of riparian goodness | Edging the corpus
repository of riparian goodness
Edging the corpus
Personal, Private Message
April 29, 2008 by goodfoot08
Posted in seasons, spring | Tagged advice, mindfulness | 8 Comments »
Song That Song That Song That Song That Song That
February 25, 2008 by goodfoot08
Ralph Nader is back. He is still maintaining that even though he did not contribute to Bush’s win during the last two elections, that there is no difference between Bush and Gore. Following his logic, if Gore had actually been given the Presidency in 2000 when he apparently won, then Bush would have made An Inconvenient Truth .
—
I love the Coen brothers’ movies. Even when they don’t totally succeed, they always leave me stirred up. Often for years. No Country for Old Men seemed to me to be another flawed piece. Enjoyable but finally incomplete. Apparently, I am alone on this. I didn’t read the novel so it is unfair to say this, but the logical inconsistencies of the story (Tommie Lee Jones’ lethargic sheriff should never have been allowed to walk out of that motel room alive) bothered me. Like Presidents, I have learned not to expect that I will understand what makes Oscar winners.
—
Oh, that song. I saw Once a few weeks back . I liked the movie (hard not to–a sweet Indie film about street musicians and being young. With arguably the worst recorded dialog since Trainspotting) and I enjoyed the song writing sequence at the music store piano that yielded “Falling Slowly”, I think it is called. But just that once. Please. The name may never be memorable but the song is a WMD. After last night’s best song award, I fear that it is a new ear worm that will drive me and other susceptible types to madness. I have heard the song about five times now and it is already burned in the lizard zone of my brain. I dread the prospect of the next five million times I will have to hear it.
The stars of the movie who sang the song are as cute as puppies, but right now they appear in my imagination as a two headed Sweeney Todd admiring their diabolical song in the moonlight. I have been playing music desperately this morning, looking for relief from that song’s insidious presence since waking up.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged movies, Nader, Oscars | 2 Comments »
This Morning
February 18, 2008 by goodfoot08
Even though the thermometer says it is already fifty degrees outside, I dress warmly, including gloves and stocking cap. With the rain shell, I am ready for the mornings of the last week; the icy snow and frozen streams of water that will run during the day and twenty degrees. When I step outside with Sidney on the leash, I feel the difference. Although there is no smell of it yet, the possibility of spring is physically present.
The waves of oceanic wind are all around this morning. They are in the hills and the bare winter trees. When I close my eyes, I hear the slow turning air masses in the distance. There are few gusts to be felt and the sound is not close, but the wind has worked with the overnight rains to burn off the ice fields, exposing the mud and grass that will soon begin to move again. I know it is a winter wind, still, by the sound. It will take more than a shift of temperature to change that. Until the first buds appear, the bushes begin to stir, and the grass stands up, the valley will sound much like a curtainless, carpetless room of empty desks or fish bones that is full of this wind.
The old dog walks slowly. The half inch of saturated ground is as tricky as yesterday’s ice sheets. It moves too easily over what is still frozen beneath that. He peers over the side of the road into the fast streams of water coming down from the hills.
Is this the change we say we all have been waiting for? I am not sure. For the old dog, his surviving the winter means that his unsteady ways become even more problematic for this caretaker as he finds he can wander off again. With six horses, two goats, and six cats roaming around the property, his ability to pick up and eat what he finds in the dark corners makes the first five or ten minutes after we come inside a nerve-wracking time. I may not see it going down but too frequently I learn about it while I clean it off the carpet. Euthanasia becomes more and more likely as he regains his roaming room. Ironically, I thought this was going to happen in December. It is one of the ways that the change warmer weather brings can be seen as not so good.
Posted in country life, seasons, spring | 2 Comments »
Eating Gift Pears
January 10, 2008 by goodfoot08
Although, a card comes with them explaining how they are best enjoyed, I really think we each have to walk our own lonely path on what we do once we are behind a closed door.
I write this as I ride the crest of prime time for my gift pears. The small box of eight pears was a Christmas gift and I have been enjoying them as a solitary consumer. Each one is a separate answer to questions that we who receive gift pears must address.
Since someone has gone to great expense to order gift pears, there is an underlying responsibility to recognize them as being superior and worth special attention. They are not mere food, but the manifestation of someone’s feelings toward you. Plus, having given gift pears to others, I understand the fragile premise with which they come. Appreciation of them is important.
The perennial questions that we all face about gift pears.
One When do you commence eating? When they presented, they are admittedly slightly unripe–crunchy and not fully sweet. If you start eating too early, then the first are less than optimal. But if you wait too long to start, then you risk not completing the box before the last are past their prime. The good news is that, either way, you will be enjoying the middle period of prime and succulent flesh.
Two Do you bite into the whole pear or do you serve it halved and cored with a special spoon? A third option is to halve and clean them and then serve them cut into strips. I suspect this question is answered differently by each of us according to a complex matrix of factors. Ones that come to mind include age, whether one eats with heirloom silver or plastic utensils out of a bag, whether the gift pears are yours or someone else’s, and whether you are standing in the kitchen at 1:00 or preparing a plate with some choice Stilton.
Three Related to Two is the matter of eating or not eating the skin of a gift pear, marked, as it is, with brown flecks and blemishes. There is no question that there are nutrients there and that the skin has served nobly as a protector of the sweetness of the flesh and also those seeds. But it is not as sweet, for sure.
Four Faced with the limited number that come in the box, each wrapped in tissue except for the one that is foil wrapped, do you share them or, like a miser, do you enjoy each one alone?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged choice, Christmas, food, gift fruit | 5 Comments »
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repository of riparian goodness
Help: neither a borrower or lender be
January 18, 2008 by goodfoot08
Around my neighborhood, things are pretty loose. Walking the old dog requires spending a significant amount of the day standing in slop and mud or one of the casually deposited spoor samples around here–horse, free-range mini-goat, or (ahem) dog. I have learned how to step into a pair of boots and go. I don’t tie them much although I am sure that when it comes time for an extended expedition to somewhere or a formal affair, I will make the effort to tie them and pull the pants cuff over the boot just like they do in the big city.
Until those special moments come up, I can count on the inherent stickiness of the boot to stay on my foot and the relative height to exceed the height of the snow and/or squalor that oozes outside.
So when I had a quick errand to run the other day I waited to go until I had to take out Sidney (the old dog). Then I grabbed the papers I needed and drove off, thinking that this was going to be an unremarkable half hour trip to the mail drop where I can send a fax. It probably matters some towards understanding my state of mind to know that I was faxing documents for the insurance claim on my recently murdered laptop, or actually my second murdered laptop in two months. The weapon in both instances was a half cup of coffee. I now type this on a desktop. The coffee cannot be avoided but the implications of a spill on the keyboard can.
So, I drive to the fax center and when I go to open the door, a woman allows me to hold the door for her as she walks out. As she passes, she says “Your boots are untied.”
I respond lamely with “I know.” and a little laugh. I go in and complete my faxing business without finding it necessary to tie my boots. But I am left wondering what possessed her to say that. This part of the country is not only a wintery mess but most people are pretty casual about their dress. I figure she either acted out of an involuntary need to be a Mom, even to one as grown-up as I seem to be, or she repeats this all day long and it slipped out without a thought. What worried me was how needy I might look. I have attached a photo for you, gentle reader, to make up your own mind.
This got me thinking about the nature of comments I make on the blogs and journals of others. I have to admit that a fair number of them qualify as “Your boots are untied.” I also like to offer random ideas that come to mind, something known to many as “thread-jacking”. I also find myself sharing witty (to me) anecdotes that probably don’t advance the comment string in any meaningful way.
This is as far as I have gotten with this introspection. For my sins–past, present and future–I apologize. I don’t plan on starting to tie my boots and neither should you.
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Posted in commenting, country life, online etiquette | 11 Comments »