Life – Page 22 – Hobbits In Rivendell

Three Things: Home & Away

July 21, 2013

1:59 pm

The world is beautiful through our rear view mirror, but there’s also hope for blue skies ahead…

Just looked up to realize that it was our friend Axel’s 2nd anniversary, and J&L’s first anniversary, so we’ve really and truly been here in the U.S. now for a solid year and some change.

In the give and take of this unusual summer – with friends arriving and departing, doing quite a bit of traveling ourselves, and in realizing that it’s about time to start packing AGAIN – we’ve been thinking a lot about our own arrival and future destinations. There are certainly a few things about our lives that have changed since we’ve been back.

Number one, we no longer tilt our faces to the sun, whenever it’s out. In Glasgow this summer, people are having the season of their LIVES, in many cases – glorious sunshine, lovely, balmy days, smiles all over. And you believe the world is beautiful, when the sun shines in Scotland. All nine zillion shades of green sparkle from sapphire and emerald, and people are kinder, and everything is just – amazing. They’ve all said that it can’t last, and of course, autumn will come eventually, but it is GLORIOUS just now, and we wish we were there to see it. ANY sunny day, when we were in Glasgow, found people lining the benches in the parks, peeling off shirts, exposing every bit of themselves to the sunshine. Entire neighborhoods camped out on the green, playing with their dogs, passing ’round a drink, just loving the moment. And, arriving home as red as scalded lobsters and a little sun-drunk the next day, but still, everyone would say it was worth it.

Living where we do, this summer we’ve sometimes gone for full days with fog that doesn’t lift… but we no longer have the little niggling worry in the back of our minds that the gray might last for six months. We trust in the reappearance of the sun.

Number two, we no longer have soundtracks running in our heads at all times. That’s kind of sad, really. We came away from Glasgow at the close of our concert season, music just tumbling through our heads. At any given time, both of us, or either of us could be found humming something, singing some tricky patch of harmony in Latin or German or Italian. It brought almost a physical ache leaving our music behind. If you’ve ever performed with an orchestra, with hundreds of voices and instruments doubling your own small sound, and making the rafters ring with sound, you’ll understand what we mean. Not having found the kind of choir interaction we had back there has meant that we’ve needed to put that aside for awhile, so as to not be completely overwhelmed. We’ve found that we kind of miss the music in our heads, and we’re looking forward to reacquainting ourselves with grappling with a major work of music, and the joys and frustrations of choral music.

Number three, and this one makes us laugh, we no longer are jumpy around cars. It’s so symptomatic of how West Coast Americans are enmeshed with car culture that when we had a period of time where we didn’t normally ride around in cars, and were on foot or lumbering buses for much of the time, that we forgot about speed. We forgot about merging lanes. We forgot about all of the things that we had to remember to survive in car culture… and coming back was tough. We both noted that we were tentative about being behind the wheel. We were both more apt to opt out of driving, if we didn’t have to do it. And we neither of us ever went as fast as the speed limit, much less exceeded it… well, that’s certainly over, and we’re back to our old habits.

We pulled out the Scrabble game the other night, and realized we no longer take pictures of our epic word battles – because we don’t take much time to play in person anymore. The arrival of friends who bemoaned the loss of the lemon cake reminded us that we’re not doing as much baking, either (although, experiments in lower-carb baking are forthcoming! Stay tuned! We made ice cream cones once already, trying to make waffles! We’re not ready quite to blog the flops, but it IS happening!). When we were Away, we lived our lives in a different rhythm, and though we held onto it, and made decisions which support us keeping things simple, it has become apparent that simplicity is elusive.

We don’t want to lose everything of what we learned and gained from being away… perhaps even some of the ache is necessary to keep, so that we know what we’re missing… so we’re moved to keep a little of Away nestled in, next to our hearts, wherever we make Home.

Baltimore

by David T. Macknet

July 4, 2013

4:00 pm

Stay Tuned…

by TadMack

July 1, 2013

12:04 pm

1 Comment on Stay Tuned…

California, Life

You know you’re in California, when…

On telephone: “Yeah, I actually had to turn on my windshield wipers on the way to work! And they weren’t on the lowest setting!

Yes, indeed, an amusing and, for some, utterly bewildering two soaking days of rain, which caused quiet moments of shock and awe…. followed this week by a brief descent into hell, as temps soar into the +100F/39°C. And we’re expecting even more adventures in weather, as we’re off to Baltimore for a week… where they’re having the usual summer combo of heat AND the rain. All at once.

Can’t wait to see what that does to one’s hair.

While the trip is for medical junk and so T. can sit on a panel at a convention, we’re treating this as a mini-vacation (unlike our house, there’s air conditioning, so one can determine that AC = vacation. It’s in The Rules) to tide us over while we prep for another move (again!!!) and until we leave the country in the autumn. (Poland! Scotland! Rain!) We’re going to enjoy a few within-walking-distance treasures of the city, while also doing a little sleuthing on Baltimore’s food scene. It’s always been entertaining to find sustenance as vegetarians on the road — how do people trying to avoid sugar/carbs and meat manage? Is California the only place you can find discerning eaters? We’re positive that’s not the case, and look forward to feeling our way toward what’s good on the waterfront that doesn’t have a shell, claws, or fins.

Plus, we’re going to The National Aquarium, which is causing no end of anticipatory squealing around these parts.

Rain. Hellish Heat. Then, Rainy Hellish Heat. “What I Did On My Summer Vacation.”

One Year Past, Chaos

by David T. Macknet

June 21, 2013

10:52 am

3 Comments on One Year Past, Chaos

Upheaval

Sometimes, looking back upon the past 14 months, we feel as if our lives have been delayed or misrouted somehow. We’ve moved from our Scottish flat with views of sheep, to temporary housing in a quaint little village, and then back to the United States. We stayed with friends near San Francisco for a few months, briefly considered moving to Puerto Rico, looked for houses in Palm Springs, and moved back up to the Bay Area. We’ve been in the same house since September of last year, but D. has changed jobs from working for a Scottish company, to working for a Bay Area Biotech company, to working for a finance company, and now is going back to another biotech company … for which he worked way back in 1997-99. Fortunately, he’s able to commute there fairly easily, and it’s a much better position for him overall. But oy!, the chaos! The quick-shifts. The ridiculous bouts of homesickness for a place and time that truly no longer exists. It’s a strange thing, to go from the life of a student to Real Life again.

In order to fit into the financial world, D. had to tone down his wardrobe to something resembling business formal, or at least not business casual. Shopping has never been his favorite, of course, so he dragged his feet until he’d gotten heartily sick of wearing the same few pairs of trousers … and now he’s headed back to the land of t-shirts and shorts. And heat, of course – Vacaville is brassy blue and bright hot, long into summer and early autumn.

On the plus side, D no longer has to worry about “looking right,” and he won’t have to worry about finding a “designated expressive activity area” away from the sensitive souls in the Finance industry.

We’re finding that it’s oddly constraining, having only work and no University to discuss, here – particularly when this site is out in the public, and visible to whomever. Can we talk about D’s work? Probably not. T’s never one to talk about what she’s doing, as her life is always in revision – and with our choral duties at end, and our foodie-ness devolving into mere fuel-efficiency cooking and eating (and losing quite a few pounds, incidentally. Yay! Can’t complain about that), we’re finding that we’re quieter online these days. But, that will change – as soon as we get settled again…

We’ll likely be relocating up to Vacaville in the next few months, giving us yet another upheaval in our lives, but it’s nice, going back to a truly good company – D’s remained in contact and has gone back to this company for a few short-term contracts over the years. He’s determined to stay with them for longer this time – they’re part of pharmaceutical giant Roche, now, so there’s the possibility of quite a bit of work internationally.

For now, though, he’s enjoying the counter-commute, and the smooth drive into work, with no stop-and-go traffic.

-D & T

& Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

by TadMack

May 13, 2013

8:04 am

4 Comments on & Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

California, Life, Uncategorized

Ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine times out of one hundred, people are okay: definitely quirky, truly strange, undoubtedly weird, and yes, perhaps freakish, awkward, sometimes repellent — but not abusive, not cruel, not insane, not homicidal. Each time I leave the house, I want to remember that. Each time I interact with strangers, I want them to remember that. Each time my eyes meet those of a stranger’s, I want to remember kindness. To that end, I am going to do thirty-one things, ninja-sneaky, to keep faith with peace. Thirty-one things to remind myself that we are people of the light. If we walk in the light, not everyone is out to get us. If we light our lights, we make the night brighter for everyone.

At the New Year we determined that there was something better, perhaps, to focus on in our daily lives than the things the news media wanted us to look at – and while things have continued to happen in news cycles this year, it’s been good to look up and away from where our focus is drawn and to re-see that, around us, most of the time it’s not like that.

Case in point:

Last Thursday, T. was working on laundry, in a desultory fashion, and between folding clothes and reading realized that she was hearing loud voices and helicopters. She assumed that a.) there was some sort of traffic thing going on, and people were being med-evac-ed somewhere, and b.) that the yard guys for Mrs. Bingham had the radio up really loudly.

Imagine her horrified surprise to go out to get the mail and discover that it was c.) none of the above. There were, instead, nine sheriff’s cars slewed across the road at various angles, cutting off access to the street, and the SWAT team in the driveway of the house across the street.

Ironic that the neighbor had exchanged smiles with us about the turkey antics just the week before. It seemed so odd to now know his name, courtesy of the loudspeaker, and for hours T. heard over and over again, “We don’t want to hurt you. No one wants to go in and get you. Just follow our instructions, and come out with your hands up where we can see them.”

Oh, dear.

From about 2pm – 5pm, this went on, and then as what looked like a tank pulled up and disgorged men in camouflage and helmets, officers began running around. T. almost wanted to take pictures, but was torn between watching, and moving away, unhappy to see crowds gathering on the other end of the barricade that she could see, smoking, and talking in groups as if someone was filming. This is a person’s real life! she railed at them silently, but they didn’t move.

And then, a peremptory banging on her own door. An officer in sunglasses, carrying a rifle, gesturing at her to come out. Another man in camouflage, standing in her bushes, pointing a long gun at the neighbor’s house. A moment of hot panic as T. tried to hurry away, was redirected away from the sidewalk, and cut through side yards and the neighbor’s place, shadowed by an officer behind and an escort in front, still pointing that gun. Relief at seeing D. waiting impatiently at another barricade, in the car.

And, another long, long wait. At least this time we were together. And, D. had stopped by the library, so T. had a book. We sat in the car and cautiously met some of our neighbors, also sitting in their cars. We watched neighbors open their homes to each other, as bathroom and food needs wore on. The police went into homes and grabbed diabetes medication when one neighbor needed it, and spots on the front lawn were generously shared. And we waited. And we waited.

And we jumped – gasped – at the first flash-bombs. And heard the whistle of the gas as twelve canisters crashed through the windows. We waited on edge, in silence. And then… it was done.

The first of the neighbors were allowed into the house on foot at 9:45. We were the last in, at 10 p.m., and then were allowed to retrieve the car from the end of the block at 10:20. Suffice it to say that we were weary beyond bearing. T. slipped into bed and dropped like a stone, while D. prowled the house, watching the activity beyond the bright spotlights, as the officers cleared the scene.

One of us could barely rise the following morning. One of us rose all too early. And thus we have 4 AM Macaroons.

The craze for the 3 Ingredient Cookie has rolled from baby blogs to vegan challenge blogs, and we’ve had various variations on them – oatmeal, banana and raisin, oatmeal, banana, cranberry – even peanut butter. D. went a bit above three ingredients, but the spirit was the same – most of the sweetening comes from banana, and there’s a bit of fiber, a bit of sweet, and a simplicity that works well with a cup of tea.

4 AM MACAROONS

16 oz. – 1 lb. finely shredded coconut

2 lg. bananas

1 c. Sugar

1/2 c. Flour

1/2 c. Water

1/4 c. Canola

1/4 tsp. Salt

2 tsp. Baking Pwdr

1/2 tsp. Cinnamon

1/2 tsp. Ginger

Chocolate chunks, optional

The beauty of coconut is that it’s spiky, so it’s very easy to mash the ingredients together on this one. It creates a sticky paste, which D. rolled out and then scored with a pizza cutter into tiny, two-inch squares. He then topped each with a chocolate chunk, and baked them at 325°/170° for a half hour on a Silpat. Your time may vary. D. thinks next time he’ll let them brown a little more.

You may think that this story proves counter to the idea that the world is not as dark or bad as the media would have us believe – but it doesn’t. Though they left the house as neat as they could, sweeping the street and clearing away, things were broken when the neighbor was removed from his mother’s house. Friday morning, she stood in the drive and wept, as neighbors gathered round, hugged her, and, with face masks, buckets, and vacuums, took the first few steps to restoring the place to rights. By afternoon, the windows were boarded up, the carpets cleaned, and the beginnings of order emerged. Small doings, perhaps, in the scheme of a life. But, big things, when that life has been so brutally and publicly disrupted.

And though we neighbors were frightened, cowed, horrified and inconvenienced by turns, this was a minor blip in the landscape of our lives. Some people have to live this way all the time. There were dogs and robots and SWAT teams, and no one died. We are unimaginably blessed.

So, we walk on, with hope in our hearts.

EDITED TO ADD: Full story, since many are asking.

Word(less)-y Wednesday

by TadMack

May 1, 2013

6:05 pm

1 Comment on Word(less)-y Wednesday

Miscellany

Famous
By Naomi Shihab Nye
The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

“Famous” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Blog Reading (and, erm, writing)

by David T. Macknet

March 14, 2013

8:13 pm

2 Comments on Blog Reading (and, erm, writing)

Miscellany

First off, apologies are due to all of you who follow this blog. There isn’t really any excuse for not writing to you all, except that, well, life has gotten a bit busy: D. has begun a new job (which he’s enjoying very much), we’re trying to squeeze in time to prep the garden, we’re doing choir … and, well, we’re no longer “abroad” so are struggling a bit to find things to put up here. Yes, we could do food … and we like doing food … but we’d have to have time to do some baking other than just what we make all the time.

We’ll find our balance here soon, promise!

Now, on to the crisis du jour: idiot Google has decided that they are retiring Google Reader. For ~~some~~ most, this isn’t an issue, because you don’t even know what it’s for. For those who read lots of online content, though, it’s been the easiest way to manage to keep up.

So, without further ado, here’s how to switch from Reader to something else (we’ll be trying Brief, in FireFox).

Step 1: Export your Reader Subscriptions This is a needlessly complex process, at this point, because idiot Google decided that they had to change the process right when most people would be using it. It now takes quite a few steps, rather than simply going to “manage subscriptions” and choosing “export.” Still, start with that:

Then click “create archive” and wait for it to do its thing.

When it’s complete, click “download” and save your .zip file somewhere (or just open it – we only really want one file from it).

All we’re interested in is the “subscriptions.xml” file, which you should save somewhere convenient (and rename to be a “.opml” file, later).

Step 2: Install Brief. If you want to try Brief, download and install the Brief add-on from Mozilla. You’ll need to restart FireFox before using it.

Step 3: Set your FireFox preferences to use Live Bookmarks Brief isn’t necessary to use Live Bookmarks – they’re built into FireFox – but Brief gives you a different way of reading them.

Step 4: Open Brief Brief gives you another little icon, to the right of your search bar. Click it to open Brief.

Step 5: Rename your .xml file from step 1 to “subscriptions.opml” and import it. The initial Brief page will have asked if you wanted to import anything, but if you missed that, click the little “tools” icon in Brief to import the .opml file you’ve obtained from the perfidious Google.

You now have the ability to read feeds, via Brief.

This isn’t an ideal solution if you use the “Starred Items” feature in Google Reader, particularly if you rely on it as heavily as I do. I depend upon it to work up my “links” posts (more about that process here), and it’s quite laborious even with Reader in place. With Reader gone, well, I’ll be searching for another solution.

On the bright side: since I won’t be using Reader any longer, and I can’t use Google Chat from work, I now have no reason to sign into Google! Yes, they own FeedBurner, which powers the email subscriptions to our sites, but they’re gradually driving us away. I can’t say I’ll miss them, except for Reader

-D

Sign Wonders

by David T. Macknet

December 22, 2012

3:15 pm

Yeah, it will, won’t it?

by TadMack

December 21, 2012

12:42 pm

1 Comment on Yeah, it will, won’t it?

Miscellany

Happy shortest day! Things will get brighter here shortly…

Rose Apples and Toms

by TadMack

December 17, 2012

11:40 am

2 Comments on Rose Apples and Toms

Baking, California

While photographing these wee birds, a neighbor pulled around us in her red car and took off down the hill. Most of the turkeys gave chase! Ridiculous beasts.

Imagine being the first person to decide to eat one of these things. What on earth possessed that person? Now, granted, this is not an omnivore criticism; people must have had these same sorts of first thoughts about artichokes – great thorny beasties, what makes you think they’re edible? – or asparagus – foul-smelling and rather thick grass; are you sure you want that? – but turkeys are as ugly as buzzards (not the British kind, which are just large raptor-hawks. ACTUAL turkey vultures are commonly called turkey buzzards, so called because of their egregiously naked red turkey-like heads), their naked wattles looking like elderly plucked skin, and they have spikes on their foreheads! Imagine – Benjamin Franklin wanted this to be the national bird. One wonders how many times he was struck, playing with that lightning…

This time last year would have been our first show – Christmas at the Musicals, which was always fraught, since inevitably there were storms or high winds or something to make the mostly over-sixty crowd of musical aficionados only come to the matinee showing, leaving the late show virtually empty. Singers this time of year get used to that, and sing anyway. We wish the best to the City of Glasgow Chorus as next weekend is their last show of 2012! We miss you guys, and will think of you and glitter and flashing lights during the intermission. ☺ Meanwhile, we have two programs left here as well – one the 22nd, and one the 24th, and then we’re looking forward to doing a great deal of nothing in particular until a few weeks in January where we’ll be singing The Mass of the Nativity again. While our church choral groups are small and don’t come with massive orchestras, there is something to be said for the intimacy of singing with a string quartet or just a piano, and actually hearing all voices and all parts at all times. We are grateful that it has been a good experience so far.

Experimental foods are on offer every winter, when we have time and inclination to bake, but T’s not often the one getting too involved. This time she jumped in with an easy and quick dessert to take along for chorus potluck this weekend. Critical response ranged from cautious to enthusiastic, and we’re excited to have a willing audience for which to bake and cook again. We also wished we’d remembered to photograph these pies after they were baked, and when they were cut, but it’s a bit hard to do that in a group – “No, wait, don’t eat it! I’m photographing! – so you’ll just have to take our word this time that they were pretty. Next time we’ll maybe use two apples per pie – and we’re looking forward to experimenting with bases and other flavorings.

Apples have long been associated with the rose, because they’re part of the same family. (Surprise!) It’s common enough to see people use peels to create apple roses, but T. decided to use the entire apple to make a very fast rose tart. The only regret she has is forgetting to splash rosewater on the crust and top of the pie post-baking, while the fragrance could be imbued, but she will remember to do so next time…

This easy pie (which should have been a tart, but the tart pan was hiding) begins with homemade cranberry sauce, which is easy enough to make. Here’s our basic recipe: – 1.5 cups of fresh cranberries, a cup of sugar, and two tablespoons of orange juice and orange zest simmered over low heat. Many recipes call for additional water, but we don’t add any until the berries are popped. To enable this sauce to double as pie filling, add a heaped tablespoon of cornstarch dissolved into a half cup of water. (Note that we added this to cold sauce; if you added it to the hot, it will thicken quickly, so be ready for that!) Then add a tablespoon of molasses, 1 tsp. ginger, cloves, and allspice (or 1 tbsp. garam masala spice blend) and a half cup of additional sugar. If the mixture gets too thick, add another half cup of water, but you want the flavor fairly intense, so only add as much as you need.

Next, we assembled pastry crusts – quick cheater crusts from the freezer section of the grocery this time, but homemade, if you have time/inclination, is obviously better. We filled each crust to the halfway point. Our pans are deeper than traditional pie pans, and we’d quadrupled our sauce recipe, so we had plenty of extra. (If you have limited supply, just try for a single pie!) And then came the fun part – the apples.

If you have an old-fashioned corer-peeler as we did (no idea what happened to that, either. It’s with the tart pan), it’s easy enough to crank out thin ribbons of peel and spiraled apples… but unless you have a VERY shallow pie pan, this isn’t really what you want. The wider the peel and apple, the more rose-like your pie will be, so grab a simple cheese-slicer and peel the apple as carefully as possible. Pieces will break – don’t worry about them. Just peel as cleanly and as evenly as possible.

Arranging the apples is subjective, of course – what looks rose-esque to us will look dahlia-like to you. The one trick we can suggest is to be sure to begin each piece of new apple with an overlap of about a quarter inch inside of the previous strip. Also, using the peeled edges up reinforces the flower idea.

We baked the pies for twenty-five minutes at about 350°F/175°C. Don’t go overboard – it’s easy to over bake these, but as they cool, the filling will settle. Have faith in them – apples contain pectin, and together with the cornstarch, they will gel that molten cranberry lava! Serving these pies when they’re slightly overdone is somewhat tricky, as, after cooling the apple peels are difficult, but if you make that tiny mistake, no fear – snipping them with a kitchen scissor first and then cutting along the snip-line worked. Again, a soupçon of rosewater would have made these match in both fragrance and appearance, but that’s for when the pie is served hot.

We did a lot of music this weekend, a lot of baking, a lot of decorating. We broke out the garlands and the old clay crèche. Glitter glue, pine cones, ribbon – all in the spirit of decorating, something which, while wandering the world, we’ve kept at an absolute minimum, or ignored altogether for years upon years. We kept the stereo playing a mix of classical music and the less invasive carols, and we kept outside media to a minimum – with good reason. Sometimes, it’s best to keep the broken world at bay. It’s as T’s friend, Gregory K. wrote this morning on his poetry blog (which we’ve borrowed without his permission, but we don’t think he minds):**

Untitled, 12/16/12
Greg K Pincus © 2012

Sing, dance, quilt, make art
Share the work that’s in your heart
Sculpt, act, paint, and write
Answer dark with waves of light

Last night, we placed a tea light in the secondhand wire angel T. brought home, and turned out the lamps. The lone candle was a pinpoint flicker in a too-large room. But even a small illumination is the difference between blindness and sight.

Hold to the light.

**Please, DO attribute if you use anyone’s poem, including Gregory K’s.

Glasgow:
NY:
Grinnell:
Roswell:
Berkeley: