Susan Sontag

Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. It’s all about taking in as much of what’s out there as you can, and not letting the excuses and the dreariness of some of the obligations you’ll soon be incurring narrow your lives. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager. 

SUSAN SONTAG

The Air

 “It was one of those humid days when the atmosphere gets confused. Sitting on the porch, you could feel it: the air wishing it was water.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

Jeffrey Eugenides

I tell my students that when you write, you should pretend you’re writing the best letter you ever wrote to the smartest friend you have. That way, you’ll never dumb things down. You won’t have to explain things that don’t need explaining. You’ll assume an intimacy and a natural shorthand, which is good because readers are smart and don’t wish to be condescended to.

JEFFREY EUGENIDES

Dream

 I dreamed we were in Tiverton visiting friends. We were walking on a path to the water and it was littered with keyhole-shaped biscuits. Someone said it was an ancient recipe.

Mary Oliver

 It is a silver morning like any other. I am at my desk. Then the phone rings, or someone raps at the door. I am deep in the machinery of my wits. Reluctantly I rise, I answer the phone or I open the door. And the thought which I had in hand, or almost in hand, is gone. Creative work needs solitude. It needs concentration, without interruptions. It needs the whole sky to fly in, and no eye watching until it comes to that certainty which it aspires to, but does not necessarily have at once. Privacy, then. A place apart — to pace, to chew pencils, to scribble and erase and scribble again.

MARY OLIVER

Monday Swim

Our friend Al Valliere passed away 8 days ago. He was struggling with dementia. His company designed and built the magnificent YMCA pool in the 80's, converting a post office building into the most amazing pool. He was a dear friend and our first friend in Woonsocket. We went to the memorial on Saturday. Al was also a dedicated tri-athelete. We are friends with Al's daughter Vanessa who is a performer, a comedian. This morning I swam 80 laps dedicated to Al! It helped me move from weepy to centered.

Napoleon Hill

"Do not wait: the time will never be 'just right.' Start where you stand, and work whatever tools you may have at your command and better tools will be found as you go along."

-Napoleon Hill

Jiddu Krishnamurti

 Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, which is the ending of fear. 

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Francine Prose

Long before the idea of a writer’s conference was a glimmer in anyone’s eye, writers learned by reading the work of their predecessors. They studied meter with Ovid, plot construction with Homer, comedy with Aristophanes; they honed their prose style by absorbing the lucid sentences of Montaigne and Samuel Johnson. And who could have asked for better teachers: generous, uncritical, blessed with wisdom and genius, as endlessly forgiving as only the dead can be?

FRANCINE PROSE

Rebecca Fishbein

 It was a difficult relationship for the two of us, as he spent most of it battling the Empire in a galaxy far, far away, while I was on planet Earth learning how to write in cursive.  Also he was fictional. But that didn't matter to me.

-Rebecca Fisbein,  Good things Happen to People You Hate (essays) (p19)

The Boiled Dinner

 In praise of the steamed pressure cooker dinner... (instant pot set to zero) with cubed potatoes and broccoli florets (on steamer tray over and inch of water). Eaten sprinkled with olive oil and Adobo. So simple and delish!

When He Plants

 A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.

 David Elton Trueblood

David Elton Trueblood

 “We have not advanced very far in our spiritual lives if we have not encountered the basic paradox of freedom, to the effect that we are most free when we are bound. But not just any way of being bound will suffice; what matters is the character of our binding. The one who would like to be an athlete, but who is unwilling to discipline his body by regular exercise and by abstinence, is not free to excel on the field or the track. His failure to train rigorously and to live abstemiously denies him the freedom to go over the bar at the desired height, or to run with the desired speed and endurance. With one concerted voice the giants of the devotional life apply the same principle to the whole of life with the dictum: Discipline is the price of freedom.”
― David Elton Trueblood, The New Man for Our Time

Nelson Mandela

 “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” 

 -Nelson Mandela

Gail Caldwell, A Strong West Wind

"The trick is to let a time like ours shape you utterly without its becoming the apex of your life. The trick is to relinquish the drama and walk out of the fire, burnished and whole, and hold on to its legacies without looking back. Otherwise you fall prey to your own brilliant possibility; you become Updike's Rabbit Angstrom, muddling along in your melancholia, married first and always to the amber past."

Gail Caldwell, A Strong West Wind (p108)

Dream

 I woke up after dreaming about this book, Atlas Shrugged.

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“If you don't know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

The Salt + Sand Barrel

 The landlord placed a salt and sand barrel in the parking lot against his building. The neighbors who are not his tenants crashed into it so many times it finally got thrown out. Last year a new salt and sand barrel appeared thanks to the landlord and today it got crushed by the same neighbors.

Words

 All books are either dreams or swords. You can cut, or you can drug, with words.

  AMY LOWELL

Neil Gaiman

Don’t try and tell the stories that other people can tell. Because [as a] starting writer, you always start out with other people’s voices — you’ve been reading other people for years…. But, as quickly as you can, start telling the stories that only you can tell — because there will always be better writers than you, there will always be smarter writers than you…but you are the only you.

NEIL GAIMAN

Albert P. Valliere Jr.

 We loved Al and he was the first person we met when we came to Woonsocket.

Read

Nadine Gordimer

People make the mistake of regarding commitment as something solely political. A writer is committed to trying to make sense of life. It's a search. So there is that commitment first of all: the commitment to the honesty and determination to go as deeply into things as possible, and to dredge up what little bit of truth you with your talent can then express.

NADINE GORDIMER

Dream

 I dreamed my husband was a Brindle Pitbull sleeping next to me in our bed. "You are built just like a Pitbull," I said, when I woke up.

Late Hours

by Lisel Mueller

On summer nights the world
moves within earshot
on the interstate with its swish
and growl, and occasional siren
that sends chills through us.
Sometimes, on clear, still nights,
voices float into our bedroom,
lunar and fragmented,
as if the sky had let them go
long before our birth.

In winter we close the windows
and read Chekhov,
nearly weeping for his world.

What luxury, to be so happy
that we can grieve
over imaginary lives.

― Lisel Mueller

Lisel Mueller

 “Still, love is the impulse from which poetry springs. Even dark poems. Especially dark poems. To know the worst and write in spite of that, that must be love.” 

— Lisel Mueller, from The Poet’s Notebook

Wendell Berry

 Whether we or our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do. 

- Wendell Berry

Four O'Clock Tea and Bach

 Listen

People Who Want

My experience with trying to help people to write has been limited but extremely intensive. I have done everything from giving would-be writers money to live on to plotting and rewriting their stories for them, and so far I have found it all to be a waste. The people whom God or nature intended to be writers find their own answers, and those who have to ask are impossible to help. They are merely people who want to be writers.

RAYMOND CHANDLER

Sunset in Woonsocket, RI

 5:59 PM Sunday, October 18, 2020 (EDT)

Symptoms of Fall Allergies

 Here

Hebert Chocolate of Shrewsbury MA

We discovered this fabulous chocolate at JOBLOT in Woonsocket RI.

Lucia Berlin

 “I’m having a hard time writing about Sunday. Getting the long hollow feeling of Sundays. No mail and faraway lawn mowers, the hopelessness.” 

 ― Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

Lisa Marie Basile

“I realized that writing was my way to contact the divine. It’s more the process of a self-transformation when you really start listening to yourself & asking for what you want. It’s that shift that happens. When I write, I feel like I’m my most honest self.” 

— @lisamariebasile

Ice Box

 Our fridge broke last weekend and all of the fridges are all back ordered. The freezer works well so we've been freezing jugs of water into blocks of ice and it's working to keep the fridge cool for days.

Dr. Fauci

 Dr. Fauci: ‘This is an outbreak of historic proportions, the likes of which we’ve not seen in 102 years’ 

Published: Oct. 18, 2020 at 7:21 a.m. ET

By Quentin Fottrell

Social Rhythm Therapy

Social rhythm therapy: establishing a schedule of waking, engaging socially, having your evening meal, and going to bed at regular times to maintain a routine. Social rhythm therapy has been shown to be very helpful in modulating extremes in mood. 

 source

clinicians book on the topic

A Clinician's Guide to Interpersonal and Social Rhythm Therapy

Ellen Frank

Nabokov

 “What do you call ‘genius’?”
“Well, seeing things others don’t see. Or rather the invisible links between things.”

Vladimir Nabokov

Mary Karr

 After a lifetime of hounding authors for advice, I’ve heard three truths from every mouth: (1) Writing is painful—it’s “fun” only for novices, the very young, and hacks; (2) other than a few instances of luck, good work only comes through revision; (3) the best revisers often have reading habits that stretch back before the current age, which lends them a sense of history and raises their standards for quality.

MARY KARR

Cozy

co·zy

/ˈkōzē/

adjective

adjective: cosy; comparative adjective: cosier; superlative adjective: cosiest; adjective: cozy; comparative adjective: cozier; superlative adjective: coziest

1. giving a feeling of comfort, warmth, and relaxation.

   "a cozy cabin tucked away in the trees"

   h

   Similar:

   snug

1.  
   comfortable
   warm
   restful

home-like

homey

homely

cheerful

welcoming

pleasant

agreeable

safe

sheltered

Stuffed Kale Rolls

 Here

I will use the instant pot.

Time

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.

 CARL SANDBURG

A Good Day

After a big swim and a long walk, I clipped Romeo's nails, fished garbage out of the shrubs and reheated cabbage rolls. A good day so far.

William Blake

 "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is—infinite." 

 — William Blake

Trusting

 I have a hard time trusting people will do the right thing about Covid when picking up after their dog and recycling trash are still beyond their reach.

War

 “War, I have always said, forces men to change their standards, regardless of whether their country has won or lost. Poetics and philosophies disintegrate "when the trees fall and the walls collapse ". At the point when continuity was interrupted by the first nuclear explosion, it would have been too easy to recover the formal sediment which linked us with an age of poetic decorum, of a preoccupation with poetic sounds. After the turbulence of death, moral principles and even religious proofs are called into question. Men of letters who cling to the private successes of their petty aesthetics shut themselves off from poetry's restless presence. From the night, his solitude, the poet finds day and starts a diary that is lethal to the inert. The dark landscape yields a dialogue. The politician and the mediocre poets with their armour of symbols and mystic purities pretend to ignore the real poet. It is a story which repeats itself like the cock's crow; indeed, like the cock's third crow.”
― Salvatore Quasimodo

Telling Stories

 “…Grant me, sad renewal,

the odour of childhood,

that welcomed meagre joy,
 

already sick with a secret love
 

of telling stories to the waters.” 

― Salvatore Quasimodo

Moon

“How you are more distant than the moon,”

― Salvatore Quasimodo

Bharat Shah

 Once you have clarity that something does not deserve your time and attention, be ruthless.

 Bharat Shah

Poetry

 “Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal but which the reader recognizes as his own. –”
― Salvatore Quasimodo

Salvatore Quasimodo

  “Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da un raggio di sole:
ed e subito sera

Everyone stands alone at the heart of the world,
pierced by a ray of sunlight,
and suddenly it’s evening”
― Salvatore Quasimodo, Tutte le poesie

Sneezy

 I was sneezing my head off in the part of the house I did not vacuum so I vacuumed my studio.

 I guess this means I'd better stay on top of my dust for the sake of my asthma and allergies.

 I had a snack break and ate 2 of my garbanzo turkey stuffed cabbage rolls and they were amazing.

My maple tree has turned cadmium orange. It may last for another day or two. The color really pops on this rainy day.

 Happy Friday everyone!

 I do wish that I made my own ale because like everything else it is only good when it's fresh.

Napping

 Article

Design your own Tin

 https://www.stroopwafels.com/us/blog/2020/09/25/design-your-own-stroopwafel-tin/

RAGE

 I can't open the goddamn fucking son of a bitch jar of pickles I say walking away. 

My husband opens the jar.

I'm such a stupid helpless idiot, I say.

No. It's mid October, that's all.

You're right. Shiiiiiit. Mood always cascades after rage episode. See you back in January, I laugh.

The Screaming Lady

I put on the classical music to drown out the screaming lady next door with her screaming toddlers. Even with doors and windows closed I can hear their perpetual misery. Even their dog is miserable. He's never had a walk in his life.

Cool Pool

 80 laps 90 minutes. Nice cool temps. I swam fast and loved every minute of it!

Happy Birthday Eugene O'Neill

 Life is for each man a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors.

-Eugene O'Neill

Fan Ho Photographer

 https://designyoutrust.com/2016/02/hong-kong-in-the-1950s-captured-by-a-teenager/

Sunny, 75 Degrees

 It's what people call a nice day, 75 degrees and sunny. I just vacuumed my cellar scooping up all of the fuzzy fur balls and spiderwebs around the boiler. I'm in the mood to see right angles. Also we will be switching oil companies and I'm self conscious about how dusty my cellar is for when the guy comes to service the boiler.

I am not a regular house cleaner so when I get in the zone it's best to keep going and I did. I found dust bunnies or as they say around here 'bonhommes' under the bed, behind the couch, under the tub and beyond. Now I am ready for bed.

Make your own Stroopwafels

Here

Green Tea Ice Cream

1 cup vanilla ice cream 1 teaspoon green tea powder (matcha)

Americans may need to cancel Thanksgiving, Fauci warns

 I knew this would happen.

Hypo

 I spotted a hypodermic needle on Federal Street on the sidewalk on my way home from the YMCA this morning. It's been months since I've seen one. About 5 years ago I'd see them every day on my walks with my dog. I kicked it into the street so it would get pulverized by the traffic.

Tenants Evicted their Landlord

 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/magazine/rental-housing-crisis-minneapolis.html

Sore Muscles

 Today I was chatting with Mar and Lin and I stayed late to complete my swim. I am sore!

Swimming

Even My Eyebrows Hurt!
by Edward H. Nessel, R.Ph., M.S., M.P.H.
Just about everyone who strives to be the best they can be develops sore muscles at some time, so it is amazing that this is still mostly a mystery.

Reading

 “Reading is entering into the consciousness of another human being.”

― Gary Shteyngart

Gary Shteyngart

 “Do not throw away your heart. Keep your heart. Your heart is all that matters ... Throw away your ancestors! ... Throw away your shyness and the anger that lies just a few inches beneath ... Accept the truth! And if there is more than one truth, then learn to do the difficult work -- learn to choose. You are good enough, you are HUMAN ENOUGH, to choose!”
― Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story

Good Scent Vacuum

 Ideas

Fridge

 Our fridge just died. Three people have offered freezer and fridge space while we sort this out. I LOVE WOONSOCKET.

Robert De Niro

 Robert De Niro gives amazing graduation speech to NYU grads

•May 23, 2015

Recovery

 Our fridge was making a funny noise and the food was not cold but the freezer worked. We vacuumed underneath the vent at 4:30 AM (sorry neighbors) and now it seems to be recovering.

Today after my anxiety ridden swim I had leftover wheat corn oat buttermilk waffles with Greek yogurt on top. Feels like a variation of bagel with cream cheese.

We are having rain, finally.

Be Pepared

 I was a prep chef in college and I may have learned more from that job than college itself. Having cooked brown basmati rice on hand and a pot of beans, cooked Irish oats and peanut butter means no matter what I make I will have wholesome ingredients to add. I put Irish oats into my turkey meatballs and chickpeas and rice into my stuffed cabbage leaves and Irish oats into my sourdough buttermilk peanut butter banana waffles.

Blood on the Tracks

 Here

Idiot Wind (Song) by Bob Dylan

Someone’s got it in for me, they’re planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they’d cut it out but when they will I can only guess
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me
I can’t help it if I’m lucky

People see me all the time and they just can’t remember how to act
Their minds are filled with big ideas, images and distorted facts
Even you, yesterday you had to ask me where it was at
I couldn’t believe after all these years, you didn’t know me better than that
Sweet lady

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth
Blowing down the backroads headin’ south
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth
You’re an idiot, babe
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe

I ran into the fortune-teller, who said beware of lightning that might strike
I haven’t known peace and quiet for so long I can’t remember what it’s like
There’s a lone soldier on the cross, smoke pourin’ out of a boxcar door
You didn’t know it, you didn’t think it could be done, in the final end he won the wars
After losin’ every battle

I woke up on the roadside, daydreamin’ ’bout the way things sometimes are
Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head and are makin’ me see stars
You hurt the ones that I love best and cover up the truth with lies
One day you’ll be in the ditch, flies buzzin’ around your eyes
Blood on your saddle

Idiot wind, blowing through the flowers on your tomb
Blowing through the curtains in your room
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth
You’re an idiot, babe
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe

It was gravity which pulled us down and destiny which broke us apart
You tamed the lion in my cage but it just wasn’t enough to change my heart
Now everything’s a little upside down, as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped
What’s good is bad, what’s bad is good, you’ll find out when you reach the top
You’re on the bottom

I noticed at the ceremony, your corrupt ways had finally made you blind
I can’t remember your face anymore, your mouth has changed, your eyes
    don’t look into mine
The priest wore black on the seventh day and sat stone-faced while the
    building burned
I waited for you on the running boards, near the cypress trees, while the
    springtime turned
Slowly into Autumn

Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth
You’re an idiot, babe
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe

I can’t feel you anymore, I can’t even touch the books you’ve read
Every time I crawl past your door, I been wishin’ I was somebody else instead
Down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to ecstasy
I followed you beneath the stars, hounded by your memory
And all your ragin’ glory

I been double-crossed now for the very last time and now I’m finally free
I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me
You’ll never know the hurt I suffered nor the pain I rise above
And I’ll never know the same about you, your holiness or your kind of love
And it makes me feel so sorry

Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats
Blowing through the letters that we wrote
Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves
We’re idiots, babe
It’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves

Copyright

© 1974 by Ram's Horn Music; renewed 2002 by Ram’s Horn Music

source http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/idiot-wind/

Caught in the Lot

 She called the police because she heard a loud car radio. Two guys non residents, were parked in her driveway. She went out, with the dog. She noticed that they had no front license plate. She walked past the car onto the sidewalk to get the rear plate. The guys drove in to the rear of the communal  parking lot and the driver got out and put something in paper bag into the trunk. She phoned the car's license plate into dispatch. Two officers showed up and spent a lot of time with the guys and then the guys finally left.

Waffles

 My waffles have moved into the bread direction. Whole wheat sourdough starter, whole wheat flour, cornmeal, leftover Irish oats, eggs, buttermilk, baking soda, 2Tbspoon brown sugar, salt. Yum.

Andrea Barrett

The news came deftly padded with reassurance about my probable ability to write, the not-bad story I had written, the things I’d learned writing all those drafts, which would surely help me with what I wrote next, but the kernel of his advice was simple: Throw it out, and move on. Take all you learned writing that and make something new. Afterwards I cried, I fussed, I crashed around — and then I did what he said. What a huge relief to shed those mauled and tortured pages! And how quickly, freed from them, did I begin to write again. That advice made me a writer: I throw out things all the time, still; sometimes things on which I have, as I did with that first novel, spent not only months but years. What’s important, what the attempt taught me about writing, the material I’m exploring, where I want to go next, always survives.

ANDREA BARRETT

Rolling in Cabbage Rolls

 My cabbage rolls came out amazing. I had leftover brown rice and chick peas to use. First I sauteed two big white onions  (diced) with 5 cloves of fresh garlic in olive oil and then added the cup of cooked brown basmati rice and 4-5 cups of home cooked chick peas and the 1 and 1/4 pounds of ground lean turkey. I sprinkled Adobo, Worcestershire sauce, Sriracha, and mashed it all with my potato masher. Then I filled the  wilted cabbage leaves and rolled them placing them into my steamer tray in my Instant Pot. I had an inch of water below. I steamed them under pressure for 20 minutes with 15 more minutes natural release. They are so good. I put some of last nights homemade tomato sauce on top. Yum!

Ellen Oliver Film

"Untrammeled by Man"

https://vimeo.com/451321425 

Ukranian Cabbage Rolls

Going back to my ancestral tongue.

Monday Swim

I slept until 7:30 but I was able to get to Lincoln to swim at 9-10:35 and do 80 laps today.  Yay! Before I swam my muscles were tight. Now they are loose again.

Freezing the Head of Cabbage

 I read somewhere that if you core and freeze a head of cabbage the night before you can thaw it rather than boil it to make cabbage rolls. I will know more after tomorrow. Meanwhile the cabbage head is in the freezer. Here's a good visual with recipe.

UPDATE: It worked well. I added some additional wilting+cooking by placing the cabbage in the microwave.

Sunday Cooking

I'm making tomato sauce and turkey-Irish oat meatballs. The sauce has mushrooms celery, onion olives pepper and olive oil, red wine, garlic, oregano, basil, parsley, tomato paste. Everything is simmering in my gigantic electric pressure cooker. We'll see how it turns out.

Slum Landlord

 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

A slumlord (or slum landlord) is a slang term for a landlord, generally an absentee landlord with more than one property, who attempts to maximize profit by minimizing spending on property maintenance, often in deteriorating neighborhoods, and to tenants that they can intimidate. Severe housing shortages allow slumlords to charge higher rents, and when they can get away with it, to break rental laws.^[1][2]

As many of these neighborhoods are often populated by poor minorities, the term "ghetto landlord" has also been used. A "retail slumlord" is one who keeps a shopping mall in a bad shape until the government buys or confiscates it.

The origin of the phrase "slumlord" is unknown, but an early mention can be found in a 1927 journal article titled, "Theories, Facts, and Figures" by William L. Hare in the Academic Journal "Garden cities & town planning; a journal of housing, town planning & civic improvement." Hare credits the 'polemical press' of the time for referring to landlords of areas referred to as slums as slumlords. ^[3]

Big Bucket of Seafood Salad

 I am always thinking about what to make for my next meal. I walked Romeo through the park and watched the basketball players. When we arrived back home I chopped+diced 2 heads of celery, 4 red onions and defrosted the 2.5 pounds of imitation crab meat. This made a bucket of salad. For the dressing I used mayo, sriracha, mustard, red wine vinegar, Adobo, salt and pepper. We'll enjoy it on a (bed) of brown rice and a side (table) of chick peas.

Subterranean Homesick Blues

Bob Dylan

Produced by Tom Wilson

Album: Bringing It All Back Home 

 

Johnny's in the basement, mixin' up the medicine 

I'm on the pavement, thinkin' about the government 

The man in the trench coat, badge out, laid off 

Says he's got a bad cough, wants to get it paid off 

Look out kid, it's somethin' you did 

God knows when, but you're doin' it again 

You better duck down the alleyway, looking for a new friend 

The man in the coon-skin cap in a pig pen 

Wants 11 dollar bills – you only got 10

 

Maggie comes fleet foot, face full of black soot 

Talkin' that the heat put plants in the bed, but 

Phone's tapped anyway 

Maggie says the many say 

They must bust in early May 

Orders from the D.A 

Look out kid, don't matter what you did 

Walk on your tip toes, don’t tie no bows 

Better stay away from those that carry around a fire hose 

Keep a clean nose, watch the plainclothes 

You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows 

 

Oh, get sick, get well, hang around a ink well 

Hang bail, hard to tell if anything is gonna sell

Try hard, get barred, get back, ride rail 

Get jailed, jump bail, join the Army if you fail 

Look out kid, you're gonna get hit 

By losers, cheaters, six-time users 

Hanging 'round the theaters 

Girl by the whirlpool's looking for a new fool 

Don't follow leaders, a-watch the parking meters

 

Oh, get born, keep warm 

Short pants, romance 

Learn to dance, get dressed 

Get blessed, try to be a success 

Please her, please him, buy gifts 

Don't steal, don't lift 

20 years of schoolin' and they put you on the day shift 

Look out kid, they keep it all hid 

Better jump down a manhole, light yourself a candle 

Don't wear sandals, try to avoid the scandals 

Don't want to be a bum, you better chew gum 

The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handles

Cabbage Rolls - Mrs Vahchef

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDb0ZPAwLLU

Checking the Weather

Checking the weather forecast is like visiting a fortune teller.

Radical

 The most radical and rewarding thing you can do is be PRESENT.

Albert Einstein

 Although I have a regular work schedule, I take time to go for long walks on the beach so that I can listen to what is going on inside my head. If my work isn't going well, I lie down in the middle of a workday and gaze at the ceiling while I listen and visualize what goes on in my imagination. 

Albert Einstein

Ann Patchett

 Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft. If you want to write, practice writing. Practice it for hours a day, not to come up with a story you can publish but because you long to learn how to write well, because there is something that you alone can say.

ANN PATCHETT

P is for Pterodactyl

P is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever

by Raj Haldar , Chris Carpenter 

Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa: “Nobody looks good with brown lipstick on.”

Nigella

  The way she talks about food is tremendous.

from Nigella Lawson

From the birthday ‘cake of dreams’ to giant cookies for lone-dwellers, five delicious treats, exclusively extracted from Lawson’s new book, Cook, Eat, Repeat

• ‘I didn’t think I’d be a mended person, but I am’: read Hadley Freeman’s interview with Nigella Lawson
  

Nigella Lawson

I am very aware that the joy I celebrate in food is a privilege. I know I might seem soupy when I say that I see every mealtime, every mouthful, as a celebration of life, but (with lamentable exceptions) I do, or I try to. It’s such a waste otherwise.

The sad refrain from women ever since I can remember has been, “I shouldn’t be eating this, but … ”; and when I had a daughter, I vowed those words would never come from my lips. But even the words we don’t say out loud can run riot in our heads. It perhaps sounds improbable to be able to train yourself out of the cycle of reproachful self-indulgence and self-recrimination, but I’m living proof it can be done. I was brought up by a mother – the cook I have learned most from – whose exuberant output in the kitchen was set in painfully sharp relief, and indeed fostered, by an ever-expanding pattern of self-denial and self-punishment; not an uncommon syndrome. Diagnosed with terminal cancer two weeks before her death, she started eating – for the first time, she said giddily – without worry or guilt. How unbearably sad to allow yourself unmitigated pleasure in food only when you receive a terminal diagnosis.

And so I protect fiercely the deep enjoyment I get from food. This doesn’t mean I just carry on eating as much as I can and for as long as I can. When I eat chocolate, I linger over each square, deciding which I will let melt slowly in my mouth, which I’ll chomp on rapaciously, feeling how different the sensations are. At no time do I feel guilty, and at no time does it become mindless. For I am not talking about that egregious misnomer, comfort eating. For me that conjures up an unhappy search for mind-numbing obliteration: food as narcotic, not food as a celebration of life.

Of course, there’s a lot of snobbery bound up in the term, too. You name something your guilty pleasure if you feel that were you not to jump in with the word “guilty”, others might suspect you of seriously thinking a processed-cheese triangle is the choice food of the connoisseur. But it is truly impossible to enjoy the taste of something ironically; it is just a shame-induced distancing stance.

I have little time for purists who disdain the lowly tastes of others. Nor do I wish to ally myself with the defensive mockery of inverted snobs, who feel that those who love any sort of food they themselves find fancy are simply pretentious frauds. Eating is such an elemental pleasure: what a strangely puny act to want to police it. But perhaps it is because it is so personal that we genuinely cannot conceive of feeling differently, and so distrust those who do. I admit that I have had to train myself out of forcing forkfuls of food – “Just try it!” – into the mouths of those I’m eating with, even after numerous polite refusals; and I am somewhat abashed to say that I don’t mean my children here.

I can’t help but feel, you see, that to share a pleasure is to increase it. I relish eating alone and cooking for myself. But once I’m around others, I am greedy for them to find the happiness in food that I do.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/oct/10/peanut-butter-chocolate-cake-and-vegan-gingerbread-five-new-sweet-recipes-from-nigella-lawson

Swimming with a Pool Boy!

 My husband calls it the pool boy but it's actually a pull buoy. And I love swimming my second or third set with it between my legs. Today I swam 80 laps 2+ miles in 95 minutes with a short break to chat with Andrea about the lifeguard glued to his phone.

Points to the Moon

 “Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.”
― Anthony de Mello 

“The greatest learning of the ages lies in accepting life exactly as it comes to us.”
― Anthony de Mello, The Prayer Of The Frog, Vol. 1  

“The Master made it his task to destroy systematically every
doctrine, every belief, every concept of the divine, for these
things, which were originally intended as pointers, were now
being taken as descriptions.

He loved to quote the Eastern saying "When the sage points
to the moon, all that the idiot sees is the finger.”
― Anthony de Mello

“As one man said, "I got a pretty good education. It took me years to get over it." That's what spirituality is all about, you know: unlearning. Unlearning all the rubbish they taught you.”
― Anthony de Mello, Awareness: A de Mello Spirituality Conference in His Own Words

Shortest Distance

 “You have to understand, my dears, that the shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story.”
― Anthony De Mello

No Fear

 “I have no fear of losing you, for you aren’t an object of my property, or anyone else’s. I love you as you are, without attachment, without fears, without conditions, without egoism, trying not to absorb you. I love you freely because I love your freedom, as well as mine”
― Anthony de Mello

You Change First

  “Don't ask the world to change....you change first.”
― Anthony de Mello, Awareness: A de Mello Spirituality Conference in His Own Words

Practice This

 “Any time you are with anyone or think of anyone you must say to yourself: I am dying and this person too is dying, attempting the while to experience the truth of the words you are saying. If every one of you agrees to practice this, bitterness will die out, harmony will arise.”
― Anthony de Mello

Bread + Lentils

 “The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, 'If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.'

Said [author:Diogenes|3213618, 'Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king".”
― Anthony de Mello

Anthony de Mello

 “These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness, and worship without awareness.”
― Anthony de Mello

Dozen Eggs Salad

 So good!

• Hard boiled eggs
• Mayo
• Adobo
  
• Mustard
• Salt
• Pepper
• Dill pickles
• Sriracha sauce
• Green olives
  

Michael Phelps

 Michael Phelps said SLEEP is the secret to his success!

“At a very young age I learned how important sleep was,” says Phelps, who spoke to CNBC about his training habits.

"I really can’t say it enough. I don’t think people really pay enough attention to how important sleep is."

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/14/olympic-hero-michael-phelps-says-this-is-the-secret-to-his-success.html

Craving Peanut Butter

 The more I swim the more I crave peanut butter!

Today

 Today I swam 80  in 90 minutes with a chat water break at the very last 6. I knew I could reach 100. That's what a good night of sleep and regular training can do. You can see progress.

Thich Nhat Hanh

 Happiness means feeling you are on the right path every moment. You don't need to arrive at the end of the path in order to be happy. 

—Thich Nhat Hanh

The Universe Responds Sometimes

 The universe responds sometimes. I was thinking I needed a pair of steps to help Romeo pup reach the bed. And ten seconds into my afternoon walk there they were, wooden steps, in front of my neighbor's house, in the trash pile. I carried them home.

Save the Bay

 http://swim.savebay.org/

I pretend I am swimming the bay each day.

A Swimmer's Breakfast

 It's tricky because if you eat more than a handful of anything you feel it on the flip-turns. I usually have black coffee and a banana and half of homemade whole wheat waffle. Today I had hot Irish oats and perhaps it was a bit more than a serving and I felt it on the flip-turns. The real eating happens after the swim.

80 Laps in 80 Degree Water

 I wish the water was 75 degrees but it was beautiful to swim and watch the sun come up.

Dream

 I dreamed I was walking home with a friend. She started walking without me.  I took a wrong door to get out of the building and ended up in another room. I was inside of a bicycle shop full of antique bicycles and photographs and stuff everywhere even on the ceiling. Someone will think I broke in but I am trying to get out, I thought.

I dreamed I was in the backyard of my childhood psychologist and all of the trees were plastic and even the fall leaves were plastic. "Look," I said, "all fake!"

Blackout 2020 at PriceRite

We were shopping at Price Rite and the lights went out and stayed out. People used their cellphones as flashlights. We had to leave everything and come home.

Brushing the Dog's Teeth

 I am a huge fan of dog breath but up to a point. So I finally did it. I bought a tube of doggie toothpaste. I'm not ready to subject Romeo to this humiliation today but perhaps over the weekend.

Classical music as weapon.

  My mother used to blast classical radio as a way to drown me out in the car. Classical music as weapon.

Rice and Beans

 I pressure cooked a bowl of brown basmati rice in the Instant Pot on the steamer tray. The soaked chick peas were cooked at the same time in the remaining space below. I walked Romeo downtown during the cooking hour. The rice+ chick peas were delicious and I ate them with my imitation crabmeat salad.

80 Laps: The Turning 60 Challenge

 Swimming at dawn in the dark. Gradually the sky brightened. Maybe I could spend a winter in Iceland after all.

 On my walk home I spotted a cluster of undercover police in the garage of the PD. They were celebrating a victory and it was only 8:30 AM.

Yesterday I found three huge woven straw baskets on my walk. I carted them home and they are temporarily living on the porch with the basil plants.

All I want to do is buy more imitation crab meat and make another salad.

This weekend is normally a 2 parade weekend. We'll chill out and read and walk Romeo and maybe jump in the lake.

Chris Colin

 I suppose this is why we worry in the first place — we know so little. The world unspools a little each day, and we strain to see over the horizon, but it never works. We’re just left to wonder.

-Chris Colin

---

Chris Colin is the editor of “Six Feet of Separation,” and co-author of “What to Talk About.” His picture book, “Off: The Day the Internet Died,” comes out in March.

James Allen

The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. -James Allen

Winter Swimming

 https://www.lemorecn.com/collections/women

I'm considering a wet-suit for swimming in the Mill River over the winter.

80 Laps

 I'm on a roll to fight my allergies and keep swimming.

Corn Tortillas Made from Scratch

 https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_make_corn_tortillas/

Michelle Goldberg

 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/opinion/trump-coronavirus-white-house.html

Alan Watts

 "You can't live at all unless you can live fully now." 

— Alan Watts

Gish Jen

 “We consume to avoid living.”

― Gish Jen

Gish Jen

 https://lithub.com/gish-jen-on-the-profound-differences-between-chinese-and-american-culture/

Diane Cook

 Write what you want to write, not what you think you should. And if you’re worried that a story has been written before, don’t let that stop you because it has never been written by you. 

Diane Cook

Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

 Recipe courtesy of Catherine McCord  

Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

• Level: Easy

• Total: 2 hr (includes cooling time)
• Active: 15 min

• Yield: 30 cookies

Ingredients

3 ripe bananas

2 cups old-fashioned oats

1 heaping cup pitted dates, finely chopped

1/4 cup neutral oil, such as canola or vegetable oil

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup chocolate chips, raisins or chopped walnuts

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
2. Place the bananas in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat until the bananas are mashed. Stop the machine and add in the oats, chopped dates, oil, cinnamon, chocolate chips and salt. Mix on low to medium speed until the bananas are in very small pieces, the batter is moist and the ingredients are well combined, about 30 seconds.
3. Using a mini ice cream scoop or tablespoon, scoop the batter into thirty 1-inch balls, spacing them evenly over the prepared baking sheets. Gently pat each ball to flatten into a round.
4. Bake until the cookies just start to turn golden brown and dried on top, about 25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
5. Serve or freeze in a resealable plastic bag for up to 3 months.

Cook’s Note

To make bars instead of cookies, bake the batter in a greased 7-by-11-inch baking dish for 35 to 40 minutes then let cool. Cut into bars or squares.

Marsha's Daughter

 When Sarah Barbosa moved from Massachusetts to Texas a couple of years ago, she planned on retiring from wildlife rehabbing to concentrate on her growing family. 
 
But recently, Barbosa saw a post online. A construction worker had knocked a bird's nest with eggs inside off a man’s roof. The homeowner felt horrible and was trying to get help.

Article

Dog Laws

 Dog & Animal Laws

Woonsocket Animal Shelter: (401) 766-6571
Emergency (Police):
(401) 766-1212
RI DEM (Wildlife):
(401) 222-3070

Address:

Woonsocket Animal Control Shelter

9 Cumberland Hill Road

*Behind the Fire station*

Woonsocket, RI 02895

United States

See map: Google Maps

Dogs Running Loose
Leash your dog to go outside.

• 1st Offense: $50 Ticket
• 2nd Offense: $100 Ticket
• 3rd Offense: $150 Ticket

Dog Barking Law
Don't tie your dog outside between 10 pm & 7 am.
If your dog is barking for more than 15 minutes straight during the day, that is considered "Disturbing the Peace".

• 1st Offense: Warning
• 2nd Offense: Court: Judge can assess a fine between $100 - $200

Dog Population Law
Single family home: 3 dogs
Apartment: 1 dog

• 1st Offense: $50 Ticket
• 2nd Offense: $100 Ticket
• 3rd Offense: $150 Ticket

These fines are for each day that you have the extra dog. It also costs $45 to turn in a dog or a cat to the shelter. If you are caught trying to abandon the dog, there is a $250 fine.

Pooper Scooper Law
Pick up your dog's poop.

• 1st Offense: $25 Ticket
• 2nd Offense: $50 Ticket
• 3rd Offense: $100 Ticket

Dog Bite Law
A dog cannot bite any person, even the owner.
Dog bites can cause people to get sick.

• 1st Offense: Court

Dog License
Licenses are available at City Hall for $5.

• Every dog must licensed by six months old.
• A new license must be obtained every year by April.

Farm Animal Law
No farm animals are allowed in the city (rabbits, cows, goats, pigs, roosters, sheep, etc.) because they can pass diseases to people.

• 1st Offense: $50 Ticket
• 2nd Offense: $100 Ticket
• 3rd Offense: $150 Ticket

This information was compiled by the students in Woonsocket Middle School Rooms 214B & 112, with assistance from the Woonsocket Animal Shelter.

Pandemic Pudge

Article

Swimming in Soup

The pool was warm today! I was a slug in the water SLOWSLOWSLOW maybe because I had black tea before bed. Sometimes I can't resist. I was able to swim my 2+ miles, 80 laps.

Here's something gross. The three early bird retired guys who like to exercise in the pool get all sweaty because they are standing in the shallow end, half out of the water.  I gag when I am swimming next to them (like today) because it was the only lane. The scent of  stinky sweat travels up my nose. I try to block it and breathe on the other side. This used to happen at the old pool with one lady who never got  her head wet. I am prone to gagging especially in the early morning.

That's the news. 

 I am making banana waffles from the overripe bananas and whole wheat flour, cornmeal sourdough starter and buttermilk.

Seafood Salad

 We purchased a 2.5 pound block of frozen imitation crab meat from Price Rite last week and defrosted it today. I added a whole bunch of chopped celery, two red onions chopped, mayo, wine vinegar, salt and pepper. It is delicious.

Successful Tenements

 The tenement complex next door that has managers as residents does very well. Whereas the complexes that do not have anyone overseeing the property have problems with drugs and other distressing activities.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

 “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Tiogue Lake

 Here

Introverted

 An Advocate (INFJ) is someone with the Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Judging personality traits. They tend to approach life with deep thoughtfulness and imagination. Their inner vision, personal values, and a quiet, principled version of humanism guide them in all things.

Mooncakes

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/01/919228835/the-meaning-behind-mooncakes

Fall Mania Guide

 Article

Bibliotherapy

 Article

Dream

 On Saturday night I dreamed that I was in New Hampshire woods with two people seated at a table holding shotguns. I have a fear of NH woods. It's all guns and trees!

Sunday Morning

 Sunday morning screaming neighbors.

 We are past the fan season so perhaps I can drown them out with some music. But I prefer silence and my snoring dog.

This is the young mother next door in the house 4 feet away who only shouts and screams at her 2 toddlers day and night. 

There is a father but he is a quiet man. He takes off on his motorcycle.

75+5=80

 I swam 80 laps in an 80 degree pool this morning.

Amy Covid Barrett

 Superspreader Event in the Rose Garden

What Is the Large Intestine?

 Your large intestine is about five feet (or 1.5 meters) long. The large intestine is much broader than the small intestine and takes a much straighter path through your belly, or abdomen. The purpose of the large intestine is to absorb water and salts from the material that has not been digested as food, and get rid of any waste products left over. By the time food mixed with digestive juices reaches your large intestine, most digestion and absorption has already taken place.

source

Kimberly King Parsons

 After the birth of my second child, I was exhausted and feeling like I might never write again. I was complaining about this to the brilliant writer and teacher Victoria Redel when she calmly but firmly told me, “Get back to work. Or don’t.” Something about the clear binary of that decision moved me to action. Those are the two choices—pick one! Over and over and over again I choose to write.

Interview

Mood Meditation + Exercise

Exercise+Mood

Meditation+Mood

Philip Roth

Many of the writers I know have a stand-in. Bellow has Herzog. Mailer had this character named Sergius O'Shaughnessy. Céline had Céline. Gombrowicz had Gombrowicz. They didn’t have stand-ins but they were stand-ins indeed labeled with their own name. A stand-in both frees you to draw on your own experience and to invent off of your own experience. It’s a mask. And in masks there is freedom.

PHILIP ROTH