High Drama

I was baking two trays of granola. Our oven is a vintage 1960 Thermador in the wall oven and I love it and use it all the time. But last night I broiled marinated chicken and had the tray up high and had left the knob selected to broil. I had left the oven rack up high but what I didn't realize is the big knob had been left selected to broil so when I turned the oven knob off just now it went to broil and the granola was on the top shelf and began to burn. I smelled something. Luckily we were both right here, but we momentarily froze when we opened the oven and saw flames shoot up in a gigantic mustache curl of a wave lapping at the wooden cupboards above it.

We both panicked. Bill didn't have the words but was making a gesture. WHAT WHAT? I was thinking water to spray? To throw? He kept pinching his hands like a lobster claw. Oh, potholders! He was blank on the word and the location! I grabbed two gigantic silicone potholders and said GO OUT!! I ran ahead and opened the two back doors. IT'S HOT, he said not thinking he'd make it to the back door. GO OUT, I said. He took the smoking pan outside and put it on the cement. There it was BLACK GRANOLA charred and smoking in the rain.

We turned off the fire alarms turned on all the fans full blast, opened doors and windows. I ran upstairs and opened more doors and windows to air out the smoke.

Then we heard a fire engine and it stopped in front of our house. I ran downstairs and went out onto the street. Ambulance and fire truck were there but nobody was anywhere in sight. Perhaps they are looking for the fire. That's when I phoned the fire dept and said there's a fire truck in front of my house and I wonder if they are searching for a problem I may have caused burning my food just now.

What house are you? 139 Rathbun. Oh it's next door, for medical reasons. Oh okay, thank you. Been there done that, she chuckled. Thank you for laughing, I feel like Lucille Ball!

We are airing out the house and the cast iron pan of granola is still in the backyard. Today we will buy a fire extinguisher down the road at the Ace hardware store in Bellingham.

Incubating

I saved my cooked chick peas water and used it as the liquid for my multigrain sourdough.

I saved my boiled egg water to cook chick peas in the instant pot.

I bought 10 grade B Madagascar vanilla beans to split and incubate in a quart of cheap vodka.

I saved the gallon jar of pickle juice to pickle the hard-boiled eggs.

Oil and vinegar preserved my German potato salad.

And sourdough preserves the bread.

Dogen

Handle even a single leaf of green in such a way that it manifests the body of the Buddha. This in turn allows the Buddha to manifest through the leaf.

DOGEN

Katherine Mansfield

Wind moving through grass so that the grass quivers. This moves me with an emotion I don't even understand.

KATHERINE MANSFIELD

Amoral and Persistent

Nature is what she is-amoral and persistent.
STEPHEN JAY GOULD

CHOGYAM TRUNGPA

Hope and fear cannot alter the seasons.
CHOGYAM TRUNGPA

Բոլորն էլ ինչ-որ բան ունեն Bolorn el inch’-vor ban unen

 Everybody's got something!

  Բոլորն էլ ինչ-որ բան ունեն  Bolorn el inch’-vor ban unen

Alan Keightley

Once in a while it really hits people that they don't have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.
ALAN KEIGHTLEY

William Blake (1757–1827)

Peter J. Buckley, M.D.

Published Online:1 May 2005https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.162.5.866

William Blake was both a great poet and a great painter. Blake invented a method of relief engraving that was able to combine his poetry and paintings so that they formed a unified work. In the West, only Michelangelo had previously demonstrated such singular talent in both painting and poetry, but unlike Blake he did not combine them. Blake was one of the progenitors of the revolutionary Romantic movement, and his verse was admired by Coleridge and Wordsworth.

Stanzas by Blake such as the following have become an imperishable part of the Western canon:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour

— from “Auguries of Innocence”

Long before Heinz Kohut and self psychology, Blake captured the essential tragedy of narcissistic pathology:

Love seeketh only Self to please,

To bind another to its delight,

Joys in another’s loss of ease,

And builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite

— from “The Clod and the Pebble”

Blake’s father owned a hosiery and haberdashery shop in London. As was common for tradesmen, the family lived above the shop. Blake was the third child of six. He was raised in the Protestant Dissenting tradition, one that emphasized private devotion and individual conscience separate from the authority of priest and church. In the lexicon of the 18th century, the term for extreme dissent was “enthusiasm” (possessed by God). Later in life, Blake, who was deeply religious, referred to himself as an “enthusiastic hope-fostered visionary.” He demonstrated artistic and literary talent from an early age, and his enlightened parents enrolled him in a drawing school at the age of 10. He was educated as a commercial engraver and was later admitted as a student to the prestigious Royal Academy. In 1782, Blake married a woman from a working-class family. This was a childless but mutually devoted marriage that lasted 45 years. Blake’s artistic career underwent many financial vicissitudes, and though he had a number of aristocratic patrons who recognized his originality, his true genius was not fully appreciated until after his death. He may have died from liver failure secondary to biliary cirrhosis induced by chronic copper ingestion during his etching copper plates for his engravings.

From his childhood onward Blake saw visions. His biographer, Bentley, recounts, “Once his mother beat him for running in and saying that he saw the prophet Ezekial under a Tree in the Field” (1, p. 19) and, “Later when he was eight or ten, one day as he was walking—he saw a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars” (p. 19). His wife commented in 1810, “I have very little of Mr. Blake’s company; he is always in Paradise.” Blake’s recurrent hallucinatory visions suffused his poetry and painting, especially his great epics and their accompanying watercolors and engravings.

Alongside his ecstatic visions, Blake was prone to fits of severe depression. In 1800, he recounted a descent into “a Deep pit of Melancholy, Melancholy without any real reason for it.” These episodes were often followed by periods of “illumination” and intense creativity. This is highly suggestive of bipolar illness, albeit a mild form that did not disrupt his enormous creative achievement and may have been central to his transcendent artistic vision.

William Blake

“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors.” 

William Blake

Joan Didion

Grammar is a piano I play by ear, since I seem to have been out of school the year the rules were mentioned. All I know of grammar is its infinite power. To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object being photographed. Many people know about camera angles now, but not so many know about sentences. The arrangement of words matters, and the arrangement you want can be found in the picture in you mind. The picture dictates the arrangement. The picture dictates whether this will be a sentence with or without clauses, a sentence that ends hard or a dying-fall sentence, long or short, active or passive. The picture tells you how to arrange words and the arrangement of the words tells you, or tells me, what’s going on in the picture. Nota bene.*
It tells you.
You don’t tell it.

JOAN DIDION

Community Love

I have another story about a favorite student. About 10 years ago I ran into her and it was August and we started chatting. It got dark. We stood under the streetlight and kept talking. Then she told me she had been brutally sexually assaulted walking to her car after work. She said her mother and sisters didn't know how to help her. This family did not have a telephone or a car but lived 3 blocks from me. I would leave written messages for her with her mother and older sister.

The next day I remembered Lynne-Marie, another dog loving neighbor 4 blocks away who I know from walking our dogs together for years. She among other things, trains the volunteers for the RAPE CRISIS hotline in one of the tiny towns in Massachusetts. I emailed her and asked her if she would speak to my former student. She said Absolutely.

Then I asked my former student if she would like to meet Lynn Marie who lived between us, in fact 4 blocks from both of us, in the neighborhood cemetery to chat and if she wanted me to be there. Yes please! She said. We made a plan to meet at 2PM in 2 days and the hour came and it was lightly raining and we sat together in the Irish mist and Lynn spoke to her, validated her, healed her. Within the hour my students face and spirit was one of great relief and joy. I walked her home and she was elated and I was blown away. I still get goosebumps writing this story. This is what I love about Woonsocket. It's a real community. My former student is thriving and living her best life.

Opinion Ezra Klein The Rest of the World Is Worried About America July 1, 2021

 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/opinion/us-democracy-erosion.html

9 Core Jewish Values

Trustworthiness- EMUNAH  Be honest • Don’t deceive, cheat or steal • Be reliable — do what you say you’ll do • Have the courage to do the right thing • Build a good reputation • Be loyal — stand by your family, friends and countryDo not bear false witness against your neighbor. (Exodus/Shemot 20:17)

Respect-KAVOD  Treat others with respect; follow the Golden Rule • Be tolerant of differences • Use good manners, not bad language • Be considerate of the feelings of others • Don’t threaten, hit or hurt anyone • Deal peacefully with anger, insults and disagreements Honor your father and mother that you may long endure on the land that Adonai your God has assigned to you. (Exodus/Shemot 20:12) 

Responsibility- ACHRAYUT  Do what you are supposed to do • Persevere: keep on trying! • Always do your best • Use self-control • Be self-disciplined • Think before you act — consider the consequences • Be accountable for your choices If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when? (Hillel, Pirkei Avot)

Fairness- TZEDEK  Play by the rules • Take turns and share • Be open-minded; listen to others • Don’t take advantage of others • Don’t blame others carelessly Justice, justice you shall pursue. (Deuteronomy/Devorim 16:20) 

Caring- CHESED  Be kind • Be compassionate and show you care • Express gratitude • Forgive others • Help people in need Love your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus/Vayikra 19:18) 

Community- KEHILLAH  Show Respect • Do your share to make your community better • Cooperate • Get involved in community affairs • Stay informed; vote • Be a good neighbor • Obey laws and rules • Respect authority • Protect the environment Do not separate yourself from the community. (Mishna, Sanhedrin 2:5) 

Kindness/Warmth/Positivity- SEVER PANIM YAFOT  Smile, and the world smiles back at you! • It is the demeanor of how you should do something • Put on a smiley face when you do things• Optimism • Don’t give up • Believing in yourself and your abilities • Thinking of others • We respect all Jews and all peoples and greet every human being with sever panim yafot - a warm, cheerful and pleasant countenance. (Pirkei Avot 1:15) 

Role Modeling-DUGMA EESHEET  Be consistent in your teachings • Set a good example • Model positive choice-making • Apologize and admit mistakes • Stay true to your word, don’t be hypocritical • Never ask someone to do something you wouldn’t do yourself 

Keepers of the Earth-SHOMREI ADAMAH  In the Torah, God instructs us that the earth is God’s - not ours, and that we are to tend it. • Keeping in mind the future, we must be excellent stewards of the Earth• Build a connection between the land and our everyday lives • Garner an appreciation of the Earth’s resources, to prevent us from taking those resources for granted.

Cooling Off

When the pool is hot I imagine I am cross country skiing in the snow as I swim. During a heat wave I wear a wet dress, not dripping wet but pulled from the spin cycle damp and I sit in front of the fan, sip a cold drink and spray my head with a plant mister.

Pictures of Snow

 When the pool is hot I imagine I am cross country skiing in the snow as I swim. During a heat wave I wear a wet dress, not dripping wet but pulled from the spin cycle damp and I sit in front of the fan, sip a cold drink and spray my head with a plant mister.

Eight low-tech ways to keep cool in a heatwave

By Jon Kelly
BBC News Magazine

Published

12 July 2013

Soaring temperatures in the UK have been welcome for some. But how can people keep comfortable when the mercury rises?

There are a number of simple solutions which might not always be obvious.

Wear wet clothes

"The most obvious suggestion to me is that you dampen your clothes," says Cambridge University physicist Lisa Jardine-Wright.

In order for the water to evaporate - changing its state from a liquid to a gas - there needs an input of heat energy, she explains. This energy will come from the heat of your body which produces a cooling effect to your skin, lowering your temperature.

If you use a fan as well, the air blowing over your skin speeds up the process of evaporation, helping you to feel even cooler.

"When I was cycling in France it was more than 40C and I soaked my T-shirt in water before I went out. But that's a bit extreme," Jardine-Wright adds. "Anything that involves evaporation is going to take the heat away from you."

Stick your hands in cold water

Plunging your hands into a bucket or a basin full of cold water will help you cool down, says Mike Tipton, professor of human physiology at the University of Portsmouth.

When your deep body temperature rises, blood is sent to the surface of the skin.

"Your hands have a high surface area - it's like you have five radiators sticking out of your palm," says Tipton.

"As soon as the deep body temperature returns to normal, it slows the blood flow to your hands and you'll feel cool."

Fans next to windows

A fan placed in the middle of a closed room will circulate the air, which helps speed up the evaporation of your sweat.

But it will be much more effective if the device is placed next to an open window, says Jardine-Wright, as this will draw air from outdoors, which should be colder.

"You're taking the cooler air from the outside and propelling it inside," she says. "If there are no windows or doors open you're just circulating the hot air."

Eat a curry

Tucking into a hot vindaloo or madras may seem a counter-intuitive way to lower your temperature.

But eating spicy food helps cool you down, says Tipton. Curry contains capsaicin, a heat compound in chilli peppers that stimulates sweat production.

"Anything you can do to make sure you are sweating means you will enhance evaporative heat loss," Tipton adds. "As the water evaporates you will feel cooler."

Bedouin robes

It's widely assumed that wearing lighter-coloured clothing is the best way to stay cool.

This isn't necessarily the case, however. A 1980 study of Bedouin tribes found the colour of their garment made little difference to their body temperature.

"White clothing will reflect more light, but black clothes are better radiators of heat," says Jardine-Wright.

However, she says there is a option that has very clear benefit - wearing looser clothes, like the robes favoured by the Bedouin.

"If you have air circulating next to your skin, it will help to evaporate the perspiration, and this will make you feel cooler."

Lukewarm showers

Standing under a freezing shower might sound like the quickest way to bring your temperature down.

But your body will react to a dramatic change like this by trying to preserve heat.

"If I'm hot and I go under a cold shower, I'll shut down the blood flow to the skin and trap the heat inside me rather than let it escape," says Tipton.

As a result, he says, it's better to use water that is in the 20s Celsius than water that is in the 10s.

"It's better to have a warmer shower that is cool enough to lower the deep body temperature but is warm enough to allow the blood to the surface of the skin."

Sash windows

People with sash windows don't always remember this, but opening both the top and bottom windows by equal amounts is a very efficient way of cooling down a room.

This lets rising warm air out of the top while drawing cooler air through the bottom.

The same principle applies in two-storey homes, says Jardine-Wright.

"It's good if you can get the circulation going throughout the house," she adds. "If you open both the upstairs and downstairs windows, you will improve the circulation through the house as the hot air rises and cold air enters through the ground floor windows."

Fan your face

If you use a fan, make sure you direct the flow of air to your face, says Tipton.

"It's more effective because the face has so many receptors on it," he says. "Even though you're not cooling down your whole body, fanning your face has a disproportionate effect on your comfort."

However, he warns, it's important not to make a common mistake - using a manual fan too vigorously, and warming yourself up by doing so.

The Vampires

They sleep all day and scream and fight all night starting at 1:30 AM. No this is not Halloween this is the couple next door and every single family that has lived there becomes a vampire. The haunted house of horrors has always been owned by slum landlords. Vampires love slum landlords because they can fight and scream and beat each other up and abandon their children and nobody knows for a long time because let's face it, most people sleep at night.

The 24 Hour Clock

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24-hour_clock

Lord Chesterfield

"Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him."

—  Lord Chesterfield