No pictures yet, though, Gentle Reader. We’re working on it but Technical Stuff appears to be in the same spot behind the barn door as everything else right now.
Not that it hasn’t been exciting. A dozen fire trucks raced over our dirt road a few days ago after we heard a loud explosion. The Partner saw smoke, and all of it was less than a mile away from us. Seeing as how we were already surrounded by fires it was, as I told a friend, just the tiniest bit unnerving. However, the fire people around here are probably stuffing their wings into their fire suits, is all I can say. Once again they saved us. Once again I felt exactly what it’s like to have overwhelming fear just materialize like a giant fug in your face, and also exactly what it’s like to say, not right now, fear. I’m still rattling around a bit but ….oh well.
Shortly after that I found a frog atop my anti-depressant meds, and I thought, oh, my. Even the frogs need help around here. Or perhaps the frog was just saying, I’m coming with you. FROGS PANIC TOO.
Meanwhile, though, the gardenia has bloomed and we’re already casting around for the hundredth zucchini recipe, which is all wonderful. Beans are flowering and there’s a chili on the way. The rhubarb plant appears to be on its last legs, but you can’t win them all- it’s been over 105 here every day and probably that is just more than a rhubarb can take. The garden continues to be what keeps us all more or less sane, I think. The Dog loves to eat mint and rose petals, the Partner manages and creates magnificence, and I find myself roaming around in it when my mind is so unsettled I can’t sit still.
Which, let’s face it, has been the norm of late. I had to make a very difficult personal decision which, while the correct course of action, broke another piece of my heart. Reality bites, in short. But, I made ice cream (successfully caramelizing sweetened condensed milk in the microwave, miracle of miracles for me anyway) and salsa and marinades and zucchini 800 ways (new favorite: slice zucchini, place in oiled frying pan and let caramelize, about four minutes a side. You put inch long pieces of scallion and a bit of salt on top. When it’s all brown and great, remove from pan, remove oil, and place a tablespoon of red wine vinegar in the still hot pan. Put squash back in, make sure it is mixed completely with vinegar, and toss with shredded fresh mint. Let come to room temperature. Eat. Heaven.).
It’s not enough to keep the World at bay though and once again I am really, really wondering what to do since periodically it seems to me that all the meditating and right mindedness attempts are not even close to enough. I don’t know how it is other places in this country but here? It couldn’t be more unfamiliar if one landed on a distant rock in space. People are behaving beyond badly, and of course are given the example and go ahead by an individual who pretends to be President. And we all know all the rest of it, of course, and how ANYONE can sleep knowing what is going on at the border (however much the doers of this resort to the Bible), how much money the for profit prisons are making both on incarcerating terrified refugees and the other huge percentage of American citizens they house, and how many people are about two weeks away from being out on the street, how the very air we breathe is being poisoned…. it is like a continuing gash in one’s entire being. This is not OK, not any of it and I am at a loss to understand just why it continues. This country is now being “run” by a crew of individuals who would probably be better placed in Pelican Bay. And, yes. It’s change, the cosmos is moving and shaking, shi/f/t happens, what you detest in someone is present in you also. Still, one really must not collaborate with what is poison, thinking it will be OK. Even the Buddha said that.
The comparisons people make to the 60’s and 70’s make me wacky too. It is not the same and pretending it is seems to me to be the worst sort of magical thinking . People had some heart in those days overall and were prepared to take a stand when things were clearly wrong even if those things didn’t seem to immediately affect them personally. And there were consequences for those stands. But things did change: civil rights, environmental rights, women’s rights. Abortion, for example. If you’re opposed to abortion then one must assume you’re opposed to the death penalty and war as well? Roe v Wade showed that it was reasonably clear that a woman should not have to die either figuratively or literally (which DID happen) because she becomes pregnant unintentionally or unwillingly. No other person really should be able to say what remedy is available and what isn’t based on their supposed reverence for life, or assume that all women are fluff brains who don’t know what they’re doing- along with all those miscreants in the hood who clearly need to be put in custody. And why do we even have to call being treated with a sense of dignified equity a RIGHT? How has it become a right not to be shot by over militarized police because you don’t straighten your legs out on the curb? Or a right not to have your boss overcome you physically? And while we’re on it? What the hell is sexual assault? I looked up the words rape and assault in the dictionary and roared. Assault is taking something (note: THING) by force. Rape is “illicit carnal knowledge of a woman without her consent.” ILLICIT CARNAL KNOWLEDGE? Consent? Consent is not saying yes so you won’t be killed. And, rape is not about sex aka carnal knowledge, which is a first step in dealing with it in a cultural context. It is about power, control, and pain. Just like capitalism turns out to be for the most part unless you’re part of the tip of the pyramid.
Oh, dear Gentle Reader. I do hope the zucchini recipe balances the excess verbiage. And after all. Mexico lost out in the World Cup, but the recent elections look most promising- even if you have, up to now, had to listen to Telemundo to find out they even happened. Meanwhile, we pin our hopes on Uruguay, maintaining some level of balance and common sense, and send you blessings and thanks as always!
Boozilla: learning to fly one room at a time 