Celebrations, Collaborations, & Creations

Walking from the bar to the table carrying two beers, I’m happy with myself for finally being able to have an adult beverage in a place where I’ve mostly had meals with kids. As I approach the table the realization is that the table is full with really smart women, and I’m excited. It occurred to me later that I miss brainy women who drink brews and chat. Since the arrival of children, five years abroad in Japan with not so great Japanese, and a move away from all known friends, time for relaxed adult conversation (I can understand) has been hard to come by.

Have you ever considered that Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is an interpretation of creating and childrearing? I’ve got to hang out with more English professors!

Later, walking to the elementary school ice cream social, I asked my neighbor for ideas for communicating with other parents to get the word out that the PTO (Parent Teacher Organization) needs to raise funds for portable computers. The teachers want more computers than the PTO can buy along with some playground equipment this summer. The neighbor, also a professor at a nearby university, had a great suggestion. I had to laugh at myself for the answer which amounted to, “Let’s ask!” By the end of the ice cream social fifteen names were on paper committed to buying fifteen of the wanted twenty-five computers. Old fashioned face to face time when I was expecting tweet, facetime, or something!

This town is percolating with ideas and action everywhere I go.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on a few bead projects. I also helped a friend set up her website as part of my, "Your customers need to know what you are up too!" discussion. It surprised me that she was happy to have someone just do it. It will change and morph over time as she finds her way, vision, and time to express her business on the web, but in the meantime, it felt great to be part of putting her out there. Take a look and feel free to make, politely phrased, suggestions please!

If you are lucky enough to arrive at the Athens Farmers Market at ten on a Saturday morning before she sells out, you can eat one of her tasty tartlets. Feel free to like her Facebook page and check out her blog which I also tinkered with for her. I did not make it to the market in time this morning for her yummy creations, but you can look at some of mine.

The 5 Color Meal

I love the ease of the five color approach to a Japanese meal. There are no food pyramids or percentages. Get the colors in any which way, but get the color, and you get an easy approach to a healthy meal. The five colors? White, black, red, green, and yellow/orange. Here are some ideas to get you started. Let me know how it works!

White
Rice or other Grains, Bean Sprouts,Tofu, Daikon, Boiled Eggs, Bread,Potato, Onion, Garlic, Yogurt, Mayo, dressing, etc.

Black
Nori Seaweed Accents, Black Sesame, Poppy Seeds, Peanut Butter, Almonds, or other Nuts, Meat, Fried Tofu, Lentils, Black Beans, Pinto Beans, Bean Burgers, etc., Hijiki Seaweed.

Red
Red Apple Slices, Tomato Slices or Cherry Tomato, Strawberry, Radish, Red Beans, Gojiberries, Cranberries, Umeboshi pickled plum, Yukari (Red Perilla) Rice Seasoning.

Green
Quick Pickles, Asparagus Spears, Kale, Green beans, Peas, Pesto, Celery, Green Peppers, Green Apple, Salad lettuce, Parsley, Zuccinni, Sugar Snap Peas, Broccoli, & Edamame Soy Beans.

Yellow or Orange
Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, Orange Slices, Corn, Cheese, Lemon Wedge,Banana, Orange or Yellow Peppers, Polenta or Cornmeal, Pumpkin or Squash, & Eggs-- Omelette, Fritata, etc.

5 colors to healthy diet-- white, black, red, green, & yellow/orange

Taco Rice Salad

I admit it. I lived in Japan too long-- I want rice in my taco salad! My friend Kendo Mama, introduced me to it, and it's a keeper.

Taco Rice Salad

It's not on any local restaurant menus, although, Casa did accommodate my request with their vegetarian chili taco salad. However, the original is served without beans and tofu. The difference in taste has meant that I kept thinking about it.

The taco seasoning was the rate limiting step; I couldn't bring myself to buy a package of processed taco seasoning from El Paso even if it did taste good in my friend's salad. Finally, I did a Google search and found this recipe for homemade taco seasoning. I, ah, made alot.

I wanted to send some to Kendo Mama to try, plus a few Kodomo no ni Children's Day packages have arrived from Japan. I have some thank-yous to send out, and a little homemade taco seasoning is just the thing to spice it up.

The best part about the homemade taco seasoning? Taste is great and there are no preservatives nor any other unnecessary gunk in it. I had to ride my bike twice to the Farmacy to get enough chili powder which just means that this batch is half organic, one of the quirks of living in the hills of Ohio.

This is the recipe for the Taco Rice Salad I ate at my friend's house in Japan. Vegetarians could try the seasoning with tempeh or tofu. I did use salsa instead of tomatoes-- it's not quite tomato season here yet. I had forgotten how pleasant it is to have the warm rice and ground beef with the cool crunchy lettuce.

I served each layer separately so that the kiddos could make dinner their way. It was a win all the way around the table. My husband was absent, but he'll eat my worst mistakes and say, "I'm just happy there's food on the table." I love cooking for him, it's the two kids who wrack my brains. Try this at your table. Use the link to make the seasoning-- I can vouch for the recipe.

Idatakimasu I humbly receive,
Kim

Homemade Taco Seasoning

Ground Beef cooked with taco seasoning and water

Taco Rice Salad

Adapted from Aya Tambata

Ingredients

Hot Cooked Japanese Rice or whatever kind you like

Cooked Ground Beef + Taco seasoning + Water-- cook until water evaporates

Mexican Mix or Monterrey Jack Cheese, grated

Lettuce, shredded

Salsa or Diced Tomato

Avocado, sliced

Corn Chips, crushed

Fresh Cilantro, 1 to 2 springs, for garnish

Hot Sauce, for garnish

What to do

1. Cook the rice. 
2. Saute the ground beef until browned. Add taco seasoning and water. Cook until the water is evaporated, stir often. Set aside.
3. Prep vegetables: lettuce, tomato if using, avocado, and cilantro.
4. Layer lettuce, rice, beef, cheese, avocado slices, corn chips, tomato or salsa, and garnish with a spring of cilantro and hot sauce to taste.

Spring Bling

Shorn blades of grass along the roadsides herald a change of seasons. The hillsides are daily greener with bursts of color from the purple haze of the red bud to the random patch of white dogwood. Flower beds around the house are popping with tulips. A friend points out that the deer won’t likely chomp my soon to be planted garden if they haven’t eaten their favorite garden flower snack.

Birds call and tweet their sweet tunes before the sun rises. Their gentle conversations accompany me as I string, restring, and string again beads. I am ever closer to the pattern I cannot visualize but sense is there. Inspired by my great grandmother's necklace made of graduated clear round balls with contrasting black accents, there are large clear crystals, as if from a chandelier, to contrast with smaller black ones. Crackled quartz tubes and tiny black crystals divide them. Like nature around me, I too am ready to show off. It's my version of spring bling.

The hills of Ohio offers many perks, but shopping is not one of them. I have a knack for selecting ties, likely due to a willingness to seek out and pay for beautiful silk. With the recent transition to civilian life, there is a tie deficit in my husband’s wardrobe. A birthday gift search led me to an Etsy shop in England. The morning of my husband’s recent birthday, I pulled a brown paper wrapped package out from hiding and asked him to open it as he was dressing for work. The tie popped with color and the silk shimmered. Handmade, it was exactly long enough. I left a note of appreciation for the shop.

The next day, avoiding the dreaded task of completing my continuing education hours for my nursing license, I scanned the email inbox and found this note:

Thank you ever so much! Your kind words couldn't have come at a better time...I went over to the silk mill today to place my very first order for silks woven exactly to my specifications, so I felt the confidence boost when I made the final decisions on the bus ride over.

With a happy spot brightening my heart, I turn to the morning tasks at hand. Seedling containers are schlepped outside to harden for the upcoming garden transfer, the newly planted ume tree watered, a load of laundry is hung in the sun, and the breakfast dishes are sorted into the dishwasher. As the way to my post-poned task begins to clear,  the doorbell chimes unexpectedly. I invite my neighbor inside. She asks, “What are you doing?” I reply, “Cleaning my kitchen.” Though scullery maid is a necessary part of having fresh real food on the table, I do for once wish I was able to say, “Working on my continuing education credits for my nursing license.”

Five miles later, I stumble along a trail sucking wind and lifting my feet just enough to skim over the top of sticks and rocks. My neighbor calls out the names of flowers and trees and gives me the lay of the land conversing with a steady even breathing pattern. I’m not oblivious to the signs of spring, but concentrating on the physical demands for which I am suddenly engaged.

When we return home, I tell her about the email in my morning inbox by way of saying that I’m a grateful she chose to ask me along this day. I finish half of the necessary license requirements and think, I can do this. It is nice to be bolstered in unexpected ways exactly when needed.

Spring Bling

Spring Lit Fest Compost & Thrum

The experience of attending even one day of the Ohio University’s Spring Literary Festival is one of those wow moments that needs to be shared. If you love books, writing, and words, put it on your calendar for next year. It’s free, fabulous, and fun!

The afternoon lectures by Robert Olen Butler and Bonnie Jo Campbell, the ones I was able to attend, used the analogy of composting and thrumming in writing and reading.

Feeding the compost pile (Butler) or the black box (Campbell) in your head and then letting it heat up and invade one’s writing life is about getting away from technique and getting into the creative zone. Campbell focused on what keeps us up at night and made a bid for the anecdotes or tiny narratives that capture personality in the shortest amount of space. She used the example of, “Where’s my goddamn leg?” as a starting point for story about rending the ugly and the terrible into something beautiful. I was pleased with myself for having her book in my bag. You know she is going to tell an awesome story with an example like that.

I loved Butler’s word for what resonates and creates works to pursue, thrum. Writing done from the unconscious, built of technique, vocabulary, and the senses, is scary, but is where a writer evokes a cinema of the mind. He encouraged writers to get away from analysis as art. He surprised me by starting with the genius, Jesus Christ and his parables which avoid telling a point directly. His talk also reminded me of Anton Chekhov’s, “Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Readers were encouraged by both to read slowly and for joy.

I purchased several books to add to my bedside pile and managed to get them all signed. I’ve noticed that the signed books function as a portal and return me to the reflections of the event in my head. Of course, I’m reading something else, The Paris Wife to be exact.

My favorite takeaways from the Spring Lit Fest, skewed toward the parts attended, were:

Never avert your eyes.
Robert Olen Butler

Feet, balls, heart. Eat the whole chicken.
Bonnie Jo Campbell

thrum  

/THrəm/

Verb Make a continuous rhythmic humming sound. Cover or adorn (cloth or clothing) with ends of thread.

Noun A continuous rhythmic humming sound: "the steady thrum of rain on the windows". (in weaving) An unwoven end of a warp thread, or a fringe of such ends, left in the loom when the finished cloth is cut away.

Synonyms verb.   strum noun.   fringe

A Toast

His beard, white and as long as my uncle’s, is an indicator that I am outside my usual frame of reference spent amongst well shorn military personnel. My cousin had to ask this man one of the harder questions of his life, “Do I have your permission to date your daughter?” I haven’t lived among these men who work with their hands and brawn long enough to know intimately the codes, phrases, and ways operating below the surface, but I get that there is more said with fewer words. I am here to attend my cousin’s wedding.

The day is bright, crisp, with a gusty breeze. The sky is blue. We pass pine tree after pine tree before turning down an unfamiliar tree lined drive. It leads to a rambling house sitting atop a gentle slope, rented for the occasion. Green grass sets the house off like a jewel and ends at the water’s edge. An arbor stands at attention off to the side of six chairs under a lone oak tree’s shade. My cousin has built the arbor with the bride’s brothers. He tells us, “It’s not going nowhere. It weighs six hundred pounds.” The names of the bride and groom have been burnt into the wood along the top arch. It is adorned with a bouquet of roses on each side. Between the light and the lake’s sparkle, the setting’s starkness lends a solemnity and gentleness to the day.

The boys have smoked meat all night. The bride’s mother plays flute. I join in to help with a few finishing decorating touches. We roll white fabric for the aisle down to the arbor and pin it with tent stakes. The minister arrives with his white and green vestments. Eventually he calls us all to assemble. Guests scramble to bring folding chairs from the covered patio down to the lawn, most of us opting for the shade.

In their black suits the groom and four groomsmen span to one side. They have all known the bride since childhood, they are my cousin and her brothers. The bridesmaids, hidden away to dress and primp, emerge with striking black and white chevron designed dresses, coifed hair, and more roses. The bride’s father wearing a white embroidered shirt, like a Greek fisherman’s, and jeans, escorts the bride wearing a white strapless mermaid dress with a tulip skirt and train.  She carries a large bouquet of red roses. He chats with her as they pass. Afterward he walks back down the aisle to take a chair at the very back, but dead center, where he sips a beer from a table, quiet now.

The ceremony finishes with the official, “you may kiss the bride.” Guests return to the patio with its protective grape arbor covering, a reprieve from the sun and elevated just enough to catch the air moving. The wedding party photos are taken. It is time to eat, talk, and celebrate in the shade outside surrounded by trees. The light's gleam bouncing off the lake lends a magical quality to a perfect day.

A toast is called for as it nears time to cut the cake. The best man glosses over that his best friend has married his little sister with a quick, "Here's to the bride and groom."

The bride’s father is called up. He says, “I don’t know half of you here, but I’ve known this boy (gesturing to my cousin) since he was this high” as he puts his hand out about three feet from the ground. My cousin is six feet five inches tall now. He has known this man most of his life.

The father continues, “First of all I never thought he would live this long!” There is an appreciative chuckle from the crowd. My cousin has only the weekend before jumped out of a helicopter, sky dives as much as he can, and generally is known to ride the rails of life. "I’d do anything for him." There is a pause where you know he means this and probably has done it. With a smile twitching beneath his beard he says, "I damn sure never expected him to marry my daughter!” Everyone laughs because no one else expected this either-- they are ten years apart. He finishes with, “Hugs and Kisses! Kiss for you (he kisses his daughter) and hugs for you (he grasps my cousin in a bear hug).”

Here, here, xo.

For a bride and groom

Today, you are crossing a threshold. The miracle of finding each other gives way to the greater, more audacious, adventure of life together. Places, circumstances, and our interests change. You will have many marriages within this one. Hold steady to the good, the calm, and the gentle, and each will brim with love. There is no one way, but it might help to remember:


*Love each other as you are, you can only change yourself.


*If you find yourself picking faults, let go. 


*Please and thank you always feel nice, be courteous.


*Play is vital to our being and happiness, dance often.


*This is life, not a game-- no keeping score.


*It may not all be the fairytale we imagined, look with your heart (not the critical eye).


*Sometimes you need to chuck your ego and choose love over being right.


*It’s hard to say what you mean, sometimes it’s just better to sit quietly and hold hands.


*Laughter, sleep, and fresh air help everything.

You're going to be great at this-- look who's coming with you!
Love, Kim