From the Barely-there house

HDTV?

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:24:14 GMT

When I returned to college to finish my degree back in 1990 or so, I was married, with child, house, etc , working and schooling. There were never enough hours in an hour, much less a day. So, something had to give, and for me, it was television. I just quit watching it.

And until you DO stop watching it, you never realize just how insidious and pervasive the bloody thing is.

It doesn't take long to become aware that huge gobs of people's lives are taken up by talking about the fictional lives and situations on TV...frequently in terms of real, by golly people. You get clued into this when engaging in water cooler conversations wherein someone says, "I can't believe that Homer actually got her a bowling ball for her birthday! What a jerk!" Now, you don't know Homer, never been introduced, but yes, putting yourself in HER place, he could well be a jerk. Then the speaker turns to you and asks, "Could you believe he did that?" and you stumble through some innocuous remark to the effect that you don't know Homer, so you don't know if this is surprising or not. Then,..THE LOOK! The narrowing of the eyes, the drawing in of the eyebrows while the nostrils flare a bit, and the effect is one that I am sure everyone who ever confessed to being an abductee observed- that "I don't think you're one of us" look. They step back and announce "You know, Homer. From the Simpsons?" The fight or flight reaction is apparent in their eyes.

"Oh. I don't watch television". Alarm bells, flashing red LED lights, air raid sirens... you have just made a confession that throws a red cape before a Papal Bull. Bless me father, for I have sinned. I did NOT unplug my brain in front of the snooze tube last night. Talk about throwing the ultimate cork into a conversation - people just do not know how to talk to someone that doesn't watch TV. At first, it amused me, then it pissed me off, now it just worries me. Are the lives of people in this world so limited and shallow that we have to borrow what passes for entertainment in order to pass a pleasant moment together?

What about poetry? The last painting you really liked or hated? Some song you can't get out of your head - and I do not mean that Vonage jingle. That should be banned as cruel and inhuman punishment. Talk to me about your hopes, your dreams, your surgery...but talk to me about YOU.

Writer's Block: Long Nights, Short Poems

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:25:45 GMT

It's the winter solstice in the Northern hemisphere, summer solstice in the Southern hemisphere, and Haiku Day in the U.S. Does that inspire you to write a three-line poem with five syllables in the first and last lines and seven in the middle line?

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For the past 5 years, I celebrated Solstice in Alaska, which was by and large, extremely depressing. Return of the Sun? Even at its best, all we would get was a mid day dusk. This year, however, we are back where days and nights actually have meaning, not just perpetual presence on an alternate basis. Hence...

Solstice

Long ago Night fears -
Long dark outside the windows
Come, let's light a fire.

Writer's Block: Comfort Food

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:03:41 GMT

When times are tough or you're feeling down, what's the one food you can count on to make you feel better?

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Soup. Soup of the evening, beautiful soup. Or soup of the morning, midnight, or high noon. There is something about a steaming bowl of soup and a large spoon that means comfort and that all will be well with the world. Why does soup get its own spoon, anyway? The only other food that gets its own spoon that I can think of is iced tea. Everything else, ice cream, fruit salad, potato salad, peas, even stew, which is a cousin once removed from soup all have to be consumed with the generic teaspoon. But a soup spoon. That's special.

And just what is it that soup spoons spoon? A savory broth, clear or cream. Usually a nice shade in the brown, yellow group, with an occasional red or green available for contrast. I don't think I could eat blue soup. Or purple soup. Or teal soup.

Then the conglomeration of veggies and other goodies lying at the bottom, like the sunken wreck of a treasure ship. Me, I am a top down soup eater. I have seen people attack a bowl of soup by plunging in deep with the first wave, dredging up piles of carrots, pasta or rice. Where is the mystery in that? Where is the anticipation? The moment of wonder - I wonder what is down there? Those are probably the same people that wrap everything in gift bags and don't seal the top shut. Just let it gape open. They don't like surprises, I guess.

But me, I gently skim just the surface, trying not to disturb the flora and fauna at the bottom. I don't want to see a free floating corn kernal or chicken cube until I am ready. That first moment when the broth passes over my tongue is one in which the universe blinks. Just for a moment, I am detached from 9 to 5, pay the bills, clean the house. I float on the broth that I am swallowing. Some philosopher somewhere must have described this I am the broth, the broth is me feeling. I just know it's too special to be codified into a Philosophy 101 final exam multiple choice answer.

Bit by bit, the broth level lowers. The tide is receding, revealing more of the china's pattern, and taking the cares and worries with it. The largest and boldest of the ingredients start to emerge above the broth, pilings left from better days in a bay long forgotten. Shall I excavate the beef chunk? Or that lovely bit of potato, still creamy white? Gently, delicately, Indiana Jones with a soup spoon and a mission, I tease the piece loose and cradle it in the bowl of the spoon. Always maintaining a careful horizontal, I lower the spoon, cargo safely stowed, into the broth till it seeps in over the edges and floats the bit of beef. I chew carefully, enjoying actually working for my meal. There is real satisfaction in earning the flavor, the texture, the fillingness of the things at the bottom of the bowl.

I unearth layer after layer. Green beans, corn, carrots. Or beans, rice, pasta. Or tomatoes. Or clams, shrimp, chicken. Or onions. okra, peppers. Sometimes I sort out the bits, and eat each kind separately. An all pea load. Then an all celery one. Other times, I throw caution to the winds and merely scoop up by territory. One spoonful from the north edge, one from the south. And always and forever, the broth surrounding it all, floating it, floating me.

The roses at the bottom of the bowl come into view. The soup is nearly a memory, a lingering taste in the mouth, a faint warmth in the belly. But the world....ah....the world has become just a little brighter, a little more airy, a little easier to live in. I push aside the bowl, spoon handle angled out, spoon bowl quiescent on bowl bottom. And I don't even mind the washing up.