Tangents and mind travel

 

The buds you might be able to see on this Golden Showers yellow climbing, currently sprawling, rose are a tangent in themselves. The original bush never did well, was finally ftost killed last winter and I cut it all the way back.

Then this offshoot suddenly started up a couple of weeks ago, is budding all over, more than the original ever did, and really earning a place here. I can't support it just yet, because of the impending fence work, so I hope it survives most probably being trodden on by heedless fencers' boots , if that's what you call people who replace fences.

But it does show that sometimes your original plan can be replaced by something better. Words to live by especially nowadays.

Work on the jacket continues, my stitching up having revealed a bit of a design flaw, and now I need more squares.  

 

At this rate I'll have a hospital gown-sized jacket but by gum, it will work. Another original plan replaced by a better one, at least that's the idea.

And this confirmed hater of travel, whose life has imposed quite a bit of it in the course of events, is peacefully traveling in books.

A Single Swallow, by Zhang Ling,. Chinese Canadian writer,  is a wonderful journey of the spirit, literally, magic realism in matter of fact language, well worth investigating. I'm not far into it, and already like the good humor even recounting difficult experiences  

It's one of a whole series of books in translation that Amazon offered free of charge recently as ebooks, to mark some literary day.  I feel it's only right to give them a boost as I read, so the writer eventually gets a little something out of it, even if not from this grateful reader. 

The Strange Journey of Alice Pendelbury, originally in French, was my first, which I reviewed enthusiastically recently. This is the second I'm coming to.

As always I'm switching among several books, my tiny email book group now starting a classic reread

I never appreciated this when I read it younger, not having much patience with the gothic novel, so not with a satire on it either. But I'm a better reader now, and the wit is just sparkling off the page.  Great choice, Marilyn.

And there's more Alexandra Fuller, this time about her mother's life. 

 

The chimpanzee with her here was a childhood friend. Story of her life, really.

 

And reading several books at once, doing a lot of projects at once, is the story of mine.  It's how I roll.  And I do finish everything, and do it as well as I can.  But definitely I am not temperamentally capable of doing one thing at a time.  

 

I remember long ago, when I was in high school, a then boyfriend, later husband, of my eldest sister, was horrified when he came into the living room of our house and saw me, sitting on the arm of the sofa, writing my essay, listening to the radio and taking part in a conversation in our crowded, big family, room!  

 

He ran to my mother exclaiming she'll never pass any exams that way!  Whereupon Mom gently pointed out that I was the star student of the place, and that's how I worked. All our family did.  He was baffled.  But then he was a) an engineer, and b) a male.  So his idea of concentration was to be in a silent room studying one thing at a time.  Not that I had access to a silent room anyway, large family in tiny house, but it wouldn't have done me a bit of good.  

 

I spent a lot of my youth in a small house, before my sibs began to emigrate in search of a decent life, with a living room, tiny, containing the dining table as well as living room furniture, with two sisters dancing to radio music in one corner, another one knitting something beautiful, she was a great knitter, my Dad discussing the football scores with a brother or two,  someone coming in from work for dinner, maybe an aunt or two bossing my mother about, much eye rolling, and at least three conversations going on simultaneously, all perfectly intelligible to everyone. You took part in them all.  It was an antiphonal way of life, really. 

This is why I came to realize that it was not a failing in me to be unable to do one thing at a time, but a great advantage, particularly in the professional jobs I had where I was simultaneously directing up to twenty projects, each with its own framework and people involved, very happily, no stress at all.  My sibs all prospered similarly.  The world isn't built for, or by, one track folks, at least that's my experience.  So when you learn to meditate, you are used to allowing multitudes of thoughts to crowd in and to leave, no sweat.

I think art thrives on this kind of thinking, a lot churning in the back of your mind, which you take not much notice of when the front of your mind is a railway junction of ideas whizzing around and past each other and making connections. Then those connections appear and you don't always know where they originate.  

 

My family was famous for this sort of leap thinking and learning, and I know my brothers, asked to show their working in math, used to go back, having intuitively solved the problem, to figure out the steps they probably took to get there, and fill them in.  

 

I used to do this with my school essays, which I wrote a top speed, reorganized a little, and then went back to create a framework that I supposed would have been necessary to that sort of thinker!  I suspect my English teacher was onto me, though, but she didn't give me away.  That approach stood me well when I sold a lot of freelance writing in later life, to pay the medical bills of our baby son, whom I couldn't leave to work.

 

Then, when my son got older and proved to be a very adept self teacher, learning in massive chunks after seeming not to be working at all, I watched his teachers grasp that he might be just sitting, apparently not doing, until the last few minutes of class, when he would suddenly start writing or drawing, whatever it was, like a demon, and produce a lovely piece of work.  Later he taught himself several computer languages just because he felt like it.  I know that feeling.  Runs in the DNA.  I expect sister Dogonart who reads in here will be nodding in recognition here. Anyway, just a bit of musing about the relative usefulness of doing one thing at a time. No criticism of people who do that, just a reflection on people who don't.

And, yesterday's pie going over a treat for lunch, I needed a little something for supper, so this was a chance to use up the egg I'd brushed onto the crust. 

Added another, broke it, in a buttered souffle dish, over the remains of a tomato salad, those lovely tomatoes you last saw on the vine from Misfits, chunks of sharp cheddar, black pepper, bit of kosher salt, 25 minutes at 400°f.  I didn't have bread, need to remedy that today, but if you do,  this is great over buttered toast.

So that's us, tangents and all.

Dryer, lettuce, pasties and sadness

First I would like to ask those blogistas who pray and keep prayer lists please to add my Indian friends. 

I'm getting bad news from Mumbai. Local friends all have family there. One mother has died, a lady I met when she visited a couple of years ago, her husband and daughter now in the hospital. Another friend's sister and brother in law had covid and seem to be recovering, but it's a treacherous virus.  

It's intensely hard for them to be unable to go there to visit the sick, or for  ceremonies, if there even are individual cremations. So we can pray or send good vibes, whatever our own practice is. Please do.

On to trivia, the dryer is ordered, deposit made. The lettuce continues to sprout.

It's on the window ledge Artist Contractor Michael, hitherto referred to as ACM, made for me from a piece of raw pine he ripped to size and gave a soft low gloss finish. That's what I think would make a nice mantel at the condo. It goes very well with the white window frame, so the color might work with a white fireplace. We'll see what he has to say, and has available.

And thanks to Joanne, I'm deep into another book at the same time as the current ones. It's excellent, and I'll read more of her

It's the account of her marriage, when she lived in Zimbabwe, to an American, and the life she lived  between her Zimbabwean family and her American marriage in Wyoming, and its eventual breakdown.

I identify with some parts -- the Brits going to what was then Rhodesia, as my brother did, establishing a building business, white people marching in and assuming a lot, losing a lot with the growth of independence, eventually leaving in disarray before Zimbabwe was founded. Some similarities with her family except parts were there for generations 

Also her intense marriage between people who each needed to live alone under their own roof. I lived that and the happiest period was when we literally had our his and hers roofs. 

Anyway it's about her, not me, but really is gripping me as I explain.

Then the Return of the Pasty happened yesterday.

All Misfit items -- flour, baby bella mushrooms, yellow potatoes, white onions. I added in a bit of mushroom sauce I had in the freezer from when I made gnocchi.

I had roasted the potatoes the previous night, and had some with a cheese omelet. So, mushrooms sauteed in butter, onions caramelized in salt and oil, potatoes in waiting. All mixed and cut down a bit for the stuffing, bit of sauce added. The smell was great at this point. 

Here's the optical illusion. It changes from convex, as it is, to concave, very confusing. It's the dough cut into six fairly equal sections, one per pasty. Usual flour tortilla dough.  Last time I baked at 400° for 20 minutes. This time 375° for 30 minutes. No discernible difference! 

One turned over to show you the nicely browned underside.

I added seasalt to the outside, before baking, brushed with olive oil,  no salt in the dough. And found I ate both. Really good. The picture is blurred by rising steam.

Enough sauce for one more pasty. Then enough dough in the freezer for three more with different stuffing.

After which lunch I lay around like a python for a while.