PEARLS & AMBER

RECIPE READING

Reading the recipes in Martha Stewart's magazine LIVING (January 2009), the recipe my eyes fell on first was:

HONEYED TOFU on UDON WITH CUCUMBER RIBBONS

Cutting to the chase, I read HONEYED RIBBONS.

I'm as much a vegan as you are, certainly more of a vegetarian than you'll ever be, and I can starve myself with the best, okay?  I know how to do liquid.

In my real life I also know what tofu is.  I even tried to feed it to my children back in those days when they actually were children.  The recipe suggested I fool the little darlings by frying the tofu and serving it with homemade ketchup.  "They'll think it's french fries."  What these people didn't know was MY children ate THEIR french fries with homemade mayonnaise, thank you very much, a holdover from those years I lived in Brussels...where people eat their french fries...nevermind.

I blanked on Udon...maybe it's Japanese lettuce or those bean things they give you while you are waiting for sushi?  One day I'll bestir myself to look it up, so that I'll know what I'm talking about the next time I am at a dinner party and the subject turns to udon.

I'm okay with cucumber, but not okay enough to eat it anymore.  I've put my time in with cucumber, and that time is over.

So, reading this recipe I was left with Honeyed Ribbon.

There is ribbon candy.  It shows up at Christmas, if it shows up at all.  Last time I had some was when I was five years old, and lived on Welcome Street in Peabody, Massachusetts.  And that was in what is now known as the last century.

Honey I eat every single day of my life, but would never add it to ribbon candy, which I recall was ghastly.  So, this recipe would not be happening for me.

I moved onto the next recipe:  Lamb Chops with Citrus Sauce and Baby Mache Salad.

Baby mache?  Paper Mache...Baby Sache...Mache Sache, for the closets....

KATHARINE HEPBURN ARMSTRONG FLOORS AD

Does this look like the kind of woman who gives a rats ass about wood flooring? 

Does this look like a woman who wants to see how she'd look now, if she were still forty-five, and not...gone to her reward?

Armstrong Floors seems to feel Katharine Hepburn is the perfect woman to sell their floors.  Their laminate flooring, that is.

See, they have a computerized picture of a live(ish) looking Katharine Hepburn, relaxing in a chair on one of their laminated floors.  It says "It only looks like the real thing."

The picture is a radiant Katharine Hepburn.  She'd be damned pleased about that.  No doubt about it.  No matter it was done by a computer.  Beauty is beauty.

She would NOT be pleased about the product she's been hauled back from the grave to hawk.  Laminate flooring?   Listen to that raspy sneer.

Katharine Hepburn was a true New England blue-blood.  Not only would she have had REAL wooden floors in her house, the floors would be scuffed and gouged and otherwise trod irrevocably upon by the ghosts of her and her family's past. 
There would be gouges so deep, one could lose a stiletto in them--
There would be crevices so high a ladder would be required to get out--
And--
They would be polished by hand, lovingly and often.

As a result, these real wood floors would be so softened by age and use, babies could sleep on them. 
And their fragrance would save marriages.

FROM CA IN THE MIDWEST TO WRITE ABOUT PARIS

I've come to Macomb, Illinois because I have a retreat here that I can retreat to, see.

I have a book to finish that is in piles all over the place.  This book is about Paris.

I won't go into why mine is going to be different...

I will say it is fabulous.  It is charming as hell.  And it'll never see the light of day if I don't DO SOMETHING.

So I have, as the picture implies, run screaming to this quiet place to pull the book together.

This place is Midwest countryside heaven.  Green.  Firefies at night.  Thunderstorms.  Fragrant.  Quiet.  A babbling brook.  Deer running through the back.  No kidding.  Cows, okay?  Dairy Queen is THE place in town.

I've left Southern California heaven.  Blue ocean.  Palm trees waving.  Bentleys all over the place, coming out from the mothballs, I guess, because is anyone actually buying them these days, even if they could?  Taco stands.  There is a Dairy Queen, but it's kind of a cute thing, not to be taken seriously. 

And it is the place where my life lives--  

Lives are distracting, so here I am, a Californian in Illinois, trying to write a book about Paris.

Just so you know.

WAR OVER CHOCOLATE BUNNIES

It's not even Easter, and already I am up in arms.

There is a battle in Europe over who has the right to make chocolate bunnies--
More specifically, can a company trademark their version of the chocolate bunny.

Lindt makes the cutest little rabbit, sitting on its haunches,wrapped in gold foil, ears on alert, wearing a red ribbon around it's neck, with a little bell attached to it.
Lindt sells indecent amounts of this calorie ridden, tooth decaying, hunks of nirvana.

An Austrian company called Hauswirth sells a chocolate bunny sitting on it's haunches, ears on alert, wrapped in gold foil, a red ribbon wrapped around it's neck, too.  There is no bell.

Lindt trademarked their bunny a few years ago.  Now they say Hauswirth can't make their bunny, because Lindt owns the style.

Hauswirth has taken umbrage and has hauled in lawyers who say the issue of trademarking 3D shapes has always been 'murky waters'.  Of course you can see why the minute you think about that, right?  I mean I know I was thinking about all those difficulties trademarking 3D shapes last night in the shower.

One of the difficulties the lawyers point out that to make a chocolate bunny like this certain things, like the long upright ears, have to be there for the shape to even sit properly...or something.

Do you get the drift?  I do.  But then, I am easily called to attention when to comes to chocolate bunnies.

Haiswirth is also pointing out that chocolate bunnies are generic, and who the hell does Lindt think they are even trying to restrict the production of chocolate bunnies, greedy pigs....or something to that effect. 
"Bad faith" in trademarking practices (like wanting a monopoly on those cute chocolate bunnies--improper conduct) is also being called into question here.

This is a serious issue.  Quantity of chocolate bunnies is being threatened here.

If Lindt gets to stop Hauswirth there will be that many fewer bunnies. 

Who the hell does Lindt think they are?  Someone needs to remind Lindt that they did not create the squatting bunny.  They did not invent gold foil.  They are certainly not alone in the chocolate making industry--

I'm shocked, just shocked, I tell you, over Lindt's greed--

Just picture the sight of the Lindt corporate bigwigs, ties askew, red in the face, nostrils bulging, in a state of cardiac arrest over chocolate bunnies.  THEIR chocolate bunnies, goddammit.  

THE MILLIONTH ENGLISH WORD

The millionth...I didn't even know 'MILLIONTH' was a spellable word...is

WEB 2.0

Does that look like a worthy enough word to be the millionth word in the English language?

With those numbers attached, does it even LOOK like a word?

To me it looks vaguely mathematical, which puts me right off it from the git go.

According to my on-line dictionary of choice it means:

"The second generation of the World Wide Web in which content is user-generated and dynamic, and software is offered that mimics desktop programs."

This isn't a definition.  This is a novel.

 'WEB 2.0' is also, for those of you firmly in touch with your Virgo tendencies, a noun.

Apparently it takes a word being used 25,000 times to become an actual dictionary worthy word.  Obviously 'Web 2.0' has pulled this off.

Luckily, for me anyway, there are worthy dissenters.  They are not going to take this lying down.  And, in fact, the web monitoring company, Global Language Monitor,  who made this pronouncement, is waffling, because it has been pointed out that the announcement of the millionth (there's that word again) word has changed often, and now a decision is made just as the president of the company's book, which deals with the millionth word project, is about to be published.

'Slumdog' was in close running.

I ask you--which looks like a real word-- SLUMDOG  or  Web 2.0.

O'HORTEN / NORWEGIAN MOVIES

It seems I have a penchant for Norwegian movies.  Given I'm a talker myself, and love nothing more than superfluous but extremely witty dialogue in movies, this is an unexpected development.
Because Norwegian movies are skimpy on dialogue.  I'm not sure what there is actually amounts to dialogue.

O'Horten is playing right now, and it is a fairytale come true, especially if you like trains, pipe smokers, snow, icy roads, fortuitous missed connections, love between two seventy year olds, a dog named Molly, and monosyllabic conversation.

It is one of those quietly gorgeous films in which the improbable happens over and over, in silent certainty.  I don't think bombastic amazement is a Norwegian thing.

As O Horten, a bachelor railroad engineer comes to grips with his honorable retirement, he smokes his pipe, covers the parakeet before leaving his apartment, and meets strangers with whom he is unexpectedly finding himself interacting.  He tries to sell his boat, he saves a dog, and rides with a man who claims to be able to drive blindfolded.  And he finally acknowledges where his heart truly must be, after a trip down a long ski jump.

See what I mean?  Magic!

I loved "O Horten" so much because I was prepared by having seen two other Norwegian movies--  "'Kitchen Stories" and "Elling".  Charmers, both.

But so, I then ran to Netflix, tapped in Norwegian and--  

"The Other Side of Sunday" is on the way.

I'm on to something, and it feels like Christmas.

THE POWER NAP

I just took a nap.  It was quick and to the point, lasting ten minutes.  I used my trusty eye bag, which is sage scented, and made of pale green silk.  (This eye bag goes everywhere with me.)

I have returned to work, after having first gone out to check on the chicken baking in the oven, and to eat one Chessman cookie, and am now back here, at my desk, toiling away.  Totally refreshed.

I just took what is called a POWER NAP.

Even though the words 'Power' and 'Nap' do not in any way belong near each other in a complete sentence, it seems that people these days cannot let a good thing lie, and the innocent nap, the short snooze, can no longer be something as simple as that. 

If one is living an insane life,the kind of life that includes huge amounts of over-scheduling and travel on jets, and rushing late to everything, one needs to take naps.
These frenzied, oops, I mean super competent people can't bear the idea that any activity of theirs be anything other than extremely important, so therefore they have re-named the 'catnap'.

So, I re-introduce you to your cat nap.  It is now the Power Nap.

May you rest in peace.

ENDANGERED FLY

I was looking at pictures of adorable endangered animals in Audubon and weeping.  They are such cute little things.  Especially as seen through the lens of a sensitive photographer.

I wept until I came to the fly known as the DELHI SANDS FLOWER-LOVING FLY.

Such an attractive fly the little guy was, lying there on his side, politely encouraged towards a certain drowsiness, a federally permited fly handler standing by making sure the little guy (gal?) was safe.  After all, there are so few of these flies left.  Under 1,000.  And where do they live?  They live in Southern California.  My back yard.

I don't like flies. 

My weeping ceased.  Why me? I asked the universe.  Is this a test?  To see just how committed I am to the ideal of saving each and every endangered species in the world?  If I can support the adorable Choctawhatchee Beach Mouse or the Pallis Sturgeon or the Guam Rail, why have I skidded to a halt over the Delhi Sands Flower-loving Fly. 

The fly (any kind of fly) isn't even supposed to exist in Southern California. There are some, but not the nuisance they are elsewhere.  To demonstrate how little a nuisance flies are, my fly swatter is very old, and in fact I don't even know where it is.  Or even if I actually have one.

But now I find there IS a bona-fide fly here in Southern California who is making waves, and I don't like it.  Even if there are only 1,000 of them left.  Even if the whole Delhi Sands eco-systems will disappear if they do.  Even if the area referred to is an hour away.

I don't like myself for this.  I need to reframe the scenario.  I need to like the fly.  I need to feel its pain.  I need to feel love for all God's creatures.  Right now.

I look at the photo of the drugged fly (bearing in mind the fly handler).  I note its large green jowls.  I see its legs are spindly and unshaven.  I look for its eyes.  I don't see any eyes, unless, god forbid, those green jowls are the eyes.  But the eyes are closed, right, because the fly is unconscious.  So...the green could be the creature's eyelids?

Emerald green eyelids.  I used to wear an emerald green eye shadow...I think it was in the eighties--
I'm looking at a fly who wears make-up.

I feel less animosity towards the fly.  It's endangered, for god sake.  If we don't do something, this little gal may soon be gone, never to be seen again--
And such a beautiful shade of green would be darkened forever.

Tears threaten-- 

I reach for the Kleenex.