Every January our church sponsors a chili cookoff to raise money for various programs. Last year my recipe won. Last year's post HERE. It's in the Sunday section. Recipe HERE. The rematch is Sunday night. I will cook this recipe again, with a minor adjustment or two. Let the best chili win!
Image found on EasyCarts.net
Found HERE. Short bio HERE. Fabulous poem that says a lot. Is this you? Or could this become your child?
by Elizabeth Alexander
I am lazy, the laziest
girl in the world. I sleep during
the day when I want to, 'til
my face is creased and swollen,
'til my lips are dry and hot. I
eat as I please: cookies and milk
after lunch, butter and sour cream
on my baked potato, foods that
slothful people eat, that turn
yellow and opaque beneath the skin.
Sometimes come dinnertime Sunday
I am still in my nightgown, the one
with the lace trim listing because
I have not mended it. Many days
I do not exercise, only
consider it, then rub my curdy
belly and lie down. Even
my poems are lazy. I use
syllabics instead of iambs,
prefer slant to the gong of full rhyme,
write briefly while others go
for pages. And yesterday,
for example, I did not work at all!
I got in my car and I drove
to factory outlet stores, purchased
stockings and panties and socks
with my father's money.
To think, in childhood I missed only
one day of school per year. I went
to ballet class four days a week
at four-forty-five and on
Saturdays, beginning always
with plie, ending with curtsy.
To think, I knew only industry,
the industry of my race
and of immigrants, the radio
tuned always to the station
that said, Line up your summer
job months in advance. Work hard
and do not shame your family,
who worked hard to give you what you have.
There is no sin but sloth. Burn
to a wick and keep moving.
I avoided sleep for years,
up at night replaying
evening news stories about
nearby jailbreaks, fat people
who ate fried chicken and woke up
dead. In sleep I am looking
for poems in the shape of open
V's of birds flying in formation,
or open arms saying, I forgive you, all.
Like everyone pressed for time lately I've had to choose between blogging or reading. Reading has won, hands down. I've read two full size historicals and one traditional Regency. I'm two thirds done with a contemporary mythology based romance. I need to write my thoughts up about those. I need to list my personal and blog/reading resolutions for 2008. I thought I oughta post a family update.
I had to go out of town Sunday (my employer is under the impression I was ill, so please don't tell on me). Anime Queen's birthday is Wednesday. My work schedule changed again. I'm due to start a computer class next week. I suppose I oughta clean the house (Hubby's done his fair share & more lately). I want to try out my new clothes washer.
I'll be back soon to try and catch up on my neglected blog.
The Husband swears this is the cheapskate sales coup of the year, bar none. Since it's only January 4th I'm not so sure but it's likely he's right. This whole episode would never have happened except for my intense dislike of bugs inside my house. Outside- no problem. In the house? The stuff of nightmares. A series of bad incidents while I was pregnant with Pianist cemented the bug-Bookwormom relationship into one of a very tense detente as long as the bugs remain where they belong. Outside.
So there we were. In the kitchen listening to BBC Outlook on the radio & preparing to make dinner. Lift up the glass cutting board. Discover three, not one or two, but THREE bugs under there. Picnicing on leftover Thomas' English Muffin crumbs from this morning's breakfast. Screech a little and dance around the kitchen with the cutting board (likely the closest I'll ever get to a formal ballroom, lol). Discover we're all out of bug killing spray. And yes I know that pesticide in the kitchen is not such a good idea. TOO BAD. The only good bug is a dead one. After a few moments to calm myself I announce to the family that after dinner I'll be driving up to Lowe's in search of a new bug killing arsenal. Husband decides to keep me company, probably to try and convince me I really don't need one of every type of pesticide in the place.
Once we're in Lowe's we pick up a couple of things on our list. I bend down to look at some mildewcide spray cleaners (our bathroom is a pit of dampness no matter what I've tried) on the bottom shelf of the cleaning aisle. Straighten up to discover Husband has disappeared. In 5 seconds flat. Into the vast ocean of empty space that is Lowe's at 9:15 pm. I wander for a moment and then discover him in the appliance area. Luckily for us no salesmen in sight. Today is the first day of their clearance sale. There are quite a few scratch and dent and repaired appliances marked for quick sale.
Now- as my immediate familty knows I've been in desperate need of a new clothes washer for a year now. However, with Graduate starting college and increased car insurance and whatnot we've patched and prayed over our old machine all year. It's only thirteen. Poor old Whirlpool- it's moved a bunch of times and seen us through three kids and two dogs. Old Bessie deserves a rest, but like loyal servants everywhere *Eye roll* she can be coaxed into limping along until the Mistress fianlly has mercy and allows her a well deserved rest.
Husband is standing beside a brand new refused special order clothes washer marked at $50. Yes children. 33.95 Euros; 25.27 Pounds Sterling; 49.65 Canadian Dollars. To buy a new bottom of the line clothes washer. Simply because the original customer refused purchase. There are no bells or whistles (or many choices at all for that matter) but it's new to us and will allow us to get by until I've squirreled away enough to buy the washer I really want. Poor old Bessie Whirlpool can now retire with dignity knowing she held on as long as any self respecting clothes washer could.
Tomorrow our newest family member will come home and take pride of place in the kitchen beside Baxter Whirlpool, Bessie's partner. Who seems fine if a bit banged up. He'll look lonely and forlorn and old beside his new partner. Hopefully they'll settle in together nicely and rub along well until Baxter can join Bessie in retirement.
The infectious joy of children's laughter. The thundering herd of little feet. Wails of tiredness & lack of ability to share. Attempting to remember a recipe for coconut cream refrigerator pie I'd never made before and brought all of the ingredients but forgot the instructions. The mystery of the disasppearing pillows. Watching the dog try to figure out how to smell the parakeet and the parakeet totally ignoring him. Yummy broccoli and cauliflower and cheese and sour cream and cracker casserole. Peach and blueberry galette. Sinking up to the tops of my shoes in the mud pit that used to be the front lawn. Visiting with my sister and my mom. Discovering that two family pets didn't live through the Christmas Season, and how sad their families are. The surreal scene of my BIL surrounded by people and food and festivities but talking over a headset with World of Warcraft players online. Listening to adults try to figure out how to text on a cell phone. Sympathizing with my Lovely Sister who has to write 4 20 page assessments (among other arduous requirements) to qualify for a national certification in her specialty.
Click here to see other Thursday thirteen participants. Thirteen favorite poets, in no particular order:
1. Robert Frost
2. ee cummings
3. Edna St. Vincent Millay
4. Shel Silverstein
5. Christina Rossetti
6. Edgar Allen Poe
7. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
8. Shakespeare
9. Robert Louis Stevenson
10. Lewis Carroll
11. Sara Teasdale
12. Emily Dickenson
13. King David- Master Psalmist
Just a quick drive by to say hi and happy New Year and Merry Christmaqwaanzikah and whatnot. We're still around. Busy. Tired. Overscheduled. Eating too much. Happy to spend time with Graduate while he's been home, sad we've had to work most of the time he's been here. Gonna be out of town for a couple of days visiting the family, but hope to post a Thursday 13 some time tomorrow.
Hope all of you out there had a joyful and rejuvenating Holiday- whichever winter fest you choose to participate in. Many happy hours curled around a good book with more hours and books in the near future.
The sky was a rich blue heavily laced with dark grey storm clouds late this afternoon as I waited in the biting wind. Tiny finger size twigs and bigger branches tossed back and forth like coral in a current. The wind played with me- chasing up the sleeves of my winter coat and tying my hair in knots. I could feel my body heat rising from my head into the sky.
I wanted to walk for blocks in the nighttime quiet. For that's how it was this evening in Old Town. Quiet. The little white lights draped in the trees danced frantically over our heads, clinging to their branches like barnacles in the surf. Winter's frozen currents rushing and swooping around us swirling fallen leaves over our heads. Other than a group of college age carolers, laughing and singing as they rushed up the street, we were alone in Old Town- a rarity neither of us can ever remember in the years we've lived here.
I was refreshed and invigorated. The cold winter wind reminds me of how human I am. How alive I am. I feel brighter. Full of possibility. The earth rests and recuperates, but I'm energized. Somehow in the summer I'm sluggish. Lethargic. I want to hibernate. Like an ant trapped in honey. Winter, though, that's more my season. Gathering energy for the year to come.
Do You Believe? by Ann Lawrence
Set in contemporary England, this is a gothic romance with a bad boy hero who has slept with the heroine's sister- who is now missing. Could've been interesting, plot wise, but sleeping with the heroine's sister is definitely a no go for me.
Sword of Darkness by Kinley MacGregor
Simply didn't work. Couldn't make it past page 32. I just don't buy the world Ms. MacGregor built and I intensely dislike men who fall in instant lust with a woman because she "tastes of innocence" (my words, not hers). I know some men really do get off on virginity and very young women, but this particular phrase really turns me off.
Snow-Flakes
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
In my permanent collection you will find the following classic authors, usually several volumes each. All are old favorites, some deeply treasured gifts from long deceased family members.
1. P G Wodehouse
2. Pearl S Buck
3. Robert Louis Stevenson
4. Louisa May Alcott
5. Nathaniel Hawthorne
6. The Bronte Sisters
7. Lewis Carroll
8. Charles Dickens
9. Henry David Thoreau
10. Shakespeare
11. George Orwell
12. Gustave Flaubert
13. Alexandre Dumas
The purpose of Thursday Thirteen is so that members of the blogosphere can get to know one another better. Click link in the title above to see a list of other participants. Leave a link in the comments below and I'll link to you here.
Part I can be seen HERE and part II HERE. Recently seen while out and about within our region:
1. I hear voices and they don't like you
2. H2 recovery vehicle seen on a Land Rover
3. Next time you curse a trucker or a farmer please do it with your mouth full Seen on an 18 wheeler waiting at the truck scales
4. You can't be pro war and pro life
5. Ignore your rights and they'll go away
I've always loved traditional Regencies and Christmas stories- this fat volume combines 2 Elizabeth Mansfield stories. One is A Christmas Kiss, originally published in 1978 and the other Winter Wonderland originally published in 1993. I sat on my keister for a whole afternoon and read them- no housework, no errands, no chauffering. Just sat and read, something I've not done since before I went to work.
The first one, A Christmas Kiss, unfolds as both a misunderstanding, not the famous 'big mis' some novels are known for and a device I dislike, and as a May-December governess romance. House parties. Jealous wanna be wives on patrol for a rich husband. Loving siblings. Snow storms. I never knew it snowed so much in England.
The second one, Winter Wonderland used a plot device that has worked in the past, but not in this instance. In this case the male lead was horribly emotionally scarred by a single encounter with the heroine at his first ever ball at the tender age of 19. I finished it, but it never really clicked with me. I found myself picking it apart, and that's always a bad sign.
Although the roof is just a story high,
It dizzies me a little to look down.
I lariat-twirl the cord of Christmas lights
And cast it to the weeping birch’s crown;
A dowel into which I’ve screwed a hook
Enables me to reach, lift, drape, and twine
The cord among the boughs so that the bulbs
Will accent the tree’s elegant design.
Friends, passing home from work or shopping, pause
And call up commendations or critiques.
I make adjustments. Though a potpourri
Of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Sikhs,
We all are conscious of the time of year;
We all enjoy its colorful displays
And keep some festival that mitigates
The dwindling warmth and compass of the days.
Some say that L.A. doesn’t suit the Yule,
But UPS vans now like magi make
Their present-laden rounds, while fallen leaves
Are gaily resurrected in their wake;
The desert lifts a full moon from the east
And issues a dry Santa Ana breeze,
And valets at chic restaurants will soon
Be tending flocks of cars and SUVs.
And as the neighborhoods sink into dusk
The fan palms scattered all across town stand
More calmly prominent, and this place seems
A vast oasis in the Holy Land.
This house might be a caravansary,
The tree a kind of cordial fountainhead
Of welcome, looped and decked with necklaces
And ceintures of green, yellow, blue, and red.
Some wonder if the star of Bethlehem
Occurred when Jupiter and Saturn crossed;
It’s comforting to look up from this roof
And feel that, while all changes, nothing’s lost,
To recollect that in antiquity
The winter solstice fell in Capricorn
And that, in the Orion Nebula,
From swirling gas, new stars are being born.
Poem found at Poets.org Click link in title above.
Image found on latinamericanstudies.org
She is the Aztec goddess of rain and flowing water. It rained all Sunday afternoon, a light barely noticable drizzle. Enough to soak the ground and drip down the windows. Bead on my potted plants. When I went to bed, though, much later- Chalchihuitlicue poured her blessings upon us.
The wind shook all of my chimes and leaves blew down the street, visible in the yellow glow of the streetlamp. I curled up in our bed listening to the rain drum on the roof and snuggled deeper into the cocoon of warmth. Somehow the rain always helps me sleep better.
I managed three titles last month, listed here in reversed reading order.
A Lick of Frost; Laurell K. Hamilton
In This House of Brede; Rumer Godden
Free Food for Millionaires
I've reached the completely uninspiring number of 65 new to me books finished this year. Far, far short of my original goal of 106. Life and times intervened and so I'm satisfied that I've done the best I could under the circumstances. December being the busiest holiday month, I doubt I'll manage more than three books- but it'd be great if I could reach 70 by January 1st.
My very first post is up at Access Romance on the Readers Gab page. Click link in title to read my post.
I came up with this list as a way to remind myself to slow down and enjoy the season, no matter how hectic and hurried we become. List is in random order.
Thursday thirteen is a way for bloggers to get to know each other better. Leave a link in the comments and I'll link to you here. Click link in post title above to see a list of other TT participants.
1. Looking out the front windows at work I see a giant old hardwood tree slowly turning a rusty orange against a background of young flame red maple trees. The weather has been warm this autumn and the late changing trees reflect the temperatures.
2. My little collection of acrylic snowmen and peguins dance and sled and skate and ice fish across our dinner table- cheerful and happy and whimsical.
3. The bright red blueberry bushes on the back deck remind me of the promise of summer to come and fresh blueberries warm from the sun.
4. Clean linens and cold pillows.
5. Hubby taking initiative and hauling out all of our Christmas stuff and setting things up and decorating and..well, just making me smile every time I come home and something else has been set out. When we first married, his family hadn't celebrated Christmas in any form whatsoever since he was in grade school. Now the winter holidays are his favorites.
6. Anime Queen's A algebra test papers pinned on the fridge
7. Surfing through photos of houses and land in the wilds of northern New England daydreaming about my fantasy flower garden.
8. Fresh hot coffee in the morning
9. Long hot showers
10. Bookstores and libraries
11. Listening to jazz and standards
12. Listening to Pianist play
13. Going to church for mass
