LEFTOVERS

Maybe because I was a world-war two baby, thoroughly programmed in "Waste-not-Want-not" and 
"Don't forget the starving children."

Maybe because I just skim the plus side of poverty every month and cross over into the minus ledger fairly regularly.

 I'm Thrifty
 
I've mastered the art of leftovers, 
able to turn anything in the larder into tasty nourishment.

Stuffing Casserole
Follow simple directions to mix with broth, spices and butter, add cubes of pre-cooked leftover meats if you have any and bake at 350 degrees for forty minutes. Serve with a variety of steamed greens.  


Spinach Souffle

two eggs, three tablespoons fine breadcrumbs, butter, one cup steamed spinach, squeezed dry, nutmeg and salt. Bake thirty minutes in preheated 350 degree oven. If you desire prettier. Melt some cheddar on top or just add a scoop of whipped mustard/mayo before serving. A few sprigs of parsley and you can call it cuisine.

Celeriac Soup
(recipes in link below)
Warning: you will need a really good knife. 

~*~

I almost always have what I need on hand.
When I don't, generous friends have stepped in to offer aid leaving me in a perpetual state of amazed gratitude.

I'm Rich

Perhaps an illusion, but what isn't?  Everything dissolves into molecules and air eventually. Meanwhile, friends, food, fun, grief, rage, pain, pleasure and god-almighty chance rules.
~*~

I discover again and again that my default setting is doom.
 Patience is my practice, kindness my goal.

I'm Fortunate

Wise beings were there throughout, tripping me like stones in the road, reminding me that there's more to life than meets the eye, more subtle senses than the basic six.

Most things I might desire, I can do without.

I shop in my closet. It's a museum store with

decades of fashions for all seasons and moods on permanent display and the price is always right.

~*~

LINK

Recipe
https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/15-best-celeriac-recipes-article

THE FOURTH FRIENDS

July Fourth

2017

The sky looking East

Sundown looking West

Peter Cooper Village

New York City

Wendy Daly, our generous Hostess, met us at the Guard-Gate entrance on First Avenue

with Ron Sherbet

 My neighbors for four + decades

Wendy had invited just a few folks for a small gathering to view the fireworks and share some food at her apartment after. We began on the lawn.

Apparently, everyone originally invited, invited several others...

...ultimately totaling thirty something people.  Needless to say, we all made it up to the roof and a few visited the apartment for the food and beverage offerings, which, by the way were simply delicious.  Most had distance to travel and departed right after the show.

~*~

My fifteen photographs of the Fireworks

http://mscomfortzone.blogspot.com/2017/07/firework-abstracts.html

 

GIFTS of LIGHT

Friday Night

There is not much so curative

as a visit from a compatible friend.

Easy conversations, 'food' swapping:

my wheat for his lemonade,
His wittiness for my laughter, my variety of concoctions
for his willingness to make use of them.  

Lots of classical music, talk of the classics, and truths;

we read Barbara's poem "Three Laments".

Teas: two 'sleepytime' + two 'breathe easy',

sweetened by Stevia and steeped.

Sharing 'the unbearable lightness of being'

without ever calling it that.

We watched 

"Shine"

(see links)

 ~*~

Saturday
Made these Berry wine cordials by soaking wine with berries and spice for months, drained and bottled it for gifts today. I can not drink alcohol.

Doodled
"Twisted Rainbow"

However
My chronic condition was super bad today and no comfort for the left leg either so I took a walk with my cane.  Totally unstable and no ability to stand still in drizzley rain but I like the shot anyhow.

So it goes
~*~

Sunday
Aside from short sleeps, my Rx for CC, and a hot compress for the leg, music, a bit of broth and toast, nothing much. The old lady is still sick; so much so, I fear to alienate friends who call to say 'How are you', being tempted to say 'fine' . Of course I ask how they are and perhaps I'm told.  I'm not even up for company if any were available. One fairly close by friend has offered.  I don't want to chat on the phone. Everything takes twice as much energy as one thinks it might. Careful, 'You are quite grumpy' my inner therapist says. This is my fifteenth or so wake up from the aching let to heat the compress again and down another glass of "CALM".  I meant to post this at 10PM yesterday but it's already Monday morning. I 'want' to think this too will pass, and since everything does it will, but I don't believe it will be a return to well woman old age.  'It's the illness talking' my therapist says, 'don't listen'.  The rash has just flared up again all over my face too. Poor me.  Such darkness! I'm going to mine some old photos for light:

3.26 2010
Skylight
beautiful blue sky in the old Dharma Mittra yoga studio

 3.26 2011

Daffodils

found feathers, wooden carved chickadee and cardinal with the stone owl in the alcove by the alley window

3.26.2012

Forsythia 

in Westfield Massachusetts with dear old friends Jenny and Richard

3.26 2013

Cloth Work

 with light on my work table when I was still sewing

3.26.2014

Ceramic dove

that holds my mailbox key, backed by Jude Hills gift of a stitch sampler when she was leading 'The Magic Feather project.

3.26.2015

Stone Buddha

Given to me by Jude's brother, Nemo, and holding a $100 bill to remind me of the transitory nature of things, backed by a street found seascape I eventually gave to my Superintendent because he said it reminded him of his home in the Dominican Republic.

 

Lastly

This Happy Song,

the words of which are all true, and which I also posted at face book.

https://youtu.be/LHacDYj8KZM

Links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shine_(film)
clip
http://www.imdb.com/videoplayer/vi630325529?ref_=tt_pv_vi_aiv_1

IF ONLY

IF only I were not as mortal as I am. If WE were only not their fools and THEY (the famous they) were not so very precisely what they are, IF hyperspace were a skill that could be mastered--flight MIGHT be an option. If only that, THEN relief could follow quick enough. If only, only THESE things were true, TIME would lay down it's arms, clocks stop ticking, beings cease rushing, and grabbing.

STOP

~*~

MEANWHILE

The 2016 Lunar Phases Calendar ends when November ends. It was a gift from Peggy dear of Woman with Wings

http://womanwithwingsblog.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-hermit-month.html?spref=fb 

~*~

These little Organic Potatoes will be transformed into finger food treats by being roasted in garlicky butter for a friends Thanksgiving I'll be attending this coming week. I think of Grace Forest, her Thanksgiving preparations for her friend's imminent visit.

http://windthread.typepad.com/windthread/2016/11/ready.html

~*~

I sit staring here at this framed flyer from "Will Beauty Save The World?", a poetry show we did years ago--that deer antler, found on the forest floor during a visit upstate decades ago--the books and cards from friends; think about each of them, picturing them until thinking evaporates into just being.

~*~

Returning to nourishment, I process arugula with lemony vinegar until it's green goop, add a dash of stevia, a few pinches of salt, bottle and store it in the fridge to spread on toast in days to come.

~*~

Remembering
Thanksgiving in Massachusetts

 Two years ago.

Ha!

~*~

My all time favorite Thanksgiving desert
New England Indian Pudding

https://youtu.be/npw8h1sd2Qs

May you be happy

GOOD MORNING-AFTERNOON-NIGHT EQUINOX

This planet has it's own agenda.
It's not personal no matter what our neurons tell us.

The sun is directly above the equator, and the hours of day and night nearly equal. They rub against each other like old friends to talk of many unseen things.

Waves of energy pull at all matter in this moment and I feel it even here encased in brick, surrounded by glass and steel, and wrapped in endless cables. I feel the pull of green going, of rot, re-purposing and rebirth, so mind churns up a memory  of Winter.

Turn the globe 360 degrees,
Spring arrives elsewhere.

It's been an ordinary day, telephone and doorbells unplugged, I puttered around sorting useful things saved,

assessing works in process and making some progress.

Electronic church bells toll six O'clock and the aroma of what's been steamed permeates my skin. I sweat organic chicken, ghee, potato, carrot, onion, garlic and turmeric.

 I exhale wild-caught Alaskan codfish.
I'm pickled in sweet soy and vinegar...

pepper and Salt preserved, and overflowing with gratitude for these and all the gifts sent by generous friends...the four cameras when mine crashed and burned (two from writing pal Barbara Hohenberg, two from blog buddy Deb Lacativa), and this quilted journal cover with two journals (from another blogger Laura osbun)

and when I opened the mail a short while ago 
this book (from my dear friend Nayra).

Whew.

Night--A familiar silence vibrating,
reminding me that balancing is a practice that lasts,
that nothing is lost, that the past is present even as this moment slides into the future, that there's only now, and now, and now and now again.
~*~

MOMA with FOUR FRIENDS 3

(Part Three)

THE PORTRAIT CORNER

 Me

Two Spanish fellows became friends.  I shot their portrait with their camera for them and they shot mine with my camera.  But don't ask which floor because I was lost in whirlwind by the second hour.

 ~*~

1960 TO 1969

The Museum of Modern Art has reinstalled its fourth-floor collection galleries with works exclusively from the 1960s. Interweaving works from all of MoMA’s curatorial departments and the Museum Archives, this presentation focuses on a decade in which interdisciplinary artistic experimentation flourished, traditional mediums were transformed, and sociopolitical upheaval occurred across the globe. The galleries proceed chronologically, with work installed by year. This organizing principle steps back from the classification of galleries by art historical themes or “isms” and instead aims to provide a variety of fresh discoveries and unexpected connections. The product of a collaborative effort among curators from all departments, the presentation will undergo periodic re-installations, reflecting the depth and richness of the Museum’s collection and the view that there are countless ways to explore the history of modern art, architecture, design, and the moving image. This exhibition contains over 350 works. However, MOMA's collection holds over 7,000 objects from the 1960s that span a range of mediums and departments—many more than visitors will
encounter in the galleries. 
1967

Dylan

 The Beatles and The Stones

"Apollo Launch"
Florida 1977 by Gary Winogrand, a street photographer Bronx, New York, known for his portrayal of American life, and its social issues in the mid-20th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Winogrand

"Pray For America"
(forgot the artist)

 "The Story of Napalm"
(film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm

continued...

Vietnam

http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-history
Anti-war protests continued to build as the conflict wore on. In 1968 and 1969, there were hundreds of anti-war marches and gatherings throughout the country. On November 15, 1969, the largest anti-war protest in American history took place in Washington, D.C., as over 250,000 Americans gathered peacefully, calling for withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. The anti-war movement, which was particularly strong on college campuses, divided Americans bitterly. For some young people, the war symbolized a form of unchecked authority they had come to resent. For other Americans, opposing the government was considered unpatriotic and treasonous.
~*~

Bruce Conner

 The artist’s first monographic museum exhibition in New York, the first large survey of his work in 16 years, and the first complete retrospective of his 50-year career...

  It brings together over 250 objects, from film and video to painting, assemblage, drawing, prints, photography, photograms, and performance.

 http://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1614?locale=en

It's a huge and complex show and fills the sixth floor--I simply had no way to see it all. 
I'll return when I can and see the films.
 ~*~

To the Sculpture Garden
Rose

The setting

He never stopped moving
Music filled the space

 Michael smiling

Pam recording on her i-phone

 Ron watching

Friend Laurie sketching

 A wonderful t-shirt

The sky above as we left

Obviously I missed a lot...here's the roster
http://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions