ROLLER COASTER DAYS

 Bolt and bar the shutter,
For the foul winds blow:
Our minds are at their best this night,
And I seem to know
That everything outside us is
Mad as the mist and snow.

Horace there by Homer stands,
Plato stands below,
And here is Tully's open page.
How many years ago
Were you and I unlettered lads
Mad as the mist and snow?

You ask what makes me sigh, old friend,
What makes me shudder so?
I shudder and I sigh to think
That even Cicero
And many-minded Homer were
Mad as the mist and snow.

-W. B. Yeats-

2.20.2019

Manhattan NY Noon

Melted and cleaned up in a Day

Tax Thursday
Traveled to the West Side

My old friend and Union buddy, M.A. kindly provides me with
pro-bono tax preparation every year just a buss ride to the West side.

Here's Lucy the Protector

Defending  her Home
Fiercely

My friend settled down with Turbo-Tax and the tedious task was finished and filed in an hour. Mine is a real easy one. There was time for chit chat and thin crust Pizza shared with her partner.
https://www.nycthincrust.com/

7:30 p.m.
Headed home
Temperature still a mild 33 degrees
Just one more shot
St. Eleftherios Greek Orthodox Church
359 West 24th Street

~*~

RBG

Beekman Theater
2nd Avenue at 66th Street
Unheated and nearly deserted on a Tuesday for the 7:20 Show. In a theater that easily seats 500 we were a scant forty viewers.
I'm not solid sure just how I feel about the film. Though good, the actress feels to me like wrong casting, but I might just be stuck in the present. Story, however is fine:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a struggling attorney and new mother who faces adversity and numerous obstacles in her fight for equal rights. When Ruth takes on a groundbreaking tax case with her husband, attorney Martin Ginsburg, she knows it could change the direction of her career and the way the courts view gender discrimination.

On the Basis of Sex” does a brisk, coherent job of articulating what Ginsburg accomplished and why it mattered. 
Full review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28dHbIR_NB4

Currently she's back on the Supreme Court
Two months after cancer surgery. She had missed arguments in the meantime in her first absences since she joined the court in 1993, but had continued to participate in the court’s decisions by reading briefs and transcripts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/us/politics/ruth-bader-ginsburg-supreme-court.html

Saturday
8:30 a.m.
 
Today arrived with the usual difficult news from our wider world: Venezuela, The Popes Sex Scandal Forum, Redlining and Racism, Ongoing dismantling of consumer protections, Gun Control fights, attacks on almost every Governmental Agency and the soon to be released Mueller Report-What to expect:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/opinion/mueller-report-trump-democrats-barr.html

On the Home Front
Laundry

Food Preparation

Sound Track
Two Hours and Eleven Minutes

 https://youtu.be/ePPMrX4YtkM
~*~

Sunday
Only four more days to finish with February which has been mostly awful in so many ways. Our roller-coaster weather continues. It rained all last night, now drying out and warmish in Manhattan.
Academy Awards Tonight
 
I'm 99% certain "On the Basis of Sex" will take the Documentary prize and I hope "BlackKlansman" will get something good. Both, though not perfect films, are currently important. As for the opinions in this Chelsea News, though interesting, I don't necessarily agree. In any case, I have no strong attachment to any of the films and only saw the two I mentioned. I'll be watching. 
 
~*~ 

DAYS LIKE YEARS

Old Reliable

Grateful for a place to be warm while cooking up what's available in the larder, with no plans to go out other than down three flights to check mail and deposit trash. These old familiars have a welcoming touch but no traction on ice or snow. I've a beautiful new pair of fancy boots with good traction, but nothing beats the old familiars for comfort. Same is true of relationships, books, films, music, food and places to be.

~*~

Weather's been a Roller-Coaster
Here's a Collection of
Views

 

Snow and Rain

 

Owl and Shadows

Contrail

Bleak

Bright and Windy

Mixed Messages

15th

16th
Sunup

Sundown

~*~

Wisdom Sangha
2nd Friday Monthly
(The alter of those who are gone)

We gather, meditate and talk about ageing,
one at a time, up close and personal

Each with an individual relationship to mortality

~*~

Book Launch at Suite
February 10th
"Veil On Veil Off"
by John Marcus Powell
(Packed house, Poets and Friends, I took very few Photographs)

R.Nemo Hill 

Thomas Fucaloro

R. Nemo Hill and John Marcus

Winsome Johnson

Thomas Fucaloro

Rick Mullen

Julio Perea, John Marcus, Adriana Scopino

Video
by Rick Mullin
Part 1
(8Min)

https://youtu.be/C-W3ZxiyYGk

Part 2
(7:45Min)

https://youtu.be/HJqKovvm7Gk


Okay, So...

The weather's been a non stop roller-coaster and the ice storm was treacherous, our Federal Government continues to be under threat of another shut-down for the sake of the overblown ego requiring a wall, those stolen border children separated from family are still missing, the polar ice caps are melting faster, California fires remain a constant concern, most Countries are trying to find leaders or lose them and anyone who can wield power in order to rule the roost, will.
 Post Script
Yup, the very next day a National Emergency was declared at the end of a series of diversions and evasions by painful Presidential Press conference reporting that:
"everything's going very well"
Denial
I might be overwhelmed, but I refuse to run screaming through the streets, simply settle for being eccentrically unstable, physically fragile, passively grieving and nestled in sporadic semi-denial.
~*~

Everything Changes

Now, I'm adding on that my old answering machine, which is tethered to the only telephone I own (a land line), has given up it's ghost, malfunctioned permanently. Alerted to the fact by friends, I dragged out the dusty manual and tried to get my previous settings programmed back, but nothing worked. I was pricing new ones via google, when a blogger friend who is moving and dumping things, offered to mail me one she is abandoning. Meanwhile, since I can no longer screen calls, I'm asking friends to let it ring six times. If I'm home and conscious, I'll answer. If asleep or out, I turn the ringer off.
Post Script
  Days later, a neighbor phoned and left a message!
Apparently some of the reprogramming took, but no date or time can be set. Still, that's progress. Must ask if the number of rings was three.   ~*~

Sudden Fever

Slight temperature
Stayed home
Nurtured
~*~

Thursday Surprise

Had a full stay-in-bed day

Long time Neighbor family left a package on my door with a floating heart balloon that says "Friends Forever", a very special Chocolate bar, a beautiful live Red Rose and a card card signed by all three of them!

 

third day after receipt
showing no sign of wilt

 ~*~

Sunday

"The Divine Feminine"
Exhibition of masterworks from Nepal at Tibet House showing works from the Dharmapala Center
"Machig Labdron Tree"
In Tibetan art female icons are depicted as buddhas, bodhisattvas, historical figures such as lineage founders, Yidams and dharma protectors in peaceful, semi wrathful and rathful forms.
~*~

Heat Loss
 Woke shivering at 3 a.m-Roused the Superintendent who got up and reset. It will take another 15 minutes before it can build pressure to push warmth into the pipes to the 6th floor in three attached buildings. I have my old electric heater on and am dressed in layers. Will be glad for the relief. Old bones need the warmth. When it's working well I'll unplug the electric. Temperature in the twenties but feels colder.
 
  4:30 Aha....just heard clicking.
Maybe I can get some sleep.
~*~

 SUPER MOON
4 a.m.
(shot through a curtain in text setting)

When the Snow Moon becomes officially full on Tuesday Feb.19 at 10:53 a.m. EST (1553 GMT), it will be about six hours past perigee and will be at its closest at 4:07 a.m. EST (0907 GMT). Although it's officially "super" on the 19th, it will still look pretty full (and super!) to the casual observer the night before and after.

Sky Watchers in New York City
This Snow Moon will rise on 2.19 at 5:46 p.m. and set the next morning at 7:35 a.m. local time. To figure out when it will rise and set from your location go to the site:
https://www.space.com/34515-supermoon-guide.html

THREE THOUGHTS on LOVE

(button from the Seneca Peace Camp)

Trustworthiness
If 'love is a dog from hell', send in armies of conquering angels with fertile imaginations and let them wield their powerful wings to raise a hell of a lot of heaven

right here on earth.

(Painting by Patricia Wallace Jones)

 

Happiness
I get happy-weepy when I love what's happening at that deep level where hope lives embedded in vulnerability. The child I was is still alive in the old gal I am and

I care about her.

(Thrift shop sneakers)

 

Steadfastness
Because it's a noun, love, in order to be useful, needs participation. Then, it's a verb indicating action that can be transmitted, given away unconditionally, always.

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