My little neighbor, who is six, gave me a very stern warning over the weekend. “My friend had a bear come up on her deck to eat from her bird feeder. So be really careful and be sure to close your gate at night.”
I’m not sure where the friend lives, but I’m pretty sure it’s not in southwest Minneapolis. We normally keep an eye on the gate so the dog doesn’t get out, but I will admit that I did look out the back window last night to make sure it was closed!
Any irrational fears you’ll admit to?
Last month Bill (I think it was Bill) mentioned Voyage to the Bunny Planet by Rosemary Wells. It had been in print a few years before I was first read it to Child, but I remember that we had it from the library at some point. The Hennepin Library doesn’t own a copy any longer but I was able to get it through InterLibrary Loan and I’m liking it so much that I’ve ordered myself a copy. (I have a very modest children’s book collection – based solely on what I like).
There are three stories, each featuring a young bunny who has had an exceedingly bad day — never-ending math class, horrible cousins, medicine that tastes like gasoline. At the end of these bad days, the young bunnies wish for a visit to the Bunny Planet. There they are greeted by the kind Queen Janet who invites them in with a “Here’s the day that should have been.” Each bunny falls off to sleep with the visions of a perfect day dancing in their heads.
At the beginning of each story, there is a rabbit quote like this:
It is the first duty of a flagging spirit to seek renewal
in the latitudes of whimsy. I, for one, dream on
beyond the give planets to a world without wickedness;
verdant, mild, and populated by amiable lapins.
Benjamin Franklin
The other quotes are from Rudyard Kipling (“The captain fell at daybreak, and ‘e’s ravin’ in ‘is bed, With a regiment of rabbits on the planets round ‘is ‘ead.”) and Galileo (“I designated this heavenly body “Coniglio,” but alas, never saw it again.”)
It’s gratifying to see rabbits making the grade in heavenly literature but I think it’s fascinating that Benjamin Franklin dreamed of whimsy and thought a perfect world would be a bunny haven.
I say whimsy all around!
Tell me about your “day that should have been” and how your perfect world would look?
Last month Bill (I think it was Bill) mentioned Voyage to the Bunny Planet by Rosemary Wells. It had been in print a few years before I was first read it to Child, but I remember that we had it from the library at some point. The Hennepin Library doesn’t own a copy any longer but I was able to get it through InterLibrary Loan and I’m liking it so much that I’ve ordered myself a copy. (I have a very modest children’s book collection – based solely on what I like).
There are three stories, each featuring a young bunny who has had an exceedingly bad day — never-ending math class, horrible cousins, medicine that tastes like gasoline. At the end of these bad days, the young bunnies wish for a visit to the Bunny Planet. There they are greeted by the kind Queen Janet who invites them in with a “Here’s the day that should have been.” Each bunny falls off to sleep with the visions of a perfect day dancing in their heads.
At the beginning of each story, there is a rabbit quote like this:
It is the first duty of a flagging spirit to seek renewal
in the latitudes of whimsy. I, for one, dream on
beyond the give planets to a world without wickedness;
verdant, mild, and populated by amiable lapins.
Benjamin Franklin
The other quotes are from Rudyard Kipling (“The captain fell at daybreak, and ‘e’s ravin’ in ‘is bed, With a regiment of rabbits on the planets round ‘is ‘ead.”) and Galileo (“I designated this heavenly body “Coniglio,” but alas, never saw it again.”)
It’s gratifying to see rabbits making the grade in heavenly literature but I think it’s fascinating that Benjamin Franklin dreamed of whimsy and thought a perfect world would be a bunny haven.
I say whimsy all around!
Tell me about your “day that should have been” and how your perfect world would look.
A good friend of mine said once I should put “In a relationship” as my Facebook status. When I was surprised and asked with whom I was having this relationship, she said “your library account”. Ha ha. But, of course, she’s right. I know my library card number by heart and I probably check my account three or four times a week. To keep myself from having way too many books checked out at once, I have half of my Hold list on pause so that needs curating as well. And it’s also fun to watch those popular books with long waitlists as they creep slowly towards being available.
In the fall of 2019, someone at a party mentioned a new cookbook written by Dan Buettner called The Blue Zones Kitchen. I’ve read three of his other books, 2 of them about the Blue Zones (particularly happy/healthy places in the world) so I went to my library account and requested the cookbook. There were about 580 people in line ahead of me and not a huge number of copies; I figured it would take a few months to get, but I wasn’t in a hurry.
Then pandemic descended upon us. The first thing was that the libraries all closed down. Then during the summer they started lending again, but you couldn’t actually go in the library. Now you can go into the building but you can’t hang out. You’re supposed to “grab `n go”. Hand in hand with all these changes is that due dates for books just keep pushing back and back. Except for downloadable audiobooks, nothing ever seems to come due anymore.
So as the months went by, I saw The Blue Zones Kitchen languishing on my Holds list, barely moving. In the fall of 2020, about a year after I put it on my Hold list, the library purchased a few more copies, so I was a bit more hopeful. On this past Monday, after 18 months, I got an email that the library was holding a copy for me.
My patience paid off – it’s actually a very nice cookbook and I think I may actually purchase a copy for myself. In the meantime, I’m going to make this recipe:
Melia Family Minestrone
7 Tbsp. olive oil
1 yellow or white onion, chopped
2 medium carrots, chopped
2 medium celery stalks, chopped
2 tsp. minced garlic
1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
3 medium yellow potatoes, peeled & diced
1 ½ c. chopped fennel bulbs, stalks & fronds
1/4 c. chopped parsley
2 Tbsp. chopped basil
½ c. dried & peeled fava beans (or 15-oz can)
½ c. dried cranberry beans (or 15-oz can)
½ c. dried chickpeas (or 15-oz can)
(If using dried beans, soak overnight)
6-8 c. water or vegetable stock
2/3 c. Sardinian fregula, Israeli couscous or acini di pepe pasta
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. black pepper
Have you ever waited a long time for something? Was it worth it?
On Sunday, the last long-haul day for my Ukrainian egg production, I binge-watched Peter Gunn with Craig Stevens. When you binge-watch a series, you get to know the theme music pretty well and I looked up at one point as the credits were rolling to see that Henry Mancini wrote the theme music.
I don’t know much about Henry Mancini except that he wrote the music for Breakfast at Tiffany’s including Moon River. So being me, I took a break from eggs and googled him. I was surprised to find that he was the composer for a lot of shows that I know: Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Pink Panther movies, Charades and Hatari. I remember doing a skit in elementary school using the music Baby Elephant Walk but I had never known it was by Henry Mancini.
All this new knowledge made me think about other very recognizable theme music: Ghostbusters, Hawaii Five-O, Green Acres (for better or worse), Lara’s Theme (from Doctor Zhivago) and you know me – Perry Mason. I could probably keep this list going for quite some time.
Any theme music that you’ll cop to liking?
YA and I went to Easter dinner at a neighbor/friend’s home. Everybody had their Fauci ouchie and three of the other 4 folks could be said to be “in our bubble”. The fourth person was a close friend of the friend/neighbor. I liked her right away and was interested in the mosaic art that she does.
The topic of my Ukrainian eggs came up and she asked a lot of questions about how they are made. At one point she said “oh, that would be a fun thing to learn to do”. So I offered to teach her; she was so excited I thought she might fall off her chair. She asked if I could teach her twin sister as well – they apparently like to do these kinds of things together. In for a penny, in for a pound – I agreed.
Since I’m actually putting the egg table up this weekend to start my Solstice eggs (yea, I know, just a tad early), I thought this would be a good time for lessons. Instead of a traditionally colored pysanky (white, yellow, green, red, black) I’m going to design a beginner egg that will have various shades of blue. The reason is simple. My Solstice egg this year will be using the blues and I don’t want to mix a bunch of different non-blue colors just for this lesson. The process is exactly the same so I won’t be short-changing them.
I’ve taught Ukrainian eggs before – to two different friends and to YA when she was little – all of these lessons were a long time ago. Even though I’ve taught before, I find myself a little more nervous about this time. Maybe because I will teaching two at a time? Maybe because I know she is an artist herself? I expect my jitters will fade away quickly once we get going. At least I hope so… jitters and hot wax on eggs don’t go together well!
Have you ever taught anything? What do you think you’d be good at teaching?
I have very few bad dreams. Or at least not that I remember once I’m awake. But I had a doozy last week, the kind that leaves you wanting to stay awake so that you don’t fall back into it. I made a trip to the bathroom, splashed my face, had a glass of water and when I got back into bed, I dreamt, but not the same nightmare scenario that had woken me.
I was starting a new job in a big business building downtown. My new boss owned the whole floor, although his actual business only took up five or six rooms. I don’t recall if I knew in the dream what I was supposed to be doing. The rooms of the business were messy and it seemed clear that there wasn’t an actual office (or even desk) for me. I had been given no direction about where I was to settle. I was pretty well-dressed in the dream, although my dream self was a little worried that I didn’t have many nice work clothes.
Of course, in part of the dream, I wandered out into a hallway and had trouble finding my way back. My boss was in and out, fairly frenetic, again giving me no clue what I was supposed to be doing. I worried about how I would get downtown every day. I wondered if I should take matters into my own hands and order a desk. Oh, did I mention that my new boss was Barack Obama?
I’ve probably said here before that I view dreams as a recycling of the day to day detritus in my subconscious. Usually I can track bits of my dreams back to a waking trigger, but I’ll admit this one has my stumped.
Any dream interpretations for me? Any good dreams you’ve had lately?
Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day for walking – even if a bit windy. I walked along Minnehaha Parkway and as I looked down at one point I saw the words “Happier” and “Ed Sheeran” written in chalk on the sidewalk. While I know who Ed Sheeran is, I wasn’t sure if I knew the song, so I whipped out my phone and looked it up. It was very nice:
I don’t usually listen to music or audiobooks when I walk. I prefer being present in the outside world and I’m not so sure that earbuds are all that safe. I also need more attention than you would imagine to make sure that the dog is staying in a good state of mind. But it was nice to listen to the song for a bit as we walked. It won’t make me an Ed Sheeran fan but I liked the idea that I was hearing a song that someone else thought enough of to chalk it for passers-by. We kept going along the parkway and I didn’t see anymore song titles. Just the one.
If I could leave just one song written on the sidewalk for others to come across, what would it be. One of my absolute favorites is the Ave Maria by Franz Biebl, especially the rendition done by Cantus. But what message would I be sending the world with that one? So I think I’d have to write “Everything is Holy Now” by Peter Mayer. I think this is a song the world needs to hear.
I’ll supply the chalk. What is the one song you want to add to the sidewalk?
Yesterday Guinevere and I turned right at the bottom of the driveway instead of our normal “to the left” on our walk. I got a really good look at my boulevard and was so surprised to see not just the daffodils starting to sprout up, but also the tulips, lilies and even a teen tiny peony tip. And, of course, even a few creeping charlies. Even though a few baboons have already mentioned that they’ve seen things popping up, it still surprised me to see so much this early.
At least it still feels early to me; I can’t even keep track of the times I’ve had to cover up my plants in my straw bales after Mother’s Day due to a frost warning. However seeing everything popping up makes me want to get out there and clear out last year’s leavings, despite knowing that it might not be safe yet.
I’m normally very good at delaying gratification. I always eat the cake first and leave the icing for the end. I have no trouble saving gifts until it’s the right time to open them. Most of the time I’ll pick the ickiest chore to do first and save the things I like better for later. But now I am itching to get out there with my grubby jeans and gardening gloves, to starting cleaning up and making way for spring. I’m not sure how to keep myself inside this weekend.
How to you forestall temptation?
Now that we’ve had some nicer weather, I’ve been farther afield with Guinevere. On the way home from the library yesterday, I passed a display that I had seen several times last year. The homeowners have two big planters out on their little boulevard, one on each side of a tree. There are plastic eggs, pretty sticks and butterflies. The fun part of seeing this again is that the owners have clearly freshened it up. Instead of dirty and faded as you would expect after the winter, the eggs are new and bright and the butterflies are all intact and fluttering in the wind.
This is not a display that can be easily seen from the house; the homeowners must have decided at some point to make sure the planters are cheerful and welcoming for folks who are walking by. I feel like it’s a gift to me and other pedestrians. This is important to me; in today’s environment that seems so overwhelmed by hate and nastiness, I am really trying to pay attention and acknowledge when people are intentionally kind (well, unintentionally too I guess). I’m thinking about leaving a thank you card in their mailbox.
We talked a out Little Free Libraries last week – books, produce, treasures, even sticks. I hope that everybody is seeing other acts of kindness as they go about their business and that it inspires us all to try to step up to kindness when it’s needed.
Any other kind/nice stuff that you’ve seen lately?
Trail Baboon 