rainy days

I love rain. I love the sound of the drops hitting the pavement, splashing against the window panes, the heady scent of ozone in the air, and how clean and shiny everything appears after the rain is over.



I love the gray sky. I love how green the leaves on my trees seem, glowing from the refraction of light on the rain drops. I love curling up under a blanket, laptop warming my lap and cup of tea steaming at my elbow. (must be tea, you cannot drink coffee on a rainy day, it's a law or something :) )





I love how when you're writing, rain inherently supports the mood and tone of a scene. From gray and ominous as a portent of the plot twists to come. From sad and cloudy or dark and angry mimicking the characters' emotions. And I love how the rain seems to spark my creativity.

I can just as easily snuggle up with my laptop as a good book on a rainy day. Blue skies are lovely, but gray rainy skies rock.



Happy Rainy Monday!



Lisa



ps. I wonder...I'm descended from the English-maybe liking rain is in my blood. :)

unexpected blessings and thanks to Maya Angelou

So Thursday night my son, who is seventeen, says, "oh yeah, i forgot. we have to make spanish rice tonight."

At 6 pm. I've been getting up at 5 am to take other son to water polo practice so by 6 o'clock at NIGHT, I am done. Wiped out, finished, barely coherent. Seriously. I'm so not a morning person that when I'm forced to get up every day like that, by the end of the day I'm in a borderline vegetative state. And by the end of the week, forget it.

Thirty bite sized servings for, no not Spanish class, but English class. Why? Because Maya Angelou apparently is partial to Spanish rice. And for the poetry presentation, his group is spotlighting Maya Angelou.

So he accesses http://www.allrecipes.com/ and searches for Spanish rice. We head to the store for the two ingredients we don't have in our pantry, one of them being, yes, you guessed, the rice.

I don't consider cooking to be helping with homework. I won't write my kid's papers, I won't type my kid's papers, I won't do their math or their French homework, or color their graphs or science lab covers, but I absolutely will help them cook.

Fortunately my sons are in culinary class so he starts the boring stuff (chopping--but don't tell him that) while I get the bacon simmering. We chatted about his day, his classes, cooking, and Maya Angelou while the spicy aromas began to fill our kitchen and what could have been a completely frustrating and annoying evening turned into a lovely interaction with my son. And the rice was absolutely fantastic. We're planning on making the recipe again, it was sooo good.

So thank you, Maya Angelou!

Lisa

ps. I've included the link for the rice recipe. We used smoked applewood bacon and our chile powder is a wonderful smoked powder from New Mexico chiles.
www.allrecipes.com/Recipe/Spanish-Rice-Original/Detail.aspx

World War II Escape Tool: Monopoly?

I love this!

Lots of military and espionage organizations have escape and evade kits that they give to their operatives who are in hostile territory. Information on local plants that can be eaten, maps, places or roads to avoid. Today they are usually printed on tyvek.

In World War II, they frequently printed maps and information on silk, because it wouldn't ruin if it got wet and unlike paper it wouldn't make much noise while viewed. The maps were sewn into linings of suits, printed on the inside of ties, and various other places. Very clever.

Last week, I ran across an article about taking that idea to the next level. Apparently during World War II, the Germans allowed certain items to be given to POW's through charity groups. One item deemed acceptable was board games. So Waddington's, a company in the UK, made 'special' Monopoly games to be distributed to POW's.

The airmen were told ahead of time that if they got captured to look for the marked games and dismantle the set to find their escape maps. How ingenious! :)

Lisa

ps. If you want to read the entire article, here's the link:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/monopolys-hidden-escape-maps-free-pows/Story?id=8605905&page=1

social decorum...where have you gone?

So I'll admit it I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to behavior in public. And it seems that this last week has proven something that has been niggling at me for the last few years.

We as a country have lost our sense of social decorum.

I actually began this conversation with Sophie Littlefield www.sophielittlefield.com and Rachelle Chase www.rachellechase.com on our monthly trip into Berkeley for the RWA meeting last Saturday after the Congressman shouted out "you lie" during President Obama's speech. I found that shocking. Seriously.

While that was the most grossly inappropriate, the last few days have shown a growing deterioration of behavior in public situations. Kanye West. Serena Williams. It seems every time we turn around some public figure is behaving badly. And if people who are supposed to be role models behave this poorly what example are we setting for our kids and for ourselves?

This isn't to say that I always behave perfectly. Far from it. But shouldn't we hold ourselves and our country to a higher standard?

So the next time you're tempted to blurt something out...Don't!
And I'll do the same. :)

the journey's the thing

i'm fresh from back to school night at the high school, sitting through quick ten minute presents from the teachers about the class and i was struck by a very sad fact. most of the teachers made sure to tell everyone how they grade and the weight of tests vs. homework and meeting the benchmarks and yada, yada, yada.

example: honors chemistry. i was a chem major in college (for a year and a half anyway) and i LOVE chemistry. i would have liked to have known what kind of experiments they are going to do, what cool stuff they might learn. sure i'd like my kids to get good grades but i'd rather they have enthusiasm and a joy for a subject than an A.

parents here (and maybe it's everywhere but definitely the case in my little slice of california) are so focused on the end, on putting that A or B or weighted grade on junior's report card so they can get into Harvard (yeah, probably not, and definitely not in our house :) ) that very few teachers discuss what they are going to teach. and to me that makes for a sad day.

to me, learning should be the absorption of new concepts and ideas and the steps along the way, the journey's the thing.

end of summer and the apocalypse garden

The end of summer is almost here (no matter what my misguided friends think :) ) and I thought you might like a picture of my garden now. It's needs a little fertilizer (yellow leaves give it away). Some things were an amazing success. I've had plenty of zucchini. And one in particular that got away from me. It hid under a leaf right next to the box and I didn't see it until it was the size of a baseball bat (seriously--okay not completely serious. It was as big around as a baseball bat tho).



The lemon cucumber is really yummy. Now something seems to be attacking the leaves and it's looking a little sickly. The beans never really took off. I'm about to harvest them and have one decent side dish. The corn was a bust. I have ears that are small but the ants got the corn so I'll have to figure out what to do about that next year. However, I'm going to have a great front porch decoration with those stalks so all is not lost. :)





I've got watermelon, honey dew, and canteloupe that has yet to fully ripen. And if the damn squirrels would leave my tomatoes alone I'd be ready for my own Tomatina.

We've had a great time eating from our garden already this year. Although I'm thankful we aren't really headed for the apocalypse because while we had some tasty meals, we'd starve if we had to live on my gardening. :) But hey, it's a start.

And I've been bitten by the gardening bug. I'm looking forward to planting my winter crop soon....

CIA and torture

So I'm reading this article about torture the CIA allegedly authorized even after we'd deemed it illegal and I was struck by something. You can read the article in its entirety here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090827/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_cia_interrogations

This article was written and published by the Associated Press. And not to make light of the situation but I read this sentence:

Before scaling back its "enhanced interrogation program," the CIA used 10 harsh methods, including waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning. It later used six techniques, including sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation and slapping.

And my first thought was Motherhood is a form of torture.