On making me smile

Floyds Big Nose (explore #44)
Originally uploaded by Boab24

It makes her smile. Twenty times a day, two hundred times a week, two thousand times a season, how many smiles hath the thwacking of one tail wrought? Countless, though more to the point, counted upon, and therefore forgivable, since counting upon anything has been an ability she has not heretofore possessed.

Dante (the Wolfhound) from Sighthound, by Pam Houston

On taking note

The best way to waste your life, ... is by taking notes. The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch. Look for the details. Report. Don't participate.

~Chuck Palahniuk

This is a desperate lunchtime (Calgon, take me away) post from my office at college. Exams are officially over now, which means that I have about 1 second to finish all of my marking and get grades posted before exam boards with other local universities next week. I don't think I ever appreciated how much marking my college lecturers had to do, it seemed to me at the time that Starman must have intuited all of my grades. (I only got to hear him say "Congratulations" in that robot voice for a 4.0 one time in my 6 or 7 years at UW - how about you?)

Chuck's definitely on to something, though I have to admit, I wish my students had taken more notes considering some of their exam results! Summer is palpable now, can you feel it from where you are?

Take a deep breath.

"Oh soul, you worry too much. You have seen your own strength. You have seen your own beauty. You have seen your golden wings. Of anything less, why do you worry? You are in truth the soul, of the soul, of the soul.”

~Jalal ad-Din Rumi

An Open Letter to 2008

Dear 2008,

Let's begin this letter with some honesty. You see, 2008, I see no reason to end this relationship amicably because frankly, I'm glad to see the back side of you. I hope you can take it, 2008, because I'm not about to beat around the bush. You really sucked ass. You took me to places I didn't want to go and stretched my patience with myself and the challenged the very limits of my marriage.

Am I being dramatic, 2008? Let's look at this more closely, shall we? There was the great tomato blight, the non-summer of record rainfall and flooding, the weeks I spent in the hospital. It's true, 2008, this is the year that my 32 year old body failed me. Okay, okay 2008. You're right. I am being a little dramatic. You sent me some light as well as the darkness. I suppose it would be unfair to hold you solely responsible for the darkness. How can one change the things they don't take responsibilty for?

Maybe I have been too hasty, 2008. You taught me that I've only got one chance in this life on Earth, in this skin that I'm in. And I really need to look after her better. All these trips to the hospital, the operation and the gamut of medical tests! There were hours spent in the loo or in shame for not being able to hold it just a minute longer. You've taught me just how precious health is. In the immortal words of the rockband Cinderella from your forefather 1988 'you don't know what you got till it's gone'. 

You have shown me that I need to take her out for walks and bike rides and early morning swims down at the pool and to yoga classes. To choose the fresh veggie stir fry over the sweet and sour pork. To drink more water. To soak in the bath after a long, hard day - and not the bottle of wine.

It's true that there were even some blessings, 2008. I've learned that I can teach. That when I have something to say, people listen. I can motivate teenagers, believe it or not, and 2008, you did give me the opportunity to explore this side of myself. 

You even brought me back home, to stand on my home ground though only for a short time, and reconnected me to the light and comfort of old friends long time gone. You also introduced me to the smallest Magnolia and to Caden and Lydia and not quite yet, but soon we'll meet Isla too. That's up to your buddy, 2009. 

So, do you see much of 2009? If you do can you tell him that this year will be more about self love. That's my mantra for 2009. On my wedding day, I promised to work toward my true potential. 2008, I think I let the darkness linger a little too long. I'm grateful that I found a partner that can tolerate the darker side of me, but neither of us want to live there anymore. 

And with that, 2008, I bid you farewell. 

Sincerely,

The Queen Bee

The Ice Storm, Chicken-fried Turkey & the Man on the Moon Part One (or how to make a really bad impression on your future father-in-law)

I'm about to experiment in telling a story in installments. I think this story deserves a preface. I've never been one for prefaces as such, I tend to skip them and get straight to the meat of a book, but in this case, a certain amount of background information is required.

I'll start by introducing my father. Blog readers, meet Ricko, Dad meet the blog readers. My dad was a bit on the eccentric side - though I never really saw it that way while I was growing up, but in the telling of these stories now I realize how individual the man truly was.

We'll pick up his story after he and my Mom split up. He'd been living alone in their little A-frame love nest in the Eagle River Valley outside of Anchorage for a good 16 or 17 years by now. When I was 25, after finally graduating college (after 7 years!), I returned to Alaska to make a go of it. The first time I went round to my Dad's for dinner he offered me his famous Moose-meat Lasagne for dinner. It was gorgeous. The mushrooms he used literally melted in your mouth and were the most scrumptious thing I'd ever tasted.

I asked him "Dad, what did you do to these mushrooms? They're amazing." He paused, caressing his long ZZ Top beard as he did whenever he was about to make a point "Well, Brookie." That's what he called me, much to my horror and despite my fervent protests, "Carr's was offering a great deal on mushrooms and I bought the store out."

"I thought you might have picked them yourself, like they were shaggy manes or something?" I suggested.

"Nope, just good ole supermarket variety." He punctuated the comment with a curt nod of the head, his beard hovering dangerously close to his plate of lasagne. "I just fried them up in butter and garlic and froze the whole lot of 'em. Must have been 15 years ago now...." He looked up from his reverie at the sharp sound of my fork clanking off the plate as I dropped it. I quickly recovered it and spent the rest of the meal surreptiously avoiding the mushrooms. I didn't dare inquire about the age of the moose meat, though I'd known he hadn't been hunting in a couple of years....

He was always doing stuff like that, buying the store out of something. It wasn't that he lived so far out of town that it was worth stocking up in case of bad weather. There were plenty of other cabins that were further out and even more remote. He just knew a good deal when he spotted one. There was also the practicality of his driveway. His house was built on the side of mountain and his was a nearly vertical potholed, dirtroad deathtrap that was only passable about 4 months of the year.

There was the time a little later that autumn, the year I came back to Alaska, that he called me up to come over and help him unload the truck of this really good deal he got on canned tuna. "It was such a great deal, Brookie, I bought the whole fucking stock!" He explained, "I even sent the bag boy to out to see if there was any more in the back. Wooh! What a bargain!" He said, clearly pleased with his eye for pinching pennies.

When I arrived, I noticed the Whiskas label on the tin and asked when he got a cat. "Damn it to hell, Brookie. You always did have an eagle eye." He proclaimed, and we hopped back in the truck and took it all back to the store. Even though he threw his receipt out the window on the way back home, everyone at the market knew he'd just bought them out of cat food. The check out girl remarked that she just thought that he really loved his cat.

His infamy in town hadn't always worked out in his favor. The truck was a new edition to my old man, only a year or two old. Before that, and for as long as I could remember, he drove a 1968 VW bus otherwise known, to my sister and I, as Puff Puff Squeeze Cheese. It looked like a block of cheddar, (or maybe swiss cheese near the end with all the rusted out holes and you could totally see the road beneath your feet in places, Flintstones style) and backfired every few minutes, much to the hilarity of my sister and I when we were little. Though by the time we were 14 or 15, it wasn't nearly as amusing.

The Cheese slowly disintegrated over the years, but Dad never seemed to notice or mind very much that there was no heat (this was fucking Alaska for Christ's sake) I don't think it had a muffler for 15 years, and he didn't even blink an eye when the starter finally blew out. He just travelled with a couple of wooden wedges that he'd back up onto if he couldn't find a hill to park on.

Britt and I learned at a young age, how to pop the clutch to push start a car. We were still pretty little, so it was a team effort to get the van started; Britt worked the pedals while I steered and shifted into gear. Dad would push the Cheese down the slope and run along side us and shout "Let 'er rip, girls!" when we'd picked up enough speed. Britt would pop the clutch, while I struggled to push the gigantic gear stick into second. The Cheese would start with a pop (literally, she backfired on ignition) Britt would gently work the brake, I'd stick her in neutral and we'd slow down to halting, rattling speed so that Dad could catch up to us. He'd hop in, light a Lucky and say something like "How bout one for the road, girls?" And we'd find something suitably cold from the ice chest he carried around behind the front seat.

He was, however, a stickler for safety and there was only one working seat belt in the old Cheese on the bench at the back, and he strapped my sister and I into it until we were 12 or 13 years old. Can you picture this? Is there anything more embarrassing than your father when your 12? Is there anything worse than a little sister at that age either? When he'd fill up the tank, he leave us in the van, and wouldn't (couldn't) turn the Cheese off, he'd stand at the pump with the Lucky Strike that never left his mouth alight, the lack of muffler doing nothing to camouflage his bold disregard for gas station rules. He also had a penchant for snacking on raw meat. He'd pick up a package of ground beef from the little store inside station and munch on it while pumping the gas, blood dripping off the end of his beard and running off his fingers in rivulets. As a 12 year old, this nearly topped the list of mortifying behavior, but there was one thing that was even more embarrassing.

He really enjoyed lecturing to tourists. In the summer months, we'd head down to the Kenai peninsula every weekend to go fishing and along the way we'd no doubt cross the paths of the 'Winnebago Brigade', as he referred to them, blocking the road because there was a moose or mountain goat alongside the road. He would take great pleasure in pulling up to the middle of the crowd, the Cheese chugging over so loudly he'd have to shout his well-rehearsed facts about moose biology out the window, all of which culminated in a crescendo of hunting calls for which he dramatically opened the door and stepped out.

He'd cup one hand over his mouth and huff "Mmmwah, mmmwah. That's the sound of a male in rut," he'd explain to the masses, with a curt nod of his head. He'd light another Lucky and hop back in the van and roll out of there leaving the tourists murmuring amongst themselves and with something of a story to take home about their run in with a 'real Alaskan.' Inevitably, there was always a cute boy among the herd of tourists and my sister and I would contemplate the probability of spontaneous combustion from blushing so hard while strapped into one seatbelt at the back of the van.

When the Cheese finally died, sometime in the late 90's, he tried to sell it for parts. When that didn't work, he tried giving it to the scrapyard, but they told him he'd have to pay them to take it off his hands. He finally devised a plan that he thought would outsmart them all. He would remove the license plates, scratch out the VIN and leave it illegally parked in town. The authorities would tow it away, not know whose vehicle it was and be stuck shouldering the disposal costs. It didn't really work out like that, considering it wasn't really that big a town and everybody knew his van.... how could you not have noticed that backfiring, mufflerless, atrocity parked up on blocks at the supermarket?

One more bit of back-story you need to know is that for the last 10 years of his life, he didn't have a toilet. Or an outhouse for that matter. In the 70's, he'd come across this invention called the Destroylet - a propane powered toilet that burned up all your waste. Imagine toilet training on that bad boy! For the most part it worked out well for us, the permafrost made it pretty difficult to dig a septic tank, and no one really wanted to have to trek out to an outhouse when it was 30 below zero in the middle of winter. It didn't really smell that bad and we learned pretty quickly to let it cool off first thing in the mornings before sitting down to take of business.

They stopped making the Destroylet some time in the late 80's, I can't imagine why. That did make it pretty difficult to find parts when things went wrong though, or to get hold of a mechanic willing to work with it for that matter. So when the Destroylet finally took it's final crap, my Dad just lived without. He was on his own, it didn't bother him to go outside - he was Alaskan afterall - though most Alaskans would argue that an outhouse is a minimum requirement.

Dad never did build one. The magpies were pretty pleased with the free style situation as it were. So my dad just took an old lawn chair, ripped the seat out of it and replaced it with a spring loaded toilet seat and he just moved it around the yard, so that things didn't pile up so much that the magpies couldn't handle it. "It's the beauty of nature, girls." Dad announced, "Nothing gets wasted." Whenever we visited, Britt and I had to make the 20 minute journey into Wal-Mart to use the shitter when the need arose.

In a morbid twist of irony, my father died of colon cancer and I try not to think about those last couple of weeks on the lawn chair out in the cold before he finally left this world.

In part 2, I'll introduce you to my sister, her babydaddy and set the scene for the infamous $10,000 Bet that ruined Christmas as this story continues in the next installment.

Introducing Oprah and Dr. Phil

Meet our new foster kittens!! We sometimes volunteer for the Cat's Protection League, fostering cats until a permanent home can be found for them. These two are feral kittens that were trapped and now are in need of socializing before they can be adopted. So our arms were twisted and here we have another massive cage taking over my sewing table.

Halloween Cats.

Oprah's the outgoing one, it only took her about a day before she was out and exploring the spare bedroom and she sounds like a stampede on the dining room ceiling during dinner. Here she is interviewing Bisbee.Bisbee isn't quite sure what to make of all this kitten business and is vehemently avoiding the spare bedroom on his surveillance duties around the house. (He's in charge of security.)

Are you talking to me?

Dr. Phil is the Descartes of cats, he's a thinker. He contemplates quantum physics and string theory, he hones Sartes' doctrine on existentialism and sympathises with the Zapatistas. In his mind he writes letters urging congress to free Mumia, bring peace to the Middle East and find a cure for the common cold. He is currently strategizing a global economic recovery plan.

B is for Beautiful

I often like to pretend that no one I know actually reads this blog thing and that it is more of anonymous bit of whinging and reminiscing. Though more and more I'm realizing that most everyone who knows me in the real world has tracked this blog down (though you never comment! eh hem!) and I thought it was time I actually acknowledged that you're probably interested in what I've really been up to. Not all this making this and baking that mumbo jumbo.

So here's a photo my sister sent me recently that has knocked my socks off. How gorgeous are they?! Does anyone else find it a little strange that Zoe looks more like me than my sister does?

What else can I tell you? I'm leaving tomorrow for Tucson - Woo Hoo! I'll be there through the 1st and then head off to Seattle to catch up in a long overdue trip to my old stomping grounds. There's an old school BBQ revival planned, so if anyone got missed in the e-vites, please contact me and get yerself over there on Friday night!!

My surgery went well, I'm recuperating for the most part though a bit achy breaky here and there and, quite frankly, amazed by the amount of sunshine poo one girl can produce. That's right, I'm talking about my bowel movements online. AGAIN. Geesh. Sunshine poo, I mean it, it's bright yellow. It's amazing. I guess that's where all the bile goes without a gallbladder to store it in anymore....? I'm finding that I can eat foods that I haven't been able to eat in years. Tomatoes? Oh yeah! Cheese? Yum. Carrots, peas, pineapple and grapes? So far so good! It's a liberation of sorts. Can't wait to hit the mexicana cucinas in Tucson and have salsa and guacamole for the first time in years! Yee Haw!

Bisbee is also making a strong recovery. Crazy Legs has begun joining us in bed at night again and is stretching out in front of the fire in the evenings instead of hiding under beds or refusing to leave the safety his cage. We hope to let him back out to freedom when we return from our trip. A big thanks to Zoe next door for looking out for him while we're gone.

Things will probably be quiet on the blog for a couple of weeks, though I will try to post a postcard or two. And I'm afraid I've sort of fallen behind with project 52. The week in the hospital and the last week of house-arrest have kept me away from our dear oak tree. Now that I'll be abroad for the next couple of weeks I'm afraid I'll completely miss out the spring time exuberance of the oilseed rape fields in the background. But I'll make an effort to get a photo at least once a month from here on out......

So long. xx Bee

The Road To Recovery

After spending a week in the hospital, an emergency gallbladder surgery and an 'interesting' national health service experience, I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am to be laying prone on my sofa in my own sunny living room with a whole day of George Clooney to look forward to on Film4 this afternoon. Wow, what a week! I had a 4 mm stone blocking my bile duct and causing all manner of chaos in my body. They say gallstones are as painful as child birth - I appreciate you mamas out there all the more now. It's absolutely astonishing how something so small, merely 4 mm, not even a 1/4 inch, not even a garden pea, maybe a lentil? can cause so much trouble! I really appreciate the way my body works in harmony with itself most of the time, it really doesn't take much to throw it off track. Geno said this morning that seeing me in hospital has made him vow to himself to get his body back into tip top shape, so at least there's a positive out of all this suffering.

My road to recovery is paved with Arizona red rock. We've been planning a trip to see my family in Tucson next week and it's been most worrysome that this little stone might have put our holiday in jeopardy. But, I think if I can manage the flight - thankfully it's direct! - I'll recover poolside in the Arizona sunshine and leave the miserable English April showers behind! See ya later, alligators!

K is for Karma

Something my dad said once has always stuck. I was having a particularly unlucky day and called him up with tales of radiator leaks and of locking myself out of the house in my bathrobe. He said that whenever you feel a bit of bad karma coming on it was time to pull the covers up over your head and lay low for a couple of days until things blow over. Man, I should've listened.

First, Bisbee had a mishap and ended up with a broken pelvis. We're not sure if he was hit by a car or fell from a tree or rooftop or what. He didn't have as much as a scratch on him, other than a small puncture wound on his left hip. The x-rays showed he has a fracture on the right side of his pelvis, so maybe he fell and got hung up on a nail or a branch on the way down. So that means 8 weeks of cage rest for the Bisbee.The very next day, I ended up in hospital with....wait for it..... gall stones. Can you believe it? I thought that was only for the elderly or somebody other than me. It's a bit miserable, truth be told. I'm not sick enough to have an emergency operation, but I'm sick enough to be off work for a week. People say it's as painful as labor pains, I wouldn't know for sure but I can't say that it's pleasant to wake up at 3am with a woodpecker boring out your liver. On the bright side, it means I may finally have an answer to why I've had so many digestive problems over the past year. And I've had some time to work on this new doodle and get my hands dirty in the garden.

Reason number 847...

.... that I know the G and I were made for each other.

Overheard at dinner last night:

Him: "You know those squiggly pasta shapes that are green, orange and white?"
Me: "Yeah, what about them?"
Him: "They make me happy."
Me: "Yeah, me too." Smile.

(Look at all those wedding announcements we made last year! Phew!)

Easter wishes, some good old-fashioned Catholic guilt and a recipe for Easter Bunny Carrot Cake Cupcakes

My husband recently asked me a question that I haven't yet been able to answer honestly, and truth be told, I can't really get it out of my head either. He asked me why I'm always making things for people, buying gifts for no reason, breaking my neck to get wedding or birthday gifts out on time for friends or family whom can't even seem to remember when my birthday is. The answer is obvious to me on a certain level; it makes me really happy watch someone bite into a cupcake and do that little moaning thing while shrugging their shoulders and saying 'oh my god this is soooo good.' I'm secretly thrilled to watch my husband hunt for his Easter egg presents and see the Cheshire cat style smile on his face when he finds one.

There have been loads of weddings in our circle as of late, and as usual, I'm killing myself to try and make or get something for everyone - the G reminds me how dismal our wedding gift take was and asks why I'm trying so hard. I answer that people are busy, they probably just never got round to it. He then says 'but it never works out in return.' 'But it's not like that,' I insist, 'that's not what this is all about. I just find it really rewarding to pick out a thoughtful gift,' I say and mean it. But there's this irksome feeling at the back of my mind that I'm somehow trying to compensate for a shortcoming or leftover childhood guilt (there's a lot of that lingering around these days for some reason) or attention-seeking or some other sinister facet of my personality. Does this random insecurity strike you too and make you question your motives?
Despite my recognizing insecurity in other aspects of my life, my confidence in the kitchen is blossoming and I'm beginning to freestyle a little bit. And it's your lucky day, dear reader, since you'll benefit from my most recent act of benevolence with the following tasty recipe for some gorgeous little cupcakes. (Have I mentioned my burgeoning fantasy about opening my own little cupcake - coffee shop someday? The Queen Bean Cafe. With Hello, Cupcake! catering in the back. The afterhours music venue would be The Mean Bean. See, I've got it all worked out in my head....) I brought nearly three dozen of these beauties into work last week and they disappeared in a matter of minutes. The woodwork was concealing many more people than I had any idea that that even worked at the college who all came out and asked for the recipe. Here you go, folks. Happy Easter. Indulge.

The Queen Bee's Easter Bunny Carrot Cake Cupcakes:

makes 3 dozen cupcakes or one 9" layer cake

3 cups plain/all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tbsp baking soda
1 generous Tbsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups olive oil
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup of drained crushed pineapple
1 1/2 cups shelled pecans, chopped
1 1/2 cups shredded coconut
2 cups of shredded carrots
1 cup raisins

Frosting:
400g full fat cream cheese, at room temperature
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temp
2 1/2 cups of icing/confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Juice of 1/2 lemon

1. Preheat oven to 350 F/ 175 C /gas mark 4. Line cupcake/muffin tin with paper cases or grease two 9 inch cake pans.

2. Mix dry ingredients into a large bowl (incl. sugar). Add oil, eggs, vanilla and pineapple and beat well. Fold in pecans, coconut, carrots, and raisins.

3. Pour batter into pans or cupcake tins – fill about ¾ way full as the mix will rise. For cupcakes bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick or fork inserted in the centre comes out clean. For cakes, bake 50 minutes.

4. To prepare frosting, cream together the cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl, (if a bit stiff it helps to add the vanilla at this stage). ((Also, a note about reduced fat cream cheese: it’s just too runny for this frosting, you could try using half full fat and half reduced fat and see if that works)) Slowly sift the icing sugar in and beat until mixture is free of lumps. Stir in vanilla and lemon juice.

5. Allow cake to cool and add frosting. Garnish with chopped walnuts or pecans, or paper bunnies attached to toothpicks, if you want.

6. Devour with relish and delight. Calories don’t count on Easter.

Rainy Day Weekends Are For....

Fantasizing about going back to the Lake District someday soon.

Curling up on the sofa with a lap cat, a steaming cup of green tea, and a whole season of Gilmore Girls DVD's.

Finally finishing the Pippa bag! (and also finding it a just a little bit ironic that one of my newest friends is called Pippa and secretly planning a whole series of items named after all the women I'd like to be friends with)

Making Easter bunny carrot cake cupcakes (get it, carrot cake, easter bunnies...) for my co-workers. Mostly because I love cream cheese frosting and the cute little cakes make the perfect frosting delivery devices.

Working on my very first embroidery project with inspiration and direction from this neato burrito book. If you haven't seen this already, I urge you to pick it up.

Discovering this website. And then getting completely lost in this one.

Secretly loving it when my neighbor calls me 'virtuous' for answering the door in workout clothes and I'm sure it's only a transliteration and means something completely different than intended in my American ears and then swelling just a little bit with pride. (Another trans-literation --- I've lost a stone since January! That's 12 pounds to you and me!)

Speaking of swelling, have you seen the size of my belly today? Ow.

Watching the raindrops collect on the windowpane and longing for that Arizona sunshine that is only a month away now.... that's right, I'm coming home!

Speaking of Easter, I'm resurrecting Sufjan's Illinois, Gillian's Soul Journey and My Morning Jacket's The Tennessee Fire.

Snuggling into the sofa with the man I love.

Long distance phone calls.

Saying 'hey baby wanna lick my spoon?'

InspirationThis Sunday

Snow drops, daffodils, crocuses, even the first of the season's lambs are wobbling along on knobby knees. Spring? Are you almost here? The weather report disagrees and calls for snow tonight!! March winds, April showers, May flowers, and all that.

Sunday morning finds me reading this gorgeous book on the edible rainbow garden, planning my garden and ordering seeds from Renee on this wonderful website. Finding these funky chickens from bird in the hand tucked away in my website bookmarks and I'm matching fabric from the stash as we speak. I finally pieced Pippa together while convalescing yesterday after having tucked her away for the past 3 months, hopefully she'll be finished this week and I'll be able to show her off. Reading through the archives of this blogger (and this one, oh and this one too!) and falling just a little bit in love.

Thanks Giving

(overheard: from my inbox)

Hey sis,

I know that you have been kinda thinkin 'bout dad this Thanksgiving season and Mom and I are going through some old pics that I don't know that you saw; with that said, here is a nice picture of Dad at peace. This, I can see, is where he sees beyond everything else in his life. Same as you and me.

Thanks, little sis. - xo big Bee

Coaxing Her Little Brother into the Pool

What follows is a conversation overheard (and overseen by my camera) at the pool this morning. I think the photos speak for themselves, though I thought I'd add a little commentary.

"Oh my gosh, it is so much fun in the pool!! You should soooo come in."
"Come on, kid, do it for me?" I'll be your best friend......"

"Get in, or else!"
And in typical big sister fashion, after exhausting every other negotiation skill at her disposal.... "Loser."