Thursday, September 30, 2010

Wild Rose Hips!

There's nothing I like better than gathering free and delicious goodness in the woods!!! So, on Keith's and my hike in Park City today, I was so happy to discover lots of wild rose hips! Not only are rose hips beautiful and delicious smelling, but they are also so good for you!! They have tons of iron, vitamin C, vitamin A, and calcium! They also contain bioflavanoids, pectin, vitamin E, selenium, manganese, and the B-complex vitamins, along with trace amounts of magnesium, potassium, sulfur and silicon.Yowzers! Here's to fresh rose hip tea and syrup to fend off colds!

PS Not only did we have a lovely walk in the woods today with beautiful foliage and rose hips, but we shopped for snowboards--oh the excitement!

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Lovely Things

-clean wash on the line
-homemade beeswax candles
-a giant yellowpink tomato
-an old picture of my grandma leaning against a tree
-ice cold water
-chai
-keith happy
-chocolate tofu mousse
-sweet winter squash
-homemade focaccia
-a new crop of strawberries!

Friday, September 24, 2010

It Really Is Fall!


Missing: apple picking in new england, oh the macouns + unpasteurized apple cider from lunenburg where you leave your money in a little box on the side of the road
Hoping: my cousins and mom are okay
Feeling: lazy
Eating: roasted green beans and garlic, lemon meyer olive oil cake with lavender whipped cream, galettes (tomato mozzarella basil & parmesan shallot swiss chard), chickpea mint dip, greens soup (i can't get enough of this)
Wondering: how my job will be
Loving: how seemingly every day here is sunny and blue
Recalling: the joy of my parents in the mountains, yodeling beneath glowing aspen leaves

Thursday, September 23, 2010

PS

If you want to read my writing blog (White Bread Dipped in Tea), let me know and I'll send you an invite...

Odds and Ends

HH!
Beeswax candles and molds
Deseret and pans
Eggs and milk
Homemade grape juice and cheesecloth
Little Nyedo Tashi Choling monks
The defunct writing blog?
Being in jenny's the light ekphrastic
The giant pumpkin tomato
The mouse dangling from the protector cat's mouth

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Happy

1) As of the end of October I will be gainfully employed!
2) Sitting all cozy in our newly furnished front porch with the cool breeze on my shoulders, alpenglow on the mountains in the evening,  lights twinkling at night, blue blue sky midday
3) Kale about to go into the garden
4) The book Maud Martha
5) My sweet little country mice parents enjoying the great big world as they love Big Sur and make friends with strangers and get invited to their homes for lunch!
6) Today is not a vow day! Oh hooray for eating after noon and listening to music!
7) A book waiting for me in the hold section at the library
8) Lots of cooking and homemade lotion making plans in the works
9) Grape juice making plans with my dad when he gets here
10) And oh the picnics we will have!

Monday, September 13, 2010

An Old Story/Just One Kiss?


We had been in South India a little over a week and had recently moved into Tsepal Tobkyed Hospital—across the street from the gates of Namdroling monastery. You might be wondering why rooms were available, or why one might even want to live in a hospital if not sick. The reason is that although it had been open for two years, the hospital still only had one doctor, not much equipment and few patients. And so besides a few little TB monks on the bottom floor, the rest of the hospital was gloriously empty, new and clean. And so this is where we lived.
The hospital backed onto a large field where monks joyously played cricket or squatted in the field peeing. To one side was a spot full of garbage. But on the street side of the hospital was a yellow gate, opposite of which was a small booth where a “guard,” (as the monk manager of the hospital liked to call him) sat. There were two guards who worked twelve hour shifts 7-7 and who switched off every other week.  They were both older men. One of them often spent most of his shift in an army-looking olive green uniform, complete with beret. The other wore a similar outfit, minus the beret. At night, and about two hours before their shifts ended, they switched back into their street clothes--Mr Rogers style. The guard who didn’t wear a beret, had a silver handlebar mustache and rode a Pee Wee Herman-like bicycle to and from work. It had pink plastic streamers at the handlebars and was covered in small neon plastic flowers. It was sweet.
So one morning about eight, I’d gone across the street to the monastery to try to find my friend Yulia. Being unsuccessful in my hunt, I returned to the hospital. As I was about to walk inside, I saw the guard (the one with the bike) standing outside, by a room towards the back of the hospital. I decided to ask if he knew if the electrician was coming (at that time, despite all the hopsitals pluses, we had no electricity in our room). I wasn’t really sure what the guard said, as his English was spotty, but I did catch that he asked me if I’d like some tea. I’d just been wishing for some, so I couldn’t help but say yes. The guard invited me into the room. It guess it was where he and his fellow guard changed their clothes. His bicycle was in there, draped with a cloth. There was a small kerosene cooker, a small desk, and on it a large plastic jar filled with sugar and a few plain cookies. “This could become interesting—maybe the guard and I could be friends,” I thought to myself, looking around contentedly, watching the guard make tea. Meanwhile, he was saying, “Coming from? America?” telling me he was going to come visit me, and asking where my “husband” was.
At this point, the tea was ready. I was happy because it had come to a roiling boil and I had seen the guard take a metal cup and rinse it out with bottled water, so I felt safe in the fact that things were fairly clean and I had no reason to think I might get sick from this little tea party. But then the guard went into an adjoining room and came out with another small metal cup. He had a horribly dirty looking pink rag in his hand, which he held up to his mouth and coughed into, and then proceeded to use to wipe the cup with. I felt a little sick. The guard then set the two cups side by side, poured in the piping hot tea, and handed me the nasty cough-rag wiped cup! I was certainly grossed out, and more than a little worried about possibly contracting TB, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings and I had already agreed to drink tea with him, so I took a tentative sip as he heartily urged me to drink.
The guard then opened the plastic jar and took out a few sketchy looking cookies, saying I must have a biscuit. He then asked if I liked rum tea. “Is this rum tea?” I gasped.“No,” he assured me. “But if you want, come tomorrow.” I told him that no, I didn’t want—but thanks, took another small sip, and said I had to go. He said I must finish my tea, but I said I couldn’t. “You know, too much tea makes me feel  weird, “ I said lamely, laughing uncomfortably.
As I was about to walk out the door, the guard said, “One kiss?” inclining his cheek towards me. “Uh, sorry, no!” I laughed, even more uncomfortably. “Just one kiss?”

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Blue

These blue sky September days.

Sigur Ros!

I guess I've been talking about Sigur Ros a lot lately--but I can't help myself. Sigur Ros make the most beautiful, amazing music I have ever heard in my life. I've known about them for seven years now and they are the only band I can listen to again and again without growing tired (much to Keith's chagrin on road trips). The clip below is from their documentary, Heima and in it they play Glosoli--probably my most favorite song ever. Anyway, the film is about one summer where Sigur Ros went around their home country of Iceland and played in tiny little towns which were attended by little kids and grandparents and everyone in between. It is very sweet.The footage of the landscape of Iceland is unbelievably beautiful, especially accompanied by their music. In a way, this movie reminds me of the Andy Goldsworthy film, Rivers and Tides.

Sigur Ros Heima Part 1

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Blogs Are Weird

Sometimes I feel embarressed that I have a blog. I mean, I originally started this blog because I had to for a class. And then, somehow it just stuck. I mean, I feel embarressed that I'm kind of just putting my life out there--for basically anyone to see. And it seems that it really is anyone, as apparenetly, people I don't know in Poland and Russia and Taiwan and who knows where else are reading this. Why, I don't know. Like I said, at first this was all to satisfy a class requirement, and then it was good for Keith's and my families (and friends) to be able to look at while we were traveling, so they could see what we were up to. And it's still good for that, but I guess this space has become somewhere I just write what's going on with me and then I can look back and remember...I don't know. Like Keith has said so many times, this blog is schizophrenic. It just doesn't know what it wants to be. I don't know what it wants to be. I guess it's just like any journal, it provides a place to reflect upon one's life. I don't know...But what I really want it to be is a place where I can remember the beautiful, sweet and strange things in my life and record them. But that's when the weird part comes in...because who the heck is reading this and seeing my mind on this computer screen? Oh the strangeness. Therefore, I've been toying with the idea of making this one of those blogs where you have to have an invitation in order to be able to see it, I don't know. On the other hand, maybe someone will somehow look here and see a photo of Holiness or Karma Kuchen or something, so it could be beneficial. Okay, I'll stop conceptualizing now.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

September and I Have Made Friends

We now have 15 tomatoes and 15 baby cucumbers! Last week Keith and I went to a Pick-It-Yourself farm and got the most delicious broccoli, peppers, tomatoes, and Flaming Fury peaches. These days there are giant crickets hopping around everywhere outside and sunflowers everywhere I turn my head. Yesterday K and I went for a bike ride picnic up the creek canyon, then had an amazing tomato galette last night. And this Saturday is the Avenues street fair! Yay!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Sunday Night

I just saw a really good movie with beautiful acting and beautiful Sigur Ros music. It's called After the Wedding...

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Better


Cheering Things:
1. Getting outside for a walk and realizing it's a beautiful, hot, blue sky, sunshiney day
2. Laying in the grass under a tree in the park at the end of the street
3. Trees, their leaves, and the things they grow
4. Sun
5. Prayer flags on neighborhood houses
6. Ripe concord grapes dangling along the sidewalk
7. Aspen leaves slowly turning to gold
8. Back alley grapes
9. A slowly reddening tomato
10. Unruly sunflowers in the lot next door
11. Homemade greens soup with olive oil and feta
12. Homemade barley coconut cookies (cookies with protein make me inordinately happy)

Early Fall Blues

lately i've been feeling a little sad. not sure why.
maybe it's just the moontime.
or maybe it's keith's recent insomnia (making my thoughts harken back to the oh-so-horrible baltimore/hopkins days we had. actually, not days, but years!!).
or maybe it's the fact that the air is cooling, the dark creeping in earlier and earlier.

i need to remember
that with each cooler day
i get closer to days of beautiful snow
and (hopefully) snowboarding!!

and also, that my sweet parents will be here in exactly two weeks
and that it will be so nice to see them and feed them.
we are going to visit one of the 6 best hot springs in the world (supposedly)!

Avocado Dip

Yesterday I made this really delicious (and healthy) recipe for tsog which comes from this website (thanks to Elinore and her recommendation). Here it is:

Juice of two lemons

1 bunch of cilantro

4 cloves of garlic

1 to 2 Serano peppers (I think any would do. I used 1 unnamed one and it was fine)

1- 1/2 tsp. sea salt

2 avocados

Blend.

PS On the website they recommended thinning this with water and using it as a salad dressing...