Something new…

So I tried for the first time ever to make snickerdoodles…and they actually turned out well even though I sifted the sugar into the rest of the dry ingredients instead of beating it with the butter. Oh well it must not have been too serious of a mistake because so far everyone has liked my cookies. Baking when the rest of the house is quiet around you is really an amazing thing.

Potato Chips Finale

So my last attempt at potato chips for a while included using a potato peeler to get the slices nice and thin. I worked great, although they were a little burnt and kinda oily. I think I would really like a deep fryer. That might solve the burning problem.

Anyway…now on to something new…. 🙂

Homemade Junk Food 1

And here are my homemade potato chips. not quite as chip-y as I was hoping but still pretty tasty.

Junk Food

Last night at dinner my mom said “this guy on tv said to eat as much junk food as you want just make sure that you have made it all yourself.” So we decided to try it. As I walked through the supermarket isles it was like some one had placed all the most delicious greasy, fatty, salty junk food right in front of me on purpose. At first I though “it’s ok I can make my own cookies and doughnuts.” but as I walked past the cheese-its and soda I wondered “is that possible?”

Tomorrow I will make some muffins which I don’t think count as a junk food but everyone else in my family thinks they do.

Shh…

She could sit in that room for hours, closing the door softly, and sitting on one of the twin beds drinking in the silence and sunshine. She didn’t know if anyone knew where she went when she would slip away but if they did they never bothered her. She would carefully take down the antique Alice doll and gently stroke her yellow braids and the place her just as carefully back on her chair so that no one would know. And then slip away back down stairs and join everyone else.

We all need a silent place. Step away from the noise just for a little bit.

My Favorite New Wilbur Poem

From “The Pig in the Spigot”

It’s hard to think in crowded places where

Loud music, squeals, and chatter fill the air.

And brainless persons holler “Yo!” and “Hey!”

That’s why idea is found in hideaway.

I gave away a poem a few days ago.  I had written it out on a small piece of paper intending on keeping it in my purse forever, reading it, pulling it out, etc.  Instead I put it in an envelope and sent it away.  It was already in my memory and it wasn’t about to leave any time soon.

There are about 14 other poems that were going to be written out and bound in a little book and hoarded and treasured forever.  But now I think I will swallow them, memorize them, and slowly give them away.

The earth is a conductor of acoustical resonance.

Sometimes life is so full that trying to update a blog is the most daunting project in the world.  However it is also the case that the longer I wait to update the larger my un-updated blog looms before me like some weird ghost and haunts all of my online and computer writing ventures (which are many).  So instead of focusing on how full and insane my life is and trying to communicate that to all of you I will flip the telescope and look at a small detail.

Today for the first time in a while I ate a suppli.  I arrived in Trastevere tired and smelly from traveling and feeling somewhat less than human.  It was late morning and after the white noise of the plane and train the city seemed calm and quite.  On the tram there were two musicians, one playing the accordion and the other strumming a blue guitar.  When the passed the cup for money they repeated “bouna pasqua” and smiled so beautifully.  I gave them fifty cents and smiled back.  As we finished the tram ride together they sat and chatted and took requests from an elderly lady.  When the fellow with the accordion caught me watching them he gave me a smile that was so open and inviting that I knew that if I could only speak Italian I could talk to him and his companion for hours.  Instead all I could to was smile back in what I hoped was a smile that communicated everything that I couldn’t communicate in words.  Maybe moments like that are like a suppli, small, contained, and only lasting a few minutes but the memory of which lasts forever.  Maybe this is what Richard Wilbur means when he says “the richer for regret.”  It is the point where regret becomes not something that we look back on with sadness but with a kind of joy that the moment that could have been so much more actually is that much more because of its incompletion in words and actions.

The Sirens
I never knew the road
From which the whole earth didn’t call away,
With wild birds rounding the hill crowns,
Haling out of the heart an old dismay,
Or the shore somewhere pounding its slow code,
Or low-lighted towns
Seeming to tell me, stay.

Lands I have never seen
And shall not see, loves I will not forget,
All I have missed, or slighted, or foregone
Call to me now. And weaken me. And yet
I would not walk a road without a scene.
I listen going on,
The richer for regret.
Richard Wilbur

Going a little bit crazy but now I am done with comps!