Just finished listening to The Goldfinch (Unabridged) on #Audible for #Android. This is an optimistic story about growing up in the face of almost insurmountable obstacles, horrifying experience, shattering loss and transcendent beauty. Theo Decker is the Holden Caulfield of the 21st century, with an interest in art that helps save more than one life. And Boris! Best sidekick ever, even tho I am so grateful to not have a Boris in my life...read it and laugh and cry and shudder.
Makes me want to clear off my dining room table and drag that box of porcelain I have aging out in the mudroom into the light of day...
Odd what turns ones life takes. Regrettably easy to get distracted.
The snow has stopped falling, and my trusty ruler tells me that exactly 6 inches of fresh snow is resting on my front yard here in the middle of southern Michigan.
The wild birdies are going through the birdseed and the high energy suet bars at a great rate - this morning I have seen juncos, chickadees, doves, a pair of cardinals, downy woodpeckers, and one red-breasted woodpecker feasting away. I saw one squirrel at the edge of the lawn plowing around in the snow, but the snow is deep enough to discourage them from coming to the bird feeders.
Adorable hubbie is out plowing the lane - our 1/3 mile long driveway that seemed like such a beautiful drive when we first considered buying this place on a dry bright late autumn day. It is still beautiful, but it also gives adorable hubbie an excuse to acquire various useful tools and implements, such as the Chevy 2500HD pickup with hydraulic front snow plow, to play with.
Yesterday, when the snow first started, he said, "I love this thing!" Today, apparently, the joy of the new has worn off quickly. The almanac calls for a long snowy winter this year.
....and I am cooking, which always seems to be the thing to do when it is snowing.
Today, I am making Easiest Possible Beef Stroganoff in the crock pot.
1. Throw a couple pounds of stew meat, a chopped up onion, and a tray of chopped mushrooms (8oz.) in the crock pot.
2. Throw in some spices to taste - a little sprig of thyme, a clove of garlic (left whole so that it is easy to fish out - or chop it up), a good grind of fresh pepper, and one grate of nutmeg this time for me.
3. Add a few shakes of Worchestershire (sp!) sauce, 1/4 cup of red wine, and 3/4 cup of broth, or water and a bullion cube.
4. Cook it on low all day long - at least 8 hours. I got this batch started at 7:00 am. This is pretty dry (which is necessary so that the sour cream later makes a good sauce, not too runny!) so resist the impulse to take the lid off.
5. An hour before you are going to eat, stir in a cup of sour cream, and a quarter cup of cream cheese.
6. A half hour before you are going to eat it, boil up some egg noodles you purchased at the grocery store, even though frugal Grandma is rolling over in her grave at the thought!
We'll have this with some more of that red wine and some cabbage and beet salad tonight. Dinner a la Russkie! Hence, the Gogol quote. Poor doomed Gogol, another near genius lost to political insanity.
After dinner, I will put a can of peas and some bits of microwaved red potato in the crockpot, stir in the rest of the noodles and divvy up the left overs for lunches for the work week.
A new article worth reading. NYTimes: Exercise as Potent Medicine http://nyti.ms/1e4v4sf
Have only that in your life which you know to be useful and believe to be beautiful. (Paraphrasing William Morris)
This might be a good basis for making adjustments to the contents of one's closets, basements and garages, as a way to simplify and improve the quality of your belongings and tools.
William Morris, himself, didn't necessarily simplify - many of his designs, like the sample I posted here, while very pretty and often elegant, tend to look a little fussy in this day and age. But it is a good thought. I will experiment with this in my own life over the next little while, and let you know what happens.
The other day, I had a friendly conversation with a man who works in a different department in my organization. We started telling each other about our backgrounds.
I told him about growing up on a ranch, halfway across the country, sometimes riding horses all day long, tending the sheepherder camps up in the mountains, trailing sheep and cows from the mountain to winter pastures, the hard beauty of taking care of the land and the animals, about escaping with relief to school and the joy of books, about loving the trees and water of where I live now, because it is so different from the dry high desert of my home.
This very charming, highly educated, cultured man told me about growing up on a small estate halfway around the world, carefully rotating different crops depending upon the weathers and the markets, how his grandparents had traded carefully and well, and become very prosperous, about the servants who live on the estate, and help his family, and how his family takes care of them, because they go with the estate, and have lived there even before his grandfather bought the place.
It took me a minute to process this information. He was telling me that these servants that went with the estate are slaves. I was so shocked, I was really quite speechless. The conversation petered out rapidly, and he went away.
I feel so provincial and judgmental. I have never knowingly talked to someone who is a slave owner before now. I see him from time to time, and we speak cordially, but there has not been an occasion to have another extended conversation. I think about what I will ask him and say to him when I do have a chance to really talk to him again.
My initial impulse was to make sure I understand correctly, and then ask him when his family will free their slaves so they can live their own lives. But I wonder if he will have the same sort of response to that, that I would have if a member of PETA asked me when I am going to free my chickens and my horses so they can lead their own lives.
What is the proper etiquette for discussing the issue of slavery with a slave owner?
