My students

Why do I care about my students and why do I run myself into the ground to do the absolute best I can by them? I have no idea.

1. Because it is my job and if a job is worth doing its worth using your whole ass.

2. In a very round about way, they pay me to teach them. It isn't their fault it is so round about and it also isn't their fault I am not paid enough.

3. I have absolutely no proof that anyone else in this university cares about them and dammit someone has to.

4. Some of them will end up being my friends post class

5. Some of them will even say Hi to me in the hall way

6. Some of them are brilliant even if they haven't figured it out yet and they will be amazing.

7. Some of them aren't cut out for this at least not yet but I know how to be gentler than I trust my colleagues to be.

8. Some of them are just dumb but honestly even if it is there fault that they are dumb (this means you stoner kid) they are still a human and they have certain rights as a human and those rights include not having me take all my anger out on them even if I want to

9. I am constantly learning

10. I am constantly being humbled

11. I am constantly being lifted up and told I am awesome

12. Because by whatever twist of fate they have been entrusted to me for a semester and I take real ownership on how they do

13. Because I am a student to and I know what it means to have someone like me as a teacher

14. Because I am trying to prepare myself for a future of doing this

15. Because I can't help myself, because I am me.

...class...

-Jn


16. For Sarah G who I forgot reads this on Facebook.

It's time

This is me. I am growing my own munitions this year. Today was maybe the first warm day in forever soooooooo no planting yet. But I will let you know.

Dear Jenn

Me: You have a Tea Addiction.

Me: I know. But there are worse addictions.

Me: That's true but it is still and addiction.

Me: I know and I am coming to terms with that.



`Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse,' said the Hatter, `when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, "He's murdering the time! Off with his head!"'

`How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice.

`And ever since that,' the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, `he won't do a thing I ask! It's always six o'clock now.'

A bright idea came into Alice's head. `Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?' she asked.

`Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a sigh: `it's always tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.'

`Then you keep moving round, I suppose?' said Alice.

`Exactly so,' said the Hatter: `as the things get used up.'

`But what happens when you come to the beginning again?' Alice ventured to ask.

`Suppose we change the subject,' the March Hare interrupted, yawning.

Groundhog's Day Twinkie- As promised

Last year I tried to document the essence of the Twinkie. This year I convinced AK to be my guest photographer so that the rest of the world could have some of the Twinkie eating experience. I mean if you aren't me or Jenn you will never completely understand what eathing a 7 year old Twinkie really does to you but these pictures may help. I was telling people it was something like 5 or so years this year but I am off by 2. It really has been 7 years and that disturbs me more than eating the Twinkie. 2 years vanished from memory. Oh well. The pictures...

Before I started I showed the Twinkie to AK for verification purposes. It looked normal but it was really, really hard.

This is obviously before the first bite. Notice the expression- a healthy mix of excitement and concern. "I wonder what this year will bring...I hope I don't die."

Still excited and trying to figure out the best place to take the bite out of the 7 year old rock hard Twinkie.

The first bite. I think this picture is before the taste buds kicked in and its all about the texture. It was hard/stale and super crumbly. Very chalky.

Now I can taste it. But it's so dry that it's hard to chew and swallow. I think the taste is pretty much old high fructose corn syrup. Super saccharine-y and overpowering. This picture is my favorite because it is pretty much spot on for the whole experience.


Yes. Yes it really is that gross.


If you are keeping track over the years you will remember that the filling completely changed in color and texture and last year it was pretty much all absorbed into the 'cake' and dried out. However, this year I hit a patch of that while absorbed, was still chewy and still sort of white-ish.


Somehow I look normal while eating a 7 year old Twinkie???


Just a few more bites. I am sending proof of the experience out to the team of people praying for me in Rochester.


A close up of the star.


El fin. The wrapper with a view of the water from the 8th floor of the UMB library.



I urge you not to try this, not that anyone else is this crazy. The report from Jenn is that her Twinkie was dark (multi-grain?) but everything else is pretty similar in description. Cheers

-Jn

Week 2

Things are not well at UMB. I don't know a person who is not walking around stewing and furious. Things started out looking promising even perfect for pretty much everyone during the last week of Christmas break but by the end of week two everything had been upended. Those told they would not be teaching have been pressed in to it. Those told they would have days free for doing research or field work now have to come in. Everyone I know has been screwed in at least one way and most of us in several very large ways.

The problem now is that there is this pervasive undercurrent of anger. And from what I can tell everyone is trying their various ways to cool off and it isn't working. Tears, prayer, meditation, drinking, therapy, talking things out with others, trying to reason with the offending party. Everyone is still PISSED OFF and its leaking out in to the rest of our lives.

In the past 2 weeks I have been so angry I could not cry, so angry I could not stop crying, so angry I could not eat, too angry to be able to eat anything at all, so angry I could not speak, so angry I swore in front of my students, so angry I could not move or function or consciously think of the next reasonable step to take to move forward, so angry I almost went out and bought a shelter cat (I have no idea?).

I think part of the problem is that everyone is unhappy and everyone knows it and everyone does not have to be unhappy and we also know that too. BUT because of poor planning, last minute readjustments, miss communications and other human errors everyone got screwed over and now that the second week of the semester is drawing to a close the schedules are pretty much set in stone. Whatever you were dealt, you are now stuck with it. Suck it up and deal with it. But I think it is the overwhelming knowledge that it didn't have to be this way AT ALL that has everyone stuck. That and the fact that every other person you interact with has a similar story. Somehow that keeps fueling the angry and not letting it die out. Like an infection or something that keeps mutating slightly and reinfecting the host.

It also isn't the type of anger that is useful in fueling you to move forward or change things because you have to move forward in to the broken semester schedule and you can't change it. It is the "suck it up wuss" type of anger that requires rallying up more energy to throw at quenching the anger, It is energy draining, productivity sapping anger. And its everywhere I need to be productive.

I have a tremendous amount on my plate the semester and my ability to check off all of the boxes was tenuous at best when I signed up for it. Now the odds are stacked that much higher against me and resources that I need from other people are also starting to fail. Commitments are being broken, deadlines are not being met, expectations are not being made clear, and agreements are being invalidated to a shocking degree. While this comes off as a pity party it isn't meant to be. This is what I am facing and what I am seeing and what I am trying to figure out how to deal with. The majority of the people I rely on are facing the same problems and some of their problems are ME. I think that the general overall fuck-up has completely undermined everyone's trust. That is a hard hard thing and I think that is the root of why we are all stuck in angry gear.

A dear friend sent me this note last night. Then they told her she didn't have enough credits to graduate in June and would have to wait until December, long after they told her that the courses she took were approved. Now it looks like they might revert to the original plan but things are still painfully up in the air. (One step forward, two steps back, one step forward...)

Today she called me to get/give a pep talk and our homework is to get off our asses and move forward so our theses don't ruin our lives. So it is with that in mind that I post her list and my response...

AK's Life Decisions
1. I'm going to start painting. Sunsets, beaches, trees, water...all the things I love.

2. I'm going to listen to more Jazz...it makes me feel alive and sophisticated. (Download Eva Cassidy)

3. When I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. (Thesis, thesis, thesis).

4. I'm going to stop picking my mutha fuckin fingas!

5. I'm never going to eat a Twinkie again.

6. I am going to get a puppy and name him Mulligan and he will sit by my side while I do #1 and sometimes #2.

7. When I get frustrated with life, I am going to take a deep breath and thank God for all my blessings.

More to come...this was to wet your whistle (say it like Rabbit on Whinnie the Pooh).

I think I'm going insane.

Jn's Life Decisions
1. I'm not going to start painting. But I will write more. Sunsets, beaches, trees, water...all the things I love.

2. I'm going to listen to more Jazz...it makes me feel alive and sophisticated. (Download Eva Cassidy)

3. When I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. (Thesis, thesis, thesis). I am going to keep a CURRENT to do list so things aren't forgotten, misplaced or mismanaged in to the ground and so I get back to being dependable.

4. It is unreasonable to think that I will ever stop picking my mutha fuckin fingas! but I am really going to try. (AK and I share a frightening number of neurotic tendencies.)

5. I'm am not going to eat another Twinkie for 362 days. I am never going to enjoy a Twinkie. I am going to post the Twinkie pictures...soon.

6. I am going to get a puppy and name her Ruger and she will go with me everywhere I can possibly take her.

7. When I get frustrated with life, I am going to take a deep breath and thank God for all my blessings. There are more blessings than just "I can still walk" and "No one that I know has died this week" and I will actively look for them.

-Jn

Tomorrow is Groundhog's Day

If you don't know what this means to me then you don't know me. For reference see this: http://jnkcmd.blogspot.com/2009/02/wheres-cream-filling.html

Aimee does not yet know that she is going to be documenting this tomorrow when we meet to thesis but she will. More on this tomorrow obviously.

Also, dear facebook readers I still cannot log on. I love you very much and you can email me. I will respond. Also my cell has not changed so you can try that too. (This is particularly directed at you Anna and MelKel and Misha. Misha I got your text and yes we need to hang out.)

Themes of the kitchen

So we’ve been trying to do more with less. It’s a good moto when you have a choice. When you crunch the numbers and figure out that you cannot both keep a budget and cover your needs on your current income it isn’t really a moto any more.

I will go in to the details of how we are attempting the whole more with less thing a bit later. More than one step and each sorta deserves its own attempt to shine.

For now know that we had to eat our groceries in reverse order of priority after our last shopping trip. We had more frozenables than our freezer would hold and while it started out nice and frosty outside, it didn’t hold long enough. So we have been in a race to eat food before it went bad since we bought it and now we are at the end of the road and the few remaining fresh fruits and veggies were ready to sprout legs.

Today was all about using up every little thing possible before it was too late. Even if it things didn’t make culinary sense. There is also a birthday which needed tending.

Garbage Can Stuffed Peppers… Dos
(I don’t remember how I made uno any more but I know I used both WINE and KETCHUP in the same recipe. I have no shame.)
Ingredients
(whatever is going bad in the kitchen?)
6 Green peppers minus the one you already ate
1 Onion
7 very small vine tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic (or however many you can find in the corners of the fridge)
1 pound ground meat. Try turkey or beef or woodchuck if you have it.
½ C uncooked rice. I used jasmine basmati rice
½ a baby can of tomato sauce
An artistic amount of Ketchup
Worcestershire sauce
Feta Cheese (however much cheese you want)
Parmesan Cheese (ditto)
Spices: Chili Powder, Crushed Red Pepper, Oregano, Ground Coriander, Parsley, Ground Pepper, Salt

Start some water boiling in a big pot. Cut the tops off the peppers and remove any edible pepper pieces from the tops before you pitch them. Scoop the seeds and ribs from the peppers and cut out any bad spots. (Note: you really shouldn’t use peppers with bad spots because the goodness will leak out the holes. Damn) Drop the hollowed out peppers in the boiling water for 3 minutes (longer is NOT better here). Finely chop the remaining pepper pieces from the tops and set them aside. Use a slotted spoon or tongs to get the peppers out of the pot. Drain the water from the insides and set aside. Dump the rice into the water where the peppers just were and add a heaping helping of the above spices. Cook the rice for about 13 minutes or until it starts to get soft but not done. Finely chop the onion to match the pepper tops. Add some olive oil to a 12 inch, well seasoned cast iron skillet of awesomeness and throw in the chopped onions and peppers. When the onions start to become translucent add in the ground meat product. Drain the water from the half cooked rice and set aside. Dice the tomatoes. When the meat is almost completely browned add the garlic and tomatoes, then the tomato sauce and quantity of the above spices that you wish. Use the ketchup to sketch something interesting on top of the mixture and then use it to sign your name on your work. Throw on two splooshes of Worcestershire sauce and turn off the heat. Mix in the rice, feta and parmesan cheese. Place the parboiled peppers…in a muffin tin. Stuff them as full of the meat rice concoction as possible. Put any remaining meat/rice into a bread pan and pretend it’s a meatloaf. Bake everything for 25 or so minutes at 350 until everything is warm and gooey and wonderful all the way through.

Note 1: If I had more garlic I would add it. Then maybe some tomato paste and red wine in the meat mix .And mozzarella. Lots of mozzarella. I would even sprinkle mozzarella on top of the peppers so that it could get all melty and brown. For spices I would add garlic powder and basil to both the meat and the rice mix.

Note 2: I prepped and packed my parboiled peppers in my pepper pan and popped the peppers in the fridge for the present. I will bake them when I know what train my boyfriend is getting on.

1 Bad Banana 9 Good Cupcakes
Dry Ingredients:
1 C flour (Use whole wheat and pretend its healthy)
¾ C sugar (Brown sugar compliments the whole wheat pretty well)
¾ t Baking Powder
3/8 t baking soda (or ¼ and half of ¼ t since no one owns 1/8 spoons but me)
¼ t salt
1/8 nutmeg (or just give the shaker some authoritative shakes)
¼ t cinnamon

Wet Ingredients:
1 banana mashed to oblivion (~0.5 C)
¼ C milk and 1/8 t lemon juice
¼ C butter
1 Egg beaten
½ t Vanilla
¼ t Almond Extract

Preheat the oven to like 350ish. Combine and mix the dry ingredients. Do the same with the wet ones. Then thoroughly mix the 2 together. Slap some muffin papers in a muffin tin or grease the wells. Add the batter to the tin and bake for about 18 minutes. This made 9 muffins for me. You might also elect to make a mini cake. This should be the right size for a 9x9 pan…just bake the thing for longer. Feel free to double the recipe since that’s how it started.

DISCLAIMER: I have no idea how good these are. You tell me. I refuse to eat them. Last time I tried the original recipe I gagged. I can’t make myself like these any more unlike banana bread. Every time I make a banana baked good I think I am going to upchuck.


Posing as Healthy Cream Cheese Frosting
(I pretty much stole this one straight up aside from the fact that I added copious amounts of cinnamon as well)

Ingredients
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons butter (called for unsalted but whatever)
2 tablespoons brown sugar (called for light but goodness they were picky)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (do people really measure vanilla and almond extract?)
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon honey
An over healthy dose of cinnamon

Melt butter and allow to cool. Or just melt it and toss it in. Why not? In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, butter, brown sugar, vanilla and almond extract. Beat with an electric mixer. Or since you don’t own a mixer use a fork. When mixture starts to stiffen, stop mixer fork and add honey and copious amounts of cinnamon. Continue to beat until light and fluffy. Do not over mix, or it will collapse (I can’t vouch for this). Spread immediately and store cake in refrigerator.

DISCLAIMER 2: Use extreme caution as the frosting is highly addictive and more than one coal miner’s daughter has become sick from eating too much at a sitting. I wonder if you could freeze it in to ice cream! Mmmm. Death.

-Jn

Been a long time since I rock and rolled

I took a break to try to get my shit together. Turns out that to get your shit together properly you can’t actually take a break. Funny that. All I really got out of the repose was the revelation that if I am not actively writing I suck at it. I stutter in text. Can’t keep a thought rolling to a finish. And I tend towards not starting at all. If I can productively procrastinate enough the day is done and the writing isn’t…but I didn’t have to suffer through my own mediocrity. Which in turn breeds a new form of mediocrity.

Let’s try and be done with that.

In the coming months I need to write for a handful of scholarships and there is that whole evil thesis lingering…looming…lurking…waiting to grab and wrap my foot around a root under the water until I run out of air. I don’t think I will ever be in the mood for that but ima do if only because I have to.

And since my audience of 5 is primarily in tune via Facebook I thought I might pass along to you that Facebook and I are not on speaking terms. It’s not me. Facebook somehow dissociated all of the email addresses from my account so I can’t sign in. I still get some email notifications but I can’t do anything about it. I waste less time but boy is it a pain in the ass.

Also I had to re-pierce my nose today. I think things have reverted back to the way they were before the ring got put in, when everyone told me that it was a bad idea and that they wouldn’t like it and neither would I. But seeing as how it’s the only piece of jewelry that I wear that I can regularly see and the face happens to be mine, it’s my choice. And I still like it. Enough to withstand the involuntary blood and tears and near loss of consciousness that go with acute pain that close to the eyes. Maybe someday when I have a two year old, or an interview for a real job…

I spent most of the day in the kitchen so you will get the results of that shortly. Use it as you will.

-Jn

If nothing else- Pray for Haiti

For updates on HAFF and the missionaries see here:
http://www.haffdetails.blogspot.com/

For a good charity see here:
http://www.missionaryflights.org/

Attempt one

...at canning applesauce was sort of a half success. I make apple sauce all the time in the pressure cooker but it looks like more sauce in the pan than it actually is I guess. Instead of 2 quart jars, 2 pint jars. Instead of 2 properly canned jars, 1 properly canned jar and one that exploded all over the kitchen when I dropped it with the crappy plastic tongs that aren't made for picking up anything, especially not boiling hot jars. But what was left of that jar went great with dinner.

...at making yogurt was only successful in the learning. The most important lesson, do not drop the digital thermometer into the milk. Digital thermometers are not water proof which also applies to milk. Without a thermometer you have to guess at temperatures and I guessed high. Live and active cultures aren't so live and active over 55 degrees. Oops.

I am with Honduras

Leave the country to govern itself by its own laws.

http://www.halfsigma.com/2009/07/article-239-of-the-honduran-constitution.html

http://www.hondurasthisweek.com/editorial/1186-honduras-united-to-defend-their-constitution-and-democracy

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/honduras-removal-president-legal-constitution-has-vaccine

Technicoloring the treetops

June was awash with rain and the clouds that ferried it from place to place. Colors were all muted in shades of grey and the world seemed out of focus from the fog. Flowers blossomed sparingly and mother birds willed their children to stay in the nest so they did not die from the elements. Basements got wet and rivers rose. All people seemed to be able to talk about was the weather. “Welcome to Seattle, Massachusetts.” “It is supposed to be 100 in June.” “I heard in a dream last night to build an ark.” But I suppose this was actually to be expected since the showers drowned out dreams of something more exciting. Weather seems to be the most neutral topic of conversation and so when the world shifts into greys and softer shades perhaps the neutral topic is natural.

The morning of the fourth found me in Ipswich after Isolating Thunderstorms had stalled our egress one or two hours longer than was safe for riding. The weather had turned overnight. There was a sun. It was a warm sun. And the breeze through my jacket vents was for the first time necessary to keep temperatures in check.

As we twisted between treescapes and river views it became apparent that the sky had never been this blue before and the clouds never so purely white. The greens were striving to be the greenest they had ever been and the red-browns of the forest understory were so vibrant they seemed as alive as the trees themselves. The world was soaked in pure earnest color radiating from all corners. Stone walls had cloaked themselves in green ivies and the river was made up in reflections of the sky and trees both refusing to maintain dull colors after the break in the weather. The only grey left on the landscape was that rightfully owned by the well worn road to anywhere. And even then, as the pavement wove its way through the colors and ducked out of site around corners or at the edges of the horizon, perspective took over and all that remained of our path was the vibrant yellow stripes guiding the way forward.

Tomatoes and trees

First you buy tomato plants. Then you gain permission from the land lady to put in a garden for which to plant said plants. Then you weed a small plot until the rain gets too rainy. Then you go buy more plants because if 6 tomatoes are ok then 10 should be fine too and some peppers and beans and cucumbers and zucchini shouldn’t hurt either. After that you pull up all of the not-grass that is in the “backyard” because now you can fill it up. Then you find yourself unable to requisition a shovel but it is raining anyway so it doesn’t matter much.

But now you have a shovel and a tray of plants that need planting. So you begin turning the soil and find lots of rocks and even more glass. But for every shard of glass there is a nice healthy earthworm so it can’t be all bad. The ground is moist and dark, full of nutrients and animals to shuffle them around. And while you work you even out the strangely sloped earth until you are about halfway through. This is when you first meet the tree. The tree quickly loses a few roots and you move on without much thought. But there it is again and again. And now the roots are growing around and through each other and now they are growing into each other. The first one is perhaps 2 feet long, then 5, now 10. And now for every solid shovel of dirt to turn there is another shovel that hits roots and stops dead.

This tree was planted perhaps before the houses themselves or at least at the same time. It is large but not regal. It is a city tree with boils and galls for all its shady branches. It grows at the junction of 3 lots. Above ground it is forced this way by a garage wall, and that way by a fence, and growth is limited on another side by a driveway. Restrictions and rules in place to keep it growing ever taller and straighter if not healthier. But beneath the soil the tree was given no tending, no direction. Roots were free to do as they desired, first up now over, now through left and back right. A driveway may limit direct nutrients but not the persistent quest for them. And so a sprawling net of subterranean hardwood has crept from the parent trunk in all possible directions.

What could be removed from the small plot in the small time allowed with the small amount of energy left in the shoveler, was removed with gusto. Now the vestiges remain at the edges of the land waiting to be turned. Perhaps this is ground enough for my chosen green things to grow. The possibility of sharing will be considered after the application of a tape measure in the morning sunlight. If a compromise cannot now be made a new battle will unfold with a re-energized shoveler. But the outcome of the war is not in question.

The trees will always win. Unlike fickle flesh, trees can afford to be patient. I will be around tending and toiling on my small plot for a few years more at the most. The ground left behind will be more rich, even, and aerated for the effort. And so the root edges will reclaim territory in a slowly meandering way. The tree is surely older than I am, and may outlive me by a number of years. The tree has time to wait. Trees always have time.

Pancakes

2c trader joes multigrain baking mix
1c oatmeal
2T ground flax seed
2T oil
2 eggs
1.5c milk
cinnamon or nutmeg to taste

Serve with berries and real maple syrup.

Basically its the TJ's recipe plus oatmeal and flax seed and enough milk to make the consistency right again. But the bonus is that they are high in fiber and relatively good for you. I'm sure it works with other baking mix too or you could be less lazy and make them entirely from scratch. What intrigues me is that the TJ's box recipe is supposed to make between 12 and 14 cakes and I added a bunch of stuff and still only got 12. Shrug.

-Jn

4 seconds finished

Night comes slowly to this city
Washed with clean spring rain
Grey, Grey-blue the clouds dispersing
In sunset pink the foremost framed
And the buildings, mirrored, reflecting
Green and steel, green and grey
Save the few sun's light directing
Gold on gold to end the day

-Jn
I-93N
4/23/09

I hate bananas

We had nastier than usual bananas in the apartment this week so I decided to make bread with them. Keep in mind that the last time I made a banana inclusive recipe I gagged several times- pretty much whenever I could smell the bananas- so this was a big step. Also I had no pecans or walnuts, no coconut, no almond extract, no mixer, and a mostly white flour/refined sugar avoiding household. I knew mixing was going to be a problem so I made sure my wet and dry ingredients were homogenized before I put them together. That seemed to work well and I don't actually think a mixer would have made it any better (more to clean up and put away).

I was told that the bread came out perfectly and that I shouldn't change anything- no nuts, no coconut, no messing around with the flour or sugar ratios. I even had a few pieces and it was tasty which should tell you something.

(And as always 5L feel free to skip the DEATH ingredient.)

Jenn’s Perfect Banana Bread- adapted from Mom’s recipe

1 C White flour (I only use King Arthur Flour now for everything)
1 C White whole wheat flour
½ C White sugar
½ C Brown Sugar
1 teas. Baking soda
½ teas. Salt
1 T fresh grated orange peel (actually about 3 teas- more doesn’t hurt)
½ teas. Cinnamon (Didn’t actually measure this out)
¼ teas. Nutmeg (Didn’t actually measure this out)
½ C butter, softened (1 stick)
¼ C milk
1 C (4 small) mashed bananas
1 teas. Vanilla
½ teas. Amaretto (because we don’t have almond extract)

Preheat oven to 350. Combine all dry ingredients and mix evenly. Combine all wet ingredients and do the same. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix well. Turn into 9x5 bread pan which has been greased on bottom only. Bake at 350 for 60-70 mins- or when toothpick comes out clean.


Use this one if you are resistant to change...
Original Recipe (Mom’s)

1 C flour
1 C sugar
1 teas. Baking soda
½ teas. Salt
1 T grated orange peel
½ C butter, softened
¼ C milk
1 C (2 med) mashed bananas
1 teas. Vanilla
½ teas. almond extract
1 C flaked coconut
½ C chopped walnuts

Combine all ingredients except coconut and nuts. Blend at low speed- beat at med speed 3 mins. Stir in nuts and coconut. Turn into 9x5 bread pan which has been greased on bottom only. Bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 mins- or when toothpick comes out clean. I use 4 small pans and bake about 45 mins. Remove from pan immediately. Note: you can leave out the orange peel and coconut and even the nuts if you don’t have them.

Wrote this days ago...

The east coast is unique in North America because the geological composition is such that we can build underground. It is understood that this changes the structure of buildings. For instance, you rarely see basements in Florida. However, this also effects transportation. In Boston we have, as a result of the Big Dig, a maze of roads beneath parts of the city. So large, ugly highways have been hidden beneath historic buildings, and the city is more aesthetic.

In addition to burying our cars we are also permitted underground trains. Phoenix has a train system resting gently on the fragile desert soil and Chicago has trains attached to buildings several stories above the ground. They have the light rail and the El….we have the T.

For what it’s worth I have been taking the T more often lately and it puts me in the mind of dystopian societies. The system is well designed and trains should come often enough so that rowdy crowds do not build up on platforms but not so often that they are empty and thus wasteful. However, the trains themselves are aging and break down with almost daily regularity. Conveniently for the state, the delays seem confined to rush hour periods when people are still groggy from waking to early or tired from the day’s drudgery. The crowds are thus desperate and frustrated by a need to be anywhere else save where they stand, but the lack of energy drives them into suspicious and hopeless passiveness instead of riotous action. Youth maintain more energy throughout the events, but they resent cooperation and lack focus. They respond to the situation with furtive vandalism and little else. Still the effects of such street art are not always empty.

Posters highlighting or perhaps mocking the grey dystopianism are sprouting around the city. The image is a stern but portly face something like the synthesis of Che with Buddha. The eyes are watchful and the expression borders on angry, but it is rendered in a way that it cannot be taken seriously. Many posters contain only this face while others are underscored with the word OBEY in large, bold letters. Big Brother has come in the form of an overweight man and he is watching you from bridges and from rooftops. He is with you while you are on the highway, crossing a pedestrian bridge, or shuffling through the train station. He sensors the mail you slide into the mailbox and he peers in to the coffee shop where you access the internet to check your email.

I assume few acknowledge this bit of vandalism. At best they label it poor street art and dismiss it. And again I assume that these same people fail to notice the cameras in the tunnels reading license plates and those mounted on building corners near busy crosswalks. Signs denote train cars under surveillance and train stations watched as well, but these notices are lost amid one hundred other signs, posters, and graffiti scrawls. If the overzealous person does manage to read and understand those words they will be translated as “safety” anyway for watched means protected to most.

But perhaps this is all tainted thought. A bias brought on by reading too many of the wrong type of books in my youth. Had I read cheerful sentences my outlook might reflect the same. Instead I am left with sad images from sad pages that are brought into alignment with the current situation any time I step into the underground.

The underground, where the color is always washed in soot or concrete grey and pigeons huddle against the breeze that must be coming from someplace outside or above. The underground, where people wait idle and wary and water seems to always trickle down the walls from some other place into another unknown. The underground, where ugliness of all types is hidden.

Where's the cream filling?

The state of the Twinkies.
(One Twinkie a year for 10 years. However one of my Twinkies was stolen about 2 years ago so there should be 5 under that box.)

The Twinkie of the day above the sell by date that mysteriously lacks a year.

What I am theoretically still eating.

The guarantee that it will be good.
Twinkie number 6: Looks normal, feels like a cracker, crumbles like a cracker.
Like last year the cream filling has been absorbed into the cake. The outside is again crunchy but unlike last year the two ends are also pretty crunchy until you get about 2 bites in. The center right around where the filling would have been is still chewy and not as sacchariny. Actually it tastes a lot less like anything. Some residual nasty absorbed cream taste but everything else is pretty subtle.
Last bite. Crunchy.
And the clock resets.



Conclusion: Better than last year.

-Jn

See Also: Hostess Twinkies and Twinkie Recipes

Sort of like a snow day

I am still on school break. I get well over a month to sit on my duff and get bored. Went to my parents, went to the boyfriends parents, went to my place, went to the best friends, redecorated and refunitured a pair of apartments, hosted a playoffs batch, all interesting things with interesting people. I also did a lot of procrastinating writing a paper and a letter of recommendation. Writing with a quality assurance checker. No good. I have one more week minus the time I have not used productively today to get myself squared away. I am sort of flailing and splashing a lot with no structure to my days. It is hard to get up and hard to get moving and hard to start doing things I don’t want to do. There is a nebulous deadline floating out there over my head that I can see if I squint but like the deadline all of the steps to get there are fuzzy. Starting school again will be good for me.

Today I was hanging out at the boyfriend’s and he was busy being boring doing interview related things pretty much all day. The house was pretty much immaculate due to preparation for the aforementioned football bash and so I had to go outside to productively procrastinate. I carried snow and thought about nothing. Then I carried snow and thought about more nothing. Then the neighbor from the squirrel infested house came home, talked to me for a while, and took his smiley pooch for a drive. So I carried snow and thought about a little more than nothing. Then the neighbor came back and fired up his snow blower to help me. He did laps with the blower and I cleaned up in between his lanes in a comfortable steady manner enveloped by snow blower white noise which was much more like silence.

We were done to the point of having to ask other tenants to move vehicles so that we could get the last vestiges of snow when the land lord showed up to shovel. The landlord proceeded to wrestle the blower away from the neighbor and conscripted another tenant to shovel which was odd all around. We were almost done anyway so why bother? Plus with 4 people walking around carrying snow and talking to each other and to me it was difficult to keep carrying snow while thinking about nothing. I started thinking about carrying snow and how I didn’t want to carry snow because it was wet and heavy and I was cold and sweaty. Consequently, shortly after I started thinking about carrying snow I also started thinking about not carrying snow anymore which is also about when I stopped thinking about carrying snow because I stopped carrying snow and moved back inside. Problem solved. I do however need to do something Normal Rockwell-esq and make some sort of baked good for the neighbor with the smiley dog named Christy who chases the squirrels that live in the eaves of her peoples’ house.

I also never wrote up the recipe for my pumpkin soup. Hmmm…

-Jn

January was so long that it lasted into March

Have you ever wondered why we celebrate the new year in January. It hasn’t made sense to me when I was a child. I remember when I was young a made a comment to my mother about how it was strange that every year has two winters. She didn’t understand what I meant and corrected me but I wasn’t incorrect. Every calendar year is book ended by a winter either coming or going.

Why don’t we choose an equinox or a solstice, a changing of guard of the seasons. End at an established end and start with a true start instead of making up our own. I understand that these events are not set days but they stay close to each other and are bound by celestial movement not human designation. Other cultures and other times have used planting and harvesting seasons, or rainy and dry seasons, but nearly always season to demarcate the passage of time. We choose not to start at a season nor the mid-point of a season and this has been so for most places since before the Gregorian Calendar (the one you are most probably most used to) was introduced. But there is not a great deal of reason for why January 1st starts the year and not another first...or similarly why January 1 is in the middle of the front half of winter instead of some geometrically or celestially more logical place.

Apparently calendaring is not an easy business. It starts with the moon spinning round us out of sink with us spinning round the sun such that you cant always fit months with moons and not have seasons shift quickly. So there must be the extra days and the too few days chasing each other. And the craftsman must try to get all months to have a moon and to be odd numbered to pacify the gods and superstitions. Pagans and Christians and Republicans (roman) and Mathematicians all causing commotion if their holidays and symmetries are forced to shift. And the commonest man constantly confused by the push and pull of additional days or months by papal or pontifical decree such that his birthdays are never the same and letters come in the mail dated later then they were received.

While we are on the subject, why did we stick with the superstitious Roman choice of making February so short when the Catholics and other religious folk were clamoring for a proper calendar that didn’t lose days and shift important Holy Days around. We could have rounded out the months 31, 30, 31, 30 and stuck a leap day in any day we pleased. Why 31, 28(29), 31, 30 with a stuttered 31 later on. Perhaps at the mid year point. Why even give it a month. Make it a day outside the calendar. If at the new year point it would be a day between years. Name it after a king or celebrated figure.

This may seem strange for children born on that day but not really. Feb 29th babies are already forced into cruelties like being 1/4th their true age or celebrating their birthdays on off days. We other day babies have the same number of days in each of our years but face not the same issues because our dates don't drop of the map. Worse still for the Romans born in a month that was added or subtracted often at random to keep the seasons straight. How do they age. Better to have a true unbirthday, to be born outside of the calendar and never age at all.