Addendum:Chopsticks

In the previous post I alluded to that wonderful tool, the chopstick. If you are reading The Cake in Dreamville, you have earned a short, informative essay furthering the case for chopsticks, suitable for printing out and keeping in your wallet. It won't get you anywhere in life, but will fatten said wallet in lieu of paper money.

Yes, chopsticks are most often used for dining--during the Japanese Happy Miso Phase of Lucky Squid Spring 2007, I used them for eating everything, scooping food directly into my mouth from an upraised bowl. I couldn't afford a vacation last year, so I went to Japan in my head from information gathered online and the local Asian markets. No, I am not crazy. You try it. It's Fun. Really. The holiday lasted till my blood pressure hit sky high from the sodium.

Remember, bamboo chopsticks are the ones we are talking here, not the plastic or enameled. They make a difference in sensation when you stir your tea, coffee or hot chocolate with them, alleviating the metal taste. Stainless steel reacts with various food acids, producing an off taste that you don't notice until you practice with bamboo. Rinse off and use again.

Also in the compendium of usage: back scratching, knitting needles, hair twister to hold up a ponytail, splints for snapped plants that are not entirely broken apart, toast pokers if the slice is stuck, bamboo trivet for hot pots, supports for art, stabilizers for cake layers, paint stirrers, tiny tomato stakes, and cleaning crud out of corners. Put two in your mouth for walrus tusks at the next family picnic. They are cheap, washable, and renewable.

Well, enough. It's time to face the fungus in the bathroom which may have surrounded one of the older cats with intent of digestion. Love to all.

Wee Little Men in Hats

Plans for the summer now include a Job, I am so happy. There was a spot open in the summer school program at the sixth grade level, half days, and I grabbed it. I will be with the other teachers that I work with, the students are familiar with me, and the five week curriculum is a reading program based on Egypt.

Other obligations include catching up on the three commissioned portraits I need to finish, getting the new dent out of my car, I would love to sneak in three visits to friends in Mass, Fla, and my son in DC. These are regular missions, nothing I can't share in conversation. However, here is something I am reluctant to share with people that see me on a habitual basis, but am willing to tell only you. It's off-putting. It's secret. Shhh.

A bar of soap had slipped between the tub and under-the-sink-cabinet, a narrow space dedicated to collecting cat hair and yuck. Not that it's hard to keep clean, I have devised a bent coat hanger with a wadded paper towel sort of invention that I spray with cleaner and thwack forward. Sometimes I use a chopstick, which does well in a pinch but doesn't reach the furthest city of mung.

This soap has been there for maybe a month, you all know how time flies and who worries about soap? A grey kitten I would have rescued immediately. Soap can wait.
Besides, soap means clean, right? Not on this bathroom planet.

Hum de dum, down on the tiled floor, all those white hexagons that I enjoy making patterns with during scrubbing, looking all bumblebee honeycomb and 1950's. I reach my paw into the crevice, for the soap really isn't that far in, twiddling fingers coax the bar out and jesus b. jesus, mushrooms are growing out of the end that was closest to the floor. Brown, stalked mushrooms, like in your lawn. Not mildew, rust, yeast, or smut, but fleshy-bodied fungi, the kind I studied in mycology in college.

I feel like the cruddiest, depraved harridan in the village. Mushrooms. I am growing mushrooms in the bathroom. My lord, this as almost as bad as the corpse of Lenin, which began to grow stalked fungi years ago, so they had to toss him back in the vat for refreshment in order that the people didn't have to view his glassed remains with le bouquet de champignons behind his ear. Next they'll be sprouting out of my own ears, my nose, between my tatas, my butt, all those dark, moist, human spaces seen on PBS.

Then the science kicks in, the embarrassment sort of fades, and I wonder what the hell is in the soap that mushroom spores can use to form mycelium? The essence was supposed to be grapefruit, milled in France, pink, natural, on-sale soap found in many department outlet stores. If the fungi can use this as a medium, there are no anti-bacterial chemicals contained in the making. Ding goes the lightbulb.

My bent this year is towards the organic cleansers for, as I have stated, if I can't eat it, I am not cleaning with it. We pour too much into the environment, all these gallons of cleaning agents manufactured everyday, where does it all go? Some dissipate into the air, others are pulled by gravity, eventually finding the water table.

Also, and a visible result in my home, is that my cats are not going through the cycle of vomiting that would occur after washing the floor with the usual cleansers. Cats cannot process the phenols found in many products, resulting in liver toxicity or digestive tract irritation. I do use a dilute bleach solution for cleanup around the litter box, but no one goes in until the chlorine has evaporated. I would not be surprised if the organic cleansers are why there is a toadstool jungle in the john.

Time to go dig out the coat hanger and the bleach. I dearly love the idea of mushrooms, but not as a hidden source of spores or bathroom decor. There are thousands of unidentified LBMs in this world (mycologist for little brown mushrooms)and I have not a clue as to what these are, but I will try to find out--the stalks are woody, so the species is not Coprinus. Later, if you knock at my door, you may find me tripping in the seventies, if they seem to be the hallucinatory Psylocibe (no, I don't really do that stuff--life is too weird already). Stay for supper, for if times get as hard as I think they will, we may still dine like kings.

Here's the deal: I am on my way up to my Dad's and usually take the thruway that goes along the river; I love my little 2001 red Cavalier, it is the nicest car I have ever had. My two rubber frogs and red octopus are arranged on the dash, pointing the way. They are my navigators. I have always been enchanted with rubber insects and animals, and was one of the first to own the Creepy Crawler Factory which heated goo in metal molds to produce plastic entomology. My guys were lined up, my outlook was optimistic.

To get to the entrance ramp, you take a street that runs under the raised highway, a driveway from a chi-chi hotel opens to the street on the east. Just as I pass, a travel bus barrels down the drive way to a rolling stop and turns onto the street behind me. I am in front of this bus on the two way street, which ends at a wide, one-way cross street. There are arrows at the end of the road I am on indicating Only a Left Turn, with a widening to enable two vehicles to turn at once. Arrows. Lanes. the way is clear of traffic and I make the turn, getting as far over into the far right lane on the cross street as I can. The driver in the bus behind me is in a hurry, and I want to give him room. Bam.

My car is hit by the behemoth in the rear quarter panel on the driver's side as the bus is propelled out by centrifugal force due to making the turn too quickly. I was jounced, and pulled over to the curb. The bus stopped behind me. Exits a large young man in a black leather vest studded with pins from various associations, shaved head, arms and legs mapped with many pictures of women in blue ink, tribal pieces, and a pair of red lips on the side of his neck. If I were younger, I would probably have as many tattoos as he, nothing like body art in my opinion, I was in my forties when I got my first one. Maybe that's a good thing. He's yelling, "I DON'T NEED THIS!! I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!!"

Well, I have to say I was shaken. No tears, but cripes, I was almost road paste. I have been t-boned previously by an old guy in a hurry to get lunch, and also have bounced off the rear wheel of a semi buckled across the highway in a snowstorm thick as mayonnaise. I am lucky to be here, yesterday and today. The indent in my panel isn't rubbing against the wheel, so that's good.

"If I give you three hundred dollars, can we call it a day? I don't have time for this, that's not going to cost you more than one fifty, you can take yourself out to dinner with the rest. Look, here is my name, here is all the information you need, if this costs you more just contact me," and he hands me his license. Leonard.

I take down the information, he stops and asks if I was all right and please not to call the police. "I have some convictions, but you can ask anyone, I pulled three people out of an accident, I saved those guys lives. Where did you come from? I didn't even see you!"

"I was in front of you, there's two lanes for turning onto this one way street, you swung into me," my voice is very soft. Wish I had chutzpah in personal emergencies.

"Oh no you weren't, you know I'm being a good guy here, if the police came, you know what they'd say...hey you want to give me back the money and..."

"I haven't taken your money, and I sure can call the police. Here's my information."

"NO NO no!!! Here," and he peels off three hundreds from a wad of bills. I feel bad taking the money, but I make myself stuff it into my purse. He wants to shake hands. He cannily presses his lips to the back of my proffered hand, and asks if I am sure I am feeling all right. This guy wants to leave quickly, doesn't want any of my information, he has convictions, but he takes the time to tell me how police found a weapon on the bus and it took six months to get that straightened out. He lost his home, his girlfriend, his job, so what am I upset about?" Lenny is working it just like my school kids do, turning the problem around so it's my fault.

Me: "Get back in your seat and get to work."
Student: "But you ain't give me a chance to sharpen my pencil!!"
"But I gotta throw this out. You told me to, (an hour ago)!!"
"But I gotta get my homework!! You ain't give me a chance to
get it!!"

I don't want to talk to Lenny any more. Really, my sense is that he is a good person with raggedy edges and is not hurting anymore than the rest of us, for he looks well fed. Besides, I know what decent tatts cost, and he has plenty. I want to get away.

"So what do we do?" he asks. I think he is having second thoughts about the three hundred, it wouldn't take much convincing me to give it back to him.

I don't have an ending for Lenny, so I toss a platitude out, "Get on with the day," or "Keep your chin up'" or some such asinine blather. I want out. Now.

He throws up his hands and goes back to the bus, waiting for me to pull away first.
I drive into a lot to check damage, and pull the octopus out of the crevice he has wedged himself into; the car will be okay, but later the weeds in Dad's backyard catch hell from me as I rip and chop them into bus driver salad. Three hundred isn't going to cover this dent, this guy got off cheap, blah police blah. It is satisfying and I fill the garbage tote with little green sacrifices named Lenny.

I must be aware that this adventure may turn up later in as an attack of the vapors or a Consolation Pizza, depending on what the mechanics say. Or maybe I'll take the money and buy an air conditioner for me and the cats. Dunno. Sigh. Love to all.

Fish and Oysters

There are cobblestone streets just south of downtown, with brick buildings built in the mid-eighteen hundreds of red clay. They are beautiful and warm, reflecting the light of the sun as fiery and luminous. I am a secret tree-hugger, but even more secret is the way I like to lean against an older brick wall. You really shouldn't do that alone, even if no one else appears to be about. It's best in a crowd situation such as waiting for a bus or in line to get into a restaurant. Then you are filling out the vignette of normalcy, which does make everyone feel better about safety and besides, the city has installed cameras everywhere. You could end up on the news.

I haven't hugged a tree in years, and nowadays a pat on the trunk passing by is all the communication I allow myself. But--and here she goes, friend---the vitality that a tree offers surges like a charge through your very core if you are bold enough to put your heart and cheek next to the bark. I swear it's therapy, whether self or forest generated, who cares, it makes me feel better. One hopes the tree benefits as well from us hugging, carbon dioxide-exhaling humans.

A friend of the trees was the late Bruce Kershner, my son's best friend's father, who passed away too, too early. He fought for old growth forests and environmental sanity, mapped and registered trees ancient and rare. He and his family were able to visit the sequoias out west, and I imagine the trees were as impressed with Bruce as he was with them. Here was the champion tree hugger of the millenium.

But I am too self-conscious, even though this city was once known for it's trees; as I said, the secret of secrets is my affection for old, orange-tinged brick. This town is mostly built of wood, but in sections where the first wave of immigrants lived, there are narrow Italianate homes or small cottages built of masonry. Many of the early builders were European, and so there are fairytales imbedded into some of the structures via application of terra cotta tiles or casts of animals. Even without the frou-frou, brick contains a story.

Clay and mortar stand for ages if cared for, and some of the warehouses that once were packed with goods stand empty and crumbling for lack of it. There is a blacksmith's shop that was in business until the seventies, next to that a building labeled "Fish and Oysters" in barely readable block print. Ah, who cannot be sentimental and look back at history, when these old buildings themselves now drop shards of red clay from their sides like tears?

Pressed blocks of clay that enabled commerce and walls of protection, sleep well. I will, too.

Strawberry Day

It is still well-planned to go and get your produce close to the source, even if a drive of some miles is part of the deal. As you may know, I enjoy driving and have cut corners of distance off the mapped territory to save gas. But a friend spoke of the u-pick berry fields she visited that week, charming her conversation with words such as sweet, ripe, and now. The price quoted wasn't bad, maybe three dollars a quart plus a dime for the wood container and a dollar for the heavy duty cardboard flat that holds eight quarts.

It was my plan for the first day of not teaching children to go for a morning ride out to the fields and pick a flat of strawberries. I freeze them, and in midwinter when January ice storms blow in from the lake, I toss them into oatmeal for breakfast, or thaw them and make a crumble with butter and coconut.

So I drove out towards the area where I spent six years of my childhood, back when the highway cut through a dairyland, with barns and meadows full of Jerseys and Holsteins. The locals would put out produce on slanted roadside stands made of unpainted scrap wood; if a family member wasn't out there to make change, you did it yourself from an old coffee can or tin box.

I would get eggs from a home that kept chicken coops out back, and the elderly lady would lead you into the enclosed porch to decide what was good. Except you didn't do the deciding, she would tell you which hens were laying, and the temperament of each. Some jumbos, mostly large, lots of mediums, fewer smalls and eggs that looked like canaries laid them called peewees were stacked on cardboard trays. You could buy seconds, eggs that weren't properly formed or the shell not complete, for baking.

These folks are gone, bought out, and the road is now a four-lane highway reckless with franchises and dealerships until you get past Wollcottsville, then it finally gives way to wild growth filling the drainage ditches on either side and few open fields. I missed the turn for the u-pick place, and decided to go further to the Farmer's Market to see what their prices were, and glad I did.

There were flats of strawberries ready for hauling to the car for a terrific price, so I grabbed one and solemnly said thank you to the greenmen who help crops and wild things grow, especially ready-picked. The woman who worked the counter said the berries were particularly sweet this year because of the lush rains. We have had several dry years in this area, and things had been growing smaller and fewer; the flat I had in my hands showed glossy red berries, whose caps were green and full.

I didn't wait to get home before checking to see what this sweet business was about, and the lady was more than right. The berry in my mouth flooded the senses with sugars, juices, season, and soil. I could have been three years old or twenty or fifty or two hundred; that flavor is a constant of memory, and the purity of something grown from the earth lifts you up.

When my son was little, we would go picking strawberries. At home, I could whip up a shortcake biscuit in no time, it really doesn't take that much doing. Mine were rich with butter and one egg, and made a nice contrast to the sweet berries sliced in lots of sugar, allowing for enough strawberry juices for loading the biscuit proper. A dollop of whipped cream on top, and you have yourself one happy boy sitting at the table.

They won't take long to put up, and I will have eight quarts of berries to carry us through the next winter. I am rich.