Screaming Supper

I rinsed off the sweet potato and slit the skin open so that it wouldn't explode in the microwave; bing bing, 8 minutes, walk away.  Three minutes later, I hear screaming coming from the kitchen.  Not steam hissing or motor whirring, but a high-pitched, whining scream like an animal was caught in the living room while Dad showed home movies of Aunt Millie's Big Day at the Farm Bureau.

Did a cat get caught somewhere?  What the hell is the matter with the microwave?  WHERE IS THE SCREAMING COMING FROM?  The microwave!  It was emitting loud, piercing shrieks, I kid you not; the carousel was smoothly turning, nothing was jammed.  It was the sweet potato.  It was cutting loose with the death screams of a tuber.  I have never heard a vegetable this loud, unless you count the exploding chestnuts in the oven.  I was hypnotized into watching it spin and scream.  How could the release of steam cause such a blast of sound?  It went for a good two minutes, until the opening softened as it cooked, no longer performing as a reed for the escaping steam.  It was weird.  But something to look forward to, especially as I am cutting out the green smoothie trial.

The kale thing is over for me; a phone call to my thyroid doc explained that it was entirely possible that the lack of energy and feeling lousy could be due to the increase of this green wonderfood in my diet.  I know that I'm to limit cruciferous vegetables to three cups a week, which for me makes no sense for there is not a better green vegetable than Brussels sprouts.  I love cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli, mustard, horseradish; however,  high intake blocks the thyroid from using iodine, which directly affects metabolism.  You can boil them for thirty minutes to make them safe, like my Mom did, cooking everything till it was gray.

Iodine information: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=69

I usually don't like posting links in a blog, but too many of my friends have thyroid problems, and dang if I knew this myself.

Next, in other health news, the protein powder that I had been using tastes like ground up dried peas and is brown, turns anything you mix it with brown, and no matter what flavor is listed on the canister, is always brown.  Today I read the ingredients label and nope, no peas there, but a pickup truck full of sprouts and fiber takes up two thirds of the list.  And then the word "natto" appears.  Natto?  Oh good glory.

A few years back, I went Japanese in packing my lunch; I tried different seaweeds, fish cakes, noodles, fun, fun, fun.  Let's get serious and try natto, a fermented product that looks like brown beans in white, stringy slime which was left in the back of the cave too long.  On the outside of the package was a Japanese grandmother in a rocking chair, with a bowl in her lap while two small children expectantly sat at her feet, all three smiling.  Good grandmas feed their children natto so they can grow up and become ambitious and smart.  If they're at all smart, they'll stay away from this stuff.

The beans in natto are soybeans, which are not as cracked up as they are often claimed to be.  Generally not a problem as I hate tofu and any incarnation of it; further, but soy is also a goitrogen that  interferes in allowing the thyroid gland to do its job.  No wonder I was feeling lousy while eating healthier food; for the majority of the population, it's fine; if there are thyroid issues, be aware that you may be messing up your metabolism.  Stick with iodized salt, not the artsy sea salt; and eat more eggs, turkey, coconut oil, whole grains and oysters which are foods rich in the minerals and other nutrients needed for thyroid health.  The Mayo Clinic has a good list of things you should eat.

Tonight the sky is filled with the constellations of spring; Taurus, Gemini, and the two most recognized, the Big Dipper and Orion.  Lucky you if you can view the movement of stars and planets; an inexpensive pair of binoculars will get you even closer to the rings of Saturn;  I saw them once, great yellow expanses of dust, the dust which composes you and I.  Funny how some things you only have to see one time to remember them always; the Aurora Borealis, a green flash which fell from the sky, an Amanita caesarea, a black rat snake sunning himself by our patio when we lived out in the sticks.  That was the day Mom screamed and threw her laundry basket up to the sky and wouldn't get the clothes till Dad came home.  The snake had reared it's head back, most likely to get out of the way as rat snakes are pretty docile and all snakes are deaf as posts, but to Mom that was reason to yell at me to get in the house and lock the door, as if Mr. Snake-ity Snake would ring the bell.  I will say she outdid the sweet potato in decibels.

Today I saw a rabbit come flying over the embankment next to the parking lot, settle down and start on the tiny blades of new grass just appearing.  He could care less that I was banging around, filling car fluids.  Further up the hill, the woodchuck stuck his head up out of his burrow, observing the interloper rabbit disapprovingly.  I hauled a hubcap to the dumpster, and as I came back, the rabbit was next to my car, unfinished in shedding his winter coat.  Not too scared of me at all, maybe I was giving off my Here BunnyBunny vibes.  Back under the car hood I went, and scurrying along the fence inside the parking lot came the woodchuck, headed my way; now, woodchucks are damn nasty and will take a chunk out of your finger. The one that they drag out of his hole on February 2nd has got to be drugged;  I shooshed this miscreant away, he turned tail and waddled off.  Seagulls wanted to know if there were any Doritos from under the car seat, the feral cats lolled in the sun.  In spite of living downtown amid tall buildings, I am surrounded by Walt Disney characters.

Sleep well with the knowledge that the rabbits are down in their hidden nests, the woodchucks snore and mutter in their dreams, heads are under wings, and the rat snake is comfortably coiled maybe with Mrs. Rat Snake.  The stars wheel as the gears of heaven move forward another orrery cog, and there will be a sunrise, just so, as there has been each day for billions of years passed.  Time disappears when we sleep, bodies fall limp, the subconscious rules and tends to business.  Surrender, abdicate, float on the ocean of Morpheus; to sleep, stargazer.

Puree of Dinner

It is the hip thing to put food into a jar with blades and latch that puppy onto a motor for crushing, slashing, and pommeling the ingredients into creamy deliciousness that you drink as compared to chewing.  This allegedly makes it easier for your digestive system to grab on to superoxidants and nature's hidden magic since a blade whirling at ninja speeds does a better job of mastication than your teeth.  Oh; when I used the term "creamy deliciousness" I meant "creamy particleboard".

No matter how long I rev the blender/smoothie maker, the ingredients do not liquify to make it drinkable.  Bits and snips of peel, nibs, or fiber hang in the colloidal moosh, and it's like drinking applesauce with a handful of wood tossed in.  How does this benefit me, what am I getting out of this torment?  I haven't more energy; there has not been any weight loss other than the two pounds which disappeared the next weigh-in.  What I do have is washing out the crevices and blades a few times a day, and shopping.  Shopping for stuff to whip into submission.

As thyroid glands are problematic in my family, (besides this county being one of the highest in the country for thyroid cancer...we have leftovers from the Manhattan Project buried all over), I am supposed to limit cruciferous vegetables to three servings a week.  To eliminate the fiddlefaddle that confuses the thyroid, you are to steam the vegetables first, mostly meaning the kale.  It would make sense to get organized and steam the whole bunch, freeze, and then break off chunks as I go.  Subsequently, I rinse off the leaves, nuke it for half a minute, and toss it into the rest of the sludge.   I have yet to look this up, this miracle vegetable, to see what it does for the system.  I will, truly, I function on information.  It's just so dang bitter, and the green particles float in with the bananas, cherries, oranges, carrots, apples, nibs, nuts, and oatmeal which I toss together.  Next time you rake leaves, chew on one.  That's what kale is like.  And it's not going away.

To make this more palatable, I bought the immensity-sized canister of some sort of protein drink that tastes like it's made of peas but is supposed to turn you into a sidewalk-chewing animal, capable of lifting a Buick while computing spherical trig.  Not lovely green peas that roll around on your plate and get stuck in the mashed potatoes, but field peas, brownish things filled with more fiber than a ball of twine.  Vanilla! Flavored! yelps the advertising.  Really.  I get it down.

And did I say brown?  Yup.  Maybe it's because of the oxidation which takes place with bananas and apples, but everything comes out brown.  Sometimes I add a nut butter, but I have yet to make anything which looks the color of the photos in the recipe booklet.  Clear greens, fresh as new blades of grass; purple hues with whispers of blueberries and summer, oranges, pinks, whites; all become varied tones of dirt.  What the heck.

When Mom was in the nursing home and not able to wear her teeth, everything they fed her had to go through an industrial blender.  Salad, goulash, chicken, all of it became adult baby food, easy for her to eat.  Try feeding your mother when she is being stubborn because they used canned tomatoes instead of fresh, I can tell.  No reasoning or lie, (yes, I lied to my mother..."I bought these at the store myself, Mom.  Bill the grocer said to say hi"), would get that mouth open.  Now, as I blur food together, I find it ironic that I can tell if the carrots were organic, or if the almond milk was the same brand as usual.  "See?", says Dorothy.

I am keeping it up, for it gets more fruits and vegetables into me than before, but are there other things that would be as good for you if pureed?  You already know that a hot smoothie is called soup,  a frozen one is pretend ice cream.  Dunkin' Donuts makes a caramel coffee blended with lord knows, and  hot chocolate from Starbucks gets the blender treatment as well.  How did drinks become so attached to electricity?  Does the motor noise make it more important?  Do not put any artsy squiggles of syrup on top, either.

Light lingers, and it's time for cat supper, which is canned puree of you don't want to know.  After, there is time for experimentation and research; need to find people to talk to, perhaps during business hours.  I have long hours before I can put down the brush tonight.  The air has warmed enough so that windows are cracked open, allowing fresh air to flow in; damp earth and burdock sprouts spill over the sill by their new spring aromas, this spring that we have waited so long for.

Sleep, tired one; the grass will grow slower and robins shall huddle in nests, waiting for their open-mouthed babies to be born.  Sleep without reason, you do not need one; the dreams that come are images of waking life without judgement or structure; they are hidden wishes.   Fall, then, into your own world of subconscious truth, hooded under the mantle of an unfolding fantasy.  Soft shadow, arrive.  Good night.

Pizza Giant

Anytime the kids get three days of perfect attendance within a month, we have a pizza party.  My clientele, however, have little concept of the number three or that it results in food with melted cheese.  Real cheese, not school cheese.  Their eyes glow and they wag their tails when I explain (again) that they need only One More Day to achieve a phone call to the pizzeria that gives our school a deal.  So far, this year, it has occurred only once...now, I'm not saying that they can't count to three because they can and will tell me so overnovernover.  One day, however, when you are six years old is an eternity; three eternities and you are talking Einsteinian proportions.  I should make a chart that counts up to three, a pizza divided into thirds.  Visuals work more than concepts.

But the day arrives and the pizzeria is called for two sheets; I toss in a math lesson in case administration walks by: each sheet has 24 pieces, tell me how many pieces are in two and break it up into groups of tens and ones.  30 students each have a piece, how many pieces will be left over and so forth.  At 12:30, the office calls to report that the pizza delivery is here and that the fellow is bringing the pizza up to the room.  Really?  Usually four proud kids go downstairs to carry the large boxes; why is the pizza guy bringing them up?  Slowly, a shadow blocks the light coming in from the hall and the room eclipses.  Standing there is the biggest young man I have ever seen, he must have been six foot six and solid.  Thirty mouths dropped open.  A giant is bringing us pizza!  Not one squeak came from them.  He grinned.

Hiya, kids, I brought your pizza!  That broke the ice, and every child wanted to tell him their life story.  He turned to me and while explaining that somehow the sheet pizzas didn't work out so the owner sent six regulars, he opened the pizza blankets and the room smelled like Hey! Itsa Tony!, causing a cascade of noise and magic.  He was a happy, blue-eyed, red haired, baseball cap wearing beneficence, and started chatting with the kids like a good fairytale character does.  You doing your work?  You like pizza?  First grade teaching went the way of visiting giants who took time out from climbing beanstalks to deliver food; they believed that he liked them best, lookit all the pizza, Ms. Coburn!

He stood in the doorway, waved Bye, kids! and our giant was gone; the vibrations that some enchantment had just taken place hung in the air.  They felt special the rest of the day, and I have little doubt that it had nothing to do with pizza, but with the delivery fellow.  Thank you, Giant Pizza Guy.

Tonight in the city a wall of fog has thumped down over the buildings, blocking the view of what was to be an eclipse of the moon.  Last night it was clear, the moon shone brightly in the warm spring darkness, and we hoped that it would continue into the time of the event.  The only moon viewing to be witnessed will appear on various weather sites, unless you are a giant who strides with his head well above the white miasma.  Have you seen the moon, giant?  O yes, he may say, and it looks like a disc with pepperoni craters and seas of cheese.  Let me lift you onto my shoulders, so that you can see as well.  Isn't that what we do, lift each other up?  Just as he had.

Sleep well under a hidden moon, surrounded by phantasms of midnight fog; in the quiet I can hear a far away foghorn warning, warning, warning of sudden shallows, hidden sandbars, and channels opening into the inner harbor.  You are safe under the covers woven of stories and dreams, lay your head to rest on a pillow while the moon glows copper red above the atmosphere, an unseen gnomon ancient as a beating heart.  Good night, lift you up.