bits - kick my tail, imaginary time

had some reflective 'I should kick my own tail' thoughts today that I have several more small stories and books and I just haven't been able to drag myself to work on them but then I go and spend a few hours here and there in Minecraft building a huge empire that doesn't exist - which imaginary world is more productive? It is all 'imaginary time', like dreams, but a bit more tangible.

 

I have another Mikki story I had half-realized - and several others, and then a few more popped into my head today and I captured an iota of it... and yet I sit here staring at what I sent myself on my lunch break and saying 'Do I really want to work on that or do I want to go build a road to nowhere in the game' again...

 

Both past times can be done at midnight or 3 am...

only one of them will ever amount to something in my publish queue....

 

  

 

Mikki Mack - the quite pretty small grey cat with the glorious long fluffy tail 

 

I worked on a few simple illustrations and thoughts for that story.  And I thought about tomorrow, which is the Solstice.  I have to work tomorrow, and it will be early.  What if, instead of walking all the way up to the road and watching the first light and walking all the way back down, I made coffee and an egg and watched the red day lilies light up in the garden?  I think that would be good.  And Saturday will perhaps be a hard day, starting late at the post office and as long as it takes to get it done - and not a route I run often.  There won't be a lot of time the next few days to do much leisure / thought process.  Sunday I have not volunteered, though - and I hope it won't be a call in situation, so we can all go to the store.

 

Quests for Humans

 It's been busy weeks - on top of busy weeks.  The cold let up a little - we're getting some rain but hopefully no ice overnight.  Got the little car's heater fixed.  Mark had his birthday - I gave him some clothing and some candy that Esme and I had picked out when we got propane one day.  He watched a lot of the cartoons and movies he likes - and ordered some things for his computer that is only just now arriving.  

It doesn't feel like Christmas will be here in a few weeks.  I've only bought a few things and to be completely honest - I never even took the little tree down last year. It's still up from LAST YEAR.  But it does need to be taken down and cleaned and the lights replaced and put back up.  If I can figure out time that I have ambition that isn't used for making dinner and laundry and existing.  I've come home and just sort of collapsed on the couch for a while and not been very conversational a few times.  That isn't really my style - It's been a bit like the epitome of 'flattened'.. edging back towards human at the end enough to eat and talk.  Usually my style is to come home and eat a huge pile of food and chat way too much until I deflate from the anxiety of the day and then ease back down from the high-tension end of the slide into normal.  I've had fewer of the 'keep doing what needs doing but anxiety of single being in a single timeflow with multi-dimensional timeflow thoughts that I can't process so I stick them down in the box all day until it overflows' type of days.  But I'm not sure if this is better or not - the 'I've kept doing all that needed doing but my 'brain box' is only full of dead space - no brain, no thoughts, just 'stop' or 'go' and now that I've stopped I'm flattened' feeling is a bit worse.  I guess other people would explain that as : 'I'm tired'.  But I guess that is proof I do still have those multi-dimensional thoughts when I start to think about it... when I'm not so tired.

Today I pushed on and after work went to the bank (hard quest, it closes less than a half hour after I get out of work, about a half hour drive away from bank), feed store (also closes an hour after bank does, but only fifteen minute drive away from bank), then another store for Mark and the grocery store, and then home.  I am really glad the little car made it through all those stops.  When the mail truck was having trouble with its battery that was an ever-increasing anxiety making multiple stops without running the truck long enough to charge the battery in between.  Quests for humans, indeed... with difficulty settings.

Not to mention it gets dark so early now.  And is extremely dark and cold and sometimes icy in the mornings.  It could be worse.  I don't want it to be.  Boss was ranting to me about somebody taking days off and going to be fired for missing work - and I told her my anxiety stack is still on all the ice days of previous years and I can't say one word one way or the other about anyone else because I'm just doing my best to be there every day and anxiety about what will happen if/when the weather changes.  She tried to assure me that I can't control the weather.  Yea.  That is what worries me.

I called all of our errands and my work days 'quests for humans' the other day to Esme - as she helped us get groceries with Grandma, and propane.  I told her it feels like that sometimes, like ticking off parts on some video game quest until you get all the bits done - but then it's just done for that day, and it rolls back around the next day starting all over again.  I had a very very busy postal route the other day, but not so much I couldn't get it done.  I'm wondering what this weekend will be like - Christmas packages et al.  This is the time of year they used to call in some help.  I used to be that help, on the weekdays - but now I am at the office job during the week.  Last Saturday they said that they were surprised I finished it all without needing help, but I said I didn't know they were providing help yet, so I pushed through and got it done - by continuously telling myself during the day : 'It's not going to help to sit here and stare at it - up, onward, get it done' over and over until it got done.  Thus: the quests for humans.  There is a book I keep seeing that is close to that name but it isn't quite the same emotion.

And I feel like my hips, knees, ankles, fingers and wrists are all clicky at the moment - it could be worse, don't want it to be.  It's like my muscles are made of toothpicks bound together with lots of rubber, and the toothpicks are clicky and shifting around and hoping they don't break.  I am glad the weather has been good - hope that continues to be.  Just keep getting home from work, dinner, head to bed after a bit.  I played the game a few days (Sims 3) and it still feels like I've just wasted most of that time.  I discovered how some things work again - without going and looking things up - but still, it got nothing done in the real world.

I've sent out several copies of my Mikki Mack book to people - sold one locally, and still need to find a way to get the rest of the stack to the local gallery.  They are open later on Fridays (or, at least they used to be) so I might have to take up that 'quest for human' mentality and just push push to have that be something I want to get done so I make sure it gets done.  At the office job that is how I make things work - just push push and when I stop to breathe for a minute line up the next stack.  Same thing with the postal route.  Same thing with lots of things, it's the only way I keep the balls in the air.  I'm just still adjusting to that weird feeling of stopping and there isn't new material coming in from all sides of my brain that has nothing to do with the task at hand or minimal tangents.  It's like missing an old friend that don't hardly get any time to spend with, except the old friend is my creative side which is asleep in a chair in the corner.

Languages - lots of Japanese.  A little bit of Czech.  Not a lot else.  The Japanese on my highest Duolingo profile is actually getting into new words FINALLY.... why has it taken so long?  It really has.  And I do like the little yomu yomu app that has short conversations or stories to listen to.  The Czech language app is a bit annoying in that it is supposed to recognize your speech and there are so many things I cannot come close to pronouncing (acc. to the app) but yet I feel like I understand them and am saying them as best I can. 

witterings and ramblings

 

A few things I wrote elsewhere I wanted to keep hold of: 

My brain is always going a million miles a minute, it feels like.. so this is just a taste of trying to put some of that down into text.

What is the concept of time?

"I've been thinking about this for years, since a dream I had in high school. Time is a fractured crystal/matrix on tangent point with the three dimensions of physical space, and -of itself the fractures in its own matrix become something like the Droste effect light going into infinite mirrors within mirrors - there is loss and duplication within the fractures of a magnitude we cannot quite grasp."

 I did have this dream - it was what, 1996, 1998?  somewhere around there, I remember looking at my computer in my mother's house and wondering how I could capture even a tiny bit of the idea to save it for later... I sat down and wrote 'The Crystal Matrix' and 'The Philosopher of Crystal Valleys' somewhere around that time.. and the type of dream still returns to me once in a while - and I can never quite grasp it - it falls apart the more I try to understand it.  I've written a bit about it in my book 'Time in December' in some ways, but had to mold the idea to fit the story in a way that was slightly more specific than the whole concept.  I do like the scene in the movie Interstellar (or, as I more commonly think of it, the movie with the girl named after Murphy's Law)... but I don't feel it quite hits the right 'umami' taste of the 'real thing' I experienced in the dream, very very close to the idea, but something was missing

 

Charlotte this morning : 

"Charlotte's blue heeler side was showing this morning - definitely herding dog there - I slept in today because it was Sunday and she was completely focused on getting me outside to feed the chickens, nose bump, alarm snooze, beleaguered sigh with chin on bed, nose bump, hard stare and excited eyebrows every time I move... okay you're FINALLY up....circle to door, sigh, head to stairs, ok.. yes human the coffee (but, chickens? you know about the chickens, right? *head twist and circle*), okay the cookie, I like cookie too.. but... chickens? Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, turns circles.. *I get the chicken feed in the container* OK oh boy! *nearly soar through air on the way to the door* we're finally feeding the chickens! If that dog could fly, she would have all the way to the coop with me."

Mark says I could make four panel cartoons of this sort of thing.. and that is the best I can do in description.

 

And, about the night before last : 

"I had this dream last night where my brain was trying everything to wake me up, zombies, extra limbs, fantastic glass objects with light streaming through them in a temple where the water was rising, going through books that don't actually exist, seeing people in an office that I knew were TV actors and saying hello to them as their characters, walking through mazes that defied gravity, crowds of unfamiliar people, a ghost, papers and signs in foreign language, vehicle issues where my key didn't want to work, logging into work terminals with the wrong password, trying to open combination locks from years ago - just one puzzle/problem thing after another and each thing I faced I was like 'ok'.. go through the motions, get through this thing and you just know something else will show up etc.. but none of it actually pushed me to awake - and then, I picked Esme up at the bus stop during the rain in my mail vehicle (instead of my normal one) which the mail vehicle doesn't actually have a seat there, and I never take it home in the first place ---- and THAT did it --- it was such a surreal mix of real and 'wait, what - that isn't how this goes, this is never how this goes' that it finally did wake me up. And I thought.. wow, zombies, extra limbs, Japanese and Escher-type mazes didn't do it, but being in the wrong vehicle at the bus stop does. *that's my brain, I guess*"

... "still what makes me almost/ (the most) amused is that all the far-beyond-reality stuff doesn't 'faze' my sleeping brain, it just tries to find the way around it as if I am already knowing it is a dream and 'meh, these things happen' etc.. but the actually almost real normal thing but still 'hey the details are wrong' task was what shook me awake. In the dream I was asking myself 'is the stripe on Esme's coat just like that, I don't think it is....' and enough of those mismatches made me question enough to kick me out of the dream entirely" 

 

I really wish I could explain the glass figures - they were absolutely ethereal delicate, breathtaking and luminous - like sundial-shaped shells - - I worried if I tried to pick them up they would shatter just from the pressure of the touch - they were sitting on a shelf in front of some clerestory windows, but the water was coming in from the stairs above, rising in the sunken temple area (blue-green stone, similar to the minecraft underwater temples) and I needed to get out of there and continue my 'quest' - I think at that point I was looking for a bookcase to put the books in my office that I was sharing with several characters from Fringe and Warehouse 13, but really in the dream, I understood that my brain was playing with me there with the actors/celebrities/characters and the books that didn't exist were foremost on my mind (if I can see them and they are books I can make them again etc.) that if I was going to have them for a while yes I did need a bookcase... and then of course other things happened, in the crowd there was a girl in a yellow dress, who was asking me questions and I suddenly decided I could phase us into a ghost mode and get through the crowd and bring them to where they needed to be and warn them and some other people about some things, give them some philosophy etc. which was fairly basic, and then continue on my quest, saw my mail van, delivered some mail, sorted out codes, had the combination lock question, 39, 11 and I don't remember the last one, maybe 5 or 45, I didn't get it open - it was from ten years ago, and then I saw my daughter and two other girls getting off their bus, but not at the bus stop, and picked her up, but her coat had the wrong stripe, and I didn't recognize the other girls, and that my van doesn't have that seat there is a shelf there (which has happened in dreams before, conflation with another vehicle) and then I was still right-hand driving and somebody on the side of the road wanted us to pick up furniture in the van and I was dubious that it would fit or that I could lift it, but I got out and loaded it up with superhuman strength, and realized the texture of it was all wrong and at that moment I was investigating why it didn't feel correctly under my hand and that kicked me fully awake

kr-ack, ka-pow

 

Eh, I kind of want to do some Latvian review as well, after all this time... but I'm making such good progress in the Japanese that I'm actually recognizing words phonetically quickly, instead of sounding them out bit by bit, and the low level Japanese profile is doing a review of katakana, which I actually DO need... *sigh*

Patreon post with recipe below:

 

pea soup with yellow and green peas and onions, and cheesy toast forthcoming

It's turned a bit cold outside, the goat was sunning herself, as were the cats.  The cats have been seeking out warm blankets and sunbeams to curl up on here inside the house, as well.

I touched on three different stories the past few days, but there are so many in my files I can bounce around and come back to each one with new eyes and do something a bit more on it.  The story I've put on my bench to work on today is about 3,000 words and the two that I published at the beginning of the month were both around 5,000 give or take, so it's in the range if I just get some knuckles down on it and make sure it still says what I want it to say, at the same time.

The story is called 'INGie', I've been working on this story off and on since 2019. Since it has been years now and it has sort of sat there waiting for me to do more with it - I'm trying to see if it's ready for the 'publish a thin book' treatment, like Mikki Mack and Salt Magic, which I published earlier this month.

The story is by nature sad, but also full of wonder and possibilities and think-outside-the-box.  It is about an alien that has crash-landed and there is a mutual protective relationship between him and the first human that found him.  The alien has strange powers, but also a distinctly non-human way of looking at things, so the things he creates with his powers and the materials in the warehouse are by definition ethereal and nearly impossible.  I posted a little excerpt on my art page : so I'll repeat here

"He is getting better at language, but still it is slow and he takes his time to find the right word.  Often he will stand there peering at me trying to project an image long enough that I might pick up on it.  The problem is these thoughts are not easy to form in my mind - he is the one working a masterpiece down to the barest shapes and forms to wedge it into the squishy clay of the human mind.  Is it you? Is it me? I focus on the image he has sent to me, trying to make it come together with the object I see in front of me.  It is him, he says, or at least his clothes. He is making his goodbye clothes. I don’t like the sound of that. "

 

bits

Not much to report, did Sunday packages, wrote some extended work into my story 'As Told by a Dog', and try to get ready for a meeting tomorrow.  Trying not to stress on that, but I'm still me.  There is a lot up in the air and contradictions on that and Mark doesn't think it is a problem, but I am pessimistic.  

 

I've been doing the budgeting for the months ahead - and keep looking at anywhere else I could pick up hours.  The work world just seems stacked wrong now - something went majorly wrong maybe what, fifteen years ago?  How are regular people supposed to make it with all these HR scheduling rules that counter-compete?  Things were more flexible when I was a young adult.  Some of these applications don't even have any way to tell them what hours you can work - they just off the bat require full availability.  And if everyone requires full availability all of the time but only gives you part time work - then that sets people up for failure right out of the gate.

 

Mark made dinner.  Did Japanese today, and I will do a little more before I head off for bed.

this is the illustration I had made for the story, when it was still going to be in the anthology.  It is only 2500 words right now, but it started this afternoon at 1,000 so that is actually a really good expansion.  I worked on the 'Kardega' story the other day and it is at about 1400 words.  I worked on the very first page format of a pig story I had written 'off the cuff' one afternoon last week.  I got some really good material for Cosmic Cat, but it came with chatting with an AI so it is all repetitive and needs to be majorly pared out and see if there is enough there to then take me off writing on the idea.

whaley thursday bits

 

That's kind of a to-done list, instead of a to-do list, up till right now, of course.  I don't know what is with one of the dogs deciding it is time to bark at 3 am every morning lately... but it invaded my dream this morning and whatever the lady I was talking to was about to say, it turned into a broken record repeat of bark bark bark mid-sentence.  *sigh*  So I got up and got myself ready.

I did a couple of illustrations for an animal book, and wrote a bit on a futuristic story that was started a few years ago and I've thought back to it a few times since then wondering why I didn't take it any further than a few paragraphs - added some more to it and it might go somewhere - bit like Fifth Element meets the post office... so far.  Posted my book links around a little and then started getting all the dodgy message requests, of course, as happens. Was up to five just now, and all of them dodgy.  I could have begun editing some more poetry or one of the other stories in my book - maybe the one about the alien, but I sort of just sat back and had a good brain wander, instead.

I had another bowl of that really good chicken, broccoli and orzo soup from the other day, for lunch - it was much thicker today but still very good. There was a small cucumber in the garden so I made cucumber sauce and put it on sushi rice with soy sauce and it was a lot like that cucumber sushi roll from the restaurant, except, not all in one roll.  I still have to think on what to make for dinner - we have kielbasa in the freezer.

 

I've been eyeing some Japanese fish cake recipes to make with potatoes and my canned mackerel - it looks easy and I have everything for it right there - but I know no one else wants that, so I might have to make it for myself tomorrow after my interview.  We need to use those potatoes up one way or the other.  The ones in the garden are doing good but it will be October / November before it is time to check them for pulling.  Whenever the vines turn yellow.

I sat down to paint this little cat I was working on, and couldn't find the paintbrush I was using last night.  I know I washed it.  I know I brought it upstairs - I was very careful not to leave it downstairs!  But I lost track of where exactly I put it upstairs except 'in a good place, a jar, like where it belongs'  But which jar!?!  Brain : I don't know, a good one?  Not the right one.  I had put it in the pencil cup between the stairs and my computer desk, instead of walking it all the way over to the art table.  As soon as I had washed the other brush and come upstairs it was like 'access granted' to the memory from yesterday and I picked it up on my way to the art table to put away with the other brush.

Thursday thursday

the list

Japanese routine :

Duolingo profile at level 20 : done already, first thing, before schoolbus even

Clozemaster (Japanese then Chinese, 10 sentences each)  :  done

BaltoSlav Japanese words and pictures : at least 25 cards up to ? : done 75+

Babadum Japanese at least 50 cards : done to 75

Duolingo profile at level 11 : done, second thing, when I turned my second daily alarm off on the phone

*growl* I should do some more WaniKani review, but I don't wanna -------------

I did fifteen cards the other day and that felt like a lot as I had to make notes on ten out of the fifteen.   The format is much tougher - it's wrong it's just marked wrong AND doesn't come back up anytime soon unless it is related to another it is asking about - and it has konyomi readings which have to be spelled out perfectly as well as translation meanings.

 

I took a picture of the rosehips on the wild roses for someone I had given another type of rose plant to earlier this year.  She keeps wondering why her rose cutting I gave her is dying back and then getting just a few new leaves etc... I told her just keep watering it enough and when it gets to be winter it will be dormant, then in the Spring she'll see the magic. (ie: pink 'confederate' style multilayered roses)  The new leaves are a very good sign that it has grown much more root (it had 2 inches when I repotted it for her). 

Should I go and get chicken feed today?  It is in a different town than the place I went for groceries yesterday.  It is perhaps going to rain tomorrow, and then I work for three days (also raining).  There is still plenty of chicken feed - but I'm twitching whether I should go and do it while I have brain and time, and if the vehicle wasn't being tetchy it wouldn't really be a question of anything more than pushing myself out the door.  I should find some sort of plastic bin to put the backup battery in in the back of the truck, and then I'd feel better about that.  It would fit temporarily in my big toolbox if I took everything else out of it.

One of our older dogs, the one that hardly ever goes outside for more than two minutes, decided to go out the front door when I was getting the elderly cat in this morning.  She ran off up the road nose to the ground.  And she finally came back in with Charlotte now after about an hour.  I would have chased her this morning but she was doing the 'ha ha you can try but you can't catch me' and hasn't actually wanted out there in months... so I shrugged and said 'ok'.

Drink more coffee... think.  I sort of feel like today is in a holding pattern as I'm waiting on our paycheck to pay the bills, but don't have work or anything else that is actually required.  I don't feel fired up to cook anything in particular.  And that chicken feed bin is nearly full.  They will eat the stuff from the other store (that is open more hours than the one I would go to today, and also open on Sunday where this one is not), but I can definitely smell the difference between the two (commercial bigbox store stuff is darker, and smells like soy sauce) and have noticed that they eat this Amish-feed-and-tack-store stuff so much more willingly than the other, chasing handfuls of it across the yard etc.

timmas spred sig bra:

illustrations for the little cat book

my daughter had made me a really excellent cover image, but she was too shy to make any more for the interior of the book

I keep telling myself I should do a bit more on that.  I should really do a lot more on several of the stories that are 'ready but not ready.... '  They say if you keep holding it back because you don't think it's good enough it is really just that you're scared to give it away into the world where others will now see these thoughts.  That is very true with House of Sunlight, because those stories are of a 'wait, what, you broke my brain' twisted nature, as most of them began as dreams.  But the cat book is 'safe', mindless little cat story that is about being cute and even so, the grammar doesn't really matter as much because it is told by a cat.  Like that fox nine book I read.  But still, I never wrote the last story I had intended to (and my undercurrent says so?  make that the sequel, if it ever happens) but the book has well enough to stand on it's own at the same time with the five stories that are written in it. 

**lots of work today**... with still trying to keep it simple

I got somewhere: 

illustration from 'Mikki Mack' book

I submitted my little cat book for final review, without ordering a proof of it - I think it has one spelling error in it, maybe I can fix after they review it, the ebook thing pointed that out to me (it was in a name).

Throughout this heat, I've been making sure to water some every night.  And it is finally supposed to rain some tomorrow.  Harvested more basil and arugula tonight, washed and chopped them, and put them in the freezer.  I think I'll have to put that in a tomato sauce if I want Esme to eat any of it at all.  Or I can make another egg frittata with it.  There is another flush of little green tomatoes coming on two of the plants, and the cucumbers want to do something, again.  The peppers aren't sure, they took a beating in this hot weather, shedding some of their leaves, but they're thinking of blooming again.  There are little tendrils of potato leaf coming up above the soil where I had planted the potatoes last week. 

Neurodivergent Cooking (at Patreon, link)

I started another thing today - and well, because I'm ADHD I start a lot of things but I'm not always very consistent.  BUT - this is about ADHD, and not being consistent, but learning skills and tips and going forward anyway, to make good healthy food, and to make it everyday.

Neurodivergent Cooking : Rhelynn at Patreon

I will be collecting certain articles and recipes, with lots of pictures and tips for making it 'click', to this site.  This does not aim to be America's Test Kitchen or Martha Stewart - but closer to the: oh right, I'm the buyer, cook and the cleanup crew, and I've got to keep this up, sort of thing. 

I aim to tackle 

    the 'Where Ingredients go to Die' problem, 

    the Make Ahead, I barely have time to Exist problem, 

    Oh Look, a Squirrel issue (not solve, but manage)

    Multitasking is our Friend and Superpower

    and the I'd Rather be Sleeping type issues... 

because really, being neurodivergent or low-energy of any kind brings with it certain issues most other people don't even think about.

 

1.) We love to experiment, but hate to follow instructions

    --wait, so you're going to give instructions for people who don't like instructions?  They're more like guidelines, really.  And most times you don't even need them.. but when you're in a slump or doing the same bad habits (frozen pizza I'm looking at you) it can be nice to have some 'look over there' inspiration.  

    -- we tend to skip over or avoid a lot of things, and miss key information

    -- we're not good at keeping our recipes or even looking them up again

           -- and keep a notebook isn't going to help, where's my notebook?

            -- out of sight often means out of mind, keep things visible! 

            -- I haven't even put hands on that in weeks, where is it?

            -- Ew, I found it.  How long was that in the cupboard? 

    -- be your own best friend - good habits and good results make good memories

            -- making something well means we're more likely to keep it up 

            -- make something often, with variations

           -- learn to grow into your tastes and skills

           -- learn to reflect and say : HEY, that was a good idea 

ALSO : mental exercises are just as important as physical ones for making routines.  Take time in the moment to reflect.  Remind yourself : I'm learning this.   Or:  I've done this before.  I'm doing this.  This is getting done.  And : I've done this, that needed to be done.   It's much more important than you might think.

         

2.) We get excited about things, buy gadgets and ingredients, and then when it comes to the actual doing, wander off and/or eat junk food

We'd mostly rather be eating real food, but Time is a fractured multiverse of other things we'd rather be doing.  Sometimes we forget to eat at all!  Or we inhale the potato chips and leave the fruit we bought on the counter.  Do I really need to eat?  Can I put it off?  Where did the last four hours go? 

    -- I think recipes need to be a little better engineered to 

    ----- contain relatable and sustainable ingredients and substitutes

    ---- understand that purchasing the food is also an important step

    ---- encourage good sustainable habits for prep and cleanup

    ---- understand that we want to start and finish in a reasonable time

    --- have some things we can make ahead when we do have time, but otherwise would fall into the 'I have nothing useful to do' trap and scroll, watch tv or bounce off the walls.   

    --- bring a book, computer app or project with you if you absolutely must bounce, bounce usefully, and in clear view of what you are 'actually doing'  Out of Sight out of Mind is a thing.  Keep things visible.

    ---- use a stable, easy to keep pantry instead of 'Where do I even get that?'

    ---- learn a basic set of skills that we don't have to look up every single time

    ---- adapt, use things multiple ways, learn to size recipes for your needs

    ----- not have so much of the 'wait 10 minutes' and 'in a separate bowl...'

    ---- but also understand how multitasking is our superpower

    ----- not have three paragraphs of history that distract from actually cooking

 

 

Buy the Food

Prep the Food

 

Know what you have (and where it is)

Know what is possible with it

Understand the basic qualities of ingredients

Know the basic skills about how to do it

Actually form good habits to use it

 

Chop, Cook, Eat, Clean

Repeat

 

Pat yourself on the back you made food

Learn more when you're excited

Have goto easy but healthy recipes for when you're tired

 

 Learn to use time when you have it

to help out when you don't

 

and think ahead - be your own best friend

know and observe your own habits

connect your past self and your future self 

to adapt to how things work for you

 

Encouragements: 

I Made That!  That was good.  

I should make that again.

I bought that and USED it.  

That had so many good ingredients in it.

I bought that from the local farmer and it was tasty. 

I will buy this food over the other because there are four ways I can use it.

Yes, talk to yourself, you're listening:

That was easy.

That was easier than last time.

I learned how to make that easier for me. 

I'm reminding myself right now how much easier this is now.

Next time : I will think, hey, let's do that, it was easy! 

Use the Now while you have it

I have five minutes while the coffee runs - that is enough to make a salad.

I have twenty minutes while the washing machine runs, that is enough to make rice.

I can make these two recipes in tandem during the same time and enjoy a really good dinner.

 

ADHD hacks:

I will buy that ingredient when I'm off work because:

 I left a bungee cord across my steering wheel

I can set that to simmering while I'm in the shower and remember it:

because I left my shoes right there 

I'm awake at four o'clock in the morning :

Why don't I prep the rice for fried rice tomorrow? 

 

PURCHASING takes time and effort, too, not to mention $. 

This is me investing time and the three dollars in the me that wants this later.

 

I'm standing at the grocery store - this has taken so LONG

I finally got all the things on this LIST

I want to just go HOME... let's skip the 'X',....

but if I buy the lettuce now,

I'll have it for that five minute salad.

I liked that five minute salad, and so did (other person).

So I'm taking two minutes now to go get the lettuce. 

and Future Me will thank this past me for doing this

by using the lettuce that this me is taking the time to buy.

(the road goes both ways)

 

I have some time and energy : what can I do to help Future Me?

I'm so glad I did that yesterday when I had time.

I'm so glad I did that while I had the energy.

I'm glad I did that between switching the laundry.

I'm so glad I've been growing that in the garden / on the porch.

I took all this time to grow and care for this - now I'm using it.

I remembered that without having to look it up!

I know this doesn't take as long as it feels like sometimes

Having to look everything up every time actually took more time than cooking it!

I cooked and cleaned up and it's all ready again for tomorrow. 

I didn't have to look all over for that pot, or it's lid before I started.

I'm not hung up on using that specific thing because I know lots of ways to do this.

Cooking is a 'chore' but you can work to dread it less.

I can look forward to making that dish tonight,

because I know all the things are there

Isn't it nice everything is all ready to go?

Summer Solstice 2024

 

*outside, it is still dark - and I want to sleep*

I hit the snooze button to try to slip back into dreams...

 

Get up, get up - you'll miss it - the spirit animal tugs at me, it's not my dog, she's downstairs sleeping, but it does the trick as good as any real nose

 

ten more minutes, for the 101 year old woman to tell me what I did wrong with the brown sugar, oh, she's not going to, I have to figure it out myself... 

 

 

pull myself out of bed, remember it is the day, assemble myself and heat up a cup of coffee, stagger out into the already bird-chirping sky-lightening world, long after the moment I would normally push myself out into the world on this day - which is usually before the full veil of dark lifts, when I am still uncertain of even where to put a foot down, much less my wits

 

I think about how I have 'two tries' this year, solstice, and my birthday, days following each other, to see the world as this - and I wonder if I will use both of them, if that is what this is for, comparison...

 

But I am here, moving through the world - and ready to see what it has brought me here for at this moment. And a bird passes overhead, up above the power lines above me, as I am admiring the pale blue light of sky... long before actual sunrise, before any pinkening has come to it. And as I walk, make the turns as I am using to making them - it strikes me at one moment all this sense of scale of the environment, as the colors begin to resolve themselves into pink mimosas and yellow rudbeckia - as the gray of the road and the green of the forest separates into layered and tiered colors...

 

I walk home even before true dawn, look back at the road one time to see the pink fingers coming across the sky - my alarm has not even rung yet - I step into the house and grab up some pens, sit with my dog on the porch and try to capture this - yes, I am small in the world, and it is in motion, and I am here to experience it.

poems for the first week of April

 

Grow and Be Happy : Heron on Nest

inks and colored pencil

Illustrated poetry book : Unspoken Things Made Words 

available to order in print here at Amazon

'Acorns'

 

Acorns

Someday we will walk together

along this path in wonder

at the same leaves on the ground

that small oak

which neither of us trod upon

instead allowing it to put down roots

for years, there in the soil

it has now grown tall

and we can sit in the shade of it

well before we thought was possible

rest our heads against the bark

and say how lovely is the day?

 

 

 my little cat, Minion

Tortoiseshell

Little black cat

with the one orange paw

curled tightly in a ball

on top of a shirt in the laundry basket

that I wore yesterday

discarded there on my way in from outside

no longer with the warmth

but perhaps still the smell of me

this is one reason she has chosen it

She tries to ride the bow of my hip

at night, while I sleep

but my ship it rocks too much

while I am dreaming

turning over and over and over

she tries to cling with claws

then we disagree

and the tossing turns to Neptune

she has to admit -it makes her a bit seasick

so the laundry basket, it is

begrudgingly

 

 

And the other day - when I was feeling a bit up and down over social anxiety.. It's a strange feature of that - that I will reach out to someone and it will be very good - or I will attempt a hard task or lesson on something and it will also be very good - but then the next moment I often feel even more anxiety that has to calm down, like a fire that has burned too hot and now everything is boiling to the top of the pan. So, I've learned that feature and now work to dig myself out of those feelings as soon as I recognize them. I congratulated myself, that night, which is a necessary part of reflecting on it all, for how many times I pick myself back up, ten times in an hour it feels like sometimes, no really, it was good, you are doing well, just get out of this feeling, it's an emotion, and one we have to keep working on...

and this flowed out:

Pompeii

When I fall down unseen,
within these hallways, inside my head
I get back up, ten times in an hour
over and over, or perhaps just one
handspring that was barely noticed
but each time I work my way up
and ask which way the wind blows
that makes me feel so light
such glass in my bones
but at least glass has weight to it
this is more like volcanic ash
reduced to ghosts and fragile shells
from fires too hot to handle
ready to blow away unless I capture it
in my palms and carry it to a safe place
so gently, where it may perhaps
against all reason - become rock again
I must take them, these fires, in small pinpoints
where they rush through the surface
needing to take a few moments to cool down
so that is what I am doing
when I am inspecting the ground like this
with my fingertips, furiously sketching, seeking
looking for a place cool enough to take grip again
and hoist myself up

Pay attention

I've written bits and pieces of this one over the past few years.

I feel it's for those 'spoonies', those who only have so much energy, those going through hard times and troubles

I bring it up and look at it.

It don't always take my own advice, but I look at it.

It isn't finished - I'm still slogging away on many things, including this.

It helps a little.

Pay Attention

Pay attention, not just the bills

The bills just keep coming, but not always our attention

That is fleeting and the more stressed we get, the less of it we have

Because it isn’t getting any easier any quicker.

And because it seems foolish to expect it to.

We get up and go when they ask, when they ask… if we can...

And we get up and be ready to go when we can, if we can….

And sometimes when we can’t, we do it anyway…. As far as we can.

And when we can't .. we decide how and when we can, and how to get there.

Worrying before the paycheck hits won’t help much, if at all.

Worrying others about the problems won’t help at all.

Listening to the others and trying to pay attention is the best we can do.

Because listening is hard, yet it is what we have.

Pay attention, because it's what we have, when we have it.

Complaining doesn’t help unless you do something different for the future because of it.

Yet we are unsure what to change for the future – and even when we know, it’s touch and go...

Guessing won’t help. Guessing Never Helps.

Wishing you didn’t have to guess won’t help.

Staring at the calendar and counting the days won’t help much.

Adding up everything and knowing what your number to hit won’t help much, but some.

Writing down every item's expected cost and budgeting won't help always, but some -- you never know the future and what will change.

Understanding that nothing is exact when it comes to the future will help most.

Knowing that the future keeps going … and going, will help depending on your attitude.

Your attitude, this attitude, is what helps most often.

It's hard to keep your attitude optimistic, sometimes you can't, but you can try. 

Optimistic pessimism seems to be how we operate, but we operate.

Looking at all the due dates won’t help much.

Being sad about birthdays and Christmas won’t help much at all.

Thinking about what you will have to say about things, won’t help much.

Counting all your change won’t help much, maybe enough for a gallon more of gas.

Putting the gas in your vehicle to do the day’s work and doing it will help for later.

Going straight to work and straight home every day usually helps, but we do that anyway.

Not heading out into town without a good reason helps, but we do that anyway.

Knit the sock, cook the rice, boil the eggs, can the tomatoes, mend the tear or weed the garden when you can, you'll appreciate it later.  Do the little things that need doing, when you can.  When you can't later, the future 'you' will appreciate the 'you' now, that is doing this.

Learn the French, the Spanish or whatever your little heart desires, you'll appreciate it later.

Later isn’t going to wait until later, but you still have to wait for later.

Charging your phone will help, do it.

Doing your laundry or the dishes will help, do it.

Cooking your dinner and eating it will help, do it.

Using up leftovers and food before it spoils will help, do that.

Feeding the animals will help, remember it.

Washing and filling the water bowls will help, remember it.

Emptying the trash will help, remember it.

Sweeping the floors will help, remember it.

Putting the clothes and things away from the clutter will help, remember it.

Checking the mail and knowing where it is helps, remember it.

Reading the library book that is due will help some, tuck a blanket around yourself.

Being warm and having coffee or tea will help some, tuck a blanket around yourself.

Listening to some music or watching a television show when the day is done will help some.

Tucking a blanket around yourself when the night is long and cold will help some.

Holding a hand, or a paw, and being in the moment will help some.

Because the moment is what we have, when we have it.

Sleep will help at times, and at other times, it won’t.

A long hot shower will help at times, and at other times, it won’t.

Pay attention, it’s what we have, when we have it.

Knowing it isn’t all crashing down right now will help, pay attention.

Being grateful you made it until December right now will help a lot, pay attention.

Remembering there is still January to come, and this will all happen again, will help a lot,

Pay attention, not just the bills.

Pay attention.

The Random Light

 

The Random Light

“Step out of your comfort zone, before it steps out of you…”

story by Marie Lamb

 

I have sat in the same seat on the subway, give or take, for the past three years. I sit with my shopping bag held defensively in front of me and watch the crowd pass in and out of the automatic doors. I listen to the familiar voice of the driver and count the stops until home. I know what every stop looks like, through the wet and the dry, with people in their coats and Christmas decorations, tourists and schoolchildren and elderly people and guide dogs alike trying to stay cool in the baking heat of summer. So, this last week, I knew that the random light I was seeing on Drake Street was not normal. I would have seen it before. And I could not remember, in any of the times having passed that stop, having seen it before.

It wasn’t really random. But, it shouldn’t be there. As far as I could ever tell that wall was solid brick. Beyond it was probably machinery or compacted dirt - definitely nothing of notice. The first few times I mostly ignored it. But, it wasn’t really very easy to ignore. It reached out with fingers across the subway station even at speed, and yanked at my awareness. Now, this light had my full attention. I could almost hear it, almost feel it, almost taste it. It was like remembering tea - herbal and citrus. Even though I denied it, there was something there calling to me. Tonight, I had been looking for it ever since I got onto the train. I had been telling myself it wasn’t really there. Deep down, there was a hope within me that it actually was.

   

My shopping bag shook and rattled. It was vibrating as if something with tiny feet was running back and forth at the bottom of it. I was just about to open it up and take a look with my cell phone camera when a lady with a red jacket brushed by me. As I looked up the random light was shining through the windows with such intensity it took my breath away. The urge to go see it was so strong that, even though this was not my stop, when the driver called ‘Drake Street’ I found myself rising with the small crowd, bag in hand, edging towards the doors. I thought hard about calling Alec and telling him I would be delayed, but I was just too absorbed. My eyes were on the light.

I stepped down from the car onto the platform and looked around. The few passengers that had exited with me were already on their way, down the side trail, up the stairs, waiting for another train. I felt silly, and more than a bit worried about breaking my routine. What would Alec say, when I finally arrived home? Would he not even wait that long, but call me a few minutes after six, worried to death? But even as I thought these thoughts, the amber pink light seemed to glow more intensely. I could see it stretching out golden tendrils like I have only ever seen before in fairy tale books. I was encountering magic. It had to be. And I could not even gather up a third of me to run away from it.

My feet were moving without my head telling them to. I stood in front of the wall and stared hard at the glowing light. I dropped my shopping bag to the ground. It rocked and swayed before coming to a balance. My jacket and hat were discarded next, untidily onto the ground. There was no common sense to this. My very shoes started to be too binding, but the ground was fading away and it no longer mattered. I tried to lean my hand upon the wall but it seemed to melt into it like warm frosting. I had one shoe on and one off. I should be mortified, worried about who was watching, but I couldn’t even turn my head to look around.

I leaned in further and began to taste the joy radiating off the threshold. The glow was intense and surrounded me like peach ice cream on the hottest beach vacation with caramel sauce and brandy. The air had grown hushed and close, like cotton around my ears. I held my breath and did not feel the need to breathe again. The brick surface turned to warm sand under my fingers and then broke away in a crystalline surface, thin like brittle wax, melting around me and pulling me through the soft silk of summer.

There was a cascading of feathers and soft grasses that came down around my face. The golden light was everywhere and piercing my very skin to share in its glowing. I swam through honeyed sound and silken waves like a child’s timeworn blanket on a safe warm bed. I remember the light turning from gold to white, and the air solidified around me like a grid. The warmth melted away to rest only within myself, pooling down into my center like a warm glut of rich and satisfying soup. I felt myself slowly released from the pull to rest upon the ground, clear and open and relaxed. I did not even have the energy to pull my head up on my shoulders. I lay there, listening to the sifting of the sands and the crackling of the air.

It took a moment for my vision to focus. I was looking at a pair of shoes. My own shoes, on legs wearing my hose, and a hand carrying my bag. I looked all the way up to a mass of brown curls that were conveniently looking the other direction. I wondered if I was imagining myself in two places at once? The other me turned and reached for me. Things were happening so quickly. I tried to twist and turn limbs that were not responding, and ended up only turning in circles three times over. I could not fathom how she picked me up with one hand and dropped me, small and fuzzy, into the white shopping bag.

She opened the bag and stared at me for a long moment. I froze completely still, a tiny yowl caught in my throat. My whiskers were twitching, and I wanted to scratch her with a vengeance. Her eyes were too green, but they began to equalize, less catlike and more like I remembered my own human eyes. As she closed the bag and began to walk in a rhythmic swaying, I heard my phone snap open. She said ‘Yes Alec, don’t worry. I just got off at the wrong stop. No, I don’t know how, it was all in a rush. I even lost a shoe! I’ll be home soon, love, there’s a little someone you should meet…. I think you’ll be the best of friends.”

Poems for November

 some poems that have flowed out of my nib pen lately as I practice my left handed handwriting

11/14

Along Together

And we walked along in these woods, together,

along the path that few had chosen before,

the path was not well marked and at times

the ground was unforgiving,

the stones were sharp against our feet,

but on we continued

for we were together, after all

and there will always be stones

along any path

11/15

The Broken Shell

I went to the ocean and

brought back a shell

There were so many

but I did not have to choose

the ocean delivered it to my feet,

but then I decided it was for me,

and that, was a choice, indeed

(fragment on a drawing) : 

Upon this Earth we stand

for this we are given

and take forward

Clifden Castle

Oh to see those halls, to sit in those stones, once more

although, in truth, I have never been

yet these words

they echo through 

the empty windows of the photographs

 

 

 

11/16

With Wonder

I wondered

and that was the key to it all - 

that simple act, so easily overlooked

and yet without it 

where would we be?

A world without wonder, 

itself a thought unfathomable without the very deed -

and at that musing,

I was amused again

at how wonderful it all can be