Radish sandwiches

The other day, I was thinking about cucumber sandwiches, and today, courtesy of P. Allen Smith, I read about radish sandwiches. Those sound good, too. I like radishes in a salad.

Radishes make me burp. I debated whether to share that and decided yes.

Cukes

This evening after work I mowed the lawn. I mowed carefully and thoroughly and did a fine job, if I do say so myself. While I was cutting, the grass smelled like cucumbers to me. It smelled green. I started to think about those cucumber sandwiches you get when you go to a tea place. White bread with no crust, butter, and thin slices of cucumber. On my own, I would never have come up with idea of a cucumber sandwich, but they're tasty on a summer's day.

Two sleeps

Recently I've had a tendency to fall asleep after supper for an hour or two, then wake up for a few hours, then go to bed. In some ways it's unhandy, but I figured if it all adds up to eight hours or so, it's all to the good. I know several people, including members of my family, who have talked about a similar sleep pattern. So I googled, and found plenty of articles about "bimodal sleep." It's a thing.

Springing

I'm so glad that the mornings are starting to get lighter. It's about 7:00 a.m., and I've had the blinds open for a while already. During the winter, I can't do that because it's as dark as night outside. I mean, of course I could open the blinds, but all I'd see would be my reflection in the glass. Now I can see the yard and the bushes down by the creek.

The light helps me wake up in the first place. In the winter, I could sleep till who knows when, but now when I wake up a little, I see some light in the windows, and I know it's morning, not the middle of the night.

I have been buying plants and flowers. I need to start getting them into the ground and into pots.



I have visited three nurseries so far this spring, the Garden Spot Nursery, My Garden Nursery (new--opening where Bakerview Nursery used to be), and Kent's Garden & Nursery. I still plan to go to Vander Giessen Nursery and Van Wingerden Greenhouses. I also have bought and will buy plants from out in front of grocery stores, drug stores, and hardware stores.

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!



John 20: 1-9

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)

Holy Saturday night

Waiting for the morning.

We call this Friday good

T. S. Eliot
"East Coker," from The Four Quartets
Part IV.



The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

Inertia

I seem to be lethargic.

Looking out

When I put the dog on his leash this morning to walk around our backyard, I asked myself if I should take my camera with. At first myself answered no because I have many, many pictures of my back yard, countless shots of the creek at high and low water, and even quite a series of shots of the forsythia bush I only planted last fall. But then I said to myself that if I saw a duck or heron I would want to take a picture, although myself reminded me that usually by the time I get my camera out of my pocket and switched on the bird has flown. I took the camera with anyway, but I didn't take any pictures outside.

It is cold and windy out, and the wind throws tiny drops of cold rain at one. Usually I am sheltered from the wind in our backyard because it is a declivity, but this morning it's blowing even there. I imagine, then, that up at street level it's an even colder, harder wind. So I got damp and chilly on the walk.

When I got inside, I took a picture through a living room window, since that is the kind of day it is--a day to stay inside and look out the window at the wind and rain.



You can still see the forsythia in bloom. I made sure to plant it where I can see it from the living room windows so that in springs where the cold lingers and most flowers delay their blooming, when I am color-starved, I can look out and see that yellow bush. This has been an early spring, so that lots of fruit trees have bloomed already, but some years the forsythia is a lonely advance guard.

Westering

This is kind of a cool picture I took a couple weeks ago.



It's looking west (where the sun sets) along the creek. I was walking the dog after work. It was before Daylight Saving Time kicked in and two or three weeks further back toward last winter's solstice so the sun was already close to the horizon before 6:00 p.m.

Workaday

Today was Tuesday, and I went to work again.

I've started reading a book called The Pleasures and Sorrows of Workby Alain de Botton. It's enjoyable--good writing, interesting thoughts.

Monday, Monday

Today was Monday. I went to work. (Tries to think of something interesting to say.) I guess a highlight was that a co-worker brought in some homemade chili so I had some for lunch.

I have the following comment to make about Daylight Savings Time:

Firsts

We are still enjoying our extraordinarily early spring here in the Pacific Northwest. Yesterday in the morning I pottered on my deck, pulling old dead plants out of pots and watering the honeysuckle, which already is leafing out. It was my first potter of the year. Today I mowed the lawn for the first time.

Time Marches on

I found this poem on the web. I don't know who Susan Reiner is; I couldn't find a poet of such name anywhere, just the one poem attributed to her. Happy March 1st.

Spring Cleaning
by Susan Reiner

March bustles in on windy feet
And sweeps my doorstep and my street.
She washes and cleans with pounding rains,
Scrubbing the earth of winter stains.
She shakes the grime from carpet green
Till naught but fresh new blades are seen.
Then, house in order, all neat as a pin,
She ushers gentle springtime in.

Apparently, March 1st is St. David's Day in Wales--St. David being the patron saint of Wales. I had not quite realized that. I knew that St. George was for England, St. James for Scotland, and St. Patrick for Ireland. I believe St. Teresa of Avila is one of two patron saints of Spain, and I think St. Joan of Arc is the patron saint of France. I wonder who is the patron saint of the United States? I just searched online, and the U.S. patron saint is Mary, the Immaculate Conception. I like better when someone local is the saint. I'm sure there must be saints from the U.S. that could become patron saints for us. A number of countries have more than one.

Actually, I'm not even a Roman Catholic, although of course I am a "catholic" as in "the holy catholic church, the communion of the saints."

Abide

Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.
(Luke 24:29)

Mostly I don't blog about events in my life because I don't want to compromise anyone else's privacy. But tonight it is heavy on my heart that tomorrow we'll start moving my mom into an assisted living facility. My dad will stay in their current apartment. They will be in the same building but in separate wings. I think this is the right thing to do, given their differing needs. I am glad they're in an excellent establishment. As far as I know, they feel okay about it.

But I am sad. Even with all the good things, it's sad to see life go inexorably through its stages toward the inevitable end. I am so blessed that my parents' stable, loving marriage has been a foundation for my life. They have been married for over 62 years. I'm sad to move them into separate units.

Many years ago, when I was a young woman, my mom was about the age I am now, and my mom's mom was not quite as old as my mom is now, my grandma was in an assisted living facility, too. It was in New Jersey, her home state. My parents and I visited there shortly after I graduated from high school. Here we are...I am on the left, 18 years old:



That visit was the last time I saw my maternal grandmother. I remember that I saw her in the dining hall and after dinner the staff led the residents in singing "Count Your Blessings." Afterwards, my grandma complained that she and others wanted to sing "Abide With Me," but the staff made them sing "Count Your Blessings."

For my mom's mom, then, here is the hymn of her choice:



Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O, abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
change and decay in all around I see;
O, thou who changest not, abide with me.

I need thy presence every passing hour.
What but thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who, like thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless;
ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.

Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes;
shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

Complete

Okay. Well, here it is.



A knit bookmark. I laid it on the closed lid of my laptop to take the picture.

Bookmark

The book I bought, Knit One, Purl a Prayer, is good so far. At the end of each chapter, she has a knitting project, and I am doing the first one, a bookmark that I am going to give a friend who recently had surgery, and I am giving her a book to put it in. I am almost done. I will probably finish tonight, although I am quite sleepy, so maybe I'll wait until tomorrow. When it's done I'll take a picture.

Since I am knitting this for a friend and integrating prayer, as I knit I've been praying for my friend. Sometimes I just keep her in my mind as I work, sometimes I think verbal prayers. This evening, I've been trying different phrases with the stitches, like, "Lord, bless [name]" with each stitch, then more rhythmically, insert needle to "Kyrie" and complete the stitch to "eleison." Or one stitch "In the name of the Father," next stitch, "and of the Son," next stitch, "and of the Holy Spirit." Or insert needle to "Lord," wrap the thread to "have mercy," pull the stitch complete to "on [name]."

It's a little project; you cast on just 10 stitches, and I guess it's about 50 rows. I just have 4 more rows to go, then I'll have to cast off, and there are instructions how to make a tassel.

Read on

Got a new book today.

Tally ho

This time around with my knitting, I am keeping track of my pattern by these marks.



I had to google what to call them. At first I tried "hash marks," and that could qualify, but it also means marks on a sports field and the "pound sign" or "number symbol" # (also known as a "hashtag" by people savvy enough to tweet). But the more precise term seemed to be "tally marks."

Since I need to knit 4 rows then purl 1, I can make an upright mark after each knitted row, then slash across after I purl a row.

The flaw would be if I forget to make the mark after each row, and that is a real possibility. However, this is still likely to be more accurate than my unassisted memory.

There's also the issue of my handwriting. You might notice in the 3rd group, the 3rd line has a squiggle next to it. Was that just a sloppy stroke on the 3rd mark? Or was it a 4th mark that I made tinily and messily because I was sleepy? I asked myself that this evening, and decided to go with the sloppy 3rd stroke hypothesis. I knit a row and the purled a row. I had actually gotten up and gone on to another activity before I remembered to go back and make the purl slash.

So not a flawless system, just less flawed than no system at all.

Little House

Yesterday was Laura Ingalls Wilder's birthday. I loved her books, starting in third grade. When I was in that grade, and I guess age 8, my family moved from one state to another. In the new school, on my first day there, when it was time for the teacher to read a story out loud to us, she read the next chapter in the book she had already been reading to the class. It was the chapter in On the Banks of Plum Creek where mean, stuck-up Nellie Olson gets her comeuppance by getting leeches on her legs in the creek and screaming and being horrified. My classmates shouted with laughter.

Later (I don't know if it was the same day), we went to the school library where we could each check out a book. We sat down at tables and the teacher told us that the quietest table could go first to pick out their books. We all tried to be quiet, but she chose a different table than mine. The girl next to me said, "Oh, they'll get all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books!" I can't remember when I got one to read on my own--I may even have previously read Little House in the Big Woods without knowing who the author was--but from about that time, I read her books through and through.

In older grades, when my mom would take me to the public library, I usually checked out multiple books, maybe six or eight. I would pick out ones I thought I might like, then get one or two of the Little House books to re-read. Even as late as seventh and eighth grade, a friend and I would play "pioneers," which simply consisted of pretending to be pioneers. We may have been influenced by some other books, like Caddie Woodlawn or On to Oregon, but our primary ideas of pioneer life came from the Little House series.



By the way, I did not really like the TV series that Michael Landon created. It wandered far, far from the books, and was basically a TV show where the characters happened to have the same names as characters in the books. Also, it was emotionally overwrought and manipulative in ways that Laura Ingalls Wilder's writing never was.