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  • I was reading part of the NY Times early this morning when I happened to see the sky with just a glimmer of light breaking the darkness:

    Dawn2007

    What a nice way to start the day.

    The reading, not so nice.

    I was reading this article  about recent outbreaks of e coli in fresh produce and contemplating one of the conundrums of modern life.  Here we are living in one of the most technologically advanced times in human history, in one of the most advanced communities and yet we can’t eat the lettuce, or drink the water.  The very mass production that has enabled us to live extraordinarily varied and rich lives, that gives us the potential to feed and clothe huge numbers of people, also can aide in the spread of dangerous contaminants and diseases.

    What is the answer?  no one knows yet.  But I have hope in humanity, in the human capacity to find answers.  The pre-dawn patch of sky reminds me of our capacity to find answers.

    The answer is not banning cattle from states that grow produce.  Nor is it living exclusively on locally-grown food.  We could never support the world’s population.  This is a movement of the relatively rich and secure.  The same advances that bring us produce from New Zealand have brought so many life enhancing improvements from which we all benefit.

    I refuse to be ruled by fear of food.  Increasingly I refuse to be ruled by so many things.  Science and society has grown so complex.  The food we we eat.  The medicines we take to live longer "healthier" lives. Our electronics (I am using some now).  In the same issue of the Times is an article on how common are mistakes in drug distribution and dosing.  People don’t know what they are taking or how much.  They don’t know how things interact.  Pharmacists, nurses and even doctors  are people too, they make mistakes.  In the end we have to pay attention to what we put in our bodies, be it lettuce or medication.  It is not simple, you can’t necessarily wash the e-coli off.  You might not recover from the drug mistake.

    Another article talks about how we are perhaps over-diagnosed.  Medicine has made such great advances.  But medicine cannot give us perfect lives.  We can find things earlier.  We may be able to treat various diseases or malfunctions.  But are they all something that should be treated or just variations.  People are still machines in a way, machines that work wonderfully, but things wear down, ache, feel depressed.  We can’t be perfect.  It is too easy to see ourselves as "sick" in this world.   We forget the old medical adage that "all medicine is poison".  This is true for all medicines, even the over-the-counter ones and even the ones we take for health, like vitamins and supplements.  There is a risk and a price to pay for everything we do.

    Here I have written a post with too many questions and without answers.  My thoughts are rambling.  There probably are no answers and there probably are too many questions.  Perhaps we should spend more time considering them.

    Me I’m going to sit down and watch the sun come up.

  • Black Eyes

    I hope you ate your black eyed peas for luck this year.  I know some people who eat them immediately following midnight, to be sure to maximize their luck, but I am a little more lackadaisical.  As long as I eat them on New Year’s Day, I think I am OK.

    I have about 4 or 5 regular black-eyed pea recipes, in regular rotation.  This year we added collard greens to the black eyes in the final minutes of cooking, and served the whole mess with cornbread.

    Black_eyed_peas_1

    I used the cornbread recipe from the January 2007 Food & Wine Magazine.  The only alteration I made was to substitute an equal amount of Gluten Free Pantry French Bread and Pizza Mix for the flour used in the recipe. 

    BLACK EYED PEAS WITH GREENS

    1 pound dried black eyed peas
    2 smoked ham hocks
    1 large Spanish or other sweet onion
    3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
    1 tablespoon olive oil
    3 cups chicken stock
    3 cups water
    1 bunch collard or turnip greens
    salt to taste

    I cooked the beans in the slow cooker, although you can easily adapt this for stove-top or oven cooking.

    Heat a medium saucepan overr medium heat.

    Add oil to pan and allow to warm.  Add onions and cook until onions are golden and just beginning to brown.  Add garlic and cook for 1 minute more.  Add stock and water and bring to a boil.

    Add the black-eyed peas and ham hocks to the bottom of the slow cooker insert and pour the boiling stock and onion mixture over it.  Cook on high for 7 hours, or until the beans are swollen and soft and the liquid has thickened and is somewhwat viscuous.  You may have to drain off some of the liquid and boil it in a separate pan at the end of cooking if it does not thicken in your slow cooker.

    When the beans are done, remove the ham hocks from the pan and set aside.  You may discard the entire ham hock or you may retrieve the meat before discarding the fat and bone.  Chop the meat  and add it back into the bean pot for additional flavor.

    Remove beans from heat or turn slow cooker to low.

    Wash greens and cut leaves into narrow strips and set aside.  Before stirring greens into bean pot, skim off any fat that has settled on the surface of the beans.  Add salt to taste.  Stir in the greens and allow to warm for a few minutes, just long enough to wilt the greens.  Serve.

  • Happy New Year

    We drove home from Tennessee a day early, not realizing that while we were cruising up I81 in the brilliant sunshine the storm we were expecting to bring ice and snow had stalled over the Midwest.

    Given a reprieve, we spent part of Saturday morning tooling around Northeastern Pennsylvania and the lake Wallenpaupack area where G worked at a camp owned by the Brooklyn YMCA on one of the smaller neighboring lakes.  He couldn’t remember if the lake was near Hawley or Tafton so we just explored the lovely area.  The camp is apparently long gone, and we had trouble finding anyone who remembered a camp which apparently closed more than 50 years ago, but it was nice just to putter about the countryside.

    We used to spend time just wandering and puttering, stopping here and there and seeing whatever we found.  But the 21st century obsession with not wasting time caught up with us and lately it seems we rush here and there, always trying to do more, with fewer stops just to sit and let the world wander by.  We need to try slow down, appreciate the time to sit and relax, and let the world move a little more slowly.

    I will leave you with this, a street sign found about a mile from where the one-time-campsite was located (now a nice housing development).  It bears no relation to G’s youth, but the name on the street sign was G’s father’s name, although there are probably lots of Herman Steiners in the world.  We just found it interesting in the self-absorbed way that we humans are always looking at ways to tie what we see into our own personal lives and stories, no matter how distant they may be.

    Steinerrd

  • Conclusions to The Dark Tower

    Darktowervii
    In volume VII of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, “The Dark Tower” Roland finally reaches the end of his quest. But does he achieve his “ka”? If we are observant, that question is
    answered at the beginning of the book, on the fly sheet:

    Reproduction

    Revelation

    Redemption

    Resumption

    But we, like most people, are not usually that observant, we note the fly-sheet in passing but it is only later that its significance comes home. Often the important things pass us by, just like those four words. In them are writ the ending of the book, but we don’t notice because we are focused on “the plan” and what is going to happen next. We are looking for the big things, and we forget that the big things are often disguised. Roland forgets this too, and he is far more observant than most of us, but as we were told in the beginning, in Volume 1, Roland lacks imagination, and imagination is a crucial human trait.

    Although at various points in reading this series, and indeed in reading this last volume, I had doubts and felt frustrated at the development of the book, in the end I think it is quite masterfully done.  There is a sophisticated exploration of free will and destiny, of the ways humans perceive and pursue what they believe to be their “paths”. Although the book is not always consistent, for the most part I think it is a pretty brilliant conclusion to a long series. When you look at how King interweaves his own life and career with the story and the entire discussion as to whether King is writing and creating the world (does it exist outside of King’s imagination) or whether the world is expressing itself through King, or are the characters creating themselves through the writing of the novel, you get a rather interesting look at metaphysical solipsism and the many ways in which we can perceive the world, while reminding us that this world does not exist outside King himself (or does it). Philosophy hasn’t come up with an answer either.

    There were a lot of diverse threads and elements, from many of King’s books, not just the Dark Tower series, that get resolved and many ideas that King explores. And yes there were parts of the story I found uninteresting, or I thought were weak, but generally I was not surprised by the ending. But then, I have never been one to think that knowing the end will ruin the appreciation of the book. The signs were all there from the beginning.

    The deaths of Eddie and Jake were not pointless and were necessary, both for their own fates and for Roland. I was at first disappointed in the conclusion of Susannah’s role in this quest, but upon further reflection I realized that it was the only perfect ending. Susannah was the only one of the ka-tet who fully realized her ka, and who also realized that Roland would not achieve his, although she might not have figured out exactly why. I am not sure of this though.

    The coda was the only answer. I do not find it disappointing. Anything else would have been a let-down, a pandering to popular philosophy, a lie. Roland learned a lot. He learned
    to love, and because he did so he was given a key which might make a difference
    in the future. Roland achieved the dark tower. What he didn’t learn is that the
    dark tower, although real, is also a metaphor. He was so focused on what he perceived to be the goal that he marched right over the real goal, regardless of the cost. The cost is high.

    Will Roland learn? Do any of us learn? There really are no answers no matter how badly we may want them. Stephen King has written a masterful conclusion to a rather complicated sequence of books.

  • Holiday Wishes

    Holiday_cheer

    I am off to indulge in holiday festivities, savoring pleasures both adult and childlike.  In between I shall indulge myself by reading about the frivoloties of the fashionable life.

    See you again in 2007.

  • Bryce Marden at MOMA

    While I was in NYC on Tuesday I stopped in at MOMA to see the Bryce Marden exhibit.  It was a lucky coincidence, MOMA is usually closed on Tuesdays, except in the holiday season, and I had been unable to get into town to see the exhibit.

    Brycemardenatmoma
    I’m so glad that I did, it is a spectacular exhibit where you really get a good sense of the Marden’s progress from his early minimalist work through to the later works with their intense layering of technique and use of positive/negative space.  I was overwhelmed and really was not able to spend the time I wanted to just absorbing what I saw.  These are paintings that have a very palpable sense to them, painting that envelope you and draw you in, making you want to observe the details.

    Unfortunately I had one to many glasses of champagne at lunch to apply that kind of scrutiny, and my brain was also befogged with thoughts of the few remaining Christmas errands I had to run before I caught a train back to the exurbs.

    I really feel the need to go back and see everything again; this is common for me if I see something that really strikes me, as if I can’t absorb it all in one go.  I always wished I had better concentrative ability.  Hopefully I can get back before it closes in mid January, it is well worth making the effort. 

  • Trying to find a fiber-balanced life.

    I had some time this weekend for some fiber-related activities and it was difficult to make a choice.  I really wanted to work on the jacket and finish it.  But I also wanted to finish up the sweater I have been knitting so it was really difficult to make a decision. 

    That always seems to be my biggest problem, deciding what I wish to work on.  It is actually quite a luxury, having the leisure to decide what interest I wish to indulge on any given day; the issue is not really that there is no time, but that there are so many options to fill that time. (well perhaps there could be more time as well)  I really don’t stress about this a lot, until I get too many unfinished objects on my plate, a situation I have been approaching again recently.   I think I have finally come to terms with the idea that I am not a particularly focused person.

    Long ago I accepted the fact that I am never going to be one of those people who is focused on a career, a person who defines herself by what she does for a living.  G is one of those people, and I actually know quite a few of them and admire them greatly.  They have something in their personality that I just don’t possess.  I get all wrapped up in whatever I am doing, and whatever job or career I am pursuing until I get bored and then I move on to something else.  I don’t regret any of the choices I have made in my professional life and I have never been one to define who I am by what I do.

    By the same token I don’t really define myself by my hobbies.  They tend to be longer lasting than my interests in various careers, but they too wax and wane.  I actually am interested in sewing now, although I know you have heard more thoughts and dreams of sewing than you have seen concrete results.  Part of this is because it is easier to make time for knitting — I can do it sitting with DH in front of the TV, whereas sewing requires that I isolate myself more.  I feel like I am focusing more on the sewing even though I did not get any sewing time in last week due to the general combination of seasonal activities and the resurgence of construction on the deck, including more meetings with contractors, more errors and oversights, and further changes in the plans.

    The sweater needed to be finished because I want to wear it to Christmas Eve Dinner at our neighbor’s house.  But I also wanted to work on my jacket.  I had hoped that I would be able to wear the jacket into NYC when I meet my friend Mary on Tuesday.  But that was beginning to look less likely.  Aside from the fact that I haven’t cut the lining yet, the weather does not look promising for that jacket.  Despite the warm weather we have been having, it will cool down some, and it will not be warm enough to wear the jacket as outerwear.  The cut of the jacket is not really meant to be a suit-type jacket under a coat, and I don’t think I have an appropriate coat to wear over it.  So that is out.  What a relief.

    Oddly enough, in many aspects of my life I work very well under pressure and deadlines, but not with my sewing and knitting.  Perhaps because this time is for me also a creative and relaxing period, and pressure is not relaxing, nor does it allow the mental freedom to channel whatever little creativity I might possess.

    Finishing the sweater was the right decision for me this weekend. I am wearing it as I write this and it makes me very happy.  I am still trying to find ways to balance my knitting and sewing time, but at least I am free of deadlines and I can be inspired to work on whatever catches my fancy.  The jacket is still high on my list, as are all the other projects I have started this year and never finished. But there is no pressure.

  • Lessons Learned

    No sewing yesterday.

    There was, however, lots of thinking about sewing, mostly thinking about
    sewing successes and failure and about the writing and posting about sewing
    successes and failures. Have I mentioned
    that I think FAR too much?

    I finally took a pile of old clothes to the donation center
    yesterday, and in the process I got rid of the green coat. It has been much on my mind. Why, you might ask? Why fret and dither about a coat that doesn’t
    fit and is more of a sewing failure than a success? Why even post a picture and discussion of a
    coat that is not up to par, and in fact was not quite up to par at the time it
    was made? Why two posts about the same misbegotten project? Well precisely because it was
    misbegotten. Hopefully I have learned
    from my mistakes, but I also need reminders here and there, and my posts are as
    much about as what I need to remember as they are about what anyone might want
    to read.

    I might prefer to remember only the success stories in my
    sewing journey. And a reader might
    prefer to read about fabulous stylish garments that they can dream of making
    (not likely here though.) But sewing is
    also about mistakes and lessons learned, or not learned, and sometimes the
    failures are as important as or more important than the successes.

    Hence the green coat. Again.

    The biggest problem with the green coat is a construction
    problem. It is glaring and I am sure
    that all you astute readers noticed it right off and are too polite to point
    it out to me.  This is not the shoulder problem, which really varies depending on what
    I wear under the coat. It is not the
    little wrinkle in the hang of the left sleeve, which is actually caused by the
    excess padding I stuffed into the left shoulder so that the coat did not
    collapse like a deflated balloon (and this accented the problem with the right
    shoulder as well).

    The problem with the green coat is the front closure:

    Greencoat3

    I have blown it up here to remind you. You can scroll down two posts for the full
    coat.

    The front band pulls where I have attached the hooks. The coat obviously needs more structure here to support the weight of the hooks and the bulk of the bands I used to attach them. I obviously needed a different or more interfacing in the front of the coat. I
    did not fuse the front coat pieces to a fusible interfacing like Textured Weft
    and this would have helped considerably. This was obviously a lack of planning. I could have reinforced the area later by taking it apart and adding
    interfacing to add strength to that area.  I could have remade the tabs or the bands. I didn’t because I already saw
    other problems with the coat, and had decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

    And yet I still wore the coat and even loved it despite my discomfort with it. Why? One reason is I loved the color of the fabric. The color makes me happy. Also it was warm and light. Thirdly it passed the DH test, who loves it, despite its errors which he noticed, but said “bah” As he pointed out, most of the droopy, saggy, cheaply made wool coats I see in my town all winter bag and sag and look
    pathetic within an hour or two of being worn the first time and this coat did none of those things. An attractive scarf draped over the front hid any imperfections, which probably only I
    noticed anyway.And lastly it is good to be reminded of our imperfections.

    Even though I have finally given the coat away, there
    are things I want to remember and learn from this coat, aside from the obvious
    things like thinking out the construction and interfacing in advance, planning
    design details (like overlapping the front bands so that air didn’t come in the
    front of the coat, and accommodating figure variations.

    Lessons from Green Coat:

      1.    Don’t be afraid to use good fabric. This coat was good alpaca/wool coating. I don’t regret using it even if things didn’t turn out the way I wanted. Using good fabric saved the coat and made it wearable. Also, using fabric you have is better than buying more, especially buying
      something you don’t really like because you are afraid to make a
      mistake. Fabric that is not used is
      wasted. Fabric that is used is not,
      even if the garment fails. There is
      always something to be learned and I don’t mind learning even at the cost
      of good fabric. Strike it up to the
      cost of education. Failure is being
      afraid to try. If the coat had turned out perfectly but I had hated the
      fabric it would have been even more of a disappointment and would have
      still been a failure.

      2.    Don’t
      take complicated detailed projects to sewing camp. This should perhaps be lesson #1 for
      me. It is not that a beautiful
      tailored garment can’t be made at sewing camp. I know plenty of women who have done
      it. But not I. When I am working on a project like
      this, I need to lay out my materials and dance around the project. I need to play with different
      interfacings, I need to hog the press and the ironing board, pressing and
      leaving things to cool and dry. I
      need time and space and a clear head. There are people who jump right into a sewing project and made
      decisions on the fly, turning out very successful garments as they do
      so. I am not one of those
      people. I think too much. At sewing camp I share cutting tables
      with 9 other women. We share
      ironing boards. I don’t bring my
      full interfacing collection, and mostly there are 9 or 10 other brains
      thinking and contributing and adding distractions. Those distractions are PRECISELY what I
      love about sewing camp. I come back
      inspired and I look at things in new ways. But when I have made tailored jackets, or this coat, the garment is
      nice, but it is not what I would have done at home in my own sewing room,
      and so there is always a little bit of disappointment there. When I have made simpler, less
      structured things, I have been much happier with my results. I need to learn from this coat and plan
      accordingly. There are lots of
      things I can sew at camp and I always come back from camp revitalized and
      ready to try new things. Sewing camp makes me more free-spirited. I need to plan my projects accordingly.

      3.    I need
      to think more about the style of what I sew and what I really wear. The biggest disappointment with the
      green coat is that it is too classic. I find it boring. I thought
      I really wanted a classic coat; I thought that too many of my coats made
      statements, I though I needed a quiet, classic, timeless coat. I was wrong. The coat is most definitely not me and
      it would not be me even if I fixed the errors and altered it to fit; I
      suppose that is why I never bothered. The coat goes with everything and yet it doesn’t fit in. It reminds me of a time when I was
      dating my husband and he took me to meet a bunch of his old friends. He said I was always “too dressed up”
      and that everyone always wore Frye boots and LL Bean. So I tried to dress accordingly. I wore Frye boots (I actually did own a
      pair) and a very preppy button down shirt, Shetland sweater and
      cords. I looked like everyone
      else. And even though I was still
      painfully shy in those days and I would think that I would have been
      happier looking like everyone else and “fitting in”, I was miserable. I didn’t feel like myself. As a result I couldn’t act like myself and was even more reserved than usual.

    I am 48 years old and I am still learning how to wear what I want, not what I think other people want me to be. I need to think about this when I sew something. I need to ask myself is this really what I want? Is it really what I need? Or is it what I think I am supposed to want and need?

  • A few moments gone

    I suppose it would sound arrogant to say that the test was too easy.

    You paid attention during 100% of high school!

     

    85-100%  You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don’t get scores that high!  Good show, old chap!

    Do you deserve your high school diploma?
    Create a Quiz

  • Black and White

    The outer shell of the Simplicity jacket has been completed.  I need only to cut out and assemble the lining before finishing the jacket. 

    It is turning out quite nicely.  Here is a little teaser, a photo of the black and white trim between bodice and the peplum of the jacket.  No little surprise of color here.

    Siimplicity40474