I have been travelling in my dreams

Some nights I sleep very deeply, and it is during those nights that I have the sense that I have been travelling in my dreams, from one dream state to another, from one dreamscape to the next.  Sometimes, I wish I could go back, and occasionally, in that half-sleep-sodden state just before or after a satisfying snooze, I wish I could live in my dreams; the non-upsetting ones, that is.

Even when I am fully awake, images from dreams past, even many decades past, can suddenly unfurl in my brain.  Some of them are frightening, intimidating images; others are warm, familiar, even enticing. Landscapes, especially;  I think of a town street seen from above, with a road bordered by green tree tops. I think of a lower-East Side-like cityscape, seen from above, but from an angle - .  Another cityscape tickles my consciousness - a remnant of a dream about buying or trying to buy a house in lower Manhattan . . . There were recurring dreams about houses in Brooklyn . . . There is a more recent (some years ago, but not decades) dream with a lush green lawn which, however, had some dubious surprises.

There are those frightening landscapes, of course; I have quite a few nightmares.  They scare me, I dread them, and yet I treasure their imagery: so rich, so strange, complex and engrossing.  There are the images that terrify me because there is a building that is too large, grotesquely out of proportion to its surroundings. The first, and most disturbing of these images, belongs to a recurring nightmare I had when I was a young child:  a lake in a barren landscape - just red mud and dirt surrounding it, and in the lake a huge, a monstrous 1800s sailing ship, incalculably too large for reality, for the lake.  I feel frightened by it even now.  I still have dreams about disturbingly large buildings, but I don't want to write about other recurring elements in my nightmares, because I want to sleep well tonight!

The Tyranny of the Vegetable

"Eat us NOW or we'll go bad . . . very, very bad!"

That phrase occurred to me this afternoon while trying to figure out what to have for lunch.  I realized that I had some fresh tomatoes that "had to be eaten," and I sighed and proceeded to carry out my obligation.

That's the problem with fresh fruit and vegetables.  If they are remotely ripe when you get them, it is a race to the finish line against rot.  I sometimes feel quite overwhelmed at all the things I have to eat to stave off incipient decay!

The tomatoes were delicious, followed by some at-peril plums.  Actually, I suddenly feel quite like a super-heroine, saving fruits and vegetables from death and destruction at a single gulp.  Hadn't thought of it that way before.  Take that, you tyrannical tomato! You would be a fermenting puddle if not for my acts of digestive heroism.

A Mneh Walk in the Woods

  Thrilling, huh?  This was one of the more exciting
   prospects on my walk.

It was beautiful weather today:  sunny blue skies and cool temperatures.  What better to do this afternoon, then, than to go for a walk?  I had passed Carson Woods many times, and Chir and I had gone for a five-minute walk there at dusk a few days ago, which whet my appetite.  Besides, the description said that the brook had frogs, fish, and turtles!  I haven't seen a turtle when walking along a stream in forever, and I love turtles.

The description lied.  The brook barely had water, and hardly deserved the name of brook at all.  When I think of Stony Brook, and Stonacker Brook, and Shipetaukin Creek, and Harry's Brook, and Heathcote Brook, and - you get the picture.  (Actually, you don't, because I didn't bother to take one.)  As for frogs and turtles - they must have been on vacation or not feeling sociable.  No close encounters of the reptilian kind (amphibian either, to be precise about frogs), although I did get bitten by some insect or other.  I do believe I saw a very small, dark fish dart away as I stepped down to the rivulet.

The woods themselves were mostly meadows, with mowed and some gravel-covered paths.  (I actually prefer plunging into the forest - damn the paths, full speed ahead and all that, but decided I wasn't in the mood to get slashed by briers or lost this particular afternoon.)

Who knows which path this was?  Not me, that's for sure!

Another teeny, tiny little problem.  The map was totally inaccurate!  Trying to follow it was like trying to make sense of things in Alice's Wonderland; can't be done, folks.  Paths that were depicted as straight curved in on themselves. Dozens of unshown paths made it difficult if not impossible to distinguish which paths were the maps depicted on the map. If there are seven right-hand turns, and only three are shown on the map,you have no way of knowing which right-hand turn is the right-hand turn you want.  Will the REAL second right-hand turn please stand up?

Well, I guess I shouldn't expect magic every time I hike.  Or even a good time.  At least I got out for a walk. And I didn't get lost.

Who has not felt in his heart a half-warmed fish?

I knew that spoonerisms were named for William Spooner, Dean and Warden of New College in Oxford in the 1800s, who was a contemporary and acquaintance of Charles Lutwidge Dodson  However, I had not run across this particular example before, no doubt due to a deficiency in my reading.

Reverend William Spooner

Evidently in one sermon, the absent-minded and somewhat fuddle-headed Spooner asked the dramatic question:  "Which of us has not felt in his heart a half-warmed fish?"  

I looked at this odd phrase for a moment or two as I was browsing a biography of Dodson aka Lewis 'Carroll,before "translating" it. I laughed on and off for about half an hour.  Half-formed wish, my dear Watson!

There are many other amusing quotes and anecdotes about dear Reverend Spooner, who evidently initially resented his inadvertent fame for verbal flubs, but later in life had a mellower outlook on the matter. I once uttered a Spoonerism completely unintentionally.  It could have been viewed as a culinary critique of the restaurant whose name I inadvertently mangled.  "Let's go to the Crusty Supper," I suggested years ago.  The seafood restaurant's name was Rusty Scupper.  I wonder if they had "half-warmed fish" on their menu.
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The biography of Lewis Carroll I was reading (with much enjoyment) is titled, appropriately enough, Lewis Carroll, and is by Donald Thomas, published in 1999 in trade paperback by Barnes & Noble.

Victorian Paper Weaving

Antique love token - traditional heart in hand motif, woven

together, with the addition of a bracelet and ring!

One of my latest obsessions is Victorian paper weaving.  Some time ago, I encountered some small paper love tokens - two paper hearts woven together by a love-sick swain.  They were charming and magical.  Then I ran across a photograph of a larger love token, again two hearts woven together, but with each heart surmounted by birds and foliage.  That did it.  I had to make some of my own.  The problem?  I couldn't quite figure out how they did it.

I came up with a cumbersome method, and made a few, even some that I liked.  It took me about two years to finally figure out an easier way to come up with these vintage-style throwbacks, and now I am weaving hearts, hearts and hands, and a variety of other things, including a house and a heart.  I have a long way to go in terms of precision of cutting and pasting, but I am enjoying it all so much.

I have made a special album for these paper cuts and weaving, and I love flipping through the pages, although there are only one or two pieces that are truly nifty.  My attention is shifting somewhat to papercut illustration; pictures made up entirely of pieces of colored paper cut to shape and glued in place.  I hope to have some examples to post soon.

Another aimless visit to the automatic haiku generator

Wasting some time, I decided to revisit the automatic haiku generator I discovered a year or two ago and haven't used since.  The vocabulary is severely restricted, heavily peppered with words like belch, shriek, defecate, rasp, demon, devil, flatulent - you get the idea.  

This was not a happy person who entered the words to be used in the haiku.  Anyhow, came up with three that were okay - and inadvertently erased one or two that looked interesting but came after a long string of really bad ones, so I reflexively deleted them.  Oops, but probably not a major loss to the world of poetry.  

birds stampede slowly
eccentric intense haystack
rusting, leaning clouds

childishly pure great
bright eruption marvelling
flame soars, leaning soul

contritely still quick
capricious waif darkens, barbed
eternal joyless

Baking Bananas

I once had a boyfriend who took me on a picnic at the banks of the Charles River.  He had cooked a special gourmet dinner - sole with sauteed bananas.  Hmmm.  It tasted the way it sounds - weird.

I have, on the other hand, encountered fried bananas at Chinese restaurants as a yummy, gooey dessert, and I am sure they would be good flambeed over ice cream, or in any number of ways.  I like them with cottage cheese, or in cereal.  I guess I have  pedestrian tastebuds.  Oh - and if they are very ripe, I like them frozen.  When you slice them and eat them, it is like banana ice cream.  Sauteed with sole - somehow doesn't do it for me.

Twice this week I have made baked bananas.  Here is my recipe:

Ingredients:
one banana (preferably in plastic bag)
one car
hot weather

Place banana in plastic bag, and place it in the trunk of your car on a day when it is 90 degrees and sunny.  Leave the car for several hours. When you return, much of the skin will have turned black, and the banana will be pulpy and icky inside.  Take into house and throw out.  Or, leave it on the kitchen table for a day or so thinking that maybe the part where the skin didn't turn black might be edible.  Pick up the banana to peel it and try out this theory, feel how disgustingly mushy the inside is, and then throw it out.

Variation:
Place banana in plastic bag, and place it on the passenger's seat of your car on a day when it is 90 degrees and sunny.  Leave the car for several hours.  Return to the fragrant aroma of a banana cooked to a pulp inside its skin by the sun.  Take into house and throw out immediately, having learned from the first method that it will be inedible.

I sacrificed two organic bananas for this inadvertent culinary discovery.  Read and learn.

Art from the past

This is a drawing I did when I was in my late teens.  My brother found it lately and transformed it into this nifty presentation.  Thanks, Pete.

My crumbling lady's head planter

I took this photograph earlier this spring.  My plaster planter in the form of a woman's head has seen better days - after just one winter, it is cracked and chipping, but perhaps that makes it look more venerable.

Arrayed around the planter are some of the stones I have picked up from the banks of local brooks.  Many of them have holes and fissures which I find fascinating.  Some of them have tiny crystals; others are unusual colors.  There are stones with inclusions, patterns, markings that resemble faces, letters, or animals; and then there are a few I look at and think - "Just why did I pick this stone up and take it with me?"

I also love smoothed-out bottle glass.  I have a chunk of what seems to be a very old soda bottle, because it is extremely thick glass; the letters on the fragment are "kist," which I just love, because it reminds me of "kissed."  I keep on thinking about incorporating it in a piece of jewelry made from found elements, but that is one of many projects I haven't gotten around to as yet.

I did find a real fossil a couple of years ago, and at a different brook, I found a petrified oyster shell.  I also discovered a small geode, which is nothing compared to the geodes one purchases, but is special because I found it!

The hellebore flowers crowning my planter's head have faded, and I must now consider what to plant in their place.  Perhaps a small-leaved creeper; or perhaps I should mound up the soil and grow some moss, giving her a velvety cap.  Decisions, decisions.  A lot of gardening awaits me this week.

Brooks, streams, creeks, and treasure

The tree and twisted roots in the foreground are usually well above 

the level of the water of Stony Brook, and the current is usually far 

tamer.  The wildly rushing current was mesmerizing.

I had some extra time several days ago, and took the opportunity to walk down to Stony Brook, which is - surprise! - a stony brook near where I live.

There had been a great deal of rain in the previous days, and the brook was more swollen than I had ever seen it, with the water rushing furiously along.  Rocks that were usually visible above the water were hidden beneath the currents.  It was beautiful, and the sound's effect was instantly anesthetic.

Often I wish I had a house with a brook on the property.  Being able to sit by the brook and relax to the sound of the water flowing by would be so life-enhancing.  But I recognize that I am fickle, and crave variety.  I worry that just one brook wouldn't do - I would soon be back exploring different brooks, streams, and creeks, searching for natural treasures: water-smoothed glass, shells, weird stones and pebbles, distorted branches . . .

I have a list of brooks and streams still to explore.  I need to get cracking - time's a-wasting, and magic awaits just out of sight, past the bordering trees, in the woods, on the banks of the brooks . . .  It's waiting for me, and for all of us.

Prayerful thoughts

I was thinking about God tonight, which isn't too surprising because I think about God a lot every single day.  I was born that way.  One of my earliest memories, from when I was three or four, is asking my atheist mother plaintively, "Do we believe in God?" and being very disappointed when she said that we didn't.  (My mother was a very authoritative woman.  If she said we didn't believe in God, then God help anyone in the family who professed any faith whatsoever.  Besides, at three or four, I thought my mother knew everything.  I still sometimes think she knew almost everything . . . )

Back a few centuries, they knew how to pray -
no hour and a half and then schnaps and a nosh!

Anyhow, I was at a midweek evening service, sparsely attended, which was lovely.  On my way home, I started to wonder what one could do to improve the attendance.  I thought to myself that in a way, I understand people who don't come - it's the middle of the week, once a week is enough (or more than enough!), there are so many other things to do . . .

But really, if you think about it (and if you believe both in God and in worshiping God), if we were to pray all day, every day, it still wouldn't be enough, unlike the Passover song, "Dayenu" which means "It would be enough." "Dayenu" celebrates all the wonderful things God did for us when we were slaves in Egypt, and after each miracle or blessing bestowed upon us, the refrain is, even if he hadn't done more than that, it would have been enough.  Well, a  version of that about our gratefulness to God might be "Lo Dayenu"  ("It is not enough").  I can imagine some wag objecting that if one did nothing but pray, all day, everyday, there wouldn't be much to be thankful for.  Point taken.  Obviously no-one can pray all day, every day, and I don't think God expects or wants that that of us.  We are supposed to live our lives and engage with others.  But going to services two times a week doesn't seem excessive.  Even if one doesn't feel motivated on the way to prayer, the inspiration will come during prayer, and the feeling of lightness and just plain satisfaction is quite bracing.

I have a good friend who is very religious and talks about God all the time, practically, but shows up at prayer only sporadically.  That I don't understand.  God wants his people to come together in prayer regularly.  Communal prayer isn't because we have to, or because it's the law:  it is good for our souls!  It refreshes our spirit, and strengthens our faith, to be with others together singing God's praises.  It is like a marvelous medicine which tastes wonderful and cures us of what ails us, fortifying us against the infections which surround us during the week.  Saying "thank you" and admitting our faults is so freeing; being reminded of what we believe and hope is so fortifying.  I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Creative Challenges - I get crazy but have fun

Since I am, after all, Miranda Sparkle, I get a lot of kidding about my first name.  "Will you give me my Miranda Rights?" I'm asked.  Or, "Where is your fruit hat?"

Well, several weeks ago an amiable acquaintance and I were joking about Carmen Miranda of the fruity hats, and I rashly said the next time we got together, I would wear a Carmen Miranda hat.

I thought, how difficult can it be to throw one together?  Answer to this question is ALWAYS:  very.

There are lots of instructions on the web, most of them saying:

Take an old cap, cut off the bill, and use this as the base.  Cover it, and glue plastic fruit on top.  Yeah, sure.  Just like that.  Most caps don't cover remotely enough of my rather capacious cranium.  And to glue fruit on, you need a more stable substrate, to use an annoying pretentious word that has spread like wildfire in the craft and mixed media world.

I ended up putting my fruit (from the dollar store, including a "pineapple" made out of a fake gourd with green paper fronds taped on, and a summer squash striped to look a little like a banana) into a small straw basket with crumpled paper mounded in the botton, glued everything up the wazoo with E-4000 (or is it 6000?), used sparkle pipecleaners to attach the basket to a knitted ski cap, and then wrapped the cap (while I was wearing it) with inexpensive shiny bright orange fabric.  I had some sparkled plastic berries which looked a little like green grapes, and some cheesy gold fabric poinsettias, as well as a pseudo Hawaiian lei whose origins are shrouded in the mists of time, I got it so long ago.  I used them as camouflage at strategic spots, and presto!  I was ready to samba.

The next time I saw this friend was yesterday, at - gulp! - a group gathering.  Many of the people were meeting me for the first time, and there I was in this bizarro getup.  I wore the hat the absolute minimum amount of time, but I have a feeling quite a few people were under the impression - perhaps correctly - that I was a bit wacko.

Next challenge from my friend, by the way, is to come up with some way to mark Ground Hog Day.

Be afraid; be very afraid . . .