Doing pique assiette is a very meditative process. It's good for me to not have much of a preconceived idea of what I am going to make. I like to let the pieces of rock and glass and old plates just find their own place. The design keeps changing until everything is finally glued down. I don’t really even know what it’s going to look like until I grout it anyway, so it’s a waste of time to get too anal retentive about it.
The process is a lot like a pathway of stepping stones. You let the stones quide you as you just put one foot in front of the other until, voila! - you finally get somewhere.
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Weeby is giving me a hard time. It refuses to load completely on my laptop. Not only that but I can’t get them to help me fix the problem because I am CHEAP. For the last year I have been taking advantage of their free website option. It was perfect. The site was easy to use and you could reach an actual person to help should something bad happen. I accidently erased all of my postings at one point and a very helpful man found them for me. He then informed me that because I was using the free site option, I could no longer take advantage of the phone help, I would have to send a message instead. Fast forward to my recent need for help: I sent a message informing Weebly that the site won’t load and they sent an answer 24 HOURS LATER that instructed me to clear my cache and cookies. I dutifully followed their directions but it doesn’t help. I am upset. I would like to send a message back telling them where, exactly, they can put my cookies but I don’t want to be rude. As for my being cheap, along with their advice, they suspiciously sent a coupon for upgrading my site to a payed site which would allow me to actually talk to someone on the phone about my problems. This, of course, would be my computer problems, not my emotional problems although lately the two seem to be intersecting. I don’t think it costs that much but it does irritate the heck out of me. I don’t have a fancy blog. I don’t sell anything and I don’t put ads on my site. I don’t actively pursue billions of followers. I just enjoy writing and I’m grateful for my 15 or so regular readers. So for now, until I either figure out the problem by myself or give in to paying for my site, I am forced to edit my blog on my ipad. This is not ideal. Recently Weebly introduced an app for editing on an ipad. Actually they forced me to download this app because they won’t let me edit by just bringing up the Weebly site anymore. The app has some good qualities and some bad qualities. It is set up to make it very easy to LOOK at my blog, but not so easy to EDIT. I mean what’s the POINT ????? As a little old lady, I have tried hard to embrace the computer age. What seems like a lifetime ago I bought my first computer. It was an apple clone and was basically a glorified typewriter. I didn’t go on the internet because there was no internet. I used it for word processing. It was a miracle! I could correct things without using white-out! I could “cut and paste” without scissors and a bottle of rubber cement! I could print on my dot-matrix printer and watch the pages neatly roll out into the catch basket. I had to tear the strips of holes off of the sides of the paper and separate the accordion folded pages but it seemed magical at the time. I appreciate the fact that my current computer can literally sit in my lap and I can tuck my ipad into my purse when I travel, but I hate being at the mercy of a site like Weebly. I know they think they are making “improvements” but it doesn’t feel that way from my little old lady perspective. I will probably have to give in and fork out the bucks. It’s easier than typing on a typewriter and mailing out carbon copies of my blog by snail mail. ![]() Valentine’s Day made me think about love and its many forms and faces; the smoochy eyes-glazed-over kind of love, the tender protective kind of love, the deep constant kind of love. Recently I went to a wedding. It was a small, private affair and it was very sweet and moving. It’s hard not to be moved when you see two people staring into each other’s eyes, pledging to love and support one another. There is hope too, that these vows will last through all the trials of life when the going gets tough. The hope is that romantic love will become enduring love. ![]() My marriage didn’t turn out that way, but I know it is possible because I have seen it in action with my friends and family. My parents were married for 65 years. Heaven only knows there were a lot of rocky times for them, but I remember my Dad, in the years after my Mom died, talking about the good times they had together way more than their struggles. We were not a huggy, touchy-feely family. A lot of that was the Scandinavian thing. Moderation in all things, including expressions of love, is high on the list of appropriate Scandinavian behavior. My Dad didn’t really say “I love you” or initiate a hug. The way he showed his love was by doing things for people. He certainly was that way with my Mom, taking care of her for years as she became more and more incapacitated with dementia. He was also that way with me. He was always there for me when it came to home improvement. He would patiently walk me through the details of how to fix a toilet or a light switch, having me do the actual work so that I would learn how to do things for myself. When I was still working I would often come home to find that he had dropped by and mowed my lawn. He loved plants and was always helping me in the garden and passing on his knowledge about how to make things grow. In the last few years of his life I had an opportunity to return the love my Dad had given me by doing things for him in the way that he had done things for me. It was challenging mentally and physically but it was also a gift. I remember watching as he headed for bed, shuffling down the hallway with his walker. It’s wonderful how such an ordinary and simple moment can be so profound. As I watched him slowly navigate his way towards the bedroom, I couldn’t help but think how amazing it was that he was still on the planet at 101. I was so grateful that I was able to be there for him, and that I had a chance to feel that kind of love for my Dad. It was vital that nothing could possibly be interpreted as indicating you might “like” a particular boy. This was especially hard if you real DID like a particular boy or if someone liked you but you didn’t like them. All of the sweet cute valentines we gave to the girls.
Making the box for people to drop the valentines into was a big deal too. A shoebox was preferable. We would cut a slot in the lid for people to shove their valentines through. We used a lot of white paper dollies and hearts made by folding red colored paper in half. This school valentine thing must have been a very old tradition because I remember one of my Mom’s stories was about making valentines in school. Her brother was older but in the same classroom. He was very artistic and made great valentines. Mom was mortified when he gave all of them to her. It was not cool to have a whole box full of valentines from your BROTHER. This year a friend and I decided that we would each get a Valentine to give to ourselves as an exercise in self-love. It turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. At first I couldn’t even force myself to go down the card isle. When I got up the nerve to actually do it and started looking through the cards it was way harder than sorting through valentines in elementary school. I couldn’t find anything I would even want to give to myself. I didn’t want a card that was too mushy or romantic or that had a list of qualities that I am not. I finally settled on a minimalistic card that simply said “Love You.” It doesn’t even have an “I” in front of the “Love You.” It cost a whopping $6.95. That’s probably more than all of the cards I gave out in elementary school put together. Minimalism can be quite pricey. It is one of those textural cards. The words are spelled out in 3-D stitching and there is also a stitched heart-shaped balloon. It appeals to the home economist in me. Inside it says “Simply wonderful . . . that’s you.” Is it a little too mushy? Will I get the wrong idea about myself? Does giving myself a Valentine mean I have stepped over the “Little Old Lady with cats” line? Wait a minute! The whole idea of doing this in the first place was self-love not self-flagellation. I will proudly put my nice minimalist valentine where I can see it. And I think I'll get myself a balloon too. “Reading a Dave Barry book is funnier than watching the Kitten Bowl on Super Bowl Sunday.” I am hoping this opening sentence is funnier than “Dave Barry makes me laugh out loud.” Why, you might ask? Read on: I just finished reading Dave Barry’s book “Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Much Faster).” I was laughing so hard that my housemate came out of his room to see what crazy person had invaded the living room.
One of the suggestions about how to be funny was to tell your truth in an entertaining way and be honest about the stupid things you do. Dave writes about everyday things that are familiar so it’s easy to relate to his stories. The fact that we are both Baby Boomers makes the connection even stronger. There is a copy of his 1965 graduation photo in his book. It’s clear from the photo that Dave was a dorky teenager. I can relate. Although he was voted “class clown” he was not popular in the football hero sort of way. His self-deprecating humor, as he described his struggle to attract girls, was hilarious because it was so much like my own awkwardness as a teenager around boys. Actually it probably made me laugh because I feel pretty much the same today.
There were a lot of online references to being very specific. The idea is to paint a picture with words that the reader can relate to with all five senses by describing smells, textures, tastes, sights, and sounds. This inspires the artist in me. “My cat Mario is sleeping in the sun” is not as entertaining as “I could smell the heat of the sun coming off of his white glowing fur and taste the cat dander in the air as Mario lay by the window making squeaky snoring noises.” Making good use of metaphors and similes was another frequent suggestion. I can never remember which is which so I looked them up. A simile is a figure of speech in which the writer compares two unlike items, usually using the word "like" or "as.” For example: “Mario’s black spots make him look like a cow.” A metaphor is a figure of speech using a word or phrase that usually means one thing to refer to something else. “Mario is a cow cat.” The weirdest information I found on how to be funny was “The K rule.” I had never heard about this before but I guess it is fairly well known in the comedy community. It has to do with the fact that some words are more inherently funny than others. Words with the “k” sound (carbuncle, scuttlebutt, spork) are perceived as the funniest, and words with a hard “g” (guacamole, noggin, mugwump) are a close second. This is a hard one to wrap my head around. So I guess the word “cat” is funnier than “feline.” That certainly rings true for the title of my blog. “Little Old Lady with felines” does not sound like something I would be anxious to read. But then again “Little Old Lady with cats” might not do it for some people either. Maybe I should change it to “Squatty Geriatric Gal with cats.” Or I could try “Cat Krone.” It has good “K” sounds but unfortunately it makes me have visions of myself in a black pointy hat. Where you put funny words is evidently also as important as using them. Just like telling a joke, it’s a good idea to “end with funny.” In an interview with Gene Weingarten, Dave Barry said, “Put the funniest word at the end of a sentence” and “Put the funniest sentence at the beginning of the story.” With this in mind I edited the first sentence of this blog post. You will notice that it’s not exactly the most hilarious opening sentence in the world, but I tried. It’s a lot of hard work to be funny. Now I need to come up with a "punchy" ending word that has a nice strong “K” vibe. I think I like SMACK! Vegetarian Split Pea SoupIt’s a gray and rainy winter day. I feel the need to make soup. Notice that I said MAKE soup. not just EAT soup. I don’t want to open a can, dump it in a pot and heat it up. I want to do some chopping and mixing and I want to breath in the smell of onions and garlic as they waft out of my soup pot. Yes eating soup on a rainy day is very comforting, but MAKING it is an act of love. ![]() I did my research on this. I found an article in “Psychological Science A Journal for the Association for Psychological Science” by Jordan D. Troisi and Shira Gabriel titled “Chicken Soup Really Is Good for the Soul - ‘Comfort Food’ Fulfills the Need to Belong.” Their research actually indicates that “comfort foods are associated with relationships and alleviate loneliness.” That’s undoubtedly one of the reasons why I sometimes find myself standing in front of the open refrigerator door looking longingly for something to make me feel good. But today I don’t want to just feel good, I want to be good to myself. My favorite soup to make is Greek Lemon Chicken Soup. It’s basically chicken rice soup with lemon juice and a beaten egg added at the end, which makes it look creamy and gives it a hint of lemon flavor. This is a soup traditionally found in Greek restaurants. I found a recipe in my favorite cookbook “More with Less” which is a Mennonite cookbook that has recipes from all over the world. I’ve made this soup with leftover Thanksgiving turkey as well as chicken and it is always good. My other favorite soup to make is blended vegetable soup. I make this to share with my housemate who is a vegetarian. It starts with sautéed onion and garlic, and then you put in whatever vegetables you feel inclined to add, cook them until they are squishy, and blend it into a creamy concoction with one of those hand held blender stick thingies. I usually use a sprinkle of nutmeg or some fresh herbs to season it. I especially love cauliflower soup. As a kid I wouldn't touch cauliflower with a ten foot pole, but I have learned to appreciate it as an adult. Today, however, I am going to make a pot of split pea soup. A. Because it’s easy. Once everything is chopped up and added to the pot you just sit around and wait until it’s done. B. Because it’s winter. This is not the kind of food I crave during the summer so I might as well make it while it’s cold and miserable outside. The last time I made this soup was at Christmas when I needed a boost from realizing that "Peace on Earth" seemed like an impossibility (see my previous blog "Split Peas on Earth"). Now that the holidays are over and gray days seem to be lining up along with "El Nino," I think it’s time to do it again. C. Because it’s very Scandinavian. My parents loved this soup, although what they really liked was YELLOW split pea soup. I am not going to follow my parent’s version which always had a ham hock in it. I am going to make a vegetarian version. I am also going to put sage, bay leaves and garlic in it, something my parents would NEVER have done as that would have involved using items associated with "foreign" food. I don't remember them using any seasoning other than salt, and maybe some Worcestershire sauce. Making soup feeds my soul. It looks good, it smells good, it tastes good, it warms me up inside and out. It's the food version of sitting in front of a roaring fire. VEGETARIAN SPLIT PEA SOUP
1. Gather together the ingredients and chop the veggies 2. Sauté onion, garlic, and celery in olive oil. 3. Add water, seasonings, carrots, and rinsed and drained peas. Simmer for1 hr or until peas are soft and mushy. |
Leslie Masona woman in search of her post-retirement future Guess what! By subscribing, you get notices about the latest Little Old Lady with Cats posts sent to your mailbox!
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(from an entry posted on 5/1/2015) “I definitely fit some of the characteristics of a little old lady with cats: Retired - check, Single - check, Like to knit - check, Have cats - check. . .I do not want to get stuck in my Little Old Lady persona, however. In fact, this blog is a risk taking experiment in exploring and redefining what I want my retired life to look like.” Categories
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