Fun with Tomatoes

Our single tomato plant bore a total of perhaps 20-25 tomatoes. The plant grew like a beanstalk, snaking over a trellis and held captive by the morning glories. 10 tomatoes were edible, tasting more or less like the supermarket variety; 5 were green and will be pickled; the rest had a nasty fungus. All was not lost, as you can see by the photos below.

Tribal Necklace

Why?

Spinal Energy

I didn't save any seeds. These were not heirloom tomatoes.

Haitian Horrors

Haiti must be the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, and one of the most unluckiest. I read two more Danticat books back-to-back which left me numb and angry.

The damage from earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis and other natural events is one thing. The pain inflicted by government abuse is outrageous. This isn't news, of course, but it's amazing how easy it is to turn a blind eye. Maybe it's impossible to keep your eyes wide open.

The Farming of the Bones is a novel that takes place straddling the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Both countries are well-known for their dictatorships, many propped up by the U.S. government. Drownings, murders and starvation are the fate of the dirt-poor migrant workers who go to the DR for work. When they attempt to return to Haiti, the same horrors are perpetrated by Haitian forces.

Brother, I'm Dying is a memoir that follows Danticat from her early childhood in Haiti, where her family was relatively well-off, to her new life in the U.S. when she was 12. Her father went to the U.S. to find a better life,  her mother joined him a few years later, and the author and her brother made the journey years after that. While her parents were in the U.S., she and her brother lived with her uncle, to whom she became very close. It's the last part of the book that's heart-wrenching and anger-provoking. Read it and weep.
 

Birthday, Brook, Birds, Butterfly

Festive Drinks for Harry's 21st

The Man Makes Guacamole

Mom Makes Birthday Streudel

It was my youngest son's 21st birthday last week. We celebrated the event all weekend up in the woods. On Friday, we went to our favorite local bar/restaurant, The Cabin. Maybe because they know us so well, Harry wasn't asked for ID. He has such a baby face that I thought he'd be carded forever.


Saturday was a perfect day, as Lou Reed sings in his sentimental ballad that happens to be my ringtone. I went to yoga, came home to my husband grilling pizza for lunch and said good morning to Harry who likes to sleep in when he can. Where we live, except for a car now and then, only the birds and the brook are the sounds you hear.

We made our own pizzas and dined al fresco. It was a warmer than normal Fall day. As we ate, a monarch butterfly hovered above us. He must have been looking for his amigos to join the migration to Mexico. Adios, mariposa.

Although I was feeling better than usual, I was tired and decided to take a brief nap. My husband woke me up to say I'd slept for 3 hours and that I was needed in the kitchen to help with dinner. Harry requested margaritas, and was making guacamole. I'd already made my son's favorite dish the day before, curried lamb meatballs, and had to make some rice. It was a wonderful meal, that ended around 10 and left a sink full of  pots and and a counter full of glassware.

We had a very late breakfast on Sunday because we were taking Harry out for an early dinner before my husband had to catch the bus to New York City. We hate this weekly ritual, but a pied a terre isn't in the cards right now. Dinner was delicious, and once again, Harry wasn't asked to show ID. Go figure.

Harry left Monday afternoon, after sleeping until 1 pm. He ate some breakfast, packed some warmer clothes in case Fall ever arrives, and drove back to school. He drives Vanna, my 11-year old Mazda minivan that served us well in suburban RI and refuses to seize and fall apart.

As my my mother-in law says, "good things, good things."

Turks Drink Lots of Tea

I've never read a book by Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish Nobel Prize winner for Literature. Silent House, which was published about 15 years ago, but only translated into English recently, gives a true experience of armchair traveling complete with odorama.

The book takes place during the volatile 1980's when Communists and Nationalists were battling for control of the country's political future. But this book is more about characters, what they are thinking and doing amidst the turmoil. Some, history has passed by; others seem to live for the moment; others get caught up in the brutality of the times. One character tries to write an encyclopedia of the East. He's a true atheist in an overwhelmingly Islamic country. Another character, his grandson, wants to write a history of Turkey but can't decide whether it's a laundry list of public records or something grander. In the meantime, he dwells on the meaning of time and how we move through it.

I look forward to reading his other books, one of which my library has but I couldn't justify checking it out when I have two Danticut I'm reading.

Lights Out

When I was a kid, we lost power a lot. It was the nature of where we lived (Long Island) and the antiquity of the electric grid. My mother filled the bathtub, and cooked with sterno. We had candles and flashlights. It was like camping inside, which explains why I've always liked outdoor camping, as well as living in Costa Rica.

The power rarely goes out in New York City, except for the so-called outer boroughs, which everyone knows isn't really New York. Even where we lived in suburban Rhode Island, basically in the woods, the power rarely went out.

Here in my cozy Catskill cottage, we've lost power once when we weren't here and once in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy. Late Saturday afternoon, while Marty was out with my niece and her husband, a tree fell up the street and snapped the power line. I knew I could cook dinner with propane and that we had a lantern, but as it got darker and I couldn't see to read, I lit a candle, which was how they found me when they got home. It all felt very old-fashioned.

The electric company, along with a huge rescue truck and several volunteers filled the street and fixed everything in about an hour. Not bad in my book.

Life in the Slow Lane

Country life is definitely the life for me. It's so friendly and personal, because it's small. Life in big cities can be socially exciting but stressful, too, especially when you have a huge dog in a 1-bedroom apartment. The suburbs can be isolating, especially when you hit middle age and the kids are teenagers and then gone.

Today, I went to the post office (hi, postman Jack), the bank, (where they all ask me about my dog), the supermarket, where I often meet other locals I know, and the pharmacy where, unfortunately they know me so well, they go straight for my medications. That used to happen sometimes in Rhode Island, never in Manhattan, where the pharmacy staff was so stressed, they could be curt or even rude.

And I can walk to all these places. Later in the day I went to the local beauty salon where I got a great haircut and some highlights for $60. The same services in RI would be double, and in Manhattan, triple. I left my reading glasses there and my stylist, who knew I was going to the market (again), walked over and handed me my glasses. Plus, she left a message on my phone saying if she didn't find me in town, she'd drive by and drop them off.

I hope this friendliness is rubbing off on me.

Books of Note

I really have to put the books down and do some cleaning.

If you've ever read Lionel Shriver, you know you're in for psychological trauma. I read We Need to Talk About Kevin in a book group back in Rhode Island. I highly recommend this beyond-noir account of a very troubled youth. Shriver's latest novel is Big Brother. Nominally it's about obesity in the Heartland. Psychologically/emotionally it questions how much can family do to heal a member's extreme problems, in this case over-eating. This sister-brother tale is a bit of a let-down in that it uses a time-worn device to wiggle out of the ordeal cum triumph, but it's worth reading anyway, especially for the doll Baby Monotonous which you can order to look like someone you know and have it say phrases that person uses ad nauseum.

I'm ashamed to say I've never read anything by the Haitian writer Edwidge Danticat. Her new novel Claire of the Sea Light is a beautifully woven tale, sprinkled with Creole patois, about a small village outside of Port-de-Prince. Most of the the inhabitants are dirt-poor and have little control over their lives. Mothers die giving birth, children die capriciously, young women are raped by their employers, fisherman die at sea leaving their families even more poor, and the government can be bribed to sanction murders of innocent people. Shining through this so-called life is Claire, a seven-year old girl who is innocent and yet wise. The luminosity of her spirit washes over the townspeople like a powerful wave, and they are better for it.