So, Do Ya Ever Play With Your Mashed Potatoes?

 

When the Irish play with their mashed spuds they call the dish Champ.

Or Colcannon.  

But the Brits do this Bubble and Squeak thing.  I asked a waitress in Canterbury what part of this dish is the bubble.  I didn't get a clear answer.  Maybe she didn't really know, or she thought this American was teasing her?

I am of the opinion that the frying sound must be the reason for the name of the dish.  Jamie agrees, or I agree with him?

Now, if you are from potato country, like Math Mom or I, you are going to have some experience with spuds.  For some reason we never called them taters.  Maybe it's one of those location things.

Feeding the children over the years I have done a lot of silly things with mashed potatoes.  Sometimes I stirred grated cheese into them.  If they were cold leftovers I would stir some eggs in them and a bit of flour and cook them like little pancakes.  I have made both Champ and Colcannon though I didn't know that was what I was doing. 

I have put bits of meat in, anything.  The young gobblers will eat it!  It also makes a good top layer for a Shepherd's pie, if you're using lamb, or just a sort of pot pie thing if you're using beef.

I have barely touched the subject of how to play with your mashed potatoes!  A fine homey and friendly subject.

You knew this was going to happen, right?

A Bit Of Foolish Doggerel

 

Sing a song of sixpence,

A pocket full of rye,

Four and twenty blackbirds

Baked in a pie.

The boys have been sowing rye all day, rye all day and rye all day!

The wind is long and black and sere, my dears.

I had my great wide green skirt on with the many petticoats. I had my fine pale linen apron too. I’d twitched my bodice tight to show my pretty waist, so trim. And in my bosom I kept all my secrets hid. It’s true! And a great green shawl to cover it all, my dears.

I went to sing them a song you know, song you know, but only one for true. For Jerry is my true love, though he mightn’t know. I sang so close I got pelted with rye. It filled my all pockets you know.

I sang a song both loud and sweet and made the blackbirds fly. I made the blackbirds fly, you know!

Donald came up with grin on his face and tossed a sixpence in. He tossed a sixpence in my bosom with gall and he wished to go fishin’ an’ all. For the song he said. For the song.

Jerry ran up like a knight of the rye and knocked him one in the nose. In the nose, it’s the truth! My heart leapt up and I dropped the pie, with four and twenty black currants among the apples white. The pie that was meant for their lunch, my dears, for their lunch, it was made for their lunch.



When the pie was opened

The birds began to sing—

Wasn't that a dainty dish

To set before the king?

Oh, bother and damn, it fell out of my hands, and in pieces it lay on the ground, my dears, all upon the ground.

The birds gathered near, so many they were, black wings all aflap, and with cluckings and chirpings they sang for their supper alright. They sang for their supper alright! I sat on the grass and I wept, I confess, for the wretchedness of it all, my dears.

Such a fine dish to set before him whom I want for my king, my dears. My king, in sooth, so I wish. It was on the ground all a’smash!



The king was in the counting-house

Counting out his money,

The queen was in the parlor

Eating bread and honey,

Jerry has gone to get paid for his work and came to me counting his money. My king who must work for his money, my dears.

He’s said shall we wed so you’ll sleep in my bed and be no more bothered by Donny?

I stood as you’ll guess and I answered him yes, I answered him yes, oh yes!

We went to my mother, and we placed all our plans before her, my dears, we told her our plans for our lives! Her joy was complete, then we’d something to eat, though only bread and honey, it was only bread and honey!

The maid was in the garden

Hanging out the clothes.

Along came a blackbird

And snipped off her nose.



My dears, I have a little sister. She was out in the garden working away with the washing, working away at the washing!

Hanging it out on the bushes to dry, was she. And mightily wroth was she too when she heard of the news of the day, the day, my dears, this day!

For she fancied the man for herself, she did! She did, oh she did, the wench! Though he does not love her, she fancied the man for herself!

I have heard it said not to be unequally wed, so she ought to be glad I’ve freed her. For both must be into the bargain, one will never do, my dears, one cannot do it alone.

Her nose is quite out of joint, my dears. The blackbirds are laughing at her! Though I expect she’ll come around by summer!

Scary Recipe No. 1 From Me

 

Otherwise known as Budae Jjigae.

Korean Army Base Stew

I thought you kids might enjoy seeing something unusual that we make here and really like.  Not really scary.  Farns and pointman and Karla may disagree! lol!

It has a very sad history though.  I will quote a bit from the linked article.

As a result of being displaced from their homes, either fleeing the conflict zones or being forcibly uprooted, Koreans began to starve. South Korea's economy was already a fragile one, ruled by a western-backed dictator after emerging from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule. The war disrupted the way millions lived and fed themselves and their families.

As the war dragged on, Korean civilians began to flock to American military installations. Koreans spread rumors about the abundance of food on the bases, that there was so much, the GIs would throw away food they couldn't finish. Korean civilians would go through the food waste, pulling out edible scraps. Eventually, Koreans bought whole bags of discarded American food waste, essentially garbage bags filled with a mix of leftover food. They then added it to large stews.

Korean children waiting in line for food in Seoul, 1955.

When the war ended, Korean civilians no longer had to rely on discarded food, but meat would be hard to find in Korean markets for a long time after, so they went back to the American bases.

There, they found U.S.-made processed meat products that weren't technically available to them, but could be purchased if they knew the right people. Products like Spam, hot dogs and ham could be bought from Korean women with access to American troops, who could buy the items from post exchanges.

A thriving black market of salty processed meat products grew near the U.S. bases, because ingredients like Spam created the perfect soup base for Korean vegetables. This black market continued for decades after the war ended. It became so widespread that the government of South Korean President Park Chung-Hee made Spam smuggling an offense punishable by death.

Imagine that! Spam smuggling, punishable by death!!

Here is the method for making it.

 The way I make it is much simpler.  I don't make the sauce she made.  I use a pre-made Korean paste seasoning called Gochujang.  It is a red chili sauce, but not very hot at all.

My cheap-o method is to take two or three ramen kits, start the appropriate amount of water simmering, add the broth powder.

Then I add whatever nasty meat product I am using and some cubed up tofu.  I also add some kimchee, if it's old and dried up that is a good use for it.  I add green onions or regular onions if that's all I have. A lot of garlic is a good addition.  

Mushrooms are good in it.  Cabbage is too.  Anything works that makes sense.  Carrots work.

I put in a good heaping serving spoon of the paste and make sure it's mixed in well and then break up the noodle bricks a little and add them at last.  Just cook until they are done. The very last thing I do is put a couple tablespoons of sesame oil in it.  Yummy!

There you have it!  My Scary recipe.  But, you know what?  It is very good in a low slung kind of way. It is not meant to be horribly hot, though if you like hot as much as Koreans do you could sure ramp it up and be right in style!

Got any unusual recipes of your own to add? We welcome all scary recipes heartily!

They Haven't Taken My Phone Yet (extended)

They wore dark pine green overall uniforms with a sort of pale blue plastic device fused onto the lapels. It seemed to make some reference to global something or other. One of them was built like Zorro’s Sgt. Garcia and the other one looked like Lewis’ Marshwiggle, but the same spirit seemed to animate them both. Pure bullocky hatred and a sort of snively officiousness.

Yes, I fought them. They made no allowance for gender either. I fought them as dirty as I could, like a woman fights for her life. But it’s hard to tear out eyeballs and kick crotches when some ape has your elbows pinned behind you. I’m a big girl, but not that big.

When they finally subdued me, I was missing a couple of teeth, some hair, had a broken left hand, various scratches and bruises and my right eye would be turning black soon. Would Jessie recognize me? I was not sure. He had never seen me after a fight for my freedom, and neither had I.



I had been driving home from shopping when the pulsing blue light atop an official looking vehicle alerted me. I wasn’t sure who they were, but I pulled over anyhow. I couldn’t have run from them in any case. I was driving an old Honda, and you know, they’ll find you somehow anyhow.

I had not been speeding. I broke no traffic laws. I got into no road rage altercations with anyone. I ran over no dogs or cats. My car was not smoking, and all my lights and signals worked correctly.

This happened just before twilight on a two-lane highway ten miles out of our neighborhood. There were no streetlights nor any houses or people nearby to hear me screaming as I fought them. There were only the two rows of darkening fir trees mixed with some alders and undergrowth. There was no witness to this arrest.



I was cuffed and a sort of belt put around my ankles and then they tossed me into the backseat of their SUV type vehicle. Neither Garcia nor Wiggles spoke to me. I was pleased to see some bloody scratches here and there on their faces and hands. Neither one of them was good looking at all, but I had not improved either of them. I know I sound somewhat jocular, but I was more frightened than I had ever been before, because I didn’t know who they were or why they had grabbed me like they did. I was the kind of frightened that feels cold and remote. My insides were upset too. I was also very worried about what Jessie would think about me not coming home. He was a sort of decisive man, and I really had no idea what he would do about it.

We had no children. So, I didn’t have that worry.

OK, the truth of the matter is that like so many, I was a talker. I talked online. I talked about everything. No subject was off the list. I told the truth as I saw it. I talked in person. I interviewed anybody who would put up with me. I left little handwritten signs on benches and in bus stops and on the outside of stores. Like that. I buttonholed people in the coffee shop and asked them what they thought. Maybe I had buttonholed the wrong character! I was known to preach some. I appealed to God Almighty in my dissertations and pleadings. Maybe that had something to do with it?

Maybe I was a dangerous character. Me. One 37-year-old white American female. In a sad way it was encouraging. But also, very scary.

They drove into town, and through town, heading further south. They headed to a section of rather anonymous looking industrial buildings. This did not look like regular cop infrastructure. I imagined a photo of the scene. My solemn, bruised white face peering out of the backseat window of the car as night came down and we came to a stop by one of the buildings.

Did I mention that I still had my phone in my jacket pocket? Well, I did have it. I fingered it with my unbroken right hand. It was still there and had not fallen out in the scuffle and they had not searched me and taken it either. I wondered if that was an oversight, just incompetence or if it had been for some reason. This phone was nothing special. I just bought it at the Apple store like anyone else.

Oh! My name is Beth Norris. Now you know.

There was a garage door in one of the gray buildings. Garcia, who was driving, pulled a remote out of the console and pointed it at the door which began to roll up. He squinted at me in a nasty sort of way in the rear-view mirror and grunted. Wiggles giggled a hollow dry inhuman sound, and into the building we rolled. It was dark in there, but there was a lit doorway at the far end of the room.

Wiggles opened my door and pulled my feet to where he could get at them and removed the belt. I didn’t think it was a good time to start kicking so I didn’t.

“Get out Beth,” he said. Now there was a data point. They knew who I was.

“Walk to the door.” I did. My arms were still behind me in the cuffs, so I wasn’t very dangerous right then.

We entered an industrial looking hall. There was a huge old metal desk there with a woman sitting behind it fooling with her phone who looked like that Flo chick who sells Progressive insurance on tv.

She looked at Garcia and said, “put her in 6.” She barely looked up long enough to register that I was there at all. I was not interesting to her! Garcia removed my cuffs. I was of course, sore and stiff. But I didn’t take a swing at him just then.

No. 6 was a plain gray room with a bench in it. The floor was concrete. There was window in the door which faced an outside door which also had a window in it. I could see that it was well and truly dark outside.

My mind went to Jessie and what he must be doing. Pacing the front room, I thought, and wondering what to do. We only had the one car. He couldn’t go looking for me far and wide.

It bothered me that I still had my phone. I couldn’t figure that out. The first thing law enforcement does at an incarceration is impound your pocket litter and your phone. I sat on the bench in the fluorescent light and thought about it. Maybe it was a trap of some sort. Maybe they thought I was dumb enough to start calling people. Maybe they thought I would lead them to all my friends and family?

Of course, as far as I knew these jokers were not law enforcement. I didn’t know what they were, besides kidnappers.



It was cold in this room. I was trying to understand who these people were and what they wanted with me. Also, I hurt all over. My mouth was really sore where the teeth had been broken off. I was starting to feel all the bruises and learned about some new ones that I had not noticed before.

I was thirsty and hungry and needed to pee. I was very angry.

I took my phone out of the pocket of my jacket and laid it on the bench down at the end and just looked at it. It looked inert and harmless. Its screen was as dark as a sort of rectangular pool of black water.

As I looked, I saw something happening on the side of the phone where your thumb would normally go. A sharp little protrusion about half an inch long came out of a tiny hole that I had never paid any attention to before. As I watched, a tiny drop of liquid swelled at the point of the tiny needle. I am not kidding. The world changed right there before my eyes.

I realized a number of things all at once. First, these devices were not merely what I had thought they were. Second, they expected that I would be frantically calling someone and thirdly, that needle was meant for my thumb or whatever part of my body it came into contact with. I realized that I was now officially dead.

It is funny how well your mind can pull together some facts when you are really in a bad situation. Well. I was brought here to disappear. That was obvious.

I tucked my broken left hand loosely in my jacket pocket for support. I stood up feeling all the bruises and walked to the door and looked out the window. I saw no one. I tried the doorknob.

They were so sure of my demise that they didn’t even lock the door. Silently, I opened the door and stood listening. Nothing. Not a sound.

I stepped across the six feet of polished concrete floor to the outside door and tried the handle on that door. Now I believe in miracles, and I know when the Almighty goes before me. That door was also unsecured.

I stepped out into a mild dry fall evening, shut the door behind myself, and walked away.

Dead and free.

Where is Beth

Jessie Norris is at home. He is wondering where Beth is. This is not like her. He tries to phone her. Nothing. Not even a recorded greeting. It’s like her phone has ceased to exist. He has never heard this silence on the other side before.


He wishes now that he had gone to the strip mall with her. It had crossed his mind, but he had let the thought go. Beth was not the kind of girl who needed help with everything, he had told himself complacently.

Jessie is just short of six feet tall. He weighs 175 pounds and looks leggy. He is dark, with nearly black eyes and short curly black hair. He is a couple of years younger than his wife. He works in a shop building handmade furniture. He is good with his hands. He is also known to be quick-witted.

Beth took the Honda of course. So, he is stuck out here without wheels.

For whatever reason, he is not ready to call the police yet. He feels a little sense of not now.

She should have been home two hours ago. They should have eaten dinner by now and be cleaning up the kitchen together.

He is all questions and conjectures. He is not frightened yet.

He walks the room. His eyes fall on things, but his mind is elsewhere. His handmade furniture, the pictures. None of it makes any impression on him.

He hopes she is just somewhere deep in a serious conversation. But, just sitting and waiting and wondering are not his style. So, he puts on his heavy woolen jacket, stuffs his phone and wallet in his jeans pockets, and makes sure everything that should be turned off is turned off. He thinks it might be good to bring a flashlight, so the last thing he does is get it out of the junk drawer in the kitchen. It's one of those little super bright ones.

He steps out into the dark on the little wooden porch, sighs, locks up the house and sets out walking toward the little mall where she shops at a Trader Joe’s. He has a ten-mile march in front of him.

Man, it’s dark out here, he thinks. But then his eyes adjust, and he can see the driveway and the surface of the road dimly as he begins his walk.

Jessie is not a fearful man, but this one is hard. He thinks it’s these little phones. They got us all used to being in contact at any time, made us intolerant on not knowing. Now, if the phone doesn’t work, we feel something is very wrong.

Jessie is a pretty good runner, so he pounds out a couple of miles running easily through the soft night. He is looking for anything out of the ordinary on the road. He slows to a long walking gait. Incredibly he is a little sleepy. It’s all dreamlike. The night is silent. Where is Beth?

About four miles out he sees that there is something up ahead in the road, or off to the side actually. It looks depressingly like his own car. Well, it is his car, an old navy-blue Accord. This one is a 2009 model. They really do never die.

Fearing the worst Jessie sprints up to his car and finds the driver’s side door open, the key in the ignition and his wife missing. The two bags of groceries are still sitting on the back seat. No one has stolen the car or even taken the groceries.

Jessie steps back from his car. He looks at the verge and the pavement, with the aid of the small bright flashlight. There are a lot of scuff marks in the soil. He sees a woman’s shoe prints and then they disappear. There are two other sets of prints. There is some blood when he gets down close to the pavement and really looks hard, shining the beam of light sideways along the asphalt surface.

Jessie Norris, alone on a dark highway, has a big problem now and he doesn’t know what to do with it. He gets into the driver’s seat and sits there thinking.

He takes out his own phone at last and calls 911. He gets the police dispatcher and explains the situation. Then he waits for them to come and look at what he has discovered.

But he doesn’t feel good about this at all, and he doesn’t know why. His impulse is to flee before the police car arrives. He fires up the Honda and takes off driving southward trying to look like any other car on the highway. Nothing special here, sir.

Jessie feels very very alone. He has a crawling feeling in his stomach. He wishes that he had not given their names to anyone.

‘Jessie. I don’t know where I am for sure.’

I’m sure glad they didn’t break one of my feet! Garcia looked like a perfect foot stomper, but he missed me. He missed me, alright for sure. I bet they are in big trouble when I turn up missing. No body in the gray room to take away and incinerate secretly.

‘Jessie. Jessie! They hurt me!’

I tried to assess something about my location. Really, I felt like I was somewhere in Lynnwood. This collection of ubiquitous industrial type buildings was near the freeway east of town. The business of having no phone was a real hassle. I had no idea where Jessie was.

I was not sure I wanted anyone to see me in my present condition, black eye and missing teeth. But I set out walking westward away from the freeway and toward the old highway, then I would go north.

Every doggone step hurt my hand and my mouth was throbbing!

I had a fixed idea in my mind that I had to locate Jessie somehow. I kept thinking of just bumping into him on the road somewhere.

‘I think I’m in Lynnwood Jessie. I’m walking toward the highway if I’m right and I think I am.’

Maybe he found the car if he walked down the road toward town.

He kept thinking of her voice as she said his name. When she called him by name, he always felt her love. Just the way she said it. ‘Jessie.’

He tried to silence fear and just be open to any sense of leading as he drove through the night down the two-lane highway. It seemed like he was the only driver out there tonight. No one drove behind him. No one drove toward him.

He wondered what the police officer would do when he found no blue Honda waiting for him on the road, with a worried man inside it. Would that be some kind of legal offense, or would the cop just shrug and head back to town? He figured that it would have to go into some sort of report.

Jessie felt like getting on old 99, so he drove west until he reached that larger four lane highway. His heart picked up a little and he began to feel somewhat expectant. There was no reason for this, it just was.

He thought of her voice again. ‘Jessie.’ He felt something like the old children’s game where a blindfolded child is searching for someone and being told warmer or colder depending on how close he was to his target. He definitely felt warmer. He thought of her name. ‘Beth.’ He kept driving southward. The two bags of groceries rattled around in the backseat some. He hoped there was no ice cream melting in one of the bags.

He wasn’t sleepy at all now. He was fully alert. He didn’t really know it, but he was more alert now than he had ever been before. He was wide open and searching, finding a signal. Love drew him ever southward.

‘Jessie. I’m walking north now.’ 

‘I’m super tired.’ I am super hungry too, and thirsty. Even though I had my wallet I couldn’t afford to leave the open roadway, so I kept walking. 

He drove clear into Lynnwood, but it wasn’t right. He turned around and drove up north a few miles again. He didn’t see her, but he heard her.

‘Jessie.’

He decided to go south again even though he had already been there. He felt like he had been wasting a lot of time but continued southward.

The sun was beginning to come up when he saw her. He would have known that figure anywhere on earth. She was still a couple of blocks away. The brightening light revealed her. She was walking painfully slowly and looked rough when he pulled up beside her.

He parked the car. He got out and walked over to her. They looked at each other in total amazement. ‘How in the world…’

Tired Jessie and Beth tried to explain to each other what their nights had been like. She battered but free. He searching and finding.

Neither had any idea who the men in the green suits were or why she had been kidnapped by them. Neither knew how he was able to find her.

He carefully put her in the passenger’s seat, buckling her in himself. There were tears between them. It hurt to see her injuries. She was terribly tired, but they stopped by McDonald’s because it was open. She scuttled into the lady’s room, and he bought them a little breakfast. She was only able to eat some of the scrambled egg from her sandwich. She drank the cheap coffee with pleasure. Then they drove the miles to their little house on the tree-lined highway.

Beth was asleep when they got home. She woke and cried a bit more on the way in.

There was no melting ice cream in the bags when he brought them in.

He put her to bed after cleaning her up a little and giving her some OTC meds for pain. He splinted her hand also. The break did not seem to be displaced.

He called work and begged off for the day saying he had a stomach bug. He sat thinking for a long time, while Beth slept.

Remains Of The Day

 Tagesreste

Debris of the day, or dreams, according to Freud.

It was a small mystery.  For a few days the phrase hung in the back of my mind and I didn't know why.

Remains of the day?

My Navigator kid looked it up.  I thought, and she knew that it was the title of a novel. Turns out it is the title of a book by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Kazuo Ishiguro's third novel, ''The Remains of the Day,'' is a dream of a book: a beguiling comedy of manners that evolves almost magically into a profound and heart-rending study of personality, class and culture. At the beginning, though, its narrator, an elderly English butler named Stevens, seems the least forthcoming (let alone enchanting) of companions. Cartoonishly punctilious and reserved, he edges slowly into an account of a brief motoring holiday from Oxfordshire to the West Country that he is taking alone at the insistence of his new employer, a genial American, Mr. Farraday.

***

 

1. The title The Remains of the Day came from a phrase by Sigmund Freud.

Ishiguro related that he named the novel when he was talking with a group of writers at a conference. The poet Judith Herzberg mentioned a German word from Freud's work, Tagesreste, meaning "the debris of the day." Freud used the word to refer to dreams. Ishiguro was taken with this idea, saying, "It seemed to me right in terms of atmosphere."

***

It's another one of those things.  I had an idea of what the phrase meant that had nothing to do with what the phrase meant.

My back-mind was trying to say something to me about dreams? Maybe not.

I had thought that the remains of the day were what I could salvage from the business of the day.  What was eternal and keep-able.  I felt like maybe the Spirit of Truth was trying to nudge me to pay mind to the people present and not grieve over the imperfections in style.  The phrase came to mind so many times that I knew I was supposed to extract something from it.

Sometimes this way of receiving a message works even if it doesn't comport with S. Freud's use of a phrase, which is then translated to English.  The communication worked through my inaccurate understanding and in spite of it!  

Dreams are also interesting, but for some other day.  Sigmund thought they represented wish-fulfillment.  Goodness, I think there is more to it than that!

A Bit Of Conjecture

 

Institute For The Study Of Cultic Behavior 

Oregon District

A Tree Cult, Pre-Cull and Restart, 5-13-2205

A private diary entry.

Jons.martin and I, Wings.lars are obviously the best researchers here. We are capable of extrapolating ancient thought-forms. Perhaps this is because we both knew our own great grandparents for a few years, and we had talked with them. They could remember their own great grandparents speaking of the old ways before even their own time. We had a kind of taste for the past, even before the tree cult house dig.

So many of our section are hopeless moored in the present. Perhaps the present should be described for some future researcher’s benefit, assuming that anyone cares to examine this diary.

After the Culling, humanity grew in population again, not to the previous numbers, but our esthetic taste was changed forever. Those who remained of humanity were raised to loath the old ways. Almost as one we rebuilt in such a way that our houses and businesses and institutions were not exactly visible to the naked eye. We prized uncluttered landscapes. We were brought up to despise the common man of the past, those who had been Culled.

As well as we could we eschewed all religious philosophies. Of course, this brings up the interesting question of what constitutes a religious philosophy, and whether we were perhaps deceiving ourselves in this matter. We had some opinions about the nature of reality. Perhaps that was our stand-in for a religion.

After all the old structures were eliminated by various methods including a great and persistent amount of simple burning, vast areas of the planet appeared uninhabited. We were, as a species, tired. Perhaps only a certain type of man remained living? We were tired of our thrusting arrogant need for the appearance of splendor. We were also tired of the messes; the ugliness and poverty humanity had displayed for centuries and forever. We accepted the opportunity to re-think the world.

We didn’t want to be seen on the face of the earth. We went stealth. We went underground and when above ground we were shielded. Our buildings were subtle. A lot of this shielding is merely a visual artifact. But it makes things look nice.

*** 

Martin and I had an assignment to examine an undisturbed Pre-Cull house that had been hidden by a landslide in of all places a town called Oso in the old state of Washington. It had been buried for nearly two hundred years. It was discovered by some kids playing in the area who were digging for Amerindian remnants. In a way they found way more than they were looking for. Their shovels hit a roof, they burrowed down over the side wall to a broken window and then became frightened that dead people might be entombed there. They told their parents about it. The parents called the local college, since they themselves were interested in archaeology and thought it might be an important find. An instructor from that school called ours because we were digging on that sort of place when one was found.

*** 

It was a nice dry fall day with good visibility when we arrived on location. The hole the two boys had dug was not very big at all, so we had some shovel work to do for an hour or so to allow us to enter the building through the broken window.

When the hole was adequate, we cleared the remaining broken glass out of the window frame, which seemed to be a front room window, and climbed down into the room.

Naturally, there was quite a bit of soil on the floor in a kind of drifted berm right underneath the window. Once over that, we stood and just looked before touching anything.

We were looking into our own past. This was how our ancestors had lived. It appeared to be a very humble home. There were various bits of furniture, a sofa, and some chairs. A table held a television. We had seen those in illustrations in textbooks. There was an primitive telephone on the small table. In a set of shelves sitting on the floor there were twenty-five or so books, mostly old fiction. The floor was covered by a worn carpet. We inspected the other three rooms also. The children were correct.  Two ancient sets of human bones lay together under blankets in the plain bed in the last room.

But the most telling find was a ritual display of some kind. It took up rather a lot of floor space in the smallish room. It was a dried-up ancient fir tree covered in shiny artifacts in various symbolic forms. There was a wire wrapped around the tree with small colored bulbs on them. Some larger glass bulbs of various designs were hung independently of the other objects in a carefully contrived manner. Under the tree wrapped in colorful, but faded, papers were an assortment of offerings. Apparently, they were offerings directed at some sort of deity. In addition, on the table next to the phone there was a small display of figures in archaic clothing, including a small figure in a sort of box. This was all new to us. But we knew a cult object when we saw one! Of course, we were familiar with other cultic objects, but not this one. We took many notes on our pocket recorders and made many images also. All of this was instantly transmitted back to our department at home in Oregon District. We resealed the house last of all.

*** 

Once back underground in our campus department, we set to work recording a scholarly report, which was instantly available to any interested parties. Our department head was very pleased with us, which is always good at any time in history.

The title of our report was A Tree Cult in Pre-Cull Washington District.

*** 

However, I must include the fact that Martin and I brought some objects from the dig back to our department. We brought the telephone because it was so important to the people of its time. We brought photos of the inhabitants of the house found in a sort of heavy book. We also gathered some interesting articles of clothing. I had picked up a book that seemed to have a place of prominence in the home.

It was entitled Holy Bible.

I took it to my private quarters where I live alone. I sat down and began to read.

Instead Of Shopping Because That's No Fun

Salmon River, Idaho

I have a super interesting, if you like that sort of thing, video about ancient man living in the part of the world that was my original home.
The guy does a good job without getting too technical.

I always think it's more fun to watch these things about an area that is familiar.

The Best Evidence For The First Americans-So Far

 Hope you like it as much as I did.

Obviously, there is a great deal of conjecture, and as the guy from the college in Oregon said, archaeology is argument!  It is!

Blessed and Happy Thanksgiving 2023

 

Amid all the fun of the day, the special preparations, the eventual tiredness, I want to take a moment to be rather serious. I was impressed with this psalm. It really lays it on the line.

I also think I should mention how grateful I am to know each of you.  You guys are swell!

DEAD SEA SCROLLS TEXTS

Psalm 8.

I thank you, O Lord.
You illumined my face by your covenant.
I seek you,
As sure as the dawn you appear as perfect light.

Teachers of lies have comforted your people
and now they stumble, foolishly.
They abhor themselves
and do not esteem me through whom your wonders
and powers are manifest.
They have banished me from my land like a bird
from its nest, and my friends
and neighbors are driven from me.
They think me a broken pot.
They preach lies. They are dissembling prophets.
They devise baseness against me,
exchanging your teaching, written in my heart,
for smooth words.
They deny knowledge to the thirsty
and force them to drink vinegar to cover up error.
They stumble through mad feasts,
but you, God, spurn the schemes of Belial.
Your wisdom prevails.
Your heart's meditation prevails, established forever.

The Day Before The Day For Thanksgiving

 

(how could she resist?)

Well, today is Wednesday, the day before.
If there is to be pie, it best happen today! 

If there is a frozen dinosaur, it should be nearly unfrozen today in its temporary home in the bottom of the fridge.

For busy homes with many members this is ramp up day. Or, even for people who just like to cook and prepare.

I thought maybe it would be fun to talk about how we do the Thanksgiving holiday while the pies are in the oven.

Sometimes in our culture it seems as if the thanksgiving part is sort of floating in the mid-air, directed at no one, or maybe to the turkey?  Maybe thanks is directed at the cooks?

But of course we know that it was originally construed as a religious holiday of thanks to Almighty God. And there is the meat of the matter!

Chapter 2

 

Where Is Beth

I decided to record it, just for fun, but have also included the text below here in case it is not audible.

*********************************

Jessie Norris is at home. He is wondering where Beth is. This is not like her. He tries to phone her. Nothing. Not even a recorded greeting. It’s like her phone has ceased to exist. He has never heard this silence on the other side before. 

He wishes now that he had gone to the strip mall with her. It had crossed his mind, but he had let the thought go. Beth was not the kind of girl who needed help with everything, he had told himself complacently.

Jessie is just short of six feet tall. He weighs 175 pounds and looks leggy. He is dark, with nearly black eyes and short curly black hair. He is a couple years younger than his wife. He works in a shop building handmade furniture. He is good with his hands. He is also known to be quick witted.

Beth took the Honda of course. So, he is stuck out here without wheels.

For whatever reason, he is not ready to call the police yet. He feels a little sense of not now.

She should have been home two hours ago. They should have eaten dinner by now and be cleaning up the kitchen together.

He is all questions and conjectures.

He walks the room. His eyes fall on things, but his mind is elsewhere. His handmade furniture, the pictures. None of it makes any impression on him.

He hopes she is just somewhere deep in a serious conversation. But, just sitting and waiting and wondering are not his style. So, he puts on his heavy woolen jacket, stuffs his phone and wallet in his jeans pockets, and makes sure everything that should be turned off is turned off. He thinks it might be good to bring a flashlight, so the last thing he does is get it out of the junk drawer in the kitchen.  It's one of those little super bright ones.

He steps out into the dark on the little wooden porch, sighs, locks up the house and sets out walking toward the little mall where she shops in a Trader Joe’s. He has a ten-mile march in front of him.

Man, it’s dark out here, he thinks. But then his eyes adjust, and he can see the driveway and the surface of the road dimly as he begins his walk.

Jessie is not a fearful man, but this one is hard. He thinks it’s these little phones. They got us all used to being in contact at any time, made us intolerant on not knowing. Now, if the phone doesn’t work, we feel something is very wrong.

Jessie is a pretty good runner, so he pounds out a couple of miles running easily through the soft night. He is looking for anything out of the ordinary on the road. He slows to a long walking gait. Incredibly he is a little sleepy. It’s all dreamlike. The night is silent. Where is Beth?

About four miles out he sees that there is something up ahead in the road, or off to the side actually. It looks depressingly like his own car. Well, it is his car, an old navy-blue Accord. This one is a 2009 model. They really do never die.

Fearing the worst Jessie sprints up to his car and finds the driver’s side door open, the key in the ignition and his wife missing. The two bags of groceries are still sitting on the back seat. No one has stolen the car or even taken the groceries.

Jessie steps back from his car. He looks at the verge and the pavement, with the aid of the small bright flashlight. There are a lot of scuff marks in the soil. He sees a woman’s shoe prints and then they disappear. There are two other sets of prints. There is some blood when he gets down close to the pavement and really looks hard, shining the beam of light sideways along the asphalt surface.

Jessie Norris, alone on a dark highway, has a big problem now and he doesn’t know what to do with it. He gets into the driver’s seat and sits there thinking.

He takes out his own phone at last and calls 911. He gets the police dispatcher and explains the situation. Then he waits for them to come and look at what he has discovered.

*********************************

They Haven't Taken My Phone Yet

 

They wore dark pine green overall uniforms with a sort of pale blue plastic device fused onto the lapels. It seemed to make some reference to global something or other. One of them was built like Zorro’s Sgt. Garcia and the other one looked like Lewis' Marshwiggle, but the same spirit seemed to animate them both. Pure bullocky hatred and a sort of snively officiousness. 

Yes, I fought them. They made no allowance for gender either. I fought them as dirty as I could, like a woman fights for her life. But it’s hard to tear out eyeballs and kick crotches when some ape has your elbows pinned behind you. I’m a big girl, but not that big.

When they finally subdued me, I was missing a couple teeth, some hair, had a broken left hand, various scratches and bruises and my right eye would be turning black soon. Would Jessie recognize me? I was not sure. He had never seen me after a fight for my freedom, and neither had I.

I had been driving home from shopping when the pulsing blue light atop an official looking vehicle alerted me. I wasn’t sure who they were, but I pulled over anyhow. I couldn’t have run from them in any case. I was driving an old Honda, and you know, they’ll find you somehow anyhow.

I had not been speeding. I broke no traffic laws. I got into no road rage altercations with anyone. I ran over no dogs or cats. My car was not smoking, and all my lights and signals worked correctly.

This happened just before twilight on a two-lane highway ten miles out of our neighborhood. There were no streetlights nor any houses or people nearby to hear me screaming as I fought them. There were only the two rows of darkening fir trees mixed with some alders and undergrowth. There was no witness to this arrest.

I was cuffed and a sort of belt put around my ankles and then they tossed me into the backseat of their suv type vehicle. Neither Garcia nor Wiggles spoke to me. I was pleased to see some bloody scratches here and there on their faces and hands. Neither one of them was good looking at all, but I had not improved either of them. I know I sound somewhat jocular, but I was more frightened than I had ever been before, because I didn’t know who they were or why they had grabbed me like they did. I was the kind of frightened that feels cold and remote. My insides were upset too. I was also very worried about what Jessie would think about me not coming home. He was a sort of decisive man, and I really had no idea what he would do about it.

We had no children. So, I didn’t have that worry.

OK, the truth of the matter is that like so many, I was a talker. I talked online. I talked about everything. No subject was off the list. I told the truth as I saw it. I talked in person. I interviewed anybody who would put up with me. I left little handwritten signs on benches and in bus stops and on the outside of stores. Like that. I buttonholed people in the coffee shop and asked them what they thought. I was known to preach some. I appealed to God Almighty in my dissertations and pleadings. Maybe that had something to do with it?

Maybe I was a dangerous character. Me. One 37-year-old white American female. In a sad way it was encouraging. But also, very scary.

They drove into town, and through town, heading further south. They headed to a section of rather anonymous looking industrial buildings. This did not look like regular cop infrastructure. I imagined a photo of the scene. My solemn, bruised white face peering out of the backseat window of the car as night came down and we came to a stop by one of the buildings.

Did I mention that I still had my phone in my jacket pocket? Well, I did have it. I fingered it with my unbroken right hand. It was still there and had not fallen out in the scuffle and they had not searched me and taken it either. I wondered if that was an oversight, just incompetence or if it had been for some reason. This phone was nothing special. I just bought it at the Apple store like anyone else.

Oh! My name is Beth Norris. Now you know.

There was a garage door in one of the gray buildings. Garcia, who was driving, pulled a remote out of the console and pointed it at the door which began to roll up. He squinted at me in a nasty sort of way in the rear-view mirror and grunted. Wiggles giggled a hollow dry inhuman sound, and into the building we rolled. It was dark in there, but there was a lit doorway at the far end of the room.

Wiggles opened my door and pulled my feet to where he could get at them and removed the belt. I didn’t think it was a good time to start kicking so I didn’t.

“Get out Beth,” he said. Now there was a data point. They knew who I was.

“Walk to the door.” I did. My arms were still behind me in the cuffs, so I wasn’t very dangerous right then.

We entered an industrial looking hall. There was a huge old metal desk there with a woman sitting behind it fooling with her phone who looked like that Flo chick who sells Progressive insurance on tv.

She looked at Garcia and said, “put her in 6.” She barely looked up long enough to register that I was there at all. I was not interesting to her! Garcia removed my cuffs. I was of course, sore and stiff. But I didn’t take a swing at him.

No. 6 was a plain gray room with a bench in it. The floor was concrete. There was a window in the door which faced an outside door which also had a window in it. I could see that it was well and truly dark outside.

My mind went to Jessie and what he must be doing. Pacing the front room, I thought, and wondering what to do. We only had the one car. He couldn’t go looking for me.

It bothered me that I still had my phone. I couldn’t figure that out. The first thing law enforcement does at an incarceration is impound your pocket litter and your phone. I sat on the bench in the fluorescent light and thought about it. Maybe it was a trap of some sort. Maybe they thought I was dumb enough to start calling people. Maybe they thought I would lead them to all my friends and family?

It was cold in this room. I was trying to understand who these people were and what they wanted with me. Also, I hurt all over. My mouth was really sore where the teeth had been broken off. I was starting to feel all the bruises and learned about some new ones that I had not noticed before.

I was thirsty and hungry and needed to pee. I was very angry.

I took my phone out of the pocket of my jacket and laid it on the bench down at the end and just looked at it. It looked inert and harmless. Its screen was as dark as a sort of rectangular pool of black water.

As I looked, I saw something happening on the side of the phone where your thumb would normally go. A sharp little protrusion about half an inch long came out of a tiny hole that I had never paid any attention to before. As I watched, a tiny drop of liquid swelled at the point of the tiny needle. I am not kidding. The world changed right there before my eyes.

I realized a number of things all at once. First, these devices were not only what I had thought they were. Second, they expected that I would be frantically calling someone and thirdly, that needle was meant for my thumb or whatever part of my body it came into contact with. I realized that I was now officially dead.

It is funny how well your mind can pull together some facts when you are really in a bad situation. Well. I was brought here to disappear. That was obvious.

I tucked my broken left hand loosely in my jacket pocket for support. I stood up feeling all the bruises and walked to the door and looked out the window. I saw no one. I tried the doorknob.

They were so sure of my demise that they didn’t even lock the door. Silently, I opened the door and stood listening. Nothing. Not a sound.

I stepped across the six feet of polished concrete floor to the outside door and tried the handle on that door. Now I believe in miracles, and I know when the Almighty goes before me. That door was also unsecured.

I stepped out into a mild dry fall evening, shut the door behind myself, and walked away.

Dead and free.

Does The Looking Glass Answer?

 

Drive Time Pondering

Elegant?

While dodging the maddening crowd on I-5 earlier today I was wondering if elegance is a natural attribute or something learned like good taste, if good taste is learned.  Sometimes it seems to be natural also.

When I look at this fellow I think now in some photos he might be considered kind of funny looking.  But! He has learned how to present himself elegantly. That would tend to indicate that to be elegant is a learned skill, but more importantly, something done on purpose, not just occurring naturally.  

From our friends at Etymology Online:

elegance (n.)
c. 1500, "tastefulness, correctness, harmoniousness, refinement," of speech or prose, from Latin elegantia "taste, propriety, refinement," from elegantem (see elegant). Earlier form was elegancy (early 15c.). Meaning "refined luxury" is from 1797. Via French come German Eleganz, Swedish elegans, etc.Related entries & more

elegant (adj.)
late 15c., "tastefully ornate," from Old French élégant (15c.) and directly from Latin elegantem (nominative elegans) "choice, fine, tasteful," collateral form of present participle of eligere "select with care, choose" (see election). Meaning "characterized by refined grace" is from 1520s. Latin elegans originally was a term of reproach, "dainty, fastidious;" the notion of "tastefully refined" emerged in classical Latin. Related: Elegantly.
Elegant implies that anything of an artificial character to which it is applied is the result of training and cultivation through the study of models or ideals of grace; graceful implies less of consciousness, and suggests often a natural gift. A rustic, uneducated girl may be naturally graceful, but not elegant. [Century Dictionary]

So, perhaps, when I look at a beautiful animal, to say that it is elegant is to demonstrate a misunderstanding of the word. Nevertheless, it is very tempting. For they are often exceedingly graceful.

Thinking again, perhaps it is not wrong to call the beautiful creatures of God elegant, but their elegance then would not be their own, but His!

To call this an open thread would be right on track!  

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Saturday All!

It Must Have Been A Fish Processing Plant In Days Gone By

Well, intrepid readers, it's like this.  I decided that I didn't want to drive all the way home in one day, trying to include a visit with Bubble Woman and the kitties.

So, here we are.  We landed in the Bowline Hotel right on the river.  She is going to meet us here.  We already visited with kitties at her house.  The girls are going to walk out and get us some fish tacos!  Yay. I know some of you do not dig fish tacos, but as a sort of human seagull, I must say that I do dig them and so do the girls.

Here are some night shots of the surroundings here.

I live by the river.

The line kept bugging me all day.

And as a final amenity!

Because there are sea lions out there and they are loud!

November 15, 2023, Newport, OR

 Just a little bit of ¨wish you guys were here.¨

We could all just sit around and watch the waves and order pizza, or we could go out and find some fish and chips.  There are every kind of fish and chips that you can imagine here.

We could talk all night and get it ALL figured out.  We could not smoke in here though, which is sad.

So, Good Morning from Newport!

All Gone To Look For America

 

Small Country Roads Edition

   I had the idea this trip to go out and just look.  I wanted to see if the signs of destruction of our culture were visible to the eye of the beholder. Does it show?  Is it as pervasive as we hear?

   It was another cursory examination.  But I have this idea that the weight of the evidence is on the side of the humble and lowly of the earth continuing their lives in some form or other. I hope so.

I tend to hang on to Genesis 8:22.

“While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease.”

   That seems like a good promise that life will continue in recognizable ways. I believe in that Mercy.

   Today we toured the hills east of Highway 101, driving through several small towns.  Some no more than a house.  Alsea, Nashville, Philomath, Waldport....

America still looked like America to us.

   The other thing about today was the predilection to drive small country roads, unknown and mysterious.  In fact, we sometimes try to get ¨lost.¨  It is almost impossible for us to get lost in Washington, but in Oregon it might be possible. Not today though!

   There were small dim roads through the yellow fallen leaves.

There were smooth dark rivers.

Odd little hill country towns, that seem to  have been based on timber work mostly.

I can´t even tell you how many Christmas tree farms we saw!

It was a good day for a drive.  No rain. The sun was shining, mostly, off and on in that PNW way. Leaves were still falling.  If I opened the car window and listened I could hear them coming down.  A dry little whisper.

November is halfway over.  Soon 2023 will be completed.

But Don´t Forget

Sasquatch Lives Matter!