[The subject line's from Gwendolyn Brooks, "Boy Breaking Glass." Because.]

My culinary mode the past two days could probably be classified as Southern Weird. Lunch yesterday was green tomato and okra soup, seasoned with leftover Easter ham. And breakfast was a 5M sandwich - mortadella, Muenster, and mint with mayo and mustard. I also cooked three pounds of bacon. Any fool who wants to insist that I'm not Southern or American can stuff it.

Harvesting the mint reminded me that I had no idea what had happened to the Kentucky Derby field since January. So I checked in here and there, and for you hunch bettors, the longshots in the field include a bay colt named Midnight Bourbon and a gray colt named Soup and Sandwich. (And they even shared a recent headline because they worked out the same morning . . .)

Tonight's English country dance gathering featured beautiful playing by Dave Wiesler. And speaking of ECD, I'm in the leftmost file in this mosaic a UK nyckelharpist assembled earlier this month:

[The subject line is from June Jordan's It's Hard to Keep a Clean Shirt Clean.]

It's a sunny Saturday morning, the sky is a beautiful blue, and the forecast for this afternoon is in the 50s, with the wind below 10 knots per hour. But I have seven chapters and a fifty-page bibliography to finetune for a volume editor and image manager before the end of the day, and a dozen-plus other files to power through before the start of Monday.

Younger Me would mutter "Tae hell wi' y'all!" and hop on the paddleboard and string the kite anyway, and then grind through the lot overnight. Current Me is cranking up Rameau, Monteverdi, and Anderson .Paak and getting on with it -- after I placate my peasant brain by dealing with a bundle of limp carrots. I combined some of the greens with asparagus this morning to go with scrambled eggs . . .



. . . and the roots are in the slow cooker with other ingredients for beef stew. It feels good to have the wherewithal to make things happen, even when they weren't in our plans when we got out of bed a few hours ago.

This week I also baked a chocolate soufflé (because this past Sunday was National Chocolate Soufflé Day, which I used as my prompt for Day 28 at the Tupelo 30/30 challenage) and two loaves of cranberry bread (because I'd ordered a bag from Misfits Market with a vague idea of making relish, but then hadn't followed through with picking up related ingredients when I went to the store). I picked up our monthly Chinese feast from Lucky Bamboo on Monday, and dumped cheese (blue, American, pizza blend . . .) on various leftovers and vegetables for lunch, dinner, and snacks. The BYM resorts to frozen meals when I don't feel up to cooking, and one night brought home a mushroom pizza from Smith & Lentz that rated an awww yeah when he reheated what was left the next day.

In other happenings, our larger hellebore is blooming beautifully (the smaller one probably needs another year or two . . .), and indoors some of the Christmas cacti and cyclamen are still producing buds and flowers. The aloe plant I'd brought home from Downtown Pres in 2019 was again in need of repotting, so that happened as well:

https://jackielaubooks.com/ The Ultimate Pi Day Party is currently free, and the Nashville Public Library has some of her titles.

1. The settings include small-town and urban Canada, and coping with a wide variety of parents, siblings, and friends . . .
2. . . . some of them refreshingly and hilariously down-to-earth, and others exasperatingly "why can't you be more like _____," which is a dynamic I totally feel from multiple angles. I have cried with relief when people step up for protagonists who disappoint their parents by not having a "real" job.
3. That said, there are a quite a few scientists and CEOs in the mix. They're often driven and/or grumpy. I can relate to that too. (One geologist wears a has a "Schist Happens" shirt mug.)
4. Abortion is discussed as the right choice for characters who had them. More on that by Emmalita. #RomanceForRoe
5. There's a lot of good food. Including mooncake ice cream.
6. There are brutally honest little girls (often nieces) who know what they want. One five-year-old is a food snob who "has a better chance of enjoying blue cheese and Kalamata olives than pepperoni pizza" and delightedly samples (and critiques) "the green tea-strawberry, the passionfruit, the black sesame, [and] the matcha cheesecake" flavors at the shop her anti-ice cream uncle takes her to (observing that the place looks like a unicorn threw up in it) but also names a unicorn "Havarti Sparkles." Another corrects her uncle on the pronunciation of dinosaur names. Another really digs venomous spiders, which her uncle can't stand . . .
7. Several protagonists don't speak Mandarin/Cantonese well, if at all. I feel seen, both in terms of the awkward situations they find themselves in and the recurring frustration of being expected to be good at / comfortable with something one has zero natural facility for. (Not incidentally, I tested out of a half-dozen levels of Spanish Duolingo last night, but my next super-basic, hint-heavy Mandarin lesson may require a full glass of verdejo for me to chill out enough to get on with it.)
8. Love doesn't magically cure clinical depression or other chronic/recurring conditions, and it was horrible-great when one of the heroines starts yelling about how infuriating is when people insist or imply you haven't tried hard enough or spent enough on finding a solution while knowing fuck-all about every last exhausting potential treatment you've already tried or considered.
9. There's plenty of humor and sass, from friends and siblings (and sometimes parents) who take the heroine or hero's goals seriously but not their taste in clothing or pizza or beer.

[My previous mention of Jackie Lau's books.]

In addition to reading Lau's two most recent books, I also binged on some picture and chapter books this week, including:

Most of the Princess in Black series by Shannon Hale, Dean Hale, and LeUyen Pham

Real Cowboys by Kate Hoefler, which will be featured trilingually (English, Spanish, ASL) later this year as a storytime video produced by my colleagues.

Jules vs. the Ocean by Jesse Sima

Among the items and services I donated to this year's auction at my church, the offer to read sonnets didn't spark any interest, but the winner of the three-month subscription for homemade bao prevailed over other bidders by their willingness to pay more than $125 for the goods. I delivered carrot and mushroom bao to them last month; today's batch was pork:



I worked Sunday night and until 1 a.m. today to clear enough of the decks to take today off, both so I could deliver the bao freshly steamed and to give myself room for rebalancing life with ghosts old and new. My mother would have been 77 today. My Aunt Cherry died this morning. I downloaded Marissa's Grief, as Faithful as my Hound to listen to later.

I have made more batches of bao this year than in any other. I have delivered them to households dealing with COVID-19 and with bereavement, as well as just sharing with friends and colleagues because I was able to. My mom taught me a hack: when you don't have time or energy to make the dough from scratch, Pillsbury Grands or the equivalent will do. As with pie crust, I can taste the difference, so I make my own when I can, but it eases my mind (which in turn adds ease to my prep) to have backup options in the fridge.

That said, I very recently learned that the Quakers are organizing against General Mills/Pillsbury, and that others are on board (see Ora Wise's plans in the Grub Street survey of people at MeMe's).

Both my boss and my financial planner called me this morning at 10 a.m. The call from my financial planner was, well, planned - we needed to touch base about my IRA, and doing so on Mom's birthday was appropriate. We discussed the election, and I was like, "My dude, democracy isn't safe yet." Speaking of which, here are a couple of currently active groups:

https://thecivicscenter.org/
https://postcardstovoters.org/2020/11/15/234/

Current reading includes Kenny Lao's Hey There, Dumpling!. I forget where I read that one should eat dumplings on the first day of winter solstice for good luck (although my intermittent reading pile also currently includes Carolyn Phillips's All Under Heaven), but there are worse invitations to fortune one could extend . . .

The subject line, which I typed into this window two days ago, is from Raymond Carver's "Looking for Work." It incurred a sudden jones for pan-fried fish, which I hadn't planned on cooking, and the canned tuna in the pantry wasn't going to address that, nor the tofu-fish cakes in the freezer, and moaning about bar-crowding putzes wasn't going to make me feel better, so I closed my laptop and wrote postcards instead.

Had I started this entry this morning, the subject line probably would have been "The letter A was once an inverted cow's head," from Arthur Sze's "Water Calligraphy" (username=okrablossom, there's zucchini in there as well, albeit as in a frittata rather than as frites). I just posted some notes about Sze (and other translators) over at Vary the Line.

On Saturday afternoon, I ate at a restaurant for the first time since March 13 -- a fried "chicken" sandwich with fries, washed down with a sorrel drink and ginger beer, at Vege-licious, a vegan soul food joint adjacent to Fisk University. The three of us spread out across two picnic tables behind the restaurant. (The heat index had reached 102 F by that point, so there was no competition for the seats -- there was a steady stream of takeout traffic, but only one other group of diners, at the opposite end of the large tent.) This was after a taping at Hadley Park for this event (co-sponsored by NMAAM, FUUN, and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Huntsville):



I sing alto in the quartet; it was our first time singing together as a quartet, and the soprano's first time singing one-to-a-part ever. We did well, all things considered, and Patrick is well worth listening to. Register at https://bit.ly/323IZwn to view the webinar this Saturday.




This may be the year I learn to can vegetables, as there are now forty tomato plants in place in the yard, and another dozen or so waiting for me to clear ground, and a handful of cuttings from the starters that looked too far gone to tend to further.

I have coaxed some vetch into sprouting on a formerly barren strip next to the porch. The balloon flowers are fantastic right now, the zinnias are admired by passers-by, and I'm harvesting a few peppers each night.

Seed inventory, page 1


Some of the containers



It was chilly and windy today, and I still didn't feel like focusing on anything requiring precision, but I addressed 53 postcards, updated my gardening journal (with some receipts from 2016), and cooked 3 meals: for breakfast, pancakes. For lunch, a riff on chile rellenos, using Anaheim peppers and leftover bulgur-carrot mush. The mush was fortified with red pepper flakes and parmesan powder from a long-ago pizza order.



For dinner, last night's chicken, re-roasted with the remaining hunk of zucchini and fingerling potatoes. I had half a sample of packet of Forward seasoning in the spice bin, so I used it on the veggies. (I am not a huge fan of paprika on potatoes, but hunting for the coriander yesterday reminded me of how much my pantry is out of whack: I am down to two bay leaves and not even a doll's thimbleful of cinnamon, but the bbq rubs, steak blends, hot sauces, and bags of paprika would fill a basket, and I should bake something with nutmeg and/or mace soon, since it's now clear that my day-to-day cooking rarely involves those flavors. It's a pleasant problem to have . . .)

Via kirbyfest, kass, antisoppist, and others...

1. Are you an Essential Worker?

No.

2. How many drinks have you had since the quarantine started?

1 bottle of chardonnay
5/6 bottle of Bordeaux
2 beers
1/3 bottle of Louisa's Liqueur ("Louisa Nelson was a woman of remarkable strength and character. . . .")

3. If you have kids... Are they driving you nuts? n/a

4. What new hobby have you taken up during this?

There still aren't enough hours in the day.

5. How many grocery runs have you done?

5? If counting from around the Ides of March. We are down to one scant cup of soy sauce and no mirin, and I ate the last apple this morning, so I cannot put off donning the face mask much longer.

6. What are you spending your stimulus check on?

It will be split between part of a mortgage payment and the fee charged by our new estate lawyer to get our wills and directives updated. (See #15.)

7. Do you have any special occasions that you will miss during this quarantine?

The plans canceled so far through July would fill a whole entry.

My birthday is next month, and I hadn't planned to host a party anyhow (because of rehearsals for Grand Magnolia), but I'm still thinking of ordering an almond cake from Sweet 16th, even though I might end up freezing 3/4 of it.

8. Are you keeping your housework done?

I'm able to tackle more of it because I'm home all day (and because I'm less okay with all the dust and grime now that I am), but done? Cue fit of derisive laughter.

9a. What movie have you watched during this quarantine?

Saw You Gave Me a Song: The Life and Music of Alice Gerrard Monday night, courtesy of the Southern Circuit Film Festival.

9b. What are you reading right now?

Good Omens and The Graham Kerr [aka the Galloping Gourmet] Cookbook

9c. What video game are you playing?

I consider Duolingo a video game. Diamond League, my dudes!

10. What are you streaming with?

YouTube/DailyMotion/Vevo, Spotify, and Hoopla (thank you, Nashville Public Library)

11. 9 months from now is there any chance of you having a baby? Oh hell no.

12. What's your go-to quarantine meal?

Fried rice, with ketchup and a scrambled egg added to whatever odd tasty bits can be scrounged from the fridge and the yard.

13. Is this whole situation making you paranoid?

It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.

14. Has your internet gone out on you during this time?

It's periodically flaky, especially when I'm juggling both home and work connections.

15. What month do you predict this all ends?

"All" being the pandemic, or broad "safer at home" measures? Being deeply cynical, I suspect social restrictions here in the South might ease up by summer solstice or even earlier -- resulting in the curve roaring up three or four or even more times before people truly finally register (if indeed they ever do) that it's not going to end until enough of us cooperate with scientific realities and enough policymakers get their heads out of their asses for an effective vaccine not only to be developed but manufactured and distributed in sufficient quantity to inoculate the general population regardless of socioeconomic means. Which I'm guessing will be more than 18 months out, and given how such things often take far longer than hoped for, it would not surprise me if it takes 36.

All that said, I'm still mulling over whether to continue my membership at the Y. I'm leaning towards no, because I imagine that I will feel for a long time like I'm unnecessarily tempting fate every time I use the pool or sauna or shared equipment, and it's going to feel less safe walking alone across downtown given how many more people are now in dire straits. But I am so much better about pushing myself when I'm a regular at their classes. I am also admittedly reluctant to cancel since I would have to pay a new joining fee if I ever wanted to return, and I wouldn't get the discounted rate I have now, and who knows what their offerings will be once things get back to some pretense of normal. But that is bad math on my part -- the new fee would likely not exceed two months of what I pay now, and the full rate not exceed the total otherwise wasted on two or three years of minimal use. And moreover, pressuring myself to resume going to the Y before I truly feel safe there because it's paid for is the sort of daft thing my brain doesn't need to be doing to me.

(So, yay meme for nudging me into spelling all this out instead of the half-baked dithering I'd applied to the situation thus far.)

16. First thing you're gonna do when you get off quarantine?

Get a haircut and a massage. (Yes, there are people I miss, but it's not like I saw them every week or every month pre-pandemic, and I'm not a hug-my-colleagues gal.)

17. Where do you wish you were right now?

I was supposed to be sea-kayaking near Charleston right around now. (Though I'm also side-eyeing the hotel's email, sent last week: "We thought you would have rebooked by now...")

18. What free-from-quarantine activity are you missing the most?

Swimming laps and English country dancing and waltzing. And right now I don't know if I will return to any of those after the pandemic ends, although in English maybe it will become okay to wear gloves outside of formals.

(I mean, I probably will. I can be as stupid as many people when it comes to disregarding risk because the prospect of missing out becomes too much to bear. But I also don't lack for other diversions -- or, for that matter, obligations. And there's also working to help save the republic . . . )

(Not incidentally, my stats as of Monday: More than 1300 postcards sent since mid-2017, including 123 for Jill Karofsky (Wisconsin Supreme Court). Plus additional cards sent in response to recommendations from Americans of Conscience, plus some self-initiated messages and calls in reaction to other feeds and sources.)


19. Have you run out of toilet paper and hand sanitizer?

No, although the current stash of TP is on the scratchier side than what we usually keep on hand.

20. Do you have enough food to last a month?

No. I like fresh produce and meat (and general variety) too much (just ask my friends in Detroit who had to put up with me craving salad when we were hitting dive bars). Although I also have trouble resisting sales, which is ironically why we have a good supply of paper towels and wipes (both purchased pre-lockdowns), along with three boxes of Hamburger Helper, a huge bag of tulsi leaves, and other testaments to past bouts of impulsiveness and ridiculousness.

Via el_staplador

Last time I traveled abroad: May 2019 - Cancún - wedding celebration for my friends David and Josh

Last time I slept in a hotel: February 2020 - Lexington, Kentucky - wedding celebration for my big brother and his husband

Last time I flew in a plane: July 2019, returning from the Amherst Early Music Festival

Last time I took a train: same

Last time I took public transit: October 2019, Nashville, when I last took my old car to Markee for an oil change. I was able to pin down the month because Music City Transit had just been discontinued, which I learned while stomping across downtown in high heels.

Last time I had a houseguest: January, when big sister Suz and Uncle Harry stayed with us on their way from Detroit to New Orleans.

Last time I got my hair cut: January. I'm hoping to get another one before I have to renew my license, but if not, that's what sponge curlers and heated clamps are for.

Last time I went to the movies: February 29. Agrippina, live in HD. I was definitely one of the younger people there.

Last time I went to the theatre: January. Wendy Whelan and friends - contemporary dance at TPAC.

Last time I went to a concert: January. Reginald Mobley - countertenor recital at Blair.

Last time I went to an art museum: I was last in the office on March 13, the day after we opened Jitish Kallat: Return to Sender and Mel Ziegler: Flag Exchange. I sang at the Tennessee State Museum in December but didn't have time to look around. Maybe Cookeville's Doll Museum and History Museum with Rae, earlier in the fall? ... Oh, wait, I think I poked around the Country Music Hall of Fame some afternoon in January. (Life has been hectic. The winter was a blur.)

Last time I sat down in a restaurant: February - Chinatown, after Agrippina

Last time I went to a party: February - brunch hosted by big brother and his sweetie

Last time I played a board game: Um.... I legit do not remember. Maybe with someone's kids a few years ago. The last time I cleaned a board game was in November 2014, my last month of sanitizing toys as a volunteer at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. The last board game I enjoyed reading was a hilarious mailer from Lucia | Marquand titled So ... You Want to Publish an Art Book. It was shaped like an ampersand and started with these spaces:

I was put in the right front of the dragon boat during practice tonight, and the coach emphasized that those of us in the first two rows needed to stay zen no matter what was being shouted at us, and that what might feel slow to us in the front would be impossible to keep up with in the back if we went too fast, because of how water works.

Oh, the metaphors to be expanded from that.

Last night, in a dream, I saw myself effortlessly doing splits in front of two co-workers. I've never successfully executed a split in my life. One doesn't need a psychology degree to unpack that one.

Work is providing solid entertainment on top of the crushing load. (I was at the office past 9 p.m. yesterday to meet today's deadlines.) During today's lunch break, a colleague plaintively asked what "Mercury in retrograde" meant, and twenty minutes later everyone at the table was discussing Chinese zodiac breakdowns (precipitated by me mentioning the anticolonial heft to a presentation about Eastern vs. Western zodiacs at a Philadelphia Museum of Art party last year, and then noting that I'm a metal dog).

More important, I am filled with glee at how our tug-of-war team for this Wednesday's tournament is coming together.

Last night, I could not settle down or focus after getting home, so I dove into Jackie Lau's Ultimate Pi Day Party and Ice Cream Lover. Props to whomever on Twitter recommended them to me, and props to my library for stocking them. Asian heroes! Bisexual and biracial heroine! Six-year-old foodies! Snark from sisters! Grandmas digging durian! (Can't stand the stuff myself, but the commentary is fab.)

Surprise gift from a friend. Notes from other friends. Scandalizing the BYM because I went grocery-shopping in a bikini. (I could not be arsed to put my work dress back on after practice, so to speak.) Doing laundry after midnight because of the leggings I want to wear tomorrow (keeping my right hip glued to the side of the boat = chafing). Getting one inbox below 500 unread. Plotting pies . . .

Today's subject line is from Sandra Beasley's Vocation.



Sampled at this year's Tomato Art Fest:

* Picker's vodka soda (grapefruit and tangerine)
* A chunk of orange-fleshed watermelon
* Walker's Bloody Mary mix
* Frozen hazelnut coffee beads
* Chocolate balsamic vinegar (at Galena Garlic on Fatherland, which I had driven past many times...)

Freebies accepted:
* A nylon fan-frisbee
* A trio of temp tattoos
* Some bottles of Sweet Baby Ray's sauces

Purchased:
* Three pints of cherry tomatoes

Some of the sights and wares seen:
* A toddler being pulled out of the doggie ice bath she had charged into.
* Paddle fans with a lawyer's face
* "Believe Women" merch with 50% of profits going to the ACLU
* A RBG paint-by-numbers kit. (I was amused by the concept, but found the actual design was unappealing.)
* Lots of doggies. Bulky Crossfit guy with tiny toy dog might have been my favorite sighting.

Today's cooking plans:
* cherry tomato + bean salad
* roast chicken
* chocolate-dipped banana slices

Most rewarding plant in my currently pitiful yard: