Calling All Creative Minds

Well folks, there you have it.  Pictured below, (artfully presented by my 101 yr. old grandmother's hand), is the last of our  winter squash from Full Belly Farm, our CSA.  The question is: what do I do with it?  It has adorned my table in a basket for the last couple of months, while its less flashy companions have been eaten;  sauteed, roasted, in soups, in curries.  I'm pretty proud of myself that this is the last one, because frankly,  I'm more of a summer squash gal.  I have to be honest though,  my friend, Makini, has taken a couple of them off my hands.  But now here I am left, end of the season, uninspired, with one last squash of indeterminate variety.  So what is it to be?  Food?  Household decor? What?

Calling all urban farm girls, crafters, and culinary geniuses!  This includes guys, too, (although I don't think I want to blow it up, or drop it off a tall building...but I'm open).  Post your ideas in the comment section.  I will pick one, and show you the result here in this blog.  Sooner rather than later, please,  because although they keep for months,  I think the clock is ticking on this specimen.

Recipe for Adventure

Three weeks ago, on the last weekend in February, our family embarked on a long awaited trip to Death Valley.  I have been curious about Death Valley for years, with a name like that what could have possibly been the allure for people?   Before my son was born, I even went online to try and map out a quick  south easterly weekend road trip there.  What I yielded was a route showing that there was no such thing from my San Francisco Bay Area home--, it would take nine hours each way. So I gave up on the idea...temporarily.  Then, a few months ago, the fiancee of my husband's best friend, who is,   incidentally, a Park Ranger at Death Valley National Park, told us about a children's education program she runs at the park.  She is a geologist, and my child is in love with all manner of Earth Sciences. Well, I thought, as a homeschooling mom, it's my duty to provide stimulating opportunities for my child to learn, is it not?  So now we had a reason other than my burning curiosity to visit.  We had to go in the name of education. Yea homeschooling!

At the time our friend told us about her program she had about a year left before she planned to leave her position and move to another park closer to the home she and her fiancee will be making. The best time to visit Death Valley is in late winter/early spring so we settled on a late February date. The excitement built as we talked to various friends, seeing who wanted and was able to participate.  Again I turned to technology to help me map out our trip, my GPS said we should take the majority of the nearly 9 hour trip on Interstate 5, booorrring, but apparently necessary.  I sat with that a while but then decided to check out another mapping website.  This one came up with a route involving  Highways CA120, and CA395. This route passes Yosemite, King's Canyon, and Mono Lake.  Pretty and not at all boring.  Best of all, it clocked in with less mileage and only slightly more time than the less appealing route.  I discussed it briefly with my husband and with our good family friends who would be caravaning with us.  We decided to take the pretty route.

Friday, the morning of our first day, our family( my husband, 7 yr. old son, 101 yr. old grandmother, and I) planned to leave at 5am.  Right.   My fabulous longtime friend The Miss, who was coming along with us in part to stay with my grandmother at the hotel while the rest of us camped,  arrived from a long drive down from Lake Tahoe promptly at 4:50 am, as promised, like a trooper.  She took a snooze on the couch while we packed up the car.  Our co-caravaners arrived, surprisingly at 6am, (they are a family of two parents, a 10 yr. old boy, 7 yr. old girl, and 10 month old baby girl).  We finally got everything squared away and pulled out from our curb at 7am. Alright, alright-- 7:30.

In spite of our "late" start it was still early in the day and we planned to pull into Death Valley at around 4:30 in plenty of time to set up camp.  Well, as they say.  If you want to make God laugh,--make plans.

At this point, to appreciate what we did you really should have a California road map in front of you.  Anyway,  we set out from Oakland on Interstate 580E which would take us to Hwy. 120E which leads to the Hwy. 108E which borders Yosemite National Park.  From there on to  Hwy. 395S, which would take us most of the rest of the way to the park.  Since the weather was clear, and we have had an extremely mild winter,  we really weren't thinking about snow. At. All.

For those of you who don't know,  the reason the a trip through central California on Interstate 5 can be so mind numbingly boring is because it is flat, with virtually nothing to look at. Now before everyone gets all up in arms about this area being where we get the majority of our food from here in the Bay Area,  mind you, I didn't say it was worthless. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for all the hard-working farmers and ranchers out there. There is plenty going on out there, you just can't see it from the road. On the other hand the route we chose is full of orchards, quaint old towns, and rolling foothills. I was especially looking forward to the foothills.  What I forgot about was that foothills usually precede mountains, in this case the Sierras, which even in this mild winter had road closures due to snow.  Whoops.

At about Oakdale we started seeing the Caltrans signs about winter road closures, naming the various passes that were closed for the winter.  As we progressed we hoped against hope that Hwy. 108 was not among them.  Alas, this was not to be.

We decided to stop in Sonora to take a bathroom break, bust out the snacks, and  plan a re-route.  We thought we could ask the locals the best alternate way to Hwy. 395, since our GPS was totally flailing, which it had been since about Modesto.  Easier said than done.  First we tried to find a chamber of commerce, no luck.  Then we went to the outdoor store,-- completely unhelpful.  No visible public restroom, or open taqueria to make a small purchase and use the facilities. We even asked the lady sweeping up outside the Waldorf education supply store if some fellow homeschoolers might prevail upon her good graces.  She gave us some lame excuse about the owner,(she and whom, we suspect, were one and the same), so no luck there either.  We finally went to the Valero gas station, no restroom but one really helpful customer directed us to Hwy. 99 which parallels the 5 and would lead us to Bakersfield and from there to the Hwy. 178E, then to Hwy. 395N,  and on into the park on Hwy. 190. We bought a paper map, just in case, and thanked them profusely.  We ate some yummy sandwiches that my husband had made while deliberating with our friends.  They thought that we ought to take a chance and head north on the 49 to Hwy. 88 east through the mountain passes that would lead us to the 395S.  That way we would still get our gorgeous scenery.  So after a trip through a tweaker infested park to the bathroom, we left Sonora at about 1pm headed north.  When we had cell phone service, we called Caltrans to check that the road was open, and it was.

We encountered snow, but only the scenic kind.  The road was clear, we crossed into Nevada where we reached Hwy. 395 and finally began traveling south.   I took a bunch of pictures before nightfall, unfortunately we passed Mono Lake just about an hour after sundown.  So we decided to hit that on the way back. ( Again, sound of God laughing in the background.)

Around 10pm we pulled onto Hwy. 190 which goes into Death Valley.  Much to the surprise of my grandmother who said, "oh I thought we had given up on that".  Mind you, the whole way she never complained.  Not once.  From the entrance to the park it is about 60 miles to the hotel where my grandmother and The Miss were staying.  Even after all that time on the road we couldn't help being fascinated by this last leg of the drive.  It was pitch black,  so what was on either side of the winding road was a mystery.   We,  of course, imagined huge drop offs.  At one point,  a burro materialized by the side of the road, out of nowhere.  I said pitch black, this is not exactly true,  a million stars --- Orion, the Big Dipper, and many more constellations whose names I should know, but don't, were visible.   It was astonishing.  When we pulled up to the hotel at 11pm we quickly decided that we didn't want to continue the remaining 20 or so miles to the campsite.  So, when we went to the front desk to check my grandmother and The Miss  into their room, we tried to get another room for the other family.  The hotel was completely booked.  So---all of us, all 10 of us, went to sleep for the night in the one room that we had.

For the next two days,  all of us, adults and children alike, under the guidance of our awesome Park Ranger friend, learned about the geology and history of this beautiful place. We hiked a marble -walled canyon at midday and sand dunes at sunset. We walked out to the lowest point in North America and toured a seriously eco-conscious old mansion know as Scotty's Castle. We endured wind at our campsite that literally ripped our tent a apart, and threatened to temporarily do the same to our marriage.  (Or at least in the heat of the moment at 3am it seemed like it.)  We learned that "Death Valley" is just the name that some very unfortunate Caucasian pioneers who were passing through gave it.  Timbisha, is what the Timbisha Shoshone people who have lived there successfully for more than 1000 years, call it.  It means "red rock face paint".  Though our visit was brief, I found that name to be more accurate and preferable for such a wondrous place.  See for yourself, in the pictures I have posted here.

Trip home was equally crazy.  We were determined to see Mono Lake, so again we opted for Hwy. 395N over Interstate 5N--- and we almost got away with it.

There were low clouds, but no rain as we pulled out of Timbisha (from here out I refuse to call it by such a negative name) at about noon.  Driving out we witnessed the colors of the desert in full force, red, browns, gold, and yes even green.  No burro this time, but we discovered the drop offs we imagined were mostly, non-existent, emphasis on mostly.  As we drove through the Panamint mountains we could see the clouds gathering over the Sierras, but we weren't worried because we planned to check the road conditions at the Inter-agency Visitor's Center in Lone Pine.  From there we could go either direction on 395 and get home.  By the way, that place is really cool and the staff a very friendly.  We bought a giant relief map of California, as a reminder to never again forget about the Sierra's when heading east from the Bay Area.  Even though we could now see that it was snowing in the mountains, the current information had all roads that we needed to get home listed as open with no restrictions.  We continued  north on Hwy. 395 stopping around 2:30 for a late lunch in at Jack's in Bishop which is about 60 miles from Lone Pine.  We ate some good home style food, bought some dessert for the road and an hour or so later we continued north towards Hwy. 50 from which we planned (there's that word again) to connect to Hwy. 80 and cruise on home to Oakland.  But no, about a half hour out from Bishop we saw it, --the sign stating that only vehicles with 4 wheel drive or chains were allowed on Hwy. 50.   Guess what we didn't have?  Again, this was a trip to the desert and anything to do with snow had totally slipped my mind.  Our car has 4WD  capability, but according to my husband it's not "real" 4WD.  So we quickly texted our friends to see if they had seen the sign, service out there is spotty so we didn't get an answer right away.  By the time we did, it had begun snowing where we were and we decided to double back and take the highway south, cut across on Hwy. 178  to Bakersfield then go north on the 5 or the 99.   This would add about 4 hours to our trip, and so much for seeing Mono Lake.   Well, at least we had pie. Our friends who had left about 10 minutes before us decided to stay with the route they were on.

Hwy. 178 is winding anyway, and in the rain it was even slower.  My son had a mini meltdown, and frankly by the time the GPS sent us in circles twice trying to find the on ramp for Hwy. 99 I felt like it too.  All The Miss said was that she had planned on adventure and that she had allowed two days for travel.  Fabulous!  We finally walked in the door of our house at 1:45am safe and sound, our friends had made it home shortly before midnight.

En route to and from Timbisha we circled most of Central California  and travelled a total of approximately 30 hours, it was supposed to be about 18.  It could have been a nightmare, but it wasn't.  What I know is that everything happens for a reason.  Perhaps in our misguided meandering we avoided an accident, or saw something that sparked a conversation that we wouldn't have had otherwise.  What I learned is this:   When you set out on a journey, whether it be actual or metaphorical you need three things;  accurate information, a sense of humor, and most importantly the right people.  Plenty of good food and camera are pretty helpful, too.

Winter

I came into this world in January,  so one might think that I would be naturally inclined to love winter.  A regular Winter Queen like Jadis in the Chronicles of Narnia.   This, however, is not the case.  Fall, with it's crisp mornings, shorter days, and colorful leaves seems more exciting and dynamic to me.  Like it's building up to something.  Time to start wearing cozy sweaters and make soups for dinner. 

This is fine for a while but by January I usually start to feel restless, like I should be doing something.
Like maybe starting a new exercise regimen to lose the 10 pounds I inevitably always gain sometime between Christmas and Valentine's Day.  Or embarking on some big creative project, like reupholstering all the cushions for our patio chairs or finishing knitting the sweater I started about 8 years ago.  Problem is,  I just can't seem to get motivated, to gather the energy to do more than just the basics.  From there I tend to get depressed and feeling I must be some kind of a slacker.  I tend to do more sitting around, watching TV and eating out of boredom.  Which in turn makes me more depressed.  Avid reader that I am, I have come across articles about  SAD, or seasonal affective disorder, where as I under stand it, the difference in the amount of daylight between winter and other times of year causes some people to become depressed.  So it has crossed my mind that this is what is going on with me.

 Last week, though, I had a bit of an "aha moment"while taking a walk at Heather Farms, one of my favorite local gardens.  I first went there when my son was an infant but had not visited for a few years.  I began going there again, regularly,  at the end of this last summer.  When I first started back, the  entrance, ( my favorite part ) with it's culinary and medicinal herbs was in full bloom.  The plants in the huge rose garden were just about to reach their peak as well.  On subsequent visits I've seen the roses slowly fade along with the other flowering plants throughout the garden. Before this past week it had been about 3 weeks since my last visit.  So this time  as I walked through it,  I notice how very still the place had become, no riot of color, as in summer and fall, nothing in bloom at all,  no flitting birds.  Just calm. Still. Resting.  All the energy concentrated below ground being stored up for the coming growing season.

I started thinking about how natural and necessary this process is for all life.   In that moment I realized that there is nothing wrong with me.  I'm not slacker, (well, maybe compared to Martha Stewart or Beyonce I am, but in terms of most people...),  I don't have SAD, (we've had more sunny days than not this winter). But mainly,  I don't need to be down on myself because I can't "get motivated" right now.  It's ok, can hibernate.  I can do those things that nourish me and forget the rest for now.  Some things that feel right now are: sleeping in when I can, taking late afternoon walks with my son and finding cool things to photograph, ( the photos I've shared in this entry were taken during one of those walks),  gentle slow yoga sessions with a little meditation at the end, eating what I want when I'm hungry, looking at magazines, and browsing the art store without buying anything.   The last two are especially good because they inspire me and give me ideas for future creative endeavors.

 

Since coming to these realizations, and giving myself permission to be still it has been amazing how quickly the feeling of being depressed has lifted. I shouldn't be surprised though, should I?  Whenever we stop fighting nature, life just becomes so much easier.  So, I'll just be here storing up energy for my growing season,  see you in the Spring.

Light my fire

I really like candles.  Especially in the winter months, I think they add a cozy ambiance to my home.  The scented ones are a major bonus, because let's face it,  a home with two indoor dogs can get a little funky.

What I don't like is when the wax far out lasts the wick. I can never bring myself to just dig out the extra wax and  re-purpose the container.  I have to get my money's worth from both.  So what I usually do is collect the spent candles until I run out of spare drawer and cabinet space.  Then I do what I did this past weekend---, melt them down and add new wicks to make whole new candles.

It's really easy, economical,  and quite fun to do. All you need is a stove top, a couple sauce pans, and a few wicks. The wicks can be purchased from a craft store or a place that specializes in candle making supplies.  I get mine at Juniper Tree for .25 cents each.  Such a bargain! Unless you want to be super scrupulous about cleaning out your pans, the ones you use should be used only for this purpose.   I found a great Teflon-coated one at the thrift store for really cheap. Nothing sticks to it, so my scents don't mix unless I want them to.

First, I sort out my candles according to scent, usually I don't have enough of one kind of wax to make a whole candle so I do similar scents in layers letting each one harden between pours.  The second thing I do is choose which containers I want to reuse for my new candles.  Once I've done this, I set the whole candle into a sauce pan with water filled about half way up the candle.  I heat the whole thing just enough so I can slide a knife around the edge and pop the wax out of the container, which I then wipe out with a cloth and set aside.

Next,  I set the first candle I want to melt down into the water bath that I have just used to clean out my container.   This time I heat it 'til the wax is liquid, then I carefully remove it from the pan with a pot holder.  I then scoop out the metal piece from the spent wick with a fork, and pour the hot wax into the container that I had previously set aside.  Now,  I set my new wick in it and let it harden.  This takes between 5-30 minutes depending on how deep your pour is.  If the container is not full,  I repeat the process until it is.  

When I'm done,  I have a bunch of new candles to burn and fun new containers and drinking glasses to use.  I had 14 spent candles of various sizes to work with,  and I ended up with 4 nice new candles.  I  probably saved about $25.00, and it was fun.   You can see the fruits of this weekend's labor in the picture above.

'Tis the season to lose your flippin' mind,--or not

I'm just going to go ahead and say it. These last few years I have not been feeling Christmas.  I would go  so far as to say, I find it oppressive. Maybe it's because the Christmas season now officially begins the day after Halloween.  This is particularly annoying because Halloween is my favorite holiday.  The opportunity for unbridled creativity, the lack of obligatory gift giving, now that's something to be celebrated.  The abrupt intrusion of Christmas leaves absolutely no time to bask in the glory that is Halloween, not to mention poor old Thanksgiving.  But I digress.  Maybe it's because I'm no longer a child, so rather than being the focus of all that "Christmas Magic", as a wife and mother I'm expected to be the origin of all said magic.  The decorations, the presents, the thank you notes, the food.   Oh and let's not forget all those friggin' cards.  I did not realize this would all fall on me when I said 'I do'.  To be fair, in recent years my husband has realized how I feel and has tried to help, with only a modicum of success.

I'm writing all of this not to vent, but rather to give you some idea what a welcome change this year has been.  I knew something good was afoot when my mother- in -law called to find out what my son wanted for Christmas.  This is not unusual, she usually checks in.  But this year as I struggled to think of what he might really want, (he's not really a toy-loving kid), she said she'd like to do something meaningful, not just give more stuff.  I could have hugged her through the phone.  What we came up with is one practical thing that my son had actually asked for, a soft new bathrobe, (what can I say he's a comfort junkie like me), and that she would chip in for the gymnastics classes that he will begin taking next month.  If any of you are homeschoolers you know what a true blessing it is to have help paying for classes.

Other things have fallen into place as well. My friend Jen, sent us a beautiful card with a montage of family photos.  I have long dreaded trying to choose the right Christmas cards for everyone.  Usually I end up buying one set of cards for our friends who are religious and another more secular set so as not to offend those of our friends who are not religious.  Neither one ever feels quite true to who we are as a family. Those who know me well know I am more spiritual than religious, so the manger scenes don't really represent, and the winter wonderland scenes seem a little ridiculous being sent from a place where the average temperature on Christmas is 65 degrees.  I've been considering a picture card as that is a trend that I really quite enjoy.  I know it sounds silly, but I really thought you had to choose just one picture.  The OCD part of me can never choose just one photo to represent a whole year.  Well, the one Jen sent had 9! Awesome, bless those geniuses at Shutterfly! I actually had fun putting together our card.   You can see it if you scroll down two entries.   They arrived just minutes ago, so there is actually a chance that some people will get theirs' by New Years. But in reality no worries because if we are commemorating Jesus' birthday for real, historians have figured that Joseph and Mary were probably traveling for the census somewhere closer to July than December, so I've got time.

Gift giving has been relatively painless, as well.  I didn't do a lot of shopping, and most of what I did do I did online.  Including a  fun trip to the Heifer Foundation site with my son, which I highly recommend.

The last thing that can make this time of year difficult, is trying to get together with family. If people live far away it's usually no small feat.  So imagine my delight at being able to see my sister who lives down south two days ago.

The whole thing was pretty magical.  On Friday I was in the parking lot at a grocery store that go to rather infrequently. I was just about to pull out of my spot when my sister called to ask me something about a package that she was about mail to us. We were chatting away about her recent wedding,( a charming, very private affair which she and husband pulled off quite seamlessly), when in the rear view mirror, I spotted her brother walking by. (Yes, I said her brother, it's an interesting story but other people tell it better than I could.) So I called him over to say hi to her, and she tells him she's going to be in town for work Monday.  So, when I get back on the phone we hatch a plan for both their families to come over for dinner when she finishes.  Now, mind you, her brother and I have been trying to get together for dinner for about 3 years now... Monday morning, at her request I called her dad who lives near by to invite him for dinner which by then I had figured would have to be potluck, since I am not Martha Stewart.  He's a very go with the flow kind of guy so he was totally up for it. Long story short, that night 11 of us gathered for an evening of laughter, love, and Indian food.

So my point is this, it's 4 days out from Christmas, I haven't written a single card, the only decorating I've done is to hang a wreath, and I have only a vague idea of what we will be eating.  In spite of all that, I am relaxed and having the best Christmas season I've had in years. Because rather than just get caught up in the madness, my family and I have communicated, figured out what we really want;  done it our way, made it ours.

Finding Your Tribe

In this day and age of instant easy access to everyone and everything, where staying "connected" is a buzzword, it would seem like making friends would be as easy as pie. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it really seems to be just the opposite.  I think with technology like texting and Facebook, we have come to take each other for granted.

Back in the day, you would go to summer camp and hangout with all these new fun kids for a week and then it was done.  On that last day the scraps of paper with scrawled addresses were exchanged in a flurry of hopeful sadness.  You knew that if you wanted a real friendship you would have to make an effort, letters would have to be written.  At that time long distance phone calls were not unlimited, they were a financial commitment reserved for grandparents and other close family.  So-- you wrote letters back and forth which you read and re-read, strengthening those bonds until the next summer when you would see each other. These days we can literally tap our phones together and exchange numbers.  Our pda's are full of contact info for wonderful people we will never talk to again.  I don't know whether it is fear of seeming too eager and not cool, or if we are just plain too busy. But it seems we have lost the art of making real friends.  Well, I say no more.   It is time to be bold, to be yourself and see what happens.  In recent years I have been handsomely rewarded for doing just that.

Up until a few years ago, I was living here in Oakland with my then boyfriend, who was just about my only friend. I went about my daily life, working as a receptionist and speaking to literally hundreds of people a week. But outside of work, I did not seem to find anyone to hang out with.  I'm a So-Cal native, and as such I'm really open and will talk to anyone.   When I lived down there I hung around with a couple of great groups of people and had several close friendships, mostly platonic ones with guys.  Somehow that aesthetic doesn't really translate here.  The guys all wanna get with you, and the girls can't be bothered for the most part.  Then, about 7 years ago, I had my son.  Why, in all the talk about the glories of motherhood, does no one tell you about how soul-suckingly lonely it can be? I was not prepared.   I figured I would go to the park and instantly bond with all those other mommies through talk about attachment parenting and cloth vs. disposable diapers.  Not so. What I found were nannies and mothers who looked at me with vague curiosity, (my son is bi-racial), but with very few exceptions they did not speak to me even when I tried to initiate casual conversation.  That is until I went to the local library's story time and met a woman who is now one of my closest friends.  She invited to me come to a playgroup, and at first I was skeptical 'cause  I'm not a joiner and the term play date had always kinda given me the creeps. I wasn't able to to make it right away but we eventually ran into each other again, she re-extended the offer, and I accepted. What I found was a group of creative, cool, women who were fun and still had personalities that extended past their roles as mothers and/or wives.  We bonded over a shared love of living lives that were true to our core values, laughter, and of course food.  Don't get me wrong,  we are not some kind of chocolate Stepford, nodding in slack-jawed agreement at each others' every word.  We are all races and religions-- doctors, stay-at-home moms, lawyers, dancers and entrepreneurs.  What we have in common is that we live life on our own terms.  At a recent child-free gathering, over a few glasses of wine, we came to the conclusion that we all were lone wolves, who found our pack.

More recently, I was exiting a performance of one of my all time favorite bands, Soundgarden. Now, as a life long lover of rock music, I am used to being the only girl of color banging her head. So imagine my delight when across the littered floor of the Civic Auditorium, I saw them--two African-American women about my age. Our eyes locked and we practically skipped over to meet each other. We talked as we walked of our love for all things rock and the tragic absence of others like us at the shows that we had attended over the years.  Long story short, I exchanged numbers with one of the women and went on my merry way home.  About a month ago, she texted me that Chris Cornell the superbly talented and handsome (that's a whole 'nother posting) frontman of Soundgarden was coming back to town on his current Songbook Tour and did I want to go? I briefly ponder whether it was wrong or overly indulgent to see the same performer  3 times in one year,(to be fair Chris twice, Soundgarden once), I decided to go with no, it was not, and yes, I did want to go.  That night was a first, she, I and two other fabulous self- confessed Black nerds went to one of the most enjoyable shows I have ever attended. It was so good to be there with my sisters who not only adored the performer, but also got where I was coming from. Again, I had found my tribe. Now in both cases, if I had just given the "what's up" nod, like we do, I would have missed out on so very much. So this is my advice to anyone out there who is feeling disconnected. Go where you love to go, do what you love to do, look people in the eye,  say hello,  and above all, don't be afraid to let your freak flag fly. Your tribe is looking for you.

Happy Chrismakwaanzakkuh