Music To Darken Your Days By

As the days continue to shorten, the light is scarce and as focus turns inward, I am happy to share a fantastic discovery: Sting's If on a Winter's Night... released earlier this year. The album continues on in the vein of a new direction for him (lute, percussion) which began in 2006 with Songs from the Labyrinth.

What I love about this album is it is a tribute to the challenge of the holidays"...a time of intense lonliness and isolation for many," Sting writes in the liner notes. It acknowledges the Christian and pre-Christian traditions of winter in the northern hemisphere by assembling ballads, poems and carols that span the centuries. It is very much a winter soulstice album that is a quiet delight to play as the holidays steam roll our cultural identities (either happily or not, depending on your point of view) during the next two months.

Especially wonderful is the pairing of Jesus and Mary text and words in "Gabriel's Message," "There is No Rose of Such Virtue" against what I'd call a gentle Middle Eastern percussion. If you like Sting's more mainstream music, it is easy to identify one of his two contributions to this collection: "The Hounds of Winter" about a lover now lost as cold December descends. Don't be fooled, he also collaborated on "Lullaby for an Anxious Child" with Dominic Miller.

For the Pagan traditions toward the turn of the season, "Soul Cake" is a fun throwback to a song sung by children at Halloween going door to door in search of pennies and cakes--the cakes being food to feed and honor the dead. "Christmas at Sea" is a sensual Robert Louis Stevenson poem about being at sea for Christmas. As a backdrop, the sounds of buoys clanging and a Gaelic women's working song from the Isle of Skye runs beside the melody.

Most touching of all the pieces is The Cherry Tree carol- which sent me off in a whirl research--trying desperately to assess what month of Mary's pregnancy it could have been referring to as she asks Joseph to 'gather her apples and cherries as she is with child.' It turns out, those are figurative references. Especially cool is the list of others who have recorded versions of this piece (Joan Baez, the Anonymous4 and more).

Looking forward in hope that all of these will be included in the collection of work addressed by "Songs of Sting," a vocalist and instrumentalist ensemble class that is typically available through the Jazz School in Berkeley. I'll hopefully get a chance one day to raise my own voice to sing from this awesome collection of music and message.

Image by Lachlan Donald, under the Creative Commons license.

The Guy (Husband?) Whisperer, Part II

Guys who don't always require words are a special thing. Sometimes you meet someone who is just SO on the same page as you, despite the wiring problems, that you don’t even have to use words. Just glances and a little body language here or there. If you like this “chemistry” and have ever had it with anyone, you likely know what I mean.

I have to honor the truth here: getting married to someone you love only intensifies this “without words” phenomenon. You get really tuned in to someone, and it’s a whole level of unspoken intimacy. The “without words” part is key because most of our new-fangled (and ancient) forms of communication still always boil down to words, and they often fall short for me in terms of really conveying what’s going through my mind.

On the other hand, no pun intended, one of my latest “without words” synergies has also been with my husband (they say married people grow more and more alike as the years go on). We trade off whose night it is to attend to our baby who wakes up 1-3 times a night in need of her pacifier. The one non-assigned night is Saturday, which we resolve with a fast game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. On the first throw, we ALWAYS both come out with the same item (a fist for rock, two fingers for scissors or a flat hand, for paper). Now that’s synergy!

For all my single gal friends out there, I can only wish a “guy without words” on you. And I don’t mean the Neanderthal guy, the emotionally crippled thug who isn't capable of more emotions than he has fingers on one hand, either.

A 40th Creation for the In-Law

I wasn't supposed to be making the cake for my brother-in-law's 40th birthday--just a bread to compliment a birthday brunch. What's nice about in-laws is they all REALLY appreciate it when your sense of humor is a ding to one of the siblings. At least I write that now, scheduling this post to publish after it gets presented to the family. It'll either be a lot of laughter or dead silence. It's okay, I get a lot of that silence stuff at work anyway.

It's not my fault! I refreshed my baking powder which I finally had the good sense to flip over and see was "best if used by Nov 2006." The edges of this cake are all over the bottom of the oven my Mom was kind enough to clean when she was here to meet the baby; the cake stuck to the pan leaving it like this when I turned it over.

I bought the Thomas the Tank "1" candle thinking we'd have a boy months ago and thought this was far better use of the candle than when May rolls around. Happy Birthday Steve!

PS: If you like this, you'll like a blog I recently discovered (yeah, I don't get much time to troll around anymore, for those of you who know this blog well already).

PPS: The recipe is for Church Basement Ladies' Sweet Hereafter Bread, which I'm rebranding as Pagan Nirvana Loaf in honor of the birthday boy. Yeah, it was TOO MUCH batter for a loaf pan. As for this recipe, I'd say the burned taste of the edges suits a 40th birthday well..but the white chocolate was fine- I thought it would be too sweet. Post event note: The cake was received with both laughter and silence and my husband looked down on behalf of his brother at it and answered the "What is it?" with, "That's a trainwreck."

For more fun recipes and trivia, see Culinarytherapy: A Girl's Guide to Every Mood Cookbook (lots of moody sentiment and recipes to deal with your relationship problem induced moods). It's targeted at women but anyone can dig in and enjoy the recipes in there.

The Guy Whisperer

I had a wonderful moment the other day. A friend of ours was over and trying to decide whether or not to accept or decline my husband’s offer for a glass of wine and some social time with "just the guys." I was heading out and promised that it would be fun without me around. I also commented that he had all the body language (hesitation to leave) of someone who really wanted to stay.

Our other friend, who was also present said to me, “Wow, you’re like…the guy whisperer.” My response was that after all these years, I am beginning to finally understand how men are wired—I’m not any less angered by it, but I’m beginning to understand. “At least that's a beginning,” he said. “Yes, and maybe my husband will live to see the end of it (when I finally do really understand men and am not angered by the way they are wired, I expect to be very old)."
In the vein of being potentially on the same page as a true guy whisperer, sometimes I'm really just a legend in my own (and perhaps occasionally in our other friend above's) mind. We were at a friends’ house for dinner one night and a comment over a farm box ear of corn resulted in a silly moment I will not likely live down in the next two years. The father of the family was cooking and we were chatting in the kitchen as he cooked. He asked, “Where do you get your corn?” I somehow heard the comment as, “Where do you get your porn?” and was stumbling through some kind of response to try to mitigate the awkwardness of the moment. In any case, we’ve all had moments like this so--enjoy at my expense!

Espresso Whipped Cream

A new addition outside Farmer Joe's in the Dimond district of Oakland is Salaam Coffee. Wayne the proprietor is very friendly and has a nice flavor of coffee to share in his coffee stand/cart just outside of the store.

Especially yummy is his espresso whipped cream which I've found myself going back several times to enjoy.

It's called Salaam Coffee and he's been roasting his own beans for some years. He's making a public "go" of his passion for coffee and if you ask me...the whipped cream is worth a defect from Peet's for a trip or two or more (though they didn't bat an eye about a month ago when I asked them to make me a half caf pumpkin chocolate mocha). Not even a flinch.

I haven't tasted his Obama blend yet but it's on my list- it'll probably have some zing from troops heading out to Afghanistan, a pinch of demand for national healthcare reform.

Daze Like These

As I ponder the digital experience and how we are living our lives partially on the Web as well as in the realm of the tangible, a song from the past rings timeless and true. There is much to say about what I'm observing, and very little time to say it in.

Indeed "...Everybody's running, and no one makes a move..."

"Nobody Told Me," by John Lennon was released in 1984 on the album "Milk and Honey."

The song covers a lot of the experience of the way things are today- 25 years after its release. Was it that obvious at the time to Lennon what our society and culture would become?

Nobody Told Me lyrics

Everybody's talking and no one says a word.

Everybody's making love and no one really cares.

There's nazis in the bathroom just below the stairs.

Always something happening and nothing going on.

There's always something cooking and nothing in the pot.

They're starving back in China so finish what you got.

Nobody told me there'd be days like these,

Nobody told me there'd be days like these,

Nobody told me there'd be days like these,

Strange days indeed,

Strange days indeed.

Everybody's runnin' and no one makes a move.

Everyone's a winner and no one seems to lose.

There's a little yellow idol to the north of Katmandu.

Everybody's flying and no one leaves the ground.

Everybody's crying and no one makes a sound.

There's a place for us in movies you just gotta stay around.

Nobody told me there'd be days like these,

Nobody told me there'd be days like these,

Nobody told me there'd be days like these,

Strange days indeed. Most peculiarMama.

Everybody's smoking and no one's getting high.

Everybody's flying and never touch the sky.

There's UFOs over New York and I ain't too surprised.

Nobody told me there'd be days like these,

Nobody told me there'd be days like these,

Nobody told me there'd be days like these,

Strange days indeed.

Most peculiar Mama.

The photo? I tweaked a picture from my Chicago collection. It's some cool cloudage that I tweakedin Photoshop to reflect the swirl (shift?) of reality from brick and mortar (all those gorgeous art deco buildings) to virtual.

Lammas Tidings

Today is known as Lughnasadh or Lammas, the Celtic holiday of the first harvest. Indeed we have had a harvest to be very very thankful for this year.



This is one of the 5 pints of strawberries that started in early May out in the garden. They taste as wonderful as any organic berries in season you'd find anywhere. Move over farm box!

And of course our dear Kidlet- the best harvest of all from around the time of Lammas last year. :)




The Inside Memento (my art project for the past 3 months)



















The Outside Darling (shown with our garden lemons, strawberries and nectarines)