from the - one more thing that makes me like you -. [or why 4th of july is kind of a queasy holiday for me] dept.

photo by shirin neshat

so i told you how i really hate the 4th...not in some mindless, reactivist sort of way...but as a thinking, feeling being...it's odious to me the way the day dissolves into what is essentially [not universally, but often enough] a bunch of americans getting rip-roaring drunk all day and then spending the evening playing with explosives. it's hard for me, because i think of what it means...the sacrifices that have been made for everything i possess...and the sacrifices that are made - daily - all over the world in countries that are unraveling in tyranny or servitude to what boils down to be [in my opinion] an economic war.

and you said..."they have to live with these horrid noises daily, while fearing they may fall victim. the fear. all the time. ugh".

and that's precisely it! that's what makes me sick...and i know it sounds terribly idealistic [an oxymoron, i feel, but i'm aware that i'm perpetually hopeful] to think that my small steps...like riding my bike 20 miles. instead of thoughtlessly getting behind the wheel and wasting resources like oil that people are dying over every. single. day. can make some difference in this off-spinning world. but that's what i think...

i think nationalism can be such a dangerously heady brew without any real substance...and at times, i look around and fear this post 9/11 world gets drunk on it, but what i think as a group of people we should only take esteem in is each act of compassion we can foster toward our fellow human beings.

i was talking today with a fellow co-worker who had emigrated here a long time ago from iran...and like one my favorite artists: shirin neshat...i could sense in her a feeling of still being alien...of not knowing exactly where she belongs. "there are so many beautiful things on that side of the world she said...and they have been poisoned...poisoned by years of the horror of war and one corrupt government after the other [often set up, or supported by u.s. administrations]...and people over here don't have any idea of what goes on in the world...even though there is access to a computer, or books...and all information anywhere you look, and it's hard for me because people judge me for my race, for my religion...and i want to say...what do you even know of my religion? so many things...and it's hard for me to say [as she put her head in her hands]...how do i find the words?...it just seems, so many here are...spoiled.

and i shared with her these words, i had just stumbled on before she came to sit with me, and even as we sat in silence as she read it, the words turned over and over in my mind "pray it is universally applicable" and so, i do:

Prayer in my Boot

For the wind no one expected

For the boy who does not know the answer

For the graceful handle I found in a field
attached to nothing
pray it is universally applicable

For our tracks which disappear
the moment we leave them

For the face peering through the cafe window
as we sip our soup

For cheerful American classrooms sparkling
with crisp colored alphabets
happy cat posters
the cage of the guinea pig
the dog with division flying out of his tail
and the classrooms of our cousins
on the other side of the earth
how solemn they are
how gray or green or plain
how there is nothing dangling
nothing striped or polka-dotted or cheery
no self-portraits or visions of cupids
and in these rooms the students raise their hands
and learn the stories of the world

For library books in alphabetical order
and family businesses that failed
and the house with the boarded windows
and the gap in the middle of a sentence
and the envelope we keep mailing ourselves

For every hopeful morning given and given
and every future rough edge
and every afternoon
turning over in its sleep

- naomi shihab nye
from "19 Varieties of Gazelle"

la huitième semaine - 19e chose. web 2.0 sites. [or this has got to be my posting with the greatest number of links]

backtracking a little bit from the 20th thing...to the 19th, i thought wandering through Seattle's seomoz's 2008 list of web 2.0 awards was quite the virtual playground. a few sites were old familiars for me: librarything, craigslist [hooo-ray for my $49 roadbike found there], monster, careerbuilder, linkedin, youtube, flickr, and of course - myspace.

and a few i've discovered [thankfully] as a result of our library 2.0 exercises: del.icio.us, bloglines, technorati.

but the most delightful discoveries for me on seomoz's list were: mango languages and livemocha. sure to thrill my latent anthropological linguist's heart for sometime, no doubt.

as for which sites could be most helpful for the library system to employ: i thought miami-dade public library deserved a kudos for listing themselves on going...talk about a hip hangout. wufoo would be helpful for any of the numerous sign-up sheets we might have to have at the ready: just think...a repository for system standards [how professional!]. backpackit could serve endless functions for either the system or individual branch specifics [ie. a universal lunch menu list??...très important!!]. and naturally the geneology websites would be fabulous links on our geneology research homepage.

boy, I wish I had some Good Chinese - refrigerator roundup in just 10 steps.

so…here's another refrigerator round-up which i threw together last night after riding home my 9 mile [one way] trek from work via bicycle…it was late, late…as i so luckily ran into my friend leisy, out on her own set-o'-2wheels, and talked, and talked, in some parking lot with trees that kept spitting mangos at us while we sat, sharing both tears and laughter into the quiet of dusk. and then, i got home and christine rambled by to talk about her possibility of going to kenya and wanting to borrow a book to escape her daily humdrum and harassing me about my general hermitude and threatening to subscript me into her schnauzer nanny service. and the whole point is…as food is so often a topic of conversation around me [i had been pondering what i was going to make all. the way. home]…it was a late evening before starting dinner, and it was all christine's fault, because she was the one who said: chinese.

so here's my not-so-authentic [ie. i make things up as i go] official stir-fry. but it still satisfied my hungry belly in the end.

meatless goodness for protein:
10 ounces tofu, cubed
*see marinade prep below

crunchy vegetable goodness for goodness' sake:
prepare these first:
4 garlic cloves, chopped – separated in 2 small portions
½ inch finger of ginger, finely chopped – separated in 2 small portions

later, you will prepare these:
¼-½ red cabbage, chopped
1 medium yellow onion, quartered and cut into slivered half-moons
2-3 stalks celery, chopped on the diagonal
½ cup daikon radish, cut into thin rectangles
½ broccoli, finely chopped

----pay attention to this important separation----

1 orange pepper, cut into cubes

½ cup or more sugar snap peas [what i had], or more traditionally, snow peas
½ cup bean sprouts
4-5 scallions - greens and whites – chopped
¼-½ cup tree ear fungus, softened with boiling water: steep approx 15 minutes – toss with rice vinegar
3-4 shitake mushrooms, chopped

other stuff:
1 tbs or more arrowroot
approx. 4 tbs. grapeseed oil, separated
* important, grapeseed oil has a very high smoking point and is quite possibly the healthiest oil for frying as there is very little chemical alteration by the heat

first step: drain and towel press tofu [squeezing out as much water as possible ensures it can soak up any marinade]
prepare and marinate the tofu.

second step: chop the garlic and ginger

third step: prepare the marinade and cube the tofu

*marinade prep: [what i came up with chemistry lab-like that tasted pretty good]:
approx. ½ cup vegetable broth
approx. ¼ cup tamari or soy [i used a mushroom brewed soy sauce]
approx 1-2 tbs sriracha [whoo-hotstuff!] chili sauce
splash of mirin
splash of rice vinegar
splash of honey
½ portion of the ginger
½ portion of the garlic

toss all the marinade ingredients together in something sealable and large enough to include the cubed tofu. i used a covered bowl…and shake it, shake it, like a maniac. let it steep and do its thing while you prepare the veggies.

fourth step: chop and lay your veggies out next to the stove

fifth step: heat your wok…approx 20 seconds, or until a drop of water sizzles in the bottom of the pan

sixth step: pour ½ of the grapeseed oil in the wok

seventh step: when the oil is sizzling, flash fry the tofu until it is browned on all sides and crispy…mmmm.
when the tofu is done, remove to a bowl and wipe the wok clean [careful little hands]
***very important: reserve the marinade from the tofu, and stir in the tbs. of arrowroot to thicken the sauce***

eighth step: pour the second ½ of the grapeseed oil in the wok. add the veggies in the order in which they were listed to be prepared…the first group will take slightly longer than the second to cook…on average…good and crunchy but cooked veggies will take around 3 something minutes. so….3 minutes with the first batch, then throw the second batch in for 2 or so minutes. stir like a hungry fiend with your wooden spoon.

ninth step: when the veggies are expertly cooked, throw the tofu back in the wok. [here's where that reserved marinade comes in handy] toss the marinade in and cover the wok. let the goodness steam for just a short bit

tenth step: break out the chopsticks, serve over your favorite starch or by itself.
eat and be happy.

quiet, me.

painting by jaroslaw-kukowski

I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer. My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips.


Violette Leduc, French novelist
from her autobiography "Mad in Pursuit"

a sweet, sweet duty, indeed.

photo by philip borges

"so what is it that you do?" you know that question that follows those moments of pregnant silence — making small talk at parties, sitting next to strangers on the plane, meeting your other's parents for the first time — how can you really quantify what comprises your day? it is not enough really to say, "i work for the library." people get the wrong idea about shushing, and tend to wrongly envision the whole 'librarian' thing. to explain sometimes that i am — not — a librarian is a confusing, moot point for some…rather, i like to say that what i do is something like social work…but for the library. how much easier it is to explain that i spend my days bringing and sending books to the people who need them most: the people who can't get to the library…the people who otherwise have virtually no contact with the outside world…and spend their days with the television for company…living such an interior world in their heads, that i can tell when they call me…and our conversations will take at times 12 minutes…in spite my very best seasoned efforts at prompting a direction towards some resolution i can foster...because they don't even know what books are out there to be read…and they are so used to silence…and all they know is they want to escape into some idea of a world that is not their lonely own. i do everything…from talking down the sometimes irate, often intelligible who can't understand why they don't have the book they ordered yesterday…when it takes time sometimes to order it…wait for the courier…process it…bag it and run it through the postage machine…send it out with the postman…and wait for that indecipherable mystery to deliver it to their door — to — the ordering and processing and shelving and pulling of books and the unbagging of mail and rebagging of mail and the writing and mass-mailing of newsletters and the loading up of crates and the planning of routes and the driving to deliver huge collections of books for people at nursing homes and jails and treatment centers and veteran's hospitals and rehab facilities and alternative schools and everywhere else people require a slice of free thought with which to broaden the otherwise limited horizon of their minds.

and days when, every patron may call yelling…and not just because, on the other end of the line, even i can hear the feedback on their hearing aides, i remind myself that i do what i do by reading this:


Alphabet

One by one
the old people
of our neighborhood
are going up
into the air

their yards
still wear
small white narcissus
sweetening winter

their stones
glisten
under the sun
but one by one
we are losing
their housecoats
their formal phrasings
their cupcakes

When I string their names
on the long cord
when I think how
there is almost no one left
who remembers
what stood in that
brushy spot
ninety years ago

when I pass their yards
and the bare peach tree
bends a little

when I see their rusted chairs
sitting in the same spots

what will be forgotten
falls over me
like the sky
over our whole neighborhood

or the time my plane
circled high above our street
the roof of our house
dotting the tiniest
"i"


- naomi shihab nye

refrigerator round-up - more summertime good eats.

Ingredients:

1 package rice paper rounds [most easily found – cheaply- at your local Asian market]

*tip: these are sized and look very much like tortillas, but are opaque - until heated - white

½ cup red cabbage, chopped finely

½ cup carrot, cut into matchsticks or shredded

½ cup daikon radish cut into matchsticks or shredded

½ - 1 cup sprouts, soy, mung or bean, chopped in half

½ cup bamboo shoots, cut into matchsticks

½ cup shitake mushroom, chopped

¼ cup toasted cashew nuts, finely chopped

¼ cup green onion, mostly green parts cut into tiny rings

6-8 oz. tofu, cut into tiny cubes

cilantro, fresh, for garnish

Preparation:

Assemble all of your ingredients. [i usually make small piles all on one cutting board]

Boil a small amount of water…simply enough to fill a bowl the width of the rounds
with approximately 1 or 2 inches of steaming hot water.

When the water is prepared, simply take 1 round and press it into the water bowl for approx. 6 seconds. it will immediately become translucent and begin to curl at the edges. Quickly pick it up and move it to a flat surface where you can assemble the roll

*tip: it helps to have that surface directly next to the water bowl

Lay the dampened round flat [careful, once wet it tends to cling like saran wrap]
and assemble a small layer of each ingredient in the center leaving approximately 1 inch on the ends and 1½ inch on the sides [for folding]

*tip: once assembled the rolls are very translucent, so it helps to top with cilantro for sheer beauty!

Fold the ends in toward the center and Fold one side over the ends. Begin to "roll" until you are left with a tight, tiny roll approximately 3 – 4 inches in length and 3 inches in circumference…the rice paper will adhere to itself in a perfect seal.

Chill or Serve immediately with your favorite dip.

One of my favorite dips is:

3 tbs. plain fat free yogurt

½- ¾ tbs. curry powder

Juice of ½ lime

Stir until it's homogenous goodness.

Dip and Delish. And...if you're like me at dinner last night, pair your lite fare rather unconventionally with a heavy Chilean cabernet. it's so recklessly incorrect, you'll feel absolutely decadent.

feel as though you’ve lost everything? [or sacrifice comes full circle to sanctification]...

In many religions sacrifice is the most effective way of invoking the Divine.
In early societies it was symbolized in the killing of an animal or the pouring out of a precious liquid. Today we might feel the sting of sacrifice in personal decision-making or strokes of fate. In all these cases sacrifice is an emptying out of personal will so that the spirit can have a greater presence. In everyday life certain losses and surrenders may signal an opening of the self that serves the purpose of sacrifice in the religious sense.

It is possible to stumble across the sacred already in existence, as in an old moss-covered oak in the thick of a virgin wood or in a hoary statue of the Buddha hat has been resting in an ancient temple for centuries. But sometimes the sacred has to be brought into being through art and effort.

"The Glen" by Maxfield Parrish

In ancient times people sacrificed an animal, placing their prized possession and important food in the hands of divinity rather than using it for themselves. They gave up something they cherished to make room for the holy.

Life gives us plenty of opportunities to make sacrifices. Getting a divorce or changing jobs may entail the kind of sacrifice that increases the holiness of one's life depending on how we deal with it. Sacrifice and sanctifying are natural processes available in every life.

Today it easy to dismiss the importance of sacrifice. We may consider only the giving-up part and not the sanctifying element. The very idea of sacrifice may seem anachronistic. Only primitive people kill animals in the name of their gods. Or the idea of sacrifice may go against all that seems reasonable in a secular world. Why give up the very things one has worked for and achieved? What good is an attitude of self-denial? These sentiments are full of worldly wisdom, but they overlook the profound insight of religion:

The giving up of ego transforms the person radically, placing him in a much vaster notion of what it means to be a human being. It puts him in touch with the incomprehensible mysteries that shape life regardless of our awareness and appreciation of them.
A modern person may find it difficult to imagine living from a place other than ego. Secularism and ego go together, and it may seem only prudent to do whatever is possible to be a conscious, evolving, and successful individual. But the religions teach a different set of values with a focus on eternal concerns and radical community.

They promote a different notion of self—if the word self is appropriate at all. They suggest that a person might feel profoundly fulfilled by being a receptor of life rather than a doer and achiever, a conduit of power rather than the originator.

When in the past people killed their precious livestock for the sake of religion, they were doing something both symbolic and literal. The animal represented what they considered valuable, and they were willing to give it up for a divine blessing. Giving over what they most prized, they felt a great loss. If sacrifice is a mere formality, it simply doesn't work because the emotional sting indicates a letting go of something felt as precious.

Every sacrifice
transforms the person
in a
small way,
and bit by bit
life becomes
holy.


By allowing a greater will to have a role, the person is deliteralized, made into something less centripetal. Even the mystic, so interiorly absorbed, looks beyond the self for meaning. Sacrifice chips away at the self, allowing the deep soul to take over.

The need to insist on our own existence gives way to a more relaxed appreciation of the life passing through us, achieving its own ends, which, mysteriously, creates a fuller version of self than what we might have created from our own designs.


- excerpted from In Every Sacrifice, God is Born
from "The Soul's Religion" by Thomas Moore -

le bon mot du jour: sutta nipata.

Let your love flow outward through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
Then as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.

- Sutta Nipata -