Crosswords Crossed Eyes

New York Times crossword puzzles make my head spin with their overall clues for multiple questions, like "Deli Condiments". What?

So I lower my expectations by attempting the San Diego Union puzzle that uses mostly four-letter words. (Just my level.) I can breeze through clues like "Italian Hello", ciao, or "Smallest in the litter,"
dead (just kidding, but it fits), until the answers are 12 letters long (then I go online for the answer, which opens up many of the other words).

I have yet to finish one Union crossword puzzle. So I have, if I'm not careful, folded pieces of newspaper in my bedroom, living room, and bathroom. Who cares if it's a week old? I still don't know the answer.

I did get a Crossword Puzzle Dictionary for Christmas. Yeah!

I haven't opened it yet.

Too much work.

PS The crossed eyes refer to my younger years with strabisma. For years I couldn't catch a ball because I always saw two balls. Go figure.

High and Mighty

I've been wanting to use marijuana infused edibles and yesterday, Sunday, I had a life altering opportunity. Well, at least a mind-altering experience. A Kiva chocolate/tangerine flavored bar, with 100 mg of THC,  broken into 10 pieces. "Wait two hours for it to take effect."

Within a few minutes I was already noticing a change in my perception. For about 6 hours everything was more enjoyable, more tasty, more colorful, more relaxing. Walking around the block I stopped at every flower to enjoy the cacophony of colors, the rainbow of differences, the subtle shading of the leaves against the purple, pink, orange, red, and white blossoms. I met Evan Thickstun as I was walking and, to catch up on his life, walked with him to the Fay and Nautilus intersection, while he was on his way to the Farmer's Market. I would have joined him and walked further if I'd had money in my pocket, so I wished him the best, and walked back up the hill toward home.

Even the trash on the side of the road took on a different importance as thought about picking it up, and then said, no, another time. I was pleasantly surprised at the yellows and reds of the ice plant flowers on the slight incline. I continued to admire my walk as I drifted back home, anticipating the many colors of our own front and back yard.

Knowing I had to prepare packages to ship for eBay I attempted to get those books organized, but couldn't hold my concentration, so I left it for later when I was less distracted.

I made a fruit salad for Moreen and me for lunch, with small cubes of Italian cheese. I had used a container of lemon yogurt for the dressing, and Moreen and I cut up pears, bananas, strawberries and kiwis for the mix, adding cocoanut and walnut pieces. Every bite was  enjoyable as I masticated it a lot more than usual. The contrast with the sour kiwi was shocking. Later I tried eating some pistachio nuts and the salt was too much. White chocolate was the preferred taste.

And that's how my afternoon went, until I took a nap at 4 pm until dinner was ready at 5.

What I'd been feeling earlier felt like a dream. I sat up in bed thinking about all the things I needed to do, empty the trash, prepare my breakfast, and many other Sunday chores. I signed and longed for the feeling I'd had, where I appreciated those things I would pass by in seconds. I found I was actually sitting through TV commercials, which I usually fast forward through, the colors, the music. After dinner I couldn't wait to ff the commercials. That's the contrast with which I woke, and waking up again in the morning, dreading all the things I HAD to do today, market shopping, post office delivery, etc.

I realized that if there is anything I need to focus on, I need to accomplish it before, or plan after, the THC effects take hold or after, when I'm sober. I felt a need to drive to the library and check on some things, but the thought of driving over there and dealing with people was so anathema to me during my little recess. I found watching a color-filled TV show, and the commercials, had more appeal. But I lost track of what Moreen and I were discussing at lunch, when we'd been talking about something and after a few moments she would continue on that topic, that I had already completely forgotten.

Maybe...probably...I'll repeat this next Sunday. I was in bliss as long as I focussed on the "recreational" aspects of the THC.

But initially the infused chocolate tasted like grass clippings and it wasn't something I would savor as it melted in my mouth. Within an hour, all that was forgotten, and I was on my adventure.

Protein Bars Made With a Food Dehydrator

I've been using a variation of this recipe for about 10 years, making up a good batch, putting some in the freezer and some in the car trunk. It lasts forever. And it's delicious. But a project and I know most people are buying the convenience of prepackaged protein bars.

You could probably make these in the over on very low heat, but high heat, over 135, will destroy the enzymes in the fresh produce and soaked seeds and nuts.

Protein Bar Recipe

Using dehydrator

These are a delicious, filling snack that is handy to have at all times for quick breakfasts with a big class of water. (Because of the dehydration of these protein bars, they’re packed with nutrients that will be most easily absorbed with additional water intake, if that makes sense.)

Important:  Please use organic produce and products as much as possible for full nutritional value.

These aren’t low fat, as you’ll see from the ingredients. But these are high in protein and make a great snack.

Soak overnight:

            1 lb raisins

            1 1/2 cups almonds

            2 cups pumpkin seeds

            1 cup sunflower seeds

            Dried figs

            1/2 cup sesame seeds

            Keep water from soaking to use in bars

Mix these dry ingredients together:

            1 cup carob powder

½ cup nutritional yeast

½ cup cocoanut

            1 cup protein powder

            1 1/2 cups ground oatmeal or groats

            2 cups cocoanut

Mix these wet ingredients:

           

            1/2 cup brown rice syrup/agave nectar

            1 cup honey

            1/2 cup maple syrup

            1/2 cup orange or lemon juice

            1/2 cup peanut butter

            1 cup almond butter

            I pint soy cream cheese

            1 cup applesauce

            1 10-oz jar of fruit sweetened strawberry jam

Slice:

            4 bananas

            2 golden delicious apples

            2 red apples

            1 lb dates (carefully separate seeds)

            Or combo with dried figs

Mix in after everything has been processed:

            1 bag of sugarless (sweetened with barley, okay),semi sweet chocolate chips.

Put a little of each of the above categories into a food processor. Place all mixed portions into a big bowl or pot. (You’ll have about 5 quarts of finished material to pour onto drying trays.) Don’t worry about equal portions in each mixing. You can mix everything in the big pot. Be sure to let processor go a while to break up all the ingredients. Doesn’t need to be creamy, but nothing should be recognizable, if that makes sense. Use water from soaking as needed to keep batter moist. The ingredients should flow smoothly in the food processor (once the initial breakdown of nuts, seeds, and dates occurs.)

Pour finished material equally onto five drying trays. After 24 hours, use a knife to slice up the bars so when they’re finished they’re easier to break apart.

Let dry another 12 – 24 hours until firm to the touch and not sticky, but also not hard like a cracker (although this can be okay, depending on the consistency you want). Should be very dark brown in color when finished.

Break up and put away, some in freezer, refrigerator, and out on the counter. Has incredible shelf life and I’ve kept a small bag in my car “just in case” I get hungry.

There are numerous variations on this recipe, depending on the taste you’re looking for. Here are some ideas that can be mixed in or substituted that work well:

            Zest of oranges and/or lemons

            Organic rice crispies at very end of mixing (but tend to get moist quickly.)

            Substitute carob for chocolate powder

            Replace peanut butter with soy butter or additional almond butter, especially for those with peanut allergies or who have friends who might eat the bars and get an allergic reaction

            Check out various commercial protein bars for additional ideas.

            

Call Me Sir Giacomo

John, Judy, Moreen and I go to Sicilia Bella Italian Cafe every Wednesday after we've spent the morning helping out with used books in the library book sales area. This is our second year this month, so we've gotten on pretty friendly terms with Sidne and Ben, the owners. They recently dubbed me "Giacomo" (Italian for James.) I've taken it one step further...CALL ME SIR GIACOMO!

My final Friends Library board meeting was yesterday and the most exciting part of the meeting, other than knowing it was my last meeting after 6 very very long years, as recording and then corresponding secretary) was discovering that the liner of my shoe is the SAME plaid as the shirt I was wearing! I almost raised my hand to tell the board, forever sealing my reputation among future board members. (Remember the guy who wanted to be called Sir Giacomo because the plaid in the liner of his shoes were the same plaid as the shirt he was wearing?)

Better yet. Signor Guicomo.

Cilla and Stew

 I wrote the following in about 90 minutes, sitting down at my laptop, trying to picture what happened, and applied some fancy imaginations, but tried to capture the essence of those years when my mother met my father. She wouldn’t talk with me about him, and I didn’t really think about him much until my mother called the police one day when I was in second grade, living in San Mateo, and told the policeman that her ex-husband was walking up and down the street looking for our house. My father told me later that was bullshit and laughed. Your mother really got delusional when she drank, Jim. He shook his head and laughed again.

I had asked my Aunt Phoebe and Uncle John about what life was like when they were growing up with my mother. Why do you want to know that? they’d say, and on more than one occasion. I didn’t press it, but I felt like they were hiding something that they didn’t want me knowing. No, your mother didn’t have to get married. Get that out of your mind, Jim. They got married because they said they loved each other and you were born a year later.

Priscilla was the black sheep of the family. It was kind of a known thing, and people pretty much accepted the fact that she didn’t fit in the round peg, so to speak. She went to college in the south, a community college at that, and a year at Connecticut College. Then toward the end of the war she joined the Red Cross and spent several months in England. When she returned, she moved to Pittsburgh, I’m assuming because she had a girlfriend from college or the Red Cross there who could help her get a job or have her stay with them until she could get settled.

***.

When she lit the fourth cigarette, sitting with her back against the pillow and her husband rolled over on his side, back to her, that she asked him if he loved her.

“Damn it, Cilla, I’ve told you – how many times is it now? – dozens of times, I swear to God, yes, I love you.”

But she could tell from the tone of his voice and his expression. when she would look him in the eyes, that he was lying to her. No matter how many times he said those magic words, not magic to her apparently because she never believed him, she didn’t believe him. Something in his eyes. I can tell, she repeated to herself and lit another cigarette.

“What did you say? You can tell? You can tell what, for Godsakes? Will you please go to sleep now? I can’t sleep with the light on and I do have to work tomorrow – unlike you who gets to stay home and be with the baby all day. All day you’re home, we see each other barely over dinner, because you’ve got that damn t.v. on even when we eat and I hate watching the t.v. when I’m eating dinner and….”she didn’t hear anything else he was murmuring before he fell asleep.

Well, she did hear it all and now it’s all clear to her. She’d pack tomorrow, call a cab, take her son to the airport in a cab and that sonofabitch Stew will come home tomorrow night and I’ll be long gone, and he’ll be mad at himself at what he said. Just you see. Just you see. Just you see. She put out her smoke. I’ll go stay with my sister Wallace for a few days and sort things out about what I should do.

She couldn’t admit to herself that she’d made a mistake marrying Stew, whose name was really Carlisle but his friends all called him Stew, and since she became his “friend” after a couple of weeks at secretarial school where he was one of the teachers. They went to dinner after class one afternoon and hit it off pretty well, she thought. So handsome, tall, brunette, big strong hands – she’d like to see what those hands could do for her, naughty girl to think about that on their first date, if this is a date; word has it that he dates about every pretty girl in any of his classes.

What she really wanted was a husband, not a date. All her sisters were married and already had kids, dammit, and all the letters she got from them were about the children, and their husband’s promotions, and they had grand houses in Hinsdale, a train ride from downtown Chicago and the “promotions.” She wanted to write back with some good news!  I’m getting married! And his name’s Stew! He’s a teacher, uh, (damn, he’s not a stockbroker and he doesn’t run a bank or sell real estate or make money – he barely had a savings account for that matter, but she wasn’t going to tell her sisters that and give them something else to bitch about her behind her back. Those witches, always rubbing it in about their successful husbands, beautiful homes, dear dear children.)

So when he looked at her, she gave him that absolutely gorgeous smile and twinkle in her eye, and crossed her legs, and raised an eyebrow a little bit – “the look of flirtation” that she learned when she was in England in the Red Cross, mainly serving coffee and donuts on a cart rolled around the hospital or dancing with the least likely to succeed kind of guys in the evening, but she was there to make the troops happy, and happy she made them, at least she thought she did happy really well.)

In class she was Miss Burr, but after class she was Cilla and never was she called Priscilla except by people who didn’t know her. But as soon as someone would hear her nickname he or she would use it and she wouldn’t have a clue who that person was when she was greeted on the street.

She was demure, sweet, pretty, asked lots of questions to find out all about him, which wasn’t much and he sounded like he had a pretty boring life, except he’d been married before but that was several years ago. I’m not going to ask how old he is, but there is a little grey at his temple and pretty serious crows feet. Maybe he’s 40. Maybe he’s older. In any case, he was a good looking…hmmmm….I wonder what he looks like without a shirt on or…Well if I work this right I’ll find out.

And so she worked it right. He was really a gentleman and liked to splurge on her and sometimes he could barely talk when they were together because his hands were so busy. One dinner led to a second dinner led to a third dinner, and then coming to her apartment for a drink, and then another dinner, and another drink and before she knew it….

Three months later he told her he loved her. I’ve never loved anyone like this. Cilla, you’re so full of life and spirit and God you’re pretty, really pretty, a real find, that’s what you are, and I’d be crazy not to…not to…(But the last one didn’t work out, but I’m getting older, 49 last week and she’s almost 20 years younger, but we get along so well and I’ve never been so happy) marry you.

Their wedding was in town, Pittsburgh, exactly, in a chapel off of the Congregational church, and Cilla invited her sisters and brother, John, and they all came. I would have liked a bigger wedding, but this is Stew’s second marriage, and they seemed to accept it, but they felt sorry for her because they’d had weddings with abundance and dozens of friends, huge cakes, dazzling wedding rings. But, thank God, she’s married and how happy Mama and Pop would be to see their youngest daughter finally married. How happy they would be!  Cilla felt the same way, but no one said anything. Cilla had chances before the folks passed away, and his fellow can’t be the first to propose. She had an abundance of boyfriends. We were all jealous, of course, as sisters would be, but we were dating steady and talked about marriage. Someday, sweetheart, someday.

Oh, and something else that Cilla had that they all had, something that made each of the four girls very popular indeed, and a lot of people in town knew about it, too. They had an inheritance. They weren’t rich, I mean really rich with servants, but they could afford nice clothes and the best cosmetics. As a young woman you don’t think about ways of spending your money in other ways, at least not in the ‘40s, single women that is. Stew had something in common with many of the other suitors: he liked money. He needed money, just to pay the rent and Cilla’s stash will help, we can just sell a few stocks and we’d have a new car, something he had wanted for ten years.

***.

When Stew left for work the next day she was still in bed. Jimmy was asleep next to her because he’s been crying and he seemed to like to come to bed with her after Daddy left for work. There aren’t many groceries, I’ll have to go shopping and, wait wasn’t I going to leave today? That’s right, pack and take a cab to the airport. I won’t call Phoebe or any of the sisters, I’ll surprise them and then cry and they’ll feel sorry for me and let me stay in one of their extra bedrooms of the “grand houses” they keep talking about.

Jimmy remembers the ride away from the two-story apartment with the blue awning. Cilla could never believe that he could remember that. You were only six months old. How could you remember? I can’t even remember what color the awning was. Okay, it was blue. I believe you! He was looking out the back window of the cab, she was holding him against her shoulder and he was wrapped in a blue blanket, his blankee, and looked back at the apartment. A fuzzy memory, but it stuck, at least he says he remembers it.

Stew will be surprised when he finds the note. I just couldn’t tell him to his face because he might get mad again and when he got mad he got that look in his face that made me feel like he was going to do something violent, but he never did, but it always looked like that. He’ll be mad today. Hooboy, will he be mad because I have the money and the rent is due, and I forgot to pay the utility bill last month, well I forgot to remind him to pay the bill. He’s so bad with money. I’ll miss him. I’ll miss him, but I can’t cry. I can’t!

If she’d seen what happened when she got home she wouldn’t have left him. She wouldn’t have left him then, anyway, at least not that day, or week. But even with the flowers he brought home to her – day old, who could tell? – and seeing Jimmy, laughing with him, talking to him, helping him eat, holding him in the air above  Stew and pretending he’s a plane and make the noise of a plane’s propellers and hearing him laugh. That got tiring, Stew’s arms got tired – big baby, all the kid does is eat and shit, I swear I’ve never seen anything like it – so we lie down on the floor and he sits on my stomach and he goes up real fast and then, plop, down back on my stomach. When it’s light out after dinner we go for a walk in the stroller, me with Cilla on my arm, and pushing Jimmy in the stroller, he’s always holding his blanket. It’s sweet, really, and he looks like I did when I was a baby, at least from my baby pictures. It will be fun to see him grow up, all the things we can do together, and teach him all the things my dad taught me, and some things that I learned that I never want him to learn. I bought some ice cream, too, because he likes ice cream and it’s a hoot to see him try to eat it with his hands, the ice cream pushed across the tray, but he doesn’t want anyone feeding him to help him eat it so he’ll lick his fingers for hours if we let him, but then he gets quiet and turns a little in his seat, and fills his pants and then, whew, it’s time for Cilla to come to the rescue and change this rascal. What in God’s name have you been eating to poop so much? I say to him as mom pulls him out of the tray, hand still in his mouth. Yes, he loves ice cream and I love to watch him eat it. Then will come the chocolate sauce one day and he’ll be eating with a spoon. Someday we’ll walk to the park and then stop and get an ice cream cone and the two of us will sit on the swings and we’ll play “I see a…” and we’ll have to guess what the other person is seeing, a game my sister Caryl and I used to play, a game she taught me and now I’m going to be able to teach it to Jimmy and…

He tries to open the door, but it’s locked, so he gets out his key, it’s almost never locked when I come home, strange, oh well, she’s probably in one of her moods. And is she moody. My God, one day she’s up up up and one day she’s morose, really down, and can’t explain it and refuses to talk about it, so I think it’s something I’ve done. Is it something I’ve done? Something I’ve said? Let me give you a hug. Okay, when you’re done giving Jimmy a bath. Okay, when you’re done with your shower. Okay when you have your nightgown on, and Jesus, what, you’re not coming to bed? What’s so important on t.v. that it can’t wait, I just want to give you a hug, dammit. I can’t figure you out, Cilla, and you won’t talk to me. Please, let me hug you. God, you make me so mad. So mad. I’m going out. For a walk. What difference does it make if you’re just going to watch t.v.? I’ll lower my voice. For a walk! I don’t mean to slam the door, but God, what’s going on? Just gotta breath.

The apartment’s dark. Are they asleep? Cilla? Cilla? Where are you? And where’s Jimmy? Where’s Jimmy? No, not Jimmy, he’s not gone, too. They’ve just gone for a walk, or she’s at a girlfriend’s house. Maybe there was something wrong and she had to go to the hospital. She would have left a note, whatever. But there’s no note. No note! There’s got to be a note.

He finds the note on the pillow on the bed, empty bed. Empty crib.

***.

I don’t see my father again until I’m 18. Stew called one of my aunts in Chicago and asked her to relay his number to me, that he’d like to meet me, or talk to me. He remembered your birthday, can you believe it? said Aunt Phoebe. I called my father. It was coincidence that I was making a trip to San Francisco this summer and, yes, I’d like to meet him and his wife Muriel. Very much.