Ashes to Ashes...

She is looking me right in the eye, and yet she appears to be looking elsewhere.

Face it, chiquillada, it’s inevitable. You, meine bekannte, are surrounded.

She’s expressing her thoughts to me using some form of mental telepathy. She actually never utters a word. I just know her thoughts and she knows mine. 

She has this androgynous quality about her, but I feel certain she’s a ‘she.’

She has these eyes, and I'm not certain if it's like some 'Maybe It's Maybelline' trick on her part, or something, but she has these massive eyes. They seem to take up about a third of her face. She’s also sporting a weave that consists of two stubby feather-like plaits protruding from her head. They wave around as she ponders me with semi-detached interest. She’s clad in this slender form-fitting metallic green outfit, over which she has a matching flat-lying shawl which has a beautiful coppery red underlining.

In a way she’s bewitching, but she’s also the most frightening creature I’ve ever seen. You know how a clown can be captivating yet scary at the same time?

And those eyes... Despite their disproportionate size, her eyes are expressionless and completely devoid of emotion, so that I end up feeling absolute terror as our ‘conversation’ continues.

You can use any methodology you wish, mon amie, but very soon it will happen.There are others out there like me. Maybe different, but with the same basic mission. Like I said it's inevitable. We are all around you and yours.

Those eyes, those two massive, almond-shaped, never blinking, convex eyes with seemingly millions of individual photoreceptors, looking right through me and past me, while I stare back with my two individual pupils. 

I am looking into the eyes of an alien invader...

***

I am holding the ladder steady while my husband stands about halfway up the rungs, lopping off any dead or broken branches from one of our trees.

"Youse guys need any help?"

When I look up, two men have appeared from nowhere, the one speaking is wearing the bib overalls. I hadn't noticed a vehicle driving by, hadn't heard a car door closing. Where'd they come from? My husband's face breaks into a smile as he says, "Hey, Wayne, what's going on?”

"Just passing by, Fred. Saw you up on the ladder and stopped to see if you need a hand."

Because that's the way people are around here, always willing to offer a helping hand.

"No, but thanks, just removing the dead stuff."

"You sure? I got my equipment right here in the truck,” as he gestures with his thumb toward our driveway, “Won’t take us no time at all.”

It turns out that Wayne is a sawyer, that is when he's not farming, and he’d been the fellow who removed our Bradford Pear tree.

We had a tree that once, on a calm, sunny day just split in two. As it turns out most Bradfords, otherwise beautiful, completely healthy looking trees do this. One day you just wake up and find you now have half of a tree.

Wayne removes trees. If the wood is good on the trunk of the tree he's felling, he'll use it or sell it to a woodworker. If it's not, he'll cut it up along with the limbs and let it season for firewood, which he sells. The stump and rest are ground up for mulch.

our Bradford pear tree,

looks like someone took a big bite out of it 

***

She tilts her head to the side as she considers me. Those weaves of hers fall off in different directions, one forward and to the right, the other to the left and back of her head.

Go ahead. Ask me anything.

“How did you get here?”

Well, let’s see... I first arrived on planet earth in Guangzhou China, some call it Kwangtung, but the English version is Canton. From China we hitchhiked directly to Canton Michigan, if you can believe the irony of that. These guys in Michigan actually named their town after a township in China, hoping to encourage trade and such. Now that’s some funny stuff. Anyway, from Michigan I made my way down the Michigan-Indiana shores to Illinois, up into and across southern Wisconsin and then over the Mississippi to eastern Iowa, down toward Clinton and then doubled back over the Mississippi to Illinois again, Savanna to be exact, in good old Carroll County. I guess you could say I took the scenic route. From there to here it was just a hop, skip and a jump, as they say. Ha! I tell you I crack myself up. But, seriously you take what you can get when you’re begging for rides. And let’s face it, these aren’t exactly geniuses with whom I’m riding. Heck, I got a cousin who was lucky enough to find a schmuck to take her all the way to Boulder Colorado.

“But what I don’t get is that you kill your hosts along the way. What happens when you run out of hosts?”

(I could swear that she actually scratched her head with one of her weave plaits.) 

Dunno, a leanbh na páirte, haven’t figured that one out yet, but that’s for the future. I worry about the here and now.

***

Voicemail message:

“Hi, Tim, it’s Rae. I was calling to see if you could stop by sometime next week, when you’re in the area, and give us an estimate on the purchase and planting of two or three of your trees. I’d like them to be as mature as possible. I’m thinking maybe a couple of maples and an evergreen, but I’d be interested in hearing your suggestions. We are so pleased with the two river birch clusters you planted for us a couple of years ago. We’ll be home most of the week, but you’d better give us a call just before you come.”

***

I tell her that I’ve been courting the area woodpeckers by making the “best-ever” homemade suet in the area.

Nice try.

She yawns.

I tell her that I’m looking into buying some black non-stinging wasps.

Now, those are some bad-ass bitches. I’d actually be afraid if I thought you were serious. But, I know you can’t get your hands on those. And by the time the researchers finish field testing whether or not the wasps themselves will wreak havoc on North American precious little ecosystems and become yet another invasive problem, I’ll be long gone. Ha! and so will your growths.

***

We do our best to keep our ash trees well-watered, properly fertilized and trimmed. And we wait, but just in case, we plant some new trees. Meanwhiles we wait, hoping we won’t have to call Wayne. Wayne’s already warned us., “If ‘they’ do come, all I can do is cut up the wood. I can’t transport it anywhere. Quarantines, you know. I have to let it lie where I cut it.” We will have to burn it on our property.

"Emerald ash borer infestations aren’t visible until the tree is showing obvious signs of affliction. The borers are small and cunning. They lay their eggs exclusively and covertly in crevasses in the bark of ash trees. Their larvae feed on the phloem, the part of a tree that carries forth nutrients. They kill their hosts with uncommon speed."

We watch and we wait…

Fear and Self-Loathing in Upper Northwest Illinois

We read an interesting memoir recently in book club. The book was set mostly in Chicago, so it was an enjoyable backdrop for me. It's written by a man with a journalistic background, so it had a mercurial newspaper reporting format.  You know, those up and down detective-like elements of following up leads that will hopefully guide you to some sought-after truth, but more often lead to a door being slammed in your face.

While discussing the book I made the comment, "I admire the author. But, I don't think I'd make a very good journalist. I'm not sure I could ask those prying questions."

"Well, maybe you are afraid of rejection." I paused, my mind thinking in mere nanoseconds these thoughts: “ Did I sense an accusatory emphasis in her voice?” Then, "Is that the perception people have of me?" -followed by: "Hmmm, maybe so. I guess I do have a few residual scars from my past as an outcast… but, am I still carrying that around? does it emanate from me?" -followed by "No, I'm pretty sure it's just that I have never liked backing people into a corner, so to speak, by asking questions that are of an intimate nature."

Out loud I respond, "Maybe. But, I like to think it's that it's simply that I respect others' privacy. For instance if I had a friend who never had children, I would never ask her "Why don't you have any children?"

"Well, no that would be rude," she counters.

I continue to clarify, "Well, like a cold-call salesperson, I think those kind of jobs require some moxie. All I'm saying is I lack that sort of moxie."

She backed off from her personal attack on me… The conversation moved on.

***

"But God, I'm an idiot!!"

On any given day, when we were first married, I used to utter this phrase aloud. My husband hated it.

"I wish to heck you wouldn't say that. You are NOT an idiot!"

"It's just a way to keep myself in check, to remind myself to be humble and to always 'own' my imperfections," is what I'd think. But aloud I’d say, "Well no, Hun, I don't really think that I'm an idiot."

"Well then stop saying it."

And then I'd think, "He might be right. Constantly berating myself might be detrimental to my mental health."

Somewhere over the course of his 40+ year marriage to me, he began to be the one who would say, "Could I get any stupider?" followed quickly with, "Wait, don't answer that."

***

For me such is my life as a human with introvert tendencies. I often ruminate and replay my interactions back in my mind. Like:

"Maybe I talk too much at book club. I should limit myself to only two or three comments." But, then in my defense I will tell myself, "But, I'm a pretty good listener. And I can afterward recall most of what everyone has contributed. That's good, right?"

But, just as I cast one doubtful thought from my mind, it is rapidly replaced by another  even more doubtful thought. Like:

"I just bet they're saying to themselves, 'There she goes again. Drawing another one of her meandering parallels between the book and herself. What hubris she possesses.' And thus my next thought follows: "I really must limit myself to only one short comment per book club meeting. Yup, that's it! From now on I'll only say either, 'Yes, I enjoyed the book.' or 'No, I didn't like the book.' "

***

Was it Socrates who said, "The unexamined life is not worth living?" But, what about the over-examined life? What about hapless souls such as me? A soul who still laments not speaking up back in 1963 when those classmates were bullying poor little Monica O. in the vestibule. "You just stood there with your mouth shut tight. Where was your big mouth back then? Huh?"

I read somewhere that a rabbi once said, "You should have two notes in your pocket each day. One note will say, 'For my sake the world was created' and the other will say, 'I'm but a speck of meaningless  flotsam in the sea of life.' " Or something like that. I may be confusing it with an "I Love Lucy" episode. Anyway the point was to use each note appropriately, depending on your mindset at the moment.

***

We have our book club at 7:00 p.m. each month. As with many  book clubs, alcoholic beverages are served. I served them when I was the host. At the last book club I said 'no thanks' to an offered second pour of wine. "But there is just a bit left in the bottle. Take it." It didn't take much convincing on her part for me to say, "Okay." Somewhere in the evening she filled my glass a third time. Again, with little if any protest from me.

But as the evening ended I thought, "Now how am I going to drive myself home?" It's only 3, or so, miles but there are no street lights in our rural area. And the roads are winding, hilly, unmarked "chip and seal" byways. There is little light of any kind from the houses, which are mostly tucked back down long winding driveways and behind stands of timber. In other words: It's pitch black.

I tell the group that the previous month I accidentally pulled into my neighbor's driveway unable, in the dark, to differentiate it from my own home. I’d realized I was in the wrong driveway when the garage door refused to respond to the remote control I was pressing. Now I don’t know this particular newcomer/neighbor very well. I do know he prefers to wear, year round, shirts from which he has removed the sleeves and that he drives a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. So, in my mind, and in the dark of night, I’d decided he was a probably a proud NRA supporter and probably one of our state's first residents to obtain a "concealed carry license." Luckily I was able to quickly back out of the driveway before he came out with his pistols blazing. 

"I drive right by your house," pipes up a fellow book club member, "Just follow me." Again, my thoughts differ from my response. My thoughts: "But, you've had as much to drink as me. OMG! It'll be like the precision jet pilots whose strict training to keep their trust and eyes only on their leader occasionally ends up with the whole crew following him right into a crash." My response: "Thanks, I will."

Following my friend on the way home I whisper to myself, "For my sake the world was created." Wait, that isn't right. So I try, "I am but a meaningless speck of flotsam in the sea of life." That's even worse. I wail my old standby:

"But God! I'm an idiot!"

Going, Going… Gone...

For as long as we've been coming out to this rural area where we now live, or about six years, we've purchased sweet corn from the nearby D***e Farms. It is, hands down, the best sweet corn in the four-county area of the upper Northwest of Illinois.

Sometime in early July D***e Farms will put up a roadside sign announcing the start of their selling season, which usually lasts only 4 to 5 weeks, weather dependent of course. A couple of years ago they started a Facebook page which provides updates on their selling season. I'm hoping they will soon have a Twitter account.

D***e Farms plants sweet corn in weekly increments, so they are picking corn fresh every day, except Sunday for one solid month. They "never" pick or sell on Sunday.

I've always been curious about these farmers and some years back I did a bit of online research on them, but when I tried to re-research them again recently, I couldn't find the same information. Such is the world of the Internet, I guess.

Anyway, my recall is that I'd found in my previous research indications that they were fervent Christians, which jibes with my windshield survey of the operation. It appears to be a family run business. But, only the men and boys are seen. The adult men all sport full Jesus-like beards. I have never seen a woman or girl anywhere on the premises. The men folk set up long card tables under a tree-shaded area next to the wide farm driveway, upon which are plastic bags pre-filled with a 'baker's dozen' of corn. Adjacent to the tables is a wagon filled with ears of corn. They have gunny sacks for those wishing to purchase in larger quantities. Throughout the day you will see a half dozen men sitting or standing and talking beside the tables, and a handful of young boys running, playing and laughing in the background, all while waiting for the next wave of customers. At lunchtime the men will disappear and the young boys will come forth to sell the corn. Sometimes, if you are approaching from the North, you can see young men hand-harvesting the corn.

On weekends there is usually a line of cars waiting to buy corn. You pull in, make a u-turn at the back of the driveway and pull up to the tables. One of the fellows will ask you how many dozen you want. Someone else will grab the appropriate amount and they'll place it in your trunk or backseat or wherever you want. I always want it in my lap. You give them the money and off you go.

pre-bagged corn

never on a Sunday!(I snapped this last year)

I often wonder about the "invisible" women and girls… Are they in the house cooking or sewing or doing laundry? Do they ever feel the sun upon their faces or the need to seek shelter from the heat and humidity of outdoor July weather? Do the young girls ever run and play and laugh outside? But, I'm getting away from my point here…

I also recall that my past research indicated that Bi-color Mirai (pronounced me-RYE) is the brand of sweet corn they grow. Mirai is a hybrid developed in Illnois. "Mirai" is a Japanese name/word which can mean either "taste buds" or "the future is near," and so translates to something like 'taste from the near future.' Mirai corn can only be hand-picked and so is not used by large commercial farms.

So I am now smack dab in the midst of my short, but sweet time slot of sweet corn availability and all of the deliciousness that goes with it. When we first started buying from D***e Farms the price for a "dozen" (thirteen is what they provided then) ears of corn was three dollars, which is approximately 23 cents per ear. In 2012 it went up to four dollars, but they began putting 14 ears in the "dozen" bag, so about 28 cents each. This year the price is five dollars for a "dozen" (now a 15 ear count), or 33 cents each. Their corn is also sold at a local (if you call 20+ miles away local) grocery store, a sign hung over the bin proudly boasting "D***e Farms Sweet Corn." But, it costs twice as much there. The only benefit being that you can buy in quantities of less than a dozen.

D***e Farms corn is sweet enough to eat raw and trust me I've done just that. But, when I can wait long enough for the twenty or so minute drive home from the farm, my preference is to eat it grilled (after applying a combination of extra virgin olive oil, mayonnaise and sriracha, followed by a brush with soft butter and a dusting of sea salt just before eating).

But, my primary reason for anxiously awaiting the arrival of the fresh sweet corn season each year is my complete and utter addiction to my homemade fresh sweet corn ice cream.

Near the end of June I eagerly watch for D***e Farms' FB postings or their trusty roadsign when I drive by, as I anticipate the announcement of the first day they will sell sweet corn. Barring any unforeseen hitch, I will be there on that first day. On that very day I will, upon arriving home, reserve six ears of corn for ice cream to be made that day. The rest will be grilled or in the event of a severe thunderstorm or such, simply steamed or boiled stovetop indoors. And I will do this weekly for four weeks. If we have company I will double my purchase.

just got it home

It's just a short enough season that I don't tire of sweet corn. I know it will be a whole year before I can enjoy it again. I will have sweet corn ice cream for dessert practically every day for the month-long season (to be honest here, most days I have it twice a day.) My husband has not yet acquired a taste for it, preferring a strawberry/fresh basil/balsamic ice cream I make. And I'm just as happy to keep it that way. I'm happy to eat my sweet corn ice cream all by myself. I can have strawberry ice cream anytime of the year But, there is only one time that I can make sweet corn ice cream.

Here are my recipes:

Rae's Slightly Spicy but Oh-So Delicious Grilled Sweet Corn

INGREDIENTS:

6 ears of fresh sweet corn (Mirai, if you can get your hands on some)

2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (eevo, as Rachel Ray calls it)

1/4 cup of good mayonnaise (I use Hellman's and for goodness sake don't use that low-fat stuff!)

1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoons of Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce, depending on your heat preference

4 tablespoons of soft or melted butter

sea salt, to taste

INSTRUCTIONS:

Mix the eevo, mayo and sriracha in a small bowl and set aside.

Preheat your grill to a medium heat.

Peel back the corn husks to within an inch of the bottom.

Remove the cornsilk and rinse the corn with cold water and pat dry.

Spread the mayo-mix over the ears of corn with a brush.

Rewrap by pushing the husks back in place. This protects the corn from burning.

Grill directly over medium heat for twenty minutes, turning a quarter way every five minutes, or until you have some slight charring of the corn kernels.

Carefully peel back the hot husks again and brush the corn with melted butter and sprinkle lightly with sea salt.

Serve immediately.

Oh Sriracha, Sriracha!

with a nice char...

Buttery Sriracha-y sweet corn deliciousness!!

Rae's Addictive-to-Sweet-Corn-Lovers Ice Cream

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/4 cup whole milk

2 cups heavy whipping cream

3/4 cup sugar

6 egg yolks

6 ears of freshly picked sweet corn

scant 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt

Using a large knife, slice the kernels off the corn cobs and place in a large saucepan. (I wedge the cobs in the center of my angel food cake pan, which helps to both hold the cobs in place and to catch most of the errant kernels that pop off instead of obediently dropping straight down.)

Put the milk, cream and 1/2 cup of the sugar into a large heavy pot. Put all of the corn kernels and any corn "milk" into the pot. With the blade of your knife, scrape all residual corn bits from the cobs into the pot. Break cobs in half and add to pot.  Heat this mixture,  stirring occasionally to melt the sugar, just to the point of boiling. Remove from heat and let stand to infuse for 1 hour. Drain and discard corn cobs.

Using an immersion blender, puree the kernels and cream mixture well, then strain the mixture in a strainer pushing down on the corn solids. Freeze the corn solids for future use in corn bread or chowder.

Reheat the strained cream mixture to a simmer, then turn off heat. In a bowl, whisk room temperature egg yolks, 1/8 teaspoon salt and the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar. Slowly add one cup of hot cream mixture to yolks, beating constantly so the eggs don’t curdle. Add yolk/hot cream mixture to remaining simmered cream in the saucepan, stirring constantly. Cook this custard over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens enough to coat the spoon, or until thermometer reaches 170 degrees fahrenheit.

Let the custard cool for an hour at room temperature, then cover and transfer to refrigerator for at least 5 hours or overnight.

Process the cooled mixture according to your ice cream maker's instructions and freeze, or if you are like me, eat some immediately and freeze the rest.

 Going, going… (almost) gone!!

Thwarted at Every Turn

I was at our most recent Book Club gathering when the woman next to me said to the group, "Did you hear about that Georgia father who forgot that his child was in the carseat and went to work? The child died. That poor father. What he must be going through." It was a couple of days after Book Club that they arrested and charged the man for allegedly murdering his only child by purposely leaving his toddler in a hot car to die from hyperthermia. Worse yet, the mother may have been complicit in the horrendous crime.

***

My husband's grandmother happily lived well into her nineties with nary a sick day nor any signs of stress, anxiety or depression. She immigrated from a Eurasian country to the USA where she lived on a small remote farm. She never quite got the hang of the English language. As a result she never watched the news nor read a newspaper. She lived in ignorant bliss of the world’s goings on as her family "sugar-coated" the current events for her as they arrived in the newspaper or on the six o’clock TV news show. Am I wrong to be envious of her? Or of the monks and nuns who choose a cloistered life?

I want to be well-informed, up on the latest pop culture, able to discuss current and past events in an intelligent manner at my book club.  But I feel, that at least for me, the big contributor to any stress or anxiety in my life comes from watching, reading or listening to the news. It's as if I hold 'be informed' in one open palm and 'be at peace' in the other, carefully weighing each to determine which is the better for me.

the informed me 

the blissfully ignorant me

***

I'm waiting in line at Casey's General Store, at 11:30 a.m. one weekday.  Bad timing as I find myself surrounded by hungry workers looking for food. Did I ever mention that there are no fast food restaurants anywhere near my home? Anyway, the young man in front of me, probably a worker from the crews repairing the local country roads, asks the cashier, "Where are the Five-Hours?" (-you know, those caffeinated energy drinks that the millennial generation seem to favor?) "Behind you on that shelf to your right," she points to a nearby area. He leaves his place in line and stands staring at the shelf, with that glazed-eyed look males often demonstrate when staring into a refrigerator. Shrugging he walks back empty-handed. She says, "You were right there." He goes back to the same spot and she says, "To your right." He turns a quarter left. "No, the other way." Now he does a 180º turn. "No, go back to where you were. They're right there." He turns to his original spot, puts his arm forth and from there she directs his hand, "Down one shelf. Now, just six inches to right of your right hand." Finally he locates the correct spot and selects a small bottle. The farmer behind me quips, "Better grab two of those, son." We all enjoy a hearty laugh, including the young man, who chortles, "Well, at least I got the extra strength."

As I inch my way up in line, and I mentally debate whether or not I really need this gallon of milk patiently wait, I glance at the papers on the local newsstand. It's there I see the Rockford Register Star headline article: Infant Wasn't South Beloit Mom's First to Die...

How I wish I hadn’t looked down. And now it's a battle within my brain. You'd think I'd know better by now.

Did I learn when I read the newspaper article about some nitwit guy the Chicago police arrested after he completely bound his two-year-old daughter's body in duct tape and then idiotically posted it on FaceBook with the caption, "This is what happens when my baby doesn't listen." For days I tossed and turned, the photo of a duct-taped angel seemingly permanently etched in my memory? No, I didn’t learn. And oh, that poor little girl...

Even at this very moment, I can still visualize the police mugshot of the South Beloit mother on the Rockford Register. And even though I didn't read the article, I can't stop fretting about some poor infant, and I don't even know exactly what happened, except that he or she is dead. And that, yet another parent has willfully harmed or killed their own child. Why? Why? Why-why-why-why-why-why-why?

Yet, there is a part of me that retains some insane child-like curiosity. Why would someone do this? Should I tune in Nancy Grace? Get all of the morbid details? Is it worth a month of sleepless nights?  "No," I argue with myself, "it's too much. You've never been good at squelching those negative images and the corresponding pain." And if fact, R, you have a knot in the pit of your stomach right now, just writing this part of the blog.

***

I had a dentist appointment yesterday. The dental group has a state-of-the-art, flat screen television playing in the waiting room. Now, I’m certain that there is some benevolent reason, like this dental group feels it will distract and perhaps even relax the waiting patients. In fact, my physicians’ offices do the same thing. The problem is that the TVs always seemed tuned to those perpetual news programs, like CNN or FoxNews. So of course, at some point I glance up. And I see it: an earthquake has struck the Honshu province of Japan, not terribly far from Fukushima. I feel myself beginning to grind my teeth, bruxism my dentist calls it. She's outfitted me with a mouth guard to wear at night to prevent wear on my teeth. Okay, Dr. A, then please help me out in the daytime by banning news channels from playing in your waiting room. Have pity on sensitive, teeth-gnashing souls such as me.

There are laws that forbid smoking in public spaces. And tobacco is a good analogy here, if you think about it. I mean, if people want to use that stuff and slowly kill themselves, be my guest, but please don't pollute my airways. And while you’re at it, turn off your TVs and don't pollute my brainwaves.

I do pretty well maintaining my life with a minimum of anxiety and stress. So, as I sit in the dentist office I begin to wonder if we humans are somehow hard-wired for stress and anxiety. What are the odds that I pick up an out-dated waiting room copy of  Psychology Today with an article that says indeed, we are… "Why We Can't Just Get Rid of Anxiety and Distress." In the article I learn how the anxiety-induced adrenalin surge helped our ancestors when facing saber-toothed tigers and such. I guess I get that, it helps me when my brain says to me: "Quickly get as far away as possible from that guy, who is talking to himself and has his arm inside of a full-length trench coat and sports a stocking cap even though it is 97º and sunny outside."

The article also goes on to say:

...some research... suggests that suppressing thoughts while in a negative mood makes it more likely both the thoughts and the negative mood will reoccur.

So, that's my problem? The squelching? The suppression? ...The hygienist comes to get me before I finish the article. But not before I catch a teaser for an upcoming article:

"Become the CEO of Your Own Brain in Six Easy Steps"

I've been wrestling for control of my brain for 60+ years.  Look out, brain, because it looks like very soon, and I mean any minute now, I'll be taking charge. I think the first thing I'll do when I take over is to give myself a million dollar bonus.