Wednesday, October 27, 2010

10/27/2010

Pat C. in Virginia just sent me a link for making vegi bouillon which will be such an assist when cooking mostly vegetarian as I do these days. I often roast some chicken pieces for Steve and Courtney since they do look forward to some type of meat-myself I am usually very happy with what might seem to be side dishes.
Another recipe from that link-stuffed pie pumpkin. I have been wondering what to do with the little pumpkin I picked up because their round orangeness just appeals to me. I am looking forward to cooking pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving and I will need to produce at least one plain pumpkin pie because Aimee loves them. courtney said that I could not go to Buffy for the holidays because she and brother depend on my cooking for the high holidays. Music for the grandmother's heart.
At any rate I can't use the cranberries due to the cumadin required by the a-fib. but I can use regular stuffing vegis and perhaps a little brown rice to very good effect I think and then I will roast the chicken thighs for Steve and Courtney and any of her friends that might be here and we will have gooood food and our hearts will be full of prayers of gratitude.
When Julie was here I wanted to cook for her but she was not open to that. she is tall and slender at age 70. She scurried up the hill side like a young goat when we were returning from Chinese lunch. We met in OA but she has risen above the years of chubbiness and returned to her native ranginess.

This is important to me because I would never be happy not cooking and I love to make people happy with food. I don't want to not do this. I also love having the house full of people even though sometimes I retreat to our room and close the door still I love people around and I don't particularly like being alone. My chart implies that I will die alone but knowing me that will be because I wouldn't want to hurt anyone. But we don't know really what that means.

The state sent a check for one months work-wonder why they didn't pay all three unpaid months. Steve will call the reliable Lilly Chin today to see what's up. We need to pay 11/2010 rent now and we need the owed money to do this. This is also the beginning of the money months-birthdays and holidays and every year after the Christmas tree comes down I promise to save for the following year but I never do since I always seem to need every penny I can gather. Forever childish I think although even here I do see that I have matured and changed. I love luxury and I am always ravenous for some big treat and I spend the money as soon as I have access to it. I am in fact so greedy for luxury that I have often reneged on agreements to repay loans so that I can have some luxury whether that be good food or pot or give money to loved ones-I just love that feeling of having more than I need an endless pot of gold there at the end of the rainbow.

Another point is that I have rarely had as much money as I needed for my middle-class values. I never received child support except for the $100 after Gerald and Catherine dumped Aimee back on me in 1986 and broke her heart and left her vulnerable to all the social traps and pits of lower middle-class kids in Oakland. God how awful for her and she ended up with Raphel-a cheap father-figure for a troubled and frightened girl whose mother was absolutely out to lunch-I had to relieve my own adolescence really stuck at age 16 for decades just over and over the sexual trauma the social trauma, the personal despair-creating a real life for myself that I was absolutely unable to support-twanged beyond repair should never have had children but that is the story and I need to find something new to say with those pieces, those scraps of fabric. \\I pulled into myself put my head down and said that I would do it all myself and of course I could not be my own history, my own community-I couldn't face my own family created from my own desire.

This story goes on and on inside and there doesn't seem to be any reference to surviving personal failure. I wanted the priests and nuns to absolve me but of course they cannot and I fear the diminished appearance of my potential when "they" realize the depths of my failures. AND.....I no longer believe that the "Church" can relieve me of my burden. I am not "Catholic" I wasn't born into the tradition nor was I brought up in the tradition. I love sharing the outside traditions with Steve and these have firmed up our relationship but I am an outsider,protestant to the core and part of the complete unraveling of both sided of family-no cousins,one sister and our children sown all over the country side all of us living for ourselves and so I have made up a stage of togetherness, of people safe inside their own traditions and I love to renew the props-to cook and clean and organize and serve and share and again forget about the darkness of the hole in my ground where family and tradition once lived. I was born at the end of the Box story and most of that story I will never know and really at the end of Simon/Chalfant story as well. Most of the stories went with Mama and I only half listened and I was most of the time not even in Colorado and Mama was just so angry and then we find out that she too had been compromised and had to give her first child up for adoption and something deep in her was wounded,rejected. UMHHHHH for a long, long time.
The day is calling-Aimee for money, the kitchen for cleaning, the rent to be mailed, the landlord to be called,etc. Hope that I get back to this tomorrow.

Monday, October 25, 2010

10/25/2010

I made. I made something so nice and so really delicious. "well I did this and this is beautiful and this is how I am able to drop weight and enjoy life very restricted and I also at the same time scold myself. I have never figured out how to record the foundation of our lives made up of all the myriad items that make up our ground of being. I saw so clearly how it is the homemaking the cooking and nursing and cleaning and ordering and shopping that are what make our reality from which.
Okay here is the recipe for the black bean soup. Really good with baguette and evoo.

soak about 2 cups of black beans in the usual manner. Drain after they cool and rinse.
Start cooking with a bay leaf cover the beans with twice the water needed to cover
When beans are about half done begin to chop and then saute onion, carrot, celery until limp. Saute in evoo and also saute several coves of garlic shortly before the other vegetables are done. NOTE: use more vegetables than when just cooking beans. Add the vegetables to the beans and add good quality bouillon and cook until the balck beans are soft adding water/stock until the black beans are soft-oh! and salt and pepper while cooking the beans.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

10/24/2010-Sunday

The first rain of the season. Our yearlings are simply horrified and I believe that they are sad at least they seem to be and they are asleep and they have eaten so much today. the big white one, Prince Pookie and his sister, Pincess are sitting on the window ledge taking turns cleaning each others faces. Steve took photos. We are so blessed with these little cats Pookie, Pincess,St.Hunter and Bootz and Bebe has not only allowed them to live here but she has gone to some trouble to teach them cat manners.
I am thinking of Joyce. Thinking that since her daughter April never responded to my e-mail that perhaps Joyce is not dead. I guess this is because I didn't talk to Joyce for months after our last argument. I thought there was time and I guess that I was wrong.

Friday, October 22, 2010

10/22/2010

So up early full of aches and pains that come these years with rain and weather change. a light rain came in the night time and the forecast says rain and storm all weekend long-whee!!!!. It has been years since winter came early and there was real rain and threats of flooding in the spring. Well it seems that way to me.
Full moon at the end of Aries on my ascendant 6th house Sun and 12th house Moon actually right on the asc/dsc line. Inspired to write about the background folk, the mothers and wives and relatives who clean the house and do the laundry and cook but not the celebrity cooking but the kind that keeps us ready for the world-the quesadias and soup, the fast track pasts,etc. And then the desire to reach out and help young ones gathered on Telegraph and Shattuck find a way back into the mainstream of life..I am not a member of the America's middle-class but I do know that these kids are suffering because they want to be part of daily life. They want to get a job and to go to school and just be part of daily life from which they are excluded.
One of Courtney's friends hasn't been to school since she was 14. she is terrified and angry and doesn'tknow where to turn. Rev green was here yesterday to help but she didn't show up. I have learned about Job Corps and Vista although the Rev reports that Job Corp is heavy on getting the kids into the military.
This is also the time that I can organize the everyday cooking classes-life can be so much better is one knows nutrition and cooking. Food remains relatively cheap if one knows how to prepare food.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

10/21/2010

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Dear Ann Ramenofsky!! 68 today!! Boy! how we are growing up fast now dear one.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Oct 18,2010

Okay so I was wondering what the Universe wants me to do and viola!! Courtney and her friends are here making themselves at home and sharing their experiences through Tarot readings and astrology and talk and one of her friends like herself just didn't get schooled nor was she mothered just left on her own. these are the children we see on the streets in Berkeley and over at People's Park. I know that "we" should be helping these children and I don't even know where to start. god I wish that I was a social worker, a community worker.etc.
Well now is the time to begin. Rev Green will be over today and I am going to introduce him to Jenna so that he can give us some tips on getting her ready for the world.
I am so lit up-I just didn't realize what was going on with Courtney, just didn't see how really left out she has been-left out and ignored and denied any real opportunity to keep up jeez any real opportunity to get in the game of life and these beautiful young women are just sitting on the sidelines watching wishing that they could get in the play but they don't know how.
Whew what a relief to not have to stay forever in the confines of premature maternity or youthful maternity which still hurts so much that I am terrified of it. I don't have to spend the rest of life with Lisa and Shawn and my inability to mother them and protect them-failure at age 17 utter failure and I can leave that behind now. Thank you FatherMother God-I suffered long enough in that garden and I can step out now into life and get to work. I am really interested in this-how to help these girls get a grip and get through the "make-up" work so that they can proceed into a life of meaning and money and plans and dreams.
I am really lit up inside thinking about this and I feel as if I have been released. I do not have to work forever on my maternity but rather I can work "in"my area of strength and expertise: the gaining and nurturing of consciousness. At last maternity is only part of the whole not the entire range of being. At last my childrren are now grown and mature and Courtney as much as I have always been in her life is not my daughter rather she is my granddaughter and I am freed from the restrictions of maternity. I can now focus where I love to use my talents-in the recognition of the importance of consciousness and in the nurturing of consciousness as the very foundation of life. Whoooo! this is the meaning of the trine from Sun&Mercury in the second in Gemini trine Neptune in the 6th retrograde in Libra-spiritual "work" and all of it grounded in the primary lessons in the home and family.
Okay-I resorted to the pain meds yesterday and felt better for it but I used literally a third of what I used in the past. Tricky stuff and hopefully once I am fully recovered from the virus I can go days without using the pills. Everyday I must remind myself and work to change my patterns of toxic introversion and isolation. Back to school indeed. SF State still offers free education for old people and I am going to look into this because I need concrete instruction on community organizing and outreach.
Here is the answer to Father Scanlon: I am reaching out a friendly hand to those girls on the meat market or at least to those girls who haven't been mothered nor encouraged

Sunday, October 17, 2010

10/17/2010

I have been down for almost two weeks with a flu that left me so sick with exhaustion,depression, aches and pains, and a terrible sweat that came and went rhythmically. I had no appetite and couldn't bear to drink the fluids that virus demands. I seriously thought that I might die. I mean my sister is in 4th stage lung cancer and my old friend/sister from whom I was estranged died in September and of course my daughter and first grandchild are now dead-death is the season and of course it is time for me to admit it and let that brutal fact address me. Flu is so effective a tutor-I got all my lessons and now I am returning to the upper world and physical strength and normal appetite.
I have been struggling with my doctor who insists that I was using WAY TOO MUCH Vicodin. As she said I was using as much as a cancer patient say 10mg.s every four hours or so (whew that is a lot,a lot) so we were on an adventure to get me to wean myself off. I wasn't making a lot of progress although I was willing to admit that I had a "problem" and I was tormented ( part of the healing I now realize)and I actually turned to prayer for help even hearing my "inner soul" say "don't ask if you don't really want the help!!". I had accepted that I needed help,didn't know if I wanted help, I really wanted more Vicodin but I sure as hell did not want to live in torment and the entire collective had jumped on the band wagon just to get me off the opiates-I mean even the president's administration is making a huge fuss through the DEA about the horrors of "prescription drugs".
I went through my monthly 70 pills so fast and used some of Steve's with absolutely no hope of getting more and there I was praying-I was so sick and I was definitely fucked up and I needed help and I asked for that help and I believed that help would come from whatever dimension beyond my consciousness that I was praying for.
First came the consciousness of just how intoxicated I was ALL the tie with the amount of vicodin I was using-way past what I actually need for the arthritis,etc.
THEN!!!...dum,dum,dum (sound of the heavy footsteps of reality) I was obsessed with the sins and failures of the past that I had never touched. It seemed as though I could never again stop picking those scabs. Over and over but this time "feeling"the true effects of my actions or inactions. Now my stuff is not light weight little vignettes of nasty temper or deviousness or jealousy. NO! I abandoned Sha
awn and Lisa and left them to Elsie and Ed to raise-I left everything to them. This time the weight of that was staggering and undeniable a physical fact. My beautiful Lisa is now dead taken out by pain and the very opiates I have been using although many more and much more sophisticated. I thought that I was doomed to just sit there with this self eternally and I accepted this although the pain and fear were very severe.
Then I remembered that I once stole some valuable property from a woman who was renting Wayne and I a room. I was startled, had not thought of this for decades and yet once it was remembered I was shocked by the realization that I may have destroyed a significant part of her retirement plans and for virtually nothing. This came floating out like something infected, like something from a boil. I was really shocked and shocked by the implications for my mortal soul and any hope of "high self-esteem", Forget that screamed my little heart as I accepted the thief and deceiver in me no hope of pop psychology here to bind up the wounds no this was serious, real tragedy and suffering and although I had been sinned against perhaps the fact is that I am no innocent and I was born with Moon conjunct Pluto. The mental/spiritual pain was so intense that I took double the amount of anti-depressants to simply prevent my going off the bridge. I needed the medication-this was intense pain and very frightening-I feared that I might lose my mind.
The confrontation continued for days as one after another sin came to mind. I was afraid but unable to talk to Steve or anyone else about it. I just said that I was SOOO depressed. In the time of suffering I used Rescue Remedy to help with the pain and shock of trauma (and I believe that the Remedy is important here)
Finally I started walking out of that dark wood-the physical symptoms of the flu relented and the emotional/mental/spiritual suffering abated and I used some of Steve's vicodin which certainly helped with the pain and I was SOOO intoxicated and not really feeling willing to live in that state any longer. When I got up I was so grateful to be able to cook simple soup,etc and to do some dishes and start to get the house back into control. I noticed that I was ravenous simply could not seem to get enough food. This went on for a couple of days and then I remembered my Workers Comp doctor telling me that vicodin makes one hungry and I thought "no shit the stuff gives me the munchies" and was relieved to return to my normal appetite when the drug wore off.
I just got up to eat and so much was going on inside that I don't know if I can get in writing and yet I want to get this down in prepartation for sharing this experience in the world in the way that I am called to do. I don't know how to do it and now I am distracted by food and TV-the food which is necessary the TV an obvious ducking of life.
At any rate I now understand that the sinful actions that I buried had sat in me festering like a cyst, driving me to drink and drug and eat and withdraw. During this "little death", the flu, this sore broke open and out popped the hidden knowledge (I saw what you did!!!)and I "confronted" myself with withering acceptance of my sin, the real stuff. (OOOH! I digress but I just saw that the "Church" is also wise as well as being dark and that the idea of monasteries and "nunneries" has profound spiritual/physical/mental validity-supporting a family is a full time occupation and there is hardly ever much left over for "charity" much less vigorous spiritual discipline and activity. those with a "vocation" are nurtured and supported by the Church in dedicating their lives to service and devotion. Whew what a relief after listening to the collective anger with the 'Church" and the clamoring that completely drowns out the light and any realization but the denial of all the "Church" represents. Whew!! I am glad that I 'saw" that and I can simply bow out of the war of words about what the Church should do or should have done. I even agree with the Pope, although I suspect he does not include himself here but I do-this is all of it the scandals and the buried issues, all of it is the result of personal sin/failure and can only be dealt with at that level but that of course will require a "rapture" or something at that level,something that brings us all to our knees from the highest to the lowest to accept and bear with the truth of our lives and to then become willing to live in the new life with our reborn selves.
I am tired now-this is the first time I have written and the amount of writing I want and need to do is too much for me and I have smoked some pot and taken a 5mg vicodin (oh! and by the way I have taken the medicine because I am not able to use the regular non narcotic pain relievers If I find that I continue to remain in a state of craving for more after taking this small dose I will then I imagine need to choose a life of pain and I am not clear yet on how to do that). I need to rest so that I can also cook broccoli soup today (Courtney brought home some good day old bread which will go so well with the soup). I remain in my householder consciousness and body even though I am utterly transformed which did not happen in a twinkling but for which I have struggled for most of my life-I have been seeking salvation a long, long time!)