dear Santa...

Want to know what people are asking Santa for this year?

It's so good to be reminded of the need of many, and the generosity of many others.

(a sad p.s. ... if you want to be reminded of the nasty side of humanity, read the comments.)

it's time for poetry.

Consider the Hands that Write This Letter

by Aracelis Girmay, after Marina Wilson

Consider the hands

that write this letter.

The left palm pressed flat against the paper,

as it has done before, over my heart,

in peace or reverence

to the sea or some beautiful thing

I saw once, felt once: snow falling

like rice flung from the giants' wedding,

or the strangest birds. & consider, then,

the right hand, & how it is a fist,

within which a sharpened utensil,

similar to the way I've held a spade,

match to the wick, the horse's reins,

loping, the very fists

I've seen from the roads to Limay & Estelí.

For years, I have come to sit this way:

one hand open, one hand closed,

like a farmer who puts down seeds & gathers up

the food that comes from that farming.

Or, yes, it is like the way I've danced

with my left hand opened around a shoulder

& my right hand closed inside

of another hand. & how

I pray, I pray for this

to be my way: sweet

work alluded to in the body's position

to its paper:

left hand, right hand

like an open eye, an eye closed:

one hand flat against the trapdoor,

the other hand knocking, knocking.

ushahidi

The fascinating story of an amazing organization.

**Information below is from

Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, by Clay Shirky ; emphasis mine**

---

A service called Ushahidi was developed to help citizens track outbreaks of ethnic violence in Kenya. In December 2007 a disputed election pitted supporters and opponents of President Mwai Kibaki against one another. Ory Okolloh, a Kenyan political activist, blogged about the violence when the Kenyan government banned the mainstream media from reporting on it. She then asked her readers to e-mail or post comments about the violence they were witnessing on her blog. The method proved so popular that her blog, Kenyan Pundit, became a critical source of first-person reporting. The observations kept flooding in, and within a couple of days Okolloh could no longer keep up with it. She imagined a service, which she dubbed Ushahidi (Swahili for "witness" or "testimony"), that would automatically aggregate citizen reporting (she had been doing it by hand), with the added value of locating the reported attacks on a map in near-real time. She floated the idea on her blog, which attracted the attention of the programmers Erik Hersman and David Kobia. The three of them got on a conference call and hashed out how such a service might work, and within three days, the first version of Ushahidi went live.

People normally find out about the kind of violence that took place after the Kenyan election only if it happens nearby. There is no public source where people can go to locate trouble spots, either to understand what's going on or to offer help. We've typically relied on governments or professional media to inform us about collective violence, but in Kenya in early 2008 the professionals weren't covering it, out of partisan fervor or censorship, and the government had no incentive to report anything.

Ushahidi was developed to aggregate this available but dispersed knowledge, to collectively weave together all the piecemeal awareness among individual witnesses into a nationwide picture. Even if the information the public wanted existed someplace in the government, Ushahidi was animated by the idea that rebuilding it from scratch, with citizen input, was easier than trying to get it from the authorities. The project started as a website, but the Ushahidi developers quickly added the ability to submit information via text message from mobile phones, and that's when the reports really poured in. Several months after Ushahidi launched, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government did an analysis that compared the site's data to that of the mainstream media and concluded that Ushahidi had been better at reporting acts of violence as they started, as opposed to after the fact, better at reporting acts of nonfatal violence, which are often a precursor to deaths, and better at reporting over a wide geographical area, including rural districts.

All of this information was useful--governments the world over act less violently toward their citizens when they are being observed, and Kenyan NGOs used the data to target humanitarian responses. But that was just the beginning. Realizing the site's potential, the founders decided to turn Ushahidi into a platform so that anyone could set up their own service for collecting and mapping information reported via text message. The idea of making it easy to tap various kinds of collective knowledge has spread from the original Kenyan context. Since its debut in early 2008, Ushahidi has been used to track similar acts of violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to monitor polling places and prevent voter fraud in India and Mexico, to record supplies of vital medicines in several East African countries, and to locate the injured after the Haitian and Chilean earthquakes.

A handful of people, working with cheap tools and little time or money to spare, managed to carve out enough collective goodwill from the community to create a resource that no one could have imagined even five years ago. Like all good stories, the story of Ushahidi holds several different lessons: People want to do something to make the world a better place. They will help when they are invited to. Access to cheap, flexible tools removes many of the barriers to trying new things. You don't need fancy computers to harness cognitive surplus; simple phones are enough. But one of the most important lessons is this: once you've figured out how to tap the surplus in a way that people care about, others can replicate your technique, over and over, around the world.

What is the Ushahidi Platform? from Ushahidi on Vimeo.

a story about surplus

Sometimes I wonder where all my free time goes.

Sometimes I know exactly where it goes -- to the fridge, then to the couch, then to our DVR to watch Gossip Girl. (Really...don't judge.)

Sometimes I use it in slightly more creative ways...baking being one of the highest on the free-time-o-meter.

But lately, I've spent some of that surplus time reading a book called Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age.

It's basically a book about two things. I could try to explain it, but Clay Shirky, the author, does a much better job:

This book is about the novel resource that has appeared as the world's cumulative free time is addressed in aggregate. The two most important transitions allowing us access to this resource have already happened -- the buildup of well over a trillion hours of free time each year on the part of the world's educated population, and the invention and spread of public media that enable ordinary citizens, previously locked out, to pool that free time in pursuit of activities they like or care about. Those two facts are common to every story in this book... Understanding these two changes, as different as they are from the media landscape of the twentieth century, is just the beginning of understanding what is happening today, and what is possible tomorrow.

You've probably seen charts showing the distribution of the world's wealth across the globe -- showing areas where it's concentrated or sparse or not there at all. How interesting to think that, in a similar way, we have a wealth of time and creativity at our disposal that, properly recognized and used, could lead to fewer barren areas on the monetary map, or fewer instances of crime and violence in another country (or our own), or greater education, or better health.

In the next couple of days, I'm going to post some stories and links about organizations that have combined new technological capabilities with Shirky's so-called "cognitive surplus" to enable new behaviors and benefits to other people around the world. It's pretty exciting, if I do say so myself... Many of these will be examples described in the book, but a few will be external to it. Exciting!! (Do I have you convinced?)

chi-town + car time

As my dear friend and landlord Laura just posted, we had a fabulous time in Chicago last weekend!!!

Here's a quick update of what our car time yielded:

lots of questions for each other, & new discoveries

crazy conversation, billboard-reading, & sound effects
re-hashing the Weepies concert...over and over (this was mostly me, I think...)
noting the neo-European flair of rural Iowa & Illinois towns (Paris, New London, New Berlin)
Laura - progress on wedding stuff
Megan - progress in this book

Alicia - recovering back at the homestead from our whirlwind visit and her inaugural Halloween party
Me - a yak



This silly piece of art is truly a testament to the relaxing atmosphere (and steady driving) of my good friends. The time we spent chatting, snoozing, crafting, reading, singing, and watching the scenery go by -- in the city and the car -- was truly refreshing for my heart and soul. And, I now have a stitched yak.

all that i want...

...is for the Weepies to play this song at their concert. Please, please?

Halloweepies?

Get ready, 'cause this is gonna be nerdy!

By the time some friends and I see The Weepies (in just a few days), I will have stitched one of these characters onto a piece of clothing or an accessory. And I'm thinking it's the yak.

so proud.

"three mango cakes"* ** for a very adorable three-year-old!

***edit -10/21-

The cake in action!

(*recipe: smitten kitchen's wedding cake with mango curd and swiss buttercream frosting)

(**not-to-be-missed blog by the clever and kitchen-savvy mom of the adorable 3-year-old -- named after the 3-yr-old's request for special birthday cakes)

cure for a slow-brain day

snake

Ends: of summer; time in the country; time
before departures. Time
tapers to a snake that slides invisibly
off into the long grass of the world,
though such a narrowed notion fails to scratch
the itch lodged in between
impatiently waiting for something new to happen
and clinging to what, having
already happened, slithers
off into the brush without a sound.

by Rachel Hadas

traveling concert series - Laura Veirs

Laura Veirs is performing tonight in Minneapolis. I really wish I was there to see her. So in lieu of making that trip, I am bringing her music here...to my blog. :) Won't you please enjoy?

"Summer is the Champion"

"I Can See Your Tracks"

"Wide Eyed, Legless"

Fun facts about Laura Veirs:

~ She attended Carleton College, located in the same tiny town as my alma mater. In fact, her college campus was the location of the "cookie house", where you could go any hour of day or night and bake cookies, as long as you left the ones you didn't eat for other stoppers-by.

~ Her latest album is named after a type of peach that she bought at a farmer's market and canned. (Have I mentioned my canning aspirations?)

~ She didn't start writing music until after college, while on a geological expedition as a translator in China.

~ She collaborated on "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)" with the Decemberists, and is included in a compilation album of Led Zeppelin covers coming out on Oct. 12.

"under my house?"

Last night, I spent about 40 minutes on the phone coaching my mom through cropping and uploading her first Facebook profile photo, and writing her first wall post.

We started with a photo of her and my dad. I emailed it to her.

We talked about how to toggle between windows and applications, where her downloads go, where to save things (she said the lady at the Apple store told her to save them "under my house" -- VERY good way to describe it), and how to crop pictures in Preview.

I know she's choosy (an artist), so rather than cropping the picture for her, I talked her through the steps (but still followed along with my own copy). She sounded doubtful when she was done.

"I wish I could touch it up a little."

"Why, did you crop it really close? I mean, you can have some of the scenery around it."

"Yeah, but I want it more on my face... I don't want Dad in it. I want people to see me. Will you look at it?"

So, she emailed her pic to me. (Minute 17.)

"I think it's good, Mom! I like the way you cropped it close-in."

More hem-ing and haw-ing...debating pros and cons...and... "Will you send me yours?"

Her curiosity never ends.

Me: "Oh my gosh..."

Mom: "I like options!"

Me: "I was gonna say...this is like planning your retirement party all over again."

So I sent her mine. (Minute 20.)

"Oh, I like that!" She wanted hers more like that, but not quite that one. So she bravely forged ahead without my guidance.

"Wait...let's see...now...wait....oh gosh, now how am I gonna do this? Shoot....wait... Okay, I'm gonna download it...and then I'm going to...oh...what was it where it did the..."

She was wanting to know how to crop her picture again. (verbatim -- around minute 22.)

When she got the rhythm down, it got easier. Her first crop was followed by a second -- "Now it really looks like someone was chopped out of the picture" -- which was followed by a third. "My head was too far off to the side, that's what was concerning me."

And finally...the last crop. Uploaded and everything. "Oh, there's my thumbnail! Oh cute..."

She was proud, and I was too. But apparently the process had been arduous.

Me: "You should write something on my wall!"

Her: "Oh, hell..."

***

That is the saga. I love talking to my mom... She is such an earnest, urgent learner, so inquisitive. She's not afraid to ask and learn. And she has a way of phrasing things that cracks me up. I'll leave you with this gem:

"I gotta start growing my friend base... I have five."

must share: We No Speak Americano

via Up & Over It ("Irish Dance for the Post Pop Generation")

rambling google searches are my specialty

Yes, this is a real Google search of mine, so bad that it made even me laugh.

Any RN, BSN friends want to help me with the name of this thing? Or just people with better memories or penchants for medical TV dramas?

cinderella, as told by a 3-year-old

julia alvarez

"Touching Bottom"

Sometimes the best advice comes randomly.

"Please hold through the silence," the machine voice said,

the best advice I've ever come across

for weathering writer's block. At the restaurant,

my friend tasted her buffalo steak and said,

"It's not anything like they say it is,"

which words should be engraved upon my heart

and piped into my memory each time

that I assume the saying of the world

is anything at all like living in it.

And yet, I love how words can sound the world,

how they can take you deep inside your life:

you say something simple, and suddenly,

that plank in reason breaks and down you drop--

into a liberating train of thought.

You're drinking coffee, talking to a friend,

and poetry unravels from her mouth,

an Ariadne string that leads you out

of that dark labyrinth where a minotaur

of your own making has held you in thrall.

"Keep your end level," my husband advised

as we built shelves, and as the high-strung one,

I took his words to heart. "Take in my give,"

my mother used to say as we made beds,

which words taught me how to conduct myself

in future bedrooms with the men I loved.

My self-made father once said, "We should live

like poor men with money." When I thanked him,

he asked, "For what?" I said, "Because I just

touched bottom when you said that."

bye-bye, santa

We drove up a sloping street to a blinking stoplight.

I logged in to Facebook.

We peered through our open windows at the idyllic garden lots past the intersection. Things didn't look right...

I scrolled down on my news feed. Ah -- wanna read this. "I was about to post that this would be FTF's LAST FIRST FRIDAY of the season..."

Wait...where were all the cars? Where was the long line? "Oh my gosh, I hope they're still...

"...but something juicy popped up yesterday. So I think you'll see me again in October."

... OPEN!!" A vintage trailer appeared in the dappled afternoon light.

Oh thank goodness.

Happy chatter of relief.

Snow cones will continue...for a few more weeks.

------------------------------------------

When I saw on FB that my favorite summer diversion is nearing its close for the season, I felt like a distraught little kid discovering the truth about Santa. Apparently it had never occurred to me that slurping icy treats in a sunny, buzz-y garden wouldn't last right through fall and winter to next spring.

I'll have some adjusting to do, without those near-weekly trips to the trailer in the blazing heat. But I'm definitely thankful for it. It's been the site of some favorite memories and a source of much-needed inspiration -- and those will stick with me with quite a while. Sort of like the syrupy handprint of a two-year-old on black pants.

PS...If you haven't made it to the trailer yet, you can still get snowy freshness in another form!

This place now carries "snow pops" in the same awesome flavors as you find at the trailer, but they're in an extra-convenient, available-more-often, you-could-even-drive-while-eating-this-but-don't-say-I-said-so format. :)

(Jo and I are thoroughly enjoying our lemon prickly pear pops. Who wouldn't?)

relaxing is a practice

I don't think it's uncommon to expect that a few hours of "doing nothing" will result in "relaxation" or "rest." But I do think it's totally wrong.

It's incorrect to assume that you can go full-tilt every hour of every day, then think that just because you've stopped sprinting, you should feel rejuvenated.

I took time off Friday afternoon to rest and think. I submit my life to unnecessary analysis way too often on a daily basis, but I thought the restful, reflective time off I planned to take would actually help me go a step beyond that anxious stage. I thought that several hours of sitting in a pretty park would yield some startling revelations about my next steps in life. Or at least some good poetry.

Or...neither.

I sat. I let the breeze remind me of my skin, my self, open to the summer sun. Tiny ants played hide-and-seek in my sandals. My mind buzzed around looking for something to land on. My traffic controller brain insisted that my thoughts be either inspired or productive. Life-changing, hopefully. Seriously revelatory or charmingly anecdotal. Blog-worthy? Maybe.

I don't know how long it's going to take me to really realize that my mind works best unattended. That I need to get the heck out of my own way. To LET GO.

And that the kinds of unexpected insights that really guide my life aren't going to come from sitting down and planning to have them in a two-hour time frame, sunny afternoon or not.

I got up and walked. I looked at old homes. I took in the view from a bridge over I-70. I admired a flourishing vegetable garden beside a tall house. I bought a cookie. I stepped over trunk-sized tree pieces. I tiptoed along sidewalk tiles that the earth and air had jostled into disrepair. I found a book of poems in a library, and read in the parking lot. And I realized that two hours was only enough time to get started finding the rest, and answers, my soul needs.

Too often, I find that the unrealistic expectations and demands I place on myself, my time, and my resources lead to chasing rest rather than finding it, and substituting superstition and self-reliance for the real faith I want to have. "If I open the book to something that speaks to me..." is more an effort at time-saving than it is listening. "The right thought will come to me in this time frame; I just have to catch it" leads to hyper-awareness that stifles mental freedom and the gentle leading of spirit and mind, melding of heart and head.

It feels like it's taken me a long time to realize this -- and maybe it has. But I hope I'm learning to allow myself the freedom to experience these revelations as they come, and to receive them, rather than filling my head with nonsense that doesn't belong but gives me something to hang onto for the time being. I hope I'm learning that rest isn't something I can play hide-and-seek with, but will come in its own time -- and the part I play is patience. I hope I'm learning that practice is the goal, not perfection. Rest, listening, release. When so much of life seems to be about seizing time, opportunities, attention, it's a deep choice to drop everything and be present. Here I am.

Send me.

can you dig it?

I recently had a minor epiphany: I like pretty-colored foods.

This is a good thing, because I used to eat only white foods. My friend's dad made fun of me for it. I attribute my culinary growth partly to his intimidating presence -- no way I wasn't going to eat that cactus veggie something on my plate with Randy glowering above me.

Anyway, I was recently given some of the most delicious stuff known to humankind from a talented locavore and coworker with whom I share a birthday! She called it "spiced tomato jam." It was like heaven in a jar, my friends. It led me to the special salad at Eden Alley two weeks later, which boasted a spiced tomato and golden raisin compote over warm brie cheese, with croutons that resembled eggless french toast adorning my plate. Healthy it was not. (I think I heard the mixed greens gasping for air.)

And then THIS VERY MORNING, while driving in to work, NPR featured a story about canning stuff! And posted pretty pictures of stuff in cans! Like a row of veggies in a new garden, I do believe the stars have aligned.

I'm adding this to my list for 26: learn how to can stuff.

Resources:

Peach Salsa recipe

Urban Homesteading Classes at Badseed local urban market - scroll down for Canning & Preserves

Kansas City Mamas tutorial

Food And Wine Canning & Pickling Guide for Summer Produce (yum)

storycorps coming to kc

Most of you have probably heard snippets from StoryCorps on NPR -- it's the organization and radio show that captures interviews between people who want to preserve their memories through a recorded conversation. When I heard that StoryCorps is coming to KC, I started thinking about who I'd like to take there and interview. First thought was my parents, but then I realized how much I'd like to capture little tidbits of all of my relationships. Every person's personality is like a little thumbprint, and I love how StoryCorps captures that in audio.

Who would you interview if you had the chance? What topics might you want to talk about?

Here's StoryCorps' "great questions list," too, and a few great conversations from the website to get you thinking.

Kioni "Popcorn" Marshall and her father, Minister Beau Harris

"Have me and your mom ever disappointed you?"

(what an amazing 8-year-old!)

Robert Patterson, who has Alzheimer's disease, talking with his wife, Karen

"I can remember things that occur in my heart much better than things that occur in my head."

Hilda Chacón and her husband, Pedro Morán-Palma, on how they met

"How come I didn't scare you?"

Hunny Reiken and her husband, Elliot, married 66 years

"You and your sister couldn't tell us apart. And we couldn't tell you two apart."

respect for what others don't have

One last excerpt from Why We Hate Us. This section actually reminds me of another book, which, if read alongside WWHU, would make an interesting contrast. For all the complaints and arguments the author brings up in WWHU, I found his final suggestions a little unmotivating. I understand that he's acknowledging that there's little we can do other than change ourselves -- so he's striving to be humble and realistic. But beyond that, there's an image of a result that is incredibly motivating, and I think this story illustrates it well.

It also feels supportive of Donald Miller's premise -- that the story we tell with our lives shapes the characters we become, and vice versa.

Yay for a good story!

-----

"I have a friend who is a serious poker player. He plays in tournaments with pros and in the World Series of Poker every year. He is a passionate student of the game. He reads about poker and writes about poker. He takes notes while he plays and studies his notes later. He loves it. My kids refer to him as "Poker Man."

Poker Man is also an enormously successful attorney. He has won some very large cases and has even been on the good guys' side. Financially, he has done well. Every year Poker Man organizes a syndicate of "investors" to back him. He raises money from them to pay tournament entry fees. If he wins, they win. If he loses, they lose. Over the course of a full year, they have always won. Poker Man keeps scrupulous records and writes his investors detailed dispatches from the tables.

At lunch one day, I asked my friend why he bothered with the investors. The tournament fees were chump change for Poker Man. In his worst year imaginable, he wouldn't lose enough to make a dent in his finances.

Poker Man had an easy answer. "In my family, we have too much respect for what others don't have to do that with our money," he said. His demeanor and cadence were totally devoid of sanctimony and preaching, two qualities I too often exude. It was a simple statement of fact."

-----

(I meant to continue this excerpt a little further, but already returned my borrowed copy! I like how he says "In my family..." The author pointed out that Poker Man sees his resources as belonging to his whole family -- including his kids -- and he includes them as responsible partners in choosing what to do with it. This reminds me a bit of Mr. Bob in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years -- coolest person ever.)

While all these books are jumping around in my mind -- here's a list! There are a lot of synergies between them:

Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium, by Dick Meyer (a journalist looks at American culture and media for clues as to why so many are dissatisfied with their lives in a land of plenty)

Hunting For Hope: A Father's Journeys, by Scott R. Sanders (a father lists what he finds hope in, after his son challenges his pessimistic worldview)

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life, by Donald Miller (a writer is asked to turn his memoir into a movie and learns how the characteristics of a good story also apply to a good life)

Okay, done with all the analysis. For now.

how to be alone

A friend shared this video today, and I can't help but share it again. It's hard to express the way it brings peace to my heart. (And please don't let the still image deter you...I'm not sure why it was chosen, because it really doesn't get the tone across!)

"If you are at first lonely, be patient..."

marcel the shell with shoes on

Oh my. Please turn your sound on...and then tell me your favorite part.

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

thank you, barry

For asking if the carrots I bought were for horses.

For saying you liked my "bracelets."

For cajoling me into a much better mood.

For making me forget to frown.

For making the 3-minute grocery checkout a brighter part of my long day.

And then for calling me "Michelle," because my grocery store membership card doesn't actually belong to me.

turning 26

I've been doing a little prep work before my birthday -- it ain't sneakin' up on me this year! -- and have [JOKINGLY] turned to this book with a crass title as my source of wise counsel. I've had this book enough years to have accomplished some of the tasks therein, albeit in a jumbled order:

- age 24:

WASTE THIS YEAR (done!)

- age 25:

HAVE A QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS (I think I waited til 26 for this)

- age 26:

START WORKING FOR THE MAN (hmm...started this around age 22...)

So, since I've actually completed my task for the coming year, and anticipate drawing out the quarter-life crisis assigned to age 25 well into my late 20s, I'm going to add my own to-dos! Ready?

- Take a graphic design class (or fibers or printmaking...not sure which yet)

- Take a dance class where I'll really get better at -- not just dance for fun -- jazz or modern

- Re-learn how to ride a motorcycle (coming in September!)

- Learn to drive a stick shift

- Make, and stick to, a budget.

- Bake french macarons.

That's what I've got so far. Any other ideas?

to choose or not to choose

A few more excerpts from this book, which I've finally finished reading, if not processing.

(It's ironic on a couple of levels that I'm writing this while watching a Say Yes to the Dress episode where a former pageant participant, who has already looked at about 2,000 wedding dresses online and tried on 80, is still trying find the perfect one. Good heavens.)

-------------------------

"Market democracy is partly based on the belief that more choice is always better. This moral judgment reigns in economics and government. Humans have free will and reason. The optimal arrangement of human society maximizes the range of choices for a free will and the information available to form reasonable choices. This is the foundation of liberal utilitarianism and economics. It has provided the most stable and humane form of government yet discovered. But there is a problem when it comes to economics, consumer choices, and everyday decision making. More choice is not, in fact, a source of happiness. it is just more." (p. 177)

"...Making smart choices can be time devouring. With the Internet, there is no good economic reason not to procure the maximum amount of information before the purchase of a car, a grill, or a saxophone. But there is so much information available that being a good consumer could become an obsession. Common sense and emotion ought to rein in pure economic rationality. Normally they do, but we're still susceptible to suckeritis.

So the actual human costs of too many choices are overload, buyer's regret, time loss, and an ironic feeling of not being in control. 'As ever more material things become available and fail to make us happy, material abundance may even have the perverse effect of instilling unhappiness -- because it will never be possible to have everything that economics can create,' Gregg Easterbrook wrote in The Progress Paradox. Since this is counterintuitive, most people continue to want more choices in theory and in their coveting hearts, but in practice recoil from excessive options." (p. 179)

you and the evening sky

Free light show on the way to the grocery store.

Laura Veirs

“Veirs' songs qualify as poems: careful, word-conscious, narrative, neither foggy nor overwritten, and tend to give you a take on regular life experience that you don't quite expect.” —The New York Times

I finally stopped dragging my feet and got an album of Laura Veirs' on Amazon (currently only $5). I've shared her music here once before, and since then have developed an even more persistent affinity for her measured, elegant style.

Her songs share a spirit with the powerfully aware poets and observers of nature that I love -- Robert Frost, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry -- so they feel succinct, yet nourishing and exploratory. Here's a song that especially captures the resonant simplicity of her songwriting. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

"When You Give Your Heart" - Laura Veirs

Since you lay my burdens

Since you lay my burdens

Since you lay my burdens down

All the troubles I been

Dragging down this trail

Seep into the thirsty ground

Since you turned your light

Upon my darkened dale

The pollinators flex their wings

And take into the air

Spin their emeraldine

Webs across the swales and prairies

And my stampeding buffalo

Stops in her tracks and watches the snow

Falling through the old oak tree

When you give your heart to me

This is my song of love

Gathered from stuff above

The wires, feathers and clouds

This is a song for you

A spring comes bubbling through

The place whenever you're around

And my stampeding buffalo

Stops in her tracks and watches the snow

Falling through the old oak tree

When you give your heart to me

aha!

After conducting a quick honey smell-test, I have discovered that my honey option was the culprit in the last batch. Weird-smelling, weird-tasting, NOT expired. A different honey has been elected.

Also, sorry if the overdue milk description was also an over-share. It had been unopened, in the back of the fridge, so was still a viable ingredient. It's just easy to pin the blame on things other than the cook. :)

three wrongs don't make good ice cream.

Sebastian Joe's is a much-beloved ice cream shop in Minneapolis, once rumored to serve a honey-brown ale ice cream. My friends and I went there twice in May hoping to sample a scoop, but had to compromise with other flavors -- specifically, two called "Pavarotti" and "Immaculate Confection." Enter two VERY rights.

I wish I had written down the ingredients at the time I was slurping them up, but what I recall was a tasty togetheryness of banana, sweet cream, honey, candied ginger, chocolate chips, and some other sweet carby thing...cookie or graham cracker? I mean, I know you're supposed to enjoy the moment, but even as I was eating the stuff, I was pondering how to make it myself.

So, after a little more dreaming, some poking around online and letting a handful of bananas rot on our kitchen counter (thanks, Laura!), I was ready to take on the experiment.

Here's what I compiled as a recipe for the easy-to-describe

"Banana-Honey-Chocolate-Ginger-Oatmeal Cookie Ice Cream"

...or "Bananey Chinger," as I may call it from now on...if the recipe survives.

3 medium ripe bananas

1/3 c. dark brown sugar

1 1/2 c. whole milk

2 T. honey

1 1/2 tsp. lemon juice

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. dark rum

big pinch of sea salt/kosher salt

1/2 c. chopped crystallized ginger

1/2 c. crushed oatmeal cookies

1/2 c. chopped semisweet or bittersweet chocolate bits

Three things to remember when you make this:

1) don't burn the bananas (and use the right amount of brown sugar, while you're at it)

2) use fresh whole milk

3) don't overdo the vanilla

These are all rules I will follow when I try again to make ice cream that doesn't taste funky. I secretly had hoped the flavor of scalded banana might both miraculously turn out delicious AND cover the tang of slightly-past-due milk (my main ingredient went bad in the time I was procrastinating). But that was wrong. And I thought vanilla could do no wrong, but I was...well...very much wrong again. It ended up tasting like alcoholic charred banana milk.

So, this is gonna take 2 pretty soon. The ice cream churner is already back in the freezer, getting ready for its next appearance. Hopefully the next batch will turn out tolerably.

***

Recipe credits (not blame) go to:

David Lebovitz's Banana-Brown Sugar Ice Cream

Butter Sugar Flour's Roasted Banana Ice Cream (via David Lebovitz's book The Perfect Scoop)

Reviewers at Food.com on Alton Brown's Banana Ice Cream recipe

heart in motion!

My good friend Gina just brought me the Amy Grant cd I was talking about last week!

Let the nostalgiafest begin.

better late than never...

...right?

I'm proud of you and I love you, Brody. Happy Birthday!!

little Lauren (circa 1991)

I love playing the game "what was your first cd?" (or concert, cassette tape, etc.) It's fun to see what dates us (artists & technology alike), and also to get an impression of what friends were like as youngsters.

My first cd was Amy Grant. When having this conversation once, some new acquaintances actually rejected my answer, saying "Okay, what was your first non-Christian cd?" I didn't know she was a Christian artist at all; all I knew was that "Baby, Baby" was catchy and one could easily dance around the house to it. I used to sashay around while dusting (my childhood chore), pausing in front of every possible mirror to see what I would look like as a star singer. Unfortunately, I looked remarkably like a 7-year-old holding a damp sponge and wearing a huge t-shirt.

So anyway, my parents were cleaning out some old nooks and crannies recently and came across a folder of stuff my mom had tucked away -- old programs from musicals I had been in, photos, postcards from trips, and...the following.

Yep. Seven years old and already well-versed in extortion.

I looked up a bunch of Amy Grant songs on YouTube, and I actually still remember most of the words.

* "Every Heartbeat" - featuring scrunchies, suspenders, the long-lost movie set from 101 Dalmations, and love in a laundromat with matching cartoon towels

* "Baby, Baby" - too many hats, inane men holding puppies, and curtains inexplicably blowing in a backlit breeze

* "House of Love" - Geena Davis, Michael Keaton, and plenty of plaid

What was your first CD? Any favorite memories about it? Anything totally unrelated?

gazelle, gazette, galette

I had another little cooking project a few nights ago, and when I told my roommate what I was making, she commented: "Whenever I hear 'galette,' I think 'gazelle.'" Which made me think "gazette"...

So, just to illustrate the options at our disposal, I found a few pictures of these...and I'll leave it to you to guess what I made in the kitchen Sunday evening.

a moroccan gazelle

the london gazette

smitten kitchen's zucchini & ricotta galette

(Hard to say...but as a final hint: the finished product could be identified by a garlicky aroma and a flaky, varnished crust. And I don't own a printing press.)

delicious in every sense of the word...

...except taste, I guess... But it's all I can do not to make guttural murmurs of love when I hear Josh Garrels' voice in this song. Ahh..mmm...mmmhhmm. Delicious.

chocolate toffee crack(ers)

Made these beauties on Saturday to take to a movie. The presentation was a little lacking (Ziplock bag, anyone?), but the flavor, as usual, didn't disappoint.

To all who are considering either the movie or the treat: I highly recommend both, combined if possible...but if you're unable or un-inclined to make or combine them, I'd still love to make some for you. Just ask!

Here are a couple process shots. When dealing with any kind of baked good, a little candied ginger never hurts. (But I can substitute sliced almonds, pecans, Fruit Loops, garlic, etc, as you prefer.)

Whoopie Wednesdays + whoopies #3

In keeping with the "vintage" moviefest, here's a little tidbit...a workplace showing of Sister Act II plus a stack o' homemade whoopie pies! (Pics of the pies to come.) The genius originated here, with the same person as lunchtime croquet and the Saturday morning toonfest. I'm so lucky to benefit from her schemes.

Here's how it happened.  After my post about whoopie pies, this spirited friend let her imagination run wild and free... And like so many dreamers, she ended up at a convent with Sister Mary Whoopie and her crowd-pleasing sequel, SAII - Back in the Habit. It features Lauryn Hill as a troubled, talented youth under the tutelage of the nuns who are sheltering Whoopie, aka Dolores van Cartier lounge singer, aka Sister Mary Clarence. 

I'm really hoping it'll become a singalong.

***

Little did we know when scheduling this little venture that Whoopie has been on the road promoting the film's stage adaptation, soon to be featured on Broadway with the lady herself! Sounds like a hand-clapping, habit-swinging good time. May I be the first to say...whoopie.

you're killin' me, smalls

If I could have found the full-length s'mores scene, you know I'd have posted it.

Watched this movie last night. The freckly-faced redhead cracks me up.

Happy Monday!

country hip hop line dancing

It's almost Friday, y'all...and I know you'll be needin' some new moves for the weekend.

red, white and root beer

The Fourth of July has one of my favorite holidays since childhood -- including the time in fifth grade when I asked somewhat what date the Fourth was going to be.

So I wanted to mark the unforgettable date with special food, but I didn't much feel like making any pies, or flag pizzas, or what have you. (Especially no red, white and blue jello molds. No thank you.) I had a hunch I might pass the day without (gasp) baking anything.

But then inspiration struck...in the form of THIS heavenly stuff.

Shatto Root Beer Milk.

I've never been a big fan of root beer -- I used to think root beer floats were disgusting. But somehow, this creamy concoction bypassed my memory of awkwardly floaty, fizzy chunks of blech and won my heart. In one fell swoop (or a couple dreamy sips), I knew what had to be done.

Root beer ice cream. How much more American can you get?!

My good friend Google led my fellow dreamer and I to a recipe; Price Chopper donated some Root Beer concentrate to the cause (okay, sold for a small fee); and a few cups of whole milk and heavy cream later, we had ourselves a hefty tub of all-American bliss. And a spatula begging to be licked.

But...

A bowl of ice cream just doesn't seem that American. For one thing, you can't eat a bowl of ice cream without utensils. And since Americans are always on the run, we need some fast, hand-held food.  It's all about the convenience.  Plus, there's something both s'more-like and whoopie-like that's way cuter than a bowl of ice cream.

Mmhmm-- an ice cream sandwich.

So, I made some chocolate-toffee cookies, sandwiched that ice cream right on in there, and smiled as the sparks flew and crowds cheered.  (In my head.)

Happy Birthday, America. You are special, and I like your foods. Please don't take it too personally that I'm reading that one book about you.

Love,

Lauren

summer night: Bon Iver

Peace, and silence.

One last song to slow down the time.

summer night: Temper Trap

Dance party under the stars...or under fireworks (perfect timing for postponed ones :)).

Almost done with this long musical day!

summer evening: The Welcome Wagon

Daylight fading into sunset.

summer evening: Laura Veirs

Afternoon turning to evening always feels a little restless for me, sort of like the seasons changing. This song's layered rhythms get at that feeling. Also, the video combines several favorite summer pastimes. Watch to find out how they all [oddly] come together. :)

Laura Veirs: "July Flame"

Happy 1st of July.

summer day: variations on an afternoon

Variations

on a

sunroof-open,

bike-ribbons-streaming,

sneaker-clad,

or

sidewalk-stroll-y

mid-afternoon song.

(In that order.)

MGMT: "Time to Pretend"

White Shoes & The Couples Company: "Tentang Cita"

Matt and Kim: "Good Ol' Fashion Nightmare"

The Be Good Tanyas: "The Littlest Birds"

summer day: The Dirty Projectors

Sun's rising a little higher...getting a little warmer...switching from relaxing morning mode to fun midday!

PS...this is my way of dealing with being back in a cubicle.

Please regale me with tales of outdoorsiness, if you're able!

summer day: Ray LaMontagne

Just thought I'd narrate the perfect summer day with some music of the moment.

Here are some gentle songs that might start the day. Imagine taking in the sun, letting go of the heavy things inside you, and dipping into a deep feeling of peace.

"Sarah"

"Gone Away From Me"

appalachia ii