A large bug has taken up residence in my office.
It only arrives when I’m mid-meeting.
So I leave.
And it leaves.
Which means that when I return to dispatch the squatter,
it no longer is in sight.
It’s been over three years since my grandmother passed away. She was a brilliant woman and a prolific writer. When I first started my daily blogging (in 2009) she and my mother were two of the first and most regular readers. That daily blog is all on this blog, though clearly much less frequent than daily.
Last week my sister and I were in search of one of my grandmother’s recipes. I was certain I had it in my old emails, so I went in search of everything my grandmother once sent me.
In addition to comment notifications and a few threads about literary executorship, there was one lone email she sent me from her blog on LiveJournal that she thought I would enjoy. I don’t know if I appreciated the post as much then as I do now (so many years have gone by and I surely have changed since then), but it did lead me to her old blog.
It’s been placed in memoriam status, but it seems like one of those things I should move into a platform I trust. I will start the process of moving her writing into WordPress and everything that goes with that soon, so here’s to a new digital adventure on the horizon!
I have a poorly kept secret to share with you.
I love dumplings.
Dumplings, by my broad definition, are protein-y type things wrapped in starch-y type things. Those protein-y, starch-y things on things are then cooked somehow… boiled, steamed, fried, baked. There is probably a more technical explanation, but for my purposes this definition is just about perfect.
And by “my purposes” I of course mean the express purpose of eating dumplings and trying to figure out how to make them myself.
Take for instance these dumplings here. They have a few names: gyoza, pot stickers, pork dumplings. I’m not sure about the first time I had them, but I’m pretty sure they are what started me on this path of finding/making/eating this type of food. I was so set on finding the perfect recipe and making these dumplings, that my friends hosted a dumpling making party. We probably assembled a couple hundred.
We were quite proud of ourselves.
After I felt like I’d perfected those, I moved on to:
apple dumplings
chicken and dumplings
samosas (is this a dumpling?)
char siu bao (I’m bad at those)
xiao long bao (I’m really bad at those)
pelmeni
empanadas (again, is this really a dumpling?)
tamales (def not a dumpling, but also don’t you touch my tamale)
So in the end what I’m wondering is this: What sort of dumpling do I need to tackle next? I know there are many many out there I haven’t heard of, but since I haven’t heard of them how can I possibly ever expect to find/eat/make them?
This video is just about a year old, but I felt that it was pretty timely considering the news about John Cho headlining Searching. Also, if you haven’t watched much from WongFu Productions, you probably should.
In my area, we don’t really get a clear spring season. There is about a week between what your body knows as “impossibly cold” and “impossibly hot” that sometimes has pleasantly cool, yet somehow sunny days.
The thing that confirms that Spring actually is trying to happen are the very windy days. Windy as in Wizard of Oz, sweep away your house, constantly blow your skirt over your head windy. Spring-Summer (my affectionate term for our “spring”) is also confirmed by temperatures that go from a cool 68F in the morning to a blazing 91F by midday.
But don’t let my natural Sauce Pot tone of vocie fool you. I really love this weather. Here are a few of my favorite parts:
The birds that return to sharing their morning songs
I work in a company that is fully remote, and one of the things most commonly touted as a perk is the ability to work in an environment of your own choosing. You can work from the sofa or from a desk. You can work with music playing or in complete silence. You can work surrounded by people or you can work 8 hours solo.
But one of the things that comes up most often as a perk, is freedom to dress as you choose. Being free from the judgmental eyes of your differently-dressed colleagues, and therefore free to dress however you choose, can be a liberating prospect.
I tried briefly to dress casually but, having mostly worked in corporate spaces before, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t really preparing myself for work.
Turns out, this wasn’t in my mind. It’s independently observable enough, that it even has a name: enclothed cognition.
As a bonus, the very act of getting ready every day adds to your daily routine which has proven benefits for your mental health, productivity, and probably lots more. 🙂
Light the World by Ingrid Stölzel is a piece commissioned in honor of Te Deum‘s 10th season. The world premier was November 11, 2017 and, in case you missed it, here is a recording.
The text is by Robert Bode, and I have been finding it truly fascinating in its complexity.
May the Mother in us comfort us
And the Father in us protect us;
May the Daughter in us bring us Hope
And the Son within us bring us Joy.
May the Dancer in us move us
And the Poet inspire our Song.
May the Explorer embolden us
And the Artist honor the Beauty that holds us.
May we all be Creators and Priests and Nurses and Heroes,
And may our Song lift beyond these walls
To light the world.
On the face of it, this poem is about honoring the various parts of who we are and letting those parts inspire us to greatness (or change, or wholeness). But then this:
May we all be Creators and Priests and Nurses and Heroes,
And my our Song lift beyond these walls
To light the world.
The final couplet puts creative and healing roles into the same breath, which is a wonderful reminder that heroes are around us every day. That heroes are not always caped and masked and covered in spandex. It then reminds us that however we affect the world with our Song, however we help to create and heal in this world, we should hope that it radiates out into the world like light.
I remind myself daily that I should always strive to “shed light, not heat”. Knowledge (and joy and love and inspiration) only increases the more we share it with others. I know that it’s not my role in life to hold selfishly to my light and let others simply feel the heat of it. It is my role to share it and in doing so increase what I have through others.
If you haven’t listened to the piece yet, you should. If you already listened to it once, maybe listen to it again!
When I’m not busy making the world a better place through technology, I sometimes have disjointed thoughts about poetry. Its construction, its meaning, and the general overlay. Here’s a little e.e. cummings to round out your week.
Keep the poem open in a new tab so it’s easy to get to.
For starters, I think from the colon through the second stanza is one massive parenthetical phrase about the indescribable amazement that is the world we’re in.
And that the first line relates directly to the third stanza (though would be hollow without the second). Still, though, that third stanza also has all those parentheticals in it.
So its skeleton is “how should any human being doubt You”.
how should [tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing] any [—lifted from the no
of all nothing—] human (merely) being
doubt [unimaginable] You?
And that final couplet is how, when you consider the amazingness of the planet, your eyes and ears can’t help but be opened to the reality of God.
Thus ends an abridged look at the really dense reading that is an e.e. cummings poem.
This afternoon I have the good fortune of joining some incredibly talented musicians to sing Bach’s Johannespassion. We’re singing it in English instead of the original German, which brings a different sort of drama to the whole thing, and has been an interesting expressive journey.
If you care to watch via the livestream, I highly recommend it.
If amazing singing isn’t your thing (the choir will be joined by Kyle Stegall and Charles Wesley Evans… so if singing isn’t your thing now it might be afterward), then you might join for the historically informed orchestra and their instruments. For our instrumental enthusiasts out there, I’ll tell you that we have a viol de gamba and an oboe de caccia joining us which is as delightful as you might imagine.
If none of this caught your eye, then I still encourage you to watch the concert if for no other reason than because I would love your support. ☺️
