Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Too hot for real thinking

Fidel Castro's dying, there are still a bunch of wars on, but I'm going to be frivolous. I'm still in the condition I was in that last post, and I don't feel up to anything too deep.

Last night, I did not do much for Lammas at all. I just baked bread as a symbol of the harvest, offered the first slice to the Gods, and said "thank you" for my blessings. August is not a time of the year that I like very much. It's hot, it's humid, it's boring, it's cranky-making.

Never presume August is a safe or reliable time of the year. It is the season of reversals, when the birds no longer sing in the morning and the evenings are made up of equal parts golden light and black clouds. The rock-solid and the tenuous can easily exchange places until everything you know can be questioned and put into doubt.

On especially hot days, when you'd like to murder whoever crosses you, or at least give him a good slap, drink lemonade instead.


I look at that passage from Practical Magic every year. It always fits. This week, it really fits.

I'm having Yemaya, her partner, and their daughter over for dinner tonight. Crock-pot chili and cute little pieces of corn bread shaped like corn cobs. The partner's Pagan, too. We're going to do a quick work together. Our former coven was founded on a Lammas; it's weird how the two of us got to regroup. At home, I left the celebration of Lammas up to the male elder of the group. I was the female elder; I planned the fall and winter gatherings, and liked it that way.

I wrote another article for Talk 2 Action last night. I don't know if it's as good as the others. It's about the dueling dogs of the Gill Foundation and Focus on the Family. The Gill Foundation's mooing dog made a point that sometimes people are born different, and that's okay. Then FOTF's creative minds copied it. I was very mocking of FOTF, but they kinda set themselves up for it, publishing an article on their website in which they referred to themselves as "Chihuahuas" to the Gill Foundation's "Saint Bernards" and Davids to the Left's Goliaths. I read that story several times in Vacation Bible School; I don't remember David fighting with cheap imitations of Goliath's armor or having hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to back him up.

Baby panda girl Su Lin, at the San Diego Zoo, turned one today.



Her name means "a little bit of something very cute." That she is, though she'll become an awful lot of very cute soon enough! She doesn't get as much attention as Tai Shan in DC, because she doesn't live in a big media city and she's the third cub at her zoo. But oh, how cute she is anyway, and every new panda is a blessing in a world that's running short of them.



Like many a one-year-old, her favorite gift was a box! You can enjoy more delightful pictures, download a screensaver, watch a video of her doing somersaults and pestering her mommy, or "adopt" her here!

I still subscribe to Southern Living. I saw a piece in the back page that I really related to. It's about a Southern woman who impressed her New York Italian in-laws with an exotic dish known as pimento cheese. (I make it with soy "Nayonnaise" if I intend to eat it myself; nobody's supposed to know that! :-) I related because I've done the same for Russians.

"Turned out my culture had redeeming value, and it was spreadable on crackers."

I'll try to be more serious later this week. You should be happy if you're not on Yahoo! Answers. I've been venting frustrations there!

4 comments:

alan said...

As articulate as you are, a vent by you would be a treat!

Not being drug down by all this is a neat trick...

I'm glad you are sharing a celebration with friends; those are the best times!

As is coming here!

Thank you for your kind words about Joumana...

alan

BostonPobble said...

An exotic dish known as pimento cheese

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

ROFLMSouthernAO

CrackerLilo said...

You should've heard how L'Ailee and her Russian friends reacted to cathead biscuits!

dondon009 said...

Thanks for posting the passage from Practical Magic....

How very true it is, and so applicable to how my personal life is going at the moment....

Excuse me while I make a very large pitcher of lemonade!

Although the crock pot is my new best friend, I somehow think it's a bit toooo hot for chili at the moment; but when the weather begins to cool here (January, maybe) chili will hit the spot!

PEACE~