Of ribbon and things

My turquoise ribbon finally fell off in the shower last Thursday.

I'd gotten the idea in my head that that ribbon was my connection to John, the same way the red yarn tied around his wrist was a connection to me. I'd watched that little bit of yarn wear thinner the last few times I went down to visit, and couldn't help making a connection between that wisp of red yarn and what seemed to be a steadily growing distance between us.

It had been just over a year since he tied it on my wrist at David's wedding to Kayo last March, replacing the rubber band he'd given me, that I lost a few days before the wedding. Everyone at my table had a ribbon tied to his or her wrist that night, and all of them had fallen off by the end of the evening -- except mine. It seemed obvious that some kind of love-magic had gone into that knot. John caught the garter at that wedding, you know. We danced the lovers' dance. No one had ever seen me with a boy before. I suppose it gave people ideas.

I thought a lot about what it would mean when that ribbon fell off. I noticed that it had gotten looser recently and hoped it would at least come off somewhere I'd see it. I knew it would happen some time before my next scheduled wedding appearance in June. Because I knew a pilly knot of turquoise ribbon wasn't the sort of thing a bridesmaid is meant to wear.

And then, before I'd come to any conclusion, there my naked wrist was in the shower, as fitting a place as any to discover the nakedness of your own body.

As I wonder what has become of those struggling red threads, and I run my eyes over the white stripe a year of ribbon wearing left on my skin, I'm left with the question of whether his ribbon and my yarn were the result or the cause -- the manifestation of or the inspiration -- for that connection.

In any case, I believe I'll make the ribbon into some sort of book mark. I'll sew it into a book if I can. Maybe a copy of Baron in the Trees. Fiction is our strongest link these days.

Lemon Poppy Seed Bread

After a some tinkering and working from 3 or 4 other recipes, I am pretty happy with how this came out. I've been using some Meyer lemons folks at school brought in, but I think it'd only be better with sourer lemons.

Makes:
one big loaf - or - 12 little muffins and a little loaf - or - 12 pretty big muffins - or - four little loaves

What's in it:
2 1/2 c white all purpose flour
2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
2/3 c granulated sugar
1/2 c canola oil
2 eggs
1/2 c lemon juice (~3 small lemons or 2 big ones)
1/2 c milk
Rind of as many lemons as you juiced, coarsely grated or chopped
1/2 c chopped pecans
3 T poppy seeds

What to do:
Mix all dry ingredients together. I like to use a whisk for this.

Mix your sugar with your oil (or other fat). Add lemon rind, eggs, lemon juice, milk. (If you are lazy as I often am, you can add these straight into the dry ingredients, rather than getting another bowl dirty. Mixing the lemon into the sugar first will better infuse the flavor, though.)

Add wet ingredients into flour mixture and stir in pecans and poppy seeds.

Grease and flour bread / cupcake tins. (Skip the flouring if you want, but it does make getting your breads back out of the tin ever so easy.)

Bake at 350º for about 45 minutes - more for a big loaf, less for cupcakes.

Et voila!

Options:
Feel free to skip the nuts if you're not into that, or if you don't have any handy.
Skip the poppy seeds if you must, but they really take this bread from a ten up to eleven.
If you are in a curious state of mind (or lacking some supplies in the cupboard), try some of these substitutions:
*for canola oil: vegetable, nut (such as pecan or walnut) oil. You could also try olive oil, if you want, or soft butter.
*for white sugar: brown sugar. You could also try agave or maple syrup.
*for pecans: walnuts or any other nut.
You can skip the milk all together, if you like.

Notes:
The big chunks of lemon rind make these especially fun.
These muffins taste especially scrumptious toasted in the buff - without a muffin tin sheathing them from the oven heat - but then what bread doesn't taste better toasted?

Sun day

Apparently a school in Bellingham, Washington cancelled class Wednesday because the weather was too nice. Sun days do exist!

I think I'm hearing the first crackle of tonight's rain.

I adore the warm and sunny March we've had, but a few more of January's electric thunderstorms would be fine by me!

Gather

Nice trip to Berkeley Hort today with my Tree ID class. I'll have to go back there some time to really take a look around. I like the way they have a bunch of stuff planted in the ground by the entrance. The whole place looks pretty cool, actually, if a bit pricey. Still, fun for having a little wander.

And I have it on good authority that Gioia Pizzeria just around the corner has just about the best pizza around. Maybe I can make a day of it.

And then a walk to dinner at Gather with the school pals. Lovely little place, that. I like the open layout and the jars of canned veggies lining the walls. We tried a bunch of things, all of which were good. Just a hint more expensive than I'd treat myself to on a casual whim, but fair. And everything was fabulous. They will even bring you fizzy water for free! In a Strauss milk bottle!

So yay for an all around good day.

Confession

I will just come right out and say that March has been a fabulous month for picking up vices. Not only have I started drinking at home alone, I am tipping back a glass of red wine (or a nice cold beer, as the case may be) with that most addictive of vices, INTERNET TELEVISION.

I have watched every episode of Community, and am eight episodes in to the six year saga of Lost. I even made myself a little account on Hulu so that I can watch Archer. I am loving every minute of it. Watching funnies over the internet, it turns out, is just about the best thing ever after a good day of hard core studying and other mental aerobics.

I expect I will still read myself to sleep now and again, but I am highly pleased with my new vices.

Peachy keen

I believe I had something like a good dream last night. At long, long last! For all my science-mindedness, I do give a certain weight to dreams as windows into my subconscious, and this one was pretty dang good.

I couldn't say what the plot was, but it involved my brother and four or five of his friends walking through the college campus near our house, which was also supposed to be my high school, where I was to be in a fashion show that was to be a fund raiser for some worthy cause. And the set up of the fashion show would have been pretty cool, with the models walking out on the kind of palatial balcony Jasmine has in Aladdin (or would have, if I'm remembering it incorrectly). Then there were tables upon tables of fancily dressed patrons watching us from a beautiful courtyard below with little pools and giant potted plants and long table cloths. The fashion show was supposed to be girls from my high school. And I had a lovely dress I was to model, but we ran out of time just before I was to go on stage. A girl from my grade school was chatting with my Brit lit teacher from junior year in a well lit but dark-wooded office-library. And there was a Swede with longish blond hair, blue eyes and a fabulous accent that I think was supposed to be my man-friend. I never get to have man-friends in my dreams!

God, and today sitting out in the park in the sun reading about gel electrophoresis and drawing floral patterns for my flashcards, it was heaven. Even the warm breeze on the bike ride to the book shop and the grocery store was so soft. Delicious. I can't believe it's still technically winter. So much more good weather and sunlight to soak up. Life is good.

You know I think about you...

Let me know you think about me too

A little more grizzle

I have just stumbled upon this fabulous interview of the Grizzly Bear boys. (Be forewarned: it is in French).

Really, I am studiously plugging away at my Statistics homework, but my browser navigated all on its own to this video:



Oh, to wander the streets of Paris singing a cappella with my bandmates. Sigh.

Mornings at home

It looks like warm winter in my kitchen this morning, and I can see rain streaking down the apartments next door.

We walked past what looked like co-ed ROTC students playing football. Every so often one side or the other would erupt in howls when a good pass was made or a goal was scored, and I wanted to scream along with them. I wanted to let out a deep monstrous sound of my own and camouflage it among their various shouts.

Instead I've been enjoying a Grizzly Bear sing along at home this week - Veckatimest at the computer and Yellow House in the kitchen. I haven't sung quite as loud or as passionately as I want to, but there is something so satisfying about letting my voice glide along their vowels, clearing space for what feels like an endless magician's handkerchief of colorful notes drawn from the depths of my chest, past my vocal chords and out from my lips.

Escapism

I have this tendency to escape to science the way I run off into novels. There is something so comforting in the smooth walls of Science, the invisible infinity of it. Nine novels into this year, I still have that tingling sensation behind my knees that makes me want to run. To run, to leap, to dive. Into anything.

I just find it curious that the tight corset of math and science feels as comforting to me as the loose silk of literary indulgence. Like hands gripping your waist or brushing over your skin.

Standing in the lab on Tuesday, seeing the light filter through the differently shaped bottles on the shelves between the benches, it struck me that I want to make science romantic. I want to have a love affair with Science, that stubborn Darcy of disciplines.

Molasses

Biking against the wind on the way home today felt like a good physical manifestation of the thick muddle my mind has been in lately with thoughts pouring slow like molasses instead of the usual electrical storm. To fly down to LA or not to fly down to LA seems to be the question tripping me up. By all accounts the answer seems to be: go. I could be on a plane now or at least on my way to the airport, but I'm not.

Saturday night a girl sitting a few feet from me had an episode on BART. Between 12th Street and West Oakland station, she stood up in the aisle and started frantically removing her outer layers saying it was too hot and she couldn't breathe. Shortly thereafter she fell to the ground as if in a faint, but did not appear to lose consciousness. I was so close but another passenger much farther away sprang to her feet and took charge of the situation. She sat the girl down and started interrogating her friends. Has she taken any drugs? No! they exclaimed, we only ate chocolate cake. The girl still claimed to be having trouble breathing and at one point started screaming as much, or, rather, alternated shouts of 'I can't breathe!' with high pitched screaming. I found this to be a somewhat comforting affirmation of her ability to breathe, at least for now. What do you think is the matter with her, the woman asked the girl's friends. Paralyzed! they answered in unison. I could see the girl's hands locked stiff with the fingers straight out. Another passenger contacted the driver to report the emergency and called 911. The girl appeared to be improved by the time we reached the station, though she was still acting in that funny way people act when they're not all there. The woman who had been on the phone with emergency services was visibly shaken and collapsed against the wall after re-boarding the train. Tears dripped helplessly from the corner of her eye. Will she be alright?? she wanted to know, feeling a cocktail of shock at having witnessed what could have ended much worse (and still might for all she knew) and guilt for not having somehow done the impossible and fixed everything herself. We guessed that it might be some sort of diabetic shock. By 'we' I mean other voices on the train. I thought about how I could get up and hug that woman to say out loud that she'd done all she could and to reassure her that the girl will be alright. But I just sat there and called the friend I was supposed to meet in San Francisco to tell him there had been a delay.

I do think that girl was probably fine, and my grandmother appears to be as improved as one could hope an 87 year old woman to be a week after major surgery, but something doesn't feel right about it.

Were you aware of it? vol. 27: Alice in Wonderland, take one

Quite a bit more faithful to the original, I must say.

Miracles of baking

When a classmate brought this bread to one of our potlucks and I was skeptical that she had made it herself until I tried the recipe at home. Not only is this the best bread I've ever made - fantastic texture for sandwiches and gorgeous looking with fabulous crust - it's unbearably easy to make. You don't even have to knead it!

Do note the long rising time, though. This one does require a little advance planning.

No-Knead Bread
*Courtesy of the New York Times
Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf

Notes:
* I like to bake it in a slightly cooler oven - around 400º (vs. 450ºF). It still gets a good crust, but it isn't as overwhelmingly crusty.
* I tried this with 1c whole wheat flour and 2c white flour. It came out ok, but still not quite the whole wheat bread I'm looking for.
* The 18 hour rise time (vs. 12) is really worth the wait!
* Since I've been letting this rise over cool(ish) winter nights, I found that setting the bowl over the pilot light on my gas stove helps keep it warm... another reason I love gas stoves.

Fog

In some ways today was perfect.

I only saw the emails about my grandmother being in the hospital as I was on my way out the door. Something about a fall, a broken hip, lots of morphine, surgery and a question about her wishes. I had a quick business-like conversation with my mother as i walked to the bus stop to get the most up to date information, which was: I don't know. Little enough information that I could set it all aside to consider later.

The bus came right away, and I got to Tolman right on time. The psych experiment I signed up for was an exercise in active forgetting - not my strong suit, but it was good practice. The experimenter made a comment to the effect of - I've got a mind like a steel trap. And I made $25, which is great. I can use all the money I can get.

And then I was off to Hilgard, a convenient stone's throw away, to work with the Suding folks. I entered my data from the past month in no time at all and was apprised of this new experiment that I may be able to very nearly take over, which would be great. I spent the afternoon writing out labels. I got carried away in the zen repetition of it all and labeled five hundred-some cones. I'd have kept going if my hungry stomach hadn't noticed how dark it had become.

And then home just in time for Fresh Air with a lovely Tuscan dinner. I tried to read about the nitty gritty of xylem, but my curtailed sleep last night and the vague question of whether I should be booking a flight to Los Angeles for some time between my class Thursday night and my midterm Saturday afternoon kept me from it.

So, dinner was followed by an evening of uploading photos to the blog I made for my tree id class. Happy work that left my mind to relax. I prepared 25 posts for the next five days.

And I've been able to sleep! Ever since giving my word over a certain handshake, no one has died in my dreams. No awful things happen that I am expected to fix. I spend my unconscious nights in Paris walking along the Seine. I think I'll see if I can't get back there now.