MAIL + FOOD = HAPPY

A lovely photo of Ginger Beer

My great-aunt  sent me a cookbook. http://www.totallybarbados.com/barbados/About_Barbados
It arrived in the mail this week. I have been anxiously awaiting my tax return, so I opened my mailbox hoping to see a nice little check but instead, I pulled out something or other to add to my junk mail collection and a ta-da! a package. I love getting mail--real mail you know--and surprise packages are the best. My brothers and sisters and I used to compete over who would get the mail first. The mailman came at about the same time every day, so if you timed it right, you could get down to the mailbox before anyone else then nonchalantly stroll back up the driveway, flipping through the bills and letters that were not addressed to you, knowing that disgruntled siblings were staring at you through the windows. HA HA!  In Connecticut (I always want to say "connekt-ee-cut) where we used to live when I was very young, the mailboxes are attached to the house, just beside the door. The mailmen (and mail ladies) park their trucks at the corner and walk from house to house--rain, shine or snowstorm--carrying huge bags of letters and postcards. I thought--and still think--they must be terribly strong to walk about all day with those heavy bags. At college my friends and I would send each other cards and notes via campus mail. Except many of the notes I sent were pranks. I sent a letter to one friend from the (nonexistent) Dean of Academic Commitment, Mr T.R. Jameson I believe. I typed it up on official school letterhead and placed it in an official school envelope so it looked very authentic. I even practised signing the letter so that the signature wouldn't look like a girl's. It basically said that if our friend didn't start coming to class regularly, he would be kicked out of school. Isn't that awful? My roommate and I giggled gleefully and dropped it into the mail. We didn't know what happened until weeks had gone by. Turns out this poor guy was extremely upset and not realizing that it was a prank, he went to all of the school administrators to argue his case only to be told that Mr. Jameson did not exist. Of course, when my partner in crime and I found out we felt terrible about the whole thing so we promptly typed up a new letter on official letterhead From: The Office of Academic Commitment, Re: An apology for the recent misunderstanding and any distress it may have caused, and signed by Mr. Jameson's secretary. My big brother told me that I could have gotten in a lot of trouble for forging signatures, but I don't suppose you can forge the signatures of people who don't exist...Ah, well that was the last prank letter I've ever sent. Lesson learned. When I pulled the surprise package out of the mail 2 days ago, I couldn't guess what it might be so I hurried back inside, not bothering to shut the door, with Charlie the dog romping around and getting underfoot. A book titled "Caribbean Cookbook" and several typed sheets with additional Barbadian recipes (read my other post, Kiss Me I'm Irish). I was thrilled and I danced around the living room for a while. "How cool is that!?" I asked Charlie. I recently bought a Greek cookbook (I went to a Greek Festival recently and the food was ridiculously delicious. The guys were cute too) and a book of recipes that only require 3, 4 or 5 ingredients.

To do: 1. Make a list 2. Buy ingredients 3. Find an apron
4. Cook something. I'm curious to see how it will all turn out!
I may post some recipes once I have the chance to experiment with a few.

This is a picture of spanakopita--it's very good!

Mistah Kurtz-he dead

 I first read T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" when I was a young teen and for years it was one of my favorite poems (not my very favorite though--that honor goes to "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, (read ozymandias) quite a dashing and tragically glamorous character himself). read eliot's poem if you want to. Hollow Men still is one of my favorites actually. I'm not really sure why. It's rather depressing.Whenever I read it, I imagine reciting it aloud, dramatically, with my voice rising and falling at all the right places. People would be listening, thinking "That's an odd sort of poem for a little girl to be reciting on such a beautiful day." At the word "bang" I would shout it out and startle everyone and while they were still composing themselves, I would quietly say the last words. So calmly and quietly that everyone would have to lean forward to hear. Of course, I'd be standing in a garden, on a small sort of stage, perhaps in a gazebo. The garden would be very well-manicured with roses and the shrubbery trimmed into fantastic shapes, a stately palace in the background. And everyone would be wearing white and drinking tea :) I was introduced to Eliot's poetry in my British Literature class. He was born in America but moved to England and eventually became a British citizen. I can't imagine what it would be like to become a citizen of another country. I've spent my whole life as a citizen of the U.S. Not that I have no desire to go anywhere else. In fact, my plan is to travel to as many places as possible. I've met  people who think it's crazy to leave the country. "You could die," they told me. "I could die here too" I said. "Uh-uh," they replied, "I'd rather die in the U.S.A, thank you!" What difference does that make? People die in a myriad of unexpected ways every day. And if you must die, why not die doing something worthwhile? I mean, I'm not in a particular hurry to fall into the grave or anything and like most girls I pray that God would postpone my death until I've fallen in love, married and had children (we'll see how that goes). En route to the Bahamas on a mission trip, we had to board a tiny plane  that would take us over the ocean between Florida and Nassau. The plane only had about 40 seats and there were quite a few empty. Once we all sat down and buckled in, the pilot announced that some of us needed to move to a different seat to balance out the plane. I was absolutely delighted. My friends were not so happy. Because the plane was so small and we were flying so low, we hit a lot of turbulence and rocked and shook and bounced about. It was brilliant. I imagined the plane plummeting into the ocean. Obviously I would have the presence of mind to quickly secure my life jacket and help those around me, and once we were out in the open water I would keep everyone calm while we waited to be rescued, which could take days. Never mind the fact that I can't swim :) When my sister and I were preparing to teach ESL overseas a couple of years ago, we both agreed that the adventure of it all and the chance to make friends and experience another culture far outweighed the risks.  "But why would you want to leave?"people ask.  Because, people, there's more to life than my neighborhood, my city, my school. There's more to life than driving back and forth between work and home. More than cable and fast food and Wal-Mart and clubbing. I don't want to just see the world on television or read about far-away lands. I want to go and meet the people and talk to them and eat their food and wander through the markets and listen to their music and play with their children and explore. My mother says that I'll end up living in a hut somewhere, which would be fine with me for a while at least.  I don't suppose I will ever want to be an actual citizen anywhere except for the U.S. but I am a restless soul. Perhaps I want to have my cake and eat it too (The saying never made any sense to me until I looked it up :) Nerd alert!  http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/eatcake.html ). A friend of mine once said that I am impossible to impress. I denied it because, in general, I am quite easily impressed. The simplest magic trick leaves me awestruck and anyone who knows how to change a tire is my hero. He explained a bit further. "You," he said "are always looking for the next thing. You do something and think, 'that was good' and you're already wondering what's next." I thought about that for a while and I suppose he's right in a sense. It's not that I'm impossible to impress. It's just that there's always something more to do, places to go, people to see. Too long doing the same old thing drives me crazy. Let me clarify--I'm not fickle or reckless. I just cannot stand mundane. The idea of an ordinary 9-5, apple pie, same ol'--same ol' existence scares me (you know when someone asks how you're doing and you answer "O, same ol'-same ol'" hm, maybe that's a Yankee thing). I mean, it truly frightens me. What I really really want to do is become a nurse--and eventually a nurse practitioner--and with a medical team periodically travel to remote or impoverished areas overseas. There I would work with the people to set up clinics and teach them how to incorporate basic modern medical care into their local health practices so that the clinic will continue to benefit the people long after the team is gone. Last semester, one of my nursing instructors told the class about transcultural nursing. A transcultural nurse learns all about medical practices in a wide variety of cultures and is trained to put that knowledge to use so that diverse patients will receive the best care. How cool is that? That's what I wanted to do long before I found out that there was an official title. I've seen many people live in their carefully constructed safe little worlds and maybe that's okay. But I believe that man was created for much more than okay. Everyone needs some extraordinary mixed in with the ordinary, and just like medicine, there are people who need a larger dose than others. I started off with Eliot's post-WWI poem and somehow end up with the thirst for adventure. Well, then.

For the Love

My three youngest siblings had their spring dance recital a few weeks ago. I absolutely love watching them dance. I love watching people dance in general. When I was younger, my mom took us to the Fox theater often. In December we would see The Nutcracker ballet (we would go to the pre-opening night dress rehearsal performance) and all of us would sit there and drink it all in. The lights, the stage, the costumes, the dancers. My very cool High School English teacher had all sorts of wonderful friends, one of whom was a modern dance choreographer. I went to one of the rehearsals with my brothers and sisters and my mom. The youngest at the time was only a toddler, but she sat quietly through the whole performance. We have always loved dance and music and art so my parents never worried about us being disruptive. My mom considered discontinuing the children's dance lessons, but I couldn't bear the idea. "Oh no, " I said, "You can't! They are so good and they love it!" I took dance lessons for a short time and violin lessons for a short time but lessons can be pricey. I could draw and paint for free, however, and so I taught myself years ago. I went to a figure drawing class recently and it was like a breath of fresh air. It had been so long since I had taken the time to do draw. And it was a pleasant surprise to look down at my paper and see that I had captured the model's pose and angles and shadows just right. Some of us in the family play instruments, some of us dance--the one thing we can all do is sing. My sisters and I used to sing together all of the time. We'd find a song and make it even better, coming up with intricate harmonies. Various people have tried to convince us to make a cd, get an agent, go big, but I don't know about that. I don't really want to be famous, I just want to sing. As a freshman in college I would sing in the shower at the top of my lungs--did I mention it was midnight?--and my RA would come in and say, "That really is beautiful, but it's late and people are trying to sleep, so..." Even now, when I'm at work I'll stand in the middle of the bathroom and sing. The acoustics are quite good and no one seems to mind :) I joined the choir at church and I am the youngest by at least 30 years. It's pretty fabulous. I can't practice with them as often as I'd like to but when I do we have a lovely time. Last Christmas I was assigned a solo. I was already assigned a much smaller part in a duet but some rather last minute switching left a major solo available and the choir director's wife asked me to do it. The Christmas production is always a big deal (the sanctuary seats at least 500 and is overflowing with people each time we do a Christmas musical) and we start practicing in August. I cannot tell I lie--I was excited. Nervous but excited. The song was beautiful and difficult and emotional. You know how you can just feel a song or a painting or a photograph or a dance and it pulls you in? I think that is one of the best feelings in the world. The baby in the family is only 4, so of course when her little class performs there's a lot of jumping and wiggling on stage. But just the other day, I was babysitting her and we took my dog out for a walk. After running down the hill, we discovered a puddle. Of course, she wanted to splash and I figured, why not, shoes and legs can be washed and dried. So she proceeded to tap dance in the puddle and I was honored to be asked to participate. We shuffle-stepped, tapped tapped tapped, and although the puddle wasn't large enough for us both to enjoy, I still managed to get wet. My 10 yr old sister is very graceful on stage when she's ballet dancing and she looks so elegant. What she really loves however is tap-dancing. And boy is she good. I watched her up there (she and my 7 yr. old brother can moonwalk which makes them super cool) and I could see on her face that she was in it.  My 7 yr old brother is the only boy in the class, but he has all the confidence in the world and enough natural talent to pull it off. And he's adorable :) After the last show, I was driving home and I told my mom, I love to watch them dance. She said "Me too! It's because they love it and you can't help but love to see people do what they're passionate about." Amen. So keep dancing and singing and painting and acting and kickboxing and writing and gardening and playing soccer and cooking and teaching and rock-climbing and building and stock-brokering and whatever else you love.

AAAaaagh!!!!

Don't you hate when you've typed something up all nice and then it disappears!! Yuck :(

(I've actually read this book btw and it's pretty good. Although I wouldn't want to be plastered on a cover picking my nose.)

Unrest in Central Asia

About two months ago in Kyrgyzstan, angry protestors filled the streets, clashing with government forces and local police. Bakiyev, the former President of Kyrgyzstan, was deposed and the government was overthrown. http://www.nydailynews.com/  A new, (allegedly Russia -friendly) interim government was quickly set up. Problem solved? Not so much. The Kyrgyz unrest is back, now amongst the people. Kyrgyz against Uzbeks, the second largest ethnic group (link) Uzbek culture. The Uzbeks are a Turkic people group. According to some, an Uzbek uprsing against the Kyrgyz was bound to happen. (link) Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan. However, the opposite has proven true--many ethnic Kyrgyz have been terrorizing Uzbek populations in Kyrgyzstan (link) Kyrgyz unrest . The U.S. has a military base there, Manas in Bishkek, which supplies troops for the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Bakiyev wanted to close the base a year ago and of course the Russian government (which operates a military base in Kyryzsatn as well)  isn't exactly the U.S. military's biggest fan. Some very interesting and tragic political and ethnic dynamics going on in this tiny nation. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8651518.stm They will certainly be in my prayers.

perhaps i should be studying...

There's a little bookstore a minute's walk from where some of my siblings work and on the rare occasions when I have time after I drop them off, I go.  It's just the sort of place you'd find in a--well, in a book actually. The door has a bell on it so whomever's at the counter knows you've come in. Except, they can't really see you around the shelves and shelves of books that greet you. That concerns me a bit because in the city, just about any number of strange people wander about. You might think they wouldn't wander into a bookstore, but I've has some bizarre experiences at libraries over the years, so...A sign asks you not to let the cat out.  A resident cat that lounges about and reclines on the countertop. I'm not much of a cat person but I do think that's splendid. It's a pretty cat, and I'm pretty sure  it knows it's pretty--I can tell by the way it looked at me like "Everyone loves me...and it's quite obvious why." The store itself is tiny and dim and dusty and crowded and wonderful. I always visit the art section first and lose myself in books full of photographs and paintings, old and new. If I could afford to, I'd probably buy the whole section. Well, maybe not, because then no one else would get to enjoy it. See how unselfish I am :) After I've had my art fix momentarily satisfied (no such thing as too much art) I kind of tiptoe to the back. I can't quite figure out how all of the books in the back are arranged, which gives me an excuse to spend lots of time looking at this shelf and that and picking up books at random. I can only go to the bookstore when I have time and money. Finding something to read is a delicate matter and one mustn't rush these things, plus it's depressing to windowshop at a bookstore. I started to read when I was four, so I can't imagine what it must be like to not know how to read. Or there are those who know how to, but don't like to. How can anyone not like to read? That's tragic. I read very fast and when I finish a book it's a bit of a letdown, you know, because sometimes I have nothing else to read and I'm compelled to read advertisements and the backs of cereal boxes. After I zipped through my weekly stash of library books, I would find other things to read. Poetry, Homer's Odyssey, all 1001 Arabian Nights (some of those are pretty wacky), Dickens, Kipling, Doyle, fairytales. And I still read children's books. Some of them are so good.  (I still watch children's tv shows on too--Backyardigan's rocks). The last book I read was hilarious: Gideon Defoe's "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists/The Pirates!In an Adventure with Ahab" The Pirates! I absolutely love silly books like that. Perhaps too much. I read it instead of reading my nursing textbooks and that may partially explain why I didn't ace my first exam. Hm. The lady at the counter said, " Oh, I saw this book! I thought it looked pretty good." Yes, I thought so too, I said, as I reached over the vain white cat to pay. Every time I go into that store, I expect something strange and magical to happen. Maybe a trap door will open and I'll fall through into Wonderland. Can't say I'd mind strolling down the beach with the Walrus and the Carpenter :)

Kiss me I'm Irish--among other wonderful things

Several days ago, I joined the Ashby family facebook group. The first Ashby I know of was my great great great, etc etc. grandfather born in the 1850s. Everyone on that side of the family can claim English and Irish descent--though you might not know it to look at me; the Barbadian and Native American genes obviously beat the European in me :) For some reason, people always ask me where I'm from. India? Mexico? Perhaps more African? A Mayan pastor insisted that I was originally from his country and after 10 minutes of questioning me I could see that he still wasn't convinced that I'm from the U.S. He looked at me like, "Poor girl, she must have no idea that she's truly from Belize." Who knows, he may be right. My not too distant ancestors traveled about quite a bit. Maybe someone traipsed up to Belize for a visit. Of course, my "accent" doesn't help. Mix midwest, new england and southeast accents together and you get a surprisingly neutral voice. At least I think so. A Nigerian friend of mine couldn't quite place me and finally deciding that I'm a myriad of ethnicities, she settled for "You look like you come from somewhere near the water." Okay, I'll take that. My siblings and I used to spend hours on the computer researching names and trying to piece together genealogies. Yes, we were nerds. Okay, so we still are. We didn't do it this year, but in years past, when St. Patrick's day came around we would all buy t-shirts that proclaimed our Irish heritage (I think my big brother has a really nice one that he still wears on occasion), and we would laugh and say to each other, no one knows that we really are. It's a big deal to know where you come from. That reminds me--I need to ask my grampa for the recipe for Bajan rice and peas. He claims that he wouldn't give it to my mom--his daughter-in-law-- because she doesn't have Barbadian blood flowing through her veins. Well, hoity toity.  [Disclaimer: My grampa isn't truly a mean man] My mom's parent's are from Mississippi (she taught us a song to remember how to spell Mississippi: "M-i-googalaga googalaga-i googalaga googalaga-i humpback humpback-i" You have to wiggle when you sing googalaga and hunch your shoulders when you sing humpback. Love it!) She was born and raised in the midwest but I think the southern is still in her somewhere. Unlike my father's side, my mother doesn't know much about her family history except that her grandmother was a small, quiet woman of black and Native American descent.  Granny, my mother's mother, was very fair with long auburn curls. So a petite black American Indian woman had a fair redheaded child. You know, my nana on the Ashby side had red curls and fair skin too. The moral of this story is--there's a good chance I could have an adorable little red-haired child. Or a beautiful brown Island baby. Or a child who looks like me and everyone asks them constantly where they're from. Every now and then, my mom seems a little sad that she doesn't know anything about her family. I've tried to research my mom's side a bit, but it's not easy. Of course, I'm not sure how well births, deaths and marriages were officially kept up with in small country towns, especially for minorities. I'm sure I'll figure it out someday. Just like someday I'll actually visit Barbados and Ireland and England--among other wonderful places. That castle is called Dunluce btw.

A Nigerian Greek national music artist? Nice.

As most people know Greece is going through some not so fun times. Riots, corruption, bankruptcy. But on PRI the other day, a very unique music artist was highlighted. Born in Greece of Nigerian parents, MC Yinka seems to be pretty popular in Greece. From what I've heard, I can understand why.  http://www.theworld.org/2010/05/14/mc-yinka/  I've been trying to find some of his music online...

"Maps, they don't love you like I love you."

Yes, yes, I know that "Maps" stands for My Angus Please Stay. Such a good song... (link) Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Maps"
Growing up, my mother listened to NPR all of the time--so of course my brothers and sisters and I got quite an earful ourselves; we loved it. When my sister (who is now 10) was about 3 or 4, she met her favorite radio host, Lois Reitzes, (WABE Atlanta) and she was absolutely thrilled. Fabulous :) I recently began listening to public radio again. At 24, after about 7 years of trying to catch up with pop culture (I honestly had no idea who Brad Pitt was until I was 20) I've gone back to my roots. Of course, I still do love classical music. I'm that girl who kept all of the cds from freshman "Music Appreciation" class and happily added them to iTunes. But NPR has more to offer than the classics. PRI world news is so good. In school, geography was my least favorite subject. I loved learning about people and places, but show me a map and my brain shut down. My ancient history professor nearly gave me a heart attack when, for the exams, she handed out a blank map of the region between the Black and Mediterranean Seas and asked us to fill in the names and locations of ancient civilizations. Are you kidding me? I can barely list the 50 states and you expect me to know where the Hittites lived? A light bulb came on after I left the U.S. for the third time. The first time was a mission trip to the Bahamas--yes, it was a mission trip not a vacation. Cross the bridge from Atlantis and the poverty is heartbreaking. Geographically speaking, I was content knowing that the islands aren't too far from Florida. My second trip was to Belize. Central America, check. The third trip was across the ocean to Ukraine. From Switzerland to Ukraine my seatmate was a young Swiss man who spoke fluent English and four other languages and he seemed to know something about everything. He knew all about the U.S. and the countries surrounding Switzerland, and countries not surrounding Switzerland, and we both agreed that The Bourne movies are pretty much amazing. I was duly impressed. A friendly Ukrainian man on the day train back to Kiev was well informed about the latest sports news from the U.S. and Canada, and he told us various facts about his country and the former Soviet Union. I don't know much about sports and at the time I knew precious little about the Soviet Union except that it was communist and no longer existed. What I did know however surprised him. He was sharing a tale about a treasure hidden inside of a chair and after listening for a minute, I said, "I think I know that story!" and finished it for him. Geography may not be my strong point but stories, I know. No, I've never seen the 1970s Mel Brooks movie. He also told us all about Georgia and their difficulties with maintaining independence. Not too long after I returned to the U.S., the Georgia-Russian conflict over South Ossetia erupted and I thought, "hey, I know Georgia!" (link) Georgia-Russian Conflict 2008
I was glued to the news. I read every article I could find. And...I began looking at maps. Suddenly, they became real to me. I was fascinated. All of the countries I'd heard about over the years from missionaries and exchange students and well-traveled teachers--they were right there and I could see how they connected. I've always enjoyed traveling and experiencing different cultures-- I was blessed to grow up in a very multicultural environment--but now I actually care about geography. And what do you know, I love maps. Now if only I could figure out how not to get lost...