mumma yaga

200402 i made “pandemic pantry” toxic beans and rice tonight. i had checked out a couple of recipes on-line yesterday and i made some rice, ready. today i made it up from memory and what i had in-house, hence the pandemic pantry! the toxic part derives from toxic soup that i make for cold and flu. it’s toxic to viruses and bacterial infections. recipe: mumma’s beans and rice. [to skip recipe, please scroll down.] 2 onions chopped small 4 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped 3 carrots sliced. (leave unpeeled, just cleaned, if desired) sauté several minutes in large pot add 1 1/2 cups chicken broth or water or vegetable broth 1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 tsp black pepper (a bunch of shakes) 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or fresh hot peppers chopped, to taste. 1 tsp only carribean curry simmer 10 minutes or until the carrots are done enough for you add 1 can of black beans (or other) rinsed 1 can of peas or corn 2 or 3 cups cooked rice heat another few minutes. serve with plain b...

april 27   it's captain covid day #48, almost 7 weeks. i spoke to k about the stress i have been feeling recently. i was out frequently last week: each trip is an ordeal, puts you on edge. the days have gone from strange to surreal, as if i've been blown off my moorings. if only we could take a couple of hours rest from captain covid.                            i think the children are mostly okay. indre gets it. she's eight and she hears everything. we talk to her about it to ease her fears. but robin doesn't seem old enough, though he's almost 5, to get what's really going on. this might be why he's been difficult recently, easily upset. (it might also be a stage. every age is a stage, seems to me!) but we had a little talk today about the changes he sees and what he thinks and feels, so maybe he'll feel less off-kilter.    children are not always vocal about their fears and confusion. they a...

april 23   on april 7, the world lost john prine, a great songwriter and performer. i don't presume to eulogize for all. there are many eloquent essays honouring mr. prine, including those from several generations of fellow musicians.   i would like to tell about what john prine meant in my life. i first heard him 46 or 47 years ago, and others my age will remember sam stone and illegal smile, from his very first album. so began my lifelong love of his music.    music was a big part of our life in my family of origin, and as teenagers and adults my brothers and i sang and played music together. as young adults we all went to the cottage together (see "our own paradise" below) and made music and rambled on the shores. one of my brothers was a professional pianist and performer. many years later, another brother (bass, guitar) and i played together in neighbourhood bars. from time to time we would all three get together again, joined by our cousin and h...

april 23   this month my husband's mother died. she was 94 and had, only in the last couple of years, suffered several strokes and falls. we are happy that she is at peace. we are sad because we shall miss her.   let me tell you about my mother-in-law, cameron. 40 years ago, i had been seeing k for only a few weeks but i was crazy in love. he was way out of my league and had life plans that didn't include a partner and i was just happy to be with him for whatever days i could.  so when he invited me to meet his parents, i was very excited. we met cameron and doc for dessert at the chateau lacombe restaurant (fancy!). cameron and i connected right away because we both knew the significance of the meeting! it meant i was important to him! wordlessly she and i shared this understanding and i think i must have started loving her right then.   k and i married within the year and cam and doc welcomed me into the family with love and generosity. we moved to toront...

april 23 a covid group (def.): the people of a household who share the common spaces and meals and social interaction in a physical unit such as a house. the group is protected by the protocols it demands and the mutual agreement and compliance to these. in our household group of 6, or 7, with the dog, we accept the demands of the most conservative of us. the dog is worried: he follows me around because everything is different, but he doesn't do human protocols. it is k who is the most conservative in this matter, so: deliveries and pick-ups are quarantined for 3 days. hands, doorknobs, the car doors, even the dog leash, are cleaned often. the fewer members going out in the world the better, so those with jobs outside the home will have priority and one of these only should be assigned to errands. we no longer have anyone working outside the home so we have assigned one gofer, to go on all errands.     i have thought about the possibility of wanting or needing a pers...

april 19   i fear this coronavirus. it is nasty and unpredictable. we know so little, and have few weapons against it.   even more, i fear what the pandemic could do to our societies. governments are imposing restrictions on our freedoms. they (we!) are spending billions of dollars on aid and healthcare. many people are without work, and the other side of this coin is that many supplies, foods and resources are not being produced, put off for months or seasons. but this draining financial burden and the hiatus in production will result in shortages for individual and country alike over the coming years.   before long people may become scared and desperate as loss gathers momentum. anger, rioting, and violence within and between countries may bring a new threat. among the positive stories in the news, of wisdom, heart and hope, are whispers of betrayal, conspiracy, manipulation. these are born of fear and engender fear, created in ignorance and spreading ignorance. (we...

april 19, sunday in this crisis, our response as nations has surprised me in its concern for human life over economies and politics. governments, no, it's more personal than that here - we are seeing their faces - the men and women who oversee our social systems, are shutting down profit sources to protect lives and giving money to their citizens to keep them in food and shelter, and to support healthcare. i suppose this is not the first or only time we have put people first, but it feels like it because it is bigger than ever before, and seems to exclude the profit angle of emergency measures we have seen in the past. mr. trudeau, mr. ford, and leaders all over the world are standing up and trying to stem the death, healthcare, and societal toll of this tidal wave. it is a measure of human caring that surprises me when i think of the tendency of business and government to bulldoze the planet and its inhabitants and its future to line their own pockets, to build more cars, facto...

april 16 i took the children to the dog field in my heavy wooden gardening wagon because we don't have another one!! i seriously wonder if i'm too old to be doing this! i had to ask one of them to walk on the way home and indre kindly consented to walk and then she volunteered to pull the wagon, bless her! i also had the dog in tow.  the sky was beautifully blue, but it was cold. while we were out dark clouds began to gather and then just as we put away the wagon the first flakes of snow came down, although it didn't last.  the sun is shining again intermittently.  i found this winter easier than some to live through. the cold snaps were short, and we had liveable temperatures hovering around 0 degrees, as well as warm blips. but now, after that wonderful taste of spring last week, i am tired of the cold and long for the warmth that means coffee in the sun, and starting the mosaic project on the porch, and the kids climbing trees and riding bikes, while fig, the d...

april 14 "i'll wait for you; and if i should fall behind, wait for me."  [b. springsteen] k and i are at home together for perhaps the first time since the year rain was born. But then we were raising a seven-year-old, her five-year-old sister and the baby. these covid days (day 35 today) we have time, every day, to talk: we used to book meetings - seriously. and much more often we are sharing and listening to music together. we have never had more than three or four artists in common until now, and have always maintained entirely separate music collections. for such a long-married pair we really have not spent a lot of time together. we've been separately busy with work and recreation, or together busy with the kids. k and i have been together 40 years on july 1. we have known each other 41 years in september. we were both at a james cotton concert on campus, u of a, and in my memory, he and d. were coming up the stairs and in his memory, allen and i were...

  cooper's hawk in the maple april 2020 monday morning: 13 april. it rained all night and there is a swamp in the back yard around the cedar tree. i guess the ground is saturated. it’s so warm and still. the weather channel is warning of high winds coming from colorado, but, is that really essential weather? seems to me we could get by without it until the border opens again. indre, k and i went to the creek to see how in-flood it was. we saw a robin gathering dead grasses in its beak - more and more until i thought it would drop them - and we watched it fly up to a tree nearby. there against the trunk was the beginnings of a nicely-placed nest. in the pandemic, we have more time for robins. i was sifting through some papers, (there's time now...) and came across an emergency list for the car. when we lived in alberta, emergency supplies for the car were essential. 40 below f. was not unusual. if you got stuck far from anywhere (we're talking 10 minutes walk if yo...

200411 captain covid - day 33 ran a couple of errands today. put in an on-line order to rona the hardware people, because their website worked way better for me than the home depot one, and i had to go pick it up. you park in a “pick-up” spot and they bring out your order. i have been tipping these store delivery people $5, for themselves and 2 5s for their coworkers. the other place was loblaws. i feel so thankful for these workers who are putting themselves on the front-line for us: the nurses, doctors, shopkeepers, cashiers and servers, the people going to work because we need them! after rona, i stopped at the cheese shop, (it was on the way) where they ask one family member only to come in and max 6 people inside. still i waited until there was a last customer just paying. then the corner store, for milk. each stop is a new pair of gloves and cleaning hands and door handle and debit card. then home to wait three days, unless we clean the items for immediate use. i wa...

200408 recent photos this is our transformed produce store! (see 200407) robin is drawing creatures on the window with window markers but any washable paint or marker will work.

200407 not just a covid 19 blog! ...but life right now includes a lot about it... i went out for my mother-in-law’supplies - ordered items ahead and went and picked them up. it was a nearby medical supply store and they had installed glass surround at the cashier’s and they had my parcel ready. then i stopped at the local independent dollar store, where i am a frequent customer and he had sanitizer and gloves and masks at somewhat inflated prices, which, however, i was glad to pay. the big stores are out of these items! there is a small green grocer in the same plaza which has a huge customer base because they are so good and inexpensive. they closed 10 days ago, and re-opened today as an order-window take-away store! they offer family baskets of fruit and veg preboxed, or you can custom order. they have big tv screens with all produce listed! we have also been frequenting (not so frequently) our corner store, literally around the corner! and they have been super, stocking extra m...

200406 covid 19 day 27 we had planned, at least i had planned and told the others, that i would like to quarantine for 2 weeks. no shopping, no public places, except walks, just to get ourselves a new baseline of non-infection (or not!). but the seniors’ residence (sr) where my mother-in-law lives called to ask for supplies. so i will have to venture out tomorrow for those, and then deliver them. so there goes our 2 weeks. *sigh* we’ll try again. the sr is in lockdown since march 14, so i will just leave the supplies at the door. i usually went to see cam, my mum-in-law, five days a week, because she just moved to this new residence in january and is so poorly. my usual habit turned out to be very fortunate because when they started screening visitors and only allowing in caregivers, i counted as a caregiver and was put on the list. k’s brothers have visited her once only and k not at all. but on wednesday last, the 1st of april, the sr had a case of covid 19, so that had to be my ...

200326 the cooper’s hawks are nesting in the tree three houses south. they often sit in our two maples. one of the two started calling around feb 15, then on march 3 a second one answered. they disappeared for a week or two (honeymoon?), and i was afraid we’d lost them, but they’ll be  here now until summer . there has been a nesting pair nearby for three or four years. it is day 16 of the covid19 pandemic. the streets have been empty for days. i am seeing only dog walkers and joggers. occasionally a person with a stroller. only intermittently does a car drive by. the main roads are a little busier but it still looks like a sunday at rush hour! i was reading the local paper (delivered) on the porch today, with medical gloves on. the weather is lovely and warm. i hear the hawks talking back and forth across the circle. 200329 captain covid - day 19 i have actually expected something like this for decades. for the 30 years we have lived in this house we have kept emergency su...

200401 it’s finally quiet here, the children gone to bed, and i have some time to write. hi. i’m mumma yaga. the children call me gramma. “grandmother” is an archetype we don like new clothes, just as we already wear the personae of the daughter, the lover, the mother. when i became a grandmother i almost physically felt the persona settling on me, like a mantle. and now i am sixty-five and my granddaughter is eight, and she and her brother and my eldest daughter live here with my husband and i. and the children’s father used to live here but then the divorce, so now he comes on weekends, except when there’s a pandemic: then he stays here until it’s over. i am the homemaker in our household. (another persona.) i am good at many things, and i know a lot of stuff, and my children, adults now, call me for advice, medical, parenting, cooking, and for comfort and support. i have become, in my 65 years, a wise old woman, an earth mother. so i began to think that someone might find my...