mumma yaga

may 31    bread pudding: who knew? only having had it at a restaurant, i assumed it needed special care to reproduce. but last night i had a quarter loaf of raisin bread going stale, so indre and i turned it into pudding. all the ingredients were common pantry items and the prep was no-tricks easy. into the oven for 45 minutes and magic! tdf. (to die for!) we will all be eyeing the bread loaves and making sure some goes stale often!   play and learning:   my grandchildren  are fortunate to have each other just now.. there are so many only children who are lonely without companions their own age. for those children, an extended covid group would be valuable, to include another child with whom they could get together. the parents could exchange babysitting so they themselves could get some down time. this bubble-family allowance is granted in newfoundland and new brunswick, although it worries me a little because of the doubling up of contacts w...

lost comma   (for a poet friend)   (by mumma yaga) i lost my comma she said looking up as i entered the cafe she swept up bagel crumbs  into a pile and  drew a dot and a gentle curve white in the pale bits contagious i whispered  slowed my approach she sighed and said i must have left it somewhere she showed me the  unpunctuated poem i pondered the handedness of the remark she smiled bleakly comma (just so i remember)  offered me tea i sat looking at the normal-looking poem it might turn up i said (but i recalled that they don't they go down   to the left) it's part of the poet's process i said  to lose meanings parts of speech write and right change places left and left you just left it out i said like a bicycle in the rain i tried to sound casual but my words fell like stones i once misplaced my  upper case letters  and look what's happened to me

may 29   grief: today, in my predictive text bar, "cameron" popped up: that's my mother-in-law, who died recently. the jump of emotion i felt was a surprise,  a little sharp, but fleeting. as it let go, vivid memories arose in my mind (as opposed to my arm?), but yes, perhaps my arm remembers her touch,  my ear remembering her voice, or in my heart a memory so dear it catches the breath. death. it sucks. i don't know if i ever have gotten used to it. it's beyond comprehension so it keeps hitting you just when you think it's safe to go back. it's like what the dog thinks when he goes in the car. "we get in, the world goes by really fast, and then we get out: we might be at the park or at the vet." that's death: good memories/probes and needles.   covid day 80: do you remember the beginning? does anyone remember february? [if you do, please write me what you remember.] i wish i knew what i thought about the coronavirus then. i was very ...

may 26      pandemic plus: (it's 11 weeks today.)     Getting my digital point-and-shoot camera up and running    may 25 i have always had pen-knives because they are cool and seem useful, i even carry one in my day bag but have never used it. today i discovered why grandpas always carried a penknife in their pocket: to cut open the memory card package! "... and once henry asked me for a knife, but i told him knives were only made for grandpapas." mr. woodhouse,  emma . "knives were only made for grandpapas"   this was our morning project on monday: painting stones. federal village:      i cannot believe that we get an income from our government once we turn 65  and  free drugs. its insane. the disbelief comes to me now because governments are spending money to help people affected by the pandemic. doesn't it seem incredibly philanthropic for a government, a nation, to help you ...

may 23   "open the doors and out come all the people!"   we are at day 74 of the covid pandemic. it has been a new and different life these ten weeks. i thought the social lockdown was interesting, very sci-fi, with clear and reassuring lines of protocol. this week has been much more weird. retailers were able to open their doors once again, with mask and social-distancing protocols. suddenly people are everywhere: some of them are wearing masks, some are so polite but others act like covid is a non-issue now. i was trying to pick up my on-line order at rona and its small parking lot was a circus. i felt like i had fallen through the looking glass and any moment the red queen would race by, hair all blown about, muffling through a red-checkered mask!   "don't stand, don't stand so close to me." **the police   indre and i went to the creek on wednesday. we had been a few times and seen almost no-one, mostly dog walkers and there was plenty of space ...

may 20 if you collapse on the floor in despair still the floor will hold you up.  there is no need, just now.  breathe you are crying cry, you are still breathing lie down on the floor still it holds you.  sleep. there will be tomorrow. this is what we can't grasp, when we're afraid. "tomorrow is another day"*  makes no sense: in depression it ends here, tonight. we cannot sleep it makes no diff'rence the sun will come up i will be here tomorrow. say hello. call me now and in the morning.  if no-one saw you fall, still someone will look for you until you are found. *movie : gone with the wind

may 18   saw a lot of the hawks today.  both parents were by the nest, and first one then the other dove down through the tree branches, wings folded, like a bolt, to suddenly change course and spread wings for flight. when they returned they followed the same path upwards through the tree to the nest. they call to each other, one calls a single note and the other answers k'k'k'k'k'.    the covid 19 lockdown has brought me a bucketful of happy days. "we get up at 12 and go to work at 1, then we stop for lunch and then at 2 we're done."* this is not really true but it could be. i get up at 6:30 or 7, and rouse the children, because we need them back in bed by their usual time. our day unfolds at a delightfully slow pace. at nine we go to the field and by the time we're back nick is up and ready to take the children. then i follow my to-do list in a leisurely fashion, stopping for important things, like meals and hawk sightings. strange, perhap...

may 11 2020 the pandemic puts a lot more "hindsight" into our 2020!   inspired   i went downstairs and began work on the craft room. it used to be my children's craft room, but when they no longer lived here i took it over when i started mosaicing. i haven't done a single mosaic since indre was born so the room groans under 8 years of being used as a transport warehouse of packages bound for more distant storage. it needs sorting, and coordinating with other basement areas so that things get into their right place. there is christmas stuff in this room and mosaic stuff where the christmas stuff should be. it's like one of those puzzles where there is only one spare spot into which to move squares to recreate the picture as it should be: gridlock. but i just began at the door. it was that free-will moment when you just go do it, combined with the endless time of a pandemic day.   indre and robin followed me down, more faithful than fig! while i worked they be...

nasty may 11 2020 ‘How long can a heart last like this?’ [washington post article, eli saslow: eli.saslow@washpost.com] this article describes in her own words a woman's 9 week struggle with covid 19; bizarre and frightening symptoms that don't let up.   as i have said before, this virus is "nasty and unpredictable". doctors keep finding more symptoms as they compare notes with other doctors: blood clots that are causing strokes in young people as well as old, purple toes(!), attacks on vital organs, as well as the most common lung affliction and lasting fatigue.   i am reminded of several strange influenzas we have suffered from in recent years, though they were not so lethal as covid 19: one that attacked the muscles across one shoulder. badger, scill and i had it within a day or two of each other. one year it was a flu that seemed to come around again and again through 2 or 3 months. many people agreed that it seemed like the same one recurring. there wa...

may 11 monday   tonight there was a giant halo around the moon. [undated]    :heard loud bangs tonight, don't know what it was - didn't sound like tv gunshots but i thought of guns. [undated] in the movie casablanca, in paris, they hear cannons, and rick says, "they're the new german 77s, and judging from the sound, only about 35 miles away." i have never heard guns in our safe little dead-end street. (or anywhere!) it seems unconscionable that we should live this sheltered existence while so many live in poverty, in the midst of violence. only a few kilometers away there are shootings and hardships and a kind of life that i have never known. "rent a flat above a shop cut your hair and get a job ...pretend you never went to school but still you'll never get it  right. when you're lying in bed at night watching roaches climb the wall, if you called your dad he could stop it all."* so i've never been there. i would go downtown with ...

rich may 11   today is the third day since the last grocery delivery, so i have unbagged and put away the the food. (tamar places our orders - we send her requests. she keeps us well-stocked.) but christmas was when i opened the fruit and vegetable packages; abundance of riches!: oranges, and grapes, luscious dark green romain and kale, tomatoes! and everything i need for a big pot of stew.   how essential - of our essence - is physical sustenance. but before covid 19, didn't we often take meals for granted, eat and run, places to be? now with nowhere to be, we are reduced to (or expanded into) the basics of life. i have time, once a skinny-dime mental image, now a fat marshmallow ocean, to plan and simmer and season.   k and i travelled in asia in 1983, and our days were simple, our belongings only what fit into our packs. we were nomads wandering, and began to see dinner as a major event, what to eat to stay alive until tomorrow (so to speak). we were fully presen...

may 11 monday  covid day 62   exodus   there is an exodus of families from lima, peru, as thousands flee covid 19 and the desperation of living without work or food, to return to their villages and their parents' farms. "the bus terminals were so crowded with people waiting to escape to the countryside at the end of april that families were sleeping outside, side by side. the highways of the city, peru's capital, were lined with walkers, laden with suitcases and children." [new york times international weekly, may 9-10, 2020.] rain asked a few weeks ago if we mightn't see city exoduses. there was talk of closing the montreal bridges. many years ago when elf lived in new york, i told her be sure to get off the island, westward; walk, if necessary, should an apocalyptic event happen; because the bridges will jam up, or may even be destroyed.   noise   airplanes are a novel sight and sound these days. you can cross a road and not see a car in either directi...

may 7   this morning i let go of yesterday's strange inertia, without effort i stopped thinking about it. late in the day, fig and i walked up the field to the next road and back down along the street. the spinning reel and the clicking stopped. nowhere to be and nothing to do.    listened to some john prine. may 8    today has been a "long-wave" pandemic day with time to tidy things and wash dishes without the press of more urgent activities. i tied up some sticks to make a giraffe to stand on the lawn.  it turned out to be a challenge to get it to stand up! the "polar vortex" wind was blowing a gale and poor giraffe kept falling over. bigger sticks, to allow more crossover at joints, and better string, next time.   pandemic cooking is a pleasure most days. i go to the pantry early and look at what there is. with the extra stocks we have a wide choice, and the extra ingredients that we need are on hand for many recipes. without work...

may 6   why does it feel like the covid wind that has been blowing in our faces has dropped and we are in a still place, like we've been paused. i would say in the eye of a storm but that implies more to come.   we hear that places are getting ready to resume or, at least, resemble normal times. but i'm not sure what has changed that they can do that now but not two weeks ago. and garden centres! maybe ford has a cousin in horticulture. ouch, sorry. my inner cynic stuck out her head. perhaps it has to do with the flattened curve which many areas seem to have accomplished. but if we venture out too soon, won't the virus just sweep back up the beach like the tide? like the storm after the calm. (but it didn't seem to pick up again in china. that's hopeful.)   it might just be me. i seem to have lost the momentum that i've been running with. we moved cameron to the new residence in january and by the end of that month we were hearing about china and had our ...

chalk art the nature table how the sun pours in broken china for the mosaic project

may 2   several weeks ago, indre discovered numerous seeds in her apples that had a root. she wanted to plant them and see if they would grow. and they did! we have three tiny apple trees. i replanted them into bigger and separate pots. i hope they will survive the transplant! i took the opportunity to clean and rearrange the nature table, which is where the trees live for now.   today, i have done three important things that have been on my to-do list for a week. they only took 30 or 40 minutes, but there were small obstacles which put me off. putting out the rain gauge involved diving into the hall closet and sorting out the stuff in the little shelves in there, so that i could find it. fortuitously, i found garden gloves, and bubble maker juice and wands! the transplanting involved going out and digging soil out of the compost for the pots. (i won't go to the plant store or even the dollar store for such a purchase because it isn't needful enough.) of course, once yo...