grace

wow.
i'm sitting in the apartment of my Ex-Husband.
the apartment i myself solely occupied for a few very harrowing months. a life ago. six months ago. our cats are all over me can't get enough of me in my face and on my arms as i type. evidence of her is present. --evidence of change is present. yet, alone, i enter, i smell, i feel, i look--everything is Beautiful. the plants are bigger and greener than they ever dreamed of being under my care. the aesthetic is minimal, elegant, natural, and a-buzz with flowing energy. this is a better place for the time lapsed. he is more whole. and i am up to the task; i am willing to see, willing to be, here. now.
i light some incense, uncork a beer, and pay alms to the Hand that cast this wise lot.
this place embraces me. i accept it
gracefully. the circle is complete.

thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.

(California)

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I Will Clean Your Chimney, Dressed As a Gargoyle (California)
96 views since posting on Sunday, November 20, 2005.
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Salary: $135/year
Type: Contract
As winter's deathly chill draws nigh, the desire for cozy fires in one's house increases. This is the best time of year to enjoy a clean fireplace and chimney. When properly cleaned by an experienced leather wearing gargoyle, there will be less risk of fire and less airborn toxins to discourage your happyness. This is where I come in. I am the #1 Gargoyle Chimney Sweeper in the entire world. I will come to your house, clean your chimney and fireplace to satisfaction, and best of all, I provide the entertainment of watching a grey painted-leather wearing-masked-winged-gargoyle, capering about your roof. Feel free to take pictures.

Service costs $135 in San Francisco, slightly more for anywhere else in the Bay Area to cover transportation. Cleaning generally takes about 1.5 hours but a little longer for chimneys that have not been cleaned in some time.
Be the first one in your lineage to have your chimney serviced in such a manner!!!
Call or tribe me to schedule a cleaning or to get a quote if you live outside of SF. (Available for other roof and yard work for an additional fee.)

Shadow (415) 531-9201

(Service in and around Santa Cruz also available)
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Shadow
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tha's what i'm talkin' about!

i've seen him twice now as i jog through mckinley park--he's a white guy, who looks to be in his fifties. his physical appearance fits my idea of an "office dad"--tidy, short hair, glasses, a clean, pressed, light blue oxford tucked into dark slacks (that's what my dad calls them--slacks, and he's an office dad) with a classic leather-looking belt. standing, he rides this scooter-lookin' thing that has kind of a moped front, and a swiveling platform on the back that rolls on two little-little wheels (business in the front, party in the rear!). it's shiny and black and has a windshield and a headlight. the first time he caught my attention is because the music blaring from his ride was so loud, i thought the mckinley park library was having some kind of Function. he cruises around the park on the sidewalks, with LOUD music--the beach boys the first time, then 70's elton john today--broadcasting from his scooter-mobile. he shifts his weight back and forth like you would at the roller-rink when you really know what you're doing and you might even have your own skates. this makes the ass-end of the scooter roll from side to side as he wheels around the park, sometimes even three-wheeling it on the grass. people feeding ducks at the pond look at him as he passes by and children point and say loud things about him. as we passed each other on the sidewalk and i looked him in the eye, he gave me that brief chin-up acknowledgement without changing his expression, as if he were jogging just like me.
yeah! he's my hero.

good guays

these guays (hardy har) are making my mornings tasty these days. i like the Magical Mint Mate.
GUAYAKI MISSION AND GOAL
"Guayaki' works directly with growers to deliver unique and beneficial products that enhance personal health and well-being. our goal is to create economic models that drive reforestation while paying a living wage."
MARKET DRIVEN CONSERVATION
"by purchasing Guayaki', you are driving positive social and environmental change. your "vote with your dollar" enables Guayaki' to motivate yerba mate growers to produce fairly traded, organic, rainforest-grown mate. and, because forest-grown mate is limited, consumer demand is driving the growers to reforest their land benefiting the entire ecosystem."

beauty in the beets

nature's most delicious pigment! beets beets beets beets!
tom robbins had it right dedicating a whole novel to this mysterious passionate earth love.

today's featured beet recipe:
gingered sweet potato soup.
roast big chunks of 3 girl-fist sized sweet potatoes, a coupla beets, garlic cloves, and a radish with some olive oil on 400 till they're soft.
sautee chopped onions with about a cup of sunflower seeds till the onion is soft. add a bunch of grated ginger, some cumin, cinnamon, dried peppermint (i used peppermint tea), salt and fresh ground pepper, and a whole squeezed lime, and sautee for maybe five minutes more.
throw all of the above in the blender, gradually adding four cups of water. do it in batches if your blender doesn't hold it all. puree till peachy pink smooth and gorgeous. swirl in a spoonful of plain yogurt if you're really lucky. serve with crusty toasted bread. mellow soothing and cozy goodness.

dark divine

worship your inner deity with this ambrosia. often.
reminds me of that classic nugget of ho-swah humor: i wish you looked at me the way you look at chocolate.

"You can deprive the body,
but the soul needs chocolate."
www.dagobachocolate.com


this evening in the goddess's private chamber: xocolatl Dagoba--74% dark chocolate, chilies, and cacao nibs. makes you wish i had a microphone on this here compy. . . video would be too graphic. then i'd have to label my blog a "mature site." my sponsors might pull funding..

rottin'

"a public service announcement from your friendly environmentalist"

troyboy built us a compost bin!
he used plywood and two-by-fours to create a rectangle, open on the bottom, with a hinged lid.
we collect our kitchenscraps in a bowl, and then dump 'em in everyday. we also threw some crunchy fall leaves into the mix, and added a little bit of dirt (kinda like a sourdough starter--ha!), and some worms to start the process. i just transported the worms from another part of the yard. the former tenants of our house left behind a little kids' shovel that we can use to stir the compost.

you can start your own compost. companies make fancy shmancy barrel composters on spinner spits that supposedly work really fast. or you can be handy like troyboy and create your own with some wood and screws and stuff. but really all you need is an open-bottomed container with a lid. in lextown, the city gave away old garbage bins that they had sliced the bottoms off of.
there are many varying methods according to your genre of agricultural philosophy as to what to include, how, how often, and when to turn it--including but not at all limited to rituals involving cow skulls and full moons (i heard that one from a girlfriend who worked on a biodynamic farm north of here). but i go by the simplest method involving little work and attention. this takes longer to get the finished product, but it still works. we throw all of our veggie kitchen scraps in there--rotten veggies, rinds, peels, cores, seeds, worn-out leftovers (including pasta, rice, bread), egg shells, coffee grounds, filters, teabags--anything but what's been cooked with a lot of oil, and no meat or meat grease (rotting meat invites unwanted non-worm critters. in our household we just toss meat scraps under the table to troyboy--HA!). we buy pretty much all organic, so we know that the compost we create is pretty much all organic, too--cool, huh?
it also needs some yard waste like leaves in there, too, if you've got it--if not, mix in a few sheets of ripped-up newspaper once in a while. the idea is to alternate layers of moist (kitchen scraps) with layers of dry (leaves/paper). with a bin this size, if we mix it up with the shovel every week or so, we could have beautiful, loose, darkbrown composted soil within a year. or if we didn't do much but toss stuff in there--within a coupla years.
composting is a great way to rid your kitchen trashcan of mess, stink and flies. and one more thing that's in the compost bin is one less thing that's taking up space in a landfill! nothing makes plants--even houseplants--happier than gorgeous, rich compost that you and the magical worms cultivated yourself.
(heard from mackindaddy in the backyard on day two of the bin: i just broke my compost virginity!!)

practice

thanks again for the inspiration, fernando!!

mackindaddy day

birthday party!! well, to be honest, he's been using that excuse to party for the last four nights--hey--if it works. . ! a group of us met at Zocalo, a new, hip mexican restaurant on capital avenue in downtown sac. the free tequila was flowing toward the birthday boy and yummy food and laughs were had by all.
let's hear it for bri!! in your honor, i publish free will astrology for those of the scorpio persuasion:

Scorpio Horoscope for week of November 10, 2005

"Dear Rob: Thanks for your ongoing attempts to burn away negative stereotypes about us Scorpios. Here's more fuel for your fire: I'm not perfect, nor do I aspire to be so. Perfection is a form of death. I'm grateful for my demons because in the worst of times they're my allies, and in the best of times they're the measure of my accomplishments. I don't seek truth, I seek reason. Truth is relative and found only by consensus, while reason is irreducible and adamantine. When in the presence of other people, I try to locate the soul essence I can't see with my eyes. It's good practice for my main hobby, which is to locate the soul essence in myself. If these habits make me obsessed, intense, and inscrutable, so be it. -Scorpio to the Nth Degree." Dear Scorpio: I'm publishing your letter because it's an ideal time for all Scorpios to meditate on your wild ideas.

butterfly

sheltowee is as hardcore a burner as they come. even though i de-playa'd him months ago, he insists on wearing his lone wristcuff and that worn out glowband around his neck everyday. he's already planning his costume for next year. asking how much room we have in el caballero negro b/c he has friends who need a ride. inviting strangers in for dinner. oh--and by the way, he wanted me to tell you: his name is no longer sheltowee; it's butterfly. i guess he feels like he's outgrown the "turtle" identity.
ok, butterfly--soar away.

troglo-file

well, i write a post about how much frickin fun i'm having in C-A, and i'm proud to report that the ho-swah, soul-twin his-self, is doin' a bang-up job of making ye olde K-Ye a bus-load more fun by the second. it's the never-a-dull-moment you always expect from a day with the ho', just a tad more organized. he hosted a field trip: with a classic yellow school bus, a driver, a keg o' homebrew (somehow or other, if you hire a bus and driver, that's legal...) a gaggle of great friends--and even his folks--to ride from lex-town to mammoth cave*. a perfect kentucky fall day as the backdrop, they feasted on wine, cheese, fruit, and the like, then headed below for a cave-cricket-crawling, bat-family-snuggling, crystal-forming, mysterious-water-drip-noising stroll.
you know the keg didn't last all the way there and back, so. . on the return trip, they stopped at the licka sto (please, ask me again how this is legal?). the afterparty was at barry and rebecca's, of course, where they hand-roasted pizza in the outdoor brick fireplace, and cozied up to the flames under the night sky.
as someone who's just recently gone pro at the having of fun, my old teacher continues to shine his headlamp on the trail for me as he tramps on ahead.

~*~ hey, kids! let's play "match the ho-quote with the blogger-random photo of awesome folks!" ~*~
a) da cosmic twinkie an' da creme filling
b) whisper voice
c) merry.. travelers
d) urbane, yet inappropriate
e) beware the cave dentist!
f) troglopat
g) rebecca gets sassy

* "have a free afternoon in western kentucky?
take a tour of mammoth cave--the world's most extensive known cave system--at least a mile for every day of your year.
http://www.nps.gov/maca/ tells you all the info you need to get you there." and lots you don't need--like the different kinds of poo that support bugs that inhabit mammoth cave. this is some excellent fodder for the next party you go to where you find yourself abandoned in a corner with that one girl.
mammoth cave is really cool. it is home to eyeless fish, and many other threatened and endangered species. (like bats--whose poo WAS an integral part of the cave lifecycle back in the day afore ol' Whitey got to em.)
this late night ridiculosity is dedicated to that one and only ho-swah. his gift for seeing the humorous in all things--and the vocabulary to make it even punnier--has lightened my pack and helped me see the forest in the trees for over a decade now. god, how much do i love you.

silly

you're right; it didn't take me very long without the ho-swah before i ran off and joined the circus. but who's gone off the deep end now??


all we can say is: come on in--the water's fine!



what? you don't believe me?? of course it's ho-swah--just look at the way he's holding his wine glass.

"the" 510

posted in the artists' studio, here at "the" 510.

morning

these ladies down the street have been smiling at me for months.

absolute amazement

are you awake? are you looking around?? these days i am in a constant state of amazement--without (ok, sometimes with) the aid of psycho-active supplementation.
my little typing fingers haven't been able to keep up with all the wonders and blessings and beauty that flood my senses daily. i'm trying to keep up! we here at WIDE WORLD OF TIF are in a birthing process. i feel as if the universe has been lovingly whispering (ok, maybe yelling) to me recently and persistently. for.. a handful (wow--only that long?!) of jam-packed months i've illuminated for those loved ones who wanna bear it a keyhole spying the ups and downs and rainbow ride of your favorite tif's westward wanderings. well, my cup runneth over. and i'm not the only one; i'm so happy about all the cool-ass shit that all of my lovely family of friends are up to! i want to share it with you.
so. i feel the contractions of a brain- and soul-baby. i don't want to give away all my secrets just yet. i just wanna say.. . stay tuned!! i'm thinkin' this place is gonna be under construction here soon.


~~The obscure we see eventually," said journalist Edward R. Murrow. "The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer." You have recently taken care of the obscure stuff, Capricorn. Through a blend of lucky accidents and your dogged intelligence, you got to the bottom of a stuffy old mystery and ripped away the veils that were hiding a crippled old truth. Now you're finally primed to notice an open secret that has been right in front of you for quite some time. (you guessed it: free will astrology)~~

yum

mackin-daddy, tb, and i had a family dinner last night. the boys had yummy coconut-curry chicken ala bri, and i made a gorgeous "autumnal abundance soup" with all kinds of delicious autumn veggies~~red and yellow beets
sweet potatoes
acorn squash
stewed tomatoes
onion, fresh ginger, and garlic
pumpkin seeds
loose black chai tea
cumin, salt, freshly ground pepper

in a casserole dish with olive oil, i roasted big chunks of veggies and crushed cloves of garlic on 400 till they were soft and juicy.

in a very large skillet, i sauteed the onion in olive oil till it was very soft, added the ginger and sauteed for a while longer, then the pumpkin seeds, cumin, and a coupla tablespoons of the dry chai tea and let them simmer on low until the seeds browned and started popping and the whole mess was smelling the house up something fierce! then i dumped a few cups of water, two cans of stewed tomatoes, in with the sautee and turned up the heat till it was a low bubble.
last of all i scraped all the roasted veggies into the soup and let it simmer with the lid off to mix it all together, adding water to keep it soupy. the boys said this soup was surprisingly sweet, with an astounding ruby color. (ok, i added "ruby"--but they did comment on the color.)

we had hot, soft corn tortillas to soak up the goodness:
1 cup flour (i used 3/4 wheat/ 1/4 corn flour)
1tsp salt
1/2 cup water--rolled out with plenty of corn flour on the surface, and fried with a bit o' oil in the pan and tasty sea salt on top.

your favorite dark porter or hot tea--this is a great celebration of home and harvest.

avocado

or, "things i love about california"
~~photos, in blogger-random order:
troyboy modeling with a tahoe tree, beautiful lovely non-plastic angels, view from the heavens: the sierra nevadas at sunrise (!), the sake brewery in berkeley, "beverly hills hotel" sign amidst urban palmtrees, mackin-daddy --map-breaking on the american river bike trail, a ceviche restaurante mural in long beach, three-foot-high rosemary on our street in sac

call me star-struck. but i'm still just so happy to be here (i still have moments when i look at troyboy, victorious, and say--we're in california! and he knows how much it means to me). it probably started when my mom unknowingly let my impressionable sponge of a child mind spend all those hours in front of the television. i can admit that. hollywood worked on me (hey--so did sesame street and mister rogers). "california is larger-than-life! it's where things happen! it's where you wanna be!" by the time i was sixteen, and seriously curtailing my tv consumption, the damage was already done. "california" was poetry to my imagination. i was starting to sense that elizabethtown, ky, didn't have very many of "my kind"--in 1992, most e-townians didn't know what a vegetarian was, let alone why i was one. they would have rather watched basketball than make art, anyday. and they certainly didn't get why i dressed so weird. and california did. and sunshine--it had lots of that, too. during college ho-swah and i spent a summer out here raftguiding on the kern river and my love-affair solidified. something about the geography, diversity, the wide-open space, and wide-open possibilities (above and beyond what hollywood impressed upon me as a kid) clicked in my heart.

life being the somewhat random, never-as-planned-as-you'd-like-to-think, gig that it is, it took me nine more years to get out here. but i'm here now. and i feel like california (and the universe in general) forgave me those years of struggling and figuring my shit out. i'm not saying that i don't painfully miss those many someones that are in lex-town, ky. i certainly respect and applaud their efforts that make that town really hard to leave ("hip" californians could never imagine the rockin', loving, creative, talented, smart, revolutionary, fun folks who people downtown lex*)**. i'm also not saying i want to call california my home-sweet-home forever amen. i love it right now. everyday so far, i feel closer in spirit and intention to the little girl i left back in e-town, ky, over twenty years ago. (wow--didn't expect to get so mushy!)

so here's a list of a few of the many reasons i love california:
~lavender, rosemary, and jade that grow hedge-sized without trying
~the ocean
~surfers
~sunshine (which is why--as awesome as san fran is--i wouldn't live there)
~the crisp clear blue sky of the arid regions
~sage
~desert
~sand
~the palmtrees that line our street in sac
~sourdough bread
~mountains
~baja
~plenty of natural/organic/whole foods stores, and people who don't fearfully wrinkle their noses when you refer to one
~diversity--in so many facets.
~plenty of folks who like to do stuff outside
~plenty of folks who don't dress like abercrombie (or UK Blue!!!) is the end-all-be-all in apparel
~vineyards
~so many different things you can do, and places you can be, outside
~breweries and tasting rooms
~yummy, diverse restaurants, and many of 'em!
~learning that not all of the inhabitants of LA are plastic
~reaffirming that "good people" are "good people" no matter where they are found--or what they wear
~being places i've always heard of (i.e. "tahoe," or "santa monica boulevard")
~NOT having to survive another drizzly, gray, help-me-keep-this-gun-from-my-temple february in good ol' k-y (!!)
~fresh, ripe, avocados--need i say more?

*one of the "california phenomena"--native californians don't seem to know ANY u.s. geography beyond.. MAYBE colorado.
(we could have another entry solely on "california phenomena"--"right?", troyboy?)
**no california beach or mountain range will ever take the place of those rolling green hills in my heart. my blood is, afterall, kentucky blood. and i'm sure more than a few of my k-y loved ones, for instance ms. channy chan, could list just as many reasons why they proudly love lex. i can imagine mel-lovely's mister writing a wendell berry-esque essay entitled, "why californians are crazy and i will always live in kentucky." and i'd probably agree with them on a lot of things. this is my "i know there are lots of things wrong with california, and lots of things right about kentucky" disclaimer. please forgive. i think the choice is yours to be happy and bloom wherever you find yourself, every moment. i, however, am happier here.

Middle English cherisshen, from Middle French cheriss-, stem of cherir to cherish, from Old French, from chier dear, from Latin carus

down south for troyboy to take his Big Important Test. stayed with lulu cat at queen she and j's place in santa monica while they're out of town. fun to be in LA just to hang out instead of for "work," and visit another part of this huge smear of the planet blanketly labeled "los angeles." tb and i strolled the scene on a saturday, ate dinner at The Galley, supposedly the oldest seafood restaurant in the area, with some killer salad dressing. . (?) we got a bit sowsed and i got a bit teary-eyed. how honored am i to be on this journey with him? how proud i am of how far he has come and how wide his horizons are for that initial toil. confetti and champagne uncorking for troyboy!!! how seemingly random choices have such widespread implications on life and interactions . and how to stop (or at least pause) along the way and realize, hey--i like it here. i'm glad we're here together. my heart so pleased to hold your hand.
cherish. give gratitude. love with the utmost care!

plug

while we're at it, i might as well share with you the new music i've been loving lately. good stuff by awesome folks.

the mutaytor--www.mutaytor.com --a righteous lightfest of tribal drums and good vibes. they keep the floor a-shakin and my ass a-jigglin.

helios jive--www.heliosjive.com --funky dancey fun, straight-up good jazz. didgeridoo sax and scratch--included at no extra cost.

porter tinsley--www.portertinsley.com --a new album from your favorite madamoiselle quill herself. haven't purchased it yet; knowing her taste, it has to be good. and body-rockin.

bassnectar--www.bassnectar.net --danceability plus.

barry syska--www.barrysyska.org --unlike all of the above, which are superb for gettin your bootyshake on, this guy's melodic old-school sound begs a partner and fedora. i listened to his promo cd all day yesterday.

andrew bird--www.andrewbird.net --the only musician on this list who's not shared the billing with lucent dossier in the past few months. the mysterious production of eggs, his latest, tickles my brain somewhere in the very back, close to the subconscious. the way he puts things together is ethereal and evocative. (and he's on ani's label!)