Muh-Muh... Ode to My Cat

On the Friday before Christmas, sometime shortly after I left for the office, Mattie the cat met her demise.

Being hit by a car was a surprising and violent end for this skittish, needy and endlessly person-oriented animal. She fled in fear from any footstep (It's not about you Mattie...). She drooled on me almost daily. She used her jaw as a front-end loader to scrape up heaps of cat food, and inevitably barfed it up later, barely chewed. She meowed at me, constantly. I had to periodically stop talking back to  her, when the meowing really got out of hand. (Hreh, hreeowww)

She was fat. Small head, very round body. She got thin (well, thinner) in the summer after we moved to the new house, because she got more running and hunting in. But in preparation for winter, she had packed the weight back on. I referred to her as my keishke.

Mattie was equal parts endearing and annoying. If nothing else, she had a strong dose of personality. And she loooooooooved us. (reference the drooling). It was impossible to sit down without her jumping in your lap. Every pair of slacks I own has the rents and snags to prove it. Every night, she draped her chubby little self over my shoulder or my hip, and purred and drooled her way through the night. In spite of myself, I loved her back, as much as she loved me.

We invented all kinds of amusing adventures and stories. We have a special voice for her. (Um, so anyways... everything ends in questions?...) In our imaginary world, Mattie started a ladies' gym called Narrow Miss. The first location was in Burnips. She went on to run a temp agency, and to take contract work as a receptionist and business identity specialist. She was superb at coming up with funny names for companies. (Omer Goodness, Mattie speaking)

Mattie understood the give and take of relationship. She loved us no matter what. She let us know when she was unhappy (pretty sure she's behind the poop-storm we came home to after our vacation), but in the end, it never changed the look on her face when I stopped to meow back at her.

She's in the ground now, under a favorite tree. I'll plant some catmint there in the spring, when I remove the pine boughs we used to cover the bare earth.

Her companions miss her. Pips, cat roommate of almost 11 years. Gribby, her first idol. Kevin, her nemesis and object of fascinated affection. Me, her cat-mom and favorite lap.

Update, 12/31, my birthday... found a few more photos of the dince-rat (pron. dynse - rate, inspired by the fact that she was small and somewhat mattie-rattie).

The humble sweet potato

Meatless Monday Gnocchi

Another tasty vegetarian meal to celebrate meatless Monday.


For the gnocchi:

• 6 sweet potatoes
• 1 russet
• 1 egg
• 1 c. parmesan or similar cheese, grated
• salt
• nutmeg
• cayenne
• all-purpose flour

1. Roast the potatoes and cool until they can be handled. Remove the skins and press through a ricer. (I use the one that came with my Grandma's Kitchen-Aid. Old-schooler, but it works.) Mix the potatoes together and form a well in the center.
2. Beat egg with cheese and spices. Add to potato mixture (pour into the well) and gently fold together using a rubber spatula. 
3. Generously flour a work surface, and your hands, and working with a handful of dough at a time, roll it into a rope and cut into bite-sized pieces. 
4. Roll with a fork to score.
5. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silpat and freeze. 

Once they are frozen, portion onto quart zip-lock bags. They store nicely for several months.

To prepare, boil 3 quarts of salted water in a large pot. Add the frozen gnocchi to the boiling water, and leave heat on high, uncovered. Gently stir occasionally. The gnocchi will rise to the surface as they cook. When all are on the surface, boil gently for a little longer (a minute or two at most). Drain.

For Meatless Monday Gnocchi:

• Sweet Potato Gnocchi
• 1 lb. arugula, washed and spun dry
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• pecans
• salt
• pepper

Prepare gnocchi as above.

1. Heat olive oil in a 10-inch saute pan over medium-low heat. Saute garlic until it turns the color of straw, and sticks together. Add pecans, and saute lightly for a few minutes, until aromatic.
2. Add the arugula in layers, salting each layer as you add.
3. Stir together until arugula is tender (only a couple minutes).
4. Drain as needed (sometimes will be quite watery, depending on the arugula, and may need to be pressed to remove excess liquid).
5. Push arugula to the side, and add the cooked gnocchi over medium-high heat (augment oil if needed), stirring occasionally until lightly browned.
6. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately with grated cheese or a balsamic vinaigrette. 

Elusive contentment

Life is imperfect, stunning, complicated. The way we live it is up to us, and I believe we have choices to make about what "normal" means. Contrast this against the daily pressures of deadlines, billable hours and my own insecurity. Against the reality of an economy that requires income and functions on commerce.

I suspect that I want to change the rules that define life in our time.

I envision a connected life, based in personal relationships to people, food, land. Work that is tangible and meaningful—related to my survival and well being. The time to be thoughtful. The practice to be prepared. A heady dose of creativity and intellectual stimulation. I imagine a world that I want to live in. I know it is attainable, but I don't know how to get from here to there.

I want to reduce my frustration with the life I have.

And that frustration stems from a few things, some easier to control than others. Some of them require others to change their behavior (hard). This is about changing my own behavior (still hard, but easier.) And here is a problematic behavior of mine: I don't enjoy the trappings of the life I have, because I want to change them. As a result, I am ill-prepared to fully live this life. I don't have the right tools for the tasks at hand.

So here is my experiment: attention to gratitude, contentment and presence.

Living the life I have, with as much integrity as I can

• Gratitude: I am thankful for the life I was born into. My family worked hard, and my sister and I had opportunities that gave us the foundation for success. Education, travel, parents and grandparents, enough independence to learn something on our own.
• Contentment: The life I live now is hard in many ways, but it's a pretty great life. I'm not hungry. I have enough to share. I work for and with people whom I love and respect. I live near water, and I have room for a garden. I have our farm up north. I'm in love.
• Presence: This is the life I have. I can shift it toward the life I want, and I should. But I also need to allow myself to live this one. Create the routine. Find the boundaries. Stick to them. From clothing, to exercise, to cooking, cleaning, reading and writing (those are as much hobbies as they are chores, don't laugh), I need to do more than survive. I need to be present in all aspects of my life: creative, emotional, intellectual, practical, and professional.

I think being present is the hardest one.

For a long time, the professional part of my life has had all the attention, mostly because it felt the most required for survival. I've been successful, but I've been aware of the cost. Perhaps I am only beginning to understand what it means. This is the hardest one, because it means wrestling my job into balance—time and attention. This is the hardest one, because it means learning the difference between service (paying wholehearted attention to the needs of others) and presence (not sure how to articulate that one yet, but I know it's different).

Wish me luck. If you have good advice, let me know.

Whatever you're meant for

I have been thinking a lot about what my next step in life will be. I work too much, laugh too little, and spend far more time managing projects than I spend living my life. This is not what I'm meant for.

But what am I meant for? If I could do anything, what would it be?

1 - I'd farm. I'd grow food for myself and my family, and I'd cook it into beautiful celebratory meals.
2 - I'd write. I'd capture the small moments, the insignificant ones that seem like they are mundane, but are really perfect little miracles.
3 - I'd listen. I'd read, wonder, research, and see where it all took me. I'd be just fine with open questions.
4 - I'd practice. Music, meditation, languages, all of it.
5 - I'd share. I'd have dinner, wine, coffee with friends. I'd make new friends. I'd cherish old friends.

Simple desires, seemingly so little to ask of life. Where do I go from here?

Meatless Monday

Every Monday, Kevin and I go vegetarian. It's a small, simple way to be intentional about what we eat, and how it affects the world around us. Last night: Pantry pasta and chick pea salad. 

What I learned today

I love the people I work with. We operate like a family, and for the most part, we're a pretty functional one. I'm grateful for what I learn every day. Today was a zinger. Here's what I learned:

I define collaboration as co-creation. Sitting side by side, working fluidly, letting go of ownership and boundaries, to make something that couldn't be made with any of us alone. I think it's a better result. It's certainly a better experience.


Feedback and subsequent iteration is not enough (for me). This mode of "meet, then go away and create, then come back and get feedback, then go away and create" is inefficient, and feels rife with opportunities for misunderstanding. And, it makes it hard to get the right feedback at the right moment. To have a removed reviewer, the designer has to explore something to great depth, to realize a concept almost fully.

Unfinished work feels bumpy and uncertain. It can easily inspire fear and doubt in a removed reviewer, and defensiveness or frustration in the creator.

Not everybody wants to, or knows how to, be a co-creator. It takes invitation, shared expectations, and full commitment of trust in each other. We have to give up our attachments, and be open to the unknown discovery, the unpredicted innovation. There's a lot of uncertainty there.

What I haven't learned is how to work with the in-between. How do I figure out where and when to engage the various people who need to have input—because they have a significant stake in the outcome—when their definitions of collaboration fall in so many places along the continuum of co-create to review-and-iterate?

How do you do it? Where do you find your community of practice?

***
It's hardly poetry. But it's what was on my mind as I close my day and turn to the business of the rest of my living. 

Remarkable things

The most remarkable things
are often tiny surprises.

Quick intakes
of breath, the lungs' equivalent
of a glimpse
caught
through a window,

A stare thought
to have an inappropriate length,
lost in pondering.

A new nest,
the size of a soup spoon's
bowl.

Every moment holds
a possible miracle. Every blink
may reveal
the dream that steals
away
on the softest feet
the quietest fog.

These remarkable things rush
past, bubbles on water.

Our charge is to collect them.
Catalog
their character,
savor, share, remember.

***
Many of you have asked to see my poetry. I have not written for pleasure in a long time, though I think in verses often. It is photographic and involuntary. 


I have no idea how to read my own poems, nor really where they come from. I'm certain that they are both lovely and terrible, but here they are. Ephemeral, works in progress, incomplete. Probably embarrassing, but I don't know any better, and frankly, I don't really care.


For me, poems are a protest. A refusal to lose the things I hold dear. A memory. A moment cherished, and shared.