i immensely enjoy my horoscope extra today

here is the extra:

Meditate naked under a waterfall.
Relive the last day of your childhood.
Sip the tears of someone you love.
Rebel against your horoscope.
Create a luxurious orphanage in Romania.
Pick blackberries in the rain.
Feel sorry for a devious lawyer.
See how far you can spit a mouthful of beer.
Give yourself another chance.
Dream of stealing the peaches of immortality from a dragon guarding Plato's cave.
Write a love letter to your evil twin during a lunar eclipse.
Sing the first song you ever heard.

(i thought i was the only one who send out odd lists of suggestions like that. nice!)

and here is the actual horoscope:
The coming week will have something to offend and agitate everyone -- except you. Whines and moans and yelps will ring out across the land, even as you're emanating poise and aplomb. You may be tempted to brazenly exploit everyone's vulnerability and seize control of your corner of the world, but I think that would be shortsighted of you. A better strategy for capitalizing on your advantage would be to dole out large doses of mercy, making sure that the people who will be important to your future don't lose their way.

fall and hot chocolate with vigor

My October newsletter article:

I love fall. I love sweaters and scarves paired with flip-flops. I love trees bursting into such flames of color one expects to hear a voice anytime now. I love school starting up again, thus ending the boredom of summer and beginning the (secretly enjoyable) toil of learning. And I love crisp, brisk air greeting me in the morning. I do admit that hot coco in jammies and crunchy leaf piles, kettles off squealing and walking for miles, minds floating ‘round with ideas that have wings – these are a few of my favorite things.

Life is given to us to live passionately and with vigor. All too often we forget to do so. Maybe if we did polar bear swims and then ran back to saunas we would have more crisp reactions to existence. Maybe if we had long lunches of decadent and freshly prepared food followed by a nap and then back to work. Maybe if we were just someone else, somewhere else, or maybe on permanent vacation we would be able to live more fully and intensely. Or maybe not.

How is it we can so easily lose our zest for life? How is it that we become numb to the wonder that is always around us and dismissive of the joys presented before us? We have been given so much in life that is wondrous, sometimes we need to jolt ourselves out of complacency. To help with this adventure in the spirit of the season, I invite you to have some fun with your hot chocolate.

Basic hot chocolate recipe via Hershey (5 servings):
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
Dash salt
1/3 cup hot water
4 cups (1 qt.) milk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Stir together sugar, cocoa and salt in medium saucepan; stir in water. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. Boil and stir 2 minutes. Add milk; stirring constantly, heat to serving temperature. Do Not Boil.

2 Remove from heat; add vanilla. Beat with rotary beater or whisk until foamy.

Options to add zest and vigor to renew your taste buds:
-A dash of cinnamon alone or with ground cloves
-Cayenne and cinnamon for the traditional Aztec drink
-Strong coffee and cinnamon for Mexican flavor
-Replace some or all of the white sugar with brown
-Peppermint candies
-A teaspoon of maple syrup and a tablespoon of butter
-Ideas for the adults: an ounce of vanilla vodka, cherry brandy, amaretto, Grand Marnier, irish cream or Kahlua

Enjoy!

from the wtf files:

I can't find a thermos in this town (nor what I want to pay for via the web) that holds a quart which is the amount of coffee i like to drink in the morning. The only container I have in my house that holds all this liquid - as opposed to the previous use of 2 travel mugs - is a mason jar that still has the apple butter label on it.



My morning coffee just canned itself. There was a loud lid pop and everything.

Sweet.

my article for friday's local paper

As I write this there is a wonderful rain falling outside. Having moved here from the desert of Southern California, I have missed the warm rain that needs no raincoat but invites one to walk with head uncovered and feet bare. There the rain comes only in the middle of the winter and is punishing and biting and merely quenches the parched land. Here the rain is regular and warm, caressing the skin and hair as it falls to the already green earth where worms don’t commit nearly as drastic a suicide on nearby pavement.

Sunday our youth were asked why God created. Why God created water was difficult to answer. We depend so much on this simple H2O that we have a hard time recognizing it’s necessity for life. Glasses of water, rain, ice cubes, long walks on the beach and umbrellas are second nature to us for we can not fathom existence without water.

So when the rain pours down again, I invite you to feel the restoring water bring life back into what is parched in you. When you drink a glass of water, feel this basic element of life renewing and strengthening you. When chewing on an ice cube may you have company in the harsh points in life. And next time it rains, may you know the sheer joy of jumping in puddles and then falling asleep to the gentle, rhythmic sounds of the pitter-patter of God’s everlasting love falling around you.

domesticity and my mother

i have a new kettle!

isn't it shiny? mom sent it in the mail last week to replace the piece of crap one i took with me to seminary that even then didn't have the whistler anymore. so now she sends me one that costs apparently over $50 which is comparable to the price of the electric, full-on british one i bought for her almost a decade ago. (now that i think about it, that thing has held up extremely well)

so i get all excited because mom sent me a wicked-nice kettle as a present, and then she shares with me that it was a free gift to go along with the really expensive dutch oven they just bought (this is also similar to the time she sent me a curtain and pillow she proudly picked up at a garage sale). not knowing which size they got i'll just have to give you an estimate that it was probably around $200. anyhow, i ask my 67 year-old mother why she decided now was the time to finally get one of these things and she replies, "well, i want to make beef boulonnaise." mother saw Julie and Julia a few weeks ago and has been mildly obsessed ever since. after first asking if i had a copy she bumbled about trying to find one. last night came the request for me to pick it up for her off of amazon.com because "it's $20 cheeper there than in the stores, but when i keep putting in the password i swear we have, it says that it's wrong." i love my mother. usually she functions better than this. and i'm not going to let her pay me back for this book. i actually said that i'll just get two and keep one for myself, but she said, "oh, no. i'll just do this recipe and send you the book soon so you can have it." i love my mother. i never know what she is going to say.

so apart from my imminent (cooling) english breakfast tea, this day off proves to be full but, i suspect, good. i get to clean my house (always a bonus), put curtains back up (no clawed kitties to climb them anymore, and i bought replacement rods finally), put up first time curtains to block my living room from the street (need to be hemmed) and somehow go pick up a frig. did i mention that my frig has been increasingly broken for the last 3 weeks or more? no? well it has. i dislike this. and my landlord, while a really nice guy, is so not on top of things at all. i'm thinking that within 2-3 weeks i might have a new frig. so i'm glad for the mini-frig loan. let's see if we can put it in my little civic now. this should be fun.