Author: Bev

Maybe your household is among the folks who keep an orderly, up-to-date and sensible collection of foods in your refrigerated storage container.  Apparently, we are not, until I made these observations.  And now, I’m just embarrassed.

There are soy sauce and sweet-n-sour packets, oh and hot mustard, from that take away Chinese food from five years ago.  Speaking of packets, in case we run out of ketchup in the bottle, we kept only about fifty, eight-year-old ketchup packets from fast food places; not counting the twenty-five or so that reside in the car.  Better safe than sorry when it comes to enough ketchup.

We have some hardened mystery-nut-butter that “they” were sure we’d like when they gave it to us at the turn of the millennium.  I didn’t have the heart to throw away a gift.

Pumpkin flavored whipped cream seemed like a great idea at Thanksgiving.  We consumed approximately five dollops of it at Thanksgiving, and it’s May.  Surely, it’s still good.

We kept a miniature bottle of lemon-flavored Perrier, the fancy fizzy water that must feel too fancy to drink when we can drink the store-brand seltzer water in the can.  I guess we’re keeping it for a “special occasion,” whenever that may be.  Somehow, in our household, “special occasions” must not be special enough to merit consuming such items as that bottle of Perrier that has been kept for over a decade, I think.

Twelve raisins in a baggie…. I don’t know, you tell me.

There’s pickled something or other in a jar.  It was a gift and throwing it out just seems ungrateful.

Tucked in one of the door pockets is a jar of some kind of fish paste that has Asian characters on it.  It was also a gift; what were they thinking?  One of my culinary rules is, never make home-made Chinese; leave that one to the professionals.

What was I thinking when I shoved, into the netherworld of the garage-freezer, that leftover pureed canned pumpkin and its partner, gob-filling?  Maybe the justification was that I’d wake up one day and think, “I’m gonna bake three pumpkin gobs today, boy am I glad I kept that pumpkin and filling.”

I still have whole grains, mystery flours, and all manner of seeds that I thought of using in massive quantities, but used a few cups, to make several loaves of artisan breads.  This was maybe twenty years ago when we bought a wonderful bread machine that I now break out of the back of the cupboard once a year to make Finnish cardamom bread and before the low- carb diet that changed my life in 2003.

There’s a pretty designer bottle of homemade Horchata (Mexican rice milk), that I made in order to try a cocktail which I didn’t particularly like.  It still smells really good and looks so pretty in that bottle.  Speaking of pretty, we have some iced cider in a darling gift tin.

Oh, and there are choices of bottled salad dressings, all my husband’s, which stay permanently housed on the bottom shelf of the door.  I’m an olive oil and red wine vinegar gal, myself.

There are maybe two tablespoons in each, Catalina, why? Blue cheese, why? And two different kinds of ranch in bottles, several unopened packets of the really good kind of ranch; several packets of creamy Italian which came with subs; oh, and a dozen packets of mayonnaise which hubby can use if we run out of the good olive oil mayonnaise that we keep on hand.

Also stuffed in the door pockets is: A1 sauce for steaks which we just aren’t fans of, Cajun sauce for seafood which I bought for something a dozen years ago, Hickory seasoning for the salmon dip I make at Christmas time; Turkey broth in a packet which came with the turkey drumsticks which I tried last Christmas; Killer hot sauce which will remain, since we love any and all hot sauce as well as the two miniature bottles of real maple syrup alongside the corn syrup we call, pancake syrup for when hubby makes waffles, quarterly, at best.

Disclaimer, if you were the giver of any one of those food gifts that I mentioned in this column, do not take offense.  In this household we believe in the adage, “it’s the thought that counts.”  So, your gift was received with gratitude and your intent, banked.

Don’t worry, we’ve had a massive clean-out and ensconced a fresh, open box of baking soda to absorb that mystery odor from all of those enigmatic foods, long buried in our refrigerated storage box.  Cheers. – let’s have Perrier!

I broke a fingernail. My “perfect” fingernails walked seamlessly into the realm of reality the day before Easter.  It happened incognito.  The middle one, you know the one, appeared maimed to its jagged edge, which you could barely call an edge since it was emaciated right to the quick.

Unusual for my modus operandi, I said, “oh well,” tidied it up and moved on.  There was a time, back in the land of perfectionism, that I would have been compelled to cut all of my nails very short to accommodate that one broken one.

Wouldn’t it be appalling if someone should notice this lack of order, consistency, balance or perfection in me, right?  If they notice at all, does anybody really care, beyond “oh, you broke a nail?”

Atelophobia, the fear of imperfection, is probably a somewhat self-conscious fear, thinking that people notice you more than they actually do.  Sadly, most people are more concerned about themselves than they are about you

I wonder if all perfectionism is in some sense trying, without success, to accommodate brokenness because we can’t maintain perfection indefinitely?  After all, one definition of perfect, is “excellent, beyond practical.”

Is it enough to maintain a perfect façade?  The house might be crumbling inside, but if the outside looks good, all is well.  Or so it seems.

Expectation, accommodation and adaptation to reality might be the real circle of life, as it turns out.  If I’m honest, I didn’t really expect my nails to all stay one length, looking perfect, for long.  Experience tells a more realistic story.

I don’t know what day it was but one day something clicked in me and I decidedly preferred peace over perfection.  I became a utilitarian after having been an idealist for eons.

I was a teenage idealist.  It seems that sometime along the line, I lowered my standards of excellence.  “Lower your standards,” someone shouted.  “For shame!”

Whoa, hold on a minute.  Who set those standards to begin with?  Me thinks it was me, when I was an idealist.  I’ve since, relinquished my mental perfection-detection meter and re-defined certain minor flaws as a variation of normal.

For a Sociology course I taught, I studied utopian communities of the 19^th century.  Do you have, or your family had, Oneida silverware, an Amana refrigerator or freezer, or a Shaker cabinet or ladder-back chair?  All three of these renowned crafts are products from utopian communities.  They were idealists who no longer remain as living, contemporary communities.

Idealists lose steam because the reality is that any philosophy which demands perfection and rejects anything less, will fail the test of time.  People are flawed.  No one can conform absolutely to the highest degree of excellence, consistently and forever.

Excellence has degrees.  You’ve heard the increments: good, better, best.  It has been said that “the perfect is the enemy of the good.”  Or, as Voltaire said, “The best is the enemy of the good.”  Confucius said, “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.”

The drive toward perfection can be a good thing because it may just result in a great thing.  But the dark side of the pursuit of perfection is the persistent attitude that says, “if it’s not perfect, it’s not right.”  This translates to, “I’m not right, or good enough.”

Enough is a parallel concept of perfection.  When is good, good enough?

Can you stop on the road to perfection and say, that’s good enough?  Can you stop the car, at good?  Can you conclude, “I’m good?”

When is enough, enough?  Ancient Taoist philosopher, Lao Tzu (Laozi) says, “There is no greater sin than desire, no greater curse than discontent, no greater misfortune than wanting something for oneself.  Therefore, he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.”

Someone once said perfectionism is a waste of time since twenty percent of your effort gleans eighty percent of your desired result.  Does eighty percent  work for you?

I noticed a column by one of my compatriots, blasting those of us who are moderates, as not caring enough to take a stand.  Unafraid, she has taken a solid stand and that’s admirable.  It is clear where she stands and clarity is good in communication.

I, on the other hand would make a poor politician or activist.  I guess I see too much of value from most every perspective.

I have always considered myself chameleon-like, able to adapt to people of every ilk, from the elite to the humble, finding worth in every soul.  If I had a little girl, yes, a girl, I would probably buy her the new “you can be anything” mermaid Barbie, that when dipped in water, changes color.

Those of us in the moderate middle have also taken a stand.  See, I took a stand in the last paragraph, stating that I would buy a Barbie for my little girl and probably wouldn’t buy one for my boy.

The concept of taking a stand originates with the military, holding their position against an enemy.  Make no mistake, there are enemies to the right and to the left of where I stand.

Extremes are the enemy of the moderate, who maintains a position of reasonable limits, resisting the extremes of both the right and the left.  We in the middle, have an ability to see the merit in points of view that reside all over the map.  We believe in pulling those worthy ideas, philosophies, theories, and actions into our stand.

We get stuff done through mitigation, restraint and control.  The ineluctable moderate is the only just winner in the battle between the extremes.

Bridge Over Troubled Water, the Simon & Garfunkel song from 1970(Paul Simon), comes to mind.  What would we do without bridges?  They connect us from one side of the gorge between us, to the other.  The moderate is that connection, that bridge.

I stand for equity, kindness, forthrightness, decency, intelligence, communication, humility, common sense, and all things leading to agreement.  I believe in standing up for the little guy, but I’m not afraid to stand up for someone powerful who needs another to come along side.

The things of common goodness which I was brought up admiring and aspiring to be, bring us from the far left and the far right into a place of compromise.  This is not a bad word.

My own husband used to dislike the word and concept behind compromise.  It sounded to him, as it likely does to some others, like giving up, giving in, or not taking a stand – a crouch perhaps, but not a stand.

I guess I was born a peacemaker.  Every disagreement must be moderated with give-and-take from each side, bringing them firmly into middle ground.   We are not a homogeneous culture, community, household, or partnership, and disagreements abound.

Compromise is not diluted commitment.  The thing that settles disagreements is give-and-take, diplomacy, communication, and yes, compromise.  As Ella Fitzgerald sang, you have to “give a little to get a little.”  She went on to croon, “no love, no hope…with love there’s hope.”

Jesus himself said that love covers sin.  He modeled the concept with the prostitute he met at a watering hole.  He conversed with her about not only physical water, but the metaphysical kind: living water, or love.  Others ridiculed and judged the woman for her lifestyle, but Jesus covered her, with love, forgiveness and compromise, “go and sin no more,” he said.

There are two sides to every coin, but one coin.  There are two sides to every argument, with the goal being agreement.  There are two people in a marriage, making one union.  A collective of trees makes a forest.

I recently dreamt of the 1986 Culture Club (Boy George) song, Karma Chameleon which totally portrays the chameleon as a wishy-washy uncommitted creature which takes no stand.  Was the dream defensive for my chameleonic personality?  Or is it just a reaction to very self-assured activists, critical of us chameleons of the 1960s “make love not war” flavor, who don’t join their fight?

My perspective about chameleons is that they change colors in order to adapt to an ever-changing environment.  First one color then another is a form of assimilation, accommodation, and adaptation – all survival mechanisms.  Back to the military, we must “adapt and overcome” or face sure defeat.

I don’t take a knee.  I don’t bow.  I don’t crouch or curtsy.  I stand, probably for you, and you, and you.

I’ve seen enough old spy movies to have a suspicion that Vladimir Putin could conceivably follow through with his threat to flip the switch activating nuclear codes.  For that matter so could Joe Biden.  Flipping that switch is an ominous thought, well above my pay grade.  However, it got me to thinking about switches, in general.

Actually, switches of the electrical kind are fun and entertaining devices.  I recently watched a television show or movie that in one scene featured a woman mindlessly switching a light on and off, on and off, to assuage her boredom or was it, frustration?

I once had to run a switchboard on the receptionist’s lunch hour at a transportation company I worked for.  It was a desk-size console covered with switches or buttons.  It wasn’t quite as ancient as the one run by Mrs. Olsen on Little House on the Prairie, with flip switches and a headphone, for listening in, but it was close.  Pushing buttons and flipping switches made that old switchboard a grown-up toy reminiscent of my little girl’s cash register from back in the day.

I’ve never owned a switchblade and probably never will.  But they are bad-ass, huh?  I think it’s not so much the blade, but the sound of switching them open, that seals the deal.  I might like having one just to hear the soothing sound of switching it open.

Or maybe I should become a switch-person at a train-yard.  I worked for Auto-Train many years ago and I will never outgrow the thrill of trains.  I still find train-yard sounds, soothing.  Even the screeching of heavy iron clanking against heavy iron makes me smile and it reminds me of the Proverb (27:17), iron sharpens iron, generally understood to illustrate friendship and accountability.

How many times during a television watching session do you switch channels for nothing but the joy of the switch?  Do you drive a standard shift automobile or truck, because you find switching gears entertaining?

Are you familiar with the flexible, thin branch from a tree, called a switch, which is used as a whip with which to spank naughty children?  I was never hit with a switch, a belt, or even spanked, as I recall.  But, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was required reading by those of us born in what I generically call, 19sensibleshoes.  Tom Sawyer, or was it Huck Finn, was hit with a switch and if I recall correctly, he had to select said switch.

Modern child development and parenting literature teaches us that spanking, let alone switching the backside of children suggests to them that hitting is the way for someone more powerful than you to solve a problem.  Some folks, including ones that were hit as children, would argue that spanking or switching just taught them to behave, or at least not get caught misbehaving.  That’s an argument for others.

Or maybe you know the switch as a metaphor for a device of behavioral or psychological control.  A pointed finger is a sort of switch because it’s an object for pointing out stuff, or why else call it a “pointer finger?”

My husband enjoys a picture of a little girl with a switch pointed at a little boy, that I printed for him from the internet.  This picture which resides in his man-shed as well as on his office desk, is captioned “I’m not bossy!  I have skills…leadership skills!!  Understand?”  Enough said.

We’ve all had to make some unpleasant switcheroos from time to time, say from salt to herbs to add flavor to food; from chips to popcorn; from red meat to chicken and turkey; from size um-um to a bigger size UM-UM; from a little chocolate with our sugar bars to unsweetened 72% or higher cacao/chocolate bars that honestly taste like dirt at first, but I’ve learned to like them a lot.

Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters sang, “You got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive, Eliminate the negative, and latch on to the affirmative….”  So, might I suggest that the next time you switch outfits for the fifth time before leaving the house, “accentuate the positive,” and think of it as entertainment.  You just pulled a switcheroo and got away without a switching from somebody, anybody.

Julie Andrews sang about some of her favorite things in The Sound of Music.  Well, I have favorite things too and some of mine, are sounds.

“Silence is golden, golden,” rings in my head.  It’s a lyric from back in the day (1967, Tremeloes).  About the sentiment, not so much, for me.  Nothing creeps me out more than hearing my own heartbeat.  Analyze that, ha-ha.

Andra Day sings “the silence isn’t quiet,” in an awesome song called Rise Up.  And in one of my favorite songs, by Heart, These Dreams, we hear in part, “every second of the night I live another life… the sweetest song is silence, that I’ve ever heard.”

So, songs, silence, and sounds are understood in paradox; one moment one thing, and the next moment another meaning presents itself.  I do enjoy silence from talk, periodically, and I work best in silence.  When I’m working, there is enough rolling around in my brain, that any other sound is overload.

White noise, however is a must in order for me to entertain peace.  Peace and quiet from peopley noise, yes; but nature noise or industrial noise is a must-have.

I’m a big fan of white noise.  As a teenager, the clothes dryer created that white noise in my household.  I’m good with dishwashers too; and any kind of fan is a delight.

On an early spring, cool evening, after a long day, one of my favorite sounds when resting on the sofa, is the fan from our fireplace insert.  When it stops, needing fed, I’m disappointed.

I’m somewhat averse to pet birds.  But I love to see and especially hear birds chirping outside in the springtime.  It’s cheerful, not to mention hopeful.

Probably the most frequent subtitle my husband and I have observed while watching foreign TV shows and movies is, “birds chirping.”  In fact, we laugh now, every time it appears on the screen.  “Those birds are back at it.”

What seems like a scene straight out of one of my favorite movies, Alfred Hitchcock’s, The Birds, used to play out in our bamboo grove every fall.  Now that the bamboo is gone, the generic black birds which number in the dozens, maybe hundreds, roost across the road in the very tops of scrubby no-name trees.  They all talk in unison as if it’s a bird convention.

Winter seems to me a silent season, we’re insulated indoors by intense quietude.  Somebody surely invented the saying, “cabin-fever,” in winter.  On the contrary, spring speaks life, new beginnings – “life springs eternal” says more about the season than a water-fountain.

Peepers, spring frogs, overwhelm the air with their song, along tree-lined paths nearby.  Before I knew any better, I thought they were extremely loud crickets.  Keen observers of their surroundings, they cease their chorale when I approach parallel to their habitat.

I’m not unhappy with mechanical white noise, thus the clothes dryer, dishwasher mentioned above, but a white noise machine doesn’t fall on deaf ears in our house.  Mine is set on an industrial fan sound.  I’d probably sleep like a baby in an industrial warehouse or some such place.

A luxury tree house in the woods next to a flowing stream would suit me just fine.  I’ve got a recording of such a rushing stream on my phone, for emergencies.  Even a screech owl would be a welcome visitor.

I’ve never been one to dislike city noise: honking horns, cars buzzing along, sirens, etc.  In contrast, the silence of a country night can be very unnerving.

In fact, my first night, living deep in the country after moving from the city, was sleepless because something was missing, sound.  When the power goes out at night, my eyes pop wide open in direct response to the extreme quiet.

The “chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga, woo-woo” of trains on television, to the sounds of the real rails is a fairy-tale come true for me.  Train noises, just like walking onboard a moving train is probably an acquired taste, but it’s my kind of flavor.

I like all kinds of music but the best for me is classical, with no words.  I don’t want the distraction or to expend the effort to process the message.  I like just letting the sounds elicit whatever reaction they elicit, without the help of someone else’s interpretation.

I’m not thinking I could do the vow of silence required by some religious orders.  Me and my kindred spirits that got bad marks in elementary school for “talks too much” would suffer inordinately, to stay silent.  We’ve got stuff that needs saying.

This is not to say that the sound of my own voice doesn’t get annoying.  I’d much rather hear a baby babbling, doves cooing or the pitter-patter of rain on a metal roof.  It’s all relative, the sounds we like and the ones that grate.

But I for one am grateful for sound, and silence for that matter.  I’m glad to have heard the hum of a full beehive, thunder on a summer night, and even the gentle but resolute snort of a fleeing black bear.

I have too many favorite songs, I think, but this one hovers near the top of my list (Bing Crosby; writers Regney Noel/Shain Gloria Adele); “Do you hear what I hear? …a song, a song… Pray for peace people everywhere….”

I thought of calling this column, War and Peace, but reconsidered since that one’s taken.  Surely War and Peace, written by Russian author, Leo Tolstoy between 1805-1869, among the longest novels ever written and with over 500 characters, could be resoundingly considered by some to be “purple prose,” in lay terms, wordy.

So, why Forest and Trees, rather than War and Peace?  There’s a well-known saying, “you can’t see the forest for the trees.”  If peace is the forest what are the details (the trees), that we can’t get past, in order to reach the goal?

“Can’t see the forest for the trees,” is essentially considered an insult, not unlike “stop overthinking,” or “you must have OCD.”  It’s hardly diplomatic nor tactful.

Notice that I’m speaking about a twist on the saying.  Instead of forest or trees, I’m proposing a theory concerning the forest and the trees, taken together as a middle ground.  I think we need not stamp out one or the other, as inconsequential.

Are there many peace treaties being negotiated in Congress in America?  Or is there just one skirmish after another in a constant battle of wills; opponents fighting it out for who’s more powerful?

The basics of diplomacy require an exchange of details, a negotiation between elements of what I want and what you want.  What diplomacy is not, is one powerful opponent taking the other by force, that’s not diplomacy it’s war.  And, war may end in victory, but rarely, in peace.  War totally eclipses the goal of peace.

Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, China’s threat of similar aggression in Taiwan and our homegrown aggression between liberal and conservative, powerful elite and the rest of us, started this train of thought.  Here goes me turning international diplomacy around to something personal.

I have had a problem with being stuck in the trees within the forest.  You’ll notice I put this in the past tense.  One can hope, eh?  I don’t know about you but I’m a work in progress.

When a person such as myself likes words so much, it’s a temptation to use them all at once lest I forget one of the good ones.  In one of my jobs, I am an editor, a person who cuts the extraneous.  What a paradox and conundrum.

Word count limits have helped me enjoy the forest.  Prioritizing the details helps; which tree is the best? Using the first one or two details on the list and deleting three through twelve, helps.

A desire for clarity helps me to see the whole forest.  Rules, boundaries, and limits help.

Genuine understanding and acknowledgment from others – feedback helps.  Which trees do other people find fascinating?

Becoming annoyed at your own voice helps.  Stop, already.

Being ready to throw out the old, to stop rehashing the past and embracing the new and fresh helps.  Self-compassion and forgiving your own mistakes help.  Sitting down and getting real, helps.

Back to Putin and Ukraine, a bunch of leaders from around the world have approached Vladimir Putin, attempting to balance his demands against the sovereignty of Ukraine, to no apparent success.  The theory is, that when diplomacy fails, you don’t give up and concede to war. 

The late, former Secretary of State, Colin Powell once said, “incomplete victories that give an opponent a way out are often the best solutions.”  Diplomacy requires persistence, optimism, and imagination.

Praying that “somebody kills the man,” is just plain nonsense.  But we can pray for a tapestry to come together by weaving together an agreement between Putin, NATO nations, and Ukraine, with the threads of our mutual interest.  This requires concessions.  We might pray that the misconceptions which abound in the world become unraveled, and set up a new loom.

I feel like diplomacy in the world is rife with distractions and misunderstanding.  We truly need to get our heads out of our you-know-what and start to see the forest and the trees.

That’s what I call this time of year.  One day we need our woolen wardrobe of winter and the next day it’s, “where are my shorts?”

In Pennsylvania, we’ve been known to have up to a dozen weather seasons, which some have labeled: Winter, Fool’s Spring, Second Winter, Spring of Deception, Third Winter, The Pollening, Actual Spring, Summer, Hell’s Front Porch, False Fall, Second Summer, Actual Fall, and so on.  Others have said we have just two seasons: Winter or Pothole Season and Construction Season.

There are the “dog-days” of summer; “Indian Summer,” fake fall, mud season and all kinds of seasons in between; all of which have been around as long as there have been observant folks with a sense of humor.  This is not to say we are not experiencing climate change nor that it has to do with human behavior.

But Spring in these parts has always been true to its nature as a transition season.  Let me show you a typical weather week in Spring:

Sunday 31 degrees with plow-able snow,

Monday 59 degrees and partly sunny,

Tuesday 81 degrees with severe thunderstorms,

Wednesday 67 degrees with “where’s Toto winds,”

Thursday 84 degrees with scorching sun,

Friday 55 degrees and cloudy, and

Saturday 29 degrees and an ice storm, or not.

Yep, transitions are just that – not quite one thing and not quite the other, but something in between, or not.  Transitions might be the extreme of one thing or the extreme of its opposite. 

One thing we can say for sure about transitions are that they are unpredictable.  Therefore, we can little prepare for transitions.

Transitions are passages from one stage or phase to another.  Any birthing woman can testify that the transition phase between labor and delivery is welcome but shocking.  For most women it has been hours of your uterus entertaining spasm after spasm toward the goal of stretching open the cervix in order to birth a giant from inside to outside of your tiny little body, or so it feels at that moment.

So, transitions are good, they help us prepare to cross over, eventually to the next phase or stage of existence. But they’re also difficult because we don’t know exactly when we’ve arrived.  By the time the perennial question of the child-traveler, “are we there yet?” is answered, it just feels irrelevant, duh.

As the Goldilocks story goes, to my memory, she visits the house of the three bears while they’re away.  She has been on a sort of long journey and is quite tired.  Her hunger draws her to porridge which is too hot, too cold, and finally “just right.” 

Goldilocks ventures upstairs to the one-bedroom loft and tries out papa-bear’s bed and finds it too hard, she gets lost in the fluff of mama-bear’s bed, and finds baby-bear’s bed “just right.”  But darned if she doesn’t get found out by the returning three bears, who dismiss her into the forest.

What does Goldilocks teach us about weather seasons?  First of all, I believe we can all agree that the transition seasons of Spring and Autumn or Fall as we say here, can be “just right” one day and altogether wrong the next, too hot, too cold, too wet, or too dry.

Next, I think the Goldilocks story correlates with weather seasons in that somebody else’s bed is never going to be “just right” like our own bed.  In other words, the weather that is “just right” for me is more than likely not “just right” for you or your brother, or cousin, or neighbor. 

Or does Goldilocks really mean that we cannot be pleased no matter what the weather does.  Some people like rainy days, and for other people, “rainy days and Mondays always get me down”, so sang the Carpenters.

I’ve heard folks say “we need rain,” while others say the ground is saturated.  And how do we reconcile that some people pray for more snow and others petition for a cease-and-desist order on snow until next year?

You’ve heard it said that, “you can’t please ‘em all.” So, whatever your pleasure, this Spring, I’m fairly certain that you’ll find a day that is “just right” for you.  Happy Spring.