Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

So, I return. After two frustrating trips to Best Buy for a new hard drive I did what I should have done in the first place, and ordered the damn thing online. With help from my friends--N, who put in my new hard drive; roomie RugbyGirl, who helped me install a Linnux operating system; and TSO, who patiently helped show me where the internet connect/disconnect button is on this new operating system--I now have my computer up and running again. My silence in the blog world was mostly due to the fact that it is bloody ridiculous trying to post a blog from an iTouch. So much has happened since last I wrote. But what? Errmmm...hmm...not really sure what, now that I think of it. Well, I guess, in a nutshell:  Farm food has changed. Mostly gone are the summer crops. Our fresh veggies coming from our garden include: kale (curly and dino), chard (rainbow, Swiss), leeks, Brussels sprouts (Thank God! I love Brussels sprouts!) cabbage (purple and green), fall squash (delicata, pink banan...

I will be back soon. So much to say...just don't even get me started on stupid Best Buy and the damn hard drive debacle! Until I return let your mouth water...just a little. Joe, a fellow Farmer, gave me a big bowl of tomatillos a week back and I finally turned them into tomatillo salsa this morning for the Community's 4pm tea snack. Unfortuantely I didn't make it back from an appointment, so I hope it was good. This recipe from Friend of the Farmer sounds good and most importantly, simple! Friend of the Farmer's Tomatillo Salsa Verda My Tomatillo Salsa was a mix of: Tomatillos Green Peppers Grape Tomatoes Red Onions Cucumber (seeds removed) Parsley (I HATE cilantro!) Red Wine Vinegar Lemon Juice Maple Syrup Ground Chipotle Ground Chili Powder Cumin Salt and Pepper I don't always like measuring things, so everything was, "to taste." Get some tomatillos and get creative!! Image found here .

I am still here. I LOVE this poem. We have this poem on our fridge and I have read it a million times and still love it and feel forced to think and feel something different every time I read it. So, until I can do some writing of my own, this will just have to do: "Now I become myself" Now I become myself. It's taken Time, many years and places; I have been dissolved and shaken, Worn other people's faces, Run madly, as if Time were there, Terribly old, crying a warning, "Hurry, you will be dead before--" (What? Before you reach the morning? Or the end of the poem is clear? Or love safe in the walled city?) Now to stand still, to be here, Feel my own weight and density! The black shadow on the paper Is my hand; the shadow of a word As thought shapes the shaper Falls heavy on the page, is heard. All fuses now, falls into place From wish to action, word to silence, My work, my love, my time, my face Gathered into one intense Gesture ...

...going to D.C. to see Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity and Stephen Colbert's March to Keep Fear Alive , which both happen to be on my 30th birthday. Friend Toria, of ToriaFlies , a fellow Michigander, recently moved to VA and has kindly offered to host me that weekend, and now to plan the logistics. I can't wait! I have been meaning to go see the Daily Show in NY since I moved back out to N.E., but this will be much better! Look for me in the crowd, I will wear something sane/afraid/patriotic!

In honor and praise of the cold, run down the nape of your neck weather we've had this week, I share this gem: A Drop fell on the Apple Tree - Another - on the Roof - A Half a Dozen kissed the Eaves - And made the Gables laugh - A few went out to help the Brook That went to help the Sea - Myself Conjectured were they Pearls - What Necklaces could be - The Dust replaced, in Hoisted Roads - The Birds jocoser sung - The Sunshine threw his Hat away - The Bushes - spangles flung - The Breezes brought dejected Lutes - And bathed them in the Glee - Then Orient showed a single Flag, And signed the Fete away - ~ Emily Dickinson

This past Thursday my friend Kelly and I headed east to  Langwater Farm in North Easton, MA, where a friend of ours works. I awoke that morning to discover a gray, drizzly sky, promising a foggy drive to just south of BeanTown; and the weather did prove to be a bit of a nuisance, switching from hard rain to harder rain, with fog the whole time. Kelly is excellent company--the kind of friend you'd want accompanying you across the United States, or anywhere really--so, aside from the weather, the drive was rather pleasant. Once there C fed us homemade pumpkin soup (pumpkins grown at Langwater!)--YUM!--and gave us a tour of the Farm. I admired the farm stand, the colors of the foods there, pleased that I/the Farm grew the same varieties of tomatoes as those for sale at Langwater. We walked a path through slight woods; followed a tire-tracked, muddy road; felt my clothes cling uncomfortably in the humid, now rain-free day; taste...

In my attempts to finish my 30 things for 30 , I am working on lots of reading, and also reading poets outside my normal pool. I picked up a book of Alice Walker's poems (author of  The Color Purple) at the town dump  and was pleasantly surprised at what I found. Here is one gem: "On stripping bark from myself" Because women are expected to keep silent about their close escapes I will not keep silent and if I am destroyed (naked tree) someone will please mark the spot where I fall and know I could not live hearing their "how nice she is!" whose adoration of the retouched image I so despise. No. I am finished with living for what my mother believes for what my brother and father defend for what my lover elevates for what my sister, blushing, denies or rushes to embrace. I find my own small person a standing self against the world an equality of wills I have lived to understand. Besides: My struggle was always against an inner darkness...