I told you so

Do you see it? Right in the middle of this drawer, the blue and silver thing next to the light bulb. That's it. Yes, just as I said. I knew that if I sent for a new bead reamer, after having looked for mine for days, after having spring cleaned as a result, every nook and cranny, I would finally find mine. Now, I have looked in this drawer how many times? Why didn't I see it! Because it wasn't there. Someone, I don't know who, has a key to my apartment. They came in, borrowed it, then brought it back after a few weeks. Because I swear it wasn't there. I mean, I looked in this drawer at least a dozen hundred times. And this person is not new to me. This person has been following me around for decades, because this is not the first time this has happened to me. This person has "borrowed" things from me before. I wish he wasn't such a coward. I wish he would let me know who he is so I cold just call him when I can't find something. Save me a lot of grief. But noooo. He has to be a secret. So now I have two damn bead reamers.

Anyone want a bead reamer?

Better bread

I have come home from work. Eighteen hours have past since the dough went from flour water and yeast. I turned the dough out from the bowl and let it rest covered by cloth for 15 minutes. Now I have shaped it into the round and have placed it on the heavily floured and branned cloth where it will rise for another two hours. After an hour, I will start the oven and place in it the Lodge Dutch Oven which will heat up for the last hour.


This is it after being baked in the covered dutch oven for 35 minutes. I am sitting here typing, watching the Iron Chef and above all this I can hear the loaf in the kitchen crackling. It is speaking to me. How I love making bread. I am anxious to hear how D~ likes it. She is my barometer.

Daddy and Me

I love this picture. I feel so comfortable in his arms. I could stare at this picture for hours. This is one of those pictures you would frame and have for all of your life. Out of all the family photographs I have been seeing lately, this is my absolute favorite. I might say that about another, but this is my absolute favorite.

Better Bread

Last week I made a loaf of bread and it just came out awful. It didn't rise like this. There was no dome of wrap over it. It rose a bit and then it collapsed and never did rise after that. After the 18 hours of rising, it never recovered it's lightness. I thought if I baked it off, it might still rise up and be good. It certainly looked good when it came out of the oven. But D~ ended up coming to get it and told me that it was heavy, pasty and salty. Just bad. I have no idea what happened to it. All I know is, what you see here is fantastic dough. This is it after a two hour rise. It fills about half the bowl. Just what it should be doing. You can see the air pockets. The dome is high and tight. It is exciting just looking at it.



It is now over six hours into the rise, twelve more hours to go. The dough is now one inch from the top of the bowl. It probably won't get any higher. The dome is as high as it will get. See the air pockets? Perfect. Everything is perfect. I put the bowl on a towel to add to the warmth, better than on a cold counter. This will be good bread. D~ is coming this Sunday and I am sure she will have great bread.

Bread is very important to me. I used to bake bread several times a week. It is what I used to give to people as a comfort to those with hectic, turmoiled lives. Holding a loaf of homemade bread in your hands is a really healing thing. How often I used to get calls from my customers when they got home saying "You know, I couldn't resist. I started breaking off pieces as soon as I got into the car. Thank you so much!" No one ever said - that was awlful - the worst thing you could ever have given me! There is something about fresh bread, real bread, that wraps the soul in a comfort not even a blanket can achieve. I used to be a bread baker. Maybe I will become one again. After all, it is soothing to my very being as well, bringing the dough together, watching the rise, handling the dough, the smell as it cooks, and when it emerges from the bake, it speaks. It speaks for quite some time in crackles as it cools. I think more people should bake bread. The experience is wonderful

Look! New Hair!

In December, I posted a picture of the Self with my typical long hair worn pulled back for years. I have accumulated quite a collection of beautiful hair ties all made by the Self. Ribbon flowers, beautiful buttons on elastics, bejeweled barrettes, some covered with old kimono silk, wonderful ways of holding the hair. So, a month ago I began to think short. When I first came to Oregon, my hair was 1/4 inch long. Shaved. I was extremely depressed and it showed. I looked extreme. I don't think there was anything soft about me. But I have recovered and I have found comfortable stockings to wear and my compassionate heart once again sleeps on a silk pillow.

I actually wanted my hair to be a little longer than this but I had a difficult time explaining to Angela, the wonderful hair stylist, what it was that I wanted. But this is close. It will grow in a couple of months. Or less. My hair grows fast. I am hoping not to have to take a brush to this. Wash and scrunch. Let as little fall out as possible.

The past year I feel like I am going bald. Can I stop that? Am I being paranoid? I used to have a lot of hair. I know medication and anemia can cause hair loss. But I refuse to go bald. Can you imagine having to live in a wig? Oh my god! A Sofia Loren wig. There is a salon just down the road that advertises them and every time I go by there I just recoil. Or, remember that spray they came out with that you spray on your bald spot and it colors the hair you have left there and it makes it look fuller? I can just see myself getting up every day and spraying my hair before going to work and then layering my face with paste and my lips with gunk trying to look young, only ending up looking like Nellie Costello on a good day.

So, I took a chance and I love it. We should do this more often. Change is good. I am sitting here feeling rather smug. Content actually. The sun was out when I got up. I had about an hour to get ready to leave. Therapy first then off the the salon. I didn't bring an umbrella. While I was waiting for the bus, I was thinking I should have brought one. It felt like rain. The weatherman said it was going to be a dry day. But the air felt like rain. I took a chance and didn't bring one. The day was good and I din't need one. However, five minutes after returning home, the skies opened up and the rain descended. I have rather good weather controlling angels, eh!

My Parents

I always loved this picture of my parents. It is how I have always wanted to see them. For me, this is how life should have always been. Avery marriage, every pair of lovers, should have a photo like this. It is peaceful somehow.



My mother has always loved shoes and clothes. This skirt is a little short for the 40's, do you think? But, paired with those shoes, she can carry it off. Those shoes---- do they not look like they came right out of a 2010 fashion magazine!! It is always sad to me that she was always throwing out the old and getting the new. These shoes whould have worked today.


All of my life, I can't remember a time when I saw my mother in the water. She had been abused in the water by her teasing brothers and subsequently became filled with dread. So it was always understood that you might as well throw in live electricity the moment she steps into water, that is how much she always hated it. That is what it felt like to be in it. And now I see this picture and I don't see that fear and loathing on her face. So, now what am I supposed to believe?

If I am correct, I was once told that Mom's dress was made from parachute silk. Her mother was, at that time, working in the mill yard for a manufacturer making parachutes which were at the time constructed from a tightly woven silk similar to Habotai silk which is still used today in making kites. I wonder if Mom still has the dress in that mysterious cedar chest she has in her bedroom~~~


This is my mother's oldest brother, Arthur. Uncle Arthur was the one who was killed in the war. After his death, Pepe just shut down and never really recovered from the impact. He stopped playing his fiddle, stopped participating in life. If you remember, by the time we knew him, he pretty much just sat in his rocking chair and spit in in his spittoon.

Next to Uncle Arthur is Mon Oncle Treffle. Uncle Tom. The cab driver. Don't they look like gangsters!

Self Image

We are constantly bombarded with these commercials of women and losing weight. It makes me sick how they dress after they have lost 30, 40, 80 pounds. They look like sluts. You can't tell me that that is what women are looking for in their goals to lose weight!

In this picture, I have lost 180 pounds. I am the one standing next to my Dad. Do I look like a hooker? Should I be trying to look like one? Have I missed the boat? Is that the goal for all women? Are we supposed to strive to wear skin tight clothing, big hair, spiked heels, and huge red lips?

Because if it is, I'm going underground.