Good grief, isn’t this the way? But since my ‘happiness’ post of a couple days ago, I’ve found myself feeling distracted and out-of-sorts. No likey. No likey one bits. I spent the morning reading a little: A New Earth, The Mastery of Love, A Boy’s Life, in that order, and then I had another cup of tea, and lolled a little more, and sat on my cushion and meditated, and then turned on the Netflix machine and watched another episode of Riget whilst attempting a little stretching exercise at the same time. I think I need the rhythm and creative channel-opening power of music to guide me as I dancercize, because peering at the English subtitles of a Lars Von Triers oddity isn’t super conducive to transcendence, I’m just saying.
It might look like it’s transcendent but it’s NOT. Quirky and funny and fascinating and deliciously creepy, but not really encouragement to think *higher.* I’m just kind of cranky and I can’t shake myself out of it. Or… I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. Which means that all I have to do now is shrug my shoulders and accept that I’m cranky and can’t shake myself out of it, the very action of which should go a long way toward shaking myself out of it. That’s generally how it works, praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Which reminds me that when I was little, and my brother was littler, we were in a boat together with our dad and a couple other grownups when a tiny storm came up on the lake and began rocking the boat. This caused my brother, who was terrified of water, to begin earnestly singing the Doxology (for those who don’t know, it’s a church standard, and it goes like this: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow/Praise him all creatures here below/Praise him above ye heav’nly hosts/ Praise father, son, and holy ghost./Ahhhh-men”) until the storm passed and we were safely ashore once again. My brother now worships God while seated before the races on TV of a Sunday morning, but that particular afternoon he was as devout as any novice nun or fledgling priest. There are two childhood traumas to blame on my brother’s fear of water and boats, I’m afraid. One was the practice of laying your young child on his/her back on the kitchen counter, with his/her head dangling over the sink, to wash his/her hair by pouring cupfuls of water over his/her shrieking head. This inevitably resulted in vast amounts of hot water leaking and trailing into the eyes and ears, despite desperate attempts by the child to clamp down the hand towel he/she was pressing ineffectively over said orifices. I’ve talked to friends my age and they can attest to the same thing so I know it wasn’t a special torture devised by my parents specifically. Second was a time when we were on Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride, during the part where you sail between the two ships that are shooting cannons at each other, and my dad helpfully yelled “DUCK!” Four-year-old Danny immediately threw himself on the floor of the boat and started crying in fear of being shot.
This might explain why he is now a gun aficionado who has ascertained each and every way possible to survive a zombie attack when it happens. Because it will. Yo ho, mateys, it will.
I’ve been watching a lot of TV lately.
But today I also invented a new recipe for fish stew that I want to share with you guys because it was AMAZING. It’s a crockpot dish so it’s also easy breezy. Here it is:
Easy Breezy Fish Stew
3 frozen tilapia fillets
10 small red potatoes, scrubbed and halved
1/4 quarter red onion, thickly sliced
1 tsp garlic, minced
Several large mushrooms, sliced (I used fresh chanterelles)
8 or so small chunks frozen mango
1 tsp cumin
1 pinch cayenne
Place all ingredients in crockpot and pour 1 cup chicken bouillon over all. Crock for several hours.
I hope you like it! Love you all. Watch out for zombies. xo
The 133. Crowd 