A Recipe

Occasionally I’ve thought of posting recipes on my blog but no food I’ve concocted (and believe me, there’s quite a bit of that) has ever jumped up and screamed ´post me!´ Til this spur of the moment pineapple salsa. Jk. It never screamed. But my taste buds might have. 

First of all. If you’re looking for gourmetness leave this page. Probably a side effect of living in the middle of nowhere, my best food often stems from less than ideal ingredients: a limp bunch of carrots leftover from last year’s harvest, something I stuck in my freezer 6 months ago and forgot about, sad lettuce rejuvenated by a dash of ice water, or the dregs of this or that spice bottle. Another result of this remote living is that my recipes tend to have to be simple or modified to use ingredients I have on hand. 

For example, this recipe has *only 2* ingredients and both of them were in less than ideal conditions when I accidentally created it. Now one more thing. before you read the recipe you need the back story. Also a disclaimer: I’m sure I’m not the first Or the last to come up with something like this but this is all my own Invention. One day I made pico to eat on our tacos and when  it was  to my tastebuds’ satisfaction I still hade a few tablespoons of chopped cilantro left on my cutting board. Becos I really didn't want it to go to waste (in late spring, pregarden, cilantro is still a precious commodity), I had to come up with a way to use it. As I wracked my brain for possible combinations I remembered my bag of frozen pineapple And then this salsa came into existence. When I served it to a crowd, several people asked for the recipe and, altho I felt a cheap telling themhow simple it was, that is the reason I decided to share it here. someone asking for a recipe that is one of the best compliments a home cook can ask for. 

Pineapple Salsa*

•2 cups pineapple (frozen or fresh is best. I don’t think canned would work well)

•3 TBSP cilantro

Chop the pineapple into bite sized pieces. I did mine fairly small which made it  ideal for sprinkling over a taco. Next, sliver the cilantro into small flakes. Mix the two together and voilà! Pineapple salsa! Sprinkle over chicken or fish tacos if you eat that sort of thing. I also recommend serving as an appetizer or party food with homemade tortilla chips. Or maybe just shoving it into your mouth plain and allowing the exotic flavours to make you imagine you’re in a tropical location instead of shivering your way through another Canadian summer. 

*I am open to name suggestions 

My Ordinary Life

An Ordinary Day

It’s a quiet day. There’s a few raindrops lingering on windows when we get up, later than usual. Cos it’s Sunday. No church for us this weekend. Our government has allowed our congregation to gather in larger numbers but we’re still not filling our building to capacity so our turn comes around only every couple Sunday’s. It’s nice that way. A morning of total solitude gives a different perspective to Worship. I wouldn’t say we were as stoic and reverent as we are at a church Worship service but sitting with husband in our cozy living room on a grey cool summer Sunday morning we can talk about the songs, spoken words and our feelings as we listen. And it’s kinda nice. 

BTT cooked a late breakfast/brunch for us today -his own concoction of eggs, cheeses, and (surprise ingredient!) pepperoni And then by the time others in the community were gathering around tables for delicious proper Sunday dinners we were on the road to pick up a friend-also-cousin who needed a lift partway to his New Job. An hour of driving later we met Cousin’s parents at Tim Hortons. The nostalgia one can feel about Tim Hortons after months of being apart from it is actually kind of disgusting. I loved the lockdown. But now I also love the freedoms seeping back into our lives little by little. Maybe the saying « absence makes the heart grow fonder » was invented for these everyday luxuries and their occasional lapses from our lives (ie broken appliances, car at the mechanic, out of cheese again, washer used all the hot water, fingerprints on your newly cleaned <insert word,> these sorts of things.)

After another hour of driving home BTT has a feel of our new (for us) MKX so we drop it at the shop to await some hopefully minor repairs and then, since two full hours in the vehicle wasn’t really enough and the weather isn’t pleasant enough for us to spend much time outside we drive around the community checking on local road construction and potholes and to see how the trees are growing and maybe dodge some deer if we’re lucky. 

We spend the evening playing with little brothers and nieces at BTT’s parents’ place. BTT manages to cajole the GPS on his dad’s sprayer to work. I feed and bathe the smallest niece, bathe the brother who can’t bathe himself, share my plate of nachos with whoever wants (becos my identical dish of nachos is def more delish than theirs). Chat. 

And then before going home we take another drive, this time into the mauve sunset. We pick up another brother who has  returned home from a trip via train. He is full of words and stories about his uneventful train ride. We drop him off and finally return home. We silently celebrate the fact that we could hang out all day and BTT’s phone only rang once when a little brother called to see what we were up to. No towing work all day on a Sunday is something to celebrate!  Like I said. A quiet day. An Ordinary Day in my Ordinary Life. 

Musings on Contrasts

On more than one long drive my mind got lost in the unchangingness of things that seem to go on forever (roads, power lines, forests, fence poles, road trips -becos in my rural world even trip to the grocery store feels a road trip). I spent a lot of time  contemplating the beauty in the contrasts of the human-made vs nature:

•Of the ununique lines stretching unbroken for hundreds of miles of undulating pavement made interesting by the ever-changing scenery lining it. 

•Of a razor-sharp string of power line looped effortlessly over unchanging  pole after unchanging pole after unchanging pole after unchanging pole after unchanging pole across every myriad landscape it meets up with.  

•Of a human-planted neat-and-tidy tree rows around an overgrown dilapidated abandoned farmstead. 

•Of one weedless verdant lawn of perfectly aligned mower stripes surrounded by acres of untamed dandelion meadows. 

•Of straight jet streams bisecting a messily clouded sky. 

•Of sturdy square symmetrical houses lending some stability to squalid prairie landscape. 

•Of neatly parked rows of vehicles on gravel strewn parking lots. 

•Of The carefully slotted seats on an airplane, bus, or subway filled with chaotic uninhibited messy human beings. 

•Of perfectly spaced rows of anxious shoppers lined up against the colourful backdrop of a grocery store’s eye catching displays.

•Of a closet- or cupboard-ful of myriad things, articulately organized (something that doesn’t happen in my house unless it happens to be a closet or cupboard without doors.) 

•Of The stolid shadows of a light pole keeping a stop sign company under a turbulent blanket of clouds. 

Small Mirrors

It’s midSeptember again. I’m learning to know a new group of children very different from the last class I had. They are young and readable and impressionable, so impressionable. And I’m learning, always learning; maybe even more than they are. I always feel this way in September, like I know so little of the world and of myself. 

Super Innocent eyes equates to guilty consciences. Reprimands are mostly met with an excuse, always beginning with “but: But he made me do it,” or “but you never told me..” And when I demand a dollar because a little child talks out loud, the child inevitably turns angry. That’s what I’ve learned. I’m not trained to read people, but I learn on the job. And what I see kinda scares me. I see me. 

Identify Theft

Life is one big thief, always scheming about how to steal my identity. I turn around for a minute, and, when I look back, Can’t find the person I was yesterday. I breathe a deep breath. When the carbon dioxide explodes out of me, Who I Am goes along with it. 3 words in as many seconds change me irrevocably. Today everything I touch falls apart beneath my fingers; yesterday I felt like a master at fixing what other people broke. The Past stole my ability to comfort. Now is making me the one who needs comfort. Thinking I’m happy and secure and have a lot of faith leaves me susceptible to the hailstorm of paranoia that appears out of nowhere. 

I don’t like not knowing who I am. I don’t like being unable to predict how the things that happen to me will change me. My Identity needs to remain molten, fluid becoz, When I let it solidify, like lava turning to rock when the volcano finally stops erupting, it’s hard to let go of or hold on to anything. I’m just me. And I’m not in any position to change and grow. I don’t like accepting things, especially things like change, like growing, like needing to be an extension cord. A malleable, moveable, user friendly extension cord. 

Maybe this is all a tug of war between me and reality. Life happens. And it’s meant to change me. I might have to give in and let it. 

At least the sunset is the same every day, even if I’m not. 

What Does You Good?

What does me good?

Uninterrupted hours with my husband

Outside Air

Children to love

Tears, sometimes 

The often daily Post school-day shouted “Mrs. T****!” running to meet me, hi-5s and short chats from 2 precious small neighbour girlies who remind me of a different duo of small girlies I used to know ❤️💔

Cooking 

Letting go of thoughts and fears and ideas that try to control me 

10 minutes alone to relax and regroup after a busy school day 

Cleaning my house. meh who knew turning chaos into pristine was therapeutic

A quick prayer before diving into my day, a conversation, a worry

Not having the answer

Taking a moment to watch the sun set or say hello to the moon at night 

Silence 

What does you good? This slightly sarcastic question, hurled back in my face after I posed it to a friend, inspired a meandering thot pattern. What does me good? These are  things that do me good. I don’t have or do all of them every day but mostly they’re all within my reach every day. And when I do, they do me good. Maybe I should do them more. Maybe I’d be a happier, better person. What does you good? Do that. (SW)

Sunsets, Snowdrifts, Memories

So many things remind me of the Tiny Girls I’m no longer allowed to know. Yesterday it was the sunset. It reminded me of a time several years ago when I became obsessed with the span of vivid gorgeousness across the sky every night and made it my mission to take one moment every evening to appreciate it. S would often join me in my quiet moment of reverie on the front porch where the view was best and sometimes she’d even remind me to stop and peek at the sunset when I had forgotten. So when I looked at the sunset last night S came to my mind and sudden tears I didn’t know existed fell from my eyes. 

Today it’s a range of snow drift hills that make me think of her again. Two winters ago, while I was home for a few days in the middle of winter, I spent some time outside with her. Walking, climbing  tirelessly along hard packed snow drifts ranges, we pretended we were mountain climbers scaling sheer, difficult cliffs, giving each other a hand when we needed it, shouting encouragements, and pulling ourselves onto precarious ledges. That hour spent with her, imagining and playing like the child she was and I had once been  is one of my happy happy memories, and, perhaps, created one final lingering moment of my own childhood.

It’s the moments I think are gone forever that are really still happening. Only this time they’re not reality. They’re memory. But one thing I’ve learned from losing my precious sisters is that a memory, though not a current reality, is alive in the every day things that trigger it.