slowly she turned

Actually, the coffee pot is empty now. I spent part of the morning sleeping late after staying up WAY TOO LATE looking at social media, and part of it reading “The Last Straw” by Bryant Holsenbeck on the front porch. My neighbor, Mike, came over and is excited about the possibility of transforming some of the many broken pieces of African sculpture he has from his former African import shop into folk art pieces based on looking at Gertie the Gator. I’m almost afraid to go look in his storage – it’s going to be overwhelming with cool finds and ideas.

I’m overwhelmed anyway. The inspiration I got from my John C. Campbell Folk School experience and the wealth of the Internet and social media has nearly exploded my brain, which normally makes me shut down instead of moving forward. Today I plan to finish Woodrow the Pileated Woodpecker and weave tapestry, as well as continue picking the bumper crop of figs in the Back Forty. Chicken chili is on the menu.

Any recipes and ideas for figs would be welcome. A couple of years ago Sandy and I came up with a concoction of cooked figs, honey, and orange juice and zest for a filling for homemade fig newtons. I couldn’t tell you the proportions because we were playing with it. When you have this many figs, you can experiment. If I figure out proportions, I’ll post. It seems to me that the honey may have been a bit of overkill because figs are so sugary anyway, but maybe it was a small amount for the flavor and texture.

When I look at all the opportunities to apply for residencies and such after I retire, I can see that I need to jump start redesigning this website. I feel impatient, because it is not totally a sure thing that I’ll be able to retire next June. I’ll probably have to get some kind of temp work anyway. I can’t really apply for residencies until I know for sure, and I’ll have to decide on a retirement date at least four months before I put in the paperwork.

I finished “The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead and “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” by Sherman Alexie this week, which shows you what I’ve been doing instead of making art. We are still finishing up “Better Call Saul” slowly and I’m watching “Party Down” on Hulu before it is canceled tomorrow. It’s quite filthy and twisted cringy humor but really funny.

Reading “The Last Straw,” which is taken from Bryant Holsenbeck’s former blog about the year she attempted to live without using single-use plastic, made me remember how serious I was about ethical consumerism at one point and how much I’ve lightened up. I could do much better without a lot of effort now with Deep Roots Market and the Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market nearby. So much plastic was added to food packaging during the pandemic. I’ve been to mainstream grocery stores several times in the last few years and even the fresh produce is often wrapped individually in plastic wrap. While I understood the reasons at one time when everyone was panicking, there’s no logical basis for it. Just wash your produce and it will be fine. Buy organic if you can afford it. Deep Roots Market was making steps toward Zero Waste before the pandemic and that effort was set back, but they are moving forward again and you are encouraged to take your own containers and bags. They will happily weigh your empty containers at the front and mark them so that they can subtract their weight from your bulk items when you check out. I reuse a lot of containers and coffee bags, but I need to train my brain to remember to take them every time I go.

We can do better. We don’t have to be perfect, but we can do better than we do now. That’s something, and something is always better than nothing. Lots of somethings add up.

Wildlife: this little feller wanted to come into the house with me yesterday. I nearly stepped on him on the steps in front of our front porch door. We identified him as a Dekay’s brown snake. He was a courageous dude and struck at us as we moved him down the steps. Probably about a foot long. I checked my ankles because he had such a wee mouth I figured I might not have felt a bite. Sandy named him Freddie Prince (sic) but I think we should name him Fang if we see him again. Look at those big eyes. Hopefully he is eating slugs in my front container garden. Which, by the way, I finally added compost to, so hopefully it will revive my suffering tomatoes and peppers.

Update: a friend says that Dekay’s snakes don’t have fangs, so Fang would need to be his performance name.