In a Nutshell

  Given the gravity of some of my more recent posts, I have decided to introduce a bit of levity by sharing a culinary suggestion.  Next time you find yourself in need of pesto for your gourmet Italian dish, you generally will have two options: use a jar of store-bought (I've heard Aldi's is passable) or DIY it.  It's a simple enough thing to make: garlic, basil, olive oil, pine nuts...all crushed together by a mortar and pestle (or the modern day version, i.e. the food processor, although it lacks the stress-relieving benefit).  But what about those pine nuts?  Bane of a budget!  I have a sneaky substitution: raw, unsalted peanuts.  There's no reason to take out a second mortgage on your house for pine nuts.  Cheap and nutritious, the humble peanut is an unsung hero of the kitchen, especially for us herbivores.  George Washington Carver said it best (in his guide How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption):

  "I doubt if there is another foodstuff that can be so universally eaten, in some form, by every individual."

George Washington Carver: horticultural genius and pioneer of plant-based protein (before it was cool)

    I'm sure you've been thinking to yourself: "Wow, Jen has placed an inordinate number of colons in this post and colons make me think of intestines which of course brings up (pun always intended) the subject of digestion and therefore food...I'm hungry!"  Don't worry: if you click on the link to Dr. Carver's booklet, you will find many of his peanut recipes.   

For Whom the Bird Calls

i tried to find you.

in vain, did i scan the treetops and the underbrush

having researched your favorite berries,

your morning and evening songs,

your profile both perched and with wings fully expanded,

your shadow, even.

i waited for you but you never came.

i was ready:

locked and loaded

(my binoculars).

"Visionaire dodo Army" by *SHERWOOD*

     Things proceeding unchecked, animals are finding themselves changing status: not from "Single" to "In a Relationship" to "It's Complicated," but from threatened to endangered to extinct.  As human beings, we are left with a painful exclusion from our experience of the world's potential biodiversity and much more pragmatically, an irreversible break in the ecosystem...potential effects often unknown until more damage is done.  If you get a chance, watch Last Chance to See (irony always intended).  It's a documentary follow-up of the 1989 BBC radio series of the same title where Douglas Adams travels the globe in search of endangered species in their natural environments. 

     I had the privilege of seeing Todd McGrain's sculpture collection of extinct North American birds (The Lost Bird Project) and I found myself struck by the poignancy that the only existence these birds now had was as art...as representations.  More sobering still was the word that The Lost Bird Project uses to refer to these representations: memorials.    

     I never could find the white-crowned pigeon despite searching relentlessly last time I was in the Keys.  And most certainly did I miss the ivory-billed woodpecker, now the stuff of legends.

An artist's rendering, unfortunately

     In light of these dark reminders, I find myself watching birds with a bit of restraint and uncomfortable pause, wondering if it might be my last chance to see.

Road to Dystopia

     This life is the epitome of luxury, though it teeters on the threshold of desperation.  It was an uncomfortable dichotomy of feeling mercifully yet momentarily safe while absolute chaos emerges nearby that I took away from reading Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower.  I had no idea what to expect from the book initially.  I was in the local library, perusing the shelves for a sci-fi book that wasn't as much sci-fi as it was literature; i.e. something that would, for thematic reasons, be necessarily categorized as 'sci-fi' but was essentially just a very well written story about weighty issues worthy of contemplation, as opposed to an action packed spaceship/alien adventure.
    I suppose it is a bit like online dating.  You know you are seeking this specific type of individual who is a "genre outlier" but all you have at your disposal are some profile pictures and if you click on them you can see a short blurb about them.

"The library is closing in ten minutes.  Please bring your final selections to the circulation desk.  It is now too late to apply for a library card."

 

 

  So I did the inevitable, the unavoidable, the ethically unthinkable...I judged books by their covers.  I weeded out any sporting spacecraft.  I alienated aliens.  I demoted any featuring fancy future military insignia.  For some reason, our library combines sci-fi and fantasy so I had to slay a few dragons too.  But then I saw it, a very unassuming book, pages slightly yellowed and dogeared, with a cover featuring a hand holding a book.  It didn't even look like a sci-fi book.  I didn't read the blurb on the back cover but I did read the first paragraph and the writing was clearly on point.

     Parable of the Sower is an eloquently written and absolutely harrowing story that grips you from the first chapter and doesn't relent; I actually read all 350-ish pages in one weekend, unable to put the book down because I was so concerned for what would happen to the characters in their precarious world.  This is one of the most plausible dystopian scenarios I have ever read or seen, rife with the effects of global warming (it was written in the mid 1990s), unchecked corruption and corporate greed, and the extreme results of societal distrust that has emerged as the zeitgeist of our past decade.  The narrator is an intelligent and pragmatic teenager living in a gated community outside of Los Angeles.  By gated community, I mean a neighborhood that has a huge wall around it, topped with broken glass and "Lazor" wire in an attempt to keep out not only rampant arsonists and other violent criminals but also the large homeless population who are forced to scavenge for their basic needs. 
    In high school I remember reading such cautionary tales as Brave New World and 1984 but Parable of the Sower seems much more likely and therefore, more frighteningly poignant.  It is a disturbing reminder of what happens when people are pushed to the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs: what choices they are forced to make from there and of how much life they are denied access.