June 30, 2005
A Cup of Water in the Night
Sometimes I wake up in the morning with a definitive desire to reread a particular old book. Usually it's just a chapter or a certain section, whatever piece allows me to relive that moment when, during the initial reading, I realized that this was a good book. Today, it was Sheldon Vanauken's A Severe Mercy:
And there was the principle of courtesy: whatever one of us asked the other to do -- it was assumed the asker would weigh all consequences -- the other would do. Thus one might wake the other in the night and ask for a cup of water; and the other would peacefully (and sleepily) fetch it. We, in fact, defined courtesy as 'a cup of water in the night.' And we considered it a very great courtesy to ask for the cup as well as to fetch it.
When Vanauken and his wife conceived this graceful idea they were still unbelievers. Only later did they learn that, when breathed through by the Spirit, to render such unquestioning acts of service is to minister to Jesus Himself. "I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me drink, I was stranger and you welcomed Me." -- Matthew 25:35
(And you can bet this is going in to the slew of wedding cards I need to write in the next couple of weeks...)
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June 28, 2005
Capital of the World!
Someday, maybe after gas prices drop or our little Jetta runs on vegetable oil, I want to take a very special road trip: a "Captial of the World!" driving tour.
Thus far, I have only been through two "Capitals of the World!" Deep, deep down south, in Tifton, GA, you'll find "The Reading Capital of the World!" and over on the other side of Lookout Mountain you can drive through "The Sock Capital of the World!" These "Capitals of the World!" illustrate my two secret joys in such proclamations: incongruity of place (Tifton), and inanity of achievement (Fort Payne).
ePodunk is going to help me plan my dream capital-cruising vacation. For the husband's sake, we'll undoubtedly spend some time in Bardstown, KY, "The Bourbon Capital of the World!" And then, for some further indulgence, we'll pass through Washington, MO, "The Corn Cob Pipe Capital of the World!"
We will avoid Claxton, GA, and all its fruitcake, and Noel will want to steer clear of Kennet Square, PA, and its mushrooms. But maybe, if we're feeling particularly German, we'll investigate the mysteries of bratwurst in Sheboygan, WI. And we're definitely lounging around the "Ice Cream Capital of the World!" in Le Mars, IA.
We would be amiss if we skipped over the "Fire Hydrant Capital of the World!" in Albertville, AL, and I think Tarpon Springs, FL, the "Sponge Capital of the World!" sounds just scintillating. I'm pretty sure that visiting both the "Cow Chip Throwing Captial of the World!" (Beaver, OR) and the "Cherry Pit Spitting Capital of the World" (Eau Claire, MI) will provide excellent teaching examples of the laws of the physics. And it really is of utmost importance that I see the "Troll Capital of the World!" in Mount Horeb, WI, because I can't quite believe that such a thing exists.
These sweet incongruities and inanities beg the question: how does a city get to claim "Capital of the World!" status?
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June 27, 2005
Bourgeois Chills
I attribute my eight degree temperature comfort range to my childhood proximity to the equator. While this has had the benefit of providing me with a useful excuse for slipping under my husband's arm when we're out together, it also means that a light sweater of some sort is a third wheel on all theatre or restaurant excursions. Retail stores, too, have always been a place of climate peril. In some stores, a brisk pass-through is about all my relatively meager personal insulation system will allow before my teeth start chattering.
Salespeople do not tend to respond well to chattering customers.
And so I am deeply grateful to the New York Times for taking it upon themselves to a conduct a scientific survey of retail stores across the city and providing us all with this data-supported axiom: the more expensive the store, the colder the air conditioning. The truth is, as follows:
Bergdorf Goodman, 68.3 degrees; Bloomingdale's, 70.8; Macy's 73.1; Club Monaco, 74.0; the Original Levi's Store, 76.8; Old Navy 80.3.
A 68.3 degree thermostat in the summer would demand that I venture in only with the protection of a heavy sweater, and it seems reasonable to guess that salespeople in exclusive stores also do not exude particular munificence towards customers sporting thick wool sweaters in the summer. So it's really no wonder, then, that you'll find me poking through a thrift store. I'm simply avoiding hypothermia.
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June 24, 2005
Friday Food: Ramen Noodles For Company Dinner
Yep, you don't have to cook those 10 cents bags of ramen noodles according to the directions on the package...
Fried Ramen Noodles
(Makes enough for 2 as a main meal or 4 as a side dish)
3 packages ramen noodles
1 cup + a little extra water
1 large carrot
1/2 a small onion
2 stalks celery
2 green onions
* You can also use snow peas, broccoli, peppers, or other vegetables
A wok, a large frying pan, or, if you must, a large, shallow-ish pot.
- Break up the ramen noodles. I like to break them into quarters while they're still in the package and then split the layer apart with a butter knife. Set aside.
- Chop the carrots, celery, and onion. Heat the oil in the wok and then stir fry the vegetables briskly until cooked through. Transfer the vegetables to your serving dish and set aside.
- Heat the water in the wok and mix in one of the ramen seasoning packets. Once the water starts to bubble, add in all the broken noodles. Using a pasta spoon, stir the noodles as they soften and pull apart.
- Continue stirring and add more water if it seems necessary. The noodles should be al dente, not mushy. This usually takes three to five minutes.
- Once the noodles are separated and pliable, add the vegetables back into the wok and heat through. Garnish with green onion.
Optional: to make this a little more substantial, you can also stir-fry chicken or beef before hand and throw that in the mix as well. Leftover Chinese or Thai takeout also works just fine.
Posted by elissa at 04:40 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Confession: there's a 20lb bag of rice and a 1 gallon container of soy sauce in my kitchen
Even more than the beaches, Hawaii ex-pats miss their food.
"Local food." Local food is not the same as "Hawaiian food." It is not something with pineapple on it. It is not organically-grown natural produce.
When uttered by someone who grew up in Hawaii, those words conjure up a world of plate lunches, crackseed, spam, and lavish potlucks. Sure, sushi is Japanese, manapua is Chinese, and laulau is Hawaiian, but they're still all "local food." It's a designation that covers a multitude of ethnic foods and their resulting combinations, a cultural hodgepodge impossible to distill into completely separate categories.
Let's consider, for example, the "plate lunch." My pet theory is that the "plate lunch" emerged when a Japanese wife realized that the diminutive, artfully arranged bento (boxed lunch) did not have enough food to satisfy her larger, Chinese-Hawaiian husband. Today's plate lunch is similar to a bento on cross-cultural steroids. Arriving in a partitioned styrofoam carryout box, it consists of three main components: the meat, the side, and rice. The meat is a heaping serving of anything from Chinese sweet sour pork to Korean barbecue ribs or Filipino chicken adobo. The side is macaroni salad, an inexplicable cultural anomaly that has nonetheless become an iconic part of the plate lunch. Finally, there's the rice: two exceedingly generous scoops of sticky white rice. The plate lunch has no discernible ethnicity. It's just "local."
Local food emerged from a blended community and continues to fuction as a kind of cultural glue. The test of acceptance for a mainland visitor is whether or not he will try the poke (raw, seasoned fish) that we offer him. For those of us who went to school on the mainland, homesickness was battled by eating bowls of rice and nori (dried seaweed) or digging into a stash of dried fruit or candy sprinkled with li hing mui (Chinese five spice, salt, and sugar). When I meet another displaced local, the conversation inevitably drifts to the foods that we miss. And you'll understand, then, if I find the mainland potlucks (read: casserole row) a little disheartening.
That said, Fridays will be my self-indulgent day to revisit my culinary roots and encourage Chattanoogans to find that neglected and often understocked "Asian" section in their grocery store. And I promise I won't include any recipes where spam *must* be used.
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June 23, 2005
Rasheed Wallace and the Linguist
Tonight, as you all sit down in breathless anticipation to watch Game 7, don't forget that there's more to blog about than just what goes down on the court.
There's also the wacky language-usage bonanza at the post-game press conference.
Word-devotee Mark Liberman, over at the Language Log, noticed a discrepancy between several prominent newspapers' coverage of a Rasheed Wallace interview. As far as we can tell, Rasheed said:
Even though I did a bonehead play the other night, had to put it behind me.
Apparently, while other papers kept the verb "did," the New York Times went ahead and cleaned up the grammar and switched to the norma loquend'si favored verb, "made." But postponing questions of journalistic practice and integrity until later in the post, Liberman produces a brilliant alternative apologetic for Rasheed's phraseology:
Semantically, performing an action (even as abstract an action as failing to guard someone in the closing seconds of a basketball game) ought to be something that you do, not something that you make. And when you make a play, you're talking about succeeding at something, not neglecting or failing at something. So if Rasheed was putting words together from first principles, rather than slavishly following phrasal fashion, it makes sense for him to have said that he "did a bonehead play".
So, as we watch the game tonight, I will be blissfully imagining Rasheed Wallace as an ally to Noam Chomsky. Noel's right. There are a lot of reasons to like the NBA.
Posted by elissa at 05:03 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 22, 2005
♥ A Nerd
Over the past month, my husband has directed me to a slew of articles that extol the wonders of forging a romantic relationship with a geek or a nerd. This subtle affirmation-through-popular-opinion has only solidified my personal marital satisfaction. But if you, dear friend, are still geekless, never fear. Resources abound to help you navigate through the waters and land a geek of your very own.
To begin, this craiglist posting offers compelling reasons for adding geeks as a people-group to your pool of romantic possibilities. And while I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the New York Daily News classifying Tiger Woods as a nerd, (or Adam Brody, for that matter) their article will at least give you the Hollywood credence you might need to bolster your confidence. Finally, even if you do manage snuggle up to the next Steve Jobs or Larry Wall, you may still need some of Emily's helpful advice on keeping that nerd-torch glowing. Number 8, especially, may assist in preventing future Christmas or birthday present trauma.
Though undocumented by those previous authors, there is yet another benefit of loving a geek: the liberation of your own inner nerd. See, when the latest issue of ArtForum appears in all its massive, glossy glory, I have no qualms about skipping about the house and making us read art show reviews over dinner. I mean, hey, we'll probably be watching a Deep Space 9 later on in the evening anyway.
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June 21, 2005
"The Art of Sport" or "What To Do With Your Old Baseball Trophies"
I admit it. When Noel turns on an NBA game and rhapsodizes about the art of pure basketball, I sometimes pull out my watercolors.
But the current exhibit, “Sports,” at the Socrates Sculpture Garden in Long Island, NY, could meld our worlds together. The show, curated by Alyson Baker and Robyn Donohue, serves up a surprisingly nostalgic and personal perspective on sports. The focus is less on the extreme professional athlete and more on the you-that-won-the-Little-League-championship-trophy or the you-that-is-a-rapid-Packers-fan. Question if you will the merits of conceptual performance art, but you can't deny that these "projects" have a certain sympathy and an appealing quirkiness about them.
You might also want to check out Lee Walton's other projects and learn about his deeply passionate relationship with the little red ball. You can also help poor Tim Laun so that he can watch all Brett Favre, all the time.
Meanwhile, I'll be beginning my first Jock Art project: eat a piece of sushi every time fellow Asian Hideki Matsui strikes out.
----
Edit 09:34 am: Fixed silly links.
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June 17, 2005
The Difference Between Riverbend... and General Assembly
People-Watching List compiled while watching the Black Diamond Heavies, Bessie Smith Strut 2005.
Ponytails sported by graying and/or balding males: 21
Obviously inebriated viewers over the age of 45: 14
Tie-dyed garments: 9
Live snakes functioning as necklaces: 2
Side-ponytail straight from the eighties: 1
People-Watching List compiled while scanning my immediate surroundings at General Assembly during the offertory:
Blue and white seersucker suits: 2 (one male, one female)
Striped shirts: 9
Checked shirts: 6
Hawaiian shirts: 1
Neon pink shirts worn by males: 2
Bald heads in a row: 3
Know your audience.
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June 16, 2005
Kathleen Nielson Rocks My Socks Off
Pastor Eric was right. General Assembly is like Christmas for the PCA.
I’ve fully enjoyed my stint as an unapologetic seminar-glutton for the past few days. Despite the breadth of seminars being offered, I somehow managed to create neat pairs each day: heard Ligon Duncan twice on Tuesday, thought long and hard about visual culture (Morty and Kickasola) on Wednesday, and got all excited about being a woman on Thursday (Nielson and James).
Right before I graduated from Covenant and as I frantically wondered how concurrent desires for graduate school and marriage could possibly coexist, I met with Kathleen Nielson over coffee and tea. I was hungry to pick the mind of a woman so obviously intelligent and so obviously enthralled with being a loving mother and utterly supportive wife. She, of course, responded with wisdom, compassion, honesty, and Word-filled encouragement.
In her seminar “Voices Young Women Are Hearing,” Dr. Nielson spoke to older women in the church, summarizing and distilling the conversations she has had with young women such as me. Speaking as an observer, not an expert (after all, she has three sons!), she sifted out three main issues of concern and suggested a directions for finding a biblical answer for each.
For our struggles with body image, she challenged us to learn and live a theology of the body’s whole story, from creation as an image-bearer to the promise of restoration at the end of time. Living “in light of our eternal hope” reveals the utter foolishness of making our bodies ‘the thing.’ For our fear that intellectual gifts and marriage/motherhood must be pitted against each other, she reminded us that God gives His gifts and callings with sovereign kindness. If we are faithful, our gifts will always be put to use in whatever calling we answer. For our bewilderment over where we belong in the church, she demanded that we learn and do theology. Women need to be students of the Word, eagerly digging into its wisdom and letting ministry grow from that foundation.
I left her a note as I filed out of the seminar room: “I wanted you to know that your advice [from last May] has panned out….Growing my mind is growing our marriage. God’s callings are complimentary, never contradictory.”
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Death Before Life
Like I told Ron, it's really my fault. All the weightiness of the decision to foray into the blogosphere, hitherto my husband's world alone, struck me with a double case of stylesheet perfectionism and initiagraphophobia (fear of your first blog post sounding silly or, worse yet, trite). And so while this space has been tweaked and retagged for about a week -- with all the vigor of a new bride cleaning her first home -- actually posting in it was a little too overwhelming.
Of course, the whirring, humming computers over at Coptix had no knowledge of my existential crisis. To them, I was a torpid and gaunt hanger-on to the Chattablog herd.
Then, it happened.
Led with blissful ignorance to the chopping block, animated marginalia was euthanized with perfectly efficient mechanical precision along with the rest of the decrepit or vacant blogs scheduled for deletion.
Oops.
Thankfully, once notified of my untimely demise, Ron, who deserves many cheers, kindly and quickly reinstated me. Now, with great ontological abandon, I figure that this must technically be my second blog. And since it is my second blog, there's really no need to fear a first post.
Here we go, then.
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