The Cuckoo Bee

This is my recipe.  I was going to take a picture of the beautiful deliciousness, with the clear broth and the green chard and the shredded chicken and the piles of goodness, but then I realized I had eaten everything.

For one person, of course.

Put 1 cup of chicken stock in a small or medium pan.  Add one extremely large clove garlic, chopped, add shredded chicken from stock-making (or whatever other chicken you have) and simmer for eight minutes.  (I like the number 8 )

Add salt to taste–not too much if you will be putting in salted tortilla chips later.

Add green chard leaves. Cook for two minutes.

Add thick tortilla chips.  Just a few will do.  Cook for forty seconds and remove from heat.

Add some cilantro, lime juice, and jalapenos.  Also add a dollop of unripened goat cheese, queso fresco, or sour cream.

Eat.

P.S. This is only really delicious if you have real chicken stock.  Do you know how to make chicken stock? It could not be easier.  Buy chicken pieces and put them in a pot of water to cover or mostly cover, and bring to boil.  Every five or ten minutes, skim the flotsam off the top until no more comes out–that will be in about half an hour. Then  add whatever herbs you like–I used some stalks of thyme and parsley.  Just throw them in there. Simmer for three hours.  Strain into clean pot.  Remove chicken meat from bones and put it somewhere.  Refrigerate the stock when it cools and the fat will all rise to the top, where you just take it off with a spoon before you use it. The End.

Good afternoon, Grocery Truck.

I see your trailer conveniently detaches for deliveries.

And your wheels pull off because that is what tiny hands are itching to do.

Thank you for the tour, Grocery Truck.  You are free to amble about your business now.

Here is my first attempt at a mini or art quilt. I call it “Banana.”

Just kidding.  I don’t know what happened there.  The other side is supposed to be the front.

This was me thinking about the Aegean Sea.  I followed the kind of haphazard instructions for the confetti miniquilt I found somewhere on the internet but only vaguely.  My main technique here was random chopping so that even the long strips did not really contain straight lines.  That made it a hallucinogenic experience to sew the quilt face together.  Most of the time I had no idea what was going on.

In other news, my mother-in-law is visiting so in preparation for her arrival last night, and in continuation of the chopping I was doing on the quilt, I now realize, I took my sewing scissors and chopped off a bunch of my hair that seemed to have some kind of sticky gunk all over it.  This morning I woke up and looked at the mullet I created and was like Well, I guess today’s the day I finally get a haircut.  But then during my morning chores I felt so empowered strutting around town in my mullet that I was like, Yo, Mullet, instead of being like Oh my, Mullet.  So now I may increase the mulletness of it.  I am thinking of Joan Jett as I do this or rather of what’s her name impersonating Joan Jett in the movie about Joan Jett coming out in the future.  Speaking of future and Joan Jett, are you aware, reader, that Michael J. Fox and JJ were in some movie in the eighties about daybreak or daylight or something? I know because my brother used to work at a video store when we were in high school and he would bring home movie posters and put them on his wall, and that was one of them.  Another was Blue Velvet and that was kind of racy.  Rather it was racy.  My brother’s boss’s name was Mr. Lee and I had a great fear of Mr. Lee.  While I did not mind being fired from my own jobs at the time (and since then), I had great anxiety over the possibility of Mr. Lee becoming angry with my brother or just angry in general.  That makes me think that the reason I love to flout authority now is because I was so terrified of authority as a child in Texas (where they used to beat the children in public school with wooden paddles) that now I am taking it all out on the hapless folk I encounter who try to tell me what to do–or maybe it is the innate jerkiness.  Whatever.   Talk to my mullet, or as my husband says, Talk to my ass, my head is sick.  Bye!

The living room, 8 pm.  Everyone is sitting on the couch or lying on the floor watching cartoons.  Max is frowning.

Me:  Why are you sad, son?

Max:  Julian called me a stupid-head.

Me:  This is what you say when someone says some dumb thing like that.  “I’m made of rubber, you’re made of glue, it bounces off me and sticks to you.”  Let’s try that.

Max:  I’m rubber boo BLAH BLAH!

Me:  Never mind.  If Julian says that again, just say “Shut up, jerk.”

Daddy (waking up from trance):  What! What are you teaching him?

Me (explaining)

Daddy: Oh.

Me:  Come on, Daddy, say something mean to me.

Daddy (without hesitating): You have small boobs.

Me: (dumbfounded silence)

Max:  Say it, Mama!

Me (with great vim to Daddy): Shut up, jerk!

(All laugh in delight except Daddy, because I continue to shout swear words at him)

The End

I have been thinking a lot, reader.  Occasionally I do that.  So I had decided, after thinking about it, that I would try to understand the fabric of existence, etc. and become filled with unlimited love, compassion, and possibly power.  I think the power issue was one of the reasons it all didn’t work out.  I haven’t given up on the love and compassion in case you are scared about that.

So in the course of all this thinking I was revisiting history and I realized that my parents taught me, among many other things I still like, to be misanthropic.  Maybe the lesson was more about being antisocial.  My parents did not have friends that ever came over to the house and it was sort of obvious that any idea, television show, book, newspaper article, and so on that one presented to my parents would be derided because they kind of hated everything and everyone–not in a bad way, reader.  I am very fond of hating everything because most things are fun to hate.  In a fun way.  Right? Ahem.

Meanwhile the attempt to achieve enlightenment is quite exhausting and I also noted that it makes you not find things funny, like people kicking each other in the crotch and falling off the roof and that kind of thing.  If you are infinitely compassionate, you’re just like, No, that’s not funny.  Perhaps my compassion is not going in the right direction, but that’s where it was leading me without my even realizing it.

So two things happened that I can remember right now that make me realize that I should stop trying to be compassionate and just sink back into the slough of biznotchiness that I traditionally inhabit.  First, I saw a preview for the new movie “Where the Wild Things Are” and after a brief struggle with my higher mind I actually had a shudder of horror at the kid in the trailer and then let myself yell derogatory comments at the tv.  It felt so right, reader!  Second, I listened to, while quilting, an old episode of Flight of the Conchords in which they give a concert for epileptic dogs.  That was what has been missing in my life during my brief flirtation with enlightenment.

Don’t worry, reader, I will try to figure out a way to combine everything.

The grocery truck wakes up from its long sleep underneath the globe with dreams of traveling the planet.

Some day I will see the sun set on the Sahara.

Someday.

Today is one of those days, reader.  You know,  like every other day.  I finally brought the darning foot inside from where it has been sitting in the cup holder of our car, and was ready to do some free-motion embroidery on a delightful little quilt scene that I finished this morning.  At least I think it’s delightful.  I was just reading something about how an artistic piece, like a painting, quilt, etc. is not ever the point of the creative process, because the point is to experience an interesting altered reality.  The art piece is just the evidence or trace of that experience of reality.  Anyhoo, that was going on this morning, and then when I went to practice with the darning foot it seemed to me that something was very wrong because the foot was about an inch off the fabric, but I kept trying anyway, and then there was that machine-gun kind of noise and I managed to focus my bleary eyes on the tiny parts in question and it turned out that I actually punctured the darning foot with the needle.  The foot is plastic, so it is not that hard to do. In addition there was some problem with the tension so that it was super-tight and even giving out a squeaking noise as the thread fed through.  So I ignored the tension but reattached the foot and needle, and then immediately did the same puncturing thing again, but this time I was unable to remove the needle from the foot and it seemed that the needle had, in addition to being wedged into the foot, sewn itself on with about fifty stitches.  Very much like how I sewed the quilt onto the sewing machine in my last episode!  Do you have any idea what I’m talking about, reader?

So I was going to post a picture of the gigantic mess this all created, because I had to tear the house apart looking for things during the course of breaking the sewing machine, and it’s kind of an art project itself–the mess in the house.  In the middle of it our old babysitter dropped by to chat and I think I inspired her with the degradation the house has achieved since I stopped cleaning it for her.  BUT I can’t post any of the lovely pictures I took, including one of the delightful quilt scene, because now I can’t find the cord for the camera.  If I could emit a turbo-powered sigh I would at this point.

Another  facet of today was that I forwent my nap because I was so excited about everything.  That doesn’t happen very often and when it does the day seems to have so many extra hours in it–more than enough to trash the house, break or lose all the components of my creative outlets, and have a snack.  I also discovered a barn owl I made a while ago but had hidden because it is a little scary.  I may finish it someday, plus the grocery truck I alluded to during my very first week at this job.  Oh, no one’s paying me.  Oh.  That’s life for you.

In pursuance of my decision to become one of those crazy craft addicts who go around covered in hand-tatted doilies and homemade accessories, I have started carrying the dumpling lunch bag purse with the wild kitty inside wherever I go.  This is the kitty that my husband still refers to as rabid (it’s not rabid).  That reminds me of the time I went to return a hair dryer to CVS, explaining to the lady at the counter that my husband had bought it when we already had one at home.  She shook her head and said with great pith, “Men.”  Anyway, that man.

Meow! My owner thinks I am real!

Continuing with my sexist theme for today, and last week too I guess, I was just working on the children’s quilts, and I listened to the soundtrack from “My Fair Lady” as I did so.  The songs are swell but amazing in their misogynistic message.  I could go on and on about that, but who cares.

Back to me, my older son (very bossily) picked out some of the fabrics for his quilt, such as the Fifties kitchen print, but I did not realize his aesthetic sensibilities were so well developed until we were about to leave for school Monday morning and he looked at my shoes and said “Are you going to wear those?” to my brown birkenstocks.  He suggested I wear the shoes I had on the day before, viz., rainbow colored Asics sneakers.  What could I do, reader? He was right.  I kind of hate those birkenstocks, which incidentally I purchased in 1995.

Why is it so dark in here?

Below, see close-up of the letters.

This quilt I envisioned as being super puffy and doing the inside-out flipping or birthing method for the edges instead of binding as last time.  Let me say that the inside-out flipping thing did not go well.  When sewing around the edges, I had the quilt top, which you see above, sandwiched between the backing and the muslin, so even though I trimmed before I sewed as best as I could, I was still unable to see the quilt top prior to the birthing.  Sigh.  Thus I did not actually sew a good deal of the top, but only sewed the batting and muslin together, and it being too much trouble to re-invert the quilt and stick it under the sewing machine for thirty seconds I have instead been hand-sewing tiny whip stitches along the edges that have holes in them.  It’s kind of fun, but it’s kind of a beyotch.

Speaking of beyotches, I had the most amazing breakdown of the sewing machine this morning whereing three pins got lodged head-down one after the other but without my noticing under the part of the sewing machine plate that you can’t remove, and then when I did notice the rattle of trouble I tried to fix it by stomping on the pedal, so that I ended up sewing the quilt onto the sewing machine itself with about fifty stitches.  Then I had to get the seam-ripper out to remove the quilt from the axle or whatever it’s called, where it was very sturdily attached, meanwhile avoiding the three long pointy ends of the pins and the needle.  I ended up removing the walking foot three times with my screwdriver and reattaching it because the above pin-lodging happened more than once.   During this period I was also suffering from the fact that I pinned the sandwich together in a manner that ensured maximum stabbing of myself in multiple areas across my body. Smack smack.  That’s some satisfying complaining.

When I am done with this quilt I have to do a whole other one for the other child.  Next time perhaps I will remember not to do all the things I am doing right now.  Are you listening, self?    No.