Blessings on You!

May you have the hindsight to know where you have been

The foresight to know where you are going, and

The insight to know when you have gone too far!

Haiku Monday: Balance

Good Morning Haiku Contributors.

This week our Haiku mission is to explore the concept of 

"balance"

The No Bowl Winner

A note about that OTHER game, congratulations to Seattle's SeaHawks.
They played impressive football.  I think they have ushered in a new era in football
of fleet, fit, finessed gridiron gladiators. About the Broncos....Peyton showed up to play,

I'm not to sure what happened to his teammates.

Our game had some low and high scores as well.

Thanks to all challengers and a special welcome to new to the Pond player Amanda.

Our thanks also to Chickory for giving us all another game to play! Her haiku:

Ten thousand items

eleven ingredients

Mexican kitchen

To quote Karl, Chickory's wit and wisdom have been missed! I loved this for it's wit, humor, syllable count, construction and the game within the haiku . A menu and a game in just 17 cleverly crafted syllables!  Did you select your eleven ingredients? Mine are these:

Corn

Tomatoes

Onions

Peppers

Cheese

Cream

Frijoles

Meat

Rice

Spices

Cerveza 

Chickory expanded our Game Day fun while declining to compete. 

A winning generosity for sure.

Our naturalist Serendipity cleverly wove the GAMES together with her haiku about a Hawk.

House sparrow main course

Sharp shinned Hawk dines well this eve

Warm flesh heats her gut

Serendipity never ducks the realities of nature. In her environs a warm meal is often survival.

As it turns out, Serendipity did not need a TV to know the score. She predicted it.

The HAWKS dined very well.

Amanda showed up with a childhood gaming classic:

Hiding eyes counting

Others running, hiding fast

Shout, "Ready or not!"

What a charming haiku!
I could feel the rush of excitement from here. We all grew up playing hide and seek. Most of us were blessed to repeat the experience through our own children or loaners. Also, in classic Haiku form there are two halves of a whole concept. If you take out the middle line the message is still clear.  Well done Amanda. Alas, the subject was "menu".

Karl  brought home a big score with this recipe:

Embrace principle

Learning Loving Integrity

Fulfillment menu

This is my favorite entry. I love the concept of having a menu for fulfillment of life.

I so agree with him! To organize a life of principles with an eager reach for learning, for loving well, for bringing integrity to efforts large and small IS gourmet living. Remember the game LIFE? Traveling the roads, rolling the dice, filling your car up with pink and blue babies while trying to pay your  bills? In the Karl approach to a life lived well you need not roll the dice. Just take the high road! Unfortunately my favorite haiku is off  count with  8 syllables in the mid line.

Sigh!

I love our Monday Haiku game. I do not love judging.
So I'm taking a cue from the coaches of that other game
I'm sending in a replacement!

Sunday football fun
beer, wings, chips, dips and, more beer!
Cause brown bottle flu

Congratulations KARL, you are our winner.

First February Haiku Monday Game Day

Welcome Haiku-ers to The Game.
Of course there are some who think the Big Game is about  the Super Bowl.
Like that other game, our weekly haiku contest  is eagerly anticipated. I've already received several  foot tapping, harruummppphing  messages reminding me Friday was POST DAY.

After the shock of the Oops win over at Serendipity Do Dah's I spent some time thinking about themes for this week. I finally landed on a subject I thought had not been done and would be fun when  one of my projects went into overtime leaving none for games.

Somewhere, in the midst of this 2880 minute drill, I lost interest in the original theme.

Maybe it got hijacked by all the hype about that other game.
I think the Super Bowl Season is the  Season of Lucre for those in Advertising.
They have reached saturation via every media form possible. Some of that seeped in.
Or, maybe, it was Blowfish  who thinks far more about the food for a big game day than the game.
Or maybe it was his foot tapping, harruummphing impatience over no posted  Game Day Menu for the Pond. It is a well known fact Blowfish  enjoys his food best when he has had time to  anticipate every offering.

Last night I arrived home late. Again. After our normal dinner hour.  Blowfish was so puffed out he looked like one of those WWII mines waiting to explode with minimal contact. Here it was

  Friday Night on Super Bowl Weekend

and there was  no dinner and no menu posted for THE GAME.  Even worse, there was no stocked larder or stuffed refrigerator for him to investigate the mystery of the menu. Alarmingly, he had not been sweetly summoned to fetch in mountains of grocery bags from the Fizz.  Before I got my coat shrugged off he was saying, " Fishy, I've been thinking it sure would be great if you'd make us some of those sweet, juicy, baby back ribs for the Game"

 "Really?
That's so ordinary I thought this year we'd celebrate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."

So now you know. 

Our theme this week is 

Menu

Epiphany Blessings!

This year in the deep South, the  twelfth day of Christmas will  be accompanied  by a mammoth Winter storm dropping temperatures into the single digits.

There is much preparing. Folks are stocking up on firewood, kerosene, propane, charcoal, matches and sterno. There is concern ice will down power  lines and leave families at risk with no means for warmth.

Even at the Pond we went out to fetch home some essentials.  We were out of winter suet cakes for the wild birds which spend the cold season with us. It will be too cold for most of them but we hope they will find a good place to survive the freeze.  We are trying to help.

 This morning there was a war with bully squirrels trying to oust a mother bird from her good, dry, tree hole. I came  rushing inside to ask Blowfish to help with bb gun, rocks, whatever was at hand to protect the Dove who was crying out for mercy. A Dove. On Epiphany Eve, trying to find a safe place to nest. Blowfish shook his head at my foolish hope to avert the dark side of nature. One nesting bird against a gang of four determined squirrels? Back outside  I yelled, I threw stones, I shook my fist at the squirrels and then I came inside to grab a bag of trail mix to scatter up the driveway in hopes of luring them away from Dove.

Sigh.

All three of our Christmas trees are still up, lights shining morning and night when we are home. We always leave our halls decked and our trees lighted through Epiphany. We are in the minority as most families now put their trees up earlier and take them down sooner.
I find it odd that a Christian calendar is no longer followed in celebrating Christmas.  We saw several discarded trees along the side of the road this morning on our way to fetch suet. I thought, " It's so close, you could have made it!".  Sometimes the rush to pack away and end the Christmas season seems greater than the rush to prepare for the celebration of Christ.

Why?

Once, years ago I rode a camel at the zoo in New Orleans. It was not my favorite experience. I certainly would not want to travel by camel over rough terrain for twelve days and nights. As did the three kings. The wise men. Who prepared  to accept a messiah. Bearing gifts they traversed afar.
They followed a star to guide them to His perfect Light. They prepared and pursued.

 On camels!

I have a cookbook my sister gave me long years ago. It follows the Catholic calendar with traditional recipes for various feast days or  celebrations of saints. The recipes hail from around the globe so there is much diversity of taste and tradition which demonstrates the entire world can get on the same page.

With a little effort. No traversing afar by camel required.

In this book "A Continual Feast" it has a bit of history to accompany the recipes. I was surprised to read the celebration of the Feast of Epiphany, begun in the third century, predates the Feast of Christ's Nativity or Christmas Day, begun in the fourth century. In my childhood, everyone I knew celebrated Epiphany. There were many families who distributed one gift to each child for each of the twelve days  of Christmas. Often with the best gift arriving on Epiphany. Just like the Magi arriving with Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.  Now? Well let's just say our neighbors joke about how we Fishy's are the last family to take down our traditions. 

Are you  familiar with the tradition of a Kings Cake in honor of the Magi on this 12th day of Christmas?   There are many traditions but most of them include the baking of gifts within the cake. Gold or silver coin or trinkets are incorporated into the batter. The person(s) receiving the gifts in their serving may look forward to an especially blessed year. I wonder if the Southern tradition of adding a lucky dime to the black eyed peas on New Year's Day is borrowed from the King's cake tradition?

No matter.

Whatever the traditions of

 Christmas , 

New Year  

or 

Epiphany 

you celebrate.

May you be joyful

May you be healthy

May you be prepared

May you celebrate life's many blessings

Merry Christmas Joy to All

No Justice

A while back Blowfish had his semi-annual visit to his primary doc. Yes, he has reached the phase of life where he has a primary and some specialists too.  Generally the exams are routine, sometimes they want to take a closer look at a skin irregularity but mostly it's about keeping tabs on his general well being and prescription renewals.

The last trip was a little different.

Doc came into the room and told Blowfish straight away his Toledo results were unsatisfactory. 

"Toledo results?"

" Those scales speak your reality my friend. You weigh too much for a man  with five coronary artery stents and a pacemaker. A nutrition and lifestyle change is in order. Start today."

Of course, this is all hearsay. I do not go to these appointments with Blowfish. I did  back in the days when Blowfish was in the CCU every three months with the digital skull flashing on the monitors and the cardiac nurses applying all their skills and prayers.  The thing is Blowfish is not very good about providing the docs with usable information. Some years back, when he was too ill to take himself to the docs, I would take him. Sometimes in utter frustration the docs would ask me about my observations and opinions of the man. Medically speaking. As it turns out I am a pretty keen observer and, on occasion, my commentary led to testing which identified crucial issues. 

This irritated the whey out of Blowfish. 

To make matters worse a couple of these docs annoyed him beyond all measure when they told him he should not come to his appointments without me. That actually was a trigger for him banning me from coming with him. When I asked him if he really wanted to make that decision his answer was emphatic.

"You can talk to my docs when I am unconscious or dead. It is not RIGHT for MY doctors to listen to you more than me."

"The thing is they are just trying to find every available tool to save your life. It just so happens they ask for my observations because I live with you and may be able to provide useful data."

" They can ask me!"

" Well they have and this has not  been successful.  They ask what is wrong and you tell them if you knew the answer to that question you would not be paying them! If they ask how you are feeling you say 'bad', if they ask if there is any change you say 'huh?'  You don't actually give them any information which will help them treat you!"  

So, it was a couple of days after his appointment when I encountered him in the Kitchen reading a food label. A first time event in the 35 years I have known the man. The look on his face and the label in his hand made me break into uncontrolled  laughter. Had justice finally shown up at the Pond? Did the man with the magic metabolism actually need to  pay attention to his intake for the first time in his life? I cannot tell you the number of times I have sat across a table from this man watching him work his way through a 10,000 calorie meal washed down with a bottle of Merlot  while I had water with lemon and an undressed lettuce leaf. 

Guess who has always been slim and guess who has not?

He had a brief problem back when he hit 55. He started to add weight which he did not find

acceptable. Since he had never dealt with this reality before, having to do so made him extremely cranky. Even his students and fellow faculty members wondered what happened to the good natured fellow they knew and enjoyed. That was in public, at home "cranky" was an understatement. The man was unhappy. His whole life he had loved and enjoyed food far more than most people. He did not want to be fat and he did not want to give up the exciting and comforting experience food represented in his life. It sounds comical but in truth the man was suffering with what was for him, a life changing event. I did a bit of research and convinced Blowfish to try the Hilton Head Metabolism Diet which was hailed to be THE way to invigorate a stalled metabolism.  He agreed I could do this for him. It changed us all;  Blowfish happily returned to unrestrained food consumption, Mermaid got too thin and I gained 7 pounds.  

Blowfish received his amazing metabolism from his mother. A tiny woman who kept her apron pockets full of Snickers bars which she ate hourly to keep from becoming too thin. For her it was a great choice, "a little protein for the long haul from the peanuts, a little sugar for the quick energy burst and a little chocolate for the pure pleasure of it" was her frequent refrain. Her bad cholesterol was over 400 but she had no cardiac or circulatory issues. Go figure. I should have never married this family.

I digress. On the day I found Blowfish reading a nutrition label we went to lunch at his favorite Steakhouse Saloon.  It's one of those places that puts a bucket of roasted peanuts on the table along with the menus and a basket of just out of the oven , steaming hot yeast rolls and half a pound of whipped honey-butter.  On this day, instead of ordering his usual ribeye steak sandwich on a ginormous hoagie roll with onion rings, fries, slaw and dessert he heaved a big sigh and ordered a salad. While munching his way through a  thousand calories of peanuts, butter and yeast he shared his dissatisfaction about his most recent trip to his primary. He bemoaned the  "cruelty" of this new  reality and how he was going to put

 

this behind him by getting this extra weight dispatched immediately. I smiled and encouraged him and did not mention the calories he was consuming. Eventually his salad arrived with a mound of shrimp, a mound of steak, a mound of ham, a mound of cheese and a couple of eggs, tomatoes, onions and olives all of which was drowned in a cup of high fat, high calorie, high sodium Roquefort dressing.  He always asks his servers to "dig deep" when ladling out the dressing. They find it charming. I get queasy.

When he finished this "lite" lunch washed down with a gallon of sweet tea he said, " Well, I hope this will hold me 'til dinner. But even if it doesn't I will just suffer though because I do not want to be a fat man".

" What are you talking about?"

"This salad for lunch. This need to diet"

" That was not a diet lunch Blowfish. That was a 3000 calorie

salad with another 1000 calories of blue cheese on top, not to mention the 1000 calories from the peanuts, rolls and butter!"

                                              "Fishy, your problem is you do not know how to eat." 

When Mermaid heard of her Dad's "dieting" endeavors she rode to his rescue. She told him she started each day with a high protein chocolate Muscle Milk and maybe he should try this. 

"Daddy," she said, "you will love this!  It is like having a milkshake for breakfast, gives you tons of energy and helps maintain muscle mass which burns calories". 

Blowfish did not like the taste of Muscle Milk but we did find a protein drink he does enjoy, Lean Muscle vanilla. It sports 32 grams of protein, 1000 mg of omega three and all the vitamins I could never get this man to take. So he crafted a diet he could live with. He did not eliminate or moderate his usual meals. He added a Lean Muscle to his daily intake as a mid afternoon boost and limited his nightly ice cream intake to just one serving before bed.  He lost 12 pounds. His pants fell to an impolite low. We had to order him a half dozen pairs of slim cowboy cut jeans because all of the in stock jeans were baggy on him.  Now the man struts around preening in his new sveltness. He tells others he does not understand what all the yap is about regarding dieting. He states  with great authority and gravitas that it is very clear if a person sets his or her  mind to a goal it can be obtained with a little research and a lot of discipline.  Right. Mr. Discipline  does not know I fantasize about seeking justice by bashing his mouth shut with a quart jar of Roquefort.