Poem: It's about Time

Here it is April 7 and I have not written one poem during National Poetry Month.

I always feel that the best poets have developed their own private language that miraculously speaks to others. Perhaps that is one source of the following poem that I wrote a few months back with my Creative Writing class during our daily writing time.  I've revised it a bit.  I think it could use further exploration, but I allowed myself the type of repetition that I normally consider an indulgence. Maybe writing poetry is a little of an indulgence.  Part indulgence, part cry, part puzzle, part game, part creative act. The other day it occurred to me that within the overwhelming tide of dichotomies in our culture, perhaps poetry is at least one place where a person can still float an idea without having it jackknifed with ideology.

Anyway:


Conventionality

I am confined by my own language.

With language, freedom creates confinement and isolation.

The more unconfined by convention, the more isolated by incomprehension.

I have been confined by conventionality.

The unconventional in me has isolated me; my loneliness has been highly conventional.

The conventions of being unconventional are confining.

I am isolated by the inability to conform to the conventions of the unconventional.

My resistance to convention continues to confine me to the convention.

The institution is inclusive and isolating in its conventionality but

any subversion is in the conventional forms.

Subversion is convention; subversion isolates and confines.

Subversion reiterates convention.

The limits of language are convention.

The limits of experience are language.

The limits of experience are perception.

The limits of experience are the conventions of perception.

To achieve freedom we must shift perception.

To shift perception, we must shift language.

To shift language, we must shift convention.

Creating new conventions shifts reality.

INFP

Personality tests drive me crazy.  I can always see all sides to each question. I end up a mixture of everything. Slight preference toward this or that. Except for Intuition over Sensing, they are all slight and, like every other silly test like this, I pretty much end up in the middle, in true Libra fashion, despite me not believing in astrology in any kind of literal way. That was a long sentence.  

I took this one in response to repeated requests from someone doing research on personality types of National Board Certified Teachers. For what it's worth...

Humanmetrics Jung Typology Test™

Your Type

INFP

Introvert(11%)  iNtuitive(50%)  Feeling(12%)  Perceiving(22)%

• You have slight preference of Introversion over Extraversion (11%)
• You have moderate preference of Intuition over Sensing (50%)
• You have slight preference of Feeling over Thinking (12%)
• You have slight preference of Perceiving over Judging (22%)

(Haha-- I just re-edited this because I wrote "astronomy" instead of "astrology." One of the mistakes that peeves me when others commit it.  Guess I'm not getting any younger!)

Soup Coup Chicken Stew

This entry is a follow-up in my Soup Coup series.

We had a rotisserie chicken for dinner early last week.  My kids pretty much scour the drumsticks for every last morsel, and that's about it.

After dinner, the dog promptly dragged the chicken off the table and onto the floor.  Wha?

All I could think was "Bumpusesssss!"

At any rate, I rinsed off the chicken and made chicken stew the next day.  Since we had just picked up our CSA share, the stew had an even greater variety of veg than it would have, and it helped me use up some odds and ends from the pantry and freezer.

Here's what I did:

Sauteed small onion, 4 stalks of celery, 1 bulb thinly sliced fennel with a few crushed garlic cloves in the bottom of my soup pot.  Salt and pepper.

1 c. white wine (an inexpensive Pinot Grigio)
2 bay leaves

Added a can of chicken broth, a quart of homemade veggie stock, and some water.

Added, chopped up:
3 carrots
3 small-medium turnips (First time I've cooked with turnips.  They smelled like nasturtium greens when they were raw.  Nice and mild in the stew, though.)
1 yam (peeled)
3 red potatoes

Salt and pepper. Thyme, marjoram, sage. Let cook until just about tender.

Added
2/3 bag of frozen pearl onions
1/2 bag of frozen peas
The rest of the rotisserie chicken, shredded.

Let cook until it was all hot.

Added a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch mixed in with a few tablespoons of water, and 1 c. milk (I meant to get cream, but forgot.)

The stew wasn't thick.  I could have made it thicker, but didn't really care much about that.  I totally forgot to put parsley from out back into the pot.  It was getting late and the kids were hungry.

Served with artisan bread from Barrio bakery and butter.

What if My Teacher Website Wasn't so Ugly?

My latest Stories from School Arizona blog entry includes a flowchart (which I highly recommend, of course) and details my ideas for improving schools' ability to respond to teachers' needs for new technology tools.

Enjoy!

In Praise of the Asian Market

Today, I realized a minor dream I've had to make bubble tea, homemade.  Luckily, I had an unsuspecting group of young, eager snack-takers this afternoon at our Creative Writing "Club" at school.

I should have taken photos of what turned out to be an overly complicated and messy set-up (typical me!), but I'll have to get the finished product photographed next time.  Suffice it to say there were many Mason jars and an empty sour cream container of various teas, homemade blueberry syrup, homemade pineapple syrup, syrup-preserved tapioca balls, a drippy can of condensed milk, and a slowly melting bag of ice.  Luckily, I did manage to include the huge customary straws and clear cups so we could see the pretty tapioca pearls at the bottom.  My students loved it despite mixed reviews on the flavor and texture of tapioca pearls. I felt like a genius, even though I suppose the Asians invented bubble tea.  My choice was pineapple syrup in the Tazo mint tea.  Genius.

Anyway, running to the store for the tapioca and giant straws ($6.99!!!) reminded me that I have been wanting to honor our little Asian market 'round the corner.

Apparently, it has not always been our little Asian market 'round the corner.  According to my friend Deva, who has been Chinese American her whole life, and from Tucson or Marana during much of her life, G&L Imports used to be one of the largest, most respected Asian markets in town.  I read somewhere else that it is one of the oldest. Now, times are a bit slower I suppose.  It shares an aging strip-mall with Desert Pet (another store I really like) and a martial arts studio.  The Hong Kong Dim Sum advertised outside is nowhere to be seen, but if you need your nails done there must be at least 20 different Asian nail studios advertised with simple white fliers stapled up outside the front doors.

Inside, G&L is an adventure.  I don't consider myself extremely adventurous culinarily, but if I was there would be plenty to work with here.  The Asian servingware, cooking utensils and kitsch is fun to shop, also.  You never know what will be in-stock or out-of-stock.  Finally, after months of peeking in, I scored myself some Asian soup spoons.

Although it smells a bit funky and the refrigerators never really feel quite cold enough, the discriminating shopper can find some good produce deals:  Shallots for $.99/lb (if you can handle a few moldy ones in the mix), pre-peeled garlic for a good price, fresh scallions, cilantro, limes, lemongrass, ginger, etc. at good prices and with good quality.  I always pause to peruse the various types of greens available, with at least three varieties of bok-choy and many other choys which I'd like to try someday (I was told by the proprietor that "choy" means "vegetable")  They also have great prices on various chiles and those little baby eggplants and that kind of thing.  Occasionally the produce is not the best quality, but most of the popular items are very fresh.

And then, of course, there is an entire aisle of rice, and an entire aisle (and then some) of noodle products.  I certainly would not know what to do with 90% of what they sell, but I have been happy with everything I have ventured to buy there.  The baby bok choy has become a staple of my pho and other dishes, and I enjoy my little adventures into new flavors at G&L.

G&L Imports   4828 E. 22nd Street, Tucson, Arizona