Roasted Vegetables

I had some beets, parsnips, carrots and potatoes. This is what I came up with. It takes two pans: one for the slow vegetables [the roots] and one for the quick vegetables [the fruits and fungi.] Some great alternatives would be tomatoes, eggplant or zucchini, etc.

These would go well with beans and with whole grains such as brown rice or quinoa, or with corn muffins.

Roasted Vegetables

The Sauce/Marinade:

juice from one lemon; lemon zest
one tablespoon pomegranate juice [if you have it; see the pomegranate post]
some extra virgin olive oil
a teaspoon of ground rosemary

Pan One: The Roots:

cut up two potatoes, 3 carrots, 5 parsnips, and 3 or more beets
place in baking pan lined with foil or parchment paper
throw in several whole peeled garlic cloves [very healthy: you don't really have to eat them but they smell great]
sprinkle with sea salt and non-ground rosemary [needles or whatever they are]
bake at 400 degrees and set timer for forty minutes [total will be one to two hours.]

Pan Two: The Fruits Etc:

slice one yellow onion and separate the rings
quarter one yellow and one red seeded bell peppers
clean and cut off the end of the stem of 1 pound or so brown mushrooms
place in pan with some more peeled garlic cloves
sprinkle with rest of sauce [or, if you ran out of sauce like I did, with balsamic vinegar and olive oil]
sea salt and rosemary
Pan Two goes into the 400 degree oven 40 minutes after Pan One.
Pan One can stay in there and keep baking; continue baking all of it 30 to 50 more minutes until root vegetables are done.

007 Calories

We watched Die Another Day yesterday. I'm sure I'm not the first person to notice this, but neither James Bond, the beautiful spy girls, nor the bad guys [unless somewhere there's a Bad Fat Guy snacking on cats] ever actually eat anything.

I watched Pierce Brosnan spend two years in prison being waterboarded every day, then clean up and travel to three continents in two days, have sex, mix it up with the bad guys, have a tremendous and exhausting swordfight, have sex, drive an invisible car and then a really fast ice car, save the world, and have sex, and nothing passes his lips except one or two shaken-not-stirred. And there was a rumor of lobster at one time, but I'm not sure he got to it. He was busy having sex.

Okay, my mistake; I believe Halle briefly nibbles on a strawberry.

No wonder these people are so cute and height/weight proportional.

He Maketh Victorious Whomsoever He Pleaseth

I've been immersing myself in the CD "Temple of Light." There's a verse I'm entranced with today-- please don't ask me the artist, the CD is still in the car--which seems so much more powerful put to music. The tune is simple and penetrating.

He maketh victorious whomsoever He pleaseth, through the potency of His behest.

~The Bab

Do you know where that is from? I had to look this up online on the Baha'i Reference Library. For Baha'is, how many times have you read this verse? It's in the context of the very powerful Prayer For Protection by the Bab. Listening to the CD, I didn't recognize it. That one sentence struck a chord with the artist and they put it to music.

Today I'm just glad: glad to know Baha'u'llah, glad to have my new job, and glad to prove myself wrong.

Arlene Reeducates that Three-Year-Old Once Again:

Everything I've learned in the last two months completely contraindicates what I learned in about 1960, when I was about three. I thought that stuff was buried, but it still comes up. First of all, I thought I would never amount to anything. I'm something, at least.

Also, my theme song in 1960 was "guess I'll go eat worms." My favorite music was Grieg's mournful "Morning Song" from Pier Gynt. It seems funny now, but I really believed that while it's nice to have people around who are going to take care of you [after all, I was three] otherwise, you can't trust them, and you certainly can't tell them what's on your mind. Life seemed safer and less painful to me if I just left the people out. But I still spent a lot of energy striving to feel included. Logic, schmogic.

There was a time when I would have read that verse and thought God would probably make anyone else victorious, but not bother with me. [Ooh, the self-pity. Milk it, milk it!] Now, I think, "Why not?"

Now I'm absolutely bowled over by how much love and support I'm receiving from my friends and family. I realize how simple this sounds. I just never let it into my heart before.

The Atom and the Drop

I spent a delightful evening at the Thursday Devotional Meeting with our friends George and Bonita, sampling treats. Not the tea, which was wonderful, but observing the gentle dance of spirit between these two steadfast, and very different, yet absolutely united friends. Their varying approach to the wonders of life is fascinating. My heart is still singing with their love and friendship, and my body vibrating with the prayers and music.

Both George and Bonita greatly enjoy listening to all sorts of music. Her hearing is sensitive, and in music, I feel Bonita likes to stand at the edge of the music free to dive or to dabble, but not to have her senses overwhelmed with the volume. At one point she said, so sweetly and gently, "I can feel the music vibrate in my heart muscle, and I don't think it's good for my heart," when the volume reached a certain level [she was seated near the speaker.] George tends to edge up the volume, and my intuitive feeling is that he enjoys being completely immersed in the music, up to his ears.

It reminds me of the differences in Christians in regards to the practice of baptism; some feel it is sufficient to sprinkle, and some like to submerge their entire body in water, in their symbolic reunion with God and commitment to His Faith. I would say, in music, Bonita is a sprinkler, and George is a dunker.

With food, Bonita has achieved a high level of mastery in her fascination with cooking, creating complex flavors, colors, scents, and combinations of nutritious foods in her dishes. In cooking, Bonita is a dunker. George benefits from her cooking, taking delicious entrees and tempting tidbits to work for his lunches, as well as their camping and picnics for which she prepares food.

I had this flash of thought which in a tiny way may answer a question I had about what God loves about us. I was thinking about all the various and joyous spirits, all the beautiful souls I know, and how in a way I wish I could just jump in and spiritually immerse myself in enjoying their soul. Love is not a spectator sport.

When God is in our hearts, does he not love us so much that he might delight in being with us? We are not perfect, but we were created noble. Although God, being the Unknowable Essence, does not reside in any physical place, still could He be, on the spiritual plane, attracted to us and immersing Himself in the miniscule flashes of wonderfulness reflected in the human heart, however humble? Maybe God is a dunker of sorts.

How resplendent the luminaries of knowledge that shine in an atom, and how vast the oceans of wisdom that surge within a drop.

Baha'u'llah

Connections

I decided to give Facebook another whirl and discovered I was already on it but didn't realize it. I was deep with my nose in connecting with friends when someone came to the door I haven't seen since Pearl got married in 2005.

My former husband came to pick up Pearl and take her to a Moto Guzzi Christmas party and to see her grandfather later on. He is so energized, we were talking a mile a minute trying to catch up. I think he is flourishing in his new circumstances. He took a photo of one of my cats which I am hoping to adopt out, to see what his wife thinks about it. I showed him the improvements I made on my house, and we reminisced about our old cat, who unfortunately was taken apart by pit bulls during the Worst Year of my Life.

I was able to talk with him . . . I'm trying to think of the right words. With a fresh slate. As a person I no longer have any issues with. More assertively. As a grown up.

And it was fun.

Service

I have decided for the hundredth time to reinvent my life. There are a whole slew of behaviors that were spawned by the belief I would never amount to anything, which I have decided to ditch, as they weren't doing me or anyone else any good.

The great good news is that, in this starry-eyed stage of orientation to Mountain View, it seems that this corporation values positive, happy people working in a positive, happy manner. Little I have seen on my first day orienting "on the floor" contradicts that. I have rarely felt so welcomed. So I am determined to turn over a new leaf, that determination starting before I ever started working here.

I like to carry a clipboard at work to keep my papers and thoughts organized. I created a cover sheet for the front [we do, after all, make notes about private information] from an 8 by 11 section of a calendar with a photo of a field of poppies, with a quotation on the front, inserted into a plastic sleeve.

My quote, which involves service:

O Lord my God! Give me Thy grace to serve Thy loved ones, strengthen me in my servitude to Thee, illumine my brow with the light of adoration in Thy court of holiness, and of prayer to Thy kingdom of grandeur. Help me to be selfless at the heavenly entrance to Thy gate, and aid me to be detached from all things within Thy holy precincts. Lord! Give me to drink from the chalice of selflessness; with its robe clothe me and in its ocean immerse me. Make me a as dust in the pathway of Thy loved ones, and grant that I may offer up my soul for the earth ennobled by the footsteps of Thy chosen ones in Thy path, O Lord of Glory in the highest.

~'Abdu'l-Baha

Good News

Just a short note: For all my hundreds of well-wishers, good news. I was offered a job by "Mountain View"-not the cemetery, not its real name- for a nursing position somewhat similar to what I was doing at Homeland. It's been a real roller coaster. Hope I remember my learnings. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has been so supportive to me during this time.

How To Feel Like a Toad

"I thought you was a toad"--O Brother Where Art Thou.

How to feel like a toad:

1] List all your weaknesses and failures.

2] Listen to someone else list all their strengths and successes.

3] Compare yourself to them.

4] Accept it: you are a toad.

The Wrong Planet

I distinctly remember bawling in the shower about five years ago upon termination from a job. When that sort of thing occurs I focus on all my failures and on the ways I fail to fit into the conventional world of work. I remember asking God why I was even created, since I don't see how my efforts add much to the world. So when I read the following from Jules Verne, it sounded a chord of recognition.

The book is Paris in the Twentieth Century, The Lost Novel, an early satire which was never published until the manuscript was found in the effects of the author more than a century later. The author at this point had published one work, but he was far from the enormous success he eventually attained, and I can't help wondering how much of Jules Verne is in his main character, however silly he may have written him. From the vantage point of 1863, the very year Baha'u'llah in another country was declaring His Mission, Jules Verne was envisioning life in Paris in 1960, a materialistic society dedicated to industry and money making, and shunning or bastardizing the arts.

In the Paris of 1960 there are fax machines, internal combustion automobiles, giant computers, and an elevated train run on compressed air. And quill pens, as well as the cessation of warfare.

Into this brave world he plants a young poet, Michel Dufrenoy, who, by his artistic nature and lack of pragmatism, fails in the banking industry and even in modifying plays to suit the pedantic tastes of the times.

"My dear Jacques," Quinsonnas observed, "by introducing you to Michel Dufrenoy I allowed you to make the acquaintance of a young friend who is one of us--one of those poor devils Society refuses to employ according to their talents, one of those drones whose useless mouths Society padlocks in order not to have to feed."
"Ah! Monsieur Dufrenoy is a dreamer," Jacques replied.
"A poet, my friend! and I wonder what in the world he can be doing here in Paris, where a man's first duty is to make money!"
"Obviously enough," Jacques replied, "he's landed on the wrong planet."

[Copyright 1994, Random House, New York.]