What's UP with Rachel Ray?

I love Rachel Ray's 30 minutes from start to finish real time cooking show. I love everything about it including her peppy personality, the slightly hoarse voice that never pauses for a breath while she chops and zaps her way through piles of veggies, sammies, pastas, chicken breasts. This morning I turned on her morning show on NBC and she had a Valentine's Day segment that just did me in. Crystal champagne flute gifts for audience members, a suggestioon to frame a menu from a favorite restaurant where you had a memorable meal with your beloved and then cook something based on that menu. I just wanted to scream. Instead, I crunched harder on my toasted almonds and rolled my eyeballs so hard I almost dislocated them from my head.

What's up Rachel sweeheart? Didn't you hear about Haiti and the President's State of the Union address? Crytal champagne flutes indeed ! Yes, I know you're just a cook and an entertainer, but would it hurt to tone down the luxury romantic thingy just a tad? It seems almost, well, no, it IS disprespectful of all those in the world without food, a roof, medical care, income, hope. How about you have a low budget show where you encourage viewers and audiences to put their Valentine's Day budget towards medical supplies and food for kids in Haiti? How's that for an act of love? We, who eat our hearts to death can afford to cut back on the candies and crystal flutes don't you think? I'm about the go to the local farmers' market and look for untainted foods. I take it for granted that my water will be clean, can hardly move a wire hanger without jamming up the clothes in my closet and have the luxury of chomping on pretoasted presliced almonds, blueberries and yoghurt while I watch tv in my warm slippers and robe. Talk to me Rachel, tell me how you care, wake me up to something more than self-centered rose colored views of relationship. Relate instead to those who are without anything, can we please, just for a bit? What, bored with it already? Well the agony goes on and will go on, and we won't be able to staunch the hemmorhage of pain with rose petals on our lustful pillows. If you prick your finger on a Valentine's Day rose thorn, I say, good. Good for you to be reminded for a second of something that hurts just a little and know that others would be grateful to have so tiny a problem, would trade places with any of us, that means you reading this, me writing this and anyone we know. So just shut the heck up Ms. Ray and get back to being the Real Rachel, the one I used to love so much.

The Mind is In/Out

I'm feeling as free as a bug in a matchbox in a small boy's pocket. I know sooner or later he'll take me out and show me off, or torture me, or transfer me to another prison perhaps. No option is appealing. If I were a bug, though, probably wouldn't think this way to begin with. I'd just BE. As far as researchers can tell, humans are the only creatures who anticipate and worry and conceptualize. We're the ones who wonder, "is this it? is this all there is?" and roll over in despair.
But we've adapted to this doom and gloom and developed the concept of hope to balance things out.
Yesterday was first day of class for the new semester at the local junior college. I'm a senior and the thought of classes at a junior college is a little daunting. I was 21st on the wait list for a bonehead English class and didn't make the cut and I want to review the last math class before getting tangled up in the mysteries of the next phase of algebra but the "computer" won't let me.
So I'm registered with no classes to attend, so far. Not sure now what the next step is. I could go to the math lab and talk to one of the tutors about reviewing the previous class, but that's not the same as actually taking a class. I feel badly about this because I keep trying to "go back to school" and it keeps on eluding me. The counselor I saw was in a hurry to catch her ride home and I was the last student in a long day for her, so she babbled and highlighted courses on several printed pages of information, which, let's face it, if I can't understand those, perhaps I've not got the stuff required to get a degree after all. It's depressing. I hate feeling this way and look for someone or something to blame, as if that would make me feel better, but it won't.
So I yesterday I took pleasure in a little retail therapy and bought a snazzy dress and some matching tights, a sweet Chinese painting and three kinds of tea from the eccentric German who runs his business like an old fashioned apothecary. I've got some anxiety and resentment and fear brewing, tax forms to deal with, filing, laundry. What I really want to do, is clear it all away and get out the water colors and paint for a spell, something I'm really behind on. But I probably won't because there's no room on the table at the moment, though will be later.
Can't rouse myself today, feeling disappointment, shame, envy, love the rain though. Miss my mother today. Feel as if I'd like to make a pot of tea and have a good old natter with her about nothing in particular.
So I'll just take a break now and do something mindless - that will be welcome - step away from the mind. Take no mind. Never mind. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Your mind is a bad neighborhood where you don't want to go by yourself. Monkey mind. Gimme cracked corn and I don't mind. Mind your manners. Mind your mother. It's going to be one of those days.

Promises Promises

I like to keep my word, so I'm careful about committing myself to agreements. Very wary of disappointing or misleading others. Don't like it done to me and don't want to do it to others. Golden rule. Why then is it, that I have such trouble keeping agreements with myself?

It's five days past 12th Night and the bloody Christmas tree is still up. The most I've done is unplugged the lights. Well, it's a start.

One year I left the tree up way past Easter. I read about a family who kept their tree going for months past Christmas, plying the base of the tree with coca cola, hanging Valentine's hearts, Easter eggs and Stars and Stripes on the appropriate holidays. Cute. But mine just sat there with its cranberry and popcorn garland turning into a threaded version of trail mix. Can't remember now why, but this year I was all set to go on schedule with the complicated take down procedure, finding the correct little boxes for this and that special ornament. The truth is I dread the finicky part of the pack up, though I'm always glad for it when it's time to hang them up on next year's tree, much easier all round.

I feel bad when I can't keep my promises to myself. Do I just like making myself feel bad?
Well, I think I just have a talent for finding more interesting things to do than whatever boring task is at hand. I simply hate being bored, that's really at the root of it.

Doing laundry is boring too. I've run out of clean undies for a few days now and have swanned around indoors in a sarong and gone outdoors heavily petticoated. Shh. But today I finally sorted some laundry, the whites to start, and have fresh knickers at last. In the past I've just gone out to buy a packet of new knicks at Longs. But it isn't Longs any more and the packet I accidentally bought were three size too large, so I gave them away to a friend who was happy for the freebies. I had a lady doctor once who discouraged undies altogether, said we should all wear loose skirts and let the air caress our nether regions, as nature intended. Said tights and nylon knickers were the cause of untold woes for her female patients and even wet swimsuits should be whipped off as soon as possible, no lounging around the poolside leaving wet patches in the shape of pressed bums. Bit of a crotch nazi she was.

I'd like to keep some of my new year resolutions but have decided to just read them once a day, on the advice of our minister, bless him, who wants us all to be better and do better and feel better. What a nice man. Reading them once a day is a good start. We'll see if that leads to any change in my behavior. Might not remember to tell you if it does. Fingers crossed.