Vicki Lane's Blog, page 54

Japanese Iris

They always come as a nice finale to iris season, blooming as they do after the Bearded and Siberian irises have given up.


Years ago, a friend of mine visited Japan and was taken iris-viewing--walking on wooden pathways across shallow ponds filled with irises. What bliss that would be!
(For a quick virtual visit, go HERE.)
 

 

The Opening of Tomato Galette Season

This seems like such a summer dish to me. And there were some nice Beefsteak tomatoes on sale at the grocery... 
I love this recipe for the crust--it's quickly made in the food processer and can wait several days in the refrigerator till needed. And it's crispy and crackly, reminiscent of puff pastry.
The crust was made and waiting as I prepared the tomatoes for the filling, only to find I had no kalamata olives. So I substituted a mix of fancy olives we'd been given and left out the feta--saving it for the spinach and cucumber salad.

It was delicious, even with the changes. If you'd like to give a galette a go, you can find the original recipe on an earlier post HERE

 

At the (Goldfish) Pool

 

More About CASTE--the Book and the Reality

                                                                                              

The predictable knee-jerk reactions of so many true believers to the former's guy's conviction on 34 counts (kangaroo court, all political, Jesus was convicted too, sending money) saddens me.  

For a long time, the fact that this vulgar, manipulative, lying individual, a person I wouldn't let in my house on a bet, had so many avid supporters baffled me. But now, having finished reading Isabel Wilkerson's excellent analysis of the effects of caste on our country, at least I begin to understand.

                                                         

It's like LBJ famously said--

“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” 

Wilkerson addresses the question that has baffled me and so many progressives: why do so many working-class white people v0te against their own best interests (health care, social services, job creation etc.)?

Her answer: "...the people voting this way were, in fact, voting their interests. Maintaining the caste system as it always had been in their interest."

Like LBJ said.

I remember when Obama was elected, the reaction of a (white)woman I knew slightly to the Obama children in the White House, was a somewhat incoherent lament 'I think of my little granddaughters . . ." The unspoken subtext, I later realized, was that her granddaughters were more deserving of such an honor, because of their whiteness.

Wilkerson's book traces the long sad history of the effects of caste in India, Nazi Germany, and our own "land of the free."

It seems to be almost inherent in human nature to want somebody to look down on, somebody to be the scapegoat, somebody to do the nasty, unpleasant jobs that accompany life.

Wilkerson's thorough documentation (the book is about half reference notes) hammers home the operation of caste in our society. The enslaved were freed, technically, only to fall under the bondage of Jim Crow laws and more subtle forms of discrimination which still continue. The dominant caste was so successful at keeping the Black population in a subservient role, that the architects of Nazism actually studied the South for tips. (Terror and violence worked well, they found.)

The myriad examples of the physical brutality of the caste system are not always easy to read. Equally shocking to me was the fact that Black Americans were routinely denied so many of the benefits--Social Security, insurance, loans, education--available to the poorest white, thus perpetuating the class divide.

I found so much in this book that I either didn't know or hadn't quite understood. Highly recommended.

Flora and Fauna

 

Rabbit, Rabbit

 

Summer Day at Meema's

Now that school is out, I spend all day with Meema or with Grandma. On Wednesday at Meema's, I did lots of things--seeing about the Castle People while Meema made the pancakes, watering the plants, and blowing bubbles.

I also brushed Bailey.

Her hair is very silky. I think she likes being pretty.

Then it was time to go up to my office (which is also Meema's work room.) I did some stuff while Meema did some ironing. She had four shirts and some napkins to iron. I helped with the napkins and with the shirts too. Shirts are hard. I don't have any clothes that that have to be ironed. My clothes are all nice and soft.


Downstairs in The Room, I had to see about the babies. It was Dolly's last day of school, and I had to get her up and fix her breakfast. Margo was acting like a brat as usual. She wanted pizza for breakfast and kept fussing because she couldn't go to the circus.



When Dolly got home, she wanted a puppet show. So I did that. Those babies are a lot of trouble, especially Margo.

Of course we read lots of books. I am really good at reading with expression. 
Then we made banana bread, using my great great grandmother's recipe. (I added some chocolate chips.)
It came out good!
                                                                                  

Ferny Green

 

This Time Tomorrow

                                                                          

I've always loved time travel fiction--the potential for changing the past, along with all the inherent dangers that might accompany such a change--the butterfly effect, as in Bradbury's iconic short story.
Straub's take on the genre is strangely compelling: a woman, with a dying father, herself almost forty, single and just passed over for promotion, wonders how things might have gone differently in her life. After an abortive birthday celebration and too much to drink, she awakens to find herself reliving her sixteenth birthday--in her sixteen-year-old body but with her almost forty-year memories. And now she has a chance to make some choices that will improve her future. Maybe.
It was a fast and most enjoyable read--and when I woke up early the next morning, I found myself in that half dreaming state and I began to think about my own past--potential life-altering moments and choices.
Most of this half-dream focused on my twenties--when I was teaching at a prep school on Tampa and wearing dresses and heels and stockings every day. I liked the school and the students well enough, but I remember, during my free period, often I would stand in the hall and look out the window at the nearby canal and the merchant ships moored there, thinking that there must be more to life than this.
That teaching interlude came to an end after several years and after another interlude at a different school, eventually we made the choice to move to where we are today.
Looking back, there are very few choices I'd change--because I'm so happy with where I am now.
But, back to Straub's excellent book-- highly recommended, both as a great read and as a springboard for meditation on the past and appreciation of the present.

Dancing Fuchsia

This fuchsia, a Mother's Day gift from Claui, is like a whole corps de ballet in fancy tutus.