You're Going Down.....Dog

As I was listening to the latest instructor in the long string of dvds I have acquired with the aim of identifying my favorite style of yoga, I breathed dutifully into the movement, relaxing into each posture as he intoned, "Feel the movement balanced all over you body instead of staying in one place." Then he proceeded to tell me to take my foot, wrap it like five times around my head and spin like a top while yelling "toy boat, toy boat" ten times fast. At least that's the way I remember it. Then, to cheer us on, he said, "Remember….long pregnant pause….it's not a contest." I may or may not have been lying in a heap on the floor and laughing at that point, but all I could think was, "What if it was?"

I know it's heresy, but wouldn't it be kind of funny if they made yoga into a competitive sport? Then you could say things like, "After the fourth vinyasa, you're going down!" I thought I had stumbled upon some crazy good new business idea–like "hey you got peanut butter in my chocolate"–until I realized there actually is competitive yoga. So, alas, my dream went up in smoke. I would have transformed the practice with XFL style commentary:

"Sri Shankar Richardson is really ticked off now, he thought he was going to end Sunray Rainbow Whittmore's chances at a win today during the scorpion pose. What's this? Sunray is taunting him now. 'See this crow pose? Yeah, I'm rocking it and you're going to break your nose if you even try. You might as well just go home and cry into your Koshumba, loser.'"

You could bring in the veteran yogi for commentary too, like Shiva Rea:
"Bob, just look at the way he brings the energy of the entire cosmos into his body. He is really going to wipe the yoga mat with his opponent today."
"Shiva what is that printed on the back of his spandex action suit? Does that say 'I H8 He?'"
"Yes Bob that is a clear response to Whittmore's jacket last week that said, "Just Stay in Child's Pose, LUsR."

It would impact all of the arts that have been nurtured by the spirit of the discipline. Krishna Das would start climbing the charts with his new singles, "Suck my mat," and "Namaste, You're Going Down."

Gradually, the trend would trickle down into everyone's practice, translating into a wonderful judgement-laden discipline for us all. At the end of class, while instructors announced the class winners they could offer helpful advice so people could gain a competitive edge; "Pssst, when we say be gentle and ease into it? Yeah, we're just kidding. You've gotta really rock that pose or just go home, " or "Wow, man, looks like you never really found that drishti, Either that, or you have some serious inner ear condition, because I'm surprised you can even walk straight. Why don't you skip class for a couple of weeks, in fact, and practice walking with books on your head like Marcia Brady?"

Namaste, suckers here's your mandatory fun:

Explaining the Birds

I know what you're thinking. We haven't seen Blicky Kitty for a long, long time. The reasons for that are subtle and varied:
a) My new career in door-to-door interpretive dance has suddenly and inexplicably taken off, leaving little time for Blicky reportage,
b) Blicky took off in his Hummer, went deep undercover for many, many months, and I had no idea of his whereabouts,
c) and the fact that his disappearance coincided with me getting a track pad instead of a mouse was pure coincidence.

The real reason for his disappearance is that Blicky is starting to rethink his former ways and is starting consider to the many problems facing the environment on a global scale. He used to cough up furballs every time I mentioned my concern about dwindling frog and honey bee populations. I tried explaining to him that bees are vital to food production and that some 52 of the world's 112 leading crops -- from apples and soybeans to cocoa and almonds -- rely on pollination. There are still many questions, but researchers have identified some probable causes of colony collapse disorder (CCD), including blood-feeding parasites, bee viruses, fungi, pesticide exposure and decreased plant diversity causing poor nutrition for honeybees. He seemed to get it, but I think his primary concern was how embarrassing it would be for future generations of parents if they had to sit down and only be able to "explain the birds" to their clowder of kittens. He felt it would lead to some strange mating behavior if young people everywhere thought they were literally supposed to act like birds rather than grasp it as a metaphor for the fecundity of nature.

Your mandatory fun here:



Well I guess I just can't discuss this with Blicky. Yes these problems that face us are depressing and scary. They seem insurmountable at times, but for me doing things like buying organic food (or growing it), keeping woods instead of a lawn, writing to my congressional delegation and finding out the little ways I can help makes me feel better.

WINTERING
Sylvia Plath 1932-1963

This is the easy time, there is nothing doing.
I have whirled the midwife's extractor,
I have my honey,
Six jars of it,
Six cat's eyes in the wine cellar,

Wintering in a dark without window
At the heart of the house
Next to the last tenants rancid jam
and the bottles of empty glitters ....
Sir So-and-So's gin.

This is the room I have never been in
This is the room I could never breathe in.
The black bunched in there like a bat,
No light
But the torch and its faint

Chinese yellow on appalling objects ....
Black asininity. Decay.
Possession.
It is they who own me.
Neither cruel nor indifferent,

Only ignorant.
This is the time of hanging on for the bees...the bees
so slow I hardly know them,
Filing like soldiers
To the syrup tin

To make up the honey I've taken.
Tate and Lyle keeps them going,
The refined snow.
It is Tate and Lyle they live on, instead of flowers.
They take it. The cold sets in.

Now they ball in a mass,
Black
Mind against all that white.
The smile of the snow is white.
It spreads itself out, a mile long body of Meissen,

Into which, on warm days,
They can only carry their dead.
The bees are all women,
Maids and the long royal lady.
They have got rid of the men,

The blunt, clumpsy stumblers, the boors.
Winter is for women ....
The woman, still at her knitting,
At the cradle of Spanish walnut,
Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think.

Will the hive survive, will the gladiolas
Succeed in banking their fires
To enter another year ?
What will they taste of, the Christmas roses ?
The bees are flying. They taste the spring.

My Dearest Blickosphere

Gentle bloggy readers, how I have missed you both.

I have been so very, very busy as you can imagine. Surprisingly, the door-to-door interpretive dance venture never worked out. I blame the economy.

I have decided to turn my attention instead to the exciting field of cooking literature. I recently had the pleasure of listening to a vegan friend enlighten me about how my bad carnivorous ways were harming myself, the environment, children, and furry, delicious little creatures everywhere. I do plan on watching the Food, Inc. dvd he gave me. It's just in my glove compartment to remind me to watch it. And it's also there to remind me that one day of vegan eating is the carbon footprint equivalent of driving a Prius.

Now while Blicky actually cooks endangered species on the grille of his idling Hummer, I myself actually care about the planet and have resolved to do something about it. I will be even more single minded and driven than my vegan friend and go him one better. I have started writing a raw food, vegan cookbook. Just because we eliminated all the processed chemicals, resentment and hatred that infests the typical American diet, doesn't mean it has to taste bad. A raw food lifestyle is so easy and rewarding too! Here's a recipe that's sure to become a favorite! Chocolate chip cookies:

2 1/4 cups flour

3 cups brown sugar and white sugar

2 eggs 2 cups uranium

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp powdered rhinoceros horn

12 oz semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven

....

....

crap.

Well the project is still in its early stages but I will keep you posted. I have a high school friend who is actually much further along with his project. His book, Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager, was actually published ages ago and is teetering on the acme of Mount St. Bookstacks next to my bed. This is a seriously cool book. He's divided it into chapters based on different types of food one can forage. Apparently it goes beyond pies foraged from your neighbor's windowsill as well. He writes in depth about each thing and includes a recipe.

And now, since it's been so long since you've been assigned some mandatory fun:

Spring Cleaning

Well the permafrost is finally lifting here in MA, and we're emerging from our winter dens, somewhat grouchy and bewildered. We took the opportunity last week to go to the Audubon Society's Environmental Education Center in Bristol RI for a nature walk. They had a lovely picture of a red-winged blackbird on their brochure and sure enough, there he was within five minutes of our arrival like a Walmart's greeter. I guess it's time for spring cleaning....

Cynthia, over at Muse Swings tagged me to divulge cleaning quirks. 

The "Before" Picture. (Hey Cynthia, check out my Amaryllis)

I already had done a post about Blicky's unusual green cleaning tips, and I won't do it again because my hands just looked too blicky in the photos. I do try to clean every single surface assiduously in the few precious moments when I am able to move the cookie cutters off the bedside table, the potato masher off the writing desk, the minuscule Polly Pockets clothing off of the stairs and the Twister game off the dining room table (where I presume it has been serving as a polka dotted house for its two little denizens). So it is usually quite clean underneath the heap of toys and surreptitiously purloined utilitarian objects.

I do know how to clean and I like to do it thoroughly. I just marvel at people who can tame clutter. I feel so much better reading the blogs of other moms. What a relief to learn from Ann at Ann's Rants that other people had feline vomit issues and that at least there is a name for it. I do know moms who have lovely clutter-free homes. From where I sit though, it might as well be a superpower. I mean, why don't they just fly? They might as well. They just wave their superpower arms, and *poof* the cat food that's been poured into the water dish and transformed into crunchy soup instantly vanishes. While I sit at my computer and blog, they are going around their beautiful houses (probably singing) and using their super anti-clutter powers. While I'm spending hour after hour online.... I often puzzle over how they do it. Well I think I've finally found a way to even the playing field: Photoshop!

Now look at my kitchen! Don't worry, the kids and cats are still there — behind a cleverly designed storage panel. I also put a French chef in, but I dragged him into the larder with my mouse and created a new layer over him (how would that sentence have read a century ago?). Check out my bedroom too! I erased all of the cat hair without any harsh or toxic chemicals. I just erased one of the neighbor's houses, and the view is great now!

OK spring cleaning, check!

* * *

In other bloggy news, Blicky is just beaming with joy and has become rather unbearable after reading a panegyric in his honor over at Poetikat's Invisible Keepsakes. Not only did our friend Kat post the banner he designed with his own paws, but she created another beautiful and fun poem for her readers to enjoy. Thank you Kat! 

Also, I'm not confirming or denying that I know this beautiful little blogger or anything but every time I read her posts I'm seized with an inexplicable maternal pride. She is cleverly ensconced in bloggyland with her own nom de plume and avatar. She likes to blog about the books she reads (voraciously) but lately many of the posts are about life in second grade and have ended with the sad little plea "please leave a comment." I know she would love a few words of encouragement. :) Rumor has it that she even wants to create a character that is a cat. Hmmmm....

Step Away From the Crazy Pinko Green Dude

I came across a great article in the NY Times the other day about people who are trying to do go beyond conserving and recycling to radically reduce their carbon footprints. It describes the lifestyle of some people who are trying to shrink their family's energy use to 10 percent of the national average by growing most of their own food, spending only $1000 a year on consumer goods, air-drying their clothes and huddling together for warmth. Many people who have made radical changes to their lifestyles are often called "energy anorexics," "dark green" or put more simply, "fruitcakes". Blicky likes to call them "no good commie pinkos".

Dave Chameides, shown above, is collecting all of the waste he generates in a year in his basement and recording it in a blog. I also found a wonderful blog in Britain where a woman chronicles her attempts to create as little waste as possible in one week.

While people who are beginning to espouse a very different kind of lifestyle are derided as mildly pathological (you don't want to make any sudden movements around a dark green environmentalist), I think it's just the logical extension of recycling. I mean recycling is a buttload of work. You have to rinse the stuff so the squirrels and mice don't throw raucous parties your storage area. Then if you live in the boonies with no trash removal, you squish all of it into your (very fuel efficient Corolla) once a month because it takes that long to clean up all the property damage your toddler has inflicted while you got the last load in. You then hope that it's the stinky plastic jugs and not the jagged cans that are jammed in around said toddler's car seat on the way there. You then have to wonder if the doddering coot with the creepy toothless smile is checking out your bum while you lean in to grab the cardboard.

It's made my life a bit simpler in recent months to see where I can eliminate bringing stuff into the house. Here are a few things that I find have actually made life easier:

• I try to make everything I can. Yogurt is a snap to make in a thermos and it saves a lot of plastic. Ditto on snacks for lunchboxes. I do a lot of homemade gingersnaps and popcorn.
  
• Alright, so the homemade pasta machine I got on Craig's list for 10 bucks is still gathering dust but just think how many cardboard boxes that I will save when it works like it did in my fantasy.
• We get our milk delivered in glass bottles.
• I try, whenever possible, to buy local eggs and drop off the old cartons there.
• Until I no longer suck at gardening, I try to buy from farm stands and farmers markets because it's easier to throw things into a canvas bag.

Blicky is even getting in on the act. He has decided to forgo some extra items that he usually buys.

• His Halloween costume will be made by hand this year instead of insisting on a hand beaded one made in Thailand.
• He is giving up 2 of his 20 daily venti chai lattes,
• He is going to use acorns instead of plastic cutlery to pelt at hippie pinko's
• He's will only get one $389 cat bed for his guest room, rather than the matching pair
• He's resigned to turning the Hummer off now when it's in the driveway instead of hooking it up directly to the oil derrick in our backyard, although he'll miss the outdoor heating over the winter.

Preparations on the Blicky Homestead for Horrific Financial Chaos and the Destruction of Life as We Know It.

No doubt some were shocked and caught unawares by the news emanating from Wall Street this afternoon. I for one was prepared. We have been studying about subsistence living techniques this whole year and here are our recommendations:

• Start building a Hooverville in your backyard now because all your neighbors who drive Hummers and live in McMansions will be hobos soon.
  
• Start an organic garden like we did and by next year you too might have two zucchinis and a handful of cherry tomatoes to get you through the winter (or to feed to the hobos).
• Don't throw away those old socks! The thread can be reused as a holder for your iPhone. In a pinch you can also boil them for two days and mix it with lard to feed the kids.
• Learn how to forage! A nourishing meal is as easy to find as a golden parachute on Wall Street if you just know where to look. Perhaps there is a blackberry bush in the woods behind your house. Maybe your neighbor stepped out and left a pie cooling on the window sill. Some mushrooms are very nutritious and others will kill you in minutes.
• Think of ways to earn extra money. Maybe your seven-year-old can pass for at least eleven and the day laborers down the road don't split hairs. Good with numbers? Maybe you could get a job counting the money filling the swimming pools of corporate executives.

Is it the Future Yet? / The Yummiest Way to Squish Healthy Food Together and Live Until I'm 100.

OK, so lately I'm thinking the whole future thing must be a scam. I feel personally affronted that they haven't invented flying cars yet. There's no time travel or Esperanto-speaking futurist Utopia. There isn't even a green energy monorail mass transit system in our neighborhood and I can't say "Earl Grey...Hot" to the wall in a British accent and get tea (shout out to my nerd peeps). Sometime though I think of little things I can do that would have seemed completely exotic to me growing up in the 70s:

I can go onto Skype and talk to my cousin in Africa or my sister in Seattle. That's kind of how I envisioned all our phones to be and I'm grateful to be able to do it. Although when I was little I didn't imagine that if you push the wrong button, it makes lots of foreign men text dirty things to you.

They do have robots, but I just stopped wanting one and also none of them nurture a deep desire to become human.

They have really future-ie conveyer belts in the Amsterdam airport and there's a cool robot sounding lady who keeps intoning, "Mind your step!"

Instead of a plastic phonograph that you have to balance a toy chicken on the needle of so your K-Tel Dy-no-mite and Joni Mitchell records wouldn't skip, we now have access to any music we fancy at the click of a mouse thanks to the wonders of iTunes.

My kids make beeping noises instead of stamping stuff when they play library.

I don't have to memorize anything anymore. I make myself commit some poetry to memory because it's a gift to put lovely things in there if you have to wait in line at the bank for an hour (because they haven't invented robot bank tellers yet), but usually I can just look stuff up online. If you haven't met me yet please try to meet me when I'm near a computer because you'll think I'm smarter. If I'm far away from the computer I feel as sad as Napoleon must have felt after losing to the Prussians in the Battle of Wavre on Jone 18th and 19th, 1815. 

I guess we'll just have to keep waiting for more cool stuff to happen. We can either cryogenically freeze our heads and reemerge in a post-apocalyptic utopia, or we can be really really healthy and live a great long life. Here's the yummyiest way to squish healthy stuff together that I've found in a long while. It's fun to play with the proportions on this one according to your tastes and what you have in the house:

Middle Eastern Spinach Lentil Dish (yummy with aforementioned  homemade yogurt)

This is modified from this great recipe I found.

Ingredients: * Basil, 1 cup leaves  * Parsley, 1 cup leaves * Peppermint, 0.5 cup leaves  * Pepper, black, 0.5 tbsp * Salt, 1 dash * Ginger Root, grated or finely chopped, 3 tsp * Lentils, or about a third of a package depending on the proportions you like * Vegetable Broth, 1 cup * Garlic, 1 clove, minced * Chili powder, 0.5 tsp * Turmeric, ground, 0.5 tsp * Cumin powder, 0.5 tsp * Onions, 2 small, chopped * Olive Oil, 3 tbsp * Spinach, frozen, 2 package (10 oz) * Lime Juice, 0.5 lime yields * Raisins, 0.75 cup (not packed)

Directions

Wash and chop the herbs, save a few mint leaves. Thaw the spinach. Bring the lentils to a boil in the vegetable broth with the ginger. Cook just a little until they're al dente and save the liquid Mince the garlic and mix with chili powder, turmeric, cumin and remaining pepper and salt. Chop the onions and fry them in the oil together with the spice and garlic mixture. Add the lentils with the broth and continue to cook until they are soft.  Add the thawed spinach and bring back to a boil.  Toss in the chopped herbs, the lime juice and the raisins. Decorate with a few mint leaves.

How Sweet And Lovely Dost Thou Make The Shame

Our poor garden started out so well! In June we felt so optimistic about our first serious attempt at organic food growing. Now I just have to admit that our first effort was truly blicky. The squash plants still dutifully churn out respectable offerings, but seem to have been afflicted with powdery mildew. I looked it up online and apparently a mixture of water, baking soda and a drop of dish liquid works best. I think my squash and pumpkins were too far along for the remedy to work however. Next year I'll just resolve to water in the morning and plant more sparsely. My poor broccoli plants were besieged by blicky worms that I had to pick off by hand in July. Sadly, they had completely gorged on the leaves before taking their leave.

It has been a great year of purple and green beans that the kittens have really gobbled up. The zukes and cukes have done beautifully despite being blighted and undignified. I should be ashamed of my tomatoes. By the time I figured out how to stake them they had to be traumatized and squished into the cone shaped wire things. Even then I was too stupid to realized they are supposed to be put in like ice cream cones and half of them toppled over. They look like a tomato patch and if plants could whimper accusingly, these most certainly would.

In short, as many a adequately guilt-ridden hardy New Englander will tell you, my garden is a measure of my moral character and I, apparently, am not faring well.

Speaking of moral character, I am in no way drawing any parallels between my beautiful, blighted plants and any political figure.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 95: How Sweet And Lovely Dost Thou Make The Shame

How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame 
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose, 
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name! 
O! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose. 
That tongue that tells the story of thy days, 
Making lascivious comments on thy sport, 
Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise; 
Naming thy name blesses an ill report. 
O! what a mansion have those vices got 
Which for their habitation chose out thee, 
Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot 
And all things turns to fair that eyes can see! 
Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege; 
The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.

Proof that going green will make you hotter, younger and richer.

We in the green community (Kermit, Yoda and I) tend to think of Americans as lagging behind more enlightened nations when it comes to environmental issues. Our list of debacles and snafus goes on and on: the failure to sign the Kyoto treaty, air quality legislation leading to mbta contamination, electing he-who-shall-not-be-named to the oval office... But perhaps we're going about it the wrong way, because it's a well-known fact that we'll go for anything that makes us hotter, younger or richer.

This Italian, Buddhist, investment banker guy I used to date had the habit of spouting bogus statistics to back up random discussions we'd be having. I started to catch on when he said things like 96% of all people think going clubbing is way more fun than movies in NYC. I recently realized you could apply the same kind of bogus marketing techniques to going green so I determined to perform a little experiment on Blicky. I told him that 95% of former-models-turned-green-activists would prefer to adopt an environmentally conscious cat.

It did the trick! In just one week Blicky has stopped polishing his Hummer with whale fat and he's been using a fishing pole instead of just throwing DDT into the river. We've also been receiving returned mail that Blicky's been sending Amber Valetta, spokesperson for Oceana, a foundation set up to protect the world's oceans. So, as a result of this experiment we can conclude that convincing people that environmentalism makes them hotter, richer and thinner is 98% percent effective.

The above picture was taken from a women's fitness magazine which kindly asked Blicky to take part.

Was is for an article about:

a. How to get your dream abs and make your friends like you more with these ten easy moves?

b. How three friends went from being old and morbidly obese, to being hot, young and rich fitness instructors?

or

c. One of 31 tips on how to green your routine, recommending that you find planet-loving pals or get tips on green networking sites like gengreen? 

Seeing environmental issues flashing on the pages of pop media, with cutesie word play and images of the uber-hot is hard to get used to, but maybe that's the way it has to work in our culture. I have to admit, the recommendations for greener living actually seemed quite well-conceived. If everyone made just small changes maybe it would have a huge impact in a country our size. It would definitely be 75% effective in making our future seem less bleak.

Beware the Hypermiling Feline...

Well, I was just so appalled after reading that Melanie at Bean Sprouts doesn't love her dog enough to give him bottled water that I ran out and bought Blicky a Hummer. We chose the H3 Alpha. Now I was surprised to find that they were even still available. Apparently the liberal media is still convincing people to consume less gas.

So I was finally able to find one and it only cost 40,000 USD. But you get so much! It is 73 inches tall and 6000 pounds. You can haul 1500 pounds of groceries in it and when you peel out of the parking lot, you can go from 0 to 60 mph in 8 seconds. I think it's the perfect vehicle for your pet -- especially if he has a defense contract and needs to haul around some heavy and dangerous raw materials. 

It is such an environmentally friendly car too. According to their Web site it's 85% recyclable. That means if gas goes too high or polar bears take up residence in your garage, you can just drive it to the recycling side of your local dump. The only little snag is that gas is a bit on the pricey side: 13 mpg. But that's OK. We've come up with a new solution: hypermiling. Blicky averages an impressive 20 miles per gallon now, but he often comes home with small animals, various assortments of shrubbery and slower-moving humans stuck in the front grill of the H3 and his kittens all have whiplash and contusions from his whipping around corners.

We prefer a more measured approach:

Were starting to use a bike when possible (tough with car seats).

We try to plan driving carefully and get errands done all on the same day.

We've seen a small increase in our mileage by coasting in neutral at times, accelerating slowly and not braking too often.

We buy local produce either at farm stands and farmers markets or (as we're attempting this year) growing our own.

We're even thinking or buying a more fuel efficient car for our pet next time.

Have any other tips (serious or otherwise) for saving gas? Feel free to email BlickyKitty@comcast.net or leave a comment.

Fun with Composting

In another life, I had a passionate environmentalist boyfriend who used to live in a bookmobile, eat rotten fruit and time my showers. Dad truly loved him. Needless to say it was fun to rebel for a while after that, but learning about environmental stewardship has been far more gratifying now that I'm doing it on my own. So if your insistent, van-dwelling ex-swain left you wanting to clean your house with round-up, mercury and hydrochloric acid, don't despair!

I found a funny site about all the stuff you can compost. It's called 163 Things you can Compost; And the List Keeps Growing! My favorite things on there were dryer lint, tea bags and dried jellyfish. 

Finally! I have a whole damn closet full of dried jellyfish. I was saving them for a craft but apparently they don't work well as hair for toilet roll puppets and they don't turn grapes into grape jelly. In a letter posted on the site a woman describes how she had her husband urinate in the compost bin, but that idea only elicited a raised eyebrow in the Blicky homestead. We actually use that around the garden in an alpha dog way to discourage animals. So far no unwanted visitors this year. There are so many fun composting tips too on my new favorite blog, Bean Sprouts.

The thing I'm learning about composting is that aside from the obvious benefits for your garden and the environment (I just learned recently was that composing lowers greenhouse gas emissions by preventing organic materials from decomposing anaerobically in a landfill), it gets me thinking about all these objects and sundry substances that float in and out of our lives and how I want to manage it all. Lately I'm finding it easier and a bit liberating to make stuff homemade and avoid all the packaging and preservatives. Making graham crackers, for example, is really not too hard and it makes the house smell way yummy.

Blicky is finally inspired to start his own recycling bin. He's submitted a list of composting ideas based on things he's composted on our property so far:

1) Kitty litter

2) Plutonium

3) Egg shells

4) Human hair

5) Fuel rods

6) Broken welders

7) Chemical weapons

Things have been a little different around here ever since Blicky won that contract with the Defense Department.

Getting Green with Blicky

OK, while Blicky was working with Dick Cheney and Proctor & Gamble on a few top-secret projects we ended up with a Swiffer mop thing. It's not the fancy squirty kind. I guess we thought it would be easier to clean up after the kittens, but I soon realized that I had to mend my ways and find a greener alternative. So here you go:

Acquire:

1) 1 Blicky Swiffer thing

2) 1 cloth diaper (preferably with the baby detached)

3) 1 bottle of green cleaner or Blicky Brand alternate (1 part vinegar/1 part water)

Have your human affix said de-babied diaper to plastic hole thingy in aforementioned Swiffer.

Readjust your self-esteem based on the cleanliness of your house, your weight and your cat's assessments of both.

New York, Blicky Style

Blicky just made up a wonderful fish recipe. He didn't want me to cook after a busy long weekend at NYC and a beautiful coastal island. He just put some garlic and ginger in the food processor, then added onion mango and yellow bell pepper to create sort of a salsa. Then you pour some OJ into the pan just to add some moisture in the bottom and you put the fish in and spread the salsa. Then he just drizzled a tiny bit of olive oil on top, some soy sauce and sprinkled some cilantro on top and cooked it at 420. He always checks it for doneness after 20 minutes. Fast and healthy once you pick the kitty hairs out.

Blicky Discovers Homemade Yogurt

Well, Blicky's paws are covered with yogurt, so I'll have to manage this post on my own. Thank you Melanie for your instructions about making homemade yogurt on the wonderful Bean Sprouts blog. I can't believe how simple it is! I was spending way too much money on Fage and it didn't feel good amassing all of those hard-to-recycle containers. I still need to play around a bit and I might need a better pot for heating milk because I always seem to overheat it a little and it leaves a burned aftertaste. When I get it right it's heavenly.

I don't know if it's my Anatolian ancestral lineage calling or simply my eccentric Armenian taxidriver uncle who sat with homeless people on park benches and lectured them about Queen Victoria, why the colonies should have remained loyal to England, or how yogurt and prunes can make you live 100 years. He's the one on the right. You could see him walking all over town well into his 90's anyway. My great-grandmother (seated) used to make it herself and I think some cousins had kept the same culture going until fairly recently. 

I'm happy enough with my Fage starter. Here's a really yummy, healthy breakfast recipe: 1 cup homemade (Greek-style) yogurt. 1/2 cup fresh or frozen red rasberries with about 4 or 5 crunched-up pecans on whole grain waffles. I'm so besotted with my yummy breakfast that I really need to start making homemade waffles and freezing them. Past generations were so much more adept and resourceful with the daily requirements of life. These simple things ought to be even easier for us with all our new gizmos. Below are some Armenian ancestors from Husenig in Kharpert (Harput). This was taken before the Armenian genocide.

Sadly, even though the process should be dummy-proof I goof a lot. Last week a batch came out burned and yucky so I used it to make saag paneer tonight. With this recipe I substitute tofu for paneer and I use a bit more yogurt and whole milk instead of the buttermilk and half and half. It comes out really yummy and healthy. You can mix up your own garam masala too with 2tb. each of cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and black pepper. It's probably not authentic Indian, but I like where the flavors sit in my mouth when I do it that way.