Category Archives: food

bank on it

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(Monday is myrln’s day to blog here at Kalilily Time.)
BANK ON IT
In a bit over two weeks from today, on February 26, a new bank is opening on an island near the Arctic Circle. Unlike other banks, though, it won’t offer cd’s or checking or savings accounts. So we won’t be offered mp3’s or toasters or anything at all in return for new accounts. In fact, this bank doesn’t even want us there to poke around, which is why they put it in such a godforsaken place (or devilforsaken, depending on your inclinations).
You see, this bank is of a kind that illustrates a rarely-seen side of the human species: foresight. This bank, a product by Norway, will be a storage site for over 200,000 varieties of plant seeds from all around the world. That, in effect, makes it a gene bank for crops of all kinds, like oats, peas, beans, and barley (grow), and rice, wheat, lentils and so on. The Norwegians undertook this “doomsday vault,” as it’s been called, as a service to the world: the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
The point of it is to preserve agriculture in its myriad forms in case some manmade or natural disaster should destroy it, in part or in whole. This seed vault is said to be capable of preserving the vitality of the stored sees for thousands of years. That means they might well outlast the human race itself which has a greater predilection for destructive — rather than preservative — endeavors. Hey, we built the atom bomb, didn’t we, and then of course had to use it to see how well it worked?
But this Norwegian gift to the world is a truly admirable effort — something the rest of us should consider as a model to emulate for saving us from ourselves.
Thanks, Norway.
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Now that the politicos have agreed on terms for our tax rebates (and making it seem as it we’re getting a gift from them), here’s something else we can look forward to: starting in May (the month after we’ve just paid our taxes) when the checks start finding their way into our mitts: the price of everything will go up.
We can bank on it.

diarrhea, diarhea, diarrea

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It doesn’t matter how you spell it, google will find it.

And my mother has had it for four days now. We called the doctor today and will be bringing a sample to the lab for testing.

Nothing has worked to get it under control. I’m trying to make her drink Pedialite, but she’s not very cooperative. Right now she’s up combing her hair with a toothbrush. I’m making her some chicken broth with cut up baked potato. That’s supposed to OK for her to eat.

We’ll soon see.

time, tide, and sigh

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As the moment of the Solstice approached the beach at York, Maine, the sea turned an irridescent aqua and the sky poured up from it into a haze of that “sky-blue-pink” that no one believes is a real color — but it is. Real. And then the sun slipped behind the houses of the beach town, the sea vista slid into silver and then cerulean, and the stretch of sky above the dimly lit shoreline hung out a perfect slice of moon.

I had forgotton to bring my camera, what with having to remember all that paraphernalia. You know, Tibetan bell, rune stones, words — all that stuff of art and poetry and human hope. But more on that later.

For now, suffice it to say that I’m back from my five days at Long Sands, York Beach, with bronchitis and a low-grade strep infection that’s raging high-grade in my throat. Ya’ can’t win ’em all.

Aside from a one-day trip north to Freeport to the L.L. Bean and The Children’s Place outlets, we spent most of the week reading and walking on the beach. This was usually my view when I was ensconced at the cottage (that’s my bare toe-polished foot sticking out in the middle of the picture):

Bview.JPG

As usual, I didn’t bring enough books to read, so I picked up a spur-of-the-moment paperback when we stopped at Hannaford. I Love You Like a Tomato — in the voice of a young female Italian immigrant, who keeps trying to make her grandmother’s Old World magic work in her troublesome new world. You don’t have to be Italian to love Chi Chi Maggiordino who, tries, as she says to “put to GOOD use the power of the Evil Eye.”

When I wasn’t reading, I was walking on the beach — usually without my camera. Except for the one really rainy day, when we went poking around the snail-covered rocks at low tide.

As it turned out, we spent the nicest day shopping. And eating lobster. Twice. And looking for toy rockets for my grandson.

There were supposed to be three of us, but it wound up there there were only two. When it came to our plans for the Solstice, however, we included the third in absentia. Three. You have to have three.