Fresh figs are in season at the moment and I am in love. I have been loading up on them because their availa
bility will be limited. Their appearance is as exciting as the blooming of a garden flower that is fleetingly here and gone. They are so male, and yet so female. The fig is Yin-Yang.
I don’t know what it is about fresh figs – at the very first bite, it is as if some deep genetic marker is beckoned and rises to the surface of my being. Dried figs are not that exciting to me, but the fresh one are a total taste explosion. Alternating between visions of lush Mediterranean gardens, I also envision deserts and palm trees, olive oil and tahini, pomegranates and hot, bright sun. Celebrations with dancers, drums and ouds seem to appear in my head when I bite into a fresh fig. It’s one big Mind Party! What a rush!
The fig grows on a tree (Ficus carica) and is a fruit stemming from Biblical times, reportedly originating in southern Arabia. I believe it is part of the Mulberry family. Actually, I have been so thrilled about figs lately that I looked them up and found some great fig facts from the California Fig Advisory Board. Here are some of my favorites from there:
* Although considered a fruit, the fig is actually a flower that is inverted into itself. The seeds are drupes or the real fruit. 
* For many years the fig has been used as a coffee substitute. The fruit contains a proteolytic enzyme that is considered an aid to digestion and is used by the pharmaceutical industry.
* Figs were regarded with such esteem that laws were created forbidding the export of the best quality figs. Sycophant then derives from the Greek word meaning one who informs against another for exporting figs or for stealing the fruit of the sacred fig trees. Hence, the word came to mean a person who tries to win favor with flattery.
* Figs were respected in ancient Rome and considered sacred, while accordin
g to myth, the twin founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, rested under a fig tree.
* Figs are mentioned in Homer’s Iliad, as well as the Odyssey; by Aristophanes, Herodotus and Cato; and the fig is reported to have been the favorite fruit of Cleopatra, with the asp that ended her life being brought to her in a basket of figs.
* Captain Bligh is credited with planting the first fig tree in Tasmania in 1792.
* Figs provide more fiber than any other common fruit or vegetable. The fiber in figs is both soluble and insoluble. Both types of fiber are important for good health.
There are many varieties, supposedly about 750 of them world wide, from Mediterranean and Asian areas, as well as in the United States. The ones I have been gushing over the past couple of weeks have been these luscious, large, organic Brown Turkey figs. When I couldn’t find those, I settled for some Black Mission figs.
There are some very famous and heavy-duty Ficus trees. The Buddha attained enlightenment und
er the Bodhi tree, a Ficus. The 250-year-old Great Banyan Tree of India is a variety of Ficus.
The Moreton Bay Fig Tree is a spectacular historic tree in Santa Barbara, California. The Bible tells of Adam and Eve wearing fig leaves. Perhaps the offered apple was actually a sweet, delicious fig?
The fig achieves pollination by way of the tiny fig wasp, which is about 1 millimeter long. The wasp and fig have a symbiotic relationship where they are totally dependent upon each other for their survival, and each species of fig seems to have a corresponding species of fig wasp attached to it. It is kind of like a marriage, of sorts. This appeals to me.
And then, there are the recipes. Figs and fig jam pair beautifully with Spanish Manchego cheese. Figs, stuffed with goat cheese and almonds….. wrapped with prosciutto and broiled. Poached figs with honey cream. Figs in a balsamic reduction, or as a glaze on turkey or chicken. Figs in an arugula salad with pignoli nuts…..fig pizza. The possibilities are endless, and to die for…if you are a fresh fig lover. If you don’t have your own tree, or have not experienced the fresh figs of summer, check out your local market or farmstand and live it.
pedigrees and personalities. I could spend hours engrossed in the fantasies of my little horsey world. One of these horses was a jointed model whose legs would “walk” when you scooted him along the carpet. If you pushed on his withers, his head would drop down as if he was grazing. His body was made of chestnut-colored plastic, with a flax mane and tail that you could comb. He came with a saddle and bridle and a little horse blanket. I had made bandages for his legs out of toilet paper and tape so he looked like a polo pony. I named him Buck.
middle for the turtle to bask on, some gravel on the bottom, and a little green plastic palm tree. What she had named it now escapes me, but she kept it in our shared bedroom, which had taken on that reptilian smell that turtle bowls tend to get when they are not too clean. The turtle itself had started to get some kind of moldy green fungus all over it. Because of this, my sister had decided to wash the turtle and scrub the slime off it’s back with a toothbrush.
decoration, there is a gold medallion with a dragon on it. There were large, outdated Chinese pin-up girl calendars in a few of the rooms.
ced it out on the back porch until I could find a home for it. The next day I discovered that the Significant Other had placed the Jesus in the barn window, facing back towards the house. Every time you looked out from the kitchen or walked outside, Jesus was looking back at you, watching. Eventually we found Jesus a new home.
harm away? Nobody I spoke with had ever quite heard of this. While I found it curious and a little spooky, the SO easily dismissed the package as no mystery, convinced that whoever did the construction on the bathroom merely finished his lunch and then conveniently built his trash into the wall. He says it’s done all the time. So much for romanticizing.
bowl.
icked into action, ran out and bought another blue Betta to replace Stanley. The thing is, nobody wants to tell her it’s not the real Stanley, but I can’t imagine how she will not know. This faux Stanley is a radiant blue with almost a turquoise hue to him. His fins are long and luxurious. The original Stanley was almost anemic by comparison. I will be interested to see if she will realize right away that something is a bit off.
was already up and had discovered that Petal had vanished. I explained the situation. She was at first a bit taken aback, then rather philosophical about it. She named the new fish “Petal-too” and embarked on a lengthy, very chatty discourse about the new fish (“Honey! Grab the video camera!”).
wheeled, wire laundry basket who makes serious business of sorting through the trash as he takes his time with each item. There is the lady on the bicycle pulling the cart, who will show up in the dark, aim her bike’s headlight towards the “goods” and then fervently dig through everything. There are those who take it to an even higher place, driving right up next to the pails to quickly toss the refundable bottles and cans into their cars. Sometimes they come as a team, so one drives while the other collects.
this point it’s not worth the gas to drive over there to do that for the small amount we have. I also realize these people are doing it because they must need to. Given this, I have tried to make it as easy as possible for them by separating the cash bottles out neatly so they don’t have to dig through the bins and cans – even going so far as to put them in their own little six-pack cartons and placing them out in front of all the other trash. This way they can clearly see them from the road and just scoop them up, avoiding extra work and allowing them to move quickly on.
rough until almost the end of November.
us chicken, which walked up to the edge of the pavement, backed off, and then bobbed up again as the traffic whizzed by. Everything in this chicken’s own yard appeared just fine; there was probably nothing across the state road that it really couldn’t get at its own place, at least nothing that seemed risking its life for. I was too far past it to see if it actually attempted to cross, but that chicken probably did not have much of a chance if it did.
like shiny black beads of onyx, looking worried and vulnerable. My first response was surprise. I didn’t exactly say “Eeeek”, but I froze for a few beats there. Opening a kitchen drawer and finding a mouse will usually catch you off guard. Following this discovery, I suggested that we move them outside. I mean, this was a kitchen drawer, and cute as they were, I didn’t think it was a very clean situation. But Hikey said “Let’s leave her alone until the babies grow up and leave”, and he shut the drawer. OK, I know, that’s kind of weird, but that’s how he was and it was his place, so that is what we did – it just became part of the fairytale, little country mice living in the drawer of the magic cottage. Svengali spoke, I stayed quiet.
children’s home-made Christmas ornaments decimated by mice who gnawed through the storage box in the attic, which has enraged me. The spines of books chewed. In one place I lived in, I could not find my favorite gauze shirt from India. Eventually I located it – the mice had pulled it out over the top of the lower drawer and dragged it to a hidden space under the bottom drawer of the dresser and turned it practically into lint, creating a beautiful Mysore patterned nest out of it. I have read that they have the capacity to make themselves almost flat in order to squeeze under a closed door. They proliferate and they are a nuisance. I don’t care how cute they are, they are still rodents. Cats can help, but we had dogs. Hikey was not into traps. You can imagine the field day they were having in that cottage.
the coffee pot to reheat it for Hikey the next morning, I guess it boiled up the mouse with his coffee. And Hikey drank all of it. Mouse coffee.
oothpick. All legs and ribs and a late bloomer. That was me. 
mostly in the middle. As my arms and legs are long, I am starting to take on the build of a spider. I have incrementally managed to artfully camouflage the rolls for quite a while, but cannot anymore (see 
alked in the door, the Significant Other gave me what I imagined was almost a wicked smile before immediately opening a large bag of blue corn tortilla chips and a container of salsa….. and began to indulge right there standing in the kitchen. I didn’t even have one minute of respite before the temptation began. Demon.
either side. Aside from the lack of privacy, I find this fence to be tasteless and depressing. It’s the kind of thing you would see around a vacant lot, except that it’s lower. It practically screams “junk yard”. You would almost expect a couple of Rottweilers to be hurling themselves at it with bared teeth.
mostly obscure the chain link fence between us, to enjoy a glimpse of her world. 
o enjoy it. It’s often so noisy that it disturbs the neighbor on the other side of our house. In addition, their little dog, who is actually very sweet, tends to pee through the fence onto my plants. I have been laying plywood against the fence where I grow vegetables to protect them. Lastly, when I look out the window over the kitchen counter, I have a nice view of their garbage pails.
keeps mysteriously disappearing off of it. I have a basic cell phone with a conventional keypad and am very slow on keeping up with all this texting that everyone seems to be doing now instead of making voice calls. Not up to speed with the latest tech stuff, I wasn’t totally sure what an iPad 2 was, beyond knowing that it has a touch screen and is like something out of The Future. 
nd even laughed) the conversation has swiftly moved on to the next concept or topic. Because of this, I usually will not chime in with a comment; when I do, I have often found that I have entered the dialog with a total non-sequitor. A couple of beats behind, I am out of synch – I have missed the conversation bus. The blank stares, the occasional smirk, the looks between others, or worse, being totally ignored as if invisible tells me so. Because of this, I am now usually a passive participant. Because of this, I am on the outside of many social situations.
disconnected by “Never Mind”. 
avigate. Big parties don’t work well anymore. Places with constant, loud music or crowds are no longer fun. I get lost in busy, chaotic scenes. Given this, there have been a handful of people who have graciously, either consciously or unconsciously, shown incredible patience, tenacity and creativity when we are together, and who continue to seek out my friendship, regardless of the extra efforts it might require. They have been willing to work through or overlook the frustration. I thank those who have easily slipped into the habit of rephrasing amid conversation, or those that step forward to make things clear when I am looking a little lost, and those who offer help or give cues before I have to ask for it. I thank those people for their kindness and for being real friends, for it lets me know that our relationship is valued. You know who you are.
I was such a brat.
and din.
photos of myself. After such rude and irrefutable proof, there followed the panicked realization that I have let my hair go for waaaaay too long without a hair cut and it has become a bit outrageous.
But today, I suddenly looked in the mirror and realized it had to come off – immediately. It has reached the point where from behind I look like a geriatric “Cousin It” when I wear it down. When it’s up, the effect is somewhat like a fountain of white spray sticking out of the top of my head. I realize I have been wearing scarves and hats and elastic bands in my hair for months.
in my Cousin It Phase distress, she literally cut about five inches off it and seriously thinned it out. When I looked on the floor, the remains of my hair lay there in a giant heap which resembled an animal; kind of like a dead possum, or at least a possum playing “possum”. But when I looked in the mirror, I could still see a woman with a massive amount of hair on her head.
When Facebook came along, my kids told me it was just for college students to connect, that it was much cleaner and mature than what was happening on MySpace, and that was where they would now be communing. I was relieved. I was told No Parents Allowed. But slowly it seems everybody has jumped on the FB boat. I resisted for a long time, until the desire to be connected to what was going on with my kids from afar found me finally caving in and joining the masses, albeit with privacy restrictions and blocks in place.
lecturing my children to show sagacity; sharing stories about weirdos and stalkers and human resource departments doing a search on job applicants, about employees who have not used sound judgement in their posts or photos and the repercussions of such, all to drive home the point. For example, if we were considering hiring an applicant and discover that he is flipping the bird to the world in his Facebook profile picture, there is a good chance there will be serious reservations about employing someone with that attitude and lack of maturity.
but I wanted to try it and see what it was about. I shared this experience with a group of other travellers in the middle of the afternoon, sitting in a sunny public cafe filled with people having tea and coffee. A man came to each table with a little bucket and tongs and put the flavored tobacco and coal into the bowl of the hookah. He would occasionally come around to turn the little log of tobacco to make sure it was still burning It was tasty, as tobacco goes – like apples! – but my first smoke after decades made me a little light-headed. It’s not a habit I will be picking up – you won’t be finding me frequenting any hookah lounges in the future. It was a kick. I urged my friend to take a picture for the archives. Subsequently, it was posted with the rest of the travel pictures in my FB album as part of the experience, with a little caption beneath it explaining what it was, and forgotten.
ust have “friended”. I guess she was enjoying my travel photos. And she showed her husband. My direct supervisor, who supposedly is blocked from my albums, also saw it and highly suggested I remove the Misleading Photo, which I did. Then I had to contact other friends on FB and ask them to please remove any Possibly Offending Pictures. Because even if I am not “tagged” in the photo, it’s still out there. It’s me. And I am an administrator and a professional……of sorts. Misleading Photos can create all sorts of Perceptions. And I think that stuff is out there forever, isn’t it?
about my new friends and their lives, to be part of things, was at times daunting and exhausting. Having enough trouble hearing English, trying to communicate in Turkish was interesting. I carried around a small phrase book in which I pointed out words in as much as attempted to say, often pantomiming rather than speaking. When all else failed, I had a little note to show that said I could not hear well (Benim işitme pek iyi değil). This was especially helpful in the hotel and airport, as well as with merchants. People were understanding and kind. Because I cannot hear a motorcycle or taxi roaring up behind me, a couple of these younger friends also took me under their wing (unasked) and steered me across streets of insane traffic madness. I felt like an old granny as they looped their arms through mine and rushed me across. I am not that old, really!!! But I was glad for their concern and support.
the next room for the last week and a half (at least), where things have rotated in and out of it, chosen and then discarded. What’s worse, it is filled up to the very top. What every happened to the free-spirited me?
oon as I hit “Send” I knew that it would be me. As I exited off the freeway and cruised down the ramp, they answered my call and told me I had won Chrissy Hynde and the Pretenders tickets. I wasn’t the one going to the show, but it was still exciting, and it was a first.
ds to a dinner celebration in her honor. I watched the mother/daughter interaction – their body language, the way they moved around each other, their inherited mannerisms, the way they looked at each other….their dance. Seeing this young woman together in the same space as her mother, so similar and yet not the same, the contrast suddenly manifested itself as quite clear. Suddenly I saw the “outer” K, and then myself, for the true age in years that we have become, parallel to our timelessness. Another piece of who we are. It was a brief moment of dawning comprehension and I actually felt our place in time make a shift. It really is all relative.
thought our gushing friend’s idea was terrific, and so we all decided to get together the following month. But when the next month rolled around and I tried to set it up, I discovered this was just lip service, because every weekend was met with varied excuses. The month following that produced only more of the same vapid response. Finally, I gave up asking. It was really too bad, because meeting friends over food, especially people you don’t have a chance to see often when life just seems to get in the way, or especially when you tend to avoid social situations, is a rather nice connection I think. It was an idea that was shot down before it began. I was disappointed, but I have to say I think it’s their loss.
Classic American. Nouveau Cuisine. Japanese sushi. Thai/Chinese fusion. Indian. Tapas bar. The list of what is out there and a mere few blocks away is impressive. Some of these places we have returned to, some we have decided not to return to, and some are yet to be discovered. We have visited both the established and the brand new ventures. A routine seems to be evolving.
acoustically uncomfortable and we have decided the noise level is too much, so in spite of the good food, we will not be back to those – at least not at that busy hour. My friend tells me that there is actually an acoustic rating given by restaurant reviewers, but I don’t think this feature is occurring in our area yet, although I think it is a wonderful idea. We have discovered a couple of restaurants that are expensive but worth it, and some that are not.
my cheeks seem to be sliding down? And then, there is the neck.
option.
lity it’s just an illusion. (I could get deep right now and say “age is just an illusion”, but we are dwelling on the superficial here anyway, so I won’t). In either case, shunning anything surgical or invasive out of sheer fear of a worse outcome, not to mention cost, I have embarked upon a quest for the magic cream that will eliminate The Eleven and possibly put my cheeks back wh
ere they used to be. Preferably this magic potion would also be something organic, although I realize that is really asking way more of what is already asking a lot.
summer I explored using a famous brand-name product promoted by a famous, lovable and believable Boomer-age actress that contained an SPF 15 sunblock. The sunblock worked great but three-quarters into the jar the observation was that nothing radical had occurred and the appearance remained the same.
includes using a Radical face wash and methodically rubbing in the various Reversal creams in all the Defiant places…..especially into The Eleven. Although I have sped up the process, this is still time-consuming, and the only changes the The Significant Other has noted is that I am now taking up valuable bathroom time doing this. I scrutinize my face daily to see if the appearance of anything is being reduced. I still see fine lines. I still see crepe through all this crap on my face. The Eleven also remains, although I am not sure if the depth of The Eleven has lessened. Somehow I think, probably not.
daeja's view 