The Wayfaring Wordhack

13 February 2024
 
Our third foray into art prompts resulted in "Elder Son" and "Utensils."  Oooookay.  How odd to have gotten two family members in a row.  So, some of us chose to draw utensils and some chose to draw with utensils.

This one is from Elder Son who did NOT have to draw himself (I just love the earrings):

Daughter's take on her brother with utensils.  Elder Son must be hungry:

 

Husband's (he used: a skewer, a bottle cork, a pastry brush, a fork, a sponge, and his fingers): 

I tried a couple, the first (blue background) was done with a pastry brush, sponge, gloved fingers, and a bamboo skewer.  The second was done with a sponge and a plastic fork:

The likeness is not there, but hey, one can't be hard on oneself when painting with a plastic fork.🤣  And that made this a very liberating experience.  However, my boy has the most beautiful mouth, and I really hated that I couldn't capture it.  

While watching YouTube videos about mark-making, I came across an artist, Sandi Hester, who is really fun and whose work I will watch more as I delve into the illustrative side of what I want to do.  The kids are also enjoying her, and Daughter's blue outline came about from a video of Sandi's.  We have done many faces since watching that.

There are some delightful things about this apartment so far:

We have hibiscus growing along the front porch, and they attract Palestine Sunbirds. So pretty! and they have nice vocalizations. I don't have a good lens for capturing wildlife, so have a short video:


Since it has been a bit rainy, we haven't had a chance to be out in the garden much. We did rectify that today and spent a lot of time pruning, removing unwanted volunteers (like a wild rose bush that was trying to smother the hibiscus and gaining on the lawn), and mowing the "grass."* have friends living just across the street, and N (the dad) came over to loan me his battery-powered pruner that came in very hand for cutting off branches from a dead orange tree.

That is one of my tags here on my blog, and I really like looking back on the projects I have completed and thus tagged.  Today I browsed through them looking for a photo of the hooded jacket I made for Farmer Boy when he was a wee lad (I had forgotten what an absolute pain that was to make. I complained copiously about the hard-to-follow pattern and see my links to it no longer go to the right page; I was not the only one to remark on its lack of clarity).

Anyhow, I went looking for that project to show a friend a picture of the only garment I have ever crocheted because I am getting ready to make a cardigan for myself, and from the way I was talking it about it, she thought I was an experienced garment maker.  Sadly, not so.

The one I am going to attempt for myself is this one.  I hope it is as easy as the designer says it is.  I really like the colorway that the model is wearing, but unfortunately it was sold out.  I picked "chai latte" instead, and I hope it isn't too pale.

I shall commence soon for the weather, she is a-changing.

Appreciate the power pun as I talk to you about the electricity problem in Lebanon.

My usual disclaimer:  As I have said before, I am not an investigative reporter; I am just repeating conversations, information gleaned through exposés, and sharing my lived experience.

So, anyone who pays the least bit of attention to the news has probably heard of Lebanon's current crisis--"current" still meaning this goes back a couple of years; it just keeps going and keeps going.

Corruption* is a rampant issue in this country known to be one of the most corrupt on the planet.  In fact, one individual in a report I watched said that the port of Lebanon is probably the most corrupt place on earth.** Exaggeration?  I dunno, but it is the over-riding reason we did not ship any belongings here when we never scrupled to send them to Mayotte or Egypt, for example.*** 

And corruption is at the root of why Lebanon continues to have problems with electricity.  As I am typing this, we are in our "second" cut of the day.  The first is from 1:30ish a.m. to 5:30ish a.m.  The second starts a few minutes before 8 a.m. and used to end at 10 a.m.  Then it started ending at 10:30; now it is closer to 10:40, but you never know.  It stays on (except when it doesn't) until 12:00 p.m. 11:45 a.m. (this seems to be the norm since two weeks ago) and then is off again until 2:45 p.m. -3:00 p.m.  Recently, we had a couple of continuous cuts from 7:55 until 3:45.  Hello, sketchy food storage as the fridge and freezer struggle to deal with the constant cuts in power.

What does corruption have to do with all of this?  Why can't it be explained away by a poor country not having the means to upgrade and maintain its power system?  Well, the country may be poor, but it has been made so by the people in charge who are so far from poor themselves that it is obscene.  And they have found a way to get even richer.  Why would government officials make sure state-owned electrical plants are operational when they themselves have large shares in the fuel that powers the alternative, "privately-owned" generators, generators that kick on and start clicking up the bills when Lebanon Electricity "no longer has any juice"?  These officials not only control when the much-cheaper state power comes on, they control fuel import and prices. 

Let's say it together, class:  Conflict of interest. 

Knowing how to grease their own wheels, they turn a blind eye to the supposedly illegal private generator operators.  These operators, dressed to the nines, owning Rolexs(?) and Jaguars (a watch can be a convincing knock-off, but a car is harder to fake), assured the investigative reporter that they are doing an honorable service, just "helping out the public" with their "completely safe" piggyback installation. (Now picture electrical wires running willy-nilly, criss-crossing one another low enough for a clumsy person or anyone with a mind for mischief to yank free/cut.)  I am sure that the guys following them around like lackeys were just family wanting to be on camera and not the mafia goons they looked like.

Because none of these public servants has any vested interest in serving the public, the electrical woes look set to continue for some time.

Ok, so that is when we have elec and where the elec comes from. Now let's talk about how much because not only do you have a limited time access to power, you also have a limited number of amperes according to where you live and how much you dish out.  We have 10 amps.  This means I can run the fridge, the water pump (to have good water pressure), and the washing machine at the same time, but if I turn on the dryer, Lights Out.  A space heater sends every fuse to flipping if you have more than the fridge and the router turned on at the same time (You can have a few lights).  When the elec goes off, you have to ask yourself, "Are we trying to run too much, or is this a general cut?"  We either go the landing of the flat below us to see if the light is on because G keeps it burning all time. (No "common area lighting" in the stairs, so you have to go up the five flights with your flashlight --no windows--and say a silent thanks to G as you pass her landing and the light it provides).  If we have blown a fuse, you have to unplug something, go to the ground floor, and flip the breaker for your flat.  We have grown fairly used to what we can and can't run, so this hardly happens to us any more.  

And now you know about the power issues I may have alluded to once or thrice.

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* The New York Times has an article, which you can listen to entitled "How Corruption Ruined Lebanon."  I had free access to the audio on my phone but it isn't working on my laptop.  According to Wikipedia's Perceptions Corruption Index, Lebanon ranks 154 out of 180 countries.

**  Reuters has an article about the corruption at the port which is much worth reading for an overview.  One paragraph states: "...17 out of Lebanon's 21 shipping line companies have links to politicians via their board members, managers or shareholders."

Port anecdote (second-hand) about one of J's colleagues--let's call him Pierre--who chose to ship his belongings:  Pierre moved over with his family, so he shipped his furniture, appliances, and personal effects via ship then rented an unfurnished flat.  His shipment arrived but was blocked at port.  Hotels bills adding up quickly, Pierre moved his family to a furnished flat, thinking to pay perhaps one month's rent while waiting for his affairs to be cleared. However, no amount of phone calls could unblock the situation, and Pierre continued to pay on his unfurnished AND furnished flats.  Finally he went to the port in person and asked, "How much?" Notice it was no longer a question of "What?"  A financial contribution on his part was indeed needed.  I can't remember the exact amount and don't want to misquote anything, but I know it had at least a thousand digit in it. :(  Bribe paid, his cargo was mysteriously and fortuitously unblocked within the day.  

The port is the place to be employed.  Nepotism and string pulling happen all the time to secure someone a position there because the opportunity for personal gain is enormous.

*** In fact, a company we have shipped with twice refused to even give us a quote, hemming, hawing and failing to get back to us on numerous occasions.  We thought it was because we were going to ship so little, but it turns they just don't like doing business with the Beirut port because of all the Things That Go Wrong and the dissatisfied customers who think it is their fault rather than customs here.  That info was obtained off the record, not by us but by the colleague who relayed Pierre's story.

 

Forgive the weird photo, but this a snapshot of the front of our building, taken by leaning over the balcony railing--in the rain--without letting my phone plummet 5 stories to the ground....


but I needed to give you an idea of what I am going to moan about. :P  Let me preface this by saying that I am a fan of electrical storms and have always gotten a thrill when a really good thunderstorm gets going.*  Last night, around 11p.m. a doozy of a storm started and went on until 8 am this morning. ** With the valleys running from the mountains to the sea, each thunder peal is a echoing, long-lasting event that makes you think the ruckus can't be natural.  That kind of noise is not what bothered me and kept me from sleeping, though.  It was the whistling winds and lashing rains and hail that relentlessly pelted those glass windows above,  the plasticky aluminium frames in particular.  It reminded me a bit of hearing the rains falling on my grandparents' tin roof, only worse because our bed sits just behind some of those windows, the sounds in no way attenuated by a ceiling, etc.   And while a seive might let more wind through, those frames do a pretty good job of it, too.  So, yes, the windows give us great views and lots of light, but they are not only a blessing. We will see if they qualify as a blessing or a bane in the summer months.

 At 5:20, I finally gave up on trying to sleep and got up to another view of a hail-white ground.  I worked a bit on my BuJo, and then decided to crochet myself another hat*** as one does when feeling a little punch drunk:


The hat is so warm and matches my mitts/wristies that I made the other day.  I then started one for Sprout since I had plenty of yarn left over.  However, using a 5mm hook instead of 6mm AND decreasing the intial 15 stitches to 12 was probably not the best idea.  I am now adding more rows on hers than I needed on mine. :-/

If you feel like a chuckle, I will share an anecdote to convey just how tired I was:  While taking the above photo, I wanted the focus to be on the hat, so in order to make it sharp, instead of tapping on the phone screen, I pressed my head.  O.o  FYI, it doesn't work. :P

Then I decided to make bread because playing with fire is always a good idea when tired.  Because I was exhausted, I forgot to prop open the oven door for a few moments for the gas to really get going.  After about about 5 minutes, I went to preheat the Dutch oven only to discover the pilot had gone out.  We opened the windows and I waited for a bit, but even so,  when I struck a match to finish burning off the gas, the flames billowed out and singed all the hair off my forearm. Luckily, I had my face well to the side. 

I don't have any sourdough starter going here, so I used the poolish method and the recipe/method found here. **** (I had started the poolish the previous day)


And while I was at it, I stared another poolish to make some baguettes today following this recipe.  I'll let you know how it turns out if I remember. 

Since the oven was on anyhow, I made some pumpkin spice bread ***** to use the pumpkin  I had cut up to use as a still-life subject.  More about that in an post (I hope).

I had planned to get to bed early to catch up on sleep, but J wanted to stay awake as late as possible because he has to work the night shift tonight, so we watched a movie.  He of course fell asleep in front of it. :P I am happy to report that while it did rain a bit last night, I was able to get some much needed shut-eye.  I hope to buy earplugs today.

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* I believe I already shared many years ago that one of my mother's childhood nicknames for me was "Thunderhead" because I could always hear the thunder coming before anyone else.  As an aside, I think of all the other places I have lived, Lebanon has the longest lasting thunderstorms. ETA: I did indeed share this, almost 11 years ago.

** I actually started this post yesterday morning, but Internet problems and then having to share my device with a needy boy means that I am only picking up the thread now while the needy boy sleeps.

*** video tutorial here

**** I used the third method, the one with the pre-heated Dutch oven

***** Living up to my reputation as a food snob, I am here to tell you it has proven hard thus far to get my hands on some decent baking chocolate.  Preferring to do without than eat sugar-disguised-as-chocolate, I omitted the chips from the recipe.

 The other day, while perusing YouTube, a video about pickling food came up.  I decided to watch while I worked on cleaning and blanching brussel sprout leaves and florets just harvested from the garden.  After that video was over, I scrolled down to see what else this person had on offer and saw this video.  The title mentioned perfect lentils and rice, and well, I needed to make something for lunch that day and thought, "I have lentils and rice and a fairly well-stocked supply of spices.  I'll give it a go!"  And I did.  Without watching the video first.  What could go wrong, right?

So, when the lady starts talking about minced meat and how it is optional anyway, I thought, Oh, good, don't have any of that right now and besides Sprout doesn't eat meat...

Then she mentioned needing saffron.  Oops, not a spice I keep on hand and I just planted my own crocuses.  Won't be able to harvest  from them until next spring.  Oh well, carry on....

Before placing the layers of rice and lentils into the pot, the lady covered the bottom with a special kind of flat bread which gets crispy and prevents the rice from burning.  Whoops again.  But not really a problem; I'll just make some tortillas and use one of those.

Finally, in the video, the meal is cooked outdoors over an open fire.  With the campfire and many timelapses and cuts, I had no idea how long she let the final dish cook, so I looked up a recipe online to get some ideas.  Naturally the recipe I found did things way differently.  I did what I do and incorporated some ideas from that site, too, but I did not use potatoes to line the bottom of my pot since I had already made the tortillas.  *files the idea for a later iteration of Adas Polo*

I learned my lesson (let's be honest; I probably didn't) and won't start a recipe before at least looking at the whole of it, but boy, what a deliciously tasty bit of culinary recklessness that was. :D

Here is a reposting of a review I wrote on Goodreads for Lagoonfire written by Francesca Forrest:

As per my request, I received an Advanced Reader Copy of Lagoonfire in exchange for my honest review.

Having read and very much enjoyed Francesca Forrest’s The Inconvenient God, I was thrilled to find out there would be a sequel. I am a Whopper-of-a-Tome kind of gal—someone who likes loooooooong stories—so my only gripe, as such, about The Inconvenient God was its short length. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t like tales that are wordy for the sake of wordiness, rather ones that enchant me into lives of people I want to be around for a long haul.

I think Francesca* has created such a person in Decommissioner Thirty-Seven. Decommissioner Thirty-Seven is a woman with integrity, sensitivity, and compassion in a country that seems intent on eradicating such useless sentiments. Instead of worshipping gods, people must adhere to Abstractions. This is where I will admit this was not a very easy story for me to read right now because it is hitting too close to home on the political reality in my country of residence, as it is, I think, in many places in the world.

Lagoonfire has a dystopian feel because of the Polity’s oppressive views toward tradition, religion, and personal freedom; however, what makes this story different from most dystopian narratives is that there has been no earth-shattering cataclysm, war, plague, etc. that has resulted in the Polity. This is a place that could exist today. Its birth has been a march of time, policy after policy, complacency, propaganda, media manipulation, “for the common good” brainwashing… so much bending and bending on the part of the people that they no longer have the will to fight a still ever-tightening government, that or they have completely bought into the Institution.

Or so it seems.

Thankfully, there are people like Decomissioner Thirty-Seven, called Sweeting by the gods she has decommissioned, who find ways to fight the inhuman, inhumaneness of the Polity by choosing: they choose to embrace their humanity, to believe in others, to not bend.

I don’t want to go into any kind of spoilers—the book’s blurb does an excellent job of setting up the premise—but I do want to say that Francesca made the Polity feel so pervasive and unbeatable that I was wary of the ending, worried I would be left feeling hopeless at the thought of facing down the behemoth of oppression. Knowing Francesca, I need not have feared. Sweeting finds a way to keep on fighting that is uplifting and within the reach of all.

I can’t wait for the third installment.


_________

* I met Francesca online many, many moons ago and have struck up a friendship with her because of her enchanting way of looking at the world and ability to conjure that enchantment through her words; her passion for volunteer work, justice, and helping others; and her ability to convey hope and resiliency even in tough times; it would, therefore, be just plain weird for me to refer to her as Ms/Mrs/Forrest.

 With one car in need of repairs, snow outside, and the cozy-indoors or close-to-home lifestyle that can induce, we have been voyaging in other ways these past few days.

First of all with food.

I don't know if I have shared a recipe for Poulet Coco (coconut chicken) from Mayotte before, but I made it last night and thought I would share the culinary love.  Hang tight for a "how to" and not ultra-precise measurements:

If you are not pressed for time, cut up your chicken, salt and pepper it and sprinkle with turmeric powder, then marinate it in the juice of one lemon for an hour.  I usually do not do this step and add my spices and lemon juice later.  Regarding what kind of cuts you use, that is up to you.  I do the whole bird; you can do thighs and drumsticks or just breasts. Cooking time will vary according to your choice.

Brown the chicken in a bit of oil.  After browning, remove it to a plate and sauté one diced onion, when translucent add a few cloves of garlic.  Add about four fresh diced tomatoes or a can of whole/diced tomatoes, and a bell pepper cut in strips (I often leave out the bell pepper just because I don't always have them on hand and ate plenty Poulet Coco dishes in Mayotte without).  Return chicken to pot.  Now, if you can, grate your own fresh coconut and make the milk from it, using about 2 cups/480 ml.  My next choice is to make my own coconut milk with 1 cup dried shredded coconut  (NOT THE SWEETENED kind) and 2cups/480 ml of water, which I blend in my Vitamix and then strain (doesn't have to be through a nut bag).  If you can't do either of those things, use a can of coconut milk plus a cup of water.  Season with about 1tsp of tumeric, salt, pepper, a bit of thyme, and parsley.  Cook until sauce has reduced a bit and chicken is tender. Stir in the juice of a lime or lemon, and serve over rice.  I also made a basic rougail to go with it (dice 4 tomatoes--used dried, see below, finely slice one small onion, either finely mince a nub of ginger and one small chile or use a mortar and pestle to make them into a paste.  Stir all ingredients together, add the juice of one lime and salt to taste.)
 
Today, I made Egyptian Ful Medames, with some distinctly seasonal compromises.  I made dried tomatoes this summer and preserved them in oil, so those stood in for fresh tomatoes, and ditto for some dehydrated cucumbers.  I also made this quick Yoghurt Flatbread (soooo good!) to go with it. However, next time I will add a touch more salt and will have to fiddle with the amount of yoghurt (I had fromage blanc on hand) because the dough was excessively sticky and hard to work with. The resulting flatbreads were incredibly pliable and had a very nice texture for a yeast-less bread.

phone photo:
 

And OY!  I just realized I forgot to serve it with tahini.   Ah well, just reason enough to make it again.

And my elsewhere finale is the movie Padmaavat.  Epic, gorgeous, lush cinematography.  The landscapes, architecture and costuming were to die for.  The movie apparently (I was not privvy to this before watching, having never heard of it before stumbling across the eye-catching theatrical release poster) caused a lot of protest for various stereotypes, which I understand, one plot element being telegraphed by the disclaimer before the opening credits.  But like I said, gorgeous.  Not being a Hindi speaker, I watched a subtitled version, so I am sure there were plenty of things lost in translation.  As a Westerner, one thing I loved watching was way the male actors express their virility, like the dancing, that are foreign to the cultures I have frequented.

Our family is going to be facing some changes in the next year and I would like to share about those things.  However, my entries will be locked because of the nature of what I will talk about. I think I figured out how to create a new filter at last. :)

So:  If you want to be on the filter, or want to make sure I do NOT put you on it, please let me know.  

As I mentioned some time ago, I have some new friends on DW, but I don't necessarily know anything about you.  My entry here (this is acces-only for my privacy as well as yours, which I understand means anyone on my access filter can see it; if you cannot, let me know)  was an attempt to gauge interest or involvement in who I am and what I might have to say.  I did not and do not want anyone to comment on something they do not feel like, but if I am not sure who you are (by this I do NOT mean your real name, where you live, etc.,) I will not be putting you on the new filter.  

Thanks for your understanding.

 Two years ago today, we were holding baby ducklings:


Today, one of our hens, Lacey, is hatching out her second clutch of eggs this year: