Civilization and Civility

What separates us from the animals? It’s not language or opposable thumbs or even self-awareness.

It’s our behavior. Which explains how the lack of instruction in manners and common decency has led a good portion of our youth astray – behaving rather more like animals than civilized humans.

Allow me to share with you the Unclassified Laws of Etiquette. Selected excerpts:

Never betray a confidence.
Never laugh at the misfortunes of others.
Never fail to give a polite answer to a civil question.
Never associate with bad company. Have good company, or none.
Never exhibit anger, impatience or excitement, when an accident happens.
Never fail to tell the truth. If truthful, you get your reward. You will get your punishment if you deceive.
Never fail to say kind and encouraging words to those whom you meet in distress. Your kindness may lift them out of their despair.
Never refuse to receive an apology. You may not receive friendship, but courtesy will require, when a apology is offered, that you accept it.

And my favorites, combined for effect:

Never fail to speak kindly. Kind words do not cost much, and yet they may carry untold happiness to the one to whom they are spoken. Never give all your pleasant words and smiles to strangers. The kindest words and the sweetest smiles should be reserved for home. Home should be our heaven.

What He Said

“Did I do anything wrong today,” he said, “or has the world always been like this and I’ve been too wrapped up in myself to notice?”

“All right,” said Ford, “I’ll try to explain. How long have we known each other?”

“How long?” Arthur thought. “Er, about five years, maybe six,” he said. “Most of it seemed to make some kind of sense at the time.”

“All right,” said Ford. “How would you react if I said that I’m not from Guildford after all, but from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse?”

Arthur shrugged in a so-so sort of way.

“I don’t know,” he said, taking a pull of beer. “Why, do you think it’s the sort of thing you’re likely to say?”

Ford gave up. It really wasn’t worth bothering at the moment, what with the world being about to end. He just said, “Drink up.”

He added, perfectly factually, “The world’s about to end.”

Arthur gave the rest of the pub another wan smile. The rest of the pub frowned at him. A man waved at him to stop smiling at them and mind his own business.

“This must be Thursday,” said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. “I never could get the hang of Thursdays.”

– Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Phoning It In

Today is day 18 of NaBloPoMo, and this post is just to keep me in it. Because:

* My back is friggin’ killing me.
* I’ve been coughing up my lungs for a couple days. It seems to have subsided, but the yucky, tired feeling persists.
* I’ve had a low-grade fever.
* I need a nap even though I’ve slept for like 20 of the past 24 hours.
* I’m going to make some tea and maybe lie down again.
* I really hate feeling crappy. Hate!

Brussels Sprouts

Brought to you by the Baptist Wine Club and the letter B.

So The Other Joe wants my recipe for Pork Loin Chops with Brussels Sprouts. And I’ll tell you something about it, I don’t remember where I got the basis for this, except that I ate a meal of salmon and brussels sprouts somewhere in California or Washington state on a business trip. I think, it’s all a little vague. But I absolutely remember the bitter tang of the sprouts in combination with the other flavors on that plate. It was one of those meals you pray is served in Heaven, so you won’t be deprived of its enjoyment once you shuffle off the mortal coil. It was that good.

With that said, I just sorta made up this meal earlier this week because thick-cut pork loin chops were on sale, and I just flat-out wanted some brussels sprouts. First and foremost – cook the pork chops any old way you like them. Mine were dusted with sage and dredged in bread crumbs, then sauteed in butter. You could do a roast with a little gravy made with the drippings deglazed with Calvados or port. That would be delicious.

Now for the important details. The secret here is in those infamous sprouts. You’ll need about a pound, removed from the stalk.

First, peel off any outer leaves that look wilted or dirty, then rinse in cold water.

Next, cut off most, but not all, of the tiny little nub that holds it all together. Slice each sprout length-wise (top to bottom), so that each little half is held together by that leftover stalk-bit. Now, slice each half horizontally* to the nub, so that you end up with a sort-of miniature shredded cabbage looking pile.

Separately, mince about half a yellow onion and two cloves of garlic. Keep these separate because the garlic goes in near the end.

To cook, saute the onion in some butter and olive oil till transparent. Add the shredded brussels sprouts, sauteing for 4-5 minutes. Toss in the garlic and some sea salt and fresh-ground pepper. Stir it all together and as soon as you smell the garlic, pour in 1/2 cup of vegetable broth OR 1/4 cup vegetable broth plus 1/4 cup dry white wine. Simmer for a minute or two till slightly reduced.

Serve with pork loin chop of your choosing. Enjoy!

*I really should have take pictures. This seems difficult to explain, but it’s actually pretty simple if a little time consuming. Alternatively, you could just quarter the suckers. That would be faster and just as pretty.

Vocabulary Lesson #23: Color of Right

explanation
lonely
mission
sense
easy
right
hopeless
awake
nothing
quality
justice
mercy
gravity
change
passage
distance

Bonus:
honesty

Reading

On any given day, I’ll have three or four books “in progress.” I guess that’s to say I read a lot, and often many different things at the same time.

This morning, I finished Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, and 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, the book based upon Julie Powell’s 2002-2003 blog, upon which the movie Julie and Julia was based. I haven’t seen the movie, yet. While I’m not necessarily inspired to make a mess of my kitchen learning French cooking, I am fascinated at how such an insane project could help a young woman become who she is. And that holds for both these daring ladies.

I’m also working my way through Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road, which is both a travelogue and the story of one man’s grief. Neil Peart journals his internal pain and external wonder, making his way toward some sort of peace with an unfair universe. The writing is lyrical and often painful; I have to take it in measured doses.

When I’m cooking in my kitchen, I’m listening my way through Alexander McCall Smith’s series 44 Scotland Street, the adventures and misadventures of the residents of an Edinburgh apartment building. The stories are light, delightful, and equally humorous and poignant.

Next up is Shanghai Girls, the third novel from Lisa See, which again explores the lives of Chinese women whose destinies are often predicted by the era in which they lived and the traditions of strict and foreign culture.

And after, or maybe during, Shanghai Girls, I’ll be dipping into C.E. Murphy’s Walking Dead, the fourth novel in her Walker Papers series. These novels, set in Seattle, detail the mysterious adventures of Joanne Walker, a modern-day shaman and police detective. I think there are ghosts and zombies in this one!

Oh and let’s not forget Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham, which I am expecting any day now and will probably be writing more about as I read through.

So, I’m reading inspiring auto-biography, travelogue, literary AND science fiction, and some self-help. Goodness that’s a lot of words.

The Slow Dark Spiral

My maternal great-grandmother committed suicide in her mid-thirties, there on the back porch while her children watched.

My maternal grandmother never quite recovered from the early death of her third child, and while she had moments of laughter and happiness, there was a always sadness in her eyes. She never spoke of him.

My mother collapsed into a major depressive episode when she was only a couple years younger than I am now. One day, she quit her job, came home and went to bed, not to emerge for a few months.

But she got help. She talked about what was going on in her mind. Somedays, still, I can hear that dark edge in her voice, but I haven’t seen her succumb in the past 20 years. I guess she’s coping, or a least putting up a quiet fight against the black hole of depression.

And there are dark days here, too. Days when effort is useless, life is hopeless, when all joy has been sucked out of the universe. And I wonder if I’m next.

Driven

Driven up and down in circles
Skidding down a road of black ice
Staring in and out storm windows
Driven to a fool’s paradise

Driven to the margin of error
Driven to the edge of control
Driven to the margin of terror
Driven to the edge of a deep, dark hole

Driven day and night in circles
Spinning like a whirlwind of leaves
Stealing in and out back alleys
Driven to another den of thieves

Driven in – Driven to the edge
Driven out – On the thin end of the wedge
Driven off – By things I’ve never seen
Driven on – By the road to somewhere I’ve never been

The road unwinds towards me
What was there is gone
The road unwinds before me
And I go riding on

But it’s my turn to drive

-excerpted from Driven, Test for Echo, Rush

Oh Sure, Blame the Pelican

Today’s headline: Man distracted by pelican drives Bugatti in marsh

What the headline doesn’t tell you is this: “The motorist dropped his cell phone, reached to pick it up and veered off the road and into the salt marsh.”

So it wasn’t really the bird at all. It was dropping his phone and attempting to retrieve the device that was the real distraction. Proof that money can buy you expensive cars, but it can’t buy you common sense.

And In Other, Better News

The brown pelican was removed from the endangered species list yesterday, after reaching the brink of extinction in 1970, a combination of DDT poisoning and feather hunters. In fact, along the Texas Coast, the Eastern Brown Pelican had dropped to only a few dozen mated pairs.

I have often had an affinity for this majestic bird, watching the graceful lines as they fly in formation along the coast and occasionally dive-bomb the surf for a meal. To me, they are absolutely beautiful, and I have long awaited this good news. Over the past decade, especially, I have noticed their numbers increase so that flocks in flight are now a dozen individuals or more rather than only a few, as during my childhood.

And now, they are recovered. I couldn’t be happier.

The pelican is a symbol for self-sacrifice, devotion, and philanthropy, and has been used throughout Christendom as a symbol of Christ’s Passion and the Eucharist.