Infectious Madness by Harriet Washington

New Leaf

Well-Known Member
So, I watched the Marlon Brando clip posted on P.E.

I am still toasty warm.
I forgot how handsome Brando was. I did not remember the whole of the movie. Just the Stella scene, my friends daughter is named Stella, so you can bet I am always saying "STELLLLA!"

So, I told the hubs "Let's see if we can pull up that movie on your new toy (he bought a contraption that hooks into the internet and pulls up millions of movies). He doesn't need any more incentive to be in front of the one eyed monolith. I digress as I sit here in front of my one eyed monolith. Sigh.

Anyhow, So we start to watch it, film noir. It is so dramatic. Stellas' sister Blanch speaks so quickly in her southern drawl that I am needing sub-titles (isn't a drawl supposed to be slow?) So, I go to Cliff notes and start reading about the play, etc. WOW. Dicey stuff for the 50's.

It is all about the things you are speaking of in this post Cedar. Were you recounting the movie, or is this a coincidence? (I am so lost in the translation!)

But...I remember that kind of passion. Remember being that young? It was enough just to have it, just to ride that out; there was nothing to compare it to then, and there is nothing like it, now. Then come babies and living and not being the prettiest thing because for children, we must become the most stable thing. It's like voyaging across waters of so many different colors, living a life.
Yes the passion, ahhhhh, youth.
My boy has a girlfriend, and they are just that, such good friends.
Others have told me I shouldn't allow him to be with just the one girl, I see their point, but then again, they are such good friends. Sigh. SO of course I talked too them about passion.....

I like that imagery Cedar, voyaging across waters of so many different colors.

I know what you mean though Leafy, about wishing for more. D H and I are forever falling out of happiness and into hatred. That is, as I make very clear to him, because my D H is a jerk, sometimes. I am serious. D H can be loud and verbally abusive and pretend he doesn't know it when of course, he knows exactly what he is doing.
Men are very clever. I think they are truly afraid of us. Afraid of how much they need us. They have to put on this tough front, to prove their manliness.
So they try to break us down, and think we don't know.
I had to learn that the hard way. When I was younger, I would fall for it, that was the "first" wife. Now I have transitioned to the "second" wife. Heh, heh.
I know better than to let him lasso my emotions, (when my defenses are up). Every once in a while he will get to me, and I catch myself.

This is the essential question we are left with when we have been raised in abusive family systems, whatever else is floating around in there. But no matter how fast I danced, how much I understood, how often I forgave...my
D H was who he was.
Yes, our relationship does make us look at how we were raised, even how our husbands were raised, to find ourselves, to find our husbands.
It is complicated isn't it?
They say that for Italian men, there is the Madonna, and there is the Whore.
We were taught to be Madonna like, but no one taught us the whore part.
And none of that matters to the beautiful whore (Susan Sarandon) because she possesses herself. And no matter how many times she sells herself, she has never sold herself, because she has incorporated and cleared all the negatives surrounding whatever names others have assigned her to believe.

She knows a different truth.

I love that imagery.
So interesting you mention this, because in Streetcar named Desire Blanch is much the same. The Cliff notes are really focused on that.
For a woman to incorporate that kind of thinking (Madonna/Whore) in a man, she has to be very certain she is her own Whore. Her own Madonna. Her own self. There needs, I think, to be such value for herself in the woman that she can disbelieve whatever fantasy the man has grown up believing about women.
Yes, value. Otherwise we can become things Cedar, toys. I think that is why many relationships fail. If we do not value ourselves, love ourselves, how can we love others, and in turn, how can they love us? We become mere things.

Just as we need to come to grips with the truth that our husbands are not heroes who are never frightened, are people who sometimes don't know what to do, either.

And who need to be loved just for themselves, sometimes.
Yes. Men poor dears, raised to be tough, to ignore their feelings.
Maybe that is the crux of misogyny?

"Well, hello there."

"Have you been here, the whole time?"
Huh. When the hubs had his first bout of heart infection, I got the phone call no one wants to get, ever. "Hello, are you related to ---- ----? This is Officer so&so....."
My hubs had been battling night sweats, weight loss, been to the Docs-no help. Flu, night sweats can be anything....He was still working and had not come home the usual time. In fact, Volcano (2nd daughters insignificant other) said to me "Dad is not home yet" I thought, eh, he went to the store.
The policeman found him stopped in the middle of the road, confused and delirious.
"Maam, your husband is combative..." My heart started pounding and sunk, I swallowed hard, "Please sir, call an ambulance that is not him, something is very wrong."
I rushed to the scene with Tornado, the officer kindly waited for us to pick up hubs truck.
Hubs was in emergency. 104 fever, extremely low blood pressure, on the brink. The Dr. pulled me aside and said it was very, very bad, to stay close.
I went to his bedside, beep beep of heart monitor, iv's, all hooked up he was. I looked at his blood pressure reading, not good.
He turned to look at me...... with a big smile on his face. "Oh there you are" he chuckled. He was absolutely giddy. He joked and laughed the entire time.

And there is a real person there, under everything I believed about him and about me, and I love him so much because he taught me to love myself.
When he was more stable, my daughters and I went to eat. I told them "You see that man in there, the happy go lucky guy? THAT is the man I married, that is your father."

In the hustle and bustle and seriousness of life, the hubs had buried that part.

I had to stand up to my D H or I could never in a million years have stood up to my mother and my family of origin. I am still tumbling into nasty, surprising true things about the way my family of origin worked.
How did I not see it?
So true, Cedar, so true. We could not stand up to our FOO, we were children. But we had to stand up to our D H. In the raising of my children, more memories were revealed, because I did not want to repeat what was for me, but it gets complicated because we were dealing with two FOO!
Everything was forever a defensive/protective "That is my mother." Or, "That's just mom. Or, sister. Or, brother." They really did commit the craziest actions, say the craziest things. It was as though I had committed to understanding and forgiving thoughts and words and actions that were wrong from their inception...but I don't know why I did that. As we have gone through these past months on FOO Chronicles, there were so many times I felt shame at who they were and at who that made me.
Numbing. Survival. As a child, what can anyone do to change family dynamics? Stuff it down.
It comes out at the strangest times in bits and pieces, a scent, a food, an argument.
For instance, think about the clip with my chill amorata Marlon Brando and that woman. The woman is presented as powerful/powerless; as slinking, and somehow, ugly in the face of her desire.

We miss stuff like that, all the time.
You know Cedar, the hubs and I did not finish that movie.
To my surprise, my hubs, Shrek himself, got angry at Stanley.
"This movie is STUPID, the guy is an IDIOT, he only wants the sisters money, and then he what, ends up RAPING her, Yah? Isn't that what happens?"
I looked up from my Cliff notes in shock. I didn't know what the movie was about until reading them. "So you remember the movie?"
"Yah, it was stupid then and it's stupid now."
Huh. That movie touched a deep chord in the hubs. I think back on the Cliff notes,

"The most obvious difference between the worlds of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski lies in the diversity of their backgrounds. We immediately recognize that the very name DuBois and Kowalski contrast......
....We assume DuBois to be an aristocratic name, possibly one with a proud heritage. A DuBois wouldn't be found working in a steel mill, as would a Kowalski. A DuBois speaks softly and flittingly. A Kowalski speaks loud and brutally. Kowalskis relish loud poker parties with their characteristic rough humor. Blanche DuBois winces at this. Her preferences for entertainment are teas, cocktails, and luncheons. Speech, to Stanley, is a way of expressing his wants, likes, and dislikes. Blanche speaks on a higher level."

This is sort of...us. Hubs comes from a working class family, I am from one too, but my Dad made a comfortable living. Hubs has a history with D.V. with his Dad. Brutal. FOO. My FOO history is more on a psychological level. No violence.
For hubs, the history is more insidious. Emotional, physical abuse. On top of that the whole "got to be a man thing. "

I think when he was watching Stanley he was remembering his father, how he mistreated his mother.....
He could not watch the movie.

If we begin to watch, then we will see. That too is an area of healing for all of us, male and female, alike. We need to heal into compassion for ourselves and our mates and our kids. We all are doing the best we know, and none of us really does know.
Yes Cedar, how true.
I wonder too, for my parents, how was their FOO? What shaped them?

So, I am thinking again about allowing my family of origin forgiveness, or trust, or belief in them. In reality, I had no right to do that. To lose even one felicity is to be robbed of more than we have a right to spare. (That is Charles Williams, of course. Descent Into Hell.) I needed to wake up, and stand up, not even so much to Family of Origin, but to and for myself. I needed to say what was true, and to see the ugliness that was true and stop ignoring what was happening because I was forever believing it would be getting better oh, just any minute, now.

It is hard work, this delving into ourselves, the history. Somehow necessary work?
My hubs chides me as I sit at the computer.
Boy says "Mom what are you doing?" I reply "Studying"
at the same time hubs yells from the bedroom "NOTHING".

Too bad. I am cherishing this time with my cyber friends. We are discussing things here that the hubs will never speak with me about, because he still has the need to keep it all buried.

That is his choice.

My choice is to open the book and discover.

I do not want to let my devaluation continue the patterning that led me to enable.
In this journey to self discovery, I will help myself, and I will help my adult children, by not helping them.

Thank you Cedar, and my warrior sisters.
Sorry my posts are so long, perhaps I am writing a....book.

Leafy
 
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witzend

Well-Known Member
I must say that the classical music by Vivaldi, etc., that has been posted in this thread is fabulous. on the other hand, I listen to music mostly in the car and I'm afraid I couldn't drive and listen to that. I'm working my way through getting a new "daily schedule" in my life, in a new room with a new focus. Maybe those sounds will work it way into my new focus.
 

New Leaf

Well-Known Member
Yes, the music is exquisite isn't it? Glad you like it.
New schedule, new room and new focus sounds awesome Witzend. You go girl!
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
Ohhhhh MSG. I am terribly allergic to MSG. I found that out, later on in life as I ate Chinese food-Chinese put MSG in everything. Now, the food industry has discovered it, how it enhances taste in our very tastebuds and makes us eat more. I have some research on MSG due to my allergy to it. It causes my lips to swell, then my heart races. I have arthritis and when I mistakingly eat MSG (it is literally in everything now) my joints scream at me " YOU have eaten MSG!" If you look into it Cedar, you will see that the MSG industry has used all kinds of tricks to get it into foods and disguise that fact. I read an article stating that there are over 500 acronyms for it- uckkkkk.
:soapbox:

I am very allergic to it too, Leafy. So is my daughter. And corn syrup, which is in everything, too. We don't eat prepared foods, and are very careful in restaurants.

I never thought about MSG being the thing that makes us want to eat more and more. I think that is probably a true observation, Leafy.

Scary thought, isn't it. Especially in light of the information on gut flora and its effects on physical and emotional health. I was thinking about when my children were little and to breast feed a baby was practically an act of social rebellion. It was believed that Science could improve on Mother's Milk, do you remember that, Leafy?

La Leche League, where young moms could go so we would not feel guilty about breastfeeding our babies.

The hubs favorite memory of breakfast is fresh apple pie, hot out of the oven.

Oh, wow, Leafy. You must really love the stuffings out of your D H. Ii am turning into lazy these days, and only making apple crisp most of the time, and never for breakfast.

What a beautiful scent memory that must have made, with the sun coming up.

I told my D H there was a lady on the site who knew how to cook Chinese. I will tell him that your D H favorite breakfast is apple pie, hot and fresh from the oven.

He will love that story.

I would say, the all time breakfast on a weekend is eggs, rice and breakfast meat. Bacon, sausage or eww, spam. Believe it or not, spam is a big thing in Hawaii!

Rice, instead of toast or pancakes, Leafy?

My D H loves Spam, too.

When his family visited from Italy, the thing they loved most was white Tasty bread. Yes, the cheap stuff. You believe it? And they loved peanut butter, too. They took it back in their suitcases, when they left.

I am trying to be better about snacking. In our school office, folks come in with all sorts of yummy treats. Cookies, cakes, chocolates. The Japanese have a tradition of gift giving that has become cross cultural here called omiyage. It means when people travel, they will bring back foods unique to the area. Each island has their food, Molokai has a bakery famous for Portuguese bread, a round loaf of tender, feathery, light goodness. Now it comes with different flavors in the center-strawberry and cream cheese, cinnamon, blueberry. Yum. Maui- one must try mochi, a gooey, rice based sweet. Kauai is kulolo, made from taro and molasses. Big Island has a chocolate shop and also shortbread cookies dipped in dark chocolate. When one travels to the continent where there is Trader Joe's, a food gift from there is a must. I brought back Italian macaroons from Mikes Bakery in Boston.

The ladies in my office are trying to keep in shape, so we have requested fruits as treats! We have a challenge, our baker in the cafeteria constantly brings up yummy treats she makes from scratch.

I really like dark chocolate and now that they say it is good for us......

Oh, I loved everything about learning this. How extraordinary.

Thank you.

I am a coffee drinker, but am transitioning to tea. How about you?

I love coffee. When I went into menopause, I developed allergies and asthma and I had to stop drinking it. Now that I am better, I can drink it again but it still tightens me up a little. I have been thinking about transitioning to herbal teas.

I love Earl Grey.

So, maybe Earl Grey.

It is a sad story for my husbands people. Indigenous people have a tremendous battle when colonized. They were branded as pagans by the missionaries, but the missionary movement actually is credited with preserving the language, because it was oral. The Hawaiians were nearly exterminated, genocide. The language, hula, surfing, religion, medicine was banned. The people were forced off of their land by all manner of injustice.
The very word for land -aina- literally means "that which feeds", not only feeding the body, but also the mind and spirit.
We are very fortunate that there were practitioners who lived in the outreaches who preserved the chants, stories, hula.
There has been a resurgence of the culture, the people and it is a beautiful thing.

I am glad their cultures and practices and beliefs are coming back, very glad. It is the same here, with Native culture. Two of my grandchildren are Native.

It has been an awakening for me, to see history from their perspectives.

Though the generations who suffered through it are mostly gone now, my daughter was loved by a Native grandmother who told story after story about what it was like to have lost their families and been put into boarding schools and to have been forbidden to speak their own languages, and to have seen their Medicine Men disparaged and ridiculed.

And to have been called savages.

***

My granddaughters have experienced prejudice, too.

What a horribly hurtful thing.

Cedar
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
You know Cedar, I do not know of any "Functional" families.

I have been present during the deaths of parents, and have seen one family especially, and maybe two ~ maybe, three ~ who were beautifully functional, Leafy. It wasn't that they were perfect, or that they were not stressed out and crying and tired...but there was a flexibility, a kind of willingness to catch and hold but not smother or disrespect or judge. There would be sadness but there would be discussion of memories and joy and strength that was palpable, in those families.

Sort of an acceptance of pain and of endings and an assurance that while it would never be the same, it would be alright.

They were memorable families; very, very much so, for the family first mentioned. I was only with them for a little time, but I have never forgotten the feel of that family.

Okay, and there is one more family too, but it was only a husband and a wife.

Just something about the way they felt, about the honesty and flexibility and willingness to be present without anger or shame or...they were very quiet, very present to their pain and to one another, those families.

But it wasn't only about the pain. It seemed almost to be about the completion.

I was fortunate, so fortunate, to have seen that.

Again, it has to do with role flexibility, and not role rigidity. Maybe, if we can finally recognize and choose vulnerability over the safety of our roles, that is what it is simply be present.

I think that is what I saw, in those families. Varying degrees of presence and sincerity.

I saw one family where the father had been a terrible man. He was in his final illness, and his daughter had elected to see him through it. It was the same feeling, there. So it isn't about perfect, so much as it is about sincerity and about seeing what is for what it is and doing the right thing.

I don't know what it is, really. It has to do with flexibility and...I don't know. A feeling of generosity of spirit, maybe.

Interesting discussion, Leafy. I hadn't thought about those families for the longest time.

Thank you.

Cedar
 

New Leaf

Well-Known Member
I am very allergic to it too, Leafy. So is my daughter. And corn syrup, which is in everything, too. We don't eat prepared foods, and are very careful in restaurants.
It is a blessing in disguise, to be allergic to corn syrup. My #4 attended a Hawaiian Charter School, not your "typical" education. They taught her about "Ai pono" or healthy eating. In that, there were viewings of documentaries about food production and ingredients, GMO's, etc. Corn syrup and soy are in virtually everything (as you already know). Why?
We watched some shows on Netflix, this one may interest you, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead chronicling a mans quest to overcome his autoimmune disease by only eating fresh fruits and vegetables. Interesting, informative stuff. My friend years ago vowed never to eat packaged, processed food. Smart girl.
I never thought about MSG being the thing that makes us want to eat more and more. I think that is probably a true observation, Leafy.
Lots of info on MSG. The food industry is powerful. In cahoots with the drug industry. The food we eat makes us sick and that supports pharmaceuticals. Folks say FDA should not be combined, I agree.

Scary thought, isn't it. Especially in light of the information on gut flora and its effects on physical and emotional health. I was thinking about when my children were little and to breast feed a baby was practically an act of social rebellion. It was believed that Science could improve on Mother's Milk, do you remember that, Leafy?
I remember an article about baby-powdered milk makers in third world countries shaming breast feeding. The women bought into the propaganda. Trouble was, they couldn't afford the milk, and watered it down, so the babies were malnourished. Corporate greed is a horrible thing Cedar.
La Leche League, where young moms could go so we would not feel guilty about breastfeeding our babies.
Yes Cedar, and now, so much controversy over breast feeding in public?
I breast fed all of my babies, couldn't even imagine preparing bottles. I was discreet. No need to just whip out the "tatas" for all to see, and even if, so what? That is what they are for, for Gods sake. What a world, shaming something so natural.
I think the rise in allergies is due to powdered baby milk, and corn syrup, and soy, MSG in everything. Okay I will get off my :soapbox:.

Rice, instead of toast or pancakes, Leafy?
Yes, rice, even fried rice. There is something to be said for rice catching the oozy, hot drip of the egg yolk.
My D H loves Spam, too.

When his family visited from Italy, the thing they loved most was white Tasty bread. Yes, the cheap stuff. You believe it? And they loved peanut butter, too. They took it back in their suitcases, when they left.
So funny, the things that are ono to folks. I bet when they ate the peanut butter, they had warm memories of their visit. They probably speak of the white bread as a delicacy.
I love coffee. When I went into menopause, I developed allergies and asthma and I had to stop drinking it. Now that I am better, I can drink it again but it still tightens me up a little. I have been thinking about transitioning to herbal teas.
Herbal teas are so very good for us. Ancient folk remedies. How did the old ones know so much?
I am working on growing herbs, thyme, basil, lemon balm. I have lemon grass, which is used in Asian cooking, but can make a cleansing tea.

It has been an awakening for me, to see history from their perspectives.
Yes indeed. Colonization has a way of hiding the whole story.

Though the generations who suffered through it are mostly gone now, my daughter was loved by a Native grandmother who told story after story about what it was like to have lost their families and been put into boarding schools and to have been forbidden to speak their own languages, and to have seen their Medicine Men disparaged and ridiculed.

And to have been called savages.
Indigenous people suffer still, through generations, the shame is passed down, and the loss of culture is felt in their very being. White man came and took land, spirituality, replaced it with beads and fire water.
I have much feeling for this Cedar. I see how indigenous folks are in sync with their natural surroundings, working with the environment, not against it. The Hawaiians have a saying
"The white man came and taught us how to pray, and while we bowed our heads, they took our land, our culture. They taught us how to wear clothes, now look who is running naked on our beaches."
Hawaii is getting over developed, it is very sad. They keep building and building. We do not have the resources to take care of all the people coming here. They are developing our farm lands Cedar, what are we to eat? We depend too much on food shipped in. If there was a disaster, and the ships could not come, they say we have a five day food supply, thats it. What are they thinking?

My granddaughters have experienced prejudice, too.
Prejudice says more about the person harboring it than anything. How horrible to hate because of ethnicity. It is a vile thing, prejudice.

Time to get ready for the day.

Howl!
Leafy
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
So interesting you mention this, because in Streetcar named Desire Blanch is much the same. The Cliff notes are really focused on that.

I will have to read The Cliff notes. The woman in the clip is Stella, right? I am not familiar with Blanche. I will watch the movie. I will order it from the library and watch the movie, to see what this is all about. I am fascinated by the ways women are seen, and by the ways men are seen, and by the way it is forever how the woman values that determines how men are valued, though it seems to be just the other way.

I read something once that indicated that though it is men who go to war, it is women who require it.

Now, women are going to war, too.

Which has nothing to do with the subject at hand.

:O)

Yes, value. Otherwise we can become things Cedar, toys. I think that is why many relationships fail. If we do not value ourselves, love ourselves, how can we love others, and in turn, how can they love us? We become mere things.

Copa posted to us once that humans do not begin the process of self-actualization until around the age of thirty. It seems to me at this point in my life that the more we break, and the more we get it that we don't already know and begin truly to listen, that is when we are capable of committing to loving another person for the person they are. When we are young, we are so certain the other person, even, at least in my case probably, my children, are who we expected them to be. (Remember how sure we were that we knew everything, when we were young?!?)

For me, and this may only be true of me, as I let go of the roles, those automatic responses behind which real life happens, I am ~ I don't know. Something essential is different. I am surprised it doesn't show.

Maybe, it does.

Yes. Men poor dears, raised to be tough, to ignore their feelings.
Maybe that is the crux of misogyny?

I think maybe it is that fear of how chaotically unpredictable everything is, is projected onto us because we are not strong enough to project it onto them.

I think it (misogyny) is a human enough thing that we would be doing it to them if they were not doing it to us. The harm in misogyny, as is true of every kind of contempt, is when the object of ridicule or contempt comes to believe it of herself.

Or of himself.

We discussed racism in that light too Leafy, on FOO Chronicles. Racism is a form of misogyny, in the shape of it, I mean. In the unreasoning intensity and prevalence of it, to the point that we don't see or question it.

It's very subtle, really.

But devastating, for those who come to believe, about themselves, precepts devised to serve something having nothing to do with them. Which is, when you think about it, pretty much what happens in dysfunctional family systems.

He turned to look at me...... with a big smile on his face. "Oh there you are" he chuckled. He was absolutely giddy. He joked and laughed the entire time.

I love this story.

think when he was watching Stanley he was remembering his father, how he mistreated his mother.....
He could not watch the movie.

My D H is decent like that, too. It has to do with valuing integrity, and what the man sold his integrity out to, I think. (Okay. I have not seen the movie or read The Cliffies. I don't know what I am talking about, here. As this has not stopped me in the past, I will continue.)

:O)

Is Marlon Stanley Kowalski?

That was a little beefcake, right there.

I know.

Bad Cedar.

I had best read only the Cliffies, and not watch the movie at all, then. It would be terrible to watch the whole movie just so I could see Marlon Brando with his shirt off again.

I swear, that man looked nothing like that in Apocalypse Now or The Godfather.

I do not want to let my devaluation continue the patterning that led me to enable.
In this journey to self discovery, I will help myself, and I will help my adult children, by not helping them.

This is what motivates us as well, Leafy.

We have been at this for some months, now. Before that, on Parent Emeritus. Twice, for me. There is something that works, when we sift through our memories and feeling states and belief systems at our own paces and work through what we've found in the supportive environment we have created for ourselves, here.

This site is an amazing place.

I am glad you found it too, Leafy.

My D H does not like my sudden fascination with, or all the time I spend, on the computer either. I do note progress ~ almost breathtaking in the pace of it progress, in my own process. Serenity had begun before I did, and went through many of the same kinds of emotions in her healing that I did at a later time. Copa, who joined later, is following those same pathways. Each of us very different women, each of us hurt or cherished in different ways and yet, somehow, the process is working beautifully for each of us.

So, welcome, Leafy.

Serenity is Somewhere Out There. She has been in a car accident, we have recently learned. She will be back with us soon, I believe. It works best when we are all here together. In that way, we seem able to keep the emphasis on our own healing through how the others of us are thinking and seeing. One keys something in the others; the feedback changes us all.

It has been a good and valuable process for us. For anyone reading along, please join us. In its anonymity, the site allows a precision-cut honesty, if we are brave.

Boy says "Mom what are you doing?" I reply "Studying"
at the same time hubs yells from the bedroom "NOTHING".

Ha! That is exactly my D H, too.

He has come to hate the clicking of the keys. Copa posts that M is saying the same things about the clicking keys.

You guys are just too fascinating.

Cedar
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead chronicling a mans quest to overcome his autoimmune disease by only eating fresh fruits and vegetables.

I do very well if I eat only chicken breasts and veggies. I can do apples, but no bananas. No bread, oatmeal, rice. When I first got sick, I pretty much lived on eggs and mangoes and cranberries.

No wine. No beer.

No milk.

Bourbon?

That, I can do.

Yes, rice, even fried rice. There is something to be said for rice catching the oozy, hot drip of the egg yolk.

Tomorrow. I will eat fried rice with hotly dripping egg yolk.

Ha!

Wait until D H hears this one.

I am working on growing herbs, thyme, basil, lemon balm. I have lemon grass, which is used in Asian cooking, but can make a cleansing tea.

Rosemary also, Leafy. I am thinking about an herb garden, too. We had Sleepy Time tea last night. It has thistle or nettle or something in it, and is supposed to be good for our respiration.

Have you read Michael Pollan's Cooked?

You would like it, I think.

They taught us how to wear clothes, now look who is running naked on our beaches."

Oh, wow. I never thought of it like that.

Hawaii is getting over developed, it is very sad. They keep building and building. We do not have the resources to take care of all the people coming here. They are developing our farm lands Cedar, what are we to eat? We depend too much on food shipped in. If there was a disaster, and the ships could not come, they say we have a five day food supply, thats it. What are they thinking?

In Winter, we are on an island, too. It is the same thing, here. Developers and so much money fighting so hard to turn what is into mile after mile of condos and traffic jams and rudeness from people who are overwhelming in their anonymous numbers. Are you not a small enough group of people that you could present a unified front, New Leaf?

Or are you saying that you are doing that, but that you are losing the battle.

I think we are losing our battle here, too. Well, okay. So...I am a person who only comes here in Winter.

Ew.

Whatever. We are working very hard to keep everyone else out.

:O)

***

Those are very real questions, about food and survival.

Cedar
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
When my Dad came back from Hawaii, he brought Spam, too. Who knew how good it was?

I think I would love Hawaii. Except for the heat and humidity. Like living in a foreign country in the US.

I will catch up with you ladies *your posts sooner or later.

COPA
 

New Leaf

Well-Known Member
When my Dad came back from Hawaii, he brought Spam, too. Who knew how good it was?

I think I would love Hawaii. Except for the heat and humidity. Like living in a foreign country in the US.

I will catch up with you ladies *your posts sooner or later.

COPA
Spam is ridiculously expensive now, all of the yummy, once considered poor mans "rubbish" meats and fish are.

Hawaii is a beautiful place. Copa, you would fit right in. Yes, it is hot and humid- more so with old El Niño this year. We have had more than our fair share of near misses with hurricanes.

It is a foreign country "all mix up" in the U.S, for sure.

Have a wonderful day Copa.

Howl
 
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