Saturday Chores

King'sLaundry

This poem, which I believe is by Arthur Guiterman (someone please correct me if I am wrong), is in our family verse book, and sometimes we recite it on a Saturday morning to jump-start the chores. Better, though, is when we play “Happy Little Working Song” from the film Enchanted at a really loud volume. That gets us moving, and into a jolly mood, too.


Lentil Soup

Fiona'sSoup

For years I’ve assumed that there was an etymological connection between “lentil” and Lent.” You have no idea how disappointed I am to have discovered recently that it is nonexistent. It seemed so perfectly and seasonally appropriate. Sigh. Well, more on that later. In the meantime, here is my favorite recipe for “Lent”-il soup, from Mollie Katzen’s Moosewood Cookbook, modified somewhat by me:

Pick over & rinse 3 cups raw lentils. Simmer them in 7 cups water or stock (I use veggie bouillon), on the stovetop or in a crock pot, until lentils are almost tender.

Saute in olive oil 2 tsp. fresh minced garlic, 1 cup chopped onion, 1 cup minced celery, and 1 cup chopped carrots, until almost tender. Add to almost-tender lentils along with 1-1/2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes or, lacking those, fire-roasted canned tomatoes; 2 T dry red wine; 2 T lemon juice; 1-1/2 T molasses or brown sugar; 1 T wine vinegar; 1 T capers. Simmer for a while longer until lentils and veggies are tender. Add black pepper and salt to taste.

This is even better the next day, after flavors have blended.

CakeBerries2Aunt Mary

CakePink2Lisa


A Love Story

 

How is this for a romantic tale: Intellectual semi-invalid is still living at home in seclusion in her mid-thirties, quietly writing poetry and essays. Her published, widely read poems catch the attention of a handsome fellow-poet, six years her junior, who writes her a lengthy letter that says, among other things:

I love your verses with all my heart, Miss Barrett… so into me it has gone, and part of me it has become… and I love you too.

Thus began a correspondence—reluctant on her side, urgent on his, between Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861), whose birthday it is today, and Robert Browning—that culminated in their growing mutual attachment and eventual secret elopement. Like many (all?) romantic tales, it had its dark underside, this one of slavery, paternal tyranny, multiple sad deaths, and mysterious illness.

Barrett was the first-born in a large prosperous family in Coxhoe, England, whose income derived partly from slave-worked plantations in Jamaica (perhaps this was related to Barrett’s later abolitionist stance). She was educated at home and demonstrated in childhood a gift for language: writing poetry, reading Milton, Shakespeare, and Dante, and learning Greek, Latin, and Hebrew (incorporated later into her poetry) sufficiently well to take up translation and analysis. To these she later added Italian, German, and Spanish.

But by age twenty she was already declining physically from some unknown, untreatable cause. The deaths of her mother and grandmother took their toll on her, and the accidental drowning of a favorite brother made her a recluse in her misery. In the meantime the abolition of slavery in England brought an end to the Jamaica income and obliged the family to live simply. Throughout all this she continued to write and publish essays and poetry, passionate, deeply felt, finely crafted, expressive of political and social as well as personal themes. And despite her seclusion, she corresponded widely with other writers and scholars.

Thus Browning was smitten. When he finally whisked Barrett off secretly to tie the knot and honeymoon in Italy, her father disinherited her—as he did each of his children who chose to marry. Some family therapy would not have been amiss here.

After their marriage Barrett showed Browning the sonnets she had been writing, the most famous of which (not the one above, but number XLIII) has been widely reproduced (and parodied). The couple stayed in Italy and, despite their late start, Barrett/Browning gave birth to a little Robert when she was 43. So their tale concludes probably as happily as any—with the two of them madly in love, raising their babe, writing poetry together, respected, reasonably comfortable, and in ITALY besides. Happy Birthday (and apologies), Elizabeth Barrett Browning, with gratitude not only for the poetry but for the love story.

 

Saved by the Bell

AGBellApps

Today is the birthday of Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), whom many may think of as American but who was actually born in Edinburgh, Scotland (he later became an American citizen). Bell was practically destined for his future work, given his background—grandfather a speech teacher/researcher/writer, and father an elocution specialist who developed something called “Visible Speech,” a sort of alphabet of lip, throat, and tongue positions used in talking, in order to train deaf people to speak. Those were the days when use of the hands while speaking—even if you weren’t deaf—was considered unseemly in Anglo-Saxon culture. Humph.

A bright, curious, inventive boy anyway, interested in mechanics, botany, and music, he took up the family passion: the study of speech. Even his own mother’s growing deafness was an encouragement. He was homeschooled for a while, then sent for a few years of formal education, culminating in a combined learning/teaching career, but he always pursued his own experiments on the side. After Bell’s two brothers died of tuberculosis, his alarmed parents decided to take their sole remaining son, always delicate, for a cure. Where? To the Swiss Alps, you ask? No… to Canada! where they bought a farm on a river and converted a carriage house into a workshop for Alexander’s tinkering. It did the trick. Parents, take note.

Bell went on to a career of teaching deaf pupils in Boston, but carried on his experiments, and eventually succeeded in producing, with assistant Thomas Watson, a “harmonic telegraph”—the telephone; founding Bell Telephone Company; and going on to create the metal detector, the wax recording cylinder (later used in the phonograph), and the first, and very successful, hydrofoil boat.

It’s hard to imagine a world without Bell’s telephone. Perhaps it was inevitable—others were exploring along the same lines—but it doesn’t diminish the wonder of his accomplishments and of his lively inventive being.

So go call your Mom, and wish her a Happy Alexander Graham Bell’s Birthday.


Literary Washington

Here is the inside of the Washington DC Literary Map for which I posted the cover on 2/21. (The size in real life is 26 inches x 19 inches.)

The following is the description given on the Woman’s National Book Association website:

“The literary map identifies and celebrates locations in Washington and surrounding areas that are associated with 44 authors who have lived or worked here, including Rachel Carson, Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, Sinclair Lewis, Clare Booth Luce, Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman. The map also contains biographical information about the authors, a list of authors born or buried in the Washington area, other places with literary connections, and a selective list of books set in Washington.”

I was surprised myself to see how many writers have Washington, DC connections.

WashDCLitMapWeb

WashDCLitMapBack

Washington’s Monument

LitMapCover

Today is the 125th anniversary of the dedication (in 1885) of the Washington Monument. It was certainly a long time a-building, considering Pierre Charles L’Enfant had included a location for a monument to George Washington in his 1791 drawings for the new capital city. What L’Enfant had in mind, though, was an equestrian statue.

After Washington died in 1799, Congress thought a tomb might be a better plan—hey, how about right inside the Capitol? But his wife Martha wasn’t too happy with that idea. Progress stalled until the 1830s, when a group of impatient citizens raised funds themselves and held a competition for a monument design. The other entries were far more complicated: designs for monuments rich in Gothic windows, enlivened by multicolored stonework, festooned with all manner of carving and statuary. It makes me wonder how much the final choice was driven by budget. Even the award-winning design by Robert Mills originally had a colonnade at the base.

Construction began at last in 1848 and continued in fits and starts, slowed by the Civil War, lack of money, and anti-Catholic fervor (don’t ask). Congress occasionally offered funds. Reading American history I am struck by how reluctant the U.S. government used to be to spend money on much of anything, no matter the generally acknowledged need or value. When Congress finally decided to fund the rest, the monument went up quickly and immediately began to draw crowds. According to the National Park Service, it has over 800,000 visitors a year and is still the TALLEST STONE STRUCTURE in the WORLD. How about that.

You may be asking, “What the heck does this have to do with a picture of a Monument-Pen?” Well, uh… this image is the cover of a Literary Map of Washington DC commissioned by the Women’s National Book Association and featuring writers who have lived and worked here. For February 21st, I searched my work for a Monument image. And thereby hangs the tale. (Later this month I will post the illustrated map inside, so you can see what it looks like. It’s available at DC bookshops or through the WNBA.)

There is a celebration of the anniversary at 1pm today at the foot of the Monument.