What Do I Know?

Follow the Yellow Brick Field?

The M40, flanked by rape on the way to Oxford

Acres of rape, along the A1(M) toward Peterborough

Three fields in Oxfordshire

It's not my imagination: this year, there is more rape covering England than ever before. Everywhere I go—into East Anglia last week, to the Midlands on Saturday, and through Oxfordshire today, I see field after field glowing florescent yellow, bright as a highlighter marker on a once-green page. The pungent odor, the scent of sweaty old ladies, wafts in through car windows, making you wonder which of your companions  forgot to bathe.

Farmers are planting rapeseed, known in America as canola, not because the country has suddenly developed a taste for the healthy cooking oil, but because rapeseed oil is being used for biofuels. I read a headline that predicted beer drinkers would protest when they realized the cost of beer had gone up, due to barley fields being turned over to rape.

You won't find rape in any quaint Victorian paintings. You won't read of rape farmers in Thomas Hardy's novels, or in Betjeman's poems. Rape, a relative of mustard, used to contain toxic levels of erucic acid, until the wily Canadians figured out how to cross breed plants that contained healthful oleic acid instead of erucic acid (and then rebranded it as canola oil). Better yet, canola oil—still known as rapeseed oil here—contains monounsaturated fatty acids and around 9 percent omega 3 polyunsaturated oil (ALA), making it one of the healthiest oils you can cook with.

Sadly, despite the omnipresence of rape plants (brassica napus) in southern England, it is still a relatively rare sight on grocery shelves. (Tesco does carry an organic brand at some of their stores.)

Aside from its health benefits, rape is one of the most beautiful crops grown. I love to see it highlighting the countryside, though I've heard some people complain that it's a garish sight. But I love to round a curve and see fields of bright yellow, pieced together by green hedgerows.

This year rape is blooming about a month earlier than usual, as are all our spring blossoms. (We've just finished up the hottest April since records began in the 17th century.) I don't know if fueling our cars with rapeseed oil is the answer, but it sure makes me want to get out and enjoy the countryside.

Fortunately, I'm not allergic to rape. If you are, you might want to avoid England in April and May.

Friday Cow Blogging

Little Joey has two mamas.

The calves are still a bit frightened of me, or maybe it's the dog who accompanies me to the fence. This little guy was curious about me and my strange clicking device, but he felt safe sandwiched between two mama cows.

This year I've only seen 10 cows and around 8 calves. Last year there were 12 cows, plus a bull. The bull must be an every other year thing. I know guys like that.

Eighteen

Last night I had a sad dream. I dreamed I held my daughter clasped around my waist. How old is she, I wondered, and figured she must be four. Still small enough to pick up with no problem.

I told myself to treasure the next year, since soon she'd be five and too big to pick up anymore.

Of course, my daughter is 18 and far too big to pick up. And she's leaving soon for college, a fact that haunts me every day. Today I'm making one last run to the post office for her, this time to mail her acceptance card to Smith College.

After all those admissions forms, essays, and tests, she's finally decided to enter the engineering program at Smith. They offered her a scholarship, which includes a work study program conducting research with a professor of her choice. Academically, it's a fine school, but the mother in me is most pleased: I think it will be a nurturing environment for her, though I'm not sure they'll be able to make her favorite food, rigatoni with broccoli.

Go give your little girls and boys a hug, and if you can, pick them up. Because pretty soon they'll be grown up and going off to college.

A Tale of Two Statements

Howard Dean: "But the capture of Saddam has not made America safer."

Mitt Romney: "It's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person." Talking, of course, about Osama bin Laden, who actually attacked us.

Guess which statement gets more airplay?

Out In With the Old

I'm busy today, cleaning our my spare room and various closets. According to feng shui principles, getting rid of clutter makes room for new stuff to enter your life.

This reminds me of an essay I wrote years ago, and since I have no time to write new stuff, I'll recycle it:

De-Cluttering

I cleaned out my closet the other day. Inspired by a book on feng shui I decided to get rid of a few years’ accumulation of clutter and release all the stagnated energy trapped in my closet. (It seems that’s what energy does. Stagnate, particularly in corners and around unused, unloved junk.) Plus, getting rid of "old" makes room for "new"—new opportunities, new directions, or just plain new stuff.

It had gotten pretty bad. Children would enter and become lost in a Time Warp, filled with assorted doll parts, unread books, a cute little vase that came with my firstborn, jeans with ticket stubs in the pockets from the Depeche Mode concert I’d gone to in ’92… Even our pet rat avoided my closet—he knows a maze when he sees one.

There was some serious energy stagnating here, I realized. And until I cleared out my clutter, I wasn’t going to have the energy to do what I wanted to do—write.

So I spent a day or two, not simply organizing, as I’d done in the past—those TBR books were arranged by author/date, the moldy baby clothes sorted by size—but by actually getting rid of stuff. I didn’t need that Lady Epilator, after all, a torture device that was probably invented around the time of the Inquisition; or the 1993 edition of Writer's Market.

After de-cluttering, clapping in the corners (apparently energy scatters at the sound), and burning incense to celebrate, a funny thing happened, just like the book said. By ridding myself of possessions I’d hung on to for years, I released a whopping amount of energy. Enough to tackle the laundry room, and eventually, my manuscript.

My mind buzzed with all the activity. Out with the old, stale ideas—endlessly reworked scenes, old torn jeans–and in with the new, in the form of words, images, scenes, chapters—and permission to go shopping. (After de-cluttering, it turns out I’ve only got two pairs of pants!)

Another funny thing happened. After months of idle mail, or worse, rejections, I suddenly got a request from an agent for a complete manuscript.

De-clutter. You’ll be glad you did.

—KathyF

February 2001

Wednesday Food Blogging: Vanilla Tofu with Saffron Rice

Tofu: the other white bivalve.

Look closely at this dish. No, I don't mean the food, I mean the dish. It's a piece of Franciscan dinnerware, the Desert Rose pattern. My friend and frequent commenter Nancy noticed I had the pattern from one of my photos—I had a few dessert bowls, a gift from my mother-in-law. So she offered me the complete set from her mother-in-law's estate. I gladly accepted (See? Blogging does pay!) and the four boxes arrived last week. I had fun unpacking them—it included the cutest tiny salt and pepper, shaped like rosebuds! I love china and pretty dishes, and lately have been picking up interesting pieces for food photos. Thanks again, Nancy!

As for the food, I saw a recipe for scallops in a vanilla coconut sauce, and since whatever you can do with shellfish I can do with tofu, it seemed an ideal recipe for veganizing. Vanilla seems to be a trendy ingredient these days. There's a posh restaurant near here which features a menu of vanilla-infused dishes. So I bought a couple of beans, and experimented. The saffron rice was perfect underneath, and those green beans, sautéed with ginger and other Indian spices, were also just the right accompaniment. (I'll post the recipe for those soon, as they were a real taste bud treat.)

A trendy new recipe, and classic old dishes. Perfect together!

A Day in Oxfordshire

Rapeseed glows behind farmhouses near Deddington.

Wisteria climbs over the roof of Foodies' cafe in Deddington. (No, not that Foodie.)

A house in Deddington, reputed to be owned by the queen's cousin. (Yes, that queen.)

Reason to Hope?

At the news agents in town this morning, I noticed a headline in The Times heralding a new pill that could cure genetic illnesses. Naturally, I stopped dead in my tracks, wondering if at long last a cure for Huntington's had been discovered.

Not exactly. The "pill", PTC124, is being tested to treat diseases caused by "nonsense mutations", which you can Google for yourself. HD is not caused by a nonsense mutation, but by a repeat of the CAG DNA sequence.

And the titillating headline—"Daily pill to beat genetic diseases"—is a little optimistic. The pill is in clinical trials, and from what I can discover, has not proven 100% successful in the cystic fibrosis patients it's been tested on. But the results have been, as the article states, encouraging.

So, for plenty of patients suffering genetic illnesses like cystic fibrosis and Duchenne muscular dystrophy, this may very well be good news indeed, if the final trials are successful. (It will take approximately 3 years until the pill will be available.)

But it's also good news for the rest of us with loved ones at risk and suffering from other genetic diseases. If a pill can intervene in the genetic code of nonsense genes, maybe soon one will be developed that can interfere in the genetic code for repeat diseases, like Huntington's and Friedreich's ataxia.

Maybe that will be the next time I'm stopped dead in my tracks at the news agents.

Update: Looks like the novel Saturday by Ian McEwan deals with just such a possibility, a gene silencing treatment for Huntington's. Interesting.

Posh Had a Little Lamb

Looks like I'm not the only one making pets of the livestock: Victoria Beckham didn't know when she agreed to let her pal Gordon Ramsay graze his lambs on her estate that he planned to serve them later.

She's a vegetarian, of course, as all the beautiful people are, so that doesn't go down well with her. Read all about it here.

The Most Famous Zebra in London

This is the famous zebra crossing on Abbey Road, the one on the Beatles' album. We tried to get the girls to imitate the poses, but they got spooked by the traffic.

And this is the famous Abbey Road studio. Someone left the door open.

Now we can say, been there done that.

Friday Goat Blogging

Goat love.

This goat lives near my brother's house, in north Louisiana. She was the fiercest of the three, although the smallest—she kept butting the others out of the way to get to the feed we'd thrown for them. She was a pretty thing, though, with that white flowing beard, those tiny cloven hooves.

In other goat-related news, I was surprised yesterday to see that one of the most emailed stories on the BBC website is over a year old, and even more surprised to read what it was about.

I just don't think this goat would have stood still for that. Eww.

What I'm Mad About Today

Remember Bernard Matthews? Whose turkey farm harbored avian flu a few weeks ago? Now he's being compensated by the government to the tune of almost £600k, despite the fact his factory farm's bio-security measures were less than adequate. Taxpayers pay for Mr. Factory Farmer's mistakes, again.

The LA Times says The U.S. is becoming like Russia, where political rivals are dispatched by the justice system. And the public is "under-reacting."

ConocoPhilips and Tyson Foods want to put pigs, cows and chickens in your gas tank. Don't let them.

I'm also pretty angry with Enterprise Car Rental in Baton Rouge. You may be reading more about that later. Depends on how they answer my phone call later today.

Grrrr.

Update: Enterprise said the magic word: refund. Now if only I'd hear that other magic word: impeach.

Thank You, Nike

My daughter, a basketball player, forwarded this email from Nike. It's the best commentary I've read on the Imus/Rutgers situation:

Thank you, ignorance.

Thank you for starting the conversation.

Thank you for making an entire nation listen to the Rutgers team's story. And for making us wonder what other great stories we've missed.

Thank you for reminding us to think before we speak.

Thank you for showing us how strong and poised 18- and 20-year-old women can be.

Thank you for reminding a sports nation that another basketball tournament goes on in March.

Thank you for showing us that sport includes more than the time spent on the court.

Thank you for unintentionally moving women's sport forward.

And thank you for making all of us realize that we still have a long way to go.

Next season starts 11.16.07

Nice, huh?

Americans Want Gun Control. Surprised?

It turns out we're not that different from the French in our attitudes to gun ownership. It's only our politicians who are out of whack.

So how about we get new politicians?

Let your reps hear from you in addition to the gun lobby. Tell them you want stricter gun laws. After all, there's a watch list for who gets on an airplane; why not a watch list your crazy ex-boyfriend's name, or that of your suicidal son, can go on to prevent him from buying a gun.

Wednesday Food Blogging: Quick Pizza

Pizza. From scratch. In less than 30 minutes. I swear.

What do you do when you come home from an overseas trip, there’s little to eat in the house, you’re tired, your daughter is hungry, and the last meal you had was prepared in a Boeing 777 microwave?

a.    Make pizza from scratch
b.    Call Dominos
c.    Open a package of Ramen noodles; follow directions on package

If you chose a, you’re right. With this quick crust recipe, a few cans, and an almost non-perishable onion, you’ll be well-fed in the time it takes to unpack your bag. Or to call Dominos.

The crust is more like a biscuit crust than a chewy pizza crust, but who says pizzas always have to be chewy? (If you’d prefer the longer, more traditional version, go here.)

I mixed up the dough, and then left the rest to my daughter, who’d already made brownies to welcome me home. She chose to add canned Portobello mushrooms, jalapenos, and some soy cheese, while I grilled an onion. Other toppings would work equally well, including grilled aubergine (eggplant), courgettes (zucchini), red peppers, sautéed spinach, black olives, red onion, slightly blanched broccoli, or artichokes.

Within half an hour, we had piping hot pizza on our plates, without even invoking the name of Dominos.

Easy instructions follow:

Tim Kaine's Loathing Reserved for People Like Me?

Governor Tim Kaine says he's got nothing but "loathing" for people like me, who've long been advocating for gun control:

However, Kaine said he wasn't interested in arguments about gun control.

"People who want to take this within 24 hours of the event and make it their political hobby horse to ride, I've got nothing but loathing for them," Kaine said at a Tuesday evening news conference.

Well, I've got nothing but loathing for someone who, in a time of national mourning, points the finger at people who want nothing more than to save lives, in order to score some political points with right-wing gun nuts.

I hope Tim Kaine can sleep at night, knowing tougher gun control laws in his state might have prevented Monday's tragedy.

I Don't Like Mondays

On January 29, 1979, Brenda Spencer, 16, opened fire with a .22-caliber rifle at an elementary school across the street from her San Diego, Ca., home. She killed two people and wounded seven because she "didn't like Mondays".

Today 32 people were killed in Virginia, another school shooting in a long list that begins with Brenda Spencer. Almost all have occurred in the U.S., where pretty much anybody can walk into a gun shop and purchase a high-powered gun and all the ammo they think they'll need.

Today there are 32 more people to add to that list, 64 more parents to be notified.

Tell me why I don't like Mondays.

There Is Always Something to View on the Internets

I can't resist posting a link to this feel-good video about a silly goose who's imprinted on a man and his motorboat.

But don't for a minute think things are all hugs and kisses in the animal world: One panda is demanding an abortion.

Friday Horse Blogging

On Easter Sunday I went to my brother's house to see the horses, goats, baby bunnies and dogs. A couple of mares had given birth to foals two weeks earlier, one with a diamond on his forehead and one with a white blaze. There were three mares who came to the clearing, but a fourth mare was missing. Eddie, who keeps the horses, called and called, banging the feed bucket, but she never showed up. The next day I found out where she was. She was busy having a foal herself. Eddie had figured it out, and kept quiet, not wanting to scare her.

Below are more photos of the horses. The goats will have to wait till next week.

An (Almost) Rant-free Friday the 13th

Tucker retrieving a stick.

No, not an alligator, but a black lab, my brother's dog Tucker. My brother lives on a horseshoe lake in north Louisiana. There'd been alligators out earlier in the week, but the cold weather had driven them indoors.  Which made the water safe for Tucker, who lived on a lake in Minnesota until recently; he's used to the cold.

I'm in a better mood now, having had some sleep and some chocolate. Traveling always puts me in a bad mood. Humans were not meant to fly, especially through JFK.

This trip was due to my mom's worsening condition. She lives in a nursing home and suffers from Huntington's disease. She'd stopped eating, and while I was in Cornwall I got a call saying she was near the end. After making several calls from a rotary phone (this was in Cornwall, remember, the edge of the known world) I got mixed signals from the nursing home, hospice staff, and my aunts, so I decided to come home earlier than I'd intended.

Although she'd started eating a bit again, I thought something wasn't quite right. Several people reported her saying strange things, not exactly unusual for nursing home patients, but my alarms went off. She had a detached look about her, as if she knew I was there but wasn't quite sure she cared. Not like Mom at all.

Except when she's off her Zyprexa.

Around ten percent of Huntington's patients suffer from psychosis, and my mom is one of them. (She once described, in great detail, how my aunt was suffering from cancer. She had me convinced, until Aunt Pam walked in and had none of the symptoms my mom had mentioned.) The HD specialists in Albuquerque (including the actor Christopher Reeve's sister) had prescribed Zyprexa to control this. It worked, as we discovered once when the nursing home there "accidentally" removed her from it. She began telling me the strangest stories every day when I visited. Once when I arrived her nurse said to me "I didn't know your mom knew Billy Ray Cyrus!" I didn't either, but there was Mom, with her nightgowns and socks "packed" on her walker, waiting at the nurses' station for the airplane to take her to Memphis, where she was going to marry Billy Ray.

The stories were entertaining, as stories from La la land usually are, but she wasn't really happy there. This time the signals weren't so obvious, as she no longer verbalizes much, and she's been off Zyprexa much longer. Her condition seemed normal to the people caring for her.

Perhaps her refusal to eat and her lack of enthusiasm were merely a sign of her worsening condition or her poor nutritional status, or perhaps it's the meds; we'll likely never know for certain. But this marks the second time a nursing home doctor has removed my mom from medication without informing us. This is a violation of some kind, I'm sure, but apparently it happens so often no eyebrows were raised.

I could rant some more about the state of elderly care—my mom's in a pretty good nursing home, compared to most, and her aides are wonderful to her, despite being very poorly paid. (Like at most nursing homes in the South, the CNAs are all black, while the staff is all white.) But I've sworn off ranting for today. It's Friday the thirteenth, and my birthday, and I'm not risking fate any more than I have already. (I'm a walking nightmare for people suffering from paraskavedekatriaphobia, as I was also born on Friday the 13th.)

Check back later, though: I'll have some lovely photos from Louisiana, where the mares are dropping foals like Easter eggs.