Going on a mission trip –to Louisiana

 

 Written for dissemination April 25, 2013

          When this post hits the ether, I’ll be finishing up a week in south Louisiana (Baldwin) at the United Methodist Church Overseas Relief (UMCOR) warehouse. While there, the Jacksonville UMC “missioners” (who let me go with them), along with others from Hot Springs Village (AR) and Portland (OR), helped fill school bags, health kits and layette kits for use wherever disasters hit.

         Meanwhile I’ll continue an abbreviated run-down of this week’s April days that someone or some group has designated as “special.”
          25^th – National Zucchini Bread Day, *East meets West Day, *World Penguin Day.
          26^th -- Hug an Australian Day, *National Pretzel Day, *Richter Scale Day,  * Take Your Daughter to Work Day.
          27^th Babe Ruth Day, *National Prime Rib Day, *Tell a Story Day.
          28^th Great Poetry Reading Day, *Kiss Your Mate Day.
          29^th Greenery Day, *National Shrimp Scampi Day.
          30^th Hairstyle Appreciation Day, *National Honesty Day.

[I wrote this before I went to Louisiana, and based my information on things we did several Septembers ago when my own church group spent a week “down there,” plus information found on the web site.]

           Besides the emphasis on overseas and domestic relief—already UMCOR has responded to the West, Texas explosion--some volunteers go into the surrounding area for projects or help needed there. Schools, day-cares and parks welcome participants to supplement the workers already in the field.
          Since I worked in my own yard last week, I could be available for park plantings and cleanup of winter detritus. No schoolrooms for me, please.
          The following information is from the UMCOR website and might be interesting to both United Methodists and those of other denominations (who likely have their own relief agencies).
 
          “UMCOR provides humanitarian relief in the United States and internationally. Our efforts are targeted in places where natural disasters, war, or conflict have done so much damage that communities are unable to recover on their own. While UMCOR is not a first-response organization, we stand ready to accompany communities in need over the long haul of their recovery, until they are well on their way to establishing a “new normal” after a crisis.”

[Pat here: UMCOR has to be contacted for assistance; it doesn’t just go into areas helter-skelter.]

“In addition, UMCOR helps communities in the United States and abroad prepare for emergencies and to reduce the risk of disasters through a roster of training programs.

“We also are involved in global development work. Specific programs address issues of health, sanitation, poverty, sustainable agriculture, nutrition, and food security. Many development problems are interrelated, so UMCOR uses integrated solutions to address their root causes. UMCOR seeks to empower local hospitals, schools, churches, and other stakeholders by enhancing their capacity to address these issues.”

Next post, I’ll share my experiences. Meanwhile, enjoy the remainder of April. #

April happenings mean many things to many people

 

              April is National Soy Foods Month. According to Rosemary Boggs, AD-G, three companies that make soy products are Soyjoy, Morningstar Farms and WestSoy.

April is also the peak of tornado season that runs from March to June. Be prepared. Lists exist.

Some other April-long observances are: Autism Awareness; International Guitar; Keep America Beautiful; National Child Abuse Prevention; National Frog; National Humor; National Parkinson’s Awareness; National Volunteer; National Mathematics Education; National Poetry; Stress Awareness.

          And then there are special “days,” either important events --or not. Depending on you.

     April 18th -- First laundromat opens in Fort Worth Texas – 1934; * Great San Francisco earthquake in 1906; * Paul Revere Day--Paul Revere rode to alert patriots that "The British are coming..." in 1775. * Pet Owner's Day. Take some time to celebrate the furry family members in your life!
           April 19th--Humorous Day. Tell someone a joke—old or new. “Did you hear the one about…?”

        April 20th--Cuckoo Day. Cuckoo Day? In Britain, various places celebrate the coming of the bird between mid-April and June. Some hold cuckoo fairs. (See more online.) * National Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Day. Yum, yum!

April 21st-- Kindergarten Day. The first kindergarten was founded by Friedrich Froebel in Germany in 1837.

April 22nd-- Earth Day, the day each year on which events are held worldwide to demonstrate support for environmental protection. The April 22 date was designated as International Mother Earth Day by a consensus resolution adopted by the United Nations in 2009. Earth Day is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, and is celebrated in more than 192 countries each year [Wikipedia]. * Girl Scout Leader Appreciation Day. I wasn’t offered any cookies this year,alas.

April 23rd-- Home Run Day. Hank Aaron hits his first home run in 1954.      International Sing Out Day. “Take me out to the ballgame.” Oh, wait.* William Shakespeare's Birthday. The bard was born in 1564.

April 24th-- Administrative Professional's Day, the fourth Wednesday of April. *Pigs-in-a-Blanket Day.

Did you happen to notice that one of the month-long April observances is National Poetry Day? Aw, you should have known I’d come back to that!

To close this week’s April ramble, here are some haiku of mine published during 2008 in the now-defunct online-journal, “Thirty-Seven Cents,” a branch of the Missouri State Poetry Society that began when a postage stamp cost 37 cents.

“early spring warmth/ a mourning cloak butterfly/on the witch hazel”

“redbud in full bloom/ poet colleague discovers/ she has lymphoma”

“lady in new grave/ owing the cemetery/a clean-up fee”

“bedraggled pansies/ in the newly-green garden/ dianthus blooming”

May the remainder of your April be filled with working in the dirt of your flowers or your vegetables, raking last year’s leaves, mowing the hen-bit and clover, uncovering violets, weed-eating around the lilacs and azaleas, sitting in the shade with a glass of tea and inhaling the fragrance of newly-bloomed narcissus.

Ah, April. What a month.

Cold week in the Ozarks: a journaling

Bundled up last October; not quite as cold this spring. But still cold--most of the week.

 

by Pat Laster

 

 APRIL 1- Monday, 7:55 a.m. – Couchwood. Sunny and foggy; up at 6:58 before alarm. Prepping to leave for a week at Eureka Springs – Lucidity Poetry retreat (for two days and three evenings) but living at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow.

APRIL 2 – Tuesday, 8:14 a.m. At WCDH in the Peach Blossom Suite. Lower floor accessible street-side by stone steps (a death-trap by night without a flashlight) or park-side by a narrow path between the building and the edge of a 6-foot drop-off onto Polk Street. 42 degrees, rainy.
          After the first night, I wrote:

Lighting’s

poor, chair’s too low. 

The heating unit sounds

like a squadron of motorbikes

revving.

 

Coffee’s

good, the décor’s

pleasing and restful, bed’s

comfortable, dresser storage

ample.

          9:42 a.m. –breakfast: an Easter dinner roll spread with peanut butter and dried berries brought from home, almonds (ditto), cold skim milk and coffee from the common kitchen here. A cinquain texted to the roll baker:

Brother
Guy, I just ate
one of your homemade rolls
at Dairy Hollow in April.
Yum, yum!

APRIL 3 – Wednesday, 6:23 a.m., up with alarm at 5:58, 34 degrees!?! A call during the night from Tech Support Simon, who was “tuning up” my 3-week-old laptop, interrupted my sleep, making the alarm seem even earlier.
          Leading a Lucidity poets’ workshop across town that started at 8:30 meant leaving here at 8.  Jottings from the session included: “forensic = law,” a line from one poem, “The dead always want more,” and a reminder that “specifics are better than generalizations.”

APRIL 4 – Thursday. My notes begin at 11:30 with a lecture by our renown and long-standing professor Larry Thomas from Ypsilanti, Michigan, who has traveled this route for 19 years. After this year, he’s bowing out. Past age 80, he deserves to, though we will miss him terribly. Notes: Frost’s quandary can become our own: “What should I do today?”
          In another note the lecturer says, “A poem says one thing and means another.” I don’t agree with that statement, because many of my works are literal, not metaphorical. Perhaps he was talking about GOOD/GREAT poems.

APRIL 5 – Friday. 42 degrees—finally sunny. 10:05 a.m. After two days of arising by alarm for Lucidity workshops at 8:30, I sleep in till I’m rested. Vivid dreams of being back in the music classroom of 7^th graders are thankfully quashed by notification of a full bladder. At 7:20, I rouse, decide it’s too early, so, like a cat, I stretch, yawn, assume my favorite (fetal) position and return to sleep. But not a deep sleep, for I begin building Fibonacci (a new form of poetry for me) in my head. [6 more pages of notes.]

APRIL 6 – Saturday, 7:38 a.m. 50 degrees! I take my coffee outside and a bird seems to greet me. “Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie, sweetie,” with an occasional 5^th “sweetie.” It must know I stand below. [Tee-hee.]
           From inside, I grab a straight-back, slatted-back, caned-seat wooden chair. (Yes, I know there’s too many adjectives, but I want to be specific.) Add a pillow, fetch the oak TV tray that I brought with me “just in case.” (This is the “case.”) Voila! An outdoors writing station! [7 more pages of notes, mostly research about boardinghouse rates and related information.]

APRIL 7 – Sunday, 7:32 a.m.—up at 7:27, 51 degrees, cloudy. DREAM: I’d accepted an interim choir directing job at a local church. After one-and-a-half rehearsals of a difficult but doable anthem, I up and quit. “Lack of respect,” I shouted.
          First inciting event: While I was “teaching,” a man whom I knew talked–not whispered--to his neighbor the entire time. Second inciting event: Four women—two of whom I knew—quit singing and began hand-jiving in rhythm.
          Skip to the end: As I was leaving, the talkative tenor had gathered the group and some Cokesbury hymnals in the choir loft to “pick out something for Sunday.”
          I think I just dreamed a short story!

 

New recipes (to me) for Easter 2013

by Pat Laster

                
                Easter—the second of the two most major holy days in the United Methodist Church—with all its pomp and circumstance—has come and gone; only a memory now, but a great one.

                After services came family gatherings, and in the Couch extended family, we participated in that, too, complete with egg hunt for one lone Oregonian toddler great-niece.

              Our meal was a potluck at a brother/sister-in-law’s home off Brazil Road in north Saline County, Benton Arkansas. Another brother brought homemade (huge, luscious) rolls, ham, a layer cake and two pies. A sister served up a rabbi-motif platter of fresh veggies and dip served in red and green peppers and her famous potato salad. The hostess made a delicious-tasting and eye-appealing strawberry trifle. Grandson Billy’s mother (Billy was working at Cracker Barrel in Arkadelphia) cooked a great cheesecake in a spring form pan, something I never did! Other families brought other dishes, all delectable.

               I took two vegetable dishes from recipes found in “More Faithful Cooking: Favorite Recipes from United Methodist Women and Friends” of Piggott UMC. I’m glad to report that both got positive “reviews” from the cooks in the family. The recipes follow.

               SAUERKRAUT SALAD – submitted by Roma Richardson. Ingredients: 2 14-ounce cans sauerkraut; one cup chopped green and red bell pepper; one-fourth cup salad oil; one-half cup vinegar; 1 cup sugar; two teaspoons celery seed; one-fourth cup chopped onion; salt and pepper.

               Directions: Drain and rinse sauerkraut. Mix in other ingredients and refrigerate. Serves 8 – 10. (That was easy once I got the lids off the cans. For some reason, I don’t do can openers well.)

              The reason I chose the other recipe needs an explanation. In my recipe book search, I stopped at a green bean casserole. Why? Last July when I bought two used cars from Bill Fitt’s Motors, the senior Mr. Fitts gave me 4 quarts of canned produce from his garden that he’d put up himself. One of them was a jar of green beans. “Aha!” I said—probably aloud.

              But I would have to buy another onion, another bell pepper, a package of pre-cooked bacon (my choice to do this), two small cans of mushrooms and a container of bread crumbs. Done.

             GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE – submitted by Dotty Patridge. [The directions and ingredients were interspersed.] Fry 6 cubed pieces of bacon until halfway done. [I fried the entire 13 1 medium onion, chopped, 1 bell pepper, chopped, 1 clove garlic, chopped. [I estimated and added a heaping teaspoon of chopped garlic.]

             Add one fourteen-point-five-ounce can tomatoes drained. Cook until soft.
             Add: one-fourth cup mayonnaise, one Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, one cup mushrooms, sliced and drained, two (fourteen-point-five cans cut green beans, drained. [I used the quart of Mr. Fitts’.]

            Mix and place in a sprayed casserole. Cover with crumbled bacon and bread crumbs. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes. Serves around 8. [Or more, depending on how much each diner spoons out.

            This cooking experience turned out much more complicated than I imagined. The frying pan, though large, held only the first three veggies. To add the other ingredients, I pulled out the Dutch oven and poured everything in to mix.

             Afterward, my white range was brown-and-red spotted, I’d used four utensils to stir; I’d bought an up-scale-but-manual can opener  that didn’t work  any better than the one I had, meaning I had to pry the tomatoes and mushrooms out of half-opened cans. Still, it tasted and looked good.

             I'm sure the United Methodist Women of Piggott wouldn't mind at all if you decided to use one of these recipes. And I wouldn't, either.