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Friday, June 27, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
GRILLING RIBS
"Dining is and always was a great artistic opportunity."
- Frank Lloyd Wright
My friend, Richard the Sage, has invited us over to dinner at his place. He’ll be grilling his famous ribs. Well, not his ribs. I imagine he’ll be keeping those. But he does have a way with ribs on the grill. I can attest to this personally as last summer Lucy and I had an opportunity to spend an evening at his dinner table feasting on ribs and some tasty but unnecessary side dishes (I say unnecessary because, once you have tasted Richard’s ribs, there is little reason to turn your taste buds to anything else on the table – except for, perhaps, the wine).
My mother is here visiting and so the Sage was kind enough to include her in the invitation. I have bragged to her about his ribs, explaining that she has a true gastronomic festival to look forward to, particularly since she is something of a gastronome herself. I had an email from Richard this afternoon asking me whether my mother has any particular food aversions he should be aware of. (My wife tells me that it is proper to ask such a question anytime you invite someone to dinner as food allergies are all too common these days.) I assured him that she, like everyone in my family, will eat most anything. We Behans are all enthusiastic eaters. We eat freely and we eat often. So far as I can remember, in my entire lifetime I cannot recall anyone in the family ever taking a bite of something, grabbing their throat and keeling over onto the floor.
I even eat sushi. I realize for some people the thought of raw fish is disgusting but I have always contended that most of the revulsion surrounding certain exotic foods is purely psychological and that most anyone could overcome the mental block with the help of a dollop or two of wasabi and a couple dozen hours on the couch of a good therapist. A glass of good sake can also be helpful (presuming there is such a thing as good sake). Perhaps the only food difficult for me to enjoy is the stuff they had the nerve to serve up in some of the London pubs we visited. I had so looked forward to experiencing pub food in England, but after three days of it we’d had enough. This is a nation that serves baked beans with scrambled eggs.
Food is an important part of a balanced diet.
- Fran Lebowitz
A few years ago a chef friend of mine prepared a fantastic multi-course meal for Lucy’s birthday. I had surprised her by inviting four or five couples over and having chef Walt show up with enough ingredients to satisfy a small city. During the salad course, Walt brought in plates of greens arranged around a certain fish. He wouldn’t tell us what it was until we had all tried it and expressed agreement that it was delicious. Then he went around the table asking everyone to guess what sort of fish we were eating. The fifth or sixth guess nailed it: eel. Smoked eel, actually. At that point a couple of our friends put down their forks and refused to take another bite. They loved it until they found out what it was.
Schizophrenia beats dining alone.
- Oscar Levant
- Frank Lloyd Wright
My friend, Richard the Sage, has invited us over to dinner at his place. He’ll be grilling his famous ribs. Well, not his ribs. I imagine he’ll be keeping those. But he does have a way with ribs on the grill. I can attest to this personally as last summer Lucy and I had an opportunity to spend an evening at his dinner table feasting on ribs and some tasty but unnecessary side dishes (I say unnecessary because, once you have tasted Richard’s ribs, there is little reason to turn your taste buds to anything else on the table – except for, perhaps, the wine).
My mother is here visiting and so the Sage was kind enough to include her in the invitation. I have bragged to her about his ribs, explaining that she has a true gastronomic festival to look forward to, particularly since she is something of a gastronome herself. I had an email from Richard this afternoon asking me whether my mother has any particular food aversions he should be aware of. (My wife tells me that it is proper to ask such a question anytime you invite someone to dinner as food allergies are all too common these days.) I assured him that she, like everyone in my family, will eat most anything. We Behans are all enthusiastic eaters. We eat freely and we eat often. So far as I can remember, in my entire lifetime I cannot recall anyone in the family ever taking a bite of something, grabbing their throat and keeling over onto the floor.
I even eat sushi. I realize for some people the thought of raw fish is disgusting but I have always contended that most of the revulsion surrounding certain exotic foods is purely psychological and that most anyone could overcome the mental block with the help of a dollop or two of wasabi and a couple dozen hours on the couch of a good therapist. A glass of good sake can also be helpful (presuming there is such a thing as good sake). Perhaps the only food difficult for me to enjoy is the stuff they had the nerve to serve up in some of the London pubs we visited. I had so looked forward to experiencing pub food in England, but after three days of it we’d had enough. This is a nation that serves baked beans with scrambled eggs.
Food is an important part of a balanced diet.
- Fran Lebowitz
A few years ago a chef friend of mine prepared a fantastic multi-course meal for Lucy’s birthday. I had surprised her by inviting four or five couples over and having chef Walt show up with enough ingredients to satisfy a small city. During the salad course, Walt brought in plates of greens arranged around a certain fish. He wouldn’t tell us what it was until we had all tried it and expressed agreement that it was delicious. Then he went around the table asking everyone to guess what sort of fish we were eating. The fifth or sixth guess nailed it: eel. Smoked eel, actually. At that point a couple of our friends put down their forks and refused to take another bite. They loved it until they found out what it was.
Schizophrenia beats dining alone.
- Oscar Levant
Monday, June 23, 2008
REALIZATION
I had another weird dream last night. I woke up in the middle of the night gripped with fear. I realized with striking clarity that... Doom had slipped into the bedroom under cover of darkness and wrapped itself around me while I slept and ever so slowly began to squeeze me like a constricting serpent, a python or a boa. There was no escape. It had me. It spoke evenly, without inflection. It said this to me:
You are doomed.
And, though it was hidden beneath a dark cloak it did not bother to remove, I knew it was telling the truth. There was no escape.
I pulled on a robe and found my way downstairs, Doom following me like a shadow. I clicked on a lamp, plopped into a chair and stared across the room at Oswald Chambers lying on the coffee table. He was next to Tozer and Chesterton.
The center of every man’s existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.
Hmm.
Then I really did wake up, still in bed, but seeing light sneaking in through the shutters. Doom was nowhere in sight, but I got up and checked around anyway, just to make sure. I was thinking, I should go climb a mountain...chuck it all for one day, climb on the dirt bike, ride it to where the road ends in a steep canyon, and start walking, one step at a time, to the top. Then I remembered Chesterton on the coffee table:
One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
So instead of chucking it all, I made a cappuccino and wandered out into the cool morning air.
A little later, after I had finished a production session in the studio, I was talking with a friend about all the things going on and the things that are no longer going on when it occurred to me that I have not missed doing the radio show even once since that ended last October. In fact, there was/is the sense of a burden being lifted; a burden I was aware of over the past few years but not one I was willing to fully recognize. Most days I still enjoyed doing the show, mostly, but there was also the weight of something that was often an unpleasant reality I could not escape. There was a shallowness to it all that was wearing me down. Driving up from Colorado Springs to Denver last Friday evening I had one of those moments where it was almost as if I were observing myself from an objective distance and, in the observation was the knowledge that I like myself (or at least my life) more now than I have in a long time.
I shouldn’t be writing here on the blog today. I am on a deadline with the book that looms large this week as next week I will be getting very busy with a new project. I can’t really know what it will be like to take on some new work and still being trying to finish the proposal for the agent to shop so I am trying to wrap up the writing by the end of the month.
I have never been good at steering clear of distractions.
You are doomed.
And, though it was hidden beneath a dark cloak it did not bother to remove, I knew it was telling the truth. There was no escape.
I pulled on a robe and found my way downstairs, Doom following me like a shadow. I clicked on a lamp, plopped into a chair and stared across the room at Oswald Chambers lying on the coffee table. He was next to Tozer and Chesterton.
The center of every man’s existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.
Hmm.
Then I really did wake up, still in bed, but seeing light sneaking in through the shutters. Doom was nowhere in sight, but I got up and checked around anyway, just to make sure. I was thinking, I should go climb a mountain...chuck it all for one day, climb on the dirt bike, ride it to where the road ends in a steep canyon, and start walking, one step at a time, to the top. Then I remembered Chesterton on the coffee table:
One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
So instead of chucking it all, I made a cappuccino and wandered out into the cool morning air.
A little later, after I had finished a production session in the studio, I was talking with a friend about all the things going on and the things that are no longer going on when it occurred to me that I have not missed doing the radio show even once since that ended last October. In fact, there was/is the sense of a burden being lifted; a burden I was aware of over the past few years but not one I was willing to fully recognize. Most days I still enjoyed doing the show, mostly, but there was also the weight of something that was often an unpleasant reality I could not escape. There was a shallowness to it all that was wearing me down. Driving up from Colorado Springs to Denver last Friday evening I had one of those moments where it was almost as if I were observing myself from an objective distance and, in the observation was the knowledge that I like myself (or at least my life) more now than I have in a long time.
I shouldn’t be writing here on the blog today. I am on a deadline with the book that looms large this week as next week I will be getting very busy with a new project. I can’t really know what it will be like to take on some new work and still being trying to finish the proposal for the agent to shop so I am trying to wrap up the writing by the end of the month.
I have never been good at steering clear of distractions.
Monday, June 16, 2008
SLEEP
Woke up feeling like someone had pounded on my chest all night. I spent the night hacking and coughing so today I’m calling in sick. No one to call, though, since I am... What am I? Entrepreneurially engaged? Creatively caught up? Poorly prepared? Professionally perplexed? In any event, I am my own boss, more or less, so the only one to call in sick to is me and, frankly, I’m too ill to pick up the phone. Besides, I have caller ID. I’d see that it was me. Wouldn’t want to answer the phone only to have to listen to someone complain about how bad they feel.
Despite my hacking, Lucy slept like a log next to me. Nothing wakes that woman. She has the gift of sleep. Even my constant cough couldn’t cause her to stir once she hit the major REM cycle. But in deference to her comfort and the distant possibility that my noisiness might have somehow bothered her, I spent a good portion of the night in the den watching a very old Burt Lancaster movie while sipping on a cup of Theraflu.
**
Earlier this week, Lucy sent me via email the following story, along with a note saying that I should take comfort knowing she sleeps so soundly.
NBC - Women in a happy marriage, enjoy a good night's sleep.
Nearly 2,000 woman were involved in this study from the University of Pittsburgh. Researchers asked them to rate their marital happiness and sleeping history. They found women who considered themselves happily married were less likely to have sleep problems. Overall, this group of women reported less problems falling asleep, staying asleep and had a better quality of sleep than those who reported some marital struggles. This study was presented at SLEEP 2008, the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
The Associated Professional Sleep Societies? You wouldn’t want to give a boring speech to that group.
Despite my hacking, Lucy slept like a log next to me. Nothing wakes that woman. She has the gift of sleep. Even my constant cough couldn’t cause her to stir once she hit the major REM cycle. But in deference to her comfort and the distant possibility that my noisiness might have somehow bothered her, I spent a good portion of the night in the den watching a very old Burt Lancaster movie while sipping on a cup of Theraflu.
**
Earlier this week, Lucy sent me via email the following story, along with a note saying that I should take comfort knowing she sleeps so soundly.
NBC - Women in a happy marriage, enjoy a good night's sleep.
Nearly 2,000 woman were involved in this study from the University of Pittsburgh. Researchers asked them to rate their marital happiness and sleeping history. They found women who considered themselves happily married were less likely to have sleep problems. Overall, this group of women reported less problems falling asleep, staying asleep and had a better quality of sleep than those who reported some marital struggles. This study was presented at SLEEP 2008, the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
The Associated Professional Sleep Societies? You wouldn’t want to give a boring speech to that group.
Monday, May 12, 2008
MOTHERS DAY ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
It was one of those rare mornings when weather moved in off the mountains while it was still dark, the rain arriving before dawn and thunder rumbling in to wake us before the alarm clock clicked on. That doesn’t happen often. Generally it is the warmth the sun generates in the afternoon hours, heating the air at the lower elevations that then races upward, cooling in the atmosphere over the 14-thousand foot peaks, creating massive, towering cumulous cloud banks that then carry their energy eastward out over the front range and the eastern plains. Springtime and summertime see fairly regular afternoon storm activity, but storms in the early morning almost never materialize.
So this morning was a treat.
Tomorrow morning a golf tourney fundraiser is being held at the course near my home to benefit the Young Life organization. How could I say no? I golf once or twice a year whether I want to or not and the format is a scramble so most of my bad shots won’t effect the score and my rare good shots will be the only ones that follow me into the clubhouse.
Life should be so full of forgiveness.
I just realized there is an amazing metaphor for grace in there.
**
Days later...
Somehow Monday has arrived once again and I have a fairly open calendar meeting-wise but lots to accomplish in the studio. I ground some fresh Kona coffee and had a nice talk with Brandon before getting swept into the current. This quick attempt to post something on the blog is a bit of an unjustifiable diversion from that current.
We took Lucy on a Mother’s Day picnic yesterday, driving up to an overlook I stumbled upon last year just a few thousand feet down the slope from Mt. Evans. I had been wanting to take Lucy and Brandon there. The spot we picked to celebrate her was out on the edge of the world, tucked into a crook in the mountain where a stone wall juts out as a protection against the 300 foot drop off and the wall of granite that backs the spot protected us from any high altitude wind that might have swept down from the peak. The sun was warm and the food was good and the time together was so sweet.
So this morning was a treat.
Tomorrow morning a golf tourney fundraiser is being held at the course near my home to benefit the Young Life organization. How could I say no? I golf once or twice a year whether I want to or not and the format is a scramble so most of my bad shots won’t effect the score and my rare good shots will be the only ones that follow me into the clubhouse.
Life should be so full of forgiveness.
I just realized there is an amazing metaphor for grace in there.
**
Days later...
Somehow Monday has arrived once again and I have a fairly open calendar meeting-wise but lots to accomplish in the studio. I ground some fresh Kona coffee and had a nice talk with Brandon before getting swept into the current. This quick attempt to post something on the blog is a bit of an unjustifiable diversion from that current.
We took Lucy on a Mother’s Day picnic yesterday, driving up to an overlook I stumbled upon last year just a few thousand feet down the slope from Mt. Evans. I had been wanting to take Lucy and Brandon there. The spot we picked to celebrate her was out on the edge of the world, tucked into a crook in the mountain where a stone wall juts out as a protection against the 300 foot drop off and the wall of granite that backs the spot protected us from any high altitude wind that might have swept down from the peak. The sun was warm and the food was good and the time together was so sweet.
Monday, May 05, 2008
HOPE
I hold a candle in the corner
Swat at the darkness with the light
- Amanda Leggett
Monday morning. My planner and a steaming hot cappuccino in front of me, the forecast calling for mid-70s, and an early shift in attitude toward a focus on the possible. Horizons of the possible, as Andy Crouch would say.
I’ve been listening to a CD project by Amanda Leggett, an artist who sang at the symposium in Austin last month. I love her sound: soulful, bluesy. And her lyrics: powerful poetry that has a transparently honest, raw depth to it. As darkness presses our hearts at night – to miss the morning’s increasing light – from blackened worlds we perceive your light – we see you.
She sings of a secret we barely know that pulls us from the undertow.
I often feel this intense thirst to know more, to understand more; yet even the mere glimpse of understanding of the mystery is enough to sustain me for another day, another week, another year. I was talking with Lucy recently about this feeling of encouragement that is clearly not circumstantial. It is its disconnectedness from worldly circumstances that encourages me more than if I could connect it to actual circumstance, to material offering. It serves to affirm my hope in the promises and the constant character of the one who redeems.
I hold a candle in the corner
Swat at the darkness with the light
I hold it ‘till it gets me warmer
‘Til it corrects my fitful sight
- Amanda Leggett
Swat at the darkness with the light
- Amanda Leggett
Monday morning. My planner and a steaming hot cappuccino in front of me, the forecast calling for mid-70s, and an early shift in attitude toward a focus on the possible. Horizons of the possible, as Andy Crouch would say.
I’ve been listening to a CD project by Amanda Leggett, an artist who sang at the symposium in Austin last month. I love her sound: soulful, bluesy. And her lyrics: powerful poetry that has a transparently honest, raw depth to it. As darkness presses our hearts at night – to miss the morning’s increasing light – from blackened worlds we perceive your light – we see you.
She sings of a secret we barely know that pulls us from the undertow.
I often feel this intense thirst to know more, to understand more; yet even the mere glimpse of understanding of the mystery is enough to sustain me for another day, another week, another year. I was talking with Lucy recently about this feeling of encouragement that is clearly not circumstantial. It is its disconnectedness from worldly circumstances that encourages me more than if I could connect it to actual circumstance, to material offering. It serves to affirm my hope in the promises and the constant character of the one who redeems.
I hold a candle in the corner
Swat at the darkness with the light
I hold it ‘till it gets me warmer
‘Til it corrects my fitful sight
- Amanda Leggett
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
MAKING A STATEMENT
"It’s a question of discipline, the little prince told me later on. “When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Ahh...so true.
And here we sit, having washed and dressed and already seen half a day slip away, just me and the Mac, trying to come to terms with the to-do list in time to do the to-dos before the clock strikes 5. Or 6, since part of my task list involves the left-coast time zone and that buys me sixty minutes or possibly ninety depending on when they punch out over there. Never-the-less the clock ticks and tocks incessantly as I ponder the remaining notations in my planner and pause long enough to check the weather on-line to see whether the readings match what seems to be true when I wander out onto the deck and think to myself...whoa, it’s way too nice out here to be in there.
But in here I am, my responsibility gene getting the better of me. Sometimes tending one’s planet requires one to stay indoors. So I do. That’ll make Lucy and the little prince happy. I even managed to get a load of laundry done, something I had not even put on the list.
Springtime in Colorado is not an easy time to spend days indoors, as the landscape is transformed into a beautiful, inviting playground, the warmer temperatures luring us out to play, not work. And while I may be partial to this part of the world, spring manages to transform even the drier, less seasonal areas of the world. Wayne, a blog reader and former listener to the radio show, snapped these pictures in his desert garden just a few days apart.
It has been said that springtime is the land awakening, nature’s way of saying, “let’s party!”
Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer. – Charlesworth
Ahh...so true.
And here we sit, having washed and dressed and already seen half a day slip away, just me and the Mac, trying to come to terms with the to-do list in time to do the to-dos before the clock strikes 5. Or 6, since part of my task list involves the left-coast time zone and that buys me sixty minutes or possibly ninety depending on when they punch out over there. Never-the-less the clock ticks and tocks incessantly as I ponder the remaining notations in my planner and pause long enough to check the weather on-line to see whether the readings match what seems to be true when I wander out onto the deck and think to myself...whoa, it’s way too nice out here to be in there.
But in here I am, my responsibility gene getting the better of me. Sometimes tending one’s planet requires one to stay indoors. So I do. That’ll make Lucy and the little prince happy. I even managed to get a load of laundry done, something I had not even put on the list.
Springtime in Colorado is not an easy time to spend days indoors, as the landscape is transformed into a beautiful, inviting playground, the warmer temperatures luring us out to play, not work. And while I may be partial to this part of the world, spring manages to transform even the drier, less seasonal areas of the world. Wayne, a blog reader and former listener to the radio show, snapped these pictures in his desert garden just a few days apart.
It has been said that springtime is the land awakening, nature’s way of saying, “let’s party!”
Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer. – Charlesworth
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