Duncan's Blog

SPOILER ALERT : I am going to be going on and on about a film I had just seen.

I'm not sure if I have an attention deficit or if I need time to process between moments of my intake. How can one fully experience the experience in the moment of a film where more action occurs while one is still feeling the feeling of the previous moment. Maybe that's one of the reasons why films have long periods of seeing naked people in the tub or having sex or fingering each other in places where fingers shouldn't be digitalizing.
So I am thinking of a film I had seen. It is a love story between incomparable people and species. It is a story of friendship, love, brutality, sadomasochism, military rank, cold war mentality, higher intelligence, and being able to identify a g*d and offering it its due respect and awe.
It is a story that classifies people in expected pigeon holes; black, white, civilian, military, federal agent, free agent, wealthy capitalist, working stiff. There is no religion in the film. There is a sense that people have a time in their life when they are awake and a time when they are asleep. For the most part, when they are sleeping, there is a ritual of preparation for it; a change of clothes, an unmaking of the bed, the placement of an eye mask over the eyes, or the removal of a hat and positioning it on the bus' window so that the head can lead against the glass for a nap. Being awake is represented by turning off an alarm clock, performing morning ablutions, boiling eggs for a movable feast or the afternoon break.
Don't waste water. It's a theme that was made throughout the film. People drank it from clear glasses and it was used for mopping the floor. There was mention as to how often a man should wash his hands before or after using the urinal. And the film had blood. Blood is a sort of water. Blood carries life. Blood was also one of the plagues.
Slavery. A major character was a Black woman. She had a mind of her own and a mouth to back up her mind. She was a good and loyal friend. She was married to a man that she talked about incessantly and clearly had a love/hate relationship with. But that's part of a subplot that we learn to see what she is about... it provides a bit of information for us to learn more about her, her upbringing, her sense of family.
She was not the only slave in the film. The Asset was also a slave. The Asset was highly intelligent and able to understand complex concepts and to express itself in a meaningful and significant way. It was never identified other than being called a creature, the Asset, or by the anecdote that 'some thought that it was a g*d'.
I am reminded of HIGHLANDER. In the series, there are immortal beings that are (for the most part) self-healing. There are limits as to how much healing is available. The HIGHLANDER immortals cannot replace their lost limbs. I don't know if they are able to replace organs, but I do know that tissue repair is almost instantaneous (a razor cut is healed within seconds and gunshot wounds in less than a minute). But in this film, the Asset is able to heal others. It's touch can provide life to parts of another person's body that are dead.
THE LOVE THAT DARE NOT SPEAK IT'S NAME and RACISIM. It appeared briefly in the film in a place where pie was made and sold. One of the characters frequented a pie shop and bought a particular flavor of pie that probably reminded him of a special someone. He even placed an unfinished piece of pie in the refrigerator and we get to see that he had several other slices of the same type of pie that remained unfinished.
THE EGG. It's life that has not finished growing. It exists on land with birds and in the waters with fish and turtles. We eat them (usually cooked) and in some instances we can carry them after we have cooked them for later consumption.
Releasing the Asset. This reminded me of TURTLE DIARIES. Imagine a film that deals with setting an animal free. Imagine an animal that has lived in captivity but that would really thrive if it were placed back in its natural habitat. Many of us are taught that even if an animal is classified as wild, once it is brought into captivity, it could not be put back in the wild because it had become softened by being fed rather than by hunting. It might have also gotten soft by being in contact with another species. In TURTLE DIARIES, the protagonist was certain that the turtles would truly be happier once they were released.
Keeping a g*d in captivity certainly has its consequences.
I won't say anything more about that.
I'm feeling somewhat unsettled about the film. It's set in Baltimore and I'll be there soon. Oh well... I'm sure I'll be thinking about it more over time.

Folks who know me also know that I have few passions in life. Tea drinking is one of them. My interest in tea is not a cultural one as I grew up in and around homes where and when folks drank something called 'instant coffee'. I haven't seen the drink since the invention of the Mr Coffee coffee maker. Tea came into my world when I was a teenager and I was curious as to why everyone owned a teapot but why no one used it.
During the pandemic I decided it was time for me to branch out and look at other teas besides my black ones. Don't get me wrong, black is beautiful and it is the main stock of my assortment/collection. It is also what I decant into a THERMOS and drink throughout the day.
I knew that green tea was not going to cut it for me and I tried looking into tea drinking practices of the Middle East (with major focus on Israel). To my surprise, Arabic tea seemed to resonate more with me than anything that came from Israel. Arabic tea is black and strong and served in clear glass and is sometimes accompanied by dried fruit. The Arab tea-drinking world is also not unfamiliar with the practice of concocting or infusing herbs in hot water for a tisane (an infusion of dried or fresh leaves or flowers, as chamomile). I do not refer to these as teas and do not use the compound/phrase herbal tea since tea's very definition is:

"Camellia sinensis is a species of evergreen shrubs or small trees in the flowering plant family Theaceae. Its leaves and leaf buds are used to produce tea. Common names include "tea plant", "tea shrub", and "tea tree".

I decided to opt for oolong as a tea that is somewhere between black and green. I knew nothing about it and found that I didn't much care for it when I had prepared it many years ago in the same fashion of preparing black tea. Big mistake!
Since I was unfamiliar with the making of this brew, I turned to YouTube and found a tea master who had a passion of teas from China. I found his videos riveting and I would watch them repeatedly. Seldom do I encounter people whose lives have a balance of science and aesthetics; he knows what happens in the vessel when hot water hits the tea leaves. He can discuss tea grades, the way in which tea is prepared, cut, stored, packaged, transported, aged, served... the knowledge is endless.
One concept that I gleaned from his lectures is the difference between drinking tea and tasting tea. For him, tea consumption is not a matter of fulfilling a requirement body re-hydration or for consuming something hot on a cold day (hot tea is consumed regardless of ambient temperatures). Tasting tea is an art and practice and it requires an open mind and developed olfactories. Sadly for me, my sense of smell is limited and wet tea leaves might remind of a frog pond or bog.
I like the sound of the man's voice and I get a sense that he really loves his product and wants to share the knowledge that he has developed over the years.
As for me, well, it's after 2:00am on a 3-day weekend. I'm doing laundry and sipping/tasting oolong between the loads. My dog is nearby because he likes being around me when I'm awake. He also knows that he can sleep whenever the heck he feels like it.

Cucumber Breakfast Salad with Jammy Eggs

I don't eat the standard breakfast foods for breakfast. "What's that?" you ask. Well, for starters, I like soup. I have often made (re-heated, actually) a bean or pea soup and had it with additions such as rice, more/different beans, shrooms, tofu, and the like. I also eat salads such as cucumber, mixed green, or gains such as barley or kasha. The latter might be construed more as hot cereal, which is not an unusual offering.
Today, while looking through a Google search, I chanced upon cucumber salad for breakfast. "Queer!" you might ejaculate (as did I). So I opened the page to look at the creation. The hard-cooked eggs looked a tad bit runny, the recipe uses a Persian cucumber (not my choice), cumin (no thank you, it smells like armpit), cilantro (no thank you, it tastes like soap), avocado (not crazy about the taste), Greek style yogurt (uh, I prefer the kind that isn't Greek), and coriander (not in my spice rack).
One of the nice things about exploring food options when you're on a diet is that most people are NOT interested in sharing whatever it is on your plate. Of course, if your diet requires you to weigh and measure everything accurately, you wouldn't be sharing anything from your plate in the first place. But I certainly have had my share of curiosity on the menu such as TVP balls with the pasta, cubaces with rice, Sauerbraten made from tempeh...
Life is full of surprises.

I'm sometimes disturbed by the number of times I hear someone refer to a client or a friend or a friend's family member or a family member as b*tch or see you next Thursday. I may not have been raised in the most upper class of homes, but we were certainly warned against using foul language when conversing.
Yet I think of ALL IN THE FAMILY and remember how well received it was by so many people. "Ground breaking," was one of the critique terms of the show. The same was said about Bea Arthur's series MAUDE. Even as a young teenager I found them to be not so much to my liking. Actually, I had never found any of Bea Arthur's work to my liking.
She comes to mind as one of those persons who -- I've been told -- gave to the GLBT community. Was she a member who didn't advertise it or did she have a soft spot for those affiliated with the rainbow coalition. I recognize myself as being a G in the GLBT or LGBT. I don't necessarily feel any strong kinship with the other initials. In fact, there are many sub-variations within GM community in and of itself. People define themselves by the color bandana that they carry and in which rear pocket they carry it. And if you were not the perfect complement to the robins egg blue hankie of Mr Leatherman, then he would have no place for you in his circle of friends.
Mostly these days I worry about politicians who either try to curry favor with the non-heterosexual community or try to let the community know how repugnant they find the lifestyle. Such men (or sometimes women) don't speak for me. First of all, I am not part of some homogeneous group or community. I am older and am not seeking a mate. I do not have the coming out drama of today's youth. My job is secure. Of course, there is always the risk of running into some whack-a-doodle homophobe with a shotgun.
Life is sometimes such a crap shoot!

I have an invitation to an anniversary party in June in the Nutmeg State. I seldom go anywhere and have no clothing for formal wear. I went to MACY*S and NORDSTROM to see what was on the racks. What I saw were overpriced jackets from third world countries.
I wound up going downtown to a suit store that was a bit of a distance from the hubbub. I can't believe how many people are out, eating street food, munching and marching in stores where they intend on holding merchandise. GROSS!
I did find a nice off-white linen suit that needs small alteration. All I need now is a belt and the ensemble is complete.
For so many years I have been unsatisfied with the shape of my body. I have been overweight most of my life. In the past 10 months I've managed to knock off 45 pounds. I still have another 15-20 pounds to go. I'm not disappointed or upset as I knew this would be a long journey. "You didn't get to be that weight overnight and you're going to lose it overnight." Developing good eating habits at any stage in life is not always as easy as it seems. In fact, it seems easier to write than it does to live and execute.
So, what's the secret to my success? I pick a fixed number of calories per day to consume and I write down everything that I eat... even the number of glasses of water that I consume. Americans are put off by this. Weighing and measuring and recording food is alien to them and many feel it is akin to a mental illness such as OCD or anal-retention. Personally, I find it comforting, but I seem to be in the minority on that issue.
Well, in addition to good eating I am also mindful of my need for rest.
I'm pleased with my accomplishments and self-care this weekend.