I played a bit of vanilla wow this morning. I started a tauren shaman this week. I felt the need to be alone in the game for a bit. I don’t listen to global, full of requests and people talking and bickering about all sorts of things. I don’t have any friends on the horde side. So i’m simply playing along quietly all by myself. Good for an hour a day!
I will go to the garden once i’m dressed. Yesterday i was thinking about going this evening, but since i plan to go for a walk this afternoon, i thought i would be a bit tired afterwards. So i decided to go before. Simply water the tomatoes, the basil, the greenhouse plants. Sit and enjoy the sunshine for a while. Because the sun is shining! Yay!
And now i’m reading this article in the Guardian: The secret of taste: why we like what we like. I don’t think i’m part of the group of people written about. My taste hasn’t changed that much. I still have all my records. OK, apart from the ones i sold when i was 17 years old. Something i regretted most of my life. My taste in music is widening – apart from the Eagles, which i thoroughly dislike for the past twenty years or so. My taste in clothes, well, that does change. But slowly. I do enjoy wearing dresses with leggings nowadays. I don’t drive, so cars are simply not existent for me. And to be honest, my furniture is either given by friends, bought at IKEA, or bought second-hand. Ooh, and a Kewlox cabinet.
Potatoes, aardappelen
Orache, melde, tastes like spinach
Orache, melde
Zucchini, courgette
Zucchini, courgette
Onion family, ui familie and carrots, wortels
Leeks, prei, just planted and onions, uien
Beetroot, bietjes
Not sure đ
Sugar carrot, suikerwortel
Cabbages, kolen
Corn, mais, beans, bonen and pumpkin, pompoen
I planned to walk this afternoon. But i didn’t. I stayed at the garden around an hour this morning. Someone came by and i showed her the garden and we talked a bit. I went to the shop on my way home. Bread, butter, eggs and some sort of sponge cake, eierkoeken. And then i played a little vanilla wow, watched Escape to the country and the instant gardener. I also slept a little. And now i feel tired.
But, i am gonna make a miso ramen soup now. That will wake me up for sure!
Watching The Devil Wears Prada. Liking it. I also made some clips of advertisements. Got this idea of making a short clip with those. Not sure how that will worj out, but i do like the idea. No music yet. Will search for a good bit tomorrow. Will also make new clips for it. But i have time. Also thought a bit about love. I might write a post about that. A bit surprised about all the ideas, but hey, i do like em.
Last evening i sat down for a bit, on the ground on my meditation pillow with a cushion for my knees. The meditation pillow i have for around twenty years or so. I mainly use it as a doorstop. My cats have a habit of closing doors, when they don’t really want to.
I sat down in my room for around half an hour. I listened to all the sounds in the house and outside. The tram in the street next to mine riding by. Cars in the distance. A couple of cars closer by. Birds singing and chirping.
Writing this down now makes me listen to the sounds outside. The balcony door is open. It was raining a lot today. When i was on the market it started to rain once again. I hoped i had picked an hour in between rain, but no. Still, i was sitting besides the library for a while, went inside the Markthal to go to the Asian supermarket and get some soy sauce. When i went back home it was dry once more.
Today i made raw pickled beetroot. Last week i bought a couple, and i had two in the fridge. I looked around for a good recipe. Several i found for cooked or baked beetroot. This one is for thinly sliced raw beetroot. I like it raw. I’ve made salads with raw beetroot. Last week for the bonfire evening in the Peace Garden i made a salad with raw beetroot, raw carrot, raisins, a bit of honey and a dressing with olive oil, mustard and vinegar. Some feta separately, to add to if you wanted it. Tasted good!
All the ingredients for the pickle
The pickle was easy. First i got the water, apple vinegar, sugar, peppercorns, star anise, salt and cayenne pepper in a small pan and set it up to heat through completely. I started to slice the beetroot on my mandolin. I had set it to a very small distance, so i would get thin slices. I sliced half a red onion after that, and one garlic clove.
I searched for a pot which would fit the beetroot. I boiled water enough for the pot to be covered with it and set it to dry on a piece of kitchen paper. I filled the pot with some beetroot, added some onion and garlic. Going on until the pot was filled. I had some beetroot left over. Enough for my soup for tonight.
I let the pot cool for an hour or so. Now it is standing in the fridge for at least two days. After that they are done.
Over the past two weeks i’ve been taking my camera to the garden with the goal of making photos of insects. The first week i took my phone with me, but almost all the shots were blurry. The only good photo was the one of the ladybug. The second week i took my camera with me. It does have a macro option, so i used that most of the time. Hard creatures to photograph, insects. But i did manage a few!
A ladybug, lieveheersbeestje
A worm, on my hand.
The earth, two worms and a ladybug. I also saw spiders, but they are very thin legged and hard to spot in a still image.
A blurry shot of a flying insect, but i do like this photo. Not sure what type the insect is, could be the larve of a ladybug. Doesn't look like a bee.
A moth
The moth, once more
A bright green insect. Looks like a young grasshopper.
I was so tired these past few days. Friday morning i went to the garden, i felt ok. I did talk about my post a bit during tea break.
That afternoon, back home, i actually went to bed again. I don’t think i really slept, i was just lying there. That night i think i actually slept. So tired.
It was not that the post itself was so much effort to write. But i did write a few things there which are really important to me. Writing it was a mixture of rereading some articles i linked, some daydreams, and some thinking i did. And yes, it is important to me. It may not be that important to other people, but that doesn’t matter to me right now.
So i did get ideas for new posts. News, politics, business. Those three subjects. In that order. I already started reading the wikipedia post on news. News will be the first one published. But i got to write it first!
So i’m writing this bit on Saturday. Still feeling tired.
Maybe i will write a bit more tomorrow. Not sure yet.
It is Sunday evening. I worked all afternoon in the garden. Planting leeks. Made some photos from insects. Haven’t looked at them yet. Came home around a quarter past eight. Made a quick soup with udon and pepper and ginger and some leaves from the garden and onions and tofu. I wasn’t really that hungry, but i did ate it all.
I’m still tired. But i do feel a bit better.
And tomorrow it is the solstice!
Monday morning. I realised last night i won’t be writing about news, politcs and business. I’m interested, but they are not my world. I hardly know anything about it, not anything specific.
Food has always been important to me. When i lived at home with my parents. Especially when i lived by myself.
I remember going to the Gimsel in the center of town, opposite the supermarket De Gebroeders De Jong, now called the Jumbo. The Gimsel is an organic vegetarian store. I bought the corn bread and loved it. It was compact, yellow and tasted great. Iâm so sad they donât sell it anymore.
When i was still working full time it was hard to keep track of everything i ate. I did sometimes buy a ready made meal from the supermarket, usually the Albert Heijn. I was never very thorough with what i bought. I like good food, i like salt, i like sweets and cream. So i might have cooked some recipes from the macrobiotic cookbook i have, but i have many others from which i cook too.
The past two years i started going to the market again. I found a good vegetable stall and got my veggies and fruit there. I also went to the Gandhi garden for a few times to work there.
I go less to the supermarket. I get catâs food there, dried chick peas, tahin. At the Marqt i buy butter, eggs, flour for bread, sometimes a bit of meat.
I work at the Vredestuin, the Peace Garden, twice a week. I meet different people there. Most are in their thirties. I love to learn more about vegetables, weeds, insects, feeding the vegetables, planning the garden. I love to work there, even though iâm not the hardest working person. I love to sit there, feel the earth, look at the worms, listen to the humming of the bumblebees, and hear the droning of the cars and the trains in the background.
We have become a pyramidic society of the omnivorously acquisitive few, an insecure, dwindling middle class, and a multiplying number of ill-served, throwaway citizens and workers [resulting in] a kind of public breakdown, with symptoms along a spectrum from acute self-involvement to extreme anxiety to individual and group violence.
This quote is an example of the multitudes of words, sentences, essays, books written by artists, scientists, all sorts of people from the past century about our current culture.
Its advocates support extensive economic liberalization policies such as privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to enhance the role of the private sector in the economy.
Sounds familiar?
A few weeks ago i went with my mother to a supermarket in Leusden. Walking through the store, i started to see the enormity of produce in it. The wall of butter and margarine. I felt it. It must have been the fact i do not know the supermarket very well. When i go in a supermarket here, in Rotterdam, i’m more used to how it looks.
That feeling kept coming back to me over the past weeks. In the Marqt supermarket there is less produce. Butter and margarine is only one shelf. Today i went to the Gimsel and walked past all the shelves and looked at all the produce. The two blocks of self-serving big jars of dried beans, nuts, cereal, dried fruits.
The supermarket Marqt and Gimsel are expensive. I checked for the other end, the cheap ones, Lidl and Aldi. I just decided to go out and get to the ones closest to me. Still not in the center, but walkable. Simply to see what they have, how it looks.
I remember watching the show Keuringsdienst van Waarde, the one about fish, broadcasted 2 June 2016. Vegetarian fish grown in tanks in a Belgian industrial area.
In that show people are using the argument that we need to be so efficient to be able to feed all the people in the world. In 35 years time there will be 9.3 billion people on this planet. With 800 million people now already being hungry, we need to be terribly smart in making all the food necessary.
This is simply not true.
In the list of articles at the end of this post, you will read several articles saying that there is plenty of food right now and for the future. The division of food is unbalanced. In the rich west we, the consumers, the shops, the agriculture, waste around 30 – 50 % of all the crops. It may be not compliant with our demands for cosmetically perfect food, it may be out of date and thrown away by the supermarket, it may have turned to waste in a fridge somewhere. And then there is the 550 cubic meters of water wasted globally in growing crops that never make it to the consumer (Almost half of the world’s food thrown away, report finds)
I read the article about the apple Pink Lady: Pink Lady, de rotte appel van de vrijhandel. This apple needs lots of sunshine to grow. It is cultivated in New Zealand, South Africa, Chili. It is transported to Europe. And we export our own homegrown apples.
This is partly because we want to eat apples the whole year round. It is also part of the globalizing world we live in. Where profit rules. Where it doesn’t matter what costs we make in transporting and cooling fruits and vegetables. As long as we make money, we go for it.
I’m saying we. Because we are here together. Some may have stepped out. Some may try to do their best. Some may not care at all. But it is still we, who are all doing this. We who are all responsible. Not us, the good guys, versus them, the bad guys. We. All together.
And i donât want to work in this world, here in the Netherlands, here in this current time, here with these rules on how we deal with each other. I donât want to do that anymore. I have done it enough.
I have said it before. This website, ellenpronk.com, is my work. It is how i want to earn my living. I see only one way. I need to become famous. Now, i know, nobody else will do that to me. Nobody else will say that they like what i do and that i should be famous. Nobody.
I wrote this two days ago. It is a bit stark. What i do know is that i do not want to do my previous work, front-end development, anymore. Not professionally. There are many other things i would want to do. Right now, i am going for the one thing which i believe will make me happiest. The possibility to travel, meet and talk with many different people. The possibility to see the world, feel the wind in my hair, feel the sun on my face, hear the birds, the waves of the ocean crushing on the beach, the leaves of the trees rustling in the wind.
I am angry.
Furious.
I am not saying i have all, if any answers. But i do remember how i used to view this world growing up and for a large part of my adult life. As me simply a part of the world. This world which seemed to go at its own pace towards its own goal. Me tagging along. Trying to find a right spot for myself.
It is not like that. We all are here living on this earth with a certain responsibility towards its destiny. It is not politicians who decide, not businessmen, not scientists. Each and every one of us can make the choice to make this world a better place.
It is not something we can demand of each other. Each individual person has its own path through life. I can only talk for myself.
I am trying to find my place in this world. I feel i am getting there.
Hunger can have many contributing factors; natural disaster, discrimination, war, poor infrastructure. So why, regardless of the situation, is high tech agriculture always assumed to be the only the solution? This premise is put forward and supported by those who would benefit financially if their âsolutionâ were implemented. Corporations peddle their high technology genetically engineered seed and chemical packages, their genetically altered animals, always with the âpromiseâ of feeding the world.
The report of 400 experts from around the world, The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), is ignored by the proponents of a New Green Revolution, precisely because it shows that the best hope for ending hunger lies with local, traditional, farmer controlled agricultural production, not high tech industrial agriculture.
The ultimate cause of hunger is not a lack of Western agricultural technology, rather hunger results when people are not allowed to participate in a food system of their choosing. Civil wars, structural adjustment policies, inadequate distribution systems, international commodity speculation and corporate control of food from seed to table— these are the causes of hunger, the stimulus for food crises.
Fifty years ago, when the world’s population was around half what it is now, the answer to looming famines was “the green revolution” â a massive increase in the use of hybrid seeds and chemical fertilisers. It worked, but at a great ecological price. We grow nearly twice as much food as we did just a generation ago, but we use three times as much water from rivers and underground supplies.
The universe is not a miracle. It simply is, unguided and unsustained, manifesting the patterns of nature with scrupulous regularity. Over billions of years it has evolved naturally, from a state of low entropy toward increasing complexity, and it will eventually wind down to a featureless equilibrium. We are the miracle, we human beings. Not a break-the-laws-of-physics kind of miracle⌠It is wondrous and amazing how such complex, aware, creative, caring creatures could have arisen in perfect accordance with those laws. Our lives are finite, unpredictable, and immeasurably precious. Our emergence has brought meaning and mattering into the world.
All lives are different, and some face hardships that others will never know. But we all share the same universe, the same laws of nature, and the same fundamental task of creating meaning and of mattering for ourselves and those around us in the brief amount of time we have in the world.
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.
I came across this recipe earlier this week. At home i do have strawberries, a bit less than asked for in the recipe, but i can adjust. I do have sugar and i do have buttermilk. No ordinary milk, but i do enjoy the taste of buttermilk lots more than ordinary milk anyway.
So i got the strawberries out of the fridge and weighed them. I have around 350 grams! I sliced them and added some sugar so they are all coated. They are standing in the kitchen now for around an hour to let them macerate.
Later on, i suddenly thought of the one stalk of rhubarb i have in the fridge. I decided to simply add cooled boiled rhubarb to the milk. I cut up the rhubarb in small pieces, added a bit of sugar, a few droplets of water and cooked it for around 8 minutes.
I let the rhubarb cool for two hours. The strawberries were releasing more juices in their sweet sugar sweetened liquid.
I put the strawberries and the rhubarb in a blender and mixed them all to mush. I added some buttermilk. Done!
Que Sera Sera – Doris Day
When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother what will I be
Will I be pretty will I be rich
Here’s what she said to me
Que Sera Sera
Whatever will be will be
The future’s not ours to see
Que Sera Sera
What will be will be
When I grew up and fell in love
I asked my sweetheart what lies ahead
Will we have rainbows day after day
Here’s what my sweetheart said
Que Sera Sera
Whatever will be will be
The future’s not ours to see
Que Sera Sera
What will be will be
Now I have children of my own
They ask their mother what will I be
Will I be handsome will I be rich
I tell them tenderly
Que Sera Sera
Whatever will be will be
The future’s not ours to see
Que Sera Sera
What will be will be
Que Sera Sera
The title of this post is still uncertain. First it was Whatever will be will be. Now, at the time of writing this, it is Moon River. Both titles are titles of songs. The song Que Sera Sera has a three stages structure, going from a young girl asking her mother, to a young woman asking her lover to a mother telling her child.
Moon River is more difficult for me to analyze. On the wikipedia page there is the following quote by Robert Wright from The Atlantic Monthly:
“This is a love sung to wanderlust. Or a romantic song in which the romantic partner is the idea of romance.”
This was not how this post started. Today, Tuesday, a link was posted from Brainpickings to a 2013 post titled The Psychology of How Mind-Wandering and âPositive Constructive Daydreamingâ Boost Our Creativity and Social Skills. I have written about daydreaming before. Sometimes embarrassingly. Some things i would like to hide from you, my dear reader, for ever. But i told you, and it is there for you to find these little secret hiding places in this website. Out in the open.
Singer described three core styles of daydreaming: positive constructive daydreaming, a process fairly free of psychological conflict, in which playful, vivid, wishful imagery drives creative thought; guilty-dysphoric daydreaming, driven by a combination of ambitiousness, anguishing fantasies of heroism, failure, and aggression, and obsessive reliving of trauma, a mode particularly correlated with PTSD; and poor attentional control, typical of the anxious, the distractible, and those having difficulties concentrating.
Looking at these three different types of daydreaming, i definitely fall in the first category. A lot of wishing, a lot of romance, very vivid. Yes.
Living in the now is a popular way of being for i’d say the past forty years or so. Fifty years even, or more. It has its value. I will say that those moments when you are present in your current time with all your attention towards it may be your happiest moments on this world. But i don’t think this is all for us. We need to position ourselves towards what we have done and said in the past, we need to make plans for the future.
Singer explored the relationship between daydreaming, personality, divergent thought, creativity, planning, problem solving, associational fluency, curiosity, attention, and distractibility. Singer noted that daydreaming can reinforce and enhance social skills, offer relief from boredom, provide opportunities for rehearsal and constructive planning, and provide an ongoing source of pleasure. In later work, Singer describes those who engage in positive constructive daydreaming as âhappy daydreamersâ who enjoy fantasy, vivid imagery, the use of daydreaming for future planning, and possess abundant interpersonal curiosity.
Last Sunday was a Bonfire evening at the Peace Garden, the Vredestuin. I talked for a while with Matthijs. About his travels, what made him feel happy, the love he felt for people. Later on, a few hours later, we talked again. This time i told him about my life, a bit. The things i make for myself: my toothpaste, washing liquid, body and hand cream butter. How i was working on a recipe for falafel, which is still not right. I also talked about me living my life mostly by myself.
Later on i talked with Anne, who i had only met that day, the weeding queen! I talked about my work. This website and my previous website, lfs.nl. What i was doing there. And that i could imagine myself living anywhere else. Or London. I didn’t agree with her when she said i lived here in Rotterdam for the past thirty years and that i would spend the rest of my life in here. I don’t think that is true, not for anyone. But i was a bit all over the place. I am not used to talking about these things so openly with people i have only just met.
Yesterday i was a bit tired. I had to think about the night before, about all the things i had said.
Today i first had an idea of making a post about doing my nails. But later on, after i had come back from the market, i started to think about another post. About what i wish for myself, what i hope for, what i want. But also that i felt i couldn’t grab it, i couldn’t want want it. I have written about this earlier, in earlier posts.
I need to find a way to make myself money to live off. This house, the water i have, the gas i use, that all costs money. My two cats, they cost money. I have only enough for the next two to three months.
And i don’t want to work in this world, here in the Netherlands, here in this current time, here with these rules on how we deal with each other. I don’t want to do that anymore. I have done it enough.
I have said it before. This website, ellenpronk.com, is my work. It is how i want to earn my living. I see only one way. I need to become famous. Now, i know, nobody else will do that to me. Nobody else will say that they like what i do and that i should be famous. Nobody.
But me.
But who will listen?
Well, there are many different ways of being famous. And i don’t need to be all worldwide famous right from the start all at once. I can start smallish. Actually, i have already started. With this website. With lfs.nl even. I can set up a Patreon page. Hmm, i should do that quite soon.
So i can not predict my future. I have only dreams, which are changing all the time.
But this Monday, while i was thinking about the night before, i noticed different daydreams. I noticed a change in myself. And i do know i’m living my life right now, taking one step forward each time. And i’m not going back. But i do need to really think about where i am, and where i want to be in a couple of months.
So yeah, i may daydream part of the day, part of the night. But i also need to really think about my life and not take for granted everything will be just fine in my life. I do need to do certain things, need to write about certain things, need to make certain things. Not let the dreams take me away in their soft arms and let my life drop below me. I need to take charge.
My way.
Of course.
Moon River – Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Moon River, wider than a mile,
I’m crossing you in style some day.
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,
wherever you’re going I’m going your way.
Two drifters off to see the world.
There’s such a lot of world to see.
We’re after the same rainbow’s end–
waiting ’round the bend,
my huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.
Oh Lori is the only song from the Alessi Brothers i know. I’m pretty sure of that. It was a hit here in the Netherlands in 1977. I always had a soft spot for it. Last week i decided to go for it and sing it. I did practice it a few times over the past few days. I love this song. Even more now.
I did some separate recordings for the ‘You are the season’ bit and for the break in the middle of the son. I don’t do that as much as when i started these recordings, but i felt the song does need these bits in it.
Enjoy!
Oh Lori
Allessi Brothers
I’d like to stay in love with you
All summer and after fall
I’ll keep you warm through the winter
Because I’ve noticed one thing
This ain’t no summer fling
I’d like to ride my bicycle with you
On the handlebars
You’d laugh and run away
And I’d chase you through the meadow
Without you I’d die
It’s never say good-bye
Oh, Lori
You bring the spring, the summer, fall
Oooh and winter
You are the season
Oh, Lori (oh, Lori)
You make me feel as though I’ve been born again
Born again
You danced for me in your bare feet
That mellow afternoon
When we made love to each other
And I’m loving you
That’s all I want to do
Oh, Lori
You bring the spring, the summer, fall
Oooh and winter
You are the season
Oh, Lori (oh, Lori)
You make me feel as though I’ve been born again
Born again…
Oh, Lori
You bring the spring, the summer, fall
Oooh and winter
You are the season
Oh, Lori (oh, Lori)
You make me feel as though I’ve been born again
Born again…
Oh, Lori
You bring the spring, the summer, fall
Oooh and winter
You are the season
Oh, Lori (oh, Lori)
You make me feel as though I’ve been born again
Born again…
