The never-ending pork chop

This week I bought two pork chops. This is kind of a big deal, because Jeff and I buy meat about once a month. But Wednesday I took the plunge and got two of the $1.99/lb chops from McKinnon's, home of the surliest cashier in Davis Square.

Friday night I cooked the larger chop. I had never done this before, and even though I knew each person was supposed to get their own chop I figured we could share one. I made gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans. It was delicious. I ate about a third of the chop and Jeff, after cutting his portion into smithereens, ate about a quarter. (If you salt it a lot, he explained, it goes farther.)

Tonight I made biscuits to eat with the leftovers. I cut up the bits of pork and put them in the gravy. We got through less than half the food. Jeff ate one, maybe two bits of meat spread out over two biscuits. I was hoping he would finish the rest for lunch, but he explained that biscuits and meat were too flavorful. He would be happy to use either to flavor his pasta, but he didn't want to waste them by eating them all at once. At this rate we'll be eating it all week, and there's still another chop in the freezer.

So now he's making pasta and I'm wondering where I went wrong. I know he hoards food he enjoys, and I know this is part of why we spend so little on groceries. I know he liked dinner, but I would kind of like him to eat it.

Sometimes it's jarring to realize how much I've absorbed messages like "wives make tasty meals and husbands eat them." Especially meat.
Wives take notice
Beef soup for men only
New wives kitchen
Meat is for boys, vegetables are for girls

Jeff and I were reading a list of the Jewish mitzvot, which are 613 things that you're supposed to do. They range from the very sensible:
472. Not to move a boundary marker to steal someone's property
565. Judges must not accept bribes
592. Not to curse your father and mother
605. Prepare latrines outside the camps

To the outdated:
49. Not to pass your children through the fire to Molech
165. Not to refrain from marrying a third generation Edomite convert

To the bizarre:
185. Not to eat non-kosher maggots
309. Not to anoint with anointing oil
448. The metzora must not shave signs of impurity in his hair

To the distressing:
33. To burn a city that has turned to idol worship
38. Not to cease hating the idolater
514. Canaanite slaves must work forever unless injured in one of their limbs
596. Destroy the seven Canaanite nations
597. Not to let any of them remain alive (unless they're your slave forever, I guess?)
598. Wipe out the descendants of Amalek

I was curious about this Amalek. Here's God speaking in 1 Sam. 15:3: "Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

If there's anybody who has a chip on their shoulders about genocide, it's the Jews. Rightly so. How does anybody deal with an Old Testament God? How do you reconcile "Kill both man and woman, and infant" with "Never again"?

How do you condemn "Drive the Jews into the sea" but not "Those in the front will be driven into the Dead Sea, and those at the rear into the Mediterranean. The stench of their rotting bodies will rise over the land"? (Joel 2:20)

The real story

My favorite part of Quaker meeting is women's group. There was at one time a men's group as well, but it fizzled. Women's group is going strong for any woman who wants to spend 90 minutes listening and talking.

The time is divided between the number of people who show up, and you each get a turn to speak about whatever is going on in your life. If you want, other people give you feedback.

I'm usually the youngest at 24, and I believe the oldest is in her seventies. It means that whatever stage you, your job, your children, your relationship, or your parents are going through, there's probably someone else who's been through it before.

"I'm addicted to computer games."

"I'm doing great."

"Oh shit, my daughter isn't like I thought she was going to be."

"Sometimes you want to say, 'Do you have to chew like that?'"

"I'm fine as long as I get my 30 mg of Celexa a day."

"If it helps, eleven was the hardest year with my daughter. I would have sold her for a nickel."

"I married my wild oat."

It's such a relief to be able to speak the truth and hear other people's truths. I talk to lots of people every day, do many exchanges of "How are you?" with no real answers. You can't answer "How are you?" with "I'm trying to decide if I should apply to grad school," or "I just read the most amazing poem," or "Fighting back tears, thanks."

How could we do this more widely? How could we make spaces where people can talk about what is really going on with them? I think psychotherapy has its place, but I want something different from that.

Love in a war zone

One thing I love about Oxfam (where I work) is the attitude about the people we work with. Too many nonprofits paint poor people as miserable victims, waiting for aid from rich countries. There's that inevitable photo of the crying baby.

Oxfam sent the photographer Rankin to a refugee camp in Congo to get a different kind of picture. He writes:

I expected to be depressed. I had done my homework; the statistics were horrific. I could only imagine what the human face of those statistics would look like. The people I met confounded my expectations. I met fathers, mothers, children... all getting on with life, making it through, even having a laugh and a joke. These people didn't see themselves as victims, despite the bad hand that fate had dealt them. They were human beings, exactly the same as you and me.

View a slideshow of Congolese refugees telling about the people and things they love. Don't get me wrong, these people need help. They need clean water, homes, a way to make a living. Most of all they need an end to the war. But they are people, not numbers.



"I love my guitar. It is my most precious possession. I have had to run from my village three times because of the war. I leave everything behind except my guitar. Even if it's dangerous I always go home and take my guitar before I run. I can forget all of my worries when I'm playing."

Nook

I am an introvert living in a studio apartment with an extrovert. An extrovert who whistles. Who reads aloud the parts that annoy him. Who has not really mastered the fiddle.

Sometimes I need to hide.

I recently rearranged one of our closets so there is room for a Julia nook. There's a lamp hanging from the curtain rod, cushions to sit on, pictures on the wall. It gets wireless through the wall from the neighbor's apartment. Best of all, it has a door that shuts.


I think this will be useful for my sanity.

Here's to you, Mrs. Lipovic

I have two paperwhite bulbs on my windowsill, one past blooming and the other about to. I had never really though about plants' ability to make water and carbon dioxide into stems, roots, and flowers. I think I had assumed that they got most of their substance from the soil, like I do from food. But I give these bulbs nothing more than water, air, and a not-very-sunny window, and they go from dry oniony things to blooming green plants. The process is just amazing.

In high school I tutored an eleven-year-old refugee who had moved from Bosnia to Germany to Virginia with her family. They had lived on a farm at one point, and she spoke longingly of the open space and the flock of chickens she had charge of. They lived in a stark apartment complex full of other refugees from Eastern Europe and Africa. The streets had pretentious English names like Regency Drive and Nottingham Village Lane, but you never heard anyone speaking English there. There were no trees. The girl's mother, Mrs. Lipovic, looked worn and gray but always had candy and a vase of plastic flowers on the donated coffee table. I wanted to give her flower seeds, blue morning glories that could grow huge and rambling around the door of their cheerless apartment, but Mom explained that their landlord might not take kindly to that. I didn't want to give her a potted plant for fear it would die (like potted plants seem to do most of the time) and embarrass her.

Now it seems so obvious - I should have given her paperwhite bulbs. They only cost a dollar, and they're nearly impossible to kill. When I look at them, I always think of Mrs. Lipovic in her dreary apartment in a foreign country.