The wok and the stone.

Psychological Musings

The two cooking devices we most use are a steel Chinese wok and a pizza stone.  Part of the reason is that, because the house is so small, we have little room to put anything. And both the wok and the stone are big, so they are always out. Sort of out, the pizza stone lives in the oven.

They are both very versatile. Tonight, Michele stirred-fried zucchini with garlic and olive oil. It was a great, easy way to cook the zucchs and tasted very Italian with left over pulled pork from yesterday's barbecue. Yesterday, she roasted cut up potatoes on the stone – easy and like very small baked potatoes with lots of skin. So, they are available and versatile; but we have also habituated on them. Often, they are the answer and we have to go out looking for the question.

All that makes me wonder how much of my life is habituated. I suspect it is a huge amount. When I step out of my everyday life – say, to go for a weekend in the Seven Trough Range – time seems to expand. While each day seems to whiz along – at the end of each day, looking back – each day seems to have been longer, more filled.

Last weekend, my daughter was talking about how long summer already seems to her daughter.

Charlotte1-1295

My theory has always been that the speed in which time seems to pass is in direct proportion to how long we have been alive. When we were five, a year was 20% of our life and it seemed very, very long. At 40, that same year is 2.5% of our life and it goes quickly. Now, I am not so sure.

Maybe time seems to go faster as we get older because so much of what we are doing, is what we have already done. Over and over. Maybe, if that year were filled with as many new experiences as it is for my grand-daughter, it would seem to take as long.  

   

Sulcorebebutia rauschii

Evolution, Photography

 

Sulcorerebutia rauschii-36

One thing we did not see when we went to Nevada was any cactus. I am not sure why. It is generally thought that cactus, as a distinct, New World family – Cactaceae – originated in Mexico and radiated out from there. The family has colonized area pretty far into South America but not as far into North America.

It is not that North America is too cold. The Andes have lots of cactus and the plant shown in the picture above lives at an elevation of over 8,000 feet – actually this particular plant lives in my greenhouse, but it's ancestors came from an area in Bolivia at 8,800 feet.