PIE

Easy to make KEY LIME PIE:
2 14 oz.  cans sweetened condensed milk
2/3 cup freshly squeezed key lime juice
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tbsp. lime zest
9" pie crust of your choice

Cut and squeeze key limes, strain,  and pour into jars

Mix all the ingredients thoroughly in a glass or pottery bowl.

Pour gelling pie filling into pie crust and sprinkle additional key lime zest on top. Cover and hill pie.

Toss the cans, store the remainder of the key lime juice, make a lime drink from the limes grated for zest- preferably add some vodka and shake with a little vermouth in drink mixer, and fill a martini glass or two.  Lick the spatula and bowl  before washing and drying!!

Yes'm it is that simple!  Joyous Holidays to all!! And to all a Great Holiday Feast!

TRAGEDY

On Friday, December 14, 2012 20 children and 8 adults died in a brutal shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Fairfield County, CT, USA - a tragedy that even the coldest of hearts would not be able to avoid feeling the pain.

In these initial days of confusion and psychological shielding from the pain of this tragedy's reality, there has been considerable discussion about what happened and its root cause.

Belief systems, memories, feelings, general dysfunction have been called into question.

Was it too liberal gun laws?
Was it the absence of law enforcement at the school?
Was it some trauma the shooter had experienced which has been festering?
Was it the fallibility of the newly installed security system?
Was whole school system at fault for not teaching interventions for this form of autism?
Was it the mother's fault for having an accessible battle weapon?
Was it....?  Was it...? Was it...?

We who are not family and friends will not only be grieving in our own way for that which has wounded deeply our sense of safe place in the world, an experience which is but a recurrence of the experience of 9.11, but each of us will also be responding to our unique sense of social responsibility in our own ways.

Photo by Jane Cutler. I call this "Holy Moment". 

PHENOMENAL

I just read "Phenomenal Woman" by Maya Angelou.

Everyone has a phenomenal woman dancing in their inner wisdom circle.

In some, she is dormant, in some she is alive.

Maya provides an opportunity to awaken her, if she is not already strutting her confident self.

"I am a woman phenomenally", she writes, " Phenomenal woman, that's me."

By this reawakening within, I'm ready for the holidays and all its accompanying stress.

""It's in the click of my heels, the bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, the need of my care..."

Phenomenal Women: Linda, Moi, Reggie, Kathy, Linda, at First Lake in Old Forge, a mini Mariner Scouts reunion .

DRUM

Sitting on the midnight porch, held by the intoxicating scent of night jasmine, the moon is full, and the stars shine brightly.

This full moon shines from right at the top of the sky, casting shadows only directly under the trees.

I begin tapping on my Celtic drum, which  more resembles a gypsy cymbals than anything else.

Softly, so as not to bother the neighbors (there also is a small part of me which still self-conscious about this monthly occurrence from my porch), the beat slowly aligns to a natural rhythm.

Lost in the beat of the drum, I open my half closed eyes and notice the clouds from the north slowly covering the sky and carrying with them a cold wintry chill.

The thick clouds look like the fleece on the back of a lamb, a most unusual diversion from the usual cumulus or stratus appearances.

I take a deep breath, breathing out slowly, contemplating the wonder of nature and of the drum beat.

At Stone Circle on Lake Champlain in Burlington, VT, the marking of the seasonal position of the sun.