Blender semuanya dan gunakan bahan tersebut
Peeling sayuran menggunakan bahan-bahan yang mudah didapat. Campurkan beberapa lembar daun seledri, daun kailan, perasan jeruk lemon dan 1/4 buah apel. Blender semuanya dan gunakan bahan tersebut untuk melakukan peeling di wajah Anda. Bila mau, Anda juga bisa menambahkan daun bayam dan sejumput butiran kopi.
The Storm That Wasn't
It was supposed to snow last night. It didn't but it feels apocalyptic, even in the Bat Cave, with waves of high winds. When I walked Daisy at 7.30 this morning, there was little traffic on the street and yet I could feel the thrum of Brooklyn coming up through the soles of shoes: traffic on the BQE four or five blocks south of us, the wind, some urban beat, maybe of coffee makers and showers and the thud of the tossing the New York Times on the breakfast table. I don't know why it feels as if something is ending and I feel less of my usual dread and anxiety than usual. Perhaps it's the last blast of winter, although the forecast doesn't expect a major shift into spring, either.
Still, I've seen some crocuses and one intrepid tiny daffodil that had closed itself up in sleep again by last night. Something needs to break. I hope it isn't me.
I had, of course, every intention of blogging yesterday but there weren't enough hours. The rosary is becoming a project and I was tracking down a couple of quotes and wanted to read the gospels' accounts of the Passion. So long blogging! Since I'm exploring the rosary, I'm using the St. Joseph New American Bible, the "Catholic" version. I kind of have to. I was fascinated by the plenteous footnotes and impressed by the admissions that Matthew, for instance, was probably written several generations after Jesus died, that not all of the Letters were written by whom they are ascribed to.
When one's project has become the subject of sin, it's good to see reason and exegesis poke their heads through the snow of damnation and uncertainty that the topic layers on top of daily living. The list of things I disagree with in Church teachings and in the Bible could go on for miles, so I'm especially relieved to see actual Catholic scholarship at work. It gives me hope.
I agreed, almost at the last minute, to go out to dinner with friends whom I share dogs with, also cutting into Car on the Hill time. I am, needless to say, really glad I did, although at the moment I hand only gotten to the arrest in Matthew after wading through all the end-of-times stuff and had things on my list left to do. It was probably the most nutritious food -- Thai -- I'd had in a couple of weeks. We have immediate things in common besides the dogs and I didn't really have enough time to freak out at the thought that I was going out socially.
Is this why I'm so relatively calm today? One of the things we talked about was whether I should put up dog-wanted posters. There is a chance that a really good opportunity will come my way in My Other Life, although I think it will be a month or so before I know and when I consider it, I'm not so confident that the employers would want me. I've been having the Horrors about money. I have some savings, but they're going to be severely clipped by taxes. I'm still using Windows XP and memory is running out on my PC. I desperately need a decent office chair. I have a book to promote. I have a kitchen sink I need to have fixed and Daisy needs a check-up. All of this can hail down on me when I least expect it but last night I was able to talk frankly about my slacker life with people who understand, people I have given dog walking work to and so have helped out financially.
We decided I should wait. If I take on more dogs and this Other Life gig comes through, I'll either be over-committed or have to drop the dogs I just started being responsible for. The rosary is beginning to take up more time, which means I'm moving in the direction of writing a proposal. There are good things to do while waiting out the slim chance of gainful employment elsewhere. Maybe talking to people who understand these two halves of me -- one has advised me on how to better perform My Other Life -- over spinach and spices is as good as a Klonopin on a cold gusty day.
I also got to howl when another friend called to invite me to a lecture on Pope Francis. I accepted -- note to world: while I wither in lack of hope, Pope Francis gives me some -- but there was the question of dinner. Our parish is serving a "Lenten supper" before the lecture and I broke into that song from Funny Girl: "When a goil's incidentals/are no bigger than two lentils/then to me it doesn't spell success..." We were snorting with the knowledge of exactly what a Lenten supper would me and his wife is opposed to it. We'll go to the Egyptian place around the corner where we have several matters to discuss, including my friend's wish to go to Utica this summer with our dogs. His wife is opposed. I'd go anywhere but Utica, I have to say, is low on my list. We talked about stalking a Mystery Niece in Paris and he got a Sidney Greenstreet get-up going as his disguise and Daisy and I ended up in fake noses and glasses.
He knows Paris intimately while I dislike it generally so we began to plan one of those trips that won't happen to Normandy and Fontainbleu and Lourdes...............
So here I am feeling absolutely skint, trying not to freak out about money, with social plans every other day this week. The Qu gong massage -- dinner last night -- what I know will be a funny dinner and then a hopeful lecture tomorrow -- and I'm, for this while, at least, serene.
Even though I had to dip into my money box to do it.
So I don't know. I don't know anything today. I'm not anxious: astonishing. The Horrors wait somewhere later in the day or not all: a relief. I have interesting work to do. I have friends. I'm sitting here just being and that's OK.
I'm sure the tide will turn with the wind, but that's OK too.
Maybe.
Still, I've seen some crocuses and one intrepid tiny daffodil that had closed itself up in sleep again by last night. Something needs to break. I hope it isn't me.
I had, of course, every intention of blogging yesterday but there weren't enough hours. The rosary is becoming a project and I was tracking down a couple of quotes and wanted to read the gospels' accounts of the Passion. So long blogging! Since I'm exploring the rosary, I'm using the St. Joseph New American Bible, the "Catholic" version. I kind of have to. I was fascinated by the plenteous footnotes and impressed by the admissions that Matthew, for instance, was probably written several generations after Jesus died, that not all of the Letters were written by whom they are ascribed to.
When one's project has become the subject of sin, it's good to see reason and exegesis poke their heads through the snow of damnation and uncertainty that the topic layers on top of daily living. The list of things I disagree with in Church teachings and in the Bible could go on for miles, so I'm especially relieved to see actual Catholic scholarship at work. It gives me hope.
I agreed, almost at the last minute, to go out to dinner with friends whom I share dogs with, also cutting into Car on the Hill time. I am, needless to say, really glad I did, although at the moment I hand only gotten to the arrest in Matthew after wading through all the end-of-times stuff and had things on my list left to do. It was probably the most nutritious food -- Thai -- I'd had in a couple of weeks. We have immediate things in common besides the dogs and I didn't really have enough time to freak out at the thought that I was going out socially.
Is this why I'm so relatively calm today? One of the things we talked about was whether I should put up dog-wanted posters. There is a chance that a really good opportunity will come my way in My Other Life, although I think it will be a month or so before I know and when I consider it, I'm not so confident that the employers would want me. I've been having the Horrors about money. I have some savings, but they're going to be severely clipped by taxes. I'm still using Windows XP and memory is running out on my PC. I desperately need a decent office chair. I have a book to promote. I have a kitchen sink I need to have fixed and Daisy needs a check-up. All of this can hail down on me when I least expect it but last night I was able to talk frankly about my slacker life with people who understand, people I have given dog walking work to and so have helped out financially.
We decided I should wait. If I take on more dogs and this Other Life gig comes through, I'll either be over-committed or have to drop the dogs I just started being responsible for. The rosary is beginning to take up more time, which means I'm moving in the direction of writing a proposal. There are good things to do while waiting out the slim chance of gainful employment elsewhere. Maybe talking to people who understand these two halves of me -- one has advised me on how to better perform My Other Life -- over spinach and spices is as good as a Klonopin on a cold gusty day.
I also got to howl when another friend called to invite me to a lecture on Pope Francis. I accepted -- note to world: while I wither in lack of hope, Pope Francis gives me some -- but there was the question of dinner. Our parish is serving a "Lenten supper" before the lecture and I broke into that song from Funny Girl: "When a goil's incidentals/are no bigger than two lentils/then to me it doesn't spell success..." We were snorting with the knowledge of exactly what a Lenten supper would me and his wife is opposed to it. We'll go to the Egyptian place around the corner where we have several matters to discuss, including my friend's wish to go to Utica this summer with our dogs. His wife is opposed. I'd go anywhere but Utica, I have to say, is low on my list. We talked about stalking a Mystery Niece in Paris and he got a Sidney Greenstreet get-up going as his disguise and Daisy and I ended up in fake noses and glasses.
So here I am feeling absolutely skint, trying not to freak out about money, with social plans every other day this week. The Qu gong massage -- dinner last night -- what I know will be a funny dinner and then a hopeful lecture tomorrow -- and I'm, for this while, at least, serene.
Even though I had to dip into my money box to do it.
So I don't know. I don't know anything today. I'm not anxious: astonishing. The Horrors wait somewhere later in the day or not all: a relief. I have interesting work to do. I have friends. I'm sitting here just being and that's OK.
I'm sure the tide will turn with the wind, but that's OK too.
Maybe.
So. Just How MANY Sins Can Dance on the Head of a Pin?
I knew it and I dreaded it. But it's turned out to be more of a nightmare than I could have predicted.
Being a perpetual screw-up, I've been saying the rosary according to the Mysteries allotted to each day of the week.
Very nice.
Except it's Lent. I should have been saying the Sorrowful Mysteries every day except for Sunday.
Oops.
Do-over.
The Sorrowful Mysteries, as you can guess, are about the Passion. They are also all about the forgiveness of sin. I don't have this stuff memorized. I even have to read the Apostles' Creed, which is a little humiliating. But I have a good guide that breaks the five mysteries of the day down into a sort of playlet. Every single damn Sorrowful Mystery ends with a version of "have mercy on us and on the whole world," whether it's from the precept of Gethsemene or the crowning of thorns. In the third mystery, we are told Jesus underwent the crown of thorns "to make reparation for our pride".
I underline my script as I go so I can make notes on what I don't understand or remember or disagree with or, occasionally, am touched by. There's a lot about picking up our own crosses and stuff that I find genuinely moving but today it seemed to be all sin, all mercy, all the time.
Kind of like the Military Channel and Hitler.
At the idea that Jesus was mocked, tortured and humiliated for "our pride," I had to pause. I usually fill in that blanks as "sins," a generic collective noun for stolen gum, gossip, grumpiness and gluttony. I hadn't thought of filling in the blank with the one specific sin, pride.
So I looked up all the New Testament references to pride and came up with lots of letters from the apostles that admonish us to be humble, not to compare ourselves to others, and to not be "lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy".
Worse, the nondefinitive answers will produce a mild anxiety attack because, whether you believe all this or not (and there is so, so much I do not believe), the secular humanism that produced the world we know of democracies, constitutions, human rights, regimes and et cetera is, in fact, based on the Bible, Aquinas, Roman Catholic doctrine and tradition. And in all that Roman Catholic seething mass is the notion of sin.
Being a perpetual screw-up, I've been saying the rosary according to the Mysteries allotted to each day of the week.
Very nice.
Except it's Lent. I should have been saying the Sorrowful Mysteries every day except for Sunday.
Oops.
Do-over.
The Sorrowful Mysteries, as you can guess, are about the Passion. They are also all about the forgiveness of sin. I don't have this stuff memorized. I even have to read the Apostles' Creed, which is a little humiliating. But I have a good guide that breaks the five mysteries of the day down into a sort of playlet. Every single damn Sorrowful Mystery ends with a version of "have mercy on us and on the whole world," whether it's from the precept of Gethsemene or the crowning of thorns. In the third mystery, we are told Jesus underwent the crown of thorns "to make reparation for our pride".
I underline my script as I go so I can make notes on what I don't understand or remember or disagree with or, occasionally, am touched by. There's a lot about picking up our own crosses and stuff that I find genuinely moving but today it seemed to be all sin, all mercy, all the time.
Kind of like the Military Channel and Hitler.
At the idea that Jesus was mocked, tortured and humiliated for "our pride," I had to pause. I usually fill in that blanks as "sins," a generic collective noun for stolen gum, gossip, grumpiness and gluttony. I hadn't thought of filling in the blank with the one specific sin, pride.
So I looked up all the New Testament references to pride and came up with lots of letters from the apostles that admonish us to be humble, not to compare ourselves to others, and to not be "lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy".
The sin of pride, according to Thomas Aquinas, St. Gregory and a few other guys, is the daddy of all the other capital or deadly sins: pride is the separation of man from God and is the wedge in the door for sloth and covetousness, et al. Bishop Sheen defined it even further, thus humbling me because I didn't really know what "vainglory" means ("ostentatious pride especially in one's achievements;vain display or show: vanity).
If pride is so wedgey, is it, I wondered, the Original Sin?
The Second Edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is not helpful. It says, "Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command."
Is disobedience the first human sin? Greed or curiosity for the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge? Or the pride that Aquinas describes as that withdrawal of one's fealty from God to the self?
This is the problem with Catholicism: ask one simple question and you will get no definitive answers.
The rosary mentions it sin 64 times.
Case in point: my anxiety takes me away from my better self. I takes me away from the world, from good acts, from God. Every day is a quest for oblivion and oblivion is the opposite of self, selflessness, and, if you like, God. I fight my anxiety every time I leave the house or sit down at my computer to do anything more than play a game. And some of the stuff I do at my computer virtually begs readers to say they love me.
Is anxiety a form of pride, a form of sin? It may not make me feel superior to others -- in fact, quite, quite the opposite -- but it does make me feel apart, special.
But what is meant by taking up one's own cross if not the faults that are, according to both parts of the rosary and the Catechism, the vestiges of Original Sin? So am I good to go because I went to the bank today and started looking up stuff the rosary is bringing up?
Which is another problem with Catholicism: you can't trust anybody with information unless it's from the Pontiff's mouth. I could ask a priest, ask on a discussion board, take a theology class, but the only real answer is in the Catechism and it doesn't give very good answers on this subject. (If you want to know about in vitro fertilization, however, it's quite explicit: no.)
I'm back to blogging as part of my Lenten promises. It cuts into my oblivion. It's a communication from someone who hates answering the phone (I got cussed at for asking to be taken off the wounded veterans' call list today). And I know the anxiety, Horrors, reclusiveness, depression and agoraphobia are extremely self, rather than other, oriented. So there's some ecumenical connection here, if you've stayed with me this long and suffer from these maladies as well. It's not a very far reach from loss of self to loss of God -- and an infinite reach, of course, when one is filled with doubts.
But the question of what it means to truly desire to lose one's self is pertinent and important, even leaving God out of the question. It's not, quite, voluntary. But it can be fought. And losing self is depriving the world of something valuable.
If you hide your light under a bushel, you'll only succeed in burning the bushel up.
Play Date
I left Brooklyn today. My friend Nan accompanied me after I'd extolled the virtues of a hole-in-the-ground Qi Gong massage parlor.
Actually I'd been telling her about Qi Dong and pronouncing it for years as Kwee Dong, when in fact it's Qidong and is pronounced Cheekung). Obviously I've Googled so here is some more information about it.
Qi -- chee or chi -- is the life force that flows through everything in the universe. Gong -- kung -- means an accomplishment achieved through steady practice. Qigong itself means cultivating energy for increased health, healing and vitality. The practice of Qigong can be spiritual, martial or medical; in any of these forms there is emphasis on posture, breathing and focus. Apparently the movement component is gentle and swaying.
H'mm. A good thing for a fat fraying old hag to look into.
It was thrilling to go with Nan. She has a laugh like a Waterford glass and eyes that scrunch up in merriment. She is wise, compassionate, funny, interested in lots of cool stuff, has the best dress sense of anyone I know. We have that peculiar relationship of New York -- we're friends without ever doing any friendship things. I split a bottle of wine with her once several years ago. We speak about half the mornings when I walk her dog. She gives good advice and she accepts well-meant advice.
What a rare thing it is to be in a conundrum and take in advice gracefully. It's a hard thing to do. And she makes me feel like she feels better for having heard what I say.
Anyone who has visited me in the last ten years and has taken my Chinatown Circuit has gone down these dark narrow stairs and been whisked into a big room with ten or so massage tables. It's the kind of place my mother would shudder at the thought of entering but it's perfectly safe and sanitary and sane-making.
It costs about $60 an hour, which is a bargain in New York, and is a very specific massage. You don't say anything. There's no point because they're going to do what they do. They'll find the painful spots on their own because they go to work on pressure points. Things you didn't know were sore suddenly take your breath away. My masseur today found stuff in my upper back that made me think I was going to asphixiate on the table, but his breath kind of coached my breath and I learned how to grab some air before he bore down again and I could only exhale. After he worked on those knots a while, they still hurt but I could breathe through the pressure.
Nan commented afterwards, as we tumbled drunkenly into a cab, that the massage made her body warm up. My legs were certainly warmer. It leaves one not so much invigorated as, well, drunk. All you can do is sigh happily.
Nan had a million other things to do today so we didn't do my Circuit, which includes a couple of stores, lunch, rice pudding and homage to my favorite shoes. I had forgotten their business card, however, so we had to wander a bit and this is the best place in the city to wander. We admired some clothes in a shop that wasn't open and we peered in a strange store full of magical things.
I was wishing we had more time to wander and take pictures and have lunch but this is the first time I've done anything social with Nan and I'd had to take a Klonopin this morning just to change money from 50s to 20s and put my shoes on. It was a first date. I showed her two of my favorite things and she liked them. I got out of the Bat Cave, out of bed, ignored the Horrors and spent the money I'd saved for recreation and I don't regret that. It was always there for fun but I've lost the knack of it.
Maybe we'll do it again. I now journal after I say the rosary, noting things I don't understand or disagree with or things I'm thinking about as I say it. The rosary keeps me busy with the mysteries and spiritual gifts and the prayers which aren't very specific. "Pray for us sinners," "forgive us our trespasses," etc. I say the rosary in an attempt to open a dialogue and possibly an unselfish one because the prayers are in the second person: it's not just my trespasses that need forgiveness, it ours -- the collective of who knows who?
I've had the Horrors lately. Money is a looming problem. That Situation with the dogs where I got myself fired has brought up past firings or bad bosses. There is a possibility of something good coming down the pike that would resolve the financial worry but I think it's a small chance. Today I made a poster for dog walking. And I realized that when I have the Horrors, it's harder to say the rosary, which is all about us and stuff when I'm having fits over me, me, me. I talk to God when I have the Horrors. I ask for specific stuff.
So when I finished the rosary this evening, I made a list of the specific things I want. One of them is hope. I lost it somewhere and it makes doing things to fight the Horrors really difficult.
But I hope Nan and I go back to Chinatown again and that next time we might have lunch and talk, if not about hope, our dreams and fantasies.
Actually I'd been telling her about Qi Dong and pronouncing it for years as Kwee Dong, when in fact it's Qidong and is pronounced Cheekung). Obviously I've Googled so here is some more information about it.
Qi -- chee or chi -- is the life force that flows through everything in the universe. Gong -- kung -- means an accomplishment achieved through steady practice. Qigong itself means cultivating energy for increased health, healing and vitality. The practice of Qigong can be spiritual, martial or medical; in any of these forms there is emphasis on posture, breathing and focus. Apparently the movement component is gentle and swaying.
H'mm. A good thing for a fat fraying old hag to look into.
It was thrilling to go with Nan. She has a laugh like a Waterford glass and eyes that scrunch up in merriment. She is wise, compassionate, funny, interested in lots of cool stuff, has the best dress sense of anyone I know. We have that peculiar relationship of New York -- we're friends without ever doing any friendship things. I split a bottle of wine with her once several years ago. We speak about half the mornings when I walk her dog. She gives good advice and she accepts well-meant advice.
What a rare thing it is to be in a conundrum and take in advice gracefully. It's a hard thing to do. And she makes me feel like she feels better for having heard what I say.
Anyone who has visited me in the last ten years and has taken my Chinatown Circuit has gone down these dark narrow stairs and been whisked into a big room with ten or so massage tables. It's the kind of place my mother would shudder at the thought of entering but it's perfectly safe and sanitary and sane-making.
Nan commented afterwards, as we tumbled drunkenly into a cab, that the massage made her body warm up. My legs were certainly warmer. It leaves one not so much invigorated as, well, drunk. All you can do is sigh happily.
Nan had a million other things to do today so we didn't do my Circuit, which includes a couple of stores, lunch, rice pudding and homage to my favorite shoes. I had forgotten their business card, however, so we had to wander a bit and this is the best place in the city to wander. We admired some clothes in a shop that wasn't open and we peered in a strange store full of magical things.
I was wishing we had more time to wander and take pictures and have lunch but this is the first time I've done anything social with Nan and I'd had to take a Klonopin this morning just to change money from 50s to 20s and put my shoes on. It was a first date. I showed her two of my favorite things and she liked them. I got out of the Bat Cave, out of bed, ignored the Horrors and spent the money I'd saved for recreation and I don't regret that. It was always there for fun but I've lost the knack of it.
Maybe we'll do it again. I now journal after I say the rosary, noting things I don't understand or disagree with or things I'm thinking about as I say it. The rosary keeps me busy with the mysteries and spiritual gifts and the prayers which aren't very specific. "Pray for us sinners," "forgive us our trespasses," etc. I say the rosary in an attempt to open a dialogue and possibly an unselfish one because the prayers are in the second person: it's not just my trespasses that need forgiveness, it ours -- the collective of who knows who?
I've had the Horrors lately. Money is a looming problem. That Situation with the dogs where I got myself fired has brought up past firings or bad bosses. There is a possibility of something good coming down the pike that would resolve the financial worry but I think it's a small chance. Today I made a poster for dog walking. And I realized that when I have the Horrors, it's harder to say the rosary, which is all about us and stuff when I'm having fits over me, me, me. I talk to God when I have the Horrors. I ask for specific stuff.
So when I finished the rosary this evening, I made a list of the specific things I want. One of them is hope. I lost it somewhere and it makes doing things to fight the Horrors really difficult.
But I hope Nan and I go back to Chinatown again and that next time we might have lunch and talk, if not about hope, our dreams and fantasies.
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