Grappling With The Biomass

We've been considering downsizing. Forever.

  Bill and I have been trying to make the decision to move from our four bedroom house to something slightly smaller. But it isn't about square-feet-under-the-roof; it's about escaping our yard: this explosion of greenery, this steamy foaming chlorophyllic monster that overwhelms and exhausts us every South Carolina summer.

     It's mid-August, and we've just returned from seven weeks in San Diego, where we spend slightly less than half our time.  Neighbor Reliable Rob tends the yard in our absence.  He does a great job, but somehow there's still days of work we need to do when we get home in August. We return not only to our yard, but to our decisions about moving.  We might survive long enough to make that decision, but not at the rate we're going. We've been trying to decide for years, and there's a real chance our rotting carcasses will be found buried inside a house-sized knot of perennial vines and centipede grass sometime toward the end of September. If the hurricanes spare Myrtle Beach another year, that is. I always start to feel a little vulnerable to Nature in August.

     I read that the quantum mechanics of chlorophyll interests scientists looking for new sources of renewable energy...something about interfering with the process by which the plants turn sunlight into energy for their own use and, essentially, siphoning it off to our uses...not just once, but again and again with the same batch of living algae: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=quantum-entanglement-and-photo That sounds brilliant, as long as the plants don't fare too poorly. It puts me in mind of my brain's own infinite ability to mull and ruminate on the options I face at this age. Back to downsizing. You'll see a pattern, here.

I have doubts about our ability to cope with the Dog Days overgrowth outside, but facing our decisions is even tougher. I don't know when we stopped being able to make decisions, but it's a fact...we don't. We seriously attempt decisions, to tell the truth. Actually making and sticking to a decision feels terrifying at this age...how odd!  We think and we talk and we finally decide, to no apparent avail. A couple of days later, it all feels different, we undecide, and, since whatever-it-was might have been a good idea, we are left to consider it all over again. The amazing thing is that, when we do revisit the decision, we experience all our original emotional positions anew and argue them all afresh. That's a lot of passion, recycled.

Our children seem surprised and maybe even slightly ashamed of this uncharacteristic vacillation, although they kindly don't mention it much. Nowadays, when we talk to them about what we've decided to do (updated version), they make noncommittal noises in their throats...something that sounds like they just swallowed a "whatever." They are wonderful children and I admire their tact; they would pounce on the opportunity to announce they got that from their father, not me.

So, with reduced interest and understandably flagging emotional support from our children, we sweat and hack our way through overgrown foundation plantings and grapple with our priorities. Our grandsons live in San Diego, so we thought of moving there; we find we like being grandparents and Southern California should be a beautiful spot to live in. But, even with the real estate bust, our retirement dollars won't stretch very far there. And they have more and more wildfires. And a water shortage. And a terrifying high-traffic/text messaging interface. And we intermittently drive our daughter and her husband nuts (they are, as mentioned, too kind to admit to being driven entirely, consistently nuts). And we have our son in Nashville who'll be marrying this Spring; we can hardly up and move again to Tennessee as soon as his firstborn arrives; we might look wishy-washy, heaven forbid.

     Perhaps we should stay put here in The Jungle, living in The Money Pit. Our house is almost twenty years old, and, although we love it, we're tired of replacing every single original building component over the last five years. It'll be the foundation next. And then it'll be time to start over from the top. Our history of Air Force career moves every third year never prepared us for permanent home ownership. We find it unnatural.

     From time to time, after chewing it all over yet again and sharing our most deeply felt convictions of the instant, we weary of it all and each other. Since we generally like each other and would never be able to decide to divorce, we just allow ourselves to be distracted. We do feel strongly that we should be deciding something, however, so we've decided to become vegans. It seems like the responsible thing to do. We'll follow Michael Pollan's dictum from An Omnivore's Dilemma: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." We heard a sermon on that Sunday-before-last at the Unitarian Universalist church in San Diego and were wholly impressed. Now, back home in SC, jet-lagged, we try to keep our commitment while we rescue the house from six weeks of semi-neglected yard.

     I should have hopped on that trend for edible landscaping last Spring. Meanwhile, here's a recipe I got from Roz's Ricemill Cafe in Pawleys Island last week (http://rozsricemillcafe.com/.  I couldn't believe they gave it to me.  Later I found out everyone who's ever had Black Bean and Artichoke Cakes asks for the recipe...my yoga instructor had it, too. I was thrilled to find Panko breadcrumbs at The Pig in Surfside on my way home from yoga. They turned out nearly as good as Roz's, but I worked the mixture a little too long in my anxiety over the seasonings, so my cakes came across a little heavy. And, as usual, my reluctance to actually fry anything meant they took forever to brown up in Pam cooking spray. T'wern't bad, though, for early days in this vegan gig.

Black Bean and Artichoke Cakes

4 cups cooked black beans

1 cup crushed (smashed?) artichoke hearts

1 Tablespoon chili powder

1 Tblsp. cumin

1/2 cup all purpose flour

3 cups Panko or japanese bread crumbs

2 teaspoons dijon mustard

Combine beans, artichokes, chili powder, cumin, flour, 1 cup bread crumbs, and mustard. Mix, with a light hand. Shape cakes and roll in additional bread crumbs. Fry about two minutes each side until crispy.

I served these on a bed of garlicky, wilted spinach and topped them with a choice of a remoulade sauce and a bottled salsa. I think mango chutney would be even better.