Tag Archives: palate

Cotillion

Cotillion: (n) a formal ball given especially for debutantes.

A cotillion used to be subtitled “a coming out ball.”

Now that phrase would evoke great laughter—because “coming out” means something completely different from it did when we were funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
referring to the first time a sixteen-year-old girl was dressing up like a woman and spraying perfume in her hair.

Somewhere lodged between the fallacy that “everything in the past was better” and the hard sell of “everything now is superior” lies some sort of compromise.

Maybe if we approached the passage of time similarly to the way we eat food at a smorgasbord, we might just arrive at a blending of practices which would be satisfying and beneficial to our well-being. For after all, at a buffet you grab a plate and walk the line, take a little bit of half-a-dozen or more items, go sit down and discover what is pleasing to the palate.

This is exactly what I try to do with my human life.

I have no desire to live in the past, filled with disease, pestilence and prejudice. Yet I’m not particularly satisfied with being overwhelmed in the present, with forms of idiocy which have merely donned contemporary costumes.

I do like a little bit of the cotillion to go along with my Facebook and Instagram.

I like the idea of the transitions in life being honored with celebration and a touch of reverence instead of the crude way of thinking that a young girl becomes a woman by losing her virginity.

How can we balance the human heart, spirit and brain? The heart wants to be moved, the spirit wants to be inspired and the brain desires learning.

So I guess my goal is to feel my way along, looking for those things that inspire me, and then try to make them my own.


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Barbarian

Barbarian: (adj) of or relating to ancient barbarians.Dictionary B

I wish I could report that the nervous, prejudiced and angry process of choosing up sides for basketball in gym class ceases after adolescence.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

There are too many people who should possess intelligence and courtesy who continue to follow that barbaric practice of alienating people based upon personal preference.

It causes us to make enemies instead of creating relationships.

We feel we strengthen our relationships by alienating others. Isn’t that interesting? We think by saying that we love “this group of people over here” more than “that group,” we intensify our commitment and affection.

No wonder it’s so difficult for us to believe the statement, “For God so loved the world…”

We think that makes God wishy-washy.

Doesn’t He realize that some people are barbarians?

Doesn’t He understand they are breaking His rules and therefore should be classified as damnable or at least second-class citizens? How can we feel good about ourselves if we don’t make other people feel bad?

There’s a simple statement which is slid into the Good Book which is often overlooked: “I am debtor to all.”

Honestly, folks, I can’t think of any place I’ve ever gone or any group of people I’ve ever met who did not teach me something. I may even have found them distasteful at first, but they still enlivened my palate.

  • They made me think.
  • They made me wonder.
  • Sometimes they were cautionary tales on what not to be–but I used their presence on Earth to make my world better.

There isn’t a race of people who at one time or another was not considered to be barbarians by those ruling over them.

The sooner we realize that the space we occupy is not holy, but rather, the fellowship we create with one another, the better off we will be in using this planet … to bless instead of curse. 

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Ambrosia

dictionary with letter A

Ambrosia: (n) something very pleasing to taste or smell: e.g. the tea was ambrosia.

It was about 750 square feet from kitchen to front door and located directly across from the State Capitol in Columbus, Ohio.

It was a Chinese restaurant–the first of its kind in our area, and I was quite uncertain whether to go in and eat, because being raised provincially, I had some sensation that it might be un-American.

But it smelled good and I was a teenager–adventurous and rebellious to the notion that I should forbid my taste buds an opportunity, based upon politics.

I didn’t know what to order, so the dear young girl who waited on me suggested sweet and sour pork. I didn’t ask her to explain what it was, because I didn’t want to come across as if this was the first Chinese restaurant I had ever been in–but when it arrived it was beautiful: fried, golden-brown chunks of juicy pork, covered with a red sauce that was sticky like cake, sweet like candy and just a little bit sour, like lemon. On the side was fried rice, which still contained some of the grease left over from the pork tanned over the flames.

I put a bite in my mouth and I was transported to every religious expression of heaven known to the human thinking.

It was delicious: sweet, sour, some salty from the fried rice, juicy fat from the pork.

There is not and never will be any flavor to surpass it.

I have eaten other foods which I enjoy immensely and which do flirt with competing and jockey for position, but sweet and sour pork at that little store-front across from the Capitol in Columbus, Ohio, is still the ambrosia to my palate.

Of course, over the years I have learned that it’s also an overnight delivery system for death. There isn’t anything in it that’s good for you and everything is a greasy slide to Valhalla (I used the Viking heaven in respect to the pork).

So the truth of the matter is, when we actually find our ambrosia, we must be willing, as mature and healthy adults, to walk away from it and pretend that other foods which are not nearly as lethal are actually as flavorful.

Even though I’m convinced that neither Meryl Streep nor Tom Hanks could pull off such a performance, I will learn my lines and deliver them on cue in the great play … acting the part of a more balanced eater.