canning epitome of incomprehensibility My mom's friend called it that. We weren't canning any garden produce, but making things that Mom bought - making fruit chutney. Mom and I went over to her place last morning, bearing tomatoes, peppers, onions, apples, pears, peaches, celery, pickling spices and some utensils. Well, Mom drove over before I was ready to go, but my lateness came in handy because she'd forgotten the recipe book and the celery. R.'s place is a ten-minute walk away. There, I sat on one of four adjustable stool chairs around a sort of counter island, first chopping onion after onion after onion and then some celery. I felt slow, though comfortably conscious that I had the task the others didn't like While everything was stewing in a large pot on R.'s stove, we went home for lunch. Back again, I helped move the jars. Mom put chutney in them through a funnel and then I plunged a plastic tool in them around the jars' edges to remove possible air bubbles, afterwards wetting a paper towel to wipe the edges. I didn't pay attention to what happened right afterwards; there was a lull, and I opened my notebook and got absorbed in writing small blurbs that Cactus Press might use for Instagram and other places. At first I thought I had nothing to write, and then I wrote too much. I organized small paragraphs around themes: what inspires me to write? where do I write? what do I write about? what structures and techniques do I use? But these frames wobbled and bled into each other and I got annoyed with ADHD, cursing even the silvery lining of associative thinking. Other worries: is my poetry comprehensible? Maybe I'm being too difficult even as I'm trying not to be, even as I've backed off from my literary crush on the snotty modernists in my early twenties. The modernists from the early twenties. Maybe James Joyce wasn't snotty, just arrogant. I'm not arrogant, just snotty. Well, less so when I'm not chopping onions... And R. called me to come to the stove and watch her putting the jars in Mom's large pot full of hot water. While my mind was wandering in literary thickets, she'd also put the lids in the oven...I think. Apply heat. I don't remember for how long for either thing. A while after the full jars came out of the hot water, the lids started popping up - this shows they're sealed. Our ten or eleven jars are now in the pantry. Some will be to sell at the craft_show, if I remember getting the "selling food at an event" license. I think about making jams. Drying mint leaves for tea. I don't send the publisher any blurbs yet - they haven't properly marinated. 250829 ... e_o_i Edit: near the beginning, it should be "canning things Mom bought." Oh yes, and when I took a picture of the almost-complete cans with my phone, my mind imagined an annoyingly perennially online caption: "my tradwife era, except I'm not married." Something silly like that. But why is "tradwife" an expression now and why does it often refer to online influencers?? Is that "traditional"??? Probably the "trad" part is just conservatism. Then, a revision: "my crunchy era, except this is chewy." 250829 ... e_o_i (also, I helped them make fruit chutney a couple of times before - was probably more involved in it last year) (I want to see what I can make by myself, though) 250829 what's it to you? who go blather from