pretty peas please

Nothing like fresh green peas from a can in a china bowl. Lohbado drained the brine and added peas to a plate of spaghetti. Their firm texture added character, dry peas, not mushy. Presentation adds a lot. Lohbado found a box full of beautiful old china on the curb for garbage pickup one summer. He added it to his collection.

Senorita brand cooked dry peas, product of the Philippines, a lot of tasty products from around the world are available in Cote des Neiges, Montreal. It's fun to go into a local grocery store and wander among the aisles of jars, cans, boxes, various types of packages with interesting graphics. Once in a while Lohbado would buy an item just to see and taste what was inside.

stuttering stranger

A
demonstration of 2 concepts of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925 - 1995): to stutter and to be a stranger in one's own language.

admirable scene in the snow

Beauty in the snow cold crystals and mushy dried out fruit, apple, persimmon, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Rich red warm textures comforting and a cold dose of snow, Lohbado admired the scene.

Snow White and the Forbidden Fruit

In the white snow so white, Lohbado contemplated the forbidden fruit, an old apple. As punishment for eating the forbidden fruit, Lohbado was obliged to endure one cold stormy winter per year. During the cold dark season, Lohbado contemplated impermanence, how everything comes to an end. The apple in the snow was once a ripe juicy apple. There's one imperfect apple in every basket. Sometimes beauty increases with age. The above apple sat on Lohbado's shelf for three or four years before he tossed it into the snow.

juice king of the plants

Lohbado looked at the shiny Juice-King on the radiator among the plants and thought of an old tune produced by Apple records, The King of Fuh. What would the Juice Queen think of the Fuh King? Lohbado then went for morning walk early Sunday morning, the city about as quiet as it gets before returning to the roar of Monday.

yearning for spring

man looking for woman

The signs are there. Yearning for romance, plants perking up and tilting towards brighter light, vibrant graffiti on the side of a van, yearning for spring, it will happen. Just when you're ready to throw in the sponge, or to collapse in winter despair, the sun moves higher in the sky. Temperatures rise a bit. Snow melts. Of course, March is the wild card. March is known for snow storms and chilly surprises.

crow gathering

A hundred or more crows gathered in trees down the street from Lohbado's front door. The sound was amazing, bird town.

psychological endurance winter challenge

view out Lohbado's front door

So, here we are again, more snow, more ice, more dark days, a few cold sunny days the trick is how to endure, especially if you add in flu, cold or whatever winter virus stops you in your tracks. Maybe you fell down hard and got a bruise, sprain, twist or broken bone. Lohbado developed a nervous tick of checking the weather forecast every two or three hours for glimmers of hope on the horizon. There's no hope. It might warm up one day. It's ice cold the next, then more snow.

Lohbado viewed it as a challenge. Forget the ice bucket challenge. This is the Montreal winter challenge. Can you get through without the blues, or without cough, sneeze, fever and sore joints? It feels like a season of entering the underworld. Go through the doorway to Hades, the world of the dead in Greek mythology. Look into space. Look at your mind. What is going on? What is your name? Sometimes Lohbado felt like he was disintegrating or dissolving. He burst out laughing. Better to laugh than cry.

congenial data

Lohbado worked for ten years as a PBE (push button expert) in the Cha Region of the Poh Valley, after the Apocalyptic War which was supposed to wipe out life as we know it in order to initiate a cosmic fantasy of a new godly kingdom on earth. Kill the here and now in order to obtain something better later. It didn't work out according to fantasy. The consequences were disastrous. In the chaos, Lohbado found work in an outlying area on the Plains of Radiation.

He had a booth with a PBC (push button console). The console was a mechanical device to organize sense data into representations of a world. From material data, new structures were created. Lohbado did mostly data entry and calculation. It required an ability to manipulate algorithms. The console accepted a type of data congenial to processing. This limited the resulting models of existence.

phases of winter

ink on paper in Lohbado sketchbook

be confident, strong and cheerful

After more than 60 winters, Lobhado knew what to expect. First phase of winter is the lead up to December holiday season, lots of festive gatherings and good cheer. January the super cold hits, if you live in a city like Montreal. February the sun starts to move higher in the sky. It's not quite so dark. There's a glimmer of hope, but continual frustration with each major dump of snow. Then March comes and one is totally fed up, irritated, close to breaking point. Spring usually arrives in April.

While in the middle of feeling grumpy about more snow and more cold, Lohbado noticed two new shoots on the amaryllis plant, which flowered, then wilted. That made him happy right away, the beautiful green of fresh leaves. Then he felt the familiar knot of anxiety in his stomach, which he often felt during moments of happiness, as if to say, you're not supposed to be happy. Maybe it's related to some sort of religious hangover, from being the son of a preacher man. Lohbado did the above drawings to teach himself that it's ok to enjoy flickers of happiness when they occur. One is not obligated to feel miserable.

beer comparison

Lohbado compared a mass produced local beer with a mass produced import. The import was about $1.90 per beer, the local $ 140. The import was more foamy, but a bit bland. The local was sweeter and a bit acidic. So is the import worth the extra 50 cents?

Sunday possibilities in winter

The power of winter, wear your birthday suit. Sit by a window as winter continues. Dream of summer. Contemplate the nature of craving pleasure and fearing pain. Who is experiencing all this? What happens to this moment? Where will Sunday go when Monday comes? A Sunday in winter is filled with possibilities.

trying to get back on track

Who knows how many got the winter virus. This year it was quite fierce. Of course, don't complain. There is always someone who has it worse. If you drop a brick on your toe, you might yell ouch, even though someone might at the same moment somewhere be experiencing the pain of being run over by a delivery van, or having their limbs hacked off on the battle field. There's always worse pain and discomfort. Nobody is complaining. But it still hurts when you drop a brick on your toe and the winter virus was quite fierce.

Eventually it passes. The body emerges, weak, tired. Slowly get back on track.