On Order and Chaos

Dry leaves and petals have collected in the low corners of the bedroom where my houseplants have tidied themselves and carry on overhead.

A dome tent has been sitting in full bloom in the living room for three and one half weeks stuffed with animals and bedding and usually children of all descriptions.

Enormous white high heels lounge with odd incongruity on top of the outdoor gear. They are perfect for stream wading I'm told; they grip the bank resolutely and look dressy, too.

In the midst of this, as emblems to one of my personal goals, I manage to maintain a few islands of a sort of order. I claim these as order.

Dictionaries too big to budge, too fat and full of interesting nuance, are carefully placed on little footed stands in the entry, the kitchen, at bedside, with the maps.

Dental floss is continuously displayed by the toaster, courting impromptu use.

Stacks of blank paper for notes and lists, a tiny leather-bound dictionary of rhymes, wonderfully inscribed; the phone message book; my old beautiful reading shawl and my Grandmother's tack hammer hold steady positions somehow.

There is a hopeful tone and hint of a system in my files.

My cookbooks have a new set of shelves and seem to be behaving themselves better after years of hide and seek.

Losing and finding crucial items is, in fact, a motif in this household where any smooth empty surface is in a transient state. A target, a receptacle for the flow of rubble and flotsam laid down absently in slowly accumulating stratifications by my dear family.

The first misplaced article, I tell them patiently, is a seed to others. Others will join it and soon we have not only messy areas but lost objects.

Lost objects create a vortex. This is obvious in our home. They spin and become dense and magnetic, attracting stray items from impossibly long distances.

One by one they slip dizzily down through the clutter of long term projects spread out across the table, newspapers nesting on the window-seat, noncategorical clothing left behind by house guests, and abandoned Lego fortresses whose only remaining machine, out of all the fabulous creations of a long giddy evening, is a humble, unarmed plumbers van wittily scorned by the big shots -- down they go whirling, contracting, full of self will, under the house and out into the universe while we sleep.

We lost a bed once, and a car, which we found, but mostly small indoor items go this way, or into another form of void, which we call the loft, where we toss things from below.

An undeclared lost item is fair game for quiet incorporation into the numerous forts and kitchens and beauty shops, aquariums nests, schools, prisons, offices, banks, hospitals, and wedding chapels that spring up in and around our abode as quick and persistent as dandelions, each possessing a complex internally mandated along with a broad mix of paraphernalia collected, claimed, assigned and defended by my youngest child and her associates.

We are intent on self improvement, naturally. Sporadic but sincere efforts to clear paths and pack up the folderol take the form of an adrenalin arousing blitz which works off tensions with all the yelling and accusation involved, but results in a normal, peaceful, nothing doing reappearance of the furniture and carpet, all of which lays the groundwork for serious undertakings such as pickle production.

Quick Dill pickles are the simplest refrigerator recipe that I know to produce the desired poing of flavor for the pickle lovers. An orderly approach is all that is necessary.

Procure

30-35 3-4" cucumbers

This is about 3^1/2 pounds, for each gallon of pickles. You might have to triple this recipe in order to get a good buy on the cukes, but you will not regret it. Purchase only fresh cukes that do not have a shriveled skin and which do not feel slimy on the surface.

Put on some good music and round up any idlers you can for scrubbing the spines off. Use cool water and be sure to remove any flowers or stems that look funny.

Meanwhile,make this simple brine, the salt is optional:

1 qt. cold water

1 qt. distilled white vinegar, 5% acidity

1-2 T. pickling salt, no iodine

Scald your gallon jar or 4 wide-mouth quarts, or the equivalent. Into each quart put:

2-4 cloves garlic

2 heads fresh dill

1 tsp. mustard seed

5 whole allspice

1 tsp. dried hot chili peppers if desired

Pack whole cucumbers into the jars. Pour in the brine. Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours before tasting. It takes one week for full flavor to develop. The pickles will keep for 5-6 months in the refrigerator.

Now with one's house under control and ones pickles fermenting , one can then go out and sit in the sun and watch wildflowers for while and be happy.