canny granny

Hawaiian Chicken

What do they eat in Hawaii? I bet it’s not the chicken dish that my mother used to call Hawaiian Chicken and that I served up for a dinner guest last evening.

It was easy enough, and cheap enough, for me to manage in 30 minutes all up - while still pulling the house into something resembling order by running about with a feather duster.

A little judicious shopping at Aldis and rummaging through the cupboard gave me

1 large green pepper, cut in strips - 45 cents
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely (from the $2 bag of last week)
1 can cream of chicken soup - $1.70
1 can pineapple pieces w/juice - $1.20
Half a cooked chicken - $4 from Safeways
tablespoon soy sauce
3 cups cooked rice

I tossed everything (except the rice) into a saucepan, mashed them all through each other and kept them on a medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring sporadically. Popped the rice into the rice cooker and, when that was ready, I served the alleged Hawaiian Chicken over a bed of warm rice.

One of these days I’ll get to Hawaii and see if anyone actually eats anything remotely resembling what my mother used to make. In the meantime I can keep myself motivated by looking at the pictures on Kona Scuba Diving and dreaming of seafood.

St Patrick

So many blogs I have read in the last few days talk of St Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland. He did no such thing.

I quote from the mythological site Medusa Speaks

St Patrick gets a lot of publicity. He had an excellent theatrical agent in the old days and his slick promotional material, backed up by Roman gold, was of the very best quality. Repeat something often enough and half of the population will believe it (just look at politicians, ancient or modern).

Forget that the stories traditionally associated with St. Patrick, like the account of his banishing all the snakes from Ireland, are false, for who has the heart to let truth spoil the result of hundreds of years of good storytelling?

History has been kind to Patrick, thanks mostly to the grim determination of the Irish to hold fast to what they see as their own, and to the full weight of the Church of Rome. His book helped too, an autobiographical confession written around the year 450, and what a wonderful record of 5th century life in the British Isles it is to be sure.

British he was not, nor was he Irish. A child of the wealthy patrician class, he was born Maewyn Succat about 387 near Dumbarton in Scotland, where his father, Calphurnius, a Roman Decurion, was stationed. Through his noble mother, Conchessa, he was related to the Gallic family of St. Martin of Tours.

So how did he get to be the Patron Saint of Ireland?

Maewyn was kidnapped by Irish marauders when he was sixteen and sold to the Chieftan Milchu who set him to work as a shepherd. In one manner or another, he escaped after six years of tending flocks on the lonely slopes of Slemish and walked nearly 200 miles to the coast to finally return to Britain.

Once back home, his experiences brought about a revelation, and he told everyone who would listen that an angel had commanded him to return to Ireland as a missionary.

In time he became ordained as Patricius and packed himself into a boat back to the land where he had spent his youthful enslaved years. It’s no surprise that he chose a name befitting a man of his rank, for Patrick was certainly not over endowed with humility.

The Christian religion was imposed lightly on the Irish. Patrick knew the language and culture and he wove his lessons over the existing fabric of traditional ritual belief, clearly seen in his placement of the powerful Sun symbol onto the Saviour symbol to form the beautiful Celtic Cross. Popular stories tell how he used the shamrock as a symbol of the Trinity, drove the snakes from Ireland, ousted the High King at Tara and spoke with his God on top of Crough Patrick.

We see in these legends the systematic attempt to eradicate the old religion from Ireland. When Patrick “drove the snakes out of Ireland”, he was banishing the goddess whose symbol was a serpent, but no one had the need to explain the concept of the Trinity to the Irish whether with a shamrock or anything else. The triple aspects of the goddess were well understood and indeed, the shamrock was sacred to her. With the coming of the church of Rome, a lot of the essence of the goddess evolved into St. Brigid, a Christianised version of Brighid.

The Heaven of Animals

Eileen aka “CyberCelt’ over at Texas RV Travel lost her dog, Rags, a few days ago.

I know the feeling when you lose an Animal Companion, the grief is real. I dedicate this post to Eileen.

It’s a poem by James Dickey, who always considered himself first and foremost a poet but is best known for his nightmarish 1970 novel Deliverance, made into a popular film. It’s a little long for the usual size of my entries so you will have to click on the post title to see all of it.

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Down with Droopy Drawers

The Florida Senate wants public school students to pull up their pants.

Several southern U.S. towns and cities have already passed “saggy pants” laws aimed at outlawing what some teenagers consider a fashion statement — wearing pants half way down their buttocks.

Despite being the butt of jokes, the sagging style first appeared among prison inmates as over-sized uniforms were issued without belts to prevent suicide and their use as weapons. The style spread through rappers and music videos, from the ghetto to the suburbs and around the world.

As these indecency laws are pushed through, the real issue is the hip-hop style itself, which critics say is worn as a badge of delinquency, with its distinctive walk conveying thuggish swagger and a disrespect for authority.

Do sagging pants represent an offensive lifestyle which leads to destructive behavior?