I’m doing something wrong in the world of kasha. I thought I had it down, and the smiling ghosts of my grandmothers rested peacefully. But the last two or three times turned out mushy, watery. I have ghost concerns. De Quervain’s tenosynovitis or tendonitis or maybe arthritis, a problem for almost five years I have. No doctor type seems able to definitively say what’s going on. It isn’t difficult to live with but when I lift the pot for making kasha, need to choose my right instead of my left. Tried acupuncture, physio, massage, chiro, ultrasound. My old friend Tim has the hemp store on Dundas West, with the clever name Smoke in The Water. Bought a hemp cream and am seeing if it does anything. Among the zillions of hemp outlets my favourite title is the one I pass in London, Ontario when I drive to Western twice a week. Your Highness. Tim gave me a tester, wouldn’t take my money. He once had a band, the first band I produced. Long ago. I overplayed all over it unfortunately. I can’t listen to it without returning to my twenties and being embarrassed. I don’t think he resents that, after all he could have charged me triple for the tester.
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Next week are the last classes in London and Toronto. I liked getting to know these students. Each week someone has to share a story about a song that changed their life. It was the turn today of a small quiet thin woman. She played something from Mama Mia by Abba, Meryl Streep singing. It’s about a mother losing her daughter. We politely listened. She explained she listens backwards. Her mother died a year ago after getting cancer and then Covid and then whisked into hospital ER and into restricted Covid patients where she died. No goodbye between them. For her this Abba song is about a daughter losing her mother. She destroyed the classroom. Later, the conversation floated into cooking. Four of them in this class are from India. I asked what they thought of my dhal recipe. They disapproved, apparently I shouldn’t add the spices as early as I do. I shouldn’t add them at all. According to the most polite one, I’m making curry instead of dahl. Problem fixed. Sadly, no kasha experts here just songwriters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"