harry potter food

gotta have food! i knew there would be lots of sugar and booze about so i wanted to make sure there was real food as well, just to keep people from vomiting. we were going to start with full english brunch but the first day no one could come until the evening and the second day it was just me and sarah for the first few hours but we did make ourselves a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, hashbrowns, sausages, and fruit. now you guys know what you missed out on by not coming earlier :P


the first day dinner was cockaleekie soup with barley instead of rice (to ensure it didn't get too soggy), kept warm in the crock pot, with yorkshire puddings of course. this didn't go over as well as i'd expected. maybe because everyone was scared of the name and maybe because soup is crappy party food.

the yorkie puddings went down a treat though. wish i'd made a double batch.


the other day's dinner was cornish meat pies (made ahead and frozen raw). which i just sorta throw together so i have no real measurements i'm afraid. i have this great pie crust recipe that you can't screw up without trying really hard. the filling would have been veggie steak strips but i couldn't find them anywhere and had to use ground "beef" instead. i think i just sautéed some onions and mushrooms, in butter, added flour to make a roux, added broth to make a sauce (not too soupy now!), stirred in the veggie meat and some ketchup, Worcestershire, and dijon for flavor. add some dill and garlic, salt and pepper. taste and adjust as you see fit. let cool and add some cubed cheddar. roll out the pastry to 1/4"-1/8", cut into 4" rounds (i used a small plate as a template), put a few spoonfuls on one side, wet the whole edge and fold over. press well to seal. if you want them to look all authentic, stand them up with the seam running along the top. try not to overfill of they'll explode. i think i baked at about 375 until they were brown, maybe 25 min? you're just trying to cook the crust so no stress.


i also made these fun little parchment scrolls filled with spinach and feta, tied with green onion with tatziki to dip (so adorable! this pic isn't mine but kinda resembles them, add a green onion tied around) really though, make these. just make my spanikopita recipe in a different shape. i cut my phyllo sheets into 3, lengthwise and rolled double layers. i also pre-cooked my filling but i don't think that was a good idea. they would have held together better if i hadn't and probably been less dry but they were gobbled up anyways.


mini pumpkin pasties (made ahead and frozen raw) were done with the same amazing pie crust. you have to pre-bake the filling so it will hold it's shape when you're filling your little circles of dough. obviously they cook for mush less time than a normal pie or tart.


the candy/snacks included liquorice wands with white chocolate/sprinkles handles (melt chocolate, dip liquorice, roll in sprinkles, lay on wax paper), chocolate frogs (melt chocolate, pour into molds), peppermint toads (melt white chocolate, add a bit of peppermint extract, pour into molds), fizzing wizzbies (fizzy center candies), and every flavour beans in mini cauldrons, and chips and popcorn in big candy bowl cauldrons. the frog mold was the only thing i had to specially order and it took FOREVER to arrive so be sure to order it well in advance.


i had tons of fun collecting interesting bottles for this. most of them came from dollar stores and michael's but a few were reused wine and other liquor bottles. i was expecting to have to add food colouring to more things but the majority was already an interesting blend of colours. i gave everything fun names from the books and made sure it was possible to make a few popular drinks like broken down golf carts and tequila sunrises, blue mondays, rum and cokes, whathaveyou. amusing bits included grated cucumber (gillyweed) to go into mojitos, whole nutmeg (bezoars) to be grated into butterbeer, and poprocks to make your drink crackle and fizz. fun with layering and mystery drinks ensued until ilet out the secret that the real names were printed on the backs of the fun labels so you could read them through the glass from the back



butterbeer went quite well. i used my usual hard cider, spiced with cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg in the fermentation stage, than warmed up and added butterscotch. we kept it simmering on the stove (and burned one batch, oops!) and ladled out, topping with whip cream and a cinnamon stick. the milk content from the butterscotch does curdle, unfortunately. next time i might use butter ripple schnapps to flavor it instead.

harry potter props and decorations

harry potter party props and decorations
quite late with these but yule, etc took over my life. these are some of the projects i put together for the party. info on activities and food to follow. no laughing at my messy house!

platform 9 3/4
this is fairly straightforward: take a brown(or tan, or grey, whatever colour you want your "mortar") twin size sheet, tape lines horizontally for the rows, than small pieces vertically to separate individual bricks. spray paint somewhat unevenly with dark red, than add a light, uneven dusting of dark brown for texture, remove tape, tack to ceiling/walls, slit up center with sharp scissors. you could also use a sponge or rag dipped in acrylic paints swirled together on a plate and dab it on instead of spraying. the sign is just painted posterboard safety pinned to the sheet





house banners
these are just simple painted posterboard but they're good for big impact


post owls
i made a little stuffy errol and pigwidgeon out of spare yarn i had kicking around, a couple of googly eyes, and some scrap felt. instructions can be found here but you don't have to be terribly exact. fair warning, cutting the pom poms makes a mess no matter how careful you are so be prepared to get fluff everywhere.



nimbus 2000
this one was really easy. i got a nice witch's broom from value village (although the handle could have been longer) and covered the wires that bound the tail twigs with wide ribbon, glued in place. i couldn't find nice gold ribbon, the closest i could get was yellow so i painted it with acrylic. i also painted "nimbus 2000" on the handle.


sorting hat
this turned out beautiful but really small! sorry about the pic. they all turned out either too light or too dark to see the shading properly for some reason. if i make another one i'll have to start with a really big hat since the process shrinks the inside and i forgot to try this hat on before starting >.< i took safety pins and bunched the front of the hat together to form eyebrows and a mouth, pinning in place on the inside as i went. it didn't look much like a face at that point. my hat started out all patchy already but very light brown so i spray painted it dark brown, purposely uneven. that stiffened the whole thing nicely but it still only sorta looked like a face so i took acrylics to it and painted the hollows of the eyes and mouth black and highlighted the lips, eyebrows and nose in a slightly lighter brown. now he looks like a cranky old man :) when people were sorted they were given a house badge made of painted posterboard with a pin glued to the back


monster book of monsters
this was fun and easy. i just cut out the shape from scrap fun fur i had around and glued it to a dollar store notebook along with some googly eyes and halloween monster teeth. instructions found here but i did a bit different shape and left off the lettering since i thought it was quite cute without. i printed out the trivia game and glued it into the book, along with fun little things like nearly headless nick's beheading song. the person who did best in the trivia game each day recieved a prize of a 'weasley is our king' badge made of crayola air-dry clay:



wands
these turned out beautiful if i do say so myself! i followed these instructions but i used a bamboo skewer as a core for stability and wrapped the whole thing in masking tape to shape/stabilize before painting. the hot glue takes a bit of practice. the key is to be confident and smooth. you can create really neat textures once you get used to playing with the melty plastic. the metallic accents on the raised parts are much easier to do with your finger. the 'dilute the paint and wipe off to antique' thing doesn't work at all. just work in layers and mix your colours, blending on the wand.


dragon eggs
i forgot to get a pic of mine before we tore them apart, sorry! these were made by covering inflated (not water filled) water balloons in paper mache done with layers of tissue paper to make them easy to tear apart. i added a bit of white glue and black paint to my simple flour/water paste for texture and colour. one of them was painted gold and we had a little dragon statue standing guard over the nest in a cauldron. the eggs were filled with candy, confetti, and toys as party favours. these have to be made a few days before the party since they're fragile and likely to get damaged if done too early. when letting the air out of your balloon, poke a little hole close to the knot to let them deflate slowly. if you just pop them you sometimes damage the delicate shell. widen the hole just enough to stuff and then cover carefully with more paper mache. it helps to insert a little loops of string or fishing line as a handle to start the ripping open process (unless you're like my friend sophie who squealed and smashed it on the wall immediately, i love you sophie!). i found when drying them, it's easiest to get a box, lay it on it's side, and poke holes in the top so you can hand your eggs in a protected space and have a drip-catcher all in one. be sure to tie string to your balloons before starting with the paste.


radish earrings
i had the clay out anyway so i couldn't resist making these. i just made quick eye head pins with scrap wire, than bent the tails of them into zig-zags to hold the clay better. i molded upside down tear drops over the pins, leaving the ring in the top free, attached two leaves to the top of each, let dry, and painted with acrylic. i just attached claw clasps to these to clip to my usual earrings but you could just as easily mold the wire into a hook to begin with or attach with a jump ring to a stud. i just have a metal allergy so i have to wear special earrings



paper bats and LED candles
these bats are just cut out from cardstock. i have about a hundred. they're part of our usual fall/halloween decor. we cut these out by hand and then strung them with fishing line and tacked to the ceiling. fair warning, it takes FOREVER. if you had one of those nifty expensive crafter cutting machines like the silhouette i'm sure it would be much less annoying. good part is that they store flat for reuse with much less hassle the next year. we have them in a trail from platform 9 3/4, snaking through the house and out the balcony door. i actually only put up about 65 since i was very tired of stapling things above my head while balanced on a chair. put up a single line of bats every few feet to start with to get the basic line you want, than fill in. it looks more realistic if your fishing lines are all different lengths and you have a few different shapes of bat. they look really cool when they flutter in the breeze/air currents. kinda like they're a real cloud of bats that were petrified as they went out to hunt for the night.the LED candles i picked up from the dollar store for a buck each and drilled little holes for the fishing line in the plastic holders


golden snitch
this is just a ping pong ball i painted gold and made little wings for out of wire and aluminum foil. after i finished it, it occurred to me i could have used real feathers painted silver. oh well.


chamber of secrets warning
this was just written in dry erase marker, cuz it's fun. and a clue to look for the entrance:


this was just a simple little clay sculpture with a magnet backing. just seeing if people are paying attention. the first person to find it got a potter stinks badge, also made of clay see pic with weasley is our king badges)

while we're having fun with dry erase markers, i also couldn't resist doing this:


which actually turned out to be one of the most popular of the decorations. funny considering i just threw it in last min.


pygmy puffs
i got the idea for these from making the owls, they're just a big pom pom with googly eyes and long felt tongues. the yarn was from the dollar store


dumbledore’s army sign up sheet
i aged a piece of paper by soaking in strong tea and rubbing with some coffee grounds. blotted dry with paper towel and rolled up while it was still damp. i had a nice dip pen and ink around anyway so i just looked up the list of DA members and wrote them out, leaving space for guests to sign up as well. if i had more time i might have made a common room bulletin board with quidditch practice schedules, weasley's wizard wheezes ads, and offers to trade chocolate frog cards

overall we had a lot of fun. i don't think anyone else was as hardcore of a geek as me and didn't get all the details and references but oh well. now on to the food and activities!

epic party plans in the works

i plan parties on a fairly regular basis. holidays are usually held at our place which means that i decorate and cook and organize stuff every few months. my birthday is usually low-key. we go out for dinner and then have drinks at our place. some years are rowdier than others. this year i was bored with that. also, this year the last harry potter movie comes out on dvd just in time and we've been looking for an excuse to do a movie marathon. i was initially thinking we'd watch all the movies and make some british food. easy, right? then i looked it up and discovered that even the non-extended movies add up to over 20 hours. ok, so we'll do it over 2 days and people can drop in and out as they like. then i made the mistake of looking up harry potter parties. oh dear. enter the mad crafter/chef/geek. i've been quickly carried away with all kinds of ideas for decorations and food and activities and... yeeeaahhh. i'm having a little too much fun geeking out. it's a good distraction from the stress of house hunting and such. i'm just hoping none of my projects get broken/lost in the move at the end of the month. the party's in november. most of the ideas i found catered to kids so i've adapted them to be more fun. so far we have handmade stuffy owls, a monster book of monsters, several wands, a trivia game with almost 100 really hard questions, a nimbus 2000, and several other half done props. i've got all kinds of food and a few activities planned. i'll do a bigger post as we go with photos and links and recipes and such. there's going to be butterbeer based on my homebrewed cider, a potions table filled with booze, a sorting ceremony, i hope you guys like geeking out :)

7 things every vegetarian should know how to cook

i've come across several lists recently of "10 things everyone should know how to make". while i agree with the concept here, that everyone should have basic cooking skills, i think these lists only apply to meat eaters (i'm not ashamed that i can't make steak or roast a chicken). when i google "things every vegetarian should know how to make", i get nothing of any use. since i haven't eaten meat in 15 years and i cook, any new vegetarians i know ask me for recipes or where to start. obviously you need to make friends with your local green grocer and start adding veggies to everything. you also need staples and basic skills. here's my own list, with reasoning and recipes scattered throughout:
whole grains
from rice to quinoa to barley to amaranth, these are an important staple of any diet but most especially a vegetarian one. they're available in bulk for dirt cheep and are all made by combining with water in various ratios, bringing to a boil, and simmering until they soften. as silly as it sounds, considering all the other things i can make, i still struggle with basic rice when it's not added raw to a soup or filling. i still keep it in the house and try again every few times we need it. the rest of the time my roommate has to make it, while teasing me mercilessly. i have some amaranth i'm going to experiment with and i have a recent love of quinoa. barley isn't just for soup, guys! it can go anywhere rice can with more nutrition and better texture! one solid tip i've learned: if you want to add lemon juice or any other acid to grains, do so AFTER cooking unless you want the whole thing to turn into glue. that's how they make sushi rice stick together so be sure that's what you're going for.
beans and legumes
again, available in bulk for cheep, and they'll keep more or less forever. in general you want to soak them overnight and then rinse, boil for an hour or until tender, then rinse again. the rinsing and soaking help make them less, ahem, windy. they're so terribly healthy you really should be able to make them into at least one dish you really like. make a big batch and use them all week just like you would for canned. i think the home cooked ones taste much better then canned. i make garbanzos into mock-tuna salad and hummus. black beans do wonderfully in mexican and baja dishes and you can sprout them or grow micro-greens or whole plants and have fresh beans! you can apparently also take cooked soy beans, blend with water, strain to make soy milk, and turn that soy milk into tofu (kinda like making cheese) if you so desire. i may try this sometime just to prove that i can and see if it's really any better then store bought. you can thank me when the zombies come :P
which brings us to tofu
which is NOT to be used as a meat substitute unto itself other then in very rare cases because on it's own it tastes like a wet sponge. this is the controversial ingredient that gives vegetarians a bad name. it's honestly not as good a protein source as people think, but you also need less protein then people think. it does do well in stir fries and the desert stuff isn't bad as a snack (kinda like a pudding or custard) or in fruit smoothies. we don't eat a lot of it around here but if you don't eat meat you're kinda required to have an opinion on it and be able to make it edible.
meat substitutes
are way more versatile and tasty then tofu and they're much higher in protein! they are more expensive as well, but not more then meat. we've come a long way even in the last 5 years from the crappy veggie burgers and tofu dogs which used to be the only things in this section. go have a look in the produce section, by the bagged salad and expensive dressings. there's a whole world of interesting new things. some are fantastic and some are awful but it really is worth experimenting. in BC, Yves is the biggest and best brand but there's a few others that are rising stars. i'm fond of the fake chicken and steak pieces and the "ground round" is really versatile and freezes well. the deli slices usually resemble the texture of bologna or pepperoni so don't expect anything like your thin shaved black forest ham from the good deli. also don't expect anything in this category to taste exactly like meat. you will be disappointed. it is it's own thing and should be treated like an exotic food you've never tried rather then a copy of something you know well. that being said, a lot of these do well pressed into service in lasagna, casseroles, stir fries, stews, pizza, etc. you do need to take into account that they will not bind together like raw meat will, so treat them like pre-cooked meat and you're golden.
speaking of pizza, bread
seems like something either totally unnecessary and extravagant to make at home, or something everyone should know how to do, depending on your perspective. i fall firmly in the second camp of thinking but i think it applies to us veg-heads even more since it's the basis for so many other wonderful things! things like burgers, pizza, calzones, and filled buns! it's 7pm and you don't want to go to the store for bread? got flour and yeast? do it yourself, you silly person! you'll have hot wonderful fresh bread to go with that soup that's taking too long to simmer and fantastic toast for the morning! freeze half your dough and have it on hand whenever you need it. learn the tricks of warm ovens for rising and instant yeast to speed up the process. look into the no-kneed types that hang out in your fridge all the time. play in the wonderful ancient world of sourdough. knock out a loaf of irish soda bread before your super fast soup is done. make gluten-free, multi-grain, high-protein, or fat-free bread for a tiny fraction of the store price! this is food at it's most elemental and basic. this is creation and transformation and one of the first uses for fire. this is a food that kickstarted civilization as we know it. it matters. every human should know how to make it. you can't call yourself a cook without it.
soup to go with that bread!
another of those really basic foods you can throw together with whatever is left in the house. got a couple of potatoes and some cream cheese? you have soup. got some frozen broccoli and a block of cheddar? you have soup. nearly every culture has some variation on this theme because it works! it will fill you up, clean out the leftovers, tide you over till payday or be the star of the show. you should have at least 3 go-to recipes in your repertoire.
yogurt
seems an odd choice but i think it's important for a few reasons: it's super healthy and versatile, it's much cheaper when you make your own, and it is a great introduction to the world of probiotic foods, bacterial cultures, and biochemistry in cooking. that makes it sound scary, stay with me. take milk. heat to almost boiling. let sit till only warm, not hot. add a spoonful of yogurt. pour into now-empty yogurt tub. wrap in towel. set somewhere warm overnight. the end. i know it's scary to leave milk out overnight but i promise it's safe. take your newborn yogurt and make smoothies. or drain it to make greek yogurt. make tatziki. stir it into curry. use in place of sour cream. eat with cereal. now you have an idea of how fermented and cultured food works! go learn how to make kefir. go make booze! go learn more about how yeast works. save the last spoonful of your last batch to make your new batch.

perfect summer dinner

difficulty rating: bottle short of a six pack
you know what's lovely on a summer night? a filling salad and a cooling grown up drink. without further ado i give you creamy greek "chicken" salad and cucumber mojitos:



ingredients:
1 cup kalimata olives, roughly chopped
1 cup feta cheese, crumbled (use low fat if you like)
1 cup cucumber, diced (about 1/2 a long english)
1 cup yellow pepper, diced (about 1 big pepper)
1/4-1/2 cup red or white onion, finely chopped
1 cup tomatoes, chopped (about 2 med)
1/2 cup tatziki sauce (store bought or make your own)
1 pkg veggie chicken pieces, chopped (about 1 1/2 cups, i use superstore brand or yves. you could use real chicken i suppose but i would suggest it be precooked)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 veggie chicken broth cube
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dill
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp dried onion flakes
water, to cover

mix "chicken" with spices and lemon juice in a small pot, add water to cover. bring to a boil and simmer on med
in the mean time chop all your veggies and mix with tatziki in a salad bowl.
taste the "chicken, see if it has some flavor yet. if not, mix a drink and go out for a cigarette while you let it stew some more.
drain the "chicken", save the broth if you like. it may need to be watered down somewhat to be drinkable on it's own but it would be great to cook grains in or use as the start for a soup. add the "chicken" to the salad and toss well. leftovers would be good in a wrap.



make a simple syrup by stirring half a cup of sugar and half a cup of water together, bring to a boil to dissolve, then cool. it only takes about 2 min, don't be so lazy. you can make a bigger batch to keep in the cupboard if you like.
throw a few ice cubes in a glass
add a couple sprigs of fresh mint. dried or extract or any other mint flavored thing will not do, it must be fresh.
squeeze in a couple lime slices. you can cheat a bit here and use the bottled stuff if you have to. if you use fresh lime, throw the squeezed fruit into the mix.
add a few slices of cucumber. you could also use whatever fruit you have on hand.
muddle this mess with a spoon. that means kinda mash and bruise it all up to release juice, oils, and flavors
add a couple of ounces white rum
top with soda water
sweeten to taste with simple syrup.
use a straw to avoid chewing leaves and things

there! you just made a super easy, grown up meal and cocktail in about 20 min. packed full of vitamins and protein and flavor, and you can get most of it from the farmer's market this time of year. impress your friends by being all effortless iron chef. relax in the hammock with another mojito, you totally deserve it.

argh with the flies!

so this is a little off-beat from my usual fare but have you ever noticed that bugs come in waves per year? one year it might be a mosquito year, then it might be a fly year, then a spider year, or a beetle year. this has been a fruit fly year. i'm not sure what causes it, probably a combination of life cycles of bugs and plants combined with weather, but i'm not the only one playing battle of the fruit flies right now. i thought at first it was just my sub-standard housekeeping skills, which undoubtedly contribute to the problem, but lots of people with cleaner houses then mine are having the same issues. i can't set a glass of wine or cider down around here for even so long as to go pee without coming back to find 4 fruit flies swimming in it. random note: have you ever found that after fishing out several fruit flies from your drink (carefully to avoid consuming bug bits but not have to pour out your drink every 2 min) that it takes on a sickly sweet smell? concerning... anyways. we're fighting around here by trying to get rid of all dirty dishes and garbage as quickly as possible and in the mean time setting out fly strips and traps. "traps?", you say?....yes traps. if you're fighting the same battle, i advise you to create a few of these and set them up wherever you see the most flies:

it's just a container of some kind topped with a funnel made of a piece of paper and taped in place. you bait it with wine, cider, a piece of fruit, balsamic vinegar, or anything else they've been trying to steal in the bottom of the container. they fly in and are too stupid to find the exit so they drown or die of old age. i'm not usually one for murdering bugs en mass but this has truly gone too far. they are disturbing my quiet after-work drink and invading my cherished fruit and coming in clouds that are making me crazy. this means war! common sense rules still apply, keep your place as clean as possible, even if it's still messy (not the same thing) and don't leave anything out that they like. remember that they will live and breed on damp sponges and dish rags and that vinegar is just as good, if not better, than any toxic chemicals to get rid of that juice spill or counter crumbs. i never thought i'd be so looking forward to winter when they all die! fight bravely for your sanity, my friends, and stay strong! they only each live a week.

the delusion of time

we were recently talking about the silly concept of money and the value of physical objects. main conclusion: money doesn't exist. while we're on the subject of crazy things we take for granted, let me tell you a little story about the delusion of time.
once upon a time (*smirk*) humans did not keep track of hours or minutes or years. we noticed the seasons as the length of day and night changed and grew warm and cold. we worked with those seasons to gather and store what we needed. if something got done today instead of tomorrow it was no matter. when hungry, eat. when tired, sleep. you're a baby until you can walk. you're a child until you reach puberty. you're an elder when you can no longer work as hard as the rest of the tribe but have wisdom to impart instead. seems fairly sensible, doesn't it? time is relative to what you're doing and measured by the movement of the sun and the beating of your heart.
then we started noticing things like the patterns of the stars and started keeping track of years and noticing various cycles. in an effort to understand our world better, we started playing with math and star gazing and really neat theories. we figured out that each day is the same length even though there's more and less light in each depending on the time of year. we noticed the length of the cycle of the seasons and came to all kinds of fun ideas about how the universe was put together because of it. so far so good, these are all naturally occurring cycles, even if none of these are nice round numbers that would make for easy math.
now we start to diverge a bit from the rational. at some point we decided that years and moon phases were not fitting nicely together, math-wise, and we wanted to divide up years and months differently. we also decided we want to divide up the day into more then morning, afternoon, evening, and night. this is where i think we went terribly wrong.
humans have this strange and arrogant desire for control. we also have this notion that just because math makes sense to us as far as explaining things to each other (the whole point of it, btw), it must be a universal truth. because of this, we adjust either our notions of the world, or our systems, until we are sure we totally understand how everything works. if we understand and measure things we can control them, right? *smirk* and if we control them we can change them and we have, MWUAHAHA! ULTIMATE POWER!
so for a system that can make sense in our brains (although the math is...interesting), we divided the year into 12 months for some reason. this is close to the lunar cycles we used to follow, but 13 moons don't fit nicely into a year. 12 doesn't actually fit either but it's a little closer. it used to be 10 but that really made no sense. since the math doesn't work, the months are different lengths. instead of naming the months things like the cold moon and the planting moon and other such things, we named many of them arbitrarily after some dudes who used to have lots of power and various gods. once you name something after someone it must BELONG to them, right? so August(us) wants more days then Jun(ius) and Februalia gets totally shafted, etc. since it still doesn't work we have leap years which almost makes sense. i once tried to create a lunar calender but it was such a headache i have no idea how it used to work. i think it was mostly just that we used to be a little less control freakish and didn't try to reconcile the phases of the moon with the seasons of the year. the sun and moon are two separate entities with separate cycles of their own. why should the math relate to each other from where we stand on earth? i'd actually like to see a round calender with an outer ring for the moon name, then one inside for moon phase, then one for seasons closest to the center. each ring would turn independently...anyways
a bit of math that mostly makes sense is that 365 almost divides evenly into 7, so we have weeks. 4 weeks is almost a lunar cycle but doesn't relate mathematically to months which is why weeks start and stop more or less independently from them. perhaps they were doing this math before we came up with the decimal?
now that we have a silly little system to divide up the year, we feel the need to have more precise control of the day. "i'll meet you at mid-day at the oak tree" is terribly inefficient, you see. in an era before clocks, you had to get good at looking at the sun to determine what point in the day it was. if it's THAT big a deal to wait for someone or something for a little while then we have to track better and have a system we can all relate to. a day is a rotation of the earth. it's a fixed natural amount. we arbitrarily decided that we would divide the day into 24 units (yay for more strange math). enter sun dials. they're easy for people to understand and reasonably precise. at some point we then decided we needed much more control then that. if it makes any sense to divide a day into 24 hours, it must make the same kind of sense to divide an hour in 60 min and a min into 60 seconds. kinda reminds me of the craziness of imperial vs metric measurements.
besides being rather dumb math, the big problem with dividing this much, and making it such a part of our lives, is that we've become slaves to it. yes, it's useful for various science and explaining things to other people, but otherwise how important is it, really? if you have to wait for a friend who's ten min late, is it the end of the world? if you were ten min late to a job interview it would be considered a huge deal. in theory you're being disrespectful by making someone wait. in practice, we're really all being disrespectful to each-other by insisting that not only should every clock in the world be perfectly synchronized, but we should each be perfect at keeping to every bit of a schedule, with no room for real life to interfere.
when was the last time you watched the clock while making love? while sitting on the beach? while dancing to your favorite song? time that keeps close track holds us to an impossible standard. it sucks the joy out of life. it leaves us no room to breathe and remember that we are alive. do you hold your pets to this kind of standard? your garden? your infant? why are we so harsh to each-other?
once upon a time we woke up at dawn, regardless of what a clock would have said. we went to bed when we were tired. we ate when we were hungry. we planted when the ground thawed, we harvested when plants were full grown. we hunted when animals were plentiful or culled the herd when we needed meat for the winter more then we needed to feed all our animals during the cold months. we slept more in the winter because that is the time for renewal. you baked the bread until you could tell it was done. time should be measured by what is done in it.
keeping close track of time has given us many insights and allowed us to share a lot of knowledge with one another. it has also caused us an awful lot of harm. use it when it is needed, but for gods' sake cut each-other some slack! hours and minutes are a human-constructed notion. the important things are those you cannot measure. the times that stand still or rush by. this is where our souls live. this is relativity.