Notes from England - When life hands you oranges...

Hey folks...

Call me stupid, but what the heck is the point of the 'category' field when posting a blog on MySpace? I'm just sayin'.

I've wanted to post about oranges for several weeks now. Why? Because oranges are fun for me lately. I know...I'm crazy. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm very much enjoying the company of our little citrussy friends lately with their cáscara anaranjada...and I'll tell you why.

Do you like oranges? Do you hate them? Why do you hate them? Is it the white, pulpy bits under the peel that you just can't seem to get rid of them? Read on, orange aficonados, read on.

While in Spain (see previous blog post) in August, I was introduced to a new way of eating oranges. Helen's Mum made fruit salad quite often or cut up oranges for breakfast in the mornings. And as I looked into that bowl of glistening orange slices I came to a realization - these orange slices were glistening! There was no white pulpy bits...they looked like those mandarin oranges you can buy in a can except that they were normal-sized orange slices. It was just...orange meat. Nothing else.

So I had to ask...how is it done? Well all was explained to me, and once I moved to England last month I got a visual tutorial on how it's done. I won't bore you all with a tutorial, and I'll steal someone else's site to show you the end result, but it's absolutely amazing, and incredibly easy.

If you don't like oranges simply because of the pulp, this is for you. If you already love oranges, and you want a juicier, yummier way to eat oranges, this is also for you.

In other news, I'm very nearly finished with what has become a project of far too great of length...I've nearly finished 'The The Silmarillion', by J.R.R. Tolkien. To be fair, I've already completed up through Quenta Silmarillion (the first age). I've just got to finish reading Akallabeth (the second age) and Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age (the third age, obviously), which are the final two chapters...but they're not really part of the main story proper, which is the telling of the Silmarils, and the forming and shaping of Middle Earth.

I bought this book long ago...probably something like 1.5 - 2 years ago. It was a long book to read for a few reasons. As anyone that has read it can tell you, when compared to Tolkien's more famous works such as The Lord of the Rings, it is a difficult read. It reads far less like a novel and far more like a history book. There is much to do with the geographical formation of the land itself - mountains, valleys, bodies of water, trees, flowers, etc. It can get hard and even slightly dull until you get to the battles between Morgoth (think Sauron's ex-boss) and the good people of the Earth.

When you have a book that is this difficult to read...and the place names and names of people are so foreign and similar to each other!...if you put the book down for any amount of time, you have a tendency to forget what happened when you left off and I had to go back and re-read several parts.

Once I've finished it, I would like to go back through it again, and this time I'm sure it will be easier, because I will sort of know what's going on before I get to it and it will sink in more. But I already have a deeper appreciation of how the world of Tolkien's people was formed...the history is truly there and he presents it in such a way that it feels real. He has explained the entire history of his world...from the moment the 'gods' created the world to the development of races and languages, on through the war of the rings. It is an amazing accomplishment on Tolkien's part.

It's a milestone for me to finish this book. I've read 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' more than once...but I wanted to delve deeper and find out where it all started. I knew bits and pieces, but I wanted more...so much more. I still want more. I wanted to complete this book but didn't bring it to the UK with me. The good news is Helen not only has 'The Silmarillion' but also much of the 'History of Middle Earth' series such as 'Unfinished Tales'. So I've got plenty to read!

That's all for now, folks. Take care of yourselves...

~Jeremiah