Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Was that a trend that just went by?

I am not a trendsetter. I am not even a trend follower. Truth be told, I probably couldn't recognize a trend if one landed on me. I hear people constantly bemoaning the writers strike and complaining about how this is impacting their lives. Except for the news coverage of the strike, I probably would not have even noticed it. My TV viewing habits consist of the Weather Channel, the Food Network, and syndicated re-runs of older TV shows that I watch in the afternoons. As I already mentioned in a previous post, the newest TV show I got interested in was Firefly, which I started watching on DVD after it had already gone off the air. In the pop culture community, I am the village idiot-- This cluelessness is not limited to TV. It pervades every part of my life. My favorite music is the Beatles, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, and U2. Radio stations might as well be broadcasting from Pluto for all the attention I give new music. And yes, unfortunately, my fashion sense is equally behind the times. I long for the 80's days of tight rolled blue jeans. Hey, I'm short; it's a matter of practicality. I maintained that Crocs were the ugliest, most useless shoes ever made until about six months ago. Let me guess, nobody is wearing Crocs now that I'm a convert?
I guess it is a sign of what an adult I have become that this tendency of mine to be out of style bothers me not in the least. I love my life, I love my husband, I love my home, and I love me most days-- so what if I wear Birkenstocks and listen to the Boss? I don't have the time, patience, or money to be trendy. And it just isn't that important to me. I feel sure that when my kid is thirteen, she will be completely mortified by Michael and me, but that's okay. If she can convince others that she was left on the doorstep by gypsies, then I'll applaud her storytelling and powers of persuasion during commercial breaks of "Everybody Loves Raymond."

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

The joy of cooking?

I have something of a love/hate relationship with cooking. I absolutely loathe the regular weeknight drudgery of meal preparation, but I love planning meals, searching out recipes, and cooking for special occasions. I suppose it's fair to say that I enjoy the cerebral aspects of cooking far more than the practical. You can't coat your kitchen in flour by just researching the perfect recipe. I'm fairly certain I have never met the perfect recipe; rather, I have never met a recipe I didn't tinker with in some manner. I just can't help myself. Double the amount of cinnamon? Why not? Maybe this would be better with mushrooms? Sure.
I was raised to view cooking as a chore, something one did because it had to be done. The idea of finding enjoyment from the exercise would have been a foreign concept to my mother and my aunts. Mom once told me that the greatest gift she ever gave me was not teaching me to cook. But as I got older, I began to view the kitchen as a mystical realm where ingredients were stirred together and became something else entirely by the simple addition of heat. It was spell casting at its finest, and I wanted to learn to do it. Keep in mind, I had very little to work with. In my house as a kid, vegetables came from a can, spices were dried and never thrown out, and Crisco was a staple.
I doubt I am the only thirty-something who embarked on a cooking journey hampered by these preconceived ideas. Because of this, I am profoundly grateful to the Food Network. Say what you will about Rachael Ray with her "Delish" and "Yummo," but she makes meals for the masses, and uses simple, fresh ingredients. I must admit, she got on my nerves in the beginning, but she's grown on me. Rachael doesn't tell you to peal a pound of potatoes, and then edit so that in the next frame, a perfect pile of pealed potatoes (Say that three times fast) is sitting in front of her. Sure, her recipes take me longer than thirty minutes to make, but I bet I can groom a Labrador or knit a scarf faster than she can. It's all about your experience. Most of the Food Network hosts present down-to-earth recipes designed to Alay the fears of the novice. Let me just say that my admiration stops at Semi-Homemade. No, Sandra Lee, you cannot add Shake 'N Bake to everything and it turn out wonderful. I ain't buying it. I don't care how "super simple" it is. Paula Deen is another one of my favorites, but I recently saw Paula make "ox tails" so I'm having to rethink her.
I don't ask a lot from my kitchen. I want hearty, filling meals when it's cold outside and light, refreshing fair during the summer. I am not likely to challenge myself far beyond my culinary limits, but I have managed to find the enjoyment of cooking, mainly on leisurely Sundays when Michael and I can be in the kitchen together. He's way better than me with a knife or hot skillet, and we all rest easier that way. One of my favorite things is to find a recipe, tinker with it, and have Michael say that it goes in our keeper pile.
My best friend, Molly, has a food blog called a Year in the Kitchen. Molly's kitchen year would look vastly different from mine. She isn't daunted by ingredients that put up a fight or narrow margins of error. Check her out for a real ode to food.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Surprise Surprise

On Saturday, Michael and I were about running our usual weekend errands. On that list was to pick up one of those elevated dog bowls for Garnet and the new Janet Evanovich Plum novel for me. Fortunately, PETCO and Barnes and Noble are in the same shopping center. In the car on the way there, I was engrossed in listening to A Prairie Home Companion. Some other time, I must blog about my love of public radio. From Car Talk to thistle & Shamrock to Garrison Keillor, I love them all. But that isn't the point of this entry. So we pulled into the shopping center parking lot and Michael asked me, "Where to first?"
"PETCO," I said, probably because it was shorter than saying Barnes and Noble and because he had interrupted Garrison. So we waited in the car for Garrison's story to finish, then we got out, laughing and commenting on what we'd just listened to on the radio. We walked into PETCO, except by this time, I had forgotten that I had told him to go there first, and I had it in my head that we were going into Barnes and Noble. At Barnes and Noble, the smell of freshly brewed coffee greets you at the door. I have cut out coffee in deference to the growing-a-baby thing, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it. Walking through the doors, I inhaled deeply, ready to savor the rich smell of my old friend, Java. What greeted my nose instead was the smell of dog food and ferret poop. I sputtered and gagged a little, and was forced to tell Michael why. He is accustomed to such blind-induced gaffs, but he still doubled over laughing. I'm really glad somebody enjoyed it.
For the blind, life is just full of surprises.
Completely unrelatedly, I had the best ice cream of my entire life Friday night. I am past the pregnancy sickness for the most part (I won't call it morning sickness because mine always hit in the evening) and my appetite has returned. Michael brought home some Haagen-Dazs Mayan Chocolate ice cream. If bliss had a flavor, this is what it would taste like. It's chocolate ice cream with fudge swirls and a hint of cinnamon. I generally think of ice cream as simply a delivery system for hot fudge, whipped cream, and a cherry, but the Mayan Chocolate had my attention all on its own. I strongly encourage you to try it, even if it is 30 degrees and snowing outside.
Still more unrelatedly, I think I felt the baby move on Friday. It was hard to tell for sure. It felt like a little goldfish was swimming around below my belly button. I am sixteen weeks pregnant, which is when I've read you can first feel the baby, but they say it's usually a few weeks later if it's your first child. Maybe the semi-regular meditation I do, along with my lack of visual stimulus and years of listening to my body have made me more likely to notice it earlier.
The baby moving, the incredible ice cream, and the ferret poop combined for a weekend full of surprises, some better than others.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

So much more than a best friend

Recently, I started reading this blog. It's written by Stephen Kuusisto, poet and author of the memoir Planet of the Blind. Steve's life journey is a moving one, but it is his present journey that I am most interested in just now.
I met Steve in 1996. He was employed at Guiding Eyes for the Blind, and I was a student there in training for my guide dog, Garnet. Back then, Steve was working with his first dog, Corky. This week, he begins training with his third dog. I know that much about the facilities and the training method at G.E.B. has changed in the almost twelve years since I was there, but my memories of the place are fond ones.
Back then, you learned the name, gender, and breed of your dog the evening before you got to meet the dog. On meeting day, the dogs were given baths and groomed so they would be at their best. On that day, May 7, 1996, I went into the large carpeted training room and was told to call Garnet to me. She ran to me, tail wagging, sniffed my shoes, then ran back to Lynn, her trainer. I did not know then that such would be the pattern of our next few days together. Garnet does not give away her affection easily, and she was very attached to Lynn. Throughout the next week, during our "bonding time" with our dogs in our dormitory style rooms, Garnet would allow me to pet her, then she'd hear Lynn in the hall and would bolt for the door, scratching and whining to be let out. To say that this made it difficult for me to trust her when we were, say, crossing a busy intersection, is a gross understatement. I guess I had been at G.E.B. for nearly half of the four-week training when I awoke in the early morning to an altogether strange sensation. I was not alone in my bed. Curled up at the foot of the bed was a very warm, very content black Lab. In that moment, I knew Garnet and I would be okay.
1996 was a very important year in my life. In March, I received an official diagnoses of Von Hipple-Lindau and was introduced firsthand to what that would mean for my life. In April, I had the first of what would be several brain operations. It would have been easy after that to view myself as a sick person with insurmountable struggles ahead of me, but I did not, and Garnet is part of the reason for that. She allowed me to fearlessly go places I never would have attempted before. With Garnet, I felt confident enough to accept my first real job, which was in state government in Frankfort, Kentucky, three hours from the familiar comfort that was home. Then in August, I met Michael, and we all became a family together the following year. I tease Michael that Garnet has seniority over him.
Reading about Steve Kuusisto's latest adventure has me thinking a lot about my early days and years with Garnet. In the beginning, we were as likely to go chasing butterflies as to class, and the appearance of a squirrel on the sidewalk was a rip-roaring adventure rather than the quaint moment that it is now. In 2005, Garnet retired from being a working dog. Now she is a very spoiled, highly educated house pet living a life of leisure. She is no longer able to jump on the bed and needs a boost to get into the car, circumstances that break my heart a little bit every day. But her health is good and her mind is still sharp. I am anxious about how she will react when the new baby comes. I'm sure she will be jealous in the beginning because she is used to being the baby herself, but Michael and I will make an extra effort to make her feel just as loved as ever. We figure that once the baby is old enough to start acquiring crumbs, the baby will be Garnet's new best friend. Then I'll be the one who will need some consoling and extra attention.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Thursday Thirteen: Things I want in 2008

Another year has come and gone. Probably, I should look back over 2007 and assess my accomplishments, my failures, my strengths, my weaknesses, my missed opportunities, and my lessons learned. In the interest of closure and self growth, surely I should do this. Trouble is, I just don't feel like it. In the calendar of my life, 2007 just wasn't that memorable. Oh there were high points: I got pregnant, and I finished my manuscript. And there were low points: I had yet another brain surgery. One would have to flip all the way back to 2004 to find a year when I didn't have a brain surgery, so if not exactly hum-drum, it wasn't a life-defining moment. It's hard to dwell long on 2007 when 2008 looks so full of promise. Here are the thirteen things I hope 2008 will bring me.
1. A healthy baby-- I know, but it's worth repeating, don't you think?
2. A publishing contract
3. The ability to stick to a regular and productive writing schedule. I realize this is asking a lot of a year, what with my addiction to distraction and total abhorrence of goal setting.
4. A "go with the flow attitude," one that will allow me to just let things roll right off my back. Again, a lot to ask of a year, I realize.
5. A nice backyard-- We had a nice big swimming pool that we hardly used and so got rid of and ever since then our backyard has been a great big grass encircled mud pit. I want a nice green backyard, preferably with a garden. I wonder if 2008 could possibly bring me a gardener as well.
6. The means to either quit my job and be a full time mommy and writer, or some new challenge in my job that stops me from yawning incessantly and rolling my eyes at the absurdity of my employer.
7. Self acceptance-- I question nothing so much as myself and my actions, often second guessing to the point of dizzy hysteria. It's not from a lack of confidence or self esteem, I'm just generally unsure of myself, even after I've acted. I think perhaps it's a classic over achiever symptom. In many things, striving for perfection with the expectation of reaching it will leave you constantly short of your goal, forever falling back to regroup in an absurd quest for an illusive prize.
8. Something good to watch on TV-- Michael and I spent New Year's Day watching episodes of Firefly. Naturally, a smart, funny show only lasted one season. Is there anything else this good on now?
9. Time to cook healthy, tasty meals using fresh, preferably local, ingredients.
10. Patience-- I know, might as well wish for wings.
11. A year without neurosurgery.
12. A year without family drama and turmoil.
13. An abundance of good books to read.

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