Filed under: *eep!, *whinge*, Dewicate feewings, Good grief, dogs!, family, food
It’s raining today, so the dogs stay in, except Roxie, who’s not afraid of the water. The weinerdogs, they make me thankful I have hard floors because I am finding puddles, They also have bladders the size of basketballs and can hold it for hours. Bless their hearts, and I can never figure out who did the deed because they all look guilty. Putting them outside sets loose high pitched squeals and yips that set off the neighbor’s alarms and cause mayhem. Roxie, on the other hand, has good sense enough to go out. I know she does because I saw her, and her wet foot prints in the kitchen. You should see her coming through the dachshund sized pet door, it’s as if the door is giving birth, this head comes through, then a leg and a shoulder, and another leg, and she groans as she squeeeezes through. 60 pound dog coming through a 15 pound hole. Bless her heart, but she does it!
Terry is probably having dinner out tonight. The Owner Of The Company, He Who Lacks Cojones, is in town, and Terry usually has a dinner meeting with him. Poor fing, he’ll miss out on my fabulous beef stew and cheese straws. Recipe follows, of course. The house smells…well, not to brag or anything, but it smells right nice. I wonder if they make a beef stew candle.
Rootie’s Beef Stew
2 pounds stew meat (or a 2 pound roast cut into bite sized bits. Whichever’s cheaper)
1 quart low sodium beef broth
2 packages good quality (no msg) brown gravy mix
3 inch stem of fresh rosemary
small handful of fresh thyme
slightly larger handful of fresh oregano
1 tablespoon dried onion
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Of course, if you want to, you can cut up a small onion and smash a couple of cloves of garlic, but all the effort of dealing with the herbs left me winded, so I opted for the dried stuff.
Stir the beef broth and brown gravy mix together in a large crock pot, and add everything else. Cook on high for 2 or 3 hours, then add:
5 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into bite sized chunks
4 carrots, peeled and cut into bite sized chunks
Put the lid back on the crock pot and simmer another couple of hours until the taters are tender. Pick out the herb stems (I didn’t chop them, just chucked the whole things into the pot) Season with salt and pepper to taste.
I like to serve it with those expeditious cheese straws. It’s also good on top of rice, tho with the taters that’s alot of starch.
My children, I am encouraged by #4. He is my last hope that this time I’ll get it right. CJ has been stupid enough to end my patience with him, having gone out and torn up his truck Yet Again, a mere 2 weeks after the last time, which I paid for the parts, and I’m not helping him again. He seems to have in in his head that if he tears up his truck utterly, I’ll go out and buy him a shiny new Z-71 4X4 like his friends all drive…tho how he came to that conclusion is beyond me entirely. The fact is, he doesn’t live here anymore, and if he tears his truck up that’s his problem. He can find his own way to school. If he doesn’t go to school, Uncle NavyDude will throw him out, and he’ll have to live in his little useless truck, because he can’t move back here. He’s 18, and a big boy now. It hurts me some to say all that, but that’s how it is. Now that his truck won’t go, he’ll have a hard time getting to and from a job, living way out there in the boonies with UND, which will make it hard to get the money to pay for truck repairs (some $350 or so) but golly, I’ve paid for repairs twice now and he’s turned right around and dome something else to tear it up. I just don’t think it’s fair to expect me to keep bailing him out. It’s time for him to face the very real consequences of his stupidity. Don’t get me wrong, I love him dearly and want nothing more than to see him succeed, I am simply tired of singing the same old song over and over, and he never seems to get it. Maybe it’s harsh of me, but being sweet has accomplished nothing.
So now #4, I’m trying to do all the stuff I didn’t do with the other 3. Private school perhaps for middle school. Middle school sucks and blows. it was extremely hard on the 3 older boys, and my hope is that getting him into a really small school (the 6th grade at this school we’re looking at has 15 students) perhaps he can avoid some of the social crap the other boys went through. I’m spending more time with #4 than I did with the others. We read every night, play games every day, do the things that are hard to do when you have 3 together so close in age. Maybe, this time, I can get it right. At least I can try, anyway.
Filed under: Dewicate feewings, Sometimes she thinks too much, man, spouse
And not just because my favorite man of all time is just this very minute in the kitchen making grits and (applewood smoked!) baconjiu..pardon, Roxie’s trying to help me type…anyway. Men! yes.
Here’s what I like about them. And yes, perhaps I’m stereotyping but I am basing this on my experiences, growing up with 2 of them in the household, having dated a few, and marrying one and giving birth to several more.
Men are pretty easy to please. They’re uncomplicated. You feed them a nice meal, make them feel strong and important, and they’ll do backflips to keep you happy. Making them feel strong and important could be as simple as making them feel needed. “Would you get that big heavy thing off the top shelf please?” For me, it’s changing light bulbs. He’s tall and can do it standing on the floor. I have to get on a stool and that makes me dizzy. He can paint the ceiling, I can’t. There’s plenty of things I *can* do that I choose to let him do. Changing the oil or spark plugs in the car, dealing with large dead animals, digging a posthole or roofing the carport. I am perfectly capable of doing them, and have in the past. However, it makes him feel needed, and I believe that’s important to a man. I also firmly believe that asking him to do them is in NO WAY implying weakness on my part. I’m not a mealy little doormat when I let him do the heavy lifting, and in fact, he comes home frequently from work to find the furniture completely rearranged, even to the piano and that massive sideboard, weakness is not mine. But, I’ll also have him a scotch poured and a roast in the oven when he gets here, because he’s been working all day to pay for my ability to stay home and rearrange furniture. (It helps that we have hard floors and not carpet. I totally couldn’t do it if we had carpet.)
I think the thing that annoys me about the Feminist (particularly the Radical arm) movement, is the implication that asking a man to do anything automatically implies weakness from the woman. how silly! How does making a person feel good about himself reduce the person doing the asking? Does telling another woman she looks pretty in that outfit mean that you think she looks better than you do? No, it just means what you said. Ergo, telling a man he’s strong does not automatically imply that you think you’re weak. Let the man open the door, or help you carry to boxes into the post office, or bury the possum that died on your patio! There’s no implied weakness, and it makes him feel good that he helped you!
I think this whole feminist thing of NO! I can do it myself! is causing men to shrug their shoulders and say “screw this”, which leads to men who don’t support their families when babies are born, or turn into that caricature of “gurly-men”..I mean, why be strong when you don’t have to, right? Then women go on and whine about men who aren’t men and start turning to what they think men are- these greasy bad-boys who are all tough and irresponsible, then the women whine about being ill treated and boy- we just can’t be satisfied, can we!
I have the phenomenal good fortune of having married a Man. I can’t say that I’ve always kept him truly happy, but for the most part, I know how. He treats me gently, I well…maybe I don’t, but I do encourage him to indulge where I can- he has a love of fancy bourbons, and fine cigars. Many women (I’ve heard them!) say “YUCK! I’d never let my husband do that!” I say why not? For one thing, they smell fantastic. The finest man’s perfume ever is scotch and lingering smoke from an Excalibur. Ok maybe not 2 day smoke, but fresh, oh yes. And he’s happy. Is there a better aphrodisiac in this world that straight up happiness and contentment? Absolutely not. As for “letting” your husband do anything…WHAT? He’s a grown man, right?
Awright, a confession. For most of our years together I have refused to let him get a motorcycle. My thinking was this: we had children, I don’t have the ability to have a high paying career. If he was killed or disabled from a motorcycle accident, I’d be up a serious creek. Anyway, I finally relented. After requiring him to take out plenty of life insurance, and once our children were old enough to fend for themselves, last year I told him I was ok with him getting a motorcycle. No, he didn’t run out and get one, but the look of shock and absolute JOY on his face was priceless. He’s had more fun going to the dealerships, weighing his options (Electraglide or Goldwing? Silver or white? Long distance touring bike, or bad-ass rumbly thing). He’s fantasized about starting at a new industry, riding up as the Boss Of The Plant on his bad-ass motorcycle, ready to kick tails and take names. All that because I’m letting him realize a dream…what power! He does the same sort of thing for me, never ridiculing my perpetual search for the perfect touring car (today’s flavor: that ‘70 Chevelle, tho I’m not particularly wanting a 454 SS).
There’s been conversation recently about the Man’s Man, that Steve McQueen/Yul Brenner/John Wayne ideal of a man who shoulders his responsibility and takes the arrows of life quietly and without whining. I like that ideal. I think I live with one. and I don’t find it oppressive in the least, to the contrary, he allows me to be exactly who/what I want to be. We complement each other, like 2 halves making a whole. There’s an unspoken agreement between us. Only one of us is allowed to be hurting (either physically or psychologically) at a time. He’s dealing with a broken arm that refuses to heal properly, and unreal garbage at work. Therefore, I am doing fine. Everything’s great at home because he has enough other shit to deal with without having to deal with whatever drama I might cook up here. A couple of years ago, I was dealing with some physical infirmity, and work was fine, he carried his load and 3/4’s of mine for 10 weeks. Granted, I tend to create more drama than he does, because I’m…who I am, and he honestly carries more of a load than I do, given the crap at work, but he’s good at it and I do whatever I can to help him lay it aside when he gets home.
It’s not implied weakness to make him feel important, or needed. That idea needs to simply go away. Men! I love them! Making them feel strong and needed, it makes me feel important, and useful. It’s a very good thing.
*this just in* “Would you go out and get my therapy hammer?” I love men.
Filed under: Uncategorized
That’s like…January weather.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Someone called last night, at midnight. Of course, immediately when the phone rang I was on High Alert. It flashed through my head “Morgan County Hospital, Bulloch County Sheriff…someone’s dead” I answered with a frantic (yet massively controlled) “HELLO!”
“Um, awfully sorry to call you, m’am, this is Arnold at the mill. I’m the security guard and an alarm is going off on one of the machines.”
(instant mind numbing relief as I hand the phone to Terry, who’s also sitting up right, in a massively controlled panic)
So Terry deals with it, and I attempt to roll over and go back to sleep…only…of course, I can’t. I toyed with the idea of taking a tranquilizer, in fact I probably should have but didn’t. Instead I laid there, counting the adrenaline molecules surging through my body, and going over the short list of blessing for that night.
CJ’s not dead. That I know of.
CJ’s not in jail, that I know of.
Will’s not dead or in jail, that I know of.
I’m pretty sure David’s asleep in his bed.
Terry didn’t have to go into work at a quarter past midnight on a Saturday morning.
Blessings indeed.
Then I proceeded to (sort of) fall asleep, only to have these frustrating dreams about taking a test I wasn’t prepared for, about dealing with my mother and her deliberate obtusity (is that even a word?). I’d wake up and be rolling my eyes so hard they’d get stuck and I’d have to bang my head on the wall, and risk waking up Terry (didn’t, of course).
So, since it’s November 7, and 3 weeks from Thanksgiving, I’ll think about that instead. The plans are that Terry’s parents will come here, only that’s up in the air because Terry’s younger brother may have to have surgery that week, and they could go there to help out, only that’s up in the air because Terry’s sister-in-law has fabricated some excuse for them not to come, as suddenly Thanksgiving has become a Cherished and Sacred Close Family Holiday For Close Family Only, and apparently They Don’t Make The Cut. I know I’ve grumbled about my inlaws, but that was really rude. Anyway, the upshot is that they may or may not be coming. There are several Yankee Expatriots here, and I’m not sure if they’re going anywhere for Thanksgiving, and if the inlaws don’t come, I’ll invite them all over for a Southern Style banquet, with baked sweet potatoes and collards and everything, even pecan pie (not mine, Mrs. Smith’s) I’ve only tried to make pecan pie once and seriously, it would’v pulled the fillings out of your teeth. So, Thanksgiving is very much a…loosely planned thing at the moment. Heck, if it comes down to the wire, maybe I’ll post signs at Walmart and invite anyone who brings a canned good for the Food Bank, and a pie for me. Is there anyone out there who wants to come to Statesboro for Thanksgiving? It will have to be short notice, because if the inlaws are coming that’s all I’ll be able to handle.
I keep telling myself that one of these days I’m going to make a Gourmet Thanksgiving Dinner, like something from the Williams-Sonoma catalog,(of course, I’d need the Caphalon Roaster and the Fluted Pie Pan and all, just sayin’), where everything coordinates and there’s a Soup Course and a Cheese Course and the turkey is perfect and pie is served with little pie crust leaves around the edge and the coffee comes from Ethiopea, and we all drink 3 kinds of wine and laugh alot. Maybe one day.
The good news is, Thanksgiving involves basic common ingredients, that being a turkey, sweet potatoes, collards (did you know you can buy them already washed and chopped!), cranberries (easily faked with a can and a bit of orange zest), maybe green beans with almonds and brown butter, rolls (which can be nicely faked with those frozen roll things). If the inlaws show up, she’ll have made a HUGE pan of The Best Dressing Ever, and he will have made sweet potato pies, which means the baked ones for the meal can be saved for the next day, and mashed potatoes made instead. They aren’t much on ceremony, leaving the food in the pots and serving extremely casual buffet style works for them, so silver won’t need to be polished. However, if it’s expatriots for dinner, silver will SO be polished, gravy boats and platters and bowls, the Franciscan Rose dinnerware picked through to find plates that aren’t cracked, compote dishes and small salad bowls…oh the fun of it! I discovered a couple of years ago that a queen size sheet is perfect as a cloth on our huge dining table, with a lace runner up the middle and some candles, very nice. I don’t do formal much, but thanks to my great-grandmother and her bequeathing all her linen napkins and lace, and my grandmother giving me her Franciscan Rose and silver when she broke up housekeeping, I can do it in Style.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Filed under: shorties
There she goes again
Maggie stood at the mirror and sighed. She closed her eyes and sighed again. Another day…another day. She considered her options: laundry, cleaning, going up to Willow Pond and visiting with Mr. Hickock and Mr. Pharr. Laundry could wait. Cleaning is tedious, and pointless in a household with 4 kids, 5 dogs, and 2 cats. Willow Pond it is. She’d read a book on the India-China-Burma theater of World War 2, and was anxious to talk to Mr. Pharr about it. He was there, he knew what it was like. Mr. Hickock had gifted her with information from The Battle of the Bulge…interesting stuff, too…involving corpses. She liked that. Perhaps that was the agenda for the day.
The phone rang, it was Redel, her Sudanese friend, calling to accuse her (again) of being a White European Heathen for not attending church. “Get to a church!” Red shouted at her, “You need a church, you heathen!” Redel meant well, and Maggie understood that. Maggie had recently called Redel an “Ox-Blood Drinking North African Nomad!” but she meant it in the kindest way, as Redel meant her insults. “We must get together tomorrow.” Red informed Maggie. “I have recently read a book that will certainly convince you of the presence of demons, because I am certain your Presbyterian self is sceptical, and I have no patience with sceptics today.” Maggie agreed to meet her at the Daily Grind, a local coffee shop, where they would split a muffin and argue loudly about theology. Redel, being raised Sudanese Coptic, and Maggie, Scottish Presbyterian, met frequently to discuss (loudly) their differences of opinion on everything from demons to salvation, from how long to cook a beef roast or breast-feed a child. Maggie was happy, another day’s activites planned. They could make the discussions last for hours.
Satisfied, Maggie returned to the mirror. She sighed as she looked at the 44 year old face staring back at her. “Find something beautiful every day.” Dr. H told her, 15 years before. “Ok. Here goes.” Today, she decided, she’ll look at the hair. Hair is pretty. It’s straight, thick and short. Shot with silver at the temples, honey blond elsewhere. She was happy with the cut, finally, and the color. After 13 years of Clairol 7B, she’d let it grow out and was excited to see the silver. “I’ve earned every last hair.” she told herself. After the Car Incident and the Pot Incident and that crazy LSD thing she’d rather forget about, she felt the silver hairs were well earned. Her husband liked them, saying he felt like he was finally married to a full grown woman now, instead of that girl he met so long ago. She blew out her cheeks and made a noise, uncomfortable with the attention she was giving herself. “10 minutes. He said give yourself 10 minutes. That took up 45 seconds. Eyes. Look at the eyes.” She pulled her glasses down to the tip of her nose and leaned in close to the mirror. She was terribly nearsighted, and standing a ‘normal’ distance away would result in a blurry unidentifiable blob. Grey-green eyes stared back. “I’m not a heathen.” she thought. “I’m…agnostic. A sceptic. I need proof.” She pulled down one eyelid, then the other, grimacing at the late-night bourbon induced red, then stared back into the watery grey- green irises. “hmph.” she grunted, dissatisfied with the uncertain color. “I need green contacts. And proof. And a maid.” She turned away from the mirror, 8 minutes short of the required 10 minutes. She heard dogs scrabbling under the bed, and the sounds of a 10 year old in the shower, singing and playing “slap the monkey” on his stomach. It’s a good life, she knew, even without the certainty of green eyes and maid-given order.
“um, Mags,” her husband was standing by the dresser, waiting. “I got some news at work yesterday. They want me to go to China for a couple of weeks, and the new mill in Dubia is cranking up and needs a firm hand. Oh, and we hired that fellow I told you about from Rome, the one with the wife…you know…’the WIFE’. Do you think you could…well…” Tom winced as he considered what he was about to say. “Could you take her around tomorrow and show her the town, and maybe Savannah? You can expense it, of course.” Tom ducked as he expected shoes to start flying. Maggie stared at him for a minute, considering her options. China, Dubai, and the WIFE. All in one statement. Where’s those shoes? Maggie thought carefully. “the WIFE.” She considered her options again. The Wife, Savannah, maybe 6-8 hours in the car with this foul-mouthed damnyankee of a woman, but in Savannah, with lunch paid for maybe even a reservation at Lady&Sons. “I was in labor 29 hours with the fourth child. I can stand 6-8 hours of anything.” she thought. “of course, hon! I’d be happy to take her around, you just be sure and bring me something pretty from China ok, maybe a baby?” Then she remembered her conversation with Redel, and the promise to meet tomorrow. “Shoot.” she thought. “Oh well, I’ll call her and postpone until Friday.”
The day passed happily, with Mr. Hickock explaining the differing aromas of corpses, based on weather conditions, and Mr. Pharr rhapsodic about Madame Chang. Redel had been called, a middle-America meatloaf prepared for dinner, and all those other delights of Housewifery performed. Night fell and then it was Thursday. Time to meet The WIFE. Maggie armored herself with the finest from Talbot’s, gassed up the minivan (after picking the mushrooms from the back seat, where the window leaked), and met The WIFE at the local Holiday Inn. Maggie had decided that, since The WIFE was unfamiliar with Savannah, she’d take a slight side trip through Porterdale, where the Don Vraden Classic Car Emporium was known to occasionally show an object of great desire. Last time she went through, the turntable featured a customized 1957 Chevy Nomad, gloss black with a red interior like some sort of fantastic beast…she’d mooned over that car for days. Anything she had to put up with from The WIFE would be made worthwhile, if she’d be able to aquire fantasy fodder.
“Goddamnfuckin’incompetentwhitetrashhickclerkscrewedupthefuckiblahblahblahnoisenoise” Maggie was greeted by The WIFE, a Bostonian by way of Newark who, Maggie believed, would have trouble fitting in to the ways of the genteel Southern town of Statesville, Georgia. “I can do this…6-8 hours, tops.” she thought. “Porterdale. Don Vraden. It will be worth it.” Maggie nodded politely, and asked if The WIFE would like a cup of coffee before taking the 15 minute tour of the town. “ASIFICOULDGETADECENTFUCKINNOISENOISEBLAHBLAH” The WIFE roared. Well OK!. Maggie took the bypass around Statesville, pointing to the football stadium and cotton fields, taking a quick tour through Irongate and making brief comments about housing prices and grocery stores before turning onto Highway 80, the Pretty Drive to Savannah, which coincidentally, passed right through Porterdale. More noise from the wife, with polite nods and conversational prods from Maggie, and 20 minutes later, they reached the stoplight in Porterdale. Maggie looked to the left at the Don Vraden sign, and imagined the gates of heaven opening up, shining light down on the turntable. Angels sang, The Allman Brothers started the opening riff of “Jessica” and she imagined reaching over and pushing The WIFE’S mute button.
There was, on the turntable, a 1970 Chevelle SS. It was dark red, with black rally stripes and it was a convertible. Her nearsighted self knew it was the SS because it had nostrils on the hood. A very discreet scoop, advertising power and muscle and daring anyone to drive that 454 beast. Maggie felt a little dizzy, and the car behind her honked it’s irritation. “Oops!” she giggled, “I got a little distracted there.” “Godamnedsouthernditz” The WIFE muttered. Maggie’s hearing was well trained from 20 years of child-rearing, but she chose to ignore the comment, focusing instead on the idea of running The WIFE over with a ‘70 Chevelle. ” Dark red is a good color,” she thought. “Blood won’t show.”
Filed under: shorties
Sometimes she thinks too much
Maggie stood at the mirror and sighed. She closed her eyes, and repeated the mantra taught 15 years before, by the kind-voiced and steely-eyed therapist, “You are not a dog.” She opened her eyes, and tenatively eyed the face glaring back at her. It was not a dog. It was a…ok, she thought. He said “you are not fat.” She was…she thought of all the currently popular euphemisms women used to replace “fat”. Zaftig, Rubenesque, Curvy. “Which one will I use today?” she pondered. ” Today is a rubenesque day.” This decision was useful, because it allowed her to choose appropriate clothes. She sighed again, and recalled Dr. H’s 15 year old instructions, “I want you to spend 10 minutes every day looking in the mirror. Look at yourself. Look in your eyes, at your nose and cheeks. Observe the curve of your mouth when you smile, and the way your hair falls over your smooth forehead. Notice how much green in is your eyes, that your nose is small and slightly upturned, elfin-like. You are beautiful. You are.” In the 15 years since his instruction, she had never spent 10 minutes looking in the mirror. The face that looked back had a tendency to shout, and she was a quiet sort. She sighed again, 3 minutes later, after determining that the broccoli was not in her teeth and there were no errant zits adorning her nose. That was all she could manage.
“You look beautiful!” her husband said, as she trudged out of the bathroom. “Thanks!” she cheerfully replied, thinking “liar, you just want something.” MirrorMaggie reached through the bathroom door and slapped her on the back of the head. “YOU KNOW BETTER THAN THAT! “she roared. MirrorMaggie was a better wife than RealMaggie. She knew how to accept a compliment. Maggie briefly wondered why it was so hard to embrace her (adoring, affectionate, generous) husband’s compliments, or those from anyone, for that matter. 23 years she’d been married to the man, and every day he’s told her she was beautiful. Married at 21, she’d lived with him, and his good cheer, for over half her life, and yet, the strongest voices in her head were the ones planted there by her father (it’s a good thing you’re smart, because you’ll never be pretty) and her peers (God! Why don’t you wear a bag over your head so we don’t have to look at you!). In spite of empirical evidence to the contrary, she believed herself to be plain to the point of invisibility. She recalled a conversation with Dr. H. He was frustrated by her self-image, and dug up a scientific study that quantified “beauty”. “Look at this!” he shouted at her. “Beauty! High forehead! Wide set eyes! Curves! You!” She remembered turning away from that, and crying. Empirical evidence said so. Her heart said no, impossible, how could all those people be wrong?
She looked in the closet and sighed again. Clothes weren’t exactly her thing. Give Maggie some money to spend, and she’d head straight for the Hobby Lobby, or the local plant nursery for a rose. Clothes were something to cover her (44 year old, lumpy..No! Not lumpy! Today it’s Rubenesque!) body, nothing more. Long, leg-covering skirt, loose blouse, practical shoes, those were her style. Maggie thought “I look like a nun. A Quaker. Someone you’d trust to watch your baby while you went into the store to buy a vibrator.” She wondered what would happen if she decided to wear a tight tank top and fishnet stockings. If she traded in the minivan for a ‘69 Chevelle convertible. What would happen if she took the KitchenAid stand mixer to the pawn shop and swapped it for a .44 magnum? “Hell would freeze over. Pigs would fly, and many other cliches that mean ‘yeah right.’” she thought. It was fun to consider, though. “What would the women in Prayer Group think if I pulled up in a ‘69 Chevelle?” That made her laugh. They were practical minivan-driving Presbyterians, every one of them. Proper and saintly. Fishnets would make them sweat, and Chevelles would make them nervous. “Their slacker 24 year old sons would appreciate the Chevelle”, Maggie thought. She’d been working hard to gain the respect of these women, though, and didn’t want to lose it by doing something…hm…less than saintly. They might kick her out.
“Prayer Group meets today,” Maggie thought. “am I in the mood to go?” She realized that “not being in the mood” meant that she probably needed to go, but MirrorMaggie laughed at the thought. Going meant listening to women wish their children would behave, listening to them pray that their slacker sons would shape up and be nice and learn to appreciate all their parents do for them. “Sympathy is for wussies.” Maggie thought. “I am not sympathetic today. I’m not going.” She didn’t want to have to bite her lip to tell Beth that it was time for 25 year old Tucker to get the boot. “Failure to Launch” came to Maggie’s mind. She’d tossed her kids out a long time ago. Straight onto the street, they went, at the tender age of 18. Oh sure they struggled, but Maggie was in no mood for Beth’s whining about Tucker. Nor was she in the mood for Cherrie’s fervent prayers that her sister wouldn’t get the boot from her $2million dollar home. “They may have to go to an APARTMENT!” she’d said with horror the week before. Maggie briefly reminisced about the 30 year old rat infested housetrailer they’d lived in years ago. “I would have loved a nice clean apartment.” she thought. She made the decision pass up prayer group, and watch a Will Ferrell movie instead. “Y’know,” she thought, “something redeeming and high quality.”
Filed under: I feel so smart!, Sometimes she thinks too much, oh you self indulgent hussy!
I’m thinking of writing a short story. I like writing. It would have to be about someone I know…me, mainly, because it’s the only head I can really get into and understand. The circumstances would need to be ones I can understand…like mine, only maybe different. Maybe my life with a dollop of the (whatever it is) that I wished for. You know, a housewife with invisible aliens talking to her all day. Or Lawrence Olivier showing up to deliver the UPS package. That would be cool, especially if he were in the regency era clothing from Pride and Prejudice (guess what i watched at JerseyChicks). Fantasy stuff, Rootie Style. No smut, no violence. Perhaps it will be about something that actually happened, and people will read it and say “she’s making that up.”
Some of the best stuff I’ve read lately have been ones that leave me wondering if it’s fact or fiction. Told in the first person (mine would be third person because I like to disassociate). I’ve thought about writing of my experience with The Good Dr. Hs…that is, The Good Dr. H, Psychiatrist, and The Other Good Dr. H, Psychotherapist…2 men in my life who influenced me almost as much as the one I married, but in a totally different way. I think that may be the first one I write, about going crazy and the aftermath…only…not necessarily *me*, you know…a fictional-ish short story. I’ll have to think about it.
How much of *me* is supposed to be in it? Do I want to expose myself that much? Thing is, I have been pretty transparent here anyway. Turning it into a short story could be fun, and I’d like to leave the reader wondering how much is true and what part isn’t. Hm…A Project. I think I’ll swap keyboards out, because this one kinda sucks.
Filed under: food
A dinner invitation to a local steakhouse has helped with the bad attitude, what with the talk on facebook about baked potatoes and all. I’m not supposed to eat potatoes, or steaks, but what with the cheeto infusion from earlier in the day…eh. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. I’ll make up the misbehavior tomorrow with dainty white bread toast and canned oranges. However, tonight, it’s eat drink and be merry. I don’t know about tomorrow and dying and all, but just in case I’ll eat a steak and potato. I’d hate for my last meal to be white bread and squash.
Speaking of squash, I busted out the inner gourmet on everyone last night. I did a search for low-sodium recipes and found something that appeared to be tasty on the Mayo Clinic recipes site, and cooked up a version of it for the menfolk. Some of the approved, some did not. I will alter it still more, in order to get higher ratings. Specifically, I’ll leave out the spinach. I like spinach, if it’s raw and in a salad,but cooked…not so much. Plus cooked is high-ish in potassium, which is not specifically disallowed, but I do have to keep an eye on it. Here we go:
Polenta with roasted vegetables
(polenta: fancy gourmet word for yellow grits, which I made instead of buying already made polenta in a tube, or the expensive dried stuff. Yellow grits, people, that’s all you need to know)
6 cups water, boiling in a pot
2 cups yellow grits
Stir the grits into the water, reduce to a simmer, and cook until thick and done, stir often.
Grease a 9×13 casserole dish and put the gri…er..polenta in the casserole, and set aside.
For the vegs:
1 yellow squash
1 green zucchini
1 red pepper
1 yellow onion
cut into chunks, toss in olive oil with a little black pepper, and put on a cookie sheet. Broil for 5 minutes or so, stir, and broil some more, until they have toasty bits on them.
1 box spinach (ok I’ll leave this out next time, but for accuracy it’s here), thawed and water squeezed out
1 large tomato or 2 romas, cut up
Scatter the spinach on top of the polenta. Scatter the tomato on top of the spinach, then scatter the roasted vegs on top of that. Top with a bit of parmesan cheese and bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.
If you aren’t on a low sodium diet, add salt to the polenta, it really kind of requires it.
Next time, I’ll leave off the spinach entirely. The tomatoes were good, and the onions totally rocked. I mean, roasted onions…yeah you betcha! It would probably be good to mix parmesan cheese in with the polenta, I’ve done that before, and it’s tasty. Garlic wouldn’t be half bad with the vegs either. I’ll probably try tossing the vegs with Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb, too.
It was a pretty dish, what with the yellow and green squash and red peppers, very much suitable for a pot-luck (if salted), and made a nice side for the roasted chicken. Oh I do love a roasted chicken, all spicy on the outside with crispy skin, and juicy on the inside. Yum.
