Hip

As in, the actual joint, not that I’m a cool cat and hip to that jive, although I totally am. Hm. Anyway, other than a lingering ache, I’m all better, now. Sleep cures many ills.

In other news, I’ve been noodling around with a story idea for a while, and the pressure is building. It’s odd how these things grow. Can you imagine gestating a baby for three or four years? That would be awful. But I’ve been carrying a plot and setting in my brain for at least that long; I think it’s time to get it out. That is the part I hate. Writing is slow, laborious, and boring. Except when it’s not.

Speaking of writing, I’ve been following a debate on The Dish about cursive, and whether or not students should be taught how to write longhand. Not having children, I have no skin in this game, but I enjoyed learning cursive, and it’s still how I do most of my writing. I rarely print, and while typing is faster, I use the transcription process to edit. I like the act of drawing words and sentences, of forming letters. Even back in third grade, I added flourishes and loops to my handwriting.

For years, I used to buy blank books, and carefully copy out favorite poems and quotes in my best handwriting. It helped my memory, my grammar, spelling, and syntax. I think. I still have most of those journals, and I still occasionally refer back to them. They are like personal anthologies; instead of someone else’s selections, sorted according to their logic, I have my own, entirely chronological, collections.

This practice culminated when I copied out the entirety of The Rape of the Lock. That took me an entire summer. I still remember the satisfaction of those last two lines:

This Lock, the Muse shall consecrate to Fame,
And mid’st the Stars inscribe Belinda‘s Name!

Decrepit

I woke this morning to find my hip all jacked up. I don’t even know. It hurt, I gimped around all day, then came home and napped for three hours. Pain will take it right out of you. Plus, I’m still on my period, so I also had cramps. Terrible, terrible cramps.

My hip feels a little better now. Hopefully, I will be fine tomorrow. I’ve got a ton of meetings, and I can’t afford to be dragging one leg behind me from conference room to conference room.

But, we have strawberries. Store-bought strawberries, since our plants are only starting to flower, but strawberries! Delicious, sweet, fruity goodness.

Vikings, Rome, and Tofu

Started my period, so much of my day was spent napping and watching Empires, my favorite PBS series of all time. I also watched a documentary about Vikings, which got slipped in there, somehow. Thanks, Hulu, you weird bitch. It was interesting, but I spent a few minutes deeply confused.

Hulu is trying very hard to find ads that appeal to me, and failing in a big way. I’m not going to buy a car, a new mattress, or life insurance; I need neither Viagra, nor condoms; and I let my doctors decide what meds I should be taking. At this point, I think the algorithm is just throwing ads at me, resigned to my inevitable, digital rejection.

It turns out that my midnight note-taking was a really excellent idea. While fixing bento, this afternoon, I referred back to the plan, and now I’m all set. Except that the enchiladas don’t reheat well, so I’ll probably end up tossing the rest of the leftovers. Yikes! Bad cook, no candy!

Instead, I’m draining tofu and marinating vegetables. I’ve got cooked rice noodles in the fridge, so if the weather stays warm, I will make Japanese food for dinner the rest of the week. There is very little cooking involved in a lot of Japanese dishes, which makes it perfect for summer.

I got Elizabeth Andoh’s Washoku for my birthday, a couple of years back, and I’ve recently checked out her two latest cookbooks. I have little doubt that I will end up buying Kansha. For what it’s worth, I think Andoh is probably the best curator of Japanese home-cooking currently publishing. Maybe the best ever. She has the potential to be the Julia Child of Japanese cooking, if only the publishing industry would let her do her thing.

I’m fortunate to live in an area with lots of Asian markets, serving a variety of income levels and cultures. There’s a huge Japanese market in our version of Chinatown, but also tiny, family-owned and operated versions scattered throughout my own, less prosperous neighborhood. As a result, I can get many staples cheaply, nearby. But Amazon.com is a good resource for those less gifted by propinquity.

I’m a big fan of non-Western cuisines, since discovering I am gluten-intolerant. I always enjoyed eating Japanese, Thai, or Indian food in restaurants, but eliminating gluten from my diet motivated me to learn to cook foods that I can eat and enjoy and reproduce. Japanese food raises subtlety and appreciation to a high art, but it’s often simpler and easier to fix than any other cuisine. It’s a very Zen type of sophistication.

In a way, much Japanese food is processed: polished rice, tofu, miso paste, soy sauce, mirin. But the processed ingredients are not then combined and processed into a finished product that only needs to be popped in the microwave. Not that instant food doesn’t exist of course; this is the same culture that invented Top Ramen. The instant noodle bowl is a whole thing, in fact. But, in general, processing stops at drying or salting or fermenting. These ingredients are then added to other, whole foods, to make something delicious and easy.

Japanese food hits the same place as Soul food does, for me, but from an entirely different direction. Both give me pleasure, preparing and eating. They often use very similar ingredients or concepts. And, at the core, is the idea of not wasting anything, of using everything. That makes me happy.

Midnight Notes

Made tuna-mayo onigiri, medium-boiled eggs, and cheese-onion enchiladas. Enchiladas were today’s dinner, and probably for the rest of the weekend, into Monday or Tuesday. I don’t mind eating the same thing every day. The better half is pickier.

Bento planning:

• Monday: breakfast–boiled egg, mango, pineapple, cottage cheese; lunch–2 onigiri, mini-cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, apple slices
• Tuesday: breakfast–boiled egg, strawberries, grapes, cottage cheese; lunch–2 onigiri, tsukemono, edamame, mango
• Wednesday: breakfast–boiled egg, pineapple, apple cubes, cottage cheese; lunch–tomato, cuke, olive, & fresh mozza “salad,” strawberries
• Thursday: breakfast–boiled egg, whatever soft fruit is left, cottage cheese; lunch–last 2 onigiri, carrot sticks, tsukemono, apple slices
• Friday: breakfast–boiled egg, apple slices, mixed raisins & nuts; lunch–cheese quesadillas with tomato, cuke, & onion “salsa”

So, I might run out of fruits by Friday, but overall, I have enough food in-house for a week of breakfasts and lunches.

The strawberry plants are flowering. The growing instructions say to pick off this year’s blossoms in order to get bigger yields next year. Then what’s the point of even growing them? I want fruit this year, and I will have it! I’m happy to sacrifice future potential for immediate gratification, because that’s just how I roll.

Fig trees are still doing well. The hailstorms slaughtered my avocados. I should have waited until about now to plant out those, I think. Lesson learned. More avocados will be sprouted. At this rate, I will be 50 before I ever produce an avocado fruit, and I’m completely comfortable with that. This is one of my hare-brained, science-fictional projects–more like a long-term experiment in regional horticulture.

And, goal accomplished! I have now bored myself to sleep. Yay!

 

Felis catus

Maraca is curled up on my lap. Someone needs to come pour me another cup of coffee, because obviously I am stuck here, indefinitely.

If it were Nigel, I would just stand up. Nigel will wait patiently beside my chair until I come back, and then reclaim his spot. Maraca, though, will freak right out, flee into some far, dark corner of house, and not come out for hours. She is easily traumatized.

And my coffee cup is empty. Tragic! Congress needs to investigate the wide-spread exploitation of humans by our cat overlords.

I can’t believe that I’ve been awake since 7 AM. It’s Saturday! I think I’m supposed to sleep late; it’s a law, or something, right?

We have a thief at work. So far it’s only food, lunches and people’s grocery items, that we know of, but it’s disturbing. Someone whom I know is stealing from their coworkers. It could be anyone. So much of how we function as a society is based upon the honor system, that it twists my brain a little to witness the social contract broken. Not to mention, being a victim. That part kind of pisses me off, actually. Grrr, argh.

I really want another cup of coffee. Maraca does not seem inclined to move. I am so pussy-whipped.

Contretemps

Not really. The better half’s mobile has been acting up, so we spent the last hour on the line with our provider. The result? A new phone was ordered. Le sigh. By renewing our contract, I was able to get her a really nice phone fairly cheap, but it was an unexpected expense, to say the least.

Next up, the Costco, where we will spend even more of our precious wages on food and drugs. Oh, and dish-soap. Our lives are so very exciting, yes?

It was supposed to rain last night, but did not. I’m not happy about that. The garden needs water, and I’m loathe to pay for something that falls freely from the sky. I do not know why our local media bother to employ “meteorologists.” They are perfectly useless, here. Our weather never behaves as predicted.

I set aside Deb Caletti’s He’s Gone, in favor of an old Elizabeth Moon adventure, Trading in Danger. I got a quarter through He’s Gone, then skipped to the end, because I just don’t care to read several hundred pages dissecting someone’s marriage. Bored, now. Moon, on the other hand, almost always keeps me turning the pages.

Man & Machine

Who woulda thunk it, but Robert Downey Jr and Iron Man is a great combination. Yes, I’m a fan of the franchise, but the best part of it is Iron Man. It’s just a perfect match. I totally believe that Downey is reformed, more or less, from his dissolute ways, distancing himself from a past that he now finds abhorrent. Essentially, though, he’s still the same guy. I mean, no matter where you go, there you are. Downey’s Iron Man is pitch perfect.

On the other hand, there is absolutely no reason to see it in 3D and the Easter Egg isn’t worth waiting to go to the toilet. Just go. It’s not the least bit interesting, and you’ll be able to watch it on You Tube any minute, now.

But the movie, overall, was exactly right for what it was: a kick-ass, action-packed, mildly psychological, comics flick. The explosions were bright and noisy, Gwyneth Paltrow finally gets to do some violence, and the villain is appropriately villainous. I very much enjoyed my “date with myself,” to the movies.

[Note: Avoid the nachos at the Cheesecake Factory. Actually, just don't go to the Cheesecake Factory. There has to be something better within range.]