Notes from Convalescence

Sick today. Maybe an opportunity to catch up on some writing.

Instead, I'm watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m on Season 4, when Buffy has graduated from high school and goes off to college. This is about the stage of the show when I lost interest, or got a real job, back in 2000 or whenever it was on air.

I wish I wish I wish I had more energy, motivation and feel-good today. I really wanted to roast a chicken, brew some stock and make some chicken & dumplings. Today is supposed to be a Bunny Friday, when I handle the noon pick-up of my two young nieces every other week. We typically go get lunch with Mom & Dad, and then head to my house for arts and crafts, dress-up and cooking.

Handsome comes home, and then Frere joins us with his eldest daughter, the moody and wonderful 14-year-old, for dinner. It’s a good custom. I watch the bunnies unfurl like little flower buds in my care. Fine actually eats, X is relaxed and happy, and Z stops trying to solve everything and focuses on building her vocabulary. (“What’s ‘ambiguous’ mean, Tia?” “What’s ‘incongruous’?” “What’s ‘immature’?” She’s seven.).

But today I’m so gross and yuckola and, to the point, contagious, I’ve been rendered ineligible for bunny time. This is disappointing. I had made plans for today. I hate to let down my short friends. I’m not crazy about feeling like crap.

*sigh*

Should I make myself go get that chicken roasting?

Why the chicken-ly hustle, you might wonder, when the bunnies are out of the picture? Well, I left out the part where KMC is having her baby today, (via c-section, so I think we know that it’s actually going to happen today), and I wanted to provide some meal relief. I’ve been double-cooking in anticipation of the arrival of Baby MC, but all that food is in the freezer already. I was thinking she and her hubby might like a hot dish of chicken and dumplings tonight...but... gee, this is so ignorant, but I don’t know how c-sections work. Will mother and baby even be coming home tonight? Or is a c-section treated like the major abdominal surgery it is, and mama will be staying in the hospital for a while? Handsome is friends with the hubby, that’s our connection, so he’ll let me know what the deal is.

I bet she’ll be in the hospital for a while, and there’s no reason to hustle out my chicken n dumplings.

Christ amighty, this is not meant for a blog.

Blogging while unwell. It’s not so pretty.

Can’t wait to tell you more.

A Bit More Brevity

Came across this note to self, titled only "six-word memoir" (remember that meme?):

eat yum ha ha ha delicious

I'm tickled that the author has dispensed with punctuation, and dedicates three of her allotted six words to laughter. Sounds about right.

On My Birthday

I did it up, and took two naps. I ate a delicious BLT from Marczyk's (home of sourced bacon), and fell in love with their near-peerless (it tastes just like mine) potato salad. I giggled and snickered and laughed out loud to Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog, which is my new favorite thing ever. Ever.

(This week.)

I snuggled with my Handsome Man, upstairs and downstairs. We talked about what fun we had at the unruly, good-eatin' game nite we hosted Friday night. Lazy and unrepentant, I rescheduled our lunch plans with Mom and Dad, but crowed with Mom over the phone about my good, good time the night before.

I shamelessly avoided doing dishes or chores or call-backs. I did not get out of my pajamas.

It was fantastic.

I have turned 35.

And a happy good Year of the Crystal to you!

Still?

Sometimes I check my blog, and I'm like, "Dang, she still hasn't posted anything new." And then I get disappointed, and then I resolve to be patient.

This Week’s Soup: Curried Chicken & Vegetable

tender chicken breast. red pepper, celery, parsnips,carrots, zucchini, tomato, onions, garlic. curry, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon.

“Are they happy chickens?” Handsome asked, lingering on the porch this morning after having said goodbye.

No, sir. No, they are not.

He was asking about the poultry featured in today’s soup. We’d been talking Soup Group and our soup options for this evening’s dinner. On Wednesdays, I cook soup all morning at Soup Group, and while I rarely feel like soup for lunch, I hardly ever feel like cooking for dinner. So Wednesdays = Soup for Dinner. (Beats Sleep for Dinner.)

Today’s soup, the curried chicken, would be a contender for dinner at our house tonight only if the meat was natural. And, sadly...

Sometimes the Soup Group shoppers buy special sausage. We occasionally have local beef (like from someone’s family member’s front range ranch). But our chicken, today and generally, is commercial, factory-raised chicken. “Headless chickens,” Handsome calls them, because he read somewhere that some factory farms were breeding chickens without beaks (because without beaks, the chickens in confinement couldn’t hurt one another as easily). Somehow that turned into chickens without heads. And somehow that became all factory farmed chickens, “headless chickens.”

Versus “happy chickens.”

I should mention that for decades Handsome was a vegetarian. His vegetarianism has slowly been corrupted (or reformed) over the last few years as a result of my efforts, my pandering ways, in the kitchen. It’s so easy to make meat taste delicious.

But it’s a lot easier to be discriminating (or snooty-pants) about what kind of meat you’re willing to eat when you’re not completely sold on eating meat at all. And when you only eat meat occasionally.

Welcome to our house.

Tonight’s soup, chez nous, was vegetarian corn chowder. (Also really good.)

Neglected Cat Stories

(These are not cat stories I’ve neglected to tell you. Nor am I a neglected cat telling my stories. These are stories of cat neglect. Scenes from a Neglected Cat.)

I am the owner-caregiver of a long-haired little cat-beast named Paprikash. Handsome and I don’t call her Paprikash, except when the vet asks for her name. Around the house, we refer to her casually as The Beast.

There are pitchers of water that would outweigh my beast, but she’s quite monstrous when there’s no point of comparison. Full-grown and just about six pounds, Paprikash is an unusually small cat. (Chaco brought balance to our home by being an unusually large dog.) She’s dark and very furry, and fancies herself my protectress.

When she’s in my lap, I call her Mamacita.

The last week or so, I’ve been catching up on The Beast’s neglected grooming. This is a multi-phase process, you understand, because there’s an awful lot of hair, and it’s way out of control, far beyond the poor creature’s ability to groom herself. Her fur isn’t matted, but it’s long, and soft, and training for matted. I’m so pathetically behind on her care that I’m not even trying to complete the grooming job in one sitting. Half the time, I’m just trying to stave off further decline.

After finishing with the beast, I require a change of clothes, there’s so much hair everywhere. I wear dedicated beast-brushing clothes for the task. Clean-up after every session so far has involved a broom and dustpan, rag and cleanser, so that my office doesn’t look like an unkempt beauty parlor with clumps of stray hair everywhere.

This morning, while brushing her, I noticed that in addition to the snarls of beast hair sticking to my beast-brushing shirt and the clumps drifting like soft, miniature tumbleweeds across the office floor, there were multiple tufts of fur stuck to the wall facing us. On. The. Wall.

I thought that was the height of excessive hairiness until I felt a clingy beard of fur begin to collect around my chin.

Our grooming sessions only last so long, usually just until one of us has had too much and walks away in disgust. (It’s not always me.)

But I love that beast. I know she’s looking out for me. The Little Mama. Good Beast.

Design Can...

I'm impressed and inspired. I watch this little video, and I don't know whether to cry, cheer, or start sewing.*

From the project website:

Abject Object is a design enterprise that supports homeless individuals and shelters through the design, production, and sale of retail accessories made from reclaimed materials. A hands-on rather than handout model for social and economic empowerment, Abject Object teaches valuable job skills including sewing, production, and business strategies, to homeless individuals.

There's so much I find appealing about this project: the human service component, the materials recycling, the community partnership, the multi-purpose products, the fashion styling, the practical applications, the skill-building workshops, the entrepreneurial training, the profit-sharing...

That waste-repurposing rag rug has me feeling optimistic about the future.

*Hat tip to the unique and vibrant emancipate oluwakemi, where so many interesting things are to be found.