August 16 - Sure, why not?

I am going to write a longer piece on this but I recently read a book called "K Blows Top" by Peter Carlson.  He used to write for the Post and no one can hold a candle to that man in the feature writing department.  He is funny, insightful and has an interesting way of looking at the world.  I was very sad to see him take the buy out.  But he went off to write books and he wrote one about Nikita Khrushchev's visits to the United States.  Khrushchev really loved the U.S and it is an interesting read.  What I found most interesting was the language that he used to talk about the Russian fear of the U.S., which  is very similar to that of North Korea.  They love us and want to be friends, but they are afraid of the U.S. as a bully so they bluster about their power.

In any case, I digress.  Here is the point--Carlson talks about how he got interested in Khrushchev.  It seems he was working at Time-Life and on his off days he would call down to the archives for files on famous people.  One day, he asked for Khrushchev's file.  They called back to warn him that there were four shelves of materials and they wanted to know if he wanted to see it all. As he put it, he uttered a phrase that has launched a thousand misadventures--Sure, why not.  And here he is twenty years later finally getting to the book.  But if he had not had that attitude, if he had hesitated, his life would be a little less interesting.

Boy, he is right about the misadventures.  But adventures too.  I think I'd like that to be on my tombstone as my epithet.  I think I live my life pretty much in a "sure, why not" kind of mode most of the time.  Let's wander over here.  Sure, why not?  Want to go to FILL IN BLANK.  Sure, why not.  Want to jump off a bridge?  Sure, why not.  Want to eat grasshoppers?  Sure, why not?  This tendency has magnified as I have aged. "Sure why not" seems to be the response of someone like me who has seen enough to know that living a little on the edge never hurt anyone.  It really does not hurt to go along or to give something a try unless it involves violence or the possibility of death.  Use some judgment but be open to the sure why nots in life.  It makes things interesting.

August 15 - Pitbulls

I was reading in Parade Magazine about the fate of Michael Vicks dogs.  Many have been rehabilitated and are leading productive lives.  There was a comment by one of the dog trainers that struck me.

He said that these dogs are very reactive to external stimuli and they just want to go after whatever they see.  So they have to teach the dog to make a choice, should I act impulsively and chase that bird?  Or do I wait because if I wait, if I beat down that urge, I get a treat?  As the trainer put it, "Do I do what I want, or wait and do what has been asked?  Good things happen to me when I wait rather than following my impulses."

When will I learn this lesson?  I always want what I want.  Following my impulses keeps me going.  Do pit bulls know more than I do?  Should I wait for the treat down the road?

August 13-15 - Going Crazy

We are crazy busy here trying to get out of town.  Why is it that when you try to go on vacation all hell breaks loose or at the very least, everyone suddenly seems to need your attention?  Too much stress.  Must go to other side of world.

August 12 - Storm

We have been have extremely sever storms and this one was quite a doozy.  It was a morning storm, which is unusual and it was so loud it woke me up.  The lightening was striking so hard and so fast and so close to the house, it was like being fired upon with cannons.  The windows were shaking and poor Izzy, who is terrified of storms, was under my desk.  Amazingly, we never lost power.  Thank you God.

August 11 - Portuguese Food

Ever since we went to the Portuguese Ambassadors house, I have been craving Portuguese food.  So I bought the only two cookbooks out there that had good reviews.  Oh, my.  David Leite, you sir, can cook.  Your cookbook is so wonderful that I am plowing through it with a passion that I usually reserve for the Italians.  Check it out.

Have I mentioned lately that I love potatoes?  How about potatoes stuffed with salt cod and mashed potatoes?  This is a traditional dish, made a little modern and it was absolutely heavenly.  It had tons of garlic and the salted cod, with just enough salt, mashed potatoes, and spinach.  They were so good that I can see me making them until I am downright sick of them.  Of course, since it is a potato dish, that will never be.

We have also had the chicken with coconut sauce (Mozambique and Macao based), the clams with some wonderful sauce, oh, it just goes on.  Kudos.

August 9 - Bone

I saw a news report about the graphic novel BONE.  I decided to give it a try. It is about three cousins who have an adventure when they are run out of Boneville and they end up in a different country they never knew existed.  This country has dragons and rat creatures, people, and talking bugs.   I love it.  It is sweet and funny and lovely to look at.  One day I suppose I will figure out the metaphor but for now, I am just enjoying the hilarious story.  Phoney Bone is trouble.  Smiley Bone is goofy and Fone Bone is a hero.

I bought Volumes 1 and 2 to get started.  Then I panicked because I finished and I needed volume 3.  Of course, then I ordered volumes 3, 4 and 6.  Six?  D'oh!  Now I have to go back and order volumes 5 and well, why not 7 and 8 while I am at it.

August 8 - Cobbler versus Pie

We could not resist.  The berries disappeared in pie and cobbler and we needed more.  So we went back to do some more picking.

We had a debate on which is better pie or cobbler.  Personally I prefer cobbler because I love biscuits and that is how we Northerners make it.  Pie is second best but it is missing the most important ingredient--biscuits.  I have been going through my old Cooking Light magazines, which is produced by Southern Living.  Their cobbler recipes all involve a crust.  I think it is interesting that they do not use biscuits which seem so Southern to me.  But they do not.  We Northerners have it right.

August 7 - Frogs and The Google

We were sitting outside eating dinner and the night time sounds were almost deafening.  The crickets and tree frogs were overreacting to the heat.  I have started to think tree frogs are a myth.  You never actually see them, do you?  So I decided to get out a flashlight to see if I could find them in the trees. I scanned them up and down but I realized I did not know what I was looking for.

We consulted the search engine Google.  (That is how the Google prefers it.)  We came up with pictures and frog sounds.  That was so intriguing that I ended up going on Amazon and buying frog books and CDs so I could learn to identify frog sounds.  But in the end, I never could find directions on exactly where I was supposed to look-- high? low? in the grass? in the leaves?  We did however identify the sound we were hearing as primarily spring peepers and upland tree frogs with a few others thrown in.  What I can never understand is, there is no water around here.  Why do they stay?  How do they live?  It is all a mystery.  I will learn when the books get here.

August 7 - Mosquitos Treatment

The mosquitos have been terrible this year.  I wanted to treat the yard but I did not want to kill the lightening bugs.  So Matt brought home an organic mosquito treatment.  Turns out, it was a combination of garlic oil, citronella and a few other ingredients.  As I sprayed it over the grass, the whole yard started to smell like a spicy, garlicky pizza.  Matt thought it smelled great and it did.  But then I got it all over my shoes and they smelled too.  Garlic tennis shoes.  As if my sweaty feet are not enough.

August 4 - The Lost Summer

It has been very nearly three months since my shoulder surgery.  I feel like the entire summer has been lost.  I spent eight weeks in a sling.  I have not been able to do any of the usual summer stuff.  No badminton, no canoeing, no biking, no swimming, not even a cartwheel.  Nothing.  I could not even drive for eight weeks.  I did a lot of walking and staying home or asking Matt to be the chauffeur.

 I have been unable to do any health promotion work because I could not drive and I have not had full use of my arm.  It is kind of hard to deal with people for four hours with one arm.

I had plans to redo the basement but if I cannot lift, I cannot move things, and so it has all been put off.  Matt very kindly painted the entire basement for me, but I do not want to burden him with moving things around.  New carpeting will come but not quite just yet.

 I just started working outside.  I am finally getting my summer tan.  But I have not cut the grass.

I had so many intentions to get things done but since there are so many things I could not do, like lifting and reaching, and even sitting and using my hands for extended periods, I have simply fallen further and further behind and there is only so much one can do in a lifetime.  So the projects pile up, the list of things to do gets longer and well, what else can I do but go on vacation.  (more on that later)

August 3 - Elliptical Trainer/Status Report

The doctor cleared me to use an elliptical trainer.  I have discovered that if you really push up the resistance, that is a great work out.  I burned 400 calories in about 40 minutes.  That is 600 calories an hour.  Plus, it is fun.  I am so thrilled to be able to do something other than ride the exercise bike.

My shoulder is slowly, slowly progressing.  I have not been allowed to really work it or lift weight for three months now.  My arm is pretty much shriveled to girl size again.  I miss my guns.

I have also been having a problem with my left leg and I got an electric stim device.  This is the greatest thing ever.  It forces my muscle to work, then it relaxes it.

But with all of these issues, shoulder and leg, I pretty much am spending and hour or two a day just rehabbing various parts of my body.

As I said to my physical therapist--this sucks!

August 1 - Cooking Zucchini

Yes, it really is easy to get sick of zucchini and I am overwhelmed.  I have made pasta dishes, stuffed them, made soup with them, baked breads and muffins.  I finally  tore out one of the plants just to stop the production.  I still have two more left to cook.  It looks like zucchini sticks will be next.

July 31 - Blackberry Pickin'/Squash Blossoms

It was a gorgeous day today and Matt had a great idea.  Let's go berry picking.   Not quite reliving my youth, we did not go out and find them in the wild.  The last time we saw wild blackberries was in a state park and there was a big sign in the middle of the berry patch that said no picking.  We went out to Homestead Farm where they have acres of thornless blackberry bushes ready for picking.  That the bushes were thornless, kind of took some of the adventure or danger out of it.  But we still got into the sheer joy of picking berries.

 It is hard to decide which is more fun, picking or eating.  Picking berries is a zen experience.  Focus on the picking, concentration on the task at hand, and everything else goes away.  It is easy to spend hours and hours picking.  The problem is, then you end up with gallons and gallons of berries.

Well, my tummy was ready.  I had plans.

In the evening we went to Oyamel for their squash blossom festival. Oyamel is a traditional Mexican restaurant and every year they spend a week creating dishes using squash blossoms, a traditional Mexican summer treat.  I had always wanted to go and this year I made it happen.  We had squash blossoms stuffed with goat cheese with a spicy pepper sauce, we had squash blossoms stuffed with ceviche, we had squash blossoms in salad, and in our dessert. We also indulged in our taco fix, this time we had the barbecued grasshoppers.  They are yummy, and crunchy.

July 27 - Izzy the Ferocious

I took Izzy to the vet today for his annual exam and he was very nearly uncontrollable.  Izzy is a very large cat.  Not fat.  But fourteen pounds of big muscular legs and huge paws. Fangs for teeth, kind of like a small panther.  So when he needs to be held down, well, good luck.  For some reason he was angry at going to the vet.  He went off to have his weight and temperature taken and he came back with his tail all puffed up and he just growled and hissed.  The vet kept saying that is what happens when cats they adopt out go back for exams.  They just hate it.  He did not just hate it, he was trying to bite people and scratch off their hands.  I needed to have his claws clipped.  It took three of us to try and hold him down.  Finally, they took him in the back out of my view and really restrained him. He did not speak to me the rest of the day.  I decided I need to start really asserting my dominance over him.  There is a way to do it and it will not be pleasant.  But he needs to understand that what I say goes.

July 28 - One Man Lord of the Rings

I forgot to record that we went to see One Man Lord of the Rings Trilogy (no less).

We had seen Charlie Ross do his One Man Star Wars Trilogy and it was hilarious.  He plays boils down the entire story into one hour and fifteen minutes and plays all the characters.  So we were not going to miss Lord of the Rings.  It too was hilarious but for me, hard to follow because I have not seen the movies enough times to know everything he was making fun of or imitating.  But still, it is fun to watch him try to fit the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy into an hour all by himself.  If you have a chance, go.  He is really funny.

July 26 - Wegmans is my heaven

If I died and went to heaven it would be a Wegmans.  We do not have one where I live but there we were near one north of Baltimore so we stopped by to check it out.  I told Matt, if I can think of it, and they have it, then this is it for me.  First, the place was fairly inexpensive compared to what we pay.  I bought a huge container of baby artichokes for $2.99 which would easily have cost twice that as Whole Foods.

I have been on a Spanish and Portuguese cooking jag and I was looking for Spanish dry cured chorizo.  Matt just laughed, but aha, there is was, in the specialty food section. They even had two kinds.  Then they had the elusive fava bean.  So that was it for me.  Love.  And heaven.  

July 24 - Storm

We had a severe storm that lasted all of twenty minutes.  That was enough to wipe out power to hundreds of thousands of people.  We had been at the funeral and as we were driving home, traffic was horrendous.  Lights were out all over the County and it was backing up 495.  We made our way around trying different routes.  We passed through dark neighborhood after dark neighborhood.  As we turned the corner to our road, YES!  we had power.  We were so lucky.  For once we did not get hammered.

July 22-26 Funeral

Matt's grandmother died and we had a funeral.  It was all for the best really since she was in a nursing home and she was very old and frail.