I detest New Years' Resolutions...
But it's early in January -- tomorrow I go back to school, which my brain is still refusing to accept -- and the few sort of related things I want to be working on for myself... well, they are coinciding with January. So it FEELS New Years' Resolutionary, but I don't want that. I have such an allergic reaction, emotionally, to doing things that are objectively good for me, from taking showers more than once a (sometimes extended) week to doing physical activity of any sort, to getting enough sleep, to eating vegetables and foods that are not prepared by autobots and ill-paid workers in a factory somewhere.
The things I want to do a little better for myself right now, partly motivated by physical decline, partly by a realization that I need to watch my money more carefully, now that I am paying my mortgage, HOA, and taxes by myself, without my mom's contribution... 1) I want to cook big dinners on weekends and eat them over the week, which might both enable me to eat fresh food and vegetables and to save money I otherwise spend not on economically efficient frozen meals, but on ordering out from one of the five bazillion delivery-to-your-door third-party gig economy franchises, like Door Dash, which bought GrubHub, I guess? And 2) I want to see if I can make it to the Mills College salt water (outside, which is problematic, sigh) pool to water walk, a couple times a week. I dream of going three or four times a week, but that is probably unrealistic. I can also check out the Castro Valley Swim Center, but I think it's chlorine, which I really do not like.
Physical decline: not having written an LJ post since the depressing one I wrote and deleted months ago, I have not noted this, but... I used some of the money I inherited from my mom to buy a Travelscoot, which I use at school to get around the campus -- to sign in each morning, which was exhausting me, and especially for things like fucking FIRE DRILLS (or malicious pulls of the fire alarm, which happen a greater-than-zero number of times a year at my school), where I cannot keep up with the kids, or manage it all the way to the field, OR stand, thereafter, on the field. I guess the news to my vast LJ readership (which is what, five or so people? Not sure.) is that I have trouble walking now, and get absolutely exhausted. It's been getting worse for at least the last four or five years, somehow seeming to accelerate each summer before a new school year. But it's really bad, and painful, and the travelscoot is helping. I used it in the Oakland and O'Hare airports at Thanksgiving, when I went to Lake Geneva, and it was so much nicer than feeling like I was oppressing a person pushing me in a wheelchair. I am not sure that the fact that the travelscoot worked well in airports is enough to convince me that I could feasibly travel to, say, England or Ireland. But who knows? Maybe my brilliant intention of water walking and homemade food eating will help me make at least some improvement to my physical condition?
Meanwhile, I was moved to write this entry tonight because after starting to assemble the ingredients and then ignoring them on my table for a few hours, I finally went ahead and made my mom's cabbage bean soup, which is simmering for at least another thirty minutes on the stove.
I know I wrote this recipe in here years ago, but it would be a giant pain-in-the-ass to go dig it up. Here:
Cabbage-Bean Soup à la Martha Quinn:
There are two variants. My mother's I will put in parentheses, because it's not my favorite. Mine is the main one. It could also be made vegetarian.
1 lb. ground turkey (or ground beef)
2 c. shredded raw cabbage or more to taste
2 cans (or 3, depending) cannellini beans (or red kidney beans)
2 of those boxes of chicken broth (or beef broth)
1 can diced or crushed tomatoes
1 or 2 bay leaves
fresh thyme
salt, pepper
1. brown the meat and if there is fat, discard it. There isn't any no matter what kind of damn ground turkey you buy.
2. Mash up 1/4 of the beans and all of the bean liquid from the cans
3. Add all of the ingredients to a large pot and bring to a boil
4. Reduce heat and cover and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes.
How's that for easy? It smells good already and is activating my salivary glands, if that's not TMI.
Notes: I am using fancy-assed kosher salt for the first time ever, inspired (which may be generally inspired, in fact) by Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat, the show, not the book. I've never bought anything but Morton's Iodized Salt, "When it Rains, it Pours". Also, when the soup is done, I will add a cumin bagheer, meaning I will heat some oil in a small pan and pour a LOT of cumin in it until it sizzles and then dump that in the soup. That is not part of my mom's recipe either.
My mom liked my recipe as much as her own. I miss her so fucking much. This Christmas was hard for both Rachel and me, because Christmas was A Thing, for my mom and my grandmother. They liked it a lot. They didn't really go overboard at all with decorations -- but they relished each sort of habit and tradition that they had with it, from drinking spiked egg nog through listening to Xmas music and singing carols in a group, to decorating a tree and getting and wrapping presents. Even when my grandmother couldn't really have a tree in her small apartment in Madison, she would get fresh pine or fir branches and put them in a hanging basket and string lights through them. I'm addicted enough to Xmas lights that one window in my apartment has them lit year round. I just like shiny bright colorful things, from colored lights through glitter.
Things I miss about my mom (not sure I'll keep this section... we'll see):
Her tolerance and acceptance for everyone except rightwingers and the rich
Her sort of personal libertarianism -- she thought the drinking age was too high, smoked a lot of weed until several years ago and the beginnings of dementia, and basically felt people should be free, sexually and otherwise
Her many, many talents -- from singing to playing the guitar and recorder, to cooking, to watercolors and drawing, to photography and making a home comfortable and welcoming, to dressing well, to gardening, to reading and writing and public speaking and being passionate about justice and socialism.
Her kindness
Her love for cats
Her pleasure in her senses
Her aesthetic
Her principles, which she never betrayed
Her appreciation of art house movies
Her ability to live with deep, deep chronic depression and to be present with us, mostly, despite that
Her adroit management of denial
Her scattiness and frequent interiority.
I should go check the soup and maybe make the bagheer.
Oh, man, it's so good. So what if I haven't taken a shower (yet) and have to try to go to bed in an hour. This soup is good, and there is a lot of it left. What do the youngsters call it? An adulting win.
The things I want to do a little better for myself right now, partly motivated by physical decline, partly by a realization that I need to watch my money more carefully, now that I am paying my mortgage, HOA, and taxes by myself, without my mom's contribution... 1) I want to cook big dinners on weekends and eat them over the week, which might both enable me to eat fresh food and vegetables and to save money I otherwise spend not on economically efficient frozen meals, but on ordering out from one of the five bazillion delivery-to-your-door third-party gig economy franchises, like Door Dash, which bought GrubHub, I guess? And 2) I want to see if I can make it to the Mills College salt water (outside, which is problematic, sigh) pool to water walk, a couple times a week. I dream of going three or four times a week, but that is probably unrealistic. I can also check out the Castro Valley Swim Center, but I think it's chlorine, which I really do not like.
Physical decline: not having written an LJ post since the depressing one I wrote and deleted months ago, I have not noted this, but... I used some of the money I inherited from my mom to buy a Travelscoot, which I use at school to get around the campus -- to sign in each morning, which was exhausting me, and especially for things like fucking FIRE DRILLS (or malicious pulls of the fire alarm, which happen a greater-than-zero number of times a year at my school), where I cannot keep up with the kids, or manage it all the way to the field, OR stand, thereafter, on the field. I guess the news to my vast LJ readership (which is what, five or so people? Not sure.) is that I have trouble walking now, and get absolutely exhausted. It's been getting worse for at least the last four or five years, somehow seeming to accelerate each summer before a new school year. But it's really bad, and painful, and the travelscoot is helping. I used it in the Oakland and O'Hare airports at Thanksgiving, when I went to Lake Geneva, and it was so much nicer than feeling like I was oppressing a person pushing me in a wheelchair. I am not sure that the fact that the travelscoot worked well in airports is enough to convince me that I could feasibly travel to, say, England or Ireland. But who knows? Maybe my brilliant intention of water walking and homemade food eating will help me make at least some improvement to my physical condition?
Meanwhile, I was moved to write this entry tonight because after starting to assemble the ingredients and then ignoring them on my table for a few hours, I finally went ahead and made my mom's cabbage bean soup, which is simmering for at least another thirty minutes on the stove.
I know I wrote this recipe in here years ago, but it would be a giant pain-in-the-ass to go dig it up. Here:
Cabbage-Bean Soup à la Martha Quinn:
There are two variants. My mother's I will put in parentheses, because it's not my favorite. Mine is the main one. It could also be made vegetarian.
1 lb. ground turkey (or ground beef)
2 c. shredded raw cabbage or more to taste
2 cans (or 3, depending) cannellini beans (or red kidney beans)
2 of those boxes of chicken broth (or beef broth)
1 can diced or crushed tomatoes
1 or 2 bay leaves
fresh thyme
salt, pepper
1. brown the meat and if there is fat, discard it. There isn't any no matter what kind of damn ground turkey you buy.
2. Mash up 1/4 of the beans and all of the bean liquid from the cans
3. Add all of the ingredients to a large pot and bring to a boil
4. Reduce heat and cover and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes.
How's that for easy? It smells good already and is activating my salivary glands, if that's not TMI.
Notes: I am using fancy-assed kosher salt for the first time ever, inspired (which may be generally inspired, in fact) by Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat, the show, not the book. I've never bought anything but Morton's Iodized Salt, "When it Rains, it Pours". Also, when the soup is done, I will add a cumin bagheer, meaning I will heat some oil in a small pan and pour a LOT of cumin in it until it sizzles and then dump that in the soup. That is not part of my mom's recipe either.
My mom liked my recipe as much as her own. I miss her so fucking much. This Christmas was hard for both Rachel and me, because Christmas was A Thing, for my mom and my grandmother. They liked it a lot. They didn't really go overboard at all with decorations -- but they relished each sort of habit and tradition that they had with it, from drinking spiked egg nog through listening to Xmas music and singing carols in a group, to decorating a tree and getting and wrapping presents. Even when my grandmother couldn't really have a tree in her small apartment in Madison, she would get fresh pine or fir branches and put them in a hanging basket and string lights through them. I'm addicted enough to Xmas lights that one window in my apartment has them lit year round. I just like shiny bright colorful things, from colored lights through glitter.
Things I miss about my mom (not sure I'll keep this section... we'll see):
Her tolerance and acceptance for everyone except rightwingers and the rich
Her sort of personal libertarianism -- she thought the drinking age was too high, smoked a lot of weed until several years ago and the beginnings of dementia, and basically felt people should be free, sexually and otherwise
Her many, many talents -- from singing to playing the guitar and recorder, to cooking, to watercolors and drawing, to photography and making a home comfortable and welcoming, to dressing well, to gardening, to reading and writing and public speaking and being passionate about justice and socialism.
Her kindness
Her love for cats
Her pleasure in her senses
Her aesthetic
Her principles, which she never betrayed
Her appreciation of art house movies
Her ability to live with deep, deep chronic depression and to be present with us, mostly, despite that
Her adroit management of denial
Her scattiness and frequent interiority.
I should go check the soup and maybe make the bagheer.
Oh, man, it's so good. So what if I haven't taken a shower (yet) and have to try to go to bed in an hour. This soup is good, and there is a lot of it left. What do the youngsters call it? An adulting win.