On my favorite food forum they’ve been discussing “Ah-ha!” moments when it comes to drinking wine. As the one forum member put it so well: “that moment where someone tastes a new type of wine, or takes a chance on a wine that they've never heard of before and has that little vinous epiphany where a door that they never knew existed opens for them, and a gorgeous ray of enlightened understanding comes through and they say to themselves, "Damn, this is really great stuff!" (or words to that effect).“ (If you’d like to see the whole post look here.)
So I read through the first few posts on the thread and decided that I have never had a wine Ah-ha moment, or at least nothing compared to what these people seem to have experienced. Then I started to think that it was all just another circumstance of the world of wine making me feel rather inadequate. But… upon perusal of later postings, I think there might be hope for me yet…
It appears that most people started out drinking, for lack of a better term, low-end wines. Gallo Hearty Burgundy gets mentioned quite often. Then sometime in their adult (or near-adult) lives they got a taste of a quality wine and… ta-dum! Or, more appropriately… ah-ha! Their eyes were opened to the joys of wine and everything was good in the world (well, that may be overstating it, but it gets the point across).
However, being a native-Californian with wine-loving parents, I never drank bad wine as a child. And yes, I did drink wine when I was far younger than the legal drinking age. My parents did not drink much, but anything resembling a special occasion always warranted a bottle of wine and everyone got a glass. My folks believed that allowing my sisters and me to have wine at home made it (and all liquor) not such a big mystery and, therefore, less enticing as an illicit pleasure. Well, that approach worked with me (and one of my sisters – two out of three is not bad) and I was never one to go out drinking just to get drunk.
But back to drinking good wine… not only did my father insist on fine wine at the dinner table, but also in church. Every time he was assigned to a new parish, the first thing he would do was to get rid of the crappy, frequently corked (why is that?), communion wine (often labeled “Communion Wine”) and replace it with something drinkable. Oh, the little old Episcopalian altar guild ladies would about keel over at such a radical change, but my dad would just buy the wine himself and pour the old stuff out if they tried to thwart him. And once the wine was blessed, there was nothing they could do since one simply cannot pour consecrated wine down the drain.
So my thinking is that between the good wine in church and the good wine at home, I did have an Ah-ha wine moment, but it was so long ago and I was too young to realize it at the time. For me, there was no time when I started drinking good wines – I’ve always been privileged to do so. I guess I’ll just have to be satisfied with having an Ah-ha moment about my wine Ah-ha moment.
31 January 2006
29 January 2006
Cookie Collection Recipe 2
Okay, as promised last week, here is the recipe for bar cookies that are reminiscent of Girl Scout Samoas (also called Caramel de-Lites in some parts of the country).
1½ cups sweetened shredded coconut
1½ cups unsweetened shredded coconut
½ cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter
1½ cups packed (12 ounces) brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 large egg
1¼ cups (5¼ ounces) unbleached, all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 cup (4 to 5 ounces) firm caramel or caramel candies,
cut into ¼-inch pieces or heated slightly until softened
¾ cup (4½ ounces) chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate,
or chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9x13-inch pan with a piece of parchment paper so it overhangs on two sides (if the other two sides are not lined with parchment, that is okay -- the main purpose of the overhanging parchment is so it can be used to help remove the baked cookies for cutting.)
Mix the two types of coconut together, spread on a half-sheet pan and toast in the oven, stirring frequently, until light brown. Cool and reserve ½ cup of the toasted coconut mixture in a separate bowl for topping the baked crust.
Cream together the butter, brown sugar, vanilla and egg in a large bowl, then mix in the flour, salt, baking powder and 2½ cups of the toasted coconut.
Spread the mixture in the prepared pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, then distribute the caramel over the crust and return the pan to the oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until the crust is medium-brown and the caramel is melted and bubbling.
Remove the crust from the oven, and sprinkle with the chocolate. Allow the chocolate to soften for about 5 minutes and then spread it evenly over the surface of the caramel-topped crust. Sprinkle the reserved ½ cup toasted coconut over the top of the chocolate and press it gently into the chocolate with a spatula. Set the pan aside to cool completely.
Loosen the edges of the crust with a knife, lift out using the overhanging parchment, and then cut it into bars for serving.
COCONUT-CHOCOLATE-CARAMEL BARS
Makes ~24 bars
The original recipe (found in "The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion") calls for all sweetened coconut, but I found that made the bars too sweet. However, feel free to change the proportion of sweetened to unsweetened coconut to suit your sweet-tooth.Makes ~24 bars
1½ cups sweetened shredded coconut
1½ cups unsweetened shredded coconut
½ cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter
1½ cups packed (12 ounces) brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 large egg
1¼ cups (5¼ ounces) unbleached, all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 cup (4 to 5 ounces) firm caramel or caramel candies,
cut into ¼-inch pieces or heated slightly until softened
¾ cup (4½ ounces) chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate,
or chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9x13-inch pan with a piece of parchment paper so it overhangs on two sides (if the other two sides are not lined with parchment, that is okay -- the main purpose of the overhanging parchment is so it can be used to help remove the baked cookies for cutting.)
Mix the two types of coconut together, spread on a half-sheet pan and toast in the oven, stirring frequently, until light brown. Cool and reserve ½ cup of the toasted coconut mixture in a separate bowl for topping the baked crust.
Cream together the butter, brown sugar, vanilla and egg in a large bowl, then mix in the flour, salt, baking powder and 2½ cups of the toasted coconut.
Spread the mixture in the prepared pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, then distribute the caramel over the crust and return the pan to the oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until the crust is medium-brown and the caramel is melted and bubbling.
Remove the crust from the oven, and sprinkle with the chocolate. Allow the chocolate to soften for about 5 minutes and then spread it evenly over the surface of the caramel-topped crust. Sprinkle the reserved ½ cup toasted coconut over the top of the chocolate and press it gently into the chocolate with a spatula. Set the pan aside to cool completely.
Loosen the edges of the crust with a knife, lift out using the overhanging parchment, and then cut it into bars for serving.
24 January 2006
Boyfriends
Yesterday, after a long period of silence, I heard from my old friend ADD. I worked with ADD many years ago at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and I would have gone crazy there if not for his friendship. Some upheavals in his personal life have kept ADD out of touch lately, but I don’t care how long it has been, he will always be one of my most cherished friends.
Coincidentally, the quote with the “A Word A Day” yesterday was:
“Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. “ – Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)
Now I think Mr. Wilde was a very talented man, but, in my opinion, he totally missed the boat on this one. Some of my best friends are men and that is nothing new.
Growing up, we always lived in neighborhoods that were oddly deficient in girls my age. Girl playmates had to be imported by car which required parental assistance and planning (which I found quite the dreadful concept when young), so my playmates were mostly boys. My best friend in kindergarten was a boy and I was the only girl at his 5th birthday party, where I won all the games – not only was I taller than all the boys, I was much more coordinated (the way girls tend to be at that age).
Another factor in my relationships with the male of the species was that my father had totally abandoned the idea of having any sons by the time I came along and decided to do all the “father/son” things with me. I had a great collection of Tonka trucks for my sandbox (including a fire truck that hooked up to a garden hose so it could shoot real water), train sets, electric car sets (slotless so you could change lanes) and so on. And these material possessions made me very popular with the neighborhood boys. Time spent with my father tended to consist of woodworking, hiking and going to construction sites to crawl around the inside of half-completed houses to check out the designs (this was when we lived at Sea Ranch, a community filled with architectural wonders).
And it didn’t stop there. As an adult, I like cars, construction (still), sports, electronics and computers… in other words traditional “guy things”. Then I started working in an industry that was 90% men. In my building at the last place I worked there were three other women: our division secretary (who was a good friend and I was matron-of-honor at her wedding); a laboratory technician (an odd little woman who owned, I’m not exaggerating, over a dozen cats and would occasionally bring one or two into work with her); and a near-silent, painfully shy, chemist (try as I might, I could never strike up any conversation with her that was not work-related). Unfortunately, I could not waste time during the day with my friend the secretary since her desk was right outside the boss’s door. That left me to find friends among my fellow chemists and engineers who were nearly all men.
I’m not saying that male/female relationships are not possible with all people. And I find it interesting that most of my male friends have been, for lack of a better word, geeks. Scientists, computer guys, engineers and the like. Why? My guy-friend MDT think it's because those careers draw people with the type of personality who have things in common with me and want me for a friend. In other words, geeks stick together. RWT feels that nerdy guys get so much of the “let’s just be friends” line from girls in high school and college (RWT has an impressive amount of experience with this phenomenon) that they are actually forced into learning to become friends with women and keep that ability throughout their lives. I sometimes wonder if it is just a percentages thing… only a certain percentage of people have friendship potential and when you mainly hang around geeky men, you’ll end up with more geeky male friends.
However, I do not claim for a moment that male/female friendships are just like same-sex friendships. There are things I tell my girlfriends that I would never admit to my guy-friends. And there are topics I talk about with my male friends about that most of my girlfriends really have no interest whatsoever in discussing.
From my side of it, I've never had to battle much against romantic feelings surfacing during my friendships with men. But I do see how it could occur in some cases, especially if no effort was made to avoid it. My father is fond of saying, “we are not animals and have control over our actions and feelings”. Not very romantic, but I find it to be apt. I go into male/female friendships knowing there will not be anything else other than friendship. The reasons why can run from not being attracted to the person in a romantic sense, other relationship commitments (such as marriage), that the friendship is in a professional situation where anything more would be inappropriate, and so on. But the biggest factor for me is that I value these friendships so much that I would hate to do anything to mess that up.
Coincidentally, the quote with the “A Word A Day” yesterday was:
“Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. “ – Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)
Now I think Mr. Wilde was a very talented man, but, in my opinion, he totally missed the boat on this one. Some of my best friends are men and that is nothing new.
Growing up, we always lived in neighborhoods that were oddly deficient in girls my age. Girl playmates had to be imported by car which required parental assistance and planning (which I found quite the dreadful concept when young), so my playmates were mostly boys. My best friend in kindergarten was a boy and I was the only girl at his 5th birthday party, where I won all the games – not only was I taller than all the boys, I was much more coordinated (the way girls tend to be at that age).
Another factor in my relationships with the male of the species was that my father had totally abandoned the idea of having any sons by the time I came along and decided to do all the “father/son” things with me. I had a great collection of Tonka trucks for my sandbox (including a fire truck that hooked up to a garden hose so it could shoot real water), train sets, electric car sets (slotless so you could change lanes) and so on. And these material possessions made me very popular with the neighborhood boys. Time spent with my father tended to consist of woodworking, hiking and going to construction sites to crawl around the inside of half-completed houses to check out the designs (this was when we lived at Sea Ranch, a community filled with architectural wonders).
And it didn’t stop there. As an adult, I like cars, construction (still), sports, electronics and computers… in other words traditional “guy things”. Then I started working in an industry that was 90% men. In my building at the last place I worked there were three other women: our division secretary (who was a good friend and I was matron-of-honor at her wedding); a laboratory technician (an odd little woman who owned, I’m not exaggerating, over a dozen cats and would occasionally bring one or two into work with her); and a near-silent, painfully shy, chemist (try as I might, I could never strike up any conversation with her that was not work-related). Unfortunately, I could not waste time during the day with my friend the secretary since her desk was right outside the boss’s door. That left me to find friends among my fellow chemists and engineers who were nearly all men.
I’m not saying that male/female relationships are not possible with all people. And I find it interesting that most of my male friends have been, for lack of a better word, geeks. Scientists, computer guys, engineers and the like. Why? My guy-friend MDT think it's because those careers draw people with the type of personality who have things in common with me and want me for a friend. In other words, geeks stick together. RWT feels that nerdy guys get so much of the “let’s just be friends” line from girls in high school and college (RWT has an impressive amount of experience with this phenomenon) that they are actually forced into learning to become friends with women and keep that ability throughout their lives. I sometimes wonder if it is just a percentages thing… only a certain percentage of people have friendship potential and when you mainly hang around geeky men, you’ll end up with more geeky male friends.
However, I do not claim for a moment that male/female friendships are just like same-sex friendships. There are things I tell my girlfriends that I would never admit to my guy-friends. And there are topics I talk about with my male friends about that most of my girlfriends really have no interest whatsoever in discussing.
From my side of it, I've never had to battle much against romantic feelings surfacing during my friendships with men. But I do see how it could occur in some cases, especially if no effort was made to avoid it. My father is fond of saying, “we are not animals and have control over our actions and feelings”. Not very romantic, but I find it to be apt. I go into male/female friendships knowing there will not be anything else other than friendship. The reasons why can run from not being attracted to the person in a romantic sense, other relationship commitments (such as marriage), that the friendship is in a professional situation where anything more would be inappropriate, and so on. But the biggest factor for me is that I value these friendships so much that I would hate to do anything to mess that up.
21 January 2006
Cookie Collection Recipe 1
Yes, it's that time of year... cute little imps are running around knocking on doors and selling cookies. If you can't wait for your six boxes of Thin Mints to be delivered, you can satisfy your craving by making these cookies.
These cookies taste quite a bit like Girl Scout Thin Mints. The dough can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated or frozen until ready to be sliced and cooked. I like to drizzle these cookies with some lightly green-tinted white chocolate instead of the bittersweet chocolate.
1½ cups bleached, all-purpose flour
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ teaspoon peppermint extract
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
6 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate or confectionary coating, chopped
Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, and salt together in medium bowl to blend and set aside.
In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Mix in the peppermint extract and vanilla, then mix in the sugar in 3 additions. Add the egg and mix until blended, then add the reserved flour mixture and mix just until blended (the dough will be sticky).
Divide the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap and, using the plastic wrap as an aid, form each piece of the dough into a 2”-diameter log. Wrap with the plastic and refrigerate the dough until well chilled, at least two hours.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease or line with parchment paper two half-sheet pans.
Unwrap the dough logs and roll them briefly on the work surface to form smooth round logs. Cut the logs crosswise into ¼“ thick rounds and place the rounds on the prepared pans, spacing the cookies 1“ apart. Bake the cookies until the tops and edges are dry to touch, ~15 minutes. Then cool them completely on the pans.
Stir the chocolate in the top of a double boiler set over simmering water until the chocolate is melted and smooth, or melt the chocolate in a microwave-safe container at 50% power in a microwave. Let the melted chocolate cool until slightly thickened but still pourable, ~10 minutes. Dip a fork into the melted chocolate, then wave the fork back and forth over the cookies, drizzling the melted chocolate thickly over the cookies in a zigzag pattern.
Refrigerate the cookies until the chocolate is set, ~10 minutes (if using confectionary coating or if you tempered the chocolate, you can skip the refrigeration).
[Next Week: Samoas/Caramel de-Lites Knock-Offs]
CHOCOLATE MINT COOKIES
Makes ~3½ dozen cookies
Makes ~3½ dozen cookies
These cookies taste quite a bit like Girl Scout Thin Mints. The dough can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated or frozen until ready to be sliced and cooked. I like to drizzle these cookies with some lightly green-tinted white chocolate instead of the bittersweet chocolate.
1½ cups bleached, all-purpose flour
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ teaspoon peppermint extract
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
6 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate or confectionary coating, chopped
Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, and salt together in medium bowl to blend and set aside.
In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Mix in the peppermint extract and vanilla, then mix in the sugar in 3 additions. Add the egg and mix until blended, then add the reserved flour mixture and mix just until blended (the dough will be sticky).
Divide the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap and, using the plastic wrap as an aid, form each piece of the dough into a 2”-diameter log. Wrap with the plastic and refrigerate the dough until well chilled, at least two hours.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease or line with parchment paper two half-sheet pans.
Unwrap the dough logs and roll them briefly on the work surface to form smooth round logs. Cut the logs crosswise into ¼“ thick rounds and place the rounds on the prepared pans, spacing the cookies 1“ apart. Bake the cookies until the tops and edges are dry to touch, ~15 minutes. Then cool them completely on the pans.
Stir the chocolate in the top of a double boiler set over simmering water until the chocolate is melted and smooth, or melt the chocolate in a microwave-safe container at 50% power in a microwave. Let the melted chocolate cool until slightly thickened but still pourable, ~10 minutes. Dip a fork into the melted chocolate, then wave the fork back and forth over the cookies, drizzling the melted chocolate thickly over the cookies in a zigzag pattern.
Refrigerate the cookies until the chocolate is set, ~10 minutes (if using confectionary coating or if you tempered the chocolate, you can skip the refrigeration).
[Next Week: Samoas/Caramel de-Lites Knock-Offs]
20 January 2006
I’m not Kelly McGillis…
… and you’re definitely not Tom Cruise.
When I worked for the Navy as a paints & coatings expert, I regularly taught a class on lead-based paint management. Occasionally, it would be a free-standing course, but most of the time, I was a guest speaker as part of a larger course on paints & coatings or environmental topics.
Teaching the painters and maintenance workers was never an issue. Even though most did not have anything higher than a high school education (if that) and were not the most sophisticated of people, they always listened attentively to what I had to say and were there to learn. But teaching the military officers was a whole other matter and the first time I taught the lead-paint class to a group of officers, I was totally caught off guard.
One of the possible effects of lead-poisoning is impotence. Now, I didn’t go into it in detail in my presentation, buy merely included it in a long inventory of potential health risks. And when I rattled off my list (which also included numerous neurological problems, such as brain damage) and got to “impotence”, two Lieutenant Commanders in the back row of the classroom started giggling. Then commenting to those sitting around them. Then laughing. These were not two young officers just out of school – they both had been in the Navy for at least ten years or so.
And I was totally unprepared for their response (the most noticeable reaction when I mentioned “impotence” to the blue collar workers was that they would suddenly get very interested in their course outline), so I ignored Lieutenant Commander Snickerer #1 and Lieutenant Commander Snickerer #2 figuring they’d stop momentarily. Well, they didn’t. I was already on to sources of lead exposure and they were still being disruptive.
At that point, a Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel stood up, spun around and told them to shut up, he was there to learn and they were wasting his time. While the unexpected assistance was certainly appreciated, I was determined that I would take care of it on my own if it ever happened again. So I went back to my office that afternoon determined to think up an appropriate plan of action and the next time I taught the course to a room full of military officers, I was ready.
What I had hoped most of all was that the first incident had been a fluke and it would not occur again. But no. Same course, same classroom, a different collection of Navy officers… I said the word “impotence” and a guy in the front row started snickering and poking his buddy. Sheesh.
So I put on my most pitying facial expression and, in a concerned tone, asked him if he was experiencing impotence problems and suggested that perhaps he should have his blood lead levels tested.
That was all I had to say. The class erupted into laughter, Lieutenant Smart-Ass turned bright red and no one gave me any lip for the rest of my lecture. Order was restored.
When I worked for the Navy as a paints & coatings expert, I regularly taught a class on lead-based paint management. Occasionally, it would be a free-standing course, but most of the time, I was a guest speaker as part of a larger course on paints & coatings or environmental topics.
Teaching the painters and maintenance workers was never an issue. Even though most did not have anything higher than a high school education (if that) and were not the most sophisticated of people, they always listened attentively to what I had to say and were there to learn. But teaching the military officers was a whole other matter and the first time I taught the lead-paint class to a group of officers, I was totally caught off guard.
One of the possible effects of lead-poisoning is impotence. Now, I didn’t go into it in detail in my presentation, buy merely included it in a long inventory of potential health risks. And when I rattled off my list (which also included numerous neurological problems, such as brain damage) and got to “impotence”, two Lieutenant Commanders in the back row of the classroom started giggling. Then commenting to those sitting around them. Then laughing. These were not two young officers just out of school – they both had been in the Navy for at least ten years or so.
And I was totally unprepared for their response (the most noticeable reaction when I mentioned “impotence” to the blue collar workers was that they would suddenly get very interested in their course outline), so I ignored Lieutenant Commander Snickerer #1 and Lieutenant Commander Snickerer #2 figuring they’d stop momentarily. Well, they didn’t. I was already on to sources of lead exposure and they were still being disruptive.
At that point, a Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel stood up, spun around and told them to shut up, he was there to learn and they were wasting his time. While the unexpected assistance was certainly appreciated, I was determined that I would take care of it on my own if it ever happened again. So I went back to my office that afternoon determined to think up an appropriate plan of action and the next time I taught the course to a room full of military officers, I was ready.
What I had hoped most of all was that the first incident had been a fluke and it would not occur again. But no. Same course, same classroom, a different collection of Navy officers… I said the word “impotence” and a guy in the front row started snickering and poking his buddy. Sheesh.
So I put on my most pitying facial expression and, in a concerned tone, asked him if he was experiencing impotence problems and suggested that perhaps he should have his blood lead levels tested.
That was all I had to say. The class erupted into laughter, Lieutenant Smart-Ass turned bright red and no one gave me any lip for the rest of my lecture. Order was restored.
Segways & Segues
There has been a big brouhaha regarding Segways discussed on, of all places, my food forum. Last week, someone rode a Segway into a restaurant and asked for his table while still mounted up on it. The hostess who was confronted with this patron towering above her wrote about the incident on my favorite food forum (here). Then, the Washington Post picked up the story (here) and it has only escalated from there.
What most people do not (or in the case many of the forum members, did not) realize is that Segways have become popular with people with mobility impairments. And those folks have come onto the food forum to point that out. Some of these Segway visitors are very nice and polite while others are angry. The angry ones make me think of my mother.
The last five years of her life, my mother had multiple serious medical problems and was in a wheelchair (she used a cane for the ten or so years prior). Additionally, she suffered from fibromyalgia which caused her to have constant pain in her back, across her shoulders and into her neck. To help deal with the pain, she attended a chronic pain support group and some of the new folks visiting the food forum remind of the people from that group.
I find myself wondering if my mom went to that group not for support but to keep her perspective. So many of the group were very, very angry. Angry that they were in constant pain. Angry that the doctors could do little or nothing to alleviate their pain. Angry that other people were not in pain. And I certainly understand why they would feel that way. But my mother (the only person in a wheelchair in the group) did an incredible job of not being angry. Sure, she had her bad days, but I think that witnessing the futility of the anger of the other people in her support group kept her from falling into that way of thinking.
Unfortunately, I never really had the chance to talk to my mother about this specifically. She was raised to “not to be a bother” and even discussing "bad" emotions such as anger was a definite no-no. My mother did an admirable job of not inflicting the way she was raised upon me – I have no trouble expressing my displeasure or being a bother (just ask RWT). However, my mother and I were still very much alike. Outwardly, our reactions to things were quite different, but on the inside, we usually saw things the exact same way.
About six months before she died, I took care of my mother for two weeks while my father took a much needed respite from being her primary care giver and went to visit his sister. The first night at my parent’s house, I spent most of the night worrying about how I would get my mother out of the second story bedroom of their house if there was a fire. She had an electric lift to get up and down the stairs, but I felt that it could not be counted on in an emergency. After much tossing and turning, the best I could come up with was lowering her out of a window using a bedsheet, but my mother outweighed me by more than twice as much, so barring adrenalin-induced feats of super-strength, my plan pretty much sucked.
The next morning, my mom took one look at the dark circles under my eyes and wanted to know what I had stayed awake worrying about all night. Well, it turns out she had already considered all the possible contingencies in case of a fire (including my half-assed sheet plan) and had determined her best course of action was to scoot down the stairs on her rear pulling herself along the track of her lift with her arms (my mom was always very strong and after she had one leg amputated, she had more upper body strength than ten grinches plus two). Not only did we think alike, we worried, obsessed and planned alike too.
Our similar way of seeing things enabled me to be a great caregiver for her. I always knew when to joke her into doing something and when to be the meanie. That time alone with her, caring for her, turned out to be a very special couple of weeks that I will cherish forever. It was the last chunk of time I spent with her outside of a hospital. After nearly six years of battling illness, she died on Valentine’s Day.
Yes, her dying on Valentine’s Day totally sucks. At first, when someone would come up to me in all the hype leading up to Valentine’s day, smile and ask what special thing I would be doing to celebrate that year, it would feel like they were laughing and joking at my pain. It made me angry, just like some of those mobility-impaired Segway users and like the people in my mother’s chronic pain support group. It took a lot of effort not to bluntly inform my good natured, but ignorant, friends and acquaintances that my mom had died on Valentine’s Day – just to wipe the grin off their faces.
Although my mother always wanted me to express what I was feeling, I am glad I witnessed her example that getting angry is not always the best course of action. Anger might be the only means of coping at times or a way to feel better for that moment. But for me, it is just ends up being a bunch of negative energy that does little to help an already difficult situation. Luckily, most of my anger over her death has dissipated over the last ten years and I can now sincerely smile and tell people that we’re not doing anything special for Valentine’s Day.
So on Valentine’s Day you won’t find me going to a romantic restaurant or riding on a Segway or being angry. We’ll probably just stay in again and have a quiet night. And I’ll be thinking of my mom.
What most people do not (or in the case many of the forum members, did not) realize is that Segways have become popular with people with mobility impairments. And those folks have come onto the food forum to point that out. Some of these Segway visitors are very nice and polite while others are angry. The angry ones make me think of my mother.
The last five years of her life, my mother had multiple serious medical problems and was in a wheelchair (she used a cane for the ten or so years prior). Additionally, she suffered from fibromyalgia which caused her to have constant pain in her back, across her shoulders and into her neck. To help deal with the pain, she attended a chronic pain support group and some of the new folks visiting the food forum remind of the people from that group.
I find myself wondering if my mom went to that group not for support but to keep her perspective. So many of the group were very, very angry. Angry that they were in constant pain. Angry that the doctors could do little or nothing to alleviate their pain. Angry that other people were not in pain. And I certainly understand why they would feel that way. But my mother (the only person in a wheelchair in the group) did an incredible job of not being angry. Sure, she had her bad days, but I think that witnessing the futility of the anger of the other people in her support group kept her from falling into that way of thinking.
Unfortunately, I never really had the chance to talk to my mother about this specifically. She was raised to “not to be a bother” and even discussing "bad" emotions such as anger was a definite no-no. My mother did an admirable job of not inflicting the way she was raised upon me – I have no trouble expressing my displeasure or being a bother (just ask RWT). However, my mother and I were still very much alike. Outwardly, our reactions to things were quite different, but on the inside, we usually saw things the exact same way.
About six months before she died, I took care of my mother for two weeks while my father took a much needed respite from being her primary care giver and went to visit his sister. The first night at my parent’s house, I spent most of the night worrying about how I would get my mother out of the second story bedroom of their house if there was a fire. She had an electric lift to get up and down the stairs, but I felt that it could not be counted on in an emergency. After much tossing and turning, the best I could come up with was lowering her out of a window using a bedsheet, but my mother outweighed me by more than twice as much, so barring adrenalin-induced feats of super-strength, my plan pretty much sucked.
The next morning, my mom took one look at the dark circles under my eyes and wanted to know what I had stayed awake worrying about all night. Well, it turns out she had already considered all the possible contingencies in case of a fire (including my half-assed sheet plan) and had determined her best course of action was to scoot down the stairs on her rear pulling herself along the track of her lift with her arms (my mom was always very strong and after she had one leg amputated, she had more upper body strength than ten grinches plus two). Not only did we think alike, we worried, obsessed and planned alike too.
Our similar way of seeing things enabled me to be a great caregiver for her. I always knew when to joke her into doing something and when to be the meanie. That time alone with her, caring for her, turned out to be a very special couple of weeks that I will cherish forever. It was the last chunk of time I spent with her outside of a hospital. After nearly six years of battling illness, she died on Valentine’s Day.
Yes, her dying on Valentine’s Day totally sucks. At first, when someone would come up to me in all the hype leading up to Valentine’s day, smile and ask what special thing I would be doing to celebrate that year, it would feel like they were laughing and joking at my pain. It made me angry, just like some of those mobility-impaired Segway users and like the people in my mother’s chronic pain support group. It took a lot of effort not to bluntly inform my good natured, but ignorant, friends and acquaintances that my mom had died on Valentine’s Day – just to wipe the grin off their faces.
Although my mother always wanted me to express what I was feeling, I am glad I witnessed her example that getting angry is not always the best course of action. Anger might be the only means of coping at times or a way to feel better for that moment. But for me, it is just ends up being a bunch of negative energy that does little to help an already difficult situation. Luckily, most of my anger over her death has dissipated over the last ten years and I can now sincerely smile and tell people that we’re not doing anything special for Valentine’s Day.
So on Valentine’s Day you won’t find me going to a romantic restaurant or riding on a Segway or being angry. We’ll probably just stay in again and have a quiet night. And I’ll be thinking of my mom.
18 January 2006
I'm back...
Hello.
I’m back.
Yes, it has been a while.
I’m doing well, how about you?
Actually, I am doing well now... November was a busy month with getting ready for our biennial Holiday Open House cookie-fest on the 11th of December. For some crazy reason, I decided to make a gingerbread replica of our house to use as a centerpiece for the party. Wait, go back, initially, for a brief moment of total insanity, I considered doing National Cathedral in gingerbread. Yikes! Just doing our square-box of a colonial (without the additions) was just about the death of me. I ended up spending hours and hours on it and that was only about half the amount of time I would have liked to have spent. But it came out pretty well. Here it is:
The week I baked the walls and roof was unseasonably humid and I did not take as much care as I should have in keep the pieces flat, so when it came time for assembly, there were some gaps. Also, I decided to pipe the dividers in the windows after I had made the molten sugar “glass” to pour over them. Let’s just say that piping straight lines under a time constraint is not one of my strengths. However, I was thrilled with how the tree came out – it was a lot of tedious work that I was afraid would be for naught.
If you noticed all the cookies surrounding the gingerbread house, those were for our Holiday Open House. Every other year (RWT refuses to allow me to do it every year, what a party-pooper), we invite all of our friends, neighbors and work colleagues over to stuff themselves silly with cookies. I still have to tally up the final count, but this year I made around thirty different kinds of cookies. [I am planning on posting one of cookie recipes here every week for your baking and eating pleasure, so stayed tuned.]
Unfortunately, in the midst of my baking frenzy, I really neglected my diet (yes, I had cookies for breakfast and sometimes lunch for nearly two weeks) and my food allergies got really out of hand. In fact, I spent one whole week thinking there was a distinct chance of my keeling over dead at any moment. But a consult to a specialist showed that simply was not true and I am no longer going to the military clinic doctor who put that idea into my head in the first place.
So with a renewed perspective on life (pondering imminent death for week will do that) and a better diet, I am writing here again. And it's good to be back.
I’m back.
Yes, it has been a while.
I’m doing well, how about you?
Actually, I am doing well now... November was a busy month with getting ready for our biennial Holiday Open House cookie-fest on the 11th of December. For some crazy reason, I decided to make a gingerbread replica of our house to use as a centerpiece for the party. Wait, go back, initially, for a brief moment of total insanity, I considered doing National Cathedral in gingerbread. Yikes! Just doing our square-box of a colonial (without the additions) was just about the death of me. I ended up spending hours and hours on it and that was only about half the amount of time I would have liked to have spent. But it came out pretty well. Here it is:
The week I baked the walls and roof was unseasonably humid and I did not take as much care as I should have in keep the pieces flat, so when it came time for assembly, there were some gaps. Also, I decided to pipe the dividers in the windows after I had made the molten sugar “glass” to pour over them. Let’s just say that piping straight lines under a time constraint is not one of my strengths. However, I was thrilled with how the tree came out – it was a lot of tedious work that I was afraid would be for naught.
If you noticed all the cookies surrounding the gingerbread house, those were for our Holiday Open House. Every other year (RWT refuses to allow me to do it every year, what a party-pooper), we invite all of our friends, neighbors and work colleagues over to stuff themselves silly with cookies. I still have to tally up the final count, but this year I made around thirty different kinds of cookies. [I am planning on posting one of cookie recipes here every week for your baking and eating pleasure, so stayed tuned.]
Unfortunately, in the midst of my baking frenzy, I really neglected my diet (yes, I had cookies for breakfast and sometimes lunch for nearly two weeks) and my food allergies got really out of hand. In fact, I spent one whole week thinking there was a distinct chance of my keeling over dead at any moment. But a consult to a specialist showed that simply was not true and I am no longer going to the military clinic doctor who put that idea into my head in the first place.
So with a renewed perspective on life (pondering imminent death for week will do that) and a better diet, I am writing here again. And it's good to be back.
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