Today, Google Photos decided to remind me that Sam and I have been cooking together for quite a long time.
I'm not sure why this particular memory was flagged. It's not like it's one of those "10 years ago, today..." photos. This photo was taken on November 5th 2005.
Whatever the reason, I appreciate the reminder.
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| Are we great again yet? |
It's hard to tell if this is purposely meant to be ironic.
If I were more articulate, I'd write a post about how it continues to amaze me that hardworking people, who struggle daily to get by, allow themselves to be conned over-and-over again by blatantly dishonest politicians and in so doing repeatedly vote against their own interests - all the while scoffing at concepts such as economic and social equity, and instead focus on the evidently more important life-changing outrages of the day, such as the supposed "canceling" of Dr. Seuss or dropping the "Mr." from Mr. Potato Head - or whatever the latest shiny object is.
P.S. 2020 is over.
I bought a pressure cooker close to two years ago and for the first year or so of owning it, it sat unopened in the box, down in my basement. Part of the reason for not using it was due to fear. Actually, all of the reason for not using it was due to fear.
I was afraid, first and foremost, that it might burn my house down. I had images that when I would turn it on, it would be like a scene from one of those old cartoons where the character lights a long line of gunpowder, watching as sparks fly all the way along the line until it finally ignites the powder keg. This, I expected, would be exactly what my old wiring would do.
My other fear was that assuming the wires didn't catch on fire beforehand, I figured that when the pot eventually reached pressure, it would simply blow up - much like the aforementioned powder keg in the aforementioned cartoon.
Why would I buy a pressure cooker I was afraid of using? Good question. My not-so-good answer: It was such a good deal. I would have been crazy not to buy it.
So the pressure cooker sat down the basement, still unopened - until some at point well into the pandemic. That's when I finally decided to bite the bullet and haul it upstairs. I figured, a) if I don't try and use it now, I probably never will, and b) we're months into a pandemic with no end in sight. What more do I have to lose?
Well, I'm happy to say that since then, despite having used it almost every weekend for months, so far it has not yet set my wiring on fire - or burned down my house. This is especially good news since the end of this current pandemic is hopefully in sight.
In fact, this weekend, Sam and I used it twice in one day.
The first time was because we were making something called Chicken Shawarma Rice. This recipe was not only new to us but it was also presented as a so-called "Mediterranean" dish. We decided to make it anyway.
(Side note: My spelling for "Mediterranean" was so far off, spell check had no idea what word I was trying to zero in on. So I went on the internet and found it right away - along with this interesting fact: As of this moment, the Mediterranean Sea has a 4.6 star rating based on an average of 36,513 Google reviewers. I don't know if this makes it the highest rated sea on the planet or not, but I'm guessing it's right up there.)
Anyway, being a Mediterranean dish with a LONG list of spices, there was a reasonable chance that it may not be our cup of tea. Sam and I decided that we should also make a backup dish we were more familiar with, just in case. We opted for good ol' American Taco Pasta!
In the end, the Shawarma Rice and Chicken came out a little spicy (despite having cut the amounts of cayenne pepper and pepper flakes in half), but it was a hit! At least, that's what Sam said. Though now that I think about it, I seem to be the only one eating the leftovers while "someone else" is sticking with the taco pasta.
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| Yum. |
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| Almost yum. |
But not the other night. The other night, the fence was partially torn down. Trees were partially cut down. And the so-called "water" was little more than a pool of disgusting looking muck (ok, so not much change there).
So what's going on? We're not quite sure.
Near the end of our walk, we came upon a guy who seemed, by virtue of his intimate knowledge - both school building-wise and pond-wise, to be someone who worked at the school (officially or unofficially, we're not quite sure).
According to this guy, they were dredging the pond. That would explain the dredging equipment. Beyond that, he wasn't sure what the plan was.
He did, however, enlighten us as to the mystery of the no-more-ducks. According to this guy, who I will now call "Bob", the disappearance of the ducks had nothing to do with the so-called hoax known as climate change - or the possibly related rapid increase in algae growing in the now (or once) putrid smelling and putrid looking so-called "water".
No. According to Bob, the ducks were gone for two reasons: a red tailed hawk nesting in the nearby birch trees and later, a turtle, presumably of the snapping variety, which some lady had for some reason released into the pond.
Bob said that the hawk had started feasting on the ducks after getting tired of chasing down the nearby rabbits. (Actually, Bob didn't say anything about the hawk actually getting tired of chasing the rabbits, but he did mention the hawk chasing the rabbits and I can only assume that the hawk wised-up and found the ducks were a lot less effort to catch. Plus, there's still a lot of rabbits around. Ipso facto.)
Bob said that the turtle only added to the problem. After the lady dropped it off (I'm assuming Bob witnessed this), the turtle began eating the frogs. This seemed entirely plausible to me because now that Bob mentioned it, it seemed to me there were indeed considerably fewer frogs - I had just been distracted by the more devastating (and visible) loss of the ducks.
Anyway, when the frog population dropped, the turtle joined the hawk and also started going after the ducks. (Presumably the hawk and turtle were working on an individual basis. I don't think there was a formal hawk-turtle alliance).
Bob went into a fair amount of detail about this; about how there would be about a dozen ducklings in the morning and a day or two later, it would be about half of that. A day or so after that, about half again. Bob also went into specifics, casually, about how the ducks were getting killed. I won't repeat the specifics of it here but let's just say it involved the ducks and the throats they used to have.
At some point, Bob mentioned that he finally caught the turtle and released it a mile or so away, down-river, in a more natural habitat. Good move on Bob's part, if you ask me. I didn't think to ask Bob what he planned to do about the hawk.
Anyway, it was getting late, my legs were getting tired and Sam was already grossed-out. Plus, as I said, Bob didn't know what was going to happen to the pond.
Sam and I said goodbye to Bob, thanked him for his wealth of knowledge, and we headed home - slightly more informed and significantly more disgusted than when we left.
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| Pretty Flowers |
In the last week and a half, I've been to the hospital for x-rays, seen an orthopedic surgeon, and gone to a physical therapist. Each of these people are in the same so-called medical network. The hospital is about five hundred yards from my primary care physician's office, the other two offices are in the exact same building.
At each visit, when I walk into their office, the receptionist asks for my name, stares at the computer for a minute, and after a few clicks, asks me to confirm my date of birth, address and so on, indicating after each response that I've given them a correct answer.
What I want to know is, why, at each one of these places, am I having to fill out variations of the exact same three forms, asking me the exact same questions - what prescriptions am I taking? What is my medial history? What is my family's medical history? What are my allergies? And on and on and on. Why do they keep asking me this? Why is this not in their system?
A few years ago, I went through this with a different specialist, also in their network. When I went back for a follow-up a month later, the nurse practitioner asked me the exact same questions AGAIN. When I responded that I just went through this a month earlier, she didn't miss a beat. She just continued on.
The only thing that seemed to get a reaction from her is when she got to the point of asking me about my medications, I could remember all of them - except for the one that was prescribed for me one month earlier by the doctor I was there to see.
When I couldn't remember what the prescription was, Nurse Ratched replied with a sarcastic, "Well, that's helpful."
I told her that "this very doctor is the one who prescribed it for me. I would think it would be in your system - but apparently your system doesn't work that way!" She stopped writing, glanced up at me for about three seconds - then started writing again.
What she was writing, I can only guess.
Today was the warmest day of the year so far. It was probably the warmest day since last fall. To celebrate, Sam and I went for a walk on the finally non-ice covered bike path for the first time in I don't know how many months.
I had kind of forgotten how nice it was to walk this route. There was a gentle, almost spring-like breeze. Out on the water, large flocks of geese noisily bickered over god-knows-what. Further in the distance, a few swans floated downstream.
As enjoyable as it was, it would have been even more so had some of the other folks bothered to wear their friggin' masks.
For Sam's sake, I tried not to let it get to me. Instead, I focused on the fact that perhaps some of these specimens may, at some point, find themselves lying in a hospital bed, alone, with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling and think, "If only I had worn a mask."
I found this helped my attitude considerably.
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| Sam and his Grandpa, circa October 1998 (I think). |
When I picked Sam up from work on Wednesday, I was met, as I often am, by Sam's supervisor. Usually she wants to catch me up on something about his day or to flag my attention to something upcoming. Sometimes it's just for a little small talk.
This time though, she was trying to catch me before Sam came out. She wanted to know if it was ok if they surprised Sam with a birthday cake when he came to work on Friday.
