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Ketchup…from Scratch!

29 Sunday May 2011

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Yes, this is for real, everyone.  Why not just grab a bottle and squeeze/pour?  Well, this is a quick and easy recipe with a reduced amount of sugar and no emulsifying gums like the commercial versions.

Keep reading and you’ll see why I did this.

You know, it’s funny how when I get in ‘cooking bender’ weekend moods like this I tend to go with a meat dish.  And for the second episode in a row here, it’s pork.  When I say ‘cooking bender’ I mean I go all out and try a recipe I’ve never done before and enjoy the leftovers. (Thank you, Tupperware, and my freezer).  I really do enjoy cooking and I think I’m pretty good at it, but admittedly when I’m not entertaining and it’s just me on a weeknight after work I fall in a pasta, garlic and pesto or other sauce habit with maybe some shrimp mixed in occasionally.  Perhaps I had a subconscious meat craving going on.

So, this ketchup from scratch is part of a BBQ pork recipe.  It’s a pseudo kind of BBQ…I’m no expert or snob in BBQ sauces but from what I read in this recipe it has a vinegar-y flavor which is North Carolina style – ?  OK, OK.  The flavors are wonderful and I was surprised how this sauce (and the ketchup) all came together pretty quickly.

I got introduced to The Primal Blueprint, a book by Mark Sisson, earlier this year. The theory is that our ancestors, back in our hunter/gatherer years prior to the onset of agriculture, were leaner, stronger and healthier than we are today.  Blame it on whole grains, dairy, sugar, breads, rice, pasta, gluten and even beans.  And, blame it on our sedentary lifestyles too I guess. This way of eating flies in the face of the ‘food pyramid’ that shows grains and breads as the recommended foundation of our modern diets.  Mark’s book flips all of that on its head.  The primal diet is full of meats, seafoods, fowl, fruits and vegetables and is intended as a lifestyle, NOT a quick fix diet.  When I first saw the book’s title I had a visual of some caveman eating raw meat right off the bone, like in the first part of the movie 2001:  A Space Odyssey, when the apes discover they now can use a bone as a weapon to kill for meat.  Didn’t sound very appetizing.

But it’s not that way at all obviously.  Stay with me on this ramble, everyone.  Here’s the recipe.  Man, I haven’t even had coffee yet today. 

Yes, there is a Primal Blueprint Cookbook and I highly recommend picking it up.  Mark Sisson and Jennifer Meier co-authored.

Primal Ketchup – makes about 1 1/2 Cups
1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
2/3 C cider vinegar
1/3 C water
3 T raw honey or pure maple syrup
3 T onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp ground Allspice
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp black pepper

Mix all ingredients in a food processor or in a bowl with a handheld blender until smooth.  Add a small amount of water if too thick.  Store in a tightly covered jar in the refrigerator.

That’s it!  Takes just 15 minutes, including prep time.  I fudged a bit and used red wine vinegar.  I’d thrown out the cider vinegar in my pantry because it was about a year past the expiration date – yikes – and when I made a trip to the grocery store I forgot to grab a fresh bottle.  And I used ‘regular’ honey, not raw.  I hardly ever use honey and I didn’t feel like buying another bottle because the one I already had was still pretty full. 

I also didn’t completely mince the onion – I took about 1/3 of a white onion and diced it fairly small.  And I love using minced garlic in a jar – 1/2 tsp is about equivalent to one clove and you won’t notice the difference at all.  My garlic mincer stays pretty dormant in the gadget drawer these days.

Ahhh, my handheld stick blender.  My folks gave me one for Christmas over 15 years ago and it’s an amazing tool.  Great for pureeing peeled tomatoes right in the can to start off your homemade pasta sauces.  And it worked wonderfully in a small glass bowl to make this ketchup.

Now, onto the BBQ pork…Grandma’s Easy BBQ Pork
Serves 8 or more
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F

1 T olive oil or high quality lard
8 pork chops or about 4 pounds of pork shoulder roast.  Use bone-in instead of boneless for the richest tasting sauce
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 C of the primal ketchup
1 C water
1/3 C vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp celery seed
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 bay leaf

Brown meat on all sides in fat/oil over medium to medium-high heat in a flame-proof casserole or Dutch oven.  While the meat is browning, combine remaining ingredients and stir to mix well. 

When the meat has browned, remove from heat and pour mixture over the meat.

Cover with lid or foil and bake at 325 degrees F for 1 1/2 hours for chops and about 2 1/2 hours for roast.  Check halfway through the baking time and add a small amount of water if necessary.

Remove bay leaf and transfer the chops or roast onto a warm platter and pour sauce in a gravy boat or pitcher.  Spoon or pour some sauce over the meat to moisten.

See how easy that was?  It’s absolutely delicious.  Now, to make it truly Primal, serve with mashed cauliflower, turnips or parsnips rather than potatoes or rice.  Shredded cabbage would work well here too.

I used a 3 1/2 pound boneless pork shoulder roast and the 2 1/2 hour cooking time was perfect.  I also used plain white vinegar and grey sea salt.

When I first lived on my own and realized I needed to get more confident with my cooking, I purchased a few cookbooks and started reading.  And I read in one that you must read the recipe all the way through before you start.  A recipe is not a mystery novel with a surprise ending.  And this is SO TRUE!  You don’t want to get stuck with your pants down with a recipe intended for dinner that evening and then ‘suddenly’ realize you need to marinate something overnight.  Ugh.

So as I read through the BBQ pork recipe, two words jumped out at me: Dutch oven. I have a lot of great cookware but scratched my head…how in the hell do I not have a Dutch oven?  I have some large sauce pans and some large 6 and 8 quart stockpots for pasta or making soup…what would work here?  Aha.

I went upstairs and found my rarely-used, save-the-day 8 1/2 quart pot.  It’s Calphalon and the old school style, so the handles do not stay cool on the stove…and it’s the original hard anodized style (NOT nonstick).  I found it on amazon.com years ago on a total whim – something like $180 marked down to $15.  And while it’s pretty bulky – it’s wider than it is tall and I have to store it somewhere else than my kitchen – it’s well worth it.

This pot was just deep enough to hold the roast.  Now, browning the roast before baking it was a little tricky, especially since I had to use potholders to hold this large, heavy pot.  I heated up the pan on the stove and swirled olive oil 3 times around it once it was hot.  And I found two meat serving forks and grabbed one in each potholder’d hand, stabbed the roast on each side, and gently lowered it into the hot pan.  I’m glad I had the potholders on because the hot oil did spatter a bit.  

After about 3 or 4 minutes I put the potholders back on again, grabbed the meat forks and gently rotated the roast.  Once I got the hang of it it was a pretty easy process.

The pork can sit covered once it’s out of the oven – I used a large trivet and let it sit on my kitchen counter for a half hour before digging in.  The meat won’t overcook – rather, it will become even more tender.

Buon appetito!

And…We’re Still Here!

22 Sunday May 2011

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Looks like Judgment Day, Rapture, whatever you want to call it didn’t happen after all.  Everything’s still on, everyone!  Hope you didn’t cancel your Sunday plans.

Ha.  Well, I knew if our time was up yesterday, at least I got to sneak in one more birthday and celebrations to go out with a bang. 

Yep, May 19 is a special day, hence this Blog’s name.  And when it comes to celebrating my birthday, the window between the actual day and Memorial Day is fair game.  This year it was a typical day at work, but as I was driving to the office Thursday I remembered that it was also my start date anniversary in this engagement!  After that long, dry spell with no work plus delays pinning down the start date, it finally happened.  While I try to keep looking forward and not dwell on past negatives, I’ll admit that whole episode still is a little scabbed over and not healed.  OK, that sounds gross.  Let’s go with that there’s a scar.  And this engagement – a year and change so far – has been my longest since I pulled the plug on more steady type work and went into contracting/consulting.  I’ll be around at least until the end of June and after that it’s a question mark whether I’ll be extended out further.  Time will tell.  Meanwhile I continue to tweak the ol’ resume. 

So it was a special day – the weather warmed up and I even got a couple of lingering tasks I had been struggling to get off my plate completed.  My co-worker L took me to lunch and we had a nice outdoor table…finally, some warmth!  And the consulting firm I’m currently with does a social event every month called Third Thursday, which is a fabulous way to network with others on our other engagements and just unwind and relax with the team.  Usually we gather at the office itself, but our CEO had a great last minute idea for us to meet up at a restaurant right on Lake Washington.  Nothing better than great drinks and munchies and laughing with a gorgeous view of the lake and the sunset as your backdrop.

T took me to dinner on Friday at Brix, a wine bar not far from my house which has a wonderful menu and atmosphere.  They’ve been around a few years now and it’s fun seeing how they’ve worked out the startup glitches.  We toasted with Lemon Drops (ahhh, hadn’t had one of those in awhile) and enjoyed a 3-cheese plate with flatbread crackers before our entrees arrived – I chose the pesto and chicken flatbread pizza (which means leftovers – YUM) and T the roasted chicken breast, beautifully plated with sauteed spinach, potato puree and mushrooms.

After a great Silpada training event yesterday afternoon – always so much fun seeing the girls and meeting new people – I met my folks for dinner at Wild Ginger.  This is a wonderful Asian Fusion restaurant and they’ve now got a suburban location in the Bravern.  Verah nice!  We picked a few satays (small plates) to get us started (sea scallops, a slice of flank steak with peanut sauce and chicken with green curry) and then we enjoyed a wonderful dinner – family style entrees to pass around – of seared ahi tuna, beef curry and a side dish of pea pods with shiitake and portobello mushrooms in a fabulous oyster sauce.  How can I be hungry again just writing about this?  The flavors are truly spectacular.  

Today starts and ends with hockey.  What better way to cap off a birthday weekend!  I’m watching the Canucks/Sharks playoff series with fingers and toes crossed.  The Canucks have not made it to the western conference finals in over 15 years but they’re here now and hungry.  Maybe, just maybe this is their time.  But I’ll keep it at that.  Don’t want to piss off the Hockey Gods.

And later today I’m running to the mall to exchange a couple of birthday gifts (cute stuff but sized a little too optimistically, ha) and then to the rink tonight for my own team’s game.  Love love love summer hockey!

So I’m trying to come to grips that I’m now – gasp – 44…and what the hell is it all about anyway?  I’m feeling inner tugs and pulls that while I’m very happy to be employed and all, I’m not fulfilled.  Not that a job should be one’s life fulfillment anyway, but I want to spend my time and energy on things that fuel my inner sparkle and passion.  Technology.  Writing.  Jewelry.  Hockey.  Fashion. How can I combine my eclectic interests and make a good living?

Ah, now that’s more fodder for future posts.  Stay tuned!

Beat the Bridge…Beaten

15 Sunday May 2011

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Ah, bridges.

How much we depend upon our beloved bridges around here in the beautiful Puget Sound region.  Pulsing arteries jampacked with cars, buses, bikes – and painfully clogged during those peak commuter hours.  We’ve got so much natural gorgeousness around us…lakes, the Sound (salt water), rivers, mountains – all within a short drive for most of us.  Meaning, you can’t go far without eventually running into one of those.

Today was the annual Beat the Bridge run/walk to benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.  The jewelry line I represent, Silpada Designs, has JDRF as its charity of choice.  One of the girls on our local team here had a wonderful idea for us to do Beat the Bridge and pledge to donate the commission from one of our jewelry parties as part of our fundraising!  What a great idea! With 10 of us participating and an average party commission at around $300 (yes, it’s true) we were excited to set our team goal at $3000!  Which bridge you may wonder?  The University Bridge, not far from the U of W campus where the race starts and finishes. 

This was planned back in February. And yes, we had the best of intentions.  However, the Universe had other intentions, which I discovered around 6am this morning.  

Bottom line, we didn’t go.  Damn that pouring rain already!

I knew that I’d be walking most if not all of this 8K – and most of the other girls were planning to as well.  Back in February I figured this would be a great way to kickstart getting back in shape for this summer’s 5Ks by restarting the Couch to 5K plan I’ve written about in here occasionally over the past year.  It’s an 8-week running and walking program – just 3 times a week – that gets you ready to run a 5K when you’re done.  And yes, it works!

But illness and stress earlier this year really sapped my energy and my poor lungs.  I had a bad cold and cough for about two months – it just wouldn’t go away.  It was all I could do to eeek out a game of hockey, much less hit the treadmill or go outside in our (cold, shitty) winter weather.  Soggy, soggy soggy.

Nevertheless, I was ready to get out of bed super early and drive to the freeway bus stop where my carpool was going to scoop me up this morning on the way into Seattle.

But let me back up to Saturday for a minute…a glorious, sensuous, warm and sunny day – the kind of day we’ve been starving for here all spring.  Spring so far this year has been a repeat of our rain-soaked, chilly winter sans the snow.  I had a few things planned for Saturday but decided to squeeze in another mini-adventure when it dawned on me that I really should verify I know how to get to the freeway bus stop where my carpool was going to pick me up.  I had an idea in my mind of how to get there, but realized it had been – gasp – nearly 10 years since I’d ventured to that bus stop with a friend.  I’d better go drive over and check it out!  And it was a beautiful day – a perfect excuse to open the sun roof and get some vitamin D the natural way, crank some music and just drive.

So what’s the big deal about this bus stop?  Well, it’s perched literally at land’s end before the freeway turns into one of our two floating bridges that connect Seattle with the suburbs.  These bridges were built decades ago and at the time were very state of the art given they ‘float.’  Lake Washington was determined too deep to do any sort of structural building underneath, hence the floating design.  And I’ll keep it to that because I’m no expert in structural engineering.

Now, there is an oddly creepy-looking pedestrian bridge over the freeway on the east side of the lake, which is how my friend P and I last got to that bus stop nearly a decade ago.  P and I have fallen out of contact and I’d forgotten where we had parked to walk across that bridge, hence my sunny journey in the car yesterday.

Boy am I glad I checked it all out.  There are major projects underway to build a second portion of this particular floating bridge to help with congestion…and, as I soon found out, plans to remove that pedestrian bridge!  Yep, once I figured out where to park and found the foot trail that was supposed to get me to the pedestrian overpass it was all blocked off.  Wow.

So it was a neon yellow vinyl fence that stopped me from my foot journey over the freeway.  And I was not one to rebel and climb through.  Who knows – it might not be structurally sound any longer.  Actually that’s not a good feeling since thousands of cars drive under it every day, but anyway I wasn’t going to chance it.

But I looked across the freeway and could see people waiting at that elusive bus stop.  How the hell did they get over there?  There was no parking lot near it at all – just a carved out covered area in a small, grassy hillside to stand or sit. 

As I started to get a little frustrated (NOW what?) I paused for a moment and just drank in everything around me.  I’m standing on a dirt trail in beautiful sunshine.  I’m mere steps from incredibly ritzy homes (in the ‘high rent district’ neighborhood around here called Medina).  And I’m also mere steps from, well, a 20 foot drop down to a roaring river freeway, with the hillside below covered in tangled, dirty weeds from decades of car exhaust.  How rare is it we stand still so close to a freeway like this?  Thankfully my time roadside has been those rare occasions when I’ve been in a fender-bender or have a flat tire.  It’s just astonishing watching and hearing the amount of cars whizzing by every second and being so close perched at the angle above it on the foot trail.  I think back on how many thousands of times in my life I have gone back and forth over that bridge.  As a child in the back seat of my parents’ old station wagon.  On my own as a teen and a freshly-minted drivers license in an orange 1970 Volvo (LOVED that car, wow). And countless times as an adult.

I jumped back in my car and drove back to the main road.  Aha!  I found a small, gravelly parking lot for bus commuters.  The trick was to park there and walk over the main road that goes over the freeway, not the pedestrian bridge.  Then, jump onto the trail on the bus stop side and voila – you’re there!  Wow, cryptic.  Believe me I tried searching online for maps long before I got in the car.  Anyway, a little resourcefulness pays off.

I walked over the freeway, again in awe of the cars whooshing by below me.  And looked to the west toward our beautiful, shining Lake Washington and the Olympic Mountains a little hazy along the horizon.  This is our back yard.  And how awesome it was to take it in on foot rather than as a stressed out commuter.  As I stepped onto the foot trail down to the bus stop I ran into a very nice lady out walking her dog.  She was disappointed that the pedestrian bridge was now closed off – she sounded like she walked over it fairly often so this might have been a really recent closure.

After my bridge and freeway adventure I drove over to my friend M’s house.  Back in the car, I laughed to myself and thought WOW, I am SO GLAD I did all that foot trail and bus stop homework a day ahead of time.  I am a terrible morning person and I would have been a total zombie case trying to figure it out that morning, worrying my carpool would be held up. 

After a quick visit with M (she is going to host a jewelry party in combination with her new office opening and we’re so excited!), I headed back home, grabbed a bottle of pinot grigio and walked up to my neighbor A’s house.  We’re getting in a groove of watching any of The Real Housewives series (on Bravo) that she has in her Tivo a couple of times a month.  Sadly I have not yet made the switch to flat screen TV but that’s another post.  If any of you follow the New York housewives, you’ll understand the pinot grigio (it’s the signature drink of one of the cast). 

So after getting caught up with A and laughing our asses off at fabulous trainwreck TV, I headed home to carbo load with some penne and pesto and forced myself to bed early.  I knew I had to leave the house around 6am to get to that good ol’ bus stop for my carpool.

And, it started to rain.  What a huge contrast from the tease of sunny spring we had earlier in the day.  I kept optimistic – the weather forcecast for Sunday was a ‘chance of showers.’  Actually, around here you could use that forecast every day and be pretty accurate.

I was tired this morning.  But I got out of bed, got dressed in my walking/running gear and after scaring myself looking in the mirror I dabbed on a small bit of foundation (my face is naturally ruddy so anything to tone it down helps) and a little flick of mascara for those tired eyes.  Keys, hat, sunglasses (I’m eternally optimistic plus sensitive to glare)…and…phone.

Wow.  My phone had blown up with tons of voicemail and texts last night after I’d forced myself to go to bed early, but I didn’t see any of it until early this morning.  I keep my phone downstairs at night because I don’t feel a need to have it with me 24/7.  

When I saw how my carpool driver plus a ton of others in the group were going to cancel, the wind went out of my sails.  Just poof and pffffttt.  Why cancel?  Rain. Yep, it was still raining hard this morning and even still is now in the early afternoon.

So I was a sheep and I bailed too.  I felt a little dejected because I was looking forward to trying this race for the first time with friends, but I have to know that it just wasn’t meant to be.  And I won’t dig too deep for the reason right now.

‘Cause I’m tired.    

Changes Dunked in Silver

01 Sunday May 2011

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May already??  Wow. 

Well, it was quite a week.  And how could we not recap a week without a big nod to the Royal Wedding – ?  C’mon, even the most anti out there saw a few clips of it or at least the pictures?  And maybe even cracked a smile?  It was breathtaking.  Not so breathtaking for me to feel like getting up at 3am to watch it live, but I do know of a few ladies who did get up early and have a pajama party – with their best HATS on.  Love it!  And pass the tea and scones, please, darling.

So, changes.  Changes are good – good to refresh, re-analyze and re-group.  My work assignment is getting a brief extension at least into the summer – possibly into the fall – but that still has not hashed out.  Good Lord have I been back at work nearly a year?  Yes indeed.  All of that stress and anguish I went through prior to landing this gig won’t soon be forgotten.  So nice to have it far in the rear view mirror.  But with a few scars…and that’s OK.

Two of my closest co-workers wrapped up their assignments this week and are moving on.  One won’t be going too far it turns out, as she’ll be joining kind of a ‘cousin’ team of ours, but I’ll miss her ‘partner in crime’ that she’s been this past year.  Another is required to take about 3 months off – that’s the rules with some kinds of contingent workers – and she is hoping to return and pick up where she left off.

I’m happy for them both but admittedly a little sad.  But moreso I have a shitload of hilarious memories.  Things that may have sucked before but are now funny. 

I capped off the workweek with a wonderful dinner with my dear friend L at Brix, a wine bar a short drive from my house.  She’s a part of that circle of friends I get together with a few times a year – we’re all about the same age and went to elementary school together.  Unwinding over a nice pinot gris and to die for risotto was heavenly.  L and I can just smile at eachother and ‘know’ what we’re each thinking.  Oodles of memories over some 35 years.  

And the silver, silver, silver flows and flows.  I’m taking a few extra steps in my Silpada business by doing a sort of correspondence course with a coach at the corporate offices.  She sends me ‘homework’ each week for 4 weeks and I send it back at the end of the week.  She sends me feedback, the next week’s ‘homework,’ and we also chat on the phone during the week too.

Ugh.  I know myself pretty well and am realizing where I’m doing well in promoting my business and where I suck monkey butt.  I have a party next weekend that I’m SUPER excited about.  And one night I met up with a good friend I hadn’t seen in quite awhile for dinner and half priced bottles of wine.  She asked about the jewelry I was wearing, I let her road test a few pieces during dinner, and voila – that evening I had a very nice order from her!  So I feel comfortable when people approach me with questions or compliments.  I’ve been complimented on my jewelry from random strangers in the grocery store to the cashier in one of our work cafeterias.  You can bet I never go anywhere without my jewelry on and a handful of business cards.  Yes, I’m learning the nuts and bolts of direct selling.  It’s all about connections, people!  The woman who is hosting my party next week noticed my jewelry at work and it just flowed from there.  You never know!

But I hate picking up the damn phone.  It’s no problem for me when I’m doing follow up calls to make sure people are happy with their jewelry and to answer any other questions, but just making outbound calls to people I know to talk about what I’m doing and to ask if they’d like to host parties.  Well, ew.  I am so not a sales person, and frankly, when I get home from work I am tired and the last thing I feel like doing is picking up the phone.  I feel like I’m intruding on people’s dinner time or other quality time with family.  And you know I don’t mean to be whiney in here because I DO love what I’m doing as a side business, but that’s the area I need to really work on.

And it suddenly dawned on me why.

Email!  Texting!  Facebook!  So much of my immediate circle communication is through non-phone, social media methods!  Aha!  Is that something unique to me?  Or to this part of the country?  I have beautiful snail mail postcards in my supplies which are used to send out reminders about parties.  I don’t know about any of you, but around here we stick with Evite.  Is it because it’s ‘green’?  Or technological?  It’s SO much easier to set up parties and have reminders sent automatically via email.  

So these are some fun self-discovery things…part of the reason I chose to start this business was to get out of my comfort zone and do something I’d never done before.  Same as my plunge into hockey back in 2003.

I’ll be speaking during part of our monthly team meeting this week and I’m really honored to be asked. It’s very informal – just sharing the tips I’ve learned from this 4-week course I’m doing on my own – but I really appreciate the chance to participate more in our meetings.  ‘Cause they’re super fun!!

And now it’s time to head to the bank and run other fun errands.  Got a shiny new Silpada license plate frame on my car – let’s see what happens!
     

Is it Easter Writer’s Block?

24 Sunday Apr 2011

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Nope.  On the contrary I have so many things whirling around in my head from this past week to write about that nothing has gelled yet.  Not even this rather late in the weekend. Read on and you’ll see what I mean.

Work contract extension.  Jewelry “homework.” Lots of parties this week…from a work party to a great girls night in with my neighbor A to watch reruns of the Real Housewives series on Bravo.  Shamelessly.  Oh, and Easter.  Time with family today.  An INTENSE Canucks/Blackhawks playoff series right now (I’m a huge Canucks fan, by the way).  A fabulous silent auction last night to benefit a team a few friends will be playing on next week in a tournament to benefit Hockey Fights Cancer.  Once I saw the spa package up for bid…AND the TPS hockey stick (a lefty – yay!) decked out in PINK, yep, with the breast cancer awareness ribbons on it…I knew those two beauties would be mine.  And they are! 

I started the evening yesterday meeting my dear friend J for sushi before we headed to the auction.  And ended it meeting another friend J for a drink afterwards at the bar nearby…one of the guys I’ve know through the league for years but we fell out of contact recently.  Good to reconnect.  Too funny how I was tired yesterday and didn’t think I’d stay at the auction too long, but I ended up heading home close to midnight with a pretty long drive ahead of me.

Now I’m even more tired and ready to hit the coffee before spending some time with my family to celebrate Easter.  Can you believe how LATE Easter is this year?  It’s about as late as it can be. 

Ahem, excuse my geekiness, but I happen to know why.  There was a full moon just one day prior to the Vernal Equinox (the first day of spring) this year.  Easter always needs the Equinox first, then a full moon, then a Sunday.  So because a full moon was just the day prior to the Equinox this year, the moon had to go through a whole wax and wane cycle again…it wasn’t full again until April 18, a Monday.  Since Easter has to be on a Sunday we had to go another week till today, Sunday April 24.

And there’s your Easter lesson from a rather tired fivenineteen here.  Time to get ready for brunch, visit with family and then glue myself to the Canucks/Hawks game tonight.  Can the Canucks finish off the series and send the Hawks to the golf course?  Or do we have to go till game 7 to decide this once and for all?

Half Dreams

17 Sunday Apr 2011

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I didn’t do it.  It didn’t happen. 

This morning was supposed to be my first 5K of the year…the Bellevue 5K/10K which starts and ends in the Downtown Park.  My good friend T, fellow 5K’er and partner in crime for all things shopping and all things fabulous sushi, asked me to join her and a few others to do this one.  Why not?  She and I did two last year, and we were excited to try a different route!

For some reason I had a gut feeling early on that it wasn’t meant to be.  And it was for something as silly – and frustrating – as the registration process.  I went online a few weeks ago to sign up and the damn system put me in the most bizarre loop.  I kept getting prompted to register and create an account, starting with my email address.  So, after creating a new account, I got an error that my email address was already registered and that I just needed to sign in.  Huh?

OK, OK, no problem.  Perhaps I did create an account many moons ago with this registration network.  But try as I might with a handful of the standard passwords I use, no luck.  I then hit the ‘forgot my password’ button, but got yet another error that ‘this email address is not on file – please register.’  REALLY?  And the same thing happened with three different email addresses.  So, the system was hosed.  Thankfully T registered on my behalf after I’d tried this a few times to no avail.

If you know me in real life or perhaps read my ramblings here regularly, you may recall I’ve been under the weather, battling a lingering cold and cough since about February.  It’s pretty much gone (dang I say that every week…longest decrescendo ever eh?) but it’s very apparent how it’s sapped my energy level – moreso my voice.  I was talking with T yesterday on the phone to figure out timing and where we were going to meet this morning and she asked, “Are you feeling OK?  You don’t sound so good.”  I was feeling good, but my ravaged voice sounded otherwise.  I guess I’ve gotten so used to how somewhat raspy it is right now.  I told her no, I’m fine, looking forward to tomorrow and all.  And I was!

It’s a little frightening how horrible a morning person I am becoming.  The race started at 8am, which meant I’d have to get up even earlier – on a Sunday – than I typically do for work, to allow enough time to drive, park, pick up my registration packet and all.  So I forced myself to bed a few hours earlier than normal, but I tossed and turned like a dumbass.  Did I have my alarm set correctly?  Did I turn off its weekend sleeper cycle so it WOULD go off on Sunday?  DUH.  I NEVER worry about that on weeknights!  Anyway, I remember this tossy/turny feeling the nights prior to 5Ks, so I tried to just laugh it off and relax.

Normally my adrenaline kicks in and I bust through my inner fog and get up.  But today, that didn’t happen.  Around 6:30am or so, I stumbled out of bed and went downstairs to text T that I was a no-go.  Feeling oh so very turdlike.  But I knew deep down she would understand.  And she was doing this race with her boyfriend and a few others so I wasn’t leaving her high and dry.  

Then I went back to sleep.  I had no idea how much – or little – sleep I’d gotten the night before, but I sure needed more now.  Alarm…off you go.

But in the fuzzy purgatory-ish moments between laying awake and falling asleep, I started having what I call Half Dreams.  I’m not fully asleep in a dream when these happen.  Rather I have two visions in front of me.  First, whatever I would normally see, like the bed blankets, the ceiling or the window…and then an overlay of whatever the dream scene is.  Anyone else ever experience these?  I’ve only just noticed them recently.  They are mostly very brief scenes of recent memories – things that have happened at work or just hanging around the house here.  And even the memory of the flashing lights in my rear view mirror when I got a speeding ticket last month.  Ha.  Somewhere there’s some irony and humor about getting a speeding ticket going TO work.

I finally crawled out of bed around 10am.  Sweet freakin’ bliss.  THAT cleansing sleep (and a few Half Dreams) was exactly what I needed.  And as I went downstairs a second time to start my day (Take 2!) I smiled as I checked my phone and saw T’s text:  “Totally understand! Love you!”. 

Now THAT’S a true friend alright. Can’t wait to see her later this week and get caught up over fabulous sushi.      

The Nine Year Sage

10 Sunday Apr 2011

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This November I will celebrate nine years here in my townhome.  Yes, it was Thanksgiving weekend 2002 and I won’t ever forget the adrenaline rushes, from waiting on offer respones to the inspection…and the hugeass cashiers checks in my hot little hands.  Sweating it a bit as a first-time home buyer…doing this on my own, with no husband or boyfriend.  And being in a dual residency position for a few weeks, as the last days of my apartment lease overlapped with when I closed on the place here. I remember thinking oh, this is perfect, I’ll have time to paint or whatever before the furniture gets moved in.

Yeah, right.  Turns out I had to go out of town on business for a week, very last minute, and I got home literally at midnight the day of the big move.  My pre-move time was focused on packing up endless boxes and making multiple trips to Goodwill. My Mom, bless her heart, offered to help me put shelf paper in all of the kitchen and bathroom cabinets and drawers because there was NONE.  Gross.  So, after some good scrubdowns and seemingly endless cuttings of shelf paper, we did it.  Between the kitchen cupboards and cabinets, plus 3 bathrooms (a powder room, full bath, plus a separate large master open vanity), there was a LOT of surface area to cover.

Trust me, even moving just 3 miles is a huge pain in the butt.  I had to get a new phone number (landline) because I’d moved out of whatever zone or grid they were using. [I was late to the cell phone party, just getting my first in 2001, so I was much more reliant on the landline in those years]. And I now also recall how the cell phone reception in my old apartment was pretty bad – we were perfectly poised in a dead spot.  Ugh.  Other than that, I adored that old apartment.  So much I stayed in it nearly 5 years, and it really didn’t motivate me to look for a place of my own.  The rent was very reasonable, and the amenities in turn were incredible.

I am probably the 5th or 6th owner in this home.  These units were built in 1980, and, as cliche as it sounds, they really don’t make ’em like this anymore.  These units are true townhome style, not cookie cutter square boxes.  Each home has an oversized, 2-car garage.  You really, truly don’t see large garages in newer condo/townhome construction around here.  Maybe a 1 car garage, or a 2 car, tandem style.  And STAIRS.  Three levels.  One of my earliest posts in here was how much I felt grown up when I got stairs of my own. My earliest childhood memories are of my folks’ large rambler – we moved to a home with stairs later.  To me, as silly as it seems, this meant GROWING UP.

I can only imagine all of the memories jammed in my house from the past 30 years.  Lordy, just my short block of nine is chock full.  Painting – doing it on my own and schlepping back and forth to the local Home Depot.  Countless trips to Bed, Bath and Beyond.  Holy crap, now I had THREE bathrooms to furnish, not just one!  Updated window treatments.  Workin’ on that curb appeal.  Not to mention the social memories – too countless to list here. 

I met the sellers of my place very briefly, and they mentioned that they had 6 ferrets as pets, but replaced all of the carpet and flooring once they moved out.  FERRETS?  SIX?  Faint.  Did I really need to know this?

They may have replaced the carpet and flooring, but took the fridge and washer dryer.  Not very appealing to a buyer necessarily, BUT it gave me good leverage in negotiating a price.  After all, I would need to fork out a few grand to purchase appliances. At least they would be new. 

How much updating have I done in here beyond that?  Well, not as much as I’d hoped after nearly a decade, but I have a tendency to be overly self-critical.  Between a large outside repair assessment (for our entire HOA), and later a large, individual project for me to rip out and redo my back deck, those were large chunks of spending for sure.  But so worth it.  I have a nearly 400 square foot back deck which is private.  I’ve had a ton of fun painting and playing around with bold colors, plus I just adore the custom wood blinds I’ve added in the living room and bedrooms.  Replaced the microwave and stove too.  The fridge now, ahem, twice. [See my ‘Refrigerator Drama’ post from last fall on that episode].  

And yet in this age of super-large kitchens, granite countertops and slate tile flooring, well, I have yet to make any of those updates.  Hell, I still have popcorn ceilings which need to be sprayed down and scraped.  For real.  No floor molding updates either, as I ripped out the yucky brown stuff when I painted.  And some old, scary dark brown doors on the upper floor need replacing.  I did the downstairs doors but was on the brink of a job change and held off doing the whole house, grr.  Now I wish I had.  Too funny how I have the doorknob hardware all ready to rock – but no new doors.  Yes, the list is long.

So what’s the deal with saging?  Well, several of my friends have done it and really recommend it.  It’s cleansing and gets rid of negative energy in a house – moving into a new home is a perfect time to sage.

The sage I purchased is about the size of very small bundle of asparagus.  You light it, blow out the flame, and let the rest of the ‘torch’ smolder.  Spring has yet to really, well, spring, around here but it wasn’t raining so I decided to do it today and open up all the doors and windows here in the house.

And no, the smoke alarm did not go off, whew.  

You’re supposed to go clockwise in each room with the sage smoke, saying a blessing meanwhile.  Clean, clean clean.  All of the bad memories for me in this house BE GONE, plus who knows what else happened prior to me moving in.  I know a woman died in here a couple decades ago but honestly that never has really freaked me out.  What else happened?  Doesn’t really matter now – the vibes if any are gone.

Call me cuckoo, but I DID feel better after doing this.  And the smell was not overwhelming at all – in fact it was gone after about 30 minutes – all I felt was fresh air after that.  Nice.   

Title of Post Goes Here

04 Monday Apr 2011

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Never have I been so happy to flip a calendar page!  Welcome, APRIL!!  March, well, you were great for the first five or six days, then you pretty much blew chunks.  Better luck next year.

You know what’s great about blogging?  The power of the written word never ceases to amaze me. I’ve had a fair amount of feedback on my March posts, for example…from empathy and support all the way to ‘get over it…for fuck’s sake stop blogging about it.’  Hmm.  Us Taureans are masters at digging in our heels…we’ll do whatever we want to, when we want to.  And I’m extremely flattered that people read my writing.  It’s from me all the way down to my toes.  You might not always like what you read in here.  Some of my posts I’m very proud of, while others might be mediocre or clunkers. But you can be assured it’s all Me.

After about a year and a half blogging (this is my 110th post – wow) I smile and laugh at the variety of topics in here.  Maps. Makeup. Childhood memories. Food. The almighty Job Hunt.  Whatever it is, I’ve stayed true to my self-imposed ‘rules’ in here:  no names – initials only. It’s OK to call out locations (cities, restaurants, shops) by name but not people.  Stay away from political or religious-themed posts.  Too polarizing.  And the biggest rule of all? 

No apologies and no regrets. 

When you know you want to start a blog but have zero idea what it’s going to be about – well, you need a LITTLE structure, right?  I know damn well that once something’s out here I can’t take it back.  Sure, I can remove posts but it really can’t be undone.  I am human and gloriously flawed as we all are.  Some stuff in here may later be cringe-worthy once more time has passed, but it’s documented, out there and I can’t (and don’t want to) do anything about that.  

I made one of my favorite dishes last night – Moroccan style chicken with olives.  The spice combination is incredible:  cumin, ground ginger, cinnamon, paprika and a little cayenne pepper.  Combine that with garlic, sauteed chicken in olive oil, kalamata olives, a couple bay leafs, white wine and chicken stock…the aroma is heavenly.  Therapeutic even.  I threw in a can of diced tomatoes when I discovered that my newest cookbook also has a version of this recipe too.

Still battling through this second cold/sore throat – whatever it’s going to evolve into.  I volunteered last week with a few co-workers at a middle school where they were conducting police training.  They needed actors to simulate various scenarios in a school shooting, such as people running down the hallways screaming, or being hostages held up in a classroom with the shooter.  It’s a really great experience and the police are so very appreciative of our time so they can train on how to handle what’s become a sad fact of reality in our schools – and workplaces too.  We wore multiple layers of clothing plus protective headgear as the ammo they use in the training is like paintball on steroids.  The headgear is a little like Darth Vader meets Miner’s Helmet. Hard to breathe. I got overheated and maybe somehow that made me vulnerable to getting sick again.  All I know is I wasn’t feeling very good once we were finished, like a bad wave washing over me.  But I will definitely volunteer again!  

I was chatting with my good friend T today and she reminded me that emotional stress has probably affected my health too.  I think she’s right.  She also recommended saging my house.  Gets rid of negative energy.  Bad juju.  Now, I’m pretty open-minded about stuff but I have always kind of pooh-pooh’d saging. Plus, I don’t want my house smelling like I had a million friends over smoking pot all weekend.

But, I jumped in my car and headed down to the PCC – a food co-op and organic grocery store chain here in the Seattle area.  I knew that if I wanted sage, that was the closest, most convenient place to find it.  And how wonderful to re-discover this store.  I used to frequent it far more often when my work commute took me right by it on the way home a couple of years ago.  And when I delved into raw food “cooking” and vegan cooking it was one of the best places to find specialty ingredients.  With super nice, helpful staff.  We are so fortunate here to have such an amazing variety of higher-end, specialty grocery stores. 

Is it expensive?  Sure.  But, after reading The Primal Blueprint I totally get and agree with the author’s argument that doing away with processed foods, energy drinks, energy bars, whole grains, dairy, etc means more $$ to devote to what’s truly good and healthy for our bodies.  Pick up the book if you can – it’s a great read and Mark Sisson says it far better than I can here.

So, off I went to purchase some sage. I also stumbled upon some fish oil capsules (I haven’t tried these either but they are highly recommended).  And I found my favorite gluten-free crackers.  I’ve had a hard time battling my weight gain, which was very gradual over the past 7 or 8 years (after losing about 30 lbs walking a few miles a day for a few months).  And I have a weakness for late-night snacking.  Things like chips with super hot chipotle salsa and a blob of sour cream.  I need to think more about what I’m putting in my body and try staying away from too many carbs, gluten and such.  Plus, cutting back on dairy. Now, I’ve never met a cheese I didn’t like, and that’s a hard one to give up, honestly.  Just a tiny wedge of delicious brie at breakfast can keep me content all the way till lunch.  Sounds a little weird I know.

I’m going to try this healthier eating discipline and see where it takes me.  Snacking on a handful of (unsalted) nuts.  Or gluten free pretzles.  Flax seed chips.  Holding off on the cheese.  Trying rice pasta whenever possible, or running steamed cauliflower through the food processor as a substitute for rice. Can I do this?  And wave the smoldering sage around my house, once it’s nice enough weather to open the windows?  You bet.

And I just found this treat on a friend’s Facebook page.  Love it.

“This morning at 7:33 AM (Pacific), the Moon renewed itself in Aries… New Moons are always opportunities for setting intentions, for starting, for letting go of what was… Well, what’s going on is that it’s time to be getting on. Time to get on with what needs to be done. Time for all the ways you’ve thought about it to become reasons for how you are doing it. — Jon Waldrup, Sense of Vision Astrology”

Now, when’s it supposed to warm up around here anyway?

Passion by Participation

27 Sunday Mar 2011

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As I fire up the keyboard here I’m realizing this post will likely be in two parts – some rambling on how I’m doing and then more about the post title.  But hey, it’s my blog and my rocks rolling around in my head so there we are. 

My physical and emotional health both took a nosedive this month.  But I think I can say that my cough is pretty much gone.  Just some hacking in the morning and a little in the evening when I’m tired.  After 3 weeks of this, you bet I’m sick of being sick!

Emotionally…well…overall I’m feeling good and putting the whole breakup thing behind me.  Every day it’s farther in the rear view mirror and more of a capsule of really great memories rather than anything to feel sad about.

Are he and I in contact, you may wonder?  No, and we won’t be.  When he called that night to break up I was in shock.  But somewhere at the end of our conversation I think we’d agreed to speak again in a few days. I was going to call him, yep, we agreed to that.  But since then I got removed off Facebook…un-friended.  Wow, the quirky world of Facebook.  Whatever…OK.  And couple of my friends called his breaking up over the phone cowardly.  Perhaps…but it doesn’t matter in the end.  It’s still over and wasn’t my choice.  I don’t feel a need to label it. So no, I didn’t call him.

Does he read this blog?  He sure did at first.  And loved it.  Even shared it with some good friends of his on his trip to Australia last month.  Perhaps it was my first post-breakup post that he didn’t like so much.  I’d bet money he’s read it.  If he has great; if not, great.  It’s my words and my feelings and isn’t intended for anyone in particular.  There are a fair amount who tune in here regularly (thank you!) and a few who stumble in here on accident (another thank you!). 

If you haven’t seen that first post-breakup post yet, it’s a couple weeks back, “Misled and Broken.”  And it’s not a bashfest on him.  I don’t operate that way…and as angry as I am (OK, was as we’re moving past this) about having my head and heart fucked with, I can’t be angry at HIM.  Does that make any sense?  That’s a hard one to articulate.

There are a few last dangly things I want to share in here about how I’m feeling post-breakup.  I did feel a little down yesterday as the 26th was supposed to be a special night for he and I.  First, the plan was to go to a fundraiser/auction of some sort.  I remember when he sent the email with the scoop…I thought WOW.  He’s already thinking ahead and wants me to do more stuff aways out!  What can I say – that may not be a big deal for some, but that’s HUGE for me.  Makes me feel really happy, included and wanted.  Loved.

But the plans for that night later changed into going out with a large group to celebrate his birthday – something he does every year.  Sounds even better! In fact, if I remember correctly, he told me about this change of plans just a few days before we split.  Now, how can you already be thinking about pulling away from someone but tell them hey, instead of going to the auction we’re going out with a bunch of people for my (his) birthday?  I don’t get it.  Maybe his decision to break up was a super spontaneous one.  Or maybe the chat we had at my place the week prior was my warning shot over the bow.  It doesn’t matter now.  I just felt a little wistful last night knowing we’d had plans to be out celebrating.  Plans that he moved forward with and that no longer included me.  And with these words I close the door and move on.

A couple weeks ago I was changing the sheets on my bed and stubbed my toe on something just under the dust cover.  Oh yeah…some, um, props for the boudoir.  Specifically, hand restraints.  Am I blushing as I type this?  What can I tell you – don’t knock it till you try it, people.  Tangent warning:  I have never had any issues or hangups with sex.  And with very, very few exceptions, I’ve never had what anyone would call ‘bad’ sex.  Meaning, chemistry’s usually not an issue.  But props/accessories…well, I’ve never really ever felt they were necessary nor have any of the men in my life ever suggested using them – till now. 

And now they were sitting in a heap under my bed.  What to do?

I then realized I still had a book he’d loaned me:  The Primal Blueprint, by Mark Sisson.  It promotes the primal (or paleo) way of eating – meaning, to eat like our ancestors did in the hunter/gatherer years, the way our bodies are genetically programmed!  Lots of lean meats, vegetables and fruits.  Hold off on the grains, dairy and processed foods. G raved about this book and I’d browsed through it on a couple occasions in his kitchen when he was cooking us dinner.  It really is a fascinating book.  There are 9809824 diet and nutrition books and theories out there.  What really works?  I don’t read a lot of diet books, but this one literally jumped out at me…the same way the Carbohydrate Addicts book did about 15 years ago.  I liked it so much I recently purchased the accompanying cookbook.  Yum.

And as I was rearranging things in my pantry I found a small, round tupperware container of flour.  The first time I cooked for us I made my signature corn chowder with potatoes, fennel and bacon – using the bacon he’d made himself.  I needed just a tablespoon of flour for the roux and was totally out.  And I was in that mode where I’d done all the chopping and prep work and was not in a position to run to the store to get flour.  When you need flour, you really can’t substitute anything else!  So, G to the rescue bringing some by at the last minute!

So we’ve got flour, a book, and bedroom hand restraints.  I’ve had a few episodes after breakups where we each needed to return stuff we had at eachother’s houses – clothes, makeup, shoes or other things.  Never those 3 things, much less all at once!  Random!!  And normally it’s done in person, meeting up.  This time it just didn’t feel right to do it that way.

So I thought hmm, what to do with these 3 things?  I ended up putting them in a brown grocery bag and drove up to his place late one night and put it in the back entry area near his car.  Some of my friends said I was too nice to do this – should have just tossed everything in the trash.  But that’s not how I roll.  Again, I can’t label behavior like that as “too nice” or whatever the hell it is.  It was something I needed to do and it felt good. And there was nothing of any significance of mine that was still at his place. Just a toothbrush.  And now closing another door with these words.

Those 3 random things DO have significance…they point to 3 areas that are so important to me in relationships, and things he and I had no issues with period.  Cooking, food and sex…basic needs we all have as humans.

So now, I think about Passion.  Passion for cooking a great meal, sharing it with friends, and then passion later that night (and morning) with your special someone.  Doesn’t get much better than that.  When I look back on my short time with G, I am inspired (re-inspired) to cook and cherish my love of food.  I was reminded that you don’t need a huge, gourmet kitchen to cook incredible meals for your family and friends.  G’s post-divorce apartment has a great floor plan.  The kitchen is, well, your basic apartment kitchen – perhaps a “2 butt” size – enough for two people to cook together, and very basic appliances.  But the cooking that came out of that kitchen – for just the two of us or a group of 12 – phenomenal. 

And, transitioning topics here and onto what was more the point of this post (see, I DO always come back after longass tangents), “passion by participation” popped into my head one day.  I think it was a crappy and stressed day at work that did it.  We’re on the brink of a large launch in the next few weeks, and our team’s pretty beat down and stressed.  No matter how hard we plan, we discover stuff that still needs to be done last minute.  And we panic, freak out…but get it done.  But we need to do a better job of collaborating under stress.  Rather, we scurry into our silos and shut eachother out.  Given my job is to provide planning and scheduling among other things, our actual way of executing on tasks flies in the face of my basic principles.  But, our group and what we’re working on is new, so the opportunities are incredible and boundless.  There’s a lot of “we don’t know what we don’t know.”  Myself included.  And to survive in this group, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. 

I am a pretty good multi-tasker, but when I get stressed and overwhelmed I spin out and clue out.  I even had an astrologer once tell me, during a natal chart reading, that I’m prone to “clue-ing out” more than others.  Darn you, Neptune!  [Just kidding – I can’t remember which planetary alignment is to blame, ha ha].  Combine that with a therapist about a decade ago who introduced me to the word “negating.”  Brushing things off, nullyfying…oh dear this could be a whole ‘nother post down the road.  Lots of issues there.  I’m fighting back – HARD.

I DO get my clue-ing out-ness quirk and how it gets worse when I’m under stress.  Throw in a little PMS (typically I have one bad day a month) and I’m pretty much an inarticulate, blubbery mess for 24 hours.

What do I do about it?  How do I stretch myself to improve?  I decided I’m going to try very, very hard, no matter what I’m doing, to focus only on that one particular thing and not let other buzz distract me.  When my world at work is a sea of emailing flying around, interruptions and back to back meetings, that’s pretty damn hard to do!  But can I do it better?  And if so, will that improve the quality of my work?  Or perhaps my relationships?  How about my Silpada jewelry business? Or my hockey?

Passion starts with participation.  Showing up!  Being present mentally and physically!  Ignoring other noise and distractions!  YES!  THIS is what I’m going to focus on for the next week, month, year…however long it takes till it becomes a habit. 

I’ve got a lot of work to do.  And I’m ready.