A view from the window. April sunrise
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
9 January 2018
Today Philip died. I went to visit him and say good-bye. He was still alive when I left. I didn't want to leave when I did, but I felt like I should, and then I had an appointment anyway. I feel sad and tired, and my chest feels heavy, but every once in awhile like it is swelling up and it seems scary. I don't know why, honestly. Why grief is so strange and random. I met his friend who came to visit periodically, and was coming to visit. He was supposed to pick her up from the train station, but he wasn't there. She is taking care of his cat, Cooper, who is 23 years old and thin as a rail. Cooper didn't get to have Philip all his life after all. I touched his hand and said they were so gifted, they had so much talent. I brushed his head, and covered up part of his side that got uncovered. I touched his arm, and it felt warm and smooth. My mother's arm was very soft when I was sitting by her bedside.
When my husband's brother was dying, I cried for 3 days straight. It felt like this. He didn't know why it hit me so hard, but it did; I felt as sad as when my dad died. I didn't get to sing to Philip because people were in the room, but I did talk to him. My church bulletin listed the pieces he was supposed to play on Sunday, when he fell, and they were: How Brightly Shines the Morning Star by Buxtehude; Two Preludes from Bible Poems from J. Weinberger; Andantino by Cesar Franck. We will never get to hear them, but I listened to Buxtehude yesterday while writing that entry.
When my husband's brother was dying, I cried for 3 days straight. It felt like this. He didn't know why it hit me so hard, but it did; I felt as sad as when my dad died. I didn't get to sing to Philip because people were in the room, but I did talk to him. My church bulletin listed the pieces he was supposed to play on Sunday, when he fell, and they were: How Brightly Shines the Morning Star by Buxtehude; Two Preludes from Bible Poems from J. Weinberger; Andantino by Cesar Franck. We will never get to hear them, but I listened to Buxtehude yesterday while writing that entry.
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
8 January 2018
Right now I am sad. Right now I am wanting to say something, but I've already said it in my mind many times before I went off on a tangent. Right now I want to write what I was feeling half an hour ago, but I need a quiet place in my brain and, by extension, my home. Right now I want to write well, but I know I am already not writing well. So let me back up...
Do you remember when you were a child, and sad things seemed so sad that dealing with the feelings was insurmountable? But then maybe you learned to compartmentalize at the same time. Feelings were confusing. Sometimes I didn't know if I really loved anyone; I wasn't sure I knew what it felt like. I knew what love was supposed to be, but how do you feel this overwhelming explosion of warmth for people in your life? What I felt mostly, was fear, sadness and happiness, occasional hurt feelings, some envy or jealousy, insecurity, all variations on sadness and fear and anger. I don't remember feeling anger or rage as a child the way I do now. I think my anger was mostly fear and sadness. But the way I knew I loved people was to ask myself a question: How would I feel if that person died. I would be sad, I would cry. I knew I would cry. I knew I felt afraid because I didn't want to feel sadness. And later, when anger was a big part of my life, I hated it so much. I did not want to be angry, and it made me angrier.
Right now, I feel sadness, but in the way of all people, it is not overwhelming. It is easy to keep going past and doing what you have to be doing, and smiling and laughing because life is often smiling and laughing, even when it is at odds with what is happening. I am always trying to joke, and I am no stranger to gallows humor--it got me through my miscarriage and my mother's death.
People tell me I am hard-hearted. Sometimes I feel that way, but then other times I feel like I'm way too weepy over sentimental things. Things always end, so I always look to those endings and try to feel the enormity of it all instead of just living in the moment, because it is just so damn easy to live in the moment. We have to live our daily lives, always. There are times I wish I could wallow in the full enormity of grief, like I did at that one point when I was a child and the grief was so overwhelming that I couldn't deal with it, other than to draw a picture. I drew a picture. My heart healed. Maybe it has a scar now, many scars. Because sometimes the tears won't break through, they just sort of leak. The last time the tears were copious and free flowing was when I was keeping vigil at my mother's bedside as she was dying. It took a couple of days, sleeplessness, and then people were worried for me. They thought something was wrong. They couldn't accept my full-fledged grieving, but then they had a hard time coping later. I felt at peace.
I don't really feel at peace about my mother-in-law. There is more I wanted to do, wish I could have done, still feel sad about. Sometimes things just feel hard and tight inside of me, but not like I'm really sad when I know I should be sad. I go on living and think it will come out, but then the hard lump just gets harder and I go on, and maybe that is why the older you get, the easier it is just to get more pragmatic about it all.
My parents had a friend couple for most of their time together. Bud and Trixie. Bud died first. I thought my dad would have a hard time with it, and I wanted to see him just to see and understand the pain of that kind of loss. When his daughter died, he sat at her funeral with tears just rolling, and said she was not supposed to die before her parents. But when Bud died, of a lingering illness, my father said to me, "Guess what, I'm using the razor of a dead man." I felt sad, but it was like he took it in stride. Trixie gave my dad Bud's razor, and my dad was using it. His tone was odd to me, this mix almost of wonder and maybe a bit of pride in the fact...I don't know. It confused me, but then I thought that since my dad was old, maybe this was his way of dealing with it. Things are always coming to an end, and you have seen it so many times by the time you are near your own end. My dad didn't use Bud's razor for long...he died not long after.
I have long put my love into inanimate objects that I can feel at once a deep-seated attachment to while being able to detach emotionally from them. They are little emotion banks...I can't get rid of them because they are precious stores, but I don't have to carry them with me. I feel like inanimate objects have feelings and a soul of sorts, but they don't have a soul of their own, I guess what they really have beyond their own functionality and aesthetic pleasingness is my consideration of their worth. I still have a stuffed cat from when I was very young. I am old enough that I don't want anything else to come into my life that I could get attached to, and I want to break attachment to what I have. I feel sad, actually, when I look at all the things I haven't done with what I have, and I realized that time is past and I will never do those things, and what did I even do instead.
My biggest hoard of anything, though, is photos. I always wanted photos of things, even when I was young, and I probably have about 30,000 digital photos on my computer. I have a lot of video from when my mother was dying, and even if I never watch anything I record, it's more about the fact that I have some sort of record of it, however spotty. If I ever lost these things, I feel like all the emotions would come out like souls trapped in prison, and it would be a violent upheaval of emotion. My sister donated some clothing that I was specifically saving, and I had a lot of emotion over that that I still haven't overcome.
Today I found out that someone I value and like for is dying. It was a shock. I thought the person talking about it was talking about someone else. I thought it was sad for the person before I knew who it was, but then I found out it was someone I care about. And I'm sad, but I'm also restless. I don't want to be sad, I want him to be fine but if he is not, I want to be able just to sit and contemplate his life and the sadness of his departure from it. But then I feel restless and my brain moves on. I feel the turmoil of people I like dying and not being able to go back and capture the memory of the last time I saw the person. I only have a bad quality photo of him from behind. I wish I had a recording of his voice. Somewhere I have a recording of my dad's voice, even though I can't find it. I have a recording of my mother singing happy birthday to me on my answering machine. And, of course, I have all the regrets of things I could have done differently with my parents and my in-laws.
I want there to be a miracle and for him to recover. I want things to stay the way they are, for just awhile longer. Things always change, and I am always the one sitting and thinking about endings at the peak happiness of moments, just to remind myself not to be too happy. But then when sadness comes, I am always doing things that remind me that life goes on, and grief is not transformative for most situations. If my children died, if my husband died, then my life would be forever changed, but I keep living life even when I want to be able to feel sad.
I also feel this restlessness, wondering if there was something we could have done that would have changed things. Sunday morning, I was sitting outside my bedroom, singing a song, waiting. I felt a need to go to church early. I knew he would be there. I wasn't able to go early, and the song I was singing had the line We know that pain reminds this heart that this is not, this is not our home. It won't be my home after awhile. It won't be Philip's home for much longer, either, and that is a loss to many people who knew him better than I. I always have a hard time with those kinds of losses.
Do you remember when you were a child, and sad things seemed so sad that dealing with the feelings was insurmountable? But then maybe you learned to compartmentalize at the same time. Feelings were confusing. Sometimes I didn't know if I really loved anyone; I wasn't sure I knew what it felt like. I knew what love was supposed to be, but how do you feel this overwhelming explosion of warmth for people in your life? What I felt mostly, was fear, sadness and happiness, occasional hurt feelings, some envy or jealousy, insecurity, all variations on sadness and fear and anger. I don't remember feeling anger or rage as a child the way I do now. I think my anger was mostly fear and sadness. But the way I knew I loved people was to ask myself a question: How would I feel if that person died. I would be sad, I would cry. I knew I would cry. I knew I felt afraid because I didn't want to feel sadness. And later, when anger was a big part of my life, I hated it so much. I did not want to be angry, and it made me angrier.
Right now, I feel sadness, but in the way of all people, it is not overwhelming. It is easy to keep going past and doing what you have to be doing, and smiling and laughing because life is often smiling and laughing, even when it is at odds with what is happening. I am always trying to joke, and I am no stranger to gallows humor--it got me through my miscarriage and my mother's death.
People tell me I am hard-hearted. Sometimes I feel that way, but then other times I feel like I'm way too weepy over sentimental things. Things always end, so I always look to those endings and try to feel the enormity of it all instead of just living in the moment, because it is just so damn easy to live in the moment. We have to live our daily lives, always. There are times I wish I could wallow in the full enormity of grief, like I did at that one point when I was a child and the grief was so overwhelming that I couldn't deal with it, other than to draw a picture. I drew a picture. My heart healed. Maybe it has a scar now, many scars. Because sometimes the tears won't break through, they just sort of leak. The last time the tears were copious and free flowing was when I was keeping vigil at my mother's bedside as she was dying. It took a couple of days, sleeplessness, and then people were worried for me. They thought something was wrong. They couldn't accept my full-fledged grieving, but then they had a hard time coping later. I felt at peace.
I don't really feel at peace about my mother-in-law. There is more I wanted to do, wish I could have done, still feel sad about. Sometimes things just feel hard and tight inside of me, but not like I'm really sad when I know I should be sad. I go on living and think it will come out, but then the hard lump just gets harder and I go on, and maybe that is why the older you get, the easier it is just to get more pragmatic about it all.
My parents had a friend couple for most of their time together. Bud and Trixie. Bud died first. I thought my dad would have a hard time with it, and I wanted to see him just to see and understand the pain of that kind of loss. When his daughter died, he sat at her funeral with tears just rolling, and said she was not supposed to die before her parents. But when Bud died, of a lingering illness, my father said to me, "Guess what, I'm using the razor of a dead man." I felt sad, but it was like he took it in stride. Trixie gave my dad Bud's razor, and my dad was using it. His tone was odd to me, this mix almost of wonder and maybe a bit of pride in the fact...I don't know. It confused me, but then I thought that since my dad was old, maybe this was his way of dealing with it. Things are always coming to an end, and you have seen it so many times by the time you are near your own end. My dad didn't use Bud's razor for long...he died not long after.
I have long put my love into inanimate objects that I can feel at once a deep-seated attachment to while being able to detach emotionally from them. They are little emotion banks...I can't get rid of them because they are precious stores, but I don't have to carry them with me. I feel like inanimate objects have feelings and a soul of sorts, but they don't have a soul of their own, I guess what they really have beyond their own functionality and aesthetic pleasingness is my consideration of their worth. I still have a stuffed cat from when I was very young. I am old enough that I don't want anything else to come into my life that I could get attached to, and I want to break attachment to what I have. I feel sad, actually, when I look at all the things I haven't done with what I have, and I realized that time is past and I will never do those things, and what did I even do instead.
My biggest hoard of anything, though, is photos. I always wanted photos of things, even when I was young, and I probably have about 30,000 digital photos on my computer. I have a lot of video from when my mother was dying, and even if I never watch anything I record, it's more about the fact that I have some sort of record of it, however spotty. If I ever lost these things, I feel like all the emotions would come out like souls trapped in prison, and it would be a violent upheaval of emotion. My sister donated some clothing that I was specifically saving, and I had a lot of emotion over that that I still haven't overcome.
Today I found out that someone I value and like for is dying. It was a shock. I thought the person talking about it was talking about someone else. I thought it was sad for the person before I knew who it was, but then I found out it was someone I care about. And I'm sad, but I'm also restless. I don't want to be sad, I want him to be fine but if he is not, I want to be able just to sit and contemplate his life and the sadness of his departure from it. But then I feel restless and my brain moves on. I feel the turmoil of people I like dying and not being able to go back and capture the memory of the last time I saw the person. I only have a bad quality photo of him from behind. I wish I had a recording of his voice. Somewhere I have a recording of my dad's voice, even though I can't find it. I have a recording of my mother singing happy birthday to me on my answering machine. And, of course, I have all the regrets of things I could have done differently with my parents and my in-laws.
I want there to be a miracle and for him to recover. I want things to stay the way they are, for just awhile longer. Things always change, and I am always the one sitting and thinking about endings at the peak happiness of moments, just to remind myself not to be too happy. But then when sadness comes, I am always doing things that remind me that life goes on, and grief is not transformative for most situations. If my children died, if my husband died, then my life would be forever changed, but I keep living life even when I want to be able to feel sad.
I also feel this restlessness, wondering if there was something we could have done that would have changed things. Sunday morning, I was sitting outside my bedroom, singing a song, waiting. I felt a need to go to church early. I knew he would be there. I wasn't able to go early, and the song I was singing had the line We know that pain reminds this heart that this is not, this is not our home. It won't be my home after awhile. It won't be Philip's home for much longer, either, and that is a loss to many people who knew him better than I. I always have a hard time with those kinds of losses.
Sunday, March 25, 2018
Vacation
It's Saturday night, I was just in the shower and it is spring break, so I want to go somewhere. I was thinking of why is it always so hard for me to plan a trip and follow through with it. It always feels like I'm winging it all and doing a piss poor job. Being away from home, meaning pets and other family members, as well as spending money, makes me feel stressed out. My husband doesn't really help matters because he apparently limits what is acceptable in our family to what was a part of his, and even though his family did have financial resources, I guess they didn't take a lot of trips? I honestly don't know.
So I was thinking of how my family would take family vacations every year, at least when we were younger. We didn't have a lot of money, but what it didn't cost much to jump in a car, drive for 17 hours straight from Manassas, Virginia to Green Bay, Wisconsin, stopping for food at least once or twice, and then sleep in the spare bedroom of a relative. That was back when the speed limit was not 55 mph, apparently my parents did trade off driving and go all night. I don't remember that, the vacations I remember involved stopping over night, generally in what I thought was Wheeling, PA, but apparently was in the little strip of West Virginia that separates Pennsylvania from Ohio. My family would eat at the Howard Johnson's there, as I recall. I loved their kid's menu, and I think I always got the hamburger.
In the early years, we'd sleep at our grandparents house, which was very small, but had a lava lamp, which fascinated me to no end. We'd go to sleep in a bedroom--there were two bedrooms off a hall adjacent to the main living area--and I guess it was where my parents were going to sleep. Sometime during the night, my father would carry us out and deposit my sister and I on the couch. We'd wake up in a different place than we had gone to sleep, but my clearest memory of this is actually waking up while he was carrying me, and feeling very disgruntled because I was being taken from my warm bed and put on a new, cold surface. But then I settled in and went to sleep.
At some point, probably after my youngest sister was born, my parents started getting a motel room at a place called the Valley Inn. I loved that motel; it had a pool with a slide, and there was a restaurant in the front. We would go there for breakfast and get such wonderful foods for breakfast as eggs with bacon and toast, which seemed luxurious. I don't remember eating these kinds of food for breakfast at my house. That was probably where I had my first glass of tomato juice, and I loved tomato juice and have always associated it with being on vacation. It was a shock to me in 8th grade when I discovered that tomato juice wasn't universally liked. At some point during the visit, my parents would go out to eat dinner in a country club restaurant. I only remember going there once, but I know it happened more than once because when I'd ask where we were going to eat, my mother would tell me we were going to the country club which is where my youngest sister fell asleep with her head on a plate of mashed potatoes. Remember?
I don't remember that, I think mainly because I wss not there. One year we went, maybe the last year we stayed at the Valley Inn, I honestly don't know, but my older brother, his wife and their daughter was with us. The kids had to sleep on the floor because there were not enough beds for us all. And, for some reason, we had two bushel baskets of peaches with us--I don't know if they came were purchased somewhere along the way, or if my brother had brought them with them from Illinois. I had some slightly obsessive thoughts back then that would intrude and bother me, and I kept thinking about those furry peaches, and touching them and what if I had to rub them together. The contemplation of the horror of these textures colliding with one another kept me awake quite awhile. I think the next day I actually tried it as the compulsion was great, and then it wasn't as horrible as I had worked it out to be in my mind.
On that trip, we had gotten there and went swimming that afternoon. I went down the pool slide and tumbled over in the water a few times, and it took me a bit longer to get to the surface than I thought it would. My mother was watching me and asked me if I was OK, as she had noticed it took me awhile to come up. I was fine, but didn't go down that slide again. That night, I slept on the floor in the air conditioned room with my wet hair, and I woke up in incredible pain. I couldn't move my head, there was something wrong with my neck. My family had plans, I guess, but I did not want to go, so I was taken to the home of one of my mother's high school friends, and left there. I know there must have been an adult or a teen there, but I just went to sleep on the couch, feeling freezing cold and sick. I knew I was not going to get to go to dinner, but I didn't care. Apparently that was the time when my sister fell asleep at the table. I remember at one point, I must have woken up enough and looked at someone passing through the room. The person asked me if I wanted a hamburger. I did. It was wrapped in yellow paper with nothing on it but a little smiley face on it, and it was good.I don't know what was wrong with my neck, and why it made me feel actually sick, but I know they pain from my neck lasted for years. I would turn my head some days, and I'd suddenly get this weird pain that I can't describe, except in colors and flavors. I guess it must have been a spasm, but it never felt muscular.
We used to go and visit my uncle and aunt out in the lochs in DePere. They had this great old house that had a giant bathroom--I had never seen such space in a bathroom. It was an old house, so probably it had been converted into a bathroom, but I remember thinking it was impressive. They also had a lot of fun toys, including a Fisher-Price ferris wheel which I adored. Their children ranged in age from my age and up to teens, and they didn't seem to play with toys as much. Later they moved, because we visited them in a house in a regular neighborhood. I was kind of chubby by that point, and I was running on their sidewalk and feel and skinned my knee. I honestly thought I was past that by that age-=-I think I was at least 9--but I went running to my mother, who seemed suitably upset, and bandaged it and comforted me. Two days later, however, she was not feeling so kindly disposed towards me. I guess she was irritated, because I remember feeling demoralized. Then I noticed that water was running out of the bandage, I don't know why. My mother was disgusted that I still had the Band-Aid on and told me I needed to take it off to let it air out. She had this way of talking like she thought you were the dumbest, most disgusting thing on the planet--very scolding heavy. I took it off, but it still looked like a raw wound. She told me it was my own fault, that it would heal if I weren't so fat, and that if I hadn't been so fat, I wouldn't have fallen in the first place. You never knew what you were going to get with her, and we kids were always waiting for the other shoe to drop. She was never the same person when she was in front of her friends or extended family. My father was always the same man, always the same demeanor, but my mother would become a different person. I think she was ashamed of us--she told me once that she didn't want to take us to the mother-daughter brunch with her sorority because she was ashamed to be seen with us in public. I think she thought telling us that would help us, somehow.
So I was thinking of how my family would take family vacations every year, at least when we were younger. We didn't have a lot of money, but what it didn't cost much to jump in a car, drive for 17 hours straight from Manassas, Virginia to Green Bay, Wisconsin, stopping for food at least once or twice, and then sleep in the spare bedroom of a relative. That was back when the speed limit was not 55 mph, apparently my parents did trade off driving and go all night. I don't remember that, the vacations I remember involved stopping over night, generally in what I thought was Wheeling, PA, but apparently was in the little strip of West Virginia that separates Pennsylvania from Ohio. My family would eat at the Howard Johnson's there, as I recall. I loved their kid's menu, and I think I always got the hamburger.
In the early years, we'd sleep at our grandparents house, which was very small, but had a lava lamp, which fascinated me to no end. We'd go to sleep in a bedroom--there were two bedrooms off a hall adjacent to the main living area--and I guess it was where my parents were going to sleep. Sometime during the night, my father would carry us out and deposit my sister and I on the couch. We'd wake up in a different place than we had gone to sleep, but my clearest memory of this is actually waking up while he was carrying me, and feeling very disgruntled because I was being taken from my warm bed and put on a new, cold surface. But then I settled in and went to sleep.
At some point, probably after my youngest sister was born, my parents started getting a motel room at a place called the Valley Inn. I loved that motel; it had a pool with a slide, and there was a restaurant in the front. We would go there for breakfast and get such wonderful foods for breakfast as eggs with bacon and toast, which seemed luxurious. I don't remember eating these kinds of food for breakfast at my house. That was probably where I had my first glass of tomato juice, and I loved tomato juice and have always associated it with being on vacation. It was a shock to me in 8th grade when I discovered that tomato juice wasn't universally liked. At some point during the visit, my parents would go out to eat dinner in a country club restaurant. I only remember going there once, but I know it happened more than once because when I'd ask where we were going to eat, my mother would tell me we were going to the country club which is where my youngest sister fell asleep with her head on a plate of mashed potatoes. Remember?
I don't remember that, I think mainly because I wss not there. One year we went, maybe the last year we stayed at the Valley Inn, I honestly don't know, but my older brother, his wife and their daughter was with us. The kids had to sleep on the floor because there were not enough beds for us all. And, for some reason, we had two bushel baskets of peaches with us--I don't know if they came were purchased somewhere along the way, or if my brother had brought them with them from Illinois. I had some slightly obsessive thoughts back then that would intrude and bother me, and I kept thinking about those furry peaches, and touching them and what if I had to rub them together. The contemplation of the horror of these textures colliding with one another kept me awake quite awhile. I think the next day I actually tried it as the compulsion was great, and then it wasn't as horrible as I had worked it out to be in my mind.
On that trip, we had gotten there and went swimming that afternoon. I went down the pool slide and tumbled over in the water a few times, and it took me a bit longer to get to the surface than I thought it would. My mother was watching me and asked me if I was OK, as she had noticed it took me awhile to come up. I was fine, but didn't go down that slide again. That night, I slept on the floor in the air conditioned room with my wet hair, and I woke up in incredible pain. I couldn't move my head, there was something wrong with my neck. My family had plans, I guess, but I did not want to go, so I was taken to the home of one of my mother's high school friends, and left there. I know there must have been an adult or a teen there, but I just went to sleep on the couch, feeling freezing cold and sick. I knew I was not going to get to go to dinner, but I didn't care. Apparently that was the time when my sister fell asleep at the table. I remember at one point, I must have woken up enough and looked at someone passing through the room. The person asked me if I wanted a hamburger. I did. It was wrapped in yellow paper with nothing on it but a little smiley face on it, and it was good.I don't know what was wrong with my neck, and why it made me feel actually sick, but I know they pain from my neck lasted for years. I would turn my head some days, and I'd suddenly get this weird pain that I can't describe, except in colors and flavors. I guess it must have been a spasm, but it never felt muscular.
We used to go and visit my uncle and aunt out in the lochs in DePere. They had this great old house that had a giant bathroom--I had never seen such space in a bathroom. It was an old house, so probably it had been converted into a bathroom, but I remember thinking it was impressive. They also had a lot of fun toys, including a Fisher-Price ferris wheel which I adored. Their children ranged in age from my age and up to teens, and they didn't seem to play with toys as much. Later they moved, because we visited them in a house in a regular neighborhood. I was kind of chubby by that point, and I was running on their sidewalk and feel and skinned my knee. I honestly thought I was past that by that age-=-I think I was at least 9--but I went running to my mother, who seemed suitably upset, and bandaged it and comforted me. Two days later, however, she was not feeling so kindly disposed towards me. I guess she was irritated, because I remember feeling demoralized. Then I noticed that water was running out of the bandage, I don't know why. My mother was disgusted that I still had the Band-Aid on and told me I needed to take it off to let it air out. She had this way of talking like she thought you were the dumbest, most disgusting thing on the planet--very scolding heavy. I took it off, but it still looked like a raw wound. She told me it was my own fault, that it would heal if I weren't so fat, and that if I hadn't been so fat, I wouldn't have fallen in the first place. You never knew what you were going to get with her, and we kids were always waiting for the other shoe to drop. She was never the same person when she was in front of her friends or extended family. My father was always the same man, always the same demeanor, but my mother would become a different person. I think she was ashamed of us--she told me once that she didn't want to take us to the mother-daughter brunch with her sorority because she was ashamed to be seen with us in public. I think she thought telling us that would help us, somehow.
Saturday, March 24, 2018
A Look Inside My Brain • 23 February 2018
I want to introduce a new section to my blog which is a look inside my brain in which I describe some memories of past experiences And what I was feeling when those things happened. If possible I will use a date for the event. I like to use the dates of days I am describing as my titles because it saves me from having to come up with a clever title. And sometimes getting hung up on that one thing can really take me out af writing what I see.
Ideally I would have liked to put all of this in my journal, but I am not capable of writing longhand for any amount of time because of problems with my hands. Also, for much of my life I have felt like someone could see inside of my brain and knew what I was doing. So journaling in a book that likely I will only read doesn’t feel much different from writing something on a blog that likely only I and maybe a few others would see. Because people have to actually want to read what someone has written in order to see it, most people don’t.
This feeling that people can read your thoughts and know what you are doing is probably a symptom of some mental disorder, but I believe that it is very common and that movies like the Truman show were born of this fairly universal feeling.
If you were the last person on earth would you actually feel like the last person on earth?
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
19 February 2018
Today I served vegetables at the dinner line at Record Street, what used to be known as Tent City, but I just call it serving dinner at Record Street. A different group serves dinner every night, and some plan their meals in advance, but we just sort of bring what we make. Some people from my church and those with the other church are a little more organized than I am, and actually have a weekly e-mail about what everyone is bringing, which I've just gotten onto, so now I can feel a little more in the loop. I usually get there late, a testament to my less than stellar planning and organizing skills with cooking. That's actually a good thing, though, since we always run out of food. Tonight I was there on time and noticed I was trying to add my vegetables to their already full plates, but then when I was running out, the food on the plates was scarce.
In any event, I've been thinking about what I could make for next week, when it will certainly be crowded, but I just realized that I actually can't go next week. I could make something up and put it in the church kitchen, however. So I started to look for a cooking blog that is specifically about cooking and serving large groups of people. I found a bunch of youtube channels that mostly seem to be about the fact that people are serving food to the homeless, and less about the actual cooking process. Cooking and preparing a large amount of food can take a goodly amount of time.
Today I went to Costco to buy vegetables. I had originally planned to go to either Winco or Trader Joe's, but had another reason to go Costco, so I figured I could find big bags of veggies there. I got a bag of fresh green beans, a bag of broccoli and a bag of asparagus as well as a bag of frozen corn. Most of this was organic, interestingly enough. I think the asparagus was Green Giant and not organic, and it was really thick, yet cooked down to almost mush, sadly, because I didn't manage the cooking times well. I'm thinking I should probably do the shopping on Saturday, and then figure out how I'm going to cook, reheat or transport on that Monday.
So here is the Costco receipt--I actually used to blog all my Trader Joe's receipts at one point in time. I like having a record of prices. I bought Taylor Farms Organic broccoli florets, $5.99 for 3 lbs,
Fresh Wave organic green beans, trimmed, 2 lbs for $4.99,
JMB farms Asparagus, 2.25 lbs for $4.99,
Watts Brothers organic sweet white corn, frozen, 5 lbs for $5.89,
Earthbound Farms organic baby kale for $4.79,
although I bought that for my daughter and didn't cook that this evening. I also bought some vegan Yakisoba bowls and vegan Don Lee Fiesta bowls as well as a pack of hotdogs for $12.99. There were three packs together, so about 30 beef franks in all.
Generally the food I make is vegan or vegetarian, but after Thanksgiving this year, I asked for donations of turkey carcasses, since I find people do not use their Thanksgiving turkey carcass to the full degree; if you are going to suffer and die to be food, you should be fully utilized in that capacity. I don't want to add to the demand for poultry by purchasing it, but sometimes I do want to make things that include meat, dairy or eggs. Today I made vegetables and I had just purchased a single stick of Organic Valley butter, which was $1.99 at the food coop, and I purchased it for my younger daughter who visited a dietician. The dietician told her margarine was garbage, so I decided I'd get her a stick of butter, which should last for awhile, but it was the only stick I had and it's gone now. I guess she will have to use Earth Balance if she happens to need something like butter. I suppose I could have purchased that at Costco, and I did consider it, but it is in huge quantities.
I didn't start cooking until close to 1:30 pm, and I did the asparagus first, steaming it in the Instant Pot for 3 minutes. I transferred it to a crockpot, and put some raw broccoli florets in on top of it, as well as a cube of vegetable bouillon. I did the green beans next, snapping them into 2 or 3 pieces, also cooking for 2 or 3 minutes along with broccoli florets on top. The broccoli in the Instant Pot became a drab green, but the stuff that was put into the crockpot stayed bright. But then I felt like I needed to fill up the pot, so I added more broccoli, probably about 2 lbs in all. I added some garlic and onion powder too, since I didn't really notice much salt or extra flavoring, even with the bouillon. I also added half a stick of butter to the crockpot. I cooked the 5 lbs of corn in my small stockpot, and added the smaller half of butter to that, along with salt. The broccoli was unevenly cooked, and the asparagus turned to mush, so I might just do it in various pots on the stove if I have to cook a lot of vegetables again soon.
Here is a photo--I'm trying to remember to take more of them so I have a record. If I keep up this new purpose to this blog, then I will post them here. The corn filled about half of my 8 quart stockpot.
In any event, I've been thinking about what I could make for next week, when it will certainly be crowded, but I just realized that I actually can't go next week. I could make something up and put it in the church kitchen, however. So I started to look for a cooking blog that is specifically about cooking and serving large groups of people. I found a bunch of youtube channels that mostly seem to be about the fact that people are serving food to the homeless, and less about the actual cooking process. Cooking and preparing a large amount of food can take a goodly amount of time.
Today I went to Costco to buy vegetables. I had originally planned to go to either Winco or Trader Joe's, but had another reason to go Costco, so I figured I could find big bags of veggies there. I got a bag of fresh green beans, a bag of broccoli and a bag of asparagus as well as a bag of frozen corn. Most of this was organic, interestingly enough. I think the asparagus was Green Giant and not organic, and it was really thick, yet cooked down to almost mush, sadly, because I didn't manage the cooking times well. I'm thinking I should probably do the shopping on Saturday, and then figure out how I'm going to cook, reheat or transport on that Monday.
So here is the Costco receipt--I actually used to blog all my Trader Joe's receipts at one point in time. I like having a record of prices. I bought Taylor Farms Organic broccoli florets, $5.99 for 3 lbs,
Fresh Wave organic green beans, trimmed, 2 lbs for $4.99,
JMB farms Asparagus, 2.25 lbs for $4.99,
Watts Brothers organic sweet white corn, frozen, 5 lbs for $5.89,
Earthbound Farms organic baby kale for $4.79,
although I bought that for my daughter and didn't cook that this evening. I also bought some vegan Yakisoba bowls and vegan Don Lee Fiesta bowls as well as a pack of hotdogs for $12.99. There were three packs together, so about 30 beef franks in all.
Generally the food I make is vegan or vegetarian, but after Thanksgiving this year, I asked for donations of turkey carcasses, since I find people do not use their Thanksgiving turkey carcass to the full degree; if you are going to suffer and die to be food, you should be fully utilized in that capacity. I don't want to add to the demand for poultry by purchasing it, but sometimes I do want to make things that include meat, dairy or eggs. Today I made vegetables and I had just purchased a single stick of Organic Valley butter, which was $1.99 at the food coop, and I purchased it for my younger daughter who visited a dietician. The dietician told her margarine was garbage, so I decided I'd get her a stick of butter, which should last for awhile, but it was the only stick I had and it's gone now. I guess she will have to use Earth Balance if she happens to need something like butter. I suppose I could have purchased that at Costco, and I did consider it, but it is in huge quantities.
I didn't start cooking until close to 1:30 pm, and I did the asparagus first, steaming it in the Instant Pot for 3 minutes. I transferred it to a crockpot, and put some raw broccoli florets in on top of it, as well as a cube of vegetable bouillon. I did the green beans next, snapping them into 2 or 3 pieces, also cooking for 2 or 3 minutes along with broccoli florets on top. The broccoli in the Instant Pot became a drab green, but the stuff that was put into the crockpot stayed bright. But then I felt like I needed to fill up the pot, so I added more broccoli, probably about 2 lbs in all. I added some garlic and onion powder too, since I didn't really notice much salt or extra flavoring, even with the bouillon. I also added half a stick of butter to the crockpot. I cooked the 5 lbs of corn in my small stockpot, and added the smaller half of butter to that, along with salt. The broccoli was unevenly cooked, and the asparagus turned to mush, so I might just do it in various pots on the stove if I have to cook a lot of vegetables again soon.
Here is a photo--I'm trying to remember to take more of them so I have a record. If I keep up this new purpose to this blog, then I will post them here. The corn filled about half of my 8 quart stockpot.
Friday, January 6, 2017
6 January 2017
Apparently I have two drafts I never posted. Also, I haven't updated in 10 months. However, today I was just going to log one of my old grocery receipts. I kept them, and actually used to blog them because I thought it could be an interesting snapshot into prices some day. So here is one from the Trader Joe's at Reno in the shopping center at the corner of McCarran Blvd and Smithridge Drive. I made this purchase at 3:28 PM PDT on July 13, 2009. My cashier was Kristi.
Organic milk 2% gallon -- $5.99
Cranberry Raspberry juice -- $4.49
Organic strawberry lemonade -- $3.29
Soda Virgil's Root Beer, 4 bottles -- $3.99
Squeeze Mtn Raspberry juice, 4 bottles -- $2.99
Chai Instant spiced -- $2.99
Coffee decaf organic fair trade -- $7.99
Half & Half quart - $1.29
Margarine Earth Balance -- $3.69
Sour cream, pint -- $1.49
Organic Vanana yogurt - 27 oz. -- $2.79
Peanut Butter organic crunchy -- $2.99
TJ's tomato basil pasta sauce -- $1.79
whipped cream cheese -- $1.49
grocery, non-taxable -- $9.77
Beef conventional ground 20% fat -- $1.99
sliced black forest ham -- $3.49
TJ sliced colby jack cheese -- $2.99
TJ Goat cheese crumbles -- $2.19
TJ Monterey Jack sticks -- $3.49
cheese, shredded mozzarella -- $2.99
Mint chocolate chip ice cream, 1 quart -- $3.99
hash brown potatoes -- $1.99
hash brown potatoes -- $1.99
eggs cage free x-large, brown -- $2.99
Tacos, mini beef -- $2.99
Roast beef & cheese panini w/ -- $2.99
Crackers 12 grain prebiotic mini -- $1.99
Nature's Path hemp organic cereal -- $2.89
TJ's Honey Nut O's cereal -- $2.??
salsa chipotle hot -- $1.99
artichoke hearts, can in water -- $1.99
TJ's Canola spray -- $2.29
Organic blueberries -- $2.99
A-plums sugar 1 lb -- $1.69
Nature's Toaster Pastry straw -- $2.59
New Belgium seasonal 6 fl oz for $7.99
Milton's Gourmet White Hamburg -- $2.29
Blueberry pie -- $8.99
Organic avocados (4 ct) -- $4.69
sourdough english muffins -- $1.99
Fresh N Spicy Guacamole -- $2.79
Sunny California Roll -- $2.99
Chewy Chocolate Chunk cookies -- $4.29
Bananas organic 6 ea @0.29/EA -- $1.74
A-Tomatoes heirloom 18/1# -- $2.99
sliced sourdough bread $2.29
pasta bowties -- $0.99
Tortilla white triangle organic -- $2.59
popcorn organic with olive oil -- $1.79
Subtotal -- $161.43
state tax -- $0.62
Total -- $162.05
So it occurs to me reading this that a lot of these items do not list quantities, and therefore prices might not be useful. The juice and lemonade was in 2 quart bottles, eggs were a carton of 12, the fresh blueberries were probably about 6 oz. The individual bottles of soda or juice were most likely 6 oz but possibly 8 oz for the rootbeer. The packaged cheese was most likely 12 ozs, but the mozzarella could have been a full pound. The english muffins come in a sleeve of 6, the triangle tortillas were chips, and that was probably a largish bag, at least 14 oz. The popcorn was also in a similar sized bag. I have some TJ's decaf and artichoke hearts in water in my pantry today, and those sizes are a 13 oz can of whole beans and a 14 oz can of artichokes. Some stores slightly downsize their packaging rather than change their prices, but I don't think TJ's does that. I have been buying their heirloom tomatoes for about $4.99 a lb lately.
I also think I must have been planning for a pool party, since I normally don't buy all those sugary drinks at one time.
A photo from a few days later.
Organic milk 2% gallon -- $5.99
Cranberry Raspberry juice -- $4.49
Organic strawberry lemonade -- $3.29
Soda Virgil's Root Beer, 4 bottles -- $3.99
Squeeze Mtn Raspberry juice, 4 bottles -- $2.99
Chai Instant spiced -- $2.99
Coffee decaf organic fair trade -- $7.99
Half & Half quart - $1.29
Margarine Earth Balance -- $3.69
Sour cream, pint -- $1.49
Organic Vanana yogurt - 27 oz. -- $2.79
Peanut Butter organic crunchy -- $2.99
TJ's tomato basil pasta sauce -- $1.79
whipped cream cheese -- $1.49
grocery, non-taxable -- $9.77
Beef conventional ground 20% fat -- $1.99
sliced black forest ham -- $3.49
TJ sliced colby jack cheese -- $2.99
TJ Goat cheese crumbles -- $2.19
TJ Monterey Jack sticks -- $3.49
cheese, shredded mozzarella -- $2.99
Mint chocolate chip ice cream, 1 quart -- $3.99
hash brown potatoes -- $1.99
hash brown potatoes -- $1.99
eggs cage free x-large, brown -- $2.99
Tacos, mini beef -- $2.99
Roast beef & cheese panini w/ -- $2.99
Crackers 12 grain prebiotic mini -- $1.99
Nature's Path hemp organic cereal -- $2.89
TJ's Honey Nut O's cereal -- $2.??
salsa chipotle hot -- $1.99
artichoke hearts, can in water -- $1.99
TJ's Canola spray -- $2.29
Organic blueberries -- $2.99
A-plums sugar 1 lb -- $1.69
Nature's Toaster Pastry straw -- $2.59
New Belgium seasonal 6 fl oz for $7.99
Milton's Gourmet White Hamburg -- $2.29
Blueberry pie -- $8.99
Organic avocados (4 ct) -- $4.69
sourdough english muffins -- $1.99
Fresh N Spicy Guacamole -- $2.79
Sunny California Roll -- $2.99
Chewy Chocolate Chunk cookies -- $4.29
Bananas organic 6 ea @0.29/EA -- $1.74
A-Tomatoes heirloom 18/1# -- $2.99
sliced sourdough bread $2.29
pasta bowties -- $0.99
Tortilla white triangle organic -- $2.59
popcorn organic with olive oil -- $1.79
Subtotal -- $161.43
state tax -- $0.62
Total -- $162.05
So it occurs to me reading this that a lot of these items do not list quantities, and therefore prices might not be useful. The juice and lemonade was in 2 quart bottles, eggs were a carton of 12, the fresh blueberries were probably about 6 oz. The individual bottles of soda or juice were most likely 6 oz but possibly 8 oz for the rootbeer. The packaged cheese was most likely 12 ozs, but the mozzarella could have been a full pound. The english muffins come in a sleeve of 6, the triangle tortillas were chips, and that was probably a largish bag, at least 14 oz. The popcorn was also in a similar sized bag. I have some TJ's decaf and artichoke hearts in water in my pantry today, and those sizes are a 13 oz can of whole beans and a 14 oz can of artichokes. Some stores slightly downsize their packaging rather than change their prices, but I don't think TJ's does that. I have been buying their heirloom tomatoes for about $4.99 a lb lately.
I also think I must have been planning for a pool party, since I normally don't buy all those sugary drinks at one time.
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