Potato is Mine!

On Saturday, I registered Lizzie with my city's Animal Services department. It made me feel so happy! When I got home again, I picked her up and snuggled her and she gave me a kiss on the cheek. She's officially my very own doggie now!

Here she is on my mom's lap a few days ago:

Isn't she the prettiest?

Here's a picture of her hugging her brother the day after she was born:

And here she is snuggling with me a few weeks later:

This is the picture that made my Twitter friend @dentednj say she looks like a potato:

She's my Sweet Potato!

In this one, from a few weeks after that, she's sitting in my sister's lap:

I'm a crazy dog lady now! I'm crazy about my Sweet Potato!!

Daddy

I found this gift tag the other day when I was cleaning my room:

I must have saved it from last Christmas. I like it because even though it says "From MOMMY," it's obviously written in my dad's handwriting.

My father has had a difficult year. I've heard hardly anything about it because he isn't around much and doesn't talk to me much, but apparently, in preparation for retirement, he's sold his business to the company he consults for, and for the first time in over 20 years, he isn't his own boss anymore. Also, his health hasn't been very good this past decade or so. He almost died of some heart problems when I was in college, but my parents decided not to tell me about that until I got home for summer break--they didn't want to distract me from my all-important studies in architecture school--that my dad had talked me into. (I ended up adding an English major and leaving architecture early with a non-professional degree--and I didn't tell them about that until I got home for summer break.)

After college, even though I'd wanted to go far, far away, to Tasmania even--I looked into it!-- I ended up having to move home because I was so sick from the stress of school. Somehow (meaning from my dad) I'd been convinced as early as Kindergarten that if I front-loaded all my efforts, doing my absolute best in school, that afterwards everything would fall in place, and adult life would be nothing but smooth sailing. Instead I discovered after a few years of college that other students--students smarter, better, more creative, more studious, more enthusiastic, and better-connected than I was--were having difficulty finding jobs with architecture firms. The tiny threads that had been holding me together, getting me through the awful days snapped all at once. 

It was another year before I graduated, and I scraped along, barely holding my mind and body together as I worked at a daycare while finishing my English degree and one last credit for a Bachelor of Science in Architecture degree, so that I earned two degrees in just four years. When I moved home that summer, I made a project of trying to get my health back together. I went to several doctors. I tried to eat healthy food even though my parents' fridge and pantry were crammed with ice cream, bagels, economy-sized blocks of cheese, soda--all the things that had made me a fat, miserable teenager. My parents followed my lead to an extent, eating healthier and allowing me to cook them the occasional vegetarian meal. I also started going for two-mile morning walks with my dad, where we would talk about all kinds of stuff. I got to understand him so much better and not be as angry with him for the way he'd always treated me, all the pressure and criticism he'd put me under. He'd thought it would make me a tough, responsible adult, not the broken, useless, terrified mess I actually became.

I learned that my dad was proud to be the owner of a small business. He explained that by doing the work he did (which I found crushingly dull), he supported three families: his own, plus the young families of his two employees. He also genuinely enjoyed most of the work, which consisted of writing software and designing technical equipment. The thing I most appreciate about his work is that over the years, he has become more knowledgeable about the company he consults for and the products it builds than anyone who actually works at the company! That's why they have to keep him on as an employee for a while as they train multiple people to do the work he's been doing for the last two decades.

All my life I've hated my dad's work, though. Why can't Daddy play with us this weekend? Because he had to go to work. Why is no one home at 9:00 PM for dinner? Because Mommy and Daddy had to go to work (my mom worked as his secretary and janitor for about ten years). It's no secret in that my dad escapes the house by going to work. Even this year, when his new bosses tried to get him to work from home, he flat out refused. He's started a million renovation projects around the house, but when they get too difficult, he's suddenly "too busy" to finish them, but won't let my mom hire anyone else to do it. The house has always been a mess.

This is why I treasured our vacations so much. Just about every other summer, Daddy would take us somewhere beautiful (and not as hot as Dallas): Nova Scotia, Colorado, rural England, Hawaii. We stayed in relatively inexpensive places, but they were always more comfortable than home, and more importantly, everyone was together. My sister couldn't abandon me to be with her friends, my mom couldn't abandon me to go shopping (and then forget to pick me up from school), and my father couldn't abandon me to go to work (although I do remember a fax machine coming along with us a couple of times). My dad is really good at planning vacations, too. Four times he drove us to Colorado, a couple of them via Santa Fe and Taos; the most recent, via Mesa Verde, and beyond, to Park City, Utah. I have a photo I love of my dad sitting on a mountainside near Aspen. He's wearing the green hat he had to buy there to keep his bald spot from burning, and he's eating a sandwich and smiling. You could put those days in a teacup.

I like to think that that version of my dad--Daddy, I guess--is there always. Somewhere inside the Dad who works too much, the Dad who criticizes too much, the Dad who claims he doesn't have feelings but can poison a whole house with his anger. I'm a big disappointment, but he's learning to be okay with that, just as I'm learning to be okay with him. 

I haven't had a job since I worked at the daycare, but I've been careful not to be a burden on my parents. I have some money from mom's father, who died while I was in college, and with it I pay all my own expenses. Except for my health insurance. My father bought an individual plan for me, $2400 a year. I pay my own co-pays, and since the deductibles are so high, I try not to go to the doctor if I can help it. Still, it's an enormous help. I've offered half a dozen times to take over the payments, but my dad insists. "I'm not doing this for you," he says. "I just don't want you to bankrupt me when you get cancer."

You have to read between the lines a bit, but I think that might be his way of saying he loves me. Somewhere inside that Dad is my Daddy.

They Weren't Any Easier Then, but I Still Kinda Miss This

(photo taken March 4, when the puppies were two and a half months old)

Things I Did in May

I am a weary little soul. So much work this month, and next to nothing to show for it. Oh well, I won't get into it. Here's what I DO have to show for it:

VIDEO: I made a second attempt at time-lapse photography. I still don't have any professional equipment--not even a good camera by today's standards. (I recently saw a review on TV of a new mini-phone that said its camera had 8 Megapixels instead of the usual 13. I looked at my Canon point-and-shoot: it only has 2 Megapixels.) The video turned out decently enough, though. I even enjoyed taking the pictures every hour, except when the bud grew out of the frame (twice), and I had to start propping up the camera on various food containers and bricks and things. I also had to go out in the rain several times and try to line up the shot while holding an umbrella and kneeling on wet pavement. Then, even though I'd covered the flower during two hailstorms, some unexpected heavy rain bent the flower stalk to the ground before all the buds had finished opening. Just my luck. Watch it anyway, though. It's kind of neat, and it's only 44 seconds long:

Time Lapse--Hosta Flower

PHOTOS: I thought this orchid looked pretty against the kitchen wallpaper. It reminded me of a calendar with flower pictures that my parents gave me in the 80's:

ARTWORK: HA HA HA!! This section, if not this whole "things I did" project, seems to be a lesson in humility. Okay. One weekend, my roommate was watching an episode of "This Old House" about attic insulation, and we got to talking about dormers (the little house-shaped windows that peek out of a roof and bring light and space to an attic). I was reminded of the house I'd designed the year after I graduated college, when my one and only plan was to build myself a house in upstate New York and have minimal interaction with other human beings for the rest of my life. I drew my roommate a "napkin sketch" of it--what architects draw to quickly demonstrate a visual idea while out for drinks with clients or other architects. This one's on the back of a receipt: 

(The house had a square plan with a central staircase that wound around a wood stove. It had natural ventilation and a hip roof with large dormers on the east, south and west sides. My parents eventually convinced me that I would freeze and/or starve to death, while also getting raped and/or murdered, so here I am in Texas still, all these years later.)

For Mother's Day, I bought my mom three sheets of Forever stamps with flowers on them because she loves flowers, but already has literally thousands of plants. I wanted to give her a card, too, but she also collects Hallmark cards and basically has them all already. So I thought I would fold some nice paper and draw the puppies on it. I sat next to their playpen and tried to draw what I saw, but of course they wouldn't hold still. Max turned out okay, and Joey turned out okayish, but Lizzie (on the left) looked weird. Then I tried tracing a photo from my computer screen (my mom "borrowed" my printer years ago), and, bizarrely, everyone turned out looking almost exactly the same! The traced card is on top, and the drawn card on bottom:

(smh!)

I showed the drawings to my mom, just because I found them so amusingly bad, and she was like, "Oh... that's... so nice." But she was genuinely impressed by the stamps. So I just waved those around and hid the drawings so she wouldn't feel compelled to take them. (I'm 29 1/2!!)

ESSAYS: I wrote a couple of essays, but they're too personal, and I'm embarrassed by them. I keep thinking about deleting them. I ought to write some actual article-type stuff. I don't want my writing to waste people's time.

EXERCISE GOALS: My May goal was to do "some" crunches, "some" pushups,  and "some" sun salutations every day. I think I did all of these things more than half of the days, but I wouldn't say most. The primary culprits were exhaustion, and forgetting (because I'm often exhausted). The temperature has been into the 90's lately, and just dealing with the puppies in that weather feels like more than enough. The good news is, I have biceps now (from lifting the puppies) and "glutes" (from lifting the puppies), and I'm finally getting "abs" (from the crunches--although they're only faintly visible in the mornings, before I've eaten!).

For June, I'd like to do three exercises from my dance exercises book every day, dropping the first one and adding a new one each day so that I eventually work through the whole book, doing each exercise three days in a row. I forgot to do it yesterday. I'm going to drop my previous routines because figuring out how to do new exercises takes a lot of time.

BOOK REVIEW: I finally finished Flowers for Algernon. I don't know why it's considered a classic, or even worth reading, so I'm not going to bother to write about it. I've started but been unable to get very far in a couple of other books. The only really good books I've read in the past twelve months were Half Empty by David Rakoff, Tasteful Nudes by Dave Hill, and How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran (which left me feeling horrible, despite marketing itself as having a more positive outlook on feminism). 

100 RECIPES GOAL: I only tried three new recipes instead of the usual 8 or 9. I was going to blame that on the time-lapse, but then thought that was silly, but then did the math and realized that taking 153 photos did indeed take up the same amount of time as 5 new recipes. I'm also guilty of trying several of my previous "new" recipes a second or third time. For example, here's #14. Spicy Chick Pea and Aubergine Stew, made with fresh tomatoes instead of canned, and the fried onion and fresh coriander (cilantro) garnish that I originally omitted, which did in fact improve the dish, although it was still dry and not very stew-like: 

The nutmeg eggs and the Moroccan date salad were especially good:

#35. Nutmeg Eggs with Spinach and Mushrooms

#36. Moroccan Date, Orange and Carrot Salad

#37. Spinach Frittata

And that's it! All of May! 

Maybe it's time to start making sacrificial offerings to the Muses, or try to meet the devil at a crossroads or something. Wish me better luck for June!

#37. Spinach Frittata

I read the section of Joy of Cooking about omelettes and frittatas and mostly improvised this recipe (I had a lot of eggs that had just expired that day and a bunch of spinach that wasn't especially pretty to use up). Joy described a method of stirring the frittata whereby you slide the pan forward and backward while swirling a fork in the eggs with the tines parallel to the bottom of the pan but not touching it. This method helped to keep the spinach (which I cooked first and drained VERY WELL--this is important) from clumping together, which gave the sliced frittata a lovely marbled appearance. Otherwise, it was very simple. I think I just used 7 eggs and about 5 oz. of baby spinach, salt and pepper. You cook the frittata on the stove until the bottom is set, then in the oven (350 degrees?) until the top is set but NOT BROWNED. Make sure your pan is ovenproof. Mine was, but that didn't keep the egg from sticking! The slices of frittata came out just fine, but it took a week of soaking and scrubbing to get the pan clean. Okay, here it is in the oven, just before I took it out:

And here it is on a plate with sliced tomatoes and herbs from my patio--parsley, oregano, and thyme, all of which went nicely with the flavor of the frittata:

This was pretty, and the puppies loved it. My roommate was grateful for it because she came home starving from a tennis lesson and didn't have anything to eat. I thought it was okayish. Not much flavor. Too much egg. What I really wanted was a quiche, but I try to stay away from the lactose (frowny face). The herbs and tomatoes really helped.

B or B+, depending on how hungry you are, or maybe better with fresher ingredients

#36. Moroccan Date, Orange and Carrot Salad

This is from the book Vegan Recipes, ed. Nicola Graimes. It's very good. It takes a little more effort than your typical salad, but if you have the time (maybe half an hour?) it's worthwhile.

Put some lettuce leaves on a plate (I used about half a head of Bibb lettuce--the book says to use Gem lettuce). Top it with a little mound of grated carrot (1 or 2 or 3 carrots, up to you). Then orange segments (I cut up a navel orange the first time, then used canned mandarin orange slices the second time--both were good). Top that with some sliced up dates--however many you like.

I took a picture before it was done because it was looking pretty, and I was afraid I might mess it up:

Toast some sliced almonds and sprinkle those on top (I'd consider this optional, but the flavor works really well with everything else). Make a dressing out of about 2 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp sugar (the book says "caster sugar"--I used regular), and 1/4 tsp salt (adjust all ingredients to taste). The book also says to add "orange flower water," but I'm guessing that's a British thing--I've never seen it. I just added a spoonful of juice from the oranges. And that's it. Here's the final product:

Pretty, huh? I liked it so much that I made it again the next day. It reminds me a little of Wendy's Mandarin Chicken Salad, but better, even without the chicken.

A+

#35. Nutmeg Eggs with Spinach and Mushrooms

This was just like this recipe, except with cremini mushrooms instead of tomatoes. But it's even better if you add some fresh (cooked or raw) tomatoes as well. And it's even better if you cook the mushrooms and spinach together with some butter. Here's the picture:

A+