Women's Work

Begin a new post...wow!

It's been a while, huh? So long that I forgot how to logon on to bloody TypePad and had to click around the world to figure it out. But I did. Obviously. A friend of mine ( who says I am her only friend, but she's full of crap, she just needs treat people like friends and then they will be. Nobody wants be held in awe, nobody wants to be made too much over. They just want to be friends, and help each other other out and laugh with - and at - each other. If a friendship makes you feel guilty all the time, it needs examining.)

But, I digress. I have a post, swirling around in here, in my head, wanting out. It must be, because typing is one of the things that make the pain very bad at times. Just a fact. Been suffering from progressive pain in my back and neck and arms for about six months. Finally actually seem to have found a doctor who wants to figure it out instead of sending me willy-nilly to PT. Don't get me wrong. I know PT is a wonderful thing. One of my very best friends is a PT. But it seems to me that it would be best to figure out what the problem is before just prodding and pulling at  it - attaching electrodes and submitting it to the rack traction machine. I am learning to mouse with my left hand, with always slow and sometimes disatrous results. Also, there was an MRI today.

Women's Work is the topic here, though, and of that I have none. Well, not the kind the pays the bills. I haven't since April 3. I stayed up late, baking fantastic cookies for a company do, but I called into the boss' office early that morning and was laid off. The first one in the company. Not the last. It was quite a shock. I had done the job by myself for a year before they finally hired someone else. I trained him and when things went south, he was being paid probably half of what I was, so, bye, bye, Julie. It's really OK. I hated working there. The boss had a "management style" that I didn't respond to well. Yeah, that's what we're going to call it. So, no great loss.

Except, except. Four months later and and in this, the worst "financial turndown" since the Great Depression, I have no job and very few prospects for one.

My house is very clean. Well, there were large tracts of time between when this started and now when many relatives visited for weeks at a time, but as of next week, it will be completely clean and I will have to contemplate the yard.

I keep very busy in other ways. I got money from the government for "retraining," so I'm studying a heretofore mysterious branch of IT, SQL. I'ts fascinating. It's HARD. It's basically programming and I was never all that analytical (except when it came to why boyfriends left and I've given up on even that these days - who  cares why they left, or why they turned out to be such assholes. They did/they were, get over it.) The ironic thing about studying to be SQL DBA is that no one will hire me for that just if I have a certification...they want 8-10 years experience. There must be a creche somewhere from which fully formed DBAS spring forth, wholly vested in 10 year experience blocks.  

I am working on  people's computers for trade, mostly. I'm also designing/maintaining web sites. An entirely new endeavor that also makes my brain hurt. I am not good at design. The bad thing is that I KNOW this, but still, my designs are there in certain cases and I have to visit them and add stuff., etc.

All that, combined with the unemployment check and letting the Visa and Discover cards catch the overflow, is getting me by, for now. I try to curb my spending greatly, but I can't completely stop doing things with my friends. It will spell the end for me.

I also spend WAY TOO MUCH time on a bid for a science fiction convention some buddies and I want to hold in Huntsville in 2012.

But  I need a real job. And there are none. Or very few, with lots of competition. It is a very strange feeling. I haven't been out of work, involuntarily, for more than few weeks since I was 16. Nearly  30 years.

But I have been out now for over four months. I think I need to start having more fun with it. I will get a job, eventually, and I won't have all this freedom. So tonight, I was lying in my bed, reading. I had taken my Ambien. But the reading would not cease. I started thinking about a Barefoot Contessa recipe that I had planned to make the day before but because of time and ingredient restraints, it hadn't happened. I thought, "I have all those now." If I make the risotto cake filling now, it can chill ALL NIGHT. So I got up after midnight, under the influence of Ambien and made the risotto cake filling. It's chilling now. I drank some wine and ate Cheez-Its and bread and butter, too. I'm supposed to be in a weight loss contest, but I just couldn't bring myself to care. Everything tasted so good, perhaps better than it really did, because it's late and I should be going to sleep. But then again, why? It's Friday night anyway.

We're not that old. A favorite refrain of some friends and mine. And we're not. We're in our forties. The new thirties...ask anybody. Maybe not the 20-year-olds. But I feel like I am getting so old. Many, many bad things happen to people I love all the time. My friends are losing their parents. I am losing my mother to some sort of dementia that she refuses to admit she has and if you can bear to argue with her long enough to get her to admit that something might be wrong, it doesn't matter, she won't remember the next day. My own body is betraying me, just as I really try to take care of it finally.

But this night. I get up from the bed and because I finally do have the time and ingredients, whip up some of Ina Garten's Chive Risotto Cakes, which I will let sit over night and it makes me very happy. Maybe that's the wine and the Ambien. Who cares? I'll let you know how the cakes turn out tomorrow.

Is your refrigerator running?

Better catch it.

I know, I know, I have sucked at posting for the last two months and I apologize sincerely to our moderators and my fellow bloggers.

This post will be no great shakes either, but I do have a handy tip:

If, two days before a Thanksgiving at which you will be serving 16 people a sit down dinner, you decide to give your refrigerator a much needed cleaning, DO NOT leave the refrigerator door open for the entire hour and 45 minutes it takes to do this.

Not only does it waste energy, it causes said refrigerator to QUIT.

When this happened to me, I immediately called my brother, the appliance guru. I could HEAR his eyes rolling in his head at my stupidity. He told me I need to unplug the offending box, leave it unplugged for 10 minutes then plug it back in. I whined, "UNPLUG it? That means I'll have to MOVE it out of it's little cubbyhole."

Jason had little sympathy. "Well if you know what breaker it is, go flip it off, wait 10 minutes and flip it back on."

I only whined in my head this time, "Breaker! Then I have to go in the basement - spider central. In the dark (it has an outside entrance only). In the cold and rain."

I said, "OK. Thanks! Bye."

He immediately called back. "Actually, your fridge should have an on/off switch inside."

The only "off" switch was for the the thermostat, so I turned it off. Waited 10 minutes and turned it back on. Nothing but the leave swirling outside.

Meanwhile, refrigerated items had been sitting on the counters for over two hours now. Alton Brown would be cussing me, even though it's very cold in my house because I am cheap and don't turn the heat up very high. Still, it's not as cold as the fridge, but then neither was the fridge at this point.

Freaking out, I managed to move the fridge out of it's hole. It was nasty under there. I unplugged the thing, set the timer for 10 minutes and cleaned the floor.

At the DING, I plugged it back in. If it hadn't been so damned cold, I think you could have heard the crickets chirping.

I started hyperventilating at this stage. Yes, I have Darth Fridge in the back bar/secondary kitchen area, but he was already full, too. I was cleaning this main fridge out to make room for stuff I had yet to buy. I forced myself to breathe and start loading the dishwasher with all the science experiments containers  that I had emptied of their mystery foods.

About 15 minutes in, the fridge started up again.

I am not a religious person, but I was thanking every deity I could think of.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

Fleshing out my culture post

I mentioned the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in my last post, and since it just happened, I thought I'd blog about it in more depth. This was the 10th year of the festival. The link will take you to the site with descriptions of all the films, but I have quoted it extensively below, as well. It was either the 4th or 5th year I have attended and I didn't volunteer to work like I have the last two years, so I was able to see a LOT of films. It was quite the marathon, though. Lots of walking all over downtown between venues, putting my Z-Coils to the test. We (Laura, Robert, Liz, Jay and I) went to the opening night film, Adventures of Power. It was a fun and funny film about air drumming, not nearly as bad as the local bi-weekly "City" paper, Black & White, made it out to be. Yes, it was ripping off Napoleon Dynamite (and Dodge Ball and most of your Ben Stiller/Will Farrell-type movies) a bit, but it wasn't horrible. It was a little too long, though. That was a complaint I had about most of the feature-length films I saw. Five out of six to be exact.

Then various combinations of the five of us went to movies from 11 AM until 11:30 PM on Saturday. The first was a block of 6 International Shorts:
• The Line | Kent Bassett 2007
• Infinite Justice | Karl Tebbe 2006
• Silly & Serious: William Robinson And Self Portraits | Dennis Tupicoff 2008
• In Between
• A Day's Work | Rajeev Dassani 2008
• My Dad | John Vaughan 2007

Two of these, The Line and A Day's Work, were about bad things that happened to illegal Mexican immigrants and were a little heavy-handed. Infinite Justice was a little (pun-intended) tirade about the Iraq war, made with action figures (who knew there WAS a W action figure?) that was also extremely messagetastic. My Dad was dark, but good. In Between was a Polish film about a guy whose girlfriend was pregnant, but he thought the baby couldn't be his because he was shooting blanks. The best of the lot was Silly & Serious, about the artist William Robinson and all these self-portraits (silly and serious), that he's done.

Laura and I saw Medicine for Melancholy which was billed as "a love story of bikes and one-night stands told through two African-American twenty-somethings dealing with the conundrum of being a minority in a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco." That's pretty accurate. And it was good, though again, too long. And they stuck this in this community meeting about rent control that totally didn't fit the flow of the rest of the film and was obviously supposed to learn us something. This film was preceded by a short called Merrily, Merrily, about a teenager whose parents tell her that she doesn't exist, that they just wanted a kid so bad, they imagined her. Yeah.

Next up, the first zombie movie of the weekend and the one I liked the least. It was WAAAAY too long and just didn't make sense. I know, I know, it's a zombie movie and there has to be a willing suspension of disbelief, but...not that much. The best thing about this movie was the actress who played the zombie in question. From the program: "MAKE-OUT with VIOLENCE is a genre-bending tale of a boy trying to fulfill his unrequited love for a girl who has risen from the dead. Set against the backdrop of a summer of cicadas and swimming pools, the film blends elements of up-beat teenage melodrama with the strange gravity of classic coming of age stories. It tells the story of twin brothers Patrick and Carol Darling, newly graduated from high school and struggling to come to terms with the mysterious disappearance of their friend, the bright and beautiful Wendy Hearst. When a drive through the countryside surrounding their suburban community leads to the discovery of Wendy’s mysteriously animated corpse, the boys secretly transport the undead Wendy to an empty house in hopes of somehow bringing her back to life. As the sweltering summer pushes on, they must maintain the appearance of normalcy for their friends and family as they search for ways to revive the Wendy they once knew, or, failing that, to satisfy their own quests for love amongst the living and the dead."

The first documentary was one of my two favorite films...both of which were documentaries, now that I think of it. Again quoting the program: "We Are Wizards is an intriguing look at the world of Harry Potter mania and the newly emerging Wizard Rock musical genre. The film delves into complicated and often convoluted issues regarding intellectual property, obsessive fandom, inspiration vs. plagiarism, the collision of art and commerce and life in the age of cultural remixing. It becomes a documentary about finding one’s place in a world that often feels as if everything has been done. We Are Wizards is funny, poignant, moving and strangely triumphant. It’s a charming film that proves -- not only through its endearing look at HP fanatics, but also by its very own existence -- that one ingenious creation can indeed produce equally unique and inspiring art." This was hilarious and my only complaint is that it was a little too long and went off into pointless flights of video that had nothing to do with the story they were trying to tell about Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys, and etc.

After a really nice dinner at John's City Diner (must recreate the mac and cheese w/prosciutto), we saw the second and third (and final) zombie movie. The first of these was Prombies - a hilarious take on the stereotypical 50s prom, and then Dance of the Dead - which had some excellent effects and stunt work. In fact, film was shot in Rome, GA and some of the stunts were coordinated by someone we know in Atlanta, Nils. Both were a lot of fun, but the feature was (say it with me), TOO LONG. I have this complaint about 99% of the wide-release commercial action movies I see, though. There are too many scenes that are devoted to "action;" in this case, killing zombies, and not enough devoted to plot or character development. Favorite line, "We're the Sci-Fi Club."

Liz's friend Michelle got us into the filmmakers party, although we didn't there until 11:30 or so. We stayed for a couple of hours, drinking the free wine, chatting with folks and watching people dance. I saw another "man" wearing manpris. Oh, the horror.

Sunday, we fortified ourselves with a huge breakfast at The Original Pancake House before setting off for the festival. Laura and I saw Goliath, preceded by 3 shorts. Goliath was about a guy in Texas who loses the eponymous cat, is getting a divorce, gets a demotion at work and finds out a sex offender is living in his neighborhood. He has a rough time. The film was uneven - funny at times and poignant,and long in places (the 10 minute scene of signing papers, for example) - but overall it was good and I loved the end. It was shown with 3 shorts in front, all of which were good:

• Trust | Daniel Scheinert 2007 (Office worker takes a team-building group exercise too far. Funny like a good SNL skit)
• Dear Fatty | Hsin-I Tseng 2008 (Just adorable tale of an animated hamster)
• Hot Dog | Bill Plympton 2008 (Funny fire-dog animation)

Pageant was next. My favorite film - the only feature that wasn't too long. It was a documentary about several men competing in the Miss Gay America pageant, which has been going on since 1973! It's a pageant for transvestites, and the best line in the film is, "You don't have to be gay, but it helps." Utterly fascinating and funny. The amount of money spent on costumes and props and sets is amazing, in both quality and quantity.

Raising our social consciousness, we saw The Dhamma Brothers, preceded by the short, Story Time. Both of these were prison documentaries and gripping. The short was about women in state prison who are mothers (70% of the women in Alabama prisons are) and who participate in a program where they pick out stories for their children and tape-record themselves reading the books. It's just so incredible to me that you can go to jail for LIFE for drug possession. The feature film is well described by the Sidewalk site: East meets West in the Deep South. An overcrowded maximum- security prison — the end of the line in Alabama’s correctional system – is forever changed by the influence of an ancient meditation program. Donaldson Correctional Facility, situated in the Alabama countryside southwest of Birmingham, holds 1500 of the state’s most dangerous criminals. Behind high security towers and a double row of barbed wire and electrical fence, dwells a host of convicts who will never see the light of day. But for some of these men, a spark was ignited. In January 2002, Donaldson Correctional Facility became the first maximum security prison in North America to hold an extended Vipassana retreat, an emotionally and physically demanding course of silent meditation lasting 10 days. The Dhamma Brothers tells a dramatic tale of human potential and transformation as it closely follows and documents the stories of 36 prison inmates who enter into this arduous and intensive program. It challenges assumptions about the nature of prisons as places of punishment rather than rehabilitation and raises the question: is it possible for these men, some of whom have committed horrendous crimes, to change?"

Finally, to lighten things up, we saw an encore showing of Skiptracers, most accurately summed up as "Dukes of Hazzard meets CSI." Funny (and a little horrifying), I was tired and wished it was shorter, but glad I saw it. Laura, Robert and I were pretty glassy-eyed and filmed-out by the time we wrapped up the weekend with some Thai food at Surin.

All in all, an excellent year, I thought.

Not growing in the fridge

     Culture is the topic of the month. I am something of a geek for words and the dictionary (among other things). A friend of mine was at the house the other day and we went into my bedroom to consult on some redecoration plans I have fermenting…or culturing, if you will. She remarked on the giant Illustrated Oxford English Dictionary beside my bed. I always keep a dictionary by my bed because that is where I do the vast majority of my reading and I like to be able to look up words that I don’t know. I had to buy the dictionary in question because my idiot ex-husband threw away my old dictionary because it was falling to pieces. I don’t care, you don’t throw away other people’s books. This is one reason, among many, why he is my ex. But, I digress…I also have Merriam-Webster OnLine send me their word of the day. Let’s see what they have to say about the word culture:

Main Entry:

¹cul·ture

Pronunciation:

\ˈkəl-chər\

Function:

noun

Etymology:

Middle English, cultivated land, cultivation, from Anglo-French, from Latin cultura, from cultus, past participle

Date:

15th century

1: cultivation, tillage

2: the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially by education

3: expert care and training <beauty culture>

4 a: enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training b: acquaintance with and taste in fine arts, humanities, and broad aspects of science as distinguished from vocational and technical skills

5 a: the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations b: the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time <popular culture> <southern culture> c: the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization <a corporate culture focused on the bottom line> d: the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic <studying the effect of computers on print culture> <changing the culture of materialism will take time — Peggy O'Mara>

6: the act or process of cultivating living material (as bacteria or viruses) in prepared nutrient media; also: a product of such cultivation

     I guess we’re going with number 4 up there, although I feel tugs from that bit in number 5 about southern culture. In fact, I think those two definitions should be somewhat intertwined and should not be separated. Although I’m not rich or very influential in my town, I spend a lot of time and money supporting the arts and culture in Birmingham, Alabama, which is definitely the South. And it’s great fun! So I’m turning this post into a celebration of my city’s culture and my very small part in it.

     This past weekend, I attended Art Walk downtown with some friends. We saw lots of art, some of it amazing. I bought some lovely earrings. I saw these gorgeous old buildings downtown, some of them businesses, some of them now converted to loft homes (WANT). I ate a fantastic red velvet cupcake at a flourishing bakery that I had heard of but not yet been to.

     Weekend after next is our fabulous Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival. It’s in its tenth year. I usually work the film festival, but this year I’m just going to go with friends and chill and watch films that I would never even get the chance to see anywhere else. The main venue for the festival is “The Showplace of the South,” the Alabama Theatre, which has been restored to its former glory and has the mighty Wurlitzer organ that rises to the stage for performances. I’ve been to see lots of movies at the Alabama at times other than during the festival and I’ve seen ballet recitals and concerts there. I adore it.

     The first Saturday in October is the Bluff Park Art Show, which I always go to, but if I don’t go this year it will be because I need to get to Chattanooga that day to attend Beer Over Dirt. That’s another aspect of culture, but it’s not in my home town, so suffice it to say that I will have fun. And I don’t even drink beer. I drink other beverages with great enthusiasm, however.

     Wine, for example. Earlier this year I attended the Magic City Art Connection and its sister event, Corks and Chefs. I always go to these, too. The former is a huge juried art show in the big park in front of City Hall. The latter is tidbits from many of our excellent chefs plus all the wine you can drink. This year I had a free night at the Tutwiler Hotel (thanks to my volunteering at the film festival last year), so it was a great time. Ate, drank, wandered around the art show, bought stuff (more jewelry!), then had a party in a beautiful old hotel.

     Every year the Alabama Symphony has a Decorator’s Show House that I try to get to. You go with your friends and look at some huge, gorgeous house in a part of town that you’ll never be able to afford and see each and see what happens to the rooms when a different decorator for each one is allowed to go all out. Money is no object. Sometimes the rooms are beautiful, sometimes hideous, but it’s always a kick. The kitchens in these houses are always objects of my lust.

     And of course, there is City Stages, our 21-year-old next year music festival. I have been attending that since 1993. Some years are better than others, but I always enjoy it and have discovered many new musical artists as well as seen old favorites, some of whom, like Johnny Cash and Ray Charles, are no longer with us.

    Well, that’s just a brief run-down. I know I’m leaving something out and of course there are movies (too many to mention here and certainly not integral to Bham except that I enjoy them with my book group a great deal of the time - oh and books!), plays and Broadway shows (I saw A Man For All Seasons, Phantom and Spamalot this year) and concerts every weekend. And we have one of the best art museums in the southeast - saw the incredible Pompeii exhibit there this year (that got me a mention in the society page of The Birmingahm News). All in all, my little southern city is full of culture and keeps me well entertained.

Once more, with food

   OK, so I am late with this post, for which I apologize most fervently, but…I was on vacation in Colorado for all but the first day of my entire window of postiality. I suppose I could have done it ahead of time, but… no. That’s not me.

   Anyway, it’s a food post again, this time with a recipe, per Miss Emily. Which suits me fine, in case anyone was wondering. First, I’ll give you an anti-recipe, with a little story: One week after my last post, I did, in fact, host a dinner party on Saturday night. Unfortunately, I had mostly been a blob all week, watching my DVDs of Two Guys and A Girl (and a Pizza Place), instead of cleaning or preparing for the party, so I had to do everything on Saturday, which sort of wore me out, and I guess made me loopy. And I did something so embarrassing. Sometime during the day, I was boiling a pot of water for the lasagna noodles, but then I remembered that I also needed to make iced tea, since I sometimes forget to do that and I have a bunch of tea-totalling friends. So I thought, oh, I’ll do that first with this water. So I did, and made a jug of sweet tea and unsweet. Then I got busy with something else (I am easily distracted, if you can’t tell), and didn’t boil the water for the pasta until later. So, people start arriving and we’re talking and I offer something to drink. First Josh (sweet), then Mary Anne (unsweet), then Brandon (sweet) all get tea. Then Pat and Greg show up and Pat gets some unsweet. She takes a sip and then makes a face and says, “This tastes like salt-tea.” Greg takes a sip and confirms. Something started stirring in my brain while I tasted it…much like the salt I had already stirred into the water for the pasta when I changed course and decided to make tea! ARGGGHHHHH. So I made everyone stop drinking the tea, and berated the first three for not saying something! Thank Ghu that Pat did. The others were all, “Well, I thought it tasted funny, but…”

   That’s how not to make tea. But this post is supposed to about a recipe I actually like. I have a very dear friend, Liz. I don’t get to see her much because she stays very busy, but about one Wednesday a month or so, I have her over for dinner. She’s a pescetarian (Word doesn’t like that word). Many, many times I have prepared fish tacos for us, and I love them and want to document them, even though the below is more of a general guideline than a recipe, per se. Almost every recipe I have ever distributed is like this, though. Even in the old days when I would photocopy recipes, I would hand-write notes in the margins. All my cookbooks have remarks scribbled in them.

   First, I get some frozen fish filets and defrost them. Usually, its tilapia, but I have used others. Sometimes it’s even fresh. I dust these liberally with my brother’s butt rub. A little explanation is in order, perhaps. I bragged on my brother’s cooking in my last post. My brother makes the best smoked pork butt on earth. Anyone who has sampled it will agree. He makes it often for his fellow cavers and every year we have it at Thanksgiving, along side the turkey. He also makes the rub that goes on it and there is usually some left over, so I get to keep a jar. To be honest, I don’t know what all is in it. For sure, some ground toasted dried chili peppers, garlic powder, black pepper, dried rosemary and salt. Luckily for those without the benefit of my brother, Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Blackened Redfish Magic can be used in place of my brother’s butt rub; in fact that’s what I used on the fish for my tacos before I ran out one time and used the butt rub as a substitute and liked it better. You, gentle reader, can put anything you like on there. I crank up the George Foreman grill and set aside the fish before start on the topping prep. As an additional aside, if you want to go to the trouble and calories, you can also get a charcoal fire going in your grill – maximum burn – get your iron skillet out there, and cook the fish in butter. It tastes absolutely fabulous, but, again, it takes time, trouble and calories, so I only go that route very seldom. I guess you could also do it on a gas grill or if you have a really good ventilation system above your stove you could do it there – I have neither of these. Obviously, if you don’t have the George, you will have either cook the fish on the stovetop or in the broiler, but I digress too much.

Toppings:

• Shredded Monterey Jack cheese. Or use cheddar. Or Emmantaler, if that’s what’s you like. I like the Jack. Pepper Jack is probably good, too, but I like the hotness to come from the seasonings and the Chipotle Mayo, see below.
• Chopped tomatoes - in the summer, I use regular, real tomatoes – homegrown from wherever I can beg or borrow when I don’t have of my own; the rest of the time, grape or cherry.
• Shredded cabbage - I much prefer this to lettuce in my fish tacos. I use the “angel-hair” pre-shredded kind in the bag.
• Chopped cilantro
• Chopped green onions (or red or whatever you like).
• Chipotle mayonnaise – this absolutely makes the dish for me. I make my own. Using a good mayo (though I’ve never used homemade for this application, because, as I’ve said before, homemade mayo is so fantastic and - in my house - rare and precious that I can eat it straight by the spoonful), I combine some with a seeded, chopped chipotle pepper along with some of the Adobo sauce out of the can of Chipotle Peppers in Adobo sauce. I realize this is vague, but I can’t really measure. I’m usually only making enough for a few people and I do it mostly by color (which is a beautiful pink) and hotness – which varies. The good thing about Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce is that one can will last me months. I just put the leftovers in a good jar and I’ve never had any go bad.

   I almost always have all of the above, but you can also have salsa, sour cream, guacamole (always homemade if I’m doing it, that store-bought slime is vile), cheese dip, grilled vegetables; whatever rolls your taco. Speaking of which, you also need tortillas – I like flour, but go for corn if you prefer.

   I grill the fish for approximately 6 minutes. Obviously, that varies with the thickness. “Cook it until it is done!” Then I throw some of the tortillas on the grill, sprinkle them with water, and close the lid to steam them. Usually I have to do the tortilla bit again.

   I put it all on the table for folks to roll their own, and wow, it’s good! I once had a dinner party for about 20 people, serving this recipe (from the grill, with the butter) and beef tacos, as well, because I was worried some folks wouldn’t like fish. I had more fish, but it all got eaten and there was beef left. I am going to make them for Liz tonight!

Food is Love

    First, I want to thank Emily for giving us this topic of food. I’ve been kind of down and out for a while now – several months, really. Not really feeling things that I used to enjoy, like cooking. For several days this week, I’ve tried to start this post, because I committed to do this blog and I want to keep my promise and be on time, but I couldn’t get started. And then today, I was feeling pretty good and I started again and well, I do go on and on below. Having to write this forced me to think about food and how very important it is to my life. I don’t mean in the sense that one has to eat to go on living, but how it makes me happy. Given my problems with weight management, you might think I would have a love-hate relationship with food, but on the contrary, it’s all love-love. I love food. I love every part of it.

     There’s cooking. I think I can state unequivocally that cooking is something I’m good at. I like my cooking and so does everyone who has ever eaten it. I started cooking for my family when I was young, 12 or so. I’m not saying I was the main cook or anything, but I did it fairly often. I can’t remember how it started exactly, if I volunteered or it was something I was expected to learn to help out, but I enjoyed it. So, I’ve been doing it for more than 30 years. Wow. I love recipes and cookbooks. There are binders and file folders and piles of recipes in my house, clipped from newspapers or ripped from magazines or printed off the web or given by friends. There are way too many cookbooks in my house. Lots of times, I read cookbooks. Not like novels, of course, from start to finish, but poring over them and flipping back and forth - making at least mental note of recipes I want to try, if not marking them with those fabulous Post-It tape flags. Most of the other blogs I read on any regular basis are food blogs.

     I love shopping for food. Especially if it’s at really cool and/or fancy grocery stores (I was thrilled when Birmingham got its Whole Foods and I long for Trader Joe’s) or farmer’s markets, but there’s some fun to be had in the discount supermarkets, too. I like to spend money in general, but usually my financial state is such that I shouldn’t be spending money unnecessarily. But you have to eat, right? So grocery shopping is my go-to for retail therapy.

     I enjoy most of the act of cooking, too. Well, I don’t love prep. I don’t love chopping onions, etc. But I know it’s a prerequisite to the fun parts. I don’t love most alternatives to chopping real food yourself, using real ingredients and doing the work. Although I like a lot of stuff on FoodTV (AB, Guy Fieri, Barefoot Contessa), I despise Sandra Lee – I recently saw a hilarious take-off on the title Food Network show – Semi Ho. About the only prepackaged things I use on a regular basis are prewashed/cut lettuce (because damn I hate cleaning and prepping lettuce), shredded cheese and mayonnaise – although I sometimes make my own mayo, but that’s kind of unhealthy actually, because then I just want to it eat by the spoonful, it’s so good. The cooking itself is fun, though; the assembly of things and watching the chemistry that allows them to come together into something delicious.

     Of course, I’ve lived alone for about ten years now, more or less. And cooking just for yourself is not as much fun. For one thing, I don’t know how to make a little bit of something. So I get around that by having people over. Fortunately, everyone loves to come eat at my house, so it works out well. Sitting at my dining room table, enjoying a meal with friends and family makes me happy. My brother and I often cook together, much to my delight and that of people who come over. My brother is, without a doubt, an even better cook than I am. He has more of our father’s scientific inclinations, so will test recipes over and over in a short period of time, refining them until he gets things just the way he wants them. I get bored too easily for that, want to try something new. His bread is to die for, among other things.

     I used to get a lot more nervous about my dinners for other people, but over the years I have relaxed some. I still usually make way too much food, but I don’t worry if things aren’t perfect. If one item on the menu doesn’t turn out just the way I want, it’s still usually pretty good and the rest of the food is fabulous. I try to emulate Julia Child’s philosophy of never apologize. I’ve realized that self-deprecation just makes your guests uncomfortable, and that’s the last thing you want.

   Another food-related thing that makes me happy is eating out, as long as the food is good. It doesn’t have to be fancy – although I LOVE fancy – but it has to be good. This is one area where being such a good cook can be a handicap in a way, because some of the time here lately when I go out I eat food that is good, no doubt, but I taste it and say…I could do better. Of course this is not always so, especially when it comes to many ethnic cuisines – which I love. And it’s often the case that I couldn’t do better, economically speaking. I mean, for example, I can deep fry like a pro, but keeping that much oil around and using it enough to make it worth it is crazy. Plus, my skill always has to be weighed against my laziness. As much as I like cooking, sometimes I just don’t want to. I’m tired or lazy or starving or all three and I just want food now. But when I talk about loving eating out, it’s when you are at a restaurant with delicious food, trying new things, enjoying a glass or two of wine (or more if you don’t have to drive), talking and having fun with people you like or even love. That is my favorite thing in the world to do, but the only reason I like it better than my house is that I don’t have to clean up after!

Divorce as a weight loss plan

Some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed, but when it comes to my health I guess I really haven’t got that much to complain about. At 43, I’ve never been in the hospital, except when I was born and to visit others (knock wood).

I do, however, have a several issues that can be classified under Need To Be Watched, such as:

1. Pigmentary Dispersion Syndrome, wherein the color leaks out of the back of my eyeball. Asymptomatic and not a problem unless it turns into glaucoma. Gets me presented at the UAB School of Optometry during Grand Rounds every so often, where the students have to come and look and guess what I have. Great fun.
2. Tilted ovary, wherein my left ovary tilts way back, and it might actually be stuck to my uterus, but it’s not really a problem unless it start causing pain and if that happens we will have to see.
3. Weight. A fluctuating problem since my early twenties. There’s usually too much of it. I have lost a lot of it, twice, after getting divorced, but it has always returned. I like to eat too much and I don’t like to exercise just for the sake of exercising. Getting married just so I can get divorced and not want to eat seems extreme. Obviously I know what to do (i.e., eat less and exercise more, see “Who Knew” by Martha Ann, below), but I am largely unmotivated enough to do it.
4. I had plantar fasciitis. Or maybe I still do, but I mostly only wear good shoes with support now and don’t do as many things that keep me on my feet for too long, so it hasn’t really bothered me too much in a while. It does affect the taking of exercise, though.
5. Sleep. I can’t do that really well without medication. I fought it for a while, but I have stopped. I’d rather sleep than not.
6. The one that’s bugging me now - the demon Blood Pressure. I used to not even have blood pressure. Well, it was so low it was hard to find and once, at the Red Cross blood drive, I had them throw out my blood because they said it took to long to collect. But last year, every time I went to the doctor, it was high, and then when I went to the sleep clinic earlier this year (see item 5, above), and they took it every day when I woke up, it was high. So, I went through this whole rigamarole with my GP, where I had to get it taken once a week for two months. I went to the fire station, it was high, I went to other doctors, it was high, I bought my own little machine and took it at night while watching TV (see “not enough exercise” in item 3), and it was fine. So I told the GP, “LO, it is White Coat Hypertension, we don’t need to do anything,” and she said... “Not so fast, sister. That just means that whenever you’re stressed, your BP is too high and we do need to control that, so, here, have these diuretics and come back in 3 weeks.” And I am stressed a lot, mostly because of my job, so I see her point. But it has been two weeks and the water pills aren’t working, so next week we will have to see, but I think I will be going on real blood pressure medication.

Which really makes me feel old. Seriously, both of my parents are on medication for hypertension, but I don’t think they started until in their 60s. I just feel way too young for that. But, what’s a girl middle-aged woman to do? I can’t quit my job. I could lose weight which would probably help, but…see above. So I guess I’ll shut up and take my medicine.

FIAWOL\FIJAGDH

Our wise and lovely moderators have decreed that the topic for this month is hobbies. I have had various hobbies throughout my life, but the one that has been more or less for the last 28 years consistent is fandom. There are all kind of fandoms today, but the one that started it all, or at least first called itself fandom, is science fiction fandom, beginning in the 1930s with fanzines and conventions. People who loved the books. That is the fandom I mean when I use the word by itself.

I was a science fiction fan from about the time I was 8 or so, reading the SF from amongst the all different kinds of books my mother read. I didn’t become involved in the organized sub-culture of fandom, as such, until I was 15. One of the first SF books I read was Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. The computer that comes to life in that book calls the people that he finds affinity with Not-Stupids. I remember going to my first Birmingham Science Fiction Club meeting in 1980 and finding those very same people. Obviously there are lots of Not-Stupid outside of fandom, and I know quite a few these days, but back then I was pretty insulated and this was a whole world of people who were smart and fun and liked the things I liked and talked about the things I liked to talk about.

There are lots of acronyms in fandom, as elsewhere in our modern life. Two of the most famous are also antonyms of a sort (is there a word for sayings that are antonyms?): FIAWOL (Fandom Is a Way of Life) and FIJAGDH (Fandom Is Just a God – or Ghod –Damn Hobby). It has been both for me. I’ve met people from all over the world, people I never would have met without fandom. All of my oldest and best friends I have found through fandom – or else I’ve dragged them there. I’ve traveled a lot of places I would have never been and I’ve learned a lot, running and helping to run conventions, things that have no doubt helped me in Real Life. Fandom has defined a lot of my life, and so, in that sense, it is a way of life for me. On the other hand, I have also been involved in fan feuds and a good bit of drama – a good bit of yelling and crying. I’ve felt obliged to do fanac that I didn’t necessarily want to do. And, let’s face it, there are creepy people in fandom. In part just because of the subject matter and in part because most of the fandom I’ve been associated with tries to be tolerant and inclusive, you have to put up with some people that you wish you didn’t. But, I guess that stuff is defining, too. So, even though for a while I actually had a license plate that said, FIJAGDH, I guess I’m more of a FIAWOL gal.

Since I found Serenity...

Not that I have...Howdy, I'm Julie. I'm twice divorced and childless, except for the 13-year-old cat. I have been on one date in the last two years - last Sunday. I'm 43. Can you believe that? No, me neither. I'm a lot less sanguine about it than I thought I would be when I was 20, I can tell you. Back then, when 90% of my friends were a lot older than me, I would tell them, "It's only a number, you're only as old as you feel...blah. Blah. Blah." What an annoying Pollyanna I must have been. I find that I'm very cranky in my forties, so it's a wonder somebody didn't smack me in those days.

In order to keep myself in wine and chips, I work as a network administrator. It is a decent living, but, perhaps because of the whole mid-life crisis thing, I have been seriously questioning whether I can do it for the rest of my life. My dream job would be in films...not acting, but just being some part of that...or TV. That's hard to do from Birmingham, Alabama, though - especially starting at 43 - so perhaps I need to do some parachute shopping.

When I'm not working, which seems to be less and less of the time, there are lots of things I like to do. I love the movies, of course, and some TV. My Netflix queue has over 400 items in it. I tend to come to television shows when they have either been on for a long time and so I'm late to the party or else they're over entirely. Like, right now, I don't watch any current shows, unless you count FoodTV. I haven't watched a reality show since the original Real World. I've never seen American Idol, despite three winners coming from my hometown. Not long ago I was introduced to Firely - hello, 14 episodes and over in 2003! Love it - can't make myself watch the last two episodes yet because I don't want it to be over!

Which brings me to...I am a science fiction fan. I love to read most everything, but especially science fiction. I belong to a science fiction/fantasy book group (though I'm not as big a fan of the fantasy). I have been to hundreds of science fiction conventions in the last 27 years, and have run a few.

I have a house that I'm always doing things to, although I don't always enjoy those things. Like today I'm having burglar bars installed.

I live in Alabama and despise college football. I like ice hockey. I liked it better when Birmingham had a minor league team and I was a season ticket holder. In the NHL, I'm a NJ Devils fan, mostly because they won the cup the year I got into hockey and because of Martin Brodeur.

I love to cook and drink - wine, spirits, anything but gin and beer. I share that with several friends and my brother, who is a better cook than I. It's hard to cook just for yourself, though. I love to have people over and enjoy them loving my cooking. I love to eat and go to restaurants from dives to haute cuisine. On the flip side, I don't like to exercise, except lately yoga which kills me and I can't do half of it, but somehow, still, I keep paying and going back. I like to dance, but I don't do it much. A case of plantar fasciitis sidelined me quite a bit and although it's better, I'm afraid it will come back.

I could start in on my other health issues, but then I would really feel old, and besides, gotta save something for future posts.