A Whole New Year

So many other bloggers are doing (and have done) year end retrospectives and here I am, about to do the same. I've been posting on this blog since October 2003. A little more than five years ago I started blogging partly because all of the cool kids were doing it and partly because I needed a space to vent about the things that went bump in the night in my head.

Five years later and I find myself winding down. Oh, don't worry, I still have plenty to say about things but I'm also a little bit tired of writing from behind the veil. I use a pseudonym here to protect my friends and family from the prying eyes but also to give myself the ability to use a different voice than I use in my own life. Also, I have friends and relations from across the political, social, spiritual and geographic map so I like to keep some of those peeps a little separate from one another.

This blog has given me the opportunity to express my innermost snark as well as my budding interest in local foods and cooking. I've also pissed off a few people and made some cry. I've even developed a bit of a stalker following from a previous job. (Waves to the ever evil Catbert!) So what happened? Well, now that I'm *gasp* 37, I've found other places to vent my spleen. I blog elsewhere about all things political. I have a Facebook page under my real name. At my age and with my health issues, I don't have a whole lot left to fear. What's the worst that could happen? Since I get paid to blog at work... I'm pretty sure that's not a problem. My best friend might find out what I'm saying about her? Her name is GreenTuna and she's the one who got me into this thing in the first place. (Go read her blog -- she's way better than I am.)

And so, dear internet.... it's time for me to turn out the lights and move on to something new. If you'd like to follow me on my new, public blog, drop me an email or leave me a note in the comments with a method for contacting you. I'll leave the blog up for a few weeks but by the end of the month, it will be gone and I'll be doing other things.

Thanks for the five years. Thanks for reading. Now go forth, do good and talk amongst yourselves in the comments.

Obama Poster

My friend and fellow Old Townite Eric Weston has done a series of posters of the President-Elect. Eric owns Blue Hippo Studios and is selling the posters at local bookstore Everybody Reads also in Lansing. The perfect holiday gift for the political friend who has everything!

The image used here is the property of Eric Weston and Blue Hippo Studios and cannot be reproduced without the permission of the owner.

Hamburgiving

As family legends go, our family's Thanksgiving story is pretty simple. One Thanksgiving Eve (or maybe the Day - this was 30+ years ago), a neighbor arrived to tell us that a local family was in need of food for the holidays. My parents packed up our Thanksgiving Dinner and we ended up having hamburgers instead. The peanut gallery (my brother and I) didn't complain much because we actually liked burgers better. Three decades later, we're still grilling burgers in the snow.

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to help a local family pull together their Thanksgiving dinner and it was kind of fun to shop for all of the traditional Thanksgiving food items. I bought potatoes and pumpkin pie, whipped cream and frozen peas, rolls and cranberry sauce and so much more. Every year my church adopts a bunch of local families for the holiday and buys the turkeys. I signed up for a single mom and her two kids. Turns out, she's a returning Iraq war veteran and a widow. Her boyfriend and father to her children was killed in the line and this is their first Thanksgiving without him. She told me all about how he loved to cook the turkey and how she wasn't quite sure how to do it on her own but that it was most important to her that she establish family traditions for her girls.

Tomorrow, they'll eat turkey and pumpkin pie. Tomorrow, I'll eat hamburgers and potato salad. Two families. Two traditions. One holiday.

What Once Was Lost...

There are many things in my life that are lost, some forever, others only on a temporary or seasonal basis. This morning, for example, you would have found me deep in the oddly shaped opening under the stairs to the cupola on the top of my very old house that serves as my closet. I had pushed aside all of the winter coats, cold weather pants and skirts and my hanging shoe rack in an attempt to find my winter boots and some mittens because Mother Nature didn't get the memo about how much I loved 60 degrees in November. I shifted the clothes with my right arm and climbed into the opening (how very "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe"), using my left arm to seek out boot and mitten-like objects. (Did I mention that there is no light in the closet and that I was holding one of those mini-book lights clenched in my teeth?)

So I overbalanced or maybe I under-balanced but the next thing I knew, I was doing the twist and flopped sort of onto the corner of my bed and then fell off my bed onto the floor and a conveniently soft pile of clean laundry. I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear that not only did I save the mini-book light but I found a pair of boots and one mitten. Alas, I may have lost that mitten for all time.

Most days, I find that I lose my sense of humor at least once and my temper at least twice. Fortunately, I have my friends to help me find my way back to funny and I have to admit that I managed to crack a few people up today with gems like this and this.

Months and years ago, I managed to fall out of touch with two of my cousins. Both were off doing the collegiate thing and then the graduate school thing and I was living in the Swamp and then there was a divorce and a death and then I moved back to the Mitten and well I just hadn't done a whole lot to find them and then it occurred to me to use my powers of Facebook stalkering and find these women because heaven knows that you can't be twenty-something and not be on Facebook and lo and behold, what once was lost is now found. In fact, I'd better scoot because I have a phone date with one of my cousins in about two minutes!

Wonder Chefs, Activate!

So my friend MonkeyMama invited me over for dinner and she thought she might serve salmon and then I was at Trader Joe's this afternoon and bought some stuff and by the time I got there, we decided to make some kind of soupy stew with our collective pantries. A littel Google-fu later and we'd come up with a completely unorthodox version of cioppino that was insanely delicious. We served it with toasted bread topped with goat cheese.

Cioppino a la Mensch & MonkeyMama
2 salmon filets
1 bag frozen calamari rings (or 1 pound squid, cut into rings)
1 can (14 oz) diced tomatoes (in juice)
4 cups chicken stock
3 T olive oil
3 small leeks, cleaned and thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 small onion, minced
1 stalk celery, minced
1 cup red wine
1T fennel seed
1 T thyme (dry or fresh)
1 T kosher salt
1 t crushed red pepper flakes (to taste)

In a large, heavy bottomed pan, saute the leeks, garlic, onion and celery in olive oil until the onion becomes translucent. Meanwhile, in a spice grinder or using a mortar and pestle, grind up the spices and add to the vegetable mixture. Add the diced tomato and juice and cook down about 5 minutes over medium high heat. Add the chicken broth and bring to a simmer. Add the salmon filets and simmer/poach about 7 minutes. Add the red wine. Two minutes before serving, add the calamari rings. Serve with lots of crusty bread (toasted with goat cheese).

Serves 4 adults, 2 toddlers, 1 old dog with leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

We followed it up with dark chocolate covered dried blueberries and cherries for dessert. I'm in a food coma now.

After so many, many weeks eating dinner at 8... 9... 10... out of a paper sack or a styrofoam box, I was so happy to chop and stir and scoop and simply create something that was so much better than the sum of the parts. It felt so good to be creative again and even better to eat such a good dinner in the company of good friends.

My Excuse Note

So I've been AWOL for a while. There's this little thing called an election going on and I've been up to my eyeballs dialing for my organization. So let me leave you with this for today.

Things Overheard

Today I helped teach a class on diversity. Part of the process was for this very diverse group of people to discuss their own prejudices. It was revealing and shocking that some of our society's most marginalized folks have their own strong feelings about groups and institutions that might surprise you. An Auschwitz survivor talked about her own disgust for obese people that stems from years of want and hunger and her own fear of dwindling health care resources. Another talked about her anger at organized religion and the church's role in marginalizing women, people of color and other discriminated-against group.

I mention this because the strength of emotion and the power of the collective passion overwhelmed me. Perhaps it's my own self absorption that made me think that most people either like me or are neutral. I'm sure there are a good number of people out there in the world that I've offended by act, word or deed. Maybe it's because I tend to like or dislike people based on their own acts, words or deeds. I don't wholesale hate any group of people even though uber-conservative, anti-choice, anti-gay Bible bangers types tend to inhabit that part of my psyche reserved for bee stings, menstrual cramps and rotting garbage. (Painful, annoying, stinky but I don't HATE the bee for stinging me.)

And yet... there are clearly people out there in the world who hate me simply because I am a woman. Or beacuse I'm white. Or because I'm a pro-choice, pro-gay progressive, liberal, voting woman. Or maybe because I'm fat. Or they hate you because you are African-American, you drive a Prius, you drive a Hummer, you talk on your cell phone while driving... whatever.

So today as I gather with some good friends for a celebratory dinner, I am going to try and put away the revelations of today and just be with the people in my life who love me. Tomorrow, I'm going to try and do something about the part of the world that I can change and figure out how to deal with the knowledge that hate is more powerful than I ever imagined.