Been a really tough couple of weeks. My bad knee has entered a new phase of degradation, I think is the best way to describe it. After whacking it on cabinet next to my desk at work almost two weeks ago, it has just been painful. No bruising, no swelling, just a heightened discomfort to outright pain at times. It always seems more comfortable for me to lift that leg with under-knee hand support, and that is pretty new. I have had little good sleep for the past two weeks, and my attitude shows it, I know, and my cognitive abilities are not as good. It sucks but it is Life for the nonce.
I still have roughly 10lbs to drop until my doctor is prepared to do the replacement surgery, but I find it increasingly difficult to get exercise in with the pain that either is extant during the activity or exacerbates the pain after. So, dietary intake is the path of best results.
The problem with that is I love cooking and baking and as I cannot exercise, strangely, my want and need to do these things has increased. All the things I want to try my hand at are not truly considered light foods, making my own Sunday Gravy, Mullagatawny Soup, making roasts, Cornish game hen with various stuffings, baking banana bread with healthy ingredients and so forth, and have found a fascination with Thai, Tuscan and Tunisian dishes. Why they should all start with ‘t’ I think is because when I looked for Thai recipes the others popped in as I went from page to page.
The experimentation with those recipes is on-going. Mostly trying to find a good balance in the strength of spiciness…
It is amusing I use the word ‘experimentation’ as that is literally what I tend to do, no matter the recipe and amounts of ingredients listed. I cannot remember my mother’s mom, and immigrant from Austria in the 1920’s, who worked for more affluent people as a cook for many of her firsts years in America. She cooked and baked so much that she, as my mother tells it, never really measured things out. For instance, her ‘cup of flour’ would use not a measuring cup but a larger cup for drinking. She would refer to ‘pinches’ of this or ‘a walnut size’ of that and so forth. My mother could never do that, developing a very structured way of cooking (and many other things) and would follow recipe directions to a ‘t’ (see what I did there? 😁 ‘T’s make tasty foods!) Me, I seem to have inherited my grandmother’s penchant for cooking. Cooking to taste, maybe it can be called.
I had one of the tastiest Jambalayas I’ve had at The House of Blues. After the first few bites, I looked to see what was in it, veggies and sausage and chicken an so on. When I returned home I compiled all the ingredients I saw and more that spoke to my tastes. I get requests to make it for office parties or when I have Thursday night socials at The Bradicombs. That was years ago, and I have not really given up on the search for new and tasty ways to prepare foods, let alone exploring new and, to me, exotic dishes.
I think it made my mother very happy that all three of her children inherited her mother’s skill at cooking/baking. We were all pretty good at it, and I know even my brother who passed has left behind some dishes that his wife has continued on with.
Related to cooking and Father’s Day coming tomorrow in the US, related to my father, in fact, is that I will be making one of his mother’s recipes for him for Father’s Day. Simply called ‘Nana’s Cabbage’ it is, you might guess, a cabbage dish but with bacon and barley in it, very basically, that his mother was incredible at making. A small way to honor him and his mother, but I am more than happy to do it.
I hope that many of you have good relationships with your parents, or at least one of then, if you are fortunate enough to still have them around. Both of mine will be 84 this year, and I am very much aware that they may not be around much longer, though I pray they are. I have mentioned a little of my mother’s influence on me, but of course there is so much more. My father, though, it is through him that I get my work ethic, that I have gotten my vocation And would not have the fulfilling job I now have. I owe him much.
I think I may have written of this before, but as it, you’ve got it, relates to this blog, it needs stating.
September of 2017 I packed up my Camry, a small trailer and my two cats and drove from Alaska to North Carolina to begin a new phase in life. This was mostly due to a promise made to my parents after they retired and left Alaska that when age got the better of them and they required more help, I would relocate. This has worked out extremely well for us all, especially now with a looming recession and everything costing at least 30% more than a year ago. The support we afford one another is mighty. But, that is not the point, though part of it.
Again, I have been very fortunate to have these supportive parents, parents that have been married for 63 years, and together for 65 years. You will agree that must be a strong bond! What they have done for all of their boys is beyond repaying, but I intend to do my best to do so for as long as they will remain on this earthly plane. This is the best way I know of to honor them and their sacrifices in every aspect of life for us kids. These are the ‘normal’ sacrifices that every good parent makes, I believe, but it is truly my honor to give back to them. I cannot tell you the pride I get when either of them thank me for ‘being there’.
I am also aware of how it became fortunate that I remained single. It is weird to ‘say’, perhaps, but the loves of my life have turned out to be some serious heartbreaks that it has become hard for an intelligent woman to put up with my learned mistrust, mistrust that I am fully aware has nothing to do with them. But enough of that; it is worthy of it’s own blog if I can find the courage one day. No, it is fortunate in that I can give them all the time they need; my mother’s back is bad enough that she walks bent over and it gives her trouble regularly. My dad’s knee has been replaced twice but has remained very painful for him, and both parents are on pain meds regularly. My father also has short term memory issues, though his long term remains incredibly sharp, but that adds an irritation for mom that she does her best to quell as she understands it’s not his fault he forgets things as soon as he does or talks about them. All of that means I spend a good part of my time helping them each day, as I can with my own knee issue, of course, but it is also worth it to me to be in a bit more pain if I can be of help to them. (Yeah, there have been a few times that I couldn’t help because of the knee, and they will have to cater to me for a time when I finally get the knee replacement, but we make it all work.)
So, I ramble on, but I hope many of you are able to honor your parents and further hope they have honored you. I can honestly say I am sorry if you do not, either through loss or bad parenting. I know I am fortunate in this way, have been my whole life, and so it is hard to imagine otherwise.
