Condiment of the Week: Honey

I'm a cantankerous sort. I've been sick for a week since braving an ice storm to make sure a foster kid didn't have serious intentions of burning down his house. Despite my downing hot Tang, eating green chili, and resting my voice (after losing it Friday morning), I still wasn't feeling any better.

Granted, I'm a bit of a hypochondriac. (When you're constantly exposed to kid germs like I am, you'd want to wear a bubble suit too.) I also secretly enjoy putting on campy horror movies to lull me to sleep. But I was sick of being sick. Comatose states bore me quickly, and all I wanted in the world was to finally feel better.

I even dragged into work on Tuesday in hopes that I would be distracted into wellness and to catch up on all my cases. (Time flies when you work in foster care. Cases can change directions quickly when you aren't aware of current ins and outs.) My coworkers didn't even tease me about sounding like Marge Simpson, instead they ran away when they heard me hacking around the corner. By the end of the day, I talked myself horse.

I succumbed Wednesday and scheduled a doctor's appointment. The doctor (who looked younger than me--ouch) said all I suffered from was a cold and recommended I continue to take massive amounts of cough suppresant and suggested a home remedy: honey.

Great, I though, I am now 25 dollars poorer, and I've been told about the medical benefits of honey. Then a second thought came to mind: my Honey (a.k.a. Hun). Hun was at my side all last weekend--listening to me gripe, forcing cough syrup on me, nagging me to get more sleep, and remaining patient and supportive--despite not getting a decent night's rest himself. I've been snotty, greasy, highly unattractive, and definitely less than charming. Hun was also smart enough to recommend getting more rest instead of going to the doctor, because there wasn't a miracle pill to fix what I had--despite my hopes to the contrary. I suppose, in my own way, I got the doctor's advice already.

I alternated peppermint tea with honey to my hot Tang regimen the rest of the afternoon and slept through more camp horror. By the next morning, I felt considerably better (although I still sound like Marge Simpson). I owe most of it to my daily dose of Hun.

So I'm designating this week's condiment of the week to honey. Take time to think of all the little things you daily dose of honey does each day--be he/she a parent, kiddo, lovemuffin, or life-supporting friend.

Kitchendom Under Siege

Hun and I went on our monthly Sam's trek to stock up with all our food items of for the month. Hun recently became more invested in our diet, so pondered and calculated nutrition-information labels on the back of Cup o' Soups and instant macaroni boxes. He expressed great chagrin at the amount of sodium and sugar infused into precooked and over-processed products. I gently reminded him in order to have a low-sodium diet, it helped to process our own food--i.e. cook.

He also requested to buy more salmon, which I recently learned how to bake. This leads me to the second point. Every weekend or so, I like to cook mass quantities of food, such as green chili, red chili, spaghetti sauce, etc.--all easy to let simmer over the stove and to store in the freezer. That way, I don't get stuck cooking and chopping things at 8:30 at night after I come home from work. Luckily, the salmon is pretty easy to prepare. Other things, requested for the sake of more variety, are a bit more time intensive and not so convenient to cook and freeze on the weekends.

This leads me to my third point: yours truly not only the primary bacon provider in the household, she is the one usually frying it up in a pan. If I do not cook, we often will have a hearty meal of PB&J and cereal. I made mention of the fact that expanding our food repertoire and the drive to eat more healthy is good. However, the burden of cooking all these healthy meals often lands on me.

This leads me to my fourth point: be careful what you wish for. Hun acknowledged it was unfair to push for a more healthy diet without pitching in meal preps. As a result of being the Renaissance Alan Alda-type guy that he is, Hun rolled up his shirt sleeves this evening and started chopping and boiling. He wanted to make lasagna--in my Le Creuset pot. Hun went into all this thermodynamic stuff about why it would be a better dish to cook lasagna than the other five casserole dishes sitting in the cabinets. My thought was, Chip the porcelain coating on my Creuset, you won't live long enough to marry me in Jamaica this summer.

I used the big guns, I called my mom, asking her if he could actually cook a lasagna successfully in my pot. She said of course he could, but didn't we have a casserole dish? Hun went on about thermodynamics as I was on the phone with her and mom giggled in response. Not much help there.

He then proceeded to tell me how he would make the lasagna. I continued to squirm, that wouldn't be how I would do it. I asked him why he didn't do it my more superior way, and he asked for reasoning why my way was better. Although I did hammer a few points in, I didn't have any other reasons except that was just how things were done. He looked at me as if I were insane.

At that point, I made a tactical retreat to the living room to cover myself in my blanket, and pretend to watch Independence Day. All the while, I was obsessing about what the heck he was doing in my kitchen, with my pots and pans and my food.

CLANKATY-CLANKATY-CLANG . . .

. . . oops, he he, I guess you wonder if an elephant is cooking here. Don't worry, Betty, it might sound like I'm breaking all your dishes, but I'm not . . . he he!

I stew--no pun intended--in silence, trying to focus on alien invaders burning down New York City and D.C., rather than the domestic invader currently burning down my kitchen.

Hey Hun, (Yes, he calls me Hun, too.) I set the oven for about 350, right?

Damnit.

Yes, that's right.

Well, that was easy, the man has an M.S. in Chemistry for goodness sake. Any buffoon could have guessed 350. However, he did cook a damn fine lasagna in my dutch oven. Perhaps, one day, I'll forgive him for storming the kitchen. It will be nice to come home and stare at my toes a few nights a week instead of cooking dinner. He also can cook a mean spaghetti sauce. All I need for him to do now is learn how to cook brisket. But he better not dare attempt green chili--I get dibs.

It's a Blizzard at Procrastination Central

Well, Folks:

Mother Nature helped me with a whoppin' excuse for not imputing my paperwork on the NYS CONNX system, a database tracking families involved with DSS. She finally blessed us with one of her famed Nor'easter' storms. The Capital Region has been upgraded to a "Blizzard Warning" from a "Winter Storm Warning". This means, we will simply have snow and wind, as opposed to the "Wintry Mix" dumping south of Albany.

To those of you who never encountered the euphemistic term "Wintry Mix", it is the politically correct phrase for "icy shit". I guess icy shit--I mean, wintry mix--has feelings too. This is an odd phrase to me because, as a general rule, Upstaters and NYC urbanites aren't a politically correct bunch. Their driving is evidence they don't give a rat's ass what others might think of them or anything else.

I had a couple of phone calls today from foster folks, and I spent a couple of hours checking in with families yesterday via phone. I have a few work-related things to do today, but not much.

After completing this blog, my plans are: sweeping off the deck before it gets too deep and/or collapses, completing some paperwork poodoo, fixin' a pot of green chili, folding lotsa laundry, and--last but not least--sweeping the off the deck again before it gets too deep and/or collapses.

I LOVE snow days! It makes me feel a little less homesick. All I need is a cat to curl up in my lap, but I guess Hun's ball python will have to do.

Betty

At the Homestead

Well, Folks, I'm off the trail and Norma Jean (my car) is safely parked in my new corral.

I've unpacked the remained of my stuff and attempted to acclimate to New England life. Although I'm still slow on the time change and I have no concept of where my physical being is located at any point in space, I am beginning to somewhat settle in.

The week's activities consisted of: making coffee, attempting to pirate internet access from the public library, successfully pilfering internet access at Hun's school, making more coffee, managing to navigate Norma Jean to Sam's Club, spending way too much money at Sam's Club, finding a thrift store and sighing in disappointment at the lack of cool furniture and so forth, making more coffee, playing with my new flash drive I bought at Sam's Club, sending out my resume and applying for jobs, and getting a call for an interview--in a town an hour away.

Anywho, that's all that's new with me. Although I am excited about the interview tomorrow, I am a bit disappointment there are no entry-level tightrope walker positions to be found in Albany. I am also disappointment there is no chorizo nor corn tortillas found in this city. Let me tell y'all, this is roughing it.