With the spicy boss.
One thing I've been thinking about: a couple of people have told me I'm funny, lately, and others genuinely laugh when we're talking.
I know I use humor as a coping technique. Ron was always very derogatory about my people skills, and humor in particular.
I have been doing a lot of thinking this year.
Everywhere I look
I have most of the spices https://www.delish.com/cooking/a45877598/indian-butter-chickpeas-recipe/
I dated very little.
I had a "best friend" - a guy - when I was 11. We talked on the phone a lot, lost touch, reconnected a few years later. Talked some more. We were both misfits - I am certain he also had FAS. He was a good reader but had a lot of trouble writing and other tasks so he was in "special Ed". That didn't matter to me.
He wanted to be more than friends. He took me to a dance at school - his Mom had him in dance classes so he was the best dancer in the room. He was also very good looking. But he was an oddball and was not saved so it didn't work out.
I looked him up a few years after I got together with Ron and periodic check ins over the years showed a dramatic decline, that, last I heard, had him living on the streets. He was also a pagan.
When I was in high school they put me in classes for the "emotionally disturbed". You can imagine what kind of group we were. One of the guys in the class took a shine to me. We went to the mall, talked a little, and he said that his voices liked me, too. Voices? Oh, yeah, he was schizophrenic and heard voices "all the time". I was not ready to hear that at 15.
I prayed about it and figured out a foolproof way to get out of the relationship. He was a smoker. So I made a big fuss about that and said he would have to quit smoking if he wanted to be with me. He dumped me. Thank God.
While I have given some thought to the fact I would be fine with a man with controlled/medicated mental illness I am not signing up for that!
Then I met Ron. That was about it. I liked a guy at church but he was a genius, "going places" and didn't need me dragging him down.
But one consistent thing all these guys took me to the mall. I haven't been to the local mall in years, since before Ron died.
Ron used to like going to the mall and getting the teriyaki bowl but then he became convinced they had changed the sauce and kept wanting to talk to the manager, etc. Alzheimer's of course but I didn't know that.
With Ron, we went to a taco truck and got nachos. If I'd cared about manners there would not have been a second date! I think the next time we went to the bank, cashed his disability check (he wanted to show he was a good provider ha ha ha), and went to the mall to find him a coat. I remember we went to Burlington and found something that worked for him with his budget.
Then he wanted to find a photo booth; the kind where you put a few dollars in and took some photos, which came out a couple minutes later. Like in Amelie. He just said he wanted to have my picture in his wallet. So we took some. I kept one and he kept the 2. He still had them 20 years later.
When he went home that night he called his 3 best friends and had them come over to look at the photo and tell him what I looked like. I made the cut (in my huge coke bottle glasses that made me look like some sort of insect), they said I was "cute" and "pretty". When I called him that night he kept saying I was pretty.
Ron, by the way, was totally blind he had no vision at all.
Me, personally, I don't care how a man looks as long as he's trying to take care of himself, get in that shower every day, do something with or shave his hair, groomed facial hair (I like a short beard on a man). I don't care if he's skinny, a little meaty, crippled, short, any of that. What's in his heart? That's what matters to me. Is he going to respect me?! That's what matters.
One big appeal with Buddy he is very kind, very respectful, and he has excellent boundaries. I would like a man like that. I think sometimes God sent him to me as an archetype. "This is the sort of man I am working on for you".
Ron was big on taking me out to dinner even if it was Taco Bell (we lived near a Taco Bell at our first place). His love language was acts of service and that suited him. I have always been quality time and gifts.
I bought a jumbo bag of Snickers fun size for Black Friday and gave them out to my coworkers. Only one coworker (interestingly enough, a man) has ever given me candy.
I need to get going on my Dal. I got that going. Unfortunately the recipe is another one of those "start it in one pot finish it in another" ones. I hope I like it!
I redid the freezer as the door kept coming open. I'm glad that happened when I was home I have an awesome fridge/freezer but it does take some tending.
I changed the orientation of my containers and rearranged the frozen raw veggies and that seemed to do it.
I could, of course, buy a stand alone freezer. Houston doesn't always have stable power. I could only restock what I did have because my aunt gave me a gift (cash). I would hate to lose a freezer also.
If I had unlimited resources of course I could go the route Ron wanted and buy a natural gas generator I don't have unlimited funds. Besides, the gas could go out, too.
So I'm cooking the Dal. I will also make some basmati rice to go with it.
I am also cleaning the kitchen floor. It needs some work. Well first pass I got about 90% I sprayed the holdouts and letting it sit for a while. This is "safe for cats" spray cleaner.
I have to be careful what I use around them; no bleach, no pine. I need to get some more, basic, spray cleaner. I'm going to look at work first as I get the discount of course, and that's not hard to take home on the bus. I don't mind if Buddy "catches" me taking home cleaning products.
I do need to redo my bag. It's not going to rain Monday or Tuesday. That means I can take a lot out. I am taking some chewy granola bars everyone loves and my vest, everything in it. I like to have pain pills, a couple of tampons. When I worked with the girl who only used pads I would keep a pad in there for her as her cycles were irregular and she'd occasionally call me from the bathroom. I also keep a box cutter wrapped in a hanky. The box cutter design will cut fingers if you don't wrap it and I like having a hanky anyway. Rubber gloves in case I encounter something awful or nut related. I wear the gloves when I organize grocery every day. I often find a package of opened nuts or cookies with nuts.
If I had trouble breathing just straightening up nuts in a package I can only imagine what touching nuts directly would do to me. So I wear the gloves and I throw them away immediately when I'm done.
Walmart (my store at least) is very good about providing gloves. Anyway that's all bulk but that will stay in my locker when I leave tomorrow.
I have never looked at myself in a mirror when trying on coats. But the coat I have right now is warm and very flattering, I have curves in it. I like it a lot. It also has a very nice, deep, interior pocket that's perfect for my knit hat and something like a wallet. My aunt got it for me last year.
Time to go check on the beans, and my floor.
The floor is almost done.
Ron damaged me in a lot of ways.
He didn't want me to be pretty and felt very threatened when I got a compliment.
He didn't want me to be a good cook. I am, but he didn't ever compliment me. He was very critical. In late 2002, in desperation, I began serving dinner specials at our deli. It was not a proper food service setup, I had a hot plate, some immersion warmers, and a couple of microwaves. That was it.
I turned out 5 dinner specials: taco casserole, ham & bean soup (cooked on the hot plate from scratch) {those 2 utilized leftovers we could not sell} chicken soup (also from scratch, made with chicken leg quarters), spaghetti (I doctored a #10 can of sauce and added cooked and seasoned ground beef), and rotisserie chicken leg quarters with homemade gravy and 2 sides.
People came in hours in advance to buy my food. They fought over it at the counter if I only had a few plates left. We actually made a profit. The food was cheap, he was already paying me the labor.
And then he got run over. We closed the deli and focused on the vending machines. Ron was bitterly critical of everything I made unless it was a TV dinner. It was easier to buy processed food or go out to dinner. I stopped cooking.
As he declined he forgot a lot of the head games he had played and asked me to cook, and raved about what I made. His two favorite dishes were canned corn drained and mixed with baked beans. I would top it with bacon bits. He loved that. His other favorite dish was split peas with rice. I would add extra water when the peas were almost done and then add rice, cover it, and cook the rice in the bean juice. He loved that. I still do that when I make lentils.
After he died I didn't cook for a long time, not seriously. I was cooking to survive not to enjoy my food. That only started after - you guessed it! The assault this June. I realized I liked cooking and it was fine and OK to enjoy my food.
But oh, the things Ron would say about my food. Hateful.
Hopefully I'll forget all that in time.
Sometimes I get a headache when I apply the henna. I have a moderate one but not too bad.
I made the ham stir fry. It doesn't sound good but I have a photo.
So yesterday I made the Chana Masala. Today I made the stir fry, pasta salad with ham and kidney beans, and Dal Makhni which is basically beans and (I will make as an accompaniment) rice.
Plenty of food for the week.
I have about two and a half hours before I have to rinse out the henna. I also need to check the weather and go through my bag.
Riding the bus I don't have a "trunk". If I want it during the day it has to travel with me. I also need things like headache pills, a poncho, etc. I am committed to bringing my own lunch (most days) but that means I have to carry my lunch bag. I have to travel about 2 hours each way to and from work, I want the food in something insulated, with an ice pack. I need something to drink in case I have to take a headache pill or something.
I am committed to carrying as little as possible. So that means I have to go through my bag and purge, purge, purge as often as possible.
I also want to finish my holiday colors cell phone holder, and maybe make a few more for gifts if I have the time.
That's it for now!
Well I cooked up most of the ham and made pasta salad with it, whole grain pasta, some canned kidney beans.
I am cheating on the Dal recipe, it calls for about half a cup of dry kidney beans to be cooked. I have cooked red kidney beans and they take forever. I'm cheating and using them from a can. They are not cooked with seasoning, the spices I'm using basically say add the spice at the end of the cook.
So I had half a can of red kidney beans and some ham. I thought that would make a good pasta salad and I made that happen. I did dice and fry the ham as I like my meat cut up already, and the ham nice and golden. It would have been fantastic if I had some chopped onions in there when I did the ham but I didn't think of it in time. Next time.
I had to throw out all my dressing this summer during the power outage and I didn't buy more. But I have apple cider vinegar. I have olive oil and herbs. So I made my own on the fly just whisked it together. It is so good I wish I had some bread to sop up the leftovers. I think I'll just make my own dressing from now on that was super easy. And nothing hydrogenated or processed in MY dressing!
I got 3 - 4 bowls out of that. So that's in the fridge along with the chickpea masala. I am making Dal later on. And a stir fry with some of the ham I saved. Ham, ramen noodles, mixed veggies, some teriyaki sauce, sounds good to me.
I am doing dishes as I go that is easier. I need to do the henna in a minute, I have roots at my hairline. I found a few weeks ago I could apply a small amount and wrap up, go about my day, wash it out 4 hours later and no more roots. I love my hair. Everyone loves my hair. I want to keep it fresh.
I already washed my hair with clarifying shampoo. It's not completely dry yet at the application site.
I've been up for hours and it's only 8:30.
I'm cleaning out the pantry. It has disposable cutlery, paper plates, stuff like that. Some batteries and a battery operated light, and fan. A fair amount of canned food which I have to go through and toss most of it.
And the split peas. If you're a long timer you may remember Ron and the split peas the year before he died. That is literally one of the only foods he'd eat for months. Split peas, 1 cup split peas, 2 cups water, one 5 ounce can diced ham or a ham seasoning packet, 1/2 t black pepper. I would put rice in there too to make it a complete protein and it must have worked, the coroner said he looked OK. I got so sick of cooking them, feeding them to him. I didn't like them to start and I loathed them by the time he died.
I had about 10 pounds left. I threw them out today. I would have never eaten them. I have plenty of lentils which I adore. Adios! If someone wants me to fix them split peas I will be happy to purchase some.
I am cleaning the pantry as I go and then I will start figuring out where the rice, beans, spices, appliances need to go. The towels/rags are done and now I have the actual clothes in the wash. I still haven't seen the remote.
I took out the henna I had made a small amount for root touch ups which I plan to do today. I also need to get the lentils soaking to make my Dal Makhni.
That's it for now!
But the last several years have taught me some hard and necessary lessons about what to put online.
I got up this morning and did the dishes from last night. Making Chana Masala the Shan Spice company way requires cooking the beans in one pot, sauteing onions in another pot, then combining the beans with the onions and simmering a bit. For me, that meant two big, messy, pots.
Don't get me wrong, the beans are good, but my basic curried or chili lentils are a lot easier to make! I don't know that I'll buy more seasoning but I will use up what I do have. I didn't have much of a headache today and I can't necessarily attribute that to the chickpeas as I did have a bag of Skittles yesterday.
So I did the two pots, the utensils, the rice pot. I cleaned the stove (messy!). I need to get some more kitchen spray. I have enough to get me to payday.
I also decided to tackle the pantry. Now that corner of my kitchen has been pretty cluttered. There was a time I would have taken a photo but photos can be used against me. So I didn't. I will take an after photo.
I had a look. It was mainly single-use plastic bags, some appliances (both crock pots and part of the coffee pot, which I never use), and some other things. I got all that cleaned out.
Biscuit is thrilled with the "new" space and has camped out.
I put the single use bags in the kitchen, on the side I don't use as much (right side) so I can grab a new trash bag out of there or whatever, it's hanging off a drawer pull. My working area in the kitchen is about four by five feet. Plenty of room for one person.
Ron, in his basic manual wheelchair, occupied the entire free space. I used to call him the Blind Kitchen Obstacle. He loved it. He called himself the BKO.
For me it was very natural to have a blind man in a wheelchair with only one working arm. That was my life for 20 years. Every now and then I'm struck that is not the normal experience for most people.
Clothes are done brb
Well, towels and rags. I let the rags accumulate a bit in the laundry room and then wash them and the towels when I have enough to make a decent load. I do a regular load and then I do a rinse with a half cup of vinegar it gets all the detergent residue out and makes the towels much better.
Then I have one load mixed clothes for work mainly. I do need to wash my sweatpants. I like those at home. I try to save my jeans and tops for work and take them off when I get home. Throw on a basic oversized t shirt and some sweats.
Especially for cooking I want an old, baggy, t shirt. Sometimes I get splattered with grease, beans, God Knows What.
I can't find the TV remote but I'm not stressing. It'll show up when God wants it to. It's not on the couch where I keep it, it's not on the floor or the other couch either. I never lose the remote but it's not a big deal. I can just buy a universal if I have to.
Today I plan to arrange my meals, take a few things out of the freezer and put a few things in, so I have a variety of food for the week. I want to take out a spaghetti, and a beef and barley soup, for instance. I would like to make a Dal Makhni and a stir fry with ramen noodles, mixed veggies, and diced ham.
That's it for now.
