I am alive. I swore that I would rise like a phoenix today, but I think I'm still half buried in the ashes of this flu. Next year, flu shot. Repeat after me: Next year, flu shot. I get them some years, some years I don't. If I'm at the doctor's office and they say it's time for a flu shot, I say sure. When my parents were alive we tried to get shots for both them and us, as we worried about them getting sick. But now I'm rather lackadaisical about it. No more. Sunday I'd felt good enough to be up and cook dinner. Monday I worked at home, taking some breaks to lie down, but did ok. Yesterday, I woke up feeling horrendous...back to the worst of it. Today I am better, but not quite the phoenix I was hoping for. Aches, throat sore as hell, exhaustion, runny nose, upset stomach, general malaise....I'm as fun as hell. BUT...it's all relative and I am better. Overwhelmed by how behind I now am at work but, uh, better.
1. Rascal sits vigil, for what I don't know. There was some sunshine coming in the window..., it might just have been an appreciation of the warmth. I hate how mean he is to Bob, but damn, I love that big old hunk of cat.
2. I'm feeling enough better to try to cook. Last night we did a Blue Apron. We hadn't been doing it because the gluten/low fodmap thing didn't work with it, but they're doing a series of Whole 30 meals right now that are easy to adapt. This was one of the first time I didn't care for a Blue Apron meal. Some of it was pilot error, I overcooked the salmon a bit. It was supposed to have roasted red onion in the vinaigrette...instead I cooked the red onion in the olive oil and then strained it. Garlic and onion aren't oil soluble so if you cook onion or garlic alone it in, you can use the oil once the solids are out. That's how I adapt some of these. The vegetables (carrots, potato, cabbage) were diced and roasted with a bit of harissa which sounds delightful but was just eh. On top of the salmon was a date/red onion vinaigrette which was nice, but again....eh.
3. Today, back to my efforts. On Sundays in winter I like to cook soups or stews. I went with a vegetarian Indian curry today. First, onion oil:
We just picked up some gorgeous vegetables from Greg at Claybank Farms. The potatoes were so sweet and beautiful that I didn't bother to peel them...and yellow and orange carrots!
Then curry powder, cayenne, turmeric, coriander and salt....let it go a bit, and add all the vegetables with coconut milk and a bit of water. Simmer, stir, simmer, stir.
I'll add some peas later. I might serve it with chicken for the guys. It's good but needs some more vegetables....I'll have to peruse the refrigerator.
4. Cyril has been under the weather, but is feeling better. So much better, that he ran to Lowe's for an errand...something to do with making a guitar pedal.
5. A tidbit of Wild Ponies to make you look forward to February 10!
I'm still not feeling great. This flu has really knocked me out, but I am doing better...kind of poking my head up out of my hole and looking around. That being said, I have absolutely no new anecdotes or interesting thoughts. This is what the last four days have looked like to me:
That's it....along with looking at news and nonsense online, and then every so often a library book. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Oh, and sleep....and dream. I've had strange dreams with friends coming to comfort me...I'm not even sure what they were comforting me about, but thank you nonetheless Paul Budin and Peter Case. Everyday stress I guess, and of course it's not my favorite time of year. I love winter but February looms, and it has too many anniversaries of deaths, without some snowstorms I find it hard to get through.
My heart remains broken that the Burnham Mansion will be torn down. The lack of respect for history that could continue to exist, albeit for some creativity astounds me. When the purchase offer was turned down I tried to bury the knot in my stomach. Denial often works for me, but not all the time. I remain frustrated by the 'well you voted to keep Central central, that means you want the Burnham Mansion destroyed' twist. I did vote for keeping Central central. If I had voted against it, it would have been seen as a vote for putting it out beyond the edge of town and that I did not want. At the Council meeting that was brushed off as, 'if you vote for a candidate you research their positions.' But NO, just because I support a candidate overall does not mean I must agree with every one of their positions. And a name that states nothing other than their birth name is not the same as a carefully phrased 152 word statement. I supported the concept, but that doesn't mean I signed off on this shortsighted, embarrassing mistake that is one aspect of it. And then Leo tells me that in his class on Friday at Central they couldn't do the work they were supposed to because all the computers were broken and all the Chromebooks already reserved. But Fucking A, they'll have surface parking.
Damn. I better make Ernie light another fire, and go find a library book.
After a few days with Owen's flu---or as he likes to say, INFLUENZA, as he thinks it sounds more impressive---I am feeling marginally better. I am actually sitting up reading and poking around the internet. I know it's super warm out there but I made Ernie build a fire anyway, as it's the same damn temperature in the house. It has not been a pleasant couple of days with aches and pains, exhaustion and dreadful headaches, but hopefully it is on its way out. I have been sick way too much this winter. Ernie doesn't seem to have the flu, er, the influenza, but he's got a bad cold and is being somewhat grumpy, which is his right of course, given how much he does for all of us and always putting up with our grumpiness. Poor sweet pea.
Owen wouldn't share his snapchat with me, but Leo did.
I'm digging through recipes and cookbooks thinking about what to make for our next house concert, because occurred to me that it is ONLY TWO WEEKS AWAY!
I'm thinking of making a vegetable curry or the like. We'll see...something warm and spicy sounds right for them, huh? We love Doug and Telisha so much. They played at our house (with our beloved Paul Griffith) several years ago, and then again one Christmastime with Rod Picott and Amy Speace. Their new album, Galax (which SLHC favorite Fats Kaplin played on) is tremendous. We are so happy they are stopping off on their to way to Folk Alliance. They are the perfect people to blow out any winter blues. Just what I need, and just what I think we all could use!
Thanks to the great Mark Gerking for the poster of course! I love the way the pony and the bass break out of the borders....
January seems to drone on. The weather cycling from subzero to spring keeps one off balance, and despite some of the warm days, I have been in strict home mode. We're almost through our whole winter's supply of firewood. We'll have to splurge on more as I seem to be somewhat addicted to having a fire in the fireplace of late. Work, home, sometimes a doctor's appointment, sometime a stop at Fries and Peanuts, that's the rhythm of winter days I guess. I'd wanted to get to Nashville over break or sometime this month but it doesn't look like that will happen. Cyril's a bit under the weather so no pictures of him to delight me. When I leave work now however, it is once again light so the earth is still moving along, and the seed catalogues are arriving in the mail. Sometimes I feel as though I am standing apart from it all, watching life speed along.
Glad to see that the fire wasn't worse at the church at University and State last night, I hope the damage isn't too great. The Burnham Mansion sits like a lump in the bottom of my stomach. I'm afraid to be hopeful, so I try to keep it buried and not think about it. I've always been good at denial. Despite trying to not think about it, I am glad to see the School of Architecture at Illinois finally making a statement about it on Facebook, at the very least:
Did you know that the Burnham Mansion, the notable Champaign, IL monument designed by famed Chicago architects Daniel H. Burnham (the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition campus, the Flatiron Building in New York, Washington D.C.'s Union Station) and John Wellborn Root, is one of only *10* remaining Burnham and Root-designed homes in the U.S.!
It also also represents the architectural patronage of one of Champaign’s most prominent historical families, Albert and Julia Burnham (no relation to the architect).
However, the Burnham Mansion, now owned by Champaign School District Unit 4, is slated for *demolition* ahead of the much-needed renovation and expansion of Champaign’s Central High School (specifically, the Burnham Mansion’s lot will be used for flat-top parking). It must be possible to both preserve the Burnham AND have a modern, innovative space for Central. 11,000 people, including architect Daniel Liebeskind, have signed a petition to the School Board asking them to find a way to save the Burnham Mansion and other historic Champaign homes while still advancing the needs of Champaign’s students.
My Aunt died this week. I hadn't been in touch with her since my parents passed, probably. To my understanding, she had dementia and was in a nursing home. She was the youngest of my father's siblings. I think he was about 13 years older than she was. It threw me a bit, because now all of his siblings are gone and I realize Ernie and I are now the oldest generation of the family. He may have one Aunt still living....I'm not entirely sure. It prompted me to renew my Ancestry.com account for a month....and once again think about why we become interested in tracking our families as we get older. Looking for a little perspective to see our place in it all, I suppose.
In the same sort of pondering the passage of time, and the changes it bring, I've also been following the story of the brining shed in our beloved Lubec, Maine. It was was torn off its supports in a storm in early January and sailed over to Canada, landing on the Campobello Beach and causing a bit of local, yet international, incident. It appears there are now people from both countries working on salvaging it and plans are to recreate a miniature version of it. It makes me so sad. This is where my love of bedraggled things that are in need of restoration being more appealing to me than the preserved version wars with my common sense. Poor brining shed.
A few pictures from when we saw it a few years back (look how young the boys are). I think this was the summer after my sister died, the first year we spent time in Lubec.
On Facebook today we had some conversation about what to call Owen's habitat that he has created in the garage. I referred to it as the Teen Cave but Peggy pointed out 'enough with the cave,' and I totally agree, I hate the phrase 'man cave,' but 'teen cave' didn't bother me. So other suggestions were made and I mentioned that I had been calling it 'the nest.' I told Owen this whole series of comments to get this thoughts. I told him I'd been calling it the nest because I could just picture a bird snuggling down in its messy little nest with all sort of rag tag things hanging out of it. His face lit up, he said he thought that was perfect. So, we have....the Nest.
And in honor of that, here is three moods of Rascal, in his own nest of clean laundry.
Owen's trying to get us out of the house. First thing he said after breakfast was, "So, what are you going to do today?" I just blinked at him because it seemed pretty clear to me that I was doing exactly what I wanted to. Sitting in front of the fire, alternating reading with recipe hunting, a box of kleenex and a paper bag for all my nose blowing trash right next to me. Unfortunately, Ernie has now been felled by this cold as well, so I think this may very well be it. We shall see. I do feel a bit better, my nose isn't running quite as much, and if I keep downing the iced tea and Le Croix I can keep myself from coughing too much..
Something about waking up to my beautiful snow, and seeing the wind chill advisory made me want to do something long and slow cooked. We had bought a leg of lamb we were going to cook on New Year's Day but I was sick (wasn't I just saying how I felt much healthier? Hmmm.) so we threw it in the freezer. I decided it would be a good dinner for our MLK day. I obsessively googled recipes. How do I love thee Chowhound? I eventually landed on a version of James Beard's Spoon Lamb, or Seven Hour Roast Lamb. We shall see. It's kinda my own version of course. I had made some garlic/onion oil the other night so browned the salt and peppered lamb in that, then took it out and browned lemon halves. I deglazed the pan because I realized it wasn't big enough to cover the lamb, added the drippings to the new pan, added a bit of oregano, thyme, red pepper flakes, and a few fennel seeds, set the lamb in, squeezed all the browned lemons over it, added the same spices to the top, poured in a cup or two of white wine, covered it up and popped it in a 200 degree oven. I hope it's good but even if it's not, I got a lot of pleasure out of doing this part!
Now, back to reading my Adam Carroll songbook (Thanks Ernie---it's wonderful) and my new issue of Saveur. I'll let you know how the lamb turns out, and if Owen manages to kick me out of the house.
So it appears to be another quiet weekend finding myself slightly under the weather. At some point something's going to have to blow after all this downtime, but right now nothing is blowing, other than my nose. I spent most of yesterday curled up in front of the fire reading a really good book, Don't Fall In Love With A Rambler, about Jimmy Martin. It's not about the music at all, but a great story of the culture of the musicians from the eyes of a woman. I might send Ernie out to the library today to pick up a few more books for me. Any music book recommendations? I still want to read Peter Cooper's Bill Anderson book but I don't think the library has it. I'll poke around but please let me know if there's anything I should look for.
Here's a good Cynthia-in-a-nutshell picture.
The house seems oddly quiet without Annie. Nobody has approached her pod. I think sometimes these things are harder than other times because of where you are in your life. When our cat Harlan had to be put down I was very sad because I loved that big old mean seeming wimpy guy, but I was also in the midst of dealing with caring for my parents and the boys were little so there just wasn't the space in my life to feel it as much as I feel the loss of Annie. And of course Annie's loss is tied in with the loss of my parents for me so it resonates a bit more. Last night I had dreams about our old apartment in Chicago....we went and someone else was living in our apartment and all our things were gone. The lake was higher than ever and we couldn't find the landlord and they were building a highrise out in the lake that was going to block our view. I loved that apartment. I always dream about it when I'm sad. There's always some of kind of natural disaster or threat to it. Funny what our mind does with sadness.
Here's a little Jimmy Martin for you. I did enjoy how much she talked about their sex life in the book. He was a troubled man but you watch this and you can see how he was probably charismatic.
Oh, by the way, for anyone who happens to think that I cook well...I made an absolutely miserable fish stew the other night....so bad I threw it out. That broke my heart too because it was 2 big pieces of beautiful (and expensive) cod, and some gorgeous little gold potatoes and carrots from Farmer Greg (Claybank Farms). It hurt my heart to toss it but I'm guessing it was some combination of the canned diced tomatoes and the potatoes....it had a horrid metallic taste. So much for the herbes de Provence and black olives. Sigh. As Ernie said, "the intentions were good." Instead of eating that I peered in the refrigerator and found some old corn tortillas and made quesadillas with leftover pulled pork, some cheese, hot sauce, and parsley, and damned it they weren't utterly delightful. A hell of a lot cheaper too. Oh well. Sometime you win, sometimes you make do, huh?
And continuing on this very stream of consciousness post, sometimes a clementine is a magical thing. Ernie was in the other room and the scent of his clementine came drifting out. I told him it smelled good and he came deposited a fully peeled plump little clementine on my laptop and it tasted extraordinary. Small pleasures.
And now, before I drift away to more random things...my February news. WILD PONIES on Saturday, February 10, 2018! Something to keep the February blues away...I am so pleased!
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