These thoughts keep going through my head. I apologize again to those looking for pictures, but getting this down in words will get it out of my head and allow me to go on and think about something new.
I notice that recently I do a lot of my thinking while cooking. And while cooking most of my thinking has nothing to do with work, it is more of an abstract line of thought I go through while cooking. This must be why I have really started to like cooking so much. Laura always tells me to rest and put my feet up, but when I do this either the television is on or I'm reading something and I'm not able to follow my random thought arcs. Also then Laura has to cook and she has been on her feet all day with Jackson and she likes to put her feet up and do her sudoku. So cooking appears to be somewhat therapeutic. Unfortunately some of my thoughts appear to be less edible than others, but we've been alright recently. I must append some of this about cooking though. Meringue is a horrible thing.
I'm usually all about the journey and not just the finished product and thats part of the reason I seem to like cooking, but meringue is another thing altogether. I thought I would whip up a little Southern Style banana pudding yesterday while thawing Jackson's food for lunch. I thought, 5 minutes, no problem to throw this together. And I was right...except for the meringue.
I put the egg whites and salt together and beat them together and then added the vanilla and sugar as directed and kept beating. And beating. And beating. My shoulder was soon sore, the eggs were still thin and Jackson was screaming from hunger. About this time I began thinking about meringue. I'm not sure how it exists. Who thought to put egg whites and sugar together and just beat the living daylights out of it. And after they managed to get it firm how did they know to bake it. And finally after going through all of this and getting the final product, who thought it was worth all of the effort to either make it again or even tell others about it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like lemon meringue pie just fine, but its not high on my list of favorites. And now after knowing the rotator cuff tearing exertion that goes into it, I feel a little bad for having wolfed down lemon meringue pie so rapidly in the past. I now have a new understanding for meringue. By the time I had put down the wire whisk and got out the electric beater, Jackson was in Code Red meltdown from hunger, the peeled and sliced bananas were browning, my stomach was growling, and I was learning to hate Southern Style banana pudding. Banana pudding was an infrequent comfort food of my childhood with just pudding and bananas that seemed to go so well together. No Nilla wafers. No meringue. No baking. Just good old Maine style straight forward banana pudding. When we order this at a restaurant here in Virginia, the menu says please allow 25 minutes for this dessert to cook. I'm thinking that others out there feel the same way about meringue that I do, and this 25 minutes is spent cursing at us that order this shoulder forsaken concoction. So the electric beaters went to work which seemed to improve things slightly, but I think it was mostly because it drowned out the screams of a famished child. Those eggs would not stiffen. After another 10 or so minutes, I decided that "soft peaks" probably tasted better than "hard peaks" anyway, and I gave up. I turned to clean the beaters and as I was cleaning I heard a loud metallic clank. My sweet, beautiful, redheaded child has managed to reach from his high chair to the edge of the counter, grab the bowl of meringue, and dump it gloriously over his entire head and right shoulder. If I thought we were in meltdown before, I now better understood the full force of Chernobyl. Soft peaked meringue on a 6 month old redhead does not make for a good combination. As I was cleaning him off, he kept smacking his lips from the meringue and then began spitting soft semi stiff beaten egg mixture everywhere. Jackson had the same feelings about meringue that I did obviously and at this time I could not agree with him more. I quickly finished cleaning him off and threw the bananas into the blender and made baby food out of them and fed the Jack. So don't go expecting Southern Style banana pudding when you come to visit.
Back to my original reason for posting. I've thought a lot about heros/role models and famous figures lately. The Mitchell report about steroids in baseball got the train rolling. Made me really think about the players I admired growing up, with Roger Clemens being chief among them. And I know after this information we have all been instructed to think of him as Barry Bonds because he is really no different. I disagree. To me he is much worse. Barry Bonds is not a likeable creature and he makes no attempts to be likeable. Roger Clemens comes across as likeable and the ultimate hard worker with a lot of innate talent as well. I know part of this to be untrue from the start. When I met him years ago at a baseball card show I thought he was a jerk to all of the kids then too, but those feelings had faded. Now I feel just let down. And even though he has denied all of these allegations, who is he trying to kid. George Mitchell may be a politician and part owner in the RedSox, but he is from Maine. He understands the heartbreak this brings to all kids that grew up with the Roger of the 1980s RedSox. He would not make this up. And Andy Pettites admission sure seems pretty damning as well. I feel I have a little bit of a unique perspective on this as a Medical Review Officer. As an MRO, my job is to call people back after they test positive on a drug screen. I have heard everything from flat out, irate denials to ridiculous excuses, and feigned confusion. Roger sounds like one of my many drug screen candidates, but unlike them, he's not trying to get a job at Target. I have no sympathy for him or anyone named in the report. I know that a lot of others that are guilty were not named, but thats how the world works a lot of times. Some people get away with cheating. I think Rogers just mad because he was in the small percent that got caught. If anyone has interest in this side of sports, Game of Shadows is a good read(I actually listened to it) and it set a lot of the groundwork for the Mitchell report to come out. I was also disappointed to see Mo Vaughn's name on the list. Naivete lost.
And then I was reading about some of the musicians that I enjoy listening to. I obviously knew the Grateful Dead which I listen to all of the time was heavily influenced by drug use, but further reading opened my eyes too far. All of the artists of the 70s seemingly used drugs. I think I was reading about Billy Joel or John Lennon or countless others and I am somewhat saddened that I was as surprised as I was about the ubiquitousness of the drug culture of the times. So I still enjoy the music, but the people behind the music are not role models, nor should they be idols. We still see this in todays music. Look no further than Amy Winehouse. She has been in rehab twice and hospitalized once or twice and was arrested this week. I admit to liking her song "Rehab" as well as a few of the others, but I feel bad about liking the music now. I feel like I am promoting someone that needs help, not encouragement from the music buying and listening public. The song is irreverent and thumbs its nose at rehab. The newest version of "sticking it to the man", but it is really sad at its core. She's wrong.
So for now I will have to accept that I can use a clock without knowing how it works or who made it, but its still not uplifting. It makes me realize that picking heros or role models or idols is messed up in our culture. We should look at our family and friends because we at least have a chance of knowing enough about them to make this type of decision. I remember having to write essays on heros during high school. I wrote one about my parents and one about my sister. Little did I know then how right I was. I hope everyone takes time to appreciate their families this holiday, and even though we know that our families are not perfect either, they tend to make much better heroes and role models than the faces we see on TV or baseball cards. And if your parent or brother is Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds, then email me and I'll have you meet some nice honest people from Maine or Virginia.
And finally on to Dan Fogelberg. I'm currently listening to Leader of the Band by Dan Fogelberg. He is a soft rock/easy listening icon from the 1980s and he died this week in his home in Maine. Grammie seems to think she read he was living in Bangor. I know little to nothing about him and am not recommending him as a hero or role model, but he does teach us a valuable lesson. He died from prostate cancer, and by all accounts he fought hard and kept much of his problems to himself and his family. His web site has displayed links to the prostate cancer awareness website for years and promotes regular screening for men of the appropriate age. He sounds like he truly tried to live the time that he had after diagnosis while hoping others keep up with screening so they do not end up with the same outcome. I'm sorry I do not know more about him at this time. I'll research him more for my own information and knowledge. I had not listened to him in quite awhile but he really made some good music. My personal favorite is the melancholic Same Old Lang Syne.
Same Old Lang Syne
I notice that recently I do a lot of my thinking while cooking. And while cooking most of my thinking has nothing to do with work, it is more of an abstract line of thought I go through while cooking. This must be why I have really started to like cooking so much. Laura always tells me to rest and put my feet up, but when I do this either the television is on or I'm reading something and I'm not able to follow my random thought arcs. Also then Laura has to cook and she has been on her feet all day with Jackson and she likes to put her feet up and do her sudoku. So cooking appears to be somewhat therapeutic. Unfortunately some of my thoughts appear to be less edible than others, but we've been alright recently. I must append some of this about cooking though. Meringue is a horrible thing.
I'm usually all about the journey and not just the finished product and thats part of the reason I seem to like cooking, but meringue is another thing altogether. I thought I would whip up a little Southern Style banana pudding yesterday while thawing Jackson's food for lunch. I thought, 5 minutes, no problem to throw this together. And I was right...except for the meringue.
I put the egg whites and salt together and beat them together and then added the vanilla and sugar as directed and kept beating. And beating. And beating. My shoulder was soon sore, the eggs were still thin and Jackson was screaming from hunger. About this time I began thinking about meringue. I'm not sure how it exists. Who thought to put egg whites and sugar together and just beat the living daylights out of it. And after they managed to get it firm how did they know to bake it. And finally after going through all of this and getting the final product, who thought it was worth all of the effort to either make it again or even tell others about it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like lemon meringue pie just fine, but its not high on my list of favorites. And now after knowing the rotator cuff tearing exertion that goes into it, I feel a little bad for having wolfed down lemon meringue pie so rapidly in the past. I now have a new understanding for meringue. By the time I had put down the wire whisk and got out the electric beater, Jackson was in Code Red meltdown from hunger, the peeled and sliced bananas were browning, my stomach was growling, and I was learning to hate Southern Style banana pudding. Banana pudding was an infrequent comfort food of my childhood with just pudding and bananas that seemed to go so well together. No Nilla wafers. No meringue. No baking. Just good old Maine style straight forward banana pudding. When we order this at a restaurant here in Virginia, the menu says please allow 25 minutes for this dessert to cook. I'm thinking that others out there feel the same way about meringue that I do, and this 25 minutes is spent cursing at us that order this shoulder forsaken concoction. So the electric beaters went to work which seemed to improve things slightly, but I think it was mostly because it drowned out the screams of a famished child. Those eggs would not stiffen. After another 10 or so minutes, I decided that "soft peaks" probably tasted better than "hard peaks" anyway, and I gave up. I turned to clean the beaters and as I was cleaning I heard a loud metallic clank. My sweet, beautiful, redheaded child has managed to reach from his high chair to the edge of the counter, grab the bowl of meringue, and dump it gloriously over his entire head and right shoulder. If I thought we were in meltdown before, I now better understood the full force of Chernobyl. Soft peaked meringue on a 6 month old redhead does not make for a good combination. As I was cleaning him off, he kept smacking his lips from the meringue and then began spitting soft semi stiff beaten egg mixture everywhere. Jackson had the same feelings about meringue that I did obviously and at this time I could not agree with him more. I quickly finished cleaning him off and threw the bananas into the blender and made baby food out of them and fed the Jack. So don't go expecting Southern Style banana pudding when you come to visit.
Back to my original reason for posting. I've thought a lot about heros/role models and famous figures lately. The Mitchell report about steroids in baseball got the train rolling. Made me really think about the players I admired growing up, with Roger Clemens being chief among them. And I know after this information we have all been instructed to think of him as Barry Bonds because he is really no different. I disagree. To me he is much worse. Barry Bonds is not a likeable creature and he makes no attempts to be likeable. Roger Clemens comes across as likeable and the ultimate hard worker with a lot of innate talent as well. I know part of this to be untrue from the start. When I met him years ago at a baseball card show I thought he was a jerk to all of the kids then too, but those feelings had faded. Now I feel just let down. And even though he has denied all of these allegations, who is he trying to kid. George Mitchell may be a politician and part owner in the RedSox, but he is from Maine. He understands the heartbreak this brings to all kids that grew up with the Roger of the 1980s RedSox. He would not make this up. And Andy Pettites admission sure seems pretty damning as well. I feel I have a little bit of a unique perspective on this as a Medical Review Officer. As an MRO, my job is to call people back after they test positive on a drug screen. I have heard everything from flat out, irate denials to ridiculous excuses, and feigned confusion. Roger sounds like one of my many drug screen candidates, but unlike them, he's not trying to get a job at Target. I have no sympathy for him or anyone named in the report. I know that a lot of others that are guilty were not named, but thats how the world works a lot of times. Some people get away with cheating. I think Rogers just mad because he was in the small percent that got caught. If anyone has interest in this side of sports, Game of Shadows is a good read(I actually listened to it) and it set a lot of the groundwork for the Mitchell report to come out. I was also disappointed to see Mo Vaughn's name on the list. Naivete lost.
And then I was reading about some of the musicians that I enjoy listening to. I obviously knew the Grateful Dead which I listen to all of the time was heavily influenced by drug use, but further reading opened my eyes too far. All of the artists of the 70s seemingly used drugs. I think I was reading about Billy Joel or John Lennon or countless others and I am somewhat saddened that I was as surprised as I was about the ubiquitousness of the drug culture of the times. So I still enjoy the music, but the people behind the music are not role models, nor should they be idols. We still see this in todays music. Look no further than Amy Winehouse. She has been in rehab twice and hospitalized once or twice and was arrested this week. I admit to liking her song "Rehab" as well as a few of the others, but I feel bad about liking the music now. I feel like I am promoting someone that needs help, not encouragement from the music buying and listening public. The song is irreverent and thumbs its nose at rehab. The newest version of "sticking it to the man", but it is really sad at its core. She's wrong.
So for now I will have to accept that I can use a clock without knowing how it works or who made it, but its still not uplifting. It makes me realize that picking heros or role models or idols is messed up in our culture. We should look at our family and friends because we at least have a chance of knowing enough about them to make this type of decision. I remember having to write essays on heros during high school. I wrote one about my parents and one about my sister. Little did I know then how right I was. I hope everyone takes time to appreciate their families this holiday, and even though we know that our families are not perfect either, they tend to make much better heroes and role models than the faces we see on TV or baseball cards. And if your parent or brother is Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds, then email me and I'll have you meet some nice honest people from Maine or Virginia.
And finally on to Dan Fogelberg. I'm currently listening to Leader of the Band by Dan Fogelberg. He is a soft rock/easy listening icon from the 1980s and he died this week in his home in Maine. Grammie seems to think she read he was living in Bangor. I know little to nothing about him and am not recommending him as a hero or role model, but he does teach us a valuable lesson. He died from prostate cancer, and by all accounts he fought hard and kept much of his problems to himself and his family. His web site has displayed links to the prostate cancer awareness website for years and promotes regular screening for men of the appropriate age. He sounds like he truly tried to live the time that he had after diagnosis while hoping others keep up with screening so they do not end up with the same outcome. I'm sorry I do not know more about him at this time. I'll research him more for my own information and knowledge. I had not listened to him in quite awhile but he really made some good music. My personal favorite is the melancholic Same Old Lang Syne.
Same Old Lang Syne
Met my old lover in the grocery store
The snow was falling Christmas Eve
I stole behind her in the frozen foods
And I touched her on the sleeve
She didn't recognize the face at first
But then her eyes flew open wide
She went to hug me and she spilled her purse
And we laughed until we cried
We took her groceries to the checkout stand
The food was totalled up and bagged
We stood there lost in our embarrassment
As the conversation dragged
We went to have ourselves a drink or two
But couldn't find an open bar
We bought a six-pack at the liquor store
And we drank it in her car
We drank a toast to innocence, we drank a toast to now
We drank a toast to innocence, we drank a toast to now
And tried to reach beyond the emptiness but neither one knew how
She said she'd married her an architect
Who kept her warm and safe and dry
She would have liked to say she loved the man
But she didn't like to lie
I said the years had been a friend to her
And that her eyes were still as blue
But in those eyes I wasn't sure if I saw doubt or gratitude
She said she saw me in the record stores
And that I must be doing well
I said the audience was heavenly but the traveling was hell
We drank a toast to innocence, we drank a toast to now
And tried to reach beyond the emptiness but neither one knew how
We drank a toast to innocence, we drank a toast to time
Reliving in our eloquence, another 'auld lang syne'
The beer was empty and our tongues were tired
And running out of things to say
She gave a kiss to me as I got out and I watched her drive away
Just for a moment I was back at school
And felt that old familiar pain
And as I turned to make my way back home
The snow turned in to rain...
So enough of my musings for today. Thanks for putting up with the flight of ideas and opinions and exaggerations. I still feel the same way about meringue, but for any of you still reading this to the end, you'll be happy to know that I stopped to feed Jackson before beginning the meringue, and there was no Jackson Meringue Pie as indicated. The meringue never reached its stiff or hard peaks, but I used it anyway on the banana pudding and it was at least edible if not slightly better than that.
I was serious about the "don't expect it if you visit though".
Love to all.
So enough of my musings for today. Thanks for putting up with the flight of ideas and opinions and exaggerations. I still feel the same way about meringue, but for any of you still reading this to the end, you'll be happy to know that I stopped to feed Jackson before beginning the meringue, and there was no Jackson Meringue Pie as indicated. The meringue never reached its stiff or hard peaks, but I used it anyway on the banana pudding and it was at least edible if not slightly better than that.
I was serious about the "don't expect it if you visit though".
Love to all.
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