Silly Rabbit, Kitchens are for Nice People

Readers, do you ever pick a fight with someone, maybe because you’re stressed or possibly because its warranted, and then some thing happens to make you feel like the total ass in the situation? Really? Because that happens to me all the time. Case in point, my new house has a refrigerator in a peculiar place, and there is a section of the kitchen that actually has had cabinets and a countertop put in the place where the fridge should go.
See in this picture how you can tell a fridge should go there. Well, it was not and the hubs wanted to move it into that spot. Readers, I would consider myself someone who is great with social change, political change, almost deem myself an advocate of change. However, I am a little baby about physical change. Cut off all your hair, it Will take me a while to get used to you, move to a new place and I will examine your space like a detective, and so I was not prepared for big house change after moving in only 2 weeks ago.
Then the hubs moved the fridge into the space. Did I commend him for being able to do that himself or not scratching my floors? No, I proceeded to snap off at the mouth like a petulant child. I could not handle the change.
Readers, do you know what that jerk of a hubs did next? He made and designed for me this space in its place. What an asshole. Could this really have turned out any better? It looks like someone so culinary-ally proficient works in this space, my camera can simply not express how much I adore this new space. He even made a super efficient pantry out of half our laundry room. After all my griping, he still made me this beautiful space. What a jerk.

What happened on MJC Day 2010

So, I dropped the heavy mom blog post on you (thanks for the calls and texts on MJC Day) and now I am going to tell you what I did for MJC Day 2010. I have a small, but significant stream/creek in my backyard. I decided that since I could not make it to the beach, that I would use my own water source, in my own backyard. I grabbed some of my mom’s ashes which have just been all over this world since she passed. The pink haired professor sent some of Mary Jane to Igwazu Falls in Buenos Aires. My little China Girl was kind enough to take her to the Three Gorges Dam for a splash in her pond. My hands shook something violently when I was attempting to transfer her from her bigger bottle into my brass flower mom holder. For a few minutes I was certain that I was not yet ready, but in attempts to laugh it off, I literally laughed and she sorta floated on the air in the box I keep her bottle in. I think that is a nice way of saying I spilled her a little!
I got her packed up, pulled out the last photo her sister had taken of her, and headed for my creek, with no socks on. I found a spot, popped a squat and spent about an hour talking to her. Telling her I missed her, but I am not mad at her. Telling her about our family and how I wish she could see the house, & how she would love our guest room so much that I am actually decorating it as if it was for her (sorry all the live people that will be staying in it). I told her thank you for the last month when I really felt like she was watching over me and sending me some magical support. I told her I hoped she was proud of me and I apologized for all the things I did when she was alive. Readers, I just said everything you wish you could say to someone that only comes out when you truly cannot do so any more. I jumped because a squirrel decided I was in his spot and ran less than a foot above my head, then I laughed. A belly pain inducing laugh that sequenced so perfectly into our MJC Day right of passage. I removed my sneakers, and plunged my bare feet into the (very) cold water, and then I released my mom into my creek. Some of her ran quickly down stream and some of her bottomed out in the creek bed. I took my obligatory water-feet pictures, pulled myself up onto the bank again, where for a little while I just breathed and watched. My mom was finally home with me.

MJC Day

My mom died on March 6, 2007, a few months shy of her 50th birthday, and she had a thing about numbers so the 3/6 thing sometimes makes me smile just as much as it doesn't. This Saturday it will have been 3 years since I lost her. My sister and I get as close as we can to some body of water on that day and deem it MJC Day. The first year after her passing, I was in San Destin, and da sis was in Galvaston, both on opposite sides of the Gulf, but we took mom to the water. Last year we drove 14 hours (each way) to meet in the middle, along the gulf coast of Alabama, so that we could get her into the water again, we stayed up most of the night together and then we drove back to our respected homes. This year, da sis is headed back to Galveston, and I have a new idea. Readers, I will let you know how it goes.

I know this is a long post, and that it is not too much about my NYR, but there is mention of a Greek cookbook and I will probably be posting about comfort food really soon! It's just that I don't want to forget her, and there are so many people I love now that never got to meet her, and I think this helps.

Happy Weekend everyone, & maybe you can hug or call your moms just for me.

Written 3/17/07

So, I returned to the real world after 7 days in New Hampshire for my mom's funeral service, I can’t tell you which one felt like the “other world,” being there or returning home. I am slowly getting over the shock of what’s happened, though not completely. Attempting to avoid the little things, songs that are not of super-fast tempo, movies that do not have video games made after them, and in general people named Mary. The first thing to get over: How do I not talk on the phone to her everyday?

Tess told me she heard the Hawaiian version of “Somewhere over the Rainbow”, which is what we wanted to play at her funeral service (but alas were not able to) at a Sonic when she returned home and had to send her server away. You know how I like lists, so I think I’ll just bullet out the rest of these:

• Tuesday, in the service, I sat like an angry bear, cutting eyes at the poor guy doing the service, who did not know my mom or our family, and so his words fell on deaf ears for me. If he had known her, he would have said something brash, and off the cuff just to put everyone off-tilt, yet in remembrance of my mom. Sarcasm would have been openly allowed and anecdotes about Waffle House, bed urination, and pen-top tracheotomies would have been as kind as the words of Mother Teresa. He would not have mentioned her depression and might have received more than just my furrowed brow at the mention of such. If he had known her, he might have gone outside the box and quoted Kahlil Gibran, Margaret Mead, Silver Ravenclaw, Her father, Lewis Grizzard, or even herself. He would have played music that might make you blush in church, or at least have made you cry. If he really knew her, we would have had a Roast instead of a funeral service, where we would have poked fun at her imperfections but only because they were also our own, or because we were not aggressive or strong enough to have those traits ourselves. If it was done right, we would have laughed. At least once, so that we could remember what it felt like to laugh with her, her unabashed cackle, her watered eyes, and have that one more time before the church doors opened, never to be had again.
• The service was not as hard as going to her apartment the next day. I had never been to that apartment before, I had not seen her in that environment, not seen her sit in her recliner or use her big orange snow shovel to clear off her 4 little steps. Her bed was inviting and full of pillows and smells and blankets and impressions. She had coconut milk in her refrigerator for making Doc Chey’s Chicken Coconut Soup. She had pink Dove soap, which I took and 20 nail clippers, which I did not. Tess grabbed her stethoscope, and I her grandmother’s blanket with an authority over the other where no words of compromise where going to tread for these items. I found glass miniature eggs, Indian beads, shells of turquoise and an old deck of cards in a small wooden box, and in true tribute, I hid the eggs throughout my aunt’s house and in my friend’s belongings, for them to randomly find and while they may not know they were her’s, maybe they will think that someone is thinking of them. I took her Greek cookbook, which just this morning I found a note from her mom and gram about Greek recipes, it is one of the few items that I hold as elusive “mom” items, in which I don’t know whether to cook from it, display it, or hide it under my pillow to feel it’s comfort. And with that, we both took a pillow. A token from the place were we learned, shared, cried, and loved. A pillow so big that I can not rest my head upon it, but have to hold it like a loved one, nestled like another person in my bed. The last thing we took was a look at the brook that ran in her back yard, bigger than I had imagined when she would tell me about it’s quaintness and more rapid that the “babble” she described it as. People admire things, but my mom let the water into her character, her love of the ocean or personification of a river was as much a part of her as her wavy hair or muddy eyes. It was only fitting that she herself was sent out that next day into the ocean.
• By Thursday my mom was contraband. In N.H. it is illegal to dispose of remains in the ocean without a permit, and in the 3 days that Tess had been there with me, we did not obtain one. So, we went renegade. We cautiously opened her remains and poured about 5 pounds of her into a Ziploc baggie and headed for the ocean off the small New Hampshire coastline. On Thursday, it was 27 degrees outside, and so the greatest gift Tess and I could give our mom was kicking off our shoes, hiking up our pants and wading up to our knees in the cold water. I pilfered my mom out of my coat, took a view glances around and then undid that green and blue seal. The waves and the wind took her away in only a few moments, and it was the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced with my sister. Our feet were cold but we did not feel it, our hearts were heavy, but they did not ache, and our smiles were true as we thought of our mom laughing her laugh at us, but with pride for her girls.

New snack food worth craving

I really like Wheat Thins. Even if they do possess the word wheat in them, I think it is the tasty, not goo for you kind. When looking for a cracker for the garlic hummus spread from the pink Haired Professor, I stumbled upon these while I was too hungry to be shopping alone. You know when you are alone and hungry and food shopping it is a bad combination, it is for me at least. I buy stuff I would have never bought before. This happened this last weekend and I lucked out. I found these...

Artisan Vermont White Cheddar Wheat Thins. Are they worth $3.45 for like 10oz, I don't know, but I can not stop thinking about them and want them all the time! I am wondering if I should brave the grocery store in the Georgia White Curse (aka - snow flurries) in order to get myself another box. Don't they even just look like you should ask the person next to you for some Grey Pupon mustard, or did I just give away my class level on that one?

E-Poo's Birthday!

I have been living with the assumption that this month has been a sort of calendar phenomenon in which all my luck that may have escaped me in the past was all pocketed and is unfolding Right Now. Which means that Sunday (today, as I write this) is my last day of this good luck and then it will hopefully move onto a new person (you guys should start calling “dibs”). A really nice way to come to the close of this fortunate month was having a potluck/ late E-Poo’s Bday dinner/ meeting Megadeath’s Benny! One of the things I would consider myself most fortuitous in life is that I have amazing friends, and so this night really felt like an extension/continuation of my lucky month!
And readers, I finally cooked again. Saturday morning I considered making a Cheese/Meat/ Bean hearty dip. I had most of the ingredients and have never used the Crockpot that I got for my wedding almost 11 years ago. This seemed like a plan, until right in the middle of the grocery, I freaked out a little. I recalled that E-Poo already works at a Mexican restaurant and probably eats that everyday, also with the arrival of Benny I did not want to make any thing related to a food style that I was not familiar with. Freak out in Publix looked like this. I am pushing the cart back and forth the same aisle several times, talking (loudly) to myself, hovering around the rotating free recipes kiosk trying to find a better solution and I came up with… sliders? Exactly, it was a strange choice to move to. I attempted to make Meatball Marinara Sliders, and I ended up with something only slightly off. I bought a bag of “dinner-sized” meatballs in a bag, a jar of garlic & onion sauce, a block of mozzarella cheese, and water rolls. Then I paid no attention to the recipe and just built them! I cut up and toasted the rolls, heated the meatballs in the oven, sliced up odd shapes of cheese and when the hot roll tops came out, I laid the pieces on them to melt. I added the marainara sauce at the bottom of the rolls and then again on top of the meat balls. Since the rolls were much bigger than slider rolls (and the meatballs were small), I placed 3 meats balls on each roll. I think they came out cute, for whatever that is worth. What do you think? Along with my sliders, last night we had a delicious mac n’ cheese with a bit of a kick to it. A fruit salad that we actually devoured, and I believe Teece had 3 blueberries left in the bowl by the time we were done and onto MadGab (Go girls for winning!). Megadeath made tomato and fresh mozzarella covered in sundried tomato and basil oil. I think there was a salad, but I pay no attention to such things. It was a nice spread so to say. I also made a cake for E-Poo’s Bday, a German Chocolate cake with pecan and coconut icing. I got a recipe from Epicurious.com for an Inside-Out German Chocolate Cake. Again, I got overwhelmed and modified it by making the cake part and buying the icing (which is brown, I did not know that, I thought it would be white). Readers, I was so proud I actually had all the ingredients to make a cake already in my house, and I have run out of my first condiment/spice. I used all my vanilla extract. I just think that is exciting. Don’t you? With my luck, I wonder if I go to the grocery today, if I would not find that it was on sale!
Sending all my luck to you,
Katherine

Past Updates of Note

Readers,
Two really fun things (with food) that I did while I was away (from blogging) were Dance Marathon & Mardi Gras King(ing) 2010 for Family Counseling Services. Here's a bit more about them!

Want to know a great place to get lots of different food from your favorite vendors, and all for FREE?! UGA’s Dance Marathon (DM), that’s where. UgaMiracle is a student-run campus philanthropy benefitting Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. CHOA is where my kid had 4 of his 5 surgeries due to being born with gastrochisis. don't worry, he's fine and probably like many CHOA kids has learned to manipulate it to his full advantage. This year marked the 15th anniversary at the University of Georgia, we have done the last 7. This organization gives students the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of Miracle kids through personal interactions and fundraising. Throughout the year, they hold special events and fundraisers that raise awareness about our cause. Our efforts culminate in a 24-hour Dance Marathon—one of UGA’s biggest traditions & they raise so much money For The Kids.

On the 24 hour menu there was Casa Mia, Willy's, Chick-fil-A, Jimmy John's, and desserts and candies throughout the event. Readers, there was even Waffle House for breakfast!
This was our 7th year doing DM, and the kid’s first year staying up all 24 hours of it! We are really proud to be involved with this organization, and over the years it has defiantly changed, but there are still some DM-ers who are parts of our lives intrinsically, probably forever. The kid still trashes talks with them on Facebook even!
Of course, our favorite event of the year was interrupted by it being on the same weekend as we got the house, and move-in weekend. For me, there was lots of going back and forth between the two locations and about 3 hours of sleep, so Readers, honestly I don’t know what I ate and what I did not eat. I did have a Monster energy drink, further providing evidence of my inability to handle any sort of mind/body enhancing substance.

The second event was the Friday it snowed here in GA, 2/12/10, and my UGA dad was nominated for Mardi Gras King of Athens, in a fundraiser for Family Counseling Services. The event was Cajun/Creole food, and Readers I ate all of it, brown paste something, catfish, crazy rice, and more. When I first looked at the table I thought there goes my free meal, because I was not even going to try it! Luckily I did and I enjoyed it all, especially the brown paste stuff, I will find out what it was. This event was also a costume party, my favorite thing!! Omnipotently, UGAdad knew he was going to win and wore the most outlandish king costume with GIANT Mardi Gras beads. I was a tooth fairy (with wings), and the Pink Haired Professor was a tooth! The snow impacted the event unfortunately for the organization. I think next year will be an even bigger success for them & I will karmic-ly do whatever I can to help, because as one of not too many attendees, Readers I got loot! There were door prizes for costumes and over all, I racked up gift cards for $50 of tanning, $25 to AllGood’s (a bar, & that was spent that night on Jager bombs!), $15 to Five Points Deli, and free bowling with shoes. Our table also racked up incredible prizes from Classic City Roller Girl Derby Tickets, bags, t-shirts, and the pink Haired Prof won the silent auction for a tattoo! See what I mean about owing them back Big Time!

Not My Giveaway

Readers, I have never asked you for anything before, except for loyalty, attentiveness and forgiveness. Wow, I am just as needy as the hubs says I am. Then, starting over, Readers, I want something else. Do you recall when guest blogger from Down & Out Chic http://downandoutchic.blogspot.com/ gave up all the inside scoop about an upcoming free giveaway about an apron? Well that time has come, and that opportunity for you to win that apron for me is now!
Readers, did you catch that last part that I snuck in so cleverly? I want that apron, the choices are insanely adorable and while it would take me so time to actually wipe my dirty cooking hands upon it, I would eventually, I am just sure of it. Megadeath, it will not be like the 30 skirts I have that I say I will wear, and then not, but won’t give away because I think they are all so pretty, and I am sure one day that I will wear them, like when I am all grown up! I still need an apron, my Bday came and went without one because all my clever friends thought that all my other clever friends were going to get me one, and I ended up without one.
So Readers, if you would like the opportunity to win myself, or yourself (and then invite me over to drool over it) one of these super sassy aprons, please connect to this site http://downandoutchic.blogspot.com/2010/02/giveaway-apron-by-sonshine-designs.html
and follow the instructions.
Good Luck!