In the Day

My world has been rocked so severely this summer that I badly want the emotional space to absorb and deal with crises in other people's lives. Things are going on in my extended family's lives that need a certain amount of what's left of my heart, and my heart needs to rebuild by being there for them and by being here for myself.

To whit, this is Day Six of a clean abstinence that pretty much drifted down on me in a meeting. Something about having acquaintances console me and stroke my arms carried that ineffable grace we all need to take whatever the first step toward healing is.

My crisis upon arriving back from Arizona is abating. I know my manuscript will be accepted; Henry has departed for the suburbs and is beyond my clutching grief; my prescription company has finally gotten back in touch with me; there is a modest amount of income coming in from dogs and from coaching writers, a gig I find I really like. I'm a tough and honest judge of writing, but I'm good at it.

My loose ends seem still to cluster around the book, however. When will the legal department vett it so that the second payment can be made? Will the woman who participated in the book sign the necessary waivers? How in the world can we make a January pub date when we're already so behind? Should we move it to June or the following year?

My mother is such a moving target of good, lucid, humorous spells, followed by bratty breakdowns, followed by gasping, gray-faced immobility and incoherence, that I can't say much more except that my parents will be moving back to Montana in September. This, of course, has consequences for me. I'm not looking forward to regular visits to the ghosts of my home town. It's twice the expense of flying to Phoenix. There is one Very Very Important Person in Arizona who I'll know longer see every so often. And all of this has been coming to a head in the last two weeks, with about three or four weeks to go -- a time period in which I must make some money and will be away for eight days in Czech-fucking-Republic. I just accepted a boarding job that will end with a last walk just before I go home and pick up my bags and leave for JFK. Last night, in sorting out the dates, it all became real to me.

So add a dose of extremely useless guilt that I'm not on the spot to help with this move.

I have serene moments and once-a-day or so meltdowns. Today I will write or call a good friend of my parents' who is one of the heads of the "Alternative Catholic Community" in Missoula to ask him to perform Last Rites for Mom. My mom's involvement in forming the ACC is how she got ex-communicated. I call it "Our Lady of Off-Off Broadway". Suddenly I find their inclusiveness ("Our Father and Mother...") not quite as hilarious. I need them. I will be easier in my heart for the Rites and I think Mom will too.

But today is today: surprise! I've got dogs to walk and board out. I have Zoloft to pick up at the drug store. I have finances to take a serious look at. Writing this is heroic but then each action in the day feels heroic -- brush my teeth? Impossible. Do it anyway. OK, if I can do that, maybe I can take my meds. Maybe I can wash the breakfast dishes. Maybe I can pick up a few things at the store. Car on the Hill is so far and beyond those mundane things that I feel like a weight liftress.

I doubt I'll dive into my novel today but I might get to Psychology Today. What I'd really like is a mani/pedicure -- my fingernails are so long they account for half my typos.

In this day, I will try to be fair by my dogs. I will try to keep my needs up to date. I've been eating deliciously. I've begun toasting old fashioned oats in a skillet -- high heat for about five minutes, stirring often -- then adding them to yogurt with vanilla and blueberries. Summer tomatoes are in and deserve better than my usual dressing, so it's been olive oil, salt, lemon juice, cayenne (helps digestion) and black pepper (helps depression). I can really taste the greens and the tomatoes this way. Dinner has been yogurt, late. Comfort food at the dangerous part of the day.

I think I'll look into some electronics I'm interested in today. I think I will gave a giddy little hop for meeting each impossible challenge -- dog gigs, grocery shopping, emails, looking after my body. I was smart enough to start the morning off with half a klonopin: my brain is scrambled eggs and I've been forgetting keys and dog things and words because I'm already onto the next hurdle. Klonopin settles my brain down enough to -- well, write this before I go walk Boomer. Wear life, as an acquaintance says, like a loose sweater.

I'm feeling everything at once today. Fear, grief, shame, loss. Tranquility, acceptance, hope, relief. Anticipation, eagerness, pride, gratitude, love. My hatred is minimal and I have little curiosity -- don't really want to read or write. But then, when one is in the midst of all of that going active on at once, missing one defect and one asset ain't all that bad.

Let It Go! + Curry Recipe

It's no wonder I struggle with weight: I can't let ANYTHING go.

Yesterday morning I took Daisy over to Cadman Plaza, one of the nice things about Brooklyn Heights. It stretches on forever & has an astroturf playing field, a running path, lanes of lime trees, nice plantings in warmer weather. I took up a position in a lane of trees -- off the turf, as required, off the running path, as is polite. She began to bark wildly. A father with two young kids, a toddler + razor bike, a post-toddler riding his bike on the astro, was standing some twenty feet away. The boy hopped off his bike & started to bawl at Daisy's barking & running. A ricochet off a tree sent her scuttling under a bench to retrieve it, at which the boy began to scream.

"Would you leash your dog, please?" the father said. "This isn't a dog run."

"Actually, it is a dog run," I told him. "From 9 - 9, dogs are allowed off leash."

"Where does it say THAT???" he demanded.

"Just read the signs."

It was over that quickly & if he looked around that moment he would have seen twenty dogs flittering around the park. I did not sayy, "Just read the signs that include a rule against bikes on the astroturf," for which I'm both mildly sorry & mildly proud of myself. I didn't swear or raise my voice. But I wanted to stuff my correctness down his throat. I wanted to tell everyone I saw what had happened so they could tell me how right I was & how bad he was. I wanted him to apologize.

If you want to hate people, walk a dog.

Or live in a thin-walled studio apartment next to the Loathsomes, neighbors who scream about FDR while playing Trivial Pursuit at 11 p.m. on a Friday until I got so frustrated I yelled out, "Hold it down." My bell rang, Daisy went into a barking frenzy, I stumbled up out of bed & my neighbor was at the door, which Daisy slipped through & tried to go join their party. "Are we being too loud?" "Yeah." "Sorry." "Sounds like Trivial Pursuit?" "Yeah," he laughed.

I got what I wanted -- a reasonable decibel level -- but did he HAVE to rile Daisy up, haul me out of bed in my flannel nightgown, & thus waken me further & make a nuisance out of my previously peacefully sleeping dog?

The point here is that I am still seething over this shit. I want to let it go. So what? I mean, I have writing to do here, a recipe to share, a desk to dismantle, laundry to do.

Early abstinence, my friends, is a time of housekeeping. I struggle to get as much of the food as I need during the week into the house & prepared so that tiredness doesn't send me to the deli or dialing for expensive take-out, & it's a nervy, prickly time when lovely character defects show up.

This is why I do not play competitive games or take IQ quizes on Facebook. I want to be right, & that means someone else must be wrong.

Ick.

*

OK. Moosewood's Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant Eggplant, Red Pepper & Spinach Curry, adopted for my food plan (low on oil) & the crock pot.

Place 1 medium eggplant, cut into 1" cubes into a colander. Sprinkle with salt & give it a swish every once in a while in the next 20 - 30 minutes to sweat out the water.

Into the crockpot goes:

1 large Spanish onion, chopped
2 red bells peppers, cut into 1" cubes
1 T grated peeled ginger root (or powdered ginger, if lazy or budgeting weirdly)
1 T ground cumin seeds
2 t ground coriander seeds
1/2 t turmeric
1/8 t cayenne
1/8 t cinnamon
1 T s/f peach jam or applesauce

Rinse the eggplant and shake the water off. Add to crock & cook on low for 6 - 12 hours.

A half-hour to an hour before you're going to eat, add:

10 oz. spinach
1 T lemon juice.

You really want to wilt the spinach more than you want to cook it. When I made a second batch, I added about four carrots I decided I didn't want to live here any more. You always take liberties.

The spices have the following properties:

Ginger: helps digest high fat foods & breaks down protein, making it good for digestion which is probably why it is helpful in controlling nausea, morning & motion sickness. It is also thought to be good against arthritis.

Cumin: good for dementia-fighting power.

Coriander: along with cinnamon, it help regulate blood sugar. It also fights headaches & depression.

Cinnamon: see coriander above for its obesity & diabetic-fighting pwers. It is dense in manganese, iron, calcium, Vitamins A & C, & fiber, which protects the heart and colon. The calcium and fiber bind to bile salts, which neutralizes the salts' damage to the colon. When the body has to replace the bile salts, it has to break down cholesterol. It is a strong antiseptic with microbial and clotting fighting powers. It demonstratively improves cognitive functioning and motor speed and is an immune booster.

Turmeric: a immune booster and anti-inflammatory, it is cancer fighter and also reduces the chance of gallstones.

Cayenne: a source of Vitamin A & a strong appetite suppressant/satiety-booster. It's also a depression-fighter, stimulates circulation & the digestive process. It not only makes you feel full faster but helps burn calories.

Cardamom: good for heartburn & stomach problems, which may be one reason why curries are survivable.

So the moral of this post is -- you tell me.

Curiosity Seasoned the Cat

Not to worry, Zesty: I answered that response because I think the idea of dissolving anger in "diet and exercise" is one of the great unexamined cliches in the Diet Lexicon.

But I'm moving on, and quickly if I can help it for once. My body aches from walking dogs and I'm longing for bed. This will be a first installment on a topic I'll come back to.

Today I have 11 days of an abstinence I want more than I've wanted in as long as I can remember. My abstinence takes a lot of work. One of them is having the right food in the house.

We're going through one of what I hope are our last remaining cold spells so Sunday I decided to get the 3,000 vegetables used in making a warming, sustaining vegetable chili that I got from Allrecipes. It's not for the faint of heart -- but then again, I'm learning, perhaps it is especially for the faint of heart.

Here's the recipe:

Slow Cooker Vegetable Chili

1 (28-oz.) can whole peeled tomatoes with juice
1 (15-oz.) can garbanzo beans, drained
2 zucchini, thinly sliced
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
2 stalks celery, sliced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/3 cup chili powder
1 (4-oz. can) chopped green peppers
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon oregano
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt

Throw it all in the crockpot and cook on low 6 - 8 hours or on high for 3 - 4 hours.

I happen to love spicy food and I happen to love cumin, which I increased. I tried to make a double batch but my crock isn't big enough. The next time I have it for dinner, I'll heat up another can of tomatoes and garbanzo beans with more seasoning and add it to the plentiful vegetables.

It's as perfect a dish as I can imagine for my food plan. I simply add 4 ounces of protein and then do the research for this blog.

I don't count calories. I weigh and measure foods that exclude sugar and flour. It all comes out to somewhere around 1200 calories a day -- I think. Sometimes I don't have a carbohydrate at night and sometimes, if I've told my sponsor, I have a protein/fruit snack. At 52, I find that I'm as hungry as ever but not as often and not for as much.

This is startling insight into my body. My body is Mumbai, a tragic place w-a-y over t-h-e-r-e.

This weekend Daisy and I spent a night with Molly, whose owners left a Bon Appetite out. It contained a short article extolling the virtues of spices and herbs. I decided to do some research.

The oregano (flowering to the left) in my chili is exploding with antioxidents, a word I had to look up and then keep looking up the vocabulary of the definition. What it comes down to is rust. Oxidation is the loss of oxygen that results in rust. It's good to keep our oxygen atoms in our body in order not to end up singing "If I Only Had a Heart" (toot-toot).

OK. What else about oregano? It has very few calories. It is high in calcium and iron. It supports the immune system against certain diseases and is a fungus fighter. It has antimicrobial activity against pathogens in food -- it's a cancer fighter. Most surprisingly, a tablespoon of the stuff has the same thermogenic power as two cups of broccoli, which means it's so nutrient-dense that it boosts metabolism and has recently been found to affect the satiety center so that we feel fuller faster.

Garlic helps lower blood fats and cholesterol. It also has antiviral and antibacterial powers that boost our ability to fight flus and colds. It's good for your heart and it helps ward off strokes.

Cumin (ah, cumin!) fights dementia. Chili powder (along with red pepper flakes, cayenne and paprika) contains vitamin A. It enhances digestion and circulation and there is increasing evidence that it, too, enhances metabolism and fat-burning and increases satiety. A Dutch study found that half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes as part of an appetizer reduced calorie intake by 10 - 16%.

The seven Wonder Spices, according to SHEKNOWS, are oregano, ginger, dried red peppers, rosemary, thyme and turmeric. The seventh is cinnamon, which just oozes good stuff. It contains calcium, iron and vitamin C and is anti-microbial and anti-clotting. A Swedish trial with Type-2 diabetes patients found that two teaspoons of cinnamon a day for six weeks significantly reduced blood-glucose. It also reduces cholesterol and triglycerides.

All of these herbs and spices fight inflammation, which is often the first step toward heart disease, Alzheimer's and allergies.

So when I walked in the door with Daisy this evening, I tossed some cinnamon in my coffee grounds for tomorrow's wake-up.

I wonder what I'll make this weekend?