I struggle with mixed feelings about this announcement.  The mere thought of such nutritional atrocities as Ho Hos, Sno Balls, and Wonder Bread may throw the grown-up me into a figurative swoon of disgust, but air-puffed Twinkies and mass-produced twin-packs of crème-filled chocolate cupcakes also occupy a cherished segment of my memories of childhood.  The fact that my mother doled out these treats as if they required rationing coupons simply added to their mystique. 

I’ll admit it took many years and a lot of false starts before I finally weaned myself off my thusly acquired  sugar cravings via six-plus servings of fruit spaced throughout the day.  But now that I’m here, I refuse to waste calories on any processed treat – no matter how much nostalgia attaches to it.  Even homemade treats don’t hold the allure they once did, so those stacks of cookies and candy that rise ceiling-high on our sideboard throughout December usually make it safely to their intended recipients without being molested by moi. 

Do I suffer from the notorious Holiday Weight-Gain Syndrome?  Nah, not me.  I’m too busy making and packing up goodies to eat them.  My personal danger zone lies in the valley of the post-holiday slump I seem destined to slide into every January 2nd, practically like clockwork.  Suddenly I feel crumpled by tiredness.  I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, I want to eat until I’m double-stuffed like an Oreo, and I start to feel trapped in my own living room.  Even with unusually mild winter weather ushering in this New Year, I feel vaguely derailed. 

And in a typical Minnesota gotcha’, our temperatures last week dropped from a sunny high of 55° on a Wednesday to a windchill of five two days later.  After years of dealing with such craziness, that’s not enough to produce Alice-like wonderment in me, but it is unnerving on a par with tuning in to Wheel of Fortune and seeing Vanna White wearing a pantsuit. 

And now today’s morning temp logs in at a minus-ten, with a ridiculous minus-30 as a “feels like” number.  Did I say trapped?  Cabin-bound?  Off-routine?  Unsettled and disoriented?  Cooped up in the house, I catch myself murmuring the phrase “my little tweetum pie-ums” to our snuggling chihuahua-papillon-mix pup Muñeca, until I am brought to my senses by a glimpse of JJ the cat, hovering in the corner trying to stick his paw down his throat. 

So, shake it off and look for some practical solutions, right?  “Warm up with a bowl of piping-hot, healthy soup…for a satisfying and slimming dinner,” suggests EatingWell.com.  “Our healthy soup recipes…all include chile. And studies show that capsaicin—a pungent compound in chiles—revs up the body’s metabolism and may boost fat burning,” they crow on.  Sounds like just what I need, but of course I’m compelled to come up with my own original formula for accomplishing those promised results. 

Inspired by a lovely soup cookbook I received as a Christmas gift and a quick skim-through of my computer recipe files, I come up with a Spicy Pinto Bean Soup that is guaranteed to clear your sinuses and get your motor purring.  While it simmers on the stove, I put together My Best Meatloaf Ever, and vow to never again eschew the simple pleasure of a humble, basic pan of this classic comfort food.  Staying on-theme,  I discover a recipe for Caramelized Pear Bread Pudding at the Eating Well web site, and modify it as you’ll find below, to make for a tummy-warming, spirit-lifting wrap-up to any midwinter soup supper.  I think I’m actually stoked enough to dig out the scarf and defy that dad-blasted thermometer.  But perhaps a second steaming bowl of capsaicin-charged bean soup first…

For the mood-boosting pinto bean soup, you’ll need: 

1 C pinto beans                       2 TB chicken soup base

5 C water                                28 oz can crushed tomatoes

1 green pepper, chopped         2-1/2 C chopped celery

4 sm garlic cloves, minced      1 TB honey balsamic vinegar

1 TB chili powder                   1 tsp cumin

1 tsp allspice                            1 tsp Tabasco sauce

1 bay leaf

I usually end up doing the quick-soak method to pre-prep the beans:  Place in six cups water, bring to a boil, and let bubble for three-four minutes; cover pan, remove from heat, and let sit for a few hours.  You can opt for an overnight soak, and save yourself some time the day of preparation. 

Drain and rinse soaked beans, add them back to a large kettle along with all remaining ingredients.  Bring soup to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer on low for two-four hours, or until beans are tender.  I am convinced that the quick-soak method requires more cooking time, but your experience may vary.  Most soups can sit at a simmer for hours, of course, so start early and enjoy the aroma. 

As for the perfected meatloaf, it’s based loosely on my mother-in-law’s approach, which has fulfilled many a birthday dinner request from her sons over the years.  I sincerely believe that this  uncomplicated version is every bit as good as more ambitious recipes I’ve tried in the past – including one memorable attempt to follow the America’s Test Kitchen instructions when hosting a 50s-themed dinner for friends a few years ago.  That approach required starting a day in advance, a 24-item ingredient list, grating and freezing cheese, sauteing vegetables in butter, a few hours of hands-on attention to minutiae, and topping the loaf with a sugary tomato glaze.  (Love you guys a ATK, but as I said, never again.) 

I should note that the Test Kitchen recipe does include my mother-in-law’s secret ingredient:  crushed soda crackers.  This in mind, and drawing on previous tweaks and twitches, I use what I have on hand and stumble upon this elemental but savory ticket back to Mom’s dining room table: 

2# 91% lean ground beef*      2 eggs

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce      ½ C V-8 juice

2 tsp onion powder                 10 whole wheat Ritz crackers 

Preheat oven to 350°.  Place the beef in a large bowl.  In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, Worcestershire, and V-8 juice, then use your hands to blend liquid mixture into ground beef until thoroughly distributed.  Place crackers in a small zip-lock bag and crush them to a very fine crumb using a rolling pin.  Add the onion powder to the bag and shake well.  Thoroughly blend dry ingredients into meat mixture then press into in a standard 9” x 5” loaf pan, patting to firm and smooth surface.  Bake for one hour.  I often serve this with steamed green beans and roasted chunks of Klondike Gold potatoes.  So. Very. Unpretentious. 

(*I’ve long used 93% lean beef, which seems like a difference that would make no difference, but I’m now convinced it does – at least in this application.) 

For the caramelized bread pudding, gather up:

 2-1/2 C evap skim milk          4 lge eggs

1/2 C sugar, divided                1 tsp vanilla extract                                                                                                 

1 TB brandy                         1 tsp lemon zest

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg            4 C cubed whole-grain raisin bread

2 TB golden raisins                 1 tsp softened butter

2 TB softened butter               3-4 ripe pears, cored   

1 tablespoon lemon juice         1/3 C chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350°.  In a saucepan over medium-low heat, heat milk, stirring frequently, for five minutes or until steam comes off surface. In a large bowl, whisk eggs until well blended, then gradually whisk in 1/4 cup of the sugar. Very slowly, whisk in the hot milk, then the vanilla, lemon zest, and nutmeg.  Fold in the raisin bread and the raisins, making sure the bread is covered with liquid; cover bowl and set aside to rest. 

Use the teaspoon of butter to grease the sides and bottom of an 11-3/4” x 7-1/2” x 1-3/4” baking dish.  Cut each pear into 8 slices, lengthwise, and toss with lemon juice.  

Melt the two tablespoons butter in a medium skillet over medium-low heat and sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup sugar over the butter. Lay pear slices in pan in an even layer, and allow the pears to begin to brown and the sauce slowly caramelize, for about ten minutes.  Watch the heat level carefully, and adjust as necessary to avoid over-browning.  Turn each slice and continue to cook another three minutes or until the sauce is golden brown. 

Transfer pears in a symmetrical arrangement to prepared baking dish and scrape any remaining syrup over them; sprinkle evenly with pecans.  Carefully spoon bread and custard mixture on top of pears and bake for 60-75 minutes, or until browned and set. Cool slightly on a wire rack before loosening sides with a knife run around the edges and inverting pudding onto a large platter.  

And right about here, the warm scents filling my kitchen and swelling my nostrils cause me to stop and further ponder the fate of Hostess, whose waxy-glazed cupcakes with their signature white frosting squiggle have been around in some form since 1919; the iconic, mold-resistant Twinkie, since 1930, when it was originally pumped with a banana-flavored filling.  Should our sloping economy and pitifully poor planning lead this historic company to the ignominious end predicted in the business news, that’s a truckload of classic Americana and generations of treasured childhood memories forever tainted. 

I think sentimentality is winning out over adult reasoning for me on this one.

We did see a smattering of tiny, hard crystals on two separate days leading up to the season’s climax, almost as if Nature were responding to our grumblings by tossing us a few crumbs – or flakes, as it were.  Just a teaser, it came nowhere close to covering the brown.  But in the end this minor letdown proved to be irrelevant.  As one friend wrote, “We had a wonderful Christmas at my oldest son’s house, opening presents, eating a dinner that I didn’t have to cook, and being adored by our grandchildren.  Can’t get much better than that!”  

In my own household, we started the day by joining our church family for a celebration of Christ’s humble entrance into the world, which set the tone for a relaxed approach to cooking Christmas dinner for the eight dear relatives who later gathered around our table to honor the classic tradition of a yuletide feast shared with loved ones.  We didn’t miss that silly white stuff at all, and everyone enjoyed a safer drive home that evening as a bonus. 

Such reminders to align things in proper perspective arise from time to time, whether the nudges consist of minor disappointments or major reprieves.  Case in point:  While toweling off after a shower on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, I noticed a small, tender protrusion in an area that suggested I might be developing a hernia.  I was a bit surprised, but not too alarmed.  While I am leaner and fitter today than in years past, I thought, my father did develop a hernia at about my age; this might be part of his legacy to me.  

Like any self-respecting info addict, I hopped onto the internet for a quick search of reputable medical sites to confirm my self-diagnosis.  And like any self-respecting exercise addict, I made a mental note to substitute extra power-walks for Tae-Bo and weight-lifting until I determined what temporary limitations this condition might impose on me. 

So much for healing thyself.  A Monday visit to the Clinic yielded the disconcerting pronouncement that this was not a hernia, but a swollen lymph node; no less disturbing, blood tests revealed a white blood count of 2.8, when the normal range is 4.5-11.0.  The doctor ordered a follow-up CBC and differential for further analysis by a specialist. 

“So what,” I asked the cool, white-cloaked professional in front of me, “might be the possible implications of those numbers?”  He qualified his response with references to my tendency to register low white blood counts and the fact that I had no history of infections, but the terms that planted themselves in my consciousness were “pathologist” and “bone marrow involvement.” 

 Clearing my throat as if to unclutter my thoughts, I probed, “But you see no red flags at this point?” to which said professional replied with a reassuring, “None.”  I left the doctor’s office with a nagging tingle of anxiety threatening to disrupt the digestion of my morning oatmeal and a firm resolve not to envision the worst possibilities. 

But the imagination has a will of its own, and this glitch had rattled my sense of well-being.  “What if?” the rebellious right hemisphere of my brain kept whispering, distracting me from the “Wait and have faith!” message being issued by the left side.  

What if…this turns out to be a condition that defines my lifespan in shortened years:  How would friends and family react?  How would I choose to spend my days?  Would I watch my words more carefully, treat others with a more kind and patient attitude?  Would I pursue the same goals?  Would I have the same interest in current events, or worry about the country’s future with the same intensity?  About mankind’s destiny with even greater urgency?  Would I pray differently? 

Would I give up on the idea of not leaving this world without contributing something significant to it, or would I feel a fervor-fueled push to fulfill that dream? 

Stepping into a different pair of shoes as I waited for the expert’s review of my test results left me more tuned into certain messages from the pulpit.  Casual references to no one knowing the number of their days on earth or examples of people of faith struggling with serious disease caught my attention in arresting and novel ways.  Suddenly those commercials for Cancer Treatment Centers of America pinpointed my focus as never before. 

I also caught myself up short while saying such ridiculous things as, “I’m starving,” when in fact I am simply very hungry and not actually suffering from through an ongoing famine.  And hearing someone casually toss out the phrase, “There’s nothing worse than…” I now stiffen and bristle, with a new appreciation for how insipid that remark is in its usual context of a bad haircut or a snarl of traffic.  

Meanwhile, I keep asking no one in particular, “But I feel so good; how could my body be fighting an infection potent enough to balloon out a lymph node?”  That’s when that pesky little gelatinous nodule, still lurking where I originally discovered it, kick-starts the insidious power of suggestion, inciting me to read calamity into an ordinary muscle ache or a predictable bout of post-holiday fatigue. 

Finally, the reassuring pathologist’s opinion turns up in my mail box:  “Given the presence of reactive-appearing lymphocytes, it would be reasonable to evaluate whether this neutropenia [low white blood count] is transient and associated with an infectious-type clinical scenario.  There are no features to suggest a dysplastic [pre-cancerous] process or primary bone marrow disorder.”  Thank you, Lord. 

I am now scheduled for a follow-up blood test to determine if this mini medical mystery of mine can be resolved cleanly, but however that pans out, my view of life has been radically altered.  My heart is now in sync with my head in accepting that no matter what I do to protect and preserve my health, there will always be variables that are beyond my control. 

My prayer for 2012 is that I can be humbled by that vulnerability-confirming truth without being hobbled by it; that I can exercise emotional maturity in choosing how I respond to things; that I can go beyond my ritual of offering up thanks each morning and truly live my life “as if” each day were the cherished gift that it is; and that I can enter into the new year supremely grateful for good news, and for second chances to make a difference in an imperfect world.  I pray these things for my readers, as well. 

And speaking of perspective, Snookie’s Bold New Hair Color is news worthy of a Yahoo feature story?  Puhleeeeeeeze.  I didn’t need a blip in my confident stride toward a long life and an opportunity-filled future to reject that particular brand of idiocy!

Things like people being too lazy to push their shopping carts into the cart corral or drivers speeding across parking lots – diagonally while dialing their cell phones; like oblivious patrons using gross profanity in a jam-packed Taco Bell or screeching little girls who issue a piercing scream every twelve seconds during their entire recess period – God forbid they should ever be in actual distress and require assistance; like the business owner who can’t wait to star in his own television commercials, heedless of the wincing pain his amateur performance causes viewers.

Well; it’s not that difficult to get grumpy, I guess.  But then I have always identified in certain respects with the nation’s Curmudgeon Laureate, the late Andy Rooney, and his desire to comment on those elements of existence that drove him mad with frustration, or even those that simply rankled a bit.  I respected his admission of liberal bias and chuckled over some of his verbal dissections of life’s more trivial irritations. 

But I also worried about him.  In his eighties, Andy Rooney publicly expressed a bitterness about death that, although understandable in light of his professed atheism, was troubling in someone of his age.  I saw in him a man who clung to life on earth as one who is certain that letting loose his grasp on the rope will plunge him in dark nothingness, and it made me sad.  Remembering my own early decades of angry disdain for religion, I ached for him, helplessly.  One of the not-so-small frustrations. 

As Thanksgiving 2011 approaches, I have a stronger sense of purpose than I ever thought possible, and can name at least as many earthly delights as I can examples of the deplorable.  This sense of well-being and confidence is rooted in the firm and fertile ground of faith; I have the blessed reassurance that, if I got hit by a truck tomorrow, I would not have been cheated out of anything, but rather ushered into a glorious new realm of perfected existence – according to God’s timing, if not my own.  Such a simple concept:  ungraspable by ego-driven human logic, yet knowable by the moved heart and essential to one’s peace and the ability to cope with the bad stuff. 

Today, I can virtually hear the holiday season clambering up my front steps, and what a wealth of joy-inspiring opportunities it tows along behind it.  With special occasions opening the door for giving Special Thanks, socializing, and sharing good food and good cheer, I get more than a little bit excited over the chance to create memorable experiences for my guests and family, and to share the same with fellow foodies. 

I’ve been inspired most recently by the discovery of a wonderful recipe for Squash and Apple Casserole adapted from Amy Traverso’s The Apple Lover’s Cookbook; a general introduction to the spicy, Tex-Mex dish called Carne Guisada, constructed from several basic formulas found online; and a lovely idea incorporating two of my favorite flavors, regardless of the season, Pumpkin Gingerbread, from the award-winning recipe blog, simplyrecipes.com.

I’ve lightened and tweaked and added and subtracted to and from the above, but kudos  to the clever cooks who sparked my interest.  Now, I think I’ll immerse myself in cooking and baking, and let somebody else mutter and grouse about the many challenges to cheerfulness that lay in wait “out there.”  At least until I emerge, groundhog like, from my kitchen cave in January, ready to step back into Any Rooney’s shadow.

This squash and apple gratin dish was meant to be layered and finished off under the broiler, but I like the idea of mixing the ingredients together and simply popping the crumb-topped casserole back into the oven to heat through.  I also substituted for the rosemary and heavy cream, and used less pepper and only one-quarter the amount of butter called for.  When I saw the richness that oozed out of the Gruyère cheese after baking, I was glad for that decision.  

2 TB evaporated milk                         3 TB chicken broth

1 med butternut squash                       4 oz. Gruyère cheese

1 tsp salt                                              ½ tsp black pepper

1 TB butter, divided                           1 med yellow onion   

1 TB finely minced parsley                 2 med Honeycrisp apples

1-1/4 C wheat panko crumbs              1 clove garlic

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

In a large bowl, whisk together the milk and broth.  Peel and seed squash and cut into 1/4” crescents enough to fill about two measuring cups.  Coarse-grate cheese.  Toss squash, cheese, salt, and pepper with milk mixture and pour into a 9×12” baking dish.  Cover with foil and bake at 350° for 45 minutes.  

Peel and cut onion into small dice.  Spray a medium skillet with cooking spray and set over medium-high heat; melt 1 tsp of butter in pan; add chopped onion.  Cook for eight-ten minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden brown.  Add parsley and apples and cook another eight-to-ten minutes, stirring occasionally.  

Blend apple mixture with baked squash mixture, right in the baking dish.  Mince garlic.  Blend 2 tsp butter with the panko crumbs, garlic, and nutmeg. (If using a blender, pulse until crumbs are coarse.)  Spread crumbs over casserole and return the pan to the oven for another 15-20 minutes. 

My husband and I love carne asada, the seasoned, grilled skirt steak our neighbors introduced us to a few summers ago, but I had never heard of carne guisada (basically, stewed beef) until I went hunting for something different to do with a package of nice, lean beef stew chunks.  We put away a full pound of meat between the two of us, so I’m betting you’ll have requests for seconds of this quick-to-assemble, slow-to-simmer, tummy-warming treat.   

2 lbs boneless beef chuck in 1-1/2” cubes       2 cups beef stock
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced                 3/4 tsp salt
1 onion, peeled and minced                            2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoons cumin                                           2 jalapeno peppers, roasted                
2 C canned, crushed tomatoes                        Mexican rice*

Spray a large (3-4 quart) stockpot lightly with cooking oil spray and place over medium high heat; add beef and saute until lightly browned on all sides.  Mince the peppers and add to the pot along with all remaining ingredients.  Stir well to combine.  Cover and simmer for 1-1/2 to 2 hours, or until the meat is tender and the liquid thickens to a rich sauce.  I served my stew over rice studded with a few corn kernels and black beans, with a side of sautéed beet greens.  Buena comida, indeed. 

The pumpkin gingerbread fits my definition of culinary genius, but of course I had to fiddle with the white flour/butter aspect of things, and further made it my own by actually adding in some indulgences, as in the last three ingredients listed.  I think you will like. 

1-1/2 C white wheat flour                               ½ tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda                                            2 tsp ground ginger

1-1/2 tsp cinnamon                                          ¼ tsp ground nutmeg

1 C pumpkin puree                                          ½ C canola oil

½ C dark brown sugar                                    ½ C molasses

2 beaten eggs                                                  3 TB water

½ C toasted coconut                                       ½ C mini chocolate chips

½ C chopped pecans 

Coat a 9x5x3” loaf pan with cooking oil spray and preheat oven to 350°.  Whisk together, in a medium-size bowl, the flour, salt, soda, and spices.  In a separate bowl, beat together the pumpkin, oil, sugar, molasses, eggs, and water until well mixed. 

Combine wet and dry ingredients, stirring only until blended; gently fold in coconut, chocolate chips, and pecans.  Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the center of the loaf tests done with a wooden toothpick.  Cool in pan for five minutes before loosening from pan sides with a knife run around the sides; invert onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

You could conceivably combine all of the above suggestions into one grand meal, but I’d plan on a good workout the next day to even things out.  After all, you wouldn’t want to start feeling sluggish and curmudgeonly.

 A few weeks ago – eons, in the stream of consciousness that is pop culture – a previously unknown 61-year-old Irish farmer and father of four named Alan Graham made international headlines by requesting that the film crew to whom he had given permission to use his acreage take their little soft-porn production elsewhere. 

An internet search on the topic turns up lots of sensational claims:  “Topless Rihanna outrages Irish farmer,” according to omg.online.  “This story is hilarious,” to the YouTube contributor who posted about it.  “A Democratic Unionist Party councilor found his Christian values [insert smirk] challenged by the scantily-clad R&B singer who was shooting her new video on his property.” 

Reuters news service shouts, “Global pop star Rihanna was thrown out of a corn field by an angry farmer in Northern Ireland after he spotted her posing for cameras in a skimpy top,” and  Yahoo declares, “Northern Irish farmer boots scantily clad Rihanna off land.”

But stripping down to one’s bikini bottom goes beyond most definitions of “scantily clad,” and a People.com quote from the “angry farmer” sounds immanently reasonable to me:  “I have an ethos, and I felt that [Rihanna’s state of undress] was inappropriate.  I requested them to stop, and they did.  She was most gracious and we shook hands and we parted on good enough terms.”

As reported by the BBC, the landowner added, “I wish them no ill will.  Perhaps they could acquaint themselves with a greater God.”   Wow.  Principled and articulate.  No wonder there was a clash of understandings.   

On September 27, 2011, the day this story buzzed through the airwaves like a cartoon boll weevil mowing down a cotton plant, the BBC quoted a young local journalist as saying that the farmer’s actions had made her homeland “a laughing stock” in the eyes of the world.  Her inverted concept of shame is saddening.  But then, so are the related Facebook observations. 

“Heck,” chirps the junior high locker room crowd.  “Just sit back and enjoy the view.”  And the Neanderthal echo follows, “She can take off as many pieces of clothing as she likes on my land.”  But there is a thread of contrarian sentiment, as in, “Fair play, farmer.  Too many people are scared to speak up and say what they believe.”  I find myself surprised by social network comments in support of the fellow baring his scruples in response to Rihanna’s baring hers. 

I recently purchased a paperback entitled Female Chauvinist Pigs:  Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, by Ariel Levy, which explores this general topic.  I’ll say up front that the book is not on my list of recommended reading, for a couple of reasons.  I only made it through the first 117 pages before deciding to just skim the last 100, but I could have used a Prozac and a hot, soapy shower after even that abbreviated tour of the sad universe of everyday smut the title characters inhabit. 

The Spring Break mentality evident on Girls Gone Wild videos, I learned, is only the tip of the iceberg for many of these females, some of whom who have grown up to the beat of indecent rap lyrics, paternity-testing as entertainment, and primetime airings of Victoria’s Secret models b-b-b-bouncing down the runway.  They know nothing other than the vulgar, bawdy culture into which they were born, so they have no societal standard of decency to compare it too – absent diligent parents and a close relationship with that greater God to whom Mr. Graham makes reference. 

And then there’s the fact that the author dives a bit too enthusiastically into the lewd and obscene language of her subject for my comfort.  Pass the Zest, please. 

But in wading through, a number of explanations for the dominant Facebook mind-set rise from the muck.  At the base of the New Amorality – which allows for Family Hour profanity, pole-dancing as a mainstream diversion, and pornography as an element of sex education – are some gritty misconceptions about the supposedly uncontainable urges thought to rule the males of our species. 

 This “men as barnyard animals” precept swirls together with militant feminism’s demand for “absolute reproductive freedom” to wreak havoc with the traditional values of chastity and self-respect.  It’s a quandary for Ms. Levy, a second-generation liberationist:  The trend seems degrading to women, but somehow, in her view, having all the privileges of a man translates to sexual promiscuity divorced from emotional connections. 

Boiled down, the struggle of modern-day suffragettes for “equality” seems to have been perverted by this errant underlying assumption about men and their presumed license to behave immorally.  Female Chauvinist Pigs introduces the reader to former “Take Back the Night” feminists who have become captivated by the “liberating environments” of strip clubs and the unfettered lifestyles of porn stars, and to female entertainment executives who unabashedly produce exploitative trampoline-jumping-bimbo segments on cable television.  

Thanks to mainstream acceptance of such celebrities as Paris Hilton (famous for her unpaid xxx-rated video performances), Pamela Anderson (well known for her ability to afford silicone enhancements), and the indefatigable Madonna (queen of vulgar opportunism), sex appeal has become a raw commodity.  Thus, performers like Rihanna become more purveyors of their sexuality than of their music.  This demeaning process extends to proprietors soliciting beyond-kissing, girl-on-girl performances by corner bar patrons and the participation of strippers in middle school career day events. 

According to Christy Hefner, CEO of and heir to the Playboy dynasty, today’s youth have a more “grown-up…comfortable and healthy attitude” toward physical intimacy than their ancestors did, and today’s women have a “take control attitude” in this arena.  What is grown-up about simulating – for a centerfold or in a hip-hop video – the gyrations of a carnally frustrated simian, I have no idea, but there is only one reason for women to expose or waggle their private parts in public places, and that would be to elicit illicit responses from random males.  

The “hip,” we are further informed,  insist that equating physical intimacy with affection is nothing more than a “culturally conditioned assumption.”  This assertion gets made in a values-vacuum, which complicates the discussion for the non-hip among us. 

The whole wobbly defense for gratuitous, ignominious displays of nudity appears to be deduced from the flawed premise that there are only two extremes to sexual expression:  a crippling discomfort over anything related to physical desire or total abandonment to any and all sensual urges, wherever they may be experienced and whatever the stimulus. 

Ms. Levy portrays her subjects as wanting to make a proclivity to view or participate in the pornographic “as essentially feminine as it is essentially masculine,” when the argument can be made that such a preoccupation with erotic fantasy is, in fact, dangerous, a threat to committed relationships – no matter your gender.     

Allowing the values of modesty and restraint to be redefined as “repressive,” and crass exhibitionism to be redefined as “healthy,” cheapens sexuality for everyone and confuses the heck out of people, yet it is currently “uncool” to question female self-debasement.  Maybe that’s why Howard Stern-types draw a large audience of 20-something women who are learning to equate “power” with the misuse of one’s physical gifts.  

And what is the reward for all of this permissiveness, freedom from inhibitions or a paralyzing fixation on the superficial?  There are consequences to such a libertarian view of personal freedoms, from pop stars exploiting their influence in order to lure adolescent fans into the realm of debauchery to the flawed conclusion that celibacy among teens has somehow become a ridiculous expectation.  In this context, what’s the big deal about a little intentional wardrobe malfunction once in a while?  

The feminists who once marched under the Robin Morgan banner, “Pornography is the Philosophy, Rape is the Act,” may find themselves in a bind now that their short-sighted support of the sexual revolution has taken us all to a spot where too many women are mistaking the ability to manipulate for the ability to be effective.  But thankfully the foundation of clear vision, cause-and-effect-reasoning, and godly values still holds firm for certain steadfast church bodies, some well-grounded parents, and at least one Northern Irish farmer we know of. 

Hip, hip, hooray for the holdouts.  May they continue to “speak up and say what they believe.”

“Autumn is a season followed immediately by…looking forward to spring.”

Doug Larson 

That pretty much captures my beloved stepmother’s view of the season at hand, portent that it is of “winter, with its bitin’, whinin’ wind” (Roy Bean); “winter, when every mile is two” (George Herbert).  I’m  fascinated by how strongly – and diversely – we respond to the inevitable pressing on of days that delivers us from one quarterly astronomical period to the next. 

I have two cherished long-time friends, one who detests the cold and could never be lured away from her temperate Florida existence, and the other, who would dearly miss the distinct seasonal phases built into her northern Illinois locale.  I myself may rant a bit in the midst of a particularly frigid winter’s darkest, shortest day, but I am also flooded with inspiration at the sight of a bronze-leafed tree or the pristine glimmer of newly deposited snow.  

“Delicious autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it,

and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”

George Eliot a.k.a. Mary Ann Evans 

Thus far autumn’s eve is being ushered in by cold, damp winds and darkened skies – this, of course, following a 90 degree day succeeded closely by the first frost warning – but we still hope to be treated to a spell of classically mild, clear, sunny-crisp days in the weeks ahead.  As the local ducks rehearse formations for their mission of seeking eternal summer somewhere other than cruelly fickle Minnesota, neighborhood squirrels are aflutter with home-bound activity, as if to say, “You can’t fool me with this ‘Indian summer-not’ routine.”   

While I won’t go so far as the pseudonymous George Eliot, whose fervor over the movement of the sun across the celestial equator betrays her gender in a single phrase, I do find joy in the favorable jogging weather and the chameleon-like display as plain green leaves take on rich hues of goldenrod and fire-red, virtually over night.  But then a certain French philosopher says it better than I: 

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf’s a flower.”

Albert Camus 

A fleeting flower, to be sure, but glorious nonetheless – and valued all the more for its transience.  I, for one, can’t wait for the spectacle to begin. 

Throughout it all – suspense; anticipation; spine-tingling exhibitions of God’s incredible artistry; the challenge of bearing up under the harsher conditions to follow – we must, of course, keep up our strength.  As you may have noticed, the stoking of the human furnace is a mission this writer does not take lightly, warm weather or cold.  And since it’s been a while, I have a collection of enticing dishes to share with you, held together by no particular thematic thread, but poised to chase the chill from the most blustery autumn day. 

For that purpose, may I suggest Baked Chicken with Black Beans and Rice served with a simple tossed greens salad, Homemade Whole Wheat Flat Bread, and Ginger Snap Ice Cream Sandwiches or perhaps a menu of Crock Pot Pulled Beef with Dr. Pepper Barbecue Sauce served on toasted Homemade Ciabatta Buns, and along side Cole Slaw Lite, Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries, a melon basket, and Brownie Hot Fudge Ice Cream Bombé.    

For the final note and the last quote, non-foodies may jump to the last two paragraphs.

 The BHG.com web site offers great ideas from the pros at Better Homes and Gardens magazine, and I go there often for new ideas.  Then I take off on my own, tailoring my finds to meet my personal requirements for higher protein, reduced fat and sugar dishes.   The following chicken with black beans derives from that process, with my substituting soy flour and skinless poultry, and deleting the original two tablespoons of oil, among other minor tweaks. 

1/4 cup soy flour                                 1 tsp chili powder

1/2 teaspoon salt                                 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2-1/2 pounds meaty chicken pieces    cooking oil spray

2 C black beans, soaked and cooked  14.5-oz can diced tomatoes

2 TB minced white onion                   1 cup V-8

1 C whole kernel corn                         2/3 cup long grain rice

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 2 cloves garlic, minced

2 TB minced green pepper                  ½ tsp cumin 

In a deep pie pan, whisk together the soy flour, chili powder, salt, and pepper. Dip skinless, boneless chicken thighs, legs, and breast meat (cut into 3-inch wide strips) into mixture to coat well, then brown in a large skillet, coated liberally with canola oil spray, over medium heat for five minutes per side. 

Remove chicken and set aside. Add beans, undrained tomatoes, V-8, corn, uncooked rice, cayenne pepper, garlic, green pepper, and cumin to the skillet. Bring to a boil. Transfer this mixture to a 13x9x2-inch baking dish (I used a slightly smaller one with good results).  Arrange chicken pieces on top of rice, cover pan with foil, and bake at 350° for about 50 minutes. Serves four generously at my table, perhaps six more reasonable appetites. 

I arrived at this recipe for whole wheat flat bread by combining the best of several I found online. 

2-1/2 C whole wheat flour                  1 tsp salt

1 TB olive oil                                      1 C water plus 2 TB

2 TB flax seeds 

Combine flour and salt; add oil, water, and flax seeds and combine well, using hands and adding more water if dough feels too dry.  Knead dough for ten minutes, cover with a dish towel, and let rest for at least 30 minutes. 

Divide dough into ten pieces and roll each piece into an 8” circle on a lightly floured surface.  Heat a dry skillet over medium-high heat and cook one flat bread at a time for one minute on each side, or until light brown and slightly puffed.  Serve with salt and pepper-seasoned ricotta cheese as a spread. 

The ginger snap cookies come directly from the web site of our own diminutive local celebrity, Marjorie Johnson.  BlueRibbonBaking.com offers a trove of award-winning recipes, and tells you where Marjorie will be popping in next for a guest appearance.  I made my snaps a little larger and baked them the minimum amount of time for a softer cookie, but you could make the original recipe and serve them alongside coconut flavored home churned or Samoa Cookie Ice Cream, which was my choice for filling my ginger cookie ice cream sandwiches. 

A few more recommended recipe sites provided the foundation for Dr. Pepper barbecue sauce on pulled crock pot beef, with long-time favorite simplyrecipes.com leading the list, closely followed by a more recent discovery, mylifeasadomesticdiva.com.  I have altered each recipe to suit my predilections – especially reducing the fat and sugar in the sauce – and both experiments yielded exquisitely satisfying results. 

1 C diced onion                      1 TB canola oil

1-1/2 C Diet Dr. Pepper          15 oz can diced tomatoes

½ C orange juice                     ¼ C cider vinegar

3 TB honey                             ½ tsp cayenne

salt to taste 

Sauté the onion in the oil in a heavy pot over medium-high heat for about five minutes or until golden, stirring frequently.  Add remaining ingredients, stir well, cover pot, and simmer for 30 minutes.  Using an immersion blender (or a regular blender, cautiously, in small batches), purée sauce, return it to the pan, and simmer, uncovered, for an additional two hours.  

5# chuck roast                                     4 tsp beef base 

4 TB dehydrated onion           1 C water

1 med white onion, diced       pepper to taste

2 TB hot pepper paste    OR   1 tsp Tabasco sauce

2 tsp garlic powder 

Trim meat of all visible fat, dissecting it if necessary, and place in a large crock pot.  (It’s so much easier to de-fat it now, and not let it stew in a greasy broth, than to try to find the fat deposits when it’s hot and covered with sauce.)  Mix beef base (bouillon paste), dehydrated onion, and water in a small bowl and pour over roast.  Add remaining ingredients to pot, stirring to combine.  Cover and cook on low for eight-to-ten hours.  

For the saucing, you have two options:  Add one cup of barbecue sauce to liquid in pot during last two hour of cooking or mix it in with the beef as you shred it with a large fork and transfer it to a serving bowl. 

There are some lovely ciabatta rolls available at most grocery store bakeries these days, or you can search out a recipe on the web.  I found a good one at breadalone.com.  I recommend them in this application because they don’t go soggy at the introduction of the moist, sauced shredded beef. 

The cole slaw is a version that I tinkered with for ages, and finally got perfected a few years ago. 

1 TB freshly grated onion       ¼ C buttermilk*

½ C salad dressing or mayo    1 TB white vinegar

12 drops liquid stevia              1 TB lemon juice

1/2 tsp salt                               pepper to taste

8-1/2 C packaged slaw  OR  8 C grated cabbage plus

½ C grated carrot                 

In a large bowl, blend together onion, buttermilk, mayonnaise (the light versions work just fine here), white vinegar, stevia, lemon juice, salt, and plenty of pepper for punch.  (The stevia is pretty crucial here; there is no issue with dissolving/not dissolving properly and it adds a touch of pure, light herbal sweetening but no empty calories or carbohydrates.) 

Pour dressing over cabbage, mix well to distribute, and refrigerate for several hours to allow flavors to blend.  Set out fifteen minutes or so before serving to allow flavors to develop. 

*If you lack buttermilk, use evaporated skim milk and stir the vinegar and lemon juice into it about ten minutes before mixing the dressing.  

Sweet potato fries are usually made by tossing the cut potato with oil, but I have found that a light spray of my favorite kitchen companion, alcohol-free canola oil cooking spray, works beautifully and produces a less soggy end result. 

3 large sweet potatoes             cooking oil spray

2 TB Cajun seasoning   OR    paprika/pumpkin pie spice 

Peel and slice potatoes into roughly equal size wedges.  Line a baking sheet with foil and spray liberally with cooking oil.  Spreads cut potatoes on oiled foil and mist the exposed surfaces with a bit more oil spray.  Sprinkle with your choice of spicy or savory seasonings and bake in a 375° oven for 30 minutes. 

For the brownie ice cream dessert, I hauled twelve previously baked chocolate chip brownies out of my freezer, thawed and crumbled them, doused them with a mixture of ¾ C hot fudge sauce and ¾ C crème de cacao, and let them macerate for an hour. 

Next, I softened a quart of vanilla bean (or you could use coffee or pumpkin) ice cream in the fridge for 60 minutes or so, and pressed it into a glass bowl with a thick layer of the fudgey mixture separating the two ice cream layers.  For details on freezing, unmolding, and serving, you can hop over to the posting titled “Christmas Passed” from 1/3/2011. 

With these offerings, chill of the first day of autumn be banished.  And no sooner do I say that than the contractor emails that we are promised a sunny, 70-ish day tomorrow, and that he’ll repair our leaky room addition roof during that warm window of opportunity.  (Ah, the sounds of autumn:  scampering squirrels and frantic hammering.)  

Maybe the coming temperature hike will reboot whatever climatic mechanisms are needed to twirl fall’s brilliant kaleidoscope into motion.  But then, we already know how this chapter will end, so how’s this for something tender and touching to temper the anti-climax.  

Autumn wins you best by this, its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.

Robert Browning

As she wheels the 90 gallon cart toward the gentle slope leading to the spot where the mower sits, something goes horribly, freakishly wrong.  Her hands resting on the hinged edge of the open bin, she nudges it forward.  Then, in a flash of lost control, the slant of the hill pulls everything off balance:  The bin is ripped out of her grasp as it falls flat on its back, splaying out the hinged lid and inserting it under her right, forward-marching foot, which pins the bin in place, bringing it to a sudden stop and hurtling her forward at whiplash speed.  Her head whacks with incredible force into the far rim of the open bin. 

The perfect storm of body weight, momentum, and gravity work together to impose lethal power on even that rounded plastic edge, as it peels a five inch swath of flesh away from the underlying skull. 

——-

So there I stood, or rather sprawled.  My reflexive instinct was to raise my hand to my head and measure the damage.  I wish I hadn’t.  To my inexperienced touch, the two ridges of flesh separated by my fall left a divot so deep that I was absolutely certain what I was feeling was a dent in the skull itself.  “Dear God, dear God, dear God,” I heard a voice ringing out from somewhere.  As it turns out, it was my own, but if ever I could aptly apply the overused expression “surreal” to personal experience, this would have been the moment.  Talk about spontaneous prayer. 

Crazy things flash though your head – no pun intended – when you are propelled by terror through the back door into your own kitchen, gushing the enormous amounts of blood that a scalp injury can produce.  “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I scolded myself aloud.  “Now I’ve done it,” I thought.  “A dent in my skull.  How are they gonna’ fix that?  And will I live to see them attempt the repair?”  Images of prominent people who’ve succumbed to head trauma whirled through my brain like a newsreel on hyper-speed as I simultaneously bemoaned having messed up the day’s itinerary:  tidy up the yard before toddling off to Taco Bell for our ritual summer-Sunday midday meal with my husband, whose name really is Jack, then run our weekly errands. 

I am not hysterical by nature.  This was probably as close to that state as I have ever been.  But I managed to stay collected enough to hold my hemorrhaging pate under cold running water from the kitchen tap, my poor husband not knowing whether to grab his car keys or the smelling salts.  His first sight of me had been as I stood in the middle of the tiled floor, Lady McBeth-like, my hands dripping with blood and screaming that I needed him, now.  By the time he got to my side, my heart was pounding so dramatically that I had trouble explaining what had happened.  Heck; it took me three opening paragraphs to try to put it into words here, twenty-four hours after-the-fact. 

And Jack Came Trodding Calmly After 

Once he has determined that this is not a pet-involved tragedy, level-headed spouse gathers cold wet compresses for the patient to press against the injury, and off we go in the little green Saturn, with its bad muffler announcing our urgency all the way to the emergency room entrance – a blessedly mere two-mile trip.  I have the shakes.  I look at my free hand and see no tremor, so the sensation must be entirely visceral.  “They’re going to have to shave my head,” I whine, finally convinced that I am not, in fact, going to die on the spot. 

Surely all this blood will get me to the front of the line, I tell myself as I trudge toward the swooshing automatic door, but the waiting room at Emergency is completely empty.  Aside from a testy Front Desk clerk who insists that my employed husband must actually be unemployed because, “That’s what the internet says,” everyone is wonderful.  The triage nurses are gentle, comforting, and calm.  They remove the two layers of blood-soaked washcloths and re-wrap my head with the high tech equivalent of vinegar and brown paper; reassure me that head-shaving will probably not occur, since often staples can be used to close the scalp; ask about prescription medications and if I am abused at home.  “Absolutely not,” I say; “Only by me,” I think. 

Ushered efficiently into an exam room, I haul my Jack in with me, and prepare for a lost afternoon.  After all, this is where the tedious wait usually begins in earnest.  But a nurse soon appears, asking, “How are you?”  “Dumb,” I respond.  She sweetly assures me that if anything could have been done to avoid the accident, I would have done it; that these things happen, and are not the fault of the victim.  I soak up her kind reassurance like the thirsty, quivering sponge I seem to be at the moment, but I question, in my heart, the veracity of her words.   “What if I had just…” 

“You’re accident-prone,” my mother used to tell me – probably not the noblest mantle of self-fulfilling prophecy to lay on the shoulders of one’s already self-conscious child.  She also used to tell my risk-taking brother, “You’ll split your head wide open some day.”  At the time, I pictured something like a cantaloupe, or even what supermarkets now call a “personal-size” watermelon, dropping from a height of three stories to crack wide open on the cement below.  My current situation was probably closer to what she had in mind with her warning. 

She also used to offer the classic, “In anticipation of an emergency, don’t get caught in shabby underwear,” advice.  For those of us who insist on wearing things until they fall off of our bodies in a ragged heap, that’s a daily spin of the roulette wheel.  I am hopeful it won’t be an issue today. 

The doctor arrives within fifteen minutes of the nurse’s visit, serene and intelligent and inspiring of confidence.  He answers our questions and speaks not down to us, but using his grown-up voice.  After flushing and scrubbing and cleaning and deadening, he explains that my skull is indeed exposed, and that he will first close the membrane covering the skull, which was also torn in my explosive head dive, then deal with the scalp.  Four stitches go in before the outer layer is addressed. 

Now he begins work on the scalp tissue itself.  “We sometimes use staples, but I’m using sutures today because I think you get a better cosmetic result,” he explains.  “At my age, I can use all the help I can get,” I respond.  As I slowly conclude that no one here fears the worst for me, my tensions fade – and my inherent flippancy clicks back into high gear. “Oh, and while you’re up there, could you give me a little lift at the jowl-line?”  Feeling the subsequent tug of needle and thread, I observe, “Now I know what Frankenstein must have felt like.” 

Another wash-up from the ER tech reveals the need for a few more stitches and another smart remark from the patient.  (“Oh, if my hairdresser could see me now…”)  Final tally:  eighteen stitches, four internal, fourteen external.  And after only two hours and ten minutes, we are released back into the glinting sunshine of this glorious summer day.  

On the way out, I am half-tempted to stop at the adjacent exam room and offer advice to the sainted mother of the eight-year-old girl we have been listening to for the full length of our stay.  Little One had stuck a bead in her ear, which took the family first to Urgent Care for a two-hour visit, where Missy had refused to allow anyone to get anywhere near her to probe the situation, and now to the emergency room, where the same scene was being repeated.  Thirty painless seconds was all the doctor needed, he promised, to remove the foreign object, but the diminutive drama queen was all agitated sobs and mad speculation about how she’d “rather die.”  It was hold still for a half a minute, or be put to sleep – which carries much greater risks, of course.  But she was inconsolable, and beyond reasoning with, wailing, “I don’t want to be put to sleep.” 

By the time we were sprung loose ourselves, I was ready to give the youngster a Hollywood-style “snap-out-of-it” slap and say, “Look, kiddo.  You have two choices.  You can calm down, hold still for half a minute, and we can all go home, or you can continue to drag this out, they’ll have to put an I.V. in your arm, and we’ll be here all night.  It’s entirely your choice.”  I guess I’m feeling more like myself. 

Home to change clothes and put a scarf over my head, and then off for a late lunch at Taco Bell, where we just happen to run into…my hairdresser, whom I never see outside of her shop, and who thinks I look “really cute” in my red bandana.  I find myself telling everyone I encounter the whole ghastly tale.   Talking about it pulls it out of the Twilight Zone back onto the plane of reality and saps some of the horror out of it.  At least for the storyteller.  

It is late afternoon.  I sit in my living room recliner and ask myself what I have learned today.  Something about planning, for sure.  I had a neatly scheduled day laid out, before I laid myself out. But perhaps I could learn to slow down the pace a bit, and focus my thoughts on the task at hand.  (I was mowing in the first place partly to save the few hundred dollars it costs to hire the neighbor’s son to do it all summer, and now all of that plus some gets eaten up by the emergency room co-pay and our 20% co-insurance responsibility.  Scratch one good intention.) 

I also check for trip hazards and for open cabinet doors at home, remind myself that I can never be grateful enough for wellness and wholeness, and conclude that no matter how much energy I put into staying fit and healthy, things sometimes happen to wrest you of your confident control over that area of life.  But most importantly, I see with crystal clarity the real “what ifs” of this minor catastrophe:  What if…I had impaled myself on one of those sharp branches that were in the waste bin before last week’s pickup?  I had come very close, four days ago, to deciding not to set it at curbside for so few items to be hauled away.  What if… I had detached a retina rather than skinning my head?  A trickier repair, for sure.  What if…I hadn’t had a devoted guardian angel watching over me?  What if… 

As I settle in to bed at 11:00 p.m., I still haven’t felt any real pain; a little tightness at the suture site, and a bit of throbbing when I bend over, but no actual pain.  Still, it is 2:30 a.m. before my pulse calms enough for me to lay my own personal-size melon gingerly on its left, less-damaged side and drift off.  

As I finish out my week costumed as Rosie the riveter – complete with denim Capri pants, Aunt Jemima-style kerchief, and a look of steely determination – I continue to find bumps and scratches here and there.  So far, no black eyes, as the attending physician predicted might happen, but an interesting pattern of subcutaneous fluid moving about the left side of my face, first closing my left eye in a puffy little pillow of swelling and then shifting lower down my cheek each passing morning. 

Meanwhile, back in Jack and Jill Land, my husband jokingly asks me if I want a bicycle helmet to wear for future mowing attempts.  I am seriously considering his suggestion.  That guardian angel of mine could probably use the peace of mind.

Not favored with innate control over such outbursts of honesty, I rationalize that the incessant proffering of informed sentiments is somehow a more exotic species of rhetoric than garden-variety, cliché-ridden blusterings about “kids today” or the chronically sorry state of politics.  The truth is that being reared in the midst of lively conversationalists may train a person to be uncomfortable with interpersonal silences.  In my case, there was also the need to compete with a vociferous older brother who made himself the center of everyone’s amused attentions with outrageous practical jokes and designed-for-shock-effect proclamations.

Whatever, I somehow ended up being That Person – the pedestrian who calls out a warning to speeders racing madly through residential areas; the viewer who scolds television “reporters” spewing out views instead of news; the disagreeable sort who argues out loud with every pharmaceutical commercial that suggests the answer to any ailment is to pop a pill, never mind the two-page list of dreadful side-effects; the pursed-lip priss, hissing and sputtering as the woman in front of me at Walgreens buys ice cream, potato chips, and energy drinks at inflated drugstore prices with her food stamp card so that she can free up her own cash to purchase multiple packs of cigarettes.

In short, the boor who simply must comment on every aspect of coarse society as it passes by, as in lamenting teenage Walmart shoppers who don’t have the sense not to wear profane tee-shirts at literal eye-level to the cart-sitting toddler they gave birth to at 15. (Wonder what that little one’s first words will be.)  It’s not as if enumerating media lies and social ills does anything in itself to resolve them, but when no one else is speaking up, my ego compels me to provide some kind of narrative.

There are advantages to being mouthy, of course, as when that trait combines with moral outrage to take on a customer service injustice like a dog tackles a chunk of rawhide.  I have a grateful niece who was pressured by a local fitness club rep to sign a contract she hadn’t the experience, at 18, to fully understand.  I took that fight, via telephone, all the way to a top executive in a plush New York office building.  She got her $388.00 back.

I also got my own $10,000.00 surgery covered by taking good notes, doing solid research, standing firm, and threatening to involve local government agencies when the insurer tried to shove me through the “preexisting conditions” loophole in my policy.

But hearing myself drone on day-to-day can be wearisome.  If it wears me out, what must its effect be on those around me?  I don’t want to become the tiresome great aunt whom everybody avoids at family gatherings, although that ship may have already left the harbor.

Like screaming “Idiot!” at every lame-brained driver one encounters, breaking the constant commenting habit remains a challenge, decades after a kindly principal lifted this tearful little blabbermouth onto her lap to sort out  the details of the Reverse-Swinging Stall Door Caper.

This brings me to a book which has sat in my collection for years – nurturing, osmosis-like, dreams of a writing career that got waylaid by eight-to-five job demands and family obligations.  What does Becoming a Writer, by Dorothea Brande, possibly have to do with being a bit too talkative?  Let me explain; I’ll try to keep it brief.

Written in 1934, the book focuses on the writer’s mind and heart, with the goal of training those traits of personality which are essential to professionalism.  The “magic” behind the art of writing, in other words, has little to do with mechanics and technique, and it is, the reader is reassured, teachable.  To that end Ms. Brande offers exercises – psychological tests, if you will – that hone one’s focus and put  essential senses on alert.

There are treasures here for the writer and non-writer alike:  chapter five, Harnessing the Unconscious; chapter 11, Learning to See Again.  And somewhere buried in this text I remember a directive for the reader to set aside a day when he or she initiates no conversation at all, and offers no observations, but is allowed only to respond to others’ questions or greetings.  This is the point where I always get stuck.

July 20, 2011.  I write at the top of my daily journal page, “No Opinion Day,” and set out infused with enthusiasm to conquer this uphill climb.  Just to be honest, I will lay down a hash mark on that day’s date for every time I slip in my resolve.  On my morning walk, I note half-eaten fast food garbage in the street, and grumble something about mindless and wasteful consumers.  Mark number one.

Okay.  So I’ll redouble my efforts.  Back at home, reading the morning’s Yahoo! Headlines, I am audibly enraged by a finger-pointing politico who contradicts his own analysis of just a few months ago in order to slip out from under a poor policy decision.  Mark number two.

Listening to the radio, I hear an ad by a nursing home owner claiming that, as you look across the table at your spouse, you should acknowledge that one of you will end up needing long-term residential care some day.  “Puppy poop!” I screech.  “The statistic is ten per cent of Americans, not fifty per cent, you fear-mongering twit!”  That probably counts as marks number three and four.  Maybe even five.

At this point, I get discouraged and stop recording my flubs.  Why is this so difficult?  Should I try hanging around with positive people on the day of this experiment?  Sunny optimists who see only the good around them may not care to hang around with me, I realize, but surely there is some way to curb my voracious appetite for vocalizing the obvious.  If, as one web site put it, control of the tongue is a mark of spiritual maturity, then I am still in elementary school.

Maybe the answer lies in style, not substance.  My mother often said, “It’s not what you say but how you say it.”  Doris Day managed, in countless appealing roles, to express righteous indignation adorably – without guile, without bile.  The guiless part comes to me naturally, but there does seem to be a bit of bile behind my relentless reiterations.

I am not giving up on this.  I plan to try another “No Opinion Day” again very soon.  But just as my dog seems incapable of restraining her crazed response to the approach of marauding mail carriers who dare approach our domicile, I feel sometimes as if this blurting habit is eerily outside of my control.  I used behavior modification to quit smoking years ago; perhaps the answer lies in a small (or large) piece of duct tape on my upper lip, or closing myself in a closet at a pre-scheduled time each day to snort and snuffle and rant my head off, out of the hearing of other living creatures.

I did manage a twenty-five minute walk with my husband a few weeks ago, in which I did not initiate any conversation.  He was lost in his own thoughts.  (How often must my incessant babbling jerk him from those reveries?)  The hovering quiet caressed me like a gentle whirlpool of serenity, and I found myself calmed by the peaceful background hum of cricket chatter.  It was quite heavenly.

Too soon, we were back home, assaulted by the blare of television and the glare of recent headlines.  If there were only less material out there to respond to in this insane, upside-down, “where are we going and why are we in this handbasket” world in which we live.  Oops.  I suppose that’s another slash mark on the calendar of my life.  Time to haul out the Pillow Talk DVD, schedule another silence-shrouded stroll, and give thanks to God for creating the lowly cricket.

Of course, huddling in a corner of the bedroom cradling my petrified pooch as she quakes and shivers through 90 minutes of taxpayer-sponsored pre-blast whines and climactic booms does nothing to help me warm to the notion of explosives as entertainment.  Even on an Independence Day hot enough for closed windows and cranked up air conditioning, my little Papillhuahua is one terrified Pupetta by the time the overhead threat subsides. 

And it has been hot here, at least by Midwest standards.  That wasn’t the case in late June of 2009, according to my journal entry from that date:  “Tuesday, extended-family dinner night on another cool, damp ‘summer’ evening.  A simmering pot of old-fashioned beef stew calls for some giant, hot-from-the-oven whole-wheat Parmesan basil biscuits, and the contrast of a cool, crisp bowl of homemade coleslaw on the side.  Egg custard with a dusting of nutmeg provides a creamy, comforting finish to this traditional fare, while it’s kept healthful by the use of reduced fat milk.  Mmmmm,” I wrote back then.  But with temperatures in the mid-90s, I have no plans to let anything bubble for long on my stove-top or to offer up anything “hot from the oven” this first week of July, 2011. 

On Sunday I decide I can put off mowing the lawn not one day longer, in spite of temps hovering just above 100.  I do pretty well with the heat, since I’m well acclimated by daily, year-round outdoor walks, but our challenging landscape produces consternation at every turn-around.  I huff and puff my way up  45° inclines; wrestle the stubborn, bulky Toro over fifty-year-old tree roots; get mired in huge dusty divots marking the sites of trees long since departed.  Then there are curved brick garden borders to navigate and overgrown pine tree branches to dodge, both tempering my patience for the test of maneuvering around several husband-designed aqueduct projects.  

Earlier this summer we made the responsible decision to save $80.00 a month by not employing our neighbor’s eldest son for this task.  It takes me at least an hour and a half to do awkwardly what he would accomplish in less than 60 minutes, and with apparent ease – and I don’t even mess around with trimming the edges.  By the time I reach the finish line, I’m ready to walk across the street and hand him a twenty anyway, in simple awed recognition of his superior abilities in the arena of lawn care. 

Fortunately, I had my reward waiting for me inside a modest little crock pot on the counter of my blessedly air-cooled kitchen.  Just web-search any list of ingredients along with the word “recipe,” I have found,  and you will invariably come up with the inspiration for turning whatever you happen to have in your freezer and vegetable drawer into a delightful, often novel repast.  I happened to have the makings for Slow Cooker Turkey Legs with Vegetables, and had exercised the uncharacteristic foresight to stash half a dozen White Cornmeal and Chopped Corn Muffins in the freezer.  To my further amazement, I also had on hand a box of Instant Brown Rice – perfect for a day when fifty-minute side dishes aren’t an appealing proposition, or even a practical possibility.  

Finish off the meal with a scoop of frozen vanilla yogurt topped with fresh blueberries and sliced peaches, and now I’m in the mood to go “Mmmmm” again. 

I found the idea for this crock pot turkey legs meal at recipetips.com, but customized it with my own usual slimming-down techniques:  jettison unnecessary fats and add extra vegetables and whole grains.  I admit to an initial wariness over the combination of carrots and mushrooms, but that trepidation was completely dispelled with the first bite.  To make my version, gather together: 

2 turkey legs                            salt and pepper

1 huge onion                           1# fresh mushrooms 

8 med carrots                         4 large celery stalks 

3-4 cloves garlic                         dried herbs

1/3 C Merlot                           1/3 C chicken broth 

Remove skin and any other visible yuck from turkey legs, salt and pepper them to taste and place in the bottom of a crock pot.  Coarse-chop onion; slice mushrooms, carrots, and celery to 1/2” thickness.  Mince garlic and add to crock pot along with vegetables and 1 tsp rosemary or tarragon.  Pour broth and wine over meat and vegetables, cover, and cook on high for three hours, low for six-to-eight hours, or, if you are scrambling to catch up as I usually am, on high for two hours followed by low for two-to-three hours.  Serve over brown rice. 

I had gotten too enthusiastic at the sight of the first fresh sweet corn of the season and cooked more than we could eat, so there was a sealed container of corn on the cob in my freezer waiting for me to retrieve it.  I thawed it in the microwave, cut the kernels from the cob, and chopped them with the dry blade of my Vitamix machine.  You could do the same with frozen corn in the bag from the grocery store, certainly, but these chopped corn muffins turned out to be worth the extra effort, either way.  Next time, I think I’ll cut the sugar back to ¼ C, but you know your audience, so use your best judgment on that: 

1 C flour                                  1 C white cornmeal

1/3 C sugar                             1 TB baking powder

1 tsp salt                                  1-1/2 C finely chopped corn

¼ C fat-free sour cream         2 eggs 

Whisk dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.  In a small bowl, beat eggs lightly and stir in corn and sour cream, then pour into bowl with dry ingredients and stir gently until well mixed.  Coat 12 muffin cups with cooking spray, spoon in batter, and cook at 400° for 20 minutes. 

These muffins have a great texture and nutty-sweetness to them from the addition of the chopped, cooked corn.  I’ll probably be taping this original recipe inside my kitchen cabinet door, displacing a former favorite tacked up there now.  In fact, bribe me with a couple of these hearty, golden treats – warmed and smeared with a dab of honey butter, served with a tall glass of iced tea – and I might just offer to mow your lawn for you.  

Happy July, everybody.  I’ll be back at you in a month or so.

A lot of catch phrases floating around out there are cliché and trite, and when examined, not that helpful.  So here I go, thinking too much perhaps about a few seemingly benign snippets, like an 80′s phrase which I originally liked for its reassuring cheekiness.  It’s attributed to one Robert Eliot and falls under the heading Rules for Living Life:  “Rule number one is, don’t sweat the small stuff.  Rule number two is, it’s all small stuff.” 

The heck, you say.  In my experience, life is full of monumentally huge stuff, stuff that needs to be confronted with adult courage, not sloughed off with flippancy.  Friends battling cancer; children growing up in an amoral society; parents dealing with the challenges of advanced age.  These things can be faced with grace and confidence and faith, but they hardly constitute “small stuff.”  And they call for action, not disregard. 

Then there is the simple, upbeat adage falsely attributed to Irish lore, which admonishes us to “Live well, love much, laugh often.” While encouraging on the surface, as a directive it fits the topic at hand.  At its origin in the late 1800s, such a lilting sentiment may have salved weary spirits coping with unmanageable epidemics and iffy food supplies.  But stenciled onto contemporary T-shirts, and fully embraced as a philosophy of life by some of the more shallow among us, it seems a bit less innocuous.  

What does living well mean, anyway?  Seeking material comforts?  Wringing all the pleasure out of life that you can?  Grabbing for the gusto and avoiding gritty responsibilities?  After all, we are told daily that we are so worth every imaginable indulgence. 

“Life’s a banquet, Auntie Mame says in the Broadway play, “and most poor suckers are starving to death.”  Not in the society I see.  We are becoming a nation of complacent seekers of security and pleasure, willingly exploited by ambitious Big Brother politicos.  With one-sixth of the population on food stamps and 20 per cent of able males between the ages of 24 and 50 not getting up and going to work every day, the free-lunch feast is doomed to run out of provisions sooner rather than later.  These are problems not addressable with a bumper-sticker. 

What about loving much?  Does that imply a thoughtless heaving of oneself into fawning affection toward select others, or worse yet, allowing passion to supplant unselfish concern?  Spiritual love is what is required of us – and that’s not a Hollywood-style emotive reaction to attractive, sympathetic types, but a duty to open our hearts to the less-lovable, and treat them with respect and kindness.  No celebrity taping a public service announcement from the living room of their fully-staffed multimillion-dollar penthouse can undo the sleazy messages the entertainment industry beats into young skulls 24/7, but perhaps a counter-campaign in the form of a grass-roots uprising might. 

And for heaven’s sake, do laugh as often as you can, don’t get me wrong; it’s good for the body and the mind and the spirit.  Human and animal antics provide much fodder for gaiety, so that therapeutic outlet is at our fingertips daily; we can accept with gratitude every opportunity to boost our immune systems, release tension, increase blood flow, and share joy with others.  But let’s not ever forget the sober side of life that requires our ability to muster a substantial response when necessary.  

I worry about people who make a habit of looking the other way.  The guy who consistently faces daunting topics with a shrug and a chuckle, as if he were merely a member of the audience rather than an actor; the woman who is too busy dealing with daily demands to inform herself as a voter and chooses to follow her heart and her gut instead; or the person who can’t be part of a serious discussion, but is compelled always to distract with a joke.  When people turn away from heavy issues (think political corruption, spiritual hunger, and teenage pregnancy) because they can be distressing, we lose important brain power in the struggle to make things better.  An unexamined culture becomes a cesspool, as we can see and smell all around us.  Clean-up requires arduous effort – no droll matter, to be sure. 

I remember a poster I proudly displayed on my bedroom wall when I was smack dab in the middle of floundering through my early adult years.  It was a quote from the German philosopher, Goethe:  “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”  I thought it was pure brilliance.  Of course I had no idea how to go about learning to trust myself, nor did Herr Goethe offer any clues to this mystery. 

Seems to me that a girl has to know herself first, and knowing ourselves, how can we ever place trust in the utterly fallible natures we have discovered within us?  What does it even mean to trust one’s self, when passing up a chocolate éclair is nearly impossible and the urge to pocket the extra twenty the cashier mistakenly counted out, tempting.  Rationalizing truly is a skill perfected by the homo sapien psyche.  

Today the quote strikes me more as pure bunk than pure brilliance.  Trust yourself?  How about, trust your Creator?  Humankind without the laws of God, inscribed on hearts and prescribed through Scripture, is enslaved to selfish impulses and moral confusion.  That’s why civilized societies impose a system of laws and punishments to deter bad behavior. 

I wonder if I thought taking in Goethe’s words every night before I fell asleep would somehow bring  direction and understanding, and point me aright.  In reality, that poster did more to make me stumble  than to plant my feet on the straight and narrow path.  Thanks a lot, Johann Wolfgang. 

Then there is good old Dr. Seuss.  Who knew what a radical he really was, as we read his delightfully quirky rhythmic stanzas to little ones over the years?  “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind,” the rhyme-master is quoted as saying.     

Oh, did I live by that one, decade after decade of giving vent to petty impulses of thought, word and deed.  But what if, at a given moment, “who we are” is not our best self, not the person God meant for us to be?  Or, what if “what we feel” is tainted by disturbing life experiences, the effects of which we need to cleanse ourselves of, not spew out onto innocent bystanders?  And most strikingly, how do we correct our own errors in thinking if anyone who counters us “doesn’t matter”?  Growing up, for many of us, means holding our tongues, not unleashing them. 

Lighten up, I can hear that short-term visitor to my past life saying.  I am still, after all these years, ultra inquisitive and questioning and analytical.  We balance each other out, I suppose, those of us who are too much bent in my direction and those who blithely skip through a privileged existence ignoring issues of substance (can you say, “Paris Hilton”), freeing themselves up to focus on the fluff – do these pink stilettos match my Gucci bag?  Maybe that makes we extremists tolerable to the masses who fall into the “happy medium” category. 

But I tell myself that continuing to process – and over-process – everything I see and hear is palliative to the occasional  mental constipation that comes with both aging and an over abundance of information input.  Would it have been easier to be blithe in a pre-media-blitz era, when news of every tragedy,  every travesty against humanity, didn’t reach our ears and eyes within minutes of its occurrence?  I suspect citizens of bygone days simply agonized over injustices closer to home. 

I also suspect that I’ll continue to over-think things and grind issues down to their pulp as long as my mind holds out, and as a result I may be less Susie Sunshine than Thelma Thunderstorm in some people’s eyes.  But if we leave the Big Stuff to someone else to resolve, you never know just who might end up doing our thinking for us.

I like William Henry Channing’s take on things, with its emphasis on the substantial over the trivial.  Maybe I should post this one on my bedroom wall: 

To live content with small means;
To seek elegance rather than luxury,
To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich;
To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;
To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with an open heart;
To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.
In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through the commonplace.
This to be my symphony

I’ve always blamed my dreary-day dips in mood on dark skies fooling my body into cranking out the sleep hormone associated with nightfall, and of course certain aches and pains can  accompany extremes in humidity.  Now Columnist Rich Maloof tells us that a 2008 study suggests only minimal effects from either good or bad weather states.  As added insult, Maloof offers the no-nonsense conclusion, “Most people are no more emotionally powerless against the weather than they are unable to put on a hat.”  He also quotes psychology professor Dr. Ani Kalayjian:  “We encourage people to take charge of their feelings.” 

Sounds reasonable.  But if storm-induced low barometric pressure reduces the amount of oxygen in the air, and dark skies trick my pineal gland into midday serotonin production, I get unnaturally tired.  When I get unnaturally tired, I get crabby.  I think my analysis is every bit as logical. 

Still, experience has taught me that, yes, alright; I can “take charge of those feelings” and “empower myself” to surmount them. So on any given gloomy day, I might plunge into something I’ll love being able to cross off my to-do list.  If I just can’t face organizing a closet or cleaning the oven or tidying the garage, I’ll do something both productive and uplifting.  For me that’s baking cookies for my neighbors or inviting a friend to dinner, because it’s the waste of time associated with feeling lethargic that really bugs me.  

One project I’ve had tucked into the bulletin-board frame of my mind, where I keep mental sticky-note reminders, is writing up some of my kitchen concoctions from April and May.  With June staring me in the face, I’d better hop to it and dispense with a half-dozen tasty dishes that fit right into a spring theme.  First, several vegetable recipe adaptations -  a Three-Pea Medley, a Brussels Sprouts With Dates and Walnuts dish, and a Mango-Glazed Carrots side, all of which sent me into spasms of delight.  But then I do love my vegetables. 

You might be more excited about Raised Currant Buns, whole wheat biscuits with some nice additions, or a Four Cheese Scalloped Potato casserole, slimmed down for everyday consumption.  For the mildly adventurous, ever try a Ground Chicken Lettuce Wrap?  Talk about a carbohydrate-watchers best friend – and if you don’t, you know I certainly will.  (Non-foodies:  you may skip to the last two paragraphs.  Mother Nature I am not, but I can grant you permission for that much.) 

All three of the vegetable sides were inspired by a lovely Easter menu suggested on the Food Network’s web site.  I’ll admit that the pea combo sounded a bit contrived to me at first, but having consumed my tweaked version of the original product, I am now a full-fledged fan: 

2 C shelled English peas*                   2 C sugar snap peas

2 C snow peas                                     1 TB sunflower oil

½ C fine-chopped red onion               ¼ C toasted sunflower seeds 

Set a large pot of salted water to boiling over high heat.  Set up a large bowl full of ice water close to your working area.  Add English peas to the boiling water and cook for one minute; add the sugar snap peas trimmed and cut in half, and cook for another minute; add the snow peas, trimmed and cut in half, and cook an additional two minutes.  Drain the peas and plunge them into the ice water to stop the cooking process. 

Add oil to a large non-stick skillet and heat over medium high heat.  Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently, for 3-4 minutes.  Add well-drained peas along with salt to taste and heat, stirring frequently, for four-five minutes.  Toss with sunflower seeds just before serving. 

*You can substitute thawed frozen peas.  Just add them along with the blanched sugar snap and snow peas during the final re-warming step.  

For the Brussels sprouts: 

2 # fresh Brussels sprouts                   1 medium shallot, sliced thin

1 TB walnut or olive oil                      1/3-1/2 C chopped walnuts

1/3-1/2 C chopped pitted dates          pinch of cayenne (optional)

salt to taste 

Following the instructions for the three-pea dish, trim sprouts, remove outer, brownish leaves, and cut in two, stem to stern.   Parboil them in salted boiling water for three minutes, then surprise them with an ice-cold bath.  Heat the oil in a large pan, then add the shallots and toss them until they soften and glimmer a bit – about two-to-three minutes.  Drain the sprouts very well then add them to the pan, stirring constantly, and heat them through for another four-to-five minutes.  Season as desired and toss in nuts and dates. 

This combination set my taste buds atwitter, and I couldn’t stop, but these quantities should serve six-eight normal diners generously. 

The carrots went alongside ham for a recent company dinner: 

1 C mango puree                                 1/3 C pineapple juice  

1-1/2 tsp honey                          ½ tsp ground coriander  

2 whole cloves                         2 # thin carrots, peeled 

Start a largish ham in a preheated oven according to package guidelines.  Mix first five ingredients in a heavy saucepan over medium heat and cook for 30-40 minutes to thicken and reduce volume, stirring occasionally.  Spoon some sauce over ham after meat has roasted for an hour or so.  Cut peeled carrots in half, on the diagonal, and add to bottom of roasting pan for the last hour of roasting time.  Pour remaining glaze over meat and carrots and baste every fifteen minutes or so until carrots are cooked through. 

The country-style whole wheat currant buns are revised from an old recipe card collection called My Great Recipes, with a smidge of homemade honey butter suggested to make them hot-from-the-oven irresistible: 

1 pkg active dry yeast                         1 C warm milk – 110°

½ C warm water                                 ½ tsp salt

2 TB sugar                                           1 C currants

¼ C melted butter                               ½ C wheat germ

3 C whole wheat flour                        2-to-2-1/2 C white flour 

Mix together in a large bowl the yeast, milk, and water; stir to dissolve.  Add salt, sugar, and raisins, and butter; stir to combine.  Add wheat germ and whole wheat flour gradually, stirring to form a soft dough.  Stir in all-purpose white flour and beat until well combined.  

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it to a smooth and elastic state.  Place kneaded dough into a well oiled bowl, turn to oil all surfaces, cover, and let rise in a warm spot for about 75 minutes, or until doubled in volume.  Turn dough out onto floured surface, punch it down, divide it in half, and then divide each half into 12 pieces.  Place roughly-shaped buns onto greased cookie sheets and allow to rise for an additional 30 minutes. Bake at 375° for approximately 20 minutes, or until lightly browned. 

Serve warm along with: 

½ C softened butter                            ¼ C good, local honey

¼ tsp nutmeg                                      ¼ tsp almond extract 

Beat together until well blended. 

For my version of simple scalloped potatoes, I combined two recipes and then tweaked that combination even further: 

cooking oil spray                                 4# russet potatoes, sliced thin

salt and pepper                                     ½ C evaporated skim milk  

½ C low fat half-and-half                  ½ C chicken broth 

¼ tsp grated nutmeg                          2 cloves garlic, minced

¾ C grated Romano cheese             ¾ C grated white cheddar

¾ C grated Gouda cheese                 ¼ C Parmesan, grated fine 

Set a very large non-stick frying pan sprayed lightly with cooking oil over medium high heat.  Add half of the potato slices, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and arrange remaining potato slices on top, adding more salt and pepper to taste.  Combine the milk, half-and-half, broth, nutmeg, and garlic and our mixture evenly over potatoes.  Cover pan and simmer for six minutes. 

Spray a large, shallow baking dish with cooking spray and carefully transfer half of the potatoes and liquid to the prepared dish.  Combine grated Romano, cheddar, and Gouda cheeses and sprinkle half of this mixture over the first layer of potatoes.  Top with remaining potatoes and cooking liquid,  remaining three-cheese combo, and finally, sprinkle the top with the fine-grated Parmesan.  Bake at 425° for thirty minutes, or until golden and bubbly, then let the conglomeration rest and settle in for five minutes before serving. 

And from a recent Saturday lunch experiment, I highly recommend ground chicken lettuce wraps, but then so does my husband, so my bias has some (semi-) objective support: 

½ C packed sliced scallions                ¾ tsp garlic powder

1-1/4# lean ground chicken                 4 tsp soy sauce

1 TB hoisin sauce                                2 TB sesame seeds

1 C slivered water chestnuts               large lettuce leaves 

Spray a large non-stick skillet with cooking spray (or lightly coat with sesame oil) and toss in the sliced scallion (green onion).  Stir fry for just a minute or so and then add the ground chicken.  Sprinkle chicken with garlic powder and cook over medium-high heat for approximately five minutes, stirring frequently. 

Stir in the soy and hoisin sauces, sesame seeds, and water chestnuts.  Cook another three-to-four minutes, stirring often, then spoon into well-washed, well-dried lettuce leaves - I like hearts of romaine for this – and roll each leaf tightly to form a hand-holdable tidy bundle. 

*****

Today, I walked a brisk and cheering three miles in the drizzle; mini-pup refused.  Now I am chipper and she is depressed, unless I’m reading too much into her being draped, hang-dog style, over the back of the couch.  

Anyway, as I was sloshing along I realized that, if I stop to think about it, that is stop to focus on signs of fatigue, I often feel a bit sluggish during even the sunniest of days.  It seems to be my constitutional makeup, one of the reasons I have to put some effort into staying energized with activity and diet.  Solution:  Don’t stop to think about it; no scientific study required.  How’s that for taking charge?