Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire

I'm having trouble writing lately, or rather I'm writing things and not publishing them. I suspect many of my blogging friends are in the same boat, and that boat is full of elephants, and do we talk about those? Do we distract ourselves? What is the Right Thing?

I wrote about suicide a couple of weeks ago, in part to let people know I'm okay since I've come out of the suicidal ideation closet (I'M OKAY!), but what the whole thing boiled down to was "love is an active verb, not a commodity to be given, received, earned or deserved" and "what if all that REALLY matters in the end, when your heart is weighed against a feather or Saint Peter consults his heavenly Moleskine or whatever it is that happens, is how you treated other people?" *

It pretty much sounded like your stoned friend yammering at you somewhere between the bong and the biscuits, and so forever shall it remain unpublished, alas.

I also tried writing about one of those other elephants but THAT kept turning into a story about how my privileged, white, US-citizen daughter H was (and still is) completely and utterly fearless and how every time we took her to the emergency room, which was A LOT OF TIMES, I was terrified Child Protective Services would be called in to take her away from us, and how my very first thought when I woke up on the morning of her 18th birthday was, "Now no one can take her." And about the unbelievable relief I felt over that. Which had nothing at all to do with the horror of what is happening in this country and my state right now and, in fact, bordered on appropriation. So yeah.

Since last we spoke, C isn't doing so great, or rather he IS doing REALLY great but only because he currently has zero demands placed on him, WHICH ISN'T GREAT. I've stepped back my involvement with the food pantry to deal with this situation, also not great, and my dealing with it isn't going great because life keeps getting in the way, and I'm spending a lot of time feeling like I'm failing all the people I most definitely do not want to fail and then beating myself up over the fact that I'm beating myself up over that. This is what it's like to live in my brain. Now you know how surprised and delighted I was to make it to 50! (Fifty-one now!)

H moved out of our house again and I think/hope she's doing okay but I don't get to see or talk to her nearly as much as I would like (I would like EVERY DAY please). I miss her more this time than I did last time, what's up with that? I think I just want all my chicks in the nest.

P and I aren't traveling anywhere by plane this year as far as we know, and I am both relieved and disappointed. But mostly relieved. We're taking a couple of car trips this summer and fall, one to visit family and one to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, and I don't know where we're going other than "west". For the second one, I mean. That first one is "east" until we hit beach.

I'm knitting a sweater, which is kind of a milestone for someone who up to now has knitted only shawls, scarves, cowls, socks, a few baby items and one ill-fitting hat. It's not at all appropriate for the current season but I've bought the yarn to knit another sweater that WILL BE appropriate for the current season except we're likely to be firmly into the NEXT season by the time I start it, but whatever, I knit sweaters now and I'm kind of excited about it.

I don't know what else to say. I hope you're all doing well. I'm surprisingly good in spite of it all. I'll try to write more often even if it's stupid.

* I'm pretty sure it IS the only thing that matters, and that I have a lot of work to do.

The close and holy darkness

Right, were'd we leave off? End of October?

In November H moved back home and we had Thanksgiving and H turned 20 and I had a bit of a moment over that what with her being my youngest and all. In December it snowed and we had Christmas and we didn't travel anywhere and it was nice.

And now you're all caught up.

Traditionally at the end of December I'd talk about all the books I'd read the previous year, but the truth is that in 2017 I didn't read a whole lot of new-to-me books. I DID re-read a whole lot of books I'd read before, I think because I needed the comfort of familiar words this year: all the Harry Potters, all of His Dark Materials, The Handmaid's Tale (not comforting, that last one, but I hadn't read it in decades and was due for a refresh).

I did manage to read a few new-ish ones, though, and these were my favorites in fiction: Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters, The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, News of the World by Paulette Jiles, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce, Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, The Wonder by Emma Donoghue, Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix, and The Good People by Hannah Kent.

Excellent nonfiction I read this year: Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, Dark Money by Jane Meyer, Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, Washington's Nightmare by Scott B. Christmas, Lion by Saroo Brierley, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and I'm Just a Person by Tig Notaro.

Huh. I guess when you throw in all the three- and four-star books I read (only fives for you people, ONLY FIVES FOR YOU) and the re-reads, that DOES add up to kind of a lot of books for 2017. Well, hell. Go me! (That last photo is of some recent purchases. So far 2018 is looking pretty good, book-wise.)

Honestly I feel like I spent most of this year knitting. I made a little green scarf, a much bigger scarf in fall colors, my first completed pair of socks, a pair of socks for H, another pair for me, a very fun-to-knit hat, a cowl for my mom, and half of a mosaic shawl that I had to frog due to it being part of a poorly curated kit. Currently on the needles: a second attempt at said mosaic shawl (but this time with MUCH more suitable yarn), the second of my first-ever pair of toes-up socks, and a cowl I'll probably never finish if I'm being honest because the pattern is kind of boring and I'm not loving the yarn, oof.

I'm not making resolutions for the new year, but I do have two hopes. Just two. First, I hope I can be a vessel for and an instrument of Grace, and by Grace I mean Love and Compassion and Kindness. (My concept of the Divine is pretty broad and as a result it's unlikely that I believe in and revere your specific god, but I do believe in and revere these things.) Second, I hope I can see and recognize Grace in other people. That's all. If I can do that, at least most of the time, I think I'll be doing okay.

Happy New Year to you, my friends! Here's to the resisters and the fighters, the peacekeepers and the healers, the carers and the thinkers and the dreamers and the hopers. Here's to the innovators and the implementers. Here's to us.

OMG IT'S A RECIPE

It tastes better than it looks, sweartoGod.

Okay so here is the thing: when bell peppers first came into season here a couple of months ago, I started craving old-school stuffed peppers like MAD. You know, the ones your mom used to make back in the '70s, with the meat and the rice and the tomato sauce? OMG SO GOOD. Pure comfort food.

So I made them and P and C loved them and then they started wanting them every week and then I realized that these things are kind of a pain in the ass, what with parboiling the peppers and then stuffing them and arranging them in the baking dish and yeah. No wonder my mom didn't make them very often.

SO! I got lazy and came up with a casserole version. Basically it involves chopping the peppers and adding them to the filling instead of stuffing them. I probably didn't invent this, but whatever, my version only has five ingredients and it's super easy and you can customize the hell out of it based on how you and your family like to eat. And it makes a ton and is great for potlucks! And it freezes really well in case you're pregnant or have surgery coming up or whatever! Yay!

The recipe below is exactly how I make it, but scroll down for some ideas re: making it vegan or paleo/low-carb or whatever, if you're into that.

5-Ingredient Stuffed Pepper Casserole

2 lbs. ground meat (we like half ground pastured pork, half bulk pastured pork sausage)
4-6 large green bell peppers, chopped into large-ish pieces
2-4 garlic cloves, minced
3 cups cooked jasmine rice (made from 1 cup uncooked rice)
2 15-oz. cans tomato sauce (we like Muir Glen Organic)

Cook meat in a giant skillet over medium-high heat just until no longer pink, then add chopped green peppers and minced garlic cloves and continue cooking, stirring frequently. Once the peppers are crisp-tender and the meat has browned a bit, remove from heat and mix in cooked rice and 1.5 cans of tomato sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to a large casserole dish or 9x13" pan and spread the rest of the tomato sauce on top. Bake covered for 45 minutes at 350 degrees F, then uncover and continue baking for another 10 minutes or so. Remove from oven and serve.

NOTES: 

You can use whatever ground meat you want in this. Chicken, beef, turkey, lamb, venison, elk, pork, sausage, whatever, it'll all work. You just might need to add a little extra olive oil to the pan if you're using a really lean meat.

Not into meat? I haven't tried it, but I would imagine you could substitute 3-4 cups of cooked or canned legumes (lentils, black beans, etc.). Just saute the peppers and garlic in a little olive oil, remove from heat, and add the beans at the same time as the rice and tomato sauce. I don't think tofu would work, but maybe TVP? Seitan? Those Morningstar Farms crumbles? I don't know, man. Try it and report back.

I haven't tried this either but I'm 98% sure that you could substitute riced cauliflower or riced sweet potatoes for the actual rice. If you're using raw, I'd add it to the pan with the peppers and garlic so it gets a little pre-cook in. If you're using already cooked riced veggies (like those Green Giant frozen ones), I'd drain them really well, squeeze out as much moisture as you can, and add them when you'd normally add the rice.

Feel free to throw some chopped onion in there. C is allergic to onions so I leave them out. Also, you could throw some corn in there. Or some fancier peppers. Or meat AND beans. Or some raisins and cinnamon. I mean, however you like your stuffed peppers, just make that but chop and saute the peppers instead of stuffing them. You know? IT'S EASY.

I'm thinking there's got to be a way to adapt this for the slow-cooker, too. Just haven't quite figured it out yet.

Anyway, enjoy! If you try it and like it, let me know! If you try it and hate it, keep that shit to yourself. (Kidding! I'm kidding!)

Triangle man hates particle man

I am doing this thing now where I wake up at like 3 or 4 in the morning to pee and then I can't back to sleep and it is not fun, let me tell you. My head is full of words at that time of day and I compose lengthy, eloquent blog posts for you all, but they evaporate right out of my head -- poof -- in the conversion from horizontal to vertical. So lucky for you, I don't have a lot to say today except to tell you about some things I am super duper loving right now.

1. Knitting! I still get it! I don't know why this foreign language suddenly started making sense to me at the ripe old age of 49, but it did and I am glad. I'm still working on the parallelogram wrap and also I made the Selkie Hat from issue #17 of Taproot Magazine (pictured up there just after I started decreasing and just before I had to rip out said decreasing because I lost a stitch somewhere along the way)(hey, I said I understood it, I didn't say I was good at it)(I did finish the hat, though)(and if it ever stops being in the 90s, I may even get to wear it). If you're on Ravelry and got a friend request from saltycrunchy, that's me! Hello! Please be my friend. Don't make me beg.

2. Those pants up there are the Barcelona Pants from Earthbound Trading and I have three pairs in three different colors and I love them so so much, the end.

3. Claire Robertson of Loobylu fame has a new email newsletter, the Small Batch List, and it's one of the highlights of my week.

4. Alice Bradley of finslippy fame ALSO has a new email newsletter and it's one of the OTHER highlights of my week. (Seriously, I have been unsubbing newsletters willy-nilly the past couple of months but these two are keepers. You will love them.)

5. Yesterday C and I were talking about how we both need math refreshers (calculus for him, um ... long division for me, shut up) and long story short, we re-discovered Khan Academy and holy cats is free education ever super cool. (I know that for some of you revisiting high school -- or elementary school, in my case -- math is your idea of hell and I get that but they have LOADS of other stuff, too. Art history! Computer animation! Macroeconomics AND microeconomics! Astronomy! This is good shit!)

6. I haven't managed to read many books since last we talked, but I did like the new Tana French and I'm currently reading and biting my fingernails through The Forgetting Time which is so so good. Just today I bought the Kindle version of The Good Girls Revolt because I tried watching the show but it gave me an anxiety attack and I had to turn it off halfway through the first episode just like with Mad Men, argh. (Have we talked about how I used to be a journalist and how my actual degree is in advertising and what the job market was like in Texas in the late '80s and early '90s and about Good Old Boy culture? Well, let's not. I've expended rather a lot of effort in the direction of drinking away those memories.)

7. Mostly because of the knitting I've been listening to audiobooks and other audio-type media products. Amazon has some kind of deal going now with Audible (because the former owns the latter, from my understanding) such that Prime members have access to Audible Channels and I can't figure out how to link to it for the life of me but Nick Offerman has this Bedtime Stories for Cynics channel and it's so great. Just don't play it with your kids in the room. Unless they're already jaded adults like mine are.

8. My state has early voting and it's pretty much the best thing ever. Enough said.

Okey-doke. Off to take a nap. Happy Friday, everyone!

I'm worth a million in prizes

Look at me, I don't blog at you for ages and then I only pop in to tell you about my trip to Ireland, like an asshole. Well, Ireland only took up a week, you guys. Plenty of other stuff has been going on!

You may remember that we had to pull H out of school just before the end of her senior year for reasons that are too complicated to go into, but I am happy to tell you that she worked her ass off and completed all of her graduation requirements over the summer, and one evening last month we got to see her cross the stage in her cap and gown to receive her high school diploma. Proud doesn't even begin to cover it, y'all. She's taking a semester off from school to work full-time and will be starting college in January if all goes according to plan.

C decided that getting around town via an electric bike and whatever crappy excuse for public transportation exists out here in the 'burbs wasn't really cutting it anymore, but he still felt that driving an actual car would be way too anxiety-inducing, so long story short, he's now the proud owner of a Class M driving license and a new street-legal scooter.

When he and P first discussed doing this, I was picturing, you know, a little moped scooter. Like this:

But what he actually got was one of these:

I know, right? Did you know that a scooter is just a motorcycle with automatic transmission? Because I did not know that. But I do now.

I finally found some books I like! When did we last talk about books? Holy shit, I think it was in December? When I did my yearly wrap-up? That's just wrong. Here are the books I've loved so far in 2016:

• Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - LOVED LOVED these books. Thomas Cromwell, who knew?
• The Snow Child and To The Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey - not series/sequel type books; they are unrelated apart from both taking place in Alaska and having the same author, but they are so, so good. Gorgeous storytelling.
• Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith, aka J.K. Rowling - the third Cormoran Strike book. My husband doesn't love these as much as I do, but I do, oh I do.
• In the Sounds and Seas by Marnie Galloway - incandescently beautiful graphic novel that explores the nature of myth and humanity and community and creativity and all sorts of big topics but in such a beautiful and approachable way.
• The Rook by Daniel O'Malley - it's like a grown-up Harry Potter, y'all! So great. He writes female characters so well, it's nuts.

Right now I'm re-reading all of Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad books because (a) I've actually been to Dublin now! It's not at all how I pictured it. And (b) there's a new one coming out in October.

After trying to knit in fits and starts for approximately the past decade and a half, I had some weird cosmic knitting breakthrough a few months ago and yeah, I knit now. I am a knitter type person. Really what I am is a pedantic pattern-follower, and when the patterns actually work out it gives me an inflated sense of my own competency, but whatever, it counts. I spent late winter and early spring of this year knitting a layette for my cousin's new baby girl and it was BANANAS; at one point I was holding stitches for this teensy little cardigan on two different sets/sizes of circular needles while knitting another bit on straight needles and I had NO idea how it was all going to come together, but it did and I felt like a superhero. So yeah. Knitting!

While knitting that layette I managed to watch 10 seasons of Bones on Netflix, heh. Now I'm knitting another thing, this weird parallelogram wrap with double moss stitch and chevron stitches and stairsteps and all kinds of weirdness, and I had thought I might watch all the seasons of Gilmore Girls (which I never saw when it was on TV) while knitting it but about halfway through the first season I decided I REALLY  hated Lorelei and toward the end of the second season I started hating Rory too, so I had to stop. And I've still got like a million pattern repeats left on the wrap. What should I watch, you guys? I've already seen Stranger Things and didn't love it as much as the rest of you did, so ... yeah.

In other news, my most recent pedicure (pictured up there somewhere) left me with a nasty case of onycholysis in both big toes, so now my knitting will smell like tea tree oil (antibacterial) and coconut oil (antifungal) because I knit with my feet. (Not really. Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.)

This Week In My Kitchen :: Blog Hop

I've been meaning to participate in Heather Bruggeman's This Week In My Kitchen blog hop for quite some time, and now I am, yay! Heather's description:

Each day I find myself snapping a picture or two in the kitchen - a pile of ingredients, a table waiting for us to gather around, a sink full of soapy dishes, a cup of tea, dinner as it comes out of the oven - simple, everyday moments in the kitchen. These photos serve as a reminder of days gone by and as encouragement to carry on in this busy kitchen of ours when inspiration is lacking.

Things that have been happening in my kitchen this week:

• Making almond milk -- definitely a weekly occurrence.
• So many veggies for dinner most nights, and sometimes fruit, like grilled pineapple.
• Haven't been making too many virgin cocktails lately, but this cherry-lime smash was a hit. I love cherry season!
• Snapping green beans at the sink reminds me of childhood.
• I usually have dinner leftovers for lunch -- chicken thighs, green beans and grilled apricots on this particular day. 
• I continue to be obsessed with this dressing. I really need to start quadrupling the recipe.
• I'm also obsessed with this local raw honey.
• And homemade ice cream. I'm obsessed with that, too. We bought a new Cuisinart to replace our old cheapie machine that had lost its paddle and that together with Kelly Brozyna's new book means there is NO STOPPING ME NOW.
• Homemade almond milk, homemade cold brew coffee, homemade iced lattes 4eva!

Thanks for the inspiration, Heather!