Did you know. . .

that if you've posted a comment, I've responded to it?  I just mention it to make sure you know - because I have no idea if you realize that I'm responding to you or if I just end up talking (even more) to myself.  :)

The kind of friend I try to be

http://www.etsy.com/listing/77280001/inspirational-art-friendship-is-a

This evening after work, I had the unexpected and distinct pleasure to sit and catch up a bit with a lovely lady I happen to think the world of.  We sat together at her house, and because it was unexpected, there was no way for her to even think about preparing for a visitor.  She warmly invited me in anyway, saying her house was a mess (we all tend to be too hard on ourselves, don't we?) but that was okay because I was one of the few people she wasn't worried about seeing it that way.

I was happy because that is precisely the kind of friend I try to be.

Years ago, a friend and her young child were at my house.  Something insignificant-to-adults but not-necessarily-so-insignificant-to-young-children occurred, and the child starting really throwing a fit.  The friend was surprised by the behavior (as the child was past the typical tantrum stage), knelt down to talk to him, and said "if this happened in front of anyone but T, I would be mortified".

I was happy because that is precisely the kind of friend I try to be.

When my husband and I were in the early stage of our relationship, he would get really annoyed with how I talked about my friends.  He couldn't understand why I always acted like they were so amazing and could do no wrong.  I couldn't understand why he couldn't understand - since it was ridiculously obvious and all.  They WERE so amazing, and even if they DID do wrong (whatever that might mean), they did so beautifully and quite perfectly.  Still are and still do.

Didn't he know that that is precisely the kind of friend I try to be - one who believes her friends are simply amazing and perfectly imperfect?!

A while back now, I was chatting on the telephone with a friend.  I was thanking her for something and mentioned that sometimes I feel badly because I feel like she does so much more for me than I do for her.  She laughed and said she feels the same way about me - that sometimes she feels badly because she feels like I do so much more for her than she does for me.  I was struck by the the exchange and the realization that perhaps that may well be an ideal description of a true friendship. 

I love my girlfriends with all of my heart and I hope they know that.  There are very few things in life as precious as true friendships.  I've been blessed to have some absolutely glorious women enter my life, and each and every day, I am grateful for their simply "being".  I try to be a good friend, to live up to the kind of friend that they deserve, and I will keep on trying.  Each and every day.  

I love you dearly, friends of mine.

It's all relative, right?

Just a funny little update about the soup.  Parts of getting to the finished product are actually quite disgusting.  Instructions say at the end of the simmering time to take out the chicken, remove the meat, and throw away the bones.  They also say to remove the feet and discard them.  What they DON'T say is that after it has simmered for so long, the parts of the chicken have pretty much fallen apart.  There's really no stripping the meat off of the bones because it's mostly already fallen off.  Most of the chicken feet are no longer recognizable as feet.  They've transformed into strange little blobs that you guess must be what's left of them.  Last time (I didn't have any organs this time), the neck completely disintegrated and I ended up eating it because it was impossible to separate it from everything else.  And of course, as I've already mentioned, bits of the organs were also left behind.

Chickens have a lot of little bones, little joints, and little chunks of cartilage.  When you're dealing with a big pot of soup where everything has fallen apart and there are also a lot of chopped veggies, it's nearly impossible to get all of those interesting tidbits out.  You learn this by repeatedly realizing, when you're enjoying a bowl of soup, that "oops, I have something really weird in my mouth again; better get that out".  

When I was recently talking to a colleague at work about some of this, she was making faces and saying "I don't know; I don't know if I could do that".  I proclaimed emphatically that if you are sick enough, you will do things you would NOT ordinarily do.

Without a doubt, even though I'm not all better, I'm quite a bit better.  How do I REALLY know this?  Because when I finished up my soup this evening, I couldn't bear the thought of having any more of those weird things in my mouth, even though so far it's been nothing short of a miracle.  Since it cooked for so long, I have no doubt nearly all of the nutrition was pulled out of the chicken and vegetables, so I ended up straining it to just leave me with stock.  Sure, I won't have the bulk, but I'm eating enough other things now that I'm not worried about that.  My stock looks like liquid gold, and I very much look forward to enjoying it tomorrow with a piece of bread.  And nothing else - no surprises!

And that colleague?  Well, she has dealt with IBS issues in the past, borrowed the book I've been using as a guide, and is going to buy it for herself.  We'll see what she ends up doing with that soup.

My soup, it is simmering

Hee hee.  Last weekend, Chris came through for me and brought a big ziploc baggie full of chicken feet to GreenMarket for me.  I was expecting only a few, but she gave me at least 15!  She was so excited that I would be using them, as they don't rank very high in popularity.  Apparently, there is only one other person who requests them from her - a Chinese woman who I am sure must also be using them for soup.  

Anyway, I'm making a new batch of my funky soup and that there is a picture of it as it sits on the stove starting it's looong simmering process.  I ended up using four feet and pulled two of them up to the surface so we can see them in action.  How to prepare this quirky ingredient, that was the big question I had.  (My book conveniently doesn't discuss that!)  Every source I've seen says to boil them for 5 minutes, so that's what I did.  Nearly every source I've seen says to then cut off the talons at the first knuckle, so that's what I did.  The sources were divided as to whether or not the skin should also be removed.  After boiling for 5 minutes, it looked kind-of nasty, so I opted to remove it.  Frankly, though, I think the feet looked even worse without the skin.  I removed the toes quickly and without incident.  The skin?  Well that took a little longer, required more concentration, and sometimes smelled quite badly.  A few times, I got a big whiff and had to momentarily step. away. from. the. counter.  We'll see how this goes, but next time I might try leaving the skin on.  

I've been reading GLORIOUS reports about chicken soup/broth made with the feet, so I'm hoping mine lives up to the high expectations I now have.  I'll let you know, and if it truly is that amazing, perhaps you can give it a try too!

"P.S. Don't forget to bring your guitar!"

Ha!  That's the last line of J's acceptance letter from Hampshire! 
Very fitting, very perfect wording with which to woo him.  How clever are they?!


(one of his babies - a black Rickenbacker; wherever he goes, it will most definitely go with him! )

 

His acceptance letter from Hampshire College came in today's mail, with another decent sized merit scholarship.  I'm telling you again, though, that even "the largest, most prestigious" merit award a college offers doesn't necessarily look all that large when compared to the cost!!  

Next Monday, we're off to visit Bennington College.  That should be a fun day.  I haven't been to Bennington (the town) in a long time, but I really love it there.  Besides getting to know the campus in person, my goal is to find the Crazy Russian Girls Bakery.  Maybe we'll even sneak in a visit to Bennington Potters.

And Hampshire has special overnight stays for accepted students, so he'll probably sign up for one of them.  He'll stay in a dorm, eat in the cafeteria, attend classes, etc. - probably one of the best ways to get to know a college before actually attending.

To be young, to have so much of your life ahead of you, to have so many opportunities from which to choose - what an exciting time!  But how many of us appreciate it at that time?  I'm going to guess not many. :)

The hole is dark, the hole is deep

This is how I feel - like I'm trying to climb out of a dark, deep, dank hole.  I'm working my way up and am now getting plenty of the sun's warmth and light, but I'm holding on precariously to hand and foot holds with the realization it wouldn't take much to knock me way back down again.  Not a terribly great imagine, but one with hope and one that is certainly much better than what I've been living with the last couple of months.

Eek.  This is where some people might get upset.  I cancelled (or rather postponed but not yet with a new date??) my colonoscopy and biopsy that was scheduled for today.  I just couldn't do it.  My instinct is that since my body has seemingly been on a path of healing that I need to try to let it continue on this path for a while longer before I "fuss" with it.  This poor physical entity that houses my spirit has been under tremendous stress nearly every single day since before Thanksgiving.  Sometimes I still have a hard time believing what has happened; it's just been such a strange series of events.  

But now this body of mine is resting, calming down, and recovering its strength.  I'm treating it with super duper baby gloves, and I'm terrified of whacking it back into disarray by way of these medical procedures and the drugs that go along with them.  At this point, especially because I'm feeling so much better than I have been and because I do not currently feel like I literally might die, I just can't take the chance of being thrown off of those hand and foot holds I'm clinging to.  Does that make sense?  Any sense at all?  I hope so. 

I do realize that I may be looking at a chronic condition.  I also realize that at some point - probably sooner than later - I ought to have the tests done, but today wasn't the day.

Chicken soup and superheroes

I'm hungry, so what will it be - a bowl of the funky chicken soup, a jar of super-incubated homemade yogurt with raw honey, or a few spoonfuls of cottage cheese?  Ha ha ha. 

A few days ago, someone at work said to me "you're going to get really tired of that soup".  I said "no way!  I'm just so happy to be able to eat something with substance."  Okay, perhaps he was right.  It's not that I don't like the soup.  I really, really do.  But eating the same soup for six days straight for nearly all of your meals does lead one to long for something else - something more solid, something crunchy.  

I've figured out that the inclusion of the chicken feet is for the large amount of collagen in them that breaks down into gelatin - good for rebuilding damaged tissue, has anti-inflammatory properties, and is generally readily accepted by your body.  Even without the feet, chicken carcasses apparently have quite a bit of collagen, and this is part of the reason chicken soup is called Jewish penicillin.  <shrug>  Who knew that fun fact??!   I'm learning so many tidbits of information!

 http://thisisgrub.com/bone-broth-roll-with-me-here/
a neat read I found about chicken broth/stock/soup in general - and how funny that the book highlighted is the one a friend just happened to give me a week or so ago to read!

With the feet, though, there's supposed to be, oh, so much more collagen to help with healing and general well-being.  I'm planning to go to GreenMarket tomorrow, and I hope Chris remembers to bring some for me.  I was supposed to send her an e-mail reminder this past Wednesday or Thursday, but silly me forgot.  I wonder if mine will look like this picture.  I wonder if I'm supposed to prep the feet at all before I put them in the pot.  Hmmm, I wonder. . .

The awesome body sensing yoga / meditation class I went to last Sunday has been cancelled for tomorrow.  Shoot!  Yesterday, they cancelled all of the weekend classes, presumably because of the impending storm.  We didn't get hit as hard as they predicted, and things (you know, like the roads) are completely fine, so it probably didn't need to be cancelled.  Hindsight is always 20/20. . .  I found a meditation class being offered at a different place, though, so I might try to drop in at that one.  I will miss the body sensing, but it will definitely be much better than nothing.

I'm going to get settled in now with my littlest fella to watch The Avengers.  Yes, we did watch it last weekend as well, but can you ever get too much of superheroes?  I think not.  That's why we also watched Thor and Captain America last weekend.  And Dark Knight Rises last night.  :)

I wonder if superheroes eat chicken soup.  I bet they do.