Simplicity

A few days back I sauteed some green beans and boiled a little fettucini. The green beans were seasoned with salt, cayenne pepper and garlic. I chose to leave my pasta unsauced and simply give it a bit of butter, parmesan cheese and black pepper. It was to my liking.

Saladicious

On Monday we had a salad that the boyfriend made out of mustardy (spicy!) greens, little purple flower blossoms, beets and red pepper. The boyfriend pointed out, and I agree, that the greens were a bit too strong to make up an entire salad but if they were interspersed with, say, mesclun that their bite would add a lovely dimension to the whole dish.
Before I forget I would like to share with you a little story. When the boyfriend and I arrived in Madison last Friday, I was running low on cigarettes. I insisted that we stop at a gas station so I could quickly run in and re-up my supply. So we did. I ran in and waited in line long enough to learn that you can't buy beer (or any alcohol) after nine o'clock in Madison. When my turn came I stepped up, asked how much camel lights were, was pleasantly surprised (so much cheaper than Chicago) and requested a pack. The guy behind the counter, a large and in charge white dude, asked me for ID. I handed him my Tennessee license plate and this conversation ensued:

"Tennessee huh?"
"Yeah."
"You're the only ten-I-see."
"Urgh."

The conversation lasted, maybe, an additional forty five seconds. In which he told me never to go to Lancaster, Pennsylvania and I told him to have a nice night.

Even at my most attractive, which is not now, I was not hit on all that much. In bars I was usually with friends or clearly not interested. Walking down the street no one whistles or yells. I never take the train when it's crowded enough for a guy to feel like he can do a nudge, nudge wink, wink kind of thing. But gas station attendants are another story. I'm sure I'm not alone in this? In, let's see, four or five different states I've found myself being not-so-subtly hit on while trying to pay for gas, cigarettes or candy. I've had the 'haven't I seen you before' line and the 'you're too pretty to be that old' line and a number of others just as clever. But I'm thinking the one above really wins. What, exactly, the prize would be is a little unclear...a not-date with me, a smirk or incredulous stare...something like that. Though a trophy would be fun for the guy to have, some tailor made job with a little plastic replica of himself and his counter covered in faux-gold, and a plaque of some kind with a witty little summary like...um, something witty.

Madison Thai

After our canoeing fun we went to a Thai restaurant close to our friend's apartment complex. It was stuck on a road that ran parallel to the larger more densely franchised road. What I'm trying to say is that its location was a little funny but its decoration and food was yum yum yum. I had a fried tofu appetizer, wonton soup and green tea.
The tofu and accompanying cucumber salad/sweet dip were delightful.
And the soup was large, filling and had subtlety to it. Oh, it was good.

Apples For Everybody

To read about our apple trip and my way of making applesauce go here.

I'll Canoe You

On Sunday the boyfriend, our friend and myself rented a canoe and went paddling around Lake Mendota. We mainly paddled to 'picnic point', where the boyfriend caught a stick with his fishing pole, and paddled back (we were on a strict timeline).
I sat in the middle and it didn't have a seat. This seatlessness was okay except that it meant that I sat cross legged (that's how I sit) and eventually lost feeling in one of my feet. It also meant that on the return paddle my ass got pretty wet when water jumped into our boat. Fun though.

Clanagh (or something like it) Restaurant

This weekend the boyfriend and I went up to Madison, Wisconsin to see a friend. Our biggest excursion most surely (in my mind) our trip to an apple orchard but seeing as I'm going to write that up (along with a recipe for applesauce) for Chicagoist tomorrow I'll give you the rest of the highlights. We arrived around 9:30 and went to a Irish themed pub/restaurant. Our friend lives in a recently developed area of Madison where everything is a bit shiny and unneeded...lots and lots and lots of chain restaurants and stores and their inevitable parking lots, sultry teenagers and stay-at-home moms. The restaurant was no exception. It was next to a 'Cheeseburger Paradise' restaurant, across the way from a World Market and Cold Stone Creamery and there was a TGIF just at the other side of the parking lot. They did, however, have guys playing Irish type music and whisky flights.
And large portraits of Michael Collins.

A Little Funny

Go here to see my face on Chicagoist...Somehow I had gotten the message that we (the Chicagoist staff) were to take photographs of ourselves with our thumbs up, but I didn't know why. This made my 10 photograph long photo shoot exceptionally fun for me...since I had no idea it was actually directed at a 'get well soon' kind of message. Eh, I'm in between classes right now and have a little stuff to do.

Wine Night, The Awakening

On Monday a little group of SAIC graduate students got together to celebrate wine...or ourselves...or maybe it wasn't a celebration. A few whites and few reds, a fine porch to whisper and smoke on. All in all a very successful reinstatement of wine night, complete with cheese and fancy chocolates.
I made chocolate peanutbutter fudge on Monday and brought it along.

Almost a year ago I came across this guy's site...I don't know what internet gods were guiding me...I thought some of his work was funny and then I forgot about it...until yesterday. These are two I had a little chuckle over.

That's Right

On the walk back home after dim sum we came across this huge hanging cucumber like vegetable. It was hanging a good number of feet from the ground, on a trellis, outside of a flower shop. Then the boyfriend's phone rang and the cucumber like hanging thing insisted on answering it.
But it turned out to be a call for the nearby sunflower.

Dim Sum c/o Furama Part 27

Another successful dim sum was had on Sunday regardless of the rainy nastiness. We got a front row seat next to the small stage and got to see different sets of children run around on it. What is it about children and stages?

Shepherding Dinner Into A Pie

To use up the last little bit of ground beef from the barbeque I made a Shepherd's type of pie. I sauteed the beef with chopped white onions, peas and a bit of corn. I fried up two slices of bacon and broke them into little bits and sprinkled them over the beef. I cooked up potatoes, mashed them with a bit of butter and parmesan cheese and then spread them over the beef. I put a little cheddar cheese on top and baked the whole thing in the oven. Not bad.

Dinner At China Star

The other night the boyfriend and I went to China Star restaurant on Bryn Mawr (near the train station) in our neverending quest for a Chinese restaurant to call our own....China Star wasn't it. We ordered hot and sour soup, potstickers, shrimp balls, chicken and pineapple rolls and sweet and sour wontons. The soup was good, though extremely thick and there was a little too much of it. Well, clearly we over ordered, so the amount of soup isn't really the problem.
We knew that the shrimp rolls were going to be fried but I, at least, hadn't understood that the chicken pineapple rolls would be fried-and in the exact same way as the shrimp balls-too. I was pretty disappointed with them both.
The potstickers were good though. Simple, not overly fried, good amount of filling and a nice sauce accompanied them.
The restaurant lacks ambience, which is probably okay since most of their business seemed to be takeway. The lady who served us was nice. But the food was just not it. When and where and how will I ever find my Chicago Chinese restaurant?

Fight For Your Right To Eat Vegetables

Though the weather is certainly changing, it's still summer enough to be getting our farmshare. The farmshare inevitably brings us eggplant and onions (we currently have 12 onions in our pantry). The other night, which one I'm not sure, the boyfriend made eggplant croquettes as well as spaghetti sauce...oh and a few token fried green cherry tomatoes. I'm still working on where the light is best to take dinner photos, so please excuse the slight blurriness of this one.

This Was The Thing

This was what my latest Chicagoist post was about...I just liked the photo, all sunny and running over in yummy. One part guacamole, one part picco de gallo, one part not authentic enough to be either.

Other Eating

Classes have begun again in earnest. I had this hot dog, complete with tomatoes, pickles, cheese, mustard and ketchup after one of my classes...I don't remember which one or what day though. I had my first day of being the teacher type. I thought that, since it's a morning class, I'd bring donuts to the first class-you know break the ice and all that...none of the students were all that interested. In fact the only kids to take any took them after much prodding on my part. I'm worried about my ability to fill up three hours of class time in a way that will be good for both the kids and myself.
Another night the boyfriend made tomato sauce while I cooked some meatballs and sauteed zuchinni and squash all these things were topped off with a slice of muenster cheese. A bit of a mish mash of tastes but not so bad overall.

Newest

You can read my newest Chicagoist piece here.

The Stuff

A while back I made a kind of Eggplant Parmagiana. Well, it was Eggplant Parm, but I stacked them like sandwiches, with the eggplant being the bread and the cheese and tomato sauce being the filling. This is what they looked like before I put them into the oven.
On Saturday we had planned on having people over for a housewarming weekend barbeque. Even with the badness, we kept it on. It was one part too late to call off (we were at the vet until 2 and we told people to come over at 4...we could have called everybody but that would have been harder) and one part good to just hang out and try to be normal for a while. Perhaps it could also be labelled avoidance or escapism but, whatever, it was a good thing. There were magic tricks (below).
And special guests brought by our downstairs neighbor. One was a dog named Arthur.
On our bedroom door there is a lock on the outside. We found this curious. Our neighbor, and then our landlady, told us that the previous tenant locked his children in the room when he was out or at work. There is also a lock (the kind you'd put a pad lock through) on our back porch door, this guy also locked them into the apartment in general. A fire hazard, for sure. A clear sign of a slightly wacked out guy, hell yes.

Thanks all who have commented or emailed about Meow Cat.

Sad

On Saturday the boyfriend and I had to put Meow Cat to sleep.
We never got a clear reason-whether it was asthma, pneumonia, kidney trouble or the beginnings of cancer. There was the supposition that it was triggered by our move to a new apartment...the stress coupled with dustiness, but that, of course, cannot be confirmed or denied.

We brought her in Friday night after her breathing, which we first noticed as markedly different on Wednesday, worsened considerably. By the time we got her to the emergency room she looked awful. They rushed her into an enclosed oxygen box like the put premature babies into. The night doctor was cautiously optimistic and told us we might be able to bring her home later the next afternoon. But when we called on Saturday the new doctor said that Meow Cat had worsened. There was the financial question-the after hours care started at an initial eighty dollars and wehn we left Friday the bill estimate was between five and seven hundred dollars (which I didn't have). When I asked the day doctor about cost she said that even if it wasn't a financial matter, they wouldn't judge us if we decided to put her down. Meow Cat's prognosis was not good.

We went and saw her in her oxygen enclosure Saturday afternoon. We petted her and cried. Her breathing was better because of the additional 20% of oxygen she was receiving, but if she was out of the box the improvement wouldn't have lasted. After speaking to the vet in person, the decision that had already been made became official. I signed some papers and said yes to receiving her ashes. Then we waited in 'exam room 5', a typical vet room with large metal examination table and strange sheld seat for the owners. There were these awful Andy Warho-esque silk screen portraits of dogs and cats and bunnies with names like Buster and Bunny. We sat in the room for at least ten minutes before the veterinary assistant came in with Meow Cat wrapped in a blanket and a portable oxygen machine. I've never been very good with sympathy, it usually makes me cry harder. This vet assistant twice came up to us in an attempt to comfort. The first time she talked to us it was by the oxygen box. She talked about what a sweet cat Meow Cat was and how hard a decision like this could be but that the real thing to consider is 'quality of life'. She was kind and nice and right and I wanted to tell her to shut up.
Before they brought Meow Cat into the exam room we had to pay our bill which, including the $250 deposit of the night before, came out to be $900. The boyfriend commented that they had learned to settle the bill before and not after. Once the vet assistant brought Meow Cat in she told us how the process would work, that they would give us some time alone with her. We were to make sure that the hose with oxygen coming through it was near her face so she could breathe better. At one point she referred to us as Meow Cat's mom and dad...I have never liked referring to people as parents of pets (I struggled with this tendency when I worked at the doggie daycare) and if I hadn't been dealing with the fact that I was about to see my cat die, I would have told her so.
We spent fifteen minutes or so petting Meow Cat. She had a catheter in her back leg which she didn't like and she generally just lay there, occasionally rearranging herself in an effort to be more comfortable. I was ready a few minutes before they came in the room. The prolonging of her life just made the fact that she was going to be gone worse for me. The vet assistant came in again and told us that after it was done, we could just leave. She then told us she would make an imprint of Meow Cat's paws in clay and then bring them out to us. A complimentary memento.
The doctor came in. I kneeled down and pet Meow Cat's head as the vet put two shots into the catheter. I saw Meow Cat's eyes widen for a second and then dull. And that was that.
I found Meow Cat on the streets of Tivoli, New York the summer after I graduated from college. I would sit on my apartment's stairs at night writing in my journal and this skinny, meowing cat would come up to me, not thinking twice about jumping in my lap and sitting on my notebook. I fed her tuna fish and she came back again and again. When I moved I took the cat I christened Meow Cat Slut Whore with me. She was a very good cat even when she scratched the rugs or ate the plants (then vomited them up on the floor or the boyfriend's computer). She was affectionate to a fault, always willing to come and lie on my chest (or almost always) especially at night. Vets were always taken with how calm she was at checkups, she didn't even blink when they shoved thermometers up her ass or ear thingies in her ears. She had a personality I won't ever find in another animal. She wasn't afraid of strangers, always singling the allergic one as her new best friend. She purred at a hand's first caress. She was a cat nip addict but it didn't hurt anyone and she was kind of funny to watch while in the throes of her high.
Now when I walk around the apartment I occasionally think I see her out of the corner of my eye. But it's the boyfriend's hookah bag, or our wooden butler's black pants leg, or a shadow, or nothing at all. We haven't put away her food bowl or litter box and I'm not sure when we will. Last night in bed, the way the boyfriend repositioned his arm felt like the tell-tale weight of Meow Cat walking across the blankets, getting ready to shove her butt in one of our faces and knead our belly with her paws. It is very sad that she is gone.

Messy New Place

Since these photographs were taken we've made progress but I haven't taken photographs. So you can see the place in full dishabille (is that a word I can use? the spelling's bad but?). Below is the living area.
This is the dining room.
The sunroom/perhaps office/cozy nook.
Meowcat on the front porch.
A look down the hallway from the sunroom type place...our bedroom is down and to the right another bedroom (perhaps office?) is to the left.