Saturday, May 12, 2012

WHOAH--here we go

Last Mothers Day i was sick. That is an understatement: i slept for nine and a half hours after throwing up during dinner service (i was able to run off line, no really awful visual of ruined customer dinners here), only to wake up, wash my face, look at my couch and flop for another three hours. At 2:30 pm i woke for the second time, hardly able to stand, and, at the insistence of my concerned landlord (he is the epitomy of an Italian man, with an insatiable restlessness that is equalled only by his desire to take care of--hence getting me to see a doctor about illness for the first time in about, oh, seven years...) i biked (couldnt stand, but i could sit on my vehicle of choice...) to the walk in clinic, was given a bunch of "could be this"'s plus a box of antacid tablets, biked back home, took said tablets, and made pancakes.

[Yes. Pancakes. I know, i know: enough already with the pancake talk--it seems to be a recurring theme here since realizing their recurrent theme throughout my life, and since recently dubbing all tuesdays off of work as honourary "Shrove Tuesdays" i suggest, dear readers, that you either take this obsession as any other constant topic source like work itself with a skim-reading like immunity, or take advantage of the wealth of breakfast recipes coming your way...]

Then i went to work (where i exercise my own immunity...). I worked through it, just as i had the night before, minus the throwing up. That is how i deal with sickness: I dont. Which is what i am doing this Mothers Day. Round two.

I am stressed. That is an understatement, too. Mother's day weekend to most people with mothers means a special breakfast, perhaps pancakes (could feel that idea coming, hey? just helping to build your immunity to maintain your readership...) at home or out, flowers, homemade cards, and a ma who stays in her bathrobe through all of it--except, maybe, if the pancakes are had "out." To me it is a weekend of greater significance. WHOAH WHOAH WHOAH! i take that back--nothing is of greater significance than my mom--sorry ma, if you are reading.... But for this daughter, it is also the weekend that marks when the farm begins to take over my life.

We time our planting schedule by this weekend, for it is after the full moon after Mothers day that everything in the greenhouse can go safely outside without risk of frost. Dont ask me why, i think logic and science is very much governed by tradition here, i know only that this means that all of a sudden planting is urgent, as is weeding and picking what was more casually planted earlier. Suddenly there is not as much time for pancakes, or sleep really, or running, or biking, or yoga, or writing here, or spending time with friends and family, or spending time with just me and my camera/book/artwork, or working in my personal garden. For the next five months; nothing but work. I know how tired i will be after that last full moon. That reality stresses me.

And is affecting me phyically. i have been sick of the last week or two--sick the way i do sick, which is to ignore, not succumbing to the plugged nose, foggy head, achiness--and worse over, jammed my big toe in yoga so that it swelled and purpled, charlie-horsed my ass somehow, and seriously pulled the intercostal muscles in my upper ribcage so that any movement besides none at all is somewhere between a wee bit and tear inducingly painful. And i am sleeping through my alarms (all six of them including an obnoxious rooster call) daily, despite not yet being without a sound rest. Perhaps my body is stockpiling hours in advance, but really it is just adding to the stress that i wont be capable of the 430am wakeup, and then what?

I know that there is really nothing i can do. That I dont really choose or make a conscious change to go with the season, but that somehow, one day i am just in it. But until then i am sickening myself with stress, and no stack of pancakes can relieve that.

Friday, May 4, 2012

left handed

"Bi-handual." It is a term a coined long ago (junior high, to be exact without an exact date, to describe someone who could spike a volleyball with both hands--yes, the years long ago when i "played" "real" sports [the quotations say enough here...]) and still use today, when i just simply cannot bring to tongue "ambidextrous."
i am trained at bi-handualism (thats right, i am manipulating correct English grammar to encompass my made-up, non-English, somewhat-already-grammatically-correct-if-you-really-think-about-it-and-at-the-very-least-comprehendable-word, further yet) only out of necessity. Meaning, if i need my strong right hand for very important matters such as operating my coffee grinder, my left hand is fully capable of brushing my teeth (note, i set my percolator up the night before; i do not make a habit of minting up my mouth pre-expresso). Or, if i need my right hand to fluidly one-finger type a post such as this, i can continue to eat my dinner with my left hand. This not only spares the keys of my shiny new laptop, it is how i most love to eat asparagus: with my fingers.
Thats right: asparagus! At its most simplest, it is perfect barely cooked, slicked with olive oil and lemon, coarse salt scattered. Sometimes i might add chopped olives, or a grating of sharp cheese preferably goat or sheep, maybe some herbage the likes of parsely/mint/chervil, but i usually like to leave that special veg as unadorned as possible--besides, the more you add to them, the more you may require a fork.

Tonight almost required a fork. I got a little saucy, braising some of last seasons preserved tomatos in wine to coat the spears. But my left hand was still up to the task of one at a time, finger licking asparagus eating. And while i may not be able to write, shape a ball of dough into a bun, or even whisk effectively with my non-dominant hand, im not completely useless on the left. That said, i am more open in the hips on my left side, and get closer to the splits with my left leg forward--just a random bit of a yoga thought to close a random bit of a post.


ps this "bit of" a post took over an hour to write: there is only so much one finger can do, and the tastiness of something green and springy and local but not frozen from last season was so wonderfully preoccuppying (also not really a word, but understandably grammatically correct if it were) that my right hand could not help but join my left in delivering dinner.