Bacon, bitchez

Um, so this post may offend, if only for the name of the dish pictured above. They are called "Bacon Bitches". No, I don't know why. I think I might be tempted to rename them just so I can serve them in polite company. But they are good enough to make you swear.

You take a slice of bacon. Put a generous teaspoon of curry laden cream cheese at one end, top with a slice of jalapeno pepper (we used pickled, I think fresh wouldn't be as tasty) then roll up and bake.

OMG these are amazing. I made them for a gaming get together a few weeks ago and they are super easy and surprisingly delish.

Here's a link to the recipe. To season my cream cheese I used some Indian Garlic Relish and Garam Masala paste, both of which I got from my local food jobber.

The funeral

I took some pictures (although I neglected to take one of the finished grave) during our funeral for Maddie.

The new day

It's been really strange since Maddie died. She took up a lot of room in our family - everyone loved her and she loved everyone. Her relationship with each of us (including bf and my friend Ted) was special and not filtered through another person. Maybe that's part of what makes animal companions/pets so important.

We had the funeral yesterday afternoon. Thanks to global warming the ground hasn't frozen and the digging was easy (at least bf made it look pretty effortless - when I tried my hand at it the earth was pliant and soft). We took some time to say goodbye to her lifeless form in the darkness of my mother's garage - an inauspicious, but peaceful place.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to pet her, but seeing her soft fur, I had to touch it again. She had the best, soft and fluffy fur. Silky and wonderful. She was cold to the touch though, and flat somehow, as if she'd been deflated.

Because she was wrapped up in the blanket we'd taken her to the vet in (and it was a highly non-biodegradable material), I took her out of the blanket. Lifting her body I was dismayed to feel give - she wasn't entirely rigid as I'd expected. When she was out of the blanket I cried just a bit. She looked so much as though she were sleeping. And her ears were up - I kept expecting her to twitch them. The boys and I talked a bit and pet her a bit more. Bf came in with the box top he'd been using to ensure the grave was the right size, and I gave her fur one last stroke before putting the top on.

Her body had retained heat from where we'd been petting her, which was very eerie.

My 11 year-old put the box in the ground and we said some words about her. The 7 year old and bf declined to say anything, my mother and 11 year old had lots to say, and I just said one short thing.

We threw/shovelled dirt on to the box and in a few minutes she was buried.

Even though her food and water dishes are up from their usual place on the kitchen floor, I still look towards the spot to see if they need filling. When I come in I resist the urge to say "Hi Maddie, I'm home", which I did so many times.

I'm struggling with a lot of guilt, wishing I had been there for her in some other way, been able to see how sick she was before, understood how quickly she would go. I've read enough about grief to understand this is normal, but I don't know how to properly mourn.

My friend H had a kitten who died from FIP this year and she has given me lots of advice which has proven helpful. So I'm letting this grief happen and looking forward to the day when it doesn't make me so sad to think of her.

In Memoriam

Maddie "Cutie-Pie" H.-T.

September 1, 2005 - November 23, 2006

Loving friend, playmate and confidant.

We will miss you.


(update: she had FIP, the 'non-effusive' variety - the only treatment is palliative, so I fed her as much cream as she wanted to drink and we cuddled her - Thursday morning she had lost control of her voluntary motor functions from bowels to blinking, so it was time - she was such a sweetheart.)

Banana Muffins with Granola

I took my favourite banana bread recipe and added 3/4 Cup of homemade granola. I baked them in mini muffin tins (for 15 minutes) and got 3 doz mini muffins out of one recipe. I don't have that many now, but if you didn't eat any, you could have that many.

Sprinkling granola on top was an aesthetically pleasing and tasty touch. Using 3/4 Cup of granola added a stronger taste as well. I was happy to find that my homemade granola had stayed so fresh since I used it last - it does need to be used up, however, so I'm thinking of things I can do with it. Oh, as a crust for apple dessert, or a topping for apple crisp! Yum. The flavours of toasted almond, coconut and honey really mingle well with age.

After I popped the muffins into the oven I had a bowl of granola with milk. Yum.

Bertha's Big Bourbon Bundt Cake

My first bundt cake with a filling in the middle (I remember these being big when I was a kid), Bertha's Big Bourbon Bundt Cake has just a bit of Bourbon in it, and it's all cooked, so the alcohol is for flavour only. I'm going to cut it this afternoon, so I'll update with a picture of a slice when I do...

I got the recipe from Allrecipes.com, which is not a bad resource (I really like how the recipes look, the printing options, and my favourite, the ingredient search). They have a whole bunch of bundt cake recipes as well...

One hair

My youngest son and I were talking this morning as he got ready for school. I was combing his hair and he said to me "How do you get your hair so poofy? I wish mine would be poofy like that!"

He has verly slightly wavy medium brown fine hair to my extremely wavy kinky curly thick dark brown. As I told him that his hair was probably never going to be as poofy as mine, I spotted, growing from his head, one extremely wavy kinky curly thick hair. Dark brown.

"Do you want me to pull it out and show you?" I asked him. Yes, he said, so I did.

We looked at it laying on my palm. A hair absolutely identical to mine (sans dye) next to one of his medium brown, slightly wavy, and fine strands of hair. If I hadn't pulled it from his head, I wouldn't believe it came from him.

It was a wonderful moment for both of us. We just smiled at each other with the excitement of the discovery, the proof that our bodies work in mysterious ways and that yes, indeed, there was a bit of me in him.

I grew up not looking like my parents (especially my mother), and that could be hard at times. I feels important to me sometimes, to be able to see myself in my children.

Cloudy

My hope is that doing things I know I'll enjoy will get me out of this funk.
Indian food helped, definitely!


Still, I'm feeling cloudy.
Sigh.

Cooking!

To celebrate a successful anthropology exam, and making it to Friday, I'm cooking up an Indian dinner tonight (okay, a few of the things I'm simply heating up out of a packet, but I'm actually cooking others). I'll take pics and get a post up this weekend.

14 days later

It's been two weeks since Halloween? Already? Wow. Time flies.

Timing is everything, maybe?

Has it ever occurred to you that some important event in your life is likely due to being in the right place at the right time (or being in the right mood while you are in the right place at the right time)?

Recent amazing and life changing events seem clearly to have sprung from a few others during the past few years.

Is it simply listening when the universe (or your subconscious, or friends, or whatever) gives you a hint? Is it having an open mind or heart? Is it actively giving up on the idea of control? Who knows.

Today I found myself shaken nearly to the core with the understanding that my life has taken on a new direction. Unless I turn my back on it (and that's not happening), I've got many new challenges ahead.

I am elated, but sobered by the scope of it all.

Let's talk about socks, baby...

Okay, it hasn't all been bad lately. I got three lovely pair of socks from Sock Dreams, and I'm happy with all three. Sock Dreams sells legwear of all kinds, but I've only picked up some OTK (over the knee) socks. I got a pair two years ago which I've worn so much one heel has a big hole. This time I picked up a pair of tube socks in bright blue (which I'm wearing) a thinner pair in light blue, and a pair of very long stripey socks. The stripey ones go up so high on my leg they look like tights. I wore them over tights on Monday and my legs were nice and toasty. They don't have a lot (if any, I should check the tag) elastic in the leg and after a second wearing were quite baggy. I liked the effect, it was like leg-long legwarmers!



If I could, I would buy 10-15 pair of socks from Sock Dreams and get rid of all of my other not so warm and not so well fitting socks. I've been much harder to heat the past few years, even being cold when it's hot out (oh, wait, that might have been at the height of my anemia this summer). Long socks are perfect because they cover up what is actually cold. These are dreamy, indeed.

And they shall know me by the river of blood...

Sometimes I get really angry. I was thinking it was a combination of stressors at this time of year that does it, but now I'm looking into screwed up Circadian rhythms.

Although the national elections and statewide referenda didn't hurt.

Today's challenge: stay awake, do fun stuff, finish school work! I began a "to do" list which got me feeling overwhelmed, so I need to start over and write a "to do today" list, which is much less comprehensive.