My New Food Processor

So, after wanting a food processor for well over a year, but always not being completely certain where I would find room for one or which one I wanted, my best friend chose the holiday season to remove all of the guess work and bought me this really amazing looking one made by Kitchen Aid. It has so many attachments, and I do not even know where to begin in figuring out what to do with them all or how to exactly do it. I think the entire thing struck me as overwhelming, from the day I received it and unpacked it, washing all of its individual parts, until the day I started trying to make recipes calling for the use of one. I still have not found the recipe that explains to me how to chop with it. Can I chop multiple things at once? Do I chop only a little at a time? How does it avoid not chopping some things too much? It also has a slicer. How the hell is that supposed to work? And a dough maker attachment - that seems more intuitive.

So, on Christmas morning, after I had finished making a roasted garlic, balsamic vinegar sauce to cover my main dish, I was trying to wash the processor, and forgot the rule I had heard at least a few times before on The Food Network - remove the blade. Gravity being what it is, the blade fell from the unit and it appeared as though it was going to plummet into the garbage disposal. Instantly, I reacted the way I always do when I see something headed towards the garbage disposal, I moved to grab it and as I reached out and succeeded in snatching it from, what I mistakenly perceived as, its doom, it gently sliced into my middle finger on each hand, producing a lovely flow of red - how festive. If only I had had green band aides.

I think I have finally been able to stop the bleeding, however. So long as I can keep my fingers from impacting with hard objects. It seems every time I am injured, I become exceedingly aware of how much I really do seem to use that thing I never noticed. For example, when I had shoulder surgery, I never knew just how many times one uses their shoulder in the course of a day until I started trying to function normally again. And now I sit at my keyboard, typing away with two fingers, and you can pretty much forget about handwriting anything. However, the holiday was still a lot of fun for me, and once I heal, I'll begin my continued pursuit of mastering my new food processor.

As an aside, I know a few of my recent posts seem to indicate physical injuries in the kitchen. Fear not, my loyal readers (all six of you); each injury is a lesson for me of what not to do, and so long as I do not permanently lose the use of a digit, I try to look on the bright side and move on, a little wiser, if a little bloodier.

I Don't Understand

I wanted to write, but do not have very much to say. I got my first round of immunizations for my trip to Costa Rica next year. Just two more rounds, and I'll be ready, immunologically speaking. The woman that gave me my shots was really nice and seemed to know everything about diseases and which shots and medications I needed, and where to get a free, small supply of Cipro and everything else one could want when planning a trip to a foreign country where you could get Malaria and die.

Instead of continuing to bore you, however, I leave you with this small wisp of fiction that I wrote without thinking.

"I don't understand," she said, as her eyes welled up with sadness.

He had seen this look before, too many times, and knew the tears were about to fall. He hated the tears - they were the worst part. He would have done almost anything to keep them from falling. Instead, all he did was stare coolly at her, attempting to affect some sympathy and understanding in his eyes, but it was the end of the day and they were tired. He silently hoped she would hold it together just a little.

"I am really sorry to have to deliver the news, ma'am, but your husband is dead," his stare slightly softened. Usually, about now the reality would start sinking in. He really wished his partner was there, she was so much better at delivering news like this. Figures she had to be out sick today. He saw two small children contained in the picture over the woman's shoulder. They were probably at some after-school event, completely unaware at what news they were about to uncover when they came home. Something was burning in the kitchen.

"He was shot?"

"Yes, ma'am. It looks like he was not the intended target. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two other people were shot with him. We believe it was a gang related shooting, but the investigation is still pending." Poor bastard was probably out trying to do some good. His fingerprints had been listed in the police files database, having been a social worker years ago. He had since gone into private practice working with the down-trodden. Perhaps trying to heal a partially fractured soul, after years of screwing the little guy in the big corporate rat race. No way to know, just now. It may even end up that he was an intended target. One thing was clear, the victim should have just stayed home with his lovely wife and enjoyed a quiet fall day in bed with the missus. What the hell was he doing in that part of town? He should have known better.

He began cautiously questioning her, gently probing for details, "Any idea why your husband was out that way; Did he have any enemies", etc. It was probably just going to end up being another case filed away as collateral damage, but he had to go through the motions. After twenty years on the job, the one thing Grady had learned was that routine was your friend.

Are You Still There?

"Have you been updating your blog?"

"Yes, once or twice per week, but I have not been writing the thoughtful introspective posts that you prefer."

"Why not?"

"I just have not had the time, or enough sleep to really let my brain wander onto such subjects."

I have had mild insomnia for years. I cannot really call it "insomnia", however, as I do sleep. I just have trouble staying asleep for extended periods of time, and then when I wake up, whenever I wake up, that's pretty much it. On rare occasions, my body finds a way to transport itself back to the land of dreams, but more often than not, I am met with nothing but hours of fatigued wakefulnesses.

I used to date a woman that often seemed to do nothing but sleep and, at the time, it drove me a little crazy. I have since stopped caring about such things. I now take pleasure in my girlfriend's uncanny ability to sleep for hours. She can sleep at least eight hours every night, and to me it's a marvel because I think I can count the number of days I have accomplished that feat in the last three months on one hand. Even more impressive to me is that if I accidentally wake her up, she simply rolls over and falls back to sleep, often never remembering ever being awakened, or even having a full conversation.

I frequently puzzle over how much I have changed in a matter of years. Things I have realized about myself or things that have just changed. Many of the items I instinctively knew would change; a coming of age that I was sure was upon me, but also in other ways that I never really saw coming. It also appears that I was not alone in my metamorphosis. Some of my friends have changed in significant ways, with religious awakenings (both toward and away), marriage, children, illness, death, etc. The lives of the people around me suddenly seem more complex, like prisms reflecting the light of their lives in a variety of colors.

Although, I sometimes feel a tiny fraction of my friends' changes are not necessarily for the best, or have the effect of making the person less appropriate for my life. For example, I have a friend for whom religion is nearly a cult, and it unnerves me slightly. For I often do not feel like he is the same person I knew. His opinions no longer feel like his own, but are more akin to a doctrine of sorts. Keeping the hard line. I suppose that is how it goes sometimes, but I wonder if an extreme of any religion, no matter the purity of intent, is the correct path to pursue. Many of his friends seem to be asking questions similar to this and I am not sure anyone has a good answer. Perhaps there is no answer. Perhaps the only answer is that sometimes you can no longer be the same with a person as you were before.

(This post sort of meandered on through my stream of consciousness, but I felt it got cumbersome and was unlikely to be read in full. So, I cut about half of it out.)