Simple Sisters/אחזת טמות

My friend, The Beard, told me that by the end of my posts that he was left sad and hungry so I'm going to try to change the former.

In truth, I've had some pretty amazing things happen in the past week. Sometimes I must remind myself that if I truly need something, the world will make it happen. I don't mean this in any kind of material or monetary sense. Most of the time in my case it comes in the form of community, healing and friendship.

My journey this week has mostly been about my being a woman. Genetically I am female but the concept of being a woman, especially post-puberty has always been a strange one for me. I was fortunate to grow up in a pretty egalitarian Jewish school so there has always been a spiritual aspect of womanhood. Even this was a little confusing since I could read Torah and lead services but there were still jerks who refused to show me how to wrap t'fillin the Sphardic way because I was a girl.

I've always been good at almost every subject in school so I never thought to discriminate what is and isn't a good field for "girls" because I'd thought it was just based on merit. I never had any particular problems in Theatre during my years studying that because it is also a very egalitarian field with a great acceptance of the odd.

And then I get a hair up my ass to study science. Geology in particular is such a new field (relatively) that, at least at the Great American University where I attended last year, over half the department are women. Again, I think this aspect is pure luck.

But I'm learning more and more that in other STEM majors this is not at all the case. I went to a conference this weekend of women in STEM majors celebrating not being robots who sacrifice their gender identity to be in male dominated fields but figuring out how to change the archetypes and actually bring women in science, not just around it. The specifics of the conference were to provide support and encouragement to go for higher degrees such as masters and PhD's but the impact went far beyond that. We did a team-building exercise where we built a prosthetic hand (would highly recommend this if you're in the corporate sector because there's an actual product at the end) for victims of land-mine accidents. We worked with a cosmic healer and also a woman who basically says "fuck you" to anyone in opposition to her and gets shit done. I should mention that by "gets shit done" I mean she heads one of the most successful Biotech Grad Departments in California, which probably means the country.

I think the story that touched me most was one woman who got her acceptance letter for her PhD the same day she discovered she was pregnant. She said that she had to teach the department the laws because they didn't know what maternity leave was. I think this is sad in a couple ways, beyond the obvious that they think women in their department aren't allowed to have a family. It also saddens me that they probably don't have paternity leave either which unfairly puts a lot more burden on new fathers who have to work and then go home and be sleep deprived because you never get a rest with a new baby. So, in general, these policies make it stupidly hard to have a family, increasing the problem that smart people can or don't like (for one reason or another) procreating. The modern concept of family is hard enough to ponder but it's impossible if you know there will not be sufficient support from...anywhere.

But overall, this conference was beautiful. Being in a room full of people who non-judgementally support you as a human being and support your academic endeavors is one of the best feelings in the whole world. Even just being in a room with one person who supports you in all ways is special. I hope that you can experience this feeling very soon if you're not alreay.


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BBQ Beans with Mac N Cheese (portion for one person, two days)
I will literally eat this repeatedly until I get sick of it, which is pretty uncommon for me.

Bean part:
1/4 c. dry beans. Use Pinto, Red, Anasazi or even White. But Pinto and Anasazi are best.
1-2 Bay leaves
1/2-1 tsp Better Than Bullion
Trader Joe's BBQ Sauce

To cook beans (I think I've written this before, so pardon me): Wash, sort. Soak overnight. Maybe put an asprin in to reduce bean-fart gas. Make sure you cover the beans with like, 2 inches of water when you soak, they grow up so fast.

When nice and plump in morning, rinse with running water then put in crock pot with the bay leaves and Better Than Bullion (you might want to dissolve this separately with some hot water. Cover the beans with a couple inches of water and leave on low while you go to your classes (6 hrs, ish). Beans should be pretty much falling apart or at least tender when you fish them out.

When you go to heat up the beans in a pan, add in the BBQ sauce from TJ's and enjoy!

To cook mac'n'cheese:
1/4 cup dry pasta if it's small, closer to 1/2 c if it's big pasta
about 1/3 of a knuckle wide slice of butter
a couple splashes of milk
maaaaybe a teaspoon of flour, but add only what you need.
Boil water for pasta. As that comes to boil, grate a hunk of cheese. I find a sharp or stinky cheese works well, anything from cheddar to parm to things with dark moldybits. Anyway, just make sure the cheese is small and thin, easy to melt. Maybe about a handful of cheese or two at the end. When water boils, throw in pasta, about 1/4 cup or less.

Once pasta is cooked, drain it and leave in colander for a quick minute. Cut about 1/2 TBSP butter and melt in the pot. Pour in about 2 TBSP at most milk. It should be on medium or low heat, do not boil. Add in cheese slowly, making a melty mess. You should add more butter and milk if it looks too chunky. Finally, if you've put in too much milk, sprinkle (very lightly) a little flour so that it thickens to the consistency of sticking to back of spoon.

Incorporate your pasta and YUM!!!!

This song is from my best friend Good Panda. I thought it fitting around the High Holy Days.

Truth and Lies of Reality

Lies Reality Told Me

*Ramen is cheap. I found out recently that if you look at the price of Ramen, it is actually nearly $10/lb. 3 packages, 1 oz each are $1, but there are 16 oz in a pound.The most fanciest beans at the market on bulk are never more than $4/lb, most normal beans are $2/lb. (I don't know if I've mentioned it but I always go into the bulk section with a 1 cup dry measuring cup so I always get exactly 1/4 lb of beans.) You'd be hard pressed to find rice more than $2/lb. In fact, you should almost ALWAYS be able to find meat for less than $10/lb and meat is the grand prize. This actually pissed me off when I figured this out because usually the first thing people refer to about poor college students is that they live on nothing but Ramen. This means that as a society, we're completely skewed on what things are actually worth and what "food" can be. Ramen is so completely lacking of almost any nutritional value combined with using MSG for flavoring (I use Better Than Bullion if I do make it) it's like...negative food. Then I just felt really really bad that 1.) college kids think that's the only way to eat cheaply and 2.) how unable to learn they must be because they're not getting proper nutrition because they think they can't afford it.

*You have to go to college to get a good job. I was talking with a receptionist lately and she was saying that from a marketing standpoint, colleges are pure genius. They have convinced a whole society that you need a degree which will put you at a minimum of $20,000 debt in order to get a "good" (something where you might eventually be able to pay back your debt) job. I feel like this has hit very close to home for me. I had to take a break this past weekend because the pace of the past year has just caught up to me and I could not keep running. Whenever I get ten minutes to think in a row, it makes me seriously question my ever-lasting toil at a degree which may or may not be futile. I've been accused, by a professor, of running towards money by turning my back on Theatre and going to the Sciences. Please respond on this point as I still haven't made up my mind how I feel about this comment.


Truths Reality Told Me

*You will never get an ounce of work done once you start playing Minecraft.* Why do you think this blog was 3 days late? (It was also Rosh Hashana this weekend.)

*Sleep/rest and drink is the best way to battle sick Last week I fought two colds from both The Little Bear and PartnerPenguin. By the end of the week I gave up trying to be productive and just drank tons of tea and did as little as possible, save math homework (which for some reason is fun to me). I didn't even judge myself for falling asleep reading my Physics textbook. Sometimes, you need to give yourself a break. I feel a lot better now.

*Obama on radio So it turns out our President promotes himself on the radio. But not like, advertisements. Nope, just talked with the talkshow host and they continued to play snippets of it on the local R&B station which plays in the sketch-as-all-get-out-24-hour laundromat where I go. I thought it was even better that the DJ's who played back clip urged their listeners to vote. I didn't have a local R&B station last election. It's good to be in this area sometimes. <3

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Recipe this week not inspired by "A Man A Can A Plan" but might as well have been.

Chicky with Beer Can Up Its Butt
1 whole chicken (We found one at Trader Joes for $6)
1 mediocre beer in can. We used Simpler Times from Trader Joes.
A bunch of butter and a bunch of paprika (not necessary, just added because

PartnerPenguin is, at times, hopelessly Hungarian)

*Drink half the beer. Preheat oven to 350
*Take out gross bits from inside of chicky. Perhaps make Dirty Rice with it later.
*Bring butter to room temperuature, wash your hands. Take butter in 1/2 tbsp is amounts and slather over the skin of chicky. Sprikle on paprika. Go in other room if you are me and this grosses you out.
*Place half-full beer can in a glass pan deep enough to hold the chicky when she eventually falls over drunk. Place chicky on can so it fits in the cavity.
*Bake chicken in oven for maybe an hour. Thigh should pretty much fall off. You can cover it with tin foil if you want it to cook faster, I think. We just let it sit and it cooked and was one of the best things ever.

Also, I may be allergic to carrots. Worth more investigating.
Video on this one not worth watching, but song=^__^

Honors and Healers

You may or may not know, to a certain level of detail, that over the past year I changed my status from "temporarily able bodied" to "not so much." I went from living on a mountain and easily walking the 700 ft incline over half a mile to and from school every day to not being able to walk 100 ft in a flat apartment. I suppose I'd actually been ill the whole time (year and and a half), but I would completely ignore it until I was in the hospital or Urgent Care (where I was a regular). No one could figure out what was wrong until this summer. 

The diagnosis wound up being my soaz muscle (giant muscle connecting your leg and torso) was badly injured and spasmed to the point where I would get paralyzed for hours at a time. Since it was an untreated injury, the damage spread to other parts of my body, such as my digestive tract which would occasionally just stop working for weeks at a time. The therapy and exercises which I have since been participating in have not always had an immediately positive effect; leaving me lying on the floor in pain for hours while the Little Bear sits on me, thinking me an amusing log. 

But this experience has probably taught me more than the eleventy-five years I've been in school. Things I've always taken for granted; like walking. And enjoying my days more or less pain free. I've learned how to ask for help, to even sometimes demand it. I've also been forced to slow down. When you can't help but appreciate things on longer time scales other than the instantaneous effects of regular 20-something-year olds, a strange appreciation comes. Perhaps it's an old appreciation that we aren't used to. I've learned to draw healing from people. Just the act of caring to ask what's wrong when you see someone (young) using a cane helps the person using the cane know they are not suffering alone. 

I am blessed, on top of that, to know serveral healers. People like The Photographer who turned me upside down and hung me from a bar which let my spine straighten. It straightened so much that I'm now half an inch taller. Or the Menonite Woman who gave the Dvar at shul on Friday night who reminded me that the greatest way to learn about a person is by asking.

But probably the best thing that happened in the past week was the rare occurance of conferring upon the title of Magid to my Saba (grandfather). 

[Perhaps it should be mentioned that I adopt family so if I refer to someone as kin, it's because they are kin, not necessarily that I grew up with them in my life.] 

I had read about synagouges of old having someone called a Magid, a storyteller, who kept the stories of the community. Almost like the Giver, in a way. A local, communal historian. I have never heard of anyone actually having this title because, maybe local history isn't as important anymore. This, however, is the perfect title for Saba. My shul wrote its own Siddur (prayerbook) because there was a need for an LGBTQ siddur and not one in existence. Saba wrote a goodly portion of this siddur, caputring the feelings of a community "double blessed instead of double cursed" (as the Rabbi says) with being both Jewish and Gay. He's also wrote a whole manner of books on the presence of queer people in Jewish history and texts.

But above all, he is a healer. When we did the ceremony, the Rabbi asked people to come forward whom Saba had just been there at the right moment for them. A good third of the congregation came forward. I'm so proud and happy for him to have figured out what his position is and been acknowledged as important by so many people.

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Food idea for the day, since figs are in season.

A bunch of ripe figs, best picked from tree or farmers market but Trader Joe's also has decent ones. Maybe 5-10.

Stinky cheese. Blue is on the milder end. We like Roqufort or anything with an indigo center. If you can't stand stinky cheese, something super sharp would work too.

To make: 

Preheat oven to 350 or so. Maybe 325? Cook time might be longer but easier to monitor.

Cut off the little hats at the top of the fig, down far enough that you get the open center. Cut up a bit of cheese, stuff inside. Put the hat back on top. Put on a dish with sides (like a casserole dish) and bake about 10 minutes. Let cool, is delicious.
Buy the ingredients on ZeBeDoo!

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In competely other news, I am now offically obsessed with this song, both for its content and its animation. It hails back to the Beatles while simultaneously using very new technology. And trumpets are always great.

Make Tartlets, Not Muggings

Partner Penguin and I were at Cotsco the other day, in the Oatmeal isle (as you do) and this woman picked up some steel cut oatmeal and talked out whether it was worth buying or not. When we suggested making Oatmeal cookies she replied "Why would I make them, I can just BUY them!" Something about this statement just irked me that 1) she had enough money to willy nilly buy really crappy store cookies and 2) it made me sad that she couldn't afford the time to make delicious Oatmeal cookies. I understand that baking is not everyone's favorite thing to do but there is just something comforting to have some warm fresh cookies and maybe a glass of milk. (I have watched Stranger Than Fiction a few too many times.) So we cook. This is what we do for fun.

Partner Penguin has been experimenting with muffin tins, Trader Joes brand pie crust and various fruits. The yummy result being adorable strawberry-banana tartlets. At bedtime, I put three away for a family I bearsit (the bear happens to be a 1 1/2 yr old human child) for on Mondays since they'd let us borrow their internet for the day. Then last night, I had a dream that I was mugged on my walk to work. So this morning when a homeless man asked me for change, fearing my dream may come true, I offered him a tartlet. He greatly accepted. Anything helps, it doesn't matter who you are.

Humans are social creatures. We love to forget this in the wonderfulness of text messaging and smart phones. I think the thing I've learned the quickest and the strongest is that when you can't afford luxuries like internet and 4G wireless, you have to re-learn how to be a people. I have found my solution to this is food. Food is cheaper when shared. It also tastes better. Also, if your good at making it, you can become quite popular, creating a positive feedback loop. Food is also simple and instant gratification. 

I think community is something I haven't fully appreciated until this past year. When I lived down South in Expensiveland, I had relatives and friendly acquaintences but almost all of whom were completely absent to help me in times of serious need. Or worse, they offered help and then made me pay them back with 20% of my income, immediately after recieving the aforementioned help. 
I moved to Northernland last year and re-found communities that help fill holes in my soul; which I hadn't realized had gotten so deep. I have been so touched and felt so grateful in the past couple weeks for the friends who have offered everything from a hug (IRL or virtual, sometimes text can do good) to a graphing calculator when I really needed them. Singing with my shul's choir has kept me from going absolutely bat-shit on top of the huge honor that they are bestowing on me by letting me sing with them on High Holy Days. 

November may be far off, but I am so thankful right now to all the people in my life keeping me sane. Maybe I'll have more practical insight next week.

Food tip of the week: Anastasi beans (anyone know a different name for them, I know Anastasi is derogatory towards Hopi) are very meaty and delicious. Works well alongside Pinto. Paired with kale or something else dark and green, pretty flippin' sweet.

Also, WTF who leaves a random black pill at a library study booth?!