Swimming Friday

What I should be doing right now is taking a nap. In a few short hours, I will be heading out into the cold and super windy Philadelphia evening on my way to a friends and then a 76er's game downtown. Seeing as how I sleep for crap most nights anymore, I'm slowly weaning myself down off the caffeine and artificial sweetners that have sustained me for years... going out on a Friday night, especially after a morning of swimming, seems to require some form of nap.

My new love, these days, reclaimed from my youth, is swimming. Since I scrapped Gold's Gym for the local community center and got brave enough to don a swimsuit among the masses of 60 year old women--I've been consumed with the activity. In fact, I think I have a permanent, yet faint chlorine-scent to me. The water is where I acquired my last injury, but after completing a mere 2 months of physical therapy, I can do 30 minutes at a stretch without over extending my rotator cuff. It's a good thing (at least until I get those swim fins and water gloves!). Besides, I injured myself in the ocean with a surf board, not in a pool surrounded by old men in Speedos.

And on the subject of Speedos... men of a certain age with scrawny white old man chicken legs, bellies that are reminiscent of a woman in her third trimester and hair coming from interesting places should skip the Speedo--PLEASE! The only one I sort of forgive was the blind guy.

On that untasteful note, I have a basketball game to get ready for... I wonder how many eligible bachelors are attracted to purple haired girls that smell of chlorine?

A Thanksgiving Note...

As I sit down to write, Willie Nelson croons how his heroes have always been cowboys, and I'm struck by the sound of "slow moving dreams" and how it resonates within my own synapses this morning. (It is, technically, afternoon, but it still feels like morning, so go with it.) Watching the rainy mist outside and sitting next to a purring cat make it hard to get motivated and head out in earnest preparation for my Thanksgiving tradition... and part of me says, "But Nikki, you have On Demand and a bag of Cheese Curls, what do you need to prepare for?" And that part of me really isn't wrong... there is nothing I need--and for that, I am very fortunate.

Dreams, though, are not always about what we need. Dreams are like water or air--we need them for our survival, but the contents of which are sometimes optional. They act like a sustenance for the soul... a food that feeds imagination and builds possibilities. After all, what could we accomplish if we did not dream?

It is not enough, though, to dream. Dreams require a lot of hard work and the pay back isn't always seen in our lifetimes. It isn't just Willie Nelson getting me thinking about this today... part of it comes from working on the planning of a King Day of Service and someone mentioning if only he'd lived to see his dreams. That would have been nice, but I think even King, like so many who put themselves into what they believe in so fully, knew his dreams were beyond his lifetime.

This time of year always finds me wandering down the path of these thoughts. The excesses of this time of year, especially, seem to contradictory to the intent. Nonetheless, I will continue to dream of a world where we can all live in peace, where everyone has equality and equal access to that which sustains life, and a place where we all take care of what we have around us. And, more importantly, I will continue to find ways to work toward that dream, knowing I will never see it to fruition in my lifetime, but knowing I can make small differences for the next to build upon. If that makes me a liberal, a socialist, a humanitarian, a crazy-ass nut... whatever label you might put on it--then I accept it. At the end of the day, it is, after all, my dream.

Sunday Recipe Sharing

Seems like I've carved out a pattern of time to come here and blog on Sunday afternoons... and I'm good with that. Yesterday, I met with my writing group and realized how much I appreciate the ability to use this space to do a different kind of writing and thinking.

In keeping with my recent theme, I do want to share an uber-fantastic recipe I stumbled across accidentally on purpose this morning. The folks over at Godiva have the golden (chocolate) crown with their recipe for Chocolate Cranberry Bread. I made this today; using jumbo muffin cups instead of a loaf pan and subbing whole wheat white flour, but the results carry. Simply put, I plan to toss the rest of my chocolate cranberry recipes and keep this one--which says a lot.

Cooking day also has me in full November mode, despite the unusually warm temp today, making a hearty vegetarian mushroom barley soup and a rather rugged turkey chili via the crock pot. There is a tad bit of nostalgia accompanying the mushroom barley as I based my recipe from one published by Ann Arbor establishment, Zingerman's. (If you are looking for the original recipe, you can go HERE.)

Nikki's Vegetarian Mushroom Barley Soup

1.5 tablespoons butter
1.5 tablespoons Brummel & Brown spread
1/2 large onion finely chopped
1/2 cup chopped celery with leaves
1/8 cup parsley, chopped
1 medium carrot, chopped
6 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
8 oz crimini mushrooms coarsely chopped
8 oz baby portabella mushrooms coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon white whole wheat flour
3 Knorr's vegetable boullion cubes
1.5 cup pearl barley
2 teaspoons salt
9 cups very hot tap water

Rinse mushrooms. Using a colander and large bowl soak the mushrooms in the hot water for half hour. Remove mushrooms from water. Add vegetable boullin cubes to the remaining liquid to make broth and set aside.

Melt the butter and Brummel & Brown in a large heavy bottom pot. Saute the onion, celery, parsley, carrot, garlic, and mushrooms cooking until soft, about 5 minutes.

Slowly add the flour, stirring every 30 seconds for about 5 minutes or until thick.

Add the broth 2 cups at a time. Turn the heat to high, add the barley and salt. Stir well.

Bring to a boil then reduce heat to simmer, covered, for approximately an hour or until the barley is tender and the soup has thickened. Stir frequently.

Another l-a-z-y Sunday

It's becoming quite the ritual--spending my Sundays hanging around the homestead. This weekend, however, I managed not to mangle my hand in the mixer while making whole wheat bread. That'd be dumb to do twice in a row, especially with the bruising still evident from last weekend. But, I did make bread... still looking for "THE" recipe and getting closer each time. I was delighted to find a bread makers forum online: The Fresh Loaf. So many recipes there, and so little time. But I suspect friends and foes alike will be getting some kind of bread from me as we move into the holiday season... if for no other reason than giving it away allows me to continue my experiments in the kitchen without letting the results go to waste.

But, today found me rousing out of bed after 9... it was a late night getting back from Atlantic City after midnight from seeing Bill Maher at the Borgata. It was a terrific show; Maher is brilliant finding the humor in oft humorless realms. Even he noted, at one point before launching into a segment on religion, he doesn't have a show where someone walks out pissed off (usually during his dissection of religion most notably). And, not surprisingly, the 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists were present and shouting from the back of the venue. Bill handled them as he always does, but you got the sense he's really tired of that game. A few moments from the show:

• The teabaggers of today will be the protesters in 5 years when someone tries to make changes to the Public Option.
• "I don't know why people say I hate America, I love America--it's the American's I can't stand!"
• We have a President that quotes Voltaire--a far cry from Bush who thought Voltaire was a Harry Potter character.
• If not for Sarah Palin, we wouldn't know what we do now about Alaska. And now it is clear that we are building the fence on the wrong border.

So, yeah, some of his material was right from his blog and even so, it was good. I laughed until I cried at times... and given how I felt when I woke up, that wasn't a bad thing at all. My observation is that going to a Maher show is to liberals as the Teabagger Parties must be to the conservatives. Some might argue, but Nikki, the Teabag parties are about making changes and getting heard. Sure, ok. But it is still orchestrated and supported by an entertainment figurehead. One thing I have learned in my years of activism that most teabaggers haven't quite seemed to grasp it isn't who can yell the loudest, that only leaves you with no voice... it's those that actually listen to what the opposition says and crafts logic and reason the other side can understand that gain on their goals. And while my fest last night was to laugh and yell really loud (and we all have to get that out of our system) I'm ready to again hear what is being said and devise my logic.

How to laze away a Sunday...

There is no doubt in my mind that anyone out there needs advice on how to laze a Sunday away... but in case you are like me and forget, on occasion, that you can, in fact, slow down from breakneck speeds to recharge, allow me to put forth a few suggestions for how to idle a day away.

1. Baking. Ok, given this is probably not every one's mode of laziness. I do find it relaxing and there is little I like more for a Sunday than the oven-warmed morning smelling of cinnamon while I sip my coffee.

2. Amazon Wish Lists. Remember when we were kids and that great big (by five year old standards) Sears Wish Book catalog would FINALLY come... and you'd spend hours looking at all the toys and imaging what you could do with them come Christmas morning? Fast forward 30 years and curl up with your laptop on the floor and page through Amazon.com and add items to a wish list to send off to family and friends. Want to buy me a present, or just waste time paging through my handy work? Check out my Holiday/Birthday Wish List.

3. Twitter. Yep, I finally gave in and signed up to Tweet my moments away. Under the pretense that I was only going to support Drew Carey's pledge for each follower he gets this year, he will donate $1 to LiveSTRONG. But, after over an hour of playing, I now have downloaded TwitterBerry to my CrackBerry and synced my Facebook via TweetSnyc. Oh, and yes, even added the widget to this blog so you can get my last few Tweets.

4. Facebook. Don't believe me? I have a GORGEOUS new layout in FarmVille!!

5. Napping. There is not a cat alive that would not, if they could speak English, tell you that a nap in the sunshine is the best thing ever. And, they are right. Nothing beats stretching out and then curling up in a ray of sunshine as it comes through the window. Fortunately, I have big enough windows that I don't have to vie for a spot with one of my furry-babies.

6. Sports. I was deep into the fourth quarter of a basketball game before it dawned on me that I'd read the outcome of the game already this morning. But hey, it was basketball, and I probably missed the 300 references to "Halloween night" and thought it was a bit much that kids were still in costume for a game the day after Halloween... but that's what happens when you are downloading TwitterBerry.

And that about does it. You don't want too big a list when you are working on slothdom.