Soup's on!

"There ain't no point in making soup unless others eat it. Soup needs another mouth to taste it, another heart to be warmed by it.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

The sickness has spread. Dane is now infected. I am on the mend. So, tonight, leaving the Open House at school, I swung by Publix to get necessities for an easy and healing meal for us both. 
Here is one of my favorite made-up soups to make when it's cold. It's warm, spicy, healthy, exotic, and gluten free. 

Here's what you need

-1 can of diced tomatoes with green chilles

-1-2 large chicken breasts

-some ginger powder or diced ginger root (to taste)

-some stir fry type vegetables of your choice (I usually use whatever I have, but tonight I got one of those stir-fry mixes in a bag)

-1 can of coconut milk (I use lite)

-2 packets of Thai Kitchen instant ginger/lime noodles with soup. VERY cheap, gluten free, and surprisingly low sodium

-1 lime 
 
Optional:

-an onion (not necessary but makes it better)

-garlic (same)

-the soup packets only have about 400 mg sodium themselves, which is less than most broth, but I like to cut that with no salt added chicken broth because sodium makes me bloat up like a balloon.

Instructions:

Well, it's soup. You kind of just cook it all in a big pot. Seriously though: 

Thaw the chicken and dice it up into chunks. Dice onion and ginger root also. Go easy on the ginger if you are not used to it. Sautee it all in some oil (I like coconut oil, but any kind will work) until it smells delicious.  Add vegetables and diced tomatoes. Cook until slightly soft. Add seasoning packet from one (or two, depending on your sodium preference. It won't be too high either way) of the Thai Kitchen soup packets. Add 1-2 cups of chicken broth and some hot water (will vary based on your use of the seasoning. More broth if only one packet is used, more water if two were used). Cook until boiling. When boiling, add noodles from both Thai Kitchen packets until soft. Turn off heat and add coconut oil. Serve in bowls with a wedge of lime. 

So yeah, just put it all in a pot in the logical order of soups.

Have a wonderful cold night, and don't catch this cold!

 

Trashing the Mind to go with the Body (not as deep as it sounds)

I have come to discover something. I enjoy some really BAD television sometimes, especially when I am not feeling well.
Last time I was sick, early in the fall, I came home from school and crawled into the bathtub (my cure-all, part mermaid), put my ipad on the counter, and proceded to watch a television show called:

"My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding"

I watched like five episodes of crazy.

It's mostly about teenage brides who are raised to clean everything with bleach, love BLING and Victoria's Secret (ok, I like VS too), and remain pure (despite an incredibly scandalous wardrobe) until they marry their young husbands whom they may have only met a few times. There is drama. There are boys with spiky hair. There is one lady who brushes her teeth with straight-up bleach.

Something I genuinely like about that show is that I find the current existence of such a sub-culture in modern America to be fascinating. Based on the show, there's a large population of Romani only an hour or so away from where I live. Who knew?

Despite that genuinly interesting feature, the whole show is mostly brain trash.

My other brain rot source is the CW, AKA, mindless-supernatural-drama-but- with-a-great-soundtrack-and-really-hot- people-chanel.

Well, I'm sick right now.

So last night, I once again come back from school, feeling sick and achy,  and  look for something to watch before I crawl into the tub. The old favorites don't grab my attention, nor do the thought-provoking shows. So I find my CW app and lo and behold, there is a show now by the CW cabout Mary, Queen of Scots, called "Reign."

So I start watching, and as is my typical response to most CW television, I find myself between moments of internal groaning, "ohhhh, this is soooo BADD" and goose-bumping over the pretty music with the pretty cinematophy and pretty people and the dramatic plotlines.

I guess this is how people get addicted to romance novels?

Anyway, this show is really, really bad. Nothing is historically accurate, and the fact that everyone has British accents makes it hard to tell who is supposed to be French, who is supposed to be Scottish, and who is supposed to be English. Why do film people always make everyone sound English?
Don't get me started on the fashion. Or the acting.

But today, still feeling bad, I knew exactly what I wanted to watch when I crawled into bed.

Luckily it's mostly an "I'm sick thing." But it scares me a little.

Some quick iambs for the bard

They say writing anything helps you write better. I’m definitely a little sick with something, and worked late today, so this is all you get today. On another note, I am tutoring “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and quite enjoying Mr. Shakespeare:

10 syllables, consisting of 5 iambs. 

Each iamb is two little feet-

unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed

Shakespeare

 

The bard/ did write/ the most/amaz/ing tales

And words,/the kind/which lov/ers like/to steal

Read here/to hear/the pass/ion of/his voice

And cel/ebrate/ his gen/ius with/much zeal:

“Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:

What hast thou then more than thou hast before?

No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;

All mine was thing before thou hadst this more.”

-Excerpt from Sonnet 400

Memories in the Wind

The sun and wind are fighting outside today, just like in the fable where they try to make the man take off his coat. 

If the story were happening today, I would bet on the sun. It is so terribly cold out that the wind is a bit of a nuisance.   I like the idea of ice and snow. I don’t like the freezing dark that comes so early, made even bitterer by this wind. I feel the darkness too easily already.

While I don’t love the bitter, gray, cold, the wind has its own charm.  It’s mysterious.  It’s Wuthering Heights and sunset on the mountains. It’s  a woodland walk, abundant in stars and snow. It’s the sound of isolation, but also of the companionship of nature.

It reminds me of all the nights I would spend curled up in the window seat at Carter Hall. I was blessed to live in a dormitory where the windows displayed a gorgeous view of the mountains and the valleys below. I remember many, many afternoons spent watching the red clouds sink into the pink and purple mountains, and many nights curled up in the window with a book, feeling safe in my tower as I listened to the haunting melody of the wind.

I think of walking around half-inhabited campus in 2011. The beginning of the semester had been post-poned due to a blizzard. Some of us had arrived before the decision had been made, so there weren't many people outside. As I walked, the beautiful white ice crunched beneath my boots, the only sound except for the piercing wind. I felt like Belle, stumbling upon the Beast's hidden castle. 

I think of Day of Prayer at Rock City, and my wonderful roomates who got up at 5 a.m. to help me pick up the donuts. I was in charge of the sunrise event that year. Picking up the donuts at 5 is the job that no one else in Psi Chi wants, so the president always has to do it. My roomates (also some of my best friends) went with me, anyway.  It was freezing and the wind was fierce that day, but it didn't matter much because we just huddled together closer to pray. I remember my hair flying around like crazy and how hot chocolate and hot donuts tasted all the better.

Those beautiful images of Lookout Mountain fill my mind’s eye almost every day, and when it happens that my life flashes before me, those mountains and the sound of the wind will be there.

 

In the room outside of time Dream: Part 1

The wheel kept spinning; its hand-painted sections swirled in a blur of color. The small, thin man who stood closest to the wheel twisted his fingers nervously in his wiry beard.  His intent gaze was focused on the motion as if there were nothing else in the world.

And in fact, there wasn’t.

Something had happened on Earth. I didn’t remember what, because we were outside of time. Technically there was no here, no now. We were past the boundaries of all that.

To me, outside of time looked like a small, crowded room where things cut out of the fabric had been hastily stuffed away. These things varied. Just at my right, there was a globe with strange continents on it, old sneakers, and file cabinets full of various types of manuscripts. There was a fake mustache and a large bell. It was very cluttered. It reminded me of my Aunt Erma’s house. Wait, I didn’t have an Aunt Erma? Did I?  I couldn’t remember.

Here is what I knew: if anything was left on Earth, it would be found only in the future. I  needed to go back there and see what was left.  I couldn’t go back to the time I had come from because it would be too dangerous.

 It was the man’s job to find a time for me to go, somewhere many years from where I’d  just left. However, he could not fight the spinning of the wheel. It was what it was. Destiny, some people called it. He just helped the few stragglers who had fallen outside of time to find their way back in it.

The wheel was slowing. Slowing, slowing, and drew to a stop. One section had found itself to be the target of the bronze arrow on top of the dial.

Suddenly, the old man was pulling me to look closer. I bent over to inspect it what was painted on the selected piece of the puzzle. I was barely associating the painting style with something that I vaguely recognized as “impressionism” (or was it impersonation? It was so hard to think outside of time) when the old man gave my back a hard shove.

I was falling and then I was lying on something hard and rough and wet. 

Little Authors

Just an ordinary day....
Disclaimer, names have been changed.

I teach six different types of classes every day, but I have two that I really enjoy: literature and creative writing. Apparently, my enthusiasm comes through in those classes (in a way that I doubt it does for math or science), because it is only the kids in those classes who always come in with one question spilling out of their mouths: “So what are we doing today Ms. Katie?” 

Sometimes it’s frustrating because they all ask it in echo fashion as I’m still trying to scoot my previous class out of the door.  However, looking back on my day and recollecting that oh-so-common query fills me with affection and pride for my students.

Today, however, my Creative Writing class didn’t even ask what to do (I told them yesterday, but had forgotten that I had). They came right in, got their blue folders, and quietly went straight to the computer lab where they began to type and revise their short stories.  I was so proud of their self-motivation as I looked around at them getting their stuff set up. The way they pulled up the Word documents and intently read my comments on their papers made them look so much older than they are.  My chest felt warm with fondness.  

I went around to give feedback, suggestions, and translate my cryptic handwriting. For a good while, no one was even really talking (rare moment, I assure you, in a room full of kids with ADHD).

Then I starting reading something that Strawberry Shortcake wrote, the ending of her story. 

Me: ‘”LeeAnna and Matty went to prom. They go to UGA.’  Strawberry, did you mean that they are going to go to UGA?”

Strawberry: “uh…yeah?”

Me: “Well, you need to change the tense, and you should tell me when they go, something like… “In the fall, LeeAnna and Matty began school at UGA together,” because right now it sounds like they  are going straight from prom to the UGA campus.”

Strawberry:  (giggling) “Oh, ok. Got it….”Three days later, they started school at UGA” 

Me: “Um…college applications are definitely more than a three day process Strawberry.”

                     Merlin (age 11) looks up from his writing, suddenly his expression is quite tortured.

Merlin: “Wait, wait, WAIT, Ms. Katie. You told ME that I couldn’t change anything after I pre-planned."

(Merlin likes to change the course of his stories drastically every day, so he was challenged to map it out and stick to writing his main events as they were planned this time). 

Me: “Well, this is an editing thing, not a main event thing. We’re doing lots of editing things today. Also, if you wanted your characters to apply for, get into, and begin college in three days that would be ok with me. Your story happens in a fantasy universe that you created, while Strawberry’s story takes place in our hometown.”

Merlin: “ Ohhhhhhh” (goes back to writing, looking smug)

                                                                Deerslayer looks up from his writing.

Deerslayer:  “Ms. Katie, how do you spell ‘radishes’?"

Me: “R-A-D-I-S-H-E-S,  why?”

Deerslayer: “Oh, I’m writing more about basic training for my story. You know how they give them radishes?”

Me: “You mean rations?”

Deerslayer: “Yeah!”

Me (trying not to laugh): “Um, I don’t think “radishes,” is the word you are looking for. What you mean is…”

 Strawberry cuts in: “Mrs. Katie. Can I add a teacher in my story named, ‘Dr. Fartalotagus?’ Or would that be too inappropriate?”

Dinoman (age 9) looks up from his writing, suddenly: “You know, nobody can finish high school and start college in three days.”  (goes back to writing for several seconds, then pauses and looks up again.)…”Unless it’s Dr. Who.   He could do it.”

Me (smiling now): “Yep, he could do it.”

Special Feature on a Special Person: Also Fellowship (Both the ring variety and the life variety)

The only child of two extremely intelligent, creative, right-brained psychotherapists, I had trouble finding a "best friend" as a child.

Sure, I had friends, but they never really "got" me, and I never really "got" them, not in the way that I wanted to deep down. I don't think this is abnormal really. I see it at school all the time. Kids find other kids who are kind of like them in some way and they just stick together, like little dust bunnies. I think the only reason it even bothered me as a Little (categorically, a "Little" is someone under the age of 12 in my mind) is because I was almost ridiculously emotionally aware (still am, but am an adult now, so a little less weird. Hopefully)

I had a lot of friends I hung out with. I had dance friends. Church friends. School friends. They were nice to me and I was nice to them. We did things together like birthday parties, afterschool outings, spend the nights.

But still, I always hoped to find what Anne Shirley would call a "kindred spirit" friend. Especially around middle school. I would say that this is also pretty normal for most people. Either that, or it had something to do with The Fellowship of the Ring coming out when I was in middle school. I mean, I was heartsick for this kind of friendship. A Frodo and Samwise kind of friendship.

I was also heartsick over Elijah Wood, but that's another story.

I found some great friends when I started at Heritage Academy in middle school. Our friendships may also have had their origin in The Fellowship of the Ring....about half of them could speak Elvish. Anyway.

The next year I went back to homeschooling so I could travel with my parents, who had started up a counseling practice in Mississippi for half the month. Gradually, I lost track with most of the people I had been close to. However, there was another girl from that group of friends who had also switched schools that year. Corinne and I had been in the same circle of friends, but never really hung out just the two of us. I am not even sure we got along very well when we were actually in school together. One time I chased her around at a sleepover trying to share some glitter that I had brought, and that did not go over well. I thought glitter was awesome, and she hated it. Today, I think we know how to meet each other in the middle on those kind of debates.

We really bonded over books and writing, resulting in a lot of good discussions, olden style e-mails, and the formation of a creative writing group "The Inklings."  But then we just started bonding over a lot of things, and sharing even about the things we didn't have in common. There were deep discussions, stupid boy drama, and many adventures. There was the formation of the world's silliest rock band. There were college applications and then going to different colleges. There was discussion about the "big ideas" that came from college. There were many separate adventures now, and many new friends, but all of them shared and cared about. (here, I think, is where true friendship starts to show itself, the kind that most Littles can't understand, when you care what other people are doing even when it has nothing at all to do with you). Corinne's grandfather, Earl, passed away suddenly. The first truly sad thing that happened in the course of our friendship.

My dad had a stroke. I came home from college and hadn't been at the hospital long before Corinne was there too. 

I was in England for months, and Corinne was in Wales for a year, but we were always in touch. I got engaged and she helped me plan as much as possible in the few days she was home from Wales on break. She came home to be my maid of honor. She and Dane became good friends too. I'm so glad- it's so much fun when the three of us get to hang out and be super, extra nerdy. I also love Corinne's friends and her Birmingham roomates. That's another thing about friendships. I think that really good friendships always have room for, and welcome, the making of more good friends.

My mom got sick, and Corinne was there. It always seemed like she was there at just the right time. When things were the hardest, she would be there and things would always seem better for a little while. The time she visited in April really stands out. We went to a local bluegrass festival in the mountains, which was why she had come, and arrived home that afternoon to find that my mom had gone back to the hospital again. It was a lot more serious that time than many of the other times. Things didn't look good. We were at the hospital very late and when we came back could not sleep. All three of us stayed up until the early hours of the morning, talking, coloring and watching Bones.

There were a lot of times like that.

The next time Corinne visited, her grandmother, Judy, passed away.

When she was there two weeks later, my mom died.

Too much to write, to really say, here. It didn't change anything. Didn't change what happened or how it hurt (how it still hurts). But it meant the world to have her there, just the same.


I'm so glad to have Corinne in my life. She's been the kindred spirit, the Samwise kind of friend, that I always wanted to have when I was younger. Even more than that, she has taught me so much about friendships and about loving people. I feel that this friendship, which the first really deep friendship that I ever formed outside of my immediate family, has helped (and will continue) to me delevop subsequent friendships. It has helped me with my marriage, too.

When you're little, you want to find someone who is just like you to be friends with. It is natural to be drawn towards those with similar interests, just as it is natural to be influenced (or to influence) those with whom you spend time. This happens with superficial as well as with very deep friendships. However, similarities are not the foundation of the most solid friendships...nor is influence the only thing that maintains them.

What I've learned from Corinne, as well as from my husband, and many other dear friends, is that the best friendships can be grown into even better friendships by compassion, patience, laughter, selflessness, openess, vulnerability. In other words? Love.
It's not an uncommon lesson, a pretty normal thing that you find out as you grow up, but I am blessed to know this, and to have people in my life who demonstrate what it is to be a true friend.