I don’t usually go in for holidays. However, I am not one to say no to good food. My mother has a number of holidays, in addition to the standard set, that she will celebrate throughout the year.
Since this is a food related question I think it best to respond with pictures.
I often feel that there is simply not enough time in the day to do all that I want. I will quite frequently stay up late attempting to complete everything.
This of course results in waking up late each day and thereby having even less time to spend on those things I wish I had more time for.
The cycle repeats.
Now, if sleep was not necessary, what would I do with all that extra time?
First, I would make myself a schedule. I find lists are good for keeping some semblance of order:
Ideally, I would like to schedule videos out 2-3 weeks in advance. I think I would do this just in case something unexpected comes up and prevents me from recording.
More often than not there have been times where a scheduled video day has arrived and I have nothing on hand.
I don’t exercise as much as my doctor would like. Twice I have put my back out and been bed ridden for a week or longer.
I often think I should get some exercise, but somehow my priorities shift and it doesn’t happen.
Earlier this year my mother was injured when a board in our back porch gave out. Really the whole deck needs to be rebuilt, but I cannot afford the cost.
I ordered the wood and screws to effect repairs, but I only got maybe halfway through the project. I feel bad about it every time I see the unfinished holes.
I really do spend far too much time either at the computer studying, in front of the TV watching shows, or with a phone in hand, participating in some inane activity.
Back out in nature, back to my roots, recalling some small piece of my youth. I should like to go on an adventure.
There was a period of my life where I meditated daily and took time to understand my self. I would read Mooji books and remain quite. I miss the sense of peace I had in those times.
I will quite often skip the description for a new television program if it is more than a single paragraph. Too often have I encountered a description that explained the entirety of a show before I watched it.
I enjoy listening to ASMR videos on YouTube. Unfortunately, of late, there has been a spike in adverts that play both during and after such video content.
Videos I have watched in the past and know not to have ads, and say as much in their descriptions, now have very loud ads that play.
Frequently making coffee, drinking coffee, and then going for refills seems to fill my day. If only the cup were considerate to my wants.
I’d like a cup that would stroll over to the coffee pot and refill itself, add some cream and sugar, and finally present itself, heated to a pleasant degree, ready for my consumption.
My favorite people are Hanguk.
I was introduced to Korean music in 2008 while playing Dungeons and Dragons Online.
I had just joined a pickup party, and the leader was apologizing over the microphone that his buddy was a “k-pop fangirl” and that music would be playing throughout the dungeon.
The music playing was from the group Girls Generation who were quite popular at the time.
In the subsequent years I have become enamored of Korean culture, customs, and history. My family has adopted the custom of performing the 제사 (Jesa) each year in memorial to our deceased relatives.
I and my family have enjoyed watching Korean television programing including Drama, Sitcoms, and Variety shows.
Currently, I am really enjoying watching I Am Solo. I’ve been a Defconn fan for some time. I am happy to see his career flourishing.
Cats. It’s got to be cats.
When I was 12 years old I and my mother picked up a pair of kittens from a woman who was giving them away at the local Safeway grocery store.
A female and a male. I named the male Zachary after the Black Power Ranger, while my mother names the female Calisto after a character from the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess.
Calisto bore a litter of her own shortly before her death. A woman came to the door one day in tears and said that she had just hit our cat.
Calisto managed to make her way home to nurse her kittens one last time. The internal damage had been catastrophic and we had the veterinarian put her down.
Of the kittens, we kept but one, an all gray runt of the litter. We named him Zing. Both Zachary and his nephew Zing remained with us until the family left Washington around 2006.
Zing found a home with a family friend, while Zachary joined my mother as she flew to their new home in North Carolina.
Zachary lived to 21 years of age, quite old for a cat. In his old age his kidneys were just about shot, the limits of diet and medicine. As his pain and general discomfort became apparent my mother took him to the veterinarian one last time.
Sadly, I was away from home at the time and did not get to say goodbye to a most cherished member of our family.
I am comforted by the many photos I took in his more spry days.
He was often found napping on the back porch.
In my memory he is still there.
Image by Lindsay Snow (Shutterstock).
I was born in the sagebrush dotted lands of eastern Washington in the town of Tonasket. My family, still navigating their way from the east coast, eventually brought their journey to an end on a jut of land extending out into the Puget Sound.
There, surrounded by water, sky, and mountains, I grew up. With each season an new adventure awaited.
Spring hikes along flowering trails of the Olympic Mountains, Summer sailing trips up through the San Juan Isles and British Columbia, in Fall beachcombing and cookouts, with Winter finishing the year skiing the slopes of Mount Rainier.
It is a difficult choice, choosing between beach or mountain. Like being asked which you prefer, mother or father? To choose one is to spurn the other.
This filial son offers a third choice: the sea.
The sea, its supple waters lapping at the beach, embracing the feet of mountains.
For myself the sea is life, it is love, it is home.
It is both the beginning and end of my adventure.
Where journey ends and peace remains.
Ever after.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I had access to a wide variety of foods. I think though that my families most frequent meals revolved around those dishes most closely associated with my ancestry.
I am a product of British and African-American parentage. Between, and as a part of, my broad world views and cultural upbringing, I have over time developed a discerning, yet liberal palette.
My love for food has reached even to the far east. I have taken every opportunity available to indulge in foreign foods from China, Japan, and Korea including Kimchi, Sukiyaki, and Mapo Tofu.
I am not alone either in these endeavors. Each year my mother brews the Korean rice drink Makgeolli and my father stores away many a container of homemade Kimchi.
Still, I cannot escape it. Curry with poppadom and fish with chips will always remain dear and true in my heart.
Attributions:
Curry (Nov 30, 2022 by Aneesha: SpiceCravings.com),
Fish and Chips (By Matthias Meckel – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74468548),
Fried Chicken (March 1, 2023 by Anonymous: Allrecipes.com).
Fat Wallet Refugee 