In French, there's a term “faux ami” which means “false friend,” and it refers to French words that are so close to English words that we can mistake them for meaning the same thing – but they don't. One example, “librarie”: guess what it means in French. Nope – not library, but bookstore. The French word for library is “bibliotheque.”

Other things than words can be faux amies. Well, friends can be false friends, of course. But a host of other things can fool us as well.

The one I'm talking about today is one of my own making. Only very recently has it dawned on me just what a false friend it is. It feels like a wonderful, comforting friend, where I can snuggle down, relax, read, knit, eat, surf the Net, talk on the phone...

I'm talking about my “Nest.”



It's a big old leather recliner (it's too big for me to use the recliner so I shoved the hassock from the other chair in front of it) plus one or, often, two, TV trays parked adjacent to hold plates, or my ever-growing pile of books to be read, or today's mail. It's so big that I've had to stuff a rolled-up wool poncho and a king-size pillow at the back of the seat, and jam the two bolsters from the couch along either side, to make it comfortable.

It's also the oak side table with the reading lamp on it. As well as whatever other useful stuff/debris I allow to build up until I have to clean and reorganize it so everything doesn't keep sliding off onto the floor or into the wastebasket.

I have spent many hours in my Nest. Times too numerous to count, I've thought, "I should get up and do something," but it's so comfy, I let the thought slide on through, I wriggle down deeper into its comfort, and stay put. I love my Nest.

My Nest wants me to die.

Recent bloodwork, and a visit to the doctor, and the evidence of my bathroom scales and the condition and signals of my body, have revealed its evil purpose. Oh, nothing frightful – yet. This is the first time I've had blood sugar above the normal range...the second time my cholesterol has been above the normal range...and my BMI is Obese.

I got to thinking about my Nest, and it occurred to me that everybody I've ever known who had the tragically familiar constellation of health problems: obesity, diabetes, congestive heart failure – all of them had their Nests. Which came first? Probably varies amongst people. But I know for certain that until I had spent a few years developing and inhabiting my Nest, I had perfectly normal blood sugars, perfectly normal cholesterol levels. Since I quit smoking in 2009, I've gained some 40 pounds. That wasn't all the quitting, I'm sure. But some of it was, and some of it was The Nest.

This all occurred to me two days ago. I decided then to go home and take a photo of my Nest, write this post, and blog about it, as part of my holistic approach to changing my eating and fitness habits. But when I got home, and thought about picking up the camera and taking that picture, I felt active resistance to the idea. I didn't want to. I just wanted to get dinner, bring it out to the TV tray, open up the Internet, and bliss out. So that's what I did.

See what it did there? The Nest is evil. I shouldn't call it The Nest. I should call it The Death Trap. 'Cause that's what it is. (Sometimes my holistic approaches to changing bad habits have to back up a few miles and take care of seemingly innocuous little bits of mental debris before I can get to the big stuff.)

So at least, last night, I took the pictures. And now I'm posting this. I have 92 pounds I want to lose before the next Bastille Day (July 14th). That's less than 2 pounds per week. That's do-able; in 1994 I lost 55 pounds in 4 months, so I know it's do-able. I expect all kinds of health and mental wellness benefits to kick in way before that last pound drops off. I'm going to list them in my journal and maybe do some dumb things like put one good benefit on each of a bunch of index cards, and leave them all over the house (especially in the kitchen), to remind me that The Death Trap Is Not The Nest. It is NOT my friend. It wants me to die.

The battle is on.

One of my favorite "Paris" blogs is David Lebovitz's Living the Sweet Life in Paris. He's an American chef/baker/I'm not sure what-all, and his blog is 50 kinds of fun. He features recipes often, of course, and cafes and restaurants and just living in Paris yarns. He also plugs cook books he finds excellent, and I was so impressed with his writing about Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One by Joe Yonan, that I immediately ordered it online. And it's every bit as cool as David said it was.

Tonight I tried my first recipe out of it: I made the Sweet Potato Soup Base and after portioning it out into four containers to save some for another night, I sauteed a four ounce chunk of salmon, broke it up and dropped the pieces on top of a bowl of the soup, added a slice of lemon and a few extra leek shavings, and then - amazing! - I remembered to take a picture!



I was uncertain how good this might or might not be. The idea of the combination of sweet potato soup and salmon wasn't a 100% sale for me, but I figured, if I want to be adventurous, this is how you do it.

Happily, I was pleasantly surprised - it was really good!

So I thought I'd better report it here.

This cookbook has many great recipes and I can't wait to try more of them. It includes over 100 recipes for both weeknight staples and weekend projects. Says so right on the cover.

The landscaping crew came out Thursday and planted 5 Bridal Wreath plants in the empty space out front, and one of them in the middle of the "bird bath" flower bed triangle out back. It would look a lot better if I'd plant some colorful annuals in both places. And scatter some grass seed to fill in the numerous small bare spots in the front (it gets about 100% shade all day long, plus there were two old blue spruces here until about 1995 so there are undoubtedly still anti-competitor chemicals lingering, plus there is the maple tree in the middle of the yard also pumping out anti-competitor chemicals so it's no wonder the grass struggles...but it is definitely doing better than most of last year.) I have already used more energy writing this than I have in actually *working* out there so I'll shut up now since I don't have any intentions of actually working out there.

Really life is almost uniformly uneventful these days, which at my age is just what I like. I go to work, I come home. I putz around the house as needed, outside I water the hanging baskets and the transplanted plants and the new plants, I come back in and read and watch Netflix (I don't miss TV at *all* - anything I want to see, I can wait awhile and see it on Netflix.) I go to bed early and start the routine over in the morning. I'm loving all the reading I get to do.

I'm content - but that's boring to read in a blog so I'll sign off now.

Just what the title says. I was VERY fortunate with my arm; I've got full function back and no pain (just a little stiff when I straighten it hard, which isn't a function anyway). Went back to work March 9. And, finished my first pair of socks last week. I've got started on the second pair but O'Keefe bit through the yarn last night so I have to learn a new skill - the Russian join - to get the yarn back together so I can proceed. That will be tonight's knitting goal.

I had a landscaping expert over yesterday to look at my yard the way it was intended to be (our original drawings and plans from his company, who did the landscaping work in 2007), and how it is now (after two years of neglect by me). This makes me sound wealthy or something, but really I've been saving money those two years, also, and at this point in time I think it's important to get the front yard looking nice again. All my neighbors keep theirs looking nice and I'm ashamed I've let it go this long. There are reasons for it but it's all inside my head and other incentives are shifting into gear now so I'm going to try to do right by my wonderful neighbors AND my terrific house. I'll feel better once it's back in shape.

The first order of business is just spring clean-up. Later we'll replant the areas where the plants failed. After that, I hope to hire them to come back once a month during the growing season to keep things looking tip-top.

This IS stuff I COULD do myself, except that's been part of the problem, I keep telling myself that and then never get around to it. I have to face my shortcomings realistically - I'm never going to become That Gardening Neighbor I had envisioned. I always enjoy mowing, too, but this year, after hurting my elbow, I don't think the vibrations and exertion would be particularly good for the arm.

Well, I haven't kept this up very well...I did drive out to CA to spend a wonderful holiday week with my kids, and drove back without the slightest bit of any kind of problem. I had to rearrange my overnight motel city plans a couple times to avoid horrible winter weather but it all worked out fine in the end.

Almost got through the entire month of January - then on the 28th, I slipped and fell on black ice going to work, dislocated my right elbow (worst pain I've ever had - do NOT do this!!!) and I've been off work since. I start PT today and hope by the middle of March to be back to work and in fighting fettle, if not sooner but that's up to the orthopedic doctor. I intend to keep up my end of the project, that's for sure.

For someone who is constitutionally averse to housecleaning, this enforced sloth (two weeks of not using my right arm AT ALL for ANYTHING) has me champing at the bit for Spring Cleaning. Also, all those months of Not Knitting this winter, now I'm simply frothing to get back to it. Even bought two more skeins of sock yarn and two more books of patterns using sock yarn. And I haven't even finished my very first sock! (That was started, of course before the accident. Um...months and months and MONTHS before.)

I never imagined how hard EVERYTHING is without the use of my "good" (dominant) arm and hand. It takes five times longer and ten times as much energy to do ANYthing. And I'm a huge baby. I have been so fortunate all my life with good health and lack of injuries, that I have just had no end of tantrums (alone, in my house where no one can see my bad behavior) over how frakking difficult everything is. Yet I know full well how lucky I am (not just in the accident, which *could* have just as easily resulted in crushed and broken bones, nerve, connective tissue and blood vessel damage) - I'm among the luckiest million people on the planet, I reckon - good health, I'm able to support myself and own my home, wonderful TREASURES of family and friends and an understanding boss at work - there's no end to my list of good fortune. So now that the pain and disability is abating, I'm trying to keep that in the forefront of my thoughts now.

I love the sun but it does show up the dust, doesn't it? *sigh* Patience, Terry, patience...

Since neither Congress nor the Executive Branch look likely to step up and defend my 4th Amendment constitutional rights (protection against unlawful search and seizure), I will be opting out of air travel this holiday season. I'll be foregoing an essentially "free" airline ticket (paid for out of my credit card "reward points") and instead spending more than half my savings on gasoline and motels in a three-and-a-half day sojourn from here in the middle of the continent, to its western edge. In the dead of winter. Across a major mountain range. In my car. Alone.

This might strike some, at first, as pretty stupid. Well, let me allay your fears. If it's storming on the morning of my planned departure like it is right now, I won't be setting out at all. I want to spend Christmas with my beloved family, but not from the inside of a coffin. I've got Skype; if the continent is torn asunder by winter storms, I can always hook up with my kids via the internet.

My car pooler seems convinced I'm hell bent on committing suicide this way. He's just worried he'll have to pay more for his gas to & from work.

There is of course an elevated amount of personal risk even in good weather, of some 27 hours of driving over 7 hours of flying. It would CERTAINLY be more CONVENIENT to fly, for God's sake.

But I have sat here and watched George Bush and his cronies dismantle our Constitution and the values this country was supposed to hold dear, and done not very damned much. Watched Obama not do very damned much about it, either. I've written a few letters, made a few phone calls, donated a (very) few dollars here and there. Thing was, there just didn't seem to be anything much I could do about any of it.

The TSA and their x-ray nudie machine vs. their jackboot enhanced pat-down routine - now that, I can do something about. Doesn't matter if they do it randomly and if I never got "picked." That they CAN do it AT ALL is what makes me sick to my stomach. In my view it's just plain fucking illegal. Yoo hoo, Congress? White House? Anybody?

Obviously they don't care (at the least, or in the least). I can opt out of flying, so I am. One of the most horrifying scenes I remember from Schindler's List were the people of the newly-occupied towns getting herded and prodded into lines by the Nazis. Told to strip naked, they stripped naked. Humiliated, embarrassed, frightened - they stripped naked, God bless them, and stayed in lines, and got into the cattle cars.

Do you remember that scene?

Does anybody?

So, the 2010 Paris week is over. Two dear friends came over to help me top off the week. Our menu tonight was:

Biftek Sauté Béarnaise

Gratin Jurassien

Navets à L’Étuviée

Pain et Buerre

Dessert:

Panna Cotta

avec

Sauce aux Cerises

And here's the dessert, as promised:

And I'm so tired and full I can't move. Maybe I'll just sleep in my chair downstairs tonight....zzzz

Tonight, my current favorite: Ratatouille! With some plain old biscuits and a little bit of cheese grated on top. Easy and delicious!

Since I've got French class tonight, I made an easy omelette and just heated up the remaining baguette in the microwave. Tomorrow night! The ratatouille!

OK, I have run out of energy before I’ve run out of Paris Week. I’m too pooped to cook ratatouille tonight, or even crêpes. I opened a can of Le Manwich and cooked a pound of le hamburger and I’m making Le Goofing Off tonight. No photo. Too fatiguée even to study any French.

Bah. It’s not good getting old.

I was going to cook ratatouille tonight but the day got away from me. I did my raw crudités, cheeses, and baguette. I had smoked gouda, emanteller, cheddar, and bleu cheeses. Green onion, carrot sticks, whole almonds, raw green beans, a little tomato, and little chunks of turnip. Hot baguette right out of the oven and butter, mm mm. I also have some Paul Newman's Own salad dressing of some kind, to dip things in. See, I've figured out, the thing is about French cooking is that everyday isn't anything fancy. It's just that they have more variety and do more interesting things with them. It can be very simple. Once again, my little ring-holder kitty approved:

So today launches my third annual Paris Week. I make myself simple French dinners all week, to recapture a little of that wonderful week I spent in the City of Light in October 2007. THIS time I'm going to make more of an effort to take pictures of my creations.

Tonight it was something similar to Filet de sole bonne femme - from my memory of the recipe I followed in about 1972 from that era's Betty Crocker cookbook. AFTER making and eating it, I looked in my Julia Child cookbook and online to see if there is actually such a recipe - there are apparently lots. And it turns out I cannot call it "Filet de sole bonne femme" because I forgot to put mushrooms in it. *slump* Oh well, it had real butter, Reisling wine, chopped green onions, a little bit of rosemary and thyme, and did I mention the Reisling wine? That's French enough for me. My version is a lot easier than the other ones I found. It was good, too. I had steamed Brussels sprouts and some bread-machine-made bread & butter. My ring-holder kitty approved:

This week of opulent self-indulgence culminates with a splendid dinner to which I invite two or three of my dearest friends. (They're the only ones I know will still talk to me if my dinner turns out awful.) I have to write the invitations tonight and get them in the mail. Last year we played Milles Bournes after the dinner. I'm going to ask my invitees to make suggestions for this time. I've got the original French "Breathless" DVD, and "Paris, Je t'aime" we could watch... We'll see.

On tomorrow night's menu: Ratatouille and crusty French bread, with maybe some cheese sprinkled on it. Mmm-mmm, I love me some ratatouille!

One year ago today I quit smoking. Yay!

I made myself a chocolate cake to celebrate. Probably not the greatest idea, but hey, it's something. I'll probably end up throwing most of it out.

Today my nephew came over and painted my back yard shed for me. The old color was not nice. That's all I'll say, since it's no longer visible. The new color was scientifically obtained by the paint store lady putting a chip of my house siding into her color-detecting gizmo and coming up with the recipe to make the same color. I also got white for the trim.

I painted a couple of sheets of plywood that I'd had them cut to fit the doorway of the shed; the old doors have rotted out at the bottom due to being dragged across wet grass, etc. I painted them in the garage and when they were dry, they didn't look like the same color as the house, so I hauled one out to compare it right up against the siding. The color was 100% perfect. My eye could not detect any difference. Amazing.

So today as my nephew was painting, it was looking pretty different also. It looks more yellow. Now that it's done, and it's had a few hours to dry, it still looks different. Maybe the south side of my house – the side I got the sample chip from – is lighter than the north side – the side facing the back yard – because the sun beats on the south side all the time and hardly at all on the north side. But I don't care because the new shed color is 1000% better than the old color, and it goes just fine with the north side of the house.

This has taken a HUGE burden off my shoulders. This is a biggie. Thank you SO much, nephew! You're the BEST.

The video problem was that my video player (can't remember which I have now) needed to be updated.

Today must be Two Bafflements for the Price of One Day...

#1: suddenly my Macbook won't play any kind of video - not even the Zazzle.com embedded thingy here on my blog page. ???

#2: TWO people have now bought the Book Lover's Necktie I've got for sale at Zazzle.com. I'm delighted but completely surprised. Hope the recipients like them!

Making ratatouille today. I'm thinking it'll be dinner tonight, then lunches for pretty much the rest of the week...unless I get sick of it, in which case I'll freeze it for later.

Let me just say up-front, especially to my French friends, this is pretty loose-handed ratatouille; I consulted Julia but my version is getting simmered for several hours in a crock pot. If that turns it into mush, then I will have learned a lesson. I added a few things Julia didn't call for, such as marjoram, rosemary, thyme, parsley, and bay leaves. I also tossed in a fat teaspoon of pre-chopped garlic and a sliced stalk of green garlic I had lying about.

So, first I emptied two 15 ounce cans of tomatoes into the crock pot. I happened to have a can of whole tomatoes and one with stuff in it, like onion and celery. Doesn't matter, as long as it's tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes are ideal; but I've never met a canned tomato that didn't measure up. I threw in the herbs, and some salt and pepper and turned the pot on low to warm up while doing the other stuff. (The picture above has eggplant and a few pieces of onion and zucchini in it because I didn't think to take pictures until I was well along in this process.)

Then I chopped up the 1 eggplant and 2 zucchini into pretty large chunks (I wanted more zucchini but I'd already eaten the other 2 in salads earlier this week). I figured since they would be cooking for several hours, maybe bigger pieces would keep them from turning to mush as quickly. We'll see. I filled a big bowl with water and shook maybe two tablespoons of salt into it, and stirred it well, then plunked the eggplant and zucchini into it. I put a pot on top to keep them submerged; eggplant floats - who knew? (The salt water trick is Julia's. I assume it draws out excess water so they don't dissolve while cooking.) Left that there for half an hour and went and did something else - oh yes, I chopped up the other vegetables: a whole yellow onion, a red, a green, and a yellow bell pepper, a stalk of green garlic.

After soaking the eggplant and zucchini for 30 minutes, I put them in my salad spinner and spun them, and turned them out onto a clean dishtowel and patted them dry. I heated olive oil in the skillet at a high-med. high temp until it started smoking, then threw in two cups of the big veggies at a time:

You're just singeing them to seal in the juices so it only takes a minute or two, stirring a couple times to turn each piece over. Once they're showing toasty little brown areas all over, put them into the crock pot.

When the zucchini and eggplant are mixed into the tomatoes and herbs, you then add some more olive oil to the frying pan (the previous vegetables will have soaked it all up) and sauté the onions and peppers and garlic (I added the pre-chopped garlic at this point) until they're translucent and giving off their juices. Put that in the crock pot, add some more salt and pepper, and...

Give it all a good stir, put the lid on and go do other things for a couple hours. I'll stir it again then leave it until 6 pm or so. Some nice hearty bread, some good French cheese - Heaven! Well - I'll let you know about that..

For various reasons, I've not gotten started on the "9 Great Walks in 2009" program yet; the first one I planned got replaced by a trip to the zoo, and since I don't have my calendar here (vacationing in CA) I can't recall if there was another one this month that got omitted, or if there was only the one planned. Anyway, once I get home and back in the groooove, I'll start that delightful "project" and hope to have some nice photos and interesting tidbits to post.

Today's the last day of my vacation. I can't say I'm champing at the bit to get back to work, but oh well, I'm glad to have my job, and that's for sure. I'm sure the yards are knee-high so Wednesday (I'm taking that off, too) I'll be trying to get caught up in the yard work, and then to KEEP up with it the rest of the growing season. Lots I want to do out there...

Today's big project is prepping the milliards of cardboard boxes I've got out in the garage, for carting off by the recycling people. I saved boxes for many many months, while I was selling off my Robert's photography equipment. It's all gone now so I don't need all those boxes any more, and I can use the shelves they're on to organize the stuff I will eventually sell in a garage sale (target: this October). After THAT's been sold, I can use those shelves to organize whatever stuff's left out there (and I'm hoping it will be minimal, just the things I actually need and use).

But a thought occurred to me a few minutes ago: I also need to go through the house, garage, and shed and find all the toxic crap: yard chemicals, paints, thinners, unneeded automotive fluids(?) - whatever; and bundle them up and take them to the City's Toxic Crap site. Maybe next weekend. That'll make me feel a LOT better even though it doesn't really contribute visually to my Clean-Up and Organize campaign.

There's always something, and that's the truth. Owning your home is unending Job Security.

I'm ridiculously chuffed right now. I just succeeded in mowing my *entire* back yard in one straight go. Years past, the first few mowings, I had to take a break in the middle...of course, while taking that break I had to have a cigarette...but I quit that in October...so...Huh. Could there be a connection?

Nah. Probably not.

Anyway, I'm exhausted and sweaty and my hurty shoulder hurts, but by GOD the yards have both been mowed (I did the teensy front yard last night).

I would NEVER have expected to be able to mow the back yard on a week night, after a full day at work (plus about 90 minutes total on the interstate getting there and back). This opens up so much goodness! I haven't even begun to realize it all yet. For one thing, I can do yard work after work instead of workouts! (I've started doing those again. Blegh.) (And I just used the word "work" three times in one sentence. Go figure.)

There's a lot more to do before I'll consider the yard "summer-ready" - and for me, that's NOT Martha Stewart Just-My-500-Best-Friends-Party-under homemade Chinese lanterns ready. It's just *acceptable*, to me.

Anyway, now I can face the neighbors. :)

No walkies this weekend. I think I've got bronchitis. Energy level 0. And, since I have the Envirothon (State level) next Saturday, I'd better not push my luck, health wise.

Nothing else to report, certainly nothing interesting.

Maybe next blog.