Trim the Fat

I'm not a pork person. I sort of knew that from the onset of life, but it wasn't until recently that it became an affirmed fact within my personality. It's not so much the taste (although it's not my favorite) it's more the fact that it is completely vile in preparation that makes it wholly unsavory in the end.

Saturday: David buys a behemothic pork roast resembling a small elephant baby. David's thought process: Pork is cheap. Pork is prolific. Pork is good.

Monday: I decide to do something with the pork. Having never really dealt with anything but ham or bacon, this is new territory for my culinary capabilities. I find a recipe and begin the process known as "trimming the fat." Now on this recipe, they make it sound like this a small, trivial step in the process. Like draining grease off of something, or adding a pinch of salt into a recipe. When really, it should have said something like this: Step one: TRIM THE FAT (i.e. spend two hours elbow deep in pig carcass attempting to strip the minute layers of meat from the copious amounts of slippery fat.)
But it doesn't say this. So I'm lured into a false sense of simplicity. I take our 8 lbs. pork and lug it into the sink, gently snip off the plastic, and am immediately blasted with an odor something between fish and hot cooking oil. Steeling my stomach, I begin to "trim the fat." Thirty minutes into this process, I realize that I really don't have appropriate kitchen utensils for this. The fat has subsequently broken my scissors at the joint, and I am currently hacking away with the sharpest kitchen knife that we own. Pork juice squirts into my eye and that is really the last straw. Pork is flung across the room as are expletives that remind me of my kinship to ancient sea captains of the Canadian Maritime provinces. These brave captains also had to face unknown dangers in less than ideal circumstances. Situations such as these broaden one's vocabulary.
In the meantime, Lissie is screaming on the floor but I can't pick her up because my hands are covered in pig lard and I don't want to contaminate her along with the whole of my kitchen. Eventually, a few pieces of meat are tossed into the crock pot, and I am left muttering oaths that I will never cook pork again. Never.
Trim the fat indeed.

One more and I'm done...

Actually probably not. But this one is so funny!

To Autumn

I've felt a little blue lately, with summer coming to an end. It doesn't affect me in the way it has in the past. I'm not going back to school or teaching, David's not "going back" to work because he never left it, and I'm not sending any little ones to school or anything. But there still is something slightly mournful about the ending of the summer season. Each summer is born with such hope and joy and life. And when it ends, it ends. It's not coming back. I read Dandelion Wine this summer. I loved it. Not at first, but by the end it had me. It describes how each summer is encapsulated in bottles of dandelion wine made from that summer. All the events and memories can be found in a single bottle. I wish I could concoct an elixer such as that. The narrator made a list of rites and traditions as well as revelations and new events. This summer was filled with the rites of swimming, campfires, ice cream, libraries, reading, walks, etc. But there were several new revelations that filled it as well.
With all this, I was reminded of the poem that made me fall in love with John Keats. I read it in high school and have been a devote Keats reader ever since. And it made me think I could be a poet. That ship has sailed, but I still love Keats. His word choice is so full. His images, like a painting. This poem helps to remind me of the beauty of Autumn. It has a melancholy radiance. But enough describing the poem. Here's the poem.


 TO AUTUMN.
                                            1.
    SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
        Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless
        With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
    To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
        And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
            To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
        And still more, later flowers for the bees,
        Until they think warm days will never cease,
            For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
                                            2.
    Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
        Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
    Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
        Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
    Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
        Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
            Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
    And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
        Steady thy laden head across a brook;
        Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
            Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
                                            3.
    Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
        Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
    While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
        And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
    Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
        Among the river sallows, borne aloft
            Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
    And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
        Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
        The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
           And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Thank you, Keats. I can move on to Autumn now.

Decisions

A part of everyone's life, right? Even a baby has to choose somethings.

The mug or the cell phone?

Those who know me well, remember I had an extremely hard time being content with what I decided to study in college. I started on the path of elementary education and felt that I couldn't turn back. Which was a stupid assumption, but there's the logic of an 18-year-old. I railed against it, was bitter for several semester, and vowed that I would never teach. I didn't like it; I didn't want to.

But circumstances change and in the midst of medical school debt and poverty, I decided to actually use what my degree was for. Not for lack of trying other options. It's amazing how little a professional book reader makes. 

Teaching was hard, harder than anything I had ever done. But it wasn't the difficulty that dissuaded me. I, myself, did not see the value and the worth of what I was doing. It was downplayed and discredited by so many individuals in and out of my personal life. If I really wanted to make a difference, I should have become a neurosurgeon and saved people's lives. Or I should have become a social worker to help the poor and needy. Or a business woman and taken corporate America by the reins and ridden off into destiny! Any number of possibilites would flash before my eyes. But as C.S. Lewis says, "No one is ever told what would have happened."

And yet, I found myself becoming a teacher. And what was more, I began to enjoy it. I loved my little room that I worked so hard to clean, organize, and decorate. I loved my "space theme" with posters, signs, and banners. I loved greeting my students on the first day of school in my NASA outfit.

And my students. It was amazing how they were placed into my classroom arbitrarily, but would permanently impact my life. It may sound trite and obvious to say, but I'll miss them the most. But I discovered wonderful things about myself as I taught. One of them was that teaching was a worthwhile profession. One that deserved to be done well. With joy...and creativity...and love.

I've decided to stay home with my daughter. It's the right decision and I am happy about it. But I'll miss my little classroom. I've been cleaning it out the last few weeks. I've seen posters, files, and lessons I worked so hard for end up in the trash. And it's kind of like a part of me got thrown away too. 

But I am happy with this new decision. And I think Lissie is as well.

She decided on the cell phone.

Mt. Gretna

A strange thing happened on Saturday. A completely rare occurrence; akin to solar eclipses and comet sitings. David had a day off. So we took advantage of this phenomenon (I never realize what a bizarre word that is to spell) and went hiking on Mt. Gretna.

We had a very pleasant afternoon, complete with downpour on the way down from the mountain.

We ended the day at The Jigger Shop-- an old fashioned ice cream parlor. David got a Baked Alaska.

Subsequently, I wanted something that was on fire too. So I ordered something called a Banana Foster. Turns out, it's made with alcohol. I thought I felt a bit dizzy in the shop!

Just because some of us can't get enough...

These are some awesome Harry Potter images... It doesn't mend the hole in my heart that it's all over, but it helps.

and then

But on a happier note, I did (to the fullest extent of my nerdiness) get up at 5 in the morning so I could answer the clue at the Pottermore site. And yes, I did get in. And yes, I did jump up and down like a little girl.