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It is a new outlook as well as a new look. There are new items on my agenda that may justify a second chance on this planet. Not that I came from another planet, but there are those who might think as much!

I know I can contribute something worthwhile, whether small or large in scope. My interests are varied, mainly close to home in terms of familiarity and importance.

The look is a combination of short (really short) hair, a color palette from years of shopping at a great store that went out of business recently, worldwide so I stocked up and a friend helped me organize my closet and put together a few outfits I’d have never thought to put together.

No matter how old one gets, there is always time to learn and grow, and to impart knowledge, even some wisdom, to others. Right now I’m trying to get back on track, reorganizing, re-purposing my life and learning what’s out there and how I can help our world be a better place for all.

Next week I am going to try yoga for the first time and will get back to blogging for you.  I’ve many ideas, even some recipes and perhaps even a college student cookbook with our nephew as an inspiration. I’ve three years for that one, I still am interested in finishing our “nest” and cooking for friends and family, plus if it’s OK with ZOE, getting another dog. No-one will ever replace my girl, I think she knows that.

I may learn to bake a bit, having spent a few weeks with an expert. Perhaps a couple of standouts for dinner parties. And muffins for breakfast, of course.

Pet peeve of the day: adult-proof packaging! I bought an alarm clock with a light for my bedside table so I would not have to get up and look at the clock in the kitchen, because when I’m up, I’m up. It was under $3 at the local hardware store. It took over an hour to get it out of the overkill of packaging, a screwdriver, two consultations, a magnifying glass and finding AAA batteries before I could set and place said clock. If I don’t think of the preparation time, I may just be able to roll over, touch its light button, see the time and go back to sleep nearly undisturbed. I won’t even get up to put down the window shades before morning, hopefully.

Hope all is well and that you’re enjoying the summer. Cheers! Dee

Over ten years. Yes, I’ve been blogging here at Cooking With Dee, Napping Dog Press for over ten years.  I was away for a while and someone took my name and has started their own (lame) blog using it. Luckily they did not take my years of hard work with them. The original Cooking With Dee is now cookingwithdee.com, and NOT .net.

I hope, dear reader, that you’ll come back and share your thoughts about cooking and politics and other matters. I have worked hard over the years recommending the best cookbooks and essential culinary tools, plus my own recipes (no “chilli” involved as with my replacement.

In other names, there is a recent and temporary entity for you to meet. Permit my introduction to both a help and a hindrance in my life for the past few weeks. There is also a loss to mention that breaks my heart.

I adopted Squid about three months ago. I feed it, water it, keep it clean and when I say “stay” it better do so. We depend on one another but ‘tis time to part. Squid (aka Squirt, Squigly Down Under), I thank you for the memories. Some I do not recall at all, I’ll leave that part up to you.

I didn’t want Squid at first so tore it from me in an unsightly manner, I was called an idiot for doing so. I am not offended, not any more as Squid, while needy, has helped me out as well and we’ve bonded for a short time.

We’re ready for bed now so will catch up in the morning. Come on, Squid, Another day. My husband has a cold, so is moaning in bed. The sky took its’ time to turn clear  blue, from rain and fog, the minute the Air Show was cancelled.

I needed Squid to feed me and transmit medicine. No longer needed I am just maintaining Squid until he is removed next week. Squid is a G-tube implanted in me over two months ago.

Out walking our dog, I took a tumble down some stairs just .a block away, hit my head, underwent brain surgery and was in a coma for three weeks before several more weeks of rehabilitation.  I am now home and beginning out-patient re-hab in between doctors’ appointments. I am thinking, writing well and still (since birth) having issues with remedial math. I took to walking first and graduated from my wheelchair to walking, quickly. After weeks of bedrest I wish to increase my stamina and endurance and maintain an exercise regimen for both brain and body.

While in the hospital, the dog developed  cancer swiftly and relentlessly and was sent to “doggie heaven” without my being told as my family thought it too much to bear. I’ve had Zoe since she was five weeks old and she died at age fifteen years after a good life. I didn’t need my family to tell me Zoe was gone. She told me herself.

Zoe is missed. Squid’s loss will be a positive step for the future. Needless to say I’ve done little cooking over the past few weeks, but eating nothing buy hospital food gives me a new meaning in life. I’ve cooked for the re-hab instructors at the hospital and this week I move on to lunch for everyone at out-patient care. Oh, and I tweaked the hospital menu and changed a few rules, and bent a few along the way.

For now I look forward to getting of “prison” and back to life as soon as possible. So, Reader, that is what I did this summer, how about you? Cheers, Dee

ps Cheers to therapy dogs and their owners! D

Two weeks in a row? We’re mostly locked in by double windows here from the wind and gnats from the swamp on the old train tracks, now a trail for walkers, runners and bikers. We haven’t opened our windows for years but buildings move because of the wind and I have to straighten the pictures (54 for now, 55 tomorrow) from time to time.

My husband’s situation last week was a bad cold, this week it was strong winds on an airplane on fumes so they had to land elsewhere, refuel, and wait for the winds to die down before going to Denver. Of course he missed his connection so is staying there tonight. We were texting earlier and I joked that with repeated weekends in Denver he might have a girlfriend!

Weather was bad here today, rainy and cold. I was supposed to have lunch a block away with an old (way younger than me) neighbor and her young son. It was not the day for it so we were sidelined as well.

It’s funny that one doesn’t see a friend for a year, then runs into them four times in two days. I keep four fresh (more interesting wood) flower arrangements up every week and have even taken classes on how to arrange flowers. One tiny one is for our immediate family, including the dog, another for my deceased father, and another for my husband’s uncle who died a couple of weeks ago

I design them all now and like to think that the central flower in our Uncle’s vase is him, and that all the petals from companion flowers, and leaves are from his family. and  friends. The largest vessel is for us, for fun. I still have pussy willows from weeks ago, and have added new greens, lots of white and yellow and purple flowers (small mums) and one branch of Bells of Ireland, always a favorite.

Sadly, my husband is miles away and will only be with us for a day. Then he goes away for two weeks. Sidelined, both of us and I have to deal with the dog. Cheers, Dee

I had another mother once

For a couple hours after school

Born the same day/time as her daughter

Daughter took me as a fool

I said go inside, ask Mom

She’ll tell you that it’s true

It only made us closer

The Colonel’s daughter and me

We baked a lot of cookies

Together, as we

Time has placed us apart

With marriage and kids

I ran into her Mom on a knitting site

She put us back together, it fits

We’re still 1,000 miles apart

But I remember us as kids

Cheers! Dee

To me it says what do we remember, what do we know and what can we learn.

Welcome, Hungary. I am looking into your historic culinary pursuits and will let you know if I can pass the test. That’s the learning part. Very interesting.

I try to learn something new every day. You know that. Today a bow and arrow has tossed me to goulash and many spicy dishes. Dee

Growing up, I was taught to win, everything. I started sports in school that I was never good at and we lost. I had to ask the Assistant Principal to say about our track event on our morning homeroom broadcasts that we came in second. There were only two teams. We lost. I was the slowest runner in the second spot passing the baton. I was good at that, but we lost.

Loving Olga Korbut I was never a great gymnast but was made Captain the first week on the high school team and we had just moved into town. We made it to State finals that year, and lost. Do we see a theme here?

I told a potential Olympic athlete to stay at the State event after her performance. She’d said she was done and was going home. I said as Captain that if she left her colleagues I’d go to the judges and rescind her gold medal as I would kick her off the team. Coach agreed beforehand. Next thing I knew from outside the locker room is that she was cheering with fellow students.

Athlete, no. Leader, yes. I was very shy and didn’t believe in myself back then. College, then work and volunteerism changed that. My husband and I met 17 years ago as friends and married two years later.

Today we have a philosophy of team work. We engender talent. He lost dogs during his life, a cousin, now recently an uncle. He lost jobs to femme fatales who knew how smart he is and that they could lose their jobs so they ganged up on him.

Losing is education. Shrug it off. Learn from it. I believe that is the only way one can learn. If a path of gold is created for a child she/he cannot learn the vicissitudes of life. Oh, that’s the word of the day. Oh, my! Dee

One Thanksgiving my husband wanted to go lie on the floor in his grandmother’s (Nanny’s)  formal living room because his back was bothering him from a childhood tree swing incident. I looked for him and laid on the sofa. It was twilight and there was even a lighted Christmas tree.

There are five “grands” and I’m honorary. They started showing up and lying around and we told stories for an hour or two. Silly stories of their childhoods. Lights were off, it was calm and peaceful.

His cousins told him a girl was coming by to ask him to marry her. He was probably around eight years old. One cousin rang the doorbell and hid while the other sent him down the laundry chute!

Stories. That’s what lives are made of. Nanny asked me why I asked her son Steve about a possum a week before he died, a few weeks ago. He took my husband’s phone and said Happy April Fools’ Day! I replied that he could not do anything to me because I was 1,500 miles away. “Yes I can, there’s a possum in your house!”

I don’t know that those ephemeral moments and stories will continue, but that twilight time is one to remember. Sad for Nanny, losing her Steve. I think she may let go, now that she knows she doesn’t have to care for him. That will be a great loss and a sad day in many lives. Steve was kind and funny and came up with an issue every holiday with which he needed immediate assistance, from railroad tracks to video to computers. Nanny is kind and loving with every family member. She’s Nanny to me. Dee

No, it’s not me. My husband grew up on a dairy farm and his parents now have a ranch. The first night I met his parents we arrived at the farm, talked a bit and went to sleep in separate rooms because we weren’t married yet. I got up and went to our Jack & Jill bathroom in the middle of the night, to nine pair of bull eyes 15 feet away, looking for food.

Yes, I shut off the light and ran to ask my future husband what that was. Oh, they must have the bulls out in this pasture. It was normal. We’d arrived around midnight so I didn’t see the farm. He sighed and fell back to sleep immediately. I went back to bed but not to sleep. What kind of place am I in? My father has a doctorate and has been a college president and head of several national organizations.

The sun came up and I saw it through the hay barn. I was smitten. As you must know from his mathematical and physics knowledge, his parents are smart. Smart in different directions, but very smart. They taught their two sons well.

We eloped two months after the interrogations, yes there was another interview from his grandmother but that only lasted 45 minutes and she asked me to call her Nanny which I do to this day, years later. I’m not driving my old dog 1,500 miles or putting her on a plane at her age, which disturbs M because our Zoe zooms through any crumb that lands in her kitchen during our holiday cooking spree thus making cleaning easier.

I got to feed a baby calf water, milk formula in a five gallon bucket, his mama had twins and said no to him, which is usual with cattle to cull unless they have a “nanny.”  He called to me from across the road and ate like crazy. They leave the home they built 40 years ago, this month. It is a sad time for a family who has lost so much. My brother-in-law gets the hay barn and I hope he saves us a few boards once he’s finished his project(s).

Living in Texas I knew we needed to know the country though had to live in the city. The farm will be gone, there’s a new home 90 miles away with more acres and cattle. I love my family, of course, but also enjoy an excellent Texas BBQ. Cheers to family, and to Taylor, TX. The folks that drive down our folks’ road all wave hello. Could you imagine that in New York City? Dee

I’m sure I did it more than twice in my life, but these stand out. Remember, I was a very shy child.

Yes, I did try to take shop in grade school instead of home economics and the principal turned me down so I was team lead of our home Ec team and we decided whatever they gave us, it would be chocolate.

I refused to lose in ping pong in my home, during high school, to a boy. He berated me and said I should have let him win because he’s in charge! You’re in my home at our table and I’ll play. That’s the way it is. He never talked to me again. Fine with me.

Also in high school I met a boy, I was 16 and Dad stared him down and my parents chose the movie. Four years later my father was asked for his blessing and they came to my college for him to ask. I accepted but something was wrong. Three weeks later I took buses and trains to break it off. He said “put the ring on the table.” I did. “Call your parents.” I did, Dad said could do as I wish. I couldn’t deal with the control mechanisms.

One weekend when we were both home from school, we went to Mass. He said we had to sit on the right so God would know he was conservative. I replied that God, behind the altar, would see that he was sitting on the left. That was the beginning of the end. He’s now married to one of my younger sister’s friends and is probably cheating on her, too.

College was great. One guy brought in a pillow and blanket and slept outside my door the first day of Freshman orientation. I only knew because I had to step over him to go to the ladies’ restroom. He found me over 20 years later online and I thought my husband was making a joke. We’re still friends and I introduced him to my husband years ago. The turning down was an elevator conversation in his building. My roommate’s 14 year old niece was visiting and smitten with him. I came in as what he called a “storm trooper” and sent her back to the girls’ dorm.

I think we spent six hours in said elevator, he brought in comfy chairs and stopped the elevator. We talked about men and women and I think we both learned a lot. That we are still friends over 30 years later says something for our friendship, though I beat him up on this case. He made me drive him home, a few hours away, to meet his future wife. They have two wonderful kids.

You don’t want to hear about bosses, not yet. Or devious people at work. I went to work to go to work. I didn’t wear Crocs back then. They were not yet invented. There are also “the dog wars” but we’ll get to that another time.

One guy, we spent many hours on a plane then had three long-distance dates, one overseas. I was set up apart. He was very bright, and much older but we enjoyed talking. He asked me to marry him out of the blue. I told him I didn’t know if he loved me because he had never said so. “Of course I do. Now you know you need to quit your consulting job, get a real job and stay where I live and I’m going to be overseas six months a year, and you have to support yourself.” I said bye, now. Three dates.

A couple of years later I met my husband of over 15 years, who I dated since two weeks after 9/11. This is not a refusal, but an acceptance. One must make wise decisions, and I think our little family is just fine. Cheers, Dee

Let sleeping dogs lie. This weekend I created a new category for the Olympics. Let sleeping dogs lie. Zoe and her young guest Miss L slept through most of their weekend here. Eating, walking, playing keep-away did not stop them from sleeping, usually near each other and in the same position.

I moved in Junior year of college with five gals and was named the cook (a wise choice for them as they’d never had anything from outside a box) and they did everything else from dishes, shopping (until I had to supervise), table setting and clearing, to trash. I asked one thing, that I be seated on a corner as I’m a leftie and don’t want to elbow anyone. They were all lefties! It’s no wonder women take on certain traits when they live with other women, they cycle together. Strange, anyway…..

Sunday, the Zoe and Miss L were told that the Olympic judges tied and they both won Gold in the Sleeping category. Mr. D at the hardware store up the street made his recommendations for their medals. A red, white and blue lanyard with a blank key with the same colors. I tied the lanyard to the size of their necks.

Zoe is lonely today, as my husband is gone as well. She still has the disciplinarian and food wench! Yes, that would be me. I’m not a politician nor will I ever be. I do know right from wrong and was a policy wonk. Nerd, whatever you wish to call it.

I do know that when my husband is away, I’ve a friend in old dog Zoe. We depend upon each other. I lifted her to our bed and she can’t hear, see or feel me walk by unless I touch her head. I’m wondering if she needs a young pup for company or if that would be just an annoyance for both of us. We gals have to stick together, leftie or not! Dee