OF A GOLDEN AGE

My parents adopted a new cat, Sophie, from one of our country’s many kill shelters. She is precious and seems destined to be counterpart to existing family cat Claude. These two pictures make me think of the Simon & Garfunkel lyric “Old friends sat on their park bench like bookends”:

Sophie, whom I’ve jokingly called Sofa because of her frequent naps, is very dark gray and tends to blend in with the decor at my parents’ house. She also matches with Claude. Putting the “animal” in Garanimals!*

* Dumb joke.

Have you ever seen those “Two Bite Treats” at the grocery store? Since they’re small but made of the same stuff as the less catchy Regular Sized Treats, I typically brought them home, ate multiples, and felt the same as I would have with a double chocolate cupcake or something.

This “lower fat, low sugar AMAZING vegan brownies recipe” from the Frugal Vegan caught my eye because it is so, so simple. I omitted the chocolate chips, swapped the regular flour for whole wheat, and baked the batter in a straight-sided round metal pan since that’s all I have.

Once it cooled, I used a 2″ish circle cookie cutter to make about 18 rounds. Then I mixed up a little bit of frosting:

1T Earth Balance
2T Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
1T creamy peanut butter
1t vanilla
1/4 to 1/3C powdered sugar
1t cocoa powder

If it’s too thick, thin it with a little bit of almond or soy milk or whatever. Distribute it evenly among the rounds. I used it judiciously and had some leftover afterward, then I added some sprinkles for some additional cheer. But really, the only cheer I need is that each of these frosted brownie rounds has only 1 Weight Watchers point. (If you eat 2, it’s 3 points total.)

If you were a forward thinker, you would do this: Save the scraps after cutting the rounds, mash them up with the leftover frosting or some ready-made stuff, and make cake balls. Then dip them in chocolate or whatever, you can get all fancy with the help of this great Pioneer Woman post on cake balls.

Your heroine has been recovering from a surgical procedure for the better part of a week. I’ll be back with regularity soon, because I figured a chronicle of all the daytime TV, medications, and naps would be too much for you all to handle.

In a city of millions of people, I am always surprised by how un-crowded many places are, how entire times of day are so empty as to feel completely private. In a city of millions of people, there is frequently no line at the grocery store; my prescription can be ready in five minutes; I can drive from here to downtown in about ten. I am the first and only car at the red light, with no one waiting to drive through the intersection on the perpendicular street.

In the suburbs this feeling only intensifies, fewer people per square mile and more whole areas made up of stores without any residential. Where the city feels peaceful during the empty times, the suburbs feel a little bit alarming, desolate. Instead of enjoying having everything to yourself, you wonder why no one else is there.

But I love the stolen time, the feeling of accomplishment. Completing tasks in less time with no lines or traffic; freedom to look around and think. As it starts to turn light on these short January days, I watch the streetlights switch off in the blooming near-sunlight.

On Friday my tutee and I went over the word “refuted.” I realized I got into too much detail and nuance when describing the words to him, which I can’t help, but refute was especially tricky.

“So you argue for something?” he said.
“No, not really. You argue against something someone else said, and back up your point,” I said. “So, yeah, you do kinda argue for something, but only because you’re proving something else wrong.”

We used it in a sentence, which I think was about the President and the Senate. Then real life presented me with a much better example. Tanya Gold wrote a regrettably stupid, bitter-sounding piece on why fashion is the worst, including — no, really — blaming high heels for a sixteen year old’s fatal fall between subway cars. In it, she makes a lot of straw-man arguments about thinness and unhappiness and blah blah blah.

One of the first commenters on the post swiftly refutes Gold’s claims. But the best answer came from Tavi of style rookie, who shoots the straw men down with one sentence:

What Tanya Gold and many others, including myself, hate is the everyone-has-to-look-the-same-and-also-sexy philosophy, which is NOT fashion.

Plenty of people have enormous style that isn’t tied to any era, any designer. To imbue your appearance with verve and personality has nothing to do with thinness OR sexiness unless you want it to. And to completely give up on your appearance, as it seems Gold has, isn’t making any statement against fashion. Most everyday people don’t participate in fashion, and even those who follow it don’t necessarily buy or wear any designer fashion at any point. She mentions feeling nauseous or something when she passes the Banana Republic, which is one of the classiest and most classic chains around and which has only occasional ties to trend.

I think Tanya Gold actually hates clothes that fit properly, and where that comes from I can’t say. Listen, friend Tanya. I am 5′11″ and 200 pounds, several standard deviations away from the average, and I diligently rifle through LOTS of wrong things before coming up with a right thing. And yes, on those days when I dress like a bum, I know that’s what I’m doing. In other words, here’s a quarter: Take your frumpadump “I hate fashion, t-shirts and broomstick skirts forever!” and call someone who cares.

My sweet, precious little cat was put to sleep on Monday because of a giant, growing, inoperable mass in her throat. She got very sick over the last few months and she started to suffer a great deal as the tumor obstructed her breathing and eating, which made this the only humane and decent thing to do. She was 7. I loved her so much, and I am so, so sad.

My workplace now houses an environmentally friendly tankless water cooler. It taps into our main water line, filters the tap water, and dispenses it hot, lukewarm, or cold. It is marvelous (literally) to press a button and have water hot enough to brew tea within a few seconds.

Our ongoing conversation here about ways we can be more conscious is almost a matter of company policy more than moral fortitude, and the natural manner in which we all assume we will move toward a smaller carbon footprint and less waste is one of my favorite things about working here. Of course, in homes and in personal lives the dialogue can play out very differently. The New York Times ran a tragicomic piece on the rise in green issues among reasons to visit a therapist, like one California couple:

Mr. Fleming, who says he became committed to Ms. Cobb “before her high-priestess phase,” describes their conflicts as good-natured — mostly.

Even being a vegetarian has opened my eyes to how sensitive everyone is to feeling like they’re on the receiving end of someone’s judgment. “I don’t care what you eat, I’m just choosing for myself,” I hear myself say constantly. And sometimes I forget how easy it is to be a vegetarian in a huge city, or how understanding my parents or other people from previous generations have been for me. Imagine if this were your life, from the NYT piece:

If Ms. Petso prepares a vegan meal for the family, her parents prepare hot dogs to go alongside. Her parents serve on throwaway Styrofoam plates; she grabs a plate that can be cleaned and reused. Her mother, who says she prefers the way food tastes when it is served on Styrofoam, notes that washing dishes has its own environmental costs.

“She prefers the way food tastes when it is served on Styrofoam”?!

My dear friend and I discuss work holidays.

tycho: all my coworkers are being all butch and showmany and like “i’m not taking holidays”
tycho: “holidays are for wussies”
tycho: and I’m like, I’ll see you on tuesday
tycho: cheers!
me: Hahahaha
me: “holidays are for wussies”

And in the holiday spirit, the Frugal Vegan has a list of suggestions in lieu of money to give to homeless people, including easy-open nonperishable foods and hygiene items. It’s a lovely idea, especially as the weather grows bitterly cold here in Chicago.

Mindy Kaling, who executive produces, writes for, and Kelly Kapoor in The Office, has a sweet holiday feature in the New York Times. In it, she tells a stranger that she’ll be spending the holidays with a family she doesn’t have, a fictitious husband and children. Instead, she’ll be with her parents and her older brother:

Do I want to be the child in my current family, or the parent/wife/grown-up of some other one? The first seems real and comfortable. The second seemed like a silly bit of mischief, a game of pretend, even though I have a sense it might be just around the corner.

I hope my future family always feels like this. Like I got away with a little lie, but with accomplices. “Oh, this is just the cute boy I married and the crazy kids I have, can you believe it? I can’t.”

Today’s Recipe for Health is a vegan pureed mushroom soup. It looks delicious. Their description:

This dish is similar to a cream of mushroom soup, but without the dairy.

I’m so there. Stupid dairy, lactosing up my insides.