staring into the unknown.
Apr. 15th, 2020 11:11 pmSince the nettles Tyler left were scrunched into a large paper bag, some of them were in good shape and many were bruised or wilted. Maybe half. I ate the bright green happy ones for breakfast this morning, with green garlic and chestnut mushrooms, all seared together in a pan, and turned the droopy ones into a puree for baking, having seen a nettle cake recipe I wanted to try. They are done baking, now. I used a quarter of the recipe's sugar. We'll see how that goes. I failed at my first two attempts at (vegan) buttercream, but the third is lime zest and delightful. The last dredges of the nettle puree is in my matcha, currently. I know I shouldn't drink matcha at 11pm but I wanted it, I never got second coffee today (missed Coffeehouse NW by 3 minutes, didn't realize how long it would take me to bike there), and needed some comfort. Caffeine comforts me, I can't explain it.
Got to see Tyler which calmed me significantly. I voiced my distress over not being able to get away with him and he agreed to go somewhere with me. I might drag him to Bend next week, or the cabin on Friday if Cynthia is okay with it.
Old Town is a disaster, things are so bad down there. I biked through the heart of it today, as I often have. It's the rough part of downtown Portland, has been since I was a child. The homeless situation has always been bad, but in the past five years it's gotten noticeably more horrific, with people screaming and flailing on the street regularly, and now is even worse. It is still unbelievably shocking to me that we have billionaires while humans are allowed to suffer and die like this. No one deserves that. No matter how sick they are or what they did. It's not necessary. Utah did a Housing First initiative and got every single homeless veteran off the streets while actually saving the city money. The idea is that they get housing no matter what - doing drugs, not working or looking for work, whatever else, they just get a safe place to live and enough food to eat - and wow who would have thought, but once they have a place to sleep and shower most people end up recovering and finding the care they need for their addictions and getting work and moving out. It infuriates me to no end that this isn't a national strategy. The homeless situation threatens every single other human's well being, too, when they are all sick - they ride transit, they shop for food, they use the same public facilities we use. Their health and well being is ours. It makes me feel ill to know this is ever legally allowed, this kind of poverty and destitution, when there is more than enough for everyone.
my mood has been poor, my motivation has been zero.
I've been cooking like crazy though. I am so proud of myself for not wasting any food at all last week, except for the tops of the radishes. Now that I have total control of food purchases and what's in the fridge where, I can keep track of everything and rotate vegetables so everything stays fresh and gets used in order.
Josh requires meat every now and then so tonight I made him Moroccan meatballs with the ground lamb from the farmers market (and of course a giant pile of seared kale/onions/green garlic/carrots/beats/mustard greens to accompany them). They were so good I ate two and I don't usually eat lamb. I used this recipe because it called for cardamom which I am using so much lately, but substituted a few things because of lack of ingredients - walnuts for pine nuts, extra cilantro and sage but no mint or parsley, I did have the fresh ginger and lemon zest and garlic and red onion, and pepper and cinammon, but used leftover pie crust for bread crumbs (YUM) and used only a little bit of goat feta. They are like candy. I won't eat any more though. He can has. He was so happy. "I'm eating like a king!" lol.
Sunset tonight was so stunning, I was out biking in it looking for green fir needles for the nettle cake (no luck). There was this backdrop of soft pastel muted dusty pink and rose fading to grey, and then these vivid bright golden glowing fiery whisps in front, before everything went deep corals and purples. So cool.
Should go sleep. I feel better after journaling and matcha. I have a silks rig to try out tomorrow. Good thing because all my little home workout routines have completely evaporated - where did my desire to move go. It's not so bad, I don't know why it's such a struggle for me to even do a pull up right now. It all seems so futile. I'm doing it so I will be strong in the future when I can do things again. But what will our future even look like?
Got to see Tyler which calmed me significantly. I voiced my distress over not being able to get away with him and he agreed to go somewhere with me. I might drag him to Bend next week, or the cabin on Friday if Cynthia is okay with it.
Old Town is a disaster, things are so bad down there. I biked through the heart of it today, as I often have. It's the rough part of downtown Portland, has been since I was a child. The homeless situation has always been bad, but in the past five years it's gotten noticeably more horrific, with people screaming and flailing on the street regularly, and now is even worse. It is still unbelievably shocking to me that we have billionaires while humans are allowed to suffer and die like this. No one deserves that. No matter how sick they are or what they did. It's not necessary. Utah did a Housing First initiative and got every single homeless veteran off the streets while actually saving the city money. The idea is that they get housing no matter what - doing drugs, not working or looking for work, whatever else, they just get a safe place to live and enough food to eat - and wow who would have thought, but once they have a place to sleep and shower most people end up recovering and finding the care they need for their addictions and getting work and moving out. It infuriates me to no end that this isn't a national strategy. The homeless situation threatens every single other human's well being, too, when they are all sick - they ride transit, they shop for food, they use the same public facilities we use. Their health and well being is ours. It makes me feel ill to know this is ever legally allowed, this kind of poverty and destitution, when there is more than enough for everyone.
my mood has been poor, my motivation has been zero.
I've been cooking like crazy though. I am so proud of myself for not wasting any food at all last week, except for the tops of the radishes. Now that I have total control of food purchases and what's in the fridge where, I can keep track of everything and rotate vegetables so everything stays fresh and gets used in order.
Josh requires meat every now and then so tonight I made him Moroccan meatballs with the ground lamb from the farmers market (and of course a giant pile of seared kale/onions/green garlic/carrots/beats/mustard greens to accompany them). They were so good I ate two and I don't usually eat lamb. I used this recipe because it called for cardamom which I am using so much lately, but substituted a few things because of lack of ingredients - walnuts for pine nuts, extra cilantro and sage but no mint or parsley, I did have the fresh ginger and lemon zest and garlic and red onion, and pepper and cinammon, but used leftover pie crust for bread crumbs (YUM) and used only a little bit of goat feta. They are like candy. I won't eat any more though. He can has. He was so happy. "I'm eating like a king!" lol.
Sunset tonight was so stunning, I was out biking in it looking for green fir needles for the nettle cake (no luck). There was this backdrop of soft pastel muted dusty pink and rose fading to grey, and then these vivid bright golden glowing fiery whisps in front, before everything went deep corals and purples. So cool.
Should go sleep. I feel better after journaling and matcha. I have a silks rig to try out tomorrow. Good thing because all my little home workout routines have completely evaporated - where did my desire to move go. It's not so bad, I don't know why it's such a struggle for me to even do a pull up right now. It all seems so futile. I'm doing it so I will be strong in the future when I can do things again. But what will our future even look like?