New House, new perspective

I am creating a new bucket for this site, and would love to expound on life as it now entails moving to the suburbs.  Here is a pic of our house:

Cute! 

Here is how I feel about owning a house in the suburbs:

Here are a few interesting things about suburban life that i have noticed in the past few weeks:

• It's quite white here.  Everyone is white.  Moving from boston to outskirts, one needs sunglasses for all the white skin. 
• It's far away from everything, you must plan to get in the car and go somewhere
• You must plan dinners because you cannot call and get your favorite indian food on the fly
• Neighbors...want...to talk to you. 

The trials and tribulations are ongoing, I look forward to sharing them with you.

4/18 - 4 days later

It's only a few days after the bombing.  People are still posting Meme's.  News shows all over the country talk about Boston.  Newspaper articles post support for boston, late night shows yell and rally the poeple of boston, Obama provides his voice at an interfaith service.

Elsewhere:

42 dead in Iraq Bombings Monday:


27 dead in Iraq bombing at a coffee shop today: 


New generation radacalizing due to US Drone strikes (18-23% of people killed not militants):

Bomb threats amid historic Syrian sites:


I only point this out because of our significant lack of understanding or wanting to even listen to the plights of multiple other cultures and issues.  We NEED to be more open and empathetic.  We need to understand.  I think we can do that better after this week.

OMG it's been a long time.

Hello!  I felt the need to post here and I'm afraid it's going to be a post that pisses people off.

Why you might ask?  Well see, I live in Boston.  And Boston got "bombed" yesterday.  More accurately boston got some crazy asshole deciding it would be fun to blow things and people up (I only assume this as an organized syndicate would have proudly claimed responsibility by now).

Tragic.  Horrific.  I did feel my chest tighten.  I felt real sympathy toward those involved.  I put myself in the shoes of being a friend or a loved one, or god forbid - someone hurt.  It is incredibly horrible and it happened here.  A place of safety even when 9/11 happened, and wars, and earthquakes.  Yeah, boston is a nice cocoon.

But something happened to me in the past 15 years or so that doesn't happen to a lot of people.  I lived in a city that was terrorized.  Where people are terrorized daily based on their gender, their religion, their race.  I lived in a daily environment where we needed to rebuild cell sites due to terrorists bombing them.  Where 2 hours away in Pune, bombs exploded.  Where I would walk down the street and see the remnants of the terror attacks a few short months earlier.

Taj Mahal hotel, Mumbai.  You can see the boarded windows on the bottom floor from the blasts

I see all the internet Memes and prayers and slogans and media outlets all saying wonderfully helpful things. Every FB post another uplifting banner or some some angry shout out to the people who committed such an act. "We are runners!  Be gone evil person!"   Or my favorite vein of "Boston is resilient, we are a united city, we will own you!"  Cheeky and untrue as most of us spend an awful lot of our normal lives being dickheads to each other.  You ever drive here?  Yeah,  resiliency indeed. But I get the point.  It is comforting and supportive and people like it.

What I do mind is what we will not take away from this moment.  One day and we are terror striken and grief ridden.

Now, take that mindset.  Take it and hold it.  What did you feel like last night?  What did you feel like when you heard about the blast?

Now, imagine feeling that way every single day.  Put yourself in the shoes of an Israli citizen being terrorized, a Palastinian being terrorized, afghanis being terrorized by drones, Sunnis being terrorized by Shia, Shia being terrorized by Sunnis, Pakastanis, Indians, Tamils, Somalis, Iranians, Syrians.  Imagine that everyone you know has lost at least 1 if not more family member to violence.  Imagine going to the store could result in a bomb blast.  Imagine your fear for someone you knew in boston until you found them via cell or FB post...that 1 or several hours of terror.  Imagine that for every second of every day of your life.  Will they blow up where I get food?  Where I go to school?  Will they just burst into my house and kill me?


My empathy goes to every victim of every senseless tragedy. 

Labor Day, meatless mondays are back!

Has it really been almost a year since I posted about food?  Well let me change that immedately.

Due to the bit of hiatus, there are now 2 new meatless monday meals to inspire you to go all...meatless...on mondays.  remember, if everyone chose 1 day to not eat meat we would reduce meat consumption by 10% !  You yourself will eat 7-10% less per week.  Not bad for one day off.

So on that note, two of my more recent fav dishes:

#1 - Zucchini and polenta
I took this recipe and modified it a bit, reducing the time to prepare by over an hour.  I didn't ball up the zucchini, simply cut it up and threw in a pan with the indian spices and tomato and poured over the polenta.  Still delicious.  The side dish was an attempt at a spicy red bean dish.  And it was spicy.   Added garam masala, cayene, and some cumin.   I forgot the onions and anything else for that matter so threw in some bean sprouts at the end.

#2 - Taboleh Risotto and Indian eggplant & potato

This entire meal has quickly become one of my favs.  In fact I think I could eat one of these dishes every day for the rest of my life.  But here they are together, an amazing overdose of flavor.  The Risotto is something i came up with after being inspired by a dish at a restaurant that they wouldn't give me the recipe to and as payback I decided to make my own version and post it everywhere in the world.  I don't have a lot of internet clout though so making it for myself will have to do.  The eggplant and potato can be found here and is an amazingly simply dish and worth making yourself.  I add tomato into it.

AJ's taboleh rissoto:

• Take an onion (shallot is best) and garlic, chop up and sautee in a pan (medium skillet that is at least 1.5-2 inches deep
• Add chopped tomatoes
• Add 1 cup bulgur wheat and stir around (like a risotto)
• add 1/2 tsp salt or salt to taste
• Slowly add 1/2 cup of veggie stock at a time, and stir (like a risotto).  I usually add around 2-3 cups of stock depending.  Takes about 20-30 minutes to cook through.  Your wheat is done when it's soft but still textured.
• Add about 1/4 chopped kalmata olives
• add 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• stir and heat in for a few minutes
• Place on plate.  Sprinkle with Brie cheese (rind removed).  I kid you not, it is delicious.

 

ok i'm a little drunk

But really, what the hell is the point of opeening a bottle of wine if you aren't going to finish it?

And why do i feel so tired all the time?  I'm so tired.  I feel like i"ve been running in a circle for days.  Years.  months?  Is that order time consecutive?  i think not.

All my relatives are in separate rooms of the house looking at their laptops.  This makes me laugh.  As  I am on mine.  Right now.  Blogging.  Blogging while drinking. 

i hate being home.  I really do.  I feel like i'm in a time warp and my mind gets warpy.  I feel weird, isolated, limitied.  This place is weird.  Did i mention weird?

My New Comp! And SW! And other stuff

I have a brand new computer.  It's quiet and lovely and it means I can start blogging again since for some unknown reason my motherboard just blew on my old comp.

I got a souped up comp due to wanting to play SW:TOR (star wars the old republic) which comes out next week.  The game was created by bioware so obviously I need to play it.  However it is just nice to have a system back in my house, I feel connected again (the ipad is no substitute, no matter what anyone says).

I'm in a weird place with the game because I have a tendency to get addicted to things but at the same time I really feel like I would like a little withdrawal time.  So it is a perfect storm of starting up a MMO.  Hoping my life does not get lost in the ether again.  But at teh same time, hoping for some of the clarity and re-prioritization that a little alone time brings.  It's been a shitty year. 

Off the Poison, dammit!

Ok, so I'm just gonna be straight up with ya'll.  I got stuck back on the smokes.  I know, I know.  I KNOW!  Horrible.

However, after a weekend of nonstop smoking I pretty much disgusted myself out of the habit.  In order to commemorate my second round of quitting (and to also commemorate the fact that in 2 months when Star Wars comes out I will no longer have a life) I've decided to take the C25k challenge (That's:  Couch to 5K challenge).

I hate running.  But at the same time I've always wanted to be able to run a mile.  So I'm starting BIG!  With 3.1 miles as my goal.

Today was day 1!  This is an 8 week crash course in stamina for a 3 mile run. I'm tracking my progress on spark people...I don't know how to share it but I will when I figure it out.  Wish me luck!