Dyssonance

So some hae remarked that I’ve gotten a little odd of late, since I’m writing about strange stuff.

Well, get over it.  I write what’s on my mind, and to be frank I’m trying to write at least one “fluff” bit each day and one more serious piece each day.

So those who’ve been following me know that I made pickles recently.  I made two jars of them, using regular cucumbers and a recipe that I developed on my own for them.

Tuesday night, my roomies and I had a pickle tasting event, and one of them hadn’t had a homemade pickle either, and the other tends to favor sweet pickles.

They pickles were awesome.

It’s been just shy of a week, and last night I got home and checked the second jar, having a hankering, and it hadn’t been touched, so it’s been a good week in there just waiting to be tested.  And so here’s the result of the judging after a week:

First off, there’s no real difference between 48 hours and and a week in terms of flavor.  It’s pretty much the same.

I used way much dill, and I should have used my mortar on it and some of the other spices.

I did not use enough garlic.  But then, I like seriously garlic pickles.

There’s an aftertaste that’s very strong in the vinegar department, so in researching what is involved in all of that, I determined that my water content was too low.

There’s a slightly sweet taste to them, as well — that’s not all that bad, really, and is rather surprising.  I suspect that’s due to the cucumbers I used (basic simple cucs), but I in this new recipe I’ll adjust for that.

Next up is a batch of four jars of pickles.  That’s four quarts, and price wise it works out to be around the same amount as 1 quart from the store. This is one of those things that comes about from careful shopping.

I’ll put up the new recipe later today, and while there may be one more down the road, I suspect that this new recipe will be the final one and all that’s left is to come up with a name for them.

A regular commenter here likes to tease me at times about priorities, as well.  The underlying point is that if you want surgery enough, you will do what you need to do to get it.

My monthly food expenses to feed three people (and I do feed three people, as that’s pretty much the other two thirds of my rent each month) as well as creating food for two support groups a month and the occasional specialty dinner is 235 dollars a month.  Total.

That food creates three meals a day for each of the people that live here, at least one of which is a “big meal” — usually dinner. It involves meat, two vegetables, bread, and something to drink at the least with seconds available for the man of the house (which I do on purpose).

The 35 dollars is usually overage that is part of the food I prepare for the group meetings, which average about 85 dollars of the total, and feed not only those of us here, but anywhere from 4 to 14 other people. With leftovers, inevitably.

Part of the way I do that is by careful shopping.  I buy relatively few name brands.  I scour the grocery store ads every week. I’m not so much a coupon cutter, although I probably should do that a bit more, except that usually its not as great a savings since I don’t buy the name brands as much.

I do have a rule: life is too short to eat bad food.  It’s so firm a rule with me that if I screw up a meal I’m cooking, I’ll trash the whole damn thing and not feel bad about it (inclusive of starving children in Los Angeles, who I generally worry more about ’cause I’m just terribly insensitive that way).

Food is by biggest personal splurge.  And a splurge it is — I’ll buy two pounds of 16-20 shrimp and make it last a month (only four to six shrimp per serving, and I cook by portions).

I do a lot of “freezable” cookng, as well — I’ll make something and wrap it and drop it in a freezer in portion sized chunks, and if I’m not up for ooking, that’s what they eat — they grab a side dish bag and a main dish bag and another and toss ‘em in the microwave for a few minutes and presto, instant food.

I also buy carefully — I’ll spend a chunk this month of meats, for example, and likely not a lot on other stuff.  But I’ll buy enough meat for the next two months because my average portion for meat is about 4 ounces per person.  Sometimes 6.  Dong that seriously stretches the budget — 16 ounces (a pound) of ground beef feeds four people that way.  More if I use it in something like a goulash or I make meatloaf.

The rest of my spending is related to that. The one thing I am really bad about is on my list to take care of this year (smoking — it costs me a lot), but otherwise, my personal living expenses are very, very small overall.

Its a trick I learned from my mom, who was a bookkeeper for much of her life, and who went back to school full time in her early 40’s with two teenage food vacuums to clothe, feed, and shelter.  And she did it without ever breaking her budget of 12K a year.

I spent a bit more than a semester of college living under a bush on campus. I know ways of cutting costs that often scare people, and yet I also believe that if you can’t enjoy life when its hard, what the hell are you making sacrifices for?  Without a personal release, something you enjoy, to help make things better — without entertainment — you won’t achieve your goals because you will be too damned miserable to see when you get there.

So for those who think that I waste my money, let’s see you hang tight on 400 bucks a month.

The new recipe later.  Right now I have to sorta pretend like I’m housecleaning…

So after my midday post yesterday I continued my little fun project of getting feedback from vvarious other people here on how the sessions were going — all of which will find its way into a big ole article I’ll write later.

However, round about 5 ish, I got hit with a massive wave of fatigue, and ended up crashing int he room for three hours, missing Mila Pavlin podcasting from the Hospitality suite and some singing and food and stuff like that.  That was somewhat disapointing, but easily taken care of because I then opted to just mingle and chat with others, handing out a few TMII brochures and biz cards and answering questions about it for a large ch8nk of the evening while having a good time.

Ran into Waymon from Bilerico, of course — and tonight is the big Bilerico team reception — and spent time with Bil and Jerame teasing the crap out of them about the next few columns I’ll write.  Among them, of course, is one entitled “Trans people gotta stop hiding stuff”, the mere thought of which had Bil envisioning the next massive attack by trans people on Bilerico.

It’s been that kind of time.

Ran into Mara  several times, and Mara made it quite clear that she thinks one should not believe what is written on Bilerico about politics. I kinda differ, but I’m always willing to keep an open mind ab0ut it.  She also says that ENDA will pass this year.  I’m finding that a tad difficult to swallow, myself, based on my c0nversations, but NCTE is gearing up for a big push come next month during their lobby days.

I wouldn’t mind going, but the financial burden is literally just too damn much, so I will, alas, have to forego that.  I’m hoping the Erica can make it this year, though — she had a good time last year and she’s pretty dedicated (probably the most dedicated person we have in Phoenix).

I’ve remet a lot of the people I met back then, and that’s been nice, as well as a whole slew of new people.  This includes on of the Ingersoll folks, and he and I were up until about 1 chatting.

THen I headed to bed, or, more accurately, a really long hot shower that was meant to raise my core system back up.

IN bed, major hot flashes all night, followed by a headache that literally woke me up this morning and required extra excedrin just to be able to think.

THis is howit was that at 5:30 n the morning I was gearing up for my morning jaunt tot he front of the hotel.  This trip has actually been good for me — I’ve seriously cut back on the smoking thing, which is probably for the best — especially if I can keep it down when I get home.

So today is a one of the big days of the whole shebang.  Tons and tons of stuff going on, and the grid for it is filled with teeny tiny print. IT’s packed with all kinds of stuff that interests me, personally, and it’s really fascinating since I haven’t exactly bothered to check some of it out in detail.

There is an Academy session that takes up the morning I’m really interested in seeing, but that conflicts with some of the other things.  THe Academy session is about inclusion, and as ya’ll know that’s important to me.   There’s ”The Art of the Schmooze” which I absolutely have to stop into — as a burgeonng politician, schmoozng has value, ya know.

There’s an oral history workshop that *really* has my particular interest piqued.

In the Cacus track later tonight, there’s one I will be attending on trans advocacy at the state and local level. And, of course, tonight is the aforementioned Bilerico meetup that’s really just an excuse to, well, laugh a lot.

And I have been doing that a great deal here.  There is an incredible energy in the air here, and i you are a people watcher, this is a place filled with such incredible opportunity that you can literally just sit in one spot and get more watching done in an hour that is usually possible in a week.

That kind of thing.

Rea Carey will deliver the state of the movement address, which I sorta plan on being sneaky about, as I did bring my video camera and tripod.

Overall, I expect a great day, eve if I am going to be cold for most of it, lol

So yesterday was my arrival day at CC10.  It is now morning of the second day, I’ve reached a point where I’m a little bit more cognizant of the world (I wake up very slowly), and I thought I’d give a run down of what yesterday was like.

I was awake from roughly noon on the day before, and was fairly active online here (obviously, given the posts I wrote) and stayed up through the night.  I’m a last minute girl, so I was doing laundry and packing until 5 in the morning.

The airport was quiet — midweek, midmorning, and I grabbed a quick breakfast before heading to security int he airport itself after checking my bag.  At security, I was signaled for extra security.  So I got to go through the body scanner (no biggy), and then had a pat down (they called a gal out to do it), and then we walked through my carry on (a really big red purse that had all my electronics in it).  No stress, no fuss, took all of five whole minutes to get through security.

I slept for a couple hours on the plane — pretty much right away (before takeoff I was out cold) until just before we reached a stop in New Mexico. Napped again on the second leg for a few minutes, and then was here.

Dallas is rainy and cold — temps the next few days aren’t supposed to peak over 50, and I’m coming from a place where that’s pretty much the low, lol.  Needless to say, I’m very cold.

Caught a shuttle, sharing it with a couple gals from Vegas, and made a connection with someone who I’m recently going to be working with by chance.  The Sheraton is huge.  Found Kim P, from TYFA, who, in an 11th hour deal, is my new roomie, and our room is bigger than the one I had in Vegas.  Better rate, too. Registered, got all the little junk ya get for doing this stuff.

Mingled a bit and ate a little something, then mingled some more, had a beer, and finally headed up to the room where I immediately crashed into a lump that did not stir for anything until about 90 minutes ago, or 7:00 am Phoenix time.

That’s it.  Really exciting day, huh? LOL.

Today the plan is still uncertain.  I’m going to go get breakfast after I write this, and today I’ll start taking pics and filming stuff.  There are several workshops and other things going on, and there are a lot of people here — more than was forecast from what I can see, and while I know a lot of the faces, I’m terrible about the whole name thing.

It will be an interesting day, I’m certain, and I’ll let ya’ll know what’s gone on at the end of it.

I’ve briefly checked email, approved a few comments, made a quick change, but not really read much in terms of email or comments, and I apologize, but, well, I’ve got something else to do today.

Oh, and I’m now down 11 pounds in the last 98 days. And I’m eating more than usual.  Although I’ve been bloated the last week or so (thankfully that’s ending), it’s not a serious bloat at all. I am very concerned about this — I wasn’t exactly a heavy person to start with, and now I weigh less than I’ve weighed in my entire adult life.

My doc is not going to be happy.