A bolt

I found a bolt.

Controlling the comfort of my house in every detail has become important to me. It wasn't always so important. Before that trait had a chance to develop I learned the importance of compromising. I got married. In the course of maintaining a superficially happy life, I sought satisfying decisions of taste in that gap between myself and my former wife. Marrying so young subsumed some of the natural desires for the state of my surroundings. I have tended to be a submissive person in general, not only in my marriage. On occasion, I have even had to submit to my mother's tastes and her interest in my welfare.

Once, when hearing me talk about cutting grass, my mother decided that I needed some manner of tending to the edges along the sidewalks. She bought me a WeedEater - an electric one, and an extra long heavy extension cord to go with it. This extension cord was the kind designed to be used over long areas. I think it's 50 feet long, maybe longer. It's also bright orange, which underlines the idea that it would be used in an area where it needs to be noticed and for a purpose that not noticing it could cause some manner of harm. I picture someone using a nail gun on a rooftop construction job needing this extension cord, so that a passerby wouldn't trip on it and rip the nail gun from his hand while it was in active mode. The color would tend to prevent anyone not noticing it, for sure.

I still have the extension cord. In fact, I needed it just today, not for the WeedEater, though. My grass is cut by a service that works for the apartment complex. I needed it for the portable portion of my vacuum cleaner, so that I could vacuum the carpet floorboards of my car. It's more convenient than paying for it at the car wash. I did it in the comfort of my own covered parking spot. I wanted to vacuum the car suddenly because I had been noticing the spot where Nathan allowed bubble gum to stick in the carpet. I had treated that spot with baking soda to dry it up, but I wanted to work on it a bit. I knew vacuuming it wouldn't clean it up, so I took my spray bottle in which I dilute ammonia with water, as my personal all-purpose cleaner. It took several iterations of spraying the 20% ammonia and scrubbing with a heavy-bristle brush, but the gummy spot gradually disappeared to unnoticeable proportions, but not altogether. It was enough. I vacuumed the bits of leaves and various bits of paper that had accumulated in those back floorboards during all my travels with my kids. Now, the back seat of the car is ready.

I wanted to clean the car tonight in particular because I may have a couple of people riding in my car this weekend. My father and stepmother will be here, and I think my father would like to get a look at the Army post where he did basic training back in the late 60s. The post has changed a lot but he may see something that stirs memories. It's not a bad thing. Of course, if I drive, he'll ride in the passenger seat and my stepmother will ride in the back. I want it to be clean, so tonight was my opportunity to clean up the gum. Good thing I had that bright long extension cord and that vacuum cleaner.

I bought that vacuum cleaner while still married, but I was told that I had spent too much. I went 30 dollars over budget to get a nicer one. It's a bagless vacuum, which eliminates the big annoyance with the vacuum we had owned prior, for which we found it increasingly hard and recently impossible to find replacement bags. It also has the detachable portion for such purposes as taking to the car, assuming one has a long enough extension cord. And I did. But still, I remember buying the vacuum that I felt right about, regardless that I wasn't compromising, and that no one else compromised either.

I own a dining table that I like well enough. It's good solid wood, with a decorative veneer on it. There are still some spots where the kids, in their younger days, have left a film of food and oil, and the occasional crayon mark. It seems impossible to clean up, but I still like that it is so solid. Among the things that my ex-wife left behind when she took all the things she wanted from the storage unit while I was in Iraq, this table is something that she didn't want.

It came with six chairs - with an off-white upholstery that she had always said she'd recover. She chose a fabric and it sat there undone while the off-white fabric collected major stains from spilled chocolate ice cream and fruit punch Kool-Aid. After a few months, during one of her trips back to her parents, I took the fabric and re-covered the chairs. It took me two nights to do all six chairs, coming home after work and cutting fabric. She chose a durable, neutral fabric and the stains left by the children didn't stand out the way they had on the paler color. Still, the stains accumulated and were left uncleaned.

When I pulled those chairs out of storage three years ago, I knew I wanted them to be redone another time. I found a very cheap denim, which added a bit of color to the chairs, complementing the honey finish with a blue-jean blue, and you know blue jeans go with anything. I took longer with this job, as I removed  both previous layers of fabric and cleaned up the chairs as I went, taking care with all the spots that were unreachable while the upholstered seats were on them. I tightened up the chairs too, once I noticed the bolts in each corner were loose. I replaced a couple of the screws holding the seats on as well. The chairs look great and still sit very well. I'm glad to have that table and chairs.

I didn't set up the table when I set up my apartment in Texas. I didn't have room. I used the chairs, but that was it. I had plenty of room when I got to Virginia, nearly two years later. By that time, the table had been in and out of storage for over three years. When it came time to put the two big legs back under it, I found that of the six bolts holding on each leg (three on each side of the leg), one of the bolts was missing. It felt lacking, and I'm sure I could have found a matching bolt at a big unnamed hardware store that starts with an 'L' but I never looked. I barely used the table while I was in that apartment. I remember using it when I entertained a wonderful lady with whom I'm quite in love. I also used it to solve a jigsaw puzzle and later to plaster the puzzle-saver on it, thinking it would make a nice addition to the boys' room someday. It hangs on their wall now, and they have made nice comments on it.

When I moved into this apartment, I warned the movers that there was a bolt missing, to let them know they hadn't lost it. It's a minor thing, and not something that would affect the legs staying on. Probably each leg would stay on with only three legs, but it's more secure to have all six. I thought again I should look for a matching bolt, but it wasn't a priority. the bolts are only seen under the table, and only I and the movers would know.

However, I found the bolt.

It was wrapped in the extension cord, which had been sitting in the bottom of a big plastic trash can that has only been used to collect unused tools for the past three years. I had to remove a tire pump, two saws, hedge clippers and pruners and the big wide head of a shop brush which hasn't been connected to its matching pole in that same three-year time period. I still have all these little things. When I got to the bottom of the trash can, where the extension cord made itself so obvious by being such a bright shade of orange even after - what has it been? - 16 years or only 15? - I pulled the cord out and threw it on the patio floor so that I could restuff the trash can in a different way, with a Samsonite car topper (which has its own story) and the same saws and clippers and pruners. I heard a jingle. It sounded odd for the little metal ends of an electric plug to sing like that on the concrete, but I ignored it.

When I picked up the cord to use it, I heard it again, and there, still wearing the washer it was born to wear, was the bolt. Its little song hung in the air, as if it had been sleeping, waiting for this moment when it was revealed again, and its long adventure could be over. Just for a moment I doubted that this prodigal could truly be the bolt lost such a long time ago, but I knew it must be, and when I twisted it gently into its spot on the underside of the table, it seemed happy.

Everyone was home again.

Bread and cheese

As a kid, my idea of bread and cheese was Wonder white and Kraft singles. Commercial offerings in these markets have developed exponentially. The choices of sliced breads in even the most humble supermarket forces me to know my own tastes too well. The ways that cheese and cheese-like products are offered to the shopper are even more various. Cheese is available in so many varieties, but it's the cheese flavor and the cheese texture which find their way into products on nearly every shelf.

But these are two of the oldest foods that mankind makes. They aren't going anywhere. Bread is a part of every cuisine on earth, and cheese a great majority of these as well. Still, the producers push them and sell them as if somehow we will forget that we like bread and we like cheese. It may even be possible that over the millennia that our species has been eating them, our genetic disposition to these foods has made us dependent on them, like water.

Most of us get interested when we smell bread baking, when we feel the warm texture of it against our lips and when we get that first rich taste of it. Buying bread can't give you that. Baking bread is the way to have it, and it hasn't been limited to grandmothers and downtown bakeries for quite a while. Baking bread is a pretty notable hobby, with most bookstores having at least one shelf of the cooking section devoted to books on baking bread. It's a simple activity, with rich and tasty rewards. Plus, the varieties of textures and flavors are practically endless.

However, just as bread is easily made at home and tastes best when freshest, cheese is not such a common homemade item, and certain known for not being best at the moment of completion. True connoisseurs of the craft of cheesemaking would say that a cheese isn't even complete until a certain amount of aging occurs. Eating cheese, in its many forms, and appreciating the art of the craft, is enough of a hobby for most of us serious cheesophiles.

Improving on either of these long-lived products is unlikely, but eating them together is definitely a treat that multiplies the effect of either of them separately. Nothing goes on a fresh slice of bread quite like a slice of a good cheese, and nothing offsets the sharp creaminess of cheese quite like the bouquet of warm bread filling my mouth.

I sit here enjoying fresh warm whole wheat bread from a recipe I just tried, with a bit of Gruyere cheese I bought this week. Together, this is a meal I think I could spend the rest of my life eating.

Kisir

Okay, I know I spelled it wrong, but I don't have a Turkish keyboard. I can't bear to call it tabbouleh, though, even though it's the common term here. Anyway, I thought I'd compare side-by-side the dish from the recipe website (left) and how it turned out for me (right). Of course, I didn't attempt to stage it the same. It's just a basic comparison. I think you can see more of the bulgur in mine.

My corner

This is one corner of my little living room. In my three-bedroom apartment, the living room and dining room share a space. It doesn't leave many options with a sleeper sofa and a full-size dining table. The chair isn't small, either. Still, the wall color works so well, and my two-piece movie posters bring my own character.

In addition to my corner, I also have a wall, and I enjoy the way the color of the wall complements the colors I painted my old desk a few months ago. This desk was bought in a kit from Sears back in 1980. It's all real wood, with real nails, but it's been around a while, and the updating managed to enhance the charm of the piece. The DVD baskets are a new addition, which when I saw them, I knew they would look great in the same room as my chair with the brown leather and white stitching. They fit so perfectly in these shelves, it confirms the rightness of the purchase.

LEEKS!!!!!

I got leeks today!

On my first trip through the commissary on post, I made a note of the items I really wanted which were missing - lamb, leeks, brussels sprouts and pancetta. Today, I asked about pancetta and found there is a small package of it, which is okay. It doesn't take much. Wal-Mart, of all places, has fresh brussels sprouts (you can't shave frozen ones, for one of my favorite dishes) and today, even though I had been told they don't stock them, I found leeks in the commissary. They weren't beautiful, but that's probably because of the season. There were three bunches of threes, the usual packaging. One trio was a bit ugly, but the other two groups looked quite nice, with a lot of useable leek. I am very excited, and I may change my cooking plans for the next day or two, based on this new discovery.

Six months ago, I don't believe I had ever tasted a leek, but when I got into my little apartment in Prince George County, I rekindled a love for cooking that had been smoldering for sometime. I really began to plan my cooking to satisfy my schedule, and I reached for new techniques, for cooking that would challenge me a little bit. Step by step, I became a better cook. Among the many foods I discovered I love is leeks. There is also pancetta - a fancy bacon - and shallots - which are in the same family of bulbous plants as garlic, onions and yes, leeks.

Leeks look kind of like giant green onions. They have the best of the flavor of onions, but without the power to elicit tears. They are easy to to cook, sautéeing being my favorite way to eat them. They do take a little cleaning, since the way they grow pulls the dirt into the stalk and the harvesting and processing doesn't remove that. It's one of the many points of preparing to cook that takes the time and energy that makes cooking so worthwhile.

Like any hobby, the more one loves it, the more rewarding it is to sit back and enjoy afterward. I have come to feel that there is literally an injection of energy in the various materials involved that lingers in the finished product. The more of your soul you are willing to put into cooking, the more satisfying it will be to you and to any who eat it. It's easy to get hung up on technique, but it's the spirit that drives the process and which defines the result. I have found this to be true with cooking, and I believe it to be true with almost any creative activity.

At times, while preparing ingredients, I feel a part of my brain engaged that doesn't engage during my typical activities - driving, reading, listening, studying, etc. There's a feeling to being focused on what my hands are doing - a feeling that I'm putting my energy, myself, into those cuts, those separations, and those slow-cooking mixtures. That energy brings a peace to the work and to the dish when it hits the plate.

I love cooking. I learn from it. I learn about foods, and I especially learn about myself.

Being online

I've read that everything that goes online stays somewhere on a server. This is a strange concept to me. It seems like an exaggeration. I mean, certainly not everything that was ever on the internet is still accessible. The server space would be incredibly huge, and what would be the point, really? Still, I know that there are untold volumes of information still posted here and there on the internet. There are e'mails received, sent and even trashed, still stored on e'mail servers, even after having been "deleted" according to the user interface. And then there are blogs like this one.

I don't have a lot to say. I don't write much here in a blog. I have been through a lot, but somehow it hasn't really occurred to me to post everything about my emotional and spiritual journeys through life in an online format. Even as I type this, it seems very near to vanity. I know of one person who will read this. If there are others, they may be as anonymous and invisible as I am when I roam around reading blogs that happen to get my interest.

I expect this to stay somewhere on a server for any future internetites to stumble on in their search for a lost manual to the VCR they found in the back of the closet or looking for a recipe for frozen pizza. I hope they enjoy the words that march along here, headed nowhere.

Unpacking stuff

Much has been said about stuff and our relationship with our stuff. I don't know that I have anything new to offer on the topic in general. However, I unpacked a lot of boxes recently, which had been packed by others - disinterested third parties - or should I say, interested not in the stuff, but only in the packing of the stuff, which was their humble manner of making a living. It's the packing of it that capture my attention as I unpacked.

I have been packed by others and unpacked myself often enough to know that things are never handled the way I would handle them. I try to prepare for this by pre-packing things as much as I reasonably can, through the use of plastic bins and sturdy new boxes (for my comic book collection of course). On occasion, the plastic bins have been emptied, all the contents packed as individual items and the empty boxes put into boxes by themselves. I don't know the business of packing and moving well enough, but I suspect there is a quota of boxes that must be used to give the impression of having done a proper job. It's not me they're trying to impress, which is obvious by the end result, but the managers who pay attention to the inventory of how many boxes and how much paper they used. This is the reason for packing containers in an empty state, or in the case of my most recent move, the packing of a single lampshade in an box completely by itself. It would be a shame to take unused boxes back to the warehouse.

Paper, too, must be used once opened. When it is on hand, it is only reasonable to wrap everything as neatly as possible - paper towels, dish towels and such. When it is sparse, a stack of DVDs makes good filler among the staple guns and picnic basket which happen to be somewhere within arm's reach.

As I unpacked, I observed in reverse, the thought process of the packers. They showed me what was important to them. They were careful with family photos in frames but not so careful with books off the shelf. Dishware got more loving attention than mixing bowls. It occurred to me that each packer showed his or her personality in the care taken with the packing of certain items. While I was tempted to say that none of it mattered because it was my stuff and not theirs, I did realize that the items that seemed significant to them were handled better.

In essence this was not a new idea for me, only a new manifestation of a familiar idea. The familiar idea is that each of us has a personal perspective in attempting to understand the world and each other. We filter our perceptions of others' actions through our understanding of ourselves. When we see a certain behavior, we don't think "why did he do that?" We think "why would I have done that if I had done it?" and we proceed with the interpretation from ourselves.

This is in general, of course. Those with greater amounts of real empathy can truly project their imagination from within themselves and into the behavioral shoes of the other.

The end result for me is that the next time I get ready for a packing job, I will want to make requests of certain personality types. I want my old collections, my kitchenware and my family heirlooms (such as they are) to be handled well, so I will want someone who is a little obsessive like myself, someone who appreciates cooking and someone with a sentimental side. In other words, I want to pack it all myself.