leftover collards

It's lunchtime and I'm munching on the leftover New Year's dinner. The black-eyed peas seem to be staring at me expectantly. Maybe even reproachfully. What are you going to do to better yourself this year? they are asking me. What meaningful steps will you take to reduce your huge giant first-world ecological footprint, or to be healthier, or to make your friends and loved ones happier, or to alleviate poverty and suffering in the world? or in Raleigh?

These peas are really turning the screws on me. I'm glad that collards and cornbread don't have eyes.


the mild and unassuming collard (notice no eyes).

To be brief, I have no New Year's resolutions yet. Do you? I'm always curious about this tradition - I realize that most people probably break their resolutions in a matter of weeks, but I think that the intention and the self-reflection of simply making the resolution is a very good thing for most of us (om shanti, y'all).

So I'm thinking about it. Get back to me in a week or so. And tell me what your resolutions are - I am dying to know!

You can tell that the last week has been crazy because I haven't bothered to sit down and write about it yet. The Holiday Week Off Work started out so restfully that it couldn't have held for too long. To start with, HWWLLB and I are both suffering from malingering colds that refuse to budge. We made the 8+ hour drive to Extended Family HQ on Tuesday, and between the drive and staying up til 4 am watching X-Files with my cousin, I managed to finish the socks for my Granny Tea, just in time to take her to lunch the next day.

But lunch never happened, because just after we picked her up, as we were in the driveway at my other grandma (Granny Pea)'s house, picking her up for our date, Granny Tea had a stroke. Oh man. It was so scary. We called the ambulance and everyone went to the hospital where we were met by every relative within 50 miles, and spent a terrifying afternoon with the emergency docs, and then they put her in a helicopter and flew her off to a bigger, better hospital in Philadelphia, where she is now recovering.

So, to make the dramatic part of the story short, Granny Tea is recovering fine and is expected to get her speech and motor coordination back completely with some therapy. She is already doing much, much better. When we visited her in Philly two days after the stroke, she was vivacious and even talkative, though she is having trouble coming up with some of the words she wants to use, and that's very frustrating for her. The socks are coming in handy, since the shoddy little footies they give you in the hospital slip right off. Every time someone new came into the room she'd point out her new socks and tell them that her granddaughter had made them. Yes! I'm so glad I didn't make her a beret - er, I mean a PatrioTam.

So it was a short and chaotic visit, staying up late with my night-owl cousin and her husband, who drink coffee at 12 am and are magically able to sleep in broad daylight, then getting up early and driving all over the place to pow-wow with relatives. Then the long drive back (on which I knitted myself a new winter hat).

I know I'm supposed to be finishing HWWLLB's sweater, but I really needed a hat, and I found this merino blend that perfectly matches my winter coat and, and... and I am a pathetic yarn whore with no self-control. I think admitting that makes it slightly better.

So we are fagged out, man. Dog tired. I need a lot more tea and a massage to face the rest of the afternoon at work. At least I don't have those reproachful peas staring at me anymore, because I ate them all. Maybe that's my first New Year's resolution: Eat all critics.