Health is Wealth--Eat Me

If you're vegan and accustomed to buying Health is Wealth chik nuggets for your son (or appreciate a wee bit of comfort food yourself), stop forking over $5 for each box right now. Y'all can make them yourself in the comfort of your own kitchen and pjs. And I think I've got the start of a darn good recipe. But in the words of LeVar Burton, don't take my word for it.

Vegan Nuggets of Gold
1 cup cooked white beans (preferably not chickpeas. I used great northern white beans)
1/2 c vital wheat gluten flour
1/2 c panko
2 T soy sauce
any seasonings you'd like to encourage a chicken flavor

For breading purposes you'll need flour, water and 1 cup more panko.

Start with some soft, moist beans. I had a big batch of great northern white beans that I had cooked up with 5-6 cloves of garlic the previous day. Add the remaining ingredients and mix together with your hands, kneading until you see strands of gluten forming. The consistency should be firm and slightly moist, but not drippy or goopey or anything too wet. If your mixture is too dry, add 1/4 cup or less of water or vegetable broth. It should not easily break apart and should resemble something akin to playdough.

Take a thumbful of the gluteny goodness and form it into whatever shape you want. I went for the traditional nugget shape, but no reason to avoid heart shaped nuggets for your sweetie. Just make sure they aren't too thick. You want something about 1/4 inch thick.

Then dip these shaped nuggets into batter and then into a bowl of panko. Now I'm not an expert at breading and frying, so I just threw some flour, water and seasonings into a bowl and mixed up a simple batter for the first bath. Then I tossed the nuggets into a bowl of panko and put them in a pan of hot oil. Fry them for a few minutes (depending on how hot your oil is) on each side. They should be lightly golden brown. Let them rest on a cloth napkin (or paper towel if you must) and then serve immediately.

When you're done here's what they look like. (notice there's only one left. i almost ate mine all before i remembered to take a picture!)


Mr. Man says they are very chewy, which he likes. He says they have a nice, hard, crunchy outside, which he likes. He says he likes them better than the chick nuggets we buy. According to Mr. Man, they're best served with ketchup. On a ten-thumb scale, he rates them 9 1/2 thumbs.

I would agree with his review. They were soft inside, crunchy fried goodness outside, though I recommend them with BBQ sauce.

Enjoy!!!

P.S. These were inspired by the abominable Isa's recipe for Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon.

Experiments

Yesterday was Mr. Man's unbirthday. This is otherwise known as my ploy to get him out of bed for his last day of school before spring break. The old - "this is your last day of school as a 6yo" trick. He loves it when I cook puff pastry roll-ups for him (usually with almond butter and jam). But I used up the last slice of disgusting Tofutti cheeze slice (bought in a moment of delusion at the store) and stuffed them with with veggies and tofu. Yes, my son is the only kid on the planet who prefers his tofu plain - straight out of the package. I thought these little gems were awesome. They looked and smelled great. Of the three I sent in his lunch, two came back home. Bugger. I asked him what he thought of them and he said "no". End of review.



So this beautiful Saturday morning, I woke up and took breakfast orders from the family. Mr. Man ordered pizza. I had leftover dough that I had made last night, so I cooked up his favorite and supplemented with broccoli and a side of yogurt.

My wife suggested cinnamon rolls, so I used a ball of the pizza dough, rolled it out, put a bit of melted Earth Balance over the top and sprinkled on the cinnamon and sugar. I wanted mine longer rather than round and high so I rolled it diagonally and got sort of a crocodile head shape. It was amazingly tasty and so simple. Why should I ever go to the vegan bakery for a cinnamon roll again? Why yes, of course, I'd go on a Saturday morning when I'm too lazy to make my own. Until then, fresh baked cinnamon rolls at home are a great start to a Saturday morning when the sun shines.

Welcome Spring

Although it started out cold, the day warmed up and was pleasant. Happy Ostara!


Many things are in bloom here. My plate blossomed tonight as well.


I made alfredo sauce (not the PPK one getting rave reviews in the vegan blog world) and I sauted my hickory links with onions and peppers. Yum.

Prep Cooking

In a beautiful turn of events, I came home to a clean kitchen. It called to me--prepare food for your family! So I made applesauce muffins, both mini and regular.

This recipe is from How it all Vegan, slightly modified with less sugar and oil, suitable for Mr. Man's lunch. I've read others who have been experimenting with making their own granola bars, so when I stumbled upon a recipe just a few pages away in the cookbook, I threw a pan together. I like the sesame seeds on top. Once again, I cut the sugar in half.


Here's what they look like when cut.

They are quite tasty and despite the sugar reduction, still taste like desert. They are somewhat chewy, but mostly crumbly. Next time I'll go crazy and add dried cherries instead of raisins and perhaps tinker with the recipe a bit more to get them chewier.

I was craving more Chick Cutlets, but we were out of chickpeas. So I winged a mockup using white kidney beans. Kidneys are actually much easier to mash by hand and make a smoother dough. I seasoned them with Italian herbs and baked them up just the same and they came out perfecto. We each have one in our lunch tomorrow - my wife and Mr. Man in a sandwich and me with pasta.


Now the dishwasher is running and there are still dishes in the sink.

Resurrection

From the depths of a busy life, a wonderful family, a bit of depression and lots of inspiration from vegan food blogs and vegan cookbooks--I return.

This morning began with chocolate chip brownie waffles courtesy of the glorious Veganomicon cookbook. (Isa and Terry really are goddesses.) Imagine warm chocolaty waffles with spots of melted chocolate chips and pockets of pecans. Welcome, Saturday morning! Granted, it's a winter Saturday in the Northwest, so there are no fresh berries to pile on top with a dollop of yogurt. No worries, these puppies satisfy with a pat of butter.


And if you thought I fed my family this much sugar without something healthy, fear not, for we had a chickpea cutlet to provide a little protein.

So for those of you who may have missed my life over the past few months, here are some snapshots.


Mr. Man's obsession with legos continues and showed up throughout the holiday season.


One fine winter afternoon we all meandered around the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers for a cold, wet stroll.


I am officially in my mid-thirties. My birthday meal was amazing and we topped it all off with this banana cake with peanut butter frosting. Mr. Man decorated with chocolate chips and candles.


Mr. Man and I continue to practice Poekoelan Tjiminde Tulen. We both have two stripes on our belt. He has started flow fighting and rocked the house at his first tournament, where he took first place. He's very proud of his fighting gear.


His hair has grown quite long and he takes great pleasure in putting it up in clips or ponytails - "like a girl" he says. Lucky for him his moms are open to the idea that gender is fluid. The rest of the world's response is always interesting. Frankly, I'm happy to see his eyes again and hope the ponytail trend continues.

Life is good. Food is good. Expect more soon.

Birthday Love

I am now the proud owner of these kick-ass vegan boots, thanks to love from two great Michigan friends.

My wife and son surprised me with a new iPod shuffle, a cute green one. I had a beautiful, warm, sunny birthday last weekend and was quite spoiled by a fun day out on the town. We went to Paradox, an amazing cafe with vegan food to drool over. That was followed up by a Stumptown soy mocha. Stumptown is the coffee lover's reason to move to Portland. It was a joy turning a year older.

Some Things Don't Change

My week has unraveled, I have an impossible amount of homework this week, we need to prepare our taxes and I'm generally under a hair-pulling amount of stress. One thing remains unchanged: I still make my son a mean lunch.



Tomorrow he eats cinnamon almond buttered sweet potatoes, orange wedges cut the way he trained me, Mrs. May's yummy pecan clusters and almond butter and jam stuffed mochi.

Now, if the universe listens to me, I'll get through all this work and have really good sex - all in the next 5 days.

Points, The King and The Snow

My wife and I got back on plan at the new year and have committed ourselves to losing the weight we gained back over the latter half of last year. We're back to counting points and playing the food game, as we explain it to Mr. Man. I'm re-learning that it's tricky being vegan and counting points on WeightWatchers. The guide books that provide point values for food include everything from bear meat to squirrel meat, but it's a crap shoot to determine the points value for mochi or homemade seitan. The other thing I'm re-learning is that I'll save a lot of money by not buying espresso drinks everyday. Damn, the calories and dollars I wasted over the last year!

I've been in a cooking frenzy again since we did blowout shopping last weekend. I made my first homemade calzones stuffed with seitan and spinach. The fruit and nut bars I made turned out to be a good-for-you, no sugar version of a Cliff Bar. I finally found a vegan waffle recipe that works - and turned them into waffle sandwiches for Mr. Man's lunch. My wife made a better version of Riblets by coating our homemade seitan in BBQ sauce and baking. Yum! Tonight I made a Cowboy Meatloaf that was super tasty - a cowboy definitely worth riding. Later on this week's menu are Pigs in a Blanket and Texas Corn Pone Muffins.

We've been instituting PJ Saturdays area here lately. Pretty much only my wife gets her cute ass in the shower. Mr. Man and I alternate between cooking, cleaning and playing. This past Saturday featured the building of a ferris wheel out of K'Nex.



Mr. Man comes home from school with lots of writing practice on little strips of paper. They randomly float around everywhere and over the weekend we recycled some and put some up in his room. Mr. Man chose to tape the word king to himself.



Monday was MLK Day and Mr. Man had no school. Today we woke up to heavy snow and an inch on the ground. I slid my way into work on the bus, which got stuck behind stalled vehicles on the Hawthorne Bridge entry, so I walked across the river and into work. Fortunately, my wife and Mr. Man did not leave the house with me or else they would have arrived at school for a second time only to find school cancelled.

Last week Portland Public Schools closed school for nothing. Today there's heavy snow and PPS doesn't cancel school until 8:15am!!!! Kids are already on their way to school for crying out loud. Tonight PPS has already announced the school closure for tomorrow. I'm happy to write my tuition check for Montessori school if this is the decision-making modeled by public school administrators. Nonetheless, tomorrow marks the third day my wife is home with Mr. Man. We'll see how icy things are and how I get into work tomorrow. All the busses and almost all the cars are chained. The light rail is running all night tonight so that the lines don't ice over. It's a different kind of winter here in the Northwest.

Table Design

My winter break pleasure reading theme has been largely about food. Starting with Mad Cowboy by Howard Lyman I quickly felt relieved I was vegan and horrified that I had eaten meat while I was pregnant and the years prior to age 18. I'm currently in the middle of Christopher Cook's Diet for a Dead Planet. It turns out an ailing food system is not only killing people and animals, but is significantly responsible for global warming and environmental destruction. Food should nourish, not kill. This reading inspires the same rage one encounters when reading political history a la Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky or any other truthful account of American imperialism.

It makes me look very carefully at what's on my fork. So when I went to our local grocer a few days ago for a few items, I was unable to by the $1.65 bag of generic popcorn and instead picked up the $3.19 bag of organic popcorn. I knew the dangers of a crop genetically modified or sprinkled with the manure of sick livestock and I couldn't imagine putting that in my son's mouth. Whenever I could, I picked up the items with the "Home Grown" label popping out from the shelf. I knew they were transported less and more likely to be from a small grower/producer. I did not bring home the sickly looking, expensive, out-of-season tomato my wife desperately wanted for her sandwich.

Mr. Man and I came home from a 13 mile bike ride yesterday and my wife lovingly prepared dinner - falafel and a very garlicky tahini sauce. Mr. Man was asked to set the table, which he did. He took a picture of the table "exactly as he designed it." He had set an origami peace crane at each place setting.

Happy eating.

Happy New Year Addendum

Following the building of the K'Nex contraption pictured below, Mr. Man challenged me to build the car in the K'Nex builder's guide. The car is the final design in the book, presumably because it's the most challenging. So I did it.

Mr. Man test drove the car and deemed it not worthy because it made a clicking sound when the wheels turned. So he pulled it apart, improved upon the axle design and he's now satisfied. Turns out the best help center comes in the form of a 5 "and three-quarter" year-old.

In the oven: creamy alfredo penne vegetable casserole.

Winter Starts with Family

I had a marvellous three days off work before traveling to the five-day family extravaganza in Seattle with the in-laws. I got to take Mr. Man to his winter camp for three days. Going to school is usually my wife's privilege, but not last week. I spent the first day off downtown in the library and cafes finishing my paper. The quality of the paper is appallingly bad, which is similar to the quality of the educational standards of my particular university. Nonetheless, I'm done class for a while.

The next day I cleaned the house and baked amazing amounts of vegan cookies, bread and candy. I had not made vegan candy before, but I enjoyed making caramel and almond/walnut brittle. Both turned out very well. I also made two kinds of cookies - spicy oatmeal with raisins/chocolate chips and peanut butter. The oatmeal cookies are better; the peanut butter are extremely rich, almost like fudge. For lunch on Friday I made homemade corn dog muffins - cornbread muffins with sections of veggie dogs baked inside. They were super yummy and a great treat for the train ride to Seattle.

On Friday we packed and closed up the house for our trip. I hope you all did your part for world peace on Global Orgasm Day. We did.

The trip to Seattle was enjoyable. We got one of the cool seating areas on the train with a table. We were next to another two-mom family with 2 daughters. When we arrived there was debate about whether the whole family should go out to eat, but since it was Mr. Man's bedtime, I decided to stay home to put Mr. Man to bed. I enjoyed the quiet time alone to read for pleasure. I started reading Mad Cowboy, which ironically also intrigued my brother-in-law, who was born on a farm in northeast Texas with plenty of cows.

Saturday started with massive cleaning and organizing to help my brother and sister-in-law, who recently moved into their new house, after gutting it. I helped organize the kitchen, unpack and clean. I enjoyed helping. Each of required brief excursions out of the house in order to escape the insanity of the parents. Astoundingly, the entire family ate my vegan chuckwagon stew for dinner.

Sunday, being Christmas Eve, gave the pagans solace as the four Christians went to two different church services. My wife and I enjoyed the unique pleasure of flipping around cable stations.

Christmas Day greeted us with the general present opening, followed by a pancake breakfast. My sister and I planned out dinner preparations and started by baking pies. I made my first vegan pecan pie, with fresh pecans that we shelled ourselves (courtesy of the Texas family farm). Vegans sat at one end of the table with their tofurky, dumplings, gravy and veggies. The omnis sat at the other end with a big hunk of prime rib. My sister and I had an awesome time cooking together. The cranberry pecan stuffing and green beans with sauteed onions and pine nuts, both vegan, were enjoyed by all. An hour after dinner we had dessert and I'm proud to say my pecan pie was awesome and disappeared well before the non-vegan pumpkin pie. The rest of the day was spent playing.

By the time Tuesday rolled around we were ready to be home in our own little two-bedroom apartment. Our cat was in serious trauma over our absence, even though a friend came and fed and visited him. I anticipated the worst about this visit and it turned out to be quite nice, laced with a just-bearable amount of parental insanity.

We're in Shmooville Now!

My food prep fest continued tonight. I made carrot muffins with walnuts and raisins. They're yummy. The piece de resistance is the tofu apple spring rolls. It's a Vegan Lunch Box recipe. Jennifer Shmoo's husband says this one recipe alone was worth the cost of her cookbook. He's not kidding.

It took about 3 hours from marinade to rolling, but so worth it. The tofu is pressed and marinated in a fresh orange juice marinade. Then it's baked. It was hard not to eat all the tofu out of the pan. But we diced our tofu and shredded cabbage, apples, carrots and scallions. The fun part is rolling up the spring rolls. My wife and I did it together.

We each have a container of the most amazing spring rolls and awesome peanut sauce for our lunch tomorrow and two carrot muffins for breakfast.

I'm most proud of Mr. Man's lunch, pictured above. He has two spring rolls wrapped in a lettuce leaf, orange sections, a carrot muffin and a rice cake with hazelnut and almond butters. He has soy sauce for dipping, as peanuts are banned from his classroom.

I have to sleep for a few hours, but when I wake up exhausted I get to revel in the fact that I have amazing food waiting for me.

Oh, and our kababs were awesome. Even Mr. Man ate the veggies, seitan and tofu off the skewer like corn on the cob.

Mr. Man Grub

The extreme shopping run on Saturday that required us to haul our groceries back in the shopping cart has been bearing fruit.

On Sunday I made almond biscotti, which was earmarked for a coworker's birthday celebration. The leftovers came back tonight. Mr. Man gave them a thumbs up.

I also prepared a big pot of amazing chili and cornbread. This was by far the best chili I've ever made. I learned that the secret to a nice thick chili is to stir in a bit of refried beans at the end.

One of my new cookbooks is The Vegan Lunchbox. Shmoo's lunches are often the topic of conversation in our house. I finally got my ass around to making Mr. Man's lunches close to that caliber. We've always fed him healthy food and tried to vary it, but we got stuck in a rut.

Today I sent him to school with:

• tortilla wrap (whole wheat tortilla with cream cheese and refried beans rolled up)


• apple wedges


• yogurt


• crackers and hummus

I am certain that the fact he threw up in his lunchbox today for no apparent reason, claiming to feel fine both before and after the event is not related to the lunch contents.

Tonight I spent some time in the kitchen and prepped dinner and lunches for tomorrow. Granted, I didn't do the hours of homework I should have, but I am proud to say that I now have veggies, tofu and seitan marinating in my fridge so we can have kebabs for dinner tomorrow night.

His lunch for tomorrow is packed and contains:

• deli rolls (vegan lunch meat layered with cream cheese, rolled and speared with a toothpick)


• tofu veggie pasta salad


• hazelnuts and raisins


• half a piece of almond biscotti


• a banana

This one could be photographed a la Jennifershmoo. I am quite proud.

Time Stamp

If you had asked me at 8am this morning, I would have told you that today was going to be a horrible, no good, very bad day. At almost 9pm, I'm here to tell you it rocked.

• 6:45 am: Mr. Man wakes up in our bed [We've instituted Friday family bed night.] and asks if he can go play. The answer is always a definitive yes because he occupies himself while his lame ass mommies get a few more minutes of sleep.



• 7:30 am: Mr. Man comes back from his room and announces he wants breakfast. I get up and make him oatmeal. I eat leftover mushroom stroganoff from last night's dinner.



• 7:45 am: Mr. Man decides he wants to watch the rest of the Heffalump Movie which came yesterday from Netflix. (Sue us - he finally succumbed to the damn ads that precede the one and only video he owns - Mary Poppins.)



• 8:00 am: If the Heffalump Movie isn't bad enough, the cat decides to take the mother of all dumps. The stench wafts through the apartment. Some of you who know our cat may remember that he neither remembers to fully cover his shit or to take a shit gracefully. You might also remember that he has very long hair. Chalk this up to a cat smearing shit around the kitchen floor at 8am in the morning. I am tired. I have cramps. I am hormonal. I run to the sleeping wife and insist she must come help me. I clean the cat shit off the kitchen floor only to find that he'll continue smearing it around until we get the gobs off of his tail. The wife and I trap him in a tub full of water. This is the only positive use I have found for sliding shower doors. Yes, it sounds cruel, but we leave him in there until he's sloshed around enough to get the shit off his tail. We've covered the bathroom floor with towels to soak up the shit water that is likely to come off of him when he emerges. (Trust me - we've done this before.) Fortunately he comes out clean. Let's just say I was a tad bitchy to the wife during this process. Mr. Man is all the while watching the Heffalump Movie.



• 8:30 am: The three of us snuggling on the couch conclude the viewing of the Heffalump Movie. We go to the bonus features on the DVD and find a recipe for the type of cookie the Heffalump likes. Pumplerumkins or something stupid like that. Mr. Man decides we should make them.



• 9:00 am: The baking commences, followed closely by a coffee and cookie breakfast.



• 9:30 am: I scrub the kitchen floor. My wife goes back to bed.



• 10:00 am: Mr. Man and I begin making salt dough for holiday ornaments. We rolled out the dough, used cookie cutters and Mr. Man put all the holes in each one so we could insert a string when they're finished. The first two dozen ornaments are baking and we make braided candy cane ornaments with metal hangers with the rest of the dough.



• 12:30 pm: I begin making a menu and a grocery list for the week. I hear the gate open and there's a knock at the door. The woman from NWVeg has come to deliver the basket of goodies we won at the Vegan Holiday Festival two weekends ago. It was like Christmas. In the basket was 2 books about food, a cookbook I really wanted, a bar of soap, a gift certificate to a vegan grocer, 3 boxes of Fantastic food mixes, 2 cans of Amy's lentil soup, a head of garlic, an acorn squash, 3 gravy mixes, 2 Peanut Better peanut butter spreads and 2 Bumble Bars. I might even be forgetting something. It was awesome. My wife rouses herself to come see and we sit down to a bit of lunch.



• 2:00 pm: I get input from everyone and finally finish my weekly menu plan and grocery list. The list is massive. I slowly entice Mr. Man to come to the store with me. We have no idea how we will carry everything back home the 3 blocks from the store.



• 3:30 pm: Mr. Man and I finally finish shopping. He got tired of pushing the cart and eventually climbed in the cart. I piled everything on top of him. Our cart was overflowing. We checked out and I asked the clerk to pack as compactly as possible since we were on foot. By the fifth full bag he said, just take the cart home. I said, okay, we'll bring it back. "No, don't bother bringing it back, he advised. We give the homeless $1 for every cart they return." There was a dilemma I wasn't expecting. Mr. Man loved pushing the cart three blocks home. As it was I carried one bag and the cart was still full of bags. We had to work tag team to get the cart up the hill to our house. We wheeled the grocery cart right up to our door and unloaded it. What fun.



• 4:00 pm: I proceed to reorganize the fridge and pantry to make room for all the food I bought.



• 5:00 pm: I begin making vegetable chowder for dinner. Mr. Man decides he wants to eat the pomegranate we bought at the store. None of us has ever had a fresh pomegranate. My wife conducts internet research so we know what to do with it.



• 5:30 pm: The pomegranate has been scored and is soaking so we can easily peel of the husk to reveal the juicy kernels. We have agreed to sprinkle the seeds over ice cream for desert. In the meantime we eat dinner. The vegetable chowder was okay, but not the best recipe to come out of the Uncheese Cookbook.



• 6:00 pm: We all strip the pomegranate seeds from inside the fruit and have dessert. I loved the seeds. Mr. Man was 75/25 in favor and I think my wife was the opposite. Nonetheless we had a great time with a new fruit.



• 6:30 pm: We attempt a family game of Parcheesi, but Mr. Man tires and we suspend play.



• 7:00 pm: Mr. Man goes to bed. I venture out into the blustery, cold night with a shopping cart. I return it to the store and pick up the tea we forgot to get.



• 7:30 pm: I watch the tail end of the Veronica Mars episodes my wife is watching.



• 9:00 pm: My wife is in the tub. I'm in bed under blankets. I might go make almond biscotti. I might curl up with my sparkly clean wife in bed.

Equal

I spent 12 hours working or getting to work today. The other 12 were pleasure.

I came home with one flat tire and one inflated tire.

We ate half of a pizza and half of a chocolate cream peanut butter pie for dinner tonight. We'll eat the other halves for breakfast tomorrow.

Tonight equals tomorrow's day.

Happy Equinox.

Learning a Lesson

This morning, like yesterday, my wife and I enjoyed a few late-morning snuggles as Mr. Man occupied himself playing. A few stolen caresses at the 7:30 am hour as opposed to the 5:30 am hour are glorious. It's sort of our unspoken tradition that on weekend mornings I get up with Mr. Man and lure him into the kitchen for breakfast (which we typically do brunch style) while my wife steals a few more precious minutes of sleep.

This morning, I began making biscuits and tempeh gravy for breakfast while Mr. Man played PBS Kids at the kitchen table. Things were going smoothly and as usual, I asked Mr. Man to go gently tell his mother that breakfast was ready. She appeared a few minutes later and we were all seated at the breakfast table ready to eat.

I explained to Mr. Man that he must try a biscuit with the gravy on it, as it was the primary source of protein this morning. He proceeded to throw a temper tantrum, complete with pinching my lips in an effort to make be stop saying what he didn't want to hear. Of course the screaming came in the middle of a bite of plain biscuit, so in addition to tolerating the most obnoxious behavior we had to prevent the choking and vomiting that ordinarily occurs when you inhale food mid-scream. We quickly timed him out to his bedroom to calm down, but largely our primary purpose was to prevent us from acting on our intense need to make him shut up, be rational and behave.

In the precious quiet that followed in the wake of his retreat to the bedroom, my wife and I quickly checked in about how we felt and what we should do. Not a good way to begin a morning (especially with a nice breakfast spread out before us) and my wife's first instinct was to give him up for adoption. I could hardly disagree. While we were negotiating the consequences of his actions and how his lost privileges would totally fuck up our day, his door opened. He comes back to the table slightly less rude and says, "I'm going to teach one of you a lesson." Uh-oh, I think. Round two. He proceeds to explain (aka demand) that my wife try a new food, too. He tells her she must try an apricot while he takes his test bite of gravy biscuit. They proceed to both try their new food and the rest of the meal goes off without a hitch and Mr. Man's mood is much improved. He proceeds to eat more than two-thirds of the biscuit and gravy serving.

Despite the fact that it's easy to believe that my child is out to make my life a loud, screaming fit of a living hell and act like a demon incarnate, I know this is not the answer. In his own way today, he was looking for a way to exert his own influence. Most of the day, people outside of him give him anything from orders to suggestions. Do this. Don't do this. If you choose this, you also choose that. To him it must seem like everything that happens to him happens because someone outside of himself told him to do a certain thing. How frustrating it must be to feel bereft of internal stimulus about major life patterns. He pushes against us so much perhaps because he needs to hold the reigns himself a bit more.

As a parent it is overwhelming to know when to set healthy limits and create boundaries or when to let him sit in the driver's seat. I want him to feel he is able to control or not control his life as he chooses, which means he must have the opportunity to learn how. If I give too many orders or instructions, he might begin to think that the only answers lie outside of himself, that only others can tell him what to do. That road is not far from another path I am familiar with, that of thinking that only others can tell you that you are good.

His tender heart and mind search for understanding of his place in the world, and as one of his few guides, I have no answers for him. I, too, am learning lessons every day.

Beautiful Day

Today was the day for the second-largest cycling event in the country. We got up early, ate a big breakfast and headed to the bus stop - 2 bikers and an Ama (dutifully carrying our bike flags). [We couldn't affix the bike flags because they would impede the vision of the bus driver when we put them on the bike rack.] According to the online trip planner our #70 was to arrive at 7:58. We got there early. And waited. And waited. Finally we learned by calling the transit company for details about our stop ID, that this route was detoured. We don't have another nearby northbound route, so Mr. Man and I revert to Plan B - the much less desirable method of getting to the Bridge Pedal where you intend to bike 14 miles with a 5yo. Plan B involves riding 4 miles down the Springwater Corridor to get to the start line. I really didn't want to wear him out before the event, but we're uncertain that any busses are successfully getting across the river today. So I run back to drop off the bike flags, which now we can't carry, and to pick up jackets for the cool shady ride downtown. We get downtown (across the Hawthorne Bridge) and arrive at the starting line with time to spare. We run into my wife, who bussed down and arrived about the same time. Mr. Man stretches and takes a brief rest, we send kisses around and get in the pack to start the 6-bridge, 14-mile ride.

Mr. Man has done the Hawthorne bridge several times already, so this one is a breeze for him. The Hawthorne is a steel deck bridge and to prevent tires from acting weird on the metal grate, there was plywood placed on the length of the deck. I appreciated not having to stare down into the river the whole way across.

Next we headed south through some familiar territory and made a steep assent up to the Ross Island Bridge. The first climb was the hardest part of the trip. When we reached the point in the hill where it was time to turn onto the bridge, Mr. Man said, "When is the downhill coming?" We pulled over for a 30-second rest and Mr. Man continued on up the bridge. At some point on our ascent Mr. Man lost the plastic insert into the mouthpiece of his Platypus (drinking container for his backpack.) We didn't dare stop to find it, although I did see one biker stop to go back and retrieve his inhaler. This bridge was kind of freaky because eastbound traffic continued to whiz by (damn cars!). Mr. Man was cruising, but of the two eastbound bike lanes, the right lane was crowded by those resting or snapping photos from the bridge. I advised him to take the left lane and immediately regretted is as I saw the traffic coming toward him. He did great, though, and we coasted down the other side of the bridge and entered the twisty, hilly section to get on to the Marquam Bridge.

The Marquam Bridge is a double-decker interstate highway. The upper, eastbound deck was closed for us today, but the westbound traffic continued to thunder underneath us. The approach wasn't too hard and frankly I totally missed the "entrance" ramp feeling that you get when entering a freeway in a car. Maybe it was that we didn't need to merge. As soon as we got on the three-lane highway, ecstatic bikers started weaving across all lanes just because they could. We had a nice downhill followed by a long uphill on the highway to get up to the bridge. Mr. Man and I stopped to look out over the bridge at the point where a metal fence extended above the concrete barrier. Once we got out on the bridge it was simply a 3-foot cement wall between us and thin air. This also gave us a chance to rest on the gradual approach. Up on the Marquam Bridge was a full-size brass band under a tent - pumping out the music to keep us going. There was also a place to get your snapshot taken. The view was amazing and the height was breathtaking. The other half of the bridge is a steep, steep descent down onto the bank of the river. It was a huge downhill, by far the biggest we've been on so far. We enjoyed coasting down.

When we got off the highway, we meander through some eastside industrial area where no less than 5 ice cream vendors had set up. Once we came out of that, we turned the corner to the amazing scent of baking cookies. No idea where it was coming from, but we quickly turned away again and started across the Burnside Bridge - a nice flat ride. On the bridge was a duo playing guitar and drums - with a sign that proclaimed that they were riding their bikes (with their instruments) from Canada to Mexico.

After coming off the Burnside, we cruised down to Union Station (our Amtrak station) and before the difficult up onto the Broadway Bridge, we took a break. Mr. Man suddenly had to pee, so I took him around the corner and he peed in the grass. We sat and stretched and took off our backpacks and ate an energy bar. He was getting pretty tired, but the sugar and protein pumped him up and he was excited to go across the Broadway Bridge. It's quite a beautiful red bridge with great view of the amazing real estate in the Pearl. We coasted down to the coordinated rest stop and ate a nectarine (me) and cookie (Mr. Man). Suddenly a volunteer came along with a bullhorn and announced that we had to keep going because the Fremont Bridge would soon be closed. She was very urgent about it. For reference, the Fremont Bridge is another double-decker interstate bridge and is the highest bridge of them all. The ascent is steep and long. I looked at Mr. Man and asked him what he wanted to do. He wasn't interested in going on and neither was I. We had tacked on an unexpected 4 miles to the beginning of the 6-bridge route and we had successfully pedaled across 5 of the 6 bridges. It was success to us!

We decided to go back across the Broadway Bridge on the other side and learned that it has a beautiful bike/pedestrian bridge on the north side. We coasted down the bridge and stopped near Union Station. We made arrangements with Ama to meet at the Chinese Gardens. All three of us strolled through the amazingly-gorgeous gardens. At my suggestion we walked a few blocks to Vegetarian House, a Chinese restaurant in China Town that is touted as "a vegan's delight". No doubt. It was so good. Mr. Man loves veggie shrimp and also got some chow mein. My wife got General Tso's veggie chicken and I got kung pao chicken. It was all amazing and good - and VEGAN! We wandered back to the lightrail station, stuffed and satisfied.

What a beautiful day.

Fantasies

As mentioned yesterday, I'm quite happy with many, many aspects of my life. But along comes a day like today and I'm overwhelmed by the F&A about how little money we have to get essential and non-essential items. We've had tight times before, but since the move I feel deprived. I don't think that we've been in this position of having to forgo essential items like clothes, haircuts and food since Mr. Man was born.

This post is purely indulgent--a way to give life to the daydreams I harbor. Perhaps by voicing them, the universe will breathe life into them.

• I have a really, really full fridge with tons of fresh fruit and vegetables (all organic). There are rarities like heirloom purple and green tomatoes, baby bok choy, endless avocados for homemade guacamole and fresh basil for pesto. Each day brings two new pints of local berries. The freezer is stocked full of yummy vegan protein sources - bacon, sausage patties, neatloaf and soy chorizo. There is a non-stop supply of soy yogurt, as we empty a large container every other day. Even though we don't need the sugar, we can make chocolate-peanut butter cream pie because we have all the ingredients. There are at least two kinds of Stumptown coffee beans waiting to be ground. Two bottles of wine are available for dinner guests and a six-pack of Oregon-brewed beer is chilled for dinner.


• The sitter arrives at 10am after we've had a family brunch. The fridge is stocked with wholesome lunch and dinner options for Mr. Man and the sitter. My love and I catch the bus to the Hawthorne, Division and Belmont areas for a day of window shopping. We eat Thai or Indian for lunch (my choice) and head downtown for a stroll through the Chinese Garden. While downtown, we stop at Paddy's and have a few drinks--the really good whiskey, of course. We head to the Baghdad for a movie or catch a show. When we come home, Mr. Man is fast asleep and we crawl into bed to collapse after a very difficult day of nothing but fun.


• I take off one morning and head to a funky salon to get a haircut. My split ends land on the floor with a thud. I trim off 3 inches of the length and the stylist uses the fun curly product to produce maximum body. On a whim, I add some stripes of blond color.


• I am a bike commuter and I easily negotiate the transition from the sweaty commute into professional attire. I have a messenger bag for the few things needed for the day and other personal care items are stowed in my storage sacks on the back of my bike.


• Alternative Outfitters just shipped my order for two pairs of shoes - one sexy pair of black heels for work and a light sandal option for jeans day. Deva has shipped two items of clothing for work - both are machine washable, professional and unique. I browsed at Nau's new shop in the Pearl and purchased two items of completely sustainable outdoor apparel.


• My wife's multiple birthday gifts are wrapped in homemade wrapping paper and merely waiting for the day to come. All of my friends and family got a card and a homemade gift from me for their birthday.


• Mr. Man has socks that fit him and he has shorts and a clean shirt (not a t-shirt) for school, even though we haven't done laundry in two days. His winter coat is hanging in the closet in anticipation of the cold season.

Catching Up

Yikes. Over ten days since my last post. Updates in brief:

• I only made it to Thursday and then we went out to eat. So easy to cave...


• On Friday of two weeks ago I spent the day interviewing 6 candidates to fill my position when I leave. None of them are prepared or possibly able to face my daily workload. The experience of interviewing candidates with a Board member and my boss was a unique one. There's an entry to this blog entitled "Dufus, Sourpuss and Miss America" that will never be posted for legal reasons. Inquire in person if you want me to characterize the day further.


• I had an informal interview with the manager who is losing her staff person due to the internal hire. She seems interested in me and I like the sounds of the job. I expect to go through a more formal interview process for this position in the coming week(s). Meanwhile, the HR department from the company contacted me to say that they are considering me for another position and I should hear from the manager to schedule an interview soon. My favorite line from her message was when she said "and if he is as impressed with you as Pat was, then we may want to fly you out here." Anyone else hear that maybe the airfare lands on their credit card instead of mine? I'm feeling good about this company - especially now that they're considering me for positions for which I didn't apply and advocating for me to get the position higher on the hierarchy. (This new position reports to a VP instead of an AVP or a Director.) So I interview with the VP on Wednesday.


• In other good employment news, I got a call for a first interview for a position with an employer that offers really great benefits and has a good salary range. The web page describing employee benefits actually mentions domestic partner. I was really happy to get this call. I interview with them on Friday.


• On the home front, we had a crazy, trigger-filled 20 hours with my wife's parents this weekend. In theory this should also be the last visit we have with them before we move, as they go to Florida for the next 2 months. Let's just say they have a hard time thinking about anything else other than their million ailments and how the world is out to screw them (as rich white Republican rural folks). My wife wanted to cry from the moment we began driving home. We raced across the state at speeds of 85mph to get to a birthday party Mr. Man was attending. We arrived only 10 minutes late. The party was at the Y, so my wife and I got a day pass and spent over two ours walking together and working out to burn off the stress and frustration of the parental contact. As a bonus, we got to soak in the whirlpool together.


• Today was designated a cleaning day. At breakfast I announced a great plan to reorganize Mr. Man's art supplies to make them more accessible. We had been talking recently about going through his toys to decide which ones he didn't play with, which ones were for littler children and which ones were simply "cheap pieces of plastic crap." While I was cleaning up breakfast he marched upstairs and started to bring his first load of toys down for processing. He and I spent at least an hour going through ALL of his toys. He put a LOT into the "go" pile. I am so proud of him. We consolidated his toys easily by half. The only thing we didn't tackle were the stuffed animals. After a day's worth of work, the office and the living room are much more organized and pared down. My wife did a great job taking everything off the porch that we don't want to give away and loaded up all the stuff that we do want to freecycle on the porch so it can be easily distributed. We're getting it together!


• I tried a new recipe and made some biscuits for breakfast and they were pretty good. They weren't light and fluffy, but great with the vegan sausage and bacon and/or margarine and jam. In an effort to begin celebrating Imbolc, I made a pot of Brigid's soup containing all red ingredients (kidney beans, carrots, tomatoes, veg stock) and pureed most of it. Mr. Man ate it up! It was very tasty. We discussed transformation (and did some in our home) and fire and Mr. Man did a lot of creative things today. We're planning to make flaming bananas as a treat on Wednesday night. Stay tuned, I've never flamed anything before...


• If the flaming goes poorly, there's always an insurance payment to get us out of here, seeing as the sale of the house is stalled again because the buyers are having trouble getting approved for a mortgage with a real lender. Damn.


• On a personal level, I've put concerted effort this week into getting back onto the Weight Watchers plan. After growing out of most of my business clothes and gaining about 15 pounds in the last year, I had enough. I remained on plan all week. Instead of binge eating, I've taken up binge sleeping. Mr. Man and I are fighting a bit of a cold. On at least 2 or 3 occasions this week I went to bed with him at 9pm and chose not to get up and do work, sleeping through to 6 or 7 am.

I hope more frequent posting will resume, especially given the minimum of 2 interviews I have this week and the potential for things to fall into place for another trip to Portland.

P.S. Don't accidentally put a full bag of carrots into the freezer instead of the fridge. Once they freeze solid, they don't really thaw out into their old selves.

Rollercoaster

Yesterday was my monthly Board meeting. I generally hate these days and yesterday was complete with the typical frustration of listening to leaders prattle on about things they're never going to do...unless, of course, I do it. These meeting are very stressful with 25-50 people asking me questions, for information, or the usual piling on of more work. I held my breath all day hoping the phone would ring to tell me that I had a job so I could leave this ineffective organization behind. But it didn't.

I didn't cave in (totally) to depression and I did cook dinner:

• sweet and sour tofu (which Mr. Man devoured!)


• bulgur - some plain and some seasoned and with veggies (also a favorite of Mr. Man's)


• random leftovers from my Board meeting


• desert made from leftover poppyseed dinner rolls - buttered with cinnamon, sugar and toasted brown and drizzled with honey

During the consoling game of Parcheesi (which is fun with my wife but just plain frustrating with Mr. Man), the phone rings! Thus begins the best rejection I've ever gotten. The manager tells me that I was one of the 2 top candidates and that other managers wanted to support the internal candidate, but if it was up to her she would have hired me. She continues for an embarrassingly long time about how I'm really great and how she really wants me to work for her company. She has even gone to the length to contact the manager of the person she hired away to recommend me for the vacancy in that department and instructs me to email and call the other manager. She insists that I should apply for other positions and not limit myself to admin positions because I have great skills to grow into other roles. It was not a job offer, but it was an awesome back patting.

The day is over. It's been a rollercoaster. I'm ignoring my mountain of work and checking out to watch Firefly.