It's Wednesday and the weather is so pleasant that it makes me what to cry a little. One of my dogs is outside and the other is listening to the radio that's playing downstairs. The radio is one of two that I've recently acquired. I turn it on and listen to pop hits because the radios are designed to be cute and retro, but suck at getting any stations that would tell me the news that isn't religious leaning. So, I'm listening to music I wouldn't normally listen to and hearing the commercials playing about life that's local to me. It's a nice noise to have in the background. I now have one in the upstairs guest bedroom/office where I'm typing this. The noise is to fill this silence that's always there even though I have a parking lot for a front yard and a liquor store for a neighbor.
My daughter is leaving in a couple of months to start her life. on her own. We've been together alone since her father moved away to the U.A.E. when she was eight. She's now 22 and it has been the two of us alone all of these years. I'm excited for what's going to happen next for her in her life. All of the things that she'll discover and all of the lives that she'll meet. I'm blissful when I imagine how she'll fall in love with someone or something that will take her heart away. I want her to have all of the normal joys of life that anyone would ever want for the love of their life.
I realize why I feel this necessity to write and to share my little memories with people. It's so simple and rather selfish. I don't want to die with my stories just being my own. I've lived this life that only I've seen and been privy to. Other than my daughter, no one has ever asked me questions about who I am, where I've been, or what I've wanted. Since it hasn't been requested, I plan to do what other lovers of words do, I put it all out here to be seen and not forgotten. I'm not always a happy person, but I am a woman filled with a lot of joy, gratitude, and hope for something more in life. I believe in being authentic to the core. While I'll never be on Only Fans because my breasts are very National Geographic Magazine, I do want to bare myself to others because we are on this ride together.
My father forgot who he was towards the end of his life. I called him from my home phone in an apartment in the suburbs of Taipei. Cat was in the background crying because she was just a baby. My father spoke a string of words that were strung together by nonsense and with each syllable my heart broke into a billion pieces. He forgot his stores and all of who he was and how he got there. He forgot his love of cameras and of chocolate chip cookies with walnuts. He forgot all of the memories of us and what he had made as a man.
Sometimes I wake up in a panic because I can't call up my memories as if I were Googling my life. I want to. be able to do that, but that isn't exactly possible at this point in time. Maybe in my future lab I can figure out something where we can do that, but because of racism and bullshit, we can't have fun things like Memory Recallers by Jerri. It would be like in "The Matrix" but without the shit stuffed in the back of your head.
I think of my father most often when it comes to food. While my mother did most of the cooking as women of her generation and all others seem to end up doing (I love doing it for my offspring, mind you), my father was the one with the adventurous spirit when it came to trying new foods and having new experiences. I like to think that if I made this little three ingredient bite for him, he would totally love it. Maybe some chopped pecans or candied walnuts through it would be nice as well.
The Sophisticated Stoner's Ramble & Recipe: Cranbrioli!
Ingredients
1 roll of puff pasty
1/2 cup of cranberry sauce
slices of brie
salt to sprinkle on top before baking
Remember: thaw out the puff pastry the night before.
cut pastry in half once thawed
preheat oven to 350
lay six to 1/2 tbsps worth of cranberry sauce equally spaced apart on one half of the puff pastry. add a slice or two of the brie.
lay other half of puff pastry on top
using a chopstick, press indentations into the pastry
use a knife and cut, place on a baking sheet. you could be fancy and put some egg on it to make it shiny, but this is for you, so that doesn't matter. But, if you make it for friends, make it look better.
bake until done. about 10 to 15 minutes. They'll do what they should and "puff" and be pretty.
wait to eat because you'll burn the roof of your mouth with the hot brie. my tongue still hurts. ouch.
Enjoy this is such a short life we might get to lead. Enjoy the little and big bites.
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