Dad's Chili

This is my pick me up at this time of the year. I don't do well with the time in between seasons. The weather's moodiness and inability to make a decision makes me moody and indecisive. I am always overdressed or underdressed and overtired or under focused. I have a hard time keeping up with what needs to be done. A bowl of chili is a bastion of comfort that centers me and makes me feel close to my family. It recalls all those family dinners that were eaten at the table. Every night.

This has always been Dad's chili in my head. I am not really sure why it is Dad's chili. The memories I have of my Dad in the kitchen mostly involve eating cookies for breakfast, mashing potatoes, giving the cat lunchmeat, and standing over me on my cooking expeditions to make sure I didn't sever a finger or set the kitchen on fire. (Dad was always a very willing and supportive assistant.) Maybe he used to make this chili. Maybe not. Maybe he just really likes chili. Maybe I should find that out...

Chili is the kind of thing that is equally comfortable being consumed by yourself out of a mug and topped with as much sour cream as is left in the fridge as it is being passed around to a group of friends out of a big pot or a slow cooker. A fairly quick and simple dish that is easy to tweak with seasonings and ingredients, each individual eater can be attended to. This year I made some tweaks that I am very happy with so far. I've made it spicier by adding chiles, crunchier by adding fresh bell pepper, healthier and more humane by using locally raised elk meat, and more well rounded by serving it up with a side of homemade corn muffins. I like my chili topped with scallions, a large handful of cheese and a generous dollop of sour cream.

Dad's Chili
 makes about 4 servings

1 packet McCormick Original Chili seasoning mix
1lb ground meat of your choice
1 14oz can diced tomatoes with green chiles, undrained
1 15oz can dark red kidney beans, undrained
1 green bell pepper 2 scallions, chopped, green and white parts
16oz sour cream
Shredded sharp cheddar cheese, mexican cheese blend or your favorite cheese

 Brown meat in a large skillet. Drain fat if necessary. Add seasoning packet, beans and tomatoes. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer at least 10 minutes, more if you want thicker chili, stirring occasionally. When done mix in bell pepper. Serve with toppings of your choice.

Ina Garten's Corn Muffins
makes about 14 large muffins
 3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar (I cut mine to 2/3 cup)
1 cup cornmeal
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups whole milk (I use whatever is in the fridge)
1lb butter, melted and cooled
2 extra large eggs

 Preheat oven to 350F. Line a muffin pan with baking cups. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment blend flour, sugar, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl mix together milk, eggs and butter. With mixer on lowest speed add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake for about 30 minutes until tops are slightly golden.

These are also good for breakfast or a snack with some honey butter or jam. Ina fills hers with good raspberry preserves.

up against the garage

A night in early summer. After work and the carnival. Everyone still wanting to hang out and build a fire and sing songs. Laugh and have a few more drinks. 

This is where the soul of man never dies

Recently I have taken up with a bunch of musicians. Some of them are even convinced that I too am secretly a musician. I am not sure about that one yet but I do know that music has never had as strong a presence in my life as it has had in the last 8 months.

Music was always there, of course. On the radio in the car. Sometimes at Christmas. My mother singing in the shower and waking me up. In the background during High School and College. But it was never here. Or I was never here, being Jonah swallowed whole by the music whale. Even when I was dating and playing with the music makers in my early twenties, listening to the old timers jam together at Velvet Lounge or sitting on the stoop listening and watching a song being birthed, I was always the outsider looking in.

I always considered myself musically challenged. A road block possibly instilled early in my psyche when my grandmother made a frantic phone call to my mom when she heard me humming out of tune at age 2. This was a big deal because my grandmother was a singer. My mom wanted to be a singer too. But there was never a real emphasis on music in my house growing up. I never learned to play an instrument and I never learned how to sing. Although I spent 5 years in choir and performing in musicals. And I made at least 3 attempts to learn piano. I can successfully find middle C. I think.

I wasn't really into music in the same way everyone else was. It wasn't that thing for me. I couldn't tell you who the cool new bands were. I couldn't even name a band I really liked. I still can't carry a tune in a bucket. I can't pick a song at karaoke and I refuse to sing in public. And don't ask me to whistle, clap, hum a few bars or name that tune. And yet...

I am really interested in everyone's favorite band. I love hearing new music. I bribe my friends to burn me cds. I went out with my boss to hear her friends' bands play. Then I asked her to borrow some cds that we listen to at work. Once I was having drinks with a friend and we were joking around and I went "Ahahaha!" in some sort of musical way when he said I had a nice voice. A professional musician just told me I have a nice voice. I don't believe you. I went to see a client's band play and became friends with her and her band mates. I left their basement at 2am this morning after hanging out for band practice and jam night.

I feel like I am in the twilight zone. I have an ever growing list of new bands to check out on my phone. I have discussions about music with other people. I tell others about musicians and bands that they have never heard of. I have a monthly itunes budget, with a wish list. I try to never miss a show. I just geeked out because one of my favorite bands is releasing a new cd and their tour is coming through Chicago in a month. I seem to know what's going on.

I am getting comfortable in the belly of the whale. I am enjoying the way music brings people together. The way we listen, and smile and dance. The way music measures time and doles it out in perfect slices to take us away from the rest of world, the problems of the day, the worries and anxieties built into us by being human. It does all this in a way only music seems to be able to do.

I watch as everyone filters into the basement. Each person, in turn, finding their place. Picking up an instrument, getting a beer from the fridge, greeting a friend, sitting down. I watch my friend's 4 year old son running around under the bar stools and playing the song he wrote on his miniature guitar. I wonder what it would be like to grow up in this, surrounded by music from the beginning. But I quickly forget because they have started playing a song I know. Everyone starts singing and I am miles away from the thoughts in my head. Nothing really matters except the sounds that fill the room. We laugh as someone forgets the lyrics. Make faces at each other when we get to the words that remind us of one another. And pass around instruments and more beer between songs. It can and it does go on all night.



To those who fed me to the whale: Rocko Walker Jr, Antje Kastner, Jake LaBotz, Gabe Bowling and every single one of The Blind Staggers.

a rainy windowsill

I like keeping my windows open. Even in the rain. I prefer to just move my sofa away from the window to keep it from getting wet. The floor I don't care about. I like how all the little things on the windowsill fill up with water. It brings the outside in.

The Physics of the Quest...

"If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to bitter old resentments, and set out on a truth seeking journey either internally or externally and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, the truth will not be with held from you."

I am sort of embarrassed to admit where this came from.* But the way it has stuck in my head since I heard it has made it an integral part of my everyday life. My quest initially began about a year and half ago. I was dealing with some rather serious depression and anxiety disorder. I was being thrown out by my now ex-boyfriend with no job, no savings and nowhere really to go. I was forced to move all my stuff to my parents house, put myself on every sliding-scale therapist's and counselor's waiting list and prayed I got the temp job I just applied for. I sent an email to everyone I knew explaining the situation and asking for assistance, any assistance they could provide. A couch to sleep on, job leads, anything. While I received some very helpful information, stories of shared experience, and a single offer of a few weeks on a neighbor's couch, I found the response of my friends to my plight underwhelming and a little disappointing. It left me feeling very alone. I wanted the people in my life to be there for me and I felt like they weren't. I have now learned that they weren't able to be there for me because I wasn't able to be there for myself. I got the temp job and I spent a week in my neighbor's guest room and I explored any possible alternative to moving back in with my parents (the reasons for which is another story in and of itself). My ex asked me to move back in with him a month after kicking me out. I went. I was worn out and broken and I thought that was what I wanted. I started seeing a counselor, started attending a dialectical behavioral therapy group, and got a part-time but promising to become full-time job as a receptionist at a hair salon. I started getting better. My focus turned from myself to my relationship with my ex, which was still a mess. Our relationship was a mess because it had already ended. I tried to get some part of our happiness back, reconnect with him and he just shut down. I gave up. I said screw you to my group and my counselor and dealt with their annoying "I am so disappointed in you" comments about my decision and I questioned and doubted myself about whether this was the right thing to do. I didn't want to spend the money anymore. I felt like nothing was changing. I was not happy. I tried to talk to him about it and he broke up with me. Again. I was angry and hurt but secretly knew it was coming. I had worked so hard for "us" and he didn't care, he just walked away. I was transitioning to a new job and wasn't sure exactly what my cash flow situation would be. This makes starting over on your own very difficult. I wasn't going to get kicked out like last time as he knew my situation wasn't stable yet, at least not right away. I didn't sleep for the next three months. Because I couldn't stand being in the same apartment with him much less sleeping in the same bed with him. It was also the middle of winter and I started getting sick. A sinus infection every 2 weeks. I spent every waking moment sick, in the cold, waiting for leasing agents and looking at really shitty apartments. I did what I had to do because I had to do it. I started my new job. I hung out with my boss after work and saw some bands and met some new people. I found myself. I felt like a bitch because I was really looking forward to my new life, my new apartment, doing things that interested me and finding all the things that I felt were missing in my life. And then I didn't feel so much like a bitch anymore. Not because my friends reassured me that I wasn't a bitch, I was just moving on but, because my ex made it very easy for me to leave during the last 3 weeks I was living with him. By being a complete and unrepentant asshole. And then blaming me for his actions. Something had changed in me. He still made me angry but I couldn't take any of it to heart because I KNEW it wasn't my fault. I officially moved out about 4 months after we broke up. I have never been happier. I am unashamed to say it. The days of me feeling depressed and helpless are extremely rare. I am a completely new person. If you knew me a year and a half ago you wouldn't recognize me and you probably wouldn't like me. My friends will vouch for this. I have changed and grown more in the last year than I have in the previous 27 collectively. I know that I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be happy with out having to have gone through the things that I have gone through. I was scared and lonely through most of it but here I am, a better person for all of it. I don't sweat the small stuff, I don't put up with bullshit anymore, I do what I have to do, and I have fun and I don't regret any of it.




*This is part of the denoument of Elizabeth GIlbert's personal quest in Eat, Pray, Love the movie. I am not sure if it is in the book or not. Dorky, I know.

it is never too late...

It is never too late to re-unite with family you haven't seen in 20 years, to tell someone you love them, to start over, to pick up that hobby or go on that trip you always thought about or to start working on a blog you have left abandoned for almost a year. It is never too late. A very wise man told me this once with a great smile over a cup of black coffee talking about life and family while sitting in his living room. I will never forget it. It is never too late.

It is also never too early either. It is never too early to do that thing you never thought you could do, to find meaning in the people and the places around you, to decide that you need something different, to find your own personal Elvis. Why spend your whole life waiting for your whole life? Another wise man has told me this, more than once. I used to hate hearing it. Like mom nagging me to make my bed, my response was nothing but a sigh and a groan. Now, I seem to have taken it to heart. My life moving fast enough to only catch glimpses of myself, smiling in the mirror.

The purpose of life is to enjoy every moment. So here I am, not too late and not too early, setting the world at 6's and 7's...

The American Prairie, Part 2: Adventures in camping with a dog

The thing with the prairie is that there is very little shade. Cooling off in the grass with a drink of water.



can I just say that I love hikes that provide snacks along the way? These raspberries were so sweet. They tasted like jam. No jamming required.

Yes. The dog has a backpack.

This toad posed for his picture then decided he needed to cool off. So Berteau licked him and then he hopped away to find a cooler place than the path to hang out.


Steak, pototoes, peas, dog food, grahams and mallows for s'mores, cookwear and utensils. I like how the bug spray is also in this picture. It is a seasoning unique to camping.

The mosquitoes finally started to get to Berteau. So he was sent to isolation in the tent. Which he was happy about.

Not that I can blame him.

We cleaned up and then played cards and drank our contraband liquor until we were too tired to stay awake anymore. We vowed to wake each other up if we woke up in the middle of the night so we could go look at the stars but that didn't happen. We planned to get up real early so we could watch the sunrise before breakfast. That didn't happen either. I think we forgot to set an alarm. We did get up early enough to get in some canoeing before we headed out.

Berteau kept sticking his head over the side to drink the water and turning around which lead me to sing a round of "Sit down, You're rocking the boat" from Guys and Dolls. He did eventually lay down and chill out and then glared at me every time I swtitched sides with my oar and dripped water on him.


A house on and island in the middle of a lake with a bar right next door? Yes, please!

The finger in the photo only adds authenticity.

Sleeping in the car on the way home.