cophereth asked what i used to season with and i started this long treatise in the comments and realised it was better suited as a post.
i`m deadly allergic to shellfish and have a mild allergy to fish, so i`m pretty much a carnivore. although with all the over processing, i`m cutting chicken from my diet, i just don`t like the way it makes me feel.
so my choices are pretty much beef and pork. i feel safe with the beef here, it`s grown by a variety of farms in large pastures, not processed, which is what caused mad cow in the first place.
but onto the seasoning. i usually clean with lime, to cut the freshness and trim according to what i`m going to do with it. next step is dicing onions, peppers, garlic, chadon beni and some other green seasoning, i also use a lot of dried bottled seasonings, oregano, parsley, celery seeds, thyme and my favourites, ground black pepper and butcher`s grade pepper. my cupboard also always contains, aromatic bitters, ground chilis and teriyaki sauce.
i put the meat in a bowl and start adding stuff, there is not methodology, it`s just about a sense of what seems right, it hasn`t lead me wrong thus far.
i come from a family of hypertensives, so i don`t use salt much, pretty much only on chicken, otherwise i use whatever is at hand. recently i got a small bottle of absolut and i`ve made beef marinated in vodka.
cooking is an adventure for me. and the fact that my diet is going to be severely limited for the next couple of months, i need to make what i`m eating interesting.
drinking the night away used to be such fun and so lacking in side effects. there was no hangover yesterday, but i was so exhausted. i was lethargic all day and in bed by 6:30pm, albeit, i did get up about 11 to talk to vic for a while, i was back in bed by midnight and slept through until this morning.
old age is definitely catching up to me. my thighs ache and i`m wondering if it was all the wining at the party or the laps in the pool, either way, it never used to be like this.
one carnival in the not too distant past, i went for a week before i collapsed from exhaustion, now, if i have one late night, i spend days recovering, except for the nights in vic`s company, i think we manage to get by on two and three hours a night with no ill effects.
today is a cooking day, i was supposed to cook yesterday, but i was just too exhausted to manage. my meat is seasoned for the week, so i`m going to cook it all, tag it and bag it and reheat as needed. i`m out of veggies for the moment, but i`m off to the market today or tomorrow, so i`m covered there and therein is my life.
i managed to ring in the new year soundly in my bed, i attempted to make up for that last night at a lavish bash thrown by the ubquitous frenchmen.
apparently, the frenchmen are; to jamaican, upper middle and upper class citizenry, recalcitrant trinis and everyone who thinks they`ve arrived; the same class of fete promoters as island people.
i realised what i was in for on the shuttles to the venue, i had to ask my companions if the accent came with the price of the ticket. i had not heard so many freshwater accents in one place since, hmmmm, since i was passing through the airport in trinidad on christmas eve.
we arrived inside the venue and my disappointment multiplied. the problem with all inclusive parties is that the never are. and when you`re charging enough to feed a frugal family of three, you don`t expect to go to a bar and hear, well we don`t have that sir. wrong, wrong, wrong.
there was no jack, there was no southern comfort, i don`t drink rum, i don`t drink vodka unless i`m mixing it, gin makes me ill. hmmm that leaves me with wine and beer. i have wine at home and if i wanted to drink beer, i could have found a pub somewhere.
but wait, there is a bright spot on the horizon, what do i spy with my little eye? tequila. and this party certainly needed it.
i saw a bunch of people that wouldn`t acknowledge me in trinidad, but we`re all abroad, so we`re brethren. you know what FUCK YOU! it sounds bad, but i really cannot abide the trinis who insist on congregating and being uber-patriots yet can`t be bothered to go home other than carnival time. the ones with the carib or national flag tattoos now, who fled when things got hard and only return because the exchange rate favours them and allows them to, at least for a moment, pretend they not ketchin` ass just like the rest of us.
but i digress.
i drank tequila, chased it with beer, sampled the food, which was divine. i`ve been bitching and moaning about this party, but two things were good, the food and the company. i went with two people from the office who`s heads are squarely on their shoulders and we laughed our asses off.
the music wasn`t bad, it covered a lot of ground and i think any good dj should be able to traverse five decades of music over the course of a night without repeating any music. i swear i think he played the same 70s set during the night.
all in all, i had a good night. i got inerbirated, but not to the point when i wasn`t in control of my faculties, i ate, i danced a little, i had fun. and the best part is, no hangover.
How content are you with your life today? Are you HAPPY? What would you change today to make life better for your future?
i`m as content as i can be when i haven`t seen my wife and the love my life for close to six month.
i`m content, i have a job that affords me the opportunity to see my wife in a few weeks. happy is relative, i`m happier than i was in trinidad, i`m happier now than i was last night, but i`m also slightly inebriated.
vic, i and our children, all in one place would make my life better. i`ve got a few talents, i could work pretty much anywhere. i just need for our family to be in one place.
it`s a new year for those following the gregorian calendar, the chinese new year does begin for another three weeks.
2004 AD. Year 4701 or Year of the Monkey. I`m sure there are other calendar dates that i`m missing but, c`est la vie.
i get a sense of power in this year, it`s ripe with possibility. i intend to take full advantage of that.
it`s hard to believe that it`s been four years since i met vic, our first physical meeting was during the summer olympics in australia. time has flown. in less than three weeks we`d have been married for two years, not the greatest two years in the world, but we have each other. another anniversary spent apart, but not completely. vic, all things working out, will be here on jan 22.
so the plan is to take the year in stages, one milestone at a time. stay focussed, stay positive.
harness everything this year has to offer and achieve my goal.
i`ve decided i`m going to stay in tonight. i don`t feel like interacting with people and i don`t want to go out and be sullen and antisocial, i can do that in the comfort of my own apartment. the only person i want to see tonight is vic and that`s not happening.
but that`s not what this post is about, i`ve only been posting her nine months and i`ve gone from bitching about my shitty job and my long wait at the hands of bureaucracy, pointless post about nothing and quizzes and surveys to taking my writings here a lot more seriously in the last couple months.
since april 8 i`ve accumulated close to 700 posts and over 15,000 visitors, i want to thank you for putting up with me and i humbly offer my top ten post. i hope you enjoy them as much as i`ve enjoyed writing them and i hope to have you back next year.
10.please, thank, sorry, good day
wherein i opined on the lack of manners in society
9.and we have a tie, probably because these are related:
hipster pants are not for you and
my unsexy list
7.another tie, wherein the erstwhile blogger found out that writing here has repercussions
i did not have sexual relations with that woman
retractions and corrections
5.eos, rosy fingered goddess of the dawn
no particular reason other than i loved the opening paragraph
4.fucking like minx
in the midst of vic`s visit to trinidad, i still had people checking, so we decided i should post.
3.i used to cruise target
one of the first set of post when i started thinking about what i was writing, sums up some of the loneliness i`m experiencing now.
2.popularity, pissing contests and cries for attention
my contribution to the best of journalspace community.
1. my beautiful wordsmith
an ode to my wife, my joy, my happiness, my light.
i hope you`re happy with my choices, but feel free to roam around and let me know if i missed anything.
post script.
since starting this post, i`ve spoken to vic and she`s encouraged me to get out of the house. i`m off to see ROTK again and possibly attend a house party thrown by one of my co-workers.
thank you and good night. happy new year. peace, safety and blessings to you all.
i decided earlier that my contribution to the year end wrap up was to post my ten favourite sites of the year and a couple other top ten lists i found while i waste the day online
The P.U.-Litzer Prizes for 2003
Honouring the stinkiest media performances for the year.
The 2003 Media Follies!
An annual survey of the year`s most overhyped and underreported stories.
JNet`s Top Picks of 2003
A random selection of some of the best, most topical or just plain fun sites for journalists.
edit
the mother of all year end lists. all of them in one places, every single best of, year in review list for 2003 is right here
here`s the top ten websites that i`ve been frequenting throughout the year, in no specific order:
Pussy Ranch
Blog of a Minneapolis-area writer, stripper, and peep show performer and her recent fiancé Jonny.
Dirty Whore Diary
[does this really require an explanation?]
Scarlet Letters
One of the longest-running women-owned, women-run sex-positive webzines on the Net.
Sexy Losers
a series of adult comics
Rockwood
The first great comic strip of the third millennium.
Metafilter
starting point of many a day`s surfing and source of many of the links i provide [thank you, vic.]
World Sex News Daily
sex news blogs
Group Hug
an anonymous confessional site
if i feel up to it, i`ll post my ten favourite posts for the year later.
i got up this morning, with a multitude of thoughts to post on the last day of the year and nothing. js was down so i couldn`t get my fix.
i guess it`s all for the best. another year is wrapping up. another 358 days without vic [well it would have been 365 but for the week she spent in trinidad, do the fucking math].
things that really upset me tend to be blotted from my mind and since i can remember what i did last year for old years then it must have been really upsetting.
i`m trying to be positive and more focussed, more sociable [i have an invite to go out to see ROTK tonight and i think i may just pass, i don`t want to be around people i don`t know, much less make friends and try to like].
i don`t make resolutions, so there are no big speeches and plans for the new year, oh with exception of attempting atkins starting jan 2. why not january 1 you ask? i have a ticket for what is supposed to be one of the best all inclusive parties of the year and since i don`t have to go to work on friday, i can get stinkingly drunk and hope it lasts the whole weekend.
my other plan for the new year is to cut off all these fuckers that i called friends that didn`t the plain old good manners to reply to my christmas greeting, i think i put up with enough shit from my so called friends in 2003, new year, new perspective: if you can`t remember my number or email address when things are going well, i really don`t give a fuck what your problems are.
my free will astrology came today and this is what is said:
One of your most wonderful qualities is your aptitude for helping people. It`s also the part of your nature that is most likely to be abused by charming narcissists and charismatic manipulators. But in 2004, you will have a knack for freeing yourself from these oppressors. You`ll be able to spot potential new ones from a mile away, and you`ll know how to break the hold that the old ones have on you. Take this pledge now: \”I will serve only the smart, effective people who also serve me.\”
and that is my philosophy for the new year.
Are you against “Public Displays of Affection”? Does it bother you to see kissing in public or someone damn near grinding?
If you said NO, would it bother you if the couple were of the same sex?
i`m not against public displays of affection, i`d be a hypocrite if i said i was. when i see vic, i can barely keep my hands off her, but there is a point where the need to find somewhere private becomes an essential. kissing, hand holding, light caresses; all good, humping each other on a dance floor is just plain tacky.
but if being an exhibitionist turns you own, who am i to judge.
as for it being worse if it`s a same sex couple, try changing same sex to inter racial, elderly, jewish, black.
you get my point. excessive behaviour applies to whoever is doing it, it doesn`t make more or less acceptable based on the qualifier and to judge based on that is just wrong.
sometime last week monet posed the question what would you do for a million dollars and i answered fairly honestly.
however i did come across a couple of things that i could find to do with my money if i were independently wealthy.
first of all no man is an island, but with enough money you can buy one. yes you too can own a island of your very own
and if you need to defend your island why not get an aircraft carrier or in my case, what better place for a data haven?
i was going to make a point about money and the great divide between them that have and them that have not. but i don`t have the energy right now, my less than 8 hours sleep is catching up with me as well as the arousal cycle is starting to ramp up again, thus draining the need blood from my brain into other areas of my body.
