Hippie-ki-yay

When I was in 3rd grade, my sister Mona was in 6th grade. A boy in her class saw me in the lunch room and told me I looked like a hippie.
   I went home and asked Mona and my mom "what's a hickey?" [Sic.]
   My mother, suspicious and displeased, asked me why I asked, so I recounted the lunch room encounter. We soon worked out the source of the confusion — or at least, the source of her confusion, because at the end I was still confused about a) what a hickey is b) why looking like a hippie is bad.
   Whether Mona knew a) what a hickey is I can't say. (If she did she (like Mom) wasn't interested in clarifying it for me.) I can say with some confidence, however, that Mona was not confused about b) why looking like a hippie is bad: she was mortified that young Mr. White had found my look remarkable and asked our mother if something couldn't be done about my appearance.

Anyway, here is the first in a potential series of how hippie I am.
   I never use the microwave: All my food is warmed or re-warmed on the stove or in the oven. I have not used the microwave since August 2012.
   I don't have any studies to cite about whether the microwave is bad for your food, but I operate as though it is. (Go ahead. Call me a kook. Or — even better — a cook!) I do believe that avoiding the microwave is a big fat deal in moving away from convenience as the deciding factor in food choices. When convenience is king, health suffers.

In case you were wondering, I received clarification about a) what a hickey is when I was in 5th grade. A girl in my class, Heather Scot, invited all the cool girls into the bathroom and took out a red ink stamp-pad and said let's make ourselves look like we have hickeys. I took the opportunity to ask what a hickey is, and Heather took the opportunity (as I thought she would) to tell me.
   I've also figured out some reasons people might have for b) why looking like a hippie is bad, but Jimmy crack corn.

hEArT

Things I have made this year that I have never made before:

Rumaki 

... sort of: Instead of wrapping chicken liver in bacon, I wrapped chicken heart in bacon. I had a bunch of frozen chicken hearts from the farmers' market and I wasn't sure what to do with them.
   The hearts in my freezer were much larger than the ones in my memory. I had had chicken hearts before (Brazilian BBQ) and I remembered them being wee. I cut these ones into three or four pieces before swaddling them in bacon.
   It wasn't bad! I mean, wrapped in bacon, what can go wrong?
   I think maybe liver would be better f(even though the first time I had chicken liver — a couple of months ago — I didn't like it much). I also think that no matter what offal I used I'd marinade it next time.
   Props to LF.

Artichoke

I'd eaten this heaps o' times ... mostly on pizza ... but never prepped it. The heart really is the best bit.

Sea-Cucumber Salad

This is a joke name. Like Dorf Salad. My dad doesn't like walnuts so when my mom made Waldorf Salad she would leave out the walnuts, and my dad called it Dorf Salad.
   Until this very year, yea, the year of our good lord 2013, I thought that the "wal" in Waldorf came from "walnuts". I didn't know it was a salad born in the Waldorf Astoria.
   Anywho.
   No sea cucumbers were eaten in this salad. (I don't know if sea cucumbers are even edible.) Seaweed and cucumbers, however, were main features. The salad's alternym could be Weed Salad.
   In keeping with the heart theme in both dishes above ... um ... It was yum and I shall make it again! ♥  
   Props to this recipe and others like it (to which I made, comme toujours, significant modifications) and this TEDx talk. After we watched it Jorn asked "will you make me seaweed salad?" and I said "yes".

Quilt-t

When we (R&I) announced that Roscivs was dying, my dad flew up to Seattle the very next day. The doctor said it would be "weeks", maybe "months" (for any strangers reading, it turned out to be "days") but my dad ... he wanted to make sure. It's his MO, his motto: Don't put off to tomorrow the important thing that can be done right this minute.
   That's why my dad is awesome.
   When he arrived, we all (my mom, my dad, my sister Winnipeg, and me and Roscivs) went out to lunch at Wild Ginger — where we always had dinner together when my parents visited. We managed this even though Roscivs was in a wheelchair and even then barely mobile.

At that lunch, Winn offered to make me a quilt out of Roscivs' t-shirts.
   I visited Winn last weekend and we started the quilt. With much luck and work, it will be done by his birthday.

Up

My 2 cutest, funnest, bestest piano students brought me Valentines today.
   One of them brought me a pipe-cleaner heart-shaped bracelet.
   And one of them also (not as a Valentine) brought me a composition of her own, written out (on plain paper she lined herself) — the grand staff (two clefs), a time signature (ok, half of a time signature, but does the bottom number even matter? Nah), unison and non-unison segments, everything!
   Its title: "Up and Down". First it went up, then it went down. It rocked.
   We have done a little improv together, I taught her to read music, and she works out of my theory books while her sibling has a lesson, but we'd never done notation!

Live Music

Roscivs and I played violin together when we met. I didn't hear or see him play piano until later.
   He was at Aunt Wanda's when I saw him play piano for the first time. He played Bach's Gigue from Partita no. 1. This is a piece where the hands cross over each other a lot. His hands were so attractive.
   He didn't play it too fast. His tempo was heartbeat perfect.
   He bought a keyboard for us as a surprise gift for the one year anniversary of us getting engaged, and straight away I asked him to play the Gigue for me (although I didn't know it by that name; I called it "the hand cross-over piece" and after he died I had to use this phrase to find a recording of the piece). I took motion-blurred pictures of his hands. I still have them ... in my mind.
   I can see him when I hear it.