Tax Seasoning

So the winter is generally a quieter time. Birds migrate south, plants go dormant, animals hibernate, people stay inside by the fire... Um...well... ideally that may be the case, and in some ways, still, yes. But reality is that human life doesn't much take notice of the seasons anymore, and our jobs still want us to show up everyday, the bills still come, and life still presents us with seemingly millions of things to do and no time to do them in.

Case in point: This year we have gotten unusually high amounts of snow. It happened that because we live far, far away from our night jobs and Virginians are generally unprepared for anymore than 3 inches of snow, we got to spend a couple of weekends snowbound in the house, with no obligation, or desire to go elsewhere. Those weekends were a godsend because it gave us time where we couldn't leave the house so we had to spend time cleaning and organizing everything for the spring...which always seems to come sooner than it should. I made a comment that first weekend..."this is great, all we need now is about 5 more snow-weekends and we'll have everything together!" Be careful what you wish for.

Alex is pretty much back to work as normal. For me, however, the snow took my request seriously and weighed down on the roof of the bowling alley I now bartend at until it twisted some support beams. I have been out of work for a week and a half and still have about 2 weeks left to go (if I'm lucky.) So that's that.

But with all this time off, you'd think I'd have written a novel, mastered the guitar, or at least gotten the house clean and organized. No such luck. Funny thing about time, the more you have, the more you seem to waste. Ah well, we are getting back on track finally and I have started being more productive.

Something I've allowed myself the luxury of doing during my "vacation" is to cook. Cooking for Alex and I is always an adventure. Food usually ends up splattered somewhere, someone usually gets hurt, and there are lots of sound effects (like "Oops, Sh**, Uh...," or general yelling of orders and explatives.) A while ago I received a pressure cooker as a gift. This is something I was excited about because I love Indian food and all my Indian friends assure me that a pressure cooker is essential. When I pulled it out to use for the very first time today Alex asked, "Who would get you a dangerous piece of cooking equipment?" Good question. I answered, "My Uncle Eric. Because he loves me." And that's the truth.

More on cooking Dal by pressure later....