what are you doing today?

[justinsmama]

Paying bills is no fun.

Went with Mother to the surgeon. Once she sees her cardiologist on Thursday and is given the go ahead from him, she may have the surgery scheduled to reconnect her guts. She wants to have the surgery tomorrow. LOL! Her surgeon is a very attractive man, so I had the bonus of gazing at him.    I have the remainder of the afternoon to myself until Justin returns from school! Woohoo!

[LouiseVargas]

Today was almost hotter than hell in Los Angeles - 94 degrees. I wish I could have geared myself up to go to the beach. I stayed inside all day with the AC at full speed. I took a drive to mail bills and two birthday cards for my daughter who will be 41 on May 11. Then I visited the ATM, deposited $50 and withdrew $100.

I live in an Armenian neighborhood and have the benefit of old world ways such as two produce vans who visit the neighbor ... one in the morning and one in the evening. They go to downtown LA at 4 a.m. to get the freshest produce available. Then they drive around all day to Armenian neighborhoods. I only buy from the evening van driven by an elderly man named Stephan who always says "God Bless You." By the time he gets here, he has been working for 14 hours already. I got two green peppers, one red pepper, a pound of cherries, and three tomatoes for $3.75. If I went to a grocery store, it would cost me that much for one red pepper. I roasted the peppers under the broiler until they were charred and blackened. Then I peeled the skin off and sliced them. I made a quesadilla with charred onions, the peppers on top of that, then sprinkled jack cheese and smoked Gouda cheese. And the roasted tomato sliced on top. I put some hot sauce on the other side, folded it over, and now it is waiting in a buttered pan for when I get hungry.

[Angiex911dsptchr]

Today was almost hotter than hell in Los Angeles - 94 degrees. I wish I could have geared myself up to go to the beach. I stayed inside all day with the AC at full speed. I took a drive to mail bills and two birthday cards for my daughter who will be 41 on May 11. Then I visited the ATM, deposited $50 and withdrew $100.

I live in an Armenian neighborhood and have the benefit of old world ways such as two produce vans who visit the neighbor ... one in the morning and one in the evening. They go to downtown LA at 4 a.m. to get the freshest produce available. Then they drive around all day to Armenian neighborhoods. I only buy from the evening van driven by an elderly man named Stephan who always says "God Bless You." By the time he gets here, he has been working for 14 hours already. I got two green peppers, one red pepper, a pound of cherries, and three tomatoes for $3.75. If I went to a grocery store, it would cost me that much for one red pepper. I roasted the peppers under the broiler until they were charred and blackened. Then I peeled the skin off and sliced them. I made a quesadilla with charred onions, the peppers on top of that, then sprinkled jack cheese and smoked Gouda cheese. And the roasted tomato sliced on top. I put some hot sauce on the other side, folded it over, and now it is waiting in a buttered pan for when I get hungry.

  That sounds yummy!
 I can almost post daily what I have done.. LOL  Sleep.. get up..get things dine around the house. depending what shift I work.. I will cook din din in the AM if I work night.. anad al hubby and son have to do is heat it up..but at times they are lazy .. its there. they dont heat it up.. not my problem! The majority of the time.. my son has to work after school.. and he eats here.,.        he has to be SICK of McDonalds.. but he loves it!  So my days are all aout the same.. work at work.. work at home.. Read  on the internet. Other then that.. I have no life.. lol  

 Happy Birthday to your daughgter~!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MsVada]

That sounds delicious Louise.  

Happy Birthday to your daughter.  I'll be 40 on the 12th of May.  

[BTgirl]

Happy Birthday to Louise's daughter and Ms. Darth Vada!

[Bobo2]

 I roasted the peppers under the broiler until they were charred and blackened. Then I peeled the skin off and sliced them.

Louise, I have been trying to figure out how to roast peppers!  Thank you so much for posting that - and your meal sounds delicious.  Recently I had a delicious sandwich at, of all places, Ikea's cafeteria.   It was roasted red peppers and fresh mozzarella with a seasoning of some sort on panini.  Finally found fresh mozzarella but I couldn't figure out how to roast the peppers - can you tell I am  not a cook?

[LouiseVargas]

Hippo Birdy, Ms.DarthVada.
With love,
Louise

[LouiseVargas]

Bobo2,

It took me a long time to figure out how to roast peppers. Red, green, yellow, orange, as well as other types of peppers or tomatoes. I wash them and dry them. I line a pie plate with tin foil and spray Pam on the bottom. I arrange the peppers and spray them with Pam. After five minutes I take them out of the broiler and turn them with a tongs, put them back in the oven and turn them until they are almost black. Let them cool and then peel off the charred skin. Cut in half and scrape out the seeds and slice them. You can eat them just like that or you can use them in cooking.

[Bobo2]

Louise, thank you!

[nonesuche]

Louise that sounds delicious, I'm going to try that for dinner, I am addicted to yellow and red peppers as it is. I found something on a food blog I'd never done too, simple but so tasty. Making grilled cheese sandwiches with either thinly slice fresh tomato or sundried tomatoes inside it? I use two cheeses too, cheddar and havarti or cheddar and monterey jack. Easy and quick and tasty. Thank you for your tips !!!

[Bobo2]

Louise that sounds delicious, I'm going to try that for dinner, I am addicted to yellow and red peppers as it is. I found something on a food blog I'd never done too, simple but so tasty. Making grilled cheese sandwiches with either thinly slice fresh tomato or sundried tomatoes inside it? I use two cheeses too, cheddar and havarti or cheddar and monterey jack. Easy and quick and tasty. Thank you for your tips !!!

Great idea nonesuche, I'm going to try that too.  When my son was little he was a very picky eater, but loved grilled cheese.   I used to sneak new foods betwen the layers of cheese and got away with it half the time.  I also use 2 cheeses but have not tried havarti.

[Bobo2]

All this talk of peppers, which I love, has made me want to try a small garden this  year.  In past attempts my pepper plants look great, get lots of blossoms, but then they fall off and I get no fruit.  Does anyone know what I am doing wrong??

[Mere]

Today I am power washing the north side of the house....relatively small area....which has green stuff on there...mold or mildew...the power washer works really well....used the same thing in Florida....also the bricks of the fireplace....next will be the fence....white picket fence encloses an acre...bigger job....but looking for the paint....gorgeous sunny day.

Louise...thanks for the pepper-grilling instructions...think I can do that...!

Mere

[Mere]

All this talk of peppers, which I love, has made me want to try a small garden this  year.  In past attempts my pepper plants look great, get lots of blossoms, but then they fall off and I get no fruit.  Does anyone know what I am doing wrong??

Bobo....planted a garden this weekend....was late....waited until after vacation...have tomatoes, peppers, onions.....need Miracle Grow...!

[Easywriter]

Looking around for something to read and came across the pepper discussion.  I happened to watch a show on the Food Network last night called Road Tasted and they were in Houston.  They went to several places, but one was this chocolate place www.brownpaperchocolates.com and the guy makes this chocolate thing with tequila and ancho chiles.  Has anyone ever had anything like that?

The bit on the tamales also got my attention, because I remember a tamale vendor in my home town many, many years ago and my mom would stop and get a brown paper bag full of them every so often.  Have not had really good ones since those days.  Has anyone ever tried ordering food like that online?  www.texastamale.com

[Mere]

Easy...same memories....have not ordered....but they look exactly like the ones we used to have...yum...!!!

[Easywriter]

Easy...same memories....have not ordered....but they look exactly like the ones we used to have...yum...!!!

I would give them a try, but there are too many in a single order.  I would love to have a few of them RIGHT now! lol

[nonesuche]

MeMere you have a strong constitution to do all that power washing, I need to do my deck again and I can't use it on my clapboard anymore since it seems to blow the paint right off. It does get the mildew for sure though !

I miss Rick's garden, we used to laugh how the cucumbers would multiply overnight like rabbits in a cage. Even our neighbors would start refusing them we had so many extra   Bobo I know nothing about veggie gardening, only annuals and perennials  

Easy those brownbag chocolates look good, we've branched out into chocolate truffles and now truffle sandwiches which are a new product for us. This week it's lots of cupcakes for graduation parties. I think the trend to add more exotic flavors to chocolate is cool, I would love to try some of those and particularly the valentine's flavor on that site. they even add beets to one? Beets are really good for you, food for your liver but in chokky? I think you should order some, i have had hot chocolate with chiles and it was really tasty   Supposedly the play of the hot against the sweetness heightens the flavor?

[LouiseVargas]

What Am I Doing Today?

Today is Mother's Day and I feel sad and weepy. I miss my absent daughter and my dead mother. I planned to put on make up and arrange my hair so I could get out of the house, but I just couldn't do it. I woke up with this sadness.

I never got along with my mother (bad chemistry) until the very end of her life when she got Alzheimer's and lost all of her viciousness. She would be agitated until I arrived and then she calmed down and was happy. It seemed like I was the only one who could soothe her. My daughter said the same thing - that only I had that power. I became her mother and she became my child. I was so traumatized by my mother's abuse of me that I could not accept her love and sweetness at the end of her life. I couldn't let go of my suspiciousness that she would change back in an instant.

I took good care of her. It was 1994 and I was just laid off from Xerox and had six months of full pay and benefits. I found a board and care facility near me and my daughter and I checked it out. Upon them opening the front door, I could smell delicious food cooking. There was room for four patients with two caretakers and a chef who used to work on the cruise lines. It was a nice little house that had been remodeled into a board and care.

I negotiated with the owners of the board and care. I said my mother brings in $2K per month. They were asking for $2K per month. I said I could pay $1,700 per month and I needed the other $300 to pay for her meds, etc. I offered them all of her beautiful furniture for free, her big TV, her pots, pans and dishes, her refrigerator, linens,etc. They agreed to $1,700. They put all her furniture in their living room so she thought she was still in her own house. In her room, I had a phone installed, moved her own bed into the room, along with her wing chair and small TV. One day the remote was missing and she couldn't change the channels. After she died, we found the remote in a shoebox in her closet. One day we came over and she had nail polish smeared all over her false teeth. She said she had put on lipstick. We quickly called the dental office and they said to carefully remove the nail polish with polish remover.

Anyway, there is much more to tell but I won't tell it. She eventually slid off her bed and broke her hip. I met the ambulance at Cedars Sinai. We got a really good orthopedic surgeon who operated and put a steel pin in her hip. Then they sent physical therapists to help her learn to walk. At that point I was disgusted. Her mind was gone and physical therapy could not help her.

She had a living will that she did not want to be kept alive if she had a terminal illness. I told the doctors I wanted a "no code" on her, i.e., do not resuscitate. I was shocked that three doctors tried to talk me out of the no code. I said "She is terminal." The doctors told me that Alzheimer's is not necessarily terminal. I said "I don't care what you say. I want the no code."

A note here about living wills, one has to be much more specific that just merely saying they don't want to be kept alive in a terminal illness. You must list things such as: If I have xxx, I don't want to be kept alive. If I have xxxx, I don't want to be kept alive. You have to list every possible thing you can think of otherwise they will keep you alive even though you are almost dead.

Her doctor called me at work and said he thought she was ready to move to a nursing home. I said, "Are you talking about MY mother? She is at death's door." Ten minutes later the doctor called me back and said my mother just died. I left work, called my daughter and we met at her room at Cedars. All the tubes and stuff were removed and she was laid out in the bed with a rolled up washcloth under her chin. I thought, "What the "f" about the washcloth." I removed it and her mouth gaped open and I put the washcloth back and tried to close her mouth.

At that point, I went outside her door and got her chart. I ripped out all the pages of the many doctors' comments. The doctors had never discussed any of these comments with me.

Daughter and I had made funeral arrangements long ago. The whole family came and we buried her. My daughter video taped the whole thing. After the service and she was lowered into the ground, it was my duty to pick up the big shovel, use my foot to dig the shovel into the loose dirt and drop the dirt onto her coffin. It's a horrible sound. Next my daughter did it. One by one, all the family members did it.

Then we came back to my apartment. Daughter and I had gone to the grocery store and made food arrangements on the day she died. We got huge deli trays with meat and cheese and bread. Salads. All types of booze. Kristi had made a lot of video tapes so while the wake was going on, my mother was on the TV talking about all kinds of stuff.

My cousin Alan told me I did good.

Anyway I miss my mother and would give anything to talk to her.

So for those of you who still have mothers, please appreciate them and help them as much as you can. The day WILL come down the line when you will miss them.

[Bobo2]

Thank you for sharing that Louise.  I'm sorry you are feeling sad today, and hope tomorrow is a better day for you.