On my days off, there are only a few things I really enjoy doing and most all of them involve food. I like to batch cook. By that, I mean, I like to make one, two, sometimes even three big pots of wonderfully satisfying dishes, that I can portion out and freeze for meals throughout the week. This past Thursday, I planned to make two big pots of savory magic. I checked my pantry, freezers and fridge to see what I had and what I may need. I decided to make jambalaya and deconstructed stuffed cabbage rolls. The jambalaya recipe I use, is one my ex-husband and I created. There are only three things we did well together: create two incredible kids and one jambalaya recipe. The recipe for the deconstructed stuffed cabbage rolls is a culmination of what I believe my mother did to make her cabbage rolls (I know that the secret ingredient was Campbell’s Tomato Soup) and what I have pieced together from my Pillsbury Bible, plus trial and error. Prepping cabbage leaves and creating the rolls takes time and patience and I only had half a head of cabbage, so I came up with a recipe of chopping up the cabbage and attempting to achieve the same flavors in a lazy cook’s style. For the record, it works pretty well, but there’s something magical about the actual rolls that is worth the time and energy.
Me being me, I turned on some jazz music and prepped all the ingredients for both dishes, chopping vegetables and andouille sausage, enough onion and celery for both dishes, chop, chop, chop without incident because I use proper cutting techniques and curl my fingers under, like a cat’s paw…meow. I knew I had to get started with the actual cooking if I was going to have the jambalaya done in time for a scheduled visit with a friend. I heated up my Le Creuset and began the process of creating some magic. While the first ingredients were sauteing, I went to the sink to measure out the water I would need. I have two sizes of Pyrex liquid measuring cups (actually, I have three, but only two fit in mom’s cabinet) and since I needed the larger one, I went to put the smaller one away. While doing so, my peripheral vision spied something falling and my knee jerk reaction was to break its fall. Note to self, don’t do that because in doing so, I didn’t break the fall of the 40 plus year old Corning Ware, instead, I broke the skin on the top of my middle finger of my left hand.
I don’t really remember how it all happened. Did the dish hit the Pyrex measuring cup, break and then cut me or did the impact of the Corning Ware on my hand break the dish and split my skin open too? It all happened so fast, I don’t recall, but I do know that I looked down, saw the blood and immediately got some paper towel, applied pressure and raised my hand above my head. When I went to the bathroom to get a bandage, I removed the paper towel and saw a wound that resembled an open eye and thought, “That can’t be good.” I knew immediately, I would need stitches, but I called my doctor friend for advice. She asked me to send her a picture. I have a setting on my phone that allows me to take a pic by simply saying “Cheese!”, but it wouldn’t work. I couldn’t use both hands, so I kept saying, “Cheese! Cheese! Cheese!”, quickly turning the horror into a comedy. I knew what I needed to do, so I hung up with her and called the friend that was to visit and let him know what had happened. We decided to meet at the urgent care near my home and hope that they did stitches because I wasn’t up for spending hours in an emergency room.
Fortunately, the urgent care was the right choice. A nurse got me in lickety split, took my blood pressure, which was surprisingly high, because I felt so calm, maybe I was in shock, and then a nurse practitioner arrived to assess the damage. She said, “You’re going to need stitches, the tendon is exposed.” I said, “The Tendon is Exposed. That would make a good title.” And proceeded to tell her about my blog.
Admittedly, I have begun to take my holy basil supplement again. For me, it’s “The sky is not falling” pill, so maybe that’s why I was so calm, but in all honesty, I think it was the nurse practitioner. I gave her the “Reader’s Digest” version of my blog and how I began writing, but I also told her about my hopes of beginning a podcast under the domain 2PhatGirls.com and how I came about owning it. I also shared how the renewal fees were due shortly and that I didn’t know if it was really worth it anymore. I mean, I haven’t done anything with it in two years, so…why waste the money?
Somehow, the rest of the conversation became about her. Surprisingly, I became a good listener, always a challenge for me, but not with this woman. She told me about her experiences with being an empath. She had amazing stories to tell and I found myself basically, interviewing her. I told her, I would love for her to be on one of our podcasts and she thought it would be fun. She also told me that she usually didn’t tell people about her experiences unless she felt they were open to what she had to say, for fear of being thought she was crazy. I told her, not at all and how I think my mom tries to communicate to me through a kitchen cabinet, you know, the one the dish fell out of and caused the injury bringing me to meet her. Maybe it was my mom’s dramatic way (you knew I got it from someone) of telling me to keep the domain and move forward with my podcast idea.
With my hand heavily bandaged, I left the urgent care facility filled with hope and ideas. I thought about how I was fairly certain that the injured finger had already been scarred, numerous times and that this “accident” was a reopening of old wounds. The thought that the wound looked like an open eye and seeing my own finger’s tendon moving and realizing how fortunate I was that it had not been injured. Then, I connected that idea to how deeply wounded I have been, repeatedly in my life, but I am still functional. A whirlwind of thoughts flooded my mind: ingredients I have and what I need, collaborative recipes and secret ingredients, my finger being so heavily bandaged for my own protection and how badly I wanted to remove it so I could type about what I was experiencing… and magic.
The next day at work, I kept on the bandages and yes, they protected me from further damaging myself, being a constant reminder to be careful. However, by the end of the day, I couldn’t take it anymore. The smell alone was bothersome and so I carefully removed them. I was worried about what the wound would look like, so I prepared myself for a horrific sight, but what I saw, wasn’t so bad. I could no longer see the blood or the moving tendon. The black stiches looked like bugs and I wondered if I would have dreams of bugs crawling out of me (I know, always so dramatic, it’s who I am). I carefully cleaned my hand and put a small bandage on. I managed to sleep without waking up screaming in pain or from having “crawling bug” dreams, I actually slept quite well and felt like I could actually start typing.
I wasn’t certain what would come out of me today. There are so many long winded side notes I could spin into stories of their own and add to this already lengthy blog, but I think those are ideas better saved for another day or to explore on a different medium. Just the idea of removing the smelly bothersome bandages and taking the chance that it would be okay, has so many layers of meaning to it. What am I so afraid of? Have I heavily bandaged myself? Are those bandages protecting me or hindering me from doing what I truly want or should be doing? For the record, I started typing this story wearing a smaller bandage, but near the end, I took it off. It didn’t scare me and, just so you know, no bugs crawled out of me either. Progress?
#thelieswechoosetolivewith
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