Three Beautiful Things 05/08/17: Mom Sounds Tired, Aerobic Therapy, Cooking Helps A Lot

1. When I talked to Mom on the phone today, she sounded tired and hoarse. Losing water weight is helping her physical strength, Christy and Carol both report.  I am glad she had lunch with Penny Benson and that Teresa Baillie was there, too, at lunch, visiting. Mom's confusion about things persists. I heard some of her confusion on the phone. Christy and Carol wrote me about more things she's confused about. On May 9th she will have an MRI and has an appointment about her heart disease in Post Falls on May 10th.

2.  Floppin' around in the pool today at my water aerobics class, adding twenty minutes of workout to what we did in class, and lying in the aquatic center's hot tub for about twenty minutes helped settle my nerves and soothe my anxiety.  In times of difficulty, my experience has been that it's often physical activity or exercise that is the first to go by the wayside. I know when I'm in Kellogg, helping out with Mom, I don't get out much for walks, let alone some floppin' around in a pool.  Floppin' around and running laps in the pool after class got me out of my head for a while, at least, and that is always good.

3.  More than eating, cooking, working in the kitchen, is a good way for me to get some respite from the sometimes paralyzing flurry of thoughts and complicated feelings I have right now. I returned to green curry today served over jasmine rice because I still had eggplant, zucchini, and green beans in the fridge and I wanted to make good use of one of the blocks of tofu I still had.  I went to MOM's and picked up a red pepper and a bunch of green onions. I thought the green curry I made last week was pretty good and tonight's might have been even better tasting. I do know this: in many ways, the chopping of vegetables and the crackle they make when they hit the hot sesame oil in the cast iron skillet and the fragrance of the curry paste and the combination of fish sauce and sugar all combined to bring me pleasure and temporarily removed me from the uncertainty I feel, as well as my longing that things here in Greenbelt were simpler.