Peachy Keen

Mangoes were on sale at the supermarket this week, so I bought a couple to make this zingy salsa.  I'm using a hot pepper from our own plants, which just produced a second crop.


Peachy Mango Salsa

1 ripe peach or nectarine, diced*
1 ripe mango, peeled and diced
½ cup diced onion
1 minced green Serrano pepper
2 Tbsp diced red bell pepper
1½ Tbsp fresh lime juice
Salt to taste

Stir together in a bowl and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving for flavors to blend.  Serve with baked pita chips or as a side dish with pork, chicken, or fish.

*If peaches are out of season, use a second mango instead.

  
“Salsa has now passed ketchup as America's favorite condiment. Isn't that amazing? You know it's bad when even our vegetables are starting to lose their jobs to Mexico.” ~Jay Leno, on the Tonight Show

Worse than a Rooster

When I adopted my cat Rusty 14 years ago, I tried for the sake of her teeth to feed her nothing but dry cat food.  However, the rescue organization I got her from had been giving her the canned stuff and she went on a hunger strike whenever I cut it off completely.  Eventually we compromised; she got all the dry food she could eat and half a can of wet food a day.  I fed her the canned food at night so she wouldn't wake me up in the morning on the days I wanted to sleep in.

That worked well until a couple of years ago when she started having trouble with her teeth and gums.  The vet gave me a kitty toothbrush but I wasn't able to use it; I need all 10 of my fingers.  Rusty also wouldn't drink the water additive that was supposed to protect her mouth.  The vet again suggested an all-dry diet, but you-know-who refused to eat it.  Eventually I gave up and resigned myself to spending more money on oral surgery for my cat than for myself.

Last year she went through a phase where she stopped eating dry food entirely and started dropping weight with alarming speed.  I tried to wait her out, assuming that sooner or later she would give up and resume eating the kitty kibble, but I was wrong.  After she had lost 2 pounds that she didn't have to lose, I started feeding her an entire can of soft food every day - still at night.  Unfortunately, she wouldn't eat it all because it would go stale before she finished it.  In addition, by the time I fed her every evening she was so hungry that she would bolt her supper and, all too often, throw it right back up.

Now I'm feeding her canned food twice a day, thinning it with hot water, and she's eating it without gagging.  She's even started eating dry food again.  As a result, she's regained some of the weight she lost and is more active than I've seen her in years.  All good, right?  But...

Now she expects breakfast to be served every morning, and she isn't necessarily willing to wait for it until we're ready to rise.  Much as I love her, I don't appreciate her whining in my ear at a quarter to six when I wasn't planning to get up until eight o'clock.  Barry, who needs more sleep than I do, appreciates it even less.  We've tried shutting her out of the bedroom (she howls outside the door), feeding her again before we go to bed (she's still ready for breakfast at dawn or a little before), throwing pillows at her (she dodges and continues to whine), and ignoring her (I can do this but Barry generally cracks); I don't know what else to try.  Of course, she's a pretty old cat, but she's in such good condition that she could be with us for years, whining all the way.  Maybe we'll have to lay in a stock of earplugs.

"After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference." ~ Charlotte Gray

When Glasses Don't Help

My grandmother's brother Clarence was known to one and all as Shorty, partly because the immediate family contained two other Clarences and partly because he was, well, short. His wife was a highly intelligent woman who had been a schoolteacher before their marriage. This is their wedding picture:

(Wasn't he a hunk?  And doesn't she look like someone who would have whacked rowdy students across the knuckles - or some place more sensitive - with a heavy wood ruler?)

Aunt Amelia is something of a legend in our family because she lived to be over 100 years old and stayed mentally sharp until the very end.  Unfortunately, her bright mind was trapped in a progressively failing body.  Once a voracious reader and a passionate fan of the soaps on TV, she lost first her vision and then her hearing.  She could still speak but had no way for others to communicate with her.  Her death was the proverbial "blessed release."

Aunt Amelia has been on my mind today because yesterday was Barry's annual eye exam, and not only are his cataracts worsening, but he also may be developing glaucoma.  He needs further glaucoma testing at the central VA hospital in Phoenix, but if the results are positive, the corrective surgery for his cataracts will be indefinitely delayed.

Barry already has damaged hearing; when he was in the Army, a grenade simulator tossed too close to him literally blew him off his feet and permanently affected his ability to hear high-pitched sounds such as bird chirps, appliance beeps, and many women's voices.  He relies on facial expressions, body language, and some limited lip-reading to get through conversations and we almost always have the captions on when we watch TV or a DVD.  I'm worried that his worsening vision is shrinking his world even farther.  He's already stopped driving at night; what will he have to give up next?

As I said, I keep thinking of Aunt Amelia.  Barry's still a long way from her condition, and I really hope the ophthalmologists at the VA can keep him that way.

"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." ~George Orwell  

A Congenial Dinner

This week I bought a package of spicy bulk chicken chorizo at Sprouts, and just watching the news about the winter storms in the rest of the country convinced me to make some of it into this comforting lentil stew.

Lentil Stew with Chicken Chorizo

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, roughly chopped
1 carrot, peeled and sliced
1/2 pound bulk chicken chorizo
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth or bouillon
8 ounces (1/2 bag) lentils
1 large bay leaf
15 whole cloves
pepper and salt to taste

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and cook the onion and carrot, stirring occasionally, until they soften.  Crumble in the chorizo and brown it.  Add the broth, lentils, bay leaf and cloves.  Skim off any foam that develops.  Simmer until the lentils are fully cooked, about 30-40 minutes, adding more water if needed.  About halfway through the cooking time, taste and add pepper and, if necessary, salt as desired.

This recipe also works with canned lentils (shorten the cooking time accordingly).

“Lentils are friendly—the Miss Congeniality of the bean world.” ~Laurie Colwin

Breathless in Bed

One of the many things I didn't know about Barry when I first met him was that he has sleep apnea.  If you've never slept with someone who occasionally stops breathing, I can assure you that it's very exciting - in a bad way.  Fortunately we have a friend with apnea who uses a CPAP machine at night, and about a year and a half ago he convinced Barry to ask for testing at the V.A., where as a veteran Barry would be eligible for a free machine of his own.

The sleep test verified what I already knew - that Barry stops breathing several times every night, and even when he does breathe, his oxygen intake is often restricted.  The good news is that the V.A. gave Barry a CPAP.  The bad news is that the V.A. gave Barry a CPAP.

As soon as Barry began using the machine his snoring decreased dramatically in volume and frequency.  In addition, he stopped having the nightmares about being attacked that had plagued him for most of his life.  Apparently they were an unsuccessful attempt by his brain to say, "Danger, Barry!  Wake up because we can't breathe!"  Using the CPAP he is more refreshed after fewer hours in bed and less likely to need a nap during the day.  Barry will never be a morning person, but with the aid of the CPAP he no longer wakes up feeling exhausted and paranoid.  

He almost didn't use the machine long enough to realize its benefits.  Barry's CPAP came with a "full face" mask (covering both nose and mouth) that looks like this.  The masks come in three sizes - small, medium and large - with adjustable forehead and mouth straps, but they have no way to compensate for faces with differing topography.  Since Barry has a rather high-bridged nose, the mask rubs there and shoots air onto his eyelids.  He wanted to give up on it until I bought a fabric sleep mask he could wear underneath the CPAP mask to shield his eyes and cushion his nose.  That helped him initially fall asleep, although if he woke up during the night he usually had to remove the CPAP mask in order to resume his slumber.  Eventually his skin started to break out from the sleep mask, but by then he was used to the noise of the machine and his nose was more accustomed to the pressure, so he was able to put up with the air on his eyelids.

The bad news?  When Barry snored all night, I knew right away when he stopped breathing and could prod him awake if it went on for more than a few seconds.  Now he sometimes breathes so smoothly that all I can hear is the "whoosh" of the air from the machine.  Is he still breathing?  Has he stopped?  Should I poke him and risk an explosion, or leave him alone and trust the CPAP to do its thing?  Maybe the real answer is to trust the CPAP and ask my doctor why I'm awake in the middle of the night.

“The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald