Jenmenke

Road Warrior

menopause

I’m Re-Training My Bladder

Yep. You read that right.

I’m re-training my bladder.

I had my annual check up a few months back and was told by my darling 30-ish nurse practitioner, Kristen, that — not to worry! –my little problem was a simple matter of re-training my bladder.

Like my naughty German Shorthair, Lola, it seems I have also been lax with the training of at least one of my internal organs.

Who knew?

It appears that when I apologize for Lola jumping up on guests, or whining at the door, I now also have to apologize for my urgent need to pee. Why is it always my fault?

Here is, apparently, what I have done wrong: I have taught my bladder that it will be rewarded upon my car’s arrival at my mailbox after any amount of time gone from home, be it 20 minutes or six hours. It’s a simple Pavlovian response. Mailbox = bladder reward.

It should be noted that I have an iron bladder and can go literal hours on end without the need to find a bathroom. I take great pride in that, by the way.

Next, I find myself arriving in my garage and about to exit the car while simultaneously giving myself a pep talk along the lines of,

“…you can do this. this is insane. you are a grown woman. it’s all in your head. ok. ok… OK.”

Then I steel myself and hop out of the car, my arms predictably loaded with all manner of items: coffee cup, phone, mail, newspaper, trash. And then: Noooo! not “go”! At which point I drop everything on the step, bend at the waist, and do an extremely flexible looking crossing of the legs… and wait.

Sometime I read the mail while I wait for the urge to pass. Then, eventually, I stand up and go into the house. And here is where I know I have mental problems:

I usually totally forget to pee when I get in the house. Because, you know, when it’s over, it’s over. I don’t have to go anymore.

Until I go to the kitchen sink, that is.

Then we start the whole process over again. Because, apparently, I’ve also trained my bladder to think kitchen sink = reward.

I wonder what other mistakes I’ve made in my life that I’m completely unaware of?

So here is what I’m supposed to do. I’m not supposed to “give in” to my bladder. I must “stand firm”. Wait at least 5 minutes, and then go. That is where my mistake has been, you see. I wait until it passes, then I completely forget. (Another menopausian nugget of fun). I forget for maybe another hour or two. Until I go back to the trigger (mailbox or sink). After one or two of these episodes, I eventually give in and run — not walk — to the bathroom.

Naughty, naughty.

It’s like I just fed my dog from the table. And she won’t forget that reward any time soon, if ever.

So, after months of this mental exercise I can tell you that it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. And while it has improved slightly, I have resigned myself to this fact:

I’m just a bad dog trainer.

Happy Spring!

 

 

Meatless Monday 41

Coconut Green Curry with Snap Peas (and Shrimp)

My original intent had been to lump this recipe with Meatless Monday 40 and compress the agony into one post.*

“But that’s not how I roll.”

I just hate that saying. So I just had to say it.

I’m going to sit here and write this until I am done. It is 11:23 am. I am so badly anticipating my lunch of leftover fried rice from last night that I am hoping it will be motivation enough.  (I had to leave a blank space in front of the word “enough” (now underlined) because I cannot think of the word that I want to use! It is at the tip of my tongue, and this happens to me several times a day. My vocabulary has left the building. It is driving me crazy. Hopefully, by the time I am dying of starvation and desire for my fried rice, it will come back to me.)

[I came back to the space before “enough” and had to give it another 30 seconds. Then I remembered — motivation! So happy. Yesterday I couldn’t come up with the word “alienates.” I am fearful for my future. Is it menopause?]

As much as I love my Aroy-D brand green curry, I didn’t know about it until well after my foray into green curry recipes. Today’s recipe is a forerunners to the discovery of my favorite green-curry-in-a-can, Aroy-D. I am a bit ashamed to say that I have never actually made my own green curry paste, as urged in The Big Bowl cookbook, where this recipe is adapted from, though. They claim you will never know how good it can be until you make it yourself.

But I hate shopping. And I really hate hunting for obscure ingredients.

And so, I have never made curry paste. Because, as you might imagine, there are a lot of obscure ingredients required when making it from scratch.

Instead, when curry paste is called for, I’ve used Thai Kitchen brand. It’s pretty good. They changed their recipe years ago, though, which really ticked me off. It used to be made fairly mild and you added your own heat. Back when I had toddlers, that was a must. We couldn’t serve them green curry inferno, now could we? So I always just added more spice to Dave and my dishes. It was a real problem when they changed it while my kids were still young. My solution was to hold way back on the paste and complete the recipe, take portions out for them, then stir in the rest of the curry paste for Dave and I. It worked well, but it still made me mad.

I hate when manufacturers of green curry paste do that, don’t you? It puts them on par with bra and underwear makers. Victoria Secret recently changed the cut of their “low rider bikini.” Suffice to say, I am in Hell today.

So anyway, this was my first favorite green curry recipe. I know shrimp isn’t an option for vegetarians, but it counts as meatless for me. Vegetarians can substitute tofu, or just make sure to coat it with cornstarch and sesame, since those flavors are such a big part of this recipe and the cornstarch slightly thickens the sauce.

*Agony being the retelling of the tale, not the agony of Meatless Mondays. Just so we are clear.

Coconut Green Curry with Shrimp and Snap Peas

  • 2 cans light coconut milk
  • 40 medium raw, deveined, shell-on shrimp, peeled*
  • 2 T cornstarch
  • 1 T sesame oil
  • 2 T fish sauce
  • 1 T lime juice
  • 1 T sugar
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil, less if you have a nicely seasoned wok
  • 1 large sweet red pepper, julienned
  • I have no idea how many sugar snap peas: If you are a counter, then figure 20-25, Cut fat ones on the diagonal
  • 2 heaping Tablespoons of green curry paste (or to taste)
  • 1  c chicken stock*
  • steamed jasmine rice
  • chopped fresh cilantro (optional)

Put the coconut milk in a saucepan and simmer over medium heat until reduced by half. This takes about 20 minutes. If you don’t have the time, then skip this step but reduce recipe to 1 can. Broth will simply be thinner.

Toss the shrimp with the cornstarch and sesame oil and set aside. Stir together fish sauce, lime juice and sugar. Set aside.

Heat wok up to smoking point and add oil. When hot but not smoking, add the shrimp and cook until barely translucent, about 3 or 4 minutes. Remove from pan leaving any remaining oil.

Add the peppers and snap peas to the wok and toss over high heat. Push to the side and add the curry paste, mashing it with a fork, then add the chicken stock*. After a minute or two add the coconut milk. When hot, stir in the shrimp and fish sauce mixture.

Serve over hot rice and sprinkle with cilantro. Serves 4 with the requisite container of leftovers for my lunch the next day.

*I sometimes use stock made from the shrimp shells in place of chicken stock. You just save the shells from the shrimp and add to 2 cups of water and simmer until reduced to 1 cup. Strain the shells. I encourage you to try it. It allows you to feel superior, smug and frugal all at the same time. In the photo below, I tried to get even fancier. I added the shells to the coconut milk, thinking I could save myself one more dirty pan. I don’t recommend it. It is too hard to strain. It allowed me to feel inventive, smug and stupid, all at the same time.

One Dimensional Blog

Sorry. Make that Two Dimensional.

That’s what my brother said about my blog the other day. It’s a disappointingly two dimensional blog. An improvement over one dimensional. Thank goodness for the advent of gardening season!

“It’s all… cooking… and gardening.”

In my mind I was thinking “Isn’t, that’s what it’s supposed to be?” Instead I sputtered, “What do you want me to write about? More Menopause Rage?”

Apparently, yes.

And he’s not alone. As it turns out, two words typed into Google: Menopause + Rage bring more people to this website than anything else. And I wrote about it exactly once. Makes you kind of wonder, doesn’t it? All those angry women out there? What if we all united? Can you image?

Actually, I can.

It would be awesome. No more shit from anyone. And my brother? Well. He’d be dead. From a knife wound to the forehead.

But you see, I’m not currently experiencing menopausal rage right now. Testiness. Impatience. World-Weariness. Not rage. I guess the good thing is that I have something to look forward to when it reappears:

Satisfied readers.

The Black Rage of Menopause

mad faceThe only thing that qualifies me to write anything on the subject of mental health is the fact that I suffer from my own mental health. Or lack of it. I am certainly not qualified to write anything about menopause, given I have done almost no research on the topic. So why am I writing about it? In my gardening and cooking blog no less?

To be clear, I am only 44 years old — way too young to be talking about menopause. Only I’m not. Too young, that is. Peri-menopause can go on for years. I’ve had maniacal hot flashes–which seem to come in phases–for over a year now. I was hoping the Black Rage would also be a phase, only it doesn’t seem to be going away.

I am writing about the Black Rage because I have been living under it’s cloud for about 3 months now. And instead of it getting better, it is getting worse. So I have decided to cave in, stop fighting it and embrace it. Today, for the first time, I googled these two words: Menopause + Anger. The search results were almost as funny as this weekend when I googled “Underduck vs Underdog.” The top hit in that search was freakishly perfect. (For the record, it is “underduck: when you push someone on a swing and run under them as you push.”) Friends and I were having an argument about it. It was 5 to 1 against me. I was so pissed. I digress… Google it yourself. Vote for what YOU called it in the comments below, cuz I’m curious.

Anyway, the search results for “Menopause Anger” were so astoundingly spot-on that it actually made me mad (are you sensing a theme here? A theme of rage?). I was irritated because I like to think of myself as unique and special. How can all the other people in this world be experiencing the same thing as me?

For example, on one of the sites, a woman named Lori wrote: “…I have found myself getting mad at my dog because she wants a pet.” Check. (The only difference is that I don’t “find myself getting mad,” I rise up in an unadulterated fury and scream “GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE, YOU STUPID DOGS, THIS IS MY COUCH!” And, I might try to kick them as they scatter.)

Another writer named Pat found the need to “detach myself from some longstanding ‘volunteer’ commitments that I’d taken on when I didn’t really want to, because I felt obligated or guilty or whatever.” Check. (The only difference with me is that I didn’t detach myself, as Pat did. What did I do? I simply made one of the people that I do volunteer work for cry this morning. Do I feel bad about it? Well, if being madder that she started to cry counts as remorse, then yes, I feel bad about it. If not, then no. I’m ticked that I didn’t think of crying first.)

Anyway, for all you who actually know me, go ahead and say it. Chant it aloud if it makes you feel better. You know you want to:

POOR DAVE.

Only, if you are really going to go to the trouble, you might as well throw in:

Poor Morgan. Poor Charlie. Poor Buzz. Poor Lola.
And as of this morning, Poor Susie at Freedomfarm.

Something tells me I might need to add a new category to my blog topics.