I Refuse

To take a picture of the outside, it's just too depressing.  Can you tell that it's still not anywhere close to sunny?  At least the fog/mist has moved on.

There was a dramatic decrease in the number of people out and about as kickoff time for the (dismal) Packer game approached.  That sure made shopping easier and I needed all the "easy" I could get with all the stops and the long list of things to get.

Once I'd recovered from zooming around six different stores in three hours I got busy and whipped up two batches of Chicken Zoodle Soup, one for work lunches and general consumption and one for my knitting friend who's starting chemo.  Keeping her supplied with a batch of soup in small portions is something I can do to maybe make her journey a bit smoother.  I suck at housecleaning and laundry is more like a punishment but making soup gives me the feeling that I'm taking very good care of people, always has, so I make soup.  Chicken soup, like everybody's Jewish (or not-Jewish) grandma used to make when they were sick.  There's nothing like sitting down to a bowl of hot soup so I figure if it makes you feel good when you've got a cold, it should do the job to help kick cancer's ass too.

It's a very simple recipe.  I tweak it a bit by pan frying instead of steaming or boiling the chicken breasts to add a little flavor and then using some of the broth to deglaze the pan so none of that flavor goes to waste, and I toss the zoodles in for the last few minutes of simmering because the recipe assumes that you're going to make the soup and serve it but I ladle most of it out and freeze the portions for later, so I cook the zucchini.  Here's what three zoodled zucchinis look like.


Then I sat on the couch for the rest of the evening knitting on the Bumblebee Laurus hat, finishing the colorwork and adding the first row of the rest of the hat.  It wasn't until the second last row of colorwork that I remembered I'd gotten this Yarn Guide as an exchange gift at a Knit Away Day, so I tried it.  It worked pretty well.  I need to figure out how to tension the yarn when I use it because my regular way doesn't work but just gripping the strands between my pinkie and the palm of my hand worked pretty well although I fear my tension was too tight for the last two rounds.  I think it'll be okay.  Maybe I'll try it on before going too much farther up the hat.

January 23--Paul Gauguin, Claude-Emile Schuffenecker's Studio.  It took so long that Cecile lay her head down in Marie's lap and went to sleep.  Maman moved her hand to shake her daughter awake but the artist hissed at her and shook his head.  She resumed her pose.  This wasn't the first time Maman and her girls posed for an artist but it was the longest they'd had to sit still.  The studio was up high enough for the light to stream in the windows and where there was sunlight there was heat.  Soon enough Marie and Maman were both asleep too.  It wasn't until she felt his hand questing up her leg that Maman awoke, demanded their pay, and hustled her girls down the stairs and out into the noisy street.  She didn't care if she ever posed for him or any other artist again.  There were other ways to make money.

Today my only task is to cut up the pineapple and strawberries I bought yesterday on my endless rounds for fruit to eat with my soup lunches at work.  Of course then there's fruit to eat at home too.  It's a win-win!  Hasta la vista, babies.
--Barbara