How to cook beans

Tonight I made a delicious 15 bean soup. This is something I have tried to make in the past, but it has never turned out very well. But tonight I think I've found the right way to do it.

Ingredients: 15 bean soup mix, with or without included seasoning. Salt. Fresh cilantro. Olive oil. Light beer. No meat.

Start by soaking and then rinsing the beans. Soak for an about an hour. Some recommend soaking overnight, which will decrease cooking time. Discard the water used to soak the beans. This will make them more digestible.

As you cook the beans, temperature is obviously important. In the past, I have cooked to low, which makes the cooking time impractically long. The beans do not turn out tender at low temperatures. I think the key is a consistent simmer, with bubbles gently breaking at the surface, but without any obvious splattering or undulating at the surface. I checked often, and at times the simmer was starting to get intense, I stirred a little beer to cool it down.

Seasoning: Save all seasoning and oil for the very end. Salt added at the beginning will make the beans tough and extend the cooking time (or so I've been told.) Right before serving I added fresh, minced cilantro from the garden. Tonight, I added the salt and oil just before the cilantro. It takes a lot of stirring and tasting to adjust the salt content.

Tonight's beans cooked in about 5 hours, with a 1 hour soak beforehand. They were tender and delicious. I hope they will be even better tomorrow.

Sometimes, in the middle of the day, well before bedtime, I find myself thinking about the beer that I plan to enjoy in the evening.

How to please the senses.

How to please the senses: expensive beer, tea and dark chocolate.

hypnagogic delusion

I've heard of hypnagogic hallucinations before, but never of hypnagogic delusions. It's my own term, in fact, to describe some recent experiences. Before I mention the experiences, I want to share some background. Many years ago when I learned what schizophrenia was it was the delusions that were hard to understand. It was a silly state of mind to not understand delusions. I mean, I understood what delusions were, but the trouble was I just couldn't accept that people had them. A normal reaction upon learning about schizophrenia would be to just accept that the disease often caused one to hold beliefs despite good evidence to the contrary. It seemed so strange that one could process the evidence but not let go of the belief.

In any case, it became more satisfying to me to think that what we believe is not up to us. It is up to something else, say the brain. This something else creates the experiences of believing whatever, or anything. What we normally think of as so essential to beliefs - evidence and logic - have nothing at all to do with beliefs. Believing something is just the experience of believing.

Moving on. I have had a few hypnagogic hallucinations before, although not in a long time. And now, hypnagogic delusions. That's right. There have been a few occasions recently when falling asleep that I have believed something that was false. I guess then these weren't true delusions: how did I know they were false? It was a strange experience of experiencing a belief in a way that it seemed 99% as real as any normal belief but with a 1% of me saying "this is not true." For example, I had as I was falling asleep this strange experience of believing that certain gestures of the hand would cause me to know all there is to know. Even then there was the 1% of me saying "this is absurd and not true!" But I could not release myself from the experience. I was stuck for a while in the experience of believing. The other occasion was less bizarre but of the same nature and involved believing things from childhood inaccurately.

What's the cause of this? Now, how would I know. I can say that I have been practicing self-hypnosis and visualization a lot lately. That has seemed to have led to some very brief episodes of lucid dreaming. It makes sense because the experiences of visualization and hypnosis are a lot like dreaming, and it does seem like practice for lucid dreaming. It doesn't seem strange then that it has caused my mind to become overactive in other ways.

Now, more about hypnosis. I have found the experience to be sometimes frustrating and sometimes fascinating. I remember getting the impression from t.v. that detectives sometimes use hypnosis to cause witnesses of crime to recall "forgotten" details. I don't know if this is true, but if it is I can see why. During hypnosis, details of the past sometimes flood in with abundance and ease that I would not be able to produce in ordinary consciousness. Another interesting thing about the experience are the emotions that rouse. I remember one uneventful day on which my emotions were somewhat flat. No highs, or lows. I went into hypnosis and took myself back to the home I first lived in. Many details of the scenery came with ease. I saw myself as a young child, exploring the creek behind our house. I saw myself and my love of plants and animals that I still have today. That time is gone now and it was so tender to witness it again. Like I said, the experience turned around what had been an emotionally flat day.

Turmeric Tea

I know how to make turmeric tea now. Bring one cup of water to a boil and pour over one-quarter teaspoon of ground turmeric (from the spice rack). Let steep for 10 minutes, covered to keep hot, and stir occasionally. Pour into second cup trough ordinary tea strainer. Not all sediment will be removed, but don't worry. In the second cup, after straining, add one diced ginger candy. This adds sweetness and the ginger combines nicely with turmeric. (One ginger candy has 5 grams of sugar. See http://www.gingerpeople.com). The tea will still be hot. Stir to dissolve the ginger candy, then enjoy.

I made this tea for the first time today and it was delicious, stimulating but without caffeine.

Gracie: May 2004 - May 5th 2011

Something terrible has happened: Gracie has died. The story of her death begins on the evening of Wednesday, May 4th. I got home from work early that night and I soon decided to go to bed early due to malaise. Right before bed, I let Gracie in, as usual. As soon as she stepped in the door I could tell something was wrong. She seemed to not want to walk. She was behaving as if her back legs were asleep. But I am impatient these days and so I just tried to hustle her into the garage. It was awkward for her and took a lot of encouragement from me. But Gracie is known to be skittish and nervous and she had displayed similar behavior before. I thought she had a leg injury. The only symptom I initially noticed was trouble walking. Once she was in her kennel I noticed that she did not seem in any pain, but she did seem very alert and her eyes were wide open. There was no vomiting, or panting. Darcy and I tried to coax her back out of her kennel for the sake of more observation, but she would not come out. We could have taken her to the 24 hour vet, of course, but we didn't. I did not think the situation was an emergency and I thought we'd take a second look at things in the morning. Why was that my judgment? I don't know. I hope it was a justifiable instinct, but I fear it was just selfishness and wanting to just go to bed. I thought (or told myself) that it was just a leg injury and if she just stayed immobile for the night we could go to the vet the next day.

It turns she did go to the vet the next day. She was no different in the morning. She had urinated in the kennel and was still sitting in it. There was some drool hanging from her lip. We called the vet, loaded her kennel in the car and Darcy had to drive her to Plano by herself, fighting the smell of urine in the car. Even then as we loaded her kennel I took the situation seriously but I wasn't worried. I still thought that she'd had a leg injury of some kind and that the pain had now gotten very bad. Gracie had been known in the past to have a very low pain tolerance. She was behaving strangely, but strange behavior was common for her. She was unfortunately a often nervous and anxious dog.

Anyway, she was soon dead after arriving at the vet. Now I've learned some obvious things. I can't get a second chance to take this more seriously. The past few years with Gracie have been trying. We have gradually accepted that she is not compatible with our small children or our other dog, Teak. That was a hard notion for us to accept since we naturally see our dogs living inside with the family, as part of the family. For the past six months or so Gracie was only allowed two places: in the backyard, or in the garage. But even then she posed a threat. A week before she died, on my birthday, she killed a kitten that had gotten into the yard. She attacked and injured Teak in the back yard on several occasions. My plan for today had she not died was to make here an enclosure so we could keep her outside and out of trouble. We were going to keep her until the end. There were some in the past who urged us to euthanize her. I still remember the agony in feeling the pressure to make that decision. In fact, she committed two separate transgressions that led to the possibility of euthanasia. (Once when Darcy was pregnant with Olivia, and once during the summer of 2010 where she attacked Teak.) But in the end we decided to work harder for Gracie, so that she could live out her natural life. Once her enclosure was built, I thought we would finally reach equilibrium with her. She didn't mind being outside or in the garage at all. We still went for walks. She seemed happy.

In any case, it is depressing now that she's gone. I have already mentioned too many bad things about Gracie. I hate to do that, but they are part of the story of her life. It was rough for her near the end because she found herself in a familial situation that she wasn't cut out for. But life was good for her and I in the beginning. I feel pretty worthless now that Gracie's story has ended, but I hope she feels I gave her a life worthy of envy in the beginning. Lot's of affection and walks. Someday I hope to write about those good times. The times she loved were when it was just me and her. The problem is that life has gotten more complicated since those first few years, and neither of us has handled it very well. Some of the terrible attitudes and behaviors have swelled in me over the past few years: impatience, irritability, always being in a hurry, anger, hatred, pessimism, having low expectations, psychological and physical tension. I get so fixated on anger and find myself in prolonged trances over it. I daydream and am introspective to the point of not being able to pay attention to those around me. Now, none of this is directed at my family, but it does no good for them either. I hate to admit it, but neither of the dogs has gotten much attention or affection in a long time. I hate to admit that I had seen them too often as burdens and extra work. All I can say is that now that Gracie is gone and I have missed my last chance to be with her I can't describe how bad I feel about who I've become. I hope she can forgive me, if I deserve it.

Southern Pea

The Southern Peas were planted on April 1st 2011. There are three rows of 14 plants each. I plan to plant a few more rows as I have time to clear the rest of the garden. Right now, collard greens from last fall are blooming and producing seed. Once they're done with that, I'll clear and plant more peas and okra. Nothing but peas, okra and tomatoes this year. I had a few small patches of peas last year at various times, as an experiment. The plants germinate and grow very well, even when planted in the middle of August! It was very interesting to see these tiny pea seedlings thrive on hot August days. By comparison I have tried to plant beans before, but they have always germinated and grown terribly even when planted in the nurturing conditions of the spring. The bean experiments have never lasted very long. In any case, the peas grow well and are not defeated by the hot and dry summer. The quantity of peas harvested was neither insignificant nor impressive, but the flavor of the peas harvested at the green mature stage is amazing. I hope I have enough plants to eat peas often this summer.

Update 4/8/2011: About half of the seeds have sprouted.

Update 5/19/2011: I had to scrap the first planting of southern peas. The good news is that when I pulled them up there was evidence of nitrogen-fixing bacteria on the roots. Thrips had attacked the original planting from the beginning, but the most damage was done to the peas from a spell of cold and wet weather. They looked terrible after that. I planted too early since southern peas don't respond well to cool weather. The next batch was planted on 5/6/2011. Germination was good. The seedlings look good now, and none appear to be damaged by thrips. Perhaps the warmer conditions lead to better resistance to the thrips.