A Tale of Two Violets (Actually Three)

My Sweet Blain,

Thank you for sharing your event from work with me. You are right about the medical field being heart-rending yet uplifting at the same time. I admire you EMTs. You are a hero.

To answer your question; yes, you do move on. But, it can be very emotionally draining, and does take something out of you. You must do whatever you can to take care of your "heart" (or mah-eum, as we said in Korea. It doesn't translate into English very well, does it?). I concur that this incident will probably stick in your memory the rest of your life. Some of them do. Others soften over time and congeal into part of all of what makes you who you are.

I'll share a 'soft' story with you.

Unlike Uncle Sunny, with his green thumb, I'm not usually much of a plant person. When the plants see my thumb they worry about gangrene. Don't know what possessed me to buy these African violets recently, since I don't usually have much luck growing things. But, they've done so well, it brings to mind one other time I sort of successfully nurtured a plant.




When I was still a teenager and working as a certified nursing aid, I took care of one dying lady who was almost comatose and had no visitors that I ever noticed. But, someone had cared about her enough to leave her what turned into the most lovely African violet plant that I had ever seen. It was a little scraggly at first, but, it had ruffly edges and was white-rimmed-in-purple, (or maybe it was purple, rimmed in white).

Since I was not one of the registered nurses yet, I could not give the poor woman pain-controlling medications, or make any but the most routine of the decisions regarding her care. But, I could do one extra thing for her, and that was to take special care of her flowering plant. I knew nothing about the care of African violets. So, I just sort of adopted it and hovered over it. I made sure it got nothing but filtered sunlight and kept the soil just lightly damp by letting tap water drip on it. I had heard that talking to plants is a bunch of hooey-it is actually just the carbon dioxide being exhaled that helps them. So, I breathed on it briefly whenever I was in her room. And the thing thrived pretty well. Looked stronger each day.

Until I had a couple days off in a row. By the time I got back to work someone had left the poor dear (the plant, not the patient) on the window sill in glaring sunlight and ignored it for what must have been the whole time I was gone. Because it was all pale and washed-out looking. It was also bone dry and wilted. Ah well, by the next day the patient was gone too.

In retrospect, what's interesting about the story, is that according to the instructions that came with my current violet plants (they like full sun and should be kept good and moist by watering them from the bottom of the container), I did everything wrong to take care of the pretty plant. So, why did it do so well? Who knows? I don't even know why my current ones are thriving. But, I'll say one thing, I may have let them get a little dry once (I was out of town, OK?), but, no matter what the "experts" say, these babies will never get faded by exposure to full harsh sunlight. Aren't they looking GREAT!

Tofu BBQ

Blain Dear,

So glad to hear your vegan friends liked the food I sent over to the potluck. Of course, I'll be happy to share how I made it. Just remember to tell them that Aunt Sunny doesn't exactly follow recipes.

Slice a block of extra firm tofu (I like Trader Joe's high protein, organic, super firm).
Make the slices about a fourth of an inch thick.
Brown them in a well oiled frying pan until they are about this brown.



Option: in order to add more flavor (if you don't mind the extra salt), the slices can be marinated for a few minutes in soy sauce with garlic and onion powder in it before frying them.

It takes quite a bit of oil, so drain them on paper towels to get it off after cooking.
I actually put towels under then and on top of them and push a little to kind of squeeze out the excess oil.

Clean the pan (or use a new one) and lightly fry up some strips of pepper, sliced onion and smashed garlic cloves in oil. Note that I used the word "some". The amount you use is per taste. Personally, I like a lot.

To add flavor, you want to lightly salt and pepper (I use white pepper) the vegetables and add "some" garlic and onion powder if desired. Do this before the frying process.

Again, you have to drain this on paper towels to get the oil out. Just watch out for bits of paper towel in the food. To prevent this, I use Viva brand.

Mix the prepared vegetables and tofu with Vegan bar-b-que of your choice. (Bull's Eye brand has no high fructose corn syrup.)

Here is the finished product!

Tastes good on a sandwich.