Almostgotit.com

Last Satuday, March 8, was International Woman’s Day (IWD).  One hundred years ago, in 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter working hours, better pay, and the right to vote.

One hundred years later, IWD’s 2008 global theme is ‘Shaping Progress,’ in honor and celebration of all that women have accomplished in the past century, and with the hope that women around the world will continue to see advancements in their working and living conditions.

I celebrated International Women’s Day largely in the company of other women.   I blew off several afternoon errands to have tea with a friend instead, and later I dined with seven other fabulous chicks in my moms-only supper club, where we enjoyed several items from Cooking Light’s Tapas party menu and drank Cosmopolitans. 

Oh my.  Almostgotit LIKES Cosmopolitans. 

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Cosmopolitan Photo by “No Prawns” (Creative Commons Licence)
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However, she doesn’t like traditional Spanish tapas (the kinds involving lots of squid ink,  tentacles, and sea urchin roe), and as I was too late in signing up for what to bring,  the other fabulous chicks had already divvied up the good stuff from the Cooking Light menu.  So I googled tapas recipes until I found this spinach and chickpea recipe which sounded good.  It also turned out to be coincidentally-perfect for International Women’s Day as it is credited to Padma Lakshmi, the Indian supermodel-actress-author-cook who also happens to be Salman Rushdie’s latest Ex. 

Well.  Fabulous chick though Padma may be, hers turned out to be a pretty blah recipe, so below is fabulous-chick-Almostgotit’s new-and-improved version. 

Makes 4-6 servings; 10 minutes to prepare.

• 10-12 ounce bag fresh spinach leaves, rinsed
• 19-ounce can (2 cups) chickpeas (also called garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 tablespoon snipped fresh chives
• 1-2 lemons, juiced (or 3-5 Tablespoons)
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 large clove garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon curry powder

Put spinach in a saucepan with no additonal water (save that left on leaves from rinsing); stir and cook on low just until wilted.  OR, if bag gives steam-in-bag directions, put bag in microwave (do not open or even pierce!) and steam for about 3 minutes, just until wilted.

Drain spinach in collander, pressing to get rid of as much water as possible.  Chop both spinach and red bell pepper finely and put in bowl.  A food processor makes this an even faster job.  Add remaining ingredients, stir, and serve immediately or chill.  May be made several days in advance, as it keeps well.

Serve as is, or stuffed in pita bread.  Goes well served with grapes.  Goes particularly well served with Cosmopolitans.

Recipe adapted from one attributed to Padma Lakshmi.

To see more of Almostgotit’s recipes, click here.

Don’t bail. The best of the gold’s at the bottom of barrels of crap. – Randy Pausch 

Randy Pausch is a Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.  Last September, he was invited to take part in a CMU lecture series called “The Last Lecture,” in which top academics are asked to give a lecture as if it were hypothetically their last chance ever to share their best wisdom with the world.

For the amazing 47-yr old Dr. Pausch, who has terminal cancer, it wasn’t hypothetical.  

At left: Randy Pausch and family

• 10-minute video: reprise (on Oprah)
•  Video of original lecture (75  min) and more about Randy

Change Is Hard Work; it requires hope, direction, bravery and time. -Thomas Moore

The sign at left is a standard one in Great Britain, and was one of our favorites.  While it merely means “adjusted right-of-way ahead,” I always had the strong sense that Stephen Covey was speaking to us directly from the heavens.  Other signs we loved were “Caution: Rising Bollards!” (which sounds like a variety of aggressive ostrich but in fact refers to adjustable traffic barriers) and various humorous — and at times salacious – notices about “zebra crossings” (which are crosswalks with painted lines.  Get it?) 

When we lived in England, we were frequently amazed and amused at how different our two languages were.  Pantyhose don’t “run” in Britain, they “ladder.”  Sinister-sounding ”schemes” merely refer to ”plans.”  Our children’s classmates patiently explained to us that a “pavement” is not a material but a sidewalk.  (though they also knew what “sidewalks” were from watching American telly.)   ”Corn” is a generic term for grain, while “lumber” is the rubbish you store in your attic.  

Moreover?  It is not nice to mention your pants (underwear) in public, but perfectly acceptable to announce that you need the toilet (bathroom). 

That last, in particular, was a particular challenge for us as embarrassed Americans, even when we understood that a willingness to ask perfect strangers to please point out the nearest toilet was not only necessary, but completely ordinary to everyone but ourselves. 

In other words: change was hard, but we had to get over it or else pee in our, er, trousers.  Sigh.  (Life is so brutal sometimes.)

So maybe my current life stage is not so very different from learning to use a new language, nor even so very different from potty training.  What do we tell our children when they are learning such a life-changing skill?  You need to think ahead. You need to pay attention to yourself.  Sometimes, there will be accidents, but keep trying and eventually you will succeed.  

Since our “mums” aren’t here to tell us these things anymore,  maybe posting signs for ourselves now and then would actually be a good idea.  Post-it notes on the bathroom mirror or on the computer monitor or in a daytimer?  Or maybe posting signs for the REST of the family would be in order, too.  What would your signs say?
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Creative Commons images by
Christine(bpc) (Changed Priorities);  Andrewb47 (Rising Bollards);  SeanMcTex (Humped Zebra Crossing); Ceejayoz (Princess Parking)
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Tangentally Related Posts:
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My friend Peggy, aka the Career Encourager, has asked me to choose which of the following I would use to describe myself:

1 – I am a Working Mother

2 – I am a Woman with Children and a Career

3 – Other

Hmm.  How would you answer that, readers? 

The way I define myself keeps changing, is the problem.  I’m going to be out of the mother business soon enough and never quite made it to feeling like a “Working Mother,”  so I think the first option is out.

The second option,”I am a woman with children and a career” is a little better in that I was a “woman” before I was a mother, but it seems a little out of reach as well.  I might, someday, get to call myself ”a woman with children and a job,” and then a few more years after that, I’d really like to retain the ”a woman with a job” part, too.   But a “Woman with Children and Career?”  “Careers” sound like such permanent and uninterupted things, things people have expressly gone to school to prepare for when they were young, worked away at for a three or so further decades, and then eventually retire from.  Can the majority of mothers even do this?  **Having a Career** sounds so intense and single-minded.  While “intense” certainly fits me, what mother is ever free to be single-minded as well? 

What I am is chronically multi-minded instead.  And every one of my many minds is subject to sudden and unpredictable change as my children and my life and I all go lurching along together. 

Which seems to leave only the last option: “other.”  I’d probably have chosen that option anyway, being the obnoxious iconoclast that I am, but in this case I think it really is the only one that fits.   In the end I think I choose “I am a woman:” or maybe,  ”I (just) am,” period.

How about you?

Creative commons   Child’s Drawing Photo by an0nym0usmus & Giraffe Photo by Timothy K. Hamilton  (see great comment by Timothy, below!)

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