Clean

Chuck's test results, that is. :D

Chuck's oncologist (The Amazing and Very Awesome Dr. Walker...in fact, I'm going to suggest to him next time I see him that he should have those words embroidered on the back of his white coat) told us right off that the scan looked clean, and I let out a long breath that I swear I've been holding for 2 months straight.

Chuck and I were walking (ok, skipping) down the stairwell to the parking lot afterwards, and I burst into tears and had to hug him before we went outside. I can't even explain the relief.

All of the lung issues he was having in December that prompted all of this extra worry were most likely complications due to bronchitis, according to the doctor.

I'm dancing in my chair right now. We just got back from Greenville. And we're both enjoying a celebratory Newcastle Brown.

Thank you for all your prayers and good vibes. I truly believe they help, as I mentioned last time. I promise I'll be less sappy from now on. It's just that a world without Chuckles is not any sort of world I want to imagine for a very long time...and I kept imagining it. And it was horrible for me to keep this all in my head for the last two months.

Anyway, stress gone. Go give someone you love a hug, dammit!

TGIF

Thank God it's February.

I passed my 5-year mark of being here on February 7. For the first couple of years, I didn't feel like I was at home. I didn't work, I didn't have my green card, this house felt like Chuck's house, not my house. Even though we were married. Just didn't feel homey.

Now 5 years later, what's changed? I have a decent job that I love, Chuck and I love each other more than we did when we met (I think), and this house is full of MY stuff...oh, and not only do I have my green card, but I just got a letter in the mail from my immigration lawyer that as of March 18, I'll be eligible for citizenship. I think I may do that. Time sure does fly.

But what MOST makes me feel at home?

The freakin' weather and my freakin' garden.

I was made for a climate like this. I got such bad seasonal depression in Edmonton every winter. Like, BAD. No wonder I didn't care for gardening, who cares to garden when it snows/frosts from September to May? May to August is beautiful there, don't get me wrong. They have a more pleasant summer than we do, because there isn't that awful humidity. I loved it.

But...well let me just show you what I'm babbling on about. This is what I saw when I drove up the driveway after work yesterday.



Nothing makes a girl feel sunnier that coming home from a long day and seeing daffodils waving at her (and maybe a penis or two, but I digress). Those were the first things I put in when I came here. The first mark I put on this house (actually the second, I did pee on the siding to mark my territory) were those daffodils.

The rest of my garden looks like hell though, I'm going to get out there and work on clearing out all the dead shit and the weeds today.

Those pansies are from last fall.



I may take a trip out to the garden centers today and see if there are any pansies that I can add until the weather really gets good and all the rest of the flowers are plantable.

In Edmonton, I wouldn't even be thinking about this kind of stuff until the third week of May. My friend Michelle told me it's -28C/18F there today. Another friend on FB said it's supposed to be -42 with the windchill. -40C and -40F is the only place where both temperature scales meet, so I don't have to translate.

It's going to be +22C/71F here. Yep. I think I've fallen in love with North Carolina.

For those of you wondering, Chuck didn't get his results from the CT scan yet. We're going to go up to Greenville on Tuesday and see his oncologist. I guess we find out then. I hope it's good news, since they haven't called us in early. Thanks for all the nice comments about him on my last post :)

Wonder If Hallmark Makes A Lung Shaped Card?

I'm one of those people that actually likes Valentine's Day.

Yes, I know. Commercialized. Holiday pushed on you by greeting card companies. Why don't we just treat EVERY day like it's Valentine's Day, why save up the going out and the presents when you can just do it on any old day???

Well, I don't care. Chuck and I go out on dates often (I force you all to look at the pictures as proof), we buy each other things for no reason, etc. That doesn't mean I still can't enjoy Valentine's Day and have an excuse to get dressed up and go out for a nice dinner.

Chuck and I have been together for over 6 years. (Nearly) 7 Valentine's Days spent together.

But Valentine's Day seems to want to be more about lungs than hearts.

If any of you newcomers to my blog didn't realize, Chuck's had cancer and one of his lungs was removed Valentine's Day 2006.

Since then, he's been for a checkup every 6 months to make sure it hasn't returned. He passed his 5 year oncologist's visit last summer, but still has to go for a CT scan every year.

Five years ago tomorrow is the anniversary of Chuck being the One-Lunged Wonder. And his CT scan is scheduled for tomorrow morning out of sheer coincedence.

I'm a little worried about this one.

I know I shouldn't be, but I can't help it. I'm pretty stressed out.

Well, anyway, tomorrow's the scan and then we go up to Greenville to see the oncologist on the 22nd.

I know I asked everyone last time to think good thoughts, so I hope you don't think I'm being silly by asking you to do it again. Where Chuckles is concerned, I employ every trick in the book to make sure he stays healthy. Prayers, good thoughts...they're all in my arsenal. Nothing makes me feel silly.

Hell, if I have to go out naked under a full moon in the backyard and do an Anti-Cancer Dance, I'll do it!

But I think I may wait for that until it gets warmer.

And until I lose some more weight.

And maybe until we build a tall fence.

F.U. Snow

Dear Snow,

You will find enclosed a photograph that I took of my garden this morning. In case you aren't sure of what you are looking at, those are daffodils.

Daffodils. The sunny, bright flower that foreshadows the coming of spring.

SPRING, Snow, Spring.

I'm seriously thinking about issuing a restraining order against you. Everyone thinks I moved here to North Carolina to be with Chuck. He's awesome and it's a nice place to live. But what they don't realize is that I really came to the States to escape you.

You smothered me, Snow. When I asked you to stop coming around, you didn't listen. I'd come out the front door, and there you'd be waiting. Against the wall. Sitting on my car. Waiting for me in the parking lot at work.

And now you've followed me out of the country.

How can I be smug to my friends in Canada when you keep visiting me? They sneer and scoff at me when I tell them you've stopped by only for a moment. They don't believe that such a fleeting visit by you can be so unpleasant or dangerous.

I know the truth. And I'm not taking it anymore, do you understand me??

I'm in love with Spring now. You'll just have to get over me. Move on. Quit stalking me, or I'll have to take drastic measures.

I heard through the grapevine that you're going to try to ambush me in the middle of the night tonight. If you come by, you'll find me on the front step with a bag of salt and an ice scraper. Yes, that IS a threat.

Don't write or call,

-Kyna

Beef. It's What's For Dinner.

It's Chuckles' birthday today. He's 49 years old.

Way back in November, I bought him tickets to the Robert Plant & The Band of Joy concert in Raleigh, on February 2.



Seemed like forever to wait for the concert, and now it's done.

But it was AWESOME.

I love when I can buy him a present that I get to participate in. Best type of present there is.

Chuck took the day off work, and we got into Raleigh at around noon. I had scoped out a restaurant to eat lunch at (as I always do, I love planning out our eating itinerary) called The Pit. It's a delicious, business-class BBQ joint. Their slogan is 'Everything but the squeal.'

How cool is that? :)




When we walked up to the place, following two dudes in button-down shirts and ties, Chuck asked, 'Are we dressed well enough for this place?'

Since I had scoped out the menu ahead of time, I knew that it didn't seem so expensive that a dress-code would be required. Chuck and I were attired in car-traveling clothes...jeans and t-shirts. I don't think we were that offensive.

We walked in the door and up to the hostess' 'lectern'. There were two hostesses standing there and one was very skinny and blonde. She was looking at us with a look that suggested she had just stepped in dogshit. And the smell had just hit her nostrils.

The smell was us, apparently.

I stared her down. She hesitated in asking us, 'Just the two of you?' with a resonant disdain.

Really? Were we that abhorrent? There was no posted dress code, and there was a very casually dressed couple next to us when we were seated, so we weren't alone.

The disgusted blonde hostess had some very, very, fake looking drawn on BROWN eyebrows. I resisted the urge to let her know that one of them was smudged. Just resisted.

The food, however was delicious. We had fried green tomatoes for a starter, with a surprisingly different (and amazing) lime-cream dressing with fresh basil. And I had an Eastern NC BBQ pork plate, Chuck had a BBQ turkey plate. Collards, fresh biscuits. Excellent service besides the bad attitude of Fake Eyebrows.

As for the concert itself, Chuck and I had never been to the Progress Energy Center where it was held.



It was a very nice venue. I felt very posh as I sipped from a champagne flute before the show started. In fact, I felt so posh that I had two of them :)

The place had chandeliers and everything.




The North Mississippi All Stars were the opening band.



I had never really listened to anything by them before, but they rocked it out. Talk about BEEF.

That was really the theme of the night. Beefy guitar sound.

They didn't really stay on all that long, about 45 minutes. But I really enjoyed it. Some dudes behind us showed up late, and asked the guy next to them that had been there since the beginnning, how the opener had been.

'Meh' he said. 'I wasn't all that impressed. You didn't miss much.'

I just about turned around and asked the guy if he'd been asleep. It was pretty damn good stuff.

I don't even know what I can say about Robert Plant and the Band of Joy except that it was amazing. I highly recommend catching this band on the latter part of their tour.

This is my favourite off their recent album. Remake of Los Lobos' "Angel Dance".



Any new band Robert is a part of usually performs a certain amount of Led Zeppelin tunes, and usually they put a new twist on them.

They played 'Ramble On', 'Black Dog', 'Rock & Roll', 'Gallows Pole', 'Houses of the Holy', and 'Tangerine'. 'Ramble On' was probably my favourite, I'm such a Lord of the Rings nerd and the song is all about it, in case you didn't know :)

Robert is awesome, STILL, even though he's 65-ish. Amazing charisma, such stage presence. Doesn't matter how old he gets. You either have it or you don't. He has it. Forever.



And the band backing him up was awesome too. I've sung the praises of Buddy Miller before.



That guy can RIP IT UP on the guitar. BEEF, I tell ya.

And he had Patty Griffin singing in harmony, which was a great sound. That girl really needs a sandwich or two, but she can sing her ass off.




The fun continues this weekend. Got to spend the whole day with Chuckles today (a rarity), we made a shrimp and sausage gumbo for the Superbowl tomorrow. Always tastes better the next day. Some good friends are coming over.

I'm totally using football as an excuse to eat.

It's going to be yet another awesome day!

Life is good, I tell ya. Enjoy the little things.




Happy Birthday Chuckles! Love you more.

The Short But Delicious Life and Death of Crawfish Claude

I love to cook.

Even more than that, I love to eat.

I don't do a lot of serious cooking in the summertime. It's way too hot out to run the oven, so Chuckles takes over the cooking duties with his trusty grill during the sweltering months. During the winter, I love to experiment.

I come from a long line of great cooks.

Ok, I don't really know how long the line is, but my mum had the excellent fortune to learn from my two culinarily gifted grandmothers, and I have reaped the benefits.

My maternal grandmother, Jessie, has lived out most of her years living in Northern Saskatchewan.



My mum's tiny hometown is actually on that map, I'll let you guess which one it is.

From her 80th birthday party last year. In case it's not obvious, my Grandma's the one reading the card:


Here's a fun fact: that side of my family is Métis (may-tee), which is a French word that means mixed aboriginal and European descent. My Mum is one of 13 children. Eight girls, five boys. My grandma had THIRTEEN kids. I can't even imagine. My youngest uncle is a year younger than my oldest brother. How's that for crazy? My grandma is one tough cookie. You've got to be, when you've got that many kids. She's awesome.

My grandma is a great cook. She owned her own restaurant up there for a time, and when she wasn't an owner, would always somehow participate in the food business any way she could. Northern Saskatchewan is kind of isolated, with a whole lot of forest, hence there are a lot of forest fires. She would often cook for the firefighters down at the fire cache.

My mum often tells me stories from her childhood. Time ran a little slower there in terms of technological advancements and the like, and her stories often sounded like she was living a 'Little House on the Prairie' life even though she was born in the early 1950's. My grandpa John was a hunter, a trapper, and a fisherman. My family was quite poor (with 13 kids to feed and clothe, they would be, wouldn't they?). During the summertime, camping wasn't camping, it was the way they lived. My grandma knew how to clean fish, tan hides and smoke various wild meats. My mum said she ate so much fish as a kid, she couldn't eat it again till she was much, much older.

I think my favourite thing to eat that my grandma (not to mention all my aunts) made was fresh bannock. Every time my mum and I made the 8 hour trip from Edmonton to her hometown, I always knew there'd be some of it on the counter waiting to be slathered in butter and snacked on.



My dad was from Southern Saskatchewan. His hometown is not on the above map, but it's a small farming community somewhere near Yorkton.

That side of my family is Ukrainian. The Canadian prairies are full of Ukrainians. Edmonton, the city I'm from, is so full of them that people there call it Edmonchuk for fun. My maiden name is long and ethnic, a very common Ukrainian name ending in, you guessed it, 'chuk'. I really liked it, but ever since I've been married, I'm relieved when someone asks me my name and I only have to spell the 'Kyna' part out.

My mum married my dad when she was 16 and he was 25. I think my parents were very good-looking in this picture (which was fortunate since they were married in the 60's).



They were married for 17 years. It's funny, my parents were from two completely different backgrounds and opposite ends of the province. But they each were immersed in the culture of the other. My mum, being married to my dad so young, learned the ways of Ukrainian farm life and how to cook amazing Ukrainian food. My dad was the Director for the Department of Native Education in Alberta for 30-some years. Not an ounce of aboriginal blood in the man, but the Native people he worked with and worked for treated him as one of their own.

My Ukrainian grandmother Mary, whom we called 'Baba', was a very tiny woman. I believe she was 4'11".

Haha, look at the chops on my dad! A person can really change in just a few years, can't they?



I wasn't as close to her as I was to my other grandma, because my parents separated when I was 3. Also, she and my paternal grandfather Paul ('Gido' in Ukrainian) died when I was quite young.

Even though I only remember seeing her a few times, I remember that she was an excellent, excellent cook. Perogies (pyrohy), cabbage rolls, amazing breads. She had a temper on her though. I remember one time when I was there, Baba got irritated with my cousin in the kitchen and whacked him on the hand with a wooden spoon. I remember Gido getting up at 4am and banging around in the kitchen, cleaning dishes or something, when everyone else was still trying to sleep. That was leftover from farm life I guess. He would ask me if I wanted some candy from the store when he went, and I'd always say no because I didn't like candy all that much. I think he thought I was a little weirdo because of that.

The Ukrainian side of my family is filled with 'big' personalities. They talk loud, they laugh loud, and they argue when they play card games. Great storytellers. When I was younger, I was a little frightened by it all. I was very shy. Then I sort of grew into my own big, loud, Ukrainian personality, and I'm very glad for both halves of chromosomes that I inherited.

Especially the cooking part. Like a good Ukrainian girl, I know how to make perogies from scratch. It takes me 4 or 5 hours, but it's worth it.




I'll attempt pretty much anything. Most of the time, everything ends up delicious, and the odd time something doesn't work, I don't sweat it too much. Chuck is a great guinea pig. He'll eat pretty much anything except cottage cheese and anything savory where fruit is an ingredient where he thinks it shouldn't be. Can't sneak a raisin past Chuckles.

My mum sent me a whole load of recipes as a housewarming present when we decided to get married. I also think the internet is a treasure trove of recipes as long as you have the common sense to discern which ones are crap and which ones aren't. So maybe I'm not so much a good cook as I am a person with good common sense.

I think living down here in the South has broadened my culinary horizons even more than if I had stayed in Canada. I would have never experienced collard greens, homemade corn bread, black eyed pea and ham soup, and fresh Southern biscuits with white sausage gravy. I still can't stomach grits though, they look like snot.

The other day I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to make Crawfish Étouffée, which is a dish popular in Louisiana.

I never in a million years thought I'd be popping the heads of crawfish and stewing them to make a seafood stock.

Never.

I named this little guy Crawfish Claude and played with him a little bit.









Then I ripped his head off and threw it in the pot with his other friends.




Added some veggies and spices.



And a delicious crawfish stock was born.

The dish itself was time intensive, but I had laid out all my ingredients ahead of time so I would have everything ready to go into the pot.




Ideally I would be using a different type of heavy-bottomed pot, perhaps enameled cast iron, but I'm poor so I have to work with what I got.

I first made a white roux, added in the my mirepoix of veggies and tomatoes, added crawfish tails and andouille sausage, and then in went my stock.










Serve it over rice, and voila.



I realize that this dish isn't everyone's cup of tea. My brother-in-law Steve hates shrimp and the like, he calls them 'sea roaches'. Luckily I married the more adventurous, 'foodie' brother.

Chuck is sad because he's full but still has the urge to eat more because it's so good.


I got the recipe off of this guy. I think he could have made it a little more spicy, and next time I would add a lot more heat to the dish. But otherwise it was awesome. I love YouTube. I learn by watching, and found a video on how to peel crawfish that will be valuable to me for the rest of my cooking life.

Crawfish Claude really took one for the team.

Chuckles Gets Behind the Camera

Yesterday we had snow yet again. It was the third snowfall of significant accumulation that we've had this winter. Extremely uncommon.

Now I'm not complaining about the snow, it's the ice that I have a problem with. It was a very icy snow...a friend of mine compared it to Dippin' Dots.




Chuck woke me up before he left to tell me that the tire I had patched last month was flat again. I dread taking it in to the mechanic because I always feel stupid when I go in that place without him.

So of course I procrastinated like the pro that I am, and waited till almost noon to bring it in. Earlier that morning, my stepdaughter says, "I sure hope we get some snow today! Even if it's just a dusting!"

I had heard that the county adjoining ours was supposed to get it, and I told her we probably wouldn't see much of anything.

I was wrong of course, we ended up getting about 3 inches at my house. And by the time I got my ass in gear to take the tire in, it was pelting those little ice pellets of so-called snow.

I was hoping it wouldn't last long (because it wasn't supposed to in my area), because I had to drive in to work for 4pm.

The snow didn't let up, and indeed got worse. I knew the highway was going to be icy, so I left an hour before I was supposed to be at work.

Yeah. One of the scariest drives I've ever taken. I can't believe that I didn't end up in the ditch or wasn't plowed by someone else.

People were going way too fast for the conditions. I saw 6 people in the ditch on the way to work, and 3 accidents. One of the accidents happened while I was watching.

I have to cross a bridge over a waterway on my way into Jacksonville. There were about four cop cars on the bridge, to force people to slow down. Anyone who has experienced snow and ice can tell you that bridges freeze before anything else. This one truck apparently didn't slow down enough on the bridge going the opposite way, and I saw him do a 180 on the bridge and crash headfirst into the guardrail. Right in the middle of all the cops. He's lucky he didn't hit one of their cars.

I was going 10mph at one point, not even touching the gas or the brake, and my car was fishtailing. A U-Haul was traveling behind me (way too fast) and I saw him fishtailing towards me in my rear-view mirror. I thought he was going to plow me for sure.

About halfway there, I thought I'd have to call out from work, and turn around and go back home. But the other side of the divided highway going back towards my house was WAY worse. The traffic was backed up for miles and miles. A co-worker of mine lives right down the street from me, and she said it took her 3 hours and 20 minutes to get home. So I'm glad I just decided to make the rest of the trip to work. When I came home at midnight last night, it was still nasty in spots, but it wasn't as bad as it had been that afternoon.

I called Chuck on my 15-minute break to tell him of my harrowing drive. He said it took him 2 hours to get home himself. Whilst we were on the phone, he was telling me how gorgeous the sunset was at home. When he got off the phone with me he started taking pictures.

They're AWESOME. I'm sorry I missed such a beautiful sunset. Thank goodness he grabbed the camera.


This is one I took earlier:




And here are his, they're in sequence:
















These last two are my favourites!






I think Chuckles did a good job, don't you?