Author: robanstee@gmail.com

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Grandma Maraccinni’s Spaghetti Sauce

  • 1/2 pound of ground beef (75% lean)
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 4 cloves of garlic crushed
  • Oregano
  • Bay Leaf (2-3)
  • 1/2 white onion, diced
  • 1/2 cup red wine (italian red table wine)
  • 1 (12 oz) can diced tomatoes in puree
  • 2 (12 oz) cans tomato sauce
  • 2 small cans tomato paste (substitute 4 Roma tomatoes pureed and drained – no water)
  • 2 tbs of sugar
  • salt and black pepper
  • (optional) 1 red bell pepper, diced
  1. In a large crock pot (or stock pot on the stove), combine 1 can of diced tomatoes, 1 can of tomato sauce, and 2 cans of tomato paste (or pureed tomatoes), 2 cloves of garlic, bay leaves, 1 tsp of salt and 1 tbs of black pepper and 1 tbs oregano.
  2. Turn heat on high for crock pot (or med-high for stock pot on stove), cover. Stir occasionally and taste – should be very tomato-y and not too bitter
  3. In cast iron skillet, heat oil. When oil is hot, add 2 cloves of garlic and onions. After a minute, add ground beef and break it up with a wooden spoon. When beef is cooked, add tomato sauce, 1 tbs of oregano, 1 can of tomato sauce, and 1/4 cup of red wine. (optional: add red bell pepper) Should be smelling really good by now.
  4. Simmer beef mixture in skillet for about 3-5 minutes over med heat, stirring frequently.
  5. Dump entire skillet into crock pot (or stock pot), let simmer for 1 hour, stirring frequently
  6. After an hour, add sugar and 1/4 cup of wine. Add oregano and salt to taste (seriously, don’t be scared of the oregano). Reduct heat and keep stirring and tasting for another hour. Stir occasionally to keep from scorching. If you want, you can let this sit overnight in the fridge, then just heat it up on the stove or crock pot.
  7. Serve over fresh pasta with grated parmesan and garlic bread, with an italian red or a Cabernet Sauvignon.

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Time to start again

Earth’s ellispsoid corkscrew courtesy of vSauce

We are taught that the orbit of the Earth as it revolves around the sun is an ellipse.  Sort of a flat oval.  But that’s actually incorrect.  Since the sun is moving, the path of the Earth is more like a corkscrew spiraling around the sun like an old fashioned telephone cord.  We feel like it’s cyclical, but it is actually progressing through space. 

We are also inclined to see cycles.  As I grow older, I like to say “the more things change, the more they stay the same…”  That’s a nice way of saying that life and patterns are cyclical.  Repeating.  Friendships come and go.  The seasons come and go. Children grow into adults.  Life carries on in in its inevitable patterns and cycles.  The older one gets, the more recognizable and predictable these patterns become.

Except they aren’t repetitions.  Different friends come and go in different ways.  Each winter has its own challenges, each spring its own newness.  Different children take different paths into adulthood.  Life progresses with cycles and patterns, but also differences.  Most important, it progresses.

Recently, I signed up for the Chicago Marathon again.  It will be my third, and I’m looking forward to it with anticipation.  My last marathon was a trainwreck.   I crossed the finish line suffering from hyponatremia (not enough salt) and heat exhaustion.  I was in rough shape an contracted the flu a few weeks later.  I spent most of November and December in and out of a fever.  I made the decision to not run the 2018 marathon – I figured I needed a break.  Besides, life is cyclical right?  The opportunity would come back around.

Unfortunately, not training for an entire year took its toll.  I gained 30 pounds of red wine, pasta, and ice cream.  I lost all of the conditioning and strength that I had in 2017.  By October, I was a mess: overweight, not active, and beginning to fall apart.  My body began to rebel by picking random parts of my face and making them swell up.  It wasn’t an allergic reaction – technically it was idiopathic angioedema.   A few times it was my bottom lip.  Most recently it was my tongue.  I was on a business trip to Charlotte, and my tongue swelled up.  Sitting in Urgent Care, hundreds of miles from my family in a Benadryl haze, I decided to get my shit together.

This time, like the earth progressing in its corkscrew, I wouldn’t just circle back around to my starting point.   I’d move forward.  I committed to lose the weight (I’ve lost 12 of the 30 so far).  I changed my diet (more on that later).  And I started running again.  I set goals for myself with rewards.  Each time I trained for the marathon in the past I started out with a few extra pounds and used the training to lose weight.  This time, I would lose the weight before March, and then do the full training. 

Also, I called my doctor and made an appointment.  Can’t mess around at my age.

So I’m starting the process again, but different this time.  I’m circling but also progressing – moving forward.  In a corkscrew, not a circle.

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Favorite things

Driftwood at Sunset on Lake Michigan

As promised so long ago, I will now list my favorite things. It has been awhile, so I guess alacrity doesn’t make the list. Neither does correctly using the word “alacrity”.

1. Smells: Pumpkin bread, clean baby, campfire, Spaghetti Sauce, rain, ocean, fresh brewed coffee, fresh bread at 5 am on Grand Avenue outside D’Amato’s
2. Places: The blue house, the bird sanctuary by Montrose Beach, the Southeast corner of Lake Michigan, The harbor off the island of Anegada, BVI,  Sorrento, Italy, Tintern Abbey, UK
3. People: The three of us and our friends and family
4. Music: Lately, I’ve been listening to Sigur Ros, Radiohead, Florence + Machine, Tool, The Smiths, Joy Division, REM, Talking Heads, Wilco, Billy Bragg, Fugazi, Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Django Reinhardt, Oscar Peterson, Aimee Mann, Elliott Smith, and more that I just can’t remember.
5. Mode of transportation: Either Divvy Bikes or running
6. Sleeping position: Side
7. Toothbrush: Sonicare – no substitutes
8. Daughter: Constantly fluctuates back and forth between the two.

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Survived the Winter…

Winter was brutal in the blue house.  But at least we got to have Christmas.

One of the problems buying a new home is that you only see it in its best light.  You look for homes in the Spring and Summer, and then you commit.  I learned a lot about the house – it’s strengths and weaknesses.   It became more real once I began to see its flaws and personality.

The biggest challenge was the cold.  It was so cold.  The furnace was old and couldn’t keep up.  The pipes froze.

But not panicking is a good way to keep yourself together until the pipes thaw and the furnace gets fixed.  I shoveled the snow when it fell, and I swept the porch and sprinkled salt.

I started the winter with the flu.  It killed me (almost) and then morphed into a long bronchitis. Just as I was recovering from the flu, the furnace couldn’t keep up and the pipes froze.  It was a long January.  But I’m happy for difficult things that weren’t terrible things.  I got better.  The furnace just needed a little attention, and the pipes didn’t burst.  All was good.

We had Christmas here.  It was warm and cozy.  We had New Years here as well.  This house isn’t a perfect house, but it’s a good house.  Just like its family.

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Plans and Planning

All packed up and ready to move.

 The middle of July was a whirlwind for me.  Bastille day, July 14th was my “closing date”.  The process of buying and selling real estate always seems like a medieval exercise to me.  Papers and titles and deeds and notes all flurry around a small office.  The only thing that tangibly changes is that my name is written on a few dozen pieces of paper.  After that, I get the keys.

The ADT Alarm guy was pretty
expedient.  He worked while the
cleaners cleaned.

It’s always struck me as odd, how we as a society address property ownership.  It’s really an intellectual idea that’s tied to physical stuff.  Energy tied to matter.  When we “own” something, it doesn’t change intrinsically, but our interaction with it changes.  Basically, it becomes legal for us to use it as it was intended.  I couldn’t walk into this house on Thursday, but Friday after 10 am, it was mine. Same house, (slightly) different universe.

But enough of that!  I had to run a MOVING DAY.  I had it all planned out top to bottom – beginning to end.  And as is tradition with moving days, all the plans disintegrated and the detritus ended up giving the same result, just with much more anxiety along the way.

Apparently, if you sign your name
a bunch of times, they give you keys.

The original plan was simple – Close on the house on Friday, and then on Saturday we’d get the cleaners, ADT and AT&T to work in the morning while packing up the moving truck at the apartment.  After the workers were done, we’d unpack the truck on Saturday around noon, and then hit IKEA on Sunday.  IKEA would deliver Monday and we’d have a house by Tuesday.

Not even close.

Friday, before the closing, I met my realtor, Dave at the house and we walked through the property to make sure it wasn’t on fire or filled with corpses or anything.  (It wasn’t.)  Then as we were leaving, Dave noticed my neighbor standing outside.  “Meet the neighbor?” he asked.  I thought this would be a good idea, and it hadn’t even occurred to me that I’d have to know neighbors since I had been so reclusive in my cocoon-apartment for so long.

I didn’t realize it, but this neighbor was fairly reclusive, and his being outside was a bit unusual.  I introduced myself as the new neighbor, and he immediately asked “Are you coming to the block party tomorrow?”   I was surprised, as there had been no mention of a block party in any of the pre-sales emails between realtors and buyers and sellers.  My brain raced – a block party meant that the street would be closed, and my truck would not be able to make it to the house and my new house would be ruined due to a terribly botched move.  I might not even see an IKEA that weekend…  I panicked.

Of course there were surplus boxes.
I gave them away for free on
facebook.  

It turns out, I’m pretty good at re-arranging moving parts of planned weekend moves.  I kept all the tradespeople on Saturday (AT&T, ADT, housecleaners, etc.)  but switched the movers to Sunday.  On Saturday, I worked to prepare the house and pack up the rest of my stuff in my apartment.  I also met many new neighbors at the block party whose names I have completely forgotten.

I figured there wasn’t that much stuff to move since I was only moving boxes, beds, and my kitchen table.  I was wrong – there was a lot going on.  It turned out that I needed that extra day to pack.  I hit Home Depot, bought extra boxes, and congratulated myself on packing up EVERYTHING in my house.

The next morning, I confidently ambled over to the U-Haul lot to pick up my truck.  The lot was, of course, closed because if it were open, it would have been too easy.  My reservation wasn’t going to be honored.  Also, it was starting to rain.  Also, my movers were showing up at the old apartment expecting 4 hours of moving work.  Second panic attack.   I had a packed up apartment, no beds, no food, movers, and no truck.  And it was raining.

Of course in the city of Chicago there’s always a truck available somewhere.  30 minutes after filing my useless customer complaint with uHaul, I found myself in a snappy yellow Penske truck from Home Depot.  Truck acquired, rain abating, I met the movers at the apartment, loaded up my crap, and moved my family.

IKEA never fails to impress.

It’s funny that all of this drama happened in the space of a weekend – and it really only affected me.  I was spending all the money I had (and more) on this house.  I had signed my name to documents that continued a chain of custody for a weird little triangle of dirt that went back over a century.  I got keys and a piece of paper that made me the owner and king of that triangle of dirt.  The universe changed, I expended a ton of energy, and I got a little piece of the world that I can call my own.

I never made it to IKEA by the way – I bought everything online, and had it all delivered for $99.  And it looks amazing.