Before Life Passes Me By

When I was 38 my father died. I was so upset, hurt, distraught and pissed! I couldn't believe God would take my father. Now, I know that people die. It's natural and happens everyday. What I couldn't fathom is that my father would die and leave me alone here. How would I survive? Who would come to my rescue when I'd left my keys in the car, or the battery's run down because I forgot to shut off the lights?

Well, I am surviving and I've found that time indeed heals all wounds. I still get a bit weepy when things happen in my family that he's missing (ie. my brother becoming an asst pastor, my nieces graduating college, the other children he'll never see etc) but we're all doing better.

Anyway, when my father died I realized how fragile life is so I vowed to do everything I had always wanted to do but had been afraid. One of those things was taking a cooking class. I'd been afraid that if I enrolled and went to the class the people would tell me to find a dieting class because I was too big to learn how to cook, or I needed to learn how to exercise not cook. Well that didn't happen. I enrolled in the class and the people there were warm and friendly. Foodies are a lot like bloggers, they take each other at face (faith) value. I've never met a foodie I didn't like. Well, over time I took other classes, even met published authors and was invited to private classes!

Last Saturday I took a sushi making class and loved it! You know how you see something and think, "I'll never be able to do this". Well I was convinced sushi-making was intense and mindboggling but it's not. Make the rice and include it with whatever your heart desires. I had the most fun making different kinds of rolls and even frying tempura. We had everything from spicy tuna to ahi tuna bowls. Tempura shrimp to rice pudding w/melted chocolate toppings, yum! My favourite was the spicy Ahi rolls and the caterpillars. I'm biased because my partner and I made these two and really outdid our peers.

There are many healthful benefits to eating sushi -such as being low fat, low sodium (watch the soy sauce) and some of the fish used is great for fighting colesterol and providing Omega 3. And not all sushi is raw. The California roll is nothing but fake crab (actually it's fish parts compressed together and died), cucumber and carrot.

There's some sad news about the state of over fishing has greatly reduced the population of Ahi tuna so some countries are calling for a ban on eating Ahi to prevent it from becoming extinct. I haven't read up on this so forgive me if the info's not exactly correct.

This Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday, we're having a party and this year will be decidedly different from other Super Bowl gatherings. First, the game itself-two black NFL coaches are competing, 2nd-there will be no men with us and 3rd-we're cooking stuff WE WOMEN want to eat: sushi, clam/mussel stew, a fabulous dessert and fried chicken. Come on, y'all knew there was going to be fried chicken. You just knew!

We're gonna sit around eating and looking at all those fine men in those tight pants and daydream about being a football cradled in the arms of Peyton Manning or caressed and held tightly by a defensive lineback--oh oh. I'm beginning to sound like Mist1. Where's my Bible?

The moral of the story? Get on w/life because one day you're not going to be able to do everything you've always wanted to do. Take that class, learn to dance, become a magician or world famous poker player. Whatever you want to do, the best time is NOW. Go on, get!