What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

I'd like to use up some of the nettles in our garden. However, they weren't especially tasty when I made them last time, so I asked ChatGPT for recipes. The first thing it suggested was a soup. Now, I am not going to make a normal soup with them, because I'm allergic to most thing that it suggested for the soup. However, I had pea soup cooking at that moment, so I went out, pulled up some nettles, cut off the leaves, washed them, and threw them in the soup. We'll see how they taste tomorrow when I eat the soup, but I think they will work out pretty well. The problem is that I only cook pea soup every four days, and this batch used 3-5 nettle plants. I think we have hundreds in the garden. However, many of those have flowered, so they aren't as edible anymore. I'm going to try to pull as many of the ones going to see as possible. Then, later this week, I'll make another batch of split pea, rice, and nettle soup. I may only have enough usable nettles in the garden for a few batches, but that's fine. Mainly, the goal is to use them up. I'm sure that we'll have some next year too.

While I didn't manage to do any painting, I did get a lot of other stuff done, which is probably why I'm ready for bed, and it isn't even 10pm yet. That's good, though. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish up down here and get up to bed soon, although I'd really like to vacuum at least the downstairs first.

Joel said today that the house feels more like a little kids' hideout than a real house, and I agree. I think that means that we are doing things correctly.

Joel had some oat flour, so I've cooked it up (making a mess, as often happens when cooking oatmeal in the microwave) and have added it to my pea soup (because I really don't care about taste, and it isn't like it tastes bad with soup). I decided to go with the equivalent carbohydrates of 25g of red lentils, which is 22g of oats. So far, I haven't broken out in hives, started coughing, or had a nervous breakdown. (Update: I'm a tiny bit itchy.) Interestingly, I've noticed that my temperature has gone up since I started taking the magnesium. I never saw anything over 36.6C unless I was sick. I mean _never_. Suddenly, I'm seeing 36.7 and 36.8. These aren't huge differences, but I haven't see anything like this before. So, that's interesting. Probably, this explains why my blood sugar is lower.

If I want to try cooking something different instead of eating the same thing every day (I'm not convinced that I want to), here are some recipes that look promising. I would need a blender for many of them, but Joel is looking for a better food processor for his falafel anyway.

* Lemony Split Peas
* Fried Split Peas - supposedly, green split peas won't work
* Split pea tortillas
* Red lentil tortillas
* Split pea oatmeal pancakes - egg-free

I'm most excited by the idea of the tortillas, since they have nothing else in them but that one ingredient. I'm a bit nervous about the idea of cooking them without fat. I've tried it before with corn tortillas and have never gotten it to work. We'll see. First, though, I need a blender anyway.

I made some red lentil falafel today based on some recipes I had found online. I fried a little ball of it and baked the rest. Both were tasty enough, although the baked one was a little on the dry side. On the other hand, with sauteed mushrooms and zucchini (actually кабачок, but it is a lot like zucchini), it was good. It was like a dry cornbread. Next time, I'll make it with some mushrooms in it to see if that helps it be a tad less dry. However, I could certainly eat it as it is, especially if I'm in a mood where I just need something portable to eat. Verdict: this will work on a plane.

Red lentil falafel (version 1)
(1 serving)

83g red lentils
2g ginger
1g garlic
1g parsley
2g salt
turmeric
cinnamon
pepper
cardamon
coriander

Soak the lentils overnight in water.

Drain lentils. Chop ginger, garlic, and parsley. Put ingredients in a meat grinder. Might need to run them through a couple of times. (This part was difficult at first for me. Eventually, I got it to work.)

Put in a greased oven-safe container and bake at 200C for 30 minutes. Serve with sauteed vegetables.

(Next time: add mushroom.)

I've kind of decided not to try and get things worked out with people on Facebook. People who usually have useful things to say are going to post things that (I think) make sweeping generalizations, state things as fact that sound good but aren't even remotely true, or otherwise post things that make me really uncomfortable. I've been thinking about this a ton, and it isn't having someone say, "I feel sad, because the US government is awful." that is the problem. It is posting, "All women feel X", or "All men think Y." I finally (took long enough) realized that the "all women feel X" is a good litmus test (although I am hesitant to use it): if someone says "all women are so angry that they feel like bees will come out their mouths at any moment" (someone did post this), and if I were say, "I don't feel that way at all," you can tell a lot about the person by their response. A response that is like, "Well, then your experience as a woman is inauthentic," is quite different from, "I'm glad you aren't having this experience." While I didn't respond to the "bees" post, I've gotten both these answers to other responses to statements about all women. If someone wants me to suffer so that their political statement is stronger, that person doesn't really care about me. Anyway, I'll just try to stay away from Facebook until the current round of mourning passes.

I just finished Shadowrun: Hong Kong. There were some elements of the game play that I didn't figure out until the very end (like how to heal my character in combat), so I thought that those could have been done a little better. However, I was there for the story, and the story was fucking amazing. You start out in an unfamiliar setting with people who you don't trust, and by the end, I really felt that the characters (even minor characters, like the kid who sells tech and the street doc) were friends. Charisma and intelligence are where I almost always put most of my points, and the game was flexible enough to let me use those skills to get through an awful lot of the game without combat. The writing was absolutely fantastic, and there were some moments that just blew me away with how funny or cool they were. Of course, it was plenty dark, because it is Shadowrun. However, I didn't feel overwhelmed by it at all. I really like the combat style (turn-based and from a distance). It may not be as immersive as games with much more modern graphics, but I find it less stressful (and just as immersive, to be honest). Anyway, I totally recommend it.

Not long ago, I reorganized my PC's desktop backgrounds to reflect my changing interests. While I do have some images from movies, TV shows, and anime that I liked, my favorite characters are still from video games. On top of that, I got rid of a bunch of backgrounds from National Geographic and put in photos that I took of cool places we have been. That has been so incredibly pleasant, although it has taught me how important it is to have the horizon level. This is today's background:



So, philosophy. I like clear, mathematical answers. Lots of life doesn't give that. Some religions do, but I tend to dislike those answers. Plus, religion often doesn't work for me. Philosophy seems to involve a lot of things that I don't really care about or find interesting. When asked about my religion, I sometimes say that I'm a buddhist, but the problem is that having visited buddhist temples, I find that I'm actually really uncomfortable with it as a religion. I'm interested in the philosophy part (the same is true of taoism). After a friend mentioned Star Trek the other day, I thought again wistfully of Vulcan philosophy. There are two problems with it: 1) it isn't really from a long tradition, so there is little beyond what is in the movies/tv shows, and 2) I'm not actually interested in something so strict or unsuited to humans. However, I am envious groups and people who search for greater meaning/whatever or have something to strongly believe in. When I read about what they believe, though, I'm usually put off by it and then go do something else. Trying to find something based on logic and rationality that was like Vulcan philosophy, I came across stoicism (as a philosophy, rather than a word with a specific but not exactly the same meaning in English). Stoicism has a number of benefits over Vulcan philosophy, namely being from a real tradition (and thus having a fully fleshed-out background with texts I can read, etc), having achievable goals rather than elements that were created for the plot of a movie, and having modern practitioners. The biggest challenge is going to be reading about it, since my eye focus and mental focus are kind of awful right now. Hopefully, that will improve shortly, as classes are over for a little while.

Pie fillings and balancing my food: I'm having trouble with eating too many peanuts again. If I come home late or am super tired, I tend to give up on maintaining a reasonable weight and just eat peanuts until I stop feeling awful. It works, but it is happening more often than I'd like, which in turn is making me more stressed and screwing up my sleep. I've known for a while that I am eating 40% of calories at breakfast and about 40% of protein. However, I eat 60% of fat at breakfast and 30% of carbs. I'm pretty sure that the lack of substantial fattiness at dinner is making things harder for me. Likewise, I could be getting tired because I'm not getting enough carbs at breakfast. So, I'm going to move some of my breakfast peanut consumption to later in the day and add some carbs to breakfast. My plan at the moment is to make some unsweetened spiced applesauce (like apple pie filling) and some unsweetened pumpkin that tastes like pumpkin pie filling. I figure I can add these to my (unsweetened) yogurt, which will boost the carbs. I'm going to have to come up with some way to add this to my database. That is going to be time consuming. *sigh*

Anyway, I'm feeling wiped out from school and all the immigration stuff, so I pushed back everything that didn't have to be done right this second to next week. I need to rest.