My Aspie Cat

December 24, 2015

Kathy Hooperman wrote a book a few years ago entitled All Cats have Asperger’s Syndrome. Now, I’ve lived with a lot of cats over my life, and for the last thirty-seven years I’ve lived with a man with Asperger’s. I’ve never agreed with Hooperman’s (playful) take on cats…until our newest one.

Pyxel came to us as an eight-week old kitten getting on for five years ago. I picked her up at our local humane society; she was the last of a litter that had come in for adoption. I was looking for an independent, well-adjusted, playful female kitten, a companion for our year-old Pye. (Pye was unplanned, a gift from someone who left her, twelve weeks old, on our doorstep in the middle of the night.) Pye came into a household with two elderly cats, and she wasn’t getting the exercise she needed, so we figured she needed a kitten.

Pyxel – she’s a tuxedo cat – settled in quite well. (Pye was terrified of her for the first month, but got over it eventually.) I don’t remember when I first began to notice the ‘Aspie’ qualities. But I have never been owned by a cat with such a need for routine. Not (mostly) around food: they have food on demand and eat when they want, and don’t even bother to tell us if the bowl is empty. And during the day – when we used not to be home – there are no routines. But between 7 p.m and 7 a.m., every single day, this is what Pyxel requires:

7:30 p.m. Humans have finished dinner. Time for treat, yes? (Dental treat, but she doesn’t know that.) Paws on table. Paws on couch. Up on footstool, stare at female human. Nothing happens until male human picks up tv remote. Now it’s really time! Treat given, eaten. Go away to sleep on the stairs.

10 p.m. Human bedtime. Run up the stairs. Jump into the electric-blanket box female human left on the bedroom floor last year (which is sooooo neat because it has a side opening and top opening). Look up expectantly. Female human scratches head. More looking up expectantly. Male human comes in and scratches head, leaves again. Jump out of the electric-blanket box and drink some water.

11 p.m. Humans are asleep. Bring a toy up the stairs and announce the gift loudly, until female human talks to you.

6-7 a.m. Humans are still asleep. Meow. No effect? Jump on windowsill and play with the blind cord so it rattles. Still no effect? Jump on dresser and knock something off.

7 a.m. Female human gets up. Run part-way down the stairs and look up expectantly. Female human throws the toy brought in the night down the stairs. Pounce on it. Wait for the female human to get downstairs. Run to the step between the living room and the sunroom. Jump to catch the toy as its thrown into the sunroom.

OK, that’s done with, now I can do what I want (play with toys, move rugs around, watch birds, chase Pye, and sleep a bit) until 7 p.m.

Every day. If we go away – and we’ve left them for over a month (with a cat-sitter daily, of course) – the routines begin immediately we’re home. I have never known a cat like this. As well, she hates being picked up, doesn’t purr, sleeps less than any cat we’ve ever had, and has just recently begun to initiate sitting on laps – but generally only if we have either an iPad or a book.

As I said, I’ve been partnered with an Aspie for thirty-seven years. I swear the diagnosis fits this cat: she’s got almost as many daily routines as he does. (Pye, on the other hand, is just a typical cat, except for her pathological need to be picked up, but she was abandoned…so maybe that makes sense. Our other abandoned cat had the same need.)

Does anyone else have a cat with this need for routine?

Just How Connected do I Need to Be?

December 17, 2015

We live 70 km (40 miles) from downtown Toronto, but there are times it feels like 700 km. Not only do we have a well, and a septic tank, and until not-very-long ago no garbage or recycling pickup, we are – shall we say – underserviced in the wireless communications department.

Until very recently the only place I could get a cell phone signal was outside. That’s improved, which is good, because the cell phone system is how we access the internet. It’s the only signal that reaches our house effectively, surrounded as we are by very tall trees. We have what is called a ‘turbo-hub’, basically a wireless router that uses the cell phone signal instead of other options. The problem is, it’s expensive.

We pay in usage increments, up to 15 GB of data, which maxes out at $105, and then per MB after that. Yep, per MB. This hadn’t actually been a problem until very recently, when a combination of three things brought us up short. The first was automatic updates to Windows and to our virus protection, which for our two laptops was suddenly eating up about 2GB every month….and that’s without the potential Windows 10 download. And then there are automatic app updates on our two iPADs and our two iPhones. The second was a period of rapid growth in my freelance writing & editing business, which suddenly took off – but as it’s all done electronically, it was using a lot of data, especially when there are pictures involved. And the third was my on-line university course, which suddenly had a lot of on-line interactive map manipulations in the assignments. When last month’s overage charges were one and half times our 15GB rate, we knew something had to change.

Now my business actually does something, the obvious solution is for me to get a separate turbo-hub for my laptop, so I can charge the costs back to the business. Which I will do, in the new year. But until then, we took a hard look at our internet use, and more importantly, our habits.

How often a day do I actually need to check Facebook, Twitter, Google+, my blog pages, and e-mail? Once? Twice? The business e-mail more often, yes, and I use social media to advertise and promote, but I still don’t need to be on them constantly. And why were all our devices constantly connected to the internet? How long does it actually take to make that connection? So things have been turned to airplane mode when not actively in use, the phones are off wi-fi completely (we have a decent amount of data in our plan) and I’m disciplining myself about social media. The personal e-mail gets checked once a day – if something’s really important, my siblings or friends will text me…or, heaven forfend, actually call me. But in our instantly connected world, this is taking conscious work to break these habits.

Almost equally hard to break was the immediate up-or-downloading of files. The next chapters have arrived from one of my editorial customers? Download them right now. Finished the edits? Send them back right now, regardless of the fact the customer is several time zones away. Until the business turbo-hub is in place, ‘right now’ has been replaced by ‘when I’m in town, and can access the secure network at the university’. Has anyone complained? Nope…..

The result of all this is not only will we not get hit with another bill of $250 for a month of internet, I actually get more work done, more efficiently. Does that surprise anyone? No? Not even me…so now I’m wondering how I let myself spend my time (and my money) so inefficiently, for the sake of the reassurance (or disappointment ) we get from those instant connections. But I have to say, playing with the maps in my landscape archaeology course may have used a lot of data, but it was a lot of fun.

The One-Stop Holiday Shop

December 11, 2015

We don’t, as an extended family-and-friends group, give anything but small, consumable holiday presents. We’re all adults, all well-enough off and we all own too much stuff. The money we would have spent goes to a cause of the donor’s choice, and we celebrate with food, wine, winter walks and conversation.

But there is still that small consumable present to buy. In keeping with our belief in shopping locally, I consider my options. There is a lavender farm just north of us that has lots of lovely little products. There is a bee-keeper who makes beautiful candles with the beeswax. There is local maple syrup. Or there is Rose’s, our bakery-preserves shop right here in the village. Rose’s jams and chutneys and pickles and salsa are scrumptious, made mostly from locally-grown produce, providing employment and revenue right in our village. Rose’s wins.

I stop on my way to town: I can walk there, but not with nearly two dozen jars of preserves in my bag. I’ve chosen late morning on a mid-week day, when she isn’t so busy. The shelves are lined with jars, their contents gleaming red and purple and green. I buy blueberry jam and hot salsa, crabapple jelly and cranberry-apple chutney, spicy red pepper jelly and bread-and-butter pickles, while inhaling the scent of bread baking. Probably I buy more than I need, but we’ll eat anything that’s left over.

I could, in theory, preserve my own jams and pickles now; retirement should give me the time. But my days are too full already, and with such a supply just down the road, I’m happy to buy them from Rose. A little bit of our local food will make its way around the province in the next few weeks, our local farm and rural economy will benefit, and my holiday shopping stress is nil. Now I can start the holiday baking!

The New Coffee Maker

December 3, 2015

Buying anything new in our house is not just a question of going shopping. All purchases of any substance need discussion. If it’s a replacement item, what is wrong with the old one – can it be fixed? Do we actually need it? Can one be found second-hand? If it’s something new to the house, why? What purpose does it serve, and what need does it fill that currently isn’t met? We don’t need more things, and we’re trying to reduce what we have.

I drink coffee. I love coffee. BD hates the stuff. I’ve had a little 4-cup drip coffee maker for years and years…and it was slowly dying, not heating the water to a sufficient temperature. I tried cleaning it. No better. Reluctantly, I decided it really had to be replaced. I need my coffee. Equally reluctantly, BD agreed. ‘Can you get something that doesn’t make the whole house smell like coffee?’ he asked (after the initial ‘Why don’t you give the stuff up?’ followed by ‘Can’t you just drink instant?’ )

Hmmmm. I used to have a French press, many years ago, but cleaning it was a pain, even though it made good coffee. I did some research, and found the AeroPress. Basically a modified French press, the AeroPress sits on top of a mug. You add a filter and coffee to the detachable filter basket, screw it onto the body, add water just a bit below boiling, and press down on the plunger. The on-line reviews were fabulous.

I was fairly sure that my local roast-their-own beans coffee shop would carry it, and I was right. The barrista there raved about it. It was about thirty dollars, twice what a replacement 4-cup drip maker would cost, but it won’t make the house smell like coffee from the pot sitting on the warmer, and will use less water -I almost always made more coffee than I drank, because I could never get small amounts to taste right. (Water use matters – we buy our drinking water, because our well, while safe from a bacterial count viewpoint, has a high manganese and iron content, and tastes unpleasant. So every couple of weeks, BD drives to town with the big reusable bottles and refills them and that’s what we and the cats drink.)

I’ve had it for four days. The verdict? It makes great coffee. It took me a day or two to work out exactly how much coffee and how much water I needed to make it taste just right, not too strong, not too weak. It’s a cinch to clean, the filter and used coffee pop out directly into the compost bin, and it doesn’t take up counter space.

It also means I’m not drinking coffee mindlessly, because it’s in the pot. Already my coffee consumption has dropped because I have to think about whether or not I want to take the three or four minutes it takes to make a cup. I always meant to only drink two cups a day, one in the morning, one after lunch – but it was there on the counter, calling to me. I’m sleeping better, and my stomach is happier. What’s not to like?

As Christmas Approaches

December 1, 2015

December, and time here in Canada to start thinking about the holidays. While we acknowledge the need for ritual and gathering in the shortest, darkest days of the year, Christmas is not a holiday BD and I usually celebrate, for a number of reasons. Neither of us are conventionally religious, and therefore the Christian reasons for the holiday are not relevant to us. The rampant consumerism that has taken it over in most of the western world also repels us, and, finally, BD – who has the two-sided gift called Asperger’s Syndrome – is overwhelmed by the lights, music, colours and crowds of the season. So, over the years, we’ve distanced ourselves from the mad rush of Christmas.

For many years we’ve travelled over the period, removing ourselves from it altogether. We’ve been, on December 25th, places as far-flung as Antarctica (it’s summer there, in mid December), India, China and England. But this year, since we are no longer bound by the two-week school holiday, we’re not travelling until January, and will be home.

We’re spending Christmas Day with BD’s brother’s family, his nephew home from Australia, where he’s in grad school; his niece home from a closer university. We haven’t yet decided who is contributing what to the meal, but it will be a shared effort. We’ll tell stories and learn what the kids have been up to, and be respectful of this family’s Christian beliefs, as they will be respectful of our agnosticism. Then we’ll head down to my sister’s house for the 27th, to spend some time with her and her husband, and my brother and his family. This is the first year without anyone from our parent’s generation: both my father, and my sister-in-law’s father, died this past year, and so we are gathering differently, to share food and wine and laughter in a different house than other years, a new chapter in the story.

When I look back on my childhood, what I remember of Christmas – what stands out – is never the presents. I remember the food, the turkey and stuffing, the cranberry sauce and the mince tarts. There were almost always extra people at that dinner: widowed friends, an elderly childless couple, my mother doing her best to alleviate loneliness for one day. I remember decorating the tree each year, bringing out the old, battered decorations, having their stories retold each year, maybe adding one or two new ones, often hand-made. I remember sitting one year with my older brother singing Silent Night in front of the tree. I remember the long games of Monopoly on Christmas afternoon. And the few presents I do remember were ones made with love and by hand: a new outfit for my favourite doll, when I was about 4 or 5; a purple corduroy housecoat when I was thirteen, a hand-carved plaque saying Sid (because my hair, in the mornings, looked like Sid Vicious’s,) that BD made me early on in our relationship.

Our families on both sides have long ago given up on exchanging anything more than token, consumable presents: none of us need anything, and so the money we would have spent goes to support a cause we believe in – anything from the local food bank to mosquito nets, wildlife habitat to refugee sponsorship. Some of those battered decorations will be on my sister’s Christmas tree this year, and the stuffing and mince tarts are still my mother’s recipes. Our extended celebrations will be spread over the days between the solstice – December 22nd this year – when we light a candle that will burn through the night, an acknowledgement of the shortest day, to New Year’s Day, when we’ll host friends and family for a late lunch.

Whatever you celebrate or acknowledge in late December, whether or not your family is close or not, there is a deep atavistic need for light and warmth and companionship in the darkest days in the northern hemisphere. I wish that for everyone, although I know it isn’t possible for many. As you plan your Christmas, think about what you remember. I am old enough that a tangerine in my stocking was a special treat of the season. Such a small thing…but given with great love. That is what I remember.

The Monthly Menu

November 27, 2015

In the first months of retirement, it felt good to be able to shop every day or so, especially with the farmer’s markets in full swing. It was a luxury I hadn’t had in my working days.

But over this autumn, as my days of leisure become fuller with the work of my third, chosen, career, it’s becoming a nuisance. The markets are closed, except for the Saturday ones, and the roads are becoming icy, so last month we went back to the monthly menu.

Once a month, we sit down and plan meals. I create a four-column chart: Date, Meal, Prep on Day, Need to Buy. This goes on the fridge, and can be modified as needed – if I only use half a tin of chopped tomatoes in the curry, then a note is made on the next meal that needs them that they’re in the freezer. I use this chart to determine monthly and weekly shopping lists; I tend to buy meat monthly and freeze it, and everything else weekly, with a quick top-up shop half-way to buy milk or yoghurt or eggs, as our fridge isn’t big enough to keep large supplies of these on hand. It also reminds me what to thaw and what other prep is needed on the day.

This works because there are only two of us, and our lives are fairly predictable. If we decide to go out to a movie and dinner with friends, that’s ok -that meal either doesn’t get made, or, it gets moved to the next day, and that meal cancelled, whichever is easier. Meals can be moved around without too much difficulty, and left-overs always have a meal to be included in.

The other advantage is that in six weeks, when we leave for an extended vacation, we’re not leaving behind a freezer and fridge half-full of food. We left once for a two-week holiday over Christmas, only to have our area hit by a vicious ice-storm that meant our house was without power for eight days. All the freezer foods, all the fridge perishables, had to be discarded (luckily our cat sitter is very flexible on what tasks she’ll take on – oh, and the cats went to live with a friend for that time) as we kept in touch by text from England. I’d like not to put her in that situation again, so both fridge and freezer will be empty of anything that could go bad.

Will I keep this up in the summer, when the markets are open again and fresh local food abounds? Probably not….or I’ll modify it a bit…but for the winter months, it works for us.

The Quiet Joy of Enough

November 24, 2015

Walking today on the snowy trails at our local conservation area, BD expressed once again his sense of disbelief that we are actually retired. Like many – if not most – of our generation, he’d expected to work to 65. ‘But,’ I gently pointed out, ‘many people just wouldn’t be prepared to take the pay cut we did, to retire early.’

‘Enough’ played its role in determining it was time to retire.  Both in it’s negative sense: ‘I’ve had enough of this job.’ and in its positive: ‘We have enough money to retire.’  The latter statement was true only if we kept the positive concept of ‘enough’ in our minds.  ‘What isn’t need is greed’: I don’t know who said that, and I’m not sure I entirely agree with it – but that depends on how you define need. If you acknowledge that the soul has needs as well as the body, then it’s not a bad quote.

‘Enough’ sometimes is difficult.  My health issues have meant I have had to learn what ‘enough’ is with regard to certain foods; that one glass of wine is plenty; that I have physical limitations that must be considered. BD has had similar lessons to learn.  But ‘enough’ is also marvelous: there is enough time now for me to write, to read and review books, to edit for others, to walk every day: all the things that the demands of the salaried job took away from me.  And even better, there is enough money that I can do these things as a true amateur, for the love of them, and not for profit, and so I have only myself to answer to. But this is true because I can say this of so many things: clothes, furnishings, possessions of all sorts –  ‘I have enough’.

I will honestly admit to greed in the past. I had too many clothes; I liked food and wine all too well, and no-one needs the travel experiences we have had, although how can you regret the sight of a tiger hunting along an Indian river, or an Adele penguin standing at your feet, peering up at you? I can’t.  But I can also say, even about that, ‘enough’.  We have the memories.

Our world is smaller now, but our time is…ours.  I wake every morning with quiet joy, knowing I have enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parsnip and Ginger Soup

November 21, 2015

One cold winter’s day, many years ago, BD and I had lunch in a pub in Holkham Village, a tiny hamlet on the North Norfolk coast in England. The pub, or more properly, the hotel, The Victoria, was serving parsnip and ginger soup that cold December day; we had that, and a sandwich.

I don’t remember the sandwich, but the soup was unforgettable. Creamy and smooth, the nutty flavour of parsnips paired beautifully with the tang of ginger, and it was the way the ginger burst on the tastebuds after each swallow of soup that made it stand out. We were still talking about it when we got back to Canada. So I tried to recreate it.

I knew what the ingredients were: parsnips, ginger root, and cream. I didn’t know the proportions. It took three tries to get it right, and then it was the special soup I made for dinner parties for years. Until BD’s newly developed allergies meant he could no longer have cream, or milk. I simply stopped making it.

But I miss that soup. It was special; for its memories of The Victoria, for the problem-solving BD and I did together to make it, for all the dinner parties at which it was served and the pleasure of our friends on eating it. So I’m going to try again.

This is what I know. I need to use parsnips from the farmer’s market: parsnips need to be left in the ground late into the fall, or even over the winter under a bed of mulch, to develop their deepest, nutty flavour. The ginger root needs to be freshly grated. And I need a fat source: the fat in the cream is what holds the flavour of the ginger and makes it burst on the tongue. So I am going to try this: soymilk with added soybean oil, to push the fat content up to the 10% of the cream I used to use.

Here’s the approximate recipe.

1 kg (2.2 lb) parsnips, peeled and chopped.

3 -6 pieces ginger root, each about a finger’s length, peeled and chopped finely. (How many depends on how much you like ginger!)

1 L plain soymilk with 15 mL soybean oil added (1 quart/1 Tbsp), or, for the original recipe, use table cream (10% butterfat).

Cook the ginger root in water until it softens – this can be quite a long time. At the same time, boil the parsnips until they are mashable. Pour off the parsnip water (keep it) and the ginger water (keep it too).

Blend the parsnips and ginger in small amounts with soymilk; return to the pot. If the mix is too thick (likely) thin with first the reserved ginger water and then, if needed, the parsnip water.

This soup is better if made the day before, allowed to cool, and gently reheated (a slow cooker is good). It’s great as a first course, or complements strong cheeses and good breads well for a light meal.

Any suggestions to duplicate the effect of the cream will be gladly received!

 

The Scars of War

November 16, 2015

I haven’t felt much like posting anything in light of the horrors happening in Beirut and Lebanon and Paris this past week; any comment on my own life would seem trivial.  While I grieve for lives lost in all sites of war and terrorism, it is human nature to grieve more when there is a direct connection, and so I was hit hardest by the events in Paris.

Just a few days ago – on November 11th – I posted a picture of my mother in Paris, taken during her posting there in World War II.  She had volunteered for the forces, trained by them as a teletype operator, and sent to France to work at SHAEF under Eisenhower’s command.  For a young woman from a small English village, this was an experience she might never had had otherwise.  She both loved and hated her war years; loved being in Paris, but hated the war, hated being privy to the reports of actions and deaths that she transcribed in her job, loved the camaraderie but hated the losses.  As, I think, would we all.

But I am here today because my mother was sent to France, to Paris, because among the other female troops there was a young woman named Catherine. They became friends, and after the war my mother went to visit Catherine and met her brother Harry.  Two years later they married.

I’ve only been to Paris once, for ten days twenty years ago.  We walked the streets, took the boat down the Seine to look at the architecture, climbed the stairs to the top of Notre Dame.  We ate in cafes, visited the galleries, took the train out to Versailles where my mother had actually been stationed, climbed the hill at Montmartre.  All the touristy things.  I loved the city, and I am not a city person at heart.

My mother died almost three years ago, well into her nineties.  I am glad she did not have to witness the horror in Paris this past week.  During her time in France, at some point the building she was in was bombed.  She was buried for some hours, but otherwise unharmed physically.  She seldom talked about it.  What we did not realize until the day the World Trade Centre was hit was how deep the psychological scars had gone:  watching that horror, watching the buildings fall, overwhelmed her, triggering a series of physiological reactions that ended in a stroke.  She did make a full recovery (with the help of a nursing home director who found ways to find her psychological support as well as physical rehab) and went on to live another twelve good years.

But I can’t help thinking how she buried that psychological wounding for nearly sixty years, and wonder what the psychological wounds of those who witness the violence and destruction of  this past week will be, and what the scars are for those who have been witnessing – and living with – violence and destruction for so many years now. So when I mourn for Paris, I am mourning for so much more: for what my mother hid for sixty years, for the toll it took on her, and the toll that violence takes on everyone, whether it is Paris, or Beirut; whether it is from terrorism or war, or from a gun in the hands of the wrong person, with or without a uniform.  I have no answers.  I only know all lives matter and grief is universal, and that we may not know the true price for so very many years.