To soften that heavy last post, here’s some pics of the duvet cover that I got at Pottery Barn on Saturday. I love it, and after two nights with it, I’m happy with the sleep. It adds a bit more weight to the blanket which is something I like. We’ll see how the summer goes though. Might have to revert back to just the blue.
Anyway, my mom’s assessment is today, so we’ll know what they think and how much care she really needs. I’m nervous.
I’m making Larry’s pot roast recipe today in the slow cooker. It smells delicious in here, and I hope he’s proud in some way that I’m still trying to cook his favorites. I went to the grocery store yesterday to get not only ingredients for pot roast, but also the baked ziti and spaghetti carbonara. The recipes are there but I know that there’s probably gonna be issues, but I gotta try.
I was this close to making this a new entry in my “Larry Loved” series of posts, but I don’t have the energy to do that just yet, as honestly, a huge part of who he was was cooking, and to try to just throw a little post about me having a good cooking night isn’t fair to what should be discussed.
So instead of that, I’ll just kvetch about the fact that I’m back to having to cook and feed myself again. I’d managed to do so before I met Larry and when I was in the military, but looking back at it now, I really didn’t do that great a job of it. Lots of mac and cheese, lots of sorta sad attempts at chicken…and a metabolism that allowed me to make plenty of crap and not blow up to the size of a bigger Hobie. The last 11 years though? I got used to living it a little bit nicer with Larry’s ambitious and delicious views on cooking (and gained the weight to prove it). He loved it. And now I have a kitchen full of any device a reasonably ambitious cook would need. I don’t want it to go to waste, and I actually enjoy having nice(r) meals.
What sucks about cooking for yourself is that it’s work, both in prep, execution, and cleanup. Larry and I had split those duties up (probably not fairly, tbh – but it worked) but now it’s all me, and do I go to a ton of trouble for just me? So I started sorta basic this week – making chicken, brown rice, and green beans. Kind of a balanced meal, right? I think Larry would have been proud: I found a recipe online for salt and pepper chicken in the oven, and bam, it fucking tasted amazing. I made the rice on the stovetop and kind of found out things to do better, like keeping the heat a little higher as I still had water in the pot even after 20 minutes. Also discovered that brown rice is better for you but certainly doesn’t taste that great. But I gotta say, the food was overall delicious and it did make feel like Larry’s energy was with me.
A random aside: Larry kept all his recipes in the Paprika iPad app. All of them. So like, it’s a total Larry treasure trove. I did worry I’d lose them though as they’re all on what is literally like an iPad 3, so it’s supa dupa old. If that thing died, I’d lose the recipes. So I bought the app on my iPad, and finally figured out how to export the recipes from Paprika to the cloud, and then use my account, and re-import them. Now I’ve got all his recipes, and I can breathe a sigh of relief as losing those would just feel like losing a huge part of him. We had so many “go-to” recipes that I’ll one day get the motivation to make. So between this week’s chicken combo (which I’m making again), the Instapot, and now these recipes, I think I should be able to be a functional, well-mannered man who can cook meals for others soon. I definitely want to sign up for some cooking classes to just get confident in certain skills. But that’s a post for another day.
I’ve discovered I can start crying at the drop of a hat. Okay, to be more specific, grieving for me can be “okay one minute – absolutely crestfallen the next.” It’s obviously what grief is in terms of a definition, but it just can take a lot out of you. This morning, I woke up and just started crying, and that was because I started just thinking about all the things that have happened or are happening in my life, and it just made me sad and anxious. I have to trust that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but right now, it’s all tunnel.
Why am I writing that? Just that when nice things happen, it’s good to enjoy them, as I can find myself very easily in the midst of crying. So this past weekend, it got started out right by having dinner with Carey & Paras at the Sugarfish in Hollywood. As I’ve raved previously, Sugarfish is the shit. The best sushi around especially at the price point you get it at.
The key is to get there a little ahead of the rush – we got seated around 5:45, which was perfect. When we left around 7, the waiting area was packed, and since Sugarfish doesn’t do reservations, you gotta wait. We then headed down the street to Arclight to see The Gentlemen. I had barely heard of this Guy Ritchie movie, and let me tell you, it’s fucking awesome. An exciting and compelling crime story with a bunch of movie stars having a blast. If, like me, you’d never heard of it before, by all means go check it out. Fun stuff. Hugh Grant is so far from his typical “Hugh Grant”-ness it’s mind-blowing.
Jan 31 Night at Sugarfish and Arclight with Carey & Paras:
Beautiful sunset accompanied by lots of helicopters
On Saturday, I went over to visit mom for the first time since going with her to Helen’s for Christmas Eve. I brought the wedding album I’d put together and she was able to remember all of that and the things we did then, and she managed to remember Larry had died, but it’s just not the same person. Stacie and I are going to have to look to find a place for her to live, such as independent or assisted living as it just can’t continue on with how it is now, as it’s no way to live. So on the way back home, I just wanted to try to make Larry proud, so I picked up filet mignons (enough for 3 people) and potatoes and broccoli, as I invited Nicki and Sveta over for dinner. Everybody pitched in to help make dinner, and we ended up having medium-rare filets, baked potatoes, and roasted garlic broccoli. It was fucking great. Ended up mostly just talking that night, although I keep wanting to play “Ticket to Ride”, the actual board game. One day.
Feb 1 Filet Mignon Night with Nicki & Sveta:
On Sunday, I endeavored to try to start the process of cleaning up some of Larry’s stuff. As it is now, I can’t even touch his clothes or shoes, whether they’re in the closet or on the dresser. It hurts too much to think about it and the tears, as explained above, come like clockwork. So I thought I’d take it easy on myself and just try to clear out some of the bathroom pills and such. Well, I did manage to clear out stuff that probably Larry should have thrown out long ago, as well as remove excess stuff. Still couldn’t get rid of things like his glasses though. It’s not like I can even wear his glasses as my head is too big for his frames; nor can I wear his pants or shoes, so it makes sense that I should probably work on those to go. But it’s just, I don’t think I can bear to have the closet half empty, or the drawers only filled on my side, as right now, I’m not triggered when I walk into my bedroom. There’s something comforting about his stuff being there still. But as I type this with tears in my eyes, I know I have to start bracing myself for that, and maybe I have friends with me when I do, but I don’t even know if that will help. Fuck all of this.
Yes, I’ve begun the process of seeing a therapist. She’s come over to the house a few times, and it’s still been an assessment period, so I think the next time would be truly the first session? But these first few times have felt like a way to talk about these things I’m feeling and I guess it helps. I just want to see if the tunnel ends.
Later on Sunday, Nicki kept me company while we watched the Super Bowl. Still don’t really care about it, but at least the game was interesting and the commericals were okay. The half time show was awesomesauce:
No clue what we were doing. We have been watching “For All Mankind” at that point, along with The Morning Show, ST:TNG, The Mandalorian, and Castle Rock Season 2. It was actually Sunday when we made chicken coq au vin in the Instapot that night, which was fun and fairly successful!
Larry (and Fran) had gotten me an Instapot for my birthday – and we got to put it to good use the first week. I had been so motivated by the cookbook I saw at the Barnes & Noble back in New Jersey that I got the cookbook first without even having an Instapot, that once we finally did have it, we had to dive in. As you’ll see, it was successful and a lot of fun for us – I don’t think Larry expected me to be so into it, as cooking was more his thing and not mine. But I loved the gimmick of cooking all in one pot. Of course the mise en place is where all the real work goes. These two meals took place a few days apart – unfortunately we had a worrisome time in between as Larry’s abdomen started to swell and City of Hope basically got very concerned about what was happening. It’s so fucking unfair what happened, as I write about this in March 2020. Fuck all of it.
First Recipe – Chicken Tikka Masala, Oct 26, 2019:
