Why oh why do I always…

Why oh why do I always forget that when I make vindaloo, I'm supposed to marinate the goat meat in vinegar and salt and chili for two hours before I start cooking properly? I always end up in the same situation -- the rice and curry are cooked and ready, except that the goat is still very tough. And it smells so good and vinegary and I am so hungry that I cannot wait, and so my first meal of it is always chewing through some very tough meat. Sigh. Ah well. It is continuing to simmer now, and in an hour or so, perhaps I will have seconds, or even thirds. Because I am pregnant, and the one redeeming fact about pregnancy (aside from, you know, the child at the end of it), is that I get to eat whatever I want, whenever I want, and about twice as much as I normally would. As long as I keep delicious food in the house, this is a very good thing.

It's been a busy week, but thankfully, a quiet Saturday so far. Wednesday evening was the little reception that the Chicago Foundation for Women hosted to honor those of us who received the Breaking Barriers Award. It didn't start out well -- Jarmila had class that night, so we tried taking Kavi. Within fifteen minutes of arrival, it was clear that was just not going to work -- normally she's a sweet and happy girl, and likes socializing with strangers. But Wed. night, she was clinging to me like a monkey (making it a little hard to network) and crying her little head off. I think the restaurant was just way too loud for her; she doesn't handle that sort of environment well. So Kevin took her home before the ceremony started, which was a bit sad, but ah well.

The rest of the evening was great -- I had a moment of panic when they asked each of us to talk a little bit about being an Asian American artist, but luckily, I've talked about this sort of thing before, and was able to improvise something respectable. (It turned out that they'd left me a voice mail on my cell phone a few days earlier warning me about this, but I hadn't gotten the message. People, my cell phone is not a reliable way to reach me! Especially with voice mail!!!) The crowd laughed quite a bit, at all the right spots, and when I got choked up at the end, they seemed quite sympathetic. It really was a very pleasant evening, and I met some fascinating people, and got to home with a pretty glass award, etched with my name and some lovely complimentary words. Nice! I like getting awards! More, please. :-)

Thursday was a long teaching day, and I pretty much collapsed afterwards (aside from reading all the sweet congratulatory notes from y'all). Friday, I went up to Devon with Lori, and we ate so well. We started at Tahoora, which has tons of empty tables and outlets for our laptops, with amazing samosas and strong chai. Yum. Wrote there for about two hours, making good progress on AP, until we got too cold -- the big problem with writing there is that it's freezing. If we do that again, I need a shawl to go over my sweater. Or possibly a blanket. We took a break from writing for Lori to get groceries and me to go talk to a shopowner who'd volunteered to help us publicize Kriti -- it looks like she'll have a table selling handicrafts at the festival, and can even help us find someone to do mehndi, so that'll be much fun. She had a lot of good ideas about publicity too, which I need to follow up on. Or make my interns follow up on. :-)

Then lunch at Hema's Kitchen, which was oh, so good. Lori, what was it we had for an appetizer again? So yummy. And the mango lassis were great (especially when they first came out and were still cold). I loved my shrimp vindaloo; it had a creamy sauce that I think is not so close to authentic, but it was so delicious who cares about authentic? I couldn't stop sopping up sauce with naan, until even my pregnant tummy was utterly stuffed. We sat and sipped lassi and wrote for another hour afterwards, and I got through to the epilogue. And then we waddled out of the restaurant and headed home; I paused to make two stops, to pick up some sari fabric to drape over the gazebo (after a bit of hemming and ribbon-attaching and such), and to get some goat meat at the halal butcher. I meant to get groceries too, but I was just too tired -- as I said pregnancy really wipes me out, at least at this stage. So I'm afraid I'm going to have to go back up to Devon sometime in the next month. Oh, the tragedy.

Today, a bit of paperwork, a bit of cleaning, a lot of resting. Not feeling so great; I think I exhausted myself pretty good yesterday. And it didn't help that I woke up at 3:30, wide awake. Although I'm pleased that I actually got my laptop and wrote for an hour, instead of just killing time on the net, or lying in bed trying to sleep. After writing, I had relaxed enough that I could go back to sleep for a little while. And then Kavi was up, and it was time to get up too. Now I get to try to get a bit of rice and veggies into her, and then bath, and then bed. For both of us, I think! :-)