Thursday, August 18, 2016

If this isn't a bit of heaven, then I don't want to go there

I used to be married to an Hispanic women, she was wife number three. Actually I've been married three times to two different women so depending on how you count, she was either number two or three. Not much good came out of the time I spent with her, except I learned what Chiliquiles were. And I fell in love. 

They're that good.

The problem was, I had never made them. I know they are pretty simple. Just old chips, sauce, cheese and fried eggs. So I don't ever eat them any more and have never tried to make them since I wouldn't want to eat them. But recently, I had a hankerin' for 'em. I wanted them, bad. But it's the GMO corn thing, the fried in Canola Oil thing, the I would never eat a grocery store egg thing, I won't eat them. Well, I won't go to a restaurant to eat them.

So, I'm the Great Food Guy. I can make things better, healthier, tastier. Not really, not when it comes to chiliquiles. I had hoped. But I was mistaken. First, I thought why use corn chips when I can use something else. So I tried frying sweet potato chips in coconut oil. Yuck. I fried zuchinni slices in the same. Double yuck. I made some whole wheat tortillas from real whole wheat and fried them. Then I tried baking them. Okay, -ish. But not great. 

So, I realized that Big Food is responding to the needs of the consumers, that we, well some of us, are not the drones spending food dollars willy-nilly like in the old days of black and white TV and the sheeple spent money on what ever commercials where shown. Truthfully, that was the age of convenience foods and consumers bought everything new and easy. Now, Big Food is actually trying. Some of them are anyway. So I found Tostitos Organic chips and Safeway Organic "O's" brand organic chips as well. I make the greatest green salsa ever, my Chef Roy The Great Food Guy Cactus Salsa. So, I already only buy my eggs at the farmers market that way I don't ever have to eat eggs from any commercial egg manufacturing facility (notice I don't call them chicken farms?) So all I had to do was assemble, bake, fry, top, and then enjoy.

Turns out, it was easier than I ever thought it would be, and they tasted way better than any of the ones I ever ate at the places that wife number three hauled me around to. Sheesh. So, follow along, crush a few chips up, place in oven proof container. Pour in some salsa, almost up to the top of the chips. Bake for about 15 minutes, remove, cover with
 cheese, bake again until the cheese melts. Fry some eggs, top with whatever. I used to eat meat in the old days. Not any more. Then go ahead and be creative. Here I used an avocado and some of my dip mix stirred into some Organic sour cream.




 

 And that's my scary happy face.


 




Yep

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Insight.... into me.



And as she screamed at me about how insensitive and unloving I was being, in my own head all I could do was agree with her.  Everything I did, all of my interactions with her, my family, my coworkers, were just tired worn out copies of emotional responses that I used over and over again.  What worked once, I tried to use as a one size fits all response to conflict, solutions to any and all dilemmas as they arise.  And let's face it, I had no silver spoon, there were no magic beans for me growing up.  There was no conceptual concrete basis for existence within a community network of humans that was developed during my childhood.  For all intents and purposes, my developmental growth took place in a framework of dysfunction pure and simple.  My homelife was the very definition of dysfunctional and indeed I was the poster boy.



Strength of will, determination and an individual conceptual realization have led to an understanding that I am a living breathing product of a billion years of evolution, of thousands of years of societal growth and progression, of selective breeding and of corporate husbandry in the rearing of my person in preparation to become a consuming commodity within American society. And other than television reruns of Leave it to Beaver, no emotional instruction what so ever had been done to prepare me to exist in this world.



I wouldn't say my time in church helped any, Biblical tales of slavery, war, execution, and then there's Ezekial 23:20, that got me a little excited. As probably all young males did. The travesty of religion is that mentality of do this, be generous, don't lie, cheat, steal,.. kill, were stories in the bible and just tales of lives past. Rewards were achieved by so many for such activities. And yet we are not to live our lives according to what those people did. We are to take the Holy Bible as the true word of that God and is irrefutable evidence of how we are to live. That living a good life and emulating the main character in the book will lead us to the ultimate reward, heaven. I never figured that part out and so none of it was any help in my dealings with my wife, my family, my friends, and the world around me.



When I was twenty I was befriended by a Native American shaman who spent the greater part of three years teaching me to see the beauty and majesty of our Mother Earth. And to recognize her signs as guides to live our lives. And the hardest thing, to stop my internal dialogue. And although to this day I can see the auras of people, feel their emotions and generally tell when someone lies to me, it never actually helped me in the day to day living with my wife. That set of beliefs, the realization that I am but an individual part of the Universal Consciousness, that I am here in this plane of existence to learn, to help, to grow spiritually and to consciously expand the parameters of my beliefs in not just my existence, but the place each of us holds within the Universe. I still needed help just understanding why my wife and I could not agree to simple constructs of emotional stability within our chosen existence together.



As I aged, I did come to realize that no matter what I personally wanted to be true, what actually occurred around me, was not always within my belief that all should be as I desire. That perhaps was my greatest revelation and geared me toward a greater understanding of my participation of life within this Plane of Existence. Now, years later, I still can't keep the interest of the women I meet, and for unknown reasons find me attractive. It's possible they just tire rapidly of my self-deprecating mannerisms. Or as I have been told by so many friends, that the expression of intellect manifests itself into the image of superiority. Which in reality isn't something that I believe within myself. That I recognize I have superior knowledge retention has never given me acceptance that I am able to utilize that pure asset of memory recall effectively within my simple existence in society. I do understand it doesn't work that way. I do not however, use those same tired copies of blanket responses to conflict and instead attempt to derive new expressions to fit specific circumstances. Perhaps it's that part that I'm just not that good at. Nothing of my life experiences were ever remotely like the fictionalized drama of Leave it to Beaver. I had virtually no other role models. Well, perhaps Bella Lugosi...