See My Food?

Last night my husband and I joined a good friend who was celebrating her 40th birthday. As it was also our 11th wedding anniversary, it was a planned night of partying and good times. One of her friends chose a Japanese restaurant for all of us for dinner. I had a picture in my head of all of us seated around a grill with an Asian chef twirling and juggling knives as he deftly sliced and diced my chosen meal of either beef, chicken, or shrimp or a combination of all three.

The emphasis I would place on this image in my head is COOKED food.

Unfortunately, that image was quickly squashed when I realized that I was in a house of sushi. While we did gather around a table, a chef did not come out to thrill us with his knife dexterity or his cooking knowledge. Instead, a fisherman who'd reeled in his catch earlier plopped it down in the middle of our table. Where I am sad to say, my fellow tablemates sucked down these poor creatures like they were in an episode of Survivor, or worse, Fear Factor.

As much as I pride myself as one willing to try things, I draw the line at a meal that might up and walk off of my plate.

There was yellow-tail, tuna, salmon, and gasp, eel. Oh, and the octopus was on the menu as well, but no one signed up for that tasty dish. It was all wrapped in a beautiful bed of rice tied tightly with a rope of seaweed! Most of my tablemates opted to ignore the rice as some were on low carb diets. Instead, they slurped on the raw seafood in the middle and left the rice shell to sit forlornly on the plate.

To start things out, they served a soy-based soup with pieces of floating tofu and ended with a complimentary dish of birthday green wasabi ice cream. The smell alone was enough to kill me. When I want the scent of raw sea creatures, I prefer to be sitting in the sand on a private beach somewhere watching seagulls eat the sushi. It is a miracle that I was able to hold down my diet coke.

Thankfully, I was able to wash away the scent and the taste of my tempura (a sushi bar isn't exactly great at cooked food either) with a coconut creme pie martini from the bar we ended up at later in the evening. I went to bed, hungry. But what an exciting experience for my anniversary.

Happy 40th Birthday, Veronica! May you never meet a mermaid in the next 40 years of your life!

Stirring the cauldron

I have decided in the last month or so that I need to study religion. My husband, one day, was bemoaning the fact that I'm always griping about the fanatical religious zealots out there who do not believe that women have rights to their bodies, their country, etc. He felt that I was missing out on the right things a church has to offer, like potluck dinners and other social activities.

Now mind you, he did not feel that we needed to start attending church, which I offered to do each and every Sunday, he just felt like I wasn't embracing the pleasant side of religion. This got me thinking. I grew up in a household where religion was left up to us. I have attended churches of all faiths, including Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Catholic, Presbyterian, and non-denominational. After all, was said and done, I chose to sleep in on Sundays.

I have come to a point in my life where I want to study the whole religion art form and know more about the history of religion so that I can enlighten my children when the questions begin. After spending the day in Salem, Massachusetts, on vacation this past month, I have decided that I shall start with Wicca from the Pagan religion. (NOTE to anyone in my shoes: It probably isn't a good time to announce this to your Catholic in-laws and non-religious parent on Easter).

Today I spent some time at the computer researching Wicca. I found a Wicca guide named Pythia (you take a second name if you chose), who led me through various phases of the Pagan religion. As a Wiccan, you can choose to worship a God or Goddess or several deities of your choosing. You do this by meditating, and sometimes the deity comes to you through meditation. This then led me to the different myths regarding said deities. As I read about the various mythologies, I came upon the Greek and Roman myths. I love Greek mythology. I once took a class in college about the myths of Greek and Roman times. T

The book we used was written by our professor. I remember it as not only informative but quite humorous, as was this professor. Years ago, before my house at 8200 was cut out from under me sold, I tried to find this book in my collection of textbooks. It was not to be found. Today I tried to find the book online.

Without my professor's name, nor the title of the book, I was not daunted because hello, it's the age of the Internet. I started with the University's website. I ventured into the faculty and narrowed that down to the English department. Only one professor from my days at the good ole University is still teaching there. He looked WAY older than I remembered him.

I tried to find the faculty from the 1980s, but it was a no go. This then led me into my closet and into my keepsake box. There I found an envelope full of my report cards from college. In 1984 I took the Greek Mythology class and received an A. The professor's name is not on the report card. I searched for faculty from 1984. Then, suddenly, in the middle of googling, his last name popped into my head: Richardson. Dr. Something Richardson.

I could see the man in my head in the classroom teaching Greek Mythology. I typed in the University and the name Dr. Richardson, Richardson's Greek Mythology book, Dr. Richardson, English Professor Dr. Richardson, etc. To no avail.

I got almost every faculty list of every school that ever had a professor that ever attended the University. I got to know Anthony Richardson, who taught at the university, but not in the English department. I found a Richardson who writes about the Islam faith, but alas not the Richardson I was looking for, but I just kept on googling and reading article after article until WHAM, the name Don popped into my head. That was it!

Dr. Don Richardson. Even having that, finding him was still hard. I ended up at the University's library's online facility, where I discovered that Don Richardson had written a book titled, Great Zeus and All of His Children: A Mythology Book for Adults.

Amazon could get that book for me in about 1 to 2 months. I turned to eBay and half.com, where I found the book, ordered it, and will eagerly await its arrival. The whole process took me about two hours, and I did not have time to get back into my research of Wicca as I had to pick up the kids from school and transport them to their various after-school activities.

While transporting, I had time to think back over the information I had amassed so far regarding Wicca, and it came to me that perhaps my deity to worship is Dr. Don Richardson.