Deep-fried contentment

I was going to rattle off about politics and some other dreary topics, but I have had a change of heart, thanks to local Chinese/Thai food restaurant Little Panda. The restaurant specifics will have no value for the non-local readers, but keep reading anyway. Trust me, this is going somewhere more universal.

The meal was above average quality and flavour, for the most part. The pad thai was passable, but nothing to run out in the streets and yell about. No, the yelling and delight came from the deep-fried items. I don’t know if they paid a premium to hire a master of the fryer, or if this attentive cook was just channeling the spirit of greasy deliciousness. Whatever the case may be, the outcome was the best chicken balls that I have eaten in decades (stop snickering).

For years, I have dutifully eaten chicken balls whenever they have been presented, but they have routinely been overcooked, left to fry so long that the meat within is dry and tasteless and the surrounding batter is brittle and unpleasant. Tonight’s delightful treasures were a case study in perfect timing. They were a light golden brown in colour, cooked just long enough to make the coating crispy but pliant, and the chicken within was moist and flavourful. To top it off, they had somehow improved the sweet’n’sour sauce that I assume comes in industrial vats. It was less sweet, and the more subtle flavour worked with the chicken to make my dinner fantastic. Yes, the sauce was still coloured bright orange-red with unnatural dyes, but in the context it was just right.

Was I in the mood for deep-fried stuff today? You bet, and I know that influences my enjoyment of dinner, but there’s another more esoteric element to my dining experience: contentment. For the first time in, oh lets just say forever, I have a calm sense of contentment. I’m able to lean back after a good meal and appreciate that I ate a nice meal with my lovely family and that is pretty great.

The best part of about feeling calm and content is that I’m more aware of the situation happening around me and the needs of other people. I’m reacting more deliberately and more thoughtfully, instead of flailing about in a panic. It’s a nice feeling.

That is not to say that I’m living a life of non-stop zen. I still have my freakouts and my weird hangups and all of the kooky things that make my mental landscape so…interesting. A few days ago I was frightened at the prospect of putting my novel up for sale as an e-book and not selling any copies save for pity purchases.With every new step I take with my writing, there’s a momentary fear storm that will blow in, an ill wind of doubt that shakes the foundation of the creative house. (That sentence was overly elaborate and a touch melodramatic. I was indulging the bad poet inside of me. Moving on.) But the reason I can have these bursts of self-doubt is that I’m actually making progress in my writing career. I see my writing getting better, my process becoming more streamlines and refined. The world is full of people trying to find their passion and follow it, and I’m already there.

And how can I manage to follow my creative desires? A fantastic wife who works hard and pays the bills and is a great mom to the little dude. And that doesn’t even cover the direct support, feedback, and plain old listening she gives me. Now that I think about all of the ways she helps me out, I might go offer her a massage.

Expectations!

I had a couple of different situations this weekend that both dealt with the topic of the expectations we have of other people. I’m starting to think that unfulfilled expectations are the source of a lot of the distance that grows between family members and friends.

The first was a visit to my mother’s house for crepes and for Max to open his birthday presents from her. She asked my wife if she wanted to look at my old photo album, and dug it out. While I was keeping an eye on our wild young man, my mother became a little miffed that I wasn’t looking at the photos too. She wanted me to focus on her, and I was focusing on Max. During this time, he had asked her to do a jigsaw puzzle with him, but she never got around to doing it. My expectation is always that the little dude will be the focus of all of our attention, so I was disappointed that it wasn’t happening. For the record, Max was the most delightful and wonderful boy you could ask for. If you didn’t want to smootch that kid and give him piles of candy, then you’re probably a robot.

The other situation was a coffee talk with an old friend of mine. Like me, he’s been thinking about the relationships in his life and what he wants out of them. We were trying to have scheduled gaming nights to get the fellows together and have fun together, but like any attempt to organize and motivate our social circle, it fell out of favour and died a slow death. He’s found a new group of people at work to play with occasionally, but a big difference is that he refuses to attend the an event at anyone’s house. He doesn’t want to deal with the expectations that  come along with that increase in familiarity. I wonder if that’s a tenable long-term approach to take, though.

What we want from people, and what they want from us, is a basic part of the relationship bargain. It would be  comforting to be able to control the equation and limit what someone wants from you, but that’s not how the game goes. The best way we can handle it all is communicate. If you’re frustrated or hurt by someone’s actions, take a moment to consider if they even know what you wanted from them. They cannot read your mind, and it’s a tad bit arrogant to think that someone should know you well enough that they can anticipate your expectations.

Outside! WHEEEE!!

I am an enemy of being cold. I think it is entirely possible that I could spend an entire winter inside my house, maybe making one sortie to get a Christmas tree. I have made an honest effort to go outside with the little dude during these snowy, chilly days, but my enthusiasm for being in the cold freezes so quickly that I have a lot of trouble faking enjoyment. This is one of the times where my wife’s Northern upbringing really pays off, because she can go out with the fella and have a snowy good time.

But today, with the temperature climbing to a wonderful 13 degrees Celsius, Max and I went out to the park to play. Fresh Air! No shivering! Swings!

I’m not sure if he’s actually as thrilled with the swings as it sounded, or if he was just having fun saying ‘Whee! I’m going so high!’, but it was great either way. It was another great benchmark experience for me as well, a chance to compare what he can accomplish now versus what he could do last fall. He is so tall and so coordinated now.

Mind you, he’s grown recently and I think his new big feet are proving to be a little tricky to steer, leading to several fall-downs and bonks in the last couple of days. But alongside the slow fall down the back stairs ending in an awkward looking faceplant, there comes the cognitive jump. He spent a good 30 minutes in imagination play today, giving distinct voices to the toys involved and having them join together to accomplish some kind of task. They were either cleaning the barn or having a race, I’m not clear which. The very idea of being able to have him contentedly engaged in creative play without my guidance or help is thrilling.