Casa de Jefe.

The Jefe’s mother recently moved out of the house in which he grew up.  As rarely happens with families, one of the things he wanted most was one that no one else had any desire for – in fact his mom couldn’t stand it.  He took the fixture down, cleaned it, rewired it all the way through, and stored it in a box along with an afghan made by his mom.  When we moved into this house he pretty much let me set things up the way I wanted, but one request was that we be able to hang the chandelier over the dining room table.  It was a request I was only too happy to grant.  In person, the subtle colors over the metal are really warm and the whole thing has a great patina thanks to the gentleness of his cleaning.  It suits the room so well, and I love having his family here, too.

Pssst…pass it on.

My mother will be 90 years old in May and has just moved into her first apartment.  Ever.  Leaving the house that she was in for nearly 50 years hasn’t been easy, but she’s a funny, strong, courageous lady and she makes the best of a situation.  So here I sit, surrounded more and more by the pieces of my family and the home of my youth.  I can’t help but be warmed by the trivial and important memories of finding things in the drawers of the dresser below – which we’ve re-purposed into a sideboard of sorts. 

Mom and Dad’s jewelry boxes were each in top drawers.  The far right-hand drawer held an assortment of scissors, fabric tape measures, cough drop tins, purse-sized Kleenex packs, mini greeting cards, safety pins, double-stick tape, tiny jewelers pliers, any number of small tubes of hand lotion and several plastic rain hats which tied under my mother’s chin.   

Dad’s drawers to the left held old eyeglasses, cufflinks, U.S. Postal Service awards, goofy business cards from men he met during the years he sold farm equipment, love notes we’d written him as children, his collection of pig lapel pins, photos of his brothers.  After he died in ‘84, Mom found a ’black book’ of his and – with a sick heart – told my brother-in-law to take it away before she even looked at it.  It turned out to be his Masonic ritual - my father’s integrity was restored.  

Mutter fookah!

One of my favorite places to shop, both for the range of offerings and the price, is the India Market in the strip mall by La Mexicana (you know, the old Pickles place). 

For a semi-homemade meal from there you can still eat well.  Jefe’s fave is the Mutter Paneer.  Paneer is a cheese , and the rest is peas in a nice little sauce of tomatoes, milk, onion, sour cream, and whatnot spices.  The purchased part is a frozen entree – the homemade part is instant rice.  I know that’s barely, marginally homemade, but compared to takeout which you had NO part in, it’s slightly moreso.  If you were really bad, you could still screw up the rice.

 

First, take your Deep Foods frozen Mutter Paneer and remove it from the package.  Puncture the film over the top 3 or 4 times.  Nuke it for 2 or 3 minutes, peel back the film to stir, and cook for a couple more minutes.

In the meantime, cook your rice as you choose.  If you have the time and want real rice, start it first, obviously.  On nights that we’re crunched and tired but don’t want take out food yuk-ness, this is fast and actually has nutritional value – the paneer will get you Vitamins A & C, Calcium, Protein and Iron.  Not bad for 5 minutes.

What’s not to love about fast, easy and tasty?  If you snag a package of frozen garlic-naan when you’re there and crisp those babies up in the oven with a light brush of butter, you’re in a good way, dinner-wise.  The selection of ready-made meal items there is pretty great and they’re not ridiculously loaded with sodium and fat like so many microwave options.  Prices are right in line with comparable items at another grocery store, though one of my only complaints with them is that I never get a receipt, so I’m not always sure what each item cost.  Meh, I don’t care that much, I guess.

Leaf meh alone!

Perhaps the Fall posting should have come ahead of the Winter one, but in this state the weather is so fluid that it’s hard to tell just what season you’re in at any given moment.  With that in mind, let me offer up a few things to make the inevitable leaf clean-up more tolerable.  And less back-breaking, blister-forming, and allergy-inducing.

Rock & Roll ACE has rental lawn equipment – tillers, aerators and the like – which you can ‘borrow’ an hour at a time for the low price of $12.  In the stable of hp is the Husqvarna leaf vacuum – a handy implement for yard clean-up in the fall.

It won’t clean your yard like a Dyson does your home, but it will help pick up small twigs and even some pinecones and acorns and whatnot in addition to leaves.  It mulches that stuff down so that you have less bags to fill and have hauled away.  Bonus, right?

If you’ve got to do it manually I can’t recommend enough those goofy-looking toothy hand-paddle things (around $6).  And a lawn funnel (about $25).  Battling a paper bag makes me want to go Trix-zilla and crush things to fine powder instead of remembering how much more eco-friendly it is to NOT be running another small engine, and just enjoying the awesome thing known as Autumn in Nebraska.  Jumping into a pile of blower/vacs has none of the charm you might think it would. 

 

You don’t have to believe me, check out what real humans have to say at epinions.com