This Ro(a)mantic Life: An apple a day

Body: in sickness and in health

I won't lie; this body and I have had our issues with each other for many years. Body image -- sure. Physical and mental overextension -- comes with being a Type A kind of girl. I still struggle with these things, so they show up from time to time in my writing.

More recently, illness, pure but not simple, has added itself to the mix in a multi-system sort of way. And the challenges in figuring out exactly what's gone wrong are many. As problems have revealed themselves in the last few years, beginning with reactive hypoglycemia in late 2008, I've documented them here, partly to gain a little clarity on managing complex conditions but mostly to give voice to vulnerabilities I feel but don't normally share with anyone face to face. Better out than in, they say, right? (Oh yes, humor is one way I deal.)

The links below cover the different angles I've examined (and from which I've been examined) within that experience.

Travel: neither here nor there

When the person you're married to lives two time zones away, you log a fair number of frequent flier miles. And if you blog about commuter relationships, you log quite a few posts en route too.

Since we're no longer in separate places, I blog less often from airports. But we do travel -- together now! -- which is much more fun to write about. So in addition to thoughts on our years of commuting, the links below cover the places we've been as a pair and, in some cases, the adventures that have happened on the way.

Writing: the long and short of it

Why do I do it? Good question. Maybe it's not so much that I like to write but that I have to write, even when the words refuse to stick to the page. Believe me, I've tried doing other things like majoring in biochemistry (freshman fall, many semesters ago). Within a year, I'd switched to English with a concentration in creative writing and wasn't looking back.

After graduating, I taught English for a few years and then worked as an editor, which I still do freelance. In 2007, I applied and got into an MFA program at a place I like to call Little U. on the Prairie. I finished my degree in 2011 and have been balancing tutoring and writing on my own ever since.

The following links cover the writing I've done about writing: process, content, obstacles, you name it. It's not always pretty. But some part of me loves it, even when it's hard. And this is the result.

Heart: family and friends

I'd have a hard time explaining who I am without being able to talk about the family I grew up in as well as the people I've met beyond its bounds. But even with such context, it's not easy! In the simplest terms, I'm a first-generation Asian-American who has spent most of this life caught between cultures. That, of course, doesn't even begin to describe what I mean to, but there's my first stab at the heart of it all.

That's what this group of posts is reserved for -- heart. The essential parts of my life whose influences I carry with me, for better or worse. The links below cover what I've written as I've learned how these forces work within me, for me, against me, in spite of me. They anchor me even as they change me, and they keep life interesting.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

An apple a day

... would be delicious if I could have any of the kinds we got over the weekend.

D and I went apple- picking at a local orchard about 20 minutes away from Little U. on the Prairie. It was the last warm Saturday I think we'll have till spring, so everyone seemed to be out and about among the trees. Coinci- dentally, BOTH of my sisters went apple-picking in Illinois and Ohio over the same weekend (nope, we didn't consult beforehand).

D and I did our best to pick varieties we can't normally find in the grocery store (this place claimed to have around 150!). The ones in season that we got were Keepsakes, Liberties, Horalsons, Suncrisps, Spigolds, Golden Glories, and Autumn Golds. Each of these tends to be a sweet-tart, crisp-fleshed apple -- excellent for munching fresh or using for pie.

Which is, of course, what we did.

I borrowed a recipe from Martha Stewart Living for an antique apple pie and altered it for convenience and to accommodate D's hypoglycemia. The end result: ambrosia. The apples contained enough sun-infused sweetness such that replacing the sugar in the filling with Splenda in half the required amount was perfect. We used a frozen pie crust, which worked out nicely (especially since we didn't have a lot of time and also because it had only a gram of sugar per serving in it).

We used about six apples in our pie and divided up the remaining ones so D could take some back to Seattle -- it's only fair, since he worked quite hard to get some of them! Many of the trees we wanted to pick from had been well visited, and the only fruit left was at the very top (with no ladders in sight). D boosted me up onto his shoulders to scrabble around in the higher branches, and at one point, he climbed up himself while I spotted him from below. "Am I near them yet?" he kept asking. It's hard to see where you're going when you have a face full of twigs. Both of us have the scratches to prove it ...

In the end, it was well worth the effort. The apples with the best sun exposure were at the top, and the bugs seemed to have left them alone (compared to the numerous pockmarked ones lower down).

We cleaned each of the fruits in cold water once we were home and were surprised to find out how different their skins were. Apparently, Iowa has really dirty air -- every apple was uniformly speckled with brown spots that were probably the product of dust sticking to the skins after a recent rainstorm or a humid night. Here's our harvest after a good scrub: