down on the farm

This past weekend LotR and I took the train over to IA to visit the Boy’s fam. Well, that was my primary motivation for making the trip. LotR, who wants to be a large-animal vet in the future, wanted to spend some time following Tom around to various farms during calving season. We were both introduced to Tom back in February (during my long IA stint) by the Boy’s G’pa, Howard, who owns and runs, in my opinion, quite a large operation himself, with plenty of cows and pigs and all sorts of other things to see. In any event, Tom primarily (only?) practices large-animal medicine and, as an added bonus, already loves LotR (he has a couple pretty hilarious pictures of her from the last visit – one with her arm inside a cow’s butt and one with the classic double-thumbs-up-silly-enthusiastic-smile pose).

a sketch

I’m back in Houston now after a wonderful stint in IA. I miss it already, honestly. I guess I’m going to have to visit or something, because it seems to be one of those places that calls you back. Or maybe it’s just the lovely people. :)

So I’m sitting here feeling multi-faceted, complicated, and conflicting nameless mood(s). I’m playing an extremely eclectic, random selection of music too, to fit my mood(s) and to have some background noise for the pseudo-monthly computer clean out, keeping my mind off goodbyes and distance and all of that stuff, as well as trying not to be too anxiety-ridden by the whole med school mystery. While I was digging through a documents folder, I found this little ditty.

sun, snow, and chili

Ah, back in the snowy cold of an Iowa winter. The Boy, his family, and I returned from Mexico last Friday evening. I had a lovely, relaxing week full of food, sun, beach, and tequila. It was beautiful and refreshing for all the senses. We stayed at an amazing timeshare/resort called Fiesta Americana, and I spent my days lounged out on the sand, listening to the rolling surf, and reading trashy magazines and not-so-trashy books. The Boy spent his time exploring rocky crevices and small pools of water at low tide, periodically bringing me bits of the ocean to look at – sea urchins, tiny hermit crabs, rock crabs, etc.

The deliciously hot weather was reflected in the much lighter fare we all elected to eat during mealtimes. There was a lot of seafood, ceviche (I’ll throw up a recipe for that when I’m more inspired), citrus. All in all, my tongue and stomach were extremely happy.

Once we got back to IA, things were immediately different. The temperature dropped about sixty degrees (it’s now sub-zero, actually), and soft, blinding snow blew across the highway the entire way home. The contrast was as stark as the blank, white landscape.

The cold, sparkling glitter of snow and the close warming of a down jacket, inspired me to cook up something that would be rich and warming from the inside all the way out. It might not be as wonderful as a luxurious week of sun-tinged skin and basking in heat, but it’s pretty delicious nonetheless.