Comfort Food and Sour Pickles

My knee recovery continues. Sadly, my stomach problems continue as well. I stocked up on food before the surgery, but sadly much of the food I stocked up on isn't suitable for my temperamental acid stomach. For example, I adore Trader Joe's Palaak Paneer, thinking of it almost as a pudding, soft nursery food that doesn't need chewing. But while Indian food folks would consider it bland, I normally cool it down with yogurt or creme fraiche. But I'm not considering trying it for a while. I do have plenty of actual truly bland food, and basics to make more (scrambled eggs coming into their own), so I'm fine for supplies. But it made me think about what gives comfort.

My job is to recover, and in between home exercise bouts and off to PT, I'm consuming entertainment at an unprecedented rate. But it's all comfort food. I'm not looking to be scared or disturbed. I want happy endings. I normally feel guilty about this, and stack up my book and movie queues with some more challenging material, my sour pickles that add interest to a bland life. But right now, nope.

After going literally months without watching TV, I reviewed my watch lists I have set up. Imagine my delight to find a British detective series I love, Shetland, has not one but two seasons out I haven't seen. I have also watched older movies (The Big Year, about bird watching!) and will be looking at the list for more. John Scalzi is doing a blog series on "comfort watches" and I'm adding to my list from his suggestions. I'm not big on re-watches (too many new things out there) but some movies truly stand up over years and repeated viewings. I'm thinking I'd love to introduce my girl to A Fish Called Wanda, one of the greats.  

I constantly keep a queue of ebooks and audiobooks on request at the library, and many of my sour pickles come from there - books that I hear about from reviews. But I'm ruthless at abandoning them if I'm not swept away (in a good way) before very far into the book. I don't know if I'll go back and try them again when I feel more resilient, or if they had their shot and I'm done. I've been listening to books (as opposed to reading) more than usual, and again, if it doesn't engage me, it's terminated quickly. Whether reading or listening, my usual mix of mysteries and thrillers is holding a much larger percentage of feel good books. I'm not sure of the category, there are apparently romances and women's fiction and book club books, I don't know how they sort out. Some of the ones called romances are so bad, predictable and pablum, that I can't handle them either. Right now, I am enjoying Elin Hilderbrand books: all with a connection to Nantucket, with characters who make bad choices but are not bad people, and who get through bad things happening. And not always paired off, either. But they are all OK by the end.

I find science fiction and fantasy to be really a crap shoot. I found a series with good values and plenty of snark, called "Murderbot", and saved up the latest for the day I came home from the hospital, and it did not disappoint.  But the author, Martha Wells, came out with a new fantasy series, and I slogged through the first third of the first book, to find the world-building tedious and overdone. Too many characters and races and types of magic being introduced, and getting in the way of bonding with the characters. Sigh.

I do read (mostly listen, actually) to non-fiction. This is the white rice of my entertainment stream - mostly history. My Audible membership gives me access to a pretty extensive catalog of older, less popular, audio books without having to buy them separately. So I've listened to a biography of Chaucer, another about the place of women in Tudor society, and I have more like that coming up. I like this very sedate but just enough intellectually engaging books as background to other things. Generally, I'll cue them up at bedtime. Guess what? If I fall asleep before the automatic cut-off, I may not rewind to catch what I missed. Who cares? I'm learning, but there won't be a test at the end so it's ok if I miss something. 

My latest jam is actually a podcast, though I'd put it in this history category. It's done by the public TV station in Boston, and it's an 8-part series about the Big Dig. Huh? I hear your minds whirring - what? Really? But yes, really. I am a YIMBY, sick of years of our not being able to build things, to carry out ambitious, big projects. The Green New Deal inspired me. I also spent some of my career at the US Department of Transportation, and I witnessed many infrastructure projects start and stop and be delayed and sometimes be killed, while others that ought to have been killed went steam rolling ahead. One of my work hobbies was reading Inspector General reports on topics related to my work (dealing with reports tied to my work was anything but fun, but we know misery loves company). The Big Dig was a multi-year field day for the IG. So this series starts way back in the 1960s and covers the personalities involved in Massachusetts and Boston politics, and the genesis of the project. I can picture some of the meetings and events described - I've been in the Secretary of Transportation's office while the fate of things like this were decided. I'm about half way through, and funding for the project was just approved in Congress, over-riding Reagan's veto. I know the ultimate outcome - my boy living in the Boston area benefits from the completed project - but I'm curious how they got there, and how common myths about events along the way have evolved.