Drop the mentality of a Martian.

I wonder if you really could preserve your unique national features that reflect what you are as a grown person who came from another country with different traditions, customs, holidays, and way of life?
You emerge from all of that into a different lifestyle, different traditions, and customs. And there is no way around that. Either you have to embrace all new stuff into your every day life or just live like an outcast, hermit, oddity, laughable and pitiful, clinging desperately to your local diaspora of people with same language and cultural origin and way of life or misunderstanding and denying all sense of their new way of life.
It is especially hard to the people of 50+ when age becomes a barrier together with the new language that they do not know. Without a cultural support they might fall into depression and feel like they are useless and worthless. They desperately need to find some place of their own in this new life where they do feel more comfortable and more at home.
It's easer when they have a support of their grown up children but what if not? If they do not have children, don’t know the language, they cannot find a job; they have to survive on a miserable social assistance (if any) and cannot get over language and cultural block.
Everything about your health and well being depends on how you feel. If you are busy with some meaningful occupation, you might not have enough time to feel lost and miserable or worthless. And everybody knows now that’s easer to keep physical health if your emotions are good.
It took me many years to stop feeling nostalgic and sad. I realized that even in a different culture I could find something that I might accept and like. For example things like Christmas and Halloween. Like window-shopping in a big mall. Or trip to the beach on a hot summer day. New traditions and new friends.
Part of me became different but part of me still the same. I still like the same things I loved in my old country, every morning I see the same face in the mirror (just a little bit older and wiser (I hope). But I know I have a taste for new things, I did not have before.
New books, movies, experience, I wouldnever have had in my old country. That’s what life is about and I accept that.
But I see how difficult it is for people who came here really old, at retirement age, may be being retired in their old country.
Yesterday I was passing by a grocery store around 8 o’clock in the morning. It was Sunday, the store was still closed, just about to be opened, but there was a small crowd of old immigrant people speaking Russian, standing there with big shopping bags, waiting for the store to open. Believe me, there is absolutely no necessity to do that on a nice sunny day, on Sunday, not in this country. There is no shortage or deficit of groceries in Toronto! But these people are so used to deficit and shortage in their old country, that they are afraid of doing otherwise.
They think that they might miss some products if they come later. They keep their life style even if there is no sense in it in this country. They do not even see any possibility for them here in their advanced age unable to notice that in this country their life could be completely different – at any age.
You just have to loose what I call the mentality of a Martian. When you think that either: they are idiots, I do not want to now their stupid language and culture (they do not have any) or: I am too old and stupid, do not have any memory, cannot learn anything etc., etc. In both cases it’s not true.
Of course to learn something new requires tremendous effort at any age. And the older you are the harder it is to change everything you are used and accustomed to and learn something completely new. But not impossible. And it’s worth it.
The new experience you’ll get and new possibilities, you’ll see are priceless. Well worth the fight. Even if you are fighting the same old... yourself. Please, believe me, you are not a Martian, it's the same planet Earth and we are all the same earthlings here though a little bit different here and there.

Just some thoughts about transportation...

When I came to Canada I was so surprised that there are so many cars on the streets, all kinds of models and it looked like everybody had it and some people had like two or three in the garage and on a driveway. It looked so strange to me.
Again in some residential areas we did not even had walking areas, just driveways and roads. You are not supposed to walk anywhere. It looked strange too.
You go outside, dive into your car and go! I was wondering, what if your car is broken or you just want to walk? What if you do not want to drive?
But having a car in this country looks like a necessity more than a luxury, more like a part of something that you are supposed to have anyway, like education, or watch on your hand or jewelry and make up if you are a woman, or an apartment. And if you do not have it, then something is wrong with you and you have to be ashamed of yourself. It should not be like that but sometimes it exactly how I feel.
I do not have a car and I use public transportation to go to work. It is okay in Toronto, we have plenty of buses and Subway, and we have GO trains and even streetcars in downtown area.
But still when everybody around you driving you feel like you are missing something. A tooth maybe.
I never had a feeling like that in my old country. My husband and I, we had a car for sometime and then it started having problems and we sold it and that’s it. It was not a big deal and to keep it and repair was a big hassle.
But here in Canada, you sort of have to have it, or else. It’s hard to explain but it’s true. It’s almost like you are an invalid or something and I do not like that feeling. My problem is that I do not want to spend all that money on something that breaks, causes trouble, takes so much money from you and have to be replaced in 10 years anyway, so what’s the point to have it?
But I am just a reluctant immigrant do not judge me that hard, please.

Why do I feel depressed in this country?

I can go around for months working, doing my own business and then suddenly something triggers and I feel, painfully and clearly feel that I am a reluctant immigrant here and it probably will never be totally my country. I do not know why I feel like that.
It’s a good country; it’s a first class country. You can have and get and accomplish a lot here. Why the heck do I feel like that? I’ve been here for so many ears it’s time to get used to it, to feel at home here. But no, something always reminds me: no, you are just a guest here; it’s not yours and never will be.
Sometimes I think that may be I should leave and go somewhere else to live, may be I will be happy somewhere in a different place. I am content here but something definitely missing and it is very subtle and I cannot put words to it. Just a feeling of not belonging, of being alien. And it is very strange because basically I do not have a reason to feel like that. I am quite healthy, I have a job, I do not live on a street homeless. I do not have terrible addictions, diseases some people struggle with. I have no reason to feel bad. But I still feel like looking for something dear that I lost in my life and cannot find no matter how hard I am looking.
I am not happy and none of my kids are. My middle son actually suffers from severe depression. It scares me and I feel like I did something wrong.
May be coming to this country was wrong. May be leaving all my life good or bad behind was wrong. I cannot change that. I cannot by miracle make my children small again and take them back to my old country, I do not feel like going back myself, not anymore.
You cannot go back into the past. And I try not to dwell on the past too much, not to be depressed myself.
I am still trying to explain, why in my country where people did not have a lot of necessary things, were deprived from many things, people still were not depressed and I knew a lot of quite happy people there.
And here we can have everything, and so many unhappy and depressed people around including my own children. I still cannot solve that mystery and it bothers me. I never expected that.
May be its just fear of loosing something of not having it tomorrow. Your job, your money, your apartment, friends. You loose your job – you loose a lot, because you loose your credit and there is no more accustomed life style, you have to start all over again.
May be constant stress, that’s why people are not happy there. The necessity of struggling all the time, of stressful lifestyle, I do not know. I myself have to work 6 days a week and I still cannot afford a car and it bothers me sometimes, why?
May be the necessity of keeping up the high standard of living that makes our life miserable and sad, and stressful.
May be it is just a grand illusion, a hypnosis we should wake up from. Well, if I’ll be able to solve the mystery, I’ll tell you but not now. Now I am still looking for the answer.

A special treat for a turkey or how to use it to the last bite

I have a tendency to write about sad things and at the same time I do not like sad things, I like the happy things. So I decided to write about the good old roasted turkey for a change. Yes, ladies and gentleman, turkey.

I am kind of curious. Does anybody know what to do with it after Thanksgiving day is over? When no one wants to look at it as a meal anymore and there is still plenty of it left?
For me it was a problem once, because, you see, in my old country there was a tradition to cook a goose not turkey on a holiday and I started with that in Canada.

But that damn goose that I cooked in Canada looked like he flew from Eastern Europe to Canada without a single stop and just drop dead from the sky at Canadian border and was shoveled from there to a Toronto grocery and not just looked - tasted the same. So I did not have a choice but to drop the tradition and start cooking turkey as everybody else. After some trial and error I managed to produce a pretty decent dish- roasted evenly with nice brown (golden brown) skin, crunchy and tasty and spicy on outside and juicy and tasty inside.
But the problem was what to do the next day? I do not have big eaters in my family and next day after staying in the fridge it is not juicy any more and it loses its flavor too, becomes more and more dry. I worked a plan, which I want to share t with you, my patient readers.

Plan A. When plenty of white meat is still there.
Turkey sandwich.
You will need good multigrain bread. Not the cheapest kind, not too soft. You slice the white meat as well as you can, not very thinly. You spread some mustard on a slice of your bread if you like mustard or some hot sauce if you want it to be spicy.
Put couple of slices of turkey on that peace of bread, put your favorite lettuce on top or spinach, couple of red onion rings, spread some mayonnaise on another slice of bread, put some other marinated vegetables on top if you want, or pepper spread (they sell things like that in jars in Canada, if you like peppers, put everything together and enjoy (m-m-m-m! I want it. I want it now!).
Plan B. If only dark meat left around bones.
If you still have lots of chunks of bite size meat, you can create some fast food dish from it. Quick bites I call it.
Into a bowl you break 2 raw eggs, add pinch of salt and pepper, some dry herbs (half of a teaspoon), half a cup of milk or water, two tablespoons of any regular flour. Blend everything; the consistency should be like for pancakes, so you can coat your bites evenly with mixture.
Put two cups of small pieces of turkey leftovers into the mixture and mix thoroughly, so bites are coated with it.
Heat the deep frying pan with generous amount of vegetable oil hit it to the boiling point. Do not burn the oil, as soon as it is heated, lower temperature like in half and put coated bites of turkey in it. Turkey is not raw so you cook it couple of minutes on one side, flip it over and cook again till golden crust on both sides formed, take it out, drain on a paper towel (better) and let it cool down a little. It ‘s ready to disappear in you mouth.
Plan C. Just a little meat left around bones or it is too dry.
You can grind it in a regular blender with good blades, if you do not have a grinder and add some fresh parsley, white onions, you favorite spices, jalapeno peppers without seeds.
I usually use :

• 1 cup of leftover pieces of turkey, or chicken,
• 1 onion small (1/2 big one)
• 2-3 clothes of garlic,
• half a teaspoon of dry spices(black pepper,garlick,oregano,anything).

I grind it smoothly in a small blender. I have to use it couple of times, as it really is small.
I cook 450 grams of spaghetti, linguini, penne pasta, any pasta that cooks longer and stays harder (not like vermicelli, or Chinese noodles), drain it, put it into stir-fry frying pan with a little bit of vegetable oil, fry it like 2 minutes, add my grinded turkey with onion and spices blended and fry a minute more, long enough to mix everything and turn the heat off. Add more salt if you like. The dish is ready to serve.
Makes a very generous amount for 3- 4 people. That’s it. Bon appetite!
Nothing left from that big turkey, just bones. Okay, don’t expect me to cook the bones. Just discard them or invite your neighbor’s dog, if he (the neighbor of course) does’ not mind.
And wait for the next occasion to cook a big turkey. Happy Thanksgiving, guys, past, present and future one!