Ain't It Funny How Time Just Slips Away

A great similar recipe made with beef, not chicken

Asian Lettuce Wraps

What makes this dish sing are the herbs and fresh jalapenos.  You think you know it all until you taste a bite of iceberg lettuce seasoned chicken with cilantro, mint, green onions, basil and fresh sliced jalapenos together. Oh and roasted peanuts.  You really can't beat it.  I made a Thai peanut sauce for the brown rice and it sort of worked, surprisingly.  The roasted zucchini was a misstep though, clearly.

My mom would have loved this.  I miss her.  I wish I had her to talk to today, to tell her things I've been reading, get advice about her grand daughters. I used to love to play her music because she had such a love of any type of sound and was very open to anything that moved her. 



I've playing this song several times today.  How did I not know Willie Nelson wrote it?  It's really about scorned love but it's funny how the melody and certain words of a song can suffice to help you through your own circumstance even if it's not the original intent.  My mom always told me that time flies by and to try to hear her because it's very important to recognize you only have limited chances to get things right.  Of course I was probably 15 so time was eternal and talk like that was just depressing.  I probably tried to lecture her on how to cheer up and that worry and regrets only steal from you.  Which is true and I still believe but now I wish I would have shut up, really heard her or at least asked her what she would have done differently.  Listened to her with an open heart, like she did me.  Understand why she felt it so important to tell her daughter that, other than the obvious, that it's simply true. 

Like Al Green sings, you can't know, how could you know, you never know when something or someone will come around again (or go away forever).  Nothing gets easier, only harder, not to say it all sucks, it's amazing and horrible all in a lifetime of millions of individual moments.  But I do wish I had a few of them back to relive with my wise mother today.

Heartache is a heart hurting and that doesn't change or go away so this song is probably one that many folks can relate to whatever they're going through.