Things unfinished

For the past few days I've had some unfinished business hanging over my head. I don't start working until next week, so it's not professional stress. No, this unfinished business is firmly planted in the housewife realm.

It's a head of cabbage and two Sudoku puzzles.

Last week I had a craving for vegetable pot stickers and, since the Chinese restaurants around here are resoundingly un-vegetarian, I did the only thing a transplanted veggie dumpling lover could do. I decided to make my own. Enter, the head of cabbage.

Having never cooked with cabbage before, I had no idea how much one head yields. So when Erik asked if he should pick up a whole head of white cabbage (because you can also buy halves), I said, "Yeah, sure, I'll use the rest to make something else." I had no idea how many "something elses" I'd be making to whittle down that light green bowling ball in my fridge.

The night after the dumplings I make a Tunisian cabbage, tomato, and chick pea stew. Then there was bubble and squeak, an English dish of potatoes and cabbage. And then, getting tired of this, I threw large amounts of shredded cabbage into the minestrone soup I made last night. Still, the cabbage that would not end sits happily unwilted in the refrigerator. At this point, a week after the initial pot stickers, and eight cabbage-based meals (including lunches) later, I'm ready to accept that the cabbage has won. There are a many great cabbage recipes left to try, but I just don't care anymore. I'm totally cabbaged out, tired of the flavor, tired of the consistency, but mostly, just tired of thinking about it.

Oh, cabbage. It never feels good to give up before seeing something to the end, but I'm learning to live with it. For example, I'm getting a little better at not finishing books. After two attempts at reading Master and Commander, I'm officially retiring it from my list of things to read. Yes, sometimes you just have to move on and ignore that little devil that says, "just one more try." Especially when the devil is speaking Japanese.

I was late to the trend of Sudoku. I tried it once a few months back but I made the mistake of approaching the puzzle through trial and error--a cardinal sin of Sudoku. It wasn't until Sunday that I picked up my second puzzle. Now that I knew about the whole "you should never have to guess" thing, I thought I would be unstoppable. Erik and I each took a puzzle labeled "hard" to a cafe and tried to solve them over tofu sandwiches and nyponsoppa. Erik gave up after lunch, declaring that there were tricks he didn't know and therefore couldn't solve it. But I devoted the rest of the day and evening to solving my puzzle (minus two hours on the phone with my mom). When Erik left for soccer practice I didn't even look up from my little Sudoku world. To look up is to lose the pattern! Instead I managed a weak, "Have fun!" with my head down. Then, like the Sudoku-robot I had become I said again, "Have fun!" just wanting him to get out the door so that I could concentrate, dammit.

There was a breakthrough at some point--a big one. But then, that dreaded realization that I had messed up somewhere. The mistake was too far gone--I couldn't find the root and everything was in ink (I had cockily abandoned the pencil at the time of the "break through"). In Sudoku survival mode, I hardly flinched. I took out a ruler and drew the board on a piece of paper, starting over from scratch.

And I sat over it for hours. And hours. Until it was time to eat the leftover bubble and squeak. After dinner I looked up techniques online but could hardly decipher them. I took the puzzle to the couch while Erik and I watched The Hound of the Baskervilles, but it was no use. The puzzle would not be solved.

Eventually I went to sleep and was tortured by Sudoku dreams. When I woke up, I knew my relationship with the puzzle I had been working on was over--I wasn't ready for it. Instead I went through the recycling, pulling out old newspapers like a true addict, and set up a stack of "easy" and "medium" puzzles to solve throughout yesterday. I went through five before a curious modern ailment set in: Sudoku neck.

When Erik came home from work, I actually wanted to look up at him but when I did, I discovered that my neck had practically frozen in Sodoku-solving position. Not good. I was in the middle of an easy puzzle but even I could recognize it was time to stop.

For the third time this week, I left something midway through, and feel better for it. The cabbage is still in the fridge and the two half-done puzzles are on the coffee table, all tempting me to give it another go. I will try to resist.