When things that don’t actually get done are charged for, I don’t have a problem with making them do things correct… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…1 day ago
I had started a post telling the story of my mom’s last few years but then I had to go be with her. It was the first half of Deciding On Death. I was trying to finish it today, but I have to go. I have to get to her.
I realized as I was typing the title Deciding On Death that it might make people think my mom decided to die instead of stay alive. But that really was not the case earlier this week. She was told by the doctors that she had to pick the day. So a more accurate title would have been Deciding Which Day To Die.
Anyway . . . you might be wondering how I can be thinking about a Goodie Jar when faced with this awful thing. Well, I will tell you. First of all everyone deals with death differently. I’ve know this, but I very much experienced when my mother-in-law died. We all have our own way.
The way we are having to go through this is really awful and hard, but death is a part of life. We all die. Period. There is no getting around that.
For me, I have faith. I have faith in a plan, I have faith in an after life, I have faith in God. My mom, is really strong and is just being amazing . . . . she is helping us through this. I am also keeping really busy. I have also turned to my social network. I have an idea that when a loved one dies most people want to shout it out, most people want the world to know their pain — for whatever reason —- and I wanted to shout it out, so I did. And let me tell you, best thing I did! BEST. THING.
At one moment I was peaceful. Then someone shared an issue with me and wanted me to deal with it — even though it was not MY issue it was theirs and someone else’s — and that raised my stress level. Then I looked at my phone and saw an unfamiliar number. I thought it was a sales call but decided to listen to it anyway. And — SNAP! — Right then and there two seconds after I heard the voice and Jill announced her name, I was calmed. I was FILLED to the brim with joy. She has a beautiful voice and I had NEVER HEARD IT BEFORE. Her voice calmed me. Her words filled me. I am loved. I am supported. I said to myself, “HECK YEAH!” Because I had hesitated before I posted and then — BAM! — right away, the return was fabulous. I was transported into a good place.
And it is continuing to come. I am getting love, support, all the sparkles I asked for. I am getting stories about my mom. Stuff I didn’t know that is really cool to know. I just commented on my blog post to someone, “I guess they don’t call it support for nothing! ;-)”
So, remember all this time I have been telling you that the Goodie Jar is to remind us to take a moment to look at the good even though there is “other stuff”. Yeah, I wasn’t just blowing smoke people. There is ALWAYS good. And — for me, I am not saying that anyone else has to do this, this is ME, for me, myself and I — I HAVE to look at the good. I have to focus on the positive otherwise you would need a huge SHAM-WOW to mop up a huge Terre-size puddle that was on the floor!
So everyone of you that has taken time to share a story, send uber goodness at me and my family — YOU are all going in my Goodie Jar! I am ready to transfer to a bigger container now. Thank you.
So, I am experiencing one of the oddest situations we have created for ourselves in the world of modern medicine and technology. I am sitting with my mother waiting for her scheduled time to die. I am starting this story for you a little bit backwards, because Tuesday I didn’t have a chance to post. My mother has been sick for a bit and I have been wanting to write about it. I wanted to share plus I am surprised to find it is a bit therapeutic. But I always thought I should ask her before I posted something, but now I feel it is past that point. I came up to be with her on Monday for the day for what we thought would be a procedure that would get her back out in the world and home. But it turned out that the doctors decided that the procedure would be too risky AND it wouldn’t really give us much more time. So they advised us to decide when they should remove the breathing tube that is keeping her breathing.
My mother is fully conscious. She has cancer that has affected her throat so she has not been able to eat for probably about a year and a half. She has not been able to swallow well for about eleven months. She’s been spitting into a cup and used a feeding tube. As I said I am telling this story a bit backwards, I will do another post regarding how this all started. I thought I would have time on Tuesday after my Nia class and Yoga Class to type up the beginning of the story so you could get a glimpse of how much she has been through and to end up here is just — I have no words. I started to type it but I didn’t finish and ended up not posting on Tuesday.
The cancer has spread to a point that is has basically mangled her trachea. She was in Reno on Friday and in the hospital with a tube in her throat Sunday morning. The tube is a small one they use on pediatric patients. That is the only size they could get down there and it was a struggle at that. One is not meant to live like that. The body will keep fighting it and trying to reject it. And with her body it is really going to try to fight it because her body has already had a severely compromised immune system. So a breathing tube — especially one meant for children — is not a long term solution.
When the tube was placed in her throat the idea was that it was going to be temporary — she was in the emergency room on Saturday and the tube was placed in during the wee hours of Sunday morning. The hope was they could put in a stent on Monday. Then, the thought was things could proceed a bit more. There was talk of additional chemotherapy and maybe even more radiation. But the team of doctors met and they were not optimistic. The doctor that would be performing the surgery was very frank and honest in talking to us about the procedure and the miracle that he would have to perform. He said he would do it if my mom said yes. But with the facts in front of her she decided not to have it done.
So then her next decision was when to have the doctors remove the breathing tube, the one that is keeping her alive. What kind of decision is that to have to make? I am still just having the most difficult time with someone having to be faced with that decision. Living with a breathing tube that is so small you can hardly get any air and that has to be cleaned out all the time is not for the weak. She can’t talk, she can’t laugh, she can’t cough, and she can’t cry. That is probably the worst part. She can’t cry. The pain is too horrible. She has much to grieve for and she can’t cry.
This is just crazy. I am at a loss. I am putting it down because I have to get it out. I am not ready to cry yet because I am pretty sure I won’t stop or maybe I am still just in shock. I had an entirely different picture of what was going on.
We are visiting as much as we can. Friends and family are visiting. She is communicating by writing. Sometimes she uses a little white board and sometimes she uses paper. We are not so great at guessing what she is trying to say, so she patiently writes it down for us. She also still has her sense of humor. She is funny.
I have found that the outpouring of love from people is really up lifting and very helpful. I have vaguely mentioned on Facebook that my mom was ill and many people have responded with positive thoughts and mentions of prayers. It really is helpful — all of it. To know that people are out there doing what they do when they want to support someone in need is amazing. So I am posting this to help shed some light on my vagueness and to give some of the people who are supporting me (and my family) some idea of what is going on.
Now the big thing. The big bad. The ugly. The most important thing . . . . the hardest thing . . . the thing I am typing blindly (I can’t see through tears). . . . can you take a moment out of your day (I know I am asking a lot) on Monday, March 31, 2014 at 1:00 pm to help her on her way? She is a strong, strong woman. A woman who has a lot to live for so letting go might be really difficult for her to do. If there were thoughts and prayers and vibes and ju-ju and love and songs and dances and lights and sparkly stuff to help her let go . . . to help her on the path to the next journey–that would be awesome. The angels will be there too, but I am sure she would love the additional stuff — she always loves a party. Would you do that?
Sometimes I just can’t think of anything to write about. Sometimes it could be that I want or need a break. So today — I am just going to post some pictures. We have been having really beautiful weather in the San Francisco South Bay Area and beyond. I love it, but I wish we would have rain because we need it. But . . . it is Spring now . . . so I will enjoy it.
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The first few pictures are from a trip to Natural Bridges — a state park in the Santa Cruz area of California. Whenever we go to Santa Cruz for a Nia class we like to stop by the ocean. Santa Cruz is not that far from San Jose, but I just don’t get over there often. When I make the drive over I like to at least set my eyes on the ocean. I remembered my phone has panorama. The bridge that was natural actually collapsed a while ago, but it is still a very pretty spot.
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Then, the next week, I was “over the hill” again. I was visiting a friend who is moving. She wanted to get the kids out of the house on such a gorgeous day. This is a slide at one of the parks. WOW!
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And, of course, I take a million pictures of my cat, so I thought I would share.
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She likes to be in her outside house but with the door open. She loves the sun, but doesn’t like to get too hot.
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Then there are our roses. They are in bloom. They are beautiful. And, yes, they smell fantastic.
I like to bring the beauty inside. They make the house smell great!
Thanks for taking this little Spring Break with me!
In Nia we do something we call “wag your tail”. Now there are various ways one can “wag” their tail. This move is not one of Nia’s 52 Moves, but we do it A LOT. One might think that wagging one’s tail just means to shake your butt. But shaking your butt is really just shaking your backside. While that has a purpose in dance when I say “wag your tail” I don’t mean shake your tush. There is a difference. Just like there is a difference between shaking your chest/breast and a shimmy. A shimmy is not just shaking your chest or what you have on it. A shimmy is using the muscles in your upper back and shoulders to push and pull your shoulders. While the front might shake as you shimmy, the sensation is entirely different from just shaking what’s on the front. For more info you can read my post Shimmy From The Back. With the tail wag it is somewhat the same thing — in the sense that you are not shaking your butt you are wagging your tail.
The focus is the very bottom portion of your bony spine, the coccyx — your tail. When you wag your tail the outer portion of your body, your glutes/your butt is going to move and shake, just like when you shimmy your chest/breast will shake, but that is not the focus. And believe me, I have ample of both to know the sensation is entirely different. 🙂
For many this is not something they sense right away. It is one of those things you practice. I know many belly dancers who hold classes just on shimmying . . . So by comparison shaking top and/or bottom is different from a shimmy and/or a wag of the tail.
One way I describe it to my students is to just relax the spine. Let the hips hang and then wag the tail. Some understand this and are able to do it. While it might take practice, when they focus they can do it, hips hanging tail wagging. If you can do this the sensation is amazing. It is a HUGE release to the spine. It is very relaxing. Wagging the tail is one of my favorite moves. Ask anyone on my Nia classes and they will tell you, “Yeah, she says that all the time.”
I recently posted about how my students are my teachers and one thing they taught me was to come up with a different way of explaining “letting your hips hang”. The looks I received recently while having my students practice wagging their tail was, “I am not getting what you are saying!!!” So I had to think about it and I came up with something.
Sit down on the ground with your legs out in front of you. Then use your hands to push yourself off the ground. Your lower legs and feet can still be touching but you want your tush to be off the ground. Now relax your spine. Do you sense that hanging sensation? THAT is what you are going for while standing. That is what will enable you to wag your tail.
So try it. Can you sense your hips hanging? Can you sense the difference between wagging your tail and shaking your bum?
Maybe Jack practiced Nia. We do a lot of agility movements in a Nia class. From Wiki’s definition of agility:
“Agility or nimbleness is the ability to change the body’s position efficiently, and requires the integration of isolated movement skills using a combination of balance, coordination, speed, reflexes, strength, and endurance.”
When thinking of agility I tend to think of my entire body starting then stopping. My entire body moving one direction then changing quickly, like the definition states. But agility can be just in the fingers, in the hands, in the arms, or just in the legs. Our entire body does not have to move for it to be an agility movement—or at least that is how we call it in Nia. We do a lot of movements that require agility.
I just posted about Creeper Crawlers. That is an agility movement of the fingers. They are starting and stopping and going one direction then the other.
Drumming is a great example of agility. Your arms and/or hands are starting and stopping and changing direction. We drum in Nia. There are certain routines where it is part of the choreography. There are times when we do it in FreeDance. The music often calls for drumming. Sometimes we listen. Drumming is a fun way to connect to the sensation of agility. Without actual drums we can drum all around our space; up in the air above our heads . . . in one of our Nia routines they call this sky drumming. We can drum below our bodies, to the sides, behind our bodies, around in a circle, all over. Sometimes I invite the class to imagine they are in the middle of a HUGE drum set with drums all around them. They can’t even move without hitting a drum. That is some wild drumming.
Looking around and allowing the head to change direction is a form of agility. Look! Look! Look! As if you are watching a bug fly around. Hip bumps . . . keeping those hips juicy with that left right action. If you are really playful, hip bumps back and forth . . . it’s all about being agile.
Another great show of an agility move is kicking. Kicking like a swimmer’s kick. Fast feet, fast action action. One direction then the other. Back and forth. Of course this can be done with the action from the knee or even the hip. Whatever joint does the action, kicking is another great example of a movement that requires agility.
A number of Nia’s 52 Moves of the The Upper Extremities can be tied to agility. Blocks and punches can be done with a quick change of direction, along with webbed spaces and palm directions.
Agility is one of Nia’s Five Sensations that we practice and play with in our Nia classes. The other sensations are Flexibility, Mobility, Strength, and Stability. Like many groups and professions we have many acronyms, the one for Nia’s Five Sensations is FAMSS. The A is for Agility.
What do you do that can be considered an agility move?
Sometimes after a Nia Class or even a yoga class a student will come up to me to explain why they weren’t doing something I said to do. This is a HUGE education for me because some times what they say they can’t do is not what I intended for them to do. When my students share with me it helps me teach them better. Their understanding of what I am instructing them to do helps me hone my teaching skills and at times has me finding different ways to say things. Could be an entirely different way of saying something or it could just be a matter of me explaining it a little better. Either way, I am always learning from my students.
As an example, one day after one of my yoga classes a students explained to me that she has a very high arch so she cannot use her whole foot. Many standing poses in yoga require you to stand on the entire foot and in Nia we also use our whole foot at times. Whole foot meaning your weight is distributed over the entire foot. Not standing on the toes or leaning back on the heals, or even to either side of the foot, but to use the “whole foot”. Since I say whole foot all the time it didn’t even dawn on me that someone could take it as the WHOLE foot. To be fair, she is correct. When I say whole foot, I actually mean your whole foot PRINT. I don’t mean to include the arch of the foot which would actually be covered in the term “WHOLE foot”. I am not certain if this was ever a thought for any of my Nia students, but just to be clear, I throw whole foot PRINT out there every once in a while in all of my classes so people understand when I say whole foot, I mean the foot PRINT. Not the arch. Flash! I learned something.
There was another time when we were on our hands and knees doing the cat pose. In this pose I have my students look “down” into their lap. If the individual’s neck allows and they are comfortable with that, I go for the big stretch all the way down the spine. So when we arch down with belly towards the earth, I tell them to look up since I consider looking into the lap looking “down”. After class one day, one student told me she can’t look up because of a neck issue and when she said it we were standing and she looked up at the sky. At that moment, I just said, “Ok. Good for you for recognizing a position your body cannot do and not doing it.” I wasn’t exactly certain what she was talking about because I hadn’t instructed anyone to look up at the sky, but if her neck can’t do that, is great that she not do it. The next time I was doing the combination, I thought “look up” and – FLASH! (the light bulb again) – I understood what she was talking about. When I said look UP, she thought I meant UP at the SKY and not just up from the “down”. So, again, I learned something. I can still say look up, but I clarify that I mean up from your lap (or the other options I give).
It always amazes me and make me happy that I learn so much AS I TEACH. I think I have shared before in a post that there comes a time in my process of learning a Nia Routine where I just have to take it to the class. No matter how much time I spend at home by myself learning it, I always learn more in that hour of teaching it than all of that before time. Awesome. I might have even posted something similar to this before. It just goes to show that I am always learning something from my students! Ta-da! Students are teachers too.
Do you ever talk to your teacher about stuff? Did you ever thing that you could be teaching them something?
There is a move I do often at the end of my Nia Classes. I learned it as the Ragdoll Pose in yoga. Some say it is just a variation on the Uttanasana or the Forward Fold. Since it is a standing pose where you bend over I can see that. But the Forward Fold is a very active pose. You are using other muscles, you are actively lengthening your spine. Whereas in my classes, the move we do as the Ragdoll pose is just a hang. The idea is to hang, ya know, like a rag doll.
After all the movement we do in a cardio dance exercise class where moving your entire body is the key, it is nice to just hang around for a bit. This pose made my list of favorite yoga poses but is not one of my sixteen favorites. Kinda surprised me.
With the Ragdoll, as I said the idea is to hang like a rag doll folded over at the hips. Your body goes limp. Your arms can hang. Your shoulders and hang. Everything just hangs. Legs can be straight or bent at the knee. It is a relaxation pose so doing it to your optimum comfort is advised. Let the weight of your head help lengthen and stretch your back and spine. So you are not actively lengthening or straightening, it all comes from the weight of the head. Even if you are resting you forearms on your thighs you are hanging.
One way that people do this pose is with the arms hanging overhead, but bent at the elbows. The forearms are folded together allowing the hands to hold the opposite elbow. This variation is just like the bent knees and/or the arms — or even hands — on the thighs, it is up to the individual at the time of the pose.
Bending over or doing an inverted pose is good for the systems in your body. Such as the circulatory system, turning upside down helps blood flow which helps the respiratory system. The lymphatic system is assisted by inversions which stimulates the body’s immune system.
It seems as if the body enjoys the break from the normal pull of gravity and it likes to be upside down every once in a while. Calms the nerves, heightens the sense, and brings a little peace. Only when done reasonably comfortable. Poses should not be held if they cause pain or dizziness. So when you are in any pose especially and inversion stay only as long as it is comfortable.
To me, the Ragdoll is one of those comfortable poses. Usually just fold over and hanging. But I do remember at least once when my neck was not aligned properly so the full on hang did not feel good, but bending my knees and resting on my thighs was the ticket. Always remember that you do a pose for the moment you are in at the moment you are doing it. So yesterday all the way down might have been the way, but maybe today it is not. Do what your body wants in the moment.
Enjoy the weight of the head and the arms. Let it stretch your spine and bring space into your back. Hang as a rag doll would.
Do you like the Ragdoll pose? Do you like inversions? Which ones are your favorite?
In other forms of exercise I learned the dead bug. Where you lie on your back and put your limbs up in the air as if you were a dead bug. In Nia one of our 52 moves is called Creepy Crawlers. I ALWAYS call it Creepy CrawlIES and sometimes I say, dead bugs. In Nia the move is part of the Upper Extremities in the Nia 52 moves, the hands to be exact. It is where we turn our hands to allow the palms to face up and we wiggle our fingers. Truly NOT a dead bug because dead bugs don’t wiggle there legs . . . in general. I will work on calling it by the correct name Creepy CrawLERS.
This is a simple, simple move that provides great benefits. I don’t know how often you are around the elderly if ever, but losing the use of their hands, losing the dexterity is a very common issue. So as the Nia Technique Book says, “Practicing Creepy Crawlers helps your fingers, hands, and forearms remain strong, flexible, and agile.” It is very important to move your hands. And not all of the things we do in everyday life allows for that type of flexibility and agility. So this move is so great.
To practice it according to the Nia Technique Book you just wiggle all of your fingers, including your thumb. Keep the elbow bent which helps keep the shoulders and next relaxed. Change palm directions.
This is one of those moves that is pretty much always teamed up with another move. Usually we have a foot pattern while we do the Creepy Crawlers. Or we are moving around the room. Usually, but not always. Sometimes it is nice to concentrate on the movement on the fingers. Really wiggle them with intent. Make certain ALL ten fingers are moving. Notice how it affects the tendons in your hands and arms. Watch the movement in your arms.
If you are constantly moving your fingers in a wiggly motion while doing choreography with your feet you are allowing that brain to work. Most people understand that the brain needs to stay active . . . just like the body . . . in order to function well, so we consider it fun to get our brains going as part of our movement, as part of our dance.
So as with all of the Nia 52 Moves that I have explained. Sometimes we do them a little different from perfect as described in the book. Doing Creepy Crawlers in a routine might have us straightening our arms. Or we might even be moving the hand all around while the fingers are wiggling. But the point is the fingers. Moving the fingers, wiggling the fingers. Bending each and every joint in the finger.
This is also a really fun move to do with kids. They love the idea of Creepy Crawlers, bug legs. You know kids? So many of them love anything to do with bugs.
So, I encourage you to do some Creepy Crawlers. Especially if you work at a computer or do repetitive motions with your hands. This will help keep them moving in different directions/ways.
The other day a friend sent me an e-mail that I should not have opened because I didn’t have time to be looking at an e-mail. But I clicked on the link contained and the very first thing I saw made me laugh so very hard. I sent off a quick e-mail back to her explaining my laughter and explaining that I would have to look at the rest later. I had not sat down to look at the rest of the stuff on the link until now but the first thing I had seen keeps running through my head and making me laugh. The subject of the e-mail was “Talk about sexist attitudes, these make me angry but that’s the way it was ‘back in the day'”. I didn’t even read the paragraph that is included on the post until right now as I am typing this. As I said, the first thing I saw was the first ad and it made me laugh soooooo hard. And . . . not only did it make me laugh I had an earworm for the rest of the day AND every time I thought about the e-mail. Yeah the tune is very catchy.
The ad on the post shows a woman in a car and the tag line is “I can’t tell which they’re whistling at . . . me or my new Chevrolet!”. There is more blather and other information that is just too small for me to read, but it reminded me of the commercial my husband and I refer to as “Stacy’s Mom”. There is a song playing that clearly says, “Stacy’s mom has got it goin’ on.” What else it says I don’t know. It is a very catchy tune. Look at the ad yourself and tell me if the old print advertisement is not the same as the new TV commercial.
Well, what do you think? It is clear the men in the TV commercial are participating in the dropping off of the kids from school, whereas the ones in the print ad are just standing there. But since it is print we don’t know what they are/were doing. But both advertisements seem pretty much the same to me.
I glanced at the rest of the ads on the link she sent me and I would bet there are ads and commercials that are pretty much the same today as they were then, but I didn’t look that close to them or give them too much thought. I mean for Heaven’s Sake it is advertising. The way they prey on us is by trying to make us feel inferior and telling us that we will be superior if we buy and use their product. No matter what their product is; something we eat/drink, something we drive, something we slather on our bodies, something we wear, something we use to take something off of our bodies, no matter what they are selling us they are telling us we are not as good as we can be unless we use their product. And sex . . . . as we all know SELLS. So they are going to use it. And KEEP using it, obviously – Cadillac and Chevrolet are GM products!
I mean, why is an AXE commercial any better than an ad saying a woman is nothing without a man? Have you seen those Axe commercials? Apparently all a man has to do to make woman swoon over him is smell good. Yeah right, if as if THAT were the case.
Anyway . . . I just thought I would share a chuckle at the thought that we have come a long way and that advertisements and commercials from the PAST were sexist.
Oh . . .and now it is even MORE funny to me . . . because if you watch the video of “Stacy’s Mom” you will see that the commercial is even more about sex than you might have (at least more than I) originally thought!
So what do YOU think? Do you think the commercials of today (at least this one) is that far from the ad from the past? Share any other thoughts you have about commercials.
You might know from my various posts that I don’t really like beans. Beans, the legume, the protein-fiber-rich nutrient. Not my favorite thing. I like green beans. And I am ok with garbanzo beans. I will eat kidney beans but only in two things, the two bean salad (click here for recipe) or my Sausage, Beans, and Rice adaptation (click here for recipe). But otherwise I don’t eat beans. You may also know that I bought some dried garbanzo beans in bulk once. Since I didn’t know what to do with them I turned to the internet for some education. The internet said there were two ways to get the beans ready for a recipe: one was a “quick soak” idea, it requires cooking and doesn’t seem quick to me at all. The other was a soak-over-night way. I tried them both. I didn’t really feel there was a different outcome to the two methods, but obviously the methods themselves were different. I preferred the overnight soak because it doesn’t require any real time that I have to be in the kitchen. Rinse the beans, fill the bowl with water, let them soak, changing the water a few times as they soak. Since I haven’t taught a Nia class in the area of San Jose where I bought the last dried beans, I decided to buy some organic dried garbanzo beans online. To get them ready for cooking I opted for the let-it-set method. I didn’t time the soak because I had done it before and I know that overnight is good enough. I know I let them set from one morning, until the next afternoon. Then I rinsed them and put them on the pan to roast. Apparently not all beans can just be soaked for about 30 hours. Apparently some HAVE to be cooked — as in boiled. These beans did not come out well just soaking. I didn’t know that until I was already roasting them.
I had a huge bowl soaking so when I did the roasting I had only used about half. So I figured that if I let the remaining beans soak longer they would be fine. So I left them soaking until the next day. Throughout this soaking period I had drained the water and refilled. I even took them all out of the bowl, rinsed them, then put them back in the bowl with fresh water. So — again, I figured they had soaked enough they would be fine. Again, part way through cooking when I had a taste they were NOT good. I hadn’t tasted before I added all of my other ingredients so dinner was almost going to be REALLY gross. But I just added water and let them cook and dinner was salvaged.
But now I know. Apparently these beans HAVE to be cooked in order for them to be edible. When not cooked they are really HARD and they taste like a green seed. No good. Not the creamy mush you expect from a garbanzo bean. Also . . . these beans, while they have not popped as the other ones I soaked did, they are letting off a very large and stinky amount of gas! Whew! Again my kitchen smells of bean gas. They are gassy beans! I have yet to cook the rest.
So . . . here I am again, just sharing things I learn. Maybe I can save someone’s dinner if they are like me and think that all dried beans can just be soaked without the cooking. I was fortunate in that what I was cooking was ok with me just adding water and letting it all cook a bit longer than I had planned. But somethings you can’t do that to. So if you are like me and you like the soaking method, try it on a small batch first to see if that will be sufficient.
Please understand I am not saying there is anything wrong with these beans or the brand. I am just saying that I learned not all garbanzo beans can JUST be soaked. Apparently some need to be cooked too!
Do you have a recipe that you use garbanzo beans in? Care to share?
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