Eating, drinking and whinging.

Secret Shame

2012-02-07T08:07:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I mentioned my shameful preference for British crime dramas. I'd like to come clean today and bring up another fascination of mine:

Agony Aunts, also known as Advice Columns.

I read them for, well, a number of reasons. Number one, I am a voyeur. Other people in my major and I used to joke about it in college: anthropologists are just legitimizing pathological voyeurism. I don't read celebrity magazines but (I imagine I am having the same kind of shock-horror reaction that those are designed to solicit). Celebrities are boring and I don't really think it's right to take an active, unsolicited, interest in their personal life. Advice column advice seekers, however, are literally asking for judgement, so it's fair game.

Sometimes, if I'm in a hurry, I don't even read the advice given. This is particularly true of the long-winded and often boring Cary Tennis, who never seems to actually give advice, he just suggests, over and over again, that there isn't much we can do anyway about anything, so just continue existing. I'm not saying it's not good advice, one just doesn't need to read it over and over again.

Prudence from Slate is usually pretty good, except when it comes to anything that is outside vanilla sex problems. But we all know who really should be fielding sex questions and that is Dan Savage, who is mine and probably everyone else's favourite advice columnist.

Today I read the Friend or Foe column by Lucinda Rosenfeld. I'm pretty sure that it's just a performance art piece, because her advice is often so poor. Right now, it's fairly subtle, but I imagine that it's just going to get worse and worse until finally, it's just her answering, "I think you should probably just kill yourself." to everyone who writes in. The idea is that it will be so gradual that no one will notice. Slate's pretty much entirely troll bait anyway. Here's an example of her shitty advice, this one in particular caused a huge stir, but I don't think it's really all that much worse than what she normally advises, it's just the situation was so extreme.

Today, she advised that someone to try talking to their single-mother cokehead best friend and roommate and asking them nicely to make sure not to do coke in the house, after apologising for calling the roommate a junkie. To be fair, I doubt Lucinda has ever spent anytime with a cokehead but there is such a thing as a cocaine asshole which is a very special kind of asshole that can only be created by the careful and steady cultivation of a coke habit. This asshole is not your friend and they do not care about you, although they are in possession of the body of your friend, so it is hard to disconnect the two. They should not live in your house and they should not be allowed to drive your car nor should they be trusted with the deposit on a house (I speak from personal experience). You can feel badly for them but feel bad for the person that they were not the person they are. If you think about it this way, it makes it less painful for you because it is easier to see that their poor behaviour is inarguably not about you, it is about them and it makes it easier to forgive them when/if they finally stop doing cocaine and start attempting to be not an asshole again.

I digress, although, the above is exactly what I do, in my brain, when I read advice columns. I think about the people involved and come up with my own conclusions. I do it over morning tea when Ryan has left for work early or I do it while I'm eating my lunch. Sometimes, if the advice seeker is really crazy, I tell Ryan about it and we both throw up our hands and say things to each other like, "People are idiots!!"

Maple Sugaring and Monkey Bread

2012-02-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

This weekend we tapped the maple trees on Casey's farm. We're hoping to get 100 gallons of sap, which will mean about a gallon and a half of syrup for us. If all goes according to plan, anyway. It is so amazing - the syrup tastes like Casey's woods. Much better than the storebought stuff and that stuff is pretty awesome. I don't know what we are going to do after next year's season, when we most likely will not be living in the northeast anymore.

I also made monkey bread this weekend for the first time. It is something Ryan's mum used to make when he was a kid and we found the recipe in the Kind Arthur flour book.

I made bagels last week and they turned out pretty well - I need practice. I will make them again soon and post pictures/instructions, but right now I have to get ready for the dentist.

Shabby Apple's Shabby Art Director

2012-01-27T06:32:00.000-08:00

Ignoring the weird dress and inappropriate shoes, this model for Shabby Apple is wearing a hunt cap and leading a cow pony with an ugly Western bridle. She's also wearing English gloves and carrying a broken crop, not to mention committing a series of pony-club-don'ts in the other pictures. Surely there are enough horsie people in the fashion industry to fix these glaring mistakes. She just looks like a moron.

http://www.shabbyapple.com/p-1277-grand-national.aspx

Bread and Pregnancy

2012-01-26T08:31:00.000-08:00

I made a butternut squash gallette the other night. I fried up some onions, threw in some cubed squash and Mark Bittman's chili spice mix (ancho chilis, cumin, coriander, black pepper and oregano), tomato paste and water and put the resulting mixture in a whole wheat crust.

I have some of the filling leftover, so Ryan's getting a special treat for his lunch tomorrow: a squash pasty.

We've been so excellent about not only remembering to put things together for his lunches everyday but also baking the bread for his lunches - so even if there's no leftovers or the leftovers are a bit meager, there is fresh bread to make sandwiches. We do get our weekend loaf from Wide Awake Bakery, but that is for Friday afternoon tea with Ken and Saturday and Sunday morning breakfasts. Their bread is better than ours, but they also have a giant brick bread oven instead of a crappy, poorly insulated one.

Last week I made a batch of olive oil dough. That plus rosemary from the CSA (although once I used za'ta) meant we had focaccia for a few meals - it never lasted more than an evening.

My mood has been a little better this week although I did have another meltdown on Saturday. I know I've spent a lifetime feeling like I didn't get some memo that every other girl seem to have gotten, relating to things that are stereotypically associated with women, but pregnancy fucking takes the cake. Sure, I can read in the books that it's perfectly normal not to be radiant and excited and a blithering idiot, but that is no help when you are dealing with the well-meaning advice givers in-person.

"Oh you're cleaning your bathroom/doing laundry/cleaning house? You must be NESTING." (No, from time to time, I clean my house because I am an adult.)

"Oh I've been waiting for you to get excited! How exciting that you are finally excited!" (I just told you I had an ultrasound and that I still feel like shit after eating.)

"Oh you need to eat TONS OF FAT. It will make your baby smart." (Do not counter this argument with, "actually that's not a good idea for a number of reasons".... otherwise you will be called out for your vanity. Never mind the omega-3 supplements you are taking.)

As annoyed as I sound, the tears on Saturday were because I can't figure out how to be as excited as everyone else seems to be. I'm just existing and the baby is existing and soon the baby will be born and that is what happens. I guess I just want to be left the hell alone, but (I imagine) people get awfully touchy when you scream at them "Please for the love of all you hold sacred, talk to me about SOMETHING ELSE." Not to say I'm banning the subject - obviously it's on my mind a lot and I do have questions/potentially interesting things to say on the subject and I really don't actually mind talking about it, but the subject does get tiresome when it is the only thing people can talk to you about.

Maybe it's partially my fault: I don't have a whole lot else going on right now. I keep meaning to get on with certain projects, but I still feel sick or tired or both most days. Things about the second trimester, so far, that are annoying: it is still quite possible to have morning sickness and be too fucking tired to stay up past 8pm. These instances are just less frequent or less severe (I can manage food if I don't think about it afterward and sometimes I'm just too fucking tired to stay up past 10 instead of 8). Sleep is increasingly uncomfortable: I am an "active" sleeper, meaning I sleep on my sides, back and front throughout the course of the night, the front is increasingly not an option and the back is not recommended. So sides it is! If I can remember, while I'm asleep, not to roll onto my back (I usually can't). The books say, get pillows! People who suggest this are not familiar with the members of my family, who are quite happy to roll and roll and roll until they are completely tangled up in the duvet, pillows flung to the far corners of the bed. Pillows will do nothing to stop me. The only thing that works is Ryan occasionally waking up in the night and noticing I am on my back, then gently prodding me, hopefully onto my side. He is so brave.

Getting Older and Girl Scout Cookies

2012-01-12T16:44:00.000-08:00

Today I was trying to describe my friend Jane to my friend Ken. I assumed they had met, but he didn't remember her.

"She was at my birthday party. Very pregnant."

Then I remembered that there were two very pregnant women at my birthday party, so I amended the statement by declaring she was the brown haired very pregnant person as opposed to the blonde haired very pregnant person.

"I do remember pregnant people at your party."

Then I thought about how old I am to have pregnant women at my birthday party without it being totally weird.

There are things that I do differently now that I am older. I just had a conversation with Ryan where my roommate situation in Santa Barbara came up. I described calling someone back who had called to inquire about our loft space. We (roomate Casey and I) had talked over breakfast and decided to put off renting the loft for another month - I think because there was the possibility of our old roommate and good friend moving back in. So I called the person who had left a message inquiring about the space and said, "Yeah, well, my roommate and I decided that we aren't going to rent the space after all." The man immediately launched into a weird rant at me about how I was being "ageist" (I had no idea how old he was) by refusing to rent to him and how uncool that was and how rude and on and on....

Ryan said, "Why did you listen to this man enough to hear the whole thing?"

I said that I didn't know. It was a strange thing to have happen. Maybe that's why.

Then he said, "How old were you?"

I must have been about 20.

"Ah. So not old enough to know you could just hang up and not listen."

It reminded me of my sweet friend Georgi, a 19 year old freshman. She told me about being on a bus, getting in a conversation with a grad student and him asking for her phone number. She said she didn't really want to give it to him, but felt she should to avoid being rude. I said, "Georgi, you do not have to give your phone number to anyone you do not want to. It doesn't matter if they think you are being rude or not."

Which is something that I think a lot of 19 year old girls should hear. You do not have to do that shot and you do not have to go home with that person. Unless, of course (!) you WANT to. In which case, do and have fun.

So, at 20, I didn't know I didn't have to listen to some stranger's abuse on the phone but Georgi will know that she is allowed to not give her phone number out to just anyone who asks for it.

***

In other news, I'm buying some Girl Scout cookies. I'm buying them from a kid whose parents are homophobic social conservatives. Mainly because I don't know many Girl Scouts (just the one, really) but the irony is not lost on me - but it will probably be lost on them. Which makes it a little funny.

Battles with healthcare

2012-01-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

Just tried to watch Bridesmaids. Completely unrelatable. I had to switch it off because everyone in it, so far, including Matt Lucas, was too high-pitched.

***

I tried to get a counseling appointment this morning. I'll just say this: the last few months have been less than fun for me and it occurred to me, on Friday, that sobbing my way through doing the dishes for no apparent reason was perhaps not normal. I mean, I don't like doing the dishes, but it doesn't normally result in tears. I'm sure it's bad brain chemicals, but all the things I normally do to clear them out are either unavailable to me or nor working or part of what is making me cry so much. I signed up for a counselling appointment through MyGannett, which is an electronic appointment service. The appointment was a phone assessment and made for 11:40 this morning. I dutifully called in on time and was connected to a psychologist whose first question was,

"What year are you?"

"Um [I clear my throat] I'm actually a spouse of a grad student."

"Oh. I don't think we can assist you, unless you are coming in for couples counselling."

"But, all my health care services are provided by Gannett."

"That's strange. You shouldn't be able to received services through Gannett *, but either way, we aren't part of Gannett. Let me put you on hold and go and check."

"I'm so sorry for leaving you on hold for so long. I'm still confused as to your receiving healthcare from Gannett, but as I said we only provide counselling for students. I can refer you to Family and Children's...."

And there I cut her off, thanked her and hung up.

*Also, she is entirely wrong. Gannett is the only place I can go with my insurance and receive full coverage.

I can't go to Family and Children's because I know some of their counsellors and staff socially and at least one of the counsellors should never have been granted a license to practice, because NO ONE who is that unfriendly, rude, humourless and insecure should be counselling other people.

"Try being bitchier. It worked for me!"

And here is the crux of the matter and should be noted for anyone considering being a Cornell Graduate Student Spouse.

Cornell doesn't care about you. You are extraneous. They don't wish you to be happy, they don't even know you exist. Despite a study done AT CORNELL, showing that married grad students are both more likely to finish and finish faster than unmarried grad students, they do nothing for this admittedly small population. They don't even provide counselling or job seekers assistance, despite the fact that moving here is more likely to be hardest on the spouse, which means the spouse will be unhappy which will result in unhappy grad students that take forever to not finish their degrees. No effort at building a community or connecting said spouses is made and no forum is provided for us to even to this on our own effective.

I had sort of gotten over this sentiment until I discovered that they won't let me see a counsellor - the counselling services is separate from the university health insurance, and paid for by the university (I assume to allow students to go and not be forced to inform their parents, should they still be on their parents insurance) so if I want to see a counsellor, I have to go outside the system pay, instead of it being covered like it would be, were I a student. Nice one, Cornell. Force me to pay for your shitty student health insurance and yet don't allow me the same access that you do the students.

British crime dramas.

2012-01-03T17:37:00.000-08:00

Confession: I watch a lot of British crime dramas.

They are sordid.

Lately, I've been re-watching Waking the Dead. I like that the forensics anthropologist is apparently always some kind of crazy auto-didact genius who has managed to build up an expert knowledge base not only of forensic anthropology, but also cryptography, ballistics, radiology, botany, dentistry, serology, toxicology, pathology. Also, Spence is hot.

I also like Midsomer Murders - not quite a drama as there is often some comic relief. The premise is basically some grisly, sordid murder happens in a quaint tiny village in the fictitious county of Midsomer. Somewhere around the half hour mark, a second murder happens and then, before the third murder happens, our hero, DCI Barnaby figures out who the killer is and rescues the potential victim in the nick of time. It doesn't matter that all the episodes are the same.

Unlike a lot of American shows, British crime dramas are often a lot more graphic.

So you see quite a lot of "murders" and "rapes". And I never think the victim struggles hard enough: If someone attempted to garrotte me, I'd probably reach behind and gouge an eye or grab a throat and squeeze. Maybe attempt to grab testicles.

At least: I think I would. a former student of mine published a piece about almost getting raped. She felt disappointed that she didn't do anything to help herself. No kicking in the balls, no screaming. I blame so many pathetic TV victims for this attitude. My friend Mark described a study (I do not have a link) that looks at cops and criminals being shot in exactly the same way. Cops fall over and "act shot". Criminals run for miles.

So, I've been thinking about reversing the patterns put in my brain by these TV shows. I have a plan in my head, as I mentioned above. Eyes are good. So are throats and testicles. And screaming.

Garden Plan

2011-12-29T12:54:00.000-08:00

I'm working on planning the garden for next year. Last year, we didn't do much in it because our garden is so crappy sun-wise and I didn't really have time to get into a pissing contest with our downstairs neighbour (she kept trying to plant things where we had already planted things...."I was thinking about putting some garlic here, what do you think?" "Um. That's my herb garden. See these plants I'm picking right now? I put them in my food to make it taste better." I won't talk about her destroying our mint - it's too upsetting.

This year, however, I will have time to stake my claim properly. And with carte blanche from Steve to do whatever we like to the garden in the name of vegetable growing, I intend to get rid of the ugly, invasive tiger lilies from the front patch and plant tomatoes there. Beans and peas in the area we have previously used for tomatoes (they will supposedly do better with less sun than tomatoes). The really exciting part of the plan is that we are going to experiment with container gardening on the roof of the garage: eggplant and sweet pepper.

Cookie Exchange

2011-12-11T07:07:00.000-08:00

I'm going to a friend's cookie exchange party this afternoon. I am a good cook, but not being that into baked goods besides pies, I don't make them very often, so I'm not all that practiced and I don't have a "special secret killer cookie recipe". I made 2 kinds: glazed lemon and snickerdoodles. Ryan wanted snickerdoodles. They are never my first choice - I just do not see the point in them, eternally not cinnamony enough, I always feel that I could do just as well eating sugar on toast. I added extra cinnamon this time, still not cinnamony enough.

Anyway. I talked to Casey yesterday, who introduced me and the other friend and found out that I am going to meet a girl, my age, who just had a baby and "is very active".

I think that people are conspiring because I put a facebook post up the other day that read, "Hello mini-retirement/last 7 months of freedom" and this was cause for concern: some people don't understand my sardonic sense of humor. Also: I'm a little resentful because it's not like I don't already have enough fucking people telling me exactly what pregnancy is like/going to be/how I will feel/etcetera. Also: I feel annoyed that I can't complain, darkly, jokingly, as I do about everything else under the sun, but this subject is some how taboo. I come from the perspective that there is humor in every situation. And if I can't laugh about this then I will probably cry, because so far (this is for you all those women that say, "Oh I loved being pregnant, it was so amazing), it has sucked a lot.

However, just because I've been a miserable pregnant lady so far and not gushing about babies to everyone or rushing to pick up stranger's babies and posting pictures of my uterus on twitter, it really doesn't mean that I am not going to love my baby or not be a good mother. Promise.

My week.

2011-12-09T13:13:00.000-08:00

I've given myself 4 days: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and today. These 4 days were for indulgences, particularly today: I have not done much today besides read 67%* of "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion.

On Monday, my boss, fed up with me missing work due to morning sickness, declared me useless, implied I was untrustworthy and asked why I even bothered coming in at all. I won't lie: it hurt at the time. I'm not really all that upset though, because, despite the shock of having a grown man childishly storm into my office, rifle through my things, hurl insults at me and then storm out, I also know exactly what I did at that job and know that I am a) useful and b) trustworthy. I just got pregnant, which, as far as I can tell, I am allowed to do. So, these 4 days haven't been me wallowing in depression. I'm pretty sure. After he left my office, I emailed him a note saying I wouldn't be returning.

At the time, I didn't know how I was going to react. I came home in tears and lay down on one of the dog beds with Jeeves for awhile. Rather sadly memetic and cliché, I sobbed into his fur. He's a good sport and puts up with this from time to time. Then I rolled over and stared at the ceiling, wondering if this was going to be one of those weeks or months where I couldn't face waking up in the mornings or going to sleep at night.

I pulled my shoes off and crawled into bed.

People keep asking me if I'm excited to be pregnant. I can't give them the "correct" answer because excited isn't really the word for it. I'm never excited about things until after they've happened. I'm not overly friendly to people I don't know that well and I have always had a revulsion towards the false, immediate intimacy that is so expected of women these days. False emotions go along with that and I simply can't say, "Yes! Oh my god, I'm over the moon!"

What I am is: Apprehensive. A little scared about a number of things. Looking forward to it. Anxious about a number of things. Curious. Aware.

Anyway. I woke up after my nap and Ryan came home. He seemed pleased not to find me bawling. I was a bit surprised myself, but, I really think I'm not all that stressed because my boss was and is just plain wrong. It would be more upsetting if I had actually screwed up. Believe me, as someone who has spent a lifetime perfecting turning feeling horribly guilty about things that have barely anything to do with me into catalysts for debilitating, crippling, depression, I am certain that if there was a grain of truth to what I was accused of, I probably would have jumped out a window.

Instead, I did the dishes and ate some lasagne ad thought about what I plan to do next week, after my miniature holiday is over.

*I have a Kindle, so I know.

I'm retiring.

2011-11-02T08:04:00.000-07:00

My boss informed me on Monday that my job was ending in December. He wants it to be a full-time position, with half of the time assisting the grant people. He let me know I was welcome to apply, but because it was full-time, benefits eligible, they had to open it up to other people.

I will not be reapplying, for various reasons. One, in particular, but I'll not go into it here.

Yesterday, he emailed me a lot of letters that I was expecting a little less than a month ago. I duly printed them on letterhead and sent them to his office to sign. This morning he let me know (nicely) that he'd expected me to add his contact information to the signature.

And here is why I will be damned if I ever take another job that has any hint of administrative support. I had the same frustrations at a different admin job I had. Mainly, I somehow missed the mind-reading class that all administrative assistants seem to have taken. When I worked for the hedge fund, my life was constantly reliving that scene in Office Space where Jennifer Aniston isn't wearing enough "pieces of flare".

"So, more then."

It's not quite like that here, but I still find myself visibly irritating my boss when I haven't done something as, for example, unintuitive as add contact information in a signature block. Obviously this is a minor example, but it is not "correct" to have contact information in a print letter signature block, particularly if it is printed on letterhead. I'm not even sure what he wants in the signature block - a phone number or email address is inappropriate, his title is already there and the address of our institution is in the letterhead. Of course, it's his letter and he can have it however he likes, but I can't possibly assume what that is, if it is not what is the traditionally accepted manner. What if he wants a small drawing of a giraffe at the bottom of the page or wants his name to be written in a coMbInatIOn of uPPer and LoWer cASe?

The reason I say I missed a class is because I get this impression from people that someone else would have known. It might be in my head, but I can't shake this feeling that someone else would probably have had this all knowing ability. Other people manage to be happy in administrative positions and don't seem to irritate their bosses.

Bacon is not health food.

2011-10-13T07:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know, lately, I've been complaining a lot about Paleo dieters, but my frustration keeps bubbling up because of being annoyed by facebook posts from a particular person (A quote from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee: "“You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family..." neglects to mention that you also can't choose your husband's friends unless you are a shrew).

This rant's topic: bacon. In all it's sugary, salty glory, it could not have been eaten by pleistocene era homo sapiens sapiens because, well, salt was a rarity. So was fat. And sugar? Certainly not in any refined form. So much for the "lean meat" clause. So stop smugly pretending you're eating bacon for health reasons.

Strange Lump

2011-10-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

I've had a strange lump on my right pinky for about 2 weeks now. It hurts when you press on it, but it's one of those strangely satisfying sore hurts, almost like a sore muscle. Pressing on it, despite causing more pain, feels like some release. I don't know if other people experience pain the same way, but sometimes something sore just wants to be worried, poked at and prodded.

The other night, I was watching a recent episode of Doc Martin (I just love watching my stories! You never know whose long lost relative is going to show up and replace a character who left at the end of last season for some ambiguous reason explained hastily at the beginning of an episode!) and I yelled to Ryan, in the kitchen,

"I think I have arthritis. What's arthritis like?"

You may think this a strange thing to say to someone, but I come from a long line of hypochondriac, hysterical, medical quasi-autodidacts, so "I think I have [blank highly improbable ailment]" is not an unusual utterance of mine.

He said, "You don't have arthritis."

"How do you know? I have this lump on my finger. It could be a Bouchard's Node."

"Okay fine. You have arthritis."

"No, look at it."

"I think it's broken."

He said this and has continued to say this to me since that evening not because he thinks it's broken, but because once, a few summers ago, he banged his toe while sailing and came home and casually mentioned that he thought he'd broken his toe. I didn't believe him and the reason I didn't believe him is because if I'd broken my toe, I'd have complained a considerable amount more than he did. So, good wife that I am, I dismissed it as a sprain. It actually was broken, though and has caused him some amount of discomfort since.

I can actually trace this pinky pain back to a specific incident, but it happened so long ago, I'm not sure why the painful bump has arisen recently - or if it has been there all along, why I'm noticing it now. Web MD has nothing to say on the subject.

The incident is this: Nelly is a big brown horse who takes after her big grey mother, Henriette, in a lot of ways that neither of them have any pain receptors in their big heads (I'm afraid to lead Henry - she just doesn't care where she puts that thing and it could kill seriously someone). They are both a bit territorial too. Henry once swung her big anvil of a head over the fence and bit my thigh while I was riding Firefly (to be fair, she thought we were too close to her foal; to be even fairer, she was standing by the ring with her foal despite a huge pasture behind her when she decided that I was too close to her foal - there is just no reasoning with warmblood mares!). I was loud and unpleasant to her for it, and she decided that attacking me was a bad idea (although I could tell she still sort of wanted to - I'd see a glint in her eye when we passed her the next few times). Unfortunately her much younger daughter, Nelly, has less sense and when she tried the same thing on me, I went as far as to wallop her across the nose. She barely blinked; I was in excruciating pain and had to cut my ride short so I could go an put my hand in a cold bucket of water.

It hurt for a while - I don't remember how long - and then I forgot about the incident. Until that discussion on the couch.

Just now, I let him know it was bigger today than it has been. I think he's tired of me diagnosing myself with absurd ailments (hey, we've all got our coping mechanisms) and said, "Cancer" which is probably one of those internet memes, like Godwin's law, something like, "Every medical discussion or question on the internet will eventually lead you to a diagnosis of cancer".

I don't think I have little finger cancer. I probably did break it when I walloped Nelly. I will keep everyone informed.

Editorial from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition on Hunter-Gatherer Diets

2011-10-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

This editorial articulates my point regarding the Paleo Diet much more concisely and clearly than any cocktail party rambling I have been guilty of.

Lists: Things on the brain

2011-09-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

-Autumn is here. I want to make apple butter, among other things.

-I want to get back into making almond milk and cooking beans on Sundays. The almond milk fell by the wayside because R wanted to order it from the bulk place but never got around to it. This is one of those things that really frustrates me: sometimes he won't do things because he's thought of a better way to do them, but the better way requires a little more effort in the beginning, so it doesn't get done at all. The beans will be easy to do though. I made a fabulous split pea soup last week, just split peas and a little bouillion and a lot of time. It was even better the second day.

-I keep reliving a course I had on Saturday with Ruby. It was perfect - we were the best we've been. I'd put together everything I'd learned from riding her and getting through all the tests she constantly throws at me. Then I failed, big time and was thrown into a coop. See, Ruby asks you a question before every single jump. About 6 strides out, maybe 7, maybe 5, she says, "Really?" What she is looking for is confirmation from you that you really do mean to jump it. Then she grabs the bit and drags you to the fence, so your next job, after answering her question is to keep her feet on the ground for as long as possible. So there she was asking and there I was answering. We jumped the hay bales and galloped down the hilllock and back up to the top of it, turned right and faced a coop that had the sun hitting it so it was glaring. "Really?" she said and I said, "Yes." She looked a little harder at the fence and asked again, "REALLY?" I said, more loudly, "YES". I thought this would be enough, but we arrived at the fence and there was no trouble keeping her feet on the ground. She stopped dead and I slid right down her neck and onto the coop. It's all on video.

-I have a list of things in my mind that I need to get the where-with-all and pantry space to make. One is bouillon from the River Cottage Preserves Handbook. It's a beautiful book that I bought at Powell's in Portland when I was there for my friend's wedding. I bought that book and Putting Food By, which has given me a very healthy fear of botulism. The River Cottage book suggests one or two methods of jam making that are, in capitalised letters, expressly discouraged by Putting Food By.

-I also want to make apple sauce.

-R and I are talking about buying an allotment next year. Since I, in all likelihood, won't be working, I can contribute to the household by growing food, namely the things we do not get from our CSA. I can grow things and preserve them which sounds like a much more rewarding use of my time than trying to get reporters to by junk remedies or completing competitive renewals for grants. Maybe I'll be able to even sell a little and get that project going. Who knows how much time I'm actually going to have though.

-I'm going to knit a bunch this winter. I have this idea that if I knit a 100% wool afghan, I'll be constantly warm, because I'll have it covering me as I knit. The flaw in this plan is that I have an idea to make a sort of sampler quilt by knitting a bunch of squares with different stitch patterns and in different colours and then bringing them together.

-I have a plan to have an indoor herb garden. Ryan is skeptical* and discouraged me in the past but a downstairs herb garden is just not practical when one cooks like me. Usually the thing is on the stove cooking before I think, "ROSEMARY!" and, as I am usually barefoot and in my pyjamas at any given time when I am at home, running downstairs and around the corner to get to the entrance of the yard, in full view of all the Northstar patrons enjoying their cocktails, isn't all that practical. I don't even care about being seen, really, it's the fact that I'm already in the middle of cooking. Sometimes, these days, it's dark when I finally start dinner, so I'm not really going to be all that great at finding whatever herbs I need, anyway.

-*Ryan is a sensible, very intelligent, pragmatic person who is almost always correct. Sometimes I am lazy and just believe him about things. This has bitten me in the ass more than once. I had an experience this last summer involving bringing bars of special soap for laundry from the Asian shop his sister goes to in Sacramento. He was convinced that the security people would think it was weird to bring several bars of soap in our carry on and that we shouldn't bother. His sister and I colluded and concluded that he was being a bit of a ninny and I went with her to buy the soap anyway. The worst we would be out would be the 80c I paid for the soap. There was no problem at the gate. In short, sometimes my husband is a little too cautious, so I am going to try an indoor herb garden.

Perfectionism

2011-09-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

I am an absent-minded person. I also have an inability to pay "attention to detail" (apologies for the use of that hackneyed job board cliche), in certain circumstances. I can actually have "attention to detail", I just don't seem to have a lot of choice in what I pay attention to... my horses, when I had them, were always spotless, my tack room, when I had one, was organised down to the alphabetised-according-to-ailment medicine cabinet and I make some excellent jam...but tossing lemon juice into the compost and keeping the seeds or doubling a cheesecake recipe that I've already doubled make for some hilarious after dinner stories that have given my husband a lot of mileage. I am not someone suited, ideally, for administrative work. However, combine a degree in physical anthropology and a personality that is singularly unmotivated by money or prestige and these are the jobs one gets.

I have been lectured at work for things I accidentally do, such as misspell a name or put something in the wrong place on a chart. It's not an often occurrence but it does happen occasionally.

At the moment, I am supposed to be doing something (procrastination is another fault of mine...) that involves going through files (hard copy) that were put together by my predecessor.

I do not feel so badly anymore and the next time I am sent into a spiral of shame and self-loathing by a supervisor, I will remember that other people are possibly just as forgetful or absentminded. One file has someone's name misspelled on every piece of correspondence, despite receiving correctly spelled correspondence from the misspellee. Others are missing swathes of necessary papers. One even has the wrong first name for someone in several places.

In short: I may not be perfect, but other people aren't either. Also, I just spilled water all over my lap.

Cornell Companion Animal Hospital is now on my enemies list.

2011-09-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

Cornell Companion Animal hospital, you may have saved Jeeves life in June, but sending us scary emails following up on positive test results from six months ago that you neglected to inform us about in the first place and not having actual documentation of said test results (or other, similar tests!) and thus, no way of verifying whether it was in fact a positive test is too much to bear. Once you have given us our retest (which I do not expect to pay for), we will be taking our dogs elsewhere.

Begin vaccination rant/

2011-08-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

I read a post on the facebook page of an old friend Liz Ditz (her daughter and I rode with the same trainer for years) that was in regards to vaccinations:

My two eldest children are patients of Dr. Baskerville. I have also declined to vaccinate them. As the article suggests, Dr. Baskerville has gently and kindly recommended vaccination for them and has graciously accepted my decision not to follow her recommendation. We've discussed the relative merits and risks of the practice and she continues to provide excellent care to my children in the rare instances that they need it.

My concerns regarding vaccinations do not center on autism, though I'm not convinced that there is no link. Rather, I believe that my children's immune systems, evolved over millions of years, in conjunction with good hygiene, nutrition, and adequate exercise, is their best defense against infectious diseases . Given that vaccines have a known, quantified risk (though it's likely that the risk is greater than what's published due to underreporting). I'm not willing to play Russian Roulette with my children's health by exposing them to a known, possibly fatal risk to possibly (since no vaccines are 100% effective) prevent a disease to which they may never be exposed.

I've asked medical professionals if they can point me to a scientific, peer-reviewed study that compared the overall health and well-being of vaccinated and non-vaccinated populations. So far, none has been able to cite such a study.

Obviously, to anyone who has an actual grasp of how evolution and statistics work, this woman is clearly ~~an idiot~~ wrong. What's surprising to me is that her sentences are complete and her punctuation is correct. Because usually, this kind of anti-science absurdity comes from the illiterati Tea Partiers that want the guv'mint out of their bidness.

But a certain core group of the anti-vax crowd in their be-sweatered, minivan driving, organic produce buying, highly educated glory are, in themselves, part of the so-called liberal elite. And these folks, in the under the guise of fashionable scepticism and possibly out of a desire to feel somewhat in control, possibly through perceived "subversion", choose to believe the likes of Jenny McCarthy over less well known people who happen to understand the concepts of the scientific method, evolution (hint: you can use viruses to demonstrate it) and statistics (or even the fact the large numbers are in fact larger than small numbers: the amount of people who dye of measles today is a smaller number than the amount of people who died before the vaccine was invented).

This woman above is not willing to play russian roulette with regards to vaccinations which have a much lower rate of killing/causing damage to people than measles but she is willing to play russian roulette with the actual disease itself.

/end rant.

Happy Birthday to me.

2011-08-31T07:40:00.000-07:00

When I was about 16, I had to go to the doctor for some reason or another. The doctor went through a list of normal health history questions and then came to the one that said, "Do you have a partner?"

I paused. Partner? Lab partner? Partner-in-crime?

Then I realised she was talking about a partner in sex and I blushed and mumbled yes. It was meta- embarrassment: I was embarrassed because I assumed my pause had led her to believe I was embarrassed about the question and I really wasn't, I was just having trouble understanding it.

+++

Anyway: I have a medical appointment with a nurse midwife (before anyone gets all excited congratulatory weird - I am not pregnant. This is only the planning stages) in a few days which involved a lot of paperwork for me (none for Ryan! I realise that one has to be sensitive about these things, but surely his medical history is pertinent too). It was full of similar questions. I made the appointment a month ago, they sent me a whole bunch of papers and said please bring these along, filled in and I thought, they expect me to keep track of this paper work for a whole month? (I am so incapable of filing things that once they make it off the kitchen table onto the living room side table that is on the way to the filing cabinet and then off the living room side table, further in the direction of the filing cabinet, they make it into a basket, that I keep a pile of papers in, on top of my filing cabinet that I call my "basket-of-shame". Every six months to one year the shame becomes overwhelming, boredom and a desire to be perceived as an adult set in and I convince myself to file it all away.) Then I remembered what the appointment was for and realised that this may be some sort of test. Are you organised enough to keep track of this paperwork for a month? Okay, step one completed, you may have a baby.

What drove me to make this appointment? A desire to quit my job and my 30th birthday (today!). Well biology, really more than the actual age thing. It's not anything I am actually conscious of - I just have baby dreams every single week and have done for about 3 years. I burst into tears over this one during one of our discussions, claiming that I was struggling with my own biology. I spluttered: "I should be above this!" then Ryan said, "Why? You're a biological creature." And I realised that once again I had been operating under assumptions that had been placed on me at a young age, by someone else.

***

So I have these baby dreams, despite the fact that I don't actually like babies. I have no interest in holding them, looking at them or cooing at them. I don't like the idea that stuff can come out of them, from any orifice, without much notice. Casey told me about "not minding" when they sick in your mouth and I turned white and then tried not to sick up lunch. "I will mind." I told her, she assured me I wouldn't (I will). Before you ask, I do like children and babies are only babies for a short time. I used to think there was something wrong with me (another assumption, placed on me at a young age by someone else)and then I decided that there wasn't and that it was okay not to like (human*) babies. Also: I have been told by reliable sources that I might actually like my own baby.

***

So, I can say it now, I want children. I am also terrified of screwing up, particularly in the beginning (What are babies? We just don't know). So, I am doing this the only way I know how. Lying awake at night worrying about it, meeting with a doctor first, taking vitamins and reading prodigious amounts on the subject. (Did you know that the baby gets to taste the flavours of the things you eat through the amniotic fluid and there is some evidence that that effects what kind of an eater they are when they are born? So it's a really good idea to eat a wide variety of foods when you are pregnant if it is important to you -as it is to me- that your child not be a picky eater? NEAT).

***

Ryan worries a lot less than I do. I had these concerns that my riding goals would have to be put on hold indefinitely ("No - I imagine I'll come home from work, you'll hand me the baby and go off riding.") or that the dogs would get neglected (he seemed doubtful over this as well and I think about it now and he's right. I'll be home with all of them all day. We'll go on walks. The baby will be the familiaris version of Mowgli). Also having a messy house full of crap I don't want and don't need**.

My friends who are expecting a baby any minute now are instituting a no-plastic rule for toys in the hopes that it will cut down on some of the crap they are bound to receive. Of course, I mentioned that to someone else who thought they were nuts (I do not).

I mentioned my not wanting a lot of baby crap to Casey and it was like that scene in The Jerk... "Oh you don't need a lot of stuff. Except a co-sleeper. And a [some other item I don't recall]. Oh and a [another item I don't recall] is really great too" etcetera. But I really think that with our two forces of will united against plastic garbage and space takers in general, we will be able to avoid the problem of too much baby crap. Maybe I'm a fool to think that I can keep a grown up looking house and children, but I'm pretty sure it's possible (now I just want to go home and throw away a bunch of things).

So anyway. Happy birthday to me, I've decided to reproduce.

*and here is my assumption I am placing on you puppies, kittens and foals it is not okay not to like. If you've never seen baby horses frolicking, you've never actually seen frolicking and that is a shame. Also, look at their tiny, whiskery, puckered, little mouths while you are at it. And their butts.

** It's time to do the fall clear out. I've noticed some shirts in my drawers that I haven't worn in six months, so away they must go. Also, I need to move the warmer clothes back into rotation soon, get the old couch downstairs to make room for more storage in the pantry and hang Robert's painting. And dust the bookshelves.

Tomato Tart with goat cheese

2011-08-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

Last night we made a tomato tart. We started with a whole wheat crust, prebaked. Smeared a bit of olive oil and about 4oz of Lively Run goat cheese across the bottom and then put a layer of caramelized onion followed by a layer of thinly sliced heirloom tomatoes that had been tossed with salt, pepper and fresh oregano. That went in the oven for 20 minutes or so and came out heavenly.

The combination of caramelized onions, goat cheese and tomato are an amazing combination, almost on the level of a *holy trinity (all though I'm not sure it could really count because it wouldn't work as a versatile flavour base which I think is a major criteria of a holy trinity).

*holy trinities: ginger, garlic, chilies; celery, carrots, onions; garlic, onions, olive oil; etc. - I'm sure everyone has their favourites.

Tomatoes and supporting women.

2011-08-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

We are in the midst of the delicious season around here. I keep making a tomato salad by chopping up the lovely fat, juicy heirlooms that come from my CSA. I leave them tossed with a bit of salt for a bit, to bring out some of the liquid and it becomes almost a rustic gazpacho, to which I add bell peppers, crushed black pepper and crushed garlic. I try and chill it in the fridge before serving although this is not absolutely necessary. If you've done it right, you need to serve it in a bowl and with a spoon. The best part is drinking the leftover tomato water at the end when you've finished the pieces of tomato and pepper. Ryan and I jokingly call it "Fruit Salad".

****

I am working on a letter for work to a well-known person whose politics I do not agree with. It's a female and when I groaned about it (via IM, so my groan was probably not actually perceived: if no one is there to see you roll your eyes, did you actually roll them?) she said, "Oh! I love her!" and I said, "Really? I can't stand her."

I think my friend feels that anytime a woman reaches any level of national attention in a field usually dominated by men, it is a success and we should support her. I don't think my friend has actually ever paid attention to some of the things this person has done (sorry to be so enigmatic, but I don't want to get fired), just the fact that she is female is enough to garner my friend's support. Which is a pattern of thinking that has never occurred to me until I started working on the letter again and thinking about the conversation. It would never occur to me to support a woman principally because she is a woman.
***

I need to figure out how to get paid to write.

2011-08-11T06:19:00.000-07:00

It seems odd to me that these people picked their Great Dane puppy because he was a runt. Surely, if you are going for a breed that is known for being huge, the hugeness is part of the appeal. I'm just going to chalk it up to the barely coherent article and then sulk for awhile that someone was paid to write this drivel and it wasn't me.

Someone was also paid to write this, which I didn't finish reading. In fact I stopped just after the words "intellectual disabilities" because one can't take anyone seriously if they are using "intellectual disabilities" as a "polite" way to refer to people who are developmentally disabled.

Ryan is in Portland and More About Horses

2011-08-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

Ryan is in Portland at a conference. He had a paper to present. I have been faithfully looking after the dogs but really not doing much else other than watching Poirot mysteries (Five Little Pigs is great! Well, if you ignore the horrible acting by Aimee Mullins, but she's not in it very much so it's not that big of a deal. Big Suze is in it too. You can watch it here).

I've been so tired recently and I think it's because of a sinus infection in combination with my hours not being suited to what my body wants.

I have Friday, Saturday and Sunday to sleep normally and by Sunday evening, I feel normal again. Human. Energetic! Then, Monday morning happens and I spend the next 4 days being a zombie.

I'm not sure when the early birds got the upper hand, but I hate them all. The smug bastards who just tell you to "Go to bed earlier! That's what I do!". The ones that act as if they have evolved beyond the need for sleep and are therefore more evolved than you. I'm not sure why we all have to operate according to their schedule, but I seem to have the misfortune of having one as a boss a lot. My old boss didn't require sleep and his second in command pretended he didn't require sleep. The boss ended up inducing heart arrhythmia once or twice and the second in command was just a cranky jerk half the time. I had to be at work at 6am every day. I honestly don't know how I did it. I can't even imagine doing it now. I can barely imagine what I do do which is wake up at around 7, to get to work before 8.

+++++++++++++++++++++

On Saturday, I went on a hunter pace with my current favourite - a big spooky mare named Ruby. At least we were told she was spooky and also that she was a stopper. She's never spooked particularly badly with either Casey nor me, so...her old owners were at the pace and I think they were a little shocked that we took her, on account of her apparent stopping problem and her spooking problem. Our theory is hunter paces are great for building up bravery in a horse that lacks confidence, which is really what her problem is. I also used an extra strong bit, in case she was TOO confident...

I would like to buy her but I don't have the money and I am reticent to buy anything that has a hint of stop. I've only jumped her 3'6" once and that time she was pulling my arms out of their sockets to get to the fence, but the rumour is she has a stop above 3'.

I have paid my dues with a stopper, starting with convincing him to jump crossrails and ending up with taking him to medal finals.The bucker I had was far, far more fulfilling to take to horse shows because all my hard work was rewarded with many, many blue ribbons and very little embarrassment. He was, to use jargon, an "Oh shit horse" meaning when you see it get off the trailer, you say, "Oh shit." A stopper is more heartbreaking than a bucker.

And I'm fed up with horsie heartbreak.

My plan, as soon as it is possible, is to buy something trained and probably expensive. And take it to horse shows. And only sell it if and when I want to.

I'm done with greenies; I'm done with buckers, spookers, stoppers, rearers, leapers, biters, strikers and kickers. I'm also done with unsoundness, but that's a little harder to prevent.

When I worked at a stable in college, I had a student, Catriona, whose mother used to tell us that Catriona liked to ride "spirited" horses. When Mandy took off with Catriona, bucking and farting around the ring, her mother shouted, "Ride that horse! You tame it Catriona!".

Clearly a woman who has watched too many Hollywood movies. Mandy was a feisty probably navicular quarter horse that couldn't be in lessons with other horses because she would charge at them. Once you denied her the right to charge other horses, her response was to take off, bucking and farting. We did not have good school horses at this facility, (save one, whom I rescued before I left). She wasn't a wild mustang fresh off the range who, once she realised how special Catriona was, would settle down and be her friend for life.

Those horses you see in the movies that rear and scream? In real life, the ones that do that of there own volition are not safe to ride. Because a rearing, striking horse isn't a "spirited" horse that needs to be tamed, it's a dangerous horse that needs to be left in a pasture somewhere where it can't hurt itself or others by flipping over or coming down on someone's head. "Get rid of it! It's not worth it!" my old trainer would say when she'd hear about the latest insane horse related accident, like the one where the lady broke her leg in 3 places getting bucked off a horse that had cracked a trainer's spine 2 weeks earlier by striking at her while she was leading him somewhere.

I know most sensible horse people already know this. It's a common lament amongst trainers, clients who insist on difficult horses - as if it shows off their ability better or somehow makes them a better rider. Everyone has to fall off and everyone has to have difficult rides, but why make it EVERY ride? Another trainer, one I worked for, used to say, "Riding is hard enough! Why make it harder with a difficult horse?"

++++++++++++++++

Car accident!

2011-08-08T08:14:00.000-07:00

Ryan and I were in a car accident last week:

Hey! Here's a thing. Last night, the car I was in (a Subaru Forester) was slightly crunched by a car I was not in (a Ford Ranger). There were no injuries, except to the car, which will need a new fender and headlight and perhaps hood. There were four of us in the car, two of whom lived a considerable distance away. In order to get them home, we formulated a plan. We were two blocks from a Subaru dealership, so we drove the crunched car there to await repair. A friend [Ken] picked us up in his Subaru to drop us off at my place where Alice and I drove the other two to Dryden in our Subaru. Once to our friend's place in Dryden, she drove the fourth person home in her Subaru. A series of Subarus and one Ford Ranger.

That is what Ryan posted to Google+ which would be a whole lot more fun if anyone I know actually made use of it.

After we were in the accident and had pulled into the parking lot of the bank (next door to a Taco Bell), we got out of the car. Almost immediately, a man dressed in black and carrying a large shoulder bag approached us and started complaining about the idiots on the roads these days then proceeded to tell us about an accident he'd been in. As odd as he was he eventually seemed to pick up on the "now is really not a good time" sentiments that we were probably all feverishly broadcasting loudly with body language. We had a little chat with the girl who hit us and her father, who had been traveling behind her in a different vehicle. He was wearing a fanny pack and drove a large van. I think he wanted us to have been drinking (we'd split a pitcher between five adults at dinner). Then, the man with the shoulder bag returned and started to tell us another story about an accident he'd been in. I looked a little closer at his shoulder bag and realised that it was not a shoulder bag, it was a cat carrier. It had a cat inside it with its face pressed up against the mesh.

Then Ryan went into the Taco Bell to get Casey a drink. Here is what he overheard (cribbed from Google+ again):

clerk: "...also the Bell Whanger Mealy Deal. That's two forty three."
cat man: "Well, alls I have is, uh, about a dollar thirty. So, I guess I'm gonna have to go with the number 74 combo ersatz meal."
clerk: "ok"
cat man: "Unless you just want to throw in the Whanger Mealy. Cause otherwise I hafta go for the number 74 combo 'meal'. But I could owe you. I only got the dollar thirty right now, but my payroll is coming in tomorrow. I'm gonna cash my payroll tomorrow at the Citizen's Bank. I only got it today at five after the post office was closed, so tomorrow I'm gonna cash it at the Citizen's Bank. You know, right when you go in the Tops, the Citizen's Bank. So, I could swing back by tomorrow and drop off the extra, what, dollar ten. We'll call it two. Yeah, after I cash in my payroll at the Citizen's Bank right inside Tops I'll swing by here and drop off the two dollars. What I owe you and a little something for you. A little tipper, huh? What's your name?"
clerk: "Shawn."
cat man: "I'm Aaron. Yeah, tomorrow I'll swing by and drop off the cash I owe you after I cash in my payroll. And a little tipper for you. Thanks, Shawn."
clerk: "ok."

Then, when he went back to his table, the cat man scolded his cat, which he had previously let out of the bag, for getting off the table. "You stay on the table! I told you I'd be right back and you had to stay on the table. I don't want you wandering all over. Just stay on the table."

Slaughterhouse-Five banned in Missouri

2011-08-04T06:57:00.000-07:00

A school board in Republic, Missouri, has banned Slaughterhouse-Five because, apparently, a parent complained that it is anti-bible. I'm fairly certain that this person is an idiot because the book doesn't have much to do with the bible unless the bible is pro-war (is it?). There are just some swears and a bit o'sex, but if you think that is so wrong, why can't you discuss it with your child?

I don't know how old I was when I started reading Kurt Vonnegut, but I'll just say this: he made high school bearable.

I'm tired of seeing the pearl-clutchers win. I'm also tired of this weird attitude that parents from all areas of the spectrum seem to have regarding protecting their children from everything bad in the world. Kids need to have bad things happen to them like scraped knees or frustrating experiences with scooters so that when something actually bad happens, they can say, "Okay. I can deal with this and this is not the end of the world."

When I taught riding lessons regularly, I'd have cross parents when their kid fell off. I'd get an angry glare before their child was whisked off to soccer practice. And I'd think, "If falling off a horse is the worst thing that ever happens to your child, your child will be very, very lucky."

Then there were the parents who didn't think it was my fault or the horse's fault or even the child's fault - it was just something that happened. Guess which kids were more fun to teach and happier, more well-adjusted and functional human beings? Guess which kids got better at riding faster?

Update: The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library is sending a free copy of Slaughterhouse-Five to those students in Republic, Missouri that wants one. http://www.vonnegutlibrary.org/ You can help by donating a little bit of money.

Candy ≠ Sex

2011-08-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

From this article in the Nation:

In Cincinnati, Ohio, a high school sex education teacher carefully places a Jolly Rancher candy on each student’s desk. The 14- and 15-year-old students feel the crinkly plastic wrapping in their hands, wondering when they will get to eat their tantalizing treats.

“Don’t eat the candy!” warned the teacher, although she had just finished placing one on each desk. “You must wait until after class. It will taste much better if you allow yourself to wait.”

Obviously, this woman has never had sex. Because if she had, she would know that the first time you have sex is awkward and weird, a little embarrassing, and not all that great. For some people, it's painful. It's not candy.

She would have been better off giving them something they could practice at. Like, I don't know, musical instruments. I bet if they practiced the kazoo every day for a week, they would find playing the kazoo a lot more fulfilling than when they first began. It might even be less embarrassing.

Accurate Scales Save Lives!

2011-07-31T15:47:00.000-07:00

When it comes to certain things, I am a bit of a luddite. Here is a list of things which I prefer in mechanical or analog format

-Clocks and watches
-Thermometers
-Scales

Speaking of scales: I am researching purchasing one for the bathroom. I want one that has a dial instead of a digital read for two reasons: aesthetics and lack of batteries. I also want it to be cheap because I am cheap.

I found this one that fit the bill: The Health O Meter Dial Scale, for $13.99.

Of course, it being Amazon, I read the reviews. The first one I read started off oddly:

As a career food champion, I need to constantly weigh myself and eat accordingly during the competition season.

What is a food champion? I do not know. But I read on, in search of context.

I usually wake up and eat 20 hard boiled eggs and 40 pickles before 9am.

I don't have much to say about this. It just sounds really unpleasant. Forty pickles? Forty?

I purchased this scale to take with my to the tournaments.

Ah. EATING CONTESTS. Filed away in that pile of things I will never fully understand. I feel awful after overeating. I can't imagine anyone feels good. Those people who plan and get all excited to stuff themselves on Thanksgiving? Masochists. There is no pleasure for me in being stuffed full. Even if there is a competitive element. I am just crampy and constipated and uncomfortably sleepy.

I always make sure I weigh 250 pounds going into every season and 300 when I get out per my doctor's orders.

Who is this guy's doctor? Dr. Nick??

Unfortunately, this scale does not tell you if you are at 300 or above 300. The meter just stops. For about 4 weeks I thought I was at my normal weight.

Then it gets really bizarre:

When I returned home I weighed 328 pounds. Two weeks ago I had cardiac arrest due to eating 495 clams and 300 shrimp in eight minutes.

I think this is not the scale's fault.

I'm not saying this scale is not good for what it can do, but keep this in mind if you are overweight or a food champion like myself. This could cause very serious repercussions.

There are two grammar problems with this section. 1. It should be one sentence and 2. "or" is the incorrect word to use here.

Additionally, I would like to point out that having an inaccurate scale is not the thing that might cause serious repercussions.

Next year I will not be bringing this scale with me, and I will break my record and eat 500 clams.

Best of luck.

It could have been worse.

2011-07-28T14:58:00.001-07:00

I don't take back what I said in the last entry, but it certainly could have been worse. My friend's sister was on this flight.

PLANES.

2011-07-27T18:46:00.000-07:00

I spent 5 hours trying to sleep on the floor of the Cinncinnati airport yesterday. As "reparations" for cancelling our flight, the airline gave us each $6 to purchase food. I'm not sure where they expected us to buy a meal for $6 at the airport, but as Ryan and my father pointed out, it was almost insulting.

This was after our trip out, where flight delays resulted in us (long story short) running across the Detroit airport with only a few minutes to spare between us having to stay the night in Detroit and us not having to stay the night in Detroit.

I was running down one of those moving walkways, messenger bag thumping against my back, panting out "excuse me..." to the people I was trying to squeeze past when a man, who had to be asked twice, said to me, "What's the big hurry??"

I didn't stop to answer because, well, being in an airport and all... I was worried about missing my plane.

A similar thing happened in Detroit (again) this time, with a fat, diabetic man on the escalator already annoyed because Ryan had asked him to move his suitcase so that he could get passed (once again, we were short on time) and then when I asked for the same thing he said, "The escalator's not for people who want to move. The stairs are for people who want to move." At this point in the trip, I would like to add, I had reached the end of my tether. Also, we weren't in serious danger of missing our flight, so I had enough time to say to him, "You're wrong and if you'd done this in London, you would have been thrown off the escalator."

I'm not sure when plane travel became so unpleasant. I remember in the 80's, when I was tiny, it was a fun adventure. I don't know if it was because I was small enough to be able to sleep comfortably in the seats then or because air travel was just better than. I am still small enough these days that, if I am flying with Ryan, I can manage to catch a few uncomfortable winks - I turn sideways, tuck my toes under his knees and sleep in a fetal position. I can't sleep without my feet resting on something and they do not touch the floor in most planes. I'm not abnormally short or anything, just run of the mill, average short, but short enough that unless I can rest my feet on my carry-on I am quite uncomfortable. One merciless flight attendant wouldn't allow me to rest my feet on my carry-on for a whole flight across the damn Atlantic, insisting that it had to be under the seat in front of me for the duration (incidentally, she also wouldn't allow me to have a book on my lap during take off and landing)(what a bitch).

I've heard that one doesn't truly remember the pain of childbirth; the reason being that if women remembered how painful it was, they would only do it once. I think that plane travel experience probably results in the same memory loss - why else would we continue to subject ourselves to this misery, this merciless machine, this discomfort on every level - we are forced to sit closer to people than is considered polite, exposed to their breath, gasses and elbows, we sleep on nasty plastic-carpeted floors,

Every time I go through it, I swear, NEVER AGAIN. But then there is another wedding or other thing, far enough in the future that I don't remember how awful it is or I don't want to let my own fear of discomfort take away from enjoying my friends....and here we are. Back sitting behind a shrieking child, avoiding the glare of the stranger next to you and trying to sleep with your toes jammed into the seat pocket in front of you.

Email from my husband II

2011-07-19T07:53:00.001-07:00

From: Ryan
To: Alice
Subject: re: Jeeves had an interesting walk this morning

Jeeves is a white dog with brown spots. His ears are lopsided!

This morning, Jeeves went for a walk. He got to smell his favourite corner.

Then he went up to the levee near Fall Creek. There is a big willow tree
on the other side of the creek.

CRICK! CRACK! What's that sound? It's the willow tree!
The willow tree is falling over! CREEEeeeaaak.
SPLASH! into the creek.

At the end of the path, Jeeves turns left onto Cayuga St. There is a fire
truck here. And there is an ambulance in the driveway.

Look at that! A stag is walking down the road! He looks a little scared.

Jeeves follows the stag down Cayuga Street and left onto Falls Street. There
are two other dogs on Falls Street, and the stag runs away.

Wow! What a morning. Jeeves needs a nap.

Email from my husband

2011-07-19T05:51:00.000-07:00

From: Ryan
To: Alice
Subject: Jeeves had an interesting walk this morning

First, he got to smell the corner. Then, we walked up onto the levee
and watched a big willow tree fall into the creek. Then, there was a
firetruck. Finally, a stag ran south on Cayuga and turned left onto
Falls Street and we chased him down Falls Street until he turned north
on Tioga and we turned south. Wow! What a walk.

-Ryan

Putting the hay up

2011-07-17T18:21:00.000-07:00

My best friend here in Ithaca owns a horse farm (I ride her horses, the last 2 years in a row I've had a pony to train, this year I've been sticking with a big red warmblood mare named Ruby because I'm tired of posting quickly).

Of course owning 30 head of horses means you have to feed 30 head of horses and while she has tons of pasture, that pasture is covered in snow most of the winter. Hay can be made less expensive moneywise if you spend a week mowing, drying, baling and then stacking it yourself (and spreading manure on it year round). This last week was that week. Friday, we put up* 7 wagons, yesterday and today another 4. I do not know how many bales in a wagon but I do know that we end up with over 1000 bales. And that doesn't last even half the winter! Casey usually supplements with round bales, which are expensive, money wise but it means that feeding the horse doesn't have to be done every day, twice a day. And with the exception of a few hard keepers (mostly thoroughbreds, of course), because we don't ride in the winter, none of them need much grain to keep weight on (particularly the Welshes).

*putting up the hay requires many hands and many steps: 1. Someone bales the hay; 2. Someone drives over to the field to pick up the full hay wagon; 3. Hay wagon is delivered to the barn; 4; With 2 or 3 people in the hay loft (the most unpleasant position) taking the bales off the elevator and stacking them, and one person putting bales on the elevator plus one or two people on top of the hay wagon, passing (or dropping or throwing) the hay to the person on the elevator, the wagon is unloaded into the loft and put in neat, stacks.

It's good, honest work and I can't help but feel like it is so much more fulfilling than trying to complete competitive renewal paperwork, which is what I have to look forward to tomorrow.

When I mistook my thumb for a carrot.

2011-07-13T05:55:00.000-07:00

Chopping carrots last night, I sliced my thumb open pretty badly. I rushed over to the sink and rinsed it, while gripping it in anguish and tried to decide what to do.

I was fairly certain I needed a stitch or two, but, I really did not want to waste an evening in the urgent care and Gannett was closed. My phone was luckily on the floor and not somewhere where I'd have to dig for it. I used my toe and my good hand to open it and then my good hand to call Ryan, who was walking home. I sobbed and yelled about thumb pain. He ran home in the 90 degree F heat and in all of Ithaca's glorious humidity!

Then he drove over to the hardware store and bought some superglue. He cleaned off my thumb, poured rubbing alcohol over it (stingy!!) and after I dried it off with a piece of gauze, he glued my cut back together.

What a guy.

Miso Soup Stirrer

2011-07-12T10:39:00.000-07:00

There's a job posting on the Victoria, Washington Craigslist for a position as Miso Soup Stirrer.

I'm in need of a shiromiso soup stirrer for part-time work. Japanese Miso soup consists of softened miso paste suspended in a hot stock called "dashi." While the miso paste easily mixes with the dashi, in time it will settle and separate. My personal preference is to enjoy a mixed (stirred) miso soup, where the paste clouds the bowl. What I'm looking for is someone (male, female and transgendered are welcome) to stand beside my table during meals and stir my miso soup so that the bowl remains cloudy while I am enjoying other delicacies. (note: miso soup is not the only thing I eat)

You will be informed (via mobile phone) where my next meal will be. You will arrive in uniform an hour ahead of my own entrance and await me in the foyer or by the hostess' stand. You will accompany my party and I to our seats and you will stand beside my table and stir my soup once it has arrived. Using subtle hand signals, I will direct you to stir the soup along the side of the table. When I am ready to eat it, a signal will inform you to place the soup in front of me. While I am eating my soup, you will stand where you were stirring, making sure that the utensil you were using does not touch the table, or any other object. If I stop eating soup, you will stir the remainder. If I am done with my soup you will remain at attention in case I order more. When the meal is over, you will leave and await your next contact.

You and I will not speak for the duration of the meal, yet my guests may at times wish to engage you in conversation. You may converse with them, but you will only speak when spoken to. Eye contact with me is unadvised.

What you'll need:

Transportation: you will need to provide your own transportation to and from the places I dine. If I am traveling outside of the greater Vancouver area, transportation assistance funds will be provided. The ideal candidate will already posses a valid drivers license.

Communication: It is essential that I am able to communicate with you at all times. While I normally enjoy a very traditional dining schedule, sometimes my exotic tastes and whims can bring me to the dinner table at strange times. Other times, it is my work that effects when and where I eat. As a part of this position, I will provide you with an Iridium 9555 Sat Phone so I may reach you when I need you. The first day you don't show up at the appointed time will be the day I repost this ad to find your replacement. If you already have a satellite-linked mobile phone for personal use, I can provide a stipend to pay for the monthly service. The ideal candidate will also be fluent in English. However, English need not be your first language and candidates who speak multiple languages will be looked upon favorably.

Physical Fitness: You will stand for the duration of the meal, so the ideal candidate will have the physical fitness to remain standing in place for as long as three (3) hours. If you arrive at the restaurant ahead of me, I wish to encounter you standing as you prepare for my entrance. A previous employee could not follow this simple rule and was summarily terminated. Please understand that while I have the utmost respect for my employees, I at no time wish to see you seated. This is not a position for someone with chronic leg/lower back pain, or someone who wishes to take breaks every 15 minutes. It is also no secret that I love the Platonic form of beauty, but I am an equal opportunity employer and I welcome cover letters, resumes/CVs and photographs from all races and sexes.

Attire: I am an important man within my community and it would be unbecoming of me to consort with men or women who dress poorly. In your cover letter, please include your measurements so I may fit you with a custom silk kimono. The right candidate will be provided a new kimono and geta each month. While in service, the kimonos are not to be worn outside of work. Once I have given you a new set, you are free to use the old set for personal use. However, please keep track of which set is currently in use. I do not wish to see old kimonos being worn.

Requisite Skills:

While I have posted this opportunity in the hospitality section, the reality is that I am open to candidates from many walks of life. While a background in Japanese cuisine is helpful, you will not be required to prepare or serve my soup. Your task will be to simply stir it while I eat. This opportunity may seem well-suited for an experienced personal assistant or executive secretary. Yet, even though I dine at some of the world's most exclusive Japanese restaurants, you will not be required to book my table. Muscular men or a female athlete may think they have the upper hand in applying, but my last miso soup stirrer was of average physical build and she served me without issue for several years before going on to pursue other ventures.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Is this a real posting? Is this opportunity for real?
--Yes, this is a real offer for part-time, contract employment. I would not have taken the time to illustrate my needs in detail if this wasn't a serious offer.

How will I be paid?
--You will be paid cash in person at the end of the last scheduled meal of the month. If for some reason that meal is delayed or canceled, you will receive your payment promptly at the beginning of the next meal.

Are there benefits?
--While this is a contract position, I am open to the idea of building a long term business relationship with the right candidate. Such discussions could include my coverage of private health care, a retirement package and other perks. While in service, the kimonos are not to be worn outside of work. The satellite-linked mobile phone is never to be used for personal calls.

How often do you eat miso soup?
--Not every meal I enjoy is Japanese cuisine. However, when I do dine at Japanese restaurants or enjoy meals from Japanese chefs at private homes, I indulge in miso soup. Normally, I enjoy miso soup during meals at least three (3) times a week.

When do you eat dinner?
--I normally sit down for dinner between 8:00pm PT and 9:00 pm PT. Dinner can last between 1-3 hours, depending on the company I am with.

How do I apply for this position?
--Please send an e-mail with your contact information as well as a photo and a cover letter detailing why you are a candidate worth my time. Please note that only those selected for a personal interview will receive a reply. Those who do not meet the physical requirements, or those who fail to include a full length photo will obviously not be contacted.

It seems to me that one's soup would be far too cold if it were subjected to constant stirring.

Gorge Deaths

2011-07-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

-Three people have died this summer swimming in the gorges which is something I do quite frequently. All three of them died in the Fall Creek Gorge, two of them on Saturday, the day we hiked up through four Fall Creek falls, one of them on Saturday afternoon under Ithaca Falls, while I sat near the top of Ithaca Falls, unaware.

Yeesh.

I can't stop imagining what it must have been like to have drowned under the falls. At some point, you have to stop struggling and accept death. Then you are gone.

Tandoori Tempeh

2011-07-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

Last night I made tandoori tempeh. As per my usual system of making curry pastes, powders and the like , I always at least double the recipe and reserve the remainder for another day. So here, I've posted the curry paste recipe for a single recipe but in actuality, I doubled everything in the paste portion, put it in a jar in the freezer. Since I have left over tempeh, I'll make it again soon and it will take about 5 minutes of prep. This time, I used about 10 oz of tempeh, sliced into triangles - but I am not entirely sure on the actual amount as I was using up leftover bulk.

For the curry paste:

1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
2 hot chilis or 1 tsp chili powder
2 tsp garam masala
2 tbsp sweet paprika
Juice of ½ a lemon
2 tbsp oil (neutral tasting like peanut, groundnut or canola)
1 tsp salt
½ tsp turmeric
1/2 tbsp tomato paste
3 garlic cloves, crushed
Large knob of fresh root ginger, finely grated

Toast cumin, coriander and chili peppers, if you are using them, in a pan until fragrant. Put in a spice grinder and make into a powder. Combine with rest of ingredients, adjust spices to personal preference, as needed.

For the marinade:
Combine curry paste with:
5 oz yoghurt
1tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar

Pour about a third of the mixture or or enough to coat the bottom of a baking dish (I used a 10" square one). Place a layer of tempeh in the baking dish and pour over the remaining marinade. I ended up having a couple of extra triangles that didn't fit, so I put them on top and scooped marinade over them. Let it sit for 20 minutes to 2 hours, while you do your dishes and chop cucumbers for the salad or watch an episode of the Simpsons or Poirot or Doctor Who or whatever. Somewhere in there, remember to pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F.

When you are ready to bake, put it in the oven for 20 minutes or so.

Then take it out and enjoy. We had ours over a bed of rice with a cucumber salad, dressed with a rice vinaigrette.

Strawberry season.

2011-07-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

- I occasionally have reason to take dictation in the form of what is known as a cassette tape. Some of you may remember these items - an elegant way of storing audible information. Some of you may even have one or two lying around your car or home.

-I have learned to love omelettes. I thought, for years, that I wasn't keen on eggs. Then I started eating fresh eggs. Meaning not-from-the-grocery store eggs. Frankly, after a year or so of living on fresh ones from the farm (sometimes -almost- literally straight from the hen's cloaca...) the idea of eggs from the grocery store is a little disgusting. They do not taste right. They taste old. We have our omelettes stuffed with Lively Run goat cheese and arugula. After our little trip to the Dixon Market this a few weekends ago, on the way to a wedding in Central CA, where we bought super cheap sun dried tomatoes, I can see some of them making it in to our omelettes as well (unless I just eat them all straight out of the bag, which I have been doing frequently).

-This article in the New York times is strange to me. I have been bringing my own food onto airplanes for years. I thought that this was a normal (obvious) thing to do - everyone knows airplane food is awful and now they expect you to pay extra for it, why would anyone do that? Fruit, nuts, salads (with 3oz of salad dressing), sandwiches. I also always carry teabags with me - you never know when you are going to chance upon the possibility of boiling water (or slightly cooler, if it's green).

- We picked 2 gallons of strawberries last weekend. I made strawberry jam and ate them fresh with cream Apparently eating them with a bit of (unwhipped) heavy cream poured over them and a sprinkle of sugar is more of an English thing than I had assumed, having 2 experiences recently where people were new to the idea. I'm not sure about this though, it just seems like a really obvious thing to do with fresh berries. It's much nicer than whipped cream, I think, although whipped cream is pretty essential for the last thing we did with the strawberries: strawberry shortcake. I just had some leftovers for breakfast. Strawberry season is so short, but so delicious.

We found these in the strawberry patch when we were picking:

-I made a failure of a peanut soup last night which was rescued with some thai flavours. I did not have enough peanut butter on hand, so it just wasn't any where near as strongly flavoured as it should have been. Next time!

-I'm considering quitting my part time job and just spending the rest of the summer riding. I may be unable to next summer, so I want to get in as much as I can before then.

Ithaca Antiques Mall for Cast Iron

2011-06-09T07:36:00.000-07:00

Ryan and I went to the Ithaca Antiques Mall, looking for another bicycle for him. He has a nice touring bike, but I think he wants something that's a little more of a beater, to ride around town.

We didn't find a bicycle (there had been a whole bunch from an estate sale that had already been sold). What we did find was a section upstairs featuring very reasonably priced cast iron cookware. Of every variety. A while ago, I'd been looking into buying a dutch oven and I'd had the idea of buying an orange enameled dutch oven (orange because of the nostalgia for one my mother had from which I ate many a delicious stew or potato or curry or soup). But then we sort of came to the realization that everything a dutch oven would do can be done by something else that we already have* - with the exception of campfire uses, and since we really only ever backpack (verses "car camping"), a dutch oven would not be practical for camping.

Still, I have such an affection for cast iron. It's so... functionally elegant. This section that we found had every kind of cast iron cookware you could imagine. I spent awhile in there, squealing every time I found some oddly shaped muffin pan or tiny skillet. We looked at the dutch ovens and I found one that I loved - for $60! We didn't buy it though, for the reasons I stated earlier. We also found a real waffle iron, which I am still thinking about buying. We don't have a waffle iron and if we're going to buy a waffle iron, I want it to be awesome. This one is definitely awesome. It's the kind that comes with it's own stand which you put over the burner. The waffle iron itself is attached to the stand at the hinge. It rests on the stand until you pick it up by the handle and flip it over. I adore it, but alas, I have no room for it. If I did, I could make moffles.

*For example, we got a slow-cooker from Williams-Sonoma as a wedding present. It died after maybe 3 uses - the heating element (get this!) got too hot. When Casey discovered that we were living without a slow cooker, she picked one up at her thrift store for 5 bucks and it's way better than the fancy one (it fits on our counter and still has a lot of room for "batch cooking" and it's heating element hasn't gotten too hot).

Ideas for Slate Magazine.

2011-06-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

I know I get myself into these things. I'm fully aware of it. But, sometimes you need a release. A bit of fluff. Some amusement. Other women read Cosmo. I read Slate. Sometimes the articles are interesting. A lot of them are stupid and some are offensive. All of them must be taken with a large, grain of salt.

They have a particular type of article where one of the reporters makes a confession about not like something that everyone appears to like and then spends the rest of the time cajoling the readers into admitting that they really don't like it either.

If you'll pardon the expression, I read an article today that literally "took the cake". An anti-pie article called "It's gloppy, it's sloppy, it's un-American" by some giant ass named Nathan Heller. My first thought was, "I can't believe the presence of a pie actually affects someone so much as to make the entire afternoon unpleasant."

The rest of the article is about how we all eat pie because we think we're supposed to according to tradition and now trend, but really, let's just admit that it's not very good, because the author, apparently doesn't understand why other people like it, so they must be lying.

Clearly Slate is struggling for article subjects if they are attacking something as innocuous as pie (I mean really, why the hell does Nathan Heller care if other people eat pie??). To help them, Ryan and I came up with some possible titles for future articles.

"Puppies are just not that adorable - why can't we admit it?"

"Why we should all eat babies."

"Being inexplicably rude to strangers is a good idea."

"Paradise: Returning to the Religions of our Forefathers"

"Fear God! FEAR HIM!"

"Walking: is this primitive form of locomotion overrated?"

"Chewing your food may be worse for you than you thought."

"Stop Blinking: Why Your Eyes Are Crying"

"Why Stubbing Your Toe Isn't As Painful As You Think It Is."

Paleo Diet, cont...

2011-06-02T08:54:00.000-07:00

I found this article, by Katharine Milton of UC Berkeley - published in the book The Human Diet, of which I'd love a copy, but I can't even afford the Kindle version (around $73).

It articulates what I have been trying to say to various people: "It is difficult to comment on "the best diet" for modern humans because there have been and are so many different yet successful diets in our species." She also points out of the few significant mutations that have served as adaptations which differentiate us from our nearest great ape relatives occurred AFTER the advent of agriculture and animal domestication, so are not associated with our Paleolithic, hunter-gatherer ancestors.

Tracheotomies and pulled up mint

2011-06-02T05:37:00.000-07:00

We've finally got around to our garden, a little less ambitious this year: lettuce, onions and various herbs. Also, we have been cultivating the volunteer mint in our garden for the 2 years we've had a garden, with a view to mint drinks and mint preserves (we made pesto using oregano, mint and chili instead of the usual basil - it was divine. The magic ingredient was lemon juice, to taste. We have it on toast). Proud and excited about our crop of mint this year, we started making more plans for it (mint syrup! mint tea!), only to catch our rather unobservant downstairs neighbour pulling them out. Definitely an odd duck: she claimed that we'd told her that that was where the sunny part was (for her tomatoes) despite the fact that she was digging in the shadiest part of our garden. It turned out that she intended to plant her onions there. Ryan then pointed out some volunteer tomato plants that were growing where we had planted tomatoes last year and asked her to avoid them. She promptly trampled them as she trundled over to plant her tomato plants. I think she is new to gardening (as am I!). Ryan replanted the mint she pulled out - most of it is seeming to recover, so not a huge tragedy.

We are going to buy some more plants this weekend at the farmer's market: a stevia plant and some more exotic greens.Currently, we have two mixed salad greens patches, designed to be harvested regularly for fresh salads. I even found a cardamom plant for sale at the market but couldn't fit it onto my bicycle (our recent routine has been to wake up on Saturdays, eat a leisurely breakfast and then bike to the farmer's market and food co-op for vegetables (market), cheese and locally produced butter and yoghurt. With the exception of dried beans and grains, we are done shopping for the week.) The cardomom plant was in a little stall full of interesting plants and as I was exclaiming about finding cardomom, a hand gripped my upper left arm and someone whispered something in my ear. I turned and saw a white bearded, jolly faced man standing next to me, who repeated his whisper:

"Can I help you?".

I replied,

"No thanks, I was just excited by your cardamom plant."

Ryan stepped forward and asked him about wintering the plant,

"Surely you can't keep it outside during the winter...?"

The man leaned forward to answer and I noticed he had a large white gauze patch taped to his throat, but the medical tape was coming loose on the side closest to me, revealing a gaping, dark hole at the base of his neck that had a sort of orangey yellow crust around the edges.

"No, you bring it in, in the winter." He whispered back.

Ryan said, "It's a pity about your voice." and I cringed.

"That's life."

As we walked away, I asked Ryan if he knew why the man was whispering. He shook his head and I said,

"He'd just had a tracheotomy."

Ryan had apparently thought the man was suffering from laryngitis.

Really, Jeeves? II

2011-06-01T12:14:00.001-07:00

Jeeves has returned from the hospital! He has a very long incision, neatly stapled, and a shaved portion on his hindquarters to which the vets have affixed a clear patch that releases pain killers, (we were given explicit instructions not to eat the patch). In addition to those instructions, we were given a veritable pharmacy of pain killers, antibiotics, and healing agents for his stomach. This is in addition to all the eye medicine he is still on for the black eye he mysteriously came home with a few weeks ago.

He is in good spirits (almost too good - he celebrated getting home by jumping back and forth over the back seat of the car) and, aside from the heat (it's in the 90s F today), he seems content to be home.

The offending object was identified as a squash stem along with various bits of vegetation. We are still unsure as to where he found a squash stem this time of year, especially considering that he was under quasi-house arrest due to the black eye!

His prognosis for a full recovery is excellent, given his physical condition, age and stubborn nature. We are glad that the worst part is over!

Really, Jeeves?

2011-05-29T08:52:00.000-07:00

Jeeves is in the Cornell Companion Animal Hospital right now awaiting
surgery for an obstruction of the small intestine. He should be
having the surgery this afternoon, and will stay in the hospital for
two or three days afterward. His prognosis is good.

The first signs of the bowel obstruction showed up yesterday morning
when he puked up his breakfast. He continued to throw up fluid
throughout the day. We brought him to the vet in the evening when he
turned down his dinner and then puked up the dog treat that Alice gave
him to see if he had any appetite at all. They took x-rays and didn't
find anything one way or the other. So, they gave him fluids and sent
him home with instructions for how to treat "dietary indiscretion,"
the most likely and easily treatable cause of vomiting. This morning,
when we gave him water, after twelve hours without, he puked it all up
about 20 minutes later. So, we went back to the vet, where they were
able to take a look inside of him using ultrasound. They found a
bolus in his small intestine, approximately 11 cm long with a 2.5 cm
diameter. So, they recommended surgery. We agreed, and they kept
him.

We caught the obstruction very soon after it happened, so everything
should go well. The vet seemed very positive---she thought that
getting the obstruction out as soon as possible was the very best
thing to do. So, it's up to the surgeon and Jeeves, now. Good luck,
little buddy.
-Ryan

Thursday I came home to dog sick all over the rug and in the closet and in all sorts of other strange places. I called Ryan and asked him if he had been the one to throw up all over the rug and he said, "No. But Jeeves did throw up his breakfast."

He seemed fine, so I chalked it up to a dog being a dog and bundled him and Barnaby over to the barn. He ran around and played as normal and then we went home.

Then he refused dinner. I gave him a treat, which he took, albeit almost more out of custom more than any interest. Then he threw it up, whole. At which point I called Cornell and they said bring him in.

After many hours of waiting and a massive tornado/thunderstorm, we went home with an inconclusive diagnosis. That is to say, they looked at the radiographs of his chest and stomach and found nothing, which didn't rule out anything except something mysteriously called "mega-esophagus". Our instructions were to not feed him for 24 hours or give him water for 12. They also gave him subcutaneous fluids so he had a wobbly, jiggly, camel hump that he spent most of the evening trying to get away from.

"It's under your skin, Jeeves. You can't actually get away from it."

The thunderstorm or the intestinal distress or the fact that it's probably hard to find comfortable sleeping position when you have a blob of saline solution quivering like jelly sitting on your back made him restless and I don't think he slept a wink. Then, in the morning, after watching him shift his weight repeatedly trying to find a comfortable position, we gave him a little bit of water. He responded by spewing bright green (it was quite a pretty colour) liquid and undigested grass all over the carpet. I put on some pants and we packed him off to Cornell.

Ryan sent out the above email a few hours after we'd received the diagnosis. In a way it was a relief that they found an obstruction - much worse things like cancer or liver failure had crossed my mind repeatedly.

The surgery, that they did on Friday, resulted in the discovery of a winter squash stem. I have no idea where he found a squash stem this time of year, particularly because he has been on house arrest for the last two weeks due to a completely unrelated injury (a mysterious black eye).

Anyway. His prognosis is very positive. He apparently tried to leave when they took him out of his crate for the first time after his surgery - which is very Jeeves.

I still can't get the look of his little face as we stood in the hall watching him be led away. They asked us to stay until he couldn't see us anymore because it would be easier to get him to come with them. He kept craning his head around trying to see us.

Sorrel Soup

2011-05-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

I made a sorrel soup the other night. It was a recipe my mother sent me a long time ago that I had never tried, because I never got around to looking for sorrel. I bought some at the farmer's market last weekend and then realised that it grows all over the place. It is, in fact, not only a weed, but the same weed I spent my childhood smearing myself with after encountering a stinging nettle (there is no scientific evidence that it is actually effective, but to my memory, it worked. There is definitely something to be said for the placebo effect).

Ingredients:

A big bunch of sorrel leaves, stems trimmed off. Wash well as for spinach.
Potato scrubbed but leave skin on. Chop into cubes and parboil or put in microwave for 4-5 minutes.
Bunch of spring onions chopped fine including greens
3 Cups of vegetable stock
2 tablespoons Olive oil
Nutmeg, salt & pepper

Heat oil, medium, add onions and sorrel leaves, stir and cook for three minutes till leaves turn bright green.
Add potato, vegetable stock, cook for about 6 minutes or until potato is fully cooked.
Grate in nutmeg
Leave to cool a bit and blend til smooth, return to pan to heat through if necessary.
Taste, add salt & pepper to liking.

Has it's own flavor, doesnt taste like anything else.

Oh I also added a large pinch of dry mint with the potato & veg stock.

enjoy elaine

It's a teensy bit poisonous though, do you shouldn't have gallons of it. And the nutmeg is key! I used regular onions instead of spring and started the onions first - before adding the sorrel. In the future, I would leave the onions in longer to get them to sweeten up a bit more as a counter to the sour sorrel, although that wouldn't be necessary with spring onions.

I had it with two whole grain Ryvita crackers with some peanut butter. So satisfying.

Electrical Fire

2011-05-23T09:29:00.000-07:00

Today my office mate stood up in shock saying, "There's something burning in here!"

We systematically and quickly checked all the sockets and found nothing. Next, I ran downstairs and checked the kitchen. The smell was stronger downstairs but there was no discernible source. I decided, after looking in the other downstairs rooms, to call the maintenance manager.

While waiting for him to come and see what he could do, I checked the Norwegian Ugly Man's office. He was on the phone. He looked up at me and held his nose to indicate there was a bad smell. His door to the outside was wide open.

The maintenance man showed up and I went upstairs to my office. It then occurred to me that 1)The smell was much, much stronger downstairs. 2)He works downstairs. His office door was wide open. 3)He works in an office that was full of a smell (I mean a BAD SMELL, a GET OUT OF BUILDING! smell, a Chemicals! Burning! Don't breathe it in or you will suffer irreparable damage! smell) of an electrical fire and he did NOTHING about it, failing to alert the others in the building (me) or call the people who could potentially prevent our deaths.

Another flag for you, Mister Norwegian Ugly. Although, I am surprised that my office mate was able to smell the burn smell above the mold smell in our office.

Yay! I had a root canal!

2011-05-19T07:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had the third root canal attempt done on the cranky, nasty, MEAN tooth that has plagued me since it decided not to grow into the nice little gap that its predecessor had left for it and rather grow sideways, along the gum line, hoping to never see sunlight. It had to be tortured into submission by way of a tiny set of chain links bolted to it that was gradually shortened every few weeks, link by link.It recently decided to exact further revenge by abscessing.

I am terrified of the dentist. I have that thing where going to the dentist makes you scared and nauseated, then you lie in the chair and they say open your mouth and you have to fight back tears of absolute terror and repress the urge to scream (which is not easy with your mouth open). I have been focusing on trying to be a more responsible person though and that means things like going to the appropriate medical person when in severe pain. So, instead of ignoring the pain in order to avoid going to the dentist, I went to the dentist. Shaking and sweating all the way there. I had a bit of concern when I described the pain and they wanted to see me immediately. I started to try and say things like,

"Well, it isn't that bad. Maybe I just have a really low tolerance for pain..."

"Can you come in at 2:30 today?"

I went (see "responsible person") and they did some x-rays, after which the dentist walked in and said, "Well. You have an abscess. You have a couple of options. One, we can remove the tooth."

At which point, the room started spinning and I'm sure a look of horrorfear slid across my face and I probably stopped breathing.

"Or we can do a root canal."

To which my reaction was actual relief, then horrorfear, then the room started spinning.

"I'll take the root canal" I whispered.

"That's what I'd recommend."

But he couldn't actually do the root canal because the tooth itself is so damaged and full of ill will that it has "calcified" which means he couldn't actually get to the root canal.

So, still in pain, prescription for antibiotics in one hand, phone number for an endodontist in the other and a little dizzy from oxygen deprivation, I drove home and cried for awhile.

The next day, I took a bunch of ibuprofen and called the endodontist for an appointment.

Yesterday was actually the second trip to the endodontist who had the same issue as the dentist and had informed me that I would probably need surgery.

"Yeah. Well. We'll try again. But, there's so much calcification in there...."

The good news is that despite everyone's skepticism and the general stubborn nature of that stupid tooth, she managed it and I don't have to have surgery.

Which is why I'm excited that I had a root canal.

Deep Freeze

2011-05-17T06:55:00.000-07:00

I really want a deep freeze.

We've decided to buying a pressure cooker for this summer, which will help, but I really want a deep freeze.

I eat a lot of frozen fruit this time of year (a favourite breakfast/snack: frozen peaches and blueberries with yoghurt, nuts and ground flax seed), because I really want to eat fruit and nothing is in season yet. I'd like to freeze my own fruit this summer, but there just isn't room in our freezer.

Last summer we picked peaches (among other things) at Indian Creek Farm. We kept intending to freeze some but ate them all up before we had a chance to prepare them. I mentioned this to a friend who scoffed: "Indian Creek is not organic - they spray everything".

I came to the conclusion a long time ago that organic is pretty much meaningless to me, as far as labeling goes. It's nice that our CSA farm follows organic practices - which is more interesting to me because what they do contributes to the overall health of the land they are farming, rather than their resistance to using pesticides - but I'd pick local over organic any day. Give me a "conventionally" grown peach from 3 miles down the road over an organic one from California. Our CSA, incidentally, is not certified organic.

It's also nice that I have the option of choosing a local peach though. There is so much good food, so near by and yet, I can't fit it all into my freezer!

Norwegian Ugly

2011-05-16T08:12:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, I overheard a man in my building complaining about a student who wasn't just ugly, she was Norwegian ugly.

I wasn't entirely sure what he meant by Norwegian ugly, but it sounded to me like he was personally offended by the fact that she had the nerve to be unattractive, in addition to being a poor student.

This man is also morbidly obese. The bathroom is directly below my office and I can tell you that he either needs more or less fiber in his diet, but the amount that he is getting is not right. Once, I was leaving work and I caught him shuffling out of the kitchen, towards the bathroom, gripping his trousers around his waist, apparently having preemptively started unbuttoning them. The top of his underwear was visible and the bottom of his pendulous stomach, peaking out from bottom of his polo shirt. I looked shocked and then I looked away and he mumbled sorry and scuttled (as well as he could) into the bathroom.

Just now, I overheard him in the kitchen (he's got a loud voice, so it's fairly easy to echo-locate him as well as hear and understand what he is saying, no matter where you are in the building) talking about Ron Paul. Someone walked into the bathroom and turned on the fan before I could figure out whether he was supporting or denouncing him. I found myself making an effort to hear him because I really wanted another story.

Tonight's dessert

2011-05-14T19:33:00.000-07:00

Tonight I melted chocolate chips and poured the result into Jersey cow yogurt from Meadow Creek Farm in Interlaken.Yum.

Yesterday, I went on the first trail ride of the year. I took Ruby. Here is a blurry picture of us:

Last night, among other things, I went to the Shop for an espresso and looked at my friend Ken's artwork.

Right now, a huge ant is frantically trying to escape Barnaby and Jeeves is nursing a black eye from an unknown source (we spent all morning at the vet...).

Mother's Day conversation.

2011-05-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

I talked to my mother on Mother's Day. Two of my parents neighbours have been diagnosed with something life threatening (congestive heart failure, metastasizing cancer) and my father's long time friend has to have a stent replaced.

The neighbour that has cancer has had a crappy time of it. Her son died of cancer several months ago, somewhat unexpectedly and she didn't tell anyone about it until she flew into a rage at my mother, lashing out because no one had asked her about her son. No one had asked, because no one knew - she hadn't told anyone that he was dying.

It was a pretty dramatic situation. She was screaming at my mother through her closed door about how she wanted nothing to do with her or anyone else in the cul de sac. We talked about it a little during this conversation. My mother said she didn't mind that it had happened because she understood that people might need to behave badly when they have terrible things happen to them. Although the situation was distressing at the time, she was glad that the neighbour felt comfortable enough to scream at my mother and call her lousy things.

Adult Prom

2011-05-12T05:43:00.000-07:00

If a New York time trend piece is to believed (and it probably isn't), people who are no longer in high school are attending "adult proms". Well, I guess only women are, because they only interviewed women for the article.

I went to prom my junior year in a borrowed dress and my boyfriend's Dodge Neon. He really wanted to go - he had gone the year before (he was a year older than me) and had had a blast. All I remember from the evening is eating strawberries at Margo's house beforehand, standing in line to check my coat behind two girls discussing whether or not they should "do it" with their dates (they didn't feel like it, but they felt it was a breach of etiquette not to put out after he'd spent all that money), standing in line to get our picture taken and standing in line to get my coat back.My limited memory of this event has nothing to do with alcohol (my boyfriend, at the time, didn't drink and I had limited access to alcohol and also was fairly unaware as to its abilities improve an otherwise tedious situation) and mostly to do with how unmemorable the evening was for me, the prom was the awkwardness of the forced romanticism, the terrible, terrible (terrible!) music and a Mean Girl atmosphere..

These women, trying to "re-create one of the best times of their lives" baffle and depress me. For example, I enjoyed college, but I'm not really interested in recreating the best times I had, not just because of the legal implications,but also because of the fact that as fun as it was, there are other things that interest me more. I guess what I'm asking is, don't these women have better things going on in their lives?

Rampy pasta and lentil salad

2011-05-11T06:48:00.000-07:00

I've not posted anything food related in a while, so here goes:

On another note:

Last night I experimented with ramps. I thought, originally that I felt like having one of our brothy asian style soups (it's a component of our repertoire - tasty, savory, usually spicy broth poured over raw or barely cooked vegetables and then, possibly, a poached egg, lovingly added to float on top of everything) but decided that, since it was my first time cooking and eating ramps, I wanted to do something a little more classic and something that would feature the ramps more, seeing as I wanted to determine what there actual flavour was.

So I put a pot of spaghetti on and while waiting for the water to boil I washed my ramps and separated the leaves from the bulb ends. I sliced the bulbs up and tossed them in a pan with some olive oil (rather more than I might have otherwise - I intended it as a dressing for the pasta), oyster mushrooms (sliced to be a similar size to the ramps and at ratio of 1 to 1, mushrooms to ramps), salt and pepper. I took the leaves, rolled them up and sliced them into ribbons. Then, when the pasta was drained and returned to its pot, I poured the sauteed ramps and mushrooms over the spaghetti (and scraped out all the olive oil with a spatula). Then I added the ramp greens and tossed it all together. Yum. Sweet and woodsy but nice and mellow oniony too.

For protein, and before I made the spaghetti dish, I threw together a lentil salad. I put green lentils on to cook until still firm (cooked all the way, mind you, just not falling apart) with a bay leaf. While this was cooking, I diced a small onion fairly finely (I wanted them to be at least similar in size to the lentils, but still wanted actual pieces of onion, so I refrained from actual mincing) and put half of it in a bowl (the rest went in the fridge). I squeezed 2 lemons into the onions and also added 2 cloves of crushed garlic and salt and pepper. I let that sit while the lentils finished cooking, then I drained the lentils and added them to the bowl with a drizzle of olive oil. Tossed it all together and let it sit while I made the spaghetti dish.

Hurried Bees

2011-05-10T05:30:00.000-07:00

There are news stories every day about the rainy spring we've been having. Unfortunately all the rain means the farmers are behind on just about everything (including horse farmers - all the ponies are suffering from scratches that we have only just got a handle on -because we had a few days where the mud started to dry up - and thus haven't gotten them fit enough to jump yet, let alone go to a horse show). Our CSA has not sent us a start date because they do not know when they are going to actually start.

Regarding this small crisis, I read this article in the Ithaca Journal today and had to laugh because of the line (emphasis mine):

More rain could also result in scabby apples and hurried bees trying to pollinate flower blossoms.

True to form, the Journal doesn't add any context to that, so all we are left with is the scratching of our heads and muttering to ourselves, "Aren't bees rather usually in a hurry? As in Busy-As-A...."

Paleo Diet

2011-05-07T09:29:00.000-07:00

The Kitchn featured a thing on some people doing a Paleo diet barbecue. I responded to someone a few months ago on facebook regarding my take on how idiotic the Paleo diet argument is. It's a little trite, but it gets my point across, mainly that using the argument that we should all eat like cavemen for some as-yet-unexplained-clearly-to-me reason is silly reason as it has no bearing in science or fact. Also, on a pettier note, Paleo dieters are smug. Like pregnant women.

"This diet suggests that we should all eat like "cavemen" (I assume they mean homo sapiens during the Pleistocene era). The idea is that all of them lived on a specific diet (a ludicrous idea - considering that at this point, humans were scattered all across Africa, Europe and Asia - hardly likely that we were all eating the same food) and therefore, if we all live on this specific diet, it is "healthier" and more "natural". That specific diet is low-fat meat, nuts, fruit and vegetables, no legumes and no grains. This is because of the suggestion that we only started eating legumes and grains after the advent of agriculture - something I find hard to believe, considering we would have had to have eaten them before agriculture - why else would we have started cultivating them??

Humans were probably scavengers and definitely omnivorous. Our teeth are a great clue as to what we were eating - you don't develop large molars for high meat diet, you need them for breaking down fibrous plants! Look at a dog's mouth - known omnivores - and compare to ours and to a horse's mouth. Not to mention that it is VERY HARD to catch an animal without a gun. So hard, in fact, that lots of hunter-gatherer tribes developed interesting ways of deciding who owned the food. For example, someone kills a deer, they get part, but the man who made the arrow also gets a part as does the leader of the hunt...etc... a typical diet more likely consisted of lots of what was "gathered" combined with occasional meat. But once again, this absolutely depends on where one was. People of Scandinavian descent have a much easier time digesting milk and dairy than people of Asian descent due to available diet. Another thing to remember is that there are differences between humans then and humans now - not enough to warrant speciation, obviously, but we see changes in things such as aforementioned digestive enzymes and the intelligence not to follow fad diets.

There are more reasons I could go into, but that's the gist of it. Eat a high protein diet if one find that it is best, but rationalising it with science one barely understands makes for a weak argument."

Disgusting Scenario

2011-05-06T07:29:00.000-07:00

My dogs will eat sick. They aren't picky: they'll eat their own, they'll eat each others' and I'm sure, given the opportunity they would anyone's that happened to be presented to them.

I asked Ryan today, why is it that they don't have the same aversion to vomit that we do and he responded,

"I don't know. They're more practical, I guess."

To which I responded,

"Are you saying that there is a circumstance under which you would eat sick?"

He shrugged. Then I asked,

"Say you were on a desert island. You'd been there a month. You have access to running water, but no food. A ship shows up to rescue you and two people come in a dinghy to bring you back to the ship. One of them is made seasick by the dinghy and upon landing, before they can say or do anything, they vomit in your lap. What would you do?"

He said,

"That's an excellent scenario."

And then kissed me on the cheek and went to work. I called out to him,

"But you never answered."

"Yes, Alice. Under that circumstance, I'd probably eat vomit."

Arguing on the Internet (redux)

2011-05-04T08:13:00.000-07:00

Broke a personal rule today. Regretted it.

I don't regret it because I was called obnoxious (yes, someone on the internet called me obnoxious - I think that's like what, OT I of the internet?) but because these things are so pointless (see above). I was called obnoxious after I made a point about how people take themselves too seriously and how if everyone took things less personally, we'd all be much happier, in general.

I am aware of the irony of posting the above mentioned sentiment in an anonymous comment section.

NY Times sez "It's fashionable to be rude"

2011-04-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

Okay. So I only read the first couple of paragraphs of this article, (because after the first couple of paragraphs it became apparent to me that it was another NYT fake trend piece) but I don't know anyone (and I've lived in Silicon Valley) who thinks it's polite to constantly check ones phone during a conversation unless the phone can provide direct information pertaining to said conversation ("What time did you say we were meeting her?" "I don't remember, let me check what her text message and/or email said."). I don't think people who are texting and emailing and checking facebook while they are talking to me are "wired, well-put-together [people]" - I think they're people who suffer from issues with self-control or a pathological inability to be comfortable in their present situation.

Milk(?) Moustache

2011-04-19T09:14:00.000-07:00

Cornell has a really awful picture up on its main page today of President Skorton with something white smeared across his upper lip, in an effort to suggest we should all drink more milk.

I don't like milk. But even if I did or even believed that we should "all drink more milk" this detestable campaign would be off putting. BLECH.

Bread, soup, tea, nap, Dan Savage.

2011-04-11T08:20:00.000-07:00

We joined a bread CSA. I like to make my own bread and usually do so instead of buying it, but I don't have own an oven modeled on the great Spanish ovens of the late 19^th century. The flour comes from a local miller and the bread is the best bread I've ever had.

***

Last night I made one of the better leek and potato soups. Thyme, bay and both black and white pepper were my herbal additions. Yum.There are leftovers. YUM.

***

I'm more tired than I normally am on Mondays. I have to be at work earlier than is comfortable for me and I am, oddly enough, usually early. I get in early which means I can leave a little early, although since I do it every day, it doesn't feel early which has made getting in "on time" feel late because it means I have to stay later than normal. Which means I have less time for the nap I take after work to catch up on sleep. This might seem silly, however, because of the fact that even if I were to get to work on time instead of early, I would STILL want to nap afterwards and most likely for the same amount of time. I'm trying to break this nap habit, because I end up feeling like I'm wasting the afternoon. I've been failing at that and have recently adopted a compromise: scheduled napping (instead of passing out on the couch for 2 hours as soon as I've finished my post-work tea and then waking up realising that the laundry still isn't folded and I've got to go to the grocery store).

***

Dan Savage is speaking at Cornell tonight. I'm pretty excited to see him - not so much for his recent work, although I think it was a great campaign, but because I think that if everyone followed Dan Savage's advice (which could be paraphrased as saying: Treat Everyone With Common Decency), everyone would be a lot happier.

***

Stupid Sweater

2011-04-10T16:08:00.000-07:00

I saw this knitting pattern the other day for the "Atlas Shrug", thought that the absurdity of the design (why would you wear a shrug when it most certainly will do nothing to keep you shoulders warm, but be uncomfortable to wear in warmer weather?) must be the reason it was named as it was: to illustrate the absurdity of Ayn Rand.

Notes from when Ryan was away.

2011-04-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago, I was walking to Madeline's to meet someone for late night drinks after a strange evening. As I crossed Lincoln Street, I heard screaming from two blocks up, from someone standing by the Creeker.

"Imonna kill you! Imonna fucking kill you!!"

And so on.

I would have been more alarmed if I hadn't spent more than a few nights at the Creeker myself: generally the atmosphere is very friendly and family-like, but, as with all real families, there are going to be times when someone will threaten to kill someone else over something seemingly trivial.

The next morning, I ate at a diner and read this poem on the menu:

Spoon

Spoon

Oh how it feels

to be dipped into the soup.

Knife

Knife
Knife
A knife
Watch out I will get you.

Fork
A fork
A fork
Oh how it feels
to be stabbed into a cake
A fork
A fork.

Lastly, I had very long an involved dream last night that involved me winning a radio contest to spend a day with a celebrity whom I can't bring myself to name. We got along great until he attempted to rape me, which I talked him out of by explaining that I wasn't going to remove my shorts and he shouldn't rip them off of me because they were my favourite pair (I pondered this upon waking up and in my half asleep state came to the conclusion that the weirdest part of that scenario was that I don't really wear shorts very often, as I prefer skirts and dresses for hot weather).

Then he left and I spent a good deal of time trying to convince my ex-boyfriend that I had actually spent the day with this celebrity and aside from him being psychotic and rapey, he was kind of fun to hang out with, as long as I avoided giving him coffee or any other kind of stimulant.

Tender moment.

2011-03-10T16:07:00.000-08:00

I just watched a tender moment between the two dogs: Barnaby ambled over to Jeeves, who normally rejects affection at this time of day (noon), gently nuzzled Jeeves' right eye and followed it with a gentle wipe of the tongue.

Mammals are amazing!

Granola

2011-02-23T07:33:00.000-08:00

It's the nearing the end of winter (according to the calendar). I've had a weird couple of months, but finally (as of this week) am possibly starting to feel normal again.

I made a delicious loaf of bread the other day out of sprouted whole wheat flour. It made me want to go and buy big sacks of wheat berries for sprouting. Which then made me thing of granola, something I'd been meaning to make but never gotten around to. It was surprisingly easy and definitely one of those things that is worth the effort to make yourself. I used rolled oats and rolled barley (3 cups of each). Once these had toasted in my large (12"? maybe bigger?) cast iron skillet for about 5-7 minutes (with occasional stirring to prevent burning)- until the grains were fragrant. I added 2 cups of a combination of chopped almonds, chopped cashews, poppy seeds, flax seed that I ground with cardomom seeds and sesame seeds and stirred those around. I then added maybe 1.5 teaspoons of cinnamon and a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. Finally, I added 1/2 cup of honey, stirred that as best I could (the heat helps) and then popped it into a 350° F oven for half an hour, occasionally opening it up and stirring. When that came out of the oven, all toasty and smelling heavenly, I added some raisins.

I had this with homemade almond milk (also worth it! so much better than that sweetened store stuff!)and felt, well, pretty granola. Well fed too, though.

White Bean Celeriac Puree.

2010-11-23T10:29:00.000-08:00

What I am eating right now:

Last night I was feeling sick and lazy. I also was well aware of the celeriac sitting in my fridge, needing to be eaten. Enter Mark Bittman (again!):

Can of white beans in the food processor, with 1 cubed cooked, celeriac, a teaspoon of better than bouillon. Pureed, then put in the pan with at least tablespoon of butter, salt and fresh ground pepper to taste. In the meantime, toast slices of homemade bread in the toaster oven. Once the puree is hot and the toast is toasted, spread the puree on the toast, drizzle olive oil and sprinkle with black pepper. Enjoy with a green salad.

I say I'm eating it now because I'm eating what's left today for lunch. Leftovers one of my favourite things ever.

Pumpkin & Cashew Pasta Casserole

2010-10-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

I'm making this this afternoon but I am modifying it because I really don't like super cheesy anything - I usually feel pretty awful after consuming a lot of dairy (except yoghurt). This version has all the creamy-ness and savory-ness that cheese would provide. Here we go:

Pumpkin & Ricotta Pasta Casserole
serves 6
Olive oil
1 pound pasta, such as farfalle, small shells, or elbows
~~One 15-ounce container ricotta~~ 1 3/4 cups of cashew cream (cashews in the blender with enough water to puree it into a similar texture to ricotta - I didn't make it smooth on account of the nuts that are supposed to be in it anyway)
~~One 15-ounce can pumpkin puree~~ 1 3/4 cups carnival squash puree (made by chopping up 2 carnival squash, drizzling with olive oil and roasting in the oven, then peeling and putting in the blender)
~~2 eggs~~ 2 tablespoons of ground flax seed plus 6 tablespoons of water whisked together in a bowl.
1/2 cup yogurt
2 teaspoons salt
Freshly ground black pepper
~~1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg~~ pinch of thyme
~~1/2 teaspoon ground ginger~~ pinch of rosemary
~~3/4 cup~~ ~~pecans, roughly chopped~~ (the cashews provide the nutty texture that these would give)
1/2 cup loosely packed fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped (I actually did more than this, typically in recipes that call for garlic, I -at the least- double the amount)
~~3/4 cup grated Parmesan, divided~~
Heat the oven to 375°F. Lightly oil a 9x13-inch baking dish with olive oil. Set aside. Bring a 4-quart pot of water to boil over high heat, and stir about 1 tablespoon of salt. Add the pasta, and turn the heat down to medium. Cook for a slightly shorter amount of time than specified by the package. (For instance, if the package specifies 10 to 12 minutes, cook for 9 to 10, or until just barely al dente.) Drain the pasta and toss lightly with olive oil.
In a large bowl, whisk together the ~~ricotta~~ cashew cream, pureed ~~pumpkin~~ carnival squash, ~~eggs~~ flax seed, and yogurt. Whisk in the salt, pepper, ~~nutmeg~~ thyme, and ~~ginger~~ rosemary.
Stir in the pasta and coat completely with the ~~pumpkin~~ squash mixture. Stir in chopped ~~pecans~~, sage, and garlic. ~~Stir in 1/2 cup Parmesan~~.
Spread the mixture evenly in the prepared baking dish and ~~sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan over top~~. Bake uncovered for 35 minutes or until golden brown on top. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Lists: Current Things

2010-10-17T15:32:00.000-07:00

-I have taught myself CSS. The website is not perfect yet, but its a nice update on the original and I'm learning a lot.

-My house smells like bread. Ryan made a delicious loaf although for lack of a lemon, he did not make the apple pie he intended. He is now knitting his sweater.

-I had a strange experience a few weeks ago that reminded me of being in middle school. I am still mulling it over.

-Middle school was horrible.

-My mossariums and succulents are thriving. My fern, however, is struggling after its near death experience in the jaws of Barnaby. I think with some TLC, it should recover. I'd never cried for a plant before.

-I spent a lovely weekend in Connecticut last weekend. It was especially interesting because I'm reading Michael Pollan's Second Nature, which takes place in Connecticut.

Colony Collapse Disorder

2010-10-07T06:43:00.000-07:00

Scientists and the Army have found that Colony Collapse Disorder might be caused by a virus and a fungus. Apparently not cell phones as JohnTheHippie tried to convince me all those years ago. Far be it from me to call anyone a hypocrite (I actually do it all the time) - but for someone who pretty much only has a social life (as opposed to any other kind of life, hobby or interest) and who runs that social life primarily from one's cell phone, nagging me about my cell phone usage was...well..inappropriate.

I hear he has a computer now, but I'm not going to email him. I received on or two from him in the past and theY wereALL writTTTNE ss thouhffh HIS CAT WAS wakking acorst thE keeeeeebord.

Too excruciating for this grammar snob's eyes.

NY Times fail again.

2010-08-26T15:32:00.000-07:00

Following last week's article about some guy losing his pants, here's an article in the New York Times about people who have dogs and gardens, featuring photographs of a morbidly obese Elkhound. Seriously. And they wonder why there is a decline in newspaper sales.

Slow News Day? Poor Attempt at Humour? Both?

2010-08-18T05:01:00.001-07:00

Why did the New York Times write an article about some guy losing his trousers?

Mortages and White Nightgowns.

2010-08-17T09:33:00.000-07:00

I wrote this entry in 2008, with the following passage:

Last night, Ryan and I came to the conclusion that we could possibly afford to own a home in Ithaca. The median house price there is $255,000 as opposed to where we live now, where the median house price is $1.5 million.

This was an amazing excitement and I went to sleep thinking about what color I would paint the walls and what sorts of bulbs I would plant in the garden and how much money could go towards horse shows if we were spending less on a mortgage than we would on rent.

This has become a looming possibility. We have an actual meeting with loan officer today. The house is pretty much what I was picturing, in a scary sort of way.

I'm really anxious, though, because I am worried about the commitment and the expense and whether or not Ryan thinks this is a good idea - or even whether or not I think this is a good idea. It's a difficult situation because no one can tell me whether or not it is a good idea. Everyone has their own ideals.

I don't buy into this idea that owning a house is always better. Take for example property taxes in our area. Some houses have taxes that are the same as our rent. Would it make any sense at all to buy a house when we'd be "losing" the same amount of money per year with nothing to show for it and our savings severely depleted? This house we're looking at has property taxes of quite a bit less than that but still possibly more per month leaving our bank account than if we just rented. On top of a mortgage payment, it seems potentially not worth it. So how to get around this? Do we buy out of town? We're less likely to be able to rent it out after we leave and might have a harder time selling it. Ryan is perfectly happy living in a "suburb of Ithaca" but I would rather live in town, in very specific areas (I'm such a snob) or completely out of town.

I just think it's really weird that people can be so sure about buying being the right answer - this is one of those things that goes on that long list of things that I think I didn't get a memo about. A few other selections

-Women being obsessed with babies that happen to be in the same room as them regardless of relatedness said woman has to either the baby or the parent of said baby.

-Women going to the bathroom together, among many other social behaviours that I find baffling.

-Okay, I've reviewed the list and most of it is female behaviour in general (wedding fever comes to mind, rather strongly).

But the house thing isn't female behaviour, it's just current culture: It comes down to status/conspicuous consumption. You are considered a success if you can afford a house. You are considered weird if you can't afford a house/haven't bought one by a certain age. This is not to say that purchasing a house is not the right thing for certain people at certain times in their life. I liken it to my feelings about marriage or may be more specifically weddings: there is too much pressure to do it and not enough thought about it. Similarly, before I got married, I never assumed I would get married. I just thought I would continue as I had, (because there was very little chance I'd like anyone enough to want to stay with them forever) one long term relationship after the next with a few dalliances in between, until I was a crazy lady in a long white nightgown.* I never assumed I would be a homeowner, maybe because I'm just not really all that mature enough to do adult things like "plan for the future".

Obviously there are some pluses to owning a house, but I'm pretty sure everyone is quite familiar with those. Now, off to Apartment Therapy and think about paint colours along with sofa cushions that might match them.

*From an old blog:

James told me my future today. I was telling him about a guy I went on a few dates with that I just couldn't get interested in, despite his many good qualities. He was older and I don't think he'd spent much time with a girl like me.

I was explaining to James what I meant about "like me".

"You know...different. My friends are like me...but..you know..."

"Yeah Alice, you're fucking weird."

I didn't know how to take that, however he then told me that he'd seen my future.

"You'll have you're own house and a white nightgown. You won't get married, but you'll have friends. Everyone will think you're crazy except you. You'll be one of those ladies that goes to the same restaurants all the time but always orders something not on the menu."

Patent medicine at its finest

2010-08-17T06:51:00.000-07:00

"Step right up, folks, and witness the magnificent medicinal miracle of Simpson & Son's patented revitalizing toniiic.

Put some ardor in your larder with our energizing, moisturizing, tantalizing, romanticizing, surprising, her-prizing, revitalizing tonic."

-Abe Simpson, closet huckster.

The latest in medical quackery? Drink bleach to cure your HIV, cancer or whatever else ails you. Probably more damaging than homeopathy in the short run. At least homeopathy won't kill you outright.

Roller Coasters and Preserves

2010-08-16T09:24:00.000-07:00

An 78 year old man, a member of American Coaster Enthusiasts rode a Pennsylvania rollercoaster 90 times in one day. I can only think how totally boring that must have gotten, even for an enthusiast.

In other, more personal and more-interesting-to-me (maybe not to you) news, we spent the day preserving things yesterday. I woke up at 7:30 and then went back to sleep at around 9:00. During my "morning nap" Ryan made 2 peach not-quite-pie things. The peaches were marinating in sugar and seasonings all night. He split them between 2 baking dishes and covered them with a sweet biscuit dough and crumple topping.

Then I woke up pickled some turnips with beets, garlic and parsley, cleaned out the fridge and made plans for the vegetables and fruit we didn't get to this time. Then Ryan made Mexican escabeche.

We still have 2 lemon pies to make, piccalilli and tomatillo sauce. For dinner, I steamed some courgette ribbons and tossed them with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper and had that along side spaghetti with olive oil and nutritional yeast and a lettuce salad in a miso-sesame dressing. Which sounds a lot more planned out than it was. Truthfully, it was 9:00 and I had a courgette and a head of lettuce that were both at a now-or-never stage and Ryan wanted spaghetti (he had his with pesto). The ribboning of the courgettes was because if I never have to eat another soggy, pan fried summer squash again it will be too soon.

I just love this time of year because of the amazing varieties of food that is in season. Most of our bounty has come from our CSA or Indian Creek Farm, the exception being the lemons - lemons are just one of those ingredients that I cannot do without, despite the fact that they have to come from far, far away. Maybe when we buy a house, I'll try and grow a lemon tree indoors.

Fall Creek Lunatic Loses Phone Outside My House.

2010-08-13T04:49:00.000-07:00

This morning I was woken up at an even earlier hour than I normally wake up these days. Having gone to bed far too late for my regular wake up time, let alone this particular wake up time, I was unhappy about this. The only silver lining I could glean was that perhaps I should wake up fully and go outside to watch the meteor shower. I didn't do this, because I was concerned that I would run into what had woken me up in the first place, namely, a man wailing at the top of his lungs.

It started with a bit of a scuffle and then some loud moaning that at first, I mistook for cheering. It soon became apparent though, that it was not cheering, it was someone who was very very unhappy that someone else had removed his phone from his person.

At some point, after wailing and slurring, "I can't believe he took my pho-one!" repeatedly, he changed his refrain to be a combination of "I can't even call the police! He took my fucking phone!" and "Somebody help me PLEEEEEEASE!" There were also quite a few angry screams in the mix as well.

Ryan got up and phoned the police.

There were more angry words that I couldn't hear because he had moved further away from our house. The angry words were presumably with the police as it sounded like there was a second and possibly third party involved.

I still haven't caught up in sleep from my red eye flight back from Vegas last weekend, which involved spending 7 hours in the Las Vegas airport and another 4 in the Detroit airport. Needless to say, I am tired and I'd like to have my own set of angry words with that man.

Elvis Wedding in Vegas

2010-08-10T08:13:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start by saying that I love Karen dearly and she is one of my closest and oldest friends, but she summed the trip up perfectly, on the night of the bachelorette, while some guy in a bad shirt gave her a fake lap dance at the first club we went to. She leaned over his gyrating posterior, peering out from under her devil horns and veil, clutching a penis shaped straw in one hand and said,

"I know you must really love me. You came to Vegas for me."

She's right and I knew it was true when the stripper grabbed my wrists and tried to run my hand down his baby's bum-smooth, waxed, nauseating chest.

The wedding itself, however, was lots of fun. Easily the best ceremony to which I have ever been. Elvis was very sincere and had a decent voice. He sang us all down the aisle and then punctuated the vows with appropriate songs. It managed to be meaningful and lighthearted at the same time. They left the chapel each wearing a (plastic) ball and chain that was painted in baby blue and had "Just Married" stenciled on.

To celebrate our getting home last night after 17 hours spent getting home (most of which was spent in various airports), I made our version of comfort food: lentil curry. Puy & green lentils in coconut milk with asofoetida, home made curry powder turmeric, tomato, hot peppers, 2 kinds of basil, onions and bok choi (basically as many of our CSA vegetables tossed in as I could manage).

Larval Humans

2010-08-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

My father sent me a picture of a friend of his' new grandson. He sent it because in our family, our bonding is mostly done by being snarky (it was an ugly baby).

Remembering an email Ryan once sent me:

Alice! I don't know what to do. I've been invited to the first
birthday of that pair of larval humans we met in the Baylands
yesterday. It's in Sunnyvale.

I feel like I have to go because Jeff is just beyond the cubicle wall.
But a baby birthday party? In Sunnyvale? Thrown by the guy who
accused me of being a food snob for not wanting to eat at some fresh
Mex trash chain? Sounds questionable to me.

-Ryan

I responded by saying I thought it looked like an old man, but then again, I don't really think babies are cute. Once they leave their "larval stage" and hit about two or three, they become much more interesting to me. Five and six are my favourite ages and then it's all down hill.

I laughed for hours at the term "larval humans" in Ryan's email and still giggle about it. The larval humans in question were drooling red headed twins that seemed half asleep and one had a cheerio stuck to its cheek (also: what is it with little kids and Cheerios in this country? Why do they seem to always be covered in them?)

I am not one of those women that coos or gurgles or squeals or spontaneously combusts when they see tiny babies. I have no interest in holding them and often find it seems disingenuous when other women perform that silly baby dance because I just cannot fathom how anyone can be interested in a baby that isn't a direct relation. They aren't cute or soft. They don't enjoy particularly enjoy being held anymore than they enjoy existing - at least when the are really young, being held is the only non-bodily function related of which they are capable and it doesn't really count as "action" now does it?

I'm not saying that women are actually being disingenuous, it just seems that way because I am completely unable to sympathise/understand the emotion. I'm sure it's me projecting my own feelings on the situation.

Raw foods, Elitism and Grocery Stores

2010-07-29T08:39:00.000-07:00

I read this article in the Washington Post, about a new raw food restaurant opening this morning, which is funny because I was talking about this very subject the other day with Ryan.

I like raw food. I've been to raw food parties, I've made raw food (beyond salads...) and I like that it explores new ingredients and forces creativity, most likely caused by the strict parameters. I'm also really sceptical of the whole movement - I've never known anyone who managed to stick to a raw food diet. If it is so much healthier for you, and you feel so much better on it, then shouldn't you feel good enough to continue on it for at least a long time, if not forever?

The idea, however, that cooked food is "unhealthy" is total bollocks though. There is evidence that we have been using fire for cooking for at least 125,000 years. I've read arguments from raw foodists that claim that food loses all nutritional value after being cooked at a certain temperature and that cooking food results in toxicity.

Anyway, the menu in that article sounds really yummy - but they serve maple syrup, which it impossible to make without boiling ("Finished syrup boils at 7.1F above the boiling temperature of water"). Maple syrup -part of that stupid, stupid lemonade cleanse - is often touted as "pure" and "clean" but honestly, refined, processed sugar is probably "cleaner". That's not to say we should be pouring refined, processed things into ourselves and feel free to use maple syrup for other reasons (delicious, delicious taste for one) but you can't claim that it is a) raw or b) clean.

So, as delicious as some raw food is, I'm fairly certain that the movement can be filed away in the same category as self-diagnosed-food-allergy people and Whole Foods shoppers - people who want to feel better about themselves by buying "expensive" food and deeming themselves intolerant/allergic to things as a way to prove to the world that they are worthy of attention. I'm not saying don't spend more for quality (which I certainly do - or else, if I can't afford it, I don't buy) what I am saying is don't spend more for nothing. Whole Foods and similar shops are mainly just marketing ploys - you can get the same quality basic food at shops without a philosophy for a lot less money. And we should be supporting those kind of grocery stores and encouraging their healthy options because those grocery stores are the ones that are going to be providing "food for the masses". Whole Foods is never going to open up in urban Baltimore, but perhaps Tops might. What I'm trying to say is let's take the elitism out of healthy food.

Here's a great article by Ben Goldacre, MD about Gillian McKeith, one of the worst offenders and purporters of this kind of thinking.This quote here explains my thinking (it's about two thirds of the way through the article, in the section I found most interesting):

"And that's the most sinister feature of the whole nutritionist project, graphically exemplified by McKeith: it's a manifesto of rightwing individualism - you are what you eat, and people die young because they deserve it. They choose death, through ignorance and laziness, but you choose life, fresh fish, olive oil, and that's why you're healthy. You're going to see 78. You deserve it. Not like them."

Situational Comedies

2010-07-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

I watched an episode of a TV show called the Robinsons last night. In it, the main character gets a girlfriend who becomes, in a short time, very involved and obsessed with his family. He breaks up with her after she stands him up on their trip to Prague. The final scene is him walking into his parents house with his entire family plus the ex, plus the ex's new boyfriend all playing charades.

Ryan burst out laughing during that scene.

I said,

"It's fucking Pétra."

and he said, while laughing,

"I know, I know!"

Then we both laughed.

Instant Frozen Yoghurt

2010-06-16T20:34:00.000-07:00

I made a ridiculously easy, ridiculously yummy dessert tonight. Frozen strawberries in the food processor until they are a icey paste, add a couple spoonfuls of yoghurt, honey and a bit of vanilla.

Instant frozen yoghurt!

Verizon Wireless Held My Phone Hostage

2010-06-02T09:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I tried to make a phone call using my cellular telephone. Instead of the phone call, I was sent straight to Verizon Wireless.

I had to sit through a very nice woman trying to sell me more minutes. I had gone over my monthly minutes and she was trying to convince me to buy more. They literally held my phone hostage, forcing me to listen to a sales call. When I told her that I certainly wasn't going to make that kind of decision just on the fly and on her recommendation, she suggested she go through my current billing and we could talk about it some more. I told her, "I really have to make a phone call." she said, "Oh, I understand, but are you aware that you have reached your new every two and are eligible for a new phone? Would you like to explore your options?"

"No. I would like to make my phone call."

"Okay, well.."

And she continued with a few more things before finally telling me that the "block" had been lifted on my phone and I was free to continue making phone calls.

I think that this is a really annoying, shitty way to treat customers. I don't think that I should be disallowed to make phone calls and forced to listen to a sales call just for going over my minutes. Perhaps I am in a minority, but it made me want to think about switching carriers rather than buying new minutes. I am out of contract at the moment, by the way, which is why I think they decided to harass me.

Anti-vaccination. More exercises in wilful ignorance.

2010-05-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

I watched this Frontline documentary on the anti-vaccine movement. The selfishness and idiocy of the anti-vacciners is astounding and appalling. Seemingly intelligent people, people who can form complete sentences and supposedly read incapable of understanding the implications of their choices.

One woman was whining about the polio vaccine and how polio doesn't exist in the US anymore, so why should we continue to vaccinate for it. I can only assume that she lives in such an insular world that she doesn't anticipate her children nor anyone her children will ever come into contact with won't leave the US. This same woman was annoyed at a nurse trying to vaccinate her newborn child against hepatitis on the grounds that it's a sexually transmitted disease. I guess she assumed no one has ever caught it any other way or and this is worse, that the chance of her child catching hepatitis from a blood transfusion or the various unknown ways hepatitis is transmitted are so low that her child would be safe. The reason I say that is worse is because she's basing her arguments against vaccinations on a minuscule chance that her child is not only part of the the tiny population people who have an adverse reaction to vaccinations but also part of an even smaller population within that tiny population that will have actual serious side effects.

In the wake of the original paper that linked autism to vaccinations being retracted and the author being thoroughly discredited, it seems that the anti-vaccinators have shifted from the hard line of "vaccine causes autism" to "vaccines might cause something". These same anti-vacciners claim that there is no harm done by their not having their children immunized, even as we see outbreaks across the world of diseases that have been under control for 50 years. (Recently: http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/637218.html). As I've said before, these people are idiots.

Locally sourced, seasonal fruit at Waffle Frolic.

2010-05-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

The cashier at Waffle Frolic offered me bananas as my fresh fruit choice yesterday. This or preserved blueberries were my only choices because it's really important to them that they use only locally sourced, seasonal fruit. Bananas are never in season anywhere north of Mexico. It's May. Somewhere, not too far south of here (at least not as far south as Mexico) it is strawberry season. I'm not just complaining because I hate bananas, either.

That said, I enjoyed my waffle and I wished I'd ordered the...um..."twin". It wasn't as good as my sister-in-law's, but what can you do? She lives in California.

We left thinking that we should just break down and buy our own waffle iron, despite our principles against "one use kitchen appliances" (the way I rationalise the pasta maker: I use it to make my own crackers in addition to pasta).

***

Crud: Inflammation and Discharge.

2010-05-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

More illness in the family, this time not me. My beloved Jeeves has an ear infection. More specifically, a yeast infection.

I'd been wondering why he's been cranky for the last day or so when I discovered a cruddy ear last night. His discharge notes claim I described "inflammation and discharge". I know I said cruddy, so I think that cruddy must be layman for "inflammation and discharge".

This word "cruddy" is an American term I picked up at the barn. It describes all manner of flaking, oozing disgustingness that anyone who ever has anything to do with animals is completely familiar with.

In Which Alice is Still Whinging About Being Dizzy, Learns That She is Not Going Deaf and Also About Colour Therapy

2010-05-11T21:31:00.000-07:00

I have been having severe dizziness problems. So much so that I spent a good several days pretty much convinced that I had Meniere's disease and that I was going to go deaf. Yes, I cried about it. I was afraid to even talk about it because a diagnoses would mean that Meniere's disease definitely runs in the family, as my father has it.

"You can love a healthy person as you can love a sick person."

Anyway.

I went to the doctor for a second time, because the Flonase from the first visit hadn't resulted in less dizziness, only more anxiety and no appetite or interest in food for 3 weeks. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. I had No Interest In Food. I also had more side effects, but they are potentially of a nature too indelicate to discuss with potential strangers and certainly of a nature too indelicate to discuss with people I know in real life.

As I was saying, I went to the doctor for a second time, which I realise now is inaccurate. I went to the Cornell health office for a second time regarding this problem but saw a doctor for the first time, because I insisted. I reasoned that the higher copay would balance out because hopefully I wouldn't have to fight a massive antibiotic resistant strain of some nasty infection later in life after having been given unnecessary antibiotics by an incompetent, well intentioned nurse who should have more or less access to the internet (I'm not sure which, just different than what they have now).

The doctor told me I a) probably didn't have Meniere's (the inevitable "woohoo!" was in order, but I was trying to get him to take me seriously) and b) probably had really severe allergies. He seemed surprised that I'd had any reaction at all to the Flonase, but in my experience doctors are always surprised when you tell them you had side effects, so I didn't let that worry me. At least he didn't say what the one who prescribed me birth control pills did, "High anxiety and an urge to break things or strangle people starting approximately 15 minutes to half an hour after taking the pill and that feeling wearing off slowly over a period of 24 hours, only to start again after taking the next day's dose? Impossible. It couldn't possibly be the pills. That never happens with these pills." This doctor gave me Nasonex and told me to take it once a day, in combination with loratadine and pseudoephedrine. Apart from an increasing amount of blood clots coming out of my nose and a daily sore throat, nothing much has changed.

Anyway.

The possibility was raised by a friend of mine who is a competent nurse that I might have low blood pressure. Further questioning of my parents lead me to discover that while my father suffers from high blood pressure, my mother, in fact, suffers from low blood pressure (yeah, I thought that should make it average out too, but Ryan said that "it didn't work that way"). I thought I might try some "home remedies" for low blood pressure, to see if there was any improvement on the dizziness. That lead me to the following:

If you click on the image or follow the link, you will see the highlighted portion suggests "colour therapy". As in, wear a colour and that will help you get better.

I don't really have much to say about that. I'd like someone to give me a credible explanation of how that is supposed to work but I think that's asking too much. I'm not sure if this is "better" or "worse" than homeopathy.

Two Things I Take Issue With "Name Misspellings and People Who Just Learned What The Internet Was For"

2010-05-10T10:28:00.000-07:00

Two Things I Take Issue With.

One, misspelling the name "Alice" like this: "Alys". Aesthetically, 5 letters is more pleasing than 4 and the nice slope made by the gradually decreasing heights of the A, l, i, and c makes for a pretty triangle as opposed the dramatic shift from the l to the y. Additionally, I abhor the substitution of the letter "Y" for an "I", almost as much as I abhor the substitution of the letter "I" for a "Y" just for the sake of being "unique". Same goes for the letter S and the letter C. If you're so desperate for your child's name to be unique, name them something like Fork and be done with it. (Incidentally, Ryan and I came to an agreement this weekend that we like the name Wilberforce).

Two, stupid people who just learned what the internet was for a week ago, being horrified that their little babies are going to be targeted by child molesters.

I read this article sometime last year and may have written about it, or if I didn't, meant to. I remembered it this morning when I read a sensationalistic entry on Open Salon about a woman discovering that one of her high school friends was in the midst of a child molestation charge. She seemed horrified that, this man, because of the innocent action of accepting a Facebook friend request, he now knew where she lived and had seen pictures of her children. She had taken all the precautions and still a pervert had "gotten in". No one pointed out to her that Facebook is simply a communication device. Him knowing where her children lived was not any information he couldn't have gotten elsewhere, supposing he was as good a childhood friend as this woman suggested. I'm not sure how Facebook really had much of a role to play in the story, except as a way to jump on the knicker twisty bandwagon, screaming, "Please, won't someone think of the children". At that rate, you shouldn't go to high school reunions, talk to people you know or take your kids to the grocery store.

I'm not saying don't be vigilant. What I am saying is don't get so caught up in the media hype that you think posting a picture of your child on Facebook will make them a target for paedophiles. I'm also saying your child is no more special ("molestable") than the one that lives next door to the molestor. So, sure, go to Megan's Law websites, trust your guts when it comes to "odd" behaviour, and pay attention to your child. There is NO evidence, however, that posting your child's picture on the internet will result in raising the odds that they are targeted by a paedophile, but it is something about which to get all worked up, have an opinion, that actuality not very controversial (everyone agrees paedophiles are bad).

The New Supreme Court Justice Nominee.

2010-05-10T09:46:00.000-07:00

What? David Mitchell is the new female nominee for supreme court justice?

Evil City Stringband

2010-05-08T21:57:00.000-07:00

Scrawling on Things.

2010-05-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

Ryan "made himself" a "new" t-shirt.

When I was in college I had a boyfriend, James, who drove a 1980's dented, abused, white Toyota Camry. He'd taken some sort of acryllic paint and scrawled across the back and the side, the word "Ferrari". He'd also taken the pain to find large Ferrari decals and stick them on the doors and stuck a smaller one on the back of the trunk.

A girl approached my roommate at the time, who was also good friends with James (he had introduced us) and asked him why James had scrawled the words Ferrari across the back of his Ferrari.

"I mean, it's a really nice car. Why would you ruin the body work with paint like that?"

I wonder if that girl would think that Ryan was really Superman.

Ignite Ithaca

2010-04-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

The other night I went to an event called Ignite Ithaca - it was one of these events and was lots of fun. You can see some of the presentations I saw here.

One of the presentations was called "Childhood Dreams: Why They Are Important". I was reminded of it the other day when, standing in the line at the grocery store, I picked up a children's book about horses just because I (still) like to look at pictures of horses.

More on the McDonalds Ban.

2010-04-30T06:28:00.000-07:00

"Since you've worked with the people that this ban would effect the most, I'm not sure why you think it's a bad idea. You know that some people don't have the mind to be trusted with decisions of this magnitude."

I don't think getting rid of Happy Meal toys will stop people taking their children to McDonalds or stop their children eating McDonalds ("Sunnyvale blogger said that once her child tasted fast food, it took years to coax her back to the healthful variety"). I think getting rid of McDonalds will stop people taking their children to McDonalds (and I'm all for that). I say that based on my experience working with those people.

Consider neighbourhoods where there are no grocery stores. The only choice people have is convenience store food that they have to purchase through a glass window or fast food. Banning Happy Meals is not going to stop people who grew up in that world from going to McDonalds or taking their kids there. And here, in Ithaca, there's no way my students would have stopped eating crappy fast food because their kids don't get a toy. One student used to put her 7 year old to bed at 5pm so she could be rid of him and then would make runs to fast food places throughout the evening. Even the "healthier" options at McDonalds are not going low enough in calories to be allowed to include a toy.

The legislation is aimed at an entirely different demographic and a demographic that should know better at that.

A far better option would be to legislate what can actually go into a meal that's marketed to children. We ban tobacco for underage kids, why not fast food? It's addictive and will kill you too. And the children who grow up eating meals with lower fat, salt and additive content will develop a taste for healthier foods.

Banning Happy Meal Toys

2010-04-29T18:14:00.000-07:00

As much as I hate McDonalds, I think that Santa Clara County potentially banning the toys in Happy Meals is an exercise in legislating common sense, and therefore stupid.

If you don't want your child to be rewarded for eating crap with a cheap plastic toy that people "end up recycling or they end up getting left in the car" then don't take them to McDonalds.

Why is that so hard? I ask that question without any attempt at facetiousness (okay, maybe a small attempt). I really want someone to tell me why it's hard not to take your child to McDonalds, or at the very least not order a Happy Meal, if it's the toy you find so abhorrent.

Friends of the Library Book Sale.

2010-04-26T10:31:00.000-07:00

I was really, really hoping to make it to the Friends of the Library book sale this year, but I found this article in the Ithaca Journal yesterday. I think the only person who will find local theatre actors shouting lines from Shakespeare (sorry, "reciting the works of the Bard") more unendurable than I will is my husband.

Ways to Start Arguments in Bars I

2010-04-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

If at a bar and you're interested in antagonising strangers or friends of friends that you may never see again, say this:

"I don't think the Beatles are amazing."

This is not to say I don't like the Beatles' music. Well. Some of the Beatles' music. It's just a really great way to piss off a stranger, I've discovered.
The conversation will start out on some musical discussion and then someone will, for some reason, mention the Beatles and then you say,

"I don't think the Beatles are amazing."

Which is followed by an askance stare and then someone saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. The Beatles? They're, like, the most influential rock group of all time."

And then, you can say, "Yeah, well, as far as the early Beatles goes, I think the black people they were ripping off are a lot more interesting."

At this point, you have made a cardinal sin. Because you are asking them to accept that the Beatles weren't entirely original. And this shatters a deeply held belief that they have probably been holding close to their heart since the first time they heard "Ob La Di."

Then, you can start with attacking Ringo. Because he wasn't all that great, in the grand scheme of drummers. And his songs? The worst ones. Well. Unless you're 5. When I was 5, I thought "Octopus's Garden" was maybe the best song ever written. I also thought the Sound of Music was the best movie ever and trying to see if I could put my toes in my mouth was a good idea, so that might tell you a little something about my tastes as a 5 year old.

At this point, you have thoroughly convinced them that you are one of those people who just likes being contrary because everyone likes the Beatles.

Also, at this point, for me, I have started to pretty much disregard any musical opinion the other person might have, Beatles related or otherwise. Why?

1) because they just abjectly love things without having much reason, or at least have failed to give me any satisfactory reasoning, beyond, "They're the Beatles. How can you not like the the Beatles?!"

2) they are usually shouting at me at this point or at least looking very, very irritated.

I was at the Phone Booth in San Francisco when a man told me I was a bitch for having this opinion.

"Man, you were, like, not even born in the 60's, so how the hell would you know?"

"Well, according to what you've told me, you were born in 1967, so how the hell would you know? The Beatles weren't even touring then."

"You're don't know what the hell you're talking about. You're just a bitch."

Like I said before, I don't dislike the Beatles. I understand that they were very influential, particularly with regards to recording and creating. They have some really pretty songs. I just think their early songs are pretty cheesy and annoying and the people they were copying don't get enough credit.
Do not, however, get me started on the Eagles. I hate the fucking Eagles.

Dog Ages

2010-04-24T07:55:00.000-07:00

Just a note to people that refer to their pets as their children:

This morning, I was sitting on the floor by the bed. Ryan was sitting on the side of the bed, his legs hanging over the side, drinking a cup of tea. Jeeves was between me and the bed and Barnaby was lying on his back in front of me.

I scratched Barnaby's belly and he reached up and grabbed Ryan's toes with his mouth, causing Ryan to squeal and almost spill the tea. Jeeves leaned over and licked the side of my head. The thought occurred to me that if I had children the ages of 11 (Barnaby) and 40 (Jeeves), while chewing on someone's foot might be considered okay for the 11 year old, licking the side of my head would most certainly be unacceptable for the 40 year old. So would crying and screaming during thunderstorms and being unable to share.

The Joke's On Me

2010-04-21T18:12:00.000-07:00

After receiving further text messages and one phone call from the afore mentioned strangers, I got a text message this evening from my friend Casey. She texts me from her husband's phone because she always loses hers. I have neglected to save her husband's phone number, mainly because I'm afraid I'll call or text him, trying to reach her and he'll be at work in an important meeting or something (in fact, I think I've actually already done it).

Her husband's number and the aforementioned strangers number are quite similar.

You can guess what I did (at least I wasn't rude).

Random text messages cont.

2010-04-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

I did get a response.

"So this works as a form of communicating?"

"Well. In some respects. Although I don't think you're texting who you think you're texting. I believe you are texting a wrong number."

"If this is a wrong number, then how are you receiving my texts?"

Pure gold.

Random text messages.

2010-04-18T12:44:00.000-07:00

I received a random text message the other night. It read:

"We're here. Are you?"

I knew it most likely wasn't from anyone I knew, because it was sent from a bay area area code. I still have a bay area area code, so when I get random calls from 607 (Ithaca) numbers, I know that the person is very likely trying to reach me, as opposed to random calls from the bay, which are almost always wrong numbers. Like that woman who left me 3 messages for her son, trying to get him to call her back.

I forgot about the text, until this morning:

"Got your phone on?"

To which I responded,

"Yes. Who is this?"

The response an hour or so later,

"Papa"

My father doesn't use the word papa. He doesn't even use the word "dad". I call him by his first name and always have. He also doesn't use text messaging.

Just now, I got another message from the same number.

"I mean, Joe's Bar."

To which I responded (of course),

"Okay, Joe's Bar. See you there."

I'm not expecting a response, but I really hope I get one.

Absent Minded Ninny.

2010-04-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

I am an absent minded ninny. I also suffer from "anxiety".

Today I left the house to go on a trail ride at Kathy's. An hour after getting to Kathy's and three minutes before I was supposed to get on, Casey mentioned something about the fresh bread we have been making everyday. I remembered the huge bowl of rising bread dough sitting on the counter and I remembered this story. I could not remember if I had put it away. I assumed that because I did not remember putting it away and because I am an absent minded ninny, that I had not put it away. I called Ryan, frantically, asking him to run home.
Fairly convinced that I had killed Jeeves (Barnaby goes in the crate when we are out), I handed the pony off, jumped in the car still wearing my half chaps and helmet and drove home, as fast as I could considering the state police station on the way and the big storm that slowed the traffic down.

Ryan called me when I was 5 minutes away (the drive should be half an hour from Kathy's, it was longer on account of the conditions) to say, "You put the dough away. All he got was a spatula."

***

Ryan says I shouldn't beat myself up about my absent mindedness, that instead, I should use positive reinforcement when I'm not absent minded. The problem with that is that I don't know whether I'm going to forget something until I've forgotten it. I can't pat myself on the back for remembering to do things that any normal adult would remember to do.

***

Throwing Bricks at Rothko.

2010-04-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a silly little joke my husband and I share:

Before we got married, my husband's Crazy Ex Girlfriend sent him several emails escalating into a final you're-a-terrible-person, your-mother-must-be-so-devastated and I-never-want-to-speak-to-you-again essay. This was all because he told her he was getting married. I could go into further detail and discuss the circumstances that led up to this, in order to satisfy my claim that she is indeed crazy, but you'll just have to take my word for it because I don't have the energy to go into it and also I have to take her possible feelings into consideration. I mean, does she really want the whole world to know that she took a bath with another one of my husband's ex-girlfriends and then called my husband's mother to tell her about it?

It was a strange thing to happen but we've somehow managed to glean some humour out of the whole situation. One of her main complaints was that we hadn't been together long enough, particularly long enough to have had a "real" fight:

"Have you guys even fought yet? I don't mean a mild disagreement either. I mean the kind of fight that makes you want to hit the other person with a brick for just a split second."

(I found that quote by searching for the word "brick" in my email)

Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I have never, ever wanted to hit anyone with anything, let alone a brick. At the time I thought it was a weirdly violent thing to say (and still do) and pointed it out. Then one of us suggested that maybe we couldn't get married because we didn't have any bricks to throw at each other and that we would need to obtain some bricks in order to be able to have a proper fight. It's a nice way to bring out the real absurdity in her statement. Ryan's mum's in on the joke too.

We see bricks lying on the side of the road and one of us will say, "Hey! Should have a fight? I see some bricks." or, we'll start a small argument about something and one of us will say, "Whoa. We can't do this. No bricks on hand."

Today on CL I noticed that there were free bricks available in Lansing.

me: Someone's giving away free bricks on CL.

Ryan: Maybe they just had a break up and don't need them anymore

me: I read the ad. Apparently, they are overwhelmed with responses.

Ryan: like, "We're getting married in May and don't yet have our bricks. Could you deliver them?"

me: "I really want to buy an expensive piece of equipment that my wife thinks is unnecessary. Are the bricks still available?"

"I'd like to bring up certain things about the way my husband puts his pants on in the morning, but I ran out of bricks last week discussing the way he takes the garbage out. How many bricks do you have to offer?"

Ryan: "I really need your bricks. man. I am totally sick and fucking tired of the way she picks at her toenails."

"My wife thinks I am lazy. I think she's fat. I can pick up and haul away as many bricks as you can offer."

"My wife spends money like its water. So, obviously I can't afford to pay much for the bricks, but as you can see, I really need them."

me: "I'm planning on asking the woman of my dreams to marry me. I want her to understand how committed I am to her and this marriage, so I'd like to stockpile some bricks."

Ryan: "My husband and I have been in a wonderful, loving relationship for 8 years, and we just recently ran through the last of our wedding bricks. Not having bricks to hand has been a real strain on our relationship. Are your bricks still available?"

To date, Ryan and I have only had two real arguments. Neither of which resulted in us wanted to cause bodily harm to the other. One was when Jeeves got too rough with me and grabbed at my head with his paws, getting his claws right in my scar. I curled up in a fetal position and tried not to vomit (I don't like people touching my scar, let alone digging their claws into it) and Ryan instructed me that I had the wrong reaction, that I should have disciplined the dog. He's right in some regards, but in the other, more pressing at the time regard, I was in too much pain and too upset to deal directly with the situation. He came around later, when I explained to him exactly what had happened and showed him the scratch marks.

The other big fight was in the Tate Modern, with extenuating circumstances. It takes some amount of talent to have a huge fight in a museum and we never resolved. Rather, we just agreed to joke about it instead of fight about it from then on with Ryan periodically sending me Rothkos that he made with Microsoft Paint.

"The border didn't turn out as well as I wanted it to, but my three minutes ran out."

My Own Rothko

by Ryan

Dizziness and Flonase.

2010-04-08T07:45:00.000-07:00

Picking up my Flonase from the pharmacist yesterday, I chuckled at the big sticker on the box of that showed a nose, accompanied by the words "FOR THE NOSE". The pharmacist asked what I was chuckling about. I pointed at the sticker and she replied, frowning, "You'd be surprised."

The Flonase is because I've been having dizzy spells for a week or so. Last week they were so bad I couldn't really get off the couch. It was compounded with a nasty cold, so that might have been another reason I spent the morning working from a horizontal position. Ryan came home early to look after me, which was really nice. He does nice things like that a lot, so I forgive him for giving me the cold.

Anyway, the cold left but the dizziness is still on and off and this, compounded with a recurrent pain in my ear that has been going on for about 6 months resulted in me going to the doctor. I say doctor, but actually, because my health insurance is through a university and thus crap, I went to see the nurse, who, although very, very, very (very) nice, did about as good a job as I can do at home. Except she looked in my ears, which I think would be difficult. I think she actually knew less than I do about the way the ear nose and throat works. I have great respect for nurses - there are many members of my family that are nurses. THIS nurse however just told me I had residual effects from my cold and it would go away in a few days. To which I responded NO, it's not. This is something that has been exacerbated by the cold, but it is not the same thing as the cold because I had it BEFORE the cold and it is now AFTER the cold and I still have it.

"Do you want some antibiotics?"

"I thought you said it wasn't an infection."

"I'll go and talk to someone else."

The nurse practitioner came in after a bit and looked in my ears. Turns out that I have a small amount of fluid in my right ear possibly caused by inflammation due to allergies. And now I have a small brown phial of generic Flonase.

I'd like to have health insurance that results in me being able to see real doctors with some regularity. In college I went in for a physical examination, done by a nurse practitioner. I had been talking to her about trying some birth control methods (this was before I knew birth control pills made me nuts). She wanted a pregnancy test before she gave me a prescription for anything. Some old lady volunteer took my blood - stabbing me many times. It resulted in nerve damage that lasted six months and made it almost impossible to do up a girth - which I had to do every day, several times a day as it was part of my job.

The nurse practitioner who did the exam got my test results back, shouted them across the waiting room. When I returned to her a week later, complaining about my arm, she squeezed my arms a few times, looked perplexed and said that nothing could have happened when my blood was being drawn, that fit the description of my symptoms. I didn't believe her, but not being the person I am now, I didn't say so. She was wrong, by the way. I checked with an IV nurse.

This blog is so old it's become self referential.

2010-04-02T13:44:00.000-07:00

For lack of any better material, I'm going to point anyone interested to an old entrry (of mine), from back when I was more interesting. Cheap, I know, but it was one of my favourite entries, mainly because of the title.

Have a read.

And then read the follow up.