Electrical Fire

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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"

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.