OMG! Shoes!

One of the big discussions we've been having is over footwear for the wedding. The concept has been to go with something dressy casual, since we're not planning on formal wear clothes. David's found a very nice pair of loafers here.

I had initially thought to wear ghillie brogues (for a better pic, check out the ones modeled by James's cousin here), since they're sort of considered standard with kilts, but they tend towards the ornate and formal, which doesn't really fit the look we're shooting for. Since I'm wearing an 18th century-style kilt, the other option was to go with period buckle shoes comme celles-ci. Just a little too Plymouth Rock, though.

So I decided to turn to Doc Martens and see what they had to offer. I came up with these three options, which arrived today:



The stripped down, basic brogue



The hip and edgy slip-on



The new and improved buckle shoe

I didn't specifically go into this looking for shoes that were so similar, so it was interesting to see how directed my tastes were - same basic outline and even the same lining for all three of these styles. I'd love to keep all of these because they all look fabulous, but I need to narrow the decision down to just one. I think David and I are pretty firmly in agreement on the one we like best, but I thought I'd throw it out to the rest of y'all to see what everyone else thinks. So go vote already!






FYI: If you can't see the poll just above, check to make sure you have the latest version of Java installed and enabled.

Weekend Wrapup

This week was supposed to be my week off, but when I commented last Monday at work about how ready I was to have the next several days off, our head tech reminded me that I'd agreed to fill in on Wednesday night. So my eagerly awaited 5 days off was shrunk down to 3 days. As I've recently mentioned, I really need a vacation, so this was not a very happy realization. Still, I had agreed to work the shift and it's always good to have a little extra income to pay down debt.

Wednesday night went pretty well, though, and I made the most of those 3 days - or at least the first two of them. On Thursday morning, I did my first workout at the gym around the corner from work and was suitably pleased. I also made an appointment for my first massage in 2½ years on Monday (which I am soooooooo looking forward to). Then I came home, got a few hours' sleep, then got up and went to get my hair cut at the Aveda salon in Portsmouth. I've been there a few times now, and I think I'm done with SuperCuts forever.

On Friday, my big project was this:



I've been wanting to put in raised beds pretty much since I moved in here, and I finally got out the power tools and made it happen. I made them with very simple frames of wood/plastic composite decking stacked two high. I couldn't come up with a really good way of connecting the stacked frames, but I decided that I actually prefer them not attached to each other, as they'll be easier to disassemble and move if/when it becomes necessary. I just drove plain wood garden stakes in around the inside to help hold them in place and then filled them lasagna-style, à la Norma.

Of course, not having bags of leaves or newspapers at my disposal, I got a roll of thick paper and a couple bags of peat at Homo Depot when I got the decking and layered that with some of the mulch we had delivered this week and some composted 'paca poop (of course). I just ordered materials to set up a drip irrigation system and now I just need plants. Some seeds are on order from Fedco and I've put in a request for my mom to pick me up some more at Johnny's, which is right in my parents' town, but I plan on hitting Portsmouth Farmer's Market for the first day of the season next Saturday.

As for today, it was spent trying to recuperate from everything I did the previous two days. And addressing wedding invites.

False Economies

I cancelled my gym membership the other day. Even though it was a local gym, inexpensive and not too far from the house, I just could never seem to manage to get there. I went twice, I think, in January, and hadn't been back since. My financial advisor and life coach pointed out to me that this worked out to about $40 per visit. So maybe not so inexpensive.

So today after work I drove around to gyms near the clinic to explore my options. I figure the biggest reason I haven't been going to the gym is that after working a 15 hour overnight shift and driving an hour home, the last thing I want to do is to delay my arrival home. Or to leave the house once I am there. So my hope is that I can make myself do it more easily on that end of the drive.

Of the four options, there is one literally around the corner from the clinic that I liked relatively well. They also offered a 14 day free trial, so I shall be taking them up on it. The only downside is that their steam room is broken and the new ownership apparently doesn't have a firm timeline for getting it repaired. I can schedule a massage appointment there, though, so I'll likely get over it.

A Little Reminder

If you are on any prescription medications, be sure to check them before you pop them in your mouth. Last week I went to my local pharmacy of choice to pick up a prescription refill - my last refill, in fact, which means I need to schedule a checkup. I have been on Requip for the past year to deal with a particularly bad case of restless legs syndrome in conjunction with periodic limb movement disorder. The medication helps both me and David get a better night's sleep.

Anyway, the legs were particularly bad on Sunday, as they often are after an exhausting night at work, but when I went to crack open the new bottle, I found very unfamiliar-looking pills within. I was quickly able to ascertain that instead of 0.5mg Requip, they had filled my prescription with 0.5mg Risperdal, which is a medication most commonly used for bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. This could have been bad. Very bad.

The pharmacist on duty when I took the pills in today was at least properly mortified and promised to get to the bottom of how that error had occurred (two drugs side-by-side on the counter, pharmacy tech not paying attention, pharmacist not checking behind them - that's the likely sequence of events). When the local pharmacy I used to use made a similar, though somewhat less egregious error, I basically got the brush-off ("I wasn't on that day."), which is why I no longer take my business there.

Anyway, the moral of the story is: Always double check your prescriptions. Pharmacy of choice actually has a description of the tablet printed on a tab on the label and on the information sheet they staple to the bag, which would have clued any non-medical types in had they bothered to read it. But how many people actually read all their labels?

Long Night

When I got to work yesterday evening, everybody was standing around bored and there were no patients in the hospital. Unfortunately, we made up for it overnight.



This photo doesn't include the charts for my three inpatients. At least I didn't kill anything, which is always good, but it'd be nice if the caseload would just spread out a little more evenly.

Now We Are Twelve

After the onslaught and in between writing up records, Rabbitch and I had a little discussion about the etymological origins of the word jahoobie. She decided that it must be Sanskrit (I'd vote for Hindi from Persian, but whatever), so I wrote it out in Devanagari and took a picture for her.



Just in case you were wondering.


A Little Request

My friend Dena has a little problem. If you happen to have a few yards of Cascade Ecological Wool in color 8095 you could spare, she will probably love you forever.

Bullet Post

I am so totally stealing this from Annie, but it's technically not Wednesday anymore. I don't intend to make this a regular feature; I'm just too tired tonight to string more than a couple of sentences together coherently.

• I don't think I mentioned the Easter card David's parents sent us.



• It contained a photocopy of the first chapter of Romans, you can read the highlighted verses here.



• His mother also wrote a little note saying that our wedding would be "like a funeral" to them.



• We felt very loved. Um, wait, no...the other thing.



• She called this afternoon. David didn't answer. She left a very cheery message on the machine, though (no, srsly, like she hadn't practically called us devil spawn a few weeks ago). She and David's father will be en route to Washington State soon for David's older nephew's confirmation.



• I suggested we send the boy a copy of the Tao Te Ching or the Dhammapada to mark the occasion. David suggested The Gay Guide to the USA



• Apparently, the boy takes after his Uncle David more than anyone cares to admit.



• *sigh* It's rather a bit frustrating.



• Also today, I stopped on the way home to vaccinate a few puppies, then came home and vaccinated a few juvenile alpacas, and then had to do surgery on one of the ducks. The old male goose pecked her eye out, and I had to remove it the rest of the way. There are no photos.



• You're welcome.



• As you might imagine, this meant that I did not get much sleep.



• On a cheerier note, one of my clumps of species tulips opened today. I shall try to get a photo before they wilt.



• I also opened most of the storm windows in the upstairs today. It's getting warm.



• It may sound trite, but I love spring.



• For dinner, we had leftover peanut curried tofu and veggies. We also watched another bad karate flick.



• In the past year, I've taken 5 days off (none of them, I don't think, just to be idle and rest) but worked an extra 15 or 16 shifts. I really need a vacation.



• I expect Steph will also be mentioning this, but I'm willing to bet she's sleeping just about now, so I'm going to tell you first that today is Juno's birthday. Juno is one of those people I always enjoy being around, and she's a hell of a good Scrabble player (I'm pretty sure I won't recover from "monoacid".)



• I'm pretty sure there was something else, mostly because there's always something else, but it's tired and I'm late I need some sleep. G'night, all.

Mini-Panic

A few nights ago, David had what he called his "first bridezilla moment." He decided that the invitations he'd designed and gotten printed up - after two attempts to get the color right - were not acceptable. Truthfully, they weren't, so we'll now be getting pre-designed invitations from a different company - at twice the cost, but hopefully with much less stress.

Then the angst turned to clothes. His original idea was to have something tailored, but now it seems he's turned to off-the-rack options and is having a hard time making a decision. One of his worries is that, with me in "folky" kilt and handknit vest & hose, we'll look too different. I pointed out that bride and groom don't usually dress alike, but that didn't seem to wash with him. So then I suggested that maybe he consider wearing the folk costume of his ancestors.



He didn't care for that idea, either, though I think he'd be dead sexy in it. Still, considering it would cost well over half our wedding budget (26,000 NOK works out to a little under $5200 US at the moment), it's not a very realistic idea.

And then there's my own little source of angst, also known as the wedding vest. It will likely come as no surprise that gauge swatches lie. This is a reality I have been very mindful of as I've plugged along slowly at this item, but it's only just gotten to a length where I could really measure it well. It is, as I feared, too big, but only by about 4 inches.

Now, that's quite a bit of extra ease to have in a vest, but I'm going to trust that I can count on one of Shetland wool's most well-known traits. It fulls like nobody's business. So I'm just going to continue on my merry way and hope that a nice hot wash will pull it in enough, even out my stitches a bit, and make everything perfect.

If not, I'm going to have to channel some of this:

Satsujin Ken

This week our movie fare has been trashy early 70's karate flicks, from a DVD box set I got dirt cheap years ago. Very violent, but in a B-flick sort of way that makes them particularly fun. Tonight's selection (above) inexplicably had the following as a DVD extra.



There seems to be no relation between the two, aside from some very racist depictions of black people. And for some reason, the town crier scenes in the cartoon were cut from the DVD version.

Maybe he demanded royalties.

Another Birthday Alert

Today is Stephen's birthday. I'm sure he'll be gettin' some smooches from Janie Sparkles and the man, but be sure to go give him a little extra birthday lovin'.

Render unto Caesar

Today was dedicated to finishing up my tax returns and getting them filed, since I'd been dilly-dallying and this was going to be my last good chance before the deadline. Once upon a time, I'd have them finished in February and the refund spent by mid-March, but not for the past few years. Every year I think that I really should have an accountant to take care of them, as I could probably deduct a good bit more than I do, but every year it ends up being just me and TurboTax. I still end up with a decent refund and considering I'm one of those people who understands the necessity of taxes to keep the government doing its job (though I may occasionally disagree with how they're doing it), I just don't get too uptight about getting back every possible nickel and dime.

This year, I also pledged to meet VUBOQ's 10% Refund Challenge and donated a bit over 10% of my refund to charitable organizations & funds. Some of it was divided among some of the various check-off funds on my state tax return - endangered wildlife, pet spay/neuter, and children's funds all got a little something from me - and then I donated a pretty good chunk to Seva Foundation. I very much like the work that Seva does and highly recommend them. They'll likely get another donation from me near the end of the year. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was only a couple of blocks from their headquarters when I surprised Stephen at work last week.

At some point, I also need to sit down and figure out how much spare change has accumulated in my underwear drawer (Yes, that is where I keep it.) so I can send a donation to Médecins sans Frontières.

Game On!



When I was in California weekend before last, my friends Karl & Michael spent a good bit of their down time in the evenings playing Scrabulous on Facebook. Now, I've never been much of a gamer. Video games for me pretty much ended with Frogger and I've never really played them online. But I love me some Scrabble and can generally kick butt at it, so the other day I added it to my Facebook applications. Now I know how those WoW geeks feel.

Well, maybe.

Birthday Reminder

Today is QueerJoe's birthday. Since Joe, as we all know, is a total hits whore, you should go show him some lovin'.

Golden State

Where to begin? The ostensible reason for my recent trip was a symposium on veterinary hospice care, the reason being that I have to do quite a lot of end-of-life counseling and thought I might get some useful information out of it (which I did). The main reason, though, is that over the past almost 14 years since my last visit to Northern California, I have accumulated quite a number of friends - both real and virtual - in that little corner of the world, and it was high time to see some of them.

And I did see as many people as I possibly could. I stayed with my friends Karl & Michael, both of whom are on faculty at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. Karl and I have known each other since 1991, when we were both still in school. I also got to spend time with my friend and classmate Denae, whom I've known now for nearly 18 years; my friends Walt & Rusty, whom I hadn't seen since we all lived in North Carolina (I moved away in 2002 to live in domestic bliss with S, and we all know how that turned out); and my friend Bayliss, whom I hadn't seen in nearly 11 years when I moved from Maine to North Carolina.

In addition to these dear people, I was happy to be able to move some of my online friendships into the realm of real life. Blog reader and colleague JJ tracked me down and gifted me some absolutely lovely hand-dyed sock yarn from Hand Jive Knits in colorway "dusky plum". Clearly, this deserves a special pattern:



It was, however, far too short a meeting, so I'm hoping she gets a position she's looking at near here (and then she can be Tuck's dentist, too).

And as Stephen has already written, I surprised him at work and got to meet Janie Sparkles (and every other dog at Clif Bar). It will come as no surprise that I heart Janie. It may also come as no surprise that Stephen has shown Tuck's photo to every one of his coworkers.



After I skipped away for a tour of the Scharffen Berger chocolate factory (which I also heart), Michael came over and we trekked across the Bay Bridge to Stephen's place, went out and had a delicious dinner, followed by coffee and cupcakes...



...then arrived fashionably late for knit night at the Three Dollar Bill Cafe, where I got to meet Bill, whom I had known for a while from the Men Who Knit community. I had started kilt hose on this trip (in wonderfully soft worsted weight, undyed cormo from Elsa Wool Company - pictures yet to come) to be able to have something relatively simple to work on during the symposium and he had a couple pairs in process, so we had a nice, though again too brief, chat about techniques and yarn choices.

After that, it was a quick visit back to Stephen's apartment, where I was interviewed for the next Y Knit podcast. I'm pretty sure I blushed ten shades of red when they referred to me as "famous", but I've been interviewed a few times in the past and think I managed mostly not to sound like a total ass. Or at least I'm hoping they edit the hell out of it to get that result. Either way, I'm not sure I can bear to listen to it.

There was, of course, more than I have time to share properly - like the visit to Lacis, or the very nice woman (and brand new fellow Raveler whose screen name I neglected to ask) and her daughter who were my neighbors on the Minneapolis to Detroit flight - but it's very clear that David & I are going to have to go back just for vacation sometime, simply so there will be time to do some proper socializing.

Back East

It's about 3:20AM and I've been back home for all of 2 hours now. California was nice, but I didn't have nearly enough time to visit with people (or Janie Sparkles). Still, it's nice to be home with my sweetie, who woke up enough to say "happy birthday," and my own precious little snorty dog, who gave me lots of kisses. There shall be a better post later, once I have a chance to upload more photos. And sleep. Meantime, here's one of me chugging delicious hot chocolate at the Scharffen Berger factory, where I showed far less fiscal restraint than David was likely hoping.

How About an FO?

Since there's been a dearth of those around here lately (damned project monogamy), I offer you the following:


From down below


From up above (sort of)

This little made-it-up-as-I-went project has languished in a drawer at work for over a year now, so I finally got around to finishing it off. The yarn is Limbo Superwash from Halcyon Yarn. If you're thinking the bunny motif looks familiar, that's because it's the ASCII bunny from the Cute with Chris website (Rabbitch, no doubt, will insist that it's actually all about her, and I suppose that, too, is possible. That bunny is a little off kilter, after all.)

And a Bag of Chips

Quite a bit going on this week. I am currently working my second night in a row. Because I work 15-hour shifts, this is a rare occurrence, especially since it means not going home between shifts. With only 9 hours between them (or actually, a good bit less by the time all the paperwork and rounds and phone calls are done), I just can't afford to spend two of those hours on the road. As it is, I only got 6 hours of sleep here before I had to get up and get ready to do it all over again.

Ideally, the workload between the two nights would be divided up fairly evenly, particularly since it's midweek in what is still our "slow" season. At the very least, one would hope for it to be busier on the first night, when one is a bit fresher, than on the second. Apparently, though, that memo got lost, because my caseload tonight has been over twice what it was last night.

I will be glad to leave here.

And the reason I'm working back-to-back nights is that I am leaving today - for lovely Northern California. This will be the first time in nearly 14 years that I've visited that part of the country. I'm nominally off to a weekend symposium on veterinary hospice care at UC Davis. I figured that because I do the end of life talk so often (twice so far tonight), I might be able to take away some useful information from it. Mostly, though, it's an excuse and an opportunity for me to visit friends - some of whom I haven't seen for years, and some of whom I've only ever met online.

Stephen tells me that Monday night is knit night at the Three Dollar Bill Cafe, so I am definitely going be there. Monday is a play day for me before I come home, so I'm planning on heading down to the San Francisco Bay area for the day. I'm hoping I'll have time to visit the Muir Woods, and maybe visit the Scharffen Berger factory.

The wedding vest will be traveling with me, but rather than risk having it taken away by the TSA goons, it'll be going in my checked baggage. Since I'm looking at 10 hours of travel to get there and 11 back, I expect I'll be either sleeping (often not possible for me) or picking up the Hindi textbooks to catch up on those studies a bit.

I expect there'll also be a bit of fretting happening. When I spoke to David this evening, he told me he'd finally talked to Landlady Wendy about our proposed purchase of the house. After many, many months, she and Landlady Paula have finally settled on an asking price. The only problem is that it's about $50K more than I had figured we could easily afford, and they're not really inclined to negotiate.

I'm pretty sure we can do it. It's within what the bank pre-approved us for last month. And we do really love our little house and would rather be building equity than just paying rent. And they'd sell the entire parcel with an easement, so that whenever they decide to stop using the pasture behind the house, I could get myself a little flock of Shetland sheep. And we could eventually put up a wind turbine and go off the grid.

But it would mean coming up with an extra $400-500 per month over what we're currently paying for rent, which is just a little nerve-wracking to contemplate. Except that that amount is less than we've been setting aside each month for the wedding.

So maybe it won't be that difficult to manage, after all. But at the moment, thinking about it is making me want to puke.

Only 11 hours until I get to run away from it, though.

Tofu Chocolate Pie

No photos because we ate it all, but this is yummy and super easy to make. And everybody knows tofu is healthy, so no guilt! Well, at least I don't feel guilty about eating it.

• two 12oz. packs of firm silken tofu (The silken part is very, very important. Regular tofu has the wrong texture for this.)
  
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
  
• soy milk (1/4 cup, give or take)
  
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  
• 12 oz. bittersweet chocolate (60% cocoa Ghirardelli chips work well)
  
• one 10" deep dish pie crust or two 9" crusts, prebaked (My preference is graham cracker, or a crust from those folks who make the yummy black and white cookies.)
  

Put the tofu in a blender, add the syrup, vanilla extract, and just enough soy milk for the tofu to puree well. Blend everything until nice and smooth, but still fairly thick. You may need to stop the blender and stir a little bit to get everything nice and uniformly blended. Melt the chocolate (in the microwave - stopping to stir at 30 second intervals - works well, or you can use a double boiler), pour into the tofu mix and blend thoroughly. Pour into pie shell(s) and chill to set.

See? Super easy. And have I mentioned how good it tastes? Seriously, you could feed this to a confirmed tofu-hater and they would never guess unless you told them. If you're careful to look for vegan chocolate, you can also make the vegans (and the lactose-intolerant) in your life very happy. I also plan to try making a crust with gluten-free chocolate graham crackers, since we are expecting to have both vegans and a gluten-allergic friend at our wedding and I'd like to have a dessert they can all enjoy (since the cake will be neither).

UPDATE:

VUBOQ asks, "Does it matter if the soy milk is sweetened or not?"

MollyBeees asks, "Did you use flavored soy milk?"

I used vanilla Silk, since that's the brand David prefers and therefore what we have in the fridge at all times. Really, though, I didn't use very much soy milk, so I'm not sure that using something else would have a huge effect on the flavor. As to MollyBeees other comment about this being "semi-diabetic friendly", I expect this could be very easily adapted to be sugar-free - switch to unsweetened soy milk (no maple syrup), use a bit of Splenda, fructose-sweetened graham crackers for the crust, and sugar-free chocolate.

Up for Some Do-Goodery?

Photo by James Wainwright on Flickr. Image reposted under Creative Commons license.

So unless you've been living under a rock, you're aware of the current situation in Tibet. Jean's son, James, was in Lhasa when the rioting broke out and his account of what he saw can be read here. Of course, he does admit that the situation made it difficult for him to walk around the city freely or to get a complete view of the situation. It's also not unreasonable to think that the Chinese forces would take a more measured approach if they thought they were being seen by a Western journalist.

News trickling in from other sources paint a much more grim picture. Joy has been chronicling the lives of many of the Tibetan refugees who end up in her little corner of India, which gives just a glimpse into the ongoing oppression that led to the rioting in the first place. Yesterday's post reports specifically on the current uprising and the backlash it has caused, especially now that Westerners have been effectively removed from the region. Media reports on the massive influx of Chinese troops lend credence to what's been finding its way out.

Anyway, the point of this is that the steady trickle of refugees into Joy's little corner of the world is likely to increase, and I was noticing that their little medical assistance fund has barely anything in it so far this year. If you go back through her archives, you can see some of what they've been able to do for people with that little fund. The refugees who actually survive crossing the Himalayas into India often arrive with some serious medical problems, and that fund can mean the difference between life and death for some folks. So take a little time to go to Joy's blog and click on the donate button to help out a little. Even if all you can manage is $5, a little really does go a long way in a place like India, and that $5 may buy the antibiotics that saves someone's life.

A cup of Starbucks, a couple bags of chips, a sandwich, or a human life. Seems an easy choice.

Spring? Spring!

Although the weather is kind of crap out (cold, drizzly rain at 35F), we are at the vernal equinox, meaning that spring is technically here. And to prove that it really is (and brighten the mood), I offer this photo taken in front of my house Monday afternoon.



These are my reticulated irises, which grow from bulbs rather than rhizomes and bloom much earlier than standard garden irises. These even opened 12 days earlier this year than last. Here's proof.

Reason #241 Why I Hate People

We'll call this little dog Gem.



Gem came into the clinic on Sunday along with a sob story about how she'd been adopted in Alabama and the family had just moved up to this area recently and they had thought she was spayed but then came home to find her tied with their male, etc., etc. And now she was in dystocia (medspeak for difficult labor) and the owner had actually pulled a leg off of one of the pups trying to extract it. And they had no money.

So some calls were made, and a rescue group was found that agreed to take her in and cover her medical expenses (to which I also applied some of the leftover funds from Phoebe donations) and find her a new home. Which is good, because the rest of Gem looked like this:



Even before she got into such rough shape, I'm not quite sure how she was managing to walk. But it was pretty clear that she needed to go to surgery fairly quickly. When I did open her up, this is what I found:



I made a notation on the Flickr page, but there was gas in her uterus. This is never a good sign. It turned out that at least half of the 8 puppies inside her were decomposing, meaning she had likely been in labor for at least 24 hours and her former owners had simply done nothing to help her until she was half dead. Of the pups, only 3 were still alive, but two of those were in such a weakened state that they also succumbed. The remaining pup is doing well, however, and Gem has been spayed so that she won't ever have to go through this again.

The surgery wasn't the end of her troubles, though. When she was being readied to go to a day practice yesterday morning, she vomited a large volume and appeared to have aspirated some of the fluid into her lungs. She is reportedly doing much better today and set to go home, but I was worried about her. Oh, and this is what she looked like post-op (she lost over 1/4 of her body weight):



It turned out, not surprisingly, that the former owner's story wasn't exactly true. It's possible that the dog may have been acquired in Alabama, but there's no indication that they were under the illusion that she'd been spayed. Particularly since he'd been seen selling puppies at a local fleamarket before. Also, judging from her degree of mammary development, I'd suspect that she's had several litters before this one, and judging from her teeth, I'd suspect that she may be older than was reported. In any event, they'd had two months in which to do something before she ever went into labor, and even then waited until her condition was very dire to do anything. The only thing that can be said in their defense is that they didn't let her die at home.

The Current Situation Chez Nous

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Thanks to Norma for this.

Meeting of the Mo's

Thanks to a tip from textillian I found the Big Mo' bar at Joann Fabric when I went there last Friday to get some fabric for curtains (photos of those once I'm finished). There's not much to distinguish them aside from the (presumably unintentional) double entendre of the name. The whole milk-chocolate-with-peanut-butter thing has been done before, and while I like it well enough, it's not something I'm likely to go out of my way to find.

Just in Case...

...you've not been paying attention.


(click for bigger, links to the Salon.com page)

Tom Tomorrow is my hero.

A Little Progress

There's not been much to report around here over the past week. It's been my long week at work, so the majority of my time has been spent working and trying to sleep. I say trying because I've not been as successful as I'd like in the sleep category lately. Some of it may be late winter blues, though I've not particularly felt like SAD has been an issue this year and haven't been nearly as bothered as some by this winter's heavy snowfall.

There has been a bit of progress on the knitting front. The wedding vest is going slowly, but I'm nearly through one full vertical pattern repeat. I'll need to get through a bit more than two, increasing as I go, before I'll be ready to begin the armhole steeks, at which time I'll be starting to decrease for the armholes, followed by the V-neck, and then the back neck steek, all of which will hopefully speed things up nicely. This photo is of the center back panel, so that you can see how the main pattern is reversed on either side.



I can generally only manage two or three rounds at most before my hands start to cramp, which has slowed things down a bit, but I try to do at least one round a night, which I figure should make up for the slowness. I love the way this pattern is knitting up, and it seems to be coming out to gauge, or at least close enough that it won't look like a sack on me (I hope).

In Other News

The other big thing I've been up to of late is looking into graduate programs. After my last attempt fizzled out, I still wanted to pursue a degree in epidemiology, but I knew it would have to wait until I were in a better position to be able to complete my studies. As much as I enjoy emergency work, I don't think that I can keep doing this physically for the next 20+ years. Besides, disease at the population level fascinates me - why do things small?

So I've been doing a bit of investigation into distance learning programs that will allow me to pursue a degree on a part-time basis online while continuing to work. The University of North Carolina, which has a very well-respected School of Public Health, has an online certificate program in field epidemiology, the coursework for which I can then use towards their Master of Public Health in that area.

So over the next few weeks I plan on compiling application materials to start that in the fall, with a course that I actually took at UNC ten years ago during my first go-round in the graduate world. The refresher will be nice, and at a leisurely one class per term, it should be no sweat to fit into my current schedule. And then in a few years, who knows?

Tongue Dyed

One of the techs here at work brought in some leftover cake from her son's first birthday party. For some reason (we haven't asked) she decided that the cake, shaped like a pig face, should be a deep fuchsia. Not that any of you need proof that cake dyes are good for dyeing protein, but I thought I'd share the results.



Imagine if it had been wool, instead. One of the receptionists discovered another effect of the dye, but I'll spare you, dear readers, from a little TMI.

The People One Meets

Except One wasn't me in this case. David has been at an alpaca event in Saratoga Spring, in Upstate New York, this weekend (while I've been working for The Man). He phoned me just after starting his return trip to let me know that he'd just met Annie Modesitt, who just happened to be at the same venue for an unrelated workshop with Saratoga Needle Arts. She bought one of his sweaters for her husband.

Apropos of Nothing

29

Missed

Somehow I had it in my head that today was my blogiversary, but it was actually back on Sunday. This little blog is now two years old, and I'm hoping there won't be any terrible twos. It continues to be a fun little pursuit, and I sure have met some very fun and decent folks, even if not all of you can appreciate the special thrill that is a fox poo photo (a photo which, I might add, still gets me an awful lot of Google hits.)

Anyway, I promised an accounting of my trip south, so I suppose I should get on with that. As I mentioned before, it was a good visit. My grandparents really aren't in the best shape these days. My grandmother (88) needs a fair amount of assistance, and since a mild heart attack two years ago, my grandfather (93) has been fairly limited in what he can do. Still, my uncle and his family live directly behind them and my aunt lives less than a half mile down the road, so they've got someone nearby to look out for them, and mentally they're both still fairly sharp. My other aunt, my mother's older sister, is mentally retarded and lives at home. At 69, she has health issues of her own, and with a mental/emotional age that's permanently at around 6 or so years, she's never really gotten out of the "Look at me! Look at me!" stage, which is its own challenge. Still, she's relatively functional and is able to help my grandparents out some with household chores.

My job while there was just to visit, and that's what I did. I also did some of the cooking - especially breakfast, though that was somewhat selfish on my part to ensure I got plenty of cheese grits. Mostly, though, it was pure down time. I made progress on the wedding vest and spent a fair bit of time studying Hindi grammar and just generally made myself at home, just as I've done since I first spent two weeks with them at the age of two. I only wish I'd been able to stay longer.

Thoroughly Modern Me

Well, mostly.

You Belong in 1995

With you anything goes! You're grunge one day, ghetto fabulous the next. It's all good!

What Year Do You Belong In?

It's so true. Thanks to Mini for that one.

Also...



Don't worry. I ate a piece for you.

Back Home Safe & Sound

I got home this evening very much on time, with the weather miraculously causing no delays with my connections in either Baltimore or LaGuardia. Of course, now I have a splitting headache and my goddamnedRESTLESSLEGSAREABOUTTODRIVEMEUPTHEWALL!!! So I'm sure you'll understand the brevity of this post. Suffice to say that it was a wonderful, though far too short, visit. There were cheese grits for breakfast every morning (I cooked just to make sure), and my grandparents are doing fairly well given their limitations. I couldn't find any Big Mo candy bars, though, even in the heart of NASCAR country. *sigh*

I'll have more later, but I did want to share my celebrity sighting on the last leg of my trip. I managed to snag exit row seats for the last two legs of the trip and was able to get on the LaGuardia-Boston plane fairly quickly and take my seat. As I was sitting there, who should file past me in the line but Ed Helms, whom some of you might know from his stint on The Daily Show or from the US version of The Office.

At least, I was fairly certain it was him, partly because I've crushed on him just a tiny bit (What can I say? I have a soft spot for goofy, nerdy types). So once we got to Boston and were in the baggage claim area, I did what any self-respecting knit blogger would do - I kinneared him (in the same airport where the practice was born, no less).



Okay, I know it's blurry, but I wasn't 100% certain it was really him, so asking was out of the question (plus he was talking into/listening to his iPhone, and it would have been rude, not to mention potentially horribly embarassing). After I got home, though, I found the fansite edhelms.org, which had the following video interview, which was done earlier in the week in Colorado. Same hat, same jacket (same jeans?). I got my confirmation.

The Week Ahead

Many of you likely already know that this year's Spa, Knit and Spin is coming up this next weekend (Ravelers - there's also a Ravelry group for this here.). They've moved the venue this year from Portland up to Freeport, and I had been looking forward to attending, since it actually falls on my week off. This also turned out, however, to be the best week for me to go to South Carolina to visit my maternal grandparents.

It's been very nearly a year since my last visit, and since they're 93 and 88 and not in the best of health, there was really nothing to decide. So I'm looking forward to a few days of grits, eggs, and toast for breakfast, daffodils and Forsythia already in bloom, and spending time with my grandparents and my mother, who just retired three weeks ago and who is currently down there visiting.

News from the World of Candy Bars



Dale Earnhardt, Jr., recently entered the candy bar bidness with the Big Mo' candy bar. I wonder if he knows what "big mo'" means? Is he trying to tell us something? I suppose it doesn't really matter, since I now must buy one.

A Special VD Announcement

Courtesy of my friend Glenn:

The Accessory Ann Shayne Wishes She Had

Recently, my coworkers presented me with a new surgical cap and insisted that I blog about it.



What, you ask, is so special about that, and why the hell would Ann Shayne want it?* Here's a detail of the fabric:



I'm pretty sure she's jealous and doesn't even know it yet.

*hint: If you don't keep up with Mason-Dixon Knitting and have no earthly idea what I'm going on about, click on Ann's name in the title of this post

What Won't Those Brits Eat?

Since I work 15+ hour shifts and don't have the luxury of being able to leave the building to get food (which, at 4AM, would mean going to the convenience store up at the corner), I try to maintain a small stock of food here at work. Those stocks were running a little low, so I left home a little early in order to swing by a nearby supermarket to get some comestibles before my shift began.

Said supermarket is of a pretty good size and they have a decent-sized area devoted to natural foods adjacent to a decent-sized section of "international" foods, arranged by country. I ended up getting some ginger preserves from the Brit section and just happened to see this fine product.



Last I knew, you weren't supposed to eat it if it had spots, but then, the British aren't exactly known for their stellar sense of discernment where food is concerned. Anyway, since I work with a bunch of perverts, I did the only thing I could. I bought it as a gift for the hospital manager.

And, of course, when I mentioned "weird Brit food" to Rabbitch, she immediately guessed what it was. But is anybody really surprised?

Vest Progress and Recipes

Here's a detail photo of the center front with steek.



As you can see, it's not very far along, but progress is being made a little at a time. Hopefully it'll be steady enough that I don't end up in a mad rush come June.

Recipes

As promised, here are recipes for the sweet & sour tofu and the green beans. Actually, there's not really a recipe for the green beans, per se. I stir-fried them in sesame oil with tamari until they were hot but still had a little bit of firmness to them, then added a couple of crushed really-freakin'-hot little Thai chilies near the end, tossed them just a little bit more ('cause the chilies let off fumes and make me cough), then turned off the heat and sprinkled them with sesame seeds - a fairly basic Szechuan-style dish.

So here, then, is the recipe for the tofu (all measurements are approximate):

Slice a one pound block of extra-firm tofu into pieces (I did twenty approximately 1cm-thick slabs). In a bowl, mix to a fairly smooth batter:

- one cup all purpose flour
- salt, pepper, and coriander to taste
- one cup water
- one large egg

Dip each piece of tofu into the batter, then dredge through a second bowl of flour until the tofu is covered in a nice heavy coating of doughy batter. While you are battering the tofu pieces, heat a pan of canola oil at least a couple of inches deep to medium-high heat. Place the battered tofu pieces a few at a time into the hot oil and fry until golden brown, remove with a slotted spoon when done and place in a colander or wire strainer to allow the oil to drain. When all the tofu has been fried, heat in a wok:

- 1/4 cup tamari
- 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
- 2/3 cup mirin (sweet rice wine)
- 2 Tbsp. corn starch mixed into about one cup of cold water
- 2 cloves garlic crushed or sliced (I sliced, 'cause I couldn't find the garlic press)

Heat and stir until it begins to boil and the sauce clarifies and thickens. If it's not thickening sufficiently, you can always use a bit more corn starch. Turn off heat and add in tofu. Serve over rice.

And VUBOQ asked how the rhubarb wine tastes. In some respects it's not unlike a nice Riesling - a little fruity, a little tart (with a very light rhubarb-y flavor), and a little sweet - and it has a very slight blush to it. And since I have never met a Riesling I didn't like, this didn't disappoint, either (though it contains no Riesling grapes).

Super Fat Tuesday

Despite my Southern roots, I don't usually make deep fried foods. It being Mardi Gras, though, I decided it was time for an exception. So I made:



Sweet & sour tofu, which I served over brown basmati, and



Stir-fried green beans, and washed it down with this



Blacksmiths is a Maine label based outside of Portland. I had the occasion to treat their dog once and had a chat with the vintner, so I was very pleased when I started seeing their wines in the local supermarket. They import the grapes from other states, primarily Washington and New York, but they also have some specialties, like this rhubarb, that are primarily or wholly from local produce. So far we've tried this one and their blueberry wine. Neither has disappointed. If you want to try it, though, you have to come to Maine, because they're currently not selling it outside the state.

That's it for tonight. I'll try to get the sweet & sour recipe written down, because it was yummy. I'll also try to get some pics of the wedding vest. I'm almost to the point of making the first increases and it's actually starting to look like there's progress.

The Weekend Is Over

For me it is, anyway. Sunday evening sees me back at work after a few days off. It means, of course, that I won't be able to watch the Super Bowl, but you might imagine that I'm not terribly heartbroken at the prospect. I'd like for the Pats to win and all, seeing as they're the locals, but life will go on just fine if they don't.

There's been very little knitting this week, but it's been a productive one overall. On Friday, David and I sat down with someone at the bank and did a mortgage pre-approval. We've been in informal talks with Landladies Wendy & Paula to buy our little house for a while now, and the time has come for those talks to get a little more serious. I had sat down and crunched some numbers previously, and it turns out that the bank agrees that we can afford what I knew we could afford. This is a very good thing.

It also works in our favor, at least for purposes of negotiation, that the housing slump has hit our neighborhood (a nearby property on the waterfront with a separate rental-or-guest cottage has been listed for a couple years now and has dropped from $2.4M last I looked to $1.675M currently). There are no plans for this house to go on the market, but it does affect the appraisal. We live in a mostly high rent district, there is no doubt, but our humble little house is 300 or so years old and, as with many houses of a certain age, it has a fair number of quirks that make it a bit less attractive on the open market - like the non-accessible kitchen plumbing that runs along a poorly insulated outer wall. Or the somewhat leaky windows. Or the nonstandard everything. So hopefully we'll be able to work out a purchase price that is amenable to all parties and do so while interest rates are nice and low.

Aside from that, David & I did some reorganizing today to reduce the clutter in my little office space and to reclaim what has been a storage room for David's business as a guest room, so that visitors will have a bit more privacy. Since we're trying to have my 14-year-old niece visit more often to give her time away from her dad and brother and other uncle (They're all sharing a room at my parents' since my brother split from wife #2.), we felt it should be a priority. Doing so also meant moving a futon mattress out of its storage space under the daybed in our upstairs guest/TV room. This, in turn, meant that I was able to move almost all of my stash bins into that space and open up that room a bit more. This, as Martha would say, is a good thing.

And I don't really have time right now to properly acknowledge, but I've been given the You Make My Day blog award by both mollybeees and janel. Y'all make me blush, seriously. And then I really never properly acknowledged it when Mike nominated me for the Rockin' Guy Blogger thing way back when. I'm so bad with these things, really. And so, to seriously distract all of you, I am going to point out that Tuck is famous and then make my getaway.

Ste. Brigid's Day

It is once again time for the annual Brigid in Cyberspace Poetry Reading. I came to it a little bit late last year, so this year I'm trying to get a jump on things and posting in the wee hours. I started looking around a week or so ago for likely candidates and decided I wanted to post something by that "splendid bugger" W.H. Auden. And since Ste. Brigid's Day is the traditional (pagan) beginning of spring in Ireland, I thought this one was appropriate welcome to the season:

Unpredictable But Providential
Spring with its thrusting leaves and jargling birds is here again
to remind me again of the first real Event, the first
genuine Accident, of that Once when, once a tiny
corner of the cosmos had turned indulgent enough
to give it a sporting chance, some Original Substance,
immortal and self-sufficient, knowing only the blind
collision experience, had the sheer audacity
to become irritable, a Self requiring a World,
a Not-Self outside Itself from which to renew Itself,
with a new freedom, to grow, a new necessity, death.
Henceforth, for the animate, to last was to mean to change,
existing both for one's own sake and that of all others,
forever in jeopardy.
                                     The ponderous ice-dragons
performed their slow-motion ballet: continents cracked in half
and wobbled drunkenly over the waters: Gondwana
smashed head on into the under-belly of Asia.
But catastrophes only encouraged experiment.
As a rule, it was the fittest who perished, the mis-fits,
forced by failure to emigrate to unsettled niches, who
altered their structure and prospered. (Our own shrew-ancestor
was a Nobody, but still could take himself for granted,
with a poise our grandees will never acquire.)
                                                                                   Genetics
may explain shape, size and posture, but not why one physique
should be gifted to cogitate about cogitation,
divorcing Form from Matter, and fated to co-habit
on uneasy terms with its Image, dreading a double death,
a wisher, a maker of asymmetrical objects,
a linguist who is never at home in Nature's grammar.

Science, like Art, is fun, a playing with truths, and no game
should ever pretend to slay the heavy-lidded riddle,
What is the Good Life?
                                           Common Sense warns me of course to buy
neither but, when I compare their rival Myths of Being,
bewigged Decartes looks more outré than the painted wizard.

And immediately following in the collection I own is this one, which I think Liz, in particular, will get a kick out of:

Ode to the Diencephalon

How can you be quite so uncouth? After sharing
the same skull for all these millennia, surely
you should have discovered the cortical I is
        a compulsive liar.

He has never learned you, it seems, about fig-leaves
or fire or ploughshares or vines or policemen,
that bolting or cringing can seldom earth a
        citizen's problems.

We are dared every day by guilty phobias,
nightmares of missing the bus or being laughed at,
but goose-flesh, the palpitations, the squitters
        won't flabbergast them.

When you could really help us, you don't. If only,
whenever the trumpet cries men to battle,
you would flash to their muscles the urgent order
        ACUTE LUMBAGO!

So Painful It's Funny

Thanks to thombeau of Fabulon for this.

A Little Something(s) To Distract Amuse You

No vest photos yet, but I have a few others to share. One of the things I've noticed about Tuck when we're in the car is that he likes to go to sleep sitting up with his head propped on something. This morning, it was the armrest on the door.



But he didn't stay there for very long. After a bit, he turned around and lay his head down on his favorite resting spot.



Much cushier than that armrest. Still, he never manages to stay sitting up the entire time. Eventually, he drifts off to sleep and, well, drifts. Downward.



You would think he would be a bit uncomfortable with his legs turned towards the seat back and his neck craned up, but that's how he likes it and I'm not one to argue the point with him.

A Little Sewing and Hooking

I've had a little side project going the past few days. My friend PJ is living in Brooklyn at the moment and is woefully ill-equipped for the cold. Of course, I've got plenty of really thick wool & alpaca yarns, but PJ's a vegan, which pretty much ruled out all natural fiber options (Yes, plant fibers are vegan, but they are totally inappropriate and inadequate for warm winter clothing). No, the irony of using environmentally-unfriendly petrochemical products to keep someone warm who wants to save the animals is not lost on me. Sometimes, though, you just have to respect one another's decisions and get on with it.

Since he spends a good bit of time outside involved in animal rights protests or doing feral cat trap/neuter/release, I decided that something thick and bulky was in order, and I decided that machine sewing polar fleece would probably get finished faster. I also decided, thanks to John, that I could knock out a bulky crochet scarf fairly quickly with Lion Brand's Jiffy Thick & Quick. The end results aren't particularly pretty (Actually, they look like ass, as far as I'm concerned. Except for the scarf, which looks like clown barf), but they are very warm and functional. The mittens are a bit large, so I may see if I can find a pair of prefab gloves in ack that he can wear inside of them.



And yes, I've already warned him not to get close to any open flames.

And Just Because...

...I don't think we've seen enough of him. Here's a bit more Roy Zimmerman:



And another:



And this last one, especially for Franklin:

Go Do This

Um, yeah, I know I haven't written anything for a week now, but it seems the winter doldrums are upon the blogging community in general. I am making progress on the wedding vest, but I wanted it to be noticeable progress before I started taking photos. Soon, though.

Meantime, today is the birthday of a should-be-even-more-famous blogger, artist, photographer, humorist, and sheep's roommate. Go show him some much-deserved love, will ya?

UPDATE: Just got a link to this video. Good stuff.

Hemmed In

Or should that be "Hem, Sweet Hem"? Oh to hell with it. I've been up all night and I think I'm catching Annie's cold, so I'm in no condition to be coming up with puns - even bad ones. Suffice to say I finished the hem for the wedding vest.



It's a very, very small part of the finished piece, but 341 stitches of stockinette knit flat? Not all that fun. Now, though, I need to make sure all my charts are in order, cast on stitches for the front steek, and get my ass in gear. June will be here far too soon.

Post-op

To those who have inquired about Tuck, his surgery went very well. It took more time to get the equipment set up than for the actual procedure. He'll probably be the tiniest bit sore for a few days, but he's eating and seems to be acting pretty normal today.

I actually had an entire post written out last night, but our connection went down and after I got it back up and running, I somehow got sidetracked and forgot to post it. Anyway, I came up with a great alliteration which must not be wasted, especially since my sister will love it (Are you reading this, Little Girl?). After we got home yesterday afternoon, I went to the gym and then stopped by our Positively Piquant Pasta Purveyors® to get some gourmet ravioli, some of which was our dinner last night.

And now it's time to get ready for work. Bai!

Everybody Loves a New Sweater!

As Chris has pointed out, today is National Dress Your Pet Up Day. And it so happens that I just finished a new sweater for Tuck, which he absolutely loves.



As I have recently commented elsewhere, I'm not one to dress up pets for the sake of dressing them up. I knat Rosa a sweater once because she was getting old and more susceptible to cold, but she was mortified and I didn't try again.

Tuck, by virtue of his small size and thin hair coat, gets cold easily and really likes having a warm sweater. The first one is kind of scratchy wool, though, and while he likes the warmth, it irritates his sensitive, allergic skin a bit. This one is somewhat softer Paton's Classic Wool Merino in brown and some leftover blue heather Cascade 220 for the stripes. I did this one on the fly, too, and it's turned out a good bit longer than the first one. Fortunately, his *ahem* equipment hangs fairly low, so the snug-fitting sweater doesn't get in the way of anything.

Anyway, I finished it up just in time, because once again we're in the middle of a nor'easter that has already dumped a considerable amount of snow on us this morning. Because Tuck's airway surgery requires us to be about 40 minutes up the coast from my workplace at an early hour tomorrow, and we live an hour in the opposite direction from my workplace, I decided it would be prudent to hole up somewhere closer to the surgery venue. So we are about to head to a motel in Freeport where we can hang out and watch cable TV until we fall asleep.

A Message from Phoebe's Mom

Hi, Dr. Vassey,

I just wanted to give you an update on Phoebe. She came home from Dr. Gauger's clinic last Saturday, Jan. 5, 2008. She seems to be handling rehab in stride, although it's not going as fast as she would like. She does not like her "cone" & finds her kennel a bit boring. I try to keep her preoccupied with her purple Racoon toy, raw hide bones, and her favorite homemade peanutbutter dog biscuits. (I found this recipe on the Bassett Rescue League's newsletter "The Daily Drool"). She loves to lay out on a comforter in the middle of the livingroom floor & get massages from myself or family members several times daily. She wants so badly to climb snowbanks & run. However, my family members & I have kept her pretty distracted so she can abide by her discharge instructions.

It is so wonderful to have her back with us. We all miss Darrin so much. but having Phoebe home has been so healing, especially for Abi, age 6, and Shavonne, age 8.

Phoebe is a" talkative" dog. She has this "sing-song" range where she can sound anywhere like a chihauhua, a beagle, a basset, or a 250 lb. Rotweiller. She uses such a variety of voices to "talk" with us from her kennel in the livingroom. She will be seeing Dr. Gauger this Thursday for her 2 wk post-op visit.

We feel this dog is such a miracle. We want to thank you again for being there that night to care for her. You and your staff are incredible! The care Phoebe received was tremendous! Your wonderful generousity & kindness will never be forgotten. I also want to thank all of your marvelous friends who worked on the fund raising for Phoebe's medical expenses. What an act of kindness! I honestly cannot put all my feelings of gratitude down in words. This act of kindness will help others as well. What an impact!

Abi has been saying since she was 4 yrs old that she wanted to be a doctor who "fixed broken hearts" (e.g. cardiologist). However, since visiting the Emergency Animal Clinic, she now wants to be a vet like you.

Darrin is progressing well. He has such determination to get better. So far they saved the leg. He has a tenacious spirit--kind of like an Airdale on a bear hunt :>) I am so glad! He still has a long rehab in front of him.

I will definitely keep in touch. One of your staff told me about your blog. What a great site! I love to knit, also.

By the way, I could not help myself. I have voiced many times of the wonderful care & phenominal service you & your staff have provided to us to many people.

Darrin, Abi, Shavonne, and Phoebe send their love.

All my best,

Ellyn Smith (Phoebe's mom)

Craptacular

That's how I've generally felt today. Either I'm at the beginning of a cold or I overdid it a bit at the gym yesterday and the fibromyalgia is paying me back. Or maybe a bit of both. It didn't help that I spent the night on the couch to keep Tuck quiet, which meant a night of being awakened every ten minutes by the cats raising hell.

Yeah, I know, sleeping on the couch for the dog sounds a little crazy, but it (usually) beats the hell out of listening to barking all night and yesterday brought a bit of a change for him. I finally managed to de-Christmas the living room, moving our tiny, but very heavy, potted live tree off of the big dog crate, said tree being supported by three cases of motor oil stacked up inside the crate (no, really, we're not at all white trash 'round here). Tuck likes the new digs, but it means he has a clear view of me going up the stairs and leaving him alone. I also started him on amitriptyline last night to try to help him through his separation anxiety, but that takes time to kick in. So the couch it was.

Otherwise, yesterday was quite a productive day. Aside from the gym, I managed to get several errands run, the most important of which was this:



The dog license was the last bit of official business to take care of regarding Tuck. He has a home and family who love him now, which is as it should be. And next Tuesday, we're going to see what we can do about his airway issues. I'm a tiny bit nervous about putting him through anesthesia & surgery, as he had some problems when he was neutered, but these procedures should help at least to lessen the issues that caused those problems in the first place, and I'm taking him to a clinic with a laser surgery unit, which is the least traumatic option available.

More Soup, Please

I was a little surprised to see comments from so many people without pressure cookers. They're really very handy pieces of kitchen equipment, and for beans that take bloody forever to cook up, like garbanzos, they're damn near essential.

They're also available for not a huge amount of money. Mine is a super cheapo aluminum one that I bought at K-mart after moving back to Maine. It will likely give me Alzheimer's disease, being aluminum and all, but I was financially tapped out at the time and it has served well. Amazon has a reasonably-priced stainless model, as does Amazon.de (Interestingly, the German website uses the US product as the header photo for their Töpfe category on their main cookware page, but they don't appear to offer that model for sale). And yes, VUBOQ, canned garbanzos could be used. But would they be as tasty?

Anyway, last night I made another soup for dinner, this one not requiring a pressure cooker. I decided I wanted split pea soup and had to go with yellow peas, since that was all the local supermarket had left on the shelf. Who knew it was such a popular idea? Truth be told, there's little difference between this soup and the garbanzo one, except that peas cook up nicely without the pressure cooker. I didn't put any cumin in this one, and I cut up an onion and a few parsnips in it. I also crushed a few tiny-but-potent hot chilies that Don brought us when he visited before Christmas, just to give it a little bit of kick. It turned out very tasty, as you might imagine.



Travel Plans

Since I have to do the end-of-life talk and play the role of grief counselor so often at work, I registered last night for a symposium on veterinary hospice care in March at UC Davis. This will be my first trip to California at all in just over 6 years and the first time I've been within reasonable travel distance of San Francisco in nearly 14 years, so aside from getting in my continuing ed credits for the year, I'm hoping to be able to catch up with some friends I haven't seen for a while and meet a few folks I've only known virtually up to now.

I'm just a little excited.

Comfort Food Leftovers

In the interest in using some of our stockpiles of dry goods and because it's serious comfort food season, I've been in a beans and bread frame of mind lately. Last night it was garbanzo stew with maple walnut spelt bread, and I brought leftovers to work with me tonight. And since I've got little else to say at the moment, I thought it'd make for some good blog fodder.

So without further ado, here are a couple recipes for your consideration:

Easy Pressure Cooker Garbanzo Stew

When I lived in Spain (20 years ago this spring!), I boarded with a family and Berta, the wife, would often make different bean stews for the midday meal, using a pressure cooker to save time. Garbanzos were a popular choice, though this one isn't identical to hers. The quick way to cook these is to presoak the peas for a couple of hours by bringing them to pressure in the cooker and turning off the heat as soon as the steam starts venting. After letting them soak, change the water, making sure there is about 1 inch of water above the level of the peas and adding a couple tablespoons of olive oil to prevent foaming and two to three sliced cloves of garlic. It is important NOT to add any salt or anything acidic at this stage, as it will keep the peas from getting tender. Bring the pot back up to pressure and reduce heat so the vent is just rattling and keep at pressure for 20-25 minutes.

At the end of the cooking period, remove the pot from heat and place in the sink under cold water to reduce the pressure so that you can remove the lid. Then add one 12 oz. can of chopped tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste, 3-4 bay leaves, cumin, thyme and coriander to taste. Simmer on the stove top until the stew is creamy and serve.

Maple Walnut Spelt Bread

- 3 cups whole grain spelt flour, plus additional for kneading
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 cup plain yogurt
- 3/4 cup hot water
- 1/4 cup maple syrup (the real thing, NOT Log Cabin® or Mrs. Butterworth's®)
- 1 packet bread yeast
- 1 large egg
- olive oil & butter

Mix the hot water, yogurt and maple syrup and mix in the yeast, then set aside to let the yeast proof. Mix the flour, salt, and walnuts together. Once the yeast solution is foamy on top, beat in the egg and then mix with the flour. This will make a fairly wet, sticky dough initially, but my aim was not to work it too much, in order to avoid making a really dense bread.

Beat for about 30 seconds to one minute in the bowl to activate the gluten a bit, then turn onto a well-floured board and begin kneading in additional flour just until the dough is cohesive (again to avoid making it too dense). Oil the bowl well and return the dough to the bowl, cover with a clean dish towel and place in a warm dark area (I warm the oven just a bit) for an hour or two until the dough has doubled in bulk.

Punch down the dough and knead again for about five minutes. Separate the dough into two loaves and place in two bread pans that have been greased well with butter. Again cover with the dish towel and place back in a warm spot for the second rising.

Once the loaves have doubled in bulk again, preheat the oven to 400°F(205°C) and bake them for about 30 minutes, or until the loaf is dark brown on top and sounds hollow when tapped. Wrapping them in a dish towel briefly softens the crust. Slice and serve.

This recipe was developed on the fly, but my main aim was to make a whole grain bread that wasn't overly dense and I think I succeeded. Because the dough wasn't worked too much, it resulted in a more crumbly than chewy bread, but the flavor is excellent and I'd definitely make this one again.

Phoebe Is Home!

We got the news that Phoebe went home today. She's still got a few months of recovery ahead of her, but thanks to all of you the Smiths won't have to worry about any of her expenses this past week. I just downloaded the latest numbers and net donations totaled $5634.38. There are still a few donations yet to clear, but her expenses between the emergency clinic and the orthopod came to about $4200, which means there is a sizable chunk left for the Pet Assistance Fund to help out other pets down the line.

Mrs. Smith called last night while I was working and we had quite a long chat. We were both blown away by the magnitude of support you folks gave. While her husband is still in the hospital, she and her daughters are staying with the in-laws and trying to deal with some post-traumatic stress. She says that Phoebe is going to be an essential part of their own healing process, and having seen the bond they have with her, I have no doubt of it.

I broke down the numbers on donations a bit more, and as of this writing there have been 302 online donations. The mean donation amount was $19.52, and the median amount stands at $15.00. As I mentioned before, most of this amount was raised in small increments. 88.7% of the donations received were for $25 or less. 44.85% of them were for $10 or less. It really goes to show the collective power we have to do a tremendous good if we each give what we can. Whether small or large, every one of you who donated helped to make a huge difference for this family.

Thank you, every single one of you.

A Happy New Year, Indeed

Phoebe transferred on Monday to another clinic that does good quality orthopedic work at a reasonable cost. We'll be keeping in touch with them to sort out dealing with her expenses there. I last saw her on Sunday evening and got to speak to Mrs. Smith and her little girls. Even though she was hobbling around with a broken pelvis, Phoebe was wagging her tail and very happy to see her family. She even gave me a little kiss.

As I write this, current donations to help Phoebe are at $3751.77! You people seriously rock!Seriously huge thank-yous to Scout, Rabbitch, Wendy, Franklin, knitnzu, and anyone else I may have missed for putting the word out. I believe we may be able to cover most, if not all, of Phoebe's immediate expenses, though I'm not certain at this point if there will be any breakdown or additional surgery needed to address her soft tissue injuries. If there is any left over, it will most assuredly go into the clinic fund to help some other family in need.

And since a number of people have commented that they didn't have much to donate, I thought I'd share a little bit of info about the donations coming in. While there have been a few folks who have been able to donate quite a bit more, the vast majority of donations coming in have been $25 and under. The average (mean) donation is $20.39 and the median donation is $15. This is really a case of a lot of people giving just a little bit and making a huge difference.

When Phoebe left here on Monday afternoon, we also got word that Mr. Smith's condition was improving. His wounds were so severe, that doctors were afraid they might end up having to amputate one of his legs. When they took him back to surgery on Monday, they decided that they likely would not need to, which was very good news. I'm sure that he's got a long road to recovery and from the sound of things he may have some long-lasting effects, so it's especially nice to know that you have all helped to lessen this family's burden a bit. Thank you, thank you, thank you!