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So I was going to write about something a bit more serious this evening, but seeing as how I feel the need to acknowledge the start of NaBloPoMo and for once I've actually gone and done something - out there in the big wide world - the serious post will have to wait unti tomorrow. (Plus, it gives me something to write about tomorrow!) The irony is, it's the first day of The Big Event and I haven't even looked at a single blog today, let alone written anything until now - 13 minutes before 9 pm, PST. Sad, sad, sad.
I am, however, pleased to discover that a) someone other than my parents reads this blog, and that b) I have some measure of influence over said non-parental people! I managed to coerce inspire TWO PEOPLE to do NaBloPoMo with me!
HAHAHAHAHH! Suckers...
Ahem. No, just kidding. REALLY!
Anyway, so it's been a pretty busy week, highlighted in part by some vegetarian chilli I just cooked up and ate (and there are like 40 gallons left!) for dinner tonight - I know, you TOTALLY care - and last night's trip to Powell's City of Books to see the one and only Amy Sedaris. She was at Powell's pimping her new book, I Like You. People, this lady is a riot. In case you're puzzled, and thinking, "wow, that name sounds familiar....?" let me fill in the blanks:
- Amy is the younger sister of the ever hilarious David Sedaris, who wrote that book I reviewed last fall, "Me Talk Pretty One Day."
- She was in the television show Strangers With Candy and also a movie of the same name with Stephen Colbert and Paul Dinello.
- Errr.... can't think of anything else. Go check out those links, though; fun reading!
Anyway, she's hilarious and Fran, Mary and I had a fantastic time, even considering the lengthy wait while sitting on the rather hard, cold floor in the Pearl Room at Powell's. Still, I can't think of a better way to spend my Halloween.
[Quick break to scan my bloglines feeds...]
Ok, I'm back and I must share this post from Dooce.com. Those who have spent any amount of time with George Lucas' Star Wars Trilogy will enjoy it. If you don't want to read it, at least scroll down to the picture of their dog dressed up as Princess Leia. TOO funny.
Actually, now that I think about it, you should read the whole post and, if you have time, some of Heather's earlier posts too. I heart Dooce.com, mostly because I never fail to take something away from her posts, whether it be insight or understanding or humor. Humor, mostly, but the other stuff is there too.
So I'm off now to watch some more Little House on the Prairie reruns - in the name of research, you understand. I have a post to write on it later this month! WOHOO!
I feel significantly better today. I didn't have to work and I was able to sleep until 10, so that may have had something to do with it, but even more than that my mood has been much improved. Still, even with the improved mood and energy levels I called my neurologist because this is likely only a short reprieve rather than a turn for the better since I'm slated to give myself another injection this weekend.
The nurse returned my call this afternoon and we talked for a bit and I explained everything that was happening; when she called me back after talking to my doctor she suggested that I cut the Avonex dose in half for a few weeks to see how I do. That will hopefully mitigate some of the depression until I'm able to see my psychiatrist next week. She wants me to call her back in a couple weeks to let her know how I'm doing and what the shrink's opinion was and we'll go from there. She and my neurologist are also considering putting me on a low daily dose of Provigil (the anti-fatigue medicine I tried right after my diagnosis) to try to combat the fatigue caused by the Avonex... all this seems a bit bass-ackwards to me. I mean, really: MS causes depression and fatigue, and the main side effects of the drug we're using to treat the disease are depression and fatigue, so we're treating these side effects with more drugs which have their own side effects! GAH! Crazy making, if you stop to think about it.
Anyway, my doctor believes the Avonex works better than the Copaxone so they want me to try to stay on it (or another of the Interferons) if I can. So I guess, bottom line, it's all a waiting game to see if we can coax my body into accepting these new drugs without freaking right the hell out.
 So as far as the rest of the day was concerned, I ended up resting most of the morning, watching TV and doing a bit of laundry. This afternoon I took a quick trip to the grocery store for some supplies and then got started making some Magnolia Bakery cupcakes. A few weeks ago my aunt emailed me a recipe for the "famous" cupcakes and since my baby sister's 16th birthday party is this weekend (yes, I feel old) I thought I'd give the recipe a whirl.
People, these cupcakes are like heaven right here on earth. SO light and fluffy and - despite the two cups of sugar in the batter - not too sickeningly sweet. SO. GOOD.
Now, having said that, they're not so good that I'd make a special trip to Manhattan to get them. But you can bet your belly button that I will definitely be seeking out Magnolia the next time I'm in the city. (Which will be... um... probably not any time soon but, hey, details!)
I also had enough energy left over after making cupcakes and cleaning up the kitchen to go over to my mom's for dinner. She made some yummy roast beast with mashed potatoes and gravy. My favorite meal. And cupcakes for dessert. (Obviously.) It's been a good day and I'm actually looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow. Hopefully I'll still be feeling pretty good by then.
And, last but not least: one small bit of humor, which I found while looking for the cupcake recipe. This, from the "what'll they think of next?" department:
Continue reading "Getting Better" »
Well, I don't have a whole lot to write about this evening but I figured I should post something.
My holiday was fairly laid-back and quiet. Every year, the family gathers to celebrate the fourth and my mom's birthday. My mother wanted fried chicken and potato salad, so I volunteered to make my new favorite potato salad. This potato salad, people, is fantastic. It's another triumph from the folks over at Epicurious, one of my favorite recipe sites. I've made it four or five times now and I just enjoy the heck out of it every time. Plus, who knew that pickling cucumbers was such fun!?
That being said, the damn salad is labor and time-intensive. And on Monday, when it was hotter than Jabba the Hut's butt-crack in the house, I was peeling boiled potatoes and chopping and mixing and stirring potato salad. Damn near killed myself and all for a salad! Seriously, after I had mixed the salad all up and it was resting peacefully in the fridge, I flopped on the couch and thought I might never get up again. Classic case of me DOING. TOO. MUCH.
Fortunately, the salad and I made it to my grandma's yesterday and everyone - even my uncle who hates onions - gobbled it right up. Secretly, part of me was hoping no one would like it so I could take the left-overs home, but even with that little bit of self-serving attitude I was happy to have made and brought the salad and that everyone seemed to like it. Grandma's fried chicken and baked beans were fantastic and my aunt Laura's brown sugar angel food cake was to die for.
Really a nice way to spend my fourth of July. And, even nicer, the whole day was low-key enough that I felt pretty good (read: not miserably fatigued) and was even able to make it to an AA meeting in the evening!
I woke up this morning still feeling pretty good, but by noon or so I was feeling nauseated and beginning to get the fatigued feeling back again. This just underscores the need for me to continue to take things easy and not push myself too much. It's just that I'm anxious to get back to working a regular schedule and to get back into my regular routine of walking Rennie at lunchtime. We're both starting to get a little pudgy.
I'm discovering that I'm not a very good sick person.
Over the weekend, I picked up my first box of Avonex, the "disease-modifying drug" the doctor prescribed. Before I can take it, I have to go meet with the nurse and get trained on how to give myself a shot into a muscle. I'm hoping to meet with the nurse this week but I've had trouble getting ahold of her so the exact date is still "tbd."
I'm not all that thrilled about giving myself an injection, but I figure that if this stuff is going to help me live a more productive, normal life for a longer period of time I can deal with poking myself once a week. The real concern right now is the side effects. Apparently the drug causes "flu-like symptoms" for a day or two after each injection. That's apparently something that wears off over time, so I'm hopeful that this stuff will work for me, but who the heck knows.
The other thing I've been doing a lot of lately is reading and research. I ordered a couple books from Amazon.com about MS and I've been digging around the web looking for well-written blogs and websites on the subject. One of the books I picked up discusses an MS-specific diet, called "The Multiple Sclerosis Diet Book," which looks like it could be good for helping maintain health and control symptoms. We shall see, though. More on this as soon as I have a chance to read through it!
Still trying to stay as positive as possible, though this gets harder the more I read about the progression of the disease... Knowledge is power, or so they say; may as well learn as much as I can so I know what I'm dealing with, I guess... Ugh. It's just hard hard hard.
Well then, so I haven't been writing. What ELSE is new, I ask you? Not a whole helluva lot on this end, that's for sure. Lesseee.... first off, I am on vacation beginning tomorrow. About a month and a half ago, I scheduled this vacation and finally, FINALLY it has arrived. I've been looking forward, nae pining, for some serious time off since I started working full time; I am thrilled to have 9 days in a row to be a lazy bum. Well, sort of. I'll still have school stuff to take care of but I will have 45 more hours to devote to it over the course of the week. We're currently in the middle of week 4 and my hope is to get all the homework done and submitted next week, as well as get a signficant chunk of my final project completed. The beginnings of said final project are here, in case you want to take a gander. A lot of items up there are just placeholders at the moment but as it is my final project for a scripting class I'm hoping it will be a bit more fleshed out by the end of next week.
In addition to the "must do" stuff, I am also going to take Miss Rennie to the coast one day and treat myself to a day of pampering on another. I am SO looking forward to this...
Also, my older brother and his woman are getting hitched (for those of you who are wondering, I love her and her adorable daughter; I couldn't be happier for my bro). So it looks to be a rather busy week.
Yesterday I celebrated 7 months of sobriety. Yahoo! Go me! Aside from the occasional drinking dream, things are good on this front.
Elise has an interesting Shrimp Ceviche recipe posted here. Looks tasty, no? May give this a whirl this week.
Earlier this week, Newsweek ran a "20-years Later" story regarding its predictions in 1986 that women who were 30 and still unmarried had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than they did of ever getting married. Despite the fact that these rather desperate odds are refuted in this follow-up story, the piece still seems to proliferate the idea that marriage-and-children is the ideal and that there is something wrong with those who don't have - or want - this situation. What is up with that? Why is the "married" state of being the "ideal" state in this country? Why is there the abounding impression that if you're not "with" someone you couldn't possibly be happy? Bahhh!
Anyway, so the week is shaping up to be a good one, the minor issue with my website (yesterday) aside... For those of you who didn't notice, for some reason my webhost didn't renew my domain name correctly, rendering my website totally screwed up for the last 24 hours. It only recently came back up, thankfully.
Seriously!!! Boing Boing today is reporting on a new concept kitchen by CC Concepts. Check this out:
Pretty!! And compact! And best of all, it SPINS!!! Holy cow, what will they think of next? Their website is kinda sucky, but the product seems really cool... I wonder if it's as handy in real-life as it seems like it could be.
Either way, it's my own damned fault. My good friend Fran came over for dinner tonight and of course, I made one of my "old standby" dishes (Linguine with Shrimp & Scallops in Thai Green Curry Sauce), because I know we both love it.
The last time I made this dish, I burned the living daylights out of my mouth, so this time around I used about a third of the green curry paste and left out the peppers and it was great! Until an hour later, when my stomach started aching. I'm not usually one to get heartburn or sour stomach, but MY GOD do I feel like crap now. Even after taking some Maalox and drinking water and eating an English muffin. No dice. Still. feel. like. crap. ARGH.
So I don't know what the problem is. Maybe it's because I used bay scallops rather than sea scallops, or maybe it's because I used seafood rather than chicken (which is what I normally do because it's easier and cheaper). Or maybe my body was just screwed up anyway today and the green curry exacerbated it.
I haven't heard from Fran yet telling me she's sick, though, and dad seems to be fine as well, so my I can only assume that I am old. Definitely a sad state of affairs.
It's definitely been a better day today than yesterday. It wasn't perfect by any means, mostly due to the nasty rain and wind and general ickiness. It was just blustery and bleary and miserable.
And cold. I was effing cold all effing day.
I'm exhausted right now, due to a) having just spent five and a half hours looking for coverage of a client's big event thingy, and then b) writing out the answers to silly questions for school that are due in, oh, 2 hours from now. I did the week's design exercises over the weekend and they were fun; but iIt's the silly discussion questions that I hate, so of course I put them off as long as possible. And today is the longest I've ever procrastinated with these questions and didn't remember that I'd not done them until I was on my way downtown this afternoon sans laptop.
So yeah, definitely not the perfect day and I'm tired and ready to head to bed. But, it was still a very good day, and I wanted to pause for just a moment to mark this occasion:
Continue reading "90 Days" »
Well, now that my blog-home is back into some semblance of order, I thought I'd highlight some of the changes I've been making. Back in early January I updated the actual design of this site, but wasn't sure how to customize specific category templates. So I took a step back, ignored the little problem for the time being and focused my energies elsewhere.
Well, I finally sat down this weekend to tackle the little problem. What I wanted was to have the sidebar content change depending upon the category that's chosen. Turns out there's no way to natively do that with Movable Type, but there are some PlugIns that can be installed and tweaks that can be used to customize the category templates. Of course, things aren't quite as straightforward as I would have liked and I ended up using a couple different hacks to get the results I wanted... No elegant code writing for this girl! But no matter. It works, and that's what matters.
So, as of this morning, I now have different sidebar content for the Miss Yorkie Princess, Chef Zee and Knitting categories.
Click the links, people, and behold the power of MODULES!!!
I'm especially pleased with the knitting category page, since I found a page describing how to make fun little progress bars for each of my projects! Yippee!!!
Of course, now that I've done all this tweaking, I've decided I'm not happy with the design anymore. Ugh... so I'll be updating that again shortly. But right now it all works and I've got to turn my attention back to school and other matters; so for now this will have to do. Let me know what you think!
... That crazy flurry of activity that is preparations for a large group of people converging on your house, expecting food. Right now, the pumpkin and chess pies are in the oven and the kitchen is clean. It's been a long time since I've made pies and really, they're not difficult at all, particularly if you cheat like I did and use Pillsbury's really cool roll-out pie crust. I do know this is cheating and I'm not going to apologize for it for two reasons:
1) I have very little experience making pie crust on account of my mother always makes the pies for our family gatherings and hers are fantastic, so why mess with a good thing?
2) Even if I wanted to, I don't have the proper tools for making pie crust right now. I'm almost positive I sold or gave away all my baking supplies when I left Boston.
The only issue here is that, at heart, I am a purist and a bit of a pie-crust snob, and I usually feel that the crust makes the pie. But right now, I can only do what I can do, so we'll see. (And if Pillsbury comes through, I may never learn to make pie crust....)
Here's a shot of the carnage in the kitchen, after the pies went into the oven:
Shot of the pies, mid-way through:
For context: I'd put the foil on the crust before putting the pies in the oven and opened the door to check on them and see if I could take the foil off. I ended up leaving it on throughout the entire baking process because the crust was browning just fine. Here's how the pies turned out:
Pumpkin
Chess. Even with the foil on the edges for the entire baking time, the chess pie still turned out a bit too brown. Guess dad's oven cooks a bit hot, eh?
This afternoon, I'll drag the turkey out of the fridge and assess the situation. The turkey's been defrosting since Sunday so it should be ready to go. There is turkey stock and stuffing to make, plus the dog desperately needs a bath and the house needs to be cleaned. Laundry is already in the wash. So it looks like we're on our way!
Lately, I've been consumed by the consumption of Thai food. I dream about where my next Thai meal is coming from and if I didn't know better, I'd think whoever made the food had put in something addictive. These days, in most cases, it's me making the food and near as I can tell, the ingredients I'm using are not addictive in and of themselves. Fortunately, in most cases, there isn't anything in Thai food that I can't have. (Well, except eggs, and I usually leave those out...)
My obsession fascination with Thai food started in Boston. A friend from work and I would go to the Thai restaurant down the street for lunch several times a week, and they had this fabulous soup that they served as an appetizer. It was a chicken noodle soup, with ramen-like noodles and a clear broth. There was obviously lemongrass in it and a variety of spices, and we just LOVED it. When asked, the proprietess merely smiled and told us it was "Thai chicken soup." Do you know how many recipes are out there for Thai chicken soup?
Let me tell you, there are a LOT of Thai chicken soup recipes.
Continue reading "Tom Yum Yum!" »
I am inordinately fond of the mashed potatoes and gravy from KFC. I am aware that their methods of making this tasty side dish are... well... questionable and yet I still find myself yearning, on occasion, for the spuds and their lovely gravy dressing. I have been known, in times past, to go through the drive-thru for a large order only. No chicken, no biscuits, no cole slaw. Not even a drink. Just the spuds, which I happily consume immediately upon my return home.
Why?? It's not as if there isn't better food to be had. Doubtless, there are more preservatives and additives in there than actual potatoes. I have seen the movie Super Size Me and have heard tales of horror about the contents of the book Fast Food Nation (which I have not read for fear it might scare me forever away from my delicious-yet-occasional KFC treat). All of these items point to the fact that I should not, under almost all circumstances, eat these nasty things.
None of this matters. In my mind, sometimes, just sometimes, nothing tastes better.
So today has been a very busy, eventful day indeed.
Did you catch the Astros-Braves game? 18 innings, people. 18!! It was extraordinary. So much so that I went into my room and went to sleep.
But really, the only reason I did that was because I'd gotten up early this morning (and by "early" I mean 9 a.m. ;-) to go see my friend Roy run the Portland Marathon!! And also some other friends who I knew were running. But mostly Roy, because he showed up at mile almost-25 when I ran the marathon two years ago and it was SO SO SO nice to see a friendly face at that point in the race, when all I wanted to do was give up. This is the shot Roy took of me at about mile 25 back then. I was hurting. Roy looks just as goofy in the pictures I took of him, but since this is my blog and I don't have his permission to post them up here, I'm just going to tell you that HE was hurting too.
Continue reading "A Little of This and a Little of That" »
One of the best things about living on Portland's east side is that there is a thriving Asian community here, complete with markets, restaurants and various and sundry other shops. I've been to several of the restaurants over the years - including a really great Thai restaurant that is all of a mile from my house!! - but had never been into any of the grocery markets.
But today, after dropping off some prescriptions at Safeway, I decided to kill the 30 minutes of waiting time by heading to one of the markets to see what they had to offer. And, my god, but it was fabulous!
Multiple bottles of chili paste. And chili sauce. And chili paste sauce. Twelve different varieties of fish sauce in a wide variety of sizes. Soy sauce varieties included sweet, salty, light and thick. And thick & sweet soy sauce. And light and salty!
Continue reading "Asian Paradise" »
For a while it was pretty rare that I blogged about food. And then I started throwing up the odd recipe here and there on my blog. And now? Now that I'm cooking for someone several times a week, I think about food and recipes and cooking on a regular basis.
You see, in exchange for living scott-free (does anyone know the origin of that phrase, btw?) at my dad's while I'm getting back on my feet and figuring out what I want to be when I grow up, I'm obliged to cook several meals a week. This is a bit more challenging than it might seem on the surface, because both Dad and I have food allergies. He's got sensitivities to tomatoes and peppers and other nightshade veggies along with soy, wheat, dairy and egg allergies. My body is not fond of dairy, eggs or lamb. So between the two of us we can eat a grand total of maybe 4 foods.
OK, maybe a few more than 4. But most of the time, while I'm digging through recipe databases, it feels as if hands are tied behind my back. I either have to start by finding recipes that don't call for the stuff we can't have, or figure out a way to alter the recipes that do include the offending ingredients.
Continue reading "Shrimps and Scallops and Fettucine, Oh My!" »
OK, so I'm finally convinced, really and truly, that my body doesn't like dairy products. Moo-cow dairy products, that is.
When I was 17, I spent a month in Germany and came back with the worst case of acne I'd ever had. Granted, it was nothing compared with the acne I've seen on some teenagers, but for me it was pretty bad. Anyway, at the time my mom thought it was because of all the chocolate I ate while overseas, and she was probably right. But that was only part of the story.
The full story is that I learned about a year ago that I'm actually allergic to eggs and milk (and lamb too, oddly enough) and the vast majority of the chocolate and sweets I ate in Germany had milk in them.
Before moving to Boston I was pretty good about sticking to my dairy/egg-free diet. I didn't have anything in the house I couldn't eat. I poured over labels with a fine-tooth comb. I asked for special meals while in restaurants and even ordered special vegan meals on airplanes.
But I've gotten lazy recently and have been cheating the last several months - the result of having 'contraband' in the house - and I've discovered that my body really doesn't much care for what I've been putting into it. The proof? I've got some really awful break-outs that just don't seem to want to go away.
So I finally broke down this afternoon and made the decision: I have to go back on my dairy-free, egg-free diet. It'll be easier for me to stay on it, now that I'm moving back into a place by myself. It was so easy to just grab a cookie here, take a nibble of ranch dip there, try out what the roommates are cooking and etc.
It is fortunate that my body doesn't seem to mind goat's or sheep's milk and there are plenty of yummy cheeses to be had - including brie! yum! - made of these milks. But gosh, I miss regular cheese! I haven't had a slice of cheddar in so long, I can hardly remember what it tastes like!
I stopped at Whole Foods this afternoon and had to keep reminding myself to think about all the things I can eat rather than bemoan everything that I can't. [sigh] When are they going to invent a cure for allergies?
For a weekend that I'd slated for spending entirely in bed, I've spent surprisingly little time under the covers. I did manage to sleep until noon, which I haven't been able to do for several weeks, and when I got up I felt blessedly rested and refreshed.
Sleep will do that for you, you know...
Anyway, it's nasty out today, so I have spent the majority of my time inside. When I got up, I made a pot of Dunkin' Donuts coffee (yes, I've even taken to keeping it in the house in bean form!) and set to creating my favorite crock pot recipe, Gingery Beef Strips. I love this recipe because you just throw everything into the crock pot and turn it on. It is so easy, anyone could make it and not screw it up (yes dad, even you!) and it tastes like you've spent hours laboring over it. Plus, it doesn't have anything in it that I'm allergic to. Brilliant!
I am falling in love with my crock pot... And why shouldn't I? You spend 30 minutes or less preparing your meal, run off and do other stuff for a while and when you come back, voila! a meal! Somebody oughta give a medal to whoever it was that invented the slow cooker.
So without further ado, here's the recipe:
Continue reading "Wallowing?? Not so much..." »
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