Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Steak Versus Steak

A few weeks ago I made a roast. I'm afraid I over-researched the roast and found myself Googling, "premium dry-aged beef." Overpriced status food! Have we met? I'm sure the other overpriced status foods have mentioned my name.

Now, I could have gotten a supermarket hunk of meat and used Alton Brown's method to age it in the fridge. Then I would have to explain to Gary for a few weeks why there is a roast covered in bloody towels in the fridge.

Wisely, I decided to see first if I could even tell the difference between dry-aged meat and the supermarket wet-aged meat, in which the meat speed-rots in a plastic bag. Where to find a dry-aged steak in Saint Louis?

Gary and I both work by Dierdorf and Hart's, an expensive steakhouse. How expensive?

Gary feels it's too expensive.

So I said I'd pay, and we made reservations, and tonight was the night to eat dry-aged steak.

What I had for lunch in preparation: cafeteria steak.

 

This was my control steak. I ate it to get a baseline.

Here is what I ate at Dierdorf and Harts:

 

From the menu: "Boneless Strip Steak - Often referred to as a New York or Kansas City Strip; this steak which is regarded as the steak connoisseur's cut has tremendous flavor and taste."

And the menu also said, "We are proud to present our selection of hand-cut steaks aged a minimum of 21-days to insure superior  flavor, preferred tenderness, & dependable quality."

Gary had the "Tenderloin Filet - Succulent & delicate.  The most tender cut of beef enjoyed by those who prefer tenderness over flavor."

"So, Gary, how's you filet?"
"Wholly flavorless, just like the menu said. No, it's really good. How's yours?"
"Well, it's good, but I was expecting something revolutionary. It tastes like a really good steak, though."

Later the manager came by and gave us a $25 gift certificate because they'd be closed in January for a remodel. "New carpet, new walls, whole new menu -"

"What?" I said sharply, "Will the steak still be dry-aged?"

He did a full body hedge, with the wishy-washy comme ci comme ça hand waggle. "Ennnhhhh ... " Then he asked, "Did you enjoy your steak tonight?"

"Yes, it was good."

"That wasn't dry-aged. Sometimes we can get a better cut of steak that isn't dry aged and it's every bit as good."

Outrage! Betrayal! I pointed at him. "The MAN who showed us the RAW MEAT said it was aged 21 days!" This is Science, man! You are messing with Science! I couldn't be too mad. At least he was honest, and he even let us in on what "Angus beef" means. (Top choice or bottom prime. Like the B+ of beef. Angus sounds better.)

Sigh. I let it go, and since I still hadn't had a dry-aged steak, I asked, "So, where could I go to get a real dry-aged steak?" He recommended Annie Gunn's.

So, on the downside, I didn't get dry-aged beef, but on the upside ... the dream still lives on!

A New Show

My Strange Addiction- why was I not TOLD ABOUT THIS SHOW? Of course, it just premiered five minutes before I tuned in by chance and saw a woman addicted to sleeping (platonically) with her turned on (platonically) blow dryer, but who cares because there was also a woman addicted to eating toilet paper.

I immediately wanted to try some toilet paper. She said she like the way it felt on her tongue. I saw this show two hours ago and I keep thinking about toilet paper.

I'm doing it. Just a tiny piece. Addiction happens to other people.

.................................

Okay, I did it.

Now I want to call this woman who eats toilet paper and suggest, "Have you tried biting your nails? MUCH more satisyfing." Toilet paper doesn't melt in your mouth the way you might imagine. Essentially it absorbs all the saliva and becomes a big spitball. Or ... swallowball. I mean, I see the appeal of swallowing the toilet paper and essentially cleaning your rectum from the inside to the outside.

In fact ... someone should tell TP girl about that trick of eating a string tied to a rag that then passes through your bowels. (You know. As you do.) I can not for the life of me back that up on Wikipedia, but I know I heard it somewhere. Perhaps in a Quentin Tarintino movie.

I can still feel the spitball in the back of my throat. Not for me. Maybe crack is the same way. I could try that too.

Because it Feels Like Sunday Bullets

I truly have no sense of what day it is today. Every day of the last five days has felt like Sunday.

Yule Log
I always wondered about the Yule Log, a four hour television show solely of a log burning in Gracie Mansion. It (usually) plays in New York on Christmas morning. I have wondered about it. I have wondered if it burns down over the four hours. I have wondered if there are events that happen during the four hours: is there a spectacular flare-up at ten minutes into hour two? I have wondered if it is the saddest thing in existence, because who watches TV on Christmas morning? Oh. That would be me since Mom died. At any rate, I did turn on the TV while I waited for Gary to wake up, and what to my wondering eyes did appear but the seasonal classic. "Is TiVo recording this for me?" I wondered, and realized it was just by chance. I watched it for an hour. It ends abruptly.

The Pie Mystery Solved
Okay, we have solved what caused the meat taste in the cranberry-blueberry pie: the culprit was the Pillsbury Roll-out Crust. Today's pie, made of Pet-Ritz Vegetarian crust AND nutmeg tastes like crust, nutmeg, and berries. So odd, I've used that roll-out crust with so many pies, but they all contained wholly sweet contents, like ice cream and cake and flabby peach canned filling. The cranberries cut the sweetness and made our tongues notice the meaty lard taste, but only when the crust was warm.

What Gary's CD Purchases Say About Him
Gary recently purchased a Florence and the Machine album. He did it without me, and I know he did it without listening to the album. I don't blame him, he knows if it's a pretty dark haired girl in an indie band he'll like it. I picture him going to Amazon, searching by genre, and ordering any CD under a woman's name. With One-click Ordering, he actually could do it directly with his penis.

Interfacing

For the last few days we have played with the Kinect, slept, ate, and let the dog out. 

(An aside: When you all let your dogs out so they can squat in the snow, does anyone else think of that scene in The Long Winter  when Pa Ingalls has to rescue the cows because their noses have frozen to the ground? Will Mac's butt stick down there?)

So, this is to say, we played with the Kinect. And I just sat down at this PC, looked at the login screen, and thought, "How do I work this again?" I started to wave at the screen before it came back to me: Use the keys and touch pad. Right there.

It was just like the first day I used a mouse, in Mouse Class. I did not learn to use a mouse in-utero like the rest of you kids. I taught the IBM 8080 PC, in the snow, uphill, both ways, we got Windows, and I had to learn how to use a mouse. At one point the my Mouse 101 instructor said, "Now, hit the Enter key," and I picked up the mouse and almost used it to hit the Enter key. That's a lie. I did use it to hit the Enter key.

I am sure someday I will be the old lady in the grocery line poking at number keys on the payment machine when all it wants me to do is talk to it or lick it or let it touch my eyeball and deduct credits from my account.

Christmas Pain

All Over Body Pain from the Kinect. We only played the first level of Adventure games and I hurt. All I did was plug holes in the wall, jump on the river raft, and pop bubbles in space. We didn't even open up the game in which we beat the shit out of each other.

Sliced Thumb Pain from the deadly sharp knives I got from the in-laws. They are deceptively colorful, in a clear lucite block, and they filleted my thumb so gently I didn't feel the end of it flapping into the julienned potatoes. And THEN I mixed those potatoes with an onion sauce I made in the Silver Pan of Justice (also from the in-laws):'

 
I hold that pan high and I feel like a Superhero with my Pan of Virtue, Victory, and the American Way. It's shiny, is what I'm saying to you.

Tooth Pain from all the candy, especially the All Milk Chocolate Moose Munch. The Normal Munch is scientifically balanced in 1/3rd caramel, 1/3 chocolate, 1/3 nuts. The All Milk Chocolate Munch disturbs the balance.

Emotional Pain from watching Up. I got tired of listening to you all go on and on about how it makes you cry and how wonderful it is. I tried to defend myself during the retrospective of the old man's life with Ellie. "Credit cards!" I yelled when they kept breaking into the jar of change. "Drive to South America! Stay in a Youth Hostel! Get a job, Ellie!" But I still cried like a baby. Thanks a lot.

Hugh Hefner to Wed Again

So, Hef is engaged.

This makes me think of my favorite People magazine cover ever:

 

 

Bad Bad Christian

"Hmmm ... I'm supposed to wake Gary up because it's midnight and we can exchange presents now. Let's check the news first. What's on CNN ... some heavy Taliban thing? No, a Jesus thing. Fox .. Another Jesus thing? What's with the Jesus, it's ... oh ... I am going to hell."

Ohhhhhh ...

I wondered why on earth my stats were so high, then I saw it was because I had a hundred searches for "babka."
Then I wondered if it was some Jewish holiday, because babka recipe searches peak on Jewish holidays.

Then I realized what day it is.

Happy Official Festivus, everyone.

Christmas Shopping

Gary's Love Language is unquestionably Giving Gifts. Gary's family told him this year that he loves them too much every year and he needs to back OFF. Sadly, this happened after he bought a dining room table of gifts and then brought up a card table to fill with gifts for the family dogs, plus miscellaneous candy that could be used to fill in so everyone got ten to twelve gifts equally.

When I heard we needed to cut back on gifts we'd already bought, I thought, "Birthdays are taken care of for the year!" Gary thought, "Well, those salted chocolate covered caramels are  just going to go bad." (So we ATE THEM ALL, and then when he felt guilty we went back to find more, and they don't exist. All stores are sold out. If I buy them from somewhere else, they won't measure up.)

And so, we are cherry picking through the gifts to see what we want to keep. (Don't even ask. If your Love Language is Giving Gifts, what is Returning Gifts For Cash? Exactly.)

Me: "Hmmm ... this is mine ... and, this is mine. Hand me that scarf, will you? Annnnnnd that book. No, the other one."

So, I am making out this Christmas. Of course, it isn't Christmas without last minute shopping, so we went shopping last night anyway, even though we have been Cut Off.

Gary, on leaving the Harry and David's: "You know, I don't know if these pears will last till Christmas."

Me: "I like pears."

Gary: "Well, the pears are ours then."

We hadn't even walked five feet. it was like clockwork.

December 22, 2010

 

For the first time in years, blood draws are avoidable. And I had my last blood draw yesterday.

It wasn't for the trial or a check-up, it was for a blood test required by my life insurance. This test wasn't required of anyone else at work, all of whom have the same insurance, so must be a cleverly disguised test for illegal substances. They got my urine and my blood. It's cool. I'm clean. Or, they could be concerned for my health.

At any rate, they added three holes to my body before they got any blood, and that's the last blood I am giving up  until my yearly physical in September, baby. This is my body and my blood, and I am keeping it all inside.

Bulletworthy

CupcakePie
 Tami pointed me toward the Bake It In A Cake blog. DO NOT TURN FROM the terrifying beauty.

 

A mini-pumpkin pie in a cupcake.  Also: Snickers in a cupcake and candy in a cupcake. I haven't seen any Inception Cupcakes (a candy in a mini-pie in a cupcake), but I haven't been all through the blog.

Speaking of Pie
I made the Control Cranberry-Blueberry Pie (Pet-Ritz crust and no nutmeg) and it tasted vegetarian. No meat taste. Gary is blaming the crust, so next I'll do nutmeg and Pet-Ritz crust and WE SHALL SEE.

Humorists
A few months ago someone (Friend #4?) quoted a conservative describing Glenn Beck as "kind of a comedian." Deep into a blog trail I read someone who praised Sean Hannity for being so "funny and satirical." I suspect I'm missing out on some humor because I'm taking these people dead seriously. I don't take Keith Olbermann seriously. He's pretty over-the-top: that's what I enjoy. Perhaps I'd enjoy an exaggerated take on policy even if I don't agree with it.

Feeding the Devil

I was helping my mother-in-law Wilma clean up after Thanksgiving. My job was to put leftovers in Tupperware. She tutted me and said,

"When I was a girl we were taught to never waste food. The nuns called it 'Feeding the Devil.' And look at this, look at all the food you've left in this pan."

True, I had left the burnt edge of cream of mushroom soup that had adhered itself to the green bean casserole corningware. And Wilma did scrape off a tablespoon of it and added it to the easily-spooned up leftovers. And that is admirable. However, I now have a new term.

On throwing the burnt edge of pie crust into the sink: "I am feeding the devil some pie crust."

On consuming a Christmas box of Williams-Sonoma Salted Chocolate Covered Caramels now that Gary has been told he brings too many gifts, "We don't want to feed this good candy to the devil."

We don't stop at feeding the devil. We did not shop carefully and bought the devil a pair of knee socks. We have considered buying a Kinect though it would be just giving our Wii to the devil.

I thought of this today after I cooked a 4.5 pound short rib roast, which Gary spat out because it was too rich for him. So, fine. Good enough for me and the devil.

It Gets A Little Better Pretty Slowly

With all the Don't Ask, Don't Tell tweets fluttering about, I wonder: does anyone else remember when DADT itself was a crazy liberal idea? I was proud we passed DADT. It was progress.

Back then, John McCain would have cried "Repeal DADT" because the thought of secret gays in the military was worse to him than the status quo. You could call the status quo HIMS: "homosexuality is clearly incompatible with military service." That was in 1982. I remember that.

Before that? GTEI: Gay Thoughts Equal Insanity. TGTD: Think Gay Thoughts? Discharged! TGSG: That Guy Seems Gay. So That Guy would be shot to death with no repercussions.

I don't want to stick with DADT. But if Clinton had tried in the '90s to jump from "Homosexuality is Incompatible Etc." to "We Welcome Openly Gay Soldiers," that president would have failed. Just as if a president had tried in 2010 for full healthcare for everyone.

So in between we get these two compromises, shameful compared to how the US should be (and how the rest of the world is). But still, an improvement, and you can look at them either way. Someday I and my fellow liberals will be shouting, "Repeal Obamacare!" because it doesn't go far enough. For right now I have to be positive, take the compromise, and wait for ten or twenty years to take that next step.

The End of Spartacus

Today I sat in my last waiting room. The clinical trial for FTY - wait, Fingol - wait, Gilenya is officially over.

You would think this is when I get to pat myself on the back for bravely putting my health on the line for the good of humanity. And I would have, to an insufferable degree, only THIS happened Tuesday night.

I was speaking with a new co-worker, getting to know her, and I found she had once worked at SLU Medical. I mentioned I'd met the clinical trial team there.

"Oh," she said, "I might have met them. I was in a clinical trial there."

Let me take a moment to describe this woman. Bright blue eyes, ridiculously adorable turned-up nose, dark hair. As if an artist was painting a study in color and contrast. Angelic.

I asked, "What was your trial for?"

She tilted her pretty head and casually shrugged one shoulder ."Smallpox."

Technically, the military smallpox vaccine, but still. SMALLPOX! Smmaaallllllpox. I am SUCH a LOSER with my feeble MS.

Very Dilute Suckfest

Today is the mirror of yesterday: it began poorly and improved.

Here's a quote from Mac last night:

"Bark. Bark. Bark. Bark." Mac would then whip his head and stare pointedly at anything containing water. The toilet. The snow. Where the water dish once had been. The sink. Of course, no water before surgery.

Finally dawn broke and we could go to the vet.   I said my goodbyes because I was convinced I wouldn't see this dog again.

The surgery was long but successful. The vet was able to extricate the fatty tumor from the muscle it was woven into, and as a bonus Mac's kidney numbers are normal. "Normal!" Gary cheered, "That means we can feed him real food again!"

(Cry a strangled despairing "Nnnnnnooooooooo.") No, we talked with the vet and Gary's thinking straight again.

So, the dog lives, though currently in pain, and has a normal kidney. Win, win! And then the cable man came.

You may recall six months ago Charter cable came out and prepared Gary's TiVo for the Great Analog Shift, and I was advised to "switch the TiVo to antenna." We never switched to antenna, and eventually both our systems began acting up.

Gary, armed with six months of research, made the call this time. He demanded Motorola Blah Blah tuners with USB ports. He did more research, called back, and insisted they also bring multi-twin-switch-cards with dual blah-blahs.

I cocked an ear when the cable man came, so I could hear the cable man say, "Right here's your problem! Your TiVo's not switched to antenna!" Instead Gary was playing Jargon Volley with this new cable guy. (Gary: "I gotta rack these components. Then I'll dress them.") Once he got enough credibility points, I heard Gary say, "Yeah, the last cable guy told my wife we should switch the TiVo to antenna!"

The household stopped. We all paused to hear the answer.

"Really?" said the cable guy, amazed.

So, I hereby apologize to my husband. Everyone with a high-def TiVo switched to antenna should call Charter and demand Motorola USB switch boxes instead.

So, from its poor beginning, the day has produced a living dog, a normal kidney, two working TiVos, and four non-flat tires. I'm tucked in next to my drugged-up puppy, watching Anderson Cooper. No one is barking.

Condensed Suckfest

The day started out well. I came in to work, got a lot done, packed up and left for the afternoon Festivus party. And a fabulous party it was. Roving guitar players fabulous.

Then I called Gary to check how the dog's kidney disease blood test went, and Gary said the vet noticed a tumor growing under Mac's muscles and he'd need surgery. Tomorrow. Even before the blood test for the kidney disease comes back. So of course I'm picturing a phone call in which the vet suggests Mac doesn't come out from the ether.

Driving home, I noticed the car was pulling to the left. I thought, "Piece of junk Mini. I just got this serviced. What the hell? The car refuses to drive straight ahead." I sensed something was wrong with the steering, so I did not get on the highway, just the service road.

  A few miles later this helpful warning light came on.

What does that light say to you? I say it's an ass. Round hips, spine, anus, it's an ass.

Eventually I pulled over to check what the book said, and it said, "HAUL YOUR ASS OUTSIDE AND YOU'LL NOTICE YOUR TIRE IS FLAT. " (In what world do we look at tires straight on and say "!" ... wouldn't a hubcap and a flattened circle be better?)

I still thought someone might have twisted my valve at the party, and the air had slowly leaked out, and if I found air I'd be fine. After the second "Out Of Order" air pump (FREE AIR! Liars.) I gave up and called a tow truck. Yes, I could have jacked up the car, I could have searched the manual to see where my spare was,  I could have called around to see if any other air pumps were working. But instead I threw sixty bucks at the problem and took the tow truck, met Gary at Dobbs Auto Center and went home to my sick doggie. I know I'm helpless.

Then I came home and watched CNN and there was Ginger Littleton facing down the gunman with her purse. (She comes in 45 seconds in. The rest of the video is terrifying.) I bet Ginger would have blown up the tire with her lips.

A Theory, by Miss Anne Elk

Gary came in wound up, people, off the WALL wound up.

He had seen a mysterious animal walking across a road. This is the road usually frequented by the deer, but of course many deer were shot during deer season.

"So it was a deer?" I asked.

"No! No! It had like a mane on its chest. I thought it might be a bobcat. But it looked like a small horse."

"Was it closer to a cat or a horse?"

"A horse! And it walked like this." (Gary minced about, picking up his feet but with a little extra kick-hop. I know. The camera was not close by.)

"Horns?" I hoped the answer was yes and he would make hand horns and then mince around.

"There were no horns." (Damn) "And it had really short legs, that's why I thought it was a bobcat."

I revealed a possible answer. I'd just heard a news story that Missouri was going to replenish the elk population. It seems Missouri elk are extirpated, or "locally extinct." The government plan is to kidnap some northern elk and move them to southeast Missouri, where they will all become born again or beer drinkers.

But then! On further investigation I found the elk diaspora won't happen until spring of 2011, so unless it was an escapee from Lone Elk Park, chances are low it was an elk.

Then I pulled up a photo of a baby reindeer. (Below top: a young elk, bottom: baby reindeer.)

 

"That might be it! A baby reindeer! Those Damn Republicans."

The "Damn Republicans" are just the residents of the nicer subdivisions surrounding ours. Nicer houses? Much be rich, and rich = Republican. (Gary's been a little dogmatic lately.) So, the rich neighbors allegedly bought a baby reindeer for the Christmas season, petted it, then heartlessly cast it out on the road to make its way back to the Arctic. (Democrats would support that free-loading reindeer forever.)

So, I'm at a loss. Gary is torn. He says it could be the elk, except the legs are too long. He's leaning now toward the reindeer. Both are equally implausible.

Cranberry Blueberry Meat Pie

If you recall, Gary did not allow my cranberry-blueberry pie to be served at his parents'  Thanksgiving.  He had eaten a smaller version of it three days earlier, and had gagged out, "What is wrong with this pie?"

"Nothing." I said. "It's a perfectly good pie."

(Hacking.) "It TASTES like MEAT."

"No, it doesn't, crazy man." I tasted it. It tasted like fresh berry pie in a Pillsbury Pie Crust. It did not taste like canned pie filling, and I assumed that was what caused the confusion. Three days later he tasted it again and the alleged meat taste / hallucination was gone. And it was the Best Pie Ever.

Today I woke up and felt a Mighty Cooking Spree come on. I made cookies and even though I tweaked the recipe they were just what I wanted. Made a cream of mushroom soup from scratch and even though I halved part of the recipe but not the other, it came out great. And so I made the cranberry-blueberry pie again. I tasted it. It tasted like meat.

I'm just being suggestible, I thought. I had Gary taste it. He gagged. "Meat!"

This pie contains fresh cranberries, blueberries, sugar, nutmeg, flour, and a top and bottom Pillsbury Pie crust. What about that says meat? We wondered if maybe the crust was picking up scents from the oven, but the cookies didn't taste like meat. Besides, it has been a year since I cooked any red meat in that oven.

So, somebody make this recipe and tell me if it tastes like meat. I promise you'll have a tasty pie in about three days.

Musical Resonance Imaging

Friday was the soul-sapping day of the doctors. I don't know why it exhausted me so. All I had to do was be observed naked (dermatology), breathe (pulmonary), lie still (MRI), and stare ahead (opthamology). Perhaps I'm shy.

While I was in the MRI they gave me the noise-muffling headphones, and they turned on NPR. Sounded like Sufjan Stevens' latest album, The Age of Adz. Thump. Words. Random chords. Random Whirrs. More words you can't quite hear because of the thumping and whirring.

Yet, it's remarkable to me how often I've listened to an album, disliked it, and then fell in love with it after five listens or so. I've been through The Age of Adz twice now, and there are a few songs where I can pick out a progression and it seems to make sense, but the rest sounds like Japanese music with its own set of chords.

It seems that I skipped from Illinoise (beginning Sufjan) to Age of Adz (advanced Sufjan) and in between I should have taken Intermediate Sufjanese. Imagine if you'd heard early Beatles, you missed Sgt Pepper's, then suddenly they were playing the sitar backwards on "You Know My Name, Look Up My Number."

It will be good for my brain to carve out some new neural pathways, though. You know, now that I've grown my new stockbrokerage lobe.

Points

When I was ten, Dad lost his job, and our house moved off the Gold standard and on to the Poker Chip standard. For every chore we did, we got poker chips, and if we accumulated enough poker chips we could cash them in for rewards, like "Dad will take you for a boat ride on Post Dispatch lake."

I cornered the market in poker chips. The experiment ultimately failed because I did all the chores, hoarded all the poker chips and the economy collapsed. Mom begged me to cash some of them in but I explained I liked having them in piles better than any of the rewards.

This behavior has expressed itself in my adult life in two ways:

1) I discovered a month or so ago that I have a gut response to the sound of poker chips clicking. I want to plant my ear on the table and listen to the chips speak to me.

2) I still like piles better than rewards. I have piles of miles on my frequent flyer plans, and I can't make myself spend them. Money I can spend, but not points. One hundred and fifty dollars for a pair of shoes? Sold! But those same shoes are how many points? Oh no no no. I flew hard for those points. I don't need those shoes.

Right now I have to book a Miami flight. Dollars: $558.70. Points: 50K.  I truly would rather pay in cash than in points. I'm sure the airlines are counting on me to behave this way.

New Blender

Blender the First: Twenty-five years ago we got a Black and Decker blender for our wedding. That blender was still working twenty years later when I gave it away to someone who needed a blender. This was a mistake, because it led to ...

Blender the Second: I bought a blender at Walmart, and it blended a moment, then I watched it as it consumed its own ass. The washer came askew and the blade began hacking away at the plastic base. "Fluke," I thought. "I'll just get another one."

Blender the Third: Not a fluke! I had chunks of black plastic in my smoothie. This one began to nick away at the base just before Christmas. So I asked for a blender.

Blender the Fourth: Sadly, I did not specify which Walmart blender was troublesome (Osterizer), so I unwrapped the exact same blender. This one worked for almost a year before it broke, and at least it cracked instead of self-destructing from the bottom up.

 

Last weekend I saw a Breville Blender at Best Buy. $175. For a blender. 

A deal, given that Sur La Table had it for five cents shy of $300. A. Blender.

As in, "If I gave up drinking strawberry daiquiris, I could save $300 by not buying a blender."

However, Amazon had refurbished ones for $70. (Or ten bucks more that all my Osterizers added together. And I know, I could have just kept buying O-rings and black bases for the Bad Blender, but this was after it added "1 tsp black plastic" to several recipes.) So I got one. Merry Christmas to me.

This new blender is the sexiest thing I have in my house. On the lowest speed it turns ice into "Snow." I pushed "Liquefy" and the noise made me run out of the room. 

Obverse my new blender's raw sexual power.

I can't decide. What should I liquefy first? Gary votes for turkey hearts filled with fake blood. I have a turkey leg, but I'm afraid that might dent it. Give me some options.

My Tree

When I was five, we had an aluminum Christmas tree, yes, with the wheel of color. (Not shown. Because it isn't my photo.)

 

I was five, and I told my mother I loved that tree and I wanted that tree for my wedding gift. Of course, I had no recall of this at my wedding, when Mom told me the story and presented me with the tree (sans color wheel). I mean, she might had made the whole thing up. I would think I had more taste at five. Gary and I did use it one or two years at our second apartment.

While the Aluminum Wedding Tree lay dormant at Mom and Dad's house, waiting for the big wedding reveal, Mom ad Dad had an artificial tree. It was painful to assemble, and no one liked doing it, so Mom had to assemble every year all on her own. You know, with her atrophied arms.  One year she told Dad she'd had it and he needed to build her a stylized balsa wood tree, and we'd just hang ornaments on it once, then haul it out every year and hang it over the fireplace. Hanging it over the fireplace was my job.

So with a history of trees made of aluminum, plastic, and balsa wood, I ponied up the ninety bucks for a Frasier Fir real tree every year we could. But when Mom died, that balsa wood tree was the first thing in the hatchback.

 
 

This Week in My Luck

Well, I got good news from the clinical trial nurse. If she wasn't speaking out of turn, I won't pay anything for the drug.

When I complained on behalf of all other people with MS in the world who might feel Four Thousand Dollars a Month (not a typo) is excessive, she explained that somehow it was cheaper for the manufacturer to pay for my tests than to pay the insurance companies. I don't know why the manufacturer is paying the insurance company, or if she got that backward, or what is going on. I pressed that there are a lot of sick people not on the trial and not on insurance, and the conversation turned to how busy she was, and I don't blame her. Still, Spartacus feels bad.

In case I would have been charged 4K a month for drugs, Gary added me back to his insurance, so I'll have to be hospitalized to make good use of that. I might be deathly ill at this very moment. During the last 15 minutes of Desperate Housewives, I ran to the bathroom twice and then barfed in front of the couch. Gary said it was a "Family Guy" style of vomit. Just sitting there, then water hose of vomit, then done.

And when I was in the bathroom cleaning myself up he cleaned up the floor. LOVE.

Streak of luck for the week: Got an 84 on my test, I'm up 4K a month, I don't have to clean up my own puke (priceless).

This years Christmas ornament

 
 

Leaves of Cheese

Last week I was browsing on-line cheese. I saw an entry for cheese leaves, a suggested add-on to my order for just $5.

"That would be great!" I thought,"Cheese leaves! How cute." I could just envision them. Very thin slices of dark yellow-orange cheddar cheese cut into leaf shapes. Perhaps some would have veins of blue or green mold running through them. "I wonder if they have to freeze the cheese so they can slice it thin enough to look like a real leaf."

I bought it without clicking the description. Of course, parchment leaves arrived today.

You've seen them in catalogs.

 

It's a plate decoration.

The sad thing is I have seen the plate decoration. Yet still I had imagined what My Fancy Thin-Sliced Cheese Leaves would look like on a plate with some of those decorative paper leaves they sell in catalogs. What are they called? Those holiday leaf decorations? The ones that look like leaves that they decorate cheese plates with in France?

Oh, but then I thought, "That's silly. I'm sure Gary and I will just eat the cheese leaves without putting them on a tray." Then I pictured the delight on Gary's face when he first would see a cheese leaf, gaze in wonder at its workmanship, then stuff it in his mouth.

So ... re-gifting that then.

Updated: i passed! Please Wish Me Luck

I bit off an entire fingernail, then yelled at Gary, then ate buttered popcorn and a chocolate eclair.

I am taking Series 66 (Son of Series 7) Thursday afternoon at 15:30. They use military time just to mess with my head.

Wish me luck or whatever you did with the Series 7.

Facts and feelings

Last night I was watching Anderson Cooper almost tear his sexy grey hair out over a conversation he was having with a birther. By chance Gary was watching the same thing in another room and began screaming.

You can skip it, or you could watch it below, or you could visit this link. It is amazing, just to watch Anderson walk the polite tightrope.

It reminded me of the saying that you can only fight facts with facts. True, but what about the situation above? Congressman BirtherPants says he has documents, but clearly he has more feelings than facts. (Clearly. You can almost read it in a thought bubble over AC's head.) Fight feelings with feelings?

Let's say Anderson dropped "Where did you get your data, sir" and instead responded with, "What would happen if you were right? Would we remove Obama? Would Joe Biden be a better choice? What if he turns out to be Muslim, too? How would you feel about that?"

I know I've had many conversations with people when I state a feeling, as this man did, and people try to respond with facts, as Anderson did.

My Feeling: I feel guilty for helping my Mom die.
General Factual Response: You did what she wanted.

Well, yes, that's a fact, and I know it, but my problem is a feeling, and reason no longer always trumps emotion as it did in my younger days. I am old and weepy.

Here's another option:

My Feeling: I feel guilty for helping my Mom die.
Touchy-feely Response: But, aren't you glad you had a chance to help her when she counted on you?

Now, I hate to say it, but that would change my feelings.

So, fight feelings with feelings. This is alien to me. I could have used this tonight, and I missed my chance.

Gary: You HAVE to see this scene! It is the BEST scene. Sit down and watch this with me!
Me: This is that scene in 2012 where LA collapses? I've seen that. I have to study for Series 66 which I take day after tomorrow and I have to brine this chicken and I have to get up early for a meeting.
Gary: NO! Sit DOWN!

I missed the fact that Gary wasn't stating a fact, and I countered with facts. I should have said, "I miss you so much when I have to brine chickens and study for tests. I wish I could cuddle with you on the couch all the time." Then perhaps I would not have had to wait out the ten minutes I was required to sit and watch special effects.