Archive for November, 2009

I think this is a new level of maturity, for me.

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Dear Fates,

Whichever one of you sorry bastards thought it would be funny to rob me of my taste buds has reserved his or herself a special place in my Big Book O’ Hatred.

Seriously. I mean, and I get how very tempting it would be to see me, all food lovin’ and happy with my taste buds, suddenly robbed of my flavour detecting agents. I see it and I’m the actual victim. The perfect, unsuspecting victim for such unkind tomfoolery.

But don’t you see? This is exactly why this is so very wrong. I haven’t got my mobility. I’m still recovering from a cold. I have no cigarettes in my life to love. All I have left of the creature comforts is food. And what you’ve done to me, you rotting scum bucket of angst and malevolent glee, is take that away. Not only eating it, but prepping it. Because really? I discovered on Saturday precisely how difficult and joyless it is to make food that you cannot taste and can barely smell.

Even ordering in is no comfort. Remember Friday night’s meal, you asinine and gormless excuse for an omnipotent being? That gorgeous pesto pizza with sundried tomatoes and feta? The one I had to stop eating because I couldn’t taste anything, but could feel the sprinkles of dried oregano on my tongue, giving the illusion that I was attempting to chew sawdust cud? Yeah, that was a good one. Hilarious humour, you maggot-ridden piece of excremental residue.

So – props to you. Great work in putting a damper on my weekend. Har har, good laugh. Well done.

But this is day four. DAY FOUR. Did you leave the taste bud sucking machine running by accident, you witless piece of deified butt shrapnel? Are you so busy basking in the glow of your pranking prowess that you’ve forgotten about me? Are you deficient in all ways, including your grasp of time?

Listen – I know it’s your job to throw wrenches into people’s works, you misanthropic waste of immortality, but this is NO LONGER FUNNY. Or ironic. Or clever.

Cease and desist immediately and all shall be forgiven. Continue and I will make as many empty threats as I can conceive of until such time as my voice goes high and desperate and your ears bleed from the pitch and you’re forced to appease me simply to get your mythic ears working once again.

Sincerely,

Me

P.S. Okay, in all fairness, I don’t have a Big Book O’ Hatred. In fact, I have a very short Hate Slip O’ Paper, made from a torn half of a post-it note. Nonetheless, you will go at the top of this list, and I mean business.

Posted in Health, Rant, cooking | 1 Comment »

Because it’s true.

Friday, November 27th, 2009

You know, it becomes more obvious on a daily basis how much my kitchen is my happy place. I love to bustle around it in, even (and perhaps especially) on a Friday night. I go there to put everything else in the world aside.

And it’s a mark of how often I’m in there, and how enthusiastic I am about the whole process of making food that nobody even comes in to check, regardless of how much hammering and thunking goes on. They’ll snoop about the food, but they never blink at the noise.

This is good, because I lost the head of my meat mallet whilst beating naked chicken thighs to a pulp. When I say lost, I mean propelled. And when I say propelled, I mean tossed upward.

Guess the reflexes haven’t quit on me just yet.

Posted in Being a girl, Happiness, Health, cooking, family | 2 Comments »

Down the rabbit hole

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

Which is where I’ve been for the last couple of weeks. Way down the rabbit hole. Deep, deep, deep into the rabbit hole.

I’m usually quite happy to be Wylie the Kat. But lately, my body has been conspiring against me. Lately, I’ve been less Wylie and more:

 

Between my silly spine and my late-breaking development of a coldish/fluish thing – I’ve been less than happy and less than healthy.

The good news is that I’m slowly coming back to myself. It’s been a process. I visited some very dark places in my own mind over the course of the last few weeks, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re learning the fine art of patience. I’ve never been especially patient with anything, up to and including my own body, but now – now I’m learning. I’ve had no choice but to accept my limitations, because the consequences of not accepting them has been pain, more stress and more inability to do the things I want and need to do.

It may have taken a while, but hey – I’m learning. And I’m accepting, even if that means that I had to miss work one week because of my spine and the next week because of a cold. Normally, I’d have dragged my sorry body in and not given it any time to heal, because the guilt would be enough to eat me alive. Not anymore. Consequences – I get ‘em.

My peace offering for my extended absence? Food pr0n from my very own kitchen.



This below is the food pr0n equivalent of the money shot. Messy, but tasty.


Truth is, we just love the light that flows in on my cutting board. All photos by the artiste in residence.

Posted in Health | 4 Comments »

Product reviews by my four-year old

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Product: Leapster 2’s Ni Hao, Kai-lan

Review: It’s supercool! You get to torture Kai-lan - for money!

Please note that any and all questions arising from this review will be answered with the phrase: I have no earthly idea.

Posted in Odds and Sods, Rant | 2 Comments »

I suppose there’s something vaguely funny* about this

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

I took Rosebud for her four-year old check-up yesterday. Those of you who recall that her birthday is in August might be wondering why she’s having her four-year appointment a full two months after she actually reached the milestone, and as to that well . . . in my defense, I did make the appointment before her birthday. However, when you’re seeing the doctor for non-emergent purposes, the wait can get long.

Those of you who are opposed to free medicine in the ‘States can go ahead and make the obligatory comments about state-funded medical care. I’ll carry on with the post while you do that, mmmmkay?

So anyway, this very nice doctor - the very same lady who came into the hospital room four years ago to have a looksee at my shiny new person (complete with new person smell!) - is someone with whom I’m certain I would have had an excellent working relationship.

If only Rosebud ever actually required the services of a doctor.

She was weighed and measured (41 inches and 43.4lbs, in case you wondered. This puts her in the 90th percentile for both height and weight. Also, just in case you wondered.), poked and prodded, tested and questioned - throughout all of which she stood calmly, leaning against me for warmth (she’s always made to strip down to her underwear. I left), telling the doctor about everything, including school, Buddy, Juniper, counting and beyond.

The doctor couldn’t seem to stop saying “healthy”. Healthy hair, healthy eyes, healthy blood pressure, feet, fingers, ears . . . we heard the word healthy so many times, I thought I’d accidentally tuned into a Weight Watcher’s meeting down the hall.

And then, her doctor looked at the contents of her extremely slender chart and said, “You know you can bring her to me whenever she needs something, right? Anytime. Really.”

I nodded.

“That’s what I’m here for.”

I nodded again, more vehemently this time. I wouldn’t want her thinking we were seeing some other doctor behind her back.

She took another, last look at Rosebud’s chart and said, “She just doesn’t get sick, does she?”

No doc - she really doesn’t. And I’m very glad of this fact, though I sometimes wonder when we’re going to catch up on the backlog of childhood ailments. And I know my doctor is grateful, too. I’m certain that the slightly mournful note in her tone when she made the observation was entirely incidental.

* Funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha. And only because I really wanted to use the word “ironic”, but can’t because SOME people are everso up in arms about the appropriate usage of the word, rather than allowing more liberal interpretations - which this would have been. This makes me very cranky, because it would’ve been the best-suited (loosely interpreted) word for this header and I’m more than a little grumpy at the language restricting ruleniks of the world.

Ahem.

As you were.

Posted in Health, Rosebud | 2 Comments »

Better living through pharmaceuticals - reprise.

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

In the winter of 2007, I started taking anti-anxiety medication. After being on it for about six weeks, I wrote a post about it. This is an excerpt:

I’ve now realized that what I previously thought of as “managing”, was really cripplingly difficult and often left me with giant holes in my self-esteem.

Things would eat away at me for decades. Literally decades. I don’t think there’s an awkward incident in my entire life that I can’t catalogue for you.

And now? Well, I’m still me. I still worry. I still fret over things that I can’t control.

But the huge, massive, gargantuan, insane worries that I could never put down for a rest, no matter how much I wanted to - those are gone.

I still have bad days. But then I can get up off the couch and carry on with my evening.

Now,  I play more with the Rosebud. I worry less about every single thing she does or puts in her mouth. I can relax and laugh a bit.

So yeah - basically, what the hell was I waiting for all this time?


In July of this year, I went off the meds. I did so because I wanted to assess my mental state. I was operating with the theory that the bulk of my heightened anxiety was post-partum related.

Turns out, it was less post-partum and more parenthood. Or aging. Or something.

Bottom line is this: I quit taking the meds and now, I’m going back on them. I am, I realized, a better parent and a happier person when I don’t have the anxiety looming over me.

Even though I’m madly in love with my family, have a job where I’m valued, a home that I love and friends who care for me - I find that I can’t appreciate any of it when I’m constantly in a state of fear: Did I just say something horribly wrong? Was that chest pain a sign of a looming heart attack? What kind of asshole (read: me) shows up 15 minutes late to a meeting?

These thoughts? They’re fairly normal. But the difference between normal and me is that I think these thoughts for days and days and days after I may or may not have said the wrong thing, had a chest pain or missed a meeting. It doesn’t quit. I don’t quit.

As T-dot said so aptly “It seems like you’re doing okay, but you seem really tired from trying to keep it all together.”

She’s right. I’m tired. Time to avail myself, once again, of the miracles of modern medicine.

See you on the other side.

Posted in Being a girl, Getting older, Happiness, Health | 4 Comments »

Reclaiming my humanity

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Well, after magically waking up on Saturday morning in very little pain (from my back), and following that with both dancing and wearing of high heels, resulting in yet more MINIMAL PAIN, I am feeling most optimistic and generally perkier than I was last week.

This is good, because I could’ve brought rain to the desert with the giant cloud I was carting around.

I’m not going to start doing cartwheels or seeing if I can pretzel myself into interesting new shapes - I’m not crazy (much). I’ve been warned that the pain can be intermittent, but if that was an intermission, it couldn’t have come at a better time. My very own Halloween miracle.

Why was this timing so immensely awesome?

T-dot and her freshly minted husband got married on Saturday. It was an absolutely stunning event, and I think it was most definitely worth the effort T-dot put into it over the course of the last year. Her design sense, love for Halloween, and general happiness showed in every fine detail.

Wonderful.

Now, the reason I was in such need of a fully functioning spine? I had the daunting* task of giving the reading at the ceremony. Going up to speak during a person’s one and only special day creates an entirely different level of pressure.

What if I trip on the way up? What if I deliver the reading with so many verbal typos that it becomes virtually incomprehensible? What if I pass out? What if I deliver the whole thing in a nerve-wracked wisp of a voice? What if I just suck? I WILL RUIN THEIR WEDDING WITH MY FAIL!!!!

Suffice to say, I was seriously, deeply and incredibly happy to have gotten through the whole thing with a minimum of disaster, and may have enjoyed more than my fair share of wine in celebration of this fact. I am equally grateful that my dear friends asked me to perform this task, and that they didn’t ask me to read from the Bible (which would’ve resulted in Fire and Brimstone, if I so much as cracked open the tome).

It was a good time, with good people.

As my lovely (and utterly unnecessary) thank-you gift says: A friend is someone who knows everything about you, and loves you anyway.

Too true. I’m grateful for my friends.

*When I say daunting, please read this as TERRIFYING.

Posted in Being a girl, Happiness | No Comments »