A- Affectation for a good and large pasty

The scandal currently on the minds and pocket change of many of the "regular" residents here is the tax on pasties. I'm not totally familiar with the whole budget shebang, but one thing has been made desperately clear and that is that British politicians have no clue what they're doing. It isn't just the MPs who complain about the quality of their food served in their cafeterias (and by cafeterias, I'm meaning four-star restaurants with views of the Thames River) but also the peers in the House of Lords. But that's another whole post on it's own.

No, the recent issue now is "Pastygate". What happened was that George Osborne, the Chancellor, revealed the country's budget plan last week and later this week was questioned about the budget's increased VAT (value added tax) for hot takeaway (to-go orders) food...particularly, pasties.

A pasty, pronounced "past-ee" not "pay-stee", is a fairly common food item bought on the high street here in England, most particularly in the Northeast. I surmise this is because of Greggs, a national bakery chain, is based out of Newcastle which is only a short car ride or a long bus ride from my house. They bake 'em, then they ship 'em to the Greggs bakery stores country-wide. For around £1.19, you can enjoy a hot baked good in a variety of flavours. I like a good Chicken Lattice, SciMan is happy with a corned beef hash pasty. Kiddo is indifferent, as always.

Anyway, the issue is that hot takeaway food and all other food sold at "above ambient air temperature" is now going to have the VAT loophole closed, due to be implemented some time in October. Essentially, the food will now be priced 20% higher.

obligatory MLP:FiM reference

Greggs has assured many of us loyal customers that they'll do their best to not pass on the increased prices to us customers because they don't/won't guarantee the temperature of pasties sold throughout the day.

And the root of the scandal? George Osborne admitting he couldn't remember the last time he bought a pasty. This has developed or devolved into an affectation amongst the politicos: just how in touch with the "common man" are you?

So now, quite a few mainline politicians from the other parties, Labour and the Lib-Dems, are scrambling to show how they are in fact in touch with the public... trying to out do one another to have their pictures taken in front of a Greggs, holding a pasty to their delightfully governmentally pasty faces...hence, the affectation of affection for a common and usually lowly regarded food choice of non-politicians, people like you and me.  David Cameron, the Prime Minister, is adamant in his love for a good, large pasty. He thinks he bought one in 2007. He also wants you to know this so that you will love him too.

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Now, now David... Every one knows that's a pasty from the West Cornwall Pasty Company, not a Greggs pasty.
You're so out of touch.

In his own words:

"I am a pasty-eater myself. I go to Cornwall on holiday. I love a hot pasty. I think the last one I bought was from the West Cornwall Pasty Company. I seem to remember I was in Leeds station at the time and the choice was whether to have one of their small ones or one of their large ones. I have got a feeling I opted for the large one, and very good it was too." -David Cameron, 3/28/2012

I bet you did "opt for the large one",  too.

Really, this media furor is just stoopid. Because it is. I said so. Take a look at the following two pictures and tell me if you can't see a resemblance:

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The muckety-mucks are just like the men laughing alone with salad! Look at their mouths! SHOVE SOME SAUSAGE AND BEAN PASTY IN THERE, PRONTO! Because this bandwagon's a-gonna leave some of youse guys behind! Granted, it may be that the PR spin doctors recommended, as a publicity stunt, to have the Labour leaders showing "solidarity" with a national bakery chain. Yeah, that is totally going to garner more party supporters. Eventually. I wonder if Alistair Campbell had a say?

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FYI: Cornish pasty, above. Must be crimped on the side for the authentic Cornwall experience. This is not a Northeastern or Geordie pasty. It's more like what you can get if you have the deep pockets like Cameron does. Honestly, holiday in Cornwall? Oh, I'm dead chuffed to go there! (side-eye)

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This is more like what you would be able to buy at Greggs, or Peters, the bastard red-headed stepchild of the takeaway patissieries. It seems that no one is bothering about Peters bakery in the media at all. At least, not that I've seen and I've no idea why either. It's a perfectly fine bakery chain, open on Sundays even.

Bottom line, this is an issue that can really affect some families. For some, if not most, lower income families, Greggs and other bakeries provide the main course of the evening meal. When food prices go up, depending on people's priorities, someone could and likely will, go hungry. Don't mess with the single working mothers of Britain's go-to food of choice for their kids' afternoon tea, George. Oh, incidentally and oh-so-not importantly, I can remember when my last pasty was and where I bought it from.

It was from Greggs.

Big things on the way out, like my butt.

I'm doing the April 2012 A to Z Blogging Challenge. I was inspired to do so by David McCauley of Brits in the USA who did last year's challenge.

So far, I've only written one entry. I'm happy with it. I hope I can do this and keep up with it as March has not had much of a showing, writing wise. But, that's just because I didn't care to write about minutiae.

But it is the minutiae about this place that makes it so damn interesting, frustrating and experiential. Learning to recognize the mundane reality as the extraordinary reality is a chore I will both relish and complain about.

Like this afternoon. It was truly an ordinary day. Yet the sun was shining and on the walk to Tesco, the proprietors of two different shops along the high street of my village had set out lawn chairs along the sidewalk (pavement for you UK bloggers). Ordinary enough if they'd been in their backyard (garden) but nope, extraordinary in that the weather was nice enough to allow all four of them to do this in the middle of the sidewalk.

Also, as I was bringing in the trash cans (rubbish bins), the old guy across the alley decided to come over to talk to me about what I have no idea, but I've heard it before and it was the same old, same old about how he took care of young girls after the war and then was telling me all about one girl's menstrual issues and that she was in a hospital for an operation and how he said she should bang up and go to the chemist's (pharmacy) and get some peppermint oil and put just a few drops on a tablespoon full of sugar and her cramps would then go away and about how some of these women who are still alive write letters to him but his grandson is too busy to come to see him particularly now that he has a fiancee. 

Of course there was more drivel than just that... some of the RAF stories are cool, but he likes to devolve to stories about the girls and how he showed them around after the war and helped them to deal with their bodily functions. At which point I like to take out my phone to text SciMan to call me to save me from the sad, creepy old man. Bless him and his precious girls.

Also, am happily down a few sizes. When we moved here, I was a UK size 20 and am now a size 16 (US size 14) in pants (trousers for you UK bloggers). Progress. Minutiae, but still, progress.

My love affair of meat and slow cooking continues. Bonus: I get a basket.

I used this fantastic chicken recipe from this amazing lady, Danielle, of Mostly Food and Crafts. It's called Slow-Cooker Rotisserie Chicken. It was fantastic. Did I say that already? Because it was.

Got a really good deal on whole chicken, £2.00 per kg at Tesco. This bird cost me about £3.16. Click on Danielle's name for the recipe and other goodies she does.  Or just be lazy and read on.

1 whole chicken or lots of chicken pieces.

1 onion, quartered

4 cloves of garlic

2 tsp salt, kosher, sea, whatever.

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp onion powder (in UK, use 1 tsp onion granules)

1/2 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp oregano*

1/2 basil*

   (if you've got Italian seasoning, use 1 tsp of that instead of the oregano and basil. Be sure to take it with you when you go through security checkpoints, too.)

1/2 tsp cayenne

1/2 tsp black pepper

I skinned the bird because Danielle said stuff about skin and slow cookers that made sense. But if you like soggy avian flesh covering, be my guest.

Combine all the spices together in a container of some kind and if you've got latex gloves, I recommend you put them on now because my hands became ever so slightly stained by the chicken rubbing.  The stain's gone now, but it did look like I went to an Indian bridal shower.

Rub these combined spices on that bird. Put the onions and garlic in the crockpot, and place the chicken breast side down on top. Or you can follow Danielle's suggestion to "tuck the onions and garlic under the chicken or inside."

I put one of the quartered onions in the chicken's butt but didn't notice if it helped.

Cook on high 5-6 hours, or low for 8. I did 8 hours and HOMAHGOSH! It was beautiful. The "jus" was just amazing. 

And so I let Danielle know that I followed her recipe. But I don't think she cares that much.

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I've been wanting a very large basket for some time now. With three floors of living space, it's essential.

The other day, after dropping Kiddo off at school, I saw a sign for a Coffee Morning, Tombola, and Bric-a-brac Fundraiser at the little church hall that is located on the other side of the playground/graveyard next to Kiddo's school.  I went in, because what else was I going to do, clean house?

No. 

I did that today. Besides, they advertised cake on the handwritten sign. I'll go anywhere there might be cake.

Anyway, I went in and there was a bit of a crush at the three tables items were set up on. Two of those tables were just books. You couldn't get to the middle table for love nor money, there were so many women standing there. I did what any passive aggressive individual does and stood behind them, twisting and turning, bending sideways at the waist, raising myself up on my toes to look over their shoulders. Finally, I'd had enough and decided to go get a free cookie off of the tables set up for sitting down and having tea and cake.

And then I saw it. It was on the floor with some other ugly and little baskets and it said to me, "Hey, hotstuff. Thinking about me a long time?"

I coyly said, "Yeah."  The large wicker basket beckoned me to its side. As I edged around a church maven, that's when I saw how much LWB was. Only three pounds.  I doubletook the sign. Only three pounds! I breathed heavier and faster. The metallic taste in my mouth was the same taste from junior high days, a fight or flight mechanism that would rear its ugliness every time the cute boys looked at me.

"I'm sorry... I'll be back." I muttered. Taunted by the ugly and little baskets, the LWB forlornly watched me make my way to the palsied lady in charge of the raffle. As I scrummaged in my wallet for the twenty pence needed to buy a raffle ticket, I resolved to buy the LWB; hell, high water, or church ladies would not bar my way.

LWB, if it could've, would've given me a smile when it saw me come back to it. I picked it up off the floor, dumped the ugly and little baskets out and proudly handed over a fiver to the lady behind the table. I even retained enough presence of mind to stick around for my change.

I walked out with LWB, not even bothering to stick around to find out if I'd managed to win anything at the raffle. That was forty pence well spent. Yes, I bought two tickets. But doing so allowed me the time and space to collect my thoughts. As in garage sale-ing, one does not just offer everything for the first thing one sees. LWB understands. After all, good things definitely come to those who wait and tiptoe behind church ladies. 

I'm determined to show LWB, who happens to be from China, a good life.

Artsy.

You're beautiful!

I'll have a demi half-fat cappu and whatever she's having.

Perfecting the art of doing nothing

For the last three days, I've done nothing above and beyond washing the dishes and brushing my teeth. I don't think I've cooked dinner either. SciMan did that for me. Look at this beaut!

Poached eggs on toast.

So, for the last few days, SciMan's been under the weather and has stayed home. I've taken Kiddo to school and one morning, after dropping her off, I went to the lounge at the bottom of the hill for breakfast. SciMan had waxed ecstatic over their poached eggs on ciabatta. I decided to give it a go. It was okay. Came with a fried tomato and mushrooms. Ciabatta is good for sammies and paninis, but not really useful for an eggy breakfast. The mushrooms were good though. While eating, and because I didn't have a book with me, I looked up how to make a poached egg as I was, overall, happy to eat one. The website I found, ThePerfectPoachedEgg.com is meticulously clear about the method of making The Perfect Poached Egg. I laughed out loud in the lounge and disturbed several students.

Why I laughed:

The three starter items needed according to ThePerfectPoachedEgg.com are a good egg, a non-stick frying pan, and a reliable toaster*.

 The simple steps

The variables 

I got home and told SciMan what I experienced regarding the ciabatta and said, "Tiger loaf would be more appropriate." He agreed. After more conversation, it was determined that we could ourselves learn to make poached eggs. After all, when in Roma...

 SciMan used Alton Brown's method, but I sure did think that the poached egg website was a riot. And isn't that photo just lovely? It was taken with my new Samsung Galaxy S II.


Dual Core

Lots of Gigs.

Mega Pixels. Also lots.

 You can just feel the cracked pepper in your teeth because of my phone. The crunchy roughness of tiger loaf melting away in a puddle a buttery yolk is brought to you by the letter, Technology and the number, Mine Now. Thanks to contractual upgrades, I'm feeling all Enya-y because of the basil and tomato.

I leave you with a darling video of my darling Kiddo, circa 2009, titled  "In which Kiddo is gifted with her Momma's Grandma's jewelry".

*This is serious business. Unreliable kitchen appliances are shit. Wars have been fought, marriages ended, and jihads commenced over less. 

Super Tuesday? I got your "super" right here...

Today is the day for the Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Ohio and Oklahoma. If you are a resident in these states, please go vote.

Quoting the smartest man I know (emphasis mine):

Today is Super Tuesday. News reports, polls, and interviews seem to indicate that many people in the US are concerned primarily with moral and social issues. I want to try to change the subject. If you're voting today in the Republican Primaries, I'm not going to tell you who to vote for. I'm not going to promote one candidate over another. 

I will tell you that throughout human history, almost every case of one group imposing their beliefs on another has gone badly. I will tell you that unless a person is causing harm, then it is wrong to tell them how to live. It's called oppression, and everyone who has ever tried it has been called an oppressor. Having a different opinion is not harmful. Having a different lifestyle, set of habits, hobbies, or preferences is not harmful. It is always wrong to tell a person how to peacefully live their life. 

If you find that what is most important to you in this election is influencing other people to behave how you want them to, or even to legally restrict their peaceful behavior to what you find acceptable, then shame on you. You have a sad, corroded view of what freedom is. 

It is OK to criticize others. Even publicly. Even vehemently. It is OK to have contempt for others and their lifestyles; people have the right to their own opinions and the right to share them. People do not have the right to use government as a big stick and beat the people they don't agree with. A difference of opinion is a peaceful issue that should never be resolved forcibly with law. 

There are much more important issues than worrying about how other Americans spend their free time. Foreign policy for one. I have read more about which candidate legally paid more in taxes than I've read about their stances on US interventionism. Just yesterday, Eric Holder outlined justification for assassinating US citizens. I want to hear the candidates talk about that. I want to hear discussions about police using drones domestically. I want to hear more about funding for energy research. There are so many issues that actually affect everyone that it is shocking to me to find most people seem stuck on issues that don't affect them at all.

 The Guardian, a newspaper from the United Kingdom, has a video from a film-maker who went to several states asking people about their opinions on the issues and finally, who they would vote for.

I have never been so ashamed to be an Oklahoman and an American after watching this Hitchcock-esque video. I wish it had been a video of an Inuit eating a baby seal. It isn't. It's worse.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/mar/05/primary-voices-oklahoma-video


If you suspect I am being melodramatic, know this... I have never, ever been ashamed of or have ever said I was ashamed of where I come from. I'm proud of my country. I love my state, but if mainstream ignorance continues to flourish, if lack of critical thinking pins my fellow state and countrymen with a big red arrow in Las Vegas neon saying, "Hi, I'm the lowest common denominator", then put me on the next rocket to Mars.

Voices need to be heard, opinions must be developed. These two aspects of ourselves are the pinnacle of revolution. Yet, I am of that mindset that if you are voicing your ill-informed opinion because you haven't deigned to do the legwork of research into a candidate's viability, you are the idiotic LCD. You are the detriment, not the ones who are different and "other" from you.

For Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Ohio and Oklahoma, it may be too late. For all the rest of the states who have yet to have their primaries, it might not be. After August 27th, we'll find out the mood of half of the nation. What kind of nation will it be? Will it be a progressive, tolerant, and innovative one or will it regress a la Iran and Afghanistan?

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How I'm celebrating Leap Day.

By shaking my hands...one as a fist, with rock concert elan and the other as a fist also, but old-lady-yelling-at-whippersnappers-style

Fist Pump 1. I'm hanging out my laundry for the first time this year. I'm so damn excited about this!

Sure enough, the signs of spring are here... The gal I work for (this is the couple who own their internet business) said she couldn't remember the last time crocuses, snowdrops, and daffodils were out at the same time. Usually, they're out in stages, one blooming and fading as the next takes its place.


Fist Clench 2. I'm getting the new Samsung Galaxy S II (?) today. The contract's up and Vodaphone's been bugging me to upgrade. To shut them up, I'm going to get a free phone that I can use when I move home. Because I will move home someday.

Yeah, am celebrating Leap Day with some major homesickness issues. Got an email from MomUnit that sent me into a blubbering spiral of drippy snot and leaky tear ducts. It was an attachment! It was a picture of my dear friend's three children, two of which I've never met. Her children are just beautiful and it's like looking at her from across the classroom that first day I met her in junior high. I want my kid to be friends with her kids.

And there's other children I've never met, which bugs the hell out of me. Because they don't know me and because I've just figured out that I really like other people's kids. I like mine just fine, hell, I LOVE her...but I like other people's kids. Not when I was younger, like baby-sitting age...couldn't stand that. But now, I guess it's because I've got one and I'm all like, ME TOO! So, yeah... a niece that's new last year, SciMan's bestie has a kid and another coming... another couple have two children, one I got to spend time with, the other was born two years ago or so... I don't even know when! My brother and sister are becoming adults without me buying their first legal beers. Who's gonna drive them home? DadUnit's going nuts and no one's stopping it. My former students... I can't observe them from my corner of the school and feel proud. I can only just feel a pale imitation from memory. Some dear friends are getting married this year and I've no way to know if I we're going to be there to see it.

So I want to put everyone back home in a time capsule and insulate them in tree sap so that when I come back I can just Jurassic-Park scientist them and resume where I left them. I want to reel in that false sense of control I had over everyone and cast it back out among them. My pot, it is not stirred.

This is the part of living overseas that I knew was going to happen and I accepted it, but it doesn't mean that I have to smile about it. I had it in my head that I wouldn't go back until this "three-hour tour" was over. If I wanted to be illogical about it, it's mainly because I thought that if I did come home just for a visit, a taco and some Ted's queso filling in as a carrot or a crowbar threatening to pry me off the couch wouldn't be able to get me back on a plane for the exhaustible flight. There's been an exodus in the Americans in the UK online community and I sure as hell am jealous about it.

Because they're getting to not only have the very best in laundry drying equipment (a dryer), they're getting to be present, stirring the pot, making a difference, participating in the life fabric that is quilted by shared experiences.

It was a bad decision to come here when viewed in this context.



But then again, if not for that decision, I wouldn't have the trifecta of spring flowers in bloom in a graveyard that has been converted into a playground next to the Kiddo's school. So, really, little things give back and  compensate for other little things that take away and negate.

Snowdrops you can see, crocuses you can't.

SciMan's long, dark teatime of the soul: Sunday

I don't usually have a guest post...but when I do, it's my husband. My husband's a witty, witty man. He writes very well about some things...except the amount of alcohol I consume in an evening.You can read some of his writing about dealing with international travel systems in a  previous post of mine. It's quite funny, really. 


His day job is alchemy, or physics, and he's got a computer background, so just ignore that or understand that, your choice.


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How to screw up a romantic Italian dinner 
How to have a great Italian dinner with Terry Pratchett, by SciMan
2/19/2012
Douglas Adams wrote that Sunday afternoon is the long, dark tea time of the soul. I imagine this is true for lots of people, and there's certainly times that it's true for me, too, but I also find my Sunday afternoon's introspection is often replaced by a sturdy Sunday afternoon ambition. Today, as one of those days, I decided I would cook an awesome meal [ERROR]. 

The focal point of the meal would be meatballs. 

While my wife was at work, my daughter (who is 4.5) and I walked to Tesco for raw materials with which I could practice my industry. When we got back, I set the girl in front of a Winnie the Pooh marathon, and set myself to work. 

I like meatballs to taste like small, crusty nuggets of meatloaf, so I followed my time honored recipe of lean ground beef, minced onion, bread crumbs, egg, Worcestershire (which I can now spell right the first time, every time), ketchup, salt and pepper. I mixed these things according to a secret ratio, and stored the dead spiced cow in the fridge for a bit. I moved on. Next, I washed and sliced mushrooms and onions. Then, I went to play Legos with the kid. 

It was Lego Princess Rose's birthday. She and her horse, also named Rose, were throwing a party. The Prince, unnamed, and his horse, also unnamed, were not allowed to eat anything. 

When the wife got home, she relieved me of Lego duty, and I brought her a glass of wine [E]. It was time to start cooking. This was going to be a four-burner task: 

Burner 1 - Meatballs (and later, peppers)
Burner 2 - Sauce
Burner 3 - Sautéed Mushrooms & Onions
Burner 4 - Spaghetti 

I laid out some aluminum foil, and started rolling meatballs. Meanwhile, I had a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil warming in my giganto Cuisinart skillet on Burner 1. When I finished this I attempted to fit all of the N meatballs into the skillet [ERROR]. This did not work, my giganto skillet has a strict capacity of N-4 meatballs. "That's okay", I think to myself, "I'll cook them with the peppers." Since the sauce merely needed warmed and doctored a bit, I started on the mushrooms. Now, Burner 3 is half the size of Burner 1, and it's diagonal to it, but I still couldn't fit my next largest skillet on this silly British stovetop. So the mushrooms and onions were downgraded to a skillet far too small for their bulk [ERROR]. You know the difference between a heaped tablespoon of flour and a level tablespoon? It was like that, but with mushrooms and skillets. Next, I go for the red wine, which I notice is not a dry merlot, or even a cabernet, but something labeled "Light and Fruity". It's Sunday (a bad day for ambition) and Tesco closes at 4pm, so I decide we'll have light and fruity mushrooms [ERROR]. I take the wife another glass of wine [ER]. 

Now, I always find the jars of pasta sauces to be too sweet, and since my ambition attack attacked late, I didn't have time to slow cook my own. So instead I decided I'd go with the best jar of tomato, garlic, and basil sauce that I knew of, and then just add some more tomatoes and garlic. Into a small pan on Burner 2 went the jar of sauce and a can of chopped tomatoes (which for this purpose works much better than buying fresh tomatoes, which really aren't ever quite ripe enough). 

I proceed to chopping garlic (recognizing that I was going to try to get the kid to eat this, too, I did not chop the peppers for sauce inclusion). 

This is an exciting part for me. I know the trick of lightly crushing a clove of garlic with the flat of a blade so that it's easier to peel. I'm so proud of knowing this trick, that I'll happily peel an entire bulb of garlic before thinking about how much of it I need. I did this [ERROR]. So now I have a bulb of chopped garlic, and I think to myself, if the wine is supposed to be sweet, then this might be fine for the mushrooms and onions, but might not go well with garlic. So, I dump the garlic in the sauce. Two minutes later, I remember again that I want the kid to eat the meal, too, so I fish 2/3 of the garlic out of the sauce. Lacking a better idea, I eat it [ERROR]. 

The first batch of meatballs is done, but I haven't started the spaghetti yet. I taste one, I think it's pretty good, but my inattention and my recipe have given these meatballs an abhorrence for spheres and a set of self-destructive behaviors, such as sticking to the pan, melding with other meatballs, or crumbling to pieces. 

The kid is falling asleep. I bring her a plate with three meatchunks on it. They're a little burned, so I decide the meal will be better received if I bring the wife another glass of wine [ERR]. I start the spaghetti on Burner 4. 

Wife (to kid): "Do you want some spaghetti?"

Kid: "No."

Now, Burner 2 and Burner 4 are pretty small. This is fine for the sauce on B2, but it takes forever to boil water on B4 [ERROR]. 

Now, I thought about just putting the sauce and meatchunks together and baking them. This would have worked easier. But I wasn't sure if the kid would eat the sauce no matter my efforts, and it's been a long-time habit of mine to not mix meat with pasta sauce until serving time anyway. This habit comes from college. 

Long ago, my college roommate is cooking spaghetti one evening for dinner. I'm watching TV. He announces that the spaghetti is cooking, but he wants to get a shower after working all day, and would I watch the pot? Sure, I say. A couple minutes later it occurs to him that he meant to fry some ground beef, but forgot, so he tries to suggest I take over cooking it.

Roomie (yells from the bathroom): "Hey SciMan?"
Me: "Yeah?"
Roomie: "I didn't think of it earlier, but if you would vastly prefer meat with the spaghetti... uh... I'm already naked."

At the time it took me quite a while to parse those ellipses. 

Anyway, you never know, sometimes people want vegetarian spaghetti, and most meat ingredients can be included after everything is cooked. 

I add the 4 raw surplus meatballs to the giganto skillet and wait for them to turn to meatchunks. When they're about half done, I add two of the red chili peppers. I'm of the mind that the very best crushed red pepper is crushed with the teeth. 

At this point an hour has gone by. The spaghetti is nearly done, the peppers are lightly blackened, and wife announces that it's time for kid's bath. The phrase "before she falls asleep" was added gently to remind me that dinner was taking too damn long. 

So back to the mushrooms and onions. They shrank, as expected, but between the water they lost, the wine, and the oil, they were essentially boiled. I had even failed to stir them, which wasn't a problem since they had failed to be sautéed. 

The spaghetti finished cooking while wife explained to kid the mechanics of hair washing, again. Unsure of how long that would take, I fixed a bowl that included all of the things I had made, with one of the lovely peppers I had fried in meatball juice and olive oil right on top [ERROR]. 

I picked up my recently purchased Terry Pratchett book and sat down at the table with my dinner. Alone. 

A measure of the "hotness" of a pepper is the Scoville unit, a logarithmic scale presently dominated by the Butch-T Scorpion chili pepper from Australia. Another metric of a pepper's hotness might be how little you can taste everything else after eating it. While I'm sure it couldn't hold a candle to the Butch-T, I had consumed two glasses of water and half my spaghetti before I could taste anything again. Terry Pratchett managed to catch a single tear that fell off my cheek. 

I finish my meal. 

Enter wife and kid

Kid: "I love you daddy!" Big hugs ensue. This is a relief, because yesterday she said she didn't love me any more because I told her to stop licking her hands.

Wife (to kid): Do you want some spaghetti? 

Kid: "Yes!"

I bring the kid a bowl of spaghetti. I bring wife her wine [ERRO]. 

Kid eats two bites of spaghetti. 

Kid: "I hate big forks!"

Wife: "Honey, that's not a big fork, that's a little fork."

Kid (Whining): "Nooo, it's a big fork."

Wife: "Do you want to go to bed?"

Kid (rubs eyes): "Yeeeess". 

Now, wife had a bowl of food, so I take kid from here. We clear the ponies off of her bed, and I tuck her in. I start reading, and she makes it half-way through the book (I always try to keep my voice slow and deep when reading to her at bed time). But, it's actually a good book that we got recently when the author was doing an event at the bookstore. He also illustrated the book, and he signed it for her. The story is a local legend of a knight killing a dragon, which apparently happened nearby, though not recently. It isn't a long story, so I read the rest of it to myself. 

When I return downstairs, wife has finished eating. She refuses to eat the other pepper. 

We had a romantic evening cleaning up the kitchen. We freeze most of the meatchunks for a time when we can eat them peacefully. 

I feel full, but I can't remember eating my food. I smell garlic every time I breathe. I don't remember if the mushrooms tasted light and fruity. I don't remember eating any of the onions at all. I forgot to get parmesan [ERROR]. The meal was not legen -- wait for it -- dary. But we've eaten and we have leftovers and nothing burned down, so 8.8 errors is probably still passing. 

Why are garlic peels sticky?


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I like how he thinks we had a romantic evening cleaning up the kitchen. I also like the amount of wine that I'm supposed to have consumed this evening. 


And yes, the meal of meatchunks and boiled flour sticks with minutely alcoholic fungi was very tasty, bless him.

Health... who cares?

I'm doing it. I'm finally doing it. I've reached the limit of my tolerance and endurance. I'm going to see a doctor on Wednesday.

I have, what I believe, is a ganglion cyst on my right inner wrist. If I desist from treating my wrist, I can't make a fist you get the jist. According to my analyst, I should make a list of who I know is Baptist, to get them to thump it so it ceases to exist.

I live with chronically re-occurring back pain but this, this is shit. It's like what I imagine a combination of arthritis, trigeminal neuralgia, and carpal tunnel would feel like. Sometimes, when I know I'm going to bring on the flash of pain, I can handle it...like if I'm lifting a box or bag at work. I'm ready for it and boyhowdy I guess I deserve it. But when all I fucking did was to turn on a lamp switch and it triggers a twinge x1000, like what happened last night as I got in bed, well then by yompy, shit needs to change.

I suppose I could do the home-y, impecunious treatment for the cyst myself if I had a bible in the house, but George RR Martin'll have to do. Thick fiction shortage? I think not. Yet, I can't really bring myself around to the idea that I would have to smash all those hundreds of pages onto my wrist with enough force to burst the tendon sheath that's housing the fluid build-up. Don't think SciMan would be up for it either...something about chivalry and men shouldn't hit women nonsense. I think I'd rather a certified medical technician drain the gelatinous material via needle than allow it to explode internally due to blunt force trauma. I'm no Aron Ralston; I think I'd happily choose to not saw my arm off.

So, yeah, Wednesday. I'm availing myself of the socialist infrastructure. I'm getting some free health care. No copay or bills to remit later.

But if they come at me with a saw, I'm booking it out of there and I'm taking all the wooden tongue depressors with me.

Because I have a kid, you know.