If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you will know that I am a hypochondriac. And mostly I blame my parents, because, hello?!?!?!?!
triplebypassbreastcancercoloncancerdiverticulitisholyshitI'mgoingtodieahhhhhhhhhh!
And because it's convenient to blame one's parents to avoid fully acknowledging one's own inherent nutiness. Nutitude. Nuthood.
(Nutever. Heh.)
Also, I have a health care team who love to indulge my whims and schedule lots of tests for my symptoms. Usually we call these people good doctors. For the purpose of this blog post, however, we are calling them enablers.
So anyhooo I'd been having these really persistent swollen glands in my neck, forever. Right under my ears. They were a little sore. A hypochondriac does NOT appreciate swollen glands. A hypochondriac does NOT appreciate swollen glands that last a long time. A hypochondriac loathes swollen glands, because usually a hypochondriac will start Googling. And despite what the Google says, the hypochondriac will not be held down, and will keep Googling until she finds something awful and horrible that is bound to befall her or that is befalling her that very moment.
So one day, while I was cleaning my ears for the third time, it dawned on me.
Hey, dumb ass, the ear is a self-cleaning body part. Maybe all the q-tips you stick in there 20 times a day aren't helping. Maybe by f*cking with the self-cleaning mechanism of the ear you are introducing bad things, and hence, your glands are telling you to knock it the hell off. Idiot.
It's true. I am a compulsive ear-cleaner. And those warnings on the q-tip box to avoid putting the q-tip into the ear canal? I totally ignore that shit.
So a few days with only washing the outside of my ears along with my face in the shower, and my swollen glands are gone. Just like that.
I am an idiot-genius.
But then I come home from school last night, and sit down on the couch with my husband.
"Where's your iPod?" I ask. "I'm gonna jog in a bit."
"Oh yeah...." he says, frowning dramatically. "I go to pay the bills tonight and charge up my iPod and while I'm taking off the earphones, I see a big hunk of earwax hanging on one side. That was nasty!"
I am mortified. Earwax, like a booger, is something you don't want on display. It's like the perfect example of how human beings are just disgusting saliva-mucus-hair factories and there is nothing attractive about us. As a lot, we are smelly, sticky and atrocious.
"I'm really sorry. I haven't been cleaning my ears as frequently as I used to." And then I go into my account of the glands and the ear cleaning and what a stellar detective I could be.
"Well, that doesn't mean you should stop cleaning your ears altogether."
Snap.
So now with the glands down, I'm focusing on this crick I have in my upper spine.
(I'm thinking it's a pinched nerve.)
****Adding that when husband says he took off earphones, he meant removing them from the device and not taking them out of his own ear. *****
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Because Everyone Needs A Little More
...sweetness. I will do you a favor and send some your way.
I've been a little hung up on this one muffin recipe lately, and so I thought that the best thing I could do with it was to pay-it-forward, because it's the kind of baked good that can change one's mood. This muffin is like Robert Pattison to a Twilight fan.
I found it by doing a random search for 'pear' and 'ginger,' since there was a time last year that I had a little too much of both. Not surprisingly, the recipe belongs to Nigella Lawson.
With the body of Venus, magic hands, an accent both engaging and comforting, and a proclivity for using terms such as 'tooth-achiness', 'palate-cleaving' and 'marshmallow-gungy,' Lawson has to be one of the most interesting and fun 'gastro-compendiums made flesh' around. All those other TV chefs look and sound entirely bland by comparison.
I especially like when when she bakes some exorbitantly rich cake, and the camera shows her replendent in her robe coming back for seconds after everyone else is asleep.
Here is the basic recipe, and then I'll tell you some of my inadvertent tweaks:
Nigella's Pear and Ginger Muffins
-Preheat oven to 400 degrees
-In a large bowl, mix 1 3/4 cup flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 3/4 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and 1 tsp ground ginger
-In another bowl, mix 2/3 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 1 tbs honey, and 2 large eggs
-Fold into the dry ingredients
-Gently fold in 1 1/2 cups peeled pear, chopped into 1/4 inch dice
-Divide batter among 12 muffin cups, and sprinkle 1/2 tsp brown sugar over muffin tops
-Bake for 20 minutes, cool for a few minutes in the pan and then remove to wire rack.
You're welcome.
Okay, so last weekend when I went to bake these, I found I was completely out of vegetable oil. I was afraid to substitute olive oil because I thought the taste might come out a bit odd. So I went ahead and melted a stick of butter and used that in place of the veggie oil. Not surprisingly, the muffins were insanely good. A bit of extra saturated fat has that effect. And sometimes I feel like I can taste the vegetable oil in baked goods, so the lack of this taste was appreciated.
I've also used fresh ginger. But since I'm not sure of how much fresh ginger equals ground ginger, I just kind of winged it and think I added a couple of tablespoons. One of the things about grocery store ginger is that it almost always is quite stringy, so there were the occasional ginger strings in the finished product. It didn't, however, take away one bit from the luscious muffin and its ability to make my mouth really really happy.
I've also used low-fat sour cream, because I honestly can't tell the difference between the low and full-fat varieties anyway, but it struck me as hysterical melting an entire stick of butter and then using low-fat sour cream as some kind of lightening agent. Kind of like the diet coke with a Big Mac value meal.
Also, I would have taken a picture, because they're pretty with their brown-sugar crackled tops, but the last batch I made I took out of the oven right before going jogging, without removing them from the muffin tin, and the sides got a bit dark.
Which is just like me. There is at least one line from every recipe I try that I screw up.
But nevermind, because the taste is still divine, with the soft-baked pears and pungent ginger. As Nigella might say, 'this spice-laden squidginess' is the ultimate comfort food.
I've been a little hung up on this one muffin recipe lately, and so I thought that the best thing I could do with it was to pay-it-forward, because it's the kind of baked good that can change one's mood. This muffin is like Robert Pattison to a Twilight fan.
I found it by doing a random search for 'pear' and 'ginger,' since there was a time last year that I had a little too much of both. Not surprisingly, the recipe belongs to Nigella Lawson.
With the body of Venus, magic hands, an accent both engaging and comforting, and a proclivity for using terms such as 'tooth-achiness', 'palate-cleaving' and 'marshmallow-gungy,' Lawson has to be one of the most interesting and fun 'gastro-compendiums made flesh' around. All those other TV chefs look and sound entirely bland by comparison.
I especially like when when she bakes some exorbitantly rich cake, and the camera shows her replendent in her robe coming back for seconds after everyone else is asleep.
Here is the basic recipe, and then I'll tell you some of my inadvertent tweaks:
Nigella's Pear and Ginger Muffins
-Preheat oven to 400 degrees
-In a large bowl, mix 1 3/4 cup flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 3/4 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and 1 tsp ground ginger
-In another bowl, mix 2/3 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 1 tbs honey, and 2 large eggs
-Fold into the dry ingredients
-Gently fold in 1 1/2 cups peeled pear, chopped into 1/4 inch dice
-Divide batter among 12 muffin cups, and sprinkle 1/2 tsp brown sugar over muffin tops
-Bake for 20 minutes, cool for a few minutes in the pan and then remove to wire rack.
You're welcome.
Okay, so last weekend when I went to bake these, I found I was completely out of vegetable oil. I was afraid to substitute olive oil because I thought the taste might come out a bit odd. So I went ahead and melted a stick of butter and used that in place of the veggie oil. Not surprisingly, the muffins were insanely good. A bit of extra saturated fat has that effect. And sometimes I feel like I can taste the vegetable oil in baked goods, so the lack of this taste was appreciated.
I've also used fresh ginger. But since I'm not sure of how much fresh ginger equals ground ginger, I just kind of winged it and think I added a couple of tablespoons. One of the things about grocery store ginger is that it almost always is quite stringy, so there were the occasional ginger strings in the finished product. It didn't, however, take away one bit from the luscious muffin and its ability to make my mouth really really happy.
I've also used low-fat sour cream, because I honestly can't tell the difference between the low and full-fat varieties anyway, but it struck me as hysterical melting an entire stick of butter and then using low-fat sour cream as some kind of lightening agent. Kind of like the diet coke with a Big Mac value meal.
Also, I would have taken a picture, because they're pretty with their brown-sugar crackled tops, but the last batch I made I took out of the oven right before going jogging, without removing them from the muffin tin, and the sides got a bit dark.
Which is just like me. There is at least one line from every recipe I try that I screw up.
But nevermind, because the taste is still divine, with the soft-baked pears and pungent ginger. As Nigella might say, 'this spice-laden squidginess' is the ultimate comfort food.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Untitled
Last night, I was afflicted by the sort of physical exhaustion that typically precedes a migraine attack. I couldn't finish my treadmill workout, and stopped a mere 10 minutes from the end, just as the Kings of Leon were singing about a storm bubbling up from the sea.
How prescient was that group of sex-soaked Southern rockers.
I ended up falling asleep during 30 Rock, just as the attention-seeking Jenna was lamenting that she'd have to share her birthday party with Tracy, trying unsuccesfully to get the focus back on her by donning a back brace and faking injury.
And not surprisingly, I woke several times in the night, the new but familiar pain piercing from my left eye through to the left temple.
When I stumbled downstairs this morning, I took my last Maxalt and popped a Fiorcet and made the coffee with much difficulty.
(Hannah, meanwhile, was rambling excitedly about buying lunch at school today. This will have been only the third time she's done it, mostly because school lunches are entirely devoid of any nutritional substance. The hot dog is bad enough, but it comes with a side of either Pop-Tart or fruit (and guess which most kids choose) and some kind of drink. Most kids choose chocolate milk, but Hannah was going on about how there is a new beverage, simply called 'Orange Drink,' and the 'drink' part of this is truly a clue as to how little good it will do the body ingesting it.
Still, it's only once in a great while, and then we can get back to the peanut butter on brown bread that she likes to complain about. And I love how excited this makes her, a temporary halt in the norm and the promise of sweet junk; the responsibility of carrying those 3 single bills with her, a big girl with money to spend.)
Usually when I have a migraine, I don't have the visual disturbances that can accompany the pain. But I found this morning, looking out the window in the dim morning light, that I couldn't see the host of birds swarming the feeder. If I turned my head all the way, so that both eyes focused, I could see them. But with just my left eye dominant, they were obscured by a white blur.
I like to watch the birds rummage on the winter ground, and conduct their dances around the feeders. The goldfinches are decidedly muted in color now, mostly a soft ochre. We have the sparrows and cardinals, tufted titmouses (titmice?), and the fun nuthatches, walking up and down the side of the dogwood with hurried energy and a strange grace. The other day we saw a red-bellied woodpecker, whose name we didn't believe since its head was the reddest part of its body.
The robins are back now, too, picking the berries out of the holly-type tree we have growing next to our back steps.
In this blurred out vision, with birds that I know are there but can't make out the way I'd like, I can still sense Spring. On the periphery of this white hole, I see the melting snow, the water seeping into the ground and making a muddy mess perfect for the girls to stomp through in their rain boots. It's white surrounded by white.
It takes 15 minutes for the medicine to kick in, to kill the pain that was previously killing me. Whether it lasts or not is unknown, but I am grateful for the reprieve.
As we walk to the car to bring Hannah to school, she is still excited about her upcoming lunch purchase. She skips excitedly out to the car, yelling "I love the way Spring smells!"
She is infectious. My enthusiasm for the day, though muted by medication and a desire to sleep, gets a bit bigger just by being near her.
When we pass, the birds take off from their perches, waiting for us to disappear before they return to feast again.
How prescient was that group of sex-soaked Southern rockers.
I ended up falling asleep during 30 Rock, just as the attention-seeking Jenna was lamenting that she'd have to share her birthday party with Tracy, trying unsuccesfully to get the focus back on her by donning a back brace and faking injury.
And not surprisingly, I woke several times in the night, the new but familiar pain piercing from my left eye through to the left temple.
When I stumbled downstairs this morning, I took my last Maxalt and popped a Fiorcet and made the coffee with much difficulty.
(Hannah, meanwhile, was rambling excitedly about buying lunch at school today. This will have been only the third time she's done it, mostly because school lunches are entirely devoid of any nutritional substance. The hot dog is bad enough, but it comes with a side of either Pop-Tart or fruit (and guess which most kids choose) and some kind of drink. Most kids choose chocolate milk, but Hannah was going on about how there is a new beverage, simply called 'Orange Drink,' and the 'drink' part of this is truly a clue as to how little good it will do the body ingesting it.
Still, it's only once in a great while, and then we can get back to the peanut butter on brown bread that she likes to complain about. And I love how excited this makes her, a temporary halt in the norm and the promise of sweet junk; the responsibility of carrying those 3 single bills with her, a big girl with money to spend.)
Usually when I have a migraine, I don't have the visual disturbances that can accompany the pain. But I found this morning, looking out the window in the dim morning light, that I couldn't see the host of birds swarming the feeder. If I turned my head all the way, so that both eyes focused, I could see them. But with just my left eye dominant, they were obscured by a white blur.
I like to watch the birds rummage on the winter ground, and conduct their dances around the feeders. The goldfinches are decidedly muted in color now, mostly a soft ochre. We have the sparrows and cardinals, tufted titmouses (titmice?), and the fun nuthatches, walking up and down the side of the dogwood with hurried energy and a strange grace. The other day we saw a red-bellied woodpecker, whose name we didn't believe since its head was the reddest part of its body.
The robins are back now, too, picking the berries out of the holly-type tree we have growing next to our back steps.
In this blurred out vision, with birds that I know are there but can't make out the way I'd like, I can still sense Spring. On the periphery of this white hole, I see the melting snow, the water seeping into the ground and making a muddy mess perfect for the girls to stomp through in their rain boots. It's white surrounded by white.
It takes 15 minutes for the medicine to kick in, to kill the pain that was previously killing me. Whether it lasts or not is unknown, but I am grateful for the reprieve.
As we walk to the car to bring Hannah to school, she is still excited about her upcoming lunch purchase. She skips excitedly out to the car, yelling "I love the way Spring smells!"
She is infectious. My enthusiasm for the day, though muted by medication and a desire to sleep, gets a bit bigger just by being near her.
When we pass, the birds take off from their perches, waiting for us to disappear before they return to feast again.
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