Wordjanitor Strikes Again

I did something different this year in preparation for Mother's Day. I asked for something. Specifically, I made a breakfast-menu request. And so, my day started with amazing cornmeal blueberry pancakes. TG (being TG) did more than standard recipe-research due diligence and came up with a very tasty formula. The best part of Mother's Day is that I get to be a mom to this amazing, intelligent, goofy ten-year-old sidekick. He's the kid who takes a shirt, tie, and jacket to his grandpa's house in the woods so he can dress up for my birthday dinner and Mother's Day breakfast. And he's the kid who surprises me with the facts he has amassed in his curious mind. He asked whether I knew what Thomas Edison had invented. Thinking the answer was obvious, I went straight to "incandescent lightbulb." True enough, but he was referring to the electric chair . Yeah, I didn't know that. And I gladly admitted it. Edison had more than 1000 patents, why...

Notes from stops along the way on the Central Coast... Watsonville Food: Gizdich Ranch  Moss Landing Food: Phil's Fish Market Santa Cruz Relax: Well Within Check out the Friday Funday Central Coast Day Trip here. Watsonville Gizdich Ranch 55 Peckham Road, Watsonville, California It's all about the pie. Yes, they have sandwiches, but how on earth do you expect me to focus on some bread with stuff in the middle of it when the air is aroma-fied with apples, cinnamon, ollalieberries, and other good things? Here's a hint. Don't expect me to focus on the sandwich or even remember it exists.  The first time I went, I had straight-up apple pie. These things are so loaded with apples that the crust is probably eight inches high at the middle, the crown, the summit, the apex of pie-ness. Most recently, I had the apple-ollalieberry pie. You can do the whole a la mode thing, but I don't like to dilute my pie with unnecessary dairy produc...

Destination: Stillwater Cove, Fort Ross, California Mileage: Approx. 340 miles, round trip Food & lodging notes here...  Should we ride 150 miles to go camping for one night? Let's do the math: Good people, good roads, good food, good laughs? That's 25 miles for each good. The math works for me, even without one of TG's grand spreadsheets. Load up, let's go. And really, by the time we got home, there were far more goods than that, so the goods per mile just kept getting better. TG wrassled with MapQuest and the Garmin zumo to map the route. It should be as easy as creating the map hiding behind that little link right below this paragraph, but... Oh well. I wanted to say, "Head North, Young Man," but you know how boys are with their electronic devices. Day 1: 2+2 Wheels Up the Coast Route: Silicon Valley to Fort Ross via CA-1 150 miles

It's tax season. And as they say, in this country anyway, the only sure things are death and taxes. But according to some smart folks in Sweden, maybe not. Pudding might solve one of those little problems. No, no really! I came across an interesting article. The all-too-generic headline, " Calcium Linked to Longer Life " is essentially the "Consumable of Some Sort Linked to Longer/Shorter Life" article du jour. In this case, my attention was suckered by the deck (that stuff under the headline designed to drag you into the rest of the article): People who get the most calcium in their diet reduce their risk of death by 25 percent, according to new research on calcium and health. Wha? Huh? Really? Bring it on! I clicked through to the article. It gets better. The editors provide immediately accessible advice under a nice little "what you can do" heading: "Boost your calcium intake by eating healthy food sources like low-fat dairy, spinach, kale…...

I realized my invisible superwoman cape isn't working. I sent it to the wrong dry cleaners and they used some sort of solvent that neutralized my superpowers. That's what I get for trying to save a buck.  OK, honestly, I was never quite comfortable in the tights either. The stilettos gave me blisters. And the leotard always gave me a wedgie , which made the cape useful until I remembered it was invisible.  Why is it that superheroes always have such ridiculous wardrobes ? If they're superheros, wouldn't they have the special powers to save the world in jeans, a t-shirt, and flip-flops?  My ego has always tried to convince me that I could simultaneously climb Everest, juggle flaming chainsaws , work full time, keep up with @, and figure out how to live without snobbishly good dark chocolate as the fourth food group (the others were fruits & veggies, tofu, and whole grains).  Hmmm... There might be a wee bit of exaggeration there. But it sure sounds like a fairly...

Dead tuna do tell tales. As one friend describes it, "your stomach muscles just up and decided they didn't want to work for a living anymore." He continued on a short rant about the French and labor unions, but after 20+ years of hearing his redneck raving, I'm nearly immune. His pre-rant phrasing pretty much covers it. The medical definition of such activity, or lack of activity, is gastroparesis . (And no, it's not caused by stress!) Thanks to my lovely radioactive tuna sandwich experiment , not to be confused with Ken Kesey's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (which was waaaaaay more colorful , man), I discovered that although my brain spins quickly, my gut does not. Whee! Having answers I don't like is better than having no answers at all. After a several months of mystery starting last fall, increasing discomfort, and entertaining tests, it's now onward into the breach of figuring out the next step. OK now, this makes sense.   That makes sens...

"Eat the whole thing, but be careful not to touch the filling," he said very seriously as he handed me a grayish tuna sandwich. Huh? OK, don't touch the tuna, just consume it? That's comforting. As was the fact he was wearing bright blue gloves. You don't want the stuff on your hands, just in your gut? Hmm... My breakfast was in fact a standard-issue hospital cafeteria tuna sandwich augmented with a lovely condiment of radioactive isotopes. Mmmmmm? Or Hmmmmm... Next task, remain absolutely still on a table for two full hours while nice people in lab coats use a screen to track the glow as makes its way through my digestive tract. I have an oddly convenient ability to fall asleep during medical tests. I actually slept through most of this one, until the last 30 minutes where I was fairly convinced my upper arms were going to catch fire from the position into which they'd been forced. (Good news, no actual scorching.) Yesterday's little snack-and-glow was t...

Queen of domestic culinary skills that I am... insert laugh track here ... I've never actually made a peach pie. Before today. And now I've made three. And I still have plans for cobblers, strudels, and other such previously unprepared pastrified peachification projects. I'm on a mission. My dad's peach trees went more than a little over-the-top this year. Despite thinning the fruit earlier in the season, he has three trees that quite possibly define the term prolific. The fruit on two of the trees is so ripe it can't be transported further than to the house. So, I've picked, peeled, pitted, and pared pounds and pounds of peaches. After pie #1 I was already bored with plain ol' peaches, so I've been experimenting... Muah ha ha ha... So far no explosions due to chemical reactions between grated ginger, peaches, and pecans. Tomorrow... The Strudel Experiment...

In a work-related e-mail no less!!! Found a ghiradelli lava cake mix in my panty last night. Made it. Have pics for you. :-) I think I've found the true meaning of ROFLMAO

I have my second sleep study tonight. Last week I put on my jammies, gathered up my blanket and pillow, drove across town and they wired me up like a giant lab rat with: electrodes to measure my brain waves and stages of sleep (there are 3 plus REM) movement sensors on my legs, arms, and parts of my face a heart rate monitor belts on my chest and tummy to measure movement when I inhale and exhale a microphone a nasal cannula a second measuring something or other under my nose an oxygen saturation probe on my finger And then they told me to sleep. Oh, and don't forget the camera on the wall with the circle of little red lights that you can see even without your glasses. All night. They monitor and watch, collect a ton of data, wake you up at 6a, rip off all the wires, tell you basically nothing, and send you on your way. I did sleep off and on. I woke up whenever there was noise in the hallway -- usually to hear someone tell the guy in the room across the hall to roll over or to ch...

My (week)daily lunch travels usually take me to the building 3 cafeteria where I fill a compostable plastic container with whole grains, edamame, cucumber, tomatoes, tofu, sunflower seeds, and a bit of soy dressing. There's some variation depending on the veggie selection, but I pretty much have the same thing every day. Yes, because I actually like it. No, really. Every once in awhile, a coworker will catch me eating something from the animal kingdom and react with some surprise that I consume things that used to moo, bok, swim, or otherwise require chasing to catch for use as food. So my absolute glee (yes GLEE) upon receiving an Armadillo Willy's e-mail titled "The Legend Returns" and announcing the return of the Linda's Drive-In Parisian Burger could be quite a shock to some. E-mail marketing sometimes hits the mark. Even to a jaded web marketing chick. You see, the Parisian Burger isn't just a burger. It's nostalgia. It's the one burger place I e...

Once upon a time there was a worker named @. He was very good at working hard and had lots of buddies who liked to help him. One day, @ decided he was a little bit hungry, so he decided to build some dessert. First, @ used an excavator to dig a big bowl in the ground. Then he drove his tractor to the warehouse and used the scoop to get some chocolate chip cookies. He carefully brought them back to the jobsite and put them in the bowl. Blue Doggie drove his backhoe to the ice cream factory and got a big scoop of vanilla ice cream, brought it back, and put it on the cookies. Then he went back for a big scoop of chocolate ice cream. Then he went back again for a big scoop of strawberry ice cream. Engineer Doggie drove the tanker truck to the chocolate sauce station and filled it up the whole tank with chocolate sauce. He drove back to the jobsite and used the hose to put the chocolate sauce on top of the ice cream. Kermit got his cement mixer and went to the dairy for some fresh milk and ...

Mock my cheese allergy all you want. his would never happen at Chuck E. Tofu. Two moms allegedly brawl at Chuck E. Cheese in Massachusetts By Associated Press NATICK, Mass. - A child's birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant was cut short after a fight broke out between two mothers. Natick police said the mom of the 9-year-old birthday boy apparently became enraged because the other woman's son was "hogging" an arcade game. Sgt. Paul Thompson said Catherine Aliaga, 38, and Tarsha Williams, 33, both of Boston, would be summoned into court to answer charges of simple assault and battery stemming from the scuffle. Thompson told the MetroWest Daily News that police received a number of 911 calls about the fight Saturday night. He said what started as a birthday celebration turned into a "birthday melee."

Now, in the standard lexicon of things we've made up that don't really make sense, "donut holes" is a good one. They're not holes, they're the anti-holes, really. But @, well, he knows his stuff. X bought @ some of those dangerously, delightfully evil mini Hostess donuts the other day. (Getting @ to eat is an ongoing challenge, so if he professes interest in something, it's all good.) @ wanted donuts for breakfast, so I put two in a bowl for him. (Wrong bowl. Apparently, you can't eat donuts out of a Scooby Doo bowl. A Thomas the Tank Engine bowl, yes. Scooby? It's just wrong. Who knew?!) When he was finished he brought the bowl to me. "Mama, I don't like donut holes." I looked. He had carefully eaten around the circumference of the donut, leaving the center section around the actual hole intact. He did the same thing three days in a row. Systematically. Obviously, this kid does not like donut holes. Ah, but I do! Yum. I picked up @ ...

So... I go to the cafeteria today and wait in line to get a nice healthy stir fry of tofu and vegetables. Then, I hike all the way: through the maze of the parking lot across the street (over the light-rail tracks) back to my building up the stairs to my desk There, I open my lunch, take a bite, and then... ARE THOSE LEGS? Dammit, those ARE legs. Freakin' cricket in my lunch. I know crickets are supposed to be lucky, but are they still lucky if they're in a stir fry? How lucky can the cricket be if it ended up in a wok? And is lucky to eat a cricket? Or unlucky to eat an unlucky cricket? Or neither, because once it's been fried, it's just a fried bug? How did my lunch turn into a philosophical dilemma? I didn't eat the cricket. Sparky gave me some carrots. Janet gave me some soup. I considered putting the cricket in interoffice mail to the cafeteria manager, but left him voice mail instead to ask if they charged extra for crickets. He called back to assure me it was...