Greetings from the edge

Well, here we are, teetering between one year and the next, swearing to ourselves and anyone who'll listen that this year, this time, somehow, we're going to get it right. Go join the gym. Really use the membership this time. Quit smoking. Eat better. Go to the dentist. Get that new colonoscopy everyone is raving about. Whatever, people all over the world are making resolutions.

I don't like them; they always seemed so all-or-nothing to me, hold to that promise or the whole year is a bust. I try to make recommendations. what-abouts. Suggestions.

So. This year I suggest that I try to be the mother I wanted. Everyone, no matter how wonderful their mother is/was, wanted something from her that they didn't get. So every day, just for that day, I am going to try and be that person. If I don't pull it off with quite the flair I had hoped (or if I didn't pull it off at all), there's always the next day.

I was thinking that I would try making something I've never made, and selling it. I have no idea what. I have no idea to whom. But it sounds like it could be fun, so that's nice.

I may try the NaNoWriMo again. I wrote more this year than I ever have before, and I consider that quite the success. Maybe next time I can write even more than I already have. Gotta have goals.

My main suggestion, though, is to concentrate on home and everyone in it. Now that Dude is becoming more active and aware of what's going on, I realize that I haven't spent as much time -- intensive one-on-one time -- with him as I did with Perp at this age. Of course it would have been hard to, since she was the only baby in the house and he's got a lot of competition. But she's going to start going to preschool three days a week and I intend to make it a priority to spend most of that time with Dude. He clearly needs more together time than she ever did. I'll do my best.

Husband has also suffered this year, and my strongest suggestion is to remedy that: Date Night. Regularly. Maybe even a Child-free Night. Woohoo. Movies. In a theater. New movies, like, before they go to DVD or cable.

AndIhopetobeabetterpersonandallthatshitbutreallywhoamIkidding.

Happy new year. I humbly suggest you have a good one.

Dear Blogger

What the fuck, dude? I have pictures. You have an "add image" option. Howzabout you let me, you know, use it?

Johnny Drama: VICTORY!!!

Ahhh. Please note the snow outside in one of the photos. Great baking weather, I say. Thanks, Ma Nature!

I just happen to have some pâté in the fridge, which I plan on schmearing all over a slice of tasty, tasty sourdough. Mmm. Pâté. Mmmm, sourdough. Eeew, snow.







I nearly ate it coming home from Dude's doctor appointment today. We live several miles off of a small highway, and when I turned off the main road onto the county road, I slid sideways toward some very nervous people going in the opposite direction. Let me add that I had slowed waaaay down and even downshifted to second, but there was just no way that corner and I were going to see things eye to eye. Yay me, though, I steered my way out of it and didn't really get much closer than about 8 feet from the nearest car. Still, more excitement than I really signed up for today. I wish I'd been able to see the other drivers' faces.

People around here--well, probably all over the country but I notice it more here because, well, I live here--drive like TOTAL ASSHOLES. It's compounded when we have weather (Midwesternese for rain, snow, sleet, heat, whatever isn't generally sunny and warm). The county road hadn't yet been plowed when I left this morning, and only part of it had when I came back (notably, the spot where I slid out had not been plowed or salted yet). That doesn't stop hotrod dickweeds from hauling ass up and down the main and side roads like they own the place. Of course, they have FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE, so they can do whatever they want, nothing's gonna happen to them.

Kids, the only thing four-wheel drive is good for is getting you stuck in a deeper ditch. You drive fast in snow or rain and sooner or later you're gonna to bite it. On a good day, you'll only harm yourself. On a bad one ... well. I hope I'm not around to see it.

In a couple of weeks, if the snow sticks around, people will access their snowy-weather driving files and things should get better. In the meantime, I'm going to assume that everyone is out to get me.

This shouldn't be funny

And yet. Bwahaha!

In which Husband's bounty is mine as well

Under the tree on Monday was season two of Arrested Development which may well be the funniest show of ever. Ever. How often do you get to watch a show with characters called "Mrs. Fingerbottom"? Where the accidentally photographed testicles of one chracter are mistaken for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass distruction? Never. Not unless you watch season two of Arrested Development.

Other choice tidbits, which are probably only funny if you've seen the show but I list them nevertheless because, hey, it fills space:
"Tea for dong!"

"You're losing blood, aren't you?"
"Probably, my socks are wet."

"Who'd like a banger in the mouth?"

Yesterday I stopped at the gas station to fill Hal up ($2.39/gallon) and there was a woman in line ahead of me. It took me a while to figure out that she was a woman because she wore a jacket, skirt, and purse all of camouflage fabric. The disembodied head bobbing its way into the store took me by surprise. That material really does hide everything it covers. No wonder the deer can't win.

Local boy makes good

I just love stories like this. What an amazing thing to do for someone.

Are you a registered organ donor? Does your family know that? Write it down. Tell your family. File an advanced directive with your doctor and make sure your family has a copy; designate medical power of attorney with someone who will abide by your wishes and won't let others override them. Me? Take whatever you can use and torch the rest. Sprinkle that in a hole and plant a blueberry bush. Every year, comment on how great grandma tastes this season. Bake a pie and think of me.

'Just good problems'
Brandon Stahl Duluth News Tribune
Published Sunday, December 24, 2006

When Lance spied a teddy bear sitting on a recliner, the 16-month-old made a crawling break for it and happily hugged the toy. Suddenly, his sister, Hana, wanted it, too.

“That’s my bear,” the 3-year-old said.

The two tugged for it, but big sister eventually won, pulling it out of Lance’s arms, toppling him to the floor. He cried — but the only thing that seemed to be hurt was his feelings.

“See?” said their mom, Stephanie, as she picked Lance up off the floor. “We still have problems. Just good problems.”

It’s been mostly good problems since July 20, when Lance received a kidney from his father, Eric, in an operation that reversed the family’s lives. No more marathon dialysis sessions for five or six days a week. No more medical crises sending the family into fear their son might not make it through the day. No more lives being put on hold and the family being split apart.

“We can start over,” Stephanie said. “We can spend Christmas together.”

They couldn’t do that last year. On Christmas at about 3 a.m. Lance spiked a fever and his family rushed him to the hospital, where he and his mom spent the day. Meanwhile, Eric was home with Hana.

“I didn’t really get to see my daughter that day,” Stephanie said.

MOVING OUT OF DULUTH

That was a typical day for the family.

Shortly after Lance was born on Aug. 9, 2005, he was diagnosed with what’s known as “prune belly syndrome,” a rare disorder that affects only one in every 30,000 live births. It left Lance with a deformed and disfigured abdomen and severe kidney problems. He would need 11 surgeries over nine months, including removal of his kidneys and ureters after they failed.

Most of Lance’s life was spent in a hospital applying temporary fixes to his health until he could grow big enough to get a transplant. He would get better only to suffer sudden downturns.

Last year, the four had been living at the Ronald McDonald House for a few weeks before Christmas so they could be close to Minnesota Children’s Hospital, Fairview, where Lance was being treated for kidney failure.

Eric and Stephanie had to quit their jobs to care full-time for their son. Even after selling many of their possessions, bills kept piling up. Eventually they had to sell their house.

“We loved Duluth,” Eric said. “But we just couldn’t stay there.”

They spent months in the Ronald McDonald House waiting for the transplant, which was delayed twice after blood tests came back with problems.

Finally, more than two months after surgery had been originally scheduled, Lance’s blood tests came back normal and the transplant was a go. After a six-hour surgery, the operating physician pronounced the transplant a success.

“Your son has a beautiful kidney,” the doctor told Stephanie and her family.

‘IT’S A START’

Once the transplant took place, they were finally able to get their lives in order.

What they first noticed was new life in Lance. Before the transplant, at 11 months he lacked energy, could barely sit up by himself and needed to be fed through a tube.

About a month after surgery, Stephanie said, it seemed like Lance was having milestones “once a week.” He’s now crawling, talking, standing up, feeding himself and having tug-of-wars with his sister. The only physical sign remaining that he was so sick is a feeding tube in his nose. Even that, the parents say, should be gone in the next two months.

“He no longer looks like a baby,” Stephanie said. “He looks like a little boy.”

Dr. Elizabeth Ingulli, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota and nephrologist who is assisting with Lance’s care, said a kidney transplant for a baby is extremely rare. And for those who get them, the first six to 12 months are the most critical to see if the babies will reject their new organs, she said.

So far, Ingulli said, Lance seems to show almost no signs of rejection. “His progress has been excellent,” she said.

The Wittleders moved out of the Ronald McDonald house in late August into a two-bedroom duplex rental. The family says that it’s not ideal — it’s small and doesn’t have a yard — “but it’s a start,” Eric said.

Eric and Stephanie have found full-time jobs: Stephanie as a project manager for a direct marketing company, and Eric working for a bike manufacturer in Minneapolis. He often rides his bike the 12 miles there.

The surgery was physically painful for Eric at first, he said, but now the only lasting effect of losing his kidney is an occasional pain in his abdomen.

There are still concerns with Lance, namely making sure his body doesn’t reject his kidney. And because his immune system has been suppressed by the anti-rejection drugs he has to take, a minor malady such as a cold can become a major problem. He spent a night in the hospital on Dec. 17, his first in several months, after having a bad cough.

“That was a quick reminder of how good we’ve had it,” Stephanie said.

Stephanie and Eric have to juggle their jobs while getting Lance to physical therapy, occupational and speech therapy.

But those problems pale in comparison to the ones they had a year ago, they said.

“Our son doesn’t have to live his life in a hospital,” Eric said. “He can be at home with his family for the first time for Christmas.”

Stephanie added, “I feel such a sense of joy. It’s so good to have the family together.”

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=31605§ion=News

Merry Christmas everybody!

It's her favorite day of the year!

Dude overboard!

... yeaaaah, so I guess we've got a climber. Husband went in to get Dude for his early (now 3:30 a.m.) feeding and couldn't quite figure out why the door was so hard to open. Um. Probably the baby lying in front of it. I guess we have to put the side rail all the way up now. Perp never ever tried climbing out of the crib. In fact, she's only recently started trying to climb into it.

We have spent the last couple of days gearing up for Christmas, unlike, say, 90% of the rest of the country, who are heathens and prepare weeks ahead of time. Explaining Santa Claus and Christmas to a child is hard. I don't remember ever being told about it, it was always just there. But clearly I was told, right, because I was an only child and I knew all about Santa. So. How to explain fat man sneaking into house to eat snax and deposit gifts? And reindeer. Who fly. It's a little weird. Do you make a point of explaining all this or just sort of let them absorb it by osmosis? She's not around a lot of other little kids at this point so it was us or nothing. Maybe one crazyass day of giftiness will drive the point home and we can move on.

Silent Saturday

You need to get up close for this one

Crabbiness

Do you suppose the reason I was so inalterably cranky yesterday was because I managed to space my meds two days in a row? Gosh. I went to bed at 6:30 and even though I knew I hadn't posted, I was in such a foul mood that all I wanted to do was crouch under the covers and gnaw on a bloody bone. I made do with a book. (a book!!)

I churned out a wretched loaf today, and a nice one. Same batch of dough. WTH? So one more tonight for dinner tomorrow.

My question for the day: You have a robot. It cleans your house, does the dishes, menial labor, like. Do you say "please" and "thank you" to it? I don't mean a robot like a Roomba, I mean one with more intelligence and the ability to respond to questions or requests. Maybe something with the intelligence of a 2-3 year old. But not the tantrums, thankyouverymuch. Are you kind to it, or is it simply an appliance, albeit an smart, interactive one?


This post brought to you by Freaky Dreams, Incorporated, apparently.

Special for Ben

3 lb. fresh mushrooms
2 oz dried wild mushrooms
1/2 c madeira or dry sherry
1 stick butter
1 c onion finely chopped
1 t dried thyme
pinch of grated nutmeg
salt, freshly ground black pepper
1/2 c finely chopped parsley.

Pour the madeira over the dried mushrooms and let them soak until soft, probably around an hour.

Clean the fresh mushrooms and remove the woody stems. Mince them (I use the food processor, so much faster).

Melt butter and add onions, cook over low until tender, about 25 minutes. Then add fresh mushrooms to the pan and increase heat, stirring, until they give up their juices, around 5 minutes. Add the dried spices to taste.

While the mushrooms cook, transfer the dried mushrooms to the food processor and carefully pour the madeira over them, being careful to not add the sediment at the bottom (sometimes it has sand, ew). Puress until smooth and add to the rest of the mushrooms in the pan. Reduce heat and cook until the duxelles is reduced and thickened, about 40 mintues. Near the end, it dries up fast, so stir constantly to prevent scorching.

THEN:
Heat stock (chicken or veg). Add a good cup of duxelles for every 32 oz of broth. Thicken with roux or cornstarch (use milk to blend either thickener). Add 1/2 cream to the whole shebang, and s&p to taste. If you're feeling especially frisky, poach a chicken chest or two and add them to the soup in largish chunks.

That's it!


Ooh, special WI weather bulletin: snow and freezing rain pushing into our area! Maybe we get a white Christmas after all.

Someone remind me that I have got to go see this before it is removed. How cool!

Well, then

I was going to post some Very Amusing photos but Blogger is unable to process my request. I have no idea if I'll be able to submit a simple text post, but my irrepressible and sunny outlook on life forces me to give it the old college try. So. Well. Here we are.

Why do my cakes sink in the middle? Also? Why do they take twice as long to cook as the recipe says, then *still* not be done in the center (perhaps why it's falling, dumbass)? There are a couple really neat looking books on kitchen chemistry that I feel I simply must purchase but I'm forever forgetting when I surf @mazon. One of these days. I didn't do well in chemistry. I never took it in high school (nor physics, civics or any other -ics classes for that matter). When I enrolled at the university, I had to take a chemistry placement exam and I'm fairly certain the computer wanted to send me back to 9th grade. I ended up in a class roughly the size of Sacramento, with one professor and about 16 TAs. The professor invariably wore a lab coat, a black turtleneck, and dark pants. It was rumored he lived in the dorms.

I didn't bother getting out of bed the day of the final. When I took the class a second time, I managed to pull a D. Thereby ending my dreams of getting into vet school. Probably for the best, I'd want to run over every client who brought an animal in to be euthanized because they couldn't be bothered to train or care for the poor thing. People suck. That's my irrepresible sunny side talking, by the way. Ain't she grand?

Does anyone else have the memory of a gnat? Seriously? If I'm at the store and I realize I need to buy X but it's not on the list, I must proceed to X's aisle immediately, do not pass go, do not collect $200, and for the love of the little baby Jesus, DO NOT GET DISTRACTED BY ANYTHING ELSE. Because then? I forget what I wanted to buy that I forgot to write down, and then I remember on the way home but it's too late and I forget to write it down (again) and the cycle, she continues.

It didn't used to be this bad. Yes, I was distractable, not like someone with ADD but it wasn't hard to send me off --hey, a kitty!

GO to SLEEP

child. Perp slept for like 3.5 - 4 hours today so of course she's stil wide awake I have decided Dude will compensate by sleeping through the night.

I live in fear that Dude will get a slew of toys for Xmas and we'll have to find a place to stuff them. Is it wrong of me to just regift them since, hey, we have all that stuff already?

I know I'm boring. Too tired. Must sleep DAMMIT I stayed up to fricking late again.

PS, Hey, bell ringer: 90% of the people walking past you ARE NOT DEAF. Ease it the hell up.

Before I forget

Dude climbed onto Perp's bed today. By himself. Then he tried to hurl himself to his death but I stopped him. Silly boy.

Carving out time

I find myself in a quandry. I have little time to read these days (what? what the hell are you doing with your time? Put the bonbons down and pick up a book!), so I tend to be pretty particular about what I do read. I don't have as many lazy days that I can devote to munching through a particularly juicy tome, or at least I'm not willing to suspend other activities to do more reading. I suppose it is a matter of priorities. Right now mine lean more toward sleep than literature.

So I find myself doing dribs and drabs, in the car today while Husband did the groceries; during an oil change; just before bed because no matter what I'm reading, at 9 or 10 I react to it like it's a statistics textbook.

I have the disturbing habit of reading many books at one time. Right now my bedside table is supporting a manual on Photoshop Elements, Eldest by Christopher Paolini, Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, and an ever-growing pile of New Yorker magazines. It will take me forever to read them, witness the magazines. Every week we get a new one. Every two weeks or so I manage to sift through one. You can see where this will lead, I'm sure.
Chaos! On my bedside table!

Of course I could be reading right now if I had any sense. I suppose I am, just not in book form. But I wish I could just dedicate a day, a dark, rainy day, to reading a good book. I'd be alone in the house, with a cup of hot tea, some snacks, my cozy slippers. Perhaps I would take a nap in the middle of the day, then fall back into my book as evening came.

I know I'll have the time again. It's just hard to see that far ahead. It seems like the big things keep getting in the way of the little things. Or maybe it's the other way around; the little things do tend to get into trouble on a regular basis.

Eeeeeee! coli!!!!!!

Is anyone else reminded of the Bagwan rashneesh salad bar plan, here? Remember them? They spiked salad bars in Oregon with salmonella in an attempt to sway an election in their favor? (what?!)

Anyway, all these E. coli outbreaks in such short order made me think of good old Bagwan. Because seriously, when is the last time you heard of multiple outbreaks coming oneaftertheother like this?

My God, I've become a conspiracy theorist. I need chocolate.

Do I get a Christmas party pass?

I really think it's in order, here.

A sad day for comedy

Peter Boyle has died.

More here.

This just in!

The word of the year! as if you had any doubt.

Ah, but then I remembered

and posted before midnight. Because seriously? If I spaced out this early? You'd just have to hunt me down and shoot me.

I am Organizing Things. Photos, music, files, music files, whatever. All in a-soon-to-be-successful attempt to avoid sleeping because hey, Dude's just going to wake up at midnight anyway and what's the point of two hours' sleep, really? Really.

I'm deleting all the duplicate songs in iTunes (WHY can't they make that easier?), adding new music (thereby fueling my mad crush on Jonathan Coulton, despite the face hair, ew, seriously dude, rethink that), and wondering why I didn't know about John Hodgman before he was on The Daily Show (which I haven't watched in ages, I therefore hang my head in shame).

I know I'm missing out on some Very Funny People. Who are they? That's one of the things about having kids: you're too goddamned tired to read or watch shows that introduce you to the things that will make you happy, so you have to just find your amusement at home. Luckily toddlers provide heaps and scads, but it ain't exactly brain food.

I need a brain snack. I'm reading Spin based on ... someone's recommendation ... and it really is very good. It's going to take me a week of Sundays to finish it but the library is nice about renewing so yay me. I'm also reading Eldest by that rich kid Paolini. Not bad; he's got a lot of potential, but seriously? Step away from the thesaurus. You've got a sickness. A disease. A condition of some sort. Ailment. Disorder, malady, deblity, decrepitude. You know, infirmity. Tell the story and let your editor deal with the rest, huh? Because really, there's a definite tinge of purple to the whole thing.