It's One of THOSE Days

Today has turned out to be one of "those" days.

One of "those" days when nothing quite seems to go right, yet it isn't so horrible that I can justify sitting down in the middle of the living room in a huff and crying.

It's tempting, but not justifiable.

Yet.

I had an appointment this morning at 10:30 with one of my legions of doctors, and since I typically show up in gym clothes (intending to proceed there immediately after my appointment), I decided I would dress nicely today: J. Crew blue-&-white striped shirt, skinny jeans, sandals, jewelry.

Casual, but nice.

My hair disagreed with my planned outfit, however.

I didn't wash it last night, and I didn't plan to wash it this morning, because if I wash it more frequently than every other day, my scalp mutinies, and I have to appease it with lots of Benadryl.

I hoped I'd be able to spray it with a little dry shampoo and get it to obey my will.

Nope.

By the time I realized my hair was a lost cause, it was too late to wash it and blow dry it and style it if I wanted to be able to eat breakfast before my appointment. I tried on a baseball cap with my planned outfit, but it just didn't work.


So the cute J. Crew shirt was jettisoned in favor of a chambray maxi dress, hoping I could pull it off with the baseball cap.

Chambray maxi dress had stains all down the front, that I apparently missed during the last laundry blitz, despite the fact that I specifically checked the dress for stains.

Finally, I tossed on one of my husband's cast-off T-shirts (which I've claimed, and wear more frequently than formerly due to my, um, well, my little belly. And love handles. Yay).

So now my doctor probably thinks I just run around in super-casual clothes all the time, rather than wearing more civilized, ladylike garb.

Sigh.

I ran a few errands, post-appointment, and came home. I took off my baseball cap.

My hair looked perfect.

Sigh.

Time to do laundry, bake, monitor the crock-pot, pay off the rest of the taxes the IRS claims we owe them, but that Turbo Tax said we didn't, and work on my Mystery Blog (with perfect hair).

Several items in the laundry needed stain treatment, so I applied Shout spray like a mad woman, and made sure to add OxyClean to the load, as well.

The load of lights finished washing, and I pulled out the clothes to toss them in the dryer, being sure to check each and every garment that was spot-treated before tossing it into the dryer.

All of the garments looked great, except - of course! - my favorite shirt, a white J. Crew button-down identical to today's intended blue-&-white shirt, which is the inspiration for my house-wife "uniform".

Of course, the spot on my favorite shirt - iced tea, a little tiny amount - was darker. And bigger.

What. THE. HELL?!?!?!?!?!?!

Lots of angry fuming, cursing, and stomping around the laundry room ensued (it's a huge laundry room, relative to the size of our house). I tried spraying more Shout on it and rubbing it with a white cloth.

No dice.

I rinsed out the Shout, and poured liquid OxyClean on it, waited 15 minutes, and then rubbed it with a white cloth.

Nada.

I poured a leeeeeeeeeeeeettle bit of full-strength bleach onto it and let it sit a few minutes, then rubbed it gently with a white cloth.

Nil.

So it's now sitting in a bucket filled with water and bleach, while I pray that my fairly expensive shirt isn't ruined forever.

I started working on my Mystery Blog, and was experimenting with different layouts/visual themes for the site. Unlike this personal blog, I want my Mystery Blog to be immaculately laid out and designed, because I intend to try to make money off of it, damn it.

I had one scheme I kind of liked, but wanted to look at another, so I wrote down what I thought was all the pertinent info, design-wise, and began monkeying with the font, text size, background color, etc.

At which point I realized I hadn't exactly written down all the pertinent info. Fortunately, I had taken a screen shot of the first design, so I was able to MacGuyver the information I needed, using PhotoShop and Apple Preview, but it was a tense few minutes, there, before I found the HTML color code converter I needed.

Sigh.

I also used a bit of Barkeeper's Friend to clean some rust of the washing machine interior (it's now going through its Clean Tub cycle to remove any residue), and I happened to get a tiny bit of the liquid cleanser on my thumb. No big deal. I rinsed it within 30 seconds.

But my skin doesn't care. My skin is angry. It is livid. Specifically, it is a livid shade of red, and it itches, because it's a primadonna.

And I haven't eaten lunch, yet.

So I'm going to go throw myself onto my sofa, now, with a slice of coconut-flour pound cake and a handful of cashews - which I'm calling "lunch" - and I'm going to watch Parks and Rec on Hulu while I finish my niece's Christmas stocking.

Because I'm obviously not meant to succeed at being a housewife today.

Unless that housewifeliness involves sabotaging my diet, because the pound cake turned out perfectly.

"Just Okay" is Sometimes Awesome

One of the things about being chronically ill is that I have a lot of bad days. There are a lot of days where I'm stuck in bed all day, feeling as if a vise is squeezing my temples, and the pain medicine I take only gives me so-so relief. And don't even get me started on migraine medications... Triptans are useless.

So when a day like today comes around, and I'm headache-free (knock on wood), and my neck is only hurting a little bit, it's an okay day.

Before this all started - AKA 6 years ago - if I woke up bloated and hormonal, with two or three zits sprouting on my forehead, it was disastrous.

Now, if I wake up bloated and hormonal, with a single zit on my forehead (being Paleo means I rarely break out, now), some slight back/neck pain, and sore legs, that's an okay day. It isn't great, but it's okay.

Okay has become, for me, the new great, is what I'm saying.

Okay is when I have the energy to go to the grocery store by myself, to put a roast in the crock pot, to clean out my car, and work on our taxes.

I need to take a moment to just process the fact that I'm filing an income tax return with a husband this year. Ack!

The thing about being "okay", though, is that I still have to pace myself. When I was huffing and puffing by the time I got to the car, my plans to take the groceries home and head out from the house again had to be cancelled. I realized I needed to rest, lest I work myself into a migraine, so my trip to Williams-Sonoma would just have to wait.

So, today was "okay", and I'm fine with that. I'm fine with the burning in my back muscles and neck from leaning over a pile of papers that desperately needed to be filed properly.

I'm fine with the fact that cleaning out my car left me winded - despite the fact that I sat down the whole time.

I'm fine with the sore legs, and the puffy stomach that's retaining water.

I'm fine with it all.

In fact, I'm more than fine: I'm great.

At Least I Will Eat Well, This Week

I no longer eat gluten. My migraines occur less frequently, my skin is improved (or, at least, it is improved between the days when I have dates, but always seems to unleash its full fury the day of a date; I think my skin wants me to stay single), and I lost 10 lbs. without changing my exercise regime a single solitary bit.

Awesome, right?

Yes, in most ways. And now, I'm going to sound like the world's whiniest person.

Because I have very little to wear in the way of "Date Clothes."

I didn't date for about two years, and now that I'm dating again, I'm rapidly discovering that the clothes I wore pre-gluten-free-diet are, for the most part, too big.

I know: P.O.O.R. B.A.B.Y. (and then you make a gagging motion when I turn my back. It's cool, I understand).

(Also, with my broad, square shoulders, some of the things I used to wear when I was bigger now make me look like a freaking Greenbay linebacker).

For the date with Mr. Ihavenoideawheremylifeisgoing, I bought a shirt from Banana Republic to wear that goes with my limited color palette wardrobe rule/theory, wore it with my great-grandmother's gorgeous gold pocket-watch/necklace, and felt fabulous.

Too bad the fabulousness was sort of wasted...

But I can't go out and buy something new to wear every time I have a date. I'm a grad student. I don't have that kind of cash.

So I'm trying to figure out what to wear for the two first-blind-dates I have this week (one of which will take place with the Man of My Dreams. Pardon me while I run around the apartment shrieking at the top of my lungs for a moment. Okay. I'm better, now). I want to look like I tried, but not like I tried too hard.

Complicating matters is Houston's weather: it was in the 50s a few days ago, and now it's in the 80s... during the day. The temperature drops to borderline-chilliness in the evenings. Do I wear winter/fall clothes, or do I chuck the Southern Lady conventions and wear whatever the heck the outside temperature suggests?

I DON'T KNOW!!!!!

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go have a panic attack in my closet, for the next 3 hours.

Taking Care of Business

I read a book about the diamond trade (called Precious Objects), and one of the men featured wore a necklace with the letters TCB on it, an acronym for Taking Care of Business.

I want one.

I've been taking care of A LOT of business, since my return to Houston. I've been organizing like a ninja (ninjas are very organized, in case you didn't know), unpacking bags from my 3-week sojourn in Dallas, and restocking the old pantry with everything I could possibly need for the upcoming semester.

I also notified the office of my apartment complex about a sizable rat inhabiting a hidey-hole in the breeze way.

But I digress.

By the end of the week, I plan to have made gluten-free bison meatloaf to freeze, spaghetti sauce, and spaghetti squash (also to freeze). My unusable/broken scanner will be taken to a recycling facility, and the faded clothes I no longer wear will find their way to a Goodwill drop-off station. My apartment will be sparkling clean, from top to bottom, and my allergies will probably be raging as a result.

I will start this semester off properly. I will be ready for anything the professors throw at me.

No, really. I will.

Proud to be Gluten Free!

So I've written about how my migraines became fewer and farther between since I kicked the gluten habit. It's been since July 30 that I had gluten, and honestly, I keep feeling better and better.

I've noticed a few other things, since I'm more aware of how foods make me feel:

1) Milk makes my nose stuffy. I'm going to assume I have a slight dairy allergy, as a result. For some reason, yogurt and heavy cream (used in my coffee) do not have the same effect on my nasal passages.

2) Milky Way candy bars contain gluten. You wouldn't think it, but they do. There's malted barley in the nougat. No more Milky Ways for me (except for the celestial one).

3) Candy in general makes me feel awful. One of the things that has happened since I kicked the grain-habit is that I'm not used to the insulin spike that follows carbohydrate ingestion. So if I hypothetically get carried away and eat an entire bag of Haribo Gold Bears in a ten minute stretch of time, my insulin levels hypothetically spike, and I hypothetically feel like utter crap immediately afterwards.

But that's all hypothetical. Ahem. Right.

4) I have more energy. Huh? But I thought carbs like those found in grains give me energy? Don't they? Well, no, not a good kind of energy. Yes, they provide an energy rush after ingestion, but that dies down after about an hour. A full pound of meat and half a dinner plate of vegetables, however, gives me enough juice to go for hours. Amazing. Even a salad of cold green beans, tomatoes, and mint alongside a pile of canned tuna leaves me feeling more satisfied and energized than a tuna sandwich would.

I won't go into all of the other things that being grain-free has done for me, like the wonders of grain-free digestion, but I will say this: if you feel bad all the time, try giving up grain.

It just might be the best thing you'll ever do for yourself.

Tonight, On Unsolved Mysteries...

Well, we present to you a mystery that was unsolved for a very long time. Unsolved for years, in fact.

The mystery of why a grammar- and book-obsessed female intern architect suffered debilitating migraine headaches multiple days of the week.

The culprit turned out to be a substance so evil, so devilish, that it worked its way into her everyday life without her realizing it was even there!

And worse, it had an ally that the young woman had come to depend upon daily.

The culprit? GLUTEN.

It's nefarious accomplice? SODA-POP.

Yes, seriously. I ate a bit of something glutenous every day, and when I felt bad, I tended to drink a Dr. Pepper (the carbonation cut down on the nausea). And then one day, I realized that I felt worse after the soda, that my nausea was worse, and that my nausea medicine wasn't doing Bo Diddly about it.

The next day (also migraineriffic) I cut out the soda. Within 24 hours, my 5-day-long migraine was GONE. And when it threatened to come back 4 days later, my migraine "rescue medicine" actually arrested its development.

I was trying really hard to do the paleo-diet thing, and so my wheat/bread consumption was lower than usual. As in, I didn't have any grains (apart from the gluten-free bread at Subway) for almost a week.

Then I decided I needed a snack. I bought a granola bar from a kiosk in my office building, ate it, and WHA-BAM! I broke out in hives and my nose got all stopped up.

Hmmm...

Then, Saturday, I forgot about the whole "don't eat wheat/bread/oats" thing and had a few pieces of bread at Breadwinners. Because their bread is amazing. And I broke out in hives again, and my nose got all stopped up.

So I will now have to figure out a way to not eat bread and wheat products. It's probably the gluten I'm allergic to, since I don't have the same reaction from the gluten-free bread at Subway.

And the employees at Subway know me now, because it's a big deal when they make a gluten-free sandwich. They see me in line and call out, "Hey, Gluten-Free! Same as usual?" Yes, same as usual: turkey and jalapeno jack with lettuce, tomato, and light mayo.

Hold the gluten.

On the Road Again

I spent the weekend in Houston, visiting my niece.

My sister and brother-in-law also happened to be there.

Fortunately, on this visit, my niece - who can pull herself up into a standing position now! - did not vent her giddiness at my attention by throwing up a belly-full of formula on me. I appreciated the non-gesture.

Saturday night, my BIL barbecued ribs, and I successfully tackled the better part of a rack single-handed. My sister made one of her amazing salads - and chocolate lava cakes with a scoop of Hank's ice cream - and we enjoyed sitting outside in the cool evening breeze.

How much for ONE rib?

I also made out like a bandit, wardrobe-wise.

My sister bestowed two arm-loads of clothes upon me, including a drop-dead gorgeous jacket by Ellen Tracy. I promised to give it a good and loving home and have ordered special hangers for it, accordingly. It is time, I think, to cull the worn-out clothes from my own closet to make room for the ones my sister gave me, something I have not done in a while because I had to keep everything lest some catastrophic clothing plague hit the area and deprive me of the less hardy items that hadn't been around as long.

I had fully intended to come home, straighten up my apartment, and head out for the grocery store to stock up on foodstuffs for the week. Upon arriving at home, though, yesterday's migraine and last night's sleeplessness caught up with me.

I decided to just clean out all the old food from my refrigerator and to make a grocery list.

That's all I have the energy to accomplish, post-apartment-tidying.

I have no idea what I will eat for dinner, as I did not manage to sneak the remaining rack of ribs into my purse as planned.

Curses, foiled again!

Staying On the Wagon

I fell off the wagon, this week, insofar as my Paleo-Dieting goes.

It all started on Wednesday when I burnt the bazookas out of my right hand, or, as someone called it, my "money hand," called as such because it's the hand that controls the computer mouse I use for drafting, and thus earns me my paycheck.

Thursday, my hand was still smarting a bit, though it felt much better than it did immediately after the burn-incident. When I arrived at the office, I was faced with two temptations: a box of Spongebob Squarepants cupcakes, courtesy of my coworker's seven-year-old son's birthday, and a box of cupcakes from Dallas' Cupcakery, which put Sprinkles cupcakes to shame, in my humble opinion.

I had a Cupcakery cupcake around 10:00 a.m. It was a "recuperative cupcake," I told myself; it would help me feel better about my mangled hand.

I regretted it around 10:15 a.m.

I had a tuna nicoise salad for lunch, and got the munchies around 4:00 p.m.

I had obviously not learned my lesson at 10:15.

I had a Spongebob cupcake.

I regretted it by 4:30.

This tells me that enormous bursts of sugar are BAD, and that I should lay off of them. And so I will, because the cupcakes are all gone, now, partly through my selfless intervention, attempting to rid the office of the sugary menace.

Yeah, that's it! I did it for my coworkers' health, not my own enjoyment.

Sure...

Busy Busy Bee

It's been a while since I last wrote, but I've been insanely busy.

After a year of unemployment (cumulatively over the last the three years), I have become a bit too accustomed to the whole "lying in bed all day doing nothing" routine. I forgot what a time-eater actually working can be, and my evenings have been somewhat hectic. Nevermind the fact that I've also been out of town for the past two weekends, it's the working every day that's getting me.

By the time I get home from the office and prepare a healthy meal, I'm exhausted. Then, I clean up the kitchen and do laundry, and I check my email to make sure no new bills have arrived in the Inbox, and I fall into bed. It's taking an inordinately long time for me to finish the (fascinating) biography of The Queen Mum that I'm currently reading.

I have two books on a wait list, patiently biding their time alongside my laptop. At least they have each other, right?

In other news, I burned my hand making myself a nutritious and delicious meal last night - and when I say "burned," I mean "currently swaddled in gauze and lidocaine gel" burned. I look like a bad Michael Jackson impersonator... a really bad one.

Because I'm bad. I'm bad. You know it.

Really Bad.

Meat and Veggie Tales

Here I thought my fancy-schmancy new Paleo-Diet would make me super tiptop healthy. What do I do almost immediately?

I come down with strep throat, because life saw me feeling better and yelled "Aw, hell no!" and did a 1990s Jerry Springer hand motion before slapping me across the face.

So today, I missed a day of work - for which I'm paid hourly - because the doctor warned me that I'm contagious for the first 18-24 hours after I start antibiotics.

I went into the doc-in-a-box in the hopes that the nurse-practitioner would tell me it was just allergies. I even told her that I thought it might be allergies, but that I wanted to make sure since I didn't want to get everyone at work sick, too.

The nurse-practitioner looked at my throat, frowned, asked me about other symptoms (I ran a fever Tuesday, which I chalked up to a burgeoning migraine combined with allergies), swabbed my throat, and then declared me unfit to go to work until Thursday.

Neat.

So I spent the day reading a biography of The Queen Mother, who was, by all accounts, an absolute scream. She was patroness of a secret club devoted exclusively to drinking called The Windsor Wets. One of their requirements as a club was to salute each other whenever possible in public without attracting the notice of non-Wets. A portrait of The Wets hangs in Windsor Castle to this day.

Seriously, do you see the current Queen Elizabeth pulling those shenanigans? Heck no!

Another story tells about a reception she attended during her tour of Australasia with Prince Albert. She had shaken hands with all the attendees when a stray dog wandered into the ballroom and presented itself to her. What does she do, dressed in her diamonds and silks? She leaned over, shook the dog's paw, patted it on its head, and it walked away, contented with having met the Duchess of York.

You don't get much cooler than that. Except for the drinking club. That was cooler.

In a Paleo-Diet update, I'm finally getting all the fruits and veggies I should be eating, and a pretty good variety of them, too. I'm taking my vitamins at night with my dinner, since I have to cook for myself or risk being tempted by the siren song of bread and chocolate milkshakes.

This week, I've eaten an "Oven-Finished Pork Chop" with a slaw of Belgian endive and celery, a steak with broiled asparagus and pear tomatoes, and a taco salad, made with a yummy taco seasoning from Cocina Nueva (sold at Whole Foods) and buffalo meat. Yummy yummy buffalo meat.

So I'm finally getting veggies, I'm supplementing my diet with fish oil (so my post-dose burps taste like fried haddock), a calcium-magnesium blend, Vitamin D, and Vitamin C. I think the high doses of C I'm taking are probably part of the reason I'm not more ill than I am (which isn't very; honestly, I could have worked through the day just fine, if I didn't care about infecting my coworkers), but that could be just my wanting the vitamins to be helping.

I do miss my Dr. Pepper, though. And at the pharmacy today, I had to stand right next to a display of Swedish fish while I picked up my antibiotics, and I have never wanted Swedish fish so badly in my whole life.

Once again, the constant vigilance I apply to my skincare will have to be applied to my eating habits as well.

I Am Woman*, Hear Me Roar!

*Cavewoman.

Stone age.

Paleolithic.

And full.

My sister and her husband are on something called "The Paleo-Diet." It goes something like this:

Our prehistoric ancestors ate meat and vegetables and nuts. Only after the advent of cultivation (c. 10,000 years ago, give or take) did they begin eating grains and dairy products. 10,000 years is not a heck of a long time in which to evolve a digestive system capable of processing grains and dairy products. Ergo, modern man should eat only very limited quantities of these things.

My mom came home from a visit to see my niece (her grand-daughter) espousing the virtues of the Paleo-Diet.

One of its benefits is the potential to eradicate skin conditions, such as eczema.

A little secret: I have eczema all over my face. And my scalp. And sometimes on the palm of my hand. It is only controlled through constant vigilance! of the type that would make our border patrol proud. Twice daily, I apply one of two creams (one is for daily use, the other is for ohdearGodit'sgettingsplotchy! use), and I also use the lovely Olay Pro blah blah blah: it's a powertool for your face.

In other words, yes, I have glowing skin, but that's only because I have to fight a daily battle with it (and avoid drinking alcohol on a daily basis, or all hell breaks loose... and take Benadryl every night to stave off the allergic reactions that trigger eczema... and only burn scented candles in my apartment when something is really funky, or the airborne odor particles make me break out... etc...).

The possibility of having glowing skin with significantly less worry and hassle is the carrot that has caused me to rid my refrigerator of yummy yummy yogurt, my pantry of macaroni and cheese, and my countertop of cereal boxes. I will trade these delights for a life of buffalo steaks, lean chicken, lots and lots of fish, and more vegetables than you can shake a stick at.

Unless that stick has a hoe or a rake attached to the end of it...

I even read a book about the nutritional wave that's sweeping my family, so once my current supply of Dr. Pepper runs out, I'll be ready to jump in head first.

Right now, I'm wading in the kiddie section.

Granted, I don't have to give up every type of dairy: supposedly, cottage cheese and hard cheeses are okay (parmigiana, manchego, etc...), so my breakfast will most likely be cottage cheese and fruit for a while. And for Level III of the diet, I'm allowed 3 "open" meals per 14-day period (open = grains and/or chocolate milkshakes... er, dairy).

I'm not quite ready to get on board with the book author's suggestion of salmon for breakfast, just yet.

I have my limits, after all, and they stop at leftover fish for breakfast.

To the Bar!

I did a good deed.

I am rewarding myself with a Happy Hour appearance in approximately 30 minutes.

What did I do that merits a bit o' beer in my tummy? (Apart from losing weight and freaking out my physical therapist who prescribed cookies to cure the rapid weight loss?)

I found an iPad. It was on the sidewalk in my apartment complex last night at 9:00 when I went to check my mail. I picked it up and decided I'd turn it into the complex office today.

En route to the complex office, I saw a sign that pointed to approximately where the iPad had fallen, and it listed a phone number to call if anyone found the touchscreen contraption. I called. No one answered. So I left a message and went to physical therapy.

The owner called back, and after I went grocery shopping, I returned the iPad to the incredibly grateful owner, a stunning young Russian woman who hugged the iPad to her chest as if it was a lost child. There are three of them - the young woman, her little sister, and their mother - living in a sparsely furnished two-bedroom apartment.

Still basking in the do-gooder glow, I am taking myself off to Happy Hour at City Tavern.

In the words of Maxminimus: Onwards, to the bar.

Breakfast! Get Yer Breakfast!

I have had, recently, a yen for breakfast foods (particularly if they're wrapped around Justin Timberlake, as seen at left).

Part of this is related to the ever-present nausea I have, which makes me want to eat sweet things, like ice cream. Alas, woman cannot exist on ice cream alone, and so I decided that cereal would be an excellent addition to my daily diet, what with all that fiber, the milk that gives me calcium, and the fact that they're mostly fortified.

Last night, though, I had a hankering for pancakes.

I rarely want pancakes. Usually when I crave breakfast foods, it involves multiple rashers of thick-sliced applewood bacon, with maybe a side of cinnamon toast.

But no, I needed pancakes, so I decided to make them.

I tend to forget that I am not particularly adept at the art of pancake-making. They tend to be black on one side, and perfectly golden brown on the other. But is that a globule of undissolved flour in the middle? Huh, yes it is. Ew.

I managed to make five tiny edible pancakes (out of a batch of 12, mind you), and thought my craving for batter-based breakfast foods was at an end.

I was so wrong. So very very wrong.

Today, at the grocery store, I decided to buy some frozen waffles. So now, I have three frozen waffles awaiting their turn in the oven. There is one thing that alarms me, however: the waffles I bought are whole-grain, so they're a dark tan color. The directions tell me to cook them until golden brown.

They're already golden brown.

So does this mean Cook until a dark umber color or Cook until deep sepia? I suppose I'll find out once I've cooked them. For no less than 10 minutes, otherwise there is apparently some dire circumstance awaiting me. Any less than 10 minutes, and they won't be edible, according to the packaging.

These waffles will self-destruct in less than 10 minutes.

Christmas

I went to Houston over the holidays, and there - in addition to playing with my adorable niece - I had a gustatory revelation: pomegranate.

I had only tasted pomegranate juice, previously, and was a trifle confused when my epicurean sister presented me with a fruit salad one morning at breakfast. Contained therein were the little fleshy pips of the pomegranate.

After a confused silence on my part, followed swiftly by "How do you eat these?", I launched into tasting my first unadulterated pomegranate pip.

It was heaven, Dear Reader!

When I finally returned to my own little home - thankfully migraine-free - I realized that I had absolutely no food to eat, so I sashayed over to Whole Paycheck to pick up some artisan cheeses and pita bread and apples and... Lo and behold: pomegranates!

Of course, I bought two, not realizing just how difficult they are to cut.

For a few minutes after the cutting ended, my kitchen resembled the shower scene from Psycho, with me in the role of blood-spattered shower curtain (I wore an apron).

One thing About.com forgot to mention in its "How to Cut a Pomegranate" article: lay down tarps and drop-cloths everywhere that you don't think pomegranate juice will reach, because that is exactly where it will go.

There is probably pomegranate juice on the ceiling along with last year's spaghetti sauce.

I also miscalculated the number of pomegranate pips in a relatively small pomegranate.

In case you're wondering, there's a bazillion. That's a lot of pips, people.

I couldn't eat all of them (my tongue is sore, as it is, from sucking the flesh off the seeds of 1/4 cup of pips), but I couldn't let all that yummy goodness go to waste.

So I broke out a sieve, a metal spoon, and a bowl, and proceeded to manually juice the pips, according to About.com's instructions (again, sans tarp warning).

Fresh-smushed pomegranate juice is so much better than anything you could ever buy at the grocery store, fancy schmancy or not. By the time I was finished, I had about 6 oz. of juice, and that was with my lazy crazy way of juicing them and giving up because I'm a wuss and my wrist was tired.

Deja Vu All Over Again

While hospitalized for my migraines, I received copious quantities of steroids.

I look something like the Creampuffs Marshmallow Man from Ghost Busters, as a result. Meaning, my face is puffy, as is my tummy.

I hate the word "tummy," just FYI.

Another fun tidbit about steroids is that they cause insomnia. INSOMNIA.

I don't need any help with the insomnia department, as it is fully staffed and operational at all times of the week/month/year. Need someone who can't sleep? Oooh! Call me! Call me!

So I've spent the past two nights not sleeping when I'm supposed to be recuperating from my hospital stay. Because you have to recuperate from recuperating. Yes, really.

Thursday night, I read and wrote in alternating shifts, because I get restless when I have steroid insomnia. I want to do something. Now. Something different. Now. Something different again. Now. Okay, thanks.

So I read for five minutes, then wrote for five or ten, then back to reading for maybe 15 minutes, then back to writing for ten, etc., etc., ad adendum, ad infinitum.

I did the same thing Friday night. It was just as exciting the second time around, except I wasn't 3/4 of the way through a book I wanted to finish.

So I'm running on 4 hours of sleep in the last 24 hours, and that seems to be how things are going to stay, for right now. Awake. They will stay awake. For a long time.

The last time I had steroid insomnia this bad, I was on chemotherapy. I was also 17 and reading Harry Potter, so it wasn't like I lacked for something to do. I plowed through those books. And dreamed of pancakes and sausage, because in the first three books, J.K. Rowling talks about food a lot.

This time, there is no thrilling boy-wizard trilogy (at that time - now there's 7 of the books!!!) to get through, nor is there much of anything to do. I've cleaned out all I can clear out of the soon-to-be-office that used to be my (onetime) bedroom at my parents' house, and I've almost finished the first very rough draft of the story I'm working on.

So I'm blogging at 6:45 in the morning, as my dad gets ready to go jogging in the cold (for Texas) December air. He's crazy.

He's crazy for jogging, but I'm the one who's been up all night, and will probably be up all night again, tonight. Hopefully this doesn't trigger another migraine...

Guess I'll Go Eat Worms

Okay, I didn't eat worms.

I ate snails. Escargot if you will.

I'm classy like that.

Tuesday was my mother's birthday, and we went to eat Wednesday evening with family friends to celebrate. They treated us to dinner at Rise No. 1, a restaurant that specializes in souffles.

Yes, Blogger, I mean souffles, not snuffles, or scuffles, or snuffler.

One of the savory souffles on offer was the souffle escargots a.k.a. souffle full o' snails.

I have never eaten escargots, and never in my wildest dreams could I imagine encountering souffled snails on a menu in a Dallas restaurant.

So, of course, I ordered it.

J'adore les escargots.

Yes, I know, I probably mis-conjugated that verb, because my French is atrocious, and for that matter, I don't know if "escargot" has a plural, or if it's like moose, where one word serves all quantities. I'm blaming it on the evil French teacher I had in college who demanded I present her with doctors' notes prior to my chemotherapy sessions, instead of after them (because I had all the time in the world to drive to Dallas to get them, deliver them to her in Denton, and then drive back to Dallas for chemo. Right, Lady.)

The escargots were tender and juicy - as you'd expect, if you've ever seen a snail's trail - and floated in garlic and butter, with a light souffle crowning each of the individual snails. It was fun to dig down through the poufy souffle to get to the pseudopods, before whispering "Come here, little invertebrate, so I can eat you!" and stuffing the steaming snails into my mouth.

Mmmmm...

We followed up with two souffles for the table for dessert: one chocolate, one pumpkin.

The chocolate was good. The pumpkin was amazing. Get the pumpkin, if they have it, because it's like putting little fluffy bits of heaven into your mouth.

Mmmmm...

And now, I'm off to bed, full of snails and pumpkin puree and creme fraiche and bits of deliciousness.

We All Make Mistakes...

Don't bother with the children's books I blogged about, last time. They're repetitive (I have a hunch they were serialized, and reading them once every month spaced far apart wouldn't be so awful, but back-to-back... repetitive) and the moralizing starts getting a bit heavy-handed after a few chapters.

I was reading Five Children and It and gave up after the sixth chapter because I could pretty well get the gist of the plot line: the children keep making wishes that keep going wrong, blah blah blah, and don't learn their lesson until you're ready to give them all a good swift kick in the pants.

I hoped The Enchanted Castle would be better, but again, it turned out to be a treacly bit of fluff that was all moralizing and very little entertainment. Ms. Nesbit reserves all her rapier wit for the first two chapters, and then leaps into the chasm of teaching us how to behave ourselves properly for the next ten or so chapters. I know how to behave myself, thank you very much. Okay, I know how to behave myself most of the time, but that applies to everyone, right?

So now I'm reading a novel by Pearl S. Buck (quite a switch, I know) and it's fascinating. I'm enjoying it immensely, even though it's written in a very reserved tone, and it makes me want chicken lo mein all the time. I rarely eat Chinese food (or Japanese, or Korean, for that matter), and I most likely won't indulge my craving, because Pei Wei doesn't have booths.

Yes, I'm serious. Booths are a requirement.

But still, something noodle-y sounds pretty good, right now...

Curse you, Pearl S. Buck.

Progress, At Last!

What kind of progress? Progress in that our client's son - the one who has refused to say "Hello" to me, shake my hand, etc., has finally acknowledged my existence. I'm going to chalk this up to the fact that I was infinitely less intimidating in my amazing beauty since I was sweating like a hog and slowly growing a lovely shade of pink under the influence of the Texas sun.

The fact that I looked like a condensation covered glass of Guinness (I was wearing a black shirt) was the son's fault, in fact. He decided that a meeting to discuss the project at 3:00 in the afternoon was an excellent idea.

I disagree with him, but he is - or rather, his parents are - the client. So I spent my afternoon sweating and my skin decided to thumb its nose at my SPF 60 sunscreen by getting rosily red anyways.

So there.

I ended up leaving work early, to head home to work, because 1) I felt disgusting and was in dire need of a shower, and 2) I'd been bitten by ants six times since I'd returned from the meeting at the job site.

I was not bitten by ants AT the job site. I was bitten whilst sitting in my cubicle, typing project specifications. With my feet off the floor.

Why are there ants in my cubicle? I can only presume that the combination of scorching heat outside, cool air inside, and errant blueberry muffin crumbs are to blame.

Tuesday evening, I had dinner with my mom, and she bought me a blueberry muffin to eat the next morning for breakfast (thanks, Mom!). I dropped a crumb. And I didn't realize I'd dropped the crumb. And then I felt a sting on my finger.

The ants had scaled my desk and were crawling across my hands. I touch-type, so I don't look at my hands when I type, and hadn't noticed the ants crawling across my fingers as they searched for more nourishment.

The crumb was on my desk shelf, 18 inches below my desktop. Those were some hungry ants. I cleaned the area around my desk, got rid of all errant crumbs, and continued working, assuming the ants would be gone by morning.

I was incorrect. The flow of ants from the crack in the brick wall by my desk had gathered strength and was a veritable storm surge. I abandoned my sandals and put on my boots and asked Mrs. Robinson to please call the building manager to request an exterminator's services, ASAP. She did so.

While I was at the job site, slowly roasting in the Texas heat, making sure I rotated rotisserie-style so the juices would baste me evenly, the building manager came and put out some ant traps with bait in them around my desk to kill the ants, and said someone would spray in the evening so I wouldn't be exposed to the chemicals right off the bat.

Guess what? Ant bait makes ants want to be around you even more. The flow of ants increased, and whether or not they died inside the little traps or not, I don't know, but the conga line of ants in both directions didn't seem to abate any.

I was bitten six times before I informed Pacman - my only remaining coworker at this point - that I was leaving, because I kept being bitten, and it hurt, and it sucked, and I was going home. He gave me a half-hearted "Cheerio" and I flounced out the door.

Hopefully, the next opportunity I have to flounce won't involve ants.

No Picture Today - Blogger Hates Me

In my excitement to write about running hither and thither, I overlooked a significant milestone: my 200th post.

Woohoo!

Okay, now that I've celebrated (by eating tuna salad, the dinner of champions and tired intern architects), on we go. To... a place. Where I will write about... stuff.

Like the fact that neither of my clients have called us to schedule meetings or to discuss their projects, so I'm currently writing commercial building specs, which are a heck of a lot longer than our little residential specifications.

Residential specifications are maybe 100 pages long. Maybe. Commercial specs, however, are much much longer. By the looks of it, they'll top out around 300 pages. I'm not really sure how long they'll be. All I know is that: 1) we don't have most of them on our server, already, so I'm having to type them all up from a set of commercial specs written about 6 years ago; and 2) they make my fingers hurt, so I won't be typing much longer, this evening.

I still have an email to answer, too. I can just feeeeeeeel my fingers seizing up.

And my first project of my very own came back, because one of my supervisor architects (Scooter shall remain nameless) neglected to mention a requirement of the Home Owners' Association that was kind of important.

Okay, actually, it was very damned important. I received an email from the vacationing Scooter, this morning, and he informed me that he was aware of the requirement, but just forgot. So he's out of town, and I'm doing damage control. And working for free, because we obviously can't charge the client for work we're doing to fix a previous mistake.

The client's been really nice about the whole thing - they're a really nice couple, and have much less money than most of our clients, although they're not exactly hurting for cash - and they're super grateful that we're doing the revisions without charging them. I liked Aaron and Mirabelle when we first met them, because they're such a nice couple. With three kids. And they love Texas. And Mirabelle's originally from Arkansas (seriously, who in Arkansas names their child something exotic like Mirabelle?), so she has this lovely Southern accent that you don't normally hear in Texas, because the people I know who live in Texas don't really have accents. At least, not in my opinion.

But that's finished, and all I have to do is print off the drawings for Aaron and Mirabelle, courier them over tomorrow, and send them a PDF of the drawings, too. And they'll love us forever. And if they ever decide to build a new house (because, you know, they've inherited beaucoups of money), then they'll call on us. Which would be pretty awesome, because they're such a nice couple.

Hestia, I Am Not

I am not exactly what you might call a domestic goddess. Oh, sure, I go on and on (and on and on) about interior decor, and drapes, and clothes, but it's all style and not a lot of substance, domestically speaking.

I rarely crack a cookbook, and when I do, it often end with borderline disastrous consequences (Ref: pancakes). So my decision to host a friend for dinner Tuesday night might seem a bit ill-chosen.

When I entertain, I typically keep it limited to hors d'oeuvres or desserts with copious amounts of alcohol. Sometimes, I skip the desserts and crudites and just serve booze. But my friend hasn't seen my apartment yet (only a few people have, and most of them are relatives) and so I decided to have her over for dinner. She's also a very close friend and will therefore be, I hope, forgiving.

And, it's me, so I'll also be serving whine - er, ahem - wine.

In an attempt to bring out my inner Martha, I bought flowers, this evening, for the dinner table. I chose hydrangeas, because they were the least intimidating of the flowers on offer at the Whole Paycheck (and the least expensive for the amount of coverage offered).

I underestimated the number of hydrangea stems to buy.

Okay, so I was able to solve that problem by just using a smaller vase, and yes, it still looks pretty, but I should have bought more flowers! I should have known how to do this! Shouldn't I?

Hadn't I, once before, arranged all the flowers for a very low-budget wedding I attended - as the best man's date - in Oklahoma? After the groom, best man, and I picked up the roses from the nearest Wal-Mart, the bride and her relatives proceeded to cram them, untrimmed stems and all, into the nearest vases they could find (in other words, whichever ones were in the church's rec hall). They all seemed a bit stressed, seeing as they were also in the process of trying to set out the fried chicken and mashed 'taters for the rehearsal dinner (also from the Wal-Mart) in something of a logical manner, while simultaneously putting the plastic table cloths out, so I chimed in and suggested I take over the flower arranging.

They all oohed and aahed over my flower arranging skills, and asked how often I did it, and I replied truthfully that I rarely did it - rarely as in never - but that I'd watched my mother and her friends do it, and I guess some of it had rubbed off.

Enough to know that you need to trim off some of the leaves, at least, or your water will smell and the roses will look like far from elegant.

There was a lot at the wedding that was far from elegant. I've never received so many dirty looks in my life because, God forbid, I wore a strapless dress. It was a wee mite conservative, and I didn't realize that going into the deal. Oops. The minister refused to even look at me, assuming, I suppose that my wanton shoulder-baring ways might rub off on him.

No need to fear that, bub. Not with that greasy Elmer Gantry hair.