17 posts tagged “friends”
I've discovered a peculiar thing. Twitter* makes me feel more lonely than I do otherwise. I don't have 204 friends. So here are all these people I only peripherally know, with status updates about what they are doing, where they are going, who they are seeing, twitter conversations between people I don't know... Sure, I wouldn't have heard about the incredibly awesome tweenbots experiment if I weren't following a total stranger friend-of-a-friend. But that isn't enough.
So once again I say 'it's not you, it's me' and further throttle my Twitterverse participation. Anyone is welcome to follow me still, and I'll check my replies and respond, but I have to trim my follow list. Please don't take it personally.
*Facebook also has this effect on me, though to a lesser degree for some reason. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to trim my friend list there too.
I am grinning ear to ear tonight. A friend of mine is in love. She was tellling me how he gets her sense of humor, that they have this amazing chemistry... then she starts sending me urls to photos of him. This is kind of a big deal. We've been friends for years now and she never once talked about relationships - to the point where I honestly had no idea what her gender preferences were in a partner. But now she is telling me how they met and her pet name for him, and wouldn't you know it I find his blog. Reading over it, I can see how crazy in love he is with her (and his pet name for her too). I have never met him, but I am so wildly happy for them both. True love is a rare gift to be cherished when you find it, I really hope this is it for them.
I have a bunch of friends who have gotten rather worried about me lately. It is nice to know people care about you, but I feel bad that they are worrying. So a little more TMI to hopefully put their minds at ease.
I am very aware that I need to eat more. Yes, I should have realized this before I ended up in the ER a couple weeks ago, but I was taking my body for granted and sacrificing it at the Temple of Stress pretty much since the start of the year. I knew in mid-January that I had lost close to 10 pounds in 8 weeks, and while I gained a little of that back I am losing weight again now, and I can't afford to do that. It is not something I am trying to do, honestly I would like to gain a few pounds back. I am genuinely trying to eat three meals a day plus snacks, and eat high nutritional density things. And I am cutting caffiene out of my world as much as I can, since it is an appetite suppressant. Which everyone knows is hard, I <3 SBUX and the caffiene free diet coke in the coolers at work tastes like ass.
The road to recovery is challenging for me not just because of the functional act of ingesting food. First, I have been stressed out of my mind the last few months, but I have some hope that is going to be better from this point forward. I could be wrong, in fact I often am, but right now today I'm optimistic, so go with me on this for now. Second, because my body has gotten so messed up with stress and dehydration and not eating much due to lack of appetite, my digestive system is all horked up (yes, that's a technical term, 'horked up'). I'm never hungry. Nothing sounds good to eat, I only eat because I know I have to. When I do eat, it is really small portions because I get full really quickly. If I go too long without eating, I get to a point where eating will make me sick - as in gag and spit it out sick because I think I'm going to barf. At that point I turn to smoothies with all the vitamin boosters so I get some sort of nutrition into me, then re-introduce solid food slowly and in small amounts. So obviously now that I know this about the gagging, I am trying to graze throughout the day and eat little bits so I don't get to that place again. Eating is hard though, sometimes I eat just fine and feel great, but at least half the time I eat I get nauseated or super gassy, and generally feel awful. I haven't figured out why that happens yet. What I HAVE figured out is that rotisserie chicken breast appears to be a good, safe foundational food for me. It was the first solid thing I ate when I came off my recent smoothie epiphany, and I have relied on it as a staple since then.
OK, so you are thinking, 'holy christ KymPossible, I thought you were trying to make your friends worry LESS?' Well yeah, I am. I am being brutally honest here about my situation, not trying to sugar coat or hide anything. They don't have to worry that I'm putting on a Suzy Sunshine false front and things are actually worse than I'm claiming, because let's face it, this is pretty awful. When I re-read what I just wrote, I sound like I have a fucking eating disorder. And being honest with them is forcing me to be honest with myself.
I have had something like this happen before, in January 2005. Something major shifted in my metabolism, and suddenly I wasn't hungry. Nothing sounded good to eat. I remember my IM message saying "I wish I could photosynthesize". And I lost 30 pounds in 6 months, *whoosh*. But I weighed 165 at the start of that, and losing 30 pounds wasn't a bad thing. I had a 1 year old baby and had retained a bunch of pregnancy weight. My metabolism changing wasn't unreasonable. But when in January 2009 I started having no appetite, I thought it was just the 2005 lack-of-appetite thing again and didn't really think of the ramifications of skipping meals to get other stuff done.
I have a bad habit of not wanting to admit to anyone, including myself, things that make me feel weak and flawed. So I got really busy gettin' shit done, and didn't take care of myself, and it is a hell of a lot harder to repair than it is to prevent. Admitting that I was that stupid and self delusional is incredibly hard for me to do. But before anyone out there says 'damn right she was stupid!' I would point out that almost everyone takes their health and bodies for granted up to the point that they get a rude awakening that they really can't get away with that sort of thing. I'm no different.
I am working hard to get out of this downward spiral and get back to healthy. And I appreciate the friends who are reminding/encouraging/urging me to eat or snack, inviting me to dinner, offering to bring me food. I am lucky to have such amazing friends, and want them to know I have woken up to the neglect I was showing my health, that I am eating, I am taking care of myself. I ate three square meals today, all with lots of protein. I will again tomorrow. I know I won't be able to deal with anything, stressful or otherwise, if I don't take care of myself. And when the day comes that I am excited to eat again, I'll triumphantly blog about it.
One of my former colleagues is changing teams, so his 'old' team sent him a Singing Valentine in a team meeting this morning to wish him well. And they asked me to be part of it, which was really sweet. I participated in Singing Valentines several years ago, but once I had kids I couldn't make it to the evening rehearsals anymore. This year I would have signed up, but I thought I was going to be out of town this week. So it was nice of this quartet to let me sub for their alto on this one delivery.
I go way out of key about a minute into the video for probably 5 or 6 seconds, but hey, I only started rehearsing yesterday and practiced the song 2 whole times with the quartet before we went to deliver. A little slack please.
Singing Valentines cost $25 donated to a charity of your choice through our corporate giving site, and include chocolates, a balloon, a flower, and a hand made card.
About a month ago a friend asked if I wanted dto go see the Heartless Bastards when they played in Seattle. I've heard them on WOXY and have one of their CD's, plus I said earlier this year that I wanted to get out and see more live music (which aside from Sasquatch Festival, I haven't done) so all around sounded like a fun evening with friends.
A few days ago I learned the show is at a place called the Tractor. I'm not sure what defines a Tavern from a Bar, but I think this might be a Tavern. Regardless, the show was scheduled to start at 9pm, but we got there at 8:15 or so, thinking we'd get in and find seats. Well the doors were locked until 8:30 so we kinda just waited. Anyway, at the onset of the evening when there were only about 15 people in the entire tavern, the place is, well, a dive. Brick walls, concrete floor, light 'fixtures' that are heavy duty extension cords attached to the ceiling with caged lightbulbs hanging from it every 10-15 feet, a few barstools with torn vinyl seats, and a very prominent cooler of PBRs. By 10 or 10:30 though when it was full of people it wasn't bad at all.
Ah yes, the people. Let me just say I don't fit in here. I am not a hipster. I've never seen so much facial hair outside of a lumberjack competition. And what is with all the comfortable shoes?!?! I swear to god all the women were in ballet flats, prepster sneakers, or low heeled boots (like a 1" heel). Everyone who knows me knows that 90% of the time I wear 3-4" heels. Out of sheer happenstance I was wearing silver knock-off converse low top sneakers. whew. BUT I wore my contact lenses instead of my glasses!!!!1!1! Total fashion faux pas. So much for blending into the crowd as one of the locals. LOL. Though honestly that was pretty unlikely anyway - I don't dress right either. Everyone looked like they had spent a tremendous amount of time and money to look sloppy-casual or quirky. There was a girl in a giraffe print skirt with textured tights that had a star pattern. And when I say giraffe print I don't mean spotted like a giraffe, I mean the material was like tapestry weight beige with full giraffes woven into it here and there.
ANYWAY, enough about the setting, on to the music. The first opening act (there were two) was a local Seattle band, Battle Hymns. They weren't very good but I clapped politely because they clearly rehearse and had the guts to get up on stage and try to entertain the crowd, and I can respect that at least. However, in the snark department I will say that the vocalist was awful, they don't seem to have any idea how to end a song cleanly, and they need to learn how to dress.
The second opening act, The Broken West, was significantly better than the first. I still wouldn't buy their album, but I enjoyed their set. They were certainly better than the Fleet Foxes who seem to be getting hyped all over the place and I saw at Sasquatch (they were painfully awful, like you wanted to die so you didn't have to listen to them anymore). Of course I've got an obligatory snark for the Broken West too: the lead singer (who also played guitar) is so obviously one of those guys who tries picking up girls with the line 'so, you know, i'm, like, in a band...' while brushing his hair out of his eyes... Trust me on this, both the people I was with agreed 100% on my assessment.
Finally the Heartless Bastards took the stage sometime after 11pm. And despite our concerns that they might not be as good as their most recent album from 2006 due to changes in 2/3 of the 3 person band, they were still really great. Not really dancable (they never were really), but good rock vibe and energy, and a super powerful voice. The vocalist has a very distinctive sound and she hasn't changed, and she is also the primary songwriter, so changing the rhythm section - while noticable - didn't totally change the band's sound. All in all it was a good show and a fun evening.
Oh yeah, one other thing. Turns out the only woman in the entire tavern wearing heels over 1" was the singer for Heartless Bastards. What was funny was she was out in the audience area early in the evening (I had no idea it was her) and I noticed her boots because they were so different (heels!!) from everyone elses footwear. Later, halfway through their first song, I recognized her boots and realized she wasn't the one audience member who wore heels to the show, she WAS the show. hahaha.
Today a friend of mine gave me a gift he had been saving for when I got a motorcycle. As he told it, if a friend gives you a gremlin bell and you hang it on your motorcycle - down at the bottom of the engine, just above the road - it protects your bike from road gremlins. But it has to be a gift from a friend to be effective. And he didn't give me just any gremlin bell, but a US Marine Corp gremlin bell. Watch out gremlins! My bell is super badass.
Hearing this explanation of the bell I skeptically asked if this was the new motorcycle rider's equivalent to snipe hunting. I was assurred it was not.
So I get home and look on-line and no, there are a number of gremlin bell manufacturers. Most of them will tell you its ok to buy your own and it will still work, but I think they may not be objective on the matter given that their entire business model is based on selling gremlin bells. Just a hunch.
Anyway, I don't believe in gremlins. If I did, I certainly don't believe that bells would in any way be an effective deterrant. But I'll hang the bell proudly on Henry because it was a gift from a friend, and that means something to me.
its really just a big blur.
see, at lunch, the lines in the cafeteria were really long, so I just got a big cup of Tuscan Vegetable Soup and a banana from the self-serve and checked out, I was late to meet colleagues who were already seated and mostly done eating. I sit down and start eating my soup in my normal manner - break a cracker into bite size pieces, put it in the soup, fish it out with the spoon and eat it. I take 6-10 packets of crackers for my soup. Seriously. As I'm eating and having good conversation I start to feel a little off. My tongue is feeling odd, but I rationalized as just the soup had been hot and burned my tongue maybe.
And then i find it. A big sliced mushroom in my soup. I've never had vegetable soup that had mushrooms in it, but there it was. And I'm allergic to mushrooms. I won't die or anything (I don't think, I've never eaten a whole bunch of mushrooms to test this), but it makes for several unpleasant hours while my tongue and mouth swell and tingle and my chest gets tight.
So the four of us high-tail it back across the street to our building, and I go to the kitchen med kit for allergy medicine only to be greeted by a FAILWHALE. Cold medicine, sinus medicine, tylenol, ibuprofen, excedrin, antacids, bandaids, burn cream, neosporin... no allergy medicine. So I send email to my entire org asking if anyone has allergy medicine. A few minutes go by and I'm about to leave for a drugstore when someone brings a bottle by. Since it is generic benedryl and expired in early 2006, and I'm in the middle of a worsening allergic reaction, I take 3 instead of my usual 2. Later, the allergy symptoms are better, but I'm kind of distractable and lethargic, and feeling flushed and like my skin is hypersensitive. I twitter "ProTip: just because the generic benadryl expired 2.5 yrs ago doesn't mean taking 3 to compensate for potential lost efficacy is justified. ". And next thing I know, @gallupe is in my office. Turns out those were her allergy meds, just delivered to me by a different colleague who didn't know that she refills the bottle - the generic expired benadryl were actually brand name new benadryl, just in an old bottle. And I took 3 of them. No wonder I was so loopy. It was several hours before I was feeling somewhat back to normal.
I don't remember much of the afternoon. The cafeteria manager came to my office to apologize and make sure I was okay and give me a coupon for a free meal. And a co-worker stopped by with an intern, I think I agreed to meet with her about something. I hope I'm not the one responsible for scheduling that. And @zotoconnor came by and told me a funny joke that has to be told verbally, it doesn't work in written form. I packed some boxes and cleaned up my office, but I was really slow moving and inefficient because I wasn't focusing very well. I'd get distracted and not stay on task. I was feeling better by dinner, which was Bento Box with my friends B&ASulli (I had a strange dream last night that ASulli was in, along with @wilw and music by The Shat) and the kids. But I'm still really tired now and thinking about going to bed early.
Last weekend was the second in a series of Test Kitchen events which began in March. Given that it was the day after BlueHat, there were a couple folks from out of town who got to attend this time which was fantastic.
For the May Test Kitchen we tested the following breakfast items (copied from the invitation):
1. blueberry waffles. in Test Kitchen 1 we tested how to make perfect waffles. Now what happens when you throw the fruit variable in? Should the blueberries be in the waffles or on top of them? if they are in the waffles, do you gently fold them into the batter or get out the kitchen equivalent of power tools, the KitchenAid MixMaster and blend them in, crushing their little blue souls?2. broken yolk eggs. both scrambled and omelet style. some people mix in milk, some use water, some add no fluid at all. But what results in the fluffiest and tastiest eggs?
3. Bloody Marys in the Chem Lab makeup test. Last Test Kitchen we didn't fulfill our Chem requirements and have to do it over. I'm bringing in a specially trained Lab Assistant to run this experiment for us so maybe we can take Chem201 next session.
Plus we had bacon, bangers, smoothies, and fresh fruit.
PARTICIPANTS: Bryan, Amy, Vinnie, Shyama, Divide, Jacqueline, Dan, Christopher
TEST RESULTS:
Test One: Waffles
Methodology: All waffles were cooked on maximum heat unless otherwise noted.
The first batch was made with frozen blueberries. Waffles were made at 3.5, 4.0, and 4.5 minutes, the 4.5 minute batch was preferred as shorter cook times resulted in soggier internals.
The second batch was made with fresh blueberries. , Waffles were made at 3.5, 4.0, and 4.5 minutes, the 4.0 minute batch was preferred for presentation and external texture.
EPIC FAIL:
we tried a fresh blueberry batch at a lower heat for 5 minutes, then high heat for 1 minute in an attempt to get a more thoroughly cooked inner texture without losing the crispy exterior. This test was an unmitigated disaster. The interior of the waffle essentially steamed (hypothesis: added moisture from fresh fruit caused complications), so when the waffle iron was opened the waffle lost all cohesiveness and structural integrity and de-laminated.
Conclusion: frozen blueberries are sweeter than fresh blueberries, but fresh blueberries have better texture. To increase blueberry flavor with fresh blueberries you need more blueberries. But too many whole blueberries diminishes structural integrity of the batter, so the blueberries need to be aggressively mixed so they break up in the batter, then throw in a handful or two of whole blueberries and gently fold them in so they remain in berry form before cooking at high heat for 4.0-4.5 minutes.
If we hadn't all been too full to eat more, we would have tested a part frozen/part fresh combination of blueberries to see if that solved the sweet/texture tradeoff.
As in the prior Test Kitchen, three pure maple syrups were tested: Stonewall Kitchens, Spring Tree, and Shady Maple. There was a clear preference for syrup #1 (Stonewall Kitchens), though you can see from the photo that our Master Documentation Expert, Vinnie, disagreed with the popular vote and thought #2 (Spring Tree) was best.
Test Two: Broken Yolk Eggs
Methodology: I put Lab Assistants Bryan and Amy in charge of the eggs, their notes are below. There were two batches, the first had no liquid added and feedback was that the eggs were a bit heavy, but very yummy. The second batch had some milk added, and their fluffiness was better. At the same time the sharp cheddar cheese variable changed between batches, the higher cheese concentration in batch one was preferred. Other variables: ham, garlic, mushrooms, scallions. You can see in the photo that the eggs were browned, feedback on that was all positive, that it added really good texture and flavor.
Conlcusion: Bryan makes really good eggs. Garlic is good, as is sharp cheddar cheese and ham. A little bit of milk whisked into the eggs will make them fluffier. Browning the eggs results in good texture.
Test Three: Bloody Marys
Formulae: I printed three different bloody mary recipes found on the internet and set them out with all the necessary materials prior to the start of the Test Kitchen.
Conclusion: you have to really want a bloody mary to go to the trouble to make them - six ingredients minimum, with specific tools and measurements... however, this Test Kitchen, we assigned a mixmaster to the ChemLab early and very quickly determined that Formula 3 was vastly superior to Formula 1 or 2 which were deemed too 'ketchupy'.
By popular request, the superior Bloody Mary recipe:
For rimming the glass:
1 Tbsp kosher salt (we used table salt)
2 tsp celery salt
wedge of lemon
The Bloody Mary:
3 oz (2 jiggers) vodka
generous squeeze of lemon juice
several shakes of worcestershire sauce
3-4 drops of tabasco sauce
8 oz tomato juice
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp celery salt
1/8 tsp pepper
Directions:
rim glass with salt and fill with ice
add vodka, lemon juice, worcestershire sauce and tabasco sauce
stir in tomato juice with long spoon
add salt, celery salt, and pepper
stir again and serve with a wedge of lemon
TEST KITCHEN SUMMARY:
WAY less chaotic than the March edition, we must be getting the hang of this.
Very fun, everyone left with full bellies, we are definitely doing this again in June (or maybe July, depending on my schedule).
Call Dan at 9am to wake him up so he doesn't arrive so late that he gets cold leftovers. :)
Special thanks:
Lab Assistants Amy and Bryan for running test 2, baking the bacon, and cooking the bangers. Once again, the morning would not have been a success without their help, I couldn't have pulled it off without them. I think I'm going to have to promote them above Lab Assistant... Research Assistants perhaps
Our Mad Scientist for managing the bar and ensuring the ChemLab was successfully completed. .
Vinnie and Shyama are the most amazing Lab Assistants when it comes to documentation (the fourth page is particularly hysterical). And their smoothies were teh awesomz too.
I had a great time and can't thank everyone enough for coming over and participating in the Test Kitchen Experiment. I hope you all come back for the next one!
I cannot say it better than Stepto, or Tony, or Michele. But for what it is worth...
Watching Matt, Ellen, Ella and Emma (ME3) throughout the pregnancy and 4.5 months of the girls lives has reminded me on a near daily basis to live life and be thankful for the people who mean the most to me. Don't take for granted that you will have time, or health, or opportunity. And while that may sound depressing, it isn't. I find it tremendously inspiring. Inspiring to LIVE every day, make it count, do the most with it.
Thank you Matt for sharing your family story with the world. Thank you Ellen for showing me faith. Thank you Ella for giving me hope. Thank you Emma for being a fighter for as long as you could - the world is a better place for having had you in it.
oh dear god. I got addicted to matt_k's twitter feed with updates on Emma. Then amused by stepto's twitter feed posts. And before I knew it, I was twittering. Often from my iPhone.
I've turned into THAT dork. I am not proud of this. And yet, I can't seem to stop. The little random comments that aren't worth a full blogpost here are ending up in Twitter. As with my blog, they are empty calories (just bite sized), irrelavent and pointless diversions that serve no purpose but to amuse me. You've been warned.
