Much gnashing of teeth

Apparently of late my blog has become the place I vent. Here's another one.

Dear book club-
We had several good years together, but it's over. I remember how happy I was to find you, to be a part of a local group of intelligent women discussing interesting books. You led me to books I normally would not have read, and discussions with people I otherwise might never have known. We had good times for certain. I barely hesitated when you wanted things to get more serious and asked me to take over as group manager.

Things went well for a while, I was able to schedule meetings far enough in advance, we picked a whole year's worth of books at a time, it worked. Granted I spent endless hours compiling book blurbs and researching when they would be available in paperback (one woman in our group, part owner of a bookstore, decreed that we couldn't read books still in hardback, as it was bad for her business) and how many were available at the library. I know none of the other members realized how much work this was, or appreciated it, but just expected their reminder emails coming every month. I could deal with that.

But then things started to get bad. It was like twisting arms to get volunteers to host. People would change dates at the last minute, to nights I couldn't attend. Then things would get decided at the meeting I was not present for, and nobody would relay that information. I was out of the country on vacation, and sent emails to next month's 2 possible hosts before I left so I could have the info I needed to send the reminder when I returned, to no avail. (The "I knew you were on vacation, so couldn't send you an email" argument really only pissed me off, it didn't excuse anything because EMAIL SITS AND WAITS, not to mention that I checked it at least once a week even from another country.) Basically our communication was terrible. This, dear Book Club, as everyone knows, is a death knell for relationships.

After that debacle this spring, I had to bring it up to you. I had to tell you how stressful and frustrating our relationship had become for me; that it was bordering on toxic. You promised to change, and things did get better for a while. People volunteered to host again, and we went back to knowing several months' worth of books in advance, instead of picking next month's book at our meeting (which I hated). Things were okay, though I still felt undervalued and clearly like I was the bottom of the group totem pole. I understood that I had a different taste from the rest, though it hurt that I read their boring historical non-fiction tomes but nobody would finish the Christopher Moore or Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman books I suggested.

I'll admit that I also started to resent that we would talk about the books for about a half an hour, and then it was all Mommy Mafia discussions. Your kids and their football/ dances/ boyfriends/ soccer camp/ classes have nothing to do with the books we read, and don't interest me as much as they clearly interest you. If it's relevant, please discuss it, but last time was literally twice as long of a discussion about the special technology-based program at the high school and whether it's beneficial or will be funded next year than anything relating to the book. The fact that less than half of you ever finish the books doesn't help matters either.

But then it happened again. You changed the date of a meeting only a week away. You all have children in the same school who are understandably your priority, but surely you knew about the winter fundraiser/bazaar/pageant/whatever months ago and could have planned around it? Or maybe someone could have emailed me instead of informing me a few days before the reminder was to go out that you all discussed amongst yourselves and changed the date without even considering me?

Since I had to miss that meeting (it being on one of about 3 nights I actually had something planned that month- see if you'd asked ANY OTHER NIGHT would have worked, but you didn't bother to ask.) I was unsure what was going on this month. I emailed the person who hosted, and her response was, "I can't remember, it was so long ago." This after our laying out the rules this spring that if I miss a meeting, it's the host's job to email me with what happened. Normally we meet on the 3rd Thursday. My notes said we were meeting this Tuesday. The email from the woman hosting said "Wednesday." Confused, I call the host's mobile. Then I call her home number. Then I email her.

Finally I get an email today saying that GUESS WHAT? It's tonight. So yet again I get to send out a last-minute reminder, making me look bad. At least I didn't send out one with erroneous information (due to people neglecting to inform me of changes) like this spring. But it makes me angry, and I don't want to be angry. I don't want to have to go to a meeting where I secretly am bitter and have to bite my tongue. I don't want to try to organize people who are horribly disorganized and bad at communication. I don't want to be the person in charge of planning when I am the only person who never sees anyone outside of the meetings, and the last person anyone talks to when something changes. I need to cut the bad relationships out of my life, and you, dear Book Club, have become terrible.

That's it; it's over. I can't put up with this anymore. I'm certainly not being your planner anymore. Maybe I'll find a new group to discuss books with. Maybe I can take some time and later we can be friends- I'll come to your meetings if it's a book I want to talk about- but for now, I need a break.



PS- The fact that you all went to two other plays that two other members were in, but NOBODY came to mine was just another indication of how little you regard me.

Epic cookie-tastrophe

SO every once in a while I run across one of *those* recipes. The kind that sound tasty and innovative, but, when made, are a total fustercluck of horribleness.

This recipe is my latest example.

Eggnog cream-cheese filling in a ginger cookie? Sounds deliciously holidaytastic, right?

Well first of all, I'm expecting a retraction in next month's issue saying "Yes, you all were right, a 2-cup dry-ingredient to 2.5 sticks butter ratio is completely off."
So yeah, stickiest dough ever. A decent portion went down the drain, since I could not get it off the beaters.

Then chill the dough for 30 minutes, simple.
Oops, I read wrong, you were supposed to scoop the dough with a 2tbs scoop (right, like I have such a useless utensil taking up drawer space?) and THEN refrigerate them. Ok, they should be easier to scoop now that they're chilled anyway. Except that it's still the stickiest dough ever, except for the very outer layer, which is hard like, well, refrigerated butter.

But anyway, I scooped, quickly realizing that I DID NOT have enough dough to make 24 cookies. Re-arranged and scooped much smaller, more like 1 Tbs each. Still ended up with only 18 balls. Alright... now I'm supposed to refrigerate them. WHO HAS ROOM IN THEIR FRIDGE FOR 2 COOKIE SHEETS? Not me, that's for sure.

Rigging something involving beer fridge, chest freezer, and other freezer, I chilled dough and filling (which never really got firm). Once firm, I smooshed the sticky balls into volcanoes, with difficulty. Spooned in filling, with more difficulty. Attempted to "close tops to form a kiss" HAH! NOT POSSIBLE! The filling squishes out and the cold dough won't close over it.

Gave up, left cookies as volcanoes-full-of-lava. Put trays in oven for 15 minutes, wherein the dough melts (being half butter), and cookies spread all over the parchment. Rotate pans, as directed, noting that they are already fairly done. Cook another 5 minutes (10 still to go) and notice the edges are getting very brown. Remove from oven and transfer to rack.

Later, taste. WTF, THEY AREN'T EVEN THAT GOOD!!! The cookie parts themselves are like crackers, they have so little sugar, so if you get a bit without filling it's worthless. All together as intended they are... decent. Not even remotely worth all the struggle and mess.

EPIC FAIL, CAKESPY! Worst recipe I've made in ages.

Huh, it's fall.

Yeah that's right, I haven't posted in a million months, I'm ok with that. Since then:

I've obviously finished the stupid elimination diet and learned NOTHING, so that was helpful.

I've knitted a lot of things of all different sorts, mostly all highly successfully.

I've worked another wonderful summer with my super interp co-workers, and I'm high enough in seniority now that I got to start & end much earlier this year.
Unfortunately that means 3 weeks on either end of fun interp stuff of un-fun camp bathrooms & garbage. It actually wasn't too bad. Also, I went to the State Fair this summer and performed my Mountain Lion program twice, breaking the attendance record! I saw an opalescent nudibranch and a sea cucumber both for the first time in our tidepools this year!

I threw a schoolgirl hash with my friend Marli that everyone enjoyed, despite them losing the trail a whopping 2 minutes in and not actually following it again until the last half-mile.

I did a repeat of my "Yes, You Can Knit!" lesson thing for 7 people this summer, and almost immediately was begged to do another one this fall for another 6.

I trained for the Prefontaine Memorial 10k with Steph, only to learn (after successfully getting up to 3+ miles with no problems) that we couldn't do it, being that we had to work the SOLV Beach Clean-up that day.

I got a large part in a play (Neil Simon's "God's Favorite") which was very fun (and everyone said I "stole the show") but only 9 people I know came to see me. :(

I have also dyed a lot of yarn, bought a lot of yarn, baked a lot of things, read lots of books; you know, the usual stuff. :)

Argh!

Well, we're almost to week 5 now, and today has been the first AWFUL day so far. I mean, I've had stomach aches and pains, but today I know for sure I ate something bad this weekend-- I just wish I had any way of telling what.

See, I was naughty this weekend. There was a hash, and at the hash they had cookies! BUT the household who hosted the hash is gluten-light and have gone through elimination diets before, so they were supposedly gluten and sugar free. I didn't ask for a list of ingredients, of course, but ate 2 cookies, and they were delicious. Then the next day, R convinced me that Nature Valley granola bars are ok on the diet. They do have sugar and oats, so I probably should have known better, but we were out & about, and I was starving, so I ate one (as in half a package, a single bar). Then later he convinced me that a latte with almond milk was permissible. I made brownies (gluten free & with fake sugar) too, so it could have been any number of things. But today is terrible, and I don't know if this has knocked me off track for an extended period and I have to go back to the start, or if it's just going to be a day or 2 of misery.

How long does it take for a bad food to manifest itself in, uh, unpleasantness? Is this simply the effect of too much xylitol, or something else? Could this be caused by traces of gluten in chocolate chips or the oats? Is it something else entirely? I hate all the unanswered questions!!

It's definitely throwing off my training, I was supposed to go run today, but that's sure not happening.

disheartening

This diet is frustrating me lately. It's been over 3 weeks since I had anything with wheat or dairy in it, and I don't really feel any differently. I know that it can take longer for the lingering effects to finally wear off, but it's still disheartening for now that 25 days have gone by with no noticeable difference except massive cravings.

Thanks for the comment too, Emilie, I know I should get tested, but that's frustrating me lately too. Why didn't my doctor test for this in the first place 6 years ago? I went all the way to Portland to see a gastroenterologist, you'd think she would have checked me for celiac if I had the symptoms. She didn't even attempt to help me figure out how to eat so I wouldn't hurt, just ran a battery of expensive, invasive tests and ended up diagnosing me with IBS, which in medical language means, "We have no idea why you can't digest foods like a normal person."

I'm currently doing several days without any grains, to see if that's the reason my stomach has been unhappy lately. Maybe I'm just unable to easily digest anything grain-like. It's not like my stomach is usually debilitating, it's just not normal. Then there are rare mornings like this where it feels like someone tied a knot in my intestines.

And it sucks to be so left out of everything. I'm starting to realize what people with severe allergies or celiac go through. Everything social involves food or alcohol, and not being able to consume either makes you somewhat of an outsider. It's really hard to sit in a coffee shop to knit while they are baking cookies, or hang out with friends while they drink beer & eat food I want but can't have. Going to Italy and not having pasta? Unthinkable.

Just chalk it up to hormones or low blood sugar, I'm just depressed today.

Week 4- adding foods back in!

This week we got to add in grapefruit and kiwi, and I've got to say, it's amazing to be able to have fruit again!

I think we're mostly through with the detox-part of the diet, and the rest of the time will be concentrated on slowly adding in foods and seeing how well my stomach tolerates them. I've got 2 or 3 new foods planned for each week to slowly reintroduce. I keep hearing more and more about celiac, everyone tells me I need to go get tested for it, but I really don't want to be told I can never have normal bread or beer again, my stomach isn't THAT unbearable. Most of the time, at least. Plus I went to an expensive specialist a few years back, and she didn't deem it worthy to get me checked for it, so I don't know.

I tried pumpkin cookies today, grinding up coconut in the coffee grinder and using that as part of the flour (they came out really, really dry, which I now know is problematic with coconut flour), and made pumpkin muffins with quinoa flour and using "flax gel" which I made by soaking flax seeds overnight in hot water and then drinking the water. They were just ok, so far the carrot/zucchini/apple/nut/coconut muffins are by far the best!

I've realized that this restrictive diet has made me obsessed with sweets, I have a huge stockpile of crazy recipes I fully intend to make in the far-off distant future (assuming I can eat flour & sugar & cream and things again), and when I do make sweets like the lime bars or cookies, I want to inhale them ALL just to have sweet things to munch. That was never a problem before....

Week 3

Things are going better meal-wise, but something has been upsetting my stomach. I'm not sure if it's just grains in general, or the xyltol (which is known to cause intestinal distress in some people), or maybe even cauliflower.

We invited my Mom and Steph & Pete over for Easter dinner, which involved a tasty baked ham, cauliflower mash (since we can't have potatoes and meat together), asparagus, and salad. Then after playing Yahtzee we made a gluten-free microwave cake http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif (though ours was lemon, not chocolate) and ate it with homemade lemon sorbet. We'd made the recipe before as written and it turned out well, but this time the cakes deflated and had the texture of a dutch baby or popover, but they still tasted good.

I've had a lot more success with baking things lately, I made delicious carrot-zucchini-apple muffins with almonds and coconut, and we even made quite tasty lime bars, but all this is making me eat more carbs & sugar-substitute than I probably should. Oh, and cocoa powder mixed with "sugar" and sprinkled on buttered popcorn is amazing!

SO other than the unexplained stomach weirdness, which I fully intend on sussing out next week, things are going well.

Week 2

I'm backdating this, sorry for any confusion.

Well, week one was pretty blah- it felt like we were eating tasteless baby food, since it was mostly all pureed vegetable soups for the first 5 days or so. It's amazing how much flavor is cut out by not using store-bought stocks and things like cream and wine in soups.

We were definitely having low-blood sugar symptoms (grumpiness, exhaustion), but on the upside, R has been needing a lot less insulin lately (and he has managed to lose 4 pounds too- I don't have a scale so I can't say for myself, but it's not noticeable if I did loose a pound or 2 anyway). I missed knitting over the first weekend because I was feeling icky, though I'm not sure if it was just waking up really low blood-sugar-ey, or having die-off symptoms of the bad bacteria & yeast.

But things are starting to improve now that we're eating meats and the occasional starch (though not together, of course, which is the most frustrating part of meal planning). I actually sat down and wrote out 3 months worth of meals one weekend to make this easier, it has simplified a lot.

I tried my first gluten-and-sugar-free baking experiment this week, which turned out really gross. We just need to go to Coos Head and get xylitol though, then we can have a fake sugar we can actually eat that doesn't taste nasty! Cooking with coconut oil is a challenge though, because it's a solid at room temp here, not a liquid, which makes for interesting side effects. Still figuring things out, but yes Brandy, breakfast veggie scrambles are very tasty weekend breakfast options (and we're smart enough to make leftovers for weekdays too)!

Day 1

Today begins what will surely be a Herculean struggle for us- a very restrictive diet. Basically it cuts out everything tasty, and we are limited to eating vegetables and lean meats in certain combinations. Now don't freak out, we're not trying to lose weight here, it's supposed to help figure out what is wrong with my stomach, and potentially even help make it better. R just got dragged along for the ride. The idea is you clean out the bad bacteria and yeasts and other beasties that have been allowed to flourish due to messing up the good ones with antibiotics, and eating not-so-healthy things (like beer and cookies, yum!).

We've basically eaten up or frozen all the "taboo" foods, but it's still going to be a struggle, particularly getting the balance of the easily-digestible foods right. For example, this morning we had quinoa porridge for breakfast, which is an acceptable grain, but you're supposed to eat mostly vegetables and only a quarter grain, and we certainly didn't do that. Who wants vegetables for breakfast?

Anyway, Stephtacular told me to blog about it, so here it is. I really hope it makes a difference, giving up delicious food!

Oh, and my birthday was pretty good, and the play went really well. I'm excited to get to act with them again in the future.

Really need to post more often, eh?

Happy April, everyone! This winter has flown by, the latter part of it hurried along by a 3 week trip to Costa Rica, and a 5 day trip to visit Victoria in LA. Both trips were wonderful, but very different.

This time in Costa Rica we focused mainly on the northern (touristy) bits of the country, seeing the Arenal Volcano (not currently spewing fiery rocks anymore), Monteverde cloud forest (amazing, I spotted a quetzal!) and the Nicoya peninsula (very laid-back). We also spent a few days in Manuel Antonio, which was monkey-tastic (seriously, close enough to touch), and a very ill-advised night in Palo Verde, the one big failure of my trip planning ($260 + 2 days of traveling + grubby bunk beds + we were lucky not to get heat stroke + K got too sick to do the guided tour-- surely you get the picture). Other than the one bad experience and a few bus mishaps it was a wonderful trip, and my wee bit of Spanish served us well. Also, this is the first time we met up with friends on vacation, and I can definitely say it's a very awesome plan! (Hey A & S- we need to plan a vacation to Kauai- Verne's agreeable!)
I'm trying to put the album up as the bottom-of-blog pictures, but it's being difficult. If you want to see photos, email me.

The knitting has been going well, I finished my Waterloo project: the blanket for my Mom I began in 2008 and quickly gave up, since it was too advanced for my skills (and Sisyphean, being a blanket). I knitted a shawlette/ kerchief while on vacation, and have since finished another one and some hats and cute little toys (like a tiny, tiny piggy and a "Despicable Me" minion.) I am officially on a yarn diet now though, as my yarn stash is getting out of hand. Although it is my birthday in a week, so if you feel the need, I won't chastise you .... ;)

I feel like I haven't worked much this winter, but so far this spring has picked up a bit. I got to work several days this last week, including teaching how to balance chemical equations, which I love! It's one of those rare teaching moments where you get a kid to go from "This sucks, I can't do it, it's too hard!" to "Ohh, now I get it, it's easy!" It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's supremely gratifying. Maybe there's hope for the future after all!

In other news, I'm in a play! A friend informed me of a group of actors who occasionally perform at her church (not having a real theater to use) who needed an extra person for "Our Town." So if anybody wants to go, the performances are the 8th, 9th, and 10th. Come see me on stage! (well, sort of a stage)

That's all for now, I promise to make an effort to post more often though! Off to start knitting myself a birthday crown, later!