The Little "C"

My biopsy came back positive, so I will be scheduled for surgery sometime in the next 2 months.  Hopefully it won't conflict with Walt's surgery in 2 weeks!

So now my education is broadened.  Interesting that the doctor talks about this as a reaction to sun exposure, me who is almost NEVER out in the sun!

She left me a link to a video about how the operation is performed and there was another video there from a woman who had recorded her procedure, which she said is less painful than going to the dentist's office, though apparently it takes several hours, what with cutting and checking and then maybe cutting again.  I hope that given where the spot is, on the bridge of my nose, that it will be possible to bring my cell phone and earphones so I can listen to an audio book to help the time pass.

Me.  Cancer.  Whoda' thunk?  I'm not really nervous since everyone seems so blasé about this type of cancer, but I'm sure those butterflies will start coming out their cocoons before the surgery date actually gets here.

One of the questions in Saturday 9 this week was, "What year you can point to and say, "Wow, I'm glad that's over"?  I had no answer for that one but I think that after hearing from Kaiser, I'm going to have to say THIS is the year that I will be very glad to have over!!!

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Today was kind of all informally planned when I got up.  A friend I had not heard from in many years called to say she now lives in Reno, about 2-3 hours away, and said she wanted to drive over and visit, either today or tomorrow, before she gets snowed in on her side of the Sierras.  I kind of half planned for her to be here today.

I knew I had left over quiche for dinner and another friend had called to say she was going to make soup and could she bring us some.  It would be perfect.  No need to cook dinner.  We would have leftover quiche and soup.  I was very grateful.

Only the Reno friend never arrived (so I assume she will be here tomorrow, which is fine) and at 5 p.m. the other friend called to say it had been a busy day and she was just now starting the make the soup and she would bring it tomorrow instead.  I'm still grateful, but now I have to make something else for dinner after all.

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I've been going through old photo albums, forgetting how many fun things are there.  I found this picture, for example:

This is a photo of Walt's mother's Irish cousin, Nora and her granddaughter Zoe, in 1990.  Nora had written on the back that the baby is wearing an Yves St. Laurent dress. Nora has been dead for several years and Zoe is now a well known ballerina in England.

Coincidentally, when I went to Google to look her up, I found this article, which talks about a production of Carmen  that she was about to perform with her boyfriend dancing with her as Don Jose to her Carmen.  It was nice to read what she's doing now that she's all grown up.

I wonder if she still wears Yves St. Laurent.....

Just a Touch of Vodka

For years I have been reading that one should add a bit of vodka along with the water to make pie crust.  Supposedly the vodka evaporates and leaves a much more flaky crust.

Now, I am all about the flaky crust.  The most flaky crust I remember having was at the home of a friend of Walt's mother, so flaky I tried to get her secret out of her...and she didn't have one.  Her crust just turned out flaky.

I have made flaky crust most of my life, except that I started having pie crust problems a few years back.  I can't get it to roll out properly and it's never as flaky as I think it should be.

The main problem is the rolling out.  I stopped trying to roll it on a floured wooden bread board and went to rolling it on a no-fail plastic mat, measured for how wide I want it.  I can still never get it to roll out big enough.

My friend Mary told me she always uses a pie bag where you put the dough in and roll it inside the bag.  That worked better than anything else, but I still was not happy with my crust.

It's not the recipe.  It's by Julia Child -- and would Julia steer you wrong?  Jeri asked for the recipe (I think the only recipe of mine that one of my children has ever asked for) and she makes wonderful pies.  So the problem is me, not the recipe.

Yesterday I decided to make a quiche for dinner and made my usual pie crust only decided -- what the heck -- and I mixed vodka with the water I was adding to the dry ingredients.

With my approaching dementia, I actually forgot that I don't use a bread board any more, and floured the board the way I used to.  To my amazement, the dough rolled out well.  Not perfectly but better than usual.

When the quiche came out of the oven, a small piece of the crust broke off and I tasted it.  Perfect.  In fact, perhaps the most flaky crust I had ever made.

Never again will I attempt to make pie dough without vodka.  Assuming I remember.  And that we have a bottle of vodka around (given that neither one of us drinks vodka and that we only bought it for my mother, who won't be coming over here any more, when I run out of that bottle, I will actually have to buy another bottle)

So if you are searching for the most flaky pie crust, take my word for it--add vodka!

Best of all, we have half the quiche left over for dinner tonight.

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Sunday has become a special night for me.  It's the night when the new Outlander episode comes out.  This was episode 3 of Season 4 and it was a great episode, not depressing because of Claire's disapproval of slaves at Jamie's aunt's plantation last week.

This is just Claire and Jamie traveling to find a place to make their new home, having survived a pirate attack and nearly provoking a riot for medically treating a slave others wanted to hang, things are trying to return to more normal. 

Add a scary storm and a ghost Indian who was probably also a time traveler, like Claire, and you have a good story, which ends up with Jamie falling in love with the land with a great view...and strawberries growing.  I assume they will be building their house next week.

The episode also contains a good bit about their daughter Brianna, back in the 20th century, and her boyfriend Roger.  I found those parts distracting and frustrating the first time I read the book, but enjoyed them the second time I read it and enjoyed that side story last night.

As usual, there were the expected plethora of negative comments on Facebook this morning, people who nit pick every. little. thing. (like how can Brianna have brown eyes when Jamie and Claire both have blue eyes?), but there were more positive comments than for the last episode, which is nice.  There is so much more interesting stuff to come.....

California Today

This is what it's like in California these days.

The big fire is ~100 miles north of us, but the smoke is affecting many cities for many miles from the source.  

Everyone is watching the AQI (Air Quality Index) these days.  Normal is 0-50, which is satisfactory and contains no danger.  Moderate is 50-100 which is acceptable but may present some health concerns for some people.

This was us last night:

And we aren't nearly as bad as other places.  Walt and I stayed home all day yesterday, except for a brief trip Walt took to the hardware store, when he wore a face mask.

Ned and I went to Atria today and I wore my mask for the first time.  It's uncomfortable because it cuts right across the place where the wound from the biopsy that was taken the other day rests, but it's not that far to Atria, so it was OK.  And today, the air is much better, only 195, which is merely "unhealthy" not "hazardous."

We learned that my mother has a new "neighbor" in the apartment where Marge used to live.  I have not seen her, but she is one of the homeless women from Paradise, the town that was totally destroyed by the fire, which is now only 45% contained.

The details from the fire are horrendous.  The town of Paradise is gone and you can't really understand the extent of the damage until you see an overhead shot of it from a helicopter.  You can't believe how many homes were destroyed.  Paradise obviously turned into a living hell.

So far 63 have been confirmed dead and 631 are still listed as missing.  Obviously a lot of them will eventually be found, but it's also pretty certain that many of them will be added to the death list.  Such a terrible terrible tragedy.

Trump will be coming to view the area tomorrow.  You'd think those poor people have enough problems already but maybe--not likely--the sight of the damage and the hoards of the now-homeless will trigger a bit of empathy, though since he seems to be unable to be empathetic without the help of speech writers, I'm not expecting anything.

But, heck, Stephen Colbert raised thousands of dollars for flood victims by putting together a book written entirely of quotes Trump made when he went to view the flooding following Hurricane Florence.  Maybe this will give him fodder for another book.

currently #1 on the NYT list of books.
#5 on Amazon (it used to be #1)

We had a decent visit with my mother.  Ned got to her apartment first and she was just getting out of bed, so was not groggy, and was in a good mood.  We visited a bit while Ned set up the bathroom for me.  Then I took a shower and when I returned to her room 10 minutes later, she was surprised to see me because she hasn't seen me in such a long  time.

We took her to lunch in the big Atria restaurant, which she always thinks she has never seen before and always complains that there are so many people there that she doesn't know.  But she ate a good lunch and Ned is so good at keeping her laughing.  She gets to talking, making sense, and then talks faster and faster until it becomes just gibberish, but she eventually realizes that she's not making sense.

We returned home and there was a catalog from Lands end here.  I found a couple of things I thought I'd order and then realized that the catalogue was offering me a 50% discount, so I ordered two things and with the discount the total was more than one of the items cost, so it was a great deal.

Now I'm going to a show tonight but Walt decided not to go, so someone from the theater is going to drive me out to Winters so I can review it.  Sure will be nice when I can drive again.  I tried sitting in the chair in my mother's apartment, which I used to have problems getting out of.  I figured I was better enough I might be able to get out this time, but no.  I needed Ned's help.  But I am getting there.

Not Again

It  was a bit after 3 when I woke up, after sleeping for about 3 hours.  I turned on Morning Joe, hoping it would put me back to sleep.  I thought I had mistakenly chosen the wrong channel because they seemed to be showing a rerun of the Pittsburgh massacre and talking about "11 people killed."

In short order, I realized this was not Pittsburgh, it was Thousand Oaks here in California and another shooter had gone berserk and killed 11 people (12 now, at the time of this writing) and wounded "at least" 12 others. 

With the shooter also killing himself, they may never know what prompted him to open fire on "college night" in "the 4th safest city in the country."  The gun was not an automatic, it was purchased 4 years ago, he has no terrorist connections that they have found yet.  Maybe they can find enough to make a "best guess" scenario, but there are still 12 dead, including a long-time Ventura county sheriff near retirement age.

Once again, my heart hurts and I feel the helplessness of being an onlooker.  Jeri had maybe the best suggestion for all of us:

Assignment for everyone: when you are out in the world this week, look people in the eye and acknowledge them. Smile and say hello. Hold the door for someone. Let the other car go first. Thank the barista. Whatever.

Maybe if we start an epidemic of "kindness" in our communities we can begin to prevent such heinous acts.  Maybe not, but what a more pleasant place it will be  to live.

Kindness did not start in the nation's capital, where the president, crowing about a glowing victory in the midterms (what TV was HE watching??), took on the members of the press and even threw out a CNN reporter and took away his White House access pass, using a doctored videotape claiming the reporter had manhandled a White House staffer, when comparisons between the WH tape and the original CNN tape (and memories of everyone who watched it live) show that he did not.

But this White House is unscrupulous and will go to any lengths to achieve whatever goal they desire.

"CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them.
You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN"

Good news in the midst of all this was checking my blood test results.  Last CK result was 558, this time it's 498.  Normal is <200 .="" better.="" feeling="" font="" i="" m="" nbsp="" no="" wonder="">

With nothing positive but blood tests to think about at home Walt and I took off for Vacaville to meet Char for lunch at good ol' Fenton's.

Fenton's is our go-to meeting place whenever Char and I get together for lunch.  It's a longer drive for her, but she will drive that distance to get a crab salad sandwich.

Fenton's is amazing.  We first encountered it in Oakland and were pleased when they decided to open a shop in Vacaville.  We don't eat there often but it's a special place.

They have humongous sundaes and my complaint is always that there is copious sweet sauce, but the ice cream is piled so high in the bowl that the sauce goes all over the saucer on which it is served.  I got smart one time and requested that my small sundae be served in a larger bowl and I was able to keep most of the chocolate sauce in the bowl so I could eat it with a spoon rather than debate about what people would think of a 75 year old woman licking the plate.

I have never ordered their banana split, which is reported to contain a quart of ice cream.

But we all ordered vanilla malts (loaded with malt!) and crab sandwiches and were very happy with our lunch.

On the way home there was thick smoke in the air, which we thought was coming from the fire that is burning about 100 miles north of here (14,000 people without power right now and mandatory evacuations of several small towns).  The traffic was surprisingly thick and in spots actually stopped, but then we discovered an active fire in the median, which professionals were in the process of putting out.

From there it was clear sailing home and an opportunity to catch up on the latest depressing news from the midterm results and the latest lies from the White House.

Best Laid Plans

For your edification and enlightenment today:

Anatidaephobia is defined as an irrational fear that one is being watched by a duck. The anatidaephobic individual fears that no matter where they are or what they are doing, a duck watches. Anatidaephobia is derived from the Greek word "anatidae", meaning ducks and "phobos" meaning fear. The person is not necessarily afraid of the duck. They only fear that the animal is watching them, keeping tabs on what they're doing throughout the day. 

Stay away from Disney cartoons.

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When Ned was here Monday, we made plans for our Wednesday.  He would pack up his moveable spa, we would go to Atria, I would shower, we would take my mother to lunch in the main dining room and then he would take me to Nugget (our supermarket).

Walt tells me that the last time I shopped for groceries was June.  (He also tells me they have reorganized Nugget so much I won't recognize it.)  I am feeling strong enough to use a grocery cart as a walker and I miss those impulse purchases I like to make!  So I was excited about our day.

After Ned went home, I remembered that this is blood test week and my doctor had also asked me to get a blood pressure check.  That all sounds very simple, but my BP checks are NEVER simple.  The BP is always borderline and the pulse is always one point above the high normal, so they try to get it back down again, and never can.  Last time I was there for nearly an hour while they tried every trick to get me to be "normal" until they finally determined that I was not in danger of dying on my way to the parking lot and let me go.

Anyway, with the potential of a very long stop at Kaiser, I realized that it might be more time than Ned wanted to spend so I told him that the stop at Nugget could be optional, depending on time.

THEN I got a call from Atria that my mother had a lesion or something on her arm and that they had contacted her doctor.  The doctor's nurse called and we set up an appointment for her for Wednesday.  So now THAT was added to the mix.

I suggested to Ned that we just get my mother, go to Kaiser, and then take her to IHOP for lunch and do all the rest some other day.

So I was up most of the night watching election coverage.  It was addicting.  And I finally fell asleep around 6:30, to be awakened 2 hours later by another call from Atria saying that she had another of her "spells."  Not sure I'm exactly clear on what happened, but this one seems to have been while she was walking and just stopped, bent over and was unresponsive for a bit.  Fortunately she already had a doctor's appointment so I could talk with the doctor about that.  I think her body is trying to die and she won't let it, frankly!

But we went to Atria and found her passed out in the community room, but not non-responsive, like before.  I found out she had been "out" for about 10 minutes but eventually came to.  We took her to Kaiser, where the doctor checked her wound and had it dressed, though there really wasn't anything wrong with her that time wouldn't cure.  But it is now bandaged for the week and they even took my blood pressure to save me from having to make an extra stop.

I still had to get a blood test, but that went effortlessly and then we back to the car.  My mother got in the car moaning "let's go home....I'm tired of all this."  But she was up for lunch, so we went to nearby IHOP, went in, sat down and ordered coffee and water and started to look at the menu when my mother said "OH!  I need to leave NOW."  She had to go to the bathroom, but by the time she got up, it was too late.  Her Depends got a lot of it, but not all and she was upset that it was running down her backside. 

 

We left the coffee sitting there.  I tried to pay for it, but the guy said that he couldn't just ring up coffee on the cash register, so he didn't charge us.  We hadn't drunk any anyway.

We got her back to Atria and Ned took her in, leaving her clean up to the aids -- it's why we pay the big bucks (rising to >$7000 next year).  He said by the time they started to clean her, it was really bad, and more like diarrhea.

After we left Atria, we drove back to just past Kaiser so I could stop at Office Max and buy cartridges for my printer.

We didn't even think about going to the supermarket.

Ned must be so exhausted after one of these days, dealing with two feeble old ladies, trying to keep both of us upright with only one walker.  But he never complains.  I hope he doesn't go home and kick the dog.

Yes, I voted, dammit!

Yes, I voted!  Now LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!

Yesterday was very irritating.  I cannot count the number of voting reminders I got.  The most irritating came from MoveOn.org and one other FB group I can't remember.  They each sent a message asking if I was going to vote.  I was planning on ignoring all such messages, but I could not close the window until I had checked whether I had already voted or was planning to vote, so I checked that yes, I would vote.  But no that wouldn't close the message.  Immediately another one popped up to ask what time of day I would be voting.  Again, I could not close the message until I had answered, so I checked "mid morning."  Then another one popped up asking if I would tell all my friends.  I never do because these messages bug me and I'm not going to bug all my friends, but I lied checked that yes, I would tell my friends, but then another message came asking me if it could take my entire friends list and send out messages for me.  I ignored it.

THEN I got a message from some guy I didn't know--along with his photo--saying he saw that I planned to vote and would I join him in inviting all my friends to also vote.

This happened with BOTH of the FB groups.

I know it's an important election and I applaud the dedication of those working hard to get out the vote, but it was overwhelming and had the opposite effect one me.  If it weren't such an important election, I might have stayed home just because they had bugged me so much.

Jeri emailed this morning that she was staying off of social media because it was so full of voting reminders, and I decided that was a good idea.  She had four messages from Elizabeth Warren just this morning.  We agreed that Warren should never run for president.  I think she would make a wonderful president, but suspect that as a woman she would run into the same problems Obama did--a Congress dedicated to not letting her achieve anything.  I think she does better in the Senate.

Walt and I went off at 10 to vote.  I considered not taking my walker, since I'm feeling so much stronger now but, anticipating that there might be a line, I took it.  Davis is a very politically aware town and I'm sure most people would be voting  The buses are running for free so that people can get to their polling places.  Outside the polling place, where bikes are parked, I saw several of the "take and ride a bike" bikes that are available around town, another sign that people were finding ways to the polling place.

There was no line here, but nearly 300 people had already voted by 10.  I had my cheat sheet and marked my ballot quickly.  Too quickly, in fact.  I didn't notice that there were two democrats running for Senate and accidentally did NOT vote for Dianne Feinstein, the first time since I could vote for her that I did not.  I could have changed it but decided to leave it.  If she loses by one vote, it will be my fault.  At least I voted for a democrat.

The first vote I could cast (you had to be 21 then) was for Johnson, when he ran for reelection in 1965.  He was running against Barry Goldwater.  I was working for the physics department then and many of the physicists formed a group called Scientists and Engineers for Johnson, which I became part of and did work for.  We worked hard and it was a triumph when Johnson won.

It set me up for optimism in succeeding elections, so I'm always nervous when elections come around.

I want to avoid all news reports and social media today.  I don't want to hear that there is a blue wave about to come, only to discover that when the ballots are counted, they had the wrong color.  I only want one emotion when it's all over, either elation or depression, not a roller coaster all day long.

---

Walt had bad news yesterday.  Over the weekend, he had a low fever and was coughing a bit and felt shaky.  He had to leave work early and we skipped a wedding reception we had looked forward to.  As it turned out, that was a good decision.

He called his doctor yesterday morning and they decided to reschedule his surgery for 2 weeks from now (Thanksgiving week).  I feel so sorry for him because he's so damned uncomfortable.  It's difficult for him to sit down and he spends most of his time pacing around.  But better postpone than risk complications during surgery.

Wallowing

Yesterday was a day to wallow.

STARZ ran all 13 episodes of Outlander, Season 3 leading up to the start of Season 4 at 8 p.m.  I told myself I wouldn't just sit in a chair all day and watch TV, but that's what I did, even though I had just watched the last 4 or so episodes a couple of weeks ago when STARZ did another marathon that I caught toward the end.

I don't know why I love this series so much when there is NOTHING else that I read or watch that comes near to this genre.  I am a crime drama fan and rarely read anything that could be classified as chick lit.

But I guess what I like about this is that it encompasses many genres and is far beyond a mere "chick lit" category (what chick lit runs over 1000 pages???)  It's a love story, it's science fiction, it's medicine, it's history, it's a travelogue, it's biology, it's adventure and it's a bit of porn too, to keep everyone titillated.  

 

It's a little bit of everything and it always boggles my mind to think that Diana Gabaldon wrote the first book "to see if I could write a book."  She knew nothing of Scotland or its history, nothing of the kinds of medical things that happen throughout the book as a result of Claire being, at first, a nurse and, later, a doctor.  Mostly I like the books because the writing is so damn good.  The sort of thing I would like to do if I had any kind of bent toward fiction (which I don't).

The fans for these books must surely rival those for Harry Potter.  For the sad few who may not know what these books are about, in Book 1, Claire Randall, on her honeymoon in Scotland with husband Frank, whom she loves very much, happens upon a circle of standing stones, which are so common in Scotland (I visited a few myself).  Only this circle is special for some who respond to it and in touching one of the stones, Claire is instantly transported back to 18th century Scotland where she first encounters a sadistic British soldier, Jack Randall, who looks amazingly like Frank (turns out he's a distant relative of her husband's) who is hell-bent on raping her.

That's for starters.  She is rescued by some highlander Frasiers and, through all sorts of machinations ends up having to marry young Jamie, a red-headed virginal hunk, in order to protect her from being captured by Randall.

The newlyweds learn to love each other and then after a year in France (Book  2), the Frasiers return to Scotland, where Bonnie Prince Charlie is trying to recapture the Scottish throne for Scotland.  The Battle of Culloden is looming and Claire knows that the highland system will be broken and most of the soldiers killed.  She is ready to die with Jamie, but is pregnant with his child and he insists she go back through the stones so that his child can be born safely.

Twenty years pass, during which Claire and Jamie live separate lives (Book 3), though each still in anguish over the loss of the loves of their life.  Claire lives a loveless marriage with Frank, who takes her back in her pregnant state and becomes a father to daughter Brianna.  Jamie is in and out of prison and while working on an estate is blackmailed into teaching the adolescent daughter about sex before she marries an old fart, in an arranged marriage.  Naturally she becomes pregnant with Jamie's child.

Toward the end of Book 3, Frank has died and Claire confesses her story to her daughter.  With the help of a friend, Roger Wakefield, they begin research and discover that Jamie did NOT die at Culloden.  Claire decides to go back to the 18th century and see if she can find him, which, of course, she does and they take up where they left off, with lots of ups and downs which make me think I will never, ever go on a ship again..

So now we start Season 4 of the TV season and in preparation, I re-read all of Book 4 to reacquaint myself with what happens.  In truth, when I read it the first time, it was my least favorite of the 7 books (book 8 is promised for 2019).  But re-reading it this time I really liked it and was ready for the new TV series to begin.

There are lots of fan pages on Facebook and I occasionally look at them to find out what is coming up.  The fans are slavish.  And helped by the fact that Gabaldon herself, along with many of the stars of the TV series are very accessible, always doing interviews and conventions and Sam Heughan especially (Jamie) is very active on twitter and often answers fans' questions.  (Heughan is a very handsome guy almost young enough to be my grandson.)

But because the fans are so slavish, they are very particular about the TV series and they complain about everything if it isn't just the way it was in the book.  For some reason, this first episode seems to have more complaints than the others.  They don't like  the new theme song (which I love....keeps the old tune but updates it to fit the action taking place in America), they don't like a switch that was made, which I won't describe but which jolted me too, but then I realized why it had to be done for TV when it was not necessary for the book, they don't like the violent end (which IS from the book), they complain about the costumes...and this is just the first episode.  I, for one, am willing to overlook a lot of differences from the book as long as the TV series keeps the lush look, the relationship between Claire and Jamie, and keeps the story moving forward, which this promises to do.

I can't wait till next week's episode.  Slaves and Indians and bears are coming in the weeks ahead.