fox

Himself's aunt came over from the UK for Thanksgiving and asked for my pecan pie recipe. I've made that pie in the UK twice, once successfully and once not, and the difference was the availability of corn syrup; when I couldn't get it, I tried to cook down brown sugar to substitute, and either I didn't boil off enough of the liquid or it just doesn't behave the same way, because that pie never did set properly. Tasted fine, but it was soup.

So. For a pie whose filling's ingredients are butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, pecans, and dark corn syrup, if you couldn't get corn syrup of any sort, what would you do? I've been thinking about using brown sugar instead of white and golden syrup instead of Karo. (The aunt said "oh no, golden syrup is such a sticky mess," and I had to point out that corn syrup is as well and that's sort of the point.) Any more expert bakers have other thoughts?

Himself is heading out of town for a couple of days this week, so although I usually go to the office Tuesday and Wednesday I'll have to be at home this Wednesday and was waffling about whether to make my second in-office day Monday or Friday. Ultimately decided I might as well get it out of the way, and then promptly forgot about it, so when he woke me up this morning and said "Weren't you thinking of going in today?" all I could say was UGH. But I did, I got up and dressed for going in and got all the way to the train and went to lock up the scooter and realized I didn't have my lock, because I didn't have my bag, which meant I couldn't even haul the thing in with me and charge it at the office because I didn't have my computer. Sigh. Scooted back home, picked up the work bag, and did it all again.

I've been fighting off a sinus cold thing and I think it's making me stupid.

The family is in town for Thanksgiving, we're having a nice visit, and now I'm waiting for them to come home from the zoo so I can tell my mom and my brother ( bad family news ).

Last week I slipped on the third stair from the bottom at my brother's house and banged the living shit out of my tailbone and right hip. By now it doesn't hurt much anymore, which is exactly a week (I mean, it was like 9am last Tuesday - I know, because I was on my way to accompany my sister-in-law dropping my mom at the airport, and that's when we had to leave the house) from injury to about 99% recovery. I would not have predicted it would be that fast, because (a) it hurt like hell at the time and (b) I'm not in great shape generally, and it's been my experience that people who are stronger and fitter to begin with recover more quickly.

When my mom was post-surgical in June, the pain scale thing they had in her room was the normal 1-10 one (and not the Hyperbole and a Half version, which I showed her before her procedure and which made her laugh), but it was annotated to suggest the differences between the levels had to do with how distracting the pain was, which I found really useful. This week when my hip has been bothering me, it's been distracting because of things I can't do as I normally would or in some cases at all - like, I had to find a new way to put on my pants, because I couldn't lift my foot off the floor or bend over far enough to put them on in the usual way. I had to hold onto something and move in a particular way if I wanted to lean over to pick something up or put something in the dishwasher or what have you. Sometimes even reaching for things with my right hand was too hard and I had to use my left. So I'd call that about 7 or 8. By contrast, a couple of summers ago when I had that nerve thing in my jaw? When that nerve was acting up, I mean in those moments, it was a level of distracting where all I could think about was how much it hurt and how to make it stop. There was no question of doing normal things in different ways. I wouldn't be able to put something in the dishwasher; I'd just drop it. It was an automatic pause button in any conversation I was having because I was abruptly busy writhing in pain. That'd be a 10. Anyway, I've been thinking this week about how that seems to me to be a useful way of measuring pain. I believe I know people who can mostly go about their normal business with broken bones (depending on the bone), because sure, they can feel it, but it doesn't really bother them. Other people, that's going to ruin their day. So.



In other kinds of progress, I'm getting a lot done around the house in my abundant spare time these days, just in general and also in preparation for the holidays. We are hosting Thanksgiving, with ten adults and a three-year-old. Meep! (Side note: my nephew digs numbers, and I remembered a video of him reading (!) an e-mail from his grandmother where she said she was back home at [her house number], which is how he knows her house - so we talked about my address, and how that's where he's going to come for Thanksgiving, and now he is excited about this house number too. Yay!) I need to come up with "assignments" for everyone, make sure I know what everybody can't live without on the Thanksgiving table, and find some hotel recommendations for my mom and my aunt and uncle. Plus cleaning the house thoroughly between now and ... four weeks from now. :-) I'm also resuming setting the alarm and getting up in the morning, instead of waking up when Himself gets up and goes to work and then going back to sleep for another hour.

Getting to the airport on Tuesday was quite an adventure - one that ultimately ended happily, but I didn't know for sure that I was going to get on my plane until I was on it. A few minutes before which, at about 6:10 pm, a young woman comes rushing up to the shortish security line (the only line) at whose end I am standing and says "Does anyone mind if I go ahead, because my flight is at 6:30?"

I said - not unkindly, I hope - "Mine's at 6:20, honey." And started to go on about how we were all trying to catch planes and we'd have to move as efficiently as possible.

At which point the woman who was second in line said, "Come on up here - you should both go in front of me."


From this I take two very valuable lessons, namely: no matter what's making you frantic and desperate, it's worth not forgetting that other people have got shit going on too; and, help is not only available but in fact on offer if you only let someone know you need it. I knew both of these things, of course, but it was good to have the reminder two nights before Thanksgiving.

My dad is hanging in there. He wants so badly to feel better, and it's breaking his heart to be breaking ours. I was doing really well not falling to pieces until this morning, when an argument with my sister-in-law over whether I was talking about permutations or combinations reduced me to a weeping wreck for close to an hour (not because of permutations or even because I was arguing with her, of course, but because I was already so fragile and today is the day I'm leaving).

My brother brought me to the airport and I'm having a glass of wine before boarding. I've had a lot of wine in the past couple of days, and a lot of ice cream. I know you're all telling me to be sure to take care of myself, but maybe I'd better be sure I'm not drinking too much.

This is like miraculous, you guys. Six and a half hours there on Wednesday, seven and a half back today. I am putting stuff away and I've got Fr. Ewan McGregor (along with Tom Hanks, Pierfrancisco Favino, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ayelet Zurer, and Stellan Skaaarrrsgårrrd) on my television. Things are pretty good.

It's been slowish, with a little knitting, a little card-playing, a little picking up my brother and sister-in-law at the airport, and a big meal. I hope everyone else who has Thanksgiving is enjoying it, and everyone who doesn't especially care is enjoying Thursday and looking forward to the weekend. :-)

My team and I curled very well tonight, which combined with the fact that the other team Just Couldn't Get It Together for a while meant we were up 12-0 after four ends. Then they took four, we took one, and they took three, and we were out of time for the eighth - so that's 13-7, which is (trust me) an ungodly score for a curling match. (And they only got the three in the seventh because I was playing to try to steal - given different circumstances, I'd have thrown through and kept it clean and held them to one.)

No parking when I got home, but that's all right - I'll go get the car from across the street in the morning and pack it up with my stuff for the long drive. I promise to check in before I go, because I know you'll all be unable to get through your Wednesday without hearing from me first thing in the morning. :-)

Left my parents' 11:30a. Am only just now in Breezewood. Fucking fog.

(not yet.)

Packing stuff and then packing the car. And then coffee and lots and lots of driving. Whee!

This is Xjournal for Mac OS X, and I might like it better than Semagic, even. Yay!

I return triumphant from various retail establishments, including the Apple Store, with a shiny! new! MacBook!, named -- almost inevitably, I feel -- Mr. Smith.

Everybody say hi.

Got home 11ish.  Hung out with fam for a bit.  Back in childhood room, where dresser promptly tried to collapse on me when one caster fell out of front leg (of dresser) and couldn't be re-placed.  Propped up with ream of printer paper.  Learned that foaming face cloths labeled "deep moisture" really do leave your skin feeling less tight and dry than other types, even when water is -- at is is here -- hard as nails.

Apparently segments of Who fandom are being particularly jackassy.  Not that any of them are likely to be reading this, but if they are:  knock it off, y'all.  You're spoiling all kinds of things for the rest of us.

Sleeep.

I have just been informed that the Boss says it would be good for morale for everyone to work from home for the rest of the day, which, translated, means Get out of here. So off I go to do my couple of errands and then head to my parents' house.

My package-tracking efforts have failed, because I didn't read Lands End's fine print and UPS are a bunch of meanies (did you know that "arrival scan" does not necessarily mean that anything was scanned on arrival anywhere? this is what they call a "logical scan" rather than a "physical scan". the fact that this name is completely illogical did not register with them when i pointed it out). Ah, well.

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm off to Cleveland. Drive safe, everyone.