food, and other musings

cause that's how we roll around here

When Jeff and I threw our holiday party last weekend, I served this spicy-sweet champagne cocktail to the majority of our guests. It was lovely.

To make the ginger syrup:

In a medium saucepan, combine 3/4 cup water with 1/2 cup sliced fresh ginger and 1/2 cup sugar.

Simmer uncovered 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let steep 15 minutes. Strain syrup through a sieve into a bowl, discarding solids. Chill until cold.

Happy holidays!

From Gourmet magazine.

Bar Fly

I told you I loved The Alembic. (Hint: I'm the one with the scowl on my face.)

The Leader of the Band is Gone

Every night in junior high, I'd get in bed, surround myself with the orgy of pillows that made up my nightly nest, and turn on the clock radio to Love Songs. Then, as I drifted off to sleep, a woman named Delilah would play slow, soft serenades dedicated to lovers long gone. I would listen closely to the dedications, and my heart would ache strangely, in a way it never had before, for people who had lost someone they'd loved, to distance, death, or the cheap hussy at the liquor store. No matter the story, I felt their pain. I could hear the yearning, that deep ache in the bones, all the way through the radio waves. I hoped one day to love that much myself. I was 14; of course I did. The music that accompanied these stories was always older than me, from an era when sentimentality was king.

There were a few classic songs that I got to know over the years, sad songs sure to elicit tears that were requested over and over and over. Some were treacly, but some were decent songs that had gotten attached to the dedication circuit through no fault of their own.

Same Old Lang Syne told an every day story, the kind you might say was pregnant with regret. A few lines were genuinely touching; more than a few made me cringe. But somehow, even with the gratuitous sax solo at the end, I came to love it. Running into an ex in the grocery store, the most mundane of places; two people looking back, not only wondering "what if?" about one another, but also remembering a time when their lives had spread out before them, unformed, electric with possibilities. At the moment they meet, it's clear that at least one of them has settled, and for both of them, the surprises their lives once held have long since faded to disappointment, loneliness.

When I woke up this morning and read that Dan Fogelberg had died, I immediately thought of this song. I'd heard it in the nail salon a few weeks back, and strained to hear the words. After all those cheesy dedications, and all those years, it still captured me, treacly lines and all. That's something.

Chopping Block

I guess I have been getting a lot of attention around our house lately, what with the colonoscopy and all. But did Jeff really have to go and cut off his finger to swing the pendulum back his way? It's pathetic what some people will do for attention.

We'd just come home from having a glass of wine and a small bite down the street and I was setting up the iPod in the kitchen while Jeff was cutting up some fresh basil. All of a sudden, I heard something behind me to indicate pain -- I don't remember the noise but it made me turn around and by the way Jeff was holding his finger, I realized he'd cut himself.

So I followed him into the bathroom to help him run the finger under the faucet. (Watching is too help.) There was serious blood, everywhere, and when we saw his finger -- middle one, left hand -- we realized something important. PART OF IT WAS MISSING.

All of a sudden there were major hysterics. Tears, hyperventilating, lots of "Oh my Gods". I mean me, not him. I dashed back to the kitchen and looked down at the cutting board.

And there it was. PART OF HIS FINGER. The fleshy tip. It was bloodless and it looked sort of forlorn. I flipped it over and could see where the layer of skin stopped and the flesh began in varying shades of pale. The last layer of skin looked sort of lacy at the edges, with the swirls and sworls of the fingerprint shining through from the other side.

Lest you think I was admiring it so philosophically then, let me draw you a more accurate picture.

ME: [crying and screaming] "Ohmgodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod. Oh honey, it's bleeding. Ohmygod you cut your finger OFF! YOU CUT YOUR FINGER OFF! Look! Here it is! Do something with it! Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod."

HIM: [calmly] "I'm fine, will you just get me a bandaid?"

ME: "YOU'RE NOT FINE! YOU CUT YOUR FINGER OFF!"

HIM: "So?"

ME: "So? YOU'RE GOING TO BE DEFORMED!"

HIM: "Will you please get me a bandaid?"

ME: "No, you need stitches. Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod. I'm going to call 911."

I dashed back to our old style rotary phone and dialed 911. Aside: I think if you get all the answers right to the questions the 911 operator asks you, you should win money, like on Jeopardy. Because when you're hysterical, figuring out your address and phone number and all the other bazillion questions they ask you is really, really hard. 

Anyway, I told the lady that my boyfriend had cut part of his finger off -- OFF! -- and she was all, "Woah." And I was all, "I found the part he cut off, can you tell me what to do with it so they can reattach it?" So she starts giving me instructions -- totally counter-intuitive, I might add. "Do not put it on ice. Do not run it under water. That could damage it and ruin chances of reattachment. Find a clean plastic bag like a Ziploc and place it in there."

I dashed back down the hallway, turning on the lights for the ambulance as I did so they could find our apartment. I grabbed a Ziploc and ran back into the bathroom. While I was on the phone, Jeff had tried to get a bandaid himself, and there were wet bandaids and half-torn bandaid wrappers covering every square inch of the bathroom from sink counter to floor. "Where is it?" "It's not there?" "No, I don't see it. Did you put it on your finger?" "I don't know, I might have washed it down the drain "WASHED IT DOWN THE DRAIN? WHY DID YOU DO THAT? OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD."

I grabbed the sink drain and yanked it out but I couldn't see a finger nub. The only logical thing to do next was cry harder.

"Why are you crying?" Jeff asked me. "Because you're going to be DEFORMED!" I wailed. I'm the kind of woman who makes him change his shirt and use hair gel when we go out, so it stands to reason a physical deformity might get my panties in a bunch.

About that time the paramedics came. I considered asking them to take off their shoes -- we don't wear them in our apartment because of our pristine white carpet -- but the possible deformity won out and I shooed them in.

As soon as they made sure he wasn't bleeding to death, they sat him down and unwrapped the dish towel turban from his finger. They found the fingertip -- Jeff had put it under the bandaid, thankfully. You could tell they were totally disappointed. Obviously they were hoping he'd cut it off at the second knuckle or something. But then we got the bad news.

"They won't be able to reattach this, sir."

You would be proud of me. I handled the news really well. NOT. I started crying hysterically again. Then about 17 more paramedics arrived and started asking me for his ID, to get my shoes and my coat, that we'd be going to the hospital. I was definitely having flashbacks and I think that's part of why I was so upset. One of them, Mr. Tough Guy, says, "Hey, who's the guitar player in the family," and points to one of Jeff's guitars and his 800-pound very manly looking amp. I eyeballed him for a second before answering with THE OBVIOUS. "Hey, I did the same thing to myself at the fire station," he tells us. "See?" He showed Jeff his presumably deformed finger. "It looks a little funny but it's okay."

After much consultation, Jeff decided not to go to the hospital. All they were going to do was clean it, Mr. Tough Guy's partner told us, and since it was bleeding so profusely it was probably pretty clean already. They walked Jeff back into the bathroom and bandaged it for him, giving him instructions for changing it. I sat on the edge of a hard chair in the living room, my coat on, staring out the window. I think I was in shock. Would I really have to make dinner tonight? It was HIS turn.

On their way out the door, Mr. Tough Guy and his partner said, "Hey, man, take it easy. Let your wife take care of you." I narrowed my eyes at them. "I'm onto your man schemes," I said. They chuckled. I tried not to attack them from behind for the ways their huge man-shoes were leaving filthy paw prints on my white carpet. They had been helpful, after all.

I guess the finger throbbed something awful the rest of the night, but I wouldn't let Jeff have any Advil because it makes you bleed. With luck, he'll be in a bandaid later this week sometime, but the bleeding isn't going to stop completely for quite a while. "You won't bleed to death or anything," Mr. Tough Guy told us. Thanks for the reassurance, dude.

An hour behind schedule, we sat down to bowls of spaghetti aglio e olio and watched another episode of Heroes.  Mid-way through, I looked at Jeff "Does this mean you're going to have a different fingerprint?" He looked back. "I bet it does." He chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "Man, I wish I had robbed a bank yesterday."

The Colonoscopy, and The End

Sorry I haven't been back to let you know about the actual procedure. But you know, now that it's over, it's like oh, what, the colonoscopy? That was sooo Tuesday afternoon . Now all I care about is the office holiday party, and how many drinks = not making an ass of myself on the dance floor.

Jeff and I left for the hospital at precisely 12N. I'd gotten my bathroom visits down to every 30 minutes, which I figured left me a spare 15 minutes to get from the parking garage to the lobby before things got out of hand.

Right before we left, I walked in the living room to find Jeff flipping through a magazine. "I need you to get totally ready so that when I say go, we can literally be downstairs in the car in 30 seconds." He got going, and I hit the loo one last time. Then it was GO! GO! GO!

We were like a football team doing drills, running down the stairs in tight formation. Door open. Door shut. I hit the garage door opener while he started the engine. The trip was full of backseat driving: "Turn left!" "Speed up through the light!" "Pass this car!" "Get in the right lane!" It was like Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Sort of.

We pulled into the parking garage with oodles of time to spare. I checked in, they got Jeff's number to call him when I was ready, and he took off for greener pastures. I toodled off to the waiting room. And promptly started to cry.

Go ahead -- you can say it. I'm a baby. (Or, as I told my very sweet nurse, Frances, "I'm not the most stoic patient you've ever had, am I?") I don't like hospitals. I don't like people messing with my body. I certainly don't like anal probes.

My nurse came for me and took me away to the hospital room, where she made me change into one of those horrid buttless gowns. I almost got to keep my sweater on, since the IV fluid makes you so cold, but it was long sleeved and I guess that gets in the way. But she tucked me up nice and cozy under a blanket and set to putting in the IV. I looked out the window to my left and gazed out at the back of a row of houses, one brick red, another white, and the trees behind them that had just started to turn shades of red and gold. I pretended I lived in the red house with my fairy godmother and lots of brownies and hot cocoa while Frances stabbed the fuck out of my veins. Seriously, I look like a heroin addict.

The lady in the bed next to mine had just had an endoscopy and her doctor, also mine, came in and out to check on her. The sound of Dr. Melnick's voice was soothing, but it wasn't enough to make me want to let her stuff a metal rod up my bum. I cried some more, softly. Occasionally the lady next to me would try to make me feel better. "You don't feel a thing!" she said. "I've had three of them." Goody goody for you.

Mel, a very nice nurse's assistant swung by and pushed me down the hall. It was such a strange feeling, gliding through the hallway under someone else's steam; the vantage point almost made me dizzy, walls and lights coming at me from unfamiliar angles. He parked me outside the procedure room and Dr. Melnick came by to say hi. When she saw I was upset, she reassured me. "The worst is over, this is a piece of cake." Well, I don't like butt cake.

Pretty soon she asked me to roll onto my side, and then she showed me the most beautiful sight I have ever seen: two syringes full of the elixir of forgetfulness. As she sank the first one into my IV, she said it would be a mere 7 seconds before bliss overtook me. I felt a burning sensation in my throat, and then it was like Alice down the rabbit hole, down down down down....

I woke up, about an hour and a half later, woozy and confused. Eventually it subsided long enough for me to notice Jeff was in the room, and then Dr. Melnick stopped by. "We tried to get you comfortable but no matter how many drugs we gave you, you kept thrashing and wailing, and we just couldn't give you anymore -- we gave you enough to kill an elephant." In my addled state, I wondered -- is she trying to tell me I'm fat? Then the penny dropped: "So we had to stop 1/3 of the way through."

Yep. I am so hardcore that I fought it even in my unconscious state. I guess often young people have a harder time than older ones tolerating the procedure. Luckily, the few things they could check for at that, er, depth were ruled out, but now it looks like there's a CT scan and a delicious barium beverage in my future. Whatever -- I think I can handle that.

When we got home, I slept for a hundred hours. I woke up to a bowl of spaghetti aglio e olio that Jeff lovingly prepared. It was the best plate of food I have ever tasted in my life.

Blogging from the bowels...of hell

I am sitting on the toilet as I type this. (I've always wanted to write that. Alas, it is untrue. I am at my desk with my pants primly tied at the waist.)

I left work yesterday at 4 p.m. It was the worst kind of day to have to leave early and sign off for 36 straight hours, but isn't that always the way? In this forever connected world, it was hard to explain to my colleagues exactly why I wouldn't be available via phone or email at all, ever, for an entire day. I told a few the truth. Now I know what to say the next time I'm at a party, stuck talking to someone I don't like.

When I got in the cab to come home, I started crying. By the time I got home, I was sobbing hysterically, inconsolably, like a child who has just learned her doggie was run over in the middle of the street. I can't quite explain why I have been dreading this so much, but let's just say that's a matter for my therapist and me to work on over the next 20 sessions. Jeff gave me a big bear hug. "I don't want to give myself non-stop diarrhea!" I sobbed. "People in Hollywood pay good money for this," he reminded me.

I changed into what I now fondly think of as my Pooping Suit. That consists of drawstring sweatpants in a dark color (just in case...), a tee shirt from Hawaii -- that happy place Tiffany recommended I draw upon -- a zip-front hoodie, and some fuzzy slippers. I also put my hair in a ponytail and took off all my rings -- the better to deftly pull open the bathroom door, turn on the lights and fan, and pull down my pants, all within what I like to think of as the Safety Zone -- the time between "uh-oh" and, well, you know.

I lined up my clear liquids in a row on the kitchen counter. Gatorade. Water, in a 16-ounce container -- my measuring stick for each dose. Apple juice. (Am I the only pre-colonoscopy patient who wondered if organic unfiltered apple juice qualifies as a clear liquid? To be sure, I strained it. Twice. Then I poured it in a glass and held it up to the light. Could I see my fingers wiggling behind the glass? No. DISCARD! Over to apple juice choice #2, organic from concentrate. Overly sweet, but oh well.)

Then I sat Jeff down and explained to him where we'd need to go today, and at what time. I gave him the lab number so he can check on my progress -- you know, in case he wants to go out for a spot of lunch while I am being anally probed -- and ensured I had phone numbers in my purse for my Plan B, C, and D rides (in case Jeff woke up with a migraine today and couldn't go with me).

At precisely 5 p.m. I took my first dose. I am such a dork that I actually reset the timer on the microwave before I took the pills, lest the accuracy of the schedule be thrown off by the time it would take me to swallow 4 horse pills and a gallon of liquid. (16 ounces. Whatever.) Once I finished my bottle of water, I measured out another 16 ounces of liquid -- sometimes Gatorade, sometimes apple juice. Every 15 minutes for an hour, I repeated the procedure.

The literature said that the pooping would start within 1-3 hours of finishing the regimen. Ever the overachiever, I was enjoying quality time in the bathroom well before I finished my 4th dose. By 6 p.m. the games had begun in earnest. I clocked myself -- I was in the bathroom every 5-10 minutes for the first 2 hours. I puttered around the house, doing chores in short increments. I'd fold a shirt, two towels, and ball up a pair of socks and then make a mad dash for the bathroom. Then it slowed to every 15-20 minutes. (I also got so sick of getting up from the first season of Heroes that I learned to hold it. I feel sure my sphincter would win gold if "holding it" were an Olympic event.) By the time bedtime rolled around, I was exhausted. Thankfully, I slept well. I only had to get up twice in the night.

One thing no one told me is how cold you get. By my third dose, my teeth were chattering -- and I was drinking unrefrigerated beverages. "I'm so c-c-c-cold," i whimpered to Jeff. "It's because of all the liquid," he said, matter-of-fact. "But it's at room temperature!" I wailed. "Which is 20 degrees colder than your body," he replied. I knew that. By night's end I was curled up in a down comforter on the sofa, and I went to bed wearing pants, slippers, a tee shirt, and a sweatshirt.

This morning I woke up at 7. I'd been advised how good and clean and fresh I would feel the morning after, and I expected to spring out of bed, light and refreshed, empty of all that had ever weighed me down. Instead, I dragged myself down the hall to the loo like Quasimoto, hair plastered to my head from night sweats. Weak isn't quite the word for how I felt, but it's close. Still, I managed to lug out the scale and strip down to nothing. Get real -- instant weight loss is the only reason I let my doctor talk me into this nonsense.

I took a shower -- and yes, I put on all my makeup; I figure if I can flutter my long dark eyelashes at all the doctors they might not notice that MY BARE BUM IS HANGING OFF THE TABLE -- and then started in on round 2. I've persuaded Jeff to go out and buy me some fresh flowers before we leave so I'll have something pretty to look at while I eat an entire pepperoni pizza and a gallon of chocolate chip ice cream when I get home.

Now here we are, T-minus 3 1/2 hours before the colonoscopy.  I've packed my favorite pair of panties in my purse, just in case I have an accident on the way in, and I'm planning tonight's feast. Do you think a pound of spaghetti carbonara and a pan of brownies is too much for a first course?

Thanks for all your kind comments. I'll let you know how it goes!

red daisies

The Last Supper

On Tuesday afternoon, I am getting a colonoscopy. I am a total wreck about it, too, but it's not the procedure that is worrying me. It's the prep.

When I got the instructions a few weeks ago, I read through the list. No Advil for a week before the procedure. Nothing but clear liquids the day before. Nothing at all for 3 hours before the procedure, not even water, not even if my lips are cracked and my throat is parched and I am gagging and dying and beseeching Jeff for just one tiny sip.

Then there's the industrial strength laxative binge. I've had visions of spending 18 hours pooping my guts out before, but somehow that nightmare has always taken place in a third-world country. Is doing it in the privacy of my own home with plenty of toilet paper and magazines supposed to be an upgrade?

When I got the instructions, the first thing I did was go online to research the laxatives I had to take. I was thrilled when I saw that I won't have to choke down a gallon of chalky liquid. But when I read that the tablets produce "a large amount of watery diarrhea," my enthusiasm waned a touch. When I read about a woman who took the pills and then proceeded to vomit and pass out and hit her head so hard she had to get stitches, which made her miss her colonoscopy, even after she pooped her guts out all night long, I closed the web browser.

But then I realized that I have to drink 80 ounces of clear liquids with the pills in the span of an hour. My mind started racing. Didn't a woman die from drinking too much water too fast last year? Didn't some other girl or some pledge in a fraternity hazing incident die the same way? I went back online. I learned that the amount of water my doctor told me to drink is double what the laxative's manufacturer recommends. DOUBLE. I also found lots of articles about water poisoning, but I couldn't find any that would tell me how much was too much.

So I called my doctor. Her nurse reassured me that I was, in fact, meant to drink exactly the amount in the instructions. "It's very important," she told me in a calm voice. "Otherwise you could become dehydrated. Because of the sodium blah-mide (blah-xide? blah-phide?) your body won't be absorbing it all anyway." I tried to believe her, but I couldn't. Then I realized I could just drink Sprite instead of water, and I've never heard of anyone dying from Sprite poisoning. (Getting fat is another thing.) I considered staking out a 7-11 to see just how much soda fits in those Super Big Gulps these days, but I couldn't find one in San Francisco. I'm taking this one on faith.

Before long, I started worrying that I would forget to cut out the Advil, so I set alarms on my computer every day for a week to remind me not to take any. The thought of going without didn't worry me much, truthfully, but that was before I got a raging headache on Thursday and slammed my right thumb in a doorjamb Friday night so hard the nail turned black and blue. Suddenly, I can sympathize with heroin addicts because I. Really. Fucking. Want. Some. Advil. NOW!

Yesterday I wrote up a grocery list of all the things I can eat when the fast starts tomorrow. The list was short because it is limited to clear liquids: water, apple juice, Gatorade, Jello, and broth. Since when is broth a food? Last time I checked it was an ingredient, like flour or baking powder, that required other ingredients in order to be edible. I haven't eaten Jello since elementary school, when I used to lick the raw, sugary granules off my moistened fingers during swim meets. Now I have 8 jars of jiggling green goo in the fridge. Mmmm. Breakfast. Lunch. And dinner!

The other thing on my list was toilet paper. (As I type this, I just realized something: I NEVER BOUGHT THE TOILET PAPER.) I bought two things of wet wipes but I didn't replenish my TP stock so I guess I'll go buy 12 rolls later today. Or should I make it 24? How much wiping is going to be involved? I wish someone could tell me.

As of last night I've started worrying about the actual procedure. I tried to find out the statistical likelihood that my doctor will accidentally perforate my squeaky clean colon but I couldn't find those numbers online. Probably better not to know.

I still have one question, though. Is white wine a clear liquid?

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

I want to write like these people.

(sigh)

Experiencing single-dom for a night

Jeff is off playing guitar with friends tonight. I didn't do much. I certainly didn't "chic out." Heh. Me? Never. What did I do?

I got a manicure and a pedicure.

I baked brownies that contain four sticks of butter, more than a pound of chocolate, and an entire package of Oreos.

I popped the cork on a bottle of prosecco, which I am sipping from my favorite Kate Spade "happy 34th birthday" champagne glass.

I played all my favorite songs on my iPod, like My Heart Will Go On (shut up) and Hey There Delilah (you know you like it, too.)

About a minute ago I considered putting on my pajama bottoms, the ones emblazoned with pink hearts, and then dancing around to ABBA or Air Supply, singing into a hairbrush, but a girl has to know when to cool it. (Otherwise known as her boyfriend and his friend might walk in the door any minute.)

Dinner? Haven't figured that out. I guess when the brownies are cool I'll decide between them and...uh...some cereal. Yeah.

xoxo