Qu Chong

The phone rang and a voice blurted out, " How fast can you get to a cheesecake? ".  My heart stopped.
" Has something happened to Captain Picard? "
" No silly, I'm having a tupperware party and I need bodies translation- victims and I thought you could tear youself away from stardate whatever and come over. Don't you have an emergency cheesecake in the freezer or whatever"
" Oh sure, right next to the diamonds and Jimmy Hoffa. I'm not coming"
" Please...I need at least three people to qualify for the hostess gifts" she said,  and that's where it starts. It's something I rate right up there with a gynecological exam. Not just three people, three people who are willing to get sucker punched into having parties of their own and talk three people into have parties with three people who will  also have parties and it never ends and that's what our tenuous economy is made of.

This is almost too much for me to process with a vitamin D deficiency. Afterall, I got lost driving home yesterday from an office I've been to 100 times, at least. I didn't think I needed  to turn on my GPS who's voice coincidentally  is set as close to Captain Picard's as humanly possible. He frequently asks me which side of the road I want to drive on, he's British.  I ridiculously assumed I could get home without the proper coordinates. I was so very wrong.

It slowly dawned on me that I was in unfamiliar territory and I begun to turn thoughts over in my head, is it East or West. Shouldn't I see a Home Depot or something, is it on my left or wait, was it the right? Where am I, then I was hit with the stark realization that I was going the wrong direction and then even MORE stark realization that I'm an unmitigated idiot who may be a genious with cheesecake but doesn't know where she lives.

"He...llo....are you gonna come?". " No absoulutely not, I'm doing something ablsolutely fabulous with tofu cream cheese and tofu sour cream.I've got to come up with some recipes, modify my diet, get off this headache stuff. people are counting on me, medicated people, headachy people like me.  No tupperware, it's a trigger for migraines."

"Okay ya stupid trekmeister" Click, she hung up.

I drew a big sigh of relief as I muttered under my breath 

"Qu Chong" - Translation- Excellent in Klingon

The tofu sour cream and cream cheese creation I was working on turned out horribly, horribly bad and I fed it to the garbage disposal who apparently didn't think much of it either and seemed to choke quite a bit as I forced it down.

All the best,  Kate

Holy Mackeral !

Our local grocery establishment is usually a treat in the early a.m. before throngs of people rush in and lines are long. I'm frequently the only customer if I get there before sun-up and it's fun to serpentine through aisles of stockers and bread men. If it's a week day I'll be on a mission  because I've run out of something so I don't take time to ponder the deals, just in and out, get it done and back to work.

Today I had a sugar emergency, so with  30 pounds of it tucked neatly in my cart I was walking to the checkout when a heavenly light shone above a sign that advertised 'Canned Meats and Fish'. As sugar emergencies go, it wasn't exactly dire, I'm having a slow pastry week, so I detoured to see about these potted meats. As I perused the offerings I noticed cans of soups and stews, beany type which would usually excite me but today, not so,  nothing to write home about.

I decided to cast my net on the other side of the shopping cart and what did my eyes behold but several cans of mackeral in soybean oil no less, and I was just talking about it yesterday. I bought one!  I could barely contain my excitement, but first I had to stop in the veggie aisle for tofu. I was like a kid on a sugar rush when I checked out, 3- 10 pound bags of sugar, 1 can of mackeral in soybean oil and 2 boxes of tofu, extra firm.

I needed the tofu for my newest taste sensation, tofu mayonaise. It's delicious, and I thought it I would try it with the mackeral if I got up the nerve to actually open it.  I still have a can of sardines in the cabinet I bought last summer that I'm afraid to open. I walk past it every so often with good intentions but I just can't bring myself to open it. I suppose it's some type of unnatural fear but then it's all relative just like my fear of beets and popcorn that doesn't have butter on it. My gentlemen husband once questioned why I fear real sardines but not fake mayo, yet I eat fake meat but won't go near real mayo. I plead the fifth.

Eventually hunger got the best of me, as it does every couple of hours and my mind went to the mackeral. I opened her up preparing for some horrific forensic type smell and there wasn't one. I poked at it a little with a fork and it was nice and flaky so I tasted a bit of it and it was mild and kind of good. It's not nearly as fishy as tuna so I prepared my tofu mayo and made a little salad out of it. I put it on a whole wheat pita pocket with roasted red peppers and romaine lettuce and it was a delcious taste sensation! 

With another recipe in my aresenal of healthy meals I was pretty happy with the day's findings. The recipe below is very subjective. You can pretty much add whatever you want to the Tofu to make mayo but you absolutely have to add olive oil. I often add horseradish and capers when I have them, of course my favorite capers are in rock salt which isn't great if you're watching sodium but rinse them off first and you'll be fine.
Another great addition is sundried tomatoes and basil. Have fun experimenting.

All the best, Kate

Tofu Mayo
Silken Tofu- Extra Firm -6 ounces
Olive Oil - 2 Tablespoons
Garlic- 2 teaspoons
Onion - 2 teaspoons finely chopped

D. Fish. Antsy

At a recent Drs. visit my  physician mentioned that they're seeing more and more vitamin D deficient patients this year than ever before.
"Moi", I interjected sternly " certainly, not, there isn't a ricket to be found anywhere near my person"
"True that, but you are deficient. Oily fish my friend, and a pill, that's what you need. Get outside and walk around in the sun."

I won't lie, the whole thing made me crabby. Walk around in the sun? It's gray everyday, the ground and the sky are the same imperceptible hue. I used to adore snow globes but now that I live in one, not so much. This IS the Winter of my discontent, thank you Shakespeare (or Bacon).

Take another pill ? I already have migraine maintenance twice a day,  and cholesterol pills, now another? It seemed crazy and I began to think the most intelligent thing to do would be to stop going to the doctor.

I walked into the local chemist to fill my new script and was horrified when the nice girl behind the counter not only recognized me but knew my address.  I had unwittingly crossed a line into some sort of medical zone that's reserved for OLDER people who require numerous prescriptions and special boxes to put them in.

I could end up that way. It starts out quite innocently I would assume. At first it's just a box to keep all the pills in one place, then it's a box just to sort one day from the next. From that point it moves to morning, noon and night and the next thing you know you're hooked on a box labeled days of the week, hour by hour and you have a registered nurse on the payroll to sort them out for you. I swore an oath then and there on a stack of diabetic magazines that I would never let that happen to me and handed over my script for vitamin D. The counter girl quietly slipped one of the magazines in my bag for me. I was appreciative.

I'm in the market for oily fish, sardines or mackeral and things to do with these oily fish. Salmon, is a staple for me, I love it and eat it frequently. I think Costco has fantastic Salmon and I usually just toss it in the oven with a spritz of olive oil, dill and a sprinkle of Kosher salt. I have no idea where to get mackeral, it sounds British.

I walked around in the, ah, sun and enjoyed it very much this morning as well as my breakfast of spinach and egg beaters. I can't help but feel a little bit antsy though, I'm anxious for the ground to be less slippery and the sun to actually peek through. A blue sky would be nice!

All the best, Kate

Lost in Lifetime

I feel as if I've been awake but adrift in my own life for the last few weeks or so. It's been an adjustment of sorts to a new maintenance migraine medicine that's working but the side affects are somewhat strong. The first weeks were tough, I couldn't focus, words on a page seemed foreign to me and I was convinced I would never play the piano again. Ah Bach!  I imagined my fingers flying over the keys only to have them stick and tingle like thousands of pins pricking me and I experienced panic attacks for the first time in my life and for the first time in my life I was taciturn. I stuck with the meds but the side effects didn't improve. I had to find a way to escape.

Dorothy had her poppy field, Alice had her looking glass and I, quite innocently stumbled onto 'LMN', the Lifetime Movie Network. One day I finished work early, curled up under a quilt on the couch and watched a movie and I enjoyed it, so I watched another. It drew me in. I slept, I watched, I watched, I slept. it was wonderful. I didn't have to think and I felt so safe with the world at bay out there somewhere. It became my haven from reality and I enjoyed every lifetimelovingminute of it.

Now the fog is starting to lift and some of the side effects are starting to disappear. Things are starting to come together and the LMN halo is starting to tarnish  for me. I've been mulling  over L.M.N in my mind and it's taken on new meaning for me, something like 'Lost My Nine-to -Five' and I'm beginning to think this is where actor's career's go to die.

Patty Duke, Martin Sheen what were you thinking? I saw you play a married couple and your acting was so over the top I buried my head in a bag of hershey's kisses and didn't come up for air for 2 and 1/2 hours. Maybe the script was at the top of a big stack of erectile dysfunction commercials and you felt you had no choice. Maybe you just couldn't take another minute of retirement. To this I say, learn to cope, take a vacation, reflect, live the good life, you did your part and when all else fails.... WWJJD. What would Janis Joplin do? Tequila my friends, tequila.

Truth be told, every so often there is a standout movie. In one shining moment Shannon Dogherty rose like a Phoenix out of the ashes in a movie about a couple falsely accused of killing their child only to fall like an over gummed Garcia Vega into the ash pit of 10 other ridiculous movies. There are so many familiar faces on LMN that it reads like a hollywood high school year book. It's unfortunate that some of those actors weren't clever enough to get a regular gig on Syfy like Bruce Boxleitner. He seems to have a cameo on just about everything and it doesn't matter if some of it's low rent, it's meant to be. It's tongue and cheek, the kind of thing that hits the spot when you need a mental health day.  Bruce could end up on any number of shows that will go Cult classic and some idiot like me will buy his action figure on ebay for $3.00. I've yet to hear of an LMN action figure and I bet if you're a regular on LMN your chances that someone has a cardboard cutout of you in their living room go down by 50%. Of course that's just one pastry girls' opinion.

LMN runs movies, 24/7  all with familiar themes, cheating spouses, abused children and lots of murder. They're formulaic as hell. The victims are always innocent, but the cops never believe it. The victims do all the leg work and always find the killers, but the cops never believe it until the very end and then they respect and even sometimes fall in love with the victims. It's a crazy maze of twists and turns and it got me through a rough couple of weeks.

I'm not saying I'll never watch LMN again. I'll admit a certain morbid fascination with True Movie Thursday which makes me sound like a complete psycho when I send my kids cryptic text messages warning them of possible fates that have befallen others. Right now it's run it's course for me and that's a good thing.

All the best, Kate

It's not a tumah...

Great news! I get to take new medicine for the headaches. This time it's preventative, not maintenance, which is apparently what pain pills are. Not so great news, I have to take it everyday, twice. I haven't picked it up from the chemist yet because I'm a bit worried about the cost. It sounds expensive but then what do I know. I was the one that thought we'd have a replicator and sonic showers by now, it's twenty ten afterall.

The nerve cells in our brains fire electronic particles, all the time. Migraine sufferers supposedly have overexcited nerve cells and they fire too fast and too frequently. It's a better problem to have than nerve cells that fire too slow I suppose.

Slow things drive me crazy. I'm very type A, rush, rush. Waiting is anethema to me. Let's get it done and move on. But that's not important. I'm told I can eat a more balanced diet and get on with my life. I just need to take pills. Here's what bothers me. Do I want to take pills and more pills, and more pills as I age? It's not just the carrying them around in little boxes that bothers me, it's the thought of living past my natural life expectancy. I don't want to live forever and I certainly don't want to live just for the sake of being alive.

If there is some vast eternal plan at work I suppose I'll die when I'm supposed to whether or not I'm taking pills. By that logic it doesn't really matter. The thought of extending my life expectancy just because I can doesn't really appeal to me. When I get old I'll slow down and I don't want to.

All the best, Kate

Purse-peration

I have a love/hate relationship with purses, always have. No matter what style, type or size I have, one constant remains, my purses are never functional. I do enjoy sculpting purses out of cake. It's my new favorite thing.

I have had a variety of purses, all serving their purpose for small increments in time. There was a backpack phase when I was playing the piano for a job but I had to supplement that with a bag. It was fine for music but I could never find a pen, guitar pick. or saint's be praised, my phone.

I went from that to a tiny 'alwaysreadyforadate' purse with only enough room for a license, a debit card, and a lipstick. I could have gotten used to that if it weren't too small to fit my phone which I had to carry in my hand or a pocket. I had to retrace my steps a lot in search of my phone since I left it EVERYWHERE.

The thought of a bigger purse with comparments appealed to me and was great for the first 24 hours before it became disorganized. I stuck with that one for awhile though until I started having shoulder problems. I kept throwing my change in one of the compartments and it became heavy and hit the floor with a thud everytime I put it down. Discovering there are so many things I can't live without I began to fill it with everything. The only way to find anything was to turn it upside down and shake until everything fell out. When I got to the point that I started carrying my Star Trek action figures I decided it was time for something else.

I went from that to a ziploc bag. Not my highest point but it was very functional. I could always find what I wanted, when I wanted it. There was one big drawback, aside from the fact that everyone could see exactly what I was carrying, it looked ridiculous and stupid. It's virtually impossible to carry a concealed Captain Picard action figure in a ziploc purse. Kids want to play with it and adults think you're weird.

It occurred to me that Ebay may be a place to look for a nice purse selection, and I was correct. I found  a  nice leather purse that I like, simple and functional and midsized. It works pretty well and I've taken to cleaning it out every other day or so just to stay organized. I still have to dump everything out of it to find my phone but at least I'm remembering to empty the change out. As for Captain Picard and the away team? They're resting comfortably on a shelf.

All the best, Kate

P.S. Still have a headache, still eating well. What's up with that?

Headaches Continue, and not just the self inflicted ones.

Of the last 14 days of my headache diet I've had 12 headaches. I suppose it could be taking me that long to detox, but it seems unlikely. Looking back on my food diary it dawned on me that I can't think of anything. Wheat maybe but I don't eat a lot of it, or a lot of carbs for that matter. I haven't been drinking. I think I've only had a small glass of wine since Christmas, so it continues to be a conundrum to me.

Last year I took a daily medication and it worked but it was a hard adjustment. A couple days after my first few pills I was commissioned to play the piano at church. I felt tipsy and totally lacking focus. There were leaves dancing in the breeze and they shone through the stained glass window and caught my attention, holding it there until I completely spaced out the church service  The minister broke my trance and had to remind me to play the next hymn. I felt like the heroine in a twilight zone episode.

After a few weeks my spirits raised, I started sleeping better and the headaches started to go away. It happened so gradually I almost didn't notice. It was like one day I woke up and suddenly realized I didn't have headaches anymore. I began to adjust to the feeling  of being continually toasted. It was like having a central line with a conituous flow of whiskey, a perpetual happy hour. Never too drunk, never to sober just steady and kind of numb. I felt dull and uncreative. It was terrible, I had the ability to function but no desire, just the opposite of me with a headache. This is my brain on meds, ( nothing but us brain cells, shriveling with boredom ) this is my brain on headaches ( imagination soars to unbelievable heights and imaginary friends come out of the woodwork but they never shut up). It's all or nothing, intoxicating creativity or watching paint dry.

Such is my fate. I need to pick a lesser of two evils. Go back on the meds or keep experimenting with diet or whatever I can think of. I could try tai chi, hypnosis, energy healing, acupuncture or heated glass therapy. I tried chiropractic but it felt like a downward spiraling vortex that sucked me of money, not too mention a heightened awareness of spinal cord injuries. That's probably just scratching the surface of various therapies. I wonder if there's a therapy that involves fast cars and reggae.

I'll just keep on doing what I'm doing I guess and hope something  brilliant comes across the wire.

All the best, Kate