Author: Doris

This is my gluten-free cake made with gluten-free flour. Ginny declared that she could totally taste the difference. I…maybe could? I brought it to choir without any announcement of it being gluten-free and people wolfed it down and I got many compliments. So I guess that is a win for gluten free flour.

I’m leaning into baking, reading and geography and leaning out of exercising, guitar playing and pistol shooting. I still exercise most days – gently for about 30 min alternating between yoga, running and lifting, but I decided to let guitar practicing go and also any extra things for the Izaac Walton League. And I still go to guitar lessons and pistol league, but I don’t stress about practicing or doing anything extra. So it goes, you can’t really do everything. You can do a lot of things, but not everything. It also means I steadily getting slightly chubbier which is not ideal.

Jeremy is dreaming of a sabbatical in Urbana-Champaign in Illinois at the university there. Vince has expressed an interest in doing a postdoc there. How cool would that be if they happened at the same time? I wonder if it will happen. Jeremy was like – what do we do about Edda? Would you come out there? Can we switch her services to Illinois for six months? The transfer of services would be a nightmare since most things are state-based. I countered and said – you can do your sabbatical and then when you get back, I’ll do my own sabbatical. Jeremy laughed and said – you’ll go to NYC, right? And rent a small room and do your thing. And I said – YES. And then I said – would we go an entire year without living with each other? And he said…maybe? We’ll see.

Jeremy bought the exact same shoes to replace the old ones that he had. We are creatures of habit.

I’ve been dealing with a homeless person who is sleeping on church property. She was there a bit over the summer, but then disappeared for a few weeks – so we thought maybe she’d moved on. But then about a week ago, she appeared again and was found sleeping in the memorial garden in the back of the property. I have spoken to her, she’s come to Sunday services and eaten food at the coffee hour, she’s looking for a “safe” place to stay. Now whether “safe” means a place that is not a shelter, I’m not sure. So I called the various agencies on Monday – one I left a message and no one called me back, the second, I called and was invited to leave a message, but the voice mailbox was full. So then, the next day, I drove over to the agencies and they told me that all the shelters are at capacity and that warming centers will open on November 1st. Should we house the person at the church overnight? I asked. The folks as the Homeless Diversion office advised against that as there would be difficulty in having her move on. Anyways, as the temperatures drop into the high 30s at night, it’s worrisome and makes me unhappy. I mean, I know there are lots of homeless people around, but somehow, this one feels like it’s my homeless person.

I’ve also been trying to place a food order from Wegmans for a party the church is hosting on Nov 21st for about 150 people. I’m struggling with this – mainly because we have vegans, vegetarians and gluten-free folks in unknown quantities. And I feel some food shame around this because….of the animals. But apparently not enough to be vegan.

The MoCo crisis center is not the only place where a phone call will go unanswered. I was referred to a heme/onc practice because I tend to trend low in my white blood count. I have for at least a decade and probably my entire life, but for a reason, I decided to see a hematologist now. I called the office. The recording said to fill out a new patient form online. I filled it out online and they called me back like 4 days later while I was in the middle of something, so I called them back which shunted me again to the recording. I decided to drive to the practice where I asked in person if I could have a new patient appointment. I waited for 30 minutes in the waiting room where everyone there had cancer of some sort or other and got an appointment. Then I went to the appointment which took like 2 hours of my life and I told the doctor, I think I’m going to be the easiest patient of your day. A bunch of blood was drawn, it turns out I have a slight elevation in some inflammation markers which may show I have some autoimmune issues. I groaned. I told Jeremy, I bet it’s a gluten intolerance. Ginny also decided she had a gluten allergy. So today I baked a gluten-free blueberry cake and we are going to eat it and decide if it remains super delicious or if gluten is a critical component for deliciousness. I’m also very happy that the doctor was like – I don’t think you have a blood cancer, so we won’t do a bone marrow biopsy. I was relieved.

Michelle flew in from Portugal this weekend – she had some work to do in Arlington VA on Friday and so she stayed with us here in Rockville. It was nice to spend time with her, we went to a Canate choral concert on Saturday night which was filled with serious choir music with classical guitar and a small chamber orchestra.

I spent most of Saturday puttering around the house and resting. The beginning of the fiscal year with this week, I struggled a little with work, working well into the 2nd Friday afternoon which I normally don’t like to do, I like to finish all my work early-ish (like Thursday morning) and prep for the following week on Friday. This messed with me, I think I was more tired than usual. So on Saturday, I baked and napped. I made these maple pecan scones which were very good. I think I’ll make them again for choir night on Thursday.

When I go on vacation, I put all my “fun” apps back on my phone – for me this is generally, youtube, instagram and reddit (though I think I left off reddit for these past trips) and I indulge myself on all the short form videos. And I found when I got back, it was really hard this time to moderate back into real life, I think it took (and is still taking) more than a week. I mean, I took all those apps off my phone – but still it beckoned like a magnetic field. I’m so happy I remember what it was like without phones, I can always go back to that memory.

In an effort (always) to be off my phone, I always have to remember the things I can do without the phone, reading, listening to audiobooks, exercising, baking, etc. But these all seem harder than being on your phone. hahaha. It took a while to find an audiobook I liked – now I’m listening to A Voyage for Madmen – which is about the first solo, unsupported circumnavigation sailing around the world. This was happening in the late 1960s which was the same time as people were landing on the moon. These two things do not seem historically appropriate in the same time period, you know? Like it seems like communication from a boat in the middle of the ocean seems way easier than communicating from the moon. I also am having a fun time learning terms like “heave to” and “lying ahull” which are two strategies for weathering a storm. Heaving to requires skill and you’ll be safer weathering the storm – lying ahull is more work, but easier for a less skilled sailor and is more prone to capsize.

I baked really red red velvet cakes last night (I used two bottles of banned red food coloring that they are still selling on the shelves, I dunno). I made a mistake and forgot to incorporate egg whites in the first batch that went into the oven (whoops). But I recovered and the other batches turned out OK. I experimented with mini-sized cupcakes and simple piping of cream cheese frosting.

It’s air pistol season again – thank goodness. I like this much better as it’s 1) quieter 2) there is more opportunity to socialize and 3) seems less…deadly. I haven’t been in a few weeks because I’ve been out of town, but I was greeted warmly and happily. And I can now tell when I jerk my hand and the pellet veers off the center. Very nice – I can tell when I’ve done it wrong. Last season – I learned that most good shooters can tell as soon as the trigger is pulled if the shot is good or bad and I could not tell that last year. But this year, I can tell! I also picked up a team trophy from the rifle season in the summer, so now I have TWO shooting trophies.

So I have a new hobby – I’m playing this game maptap (highly recommend) which gives you five cities everyday and a globe with no borders drawn on it and makes you pinpoint where the city is. Turns out…I have no idea where things are – Nebraska? Nope. Bolivia? Nope. Libya? Nope. Any of the south Pacific islands? Totally nope, nope, nope. Hahaha. So I bought like 5 different atlases from second hand stores and they are all over the house now so I can try to remember where things are – my short term memory has turned so poor compared to what it was…I need some sort of memory game to keep everything lubricated. Like my joints. Speaking of maps and navigation – I was so pleased with myself in NYC this past weekend because I got the hang of the city and subway without too much stress – subway everywhere all weekend. The subway map can be overwhelming…

Jeremy and I are hosting a pancake breakfast at the church mid-November and we need to not only cook regular pancakes – we need to have vegan pancakes. I got a recipe from a vegan friend and she said they were so good that she suggested we make all the pancakes vegan. I reported that opinion back to Jeremy and he said absolutely not, I love my pancake recipe. We weren’t going to also do gluten-free pancakes, but I think, we’ll need to do that too. Jeremy was not keen on doing three types of pancakes – he was like, I think we should do a combination gluten-free vegan pancake. So then I asked my gluten-free friend if she was open to having a gluten-free vegan pancake and then she kind of wrinkled her nose and said – you can do that, but it’ll taste bad. So then I went home to report that finding out to Jeremy and before I could finish my story he said – I’ve changed my mind, we can have all the different types of pancakes. Megan came over last night to help with the taste testing. I had texted her – I have something fun to do. We are trying vegan gluten-free pancakes with the maple syrup from Vermont. And she texted back – the syrup sounds delicious! Anyways, we tried the gluten-FULL vegan pancakes and they were surprisingly, unexpectedly good. Especially with non-vegan (regular) butter and maple syrup. I guess anything with butter and sugar is yummy. We’ll need to get some vegan butter. (It also turns out that I’m a very poor pancake maker. I’ve hosted many pancake breakfasts, but I have not actually made very many pancakes…this is a lovely one after many attempts.)

It was raining this morning. Elka is, like many pitbulls, allergic to the rain. She thinks she’ll melt – I’ll just hold my pee until it stops raining.

I made a bundt cake with fresh cranberries. It’s quite yummy, I’ve never had to chop fresh cranberries – they roll around like crazy. And they are white inside. Interesting.

With the announcement of Anne Carson as this year’s Nobel Prize winner in Literature, I can now say I’ve had lunch with two Nobel Prize winners. I think I had take out Indian food with Anne at an apartment in Berkeley when I was in my early twenties. Though it was a small party and I could have made a lasting impression on Anne (hahahaha…no), I don’t think I said much to her – she is more than twenty years older than me, so at 24-ish, I was shy and she seemed my parents’ age. Hahaha. She would not remember me. It’s ok. I barely remember the lunch.

I finally feel back to myself after many weeks of traveling and Edda being seizure-y. She went to camp yesterday and made it through. We medicate her (what feels like a lot) daily and I’m not sure if it does anything. Would her seizures be the same without the meds? Completely unanswerable. I have literally no idea – we like to believe so. So we continue on – the seizures are for sure suffering for Edda. I don’t really like to dwell on how much Edda suffers during this life, but the seizures suck.

I got a baseline DEXA scan for my bones as I’m post menopausal and worried about such things. I’ve not gotten one before – this one is nice, you don’t need to take your clothes off. The results came back *chef’s kiss* – totally regular bones. How grateful I am for my body – thank you for carrying me places and letting me try new things. I am trying to take care of you.

Jeremy wants me to go to a work party with him and I kind of didn’t want to and he asked why…and I said…it’s because I’m shy and don’t like to make small talk. And he looked at me bewildered because I’m really not shy and I’m pretty good at making small talk. I’ve been reading a book which says to hold your identities lightly and try a million things – which I love. Instead of saying I’m shy, you can say – let me try shy out. Or let me try being outgoing out. And you realize that you can try different things on/off. Thrifty, stingy, generous, outgoing, run by feelings/emotions, run by rules, optimistic, pessimistic, open to new experiences, cleaving more to routine. You can try all those things out and see what works for you. It’s a lot of fun. I think I’m going to this work party next week…lol.

We bought this little egg cooker to see if we like it. Generally, we don’t like single use objects in the house. But this one is very little. It’s….entertaining.

So while I was gone, Edda had two small seizures on Sunday, but Jeremy and Ginny thought they were “half” seizures and not her full regular ones, so Jeremy sent her to camp on Monday and she made it through the day on Monday but within 30 minutes of me getting home late Monday afternoon, she had a pretty big seizure and so we went on her benzo protocol which now we are on day 2. So she missed camp today and will tomorrow – probably for the rest of the week.

But today, we had a dental appointment scheduled and so we drove sleepy Edda to the appointment not knowing if the dentist would be willing to do a dental cleaning on zonked out Edda, but the dentist was willing and the cleaning went much more smoothly with much less thrashing of limbs and gnashing of teeth.

I spent rainy Sunday in Brooklyn, first going to Books are Magic (a small independent bookstore where I had done some ordering online from) and then to the First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn for Sunday service where our current minister in Rockville had worked about 15 years ago. I went about 45 minutes before the service started and settled into a book I had brought and listened to rehearsal and admired the building. Built in 1844 with Tiffany windows, it was the first Unitarian church in Brooklyn. The minister there said hello and I said I was visiting from Rockville and he knows Rev. Shari (our minister) and we had a nice chat. Haha, life is a weird road because I still consider myself to be not religious, but apparently I am semi-religious-literate now because (as I was telling Jeremy), I know all the hymns! I know I’m completely confusing my parents who recently asked if I believed in God and I said no and then they were like (very resonably) – well how can you not believe in God and run the church? and I sighed and said that it’s complicated. It’s even complicated for me!

Then I went to eat at a pizza joint! My only pizza on this trip. I did have two (maybe 3) bagels tho.

I went to visit Lael and co at their new place in Brooklyn. All I can say are that little kids are exhausting and they impressively got the kids out and walking in the rain to the little street fair a few blocks down from their house. I was just tired helping out the tiniest bit.

It’s Monday morning and I’m getting ready to go home. I’m looking forward to the last quarter of the year – as I’m getting older I enjoy the time more – with no really small children in my orbit and perhaps a more spiritual and gratitude focused life, I can take the time to enjoy the meaning of the season. For a long time, I kind of resented putting up the Christmas tree because I felt like everyone else wanted it up, but no one was helping me and I kind of resented having to fill the bottom with gifts that folks might not want – but these days I realize I want the sparkly lights myself and there is no need for gifts in the house. Maybe this year, I’ll get some lights on a tree outside!