My new glasses are ready. I might go pick them up, if the eye stays as quiet as it is, but I can still tell it’s not happy, so it may not stay quiet all day. I’ve had compresses on the eyes every hour or so all day yesterday, and it’s helping—which is a good thing. Jane says the swelling is going down.
I was at least able to do a little work yesterday, and catch up on some sleep, which this has affected. Quel pain! I’ve never had this problem in my life—but as aforementioned, I think, an online opthamologist friend says this does happen with cataract surgery, as a consequence of the surgery itself, and though the left eye is the stronger, visually, the accident in childhood with the ether just left it the more vulnerable. The problem is pretty well just above where the worst scarring on the eye itself is. So not unrelated, I think.
Still, of all things that could remotely go wrong, this one is fixable with a heated compress, and it’s getting there, so all’s well. Hopefully it’ll be all good by next week.
glad that things are getting better, hope they continue to improve.
You know, in today’s litigious society, that accident at the hospital could have been very damaging to the hospital. Different era, different outlook on hospitals. I try very hard to put myself in the provider’s place and ask “Could I do better?” Sometimes, especially with the podiatrist, I think I could, when he tells me that looking at my foot from 7 feet away that he doesn’t see any ingrown nails. But doesn’t put me in the chair and look any closer, either. Hmmm..experts…
I have an echocardiogram tomorrow morning. I checked on the results of my latest lab work, too. Total lipids were 147, up 7 points from last time, and LDL (bad) were at 72 and change, which isn’t that great a change. I have a contrast CT scan scheduled for the 24th of this month, as an addition to the echocardiogram.
In my case (after the aborted colonoscopy debacle–next meeting with the Doc 3/3) it seems to be an abcess under tooth 26. Well, it was due to come out “soon” anyhow in replacing 23-26 with a bridge. 😮 As they say, “this getting old s**t ain’t for sissies.”
Eventually, I’ve got to get #15 replaced with a crown. For now, it’s not bothering me, but I’m pretty sure that it will before I have the money to pay for the procedure.
Nope, old age ain’t for the faint of heart.
Kitchen Misadventures! I put on some chicken to cook this morning. I saw the near-empty jar of basil and thought I’d use a bit more with the seasonings I was using. OK. Of course, I opened it and forgot what sort of dispenser it is. Whump! Phoomph! … Nearly all the remainder in the jar was now in the pan, with the chicken and the oil and the other seasonings. This was to be baked chicken, but…whew, that was enough basil for two or three packages of chicken, not just one for one guy. Oh, boy. Some had fanned out onto the counter too.
Hmm. Not worth trying to get that out of the pan for use in something else. — It’s staying. That’s going to be one green and basil-y batch of chicken!
I therefore fixed mashed potatoes, and I plan to add any drippings in the pan to the mashed potatoes, or else spoon the potatoes into the pan, then spoon them out, to get the basil and oil and chicken broth. This should, ah, tone down the chicken a mite. … Though I may end up with some very green chicken and some very green mashed potatoes!
Shared for your edification and amusement! :snicker: Oh, man, the whole house smells like basil from cooking it…!
Oh, do I feel not-smart. I didn’t need to be in that much of a hurry. Could’ve easily opened it with the up end up, and would’ve spared myself the trouble, and had basil left over, still.
Ah, well. Very basil chicken and mashed potatoes, it is!
I’m sort of wondering if there’s enough there, I need to season something else too. Oh, boy! :guffaw: OK, this is seriously…. You know, I like to think I’m a good cook, but there are times I make some really goofy mistakes. :snerk: At least I can laugh at it and share. Because, why not, what else are ya gonna do?
I wonder how starship cooks get by on all those protein packs, seafood, and seaweed, and such…. I suppose the secret’s in the spices and anything fresh they can grow in hydroponics.
Well, brother and sister, have I got plenty of spices in this one! Hahahaha!
a little olive oil, some ground pine nuts and some parm and garlic and you’ve got PESTO Chicken. Perfectly valid dinner option!
White wine will tone it down a bit.
We are trying to train Zorro and Junior that going off like fire sirens at 5:30 in the morning will not get them breakfast immediately. To that end, we are ignoring any noises from the other part of the house until after 6, whether or not we are awake. Once I am up, I will allow them into the rest of the house, but breakfast will not be forthcoming for a good 20 minutes to half hour after I start wake-up procedures. I’m trying to dissociate ‘breakfast for cats’ from ‘humans waking up’, because the cats have decided B produces A, so why not make B happen ASAP?
and then, there are even more immediate problems, such as the Cascadia Fault just off the coast of Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia. Just saying…. 😉
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/11/us/cascadia-subduction-zone-earthquakes/index.html
Well, yeah, of course. Perhaps everyone’s forgotten Anchorage, 1964.
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=800&bih=513&q=anchorage+earthquake+1964+pictures&oq=anchorage+earthquake
Probably many of you can give me a run for the money, but I’ve been in/near almost every type of natural disaster out there, most of them since moving to Hawaii, but some predating it.
Hurricane: check. Iniki in 1992, plus a few near-misses since then.
Earthquake: check. We had a pretty good shelf-rattler in 2006, about a 7.0
Tsunami: check. Most of the ones we’ve had never got to the destructive level; the largest one we had pushed a few inches of water in from the harbor about 1/2 mile. Fish were swimming in the resort pools just inland of the ocean!
Blizzard: check. Three words: Lake Effect Snow. Not to mention 1978.
Fires: check. It’s not a dry season if we don’t get at least 2 or 3 brushfires, some of which shut off the pali roads. And the neighbor’s condo caught fire too.
Flash flood: check. Our library class nearly became a casualty, we were taking a test in the basement of UH when the water started to come in. Within 2 minutes it was knee deep and rising, and we had to break a window to climb out.
Tornado: check. I grew up in the Midwest, and lived in Xenia for several years. Fortunately, this was after the big tornado outbreak in 1974. Tornado sirens going off are not something you want to hear (actually sirens for any of these).
Dust storm: check. Phoenix haboob and burned off cane fields.
Avalanche: check. Discovered a VW sized boulder in the middle of a road I had driven on the preceding night!
About the only thing I haven’t dealt with yet is an animal attack!
Not that far from me when you lived in Xenia, but then, I was in the Navy from November 76 – May 99, so might not have been that near. My grandfather lived in Xenia for a time, but I think he died in 1975…..
Went through a typhoon and an earthquake simultaneously while on Guam. Did several typhoons there, several hurricanes in Virginia Beach. An earthquake or two here at home. Blizzard, I missed the Blizzards of 1977 and 1978, and never been in a dust storm, avalanche, or flash flood. Tornados have come close, worst was the Palm Sunday outbreak of 1965, we had one just outside of town.
I’ve experienced a tornado. Didn’t like it. (Heh.) I’ve been through tropical storms and hurricanes. Not overly fond of them, especialy when they start tearing up parts of the landscape, neighborhood, et al. Huh-Huh.
I have never felt an earthquake and have no special desire to move to a part of the country where this is a regular possibility. (Sorry, CJ, Jane, Patty, several others, and cousins in CA.) — Visiting would be fine. Living there? Yowie. — But people probably feel that way about hurricanes too. At least with a hurricane and modern forecasting and satellites, there’s usually warning ahead of time to get the heck outta Dodge. Which is very good advice when it’s a Cat-5, by the way. If they tell you vamoose, you vamoose.
CJ and Jane, Patty and Mike, and others along the Pacific Coast, please be careful, and if you have to scram, do so. We prefer our friends and associates all in one piece, in the original condition in which they arrived, as much as possible.
One realizes, as with flood planes and other major, rare, long-term things, this does not happen every day, and one hopes if anything happens, there will be time enough to bug out.
One’s logic is uncertain, where one’s friends are concerned.
(Though actually, I find the usual hani and human merchanter approach to friends and family and shipmates to be more comfortable than the Vulcan cool logical approach, much as I admire Spock and all.)
Fictional universes aside, please be careful, if the fault zone is entering a more active phase.
Patty and Mike and Jane and I all live in the Inland Empire, that is to say, not too far from Idaho. Our disaster was 13000 years ago when the Missoula Flood came through, leaving the ridge on which our house is built, and pretty well forming the Columbia. We’re far enough from Mt St Helens to just get dusted, not bombed, high enough the great rivers can’t flood us, it’s generally very weak tornadoes here, F1-F2. And we’re not on the coast: there’s the Cascade Mountain range between us and the ocean, 3 hours away. So far as natural disasters go, we’re not too bad off.
I have been under an F3 as it formed, I’ve had three of them go overhead, one of them so low overhead the nails in the roof squealed and my eardrums nearly burst; we were in OKC for the bombing (my father’s office building, but he had, thank God, retired some time before) and we were there for the F5 that still may be rated the strongest winds ever recorded on the planet. At which point we decided we had used up our tornado luck and lit out in two cars with two cats and having a moving van with the rest, headed north.
“Earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings kill people!”
True, a tsunami won’t get you, but the shaking of a M9 will still be plenty strong in Spokane (say, what? M6? 7? Anything over 6 can cause damage, 7 occasional severe damage.) and just as long lasting as in Seattle. Mightn’t it trigger closer faults?
The Missoula Floods may have helped some places by washing away soils. Being anchored to bedrock causes higher accelerations and higher shock frequencies. It’s being on soils that slide, lower frequencies, wider amplitudes, that takes down buildings.
From Jane’s pictures, it appears you’re living in a conventionally framed wooden house. Those are flexible enough to “go with the flow” and usually stay standing. You’re on a hillside? How close to bedrock? How well anchored is everything upslope?
I fear you’ll still be in big trouble from old infrastructure that was never built to the earthquake standards of, say, LA or Frisco. Unreinforced brick buildings of the early 20th Century are very likely to collapse. (Downtown Portland has lots of those from even the late 19th Century.)
The 1989 Loma Prieta quake’s epicenter was east of Santa Cruz, but caused catastrophic failure of the double-decker freeway at Oakland.
The length of the shaking will find its way to resonances and “sympathetic vibrations” in bridges, suspension wires (i.e. electrical distribution), and multistory buildings, will have amplified damage. If you can get your car out of the garage, you’re likely to be stranded on your side of the river, and 18-wheelers carrying food on the east side may have no way across. Stores no longer have a “back room” where they store inventory–“just in time” delivery is more efficient and doesn’t tie-up capital.
My point is, we may well survive the quake itself, but sucumb in the next months. The way our society works will fail all over the PNW. It’s not efficient to design systems with a lot of “workarounds”.
I do not think the fault is close enough to Spokane for serious damage. Energy dissipates by at least the square of the distance. Recall the videos of the Japanese tsunami: I recall no damage to buildings before the tsunami. Spokane is over 300 mi. from the coast and nearly 400 mi. from the Cascadia subduction zone; I would expect no more than fascia damage to especially fragile buildings. Nothing like Christchurch, NZ.
In emergency, one probably can exit the garage without opening the door. (This is know as thinking out of the box.) If only to return the help with forest fires, California would undoubtedly provide help under our mutual aid agreement/custom. LA rescue teams respond worldwide, and IIRC they were first on the ground after Katrina.
It would undoubtedly be declared a federal disaster, which brings in the First Marine Division. Used to the Pacific, the Spokane river would not be a problem. MREs are edible, despite reports, and the Marines do train for disaster relief.
Spokane probably doesn’t have to worry about Cascadia Fault Zone, but there is a supercaldera not that far away in NW Wyoming. If Cascadia let go, would the shocks be enough to jar something loose all along the Cascades and possibly into Yellowstone? We don’t know what the effects would be, because we don’t know how much stress is occurring under the sea.
Where is Irwin Allen when you need a good disaster flick?
And yes, I remember Anchorage in 1964. When President Johnson declared certain cities as “All-America” cities, my home town was one, and so was Anchorage. The earthquake hit Anchorage, we got tornados the next year.
I’ve had a quiet time as far as disasters go. Naturally, living in Southern California, I’ve been around for a fair number of moderate and some major quakes–maybe hundreds including aftershocks–and one in Japan, of all things, 20 floors up. But the worst was less than a rocking chair. Sans tsunami, earthquakes have extremely small damage footprints, except for very brittle structures or soil liquefaction. I don’t think things really move fast, but they do move irresistibly.
The ridge line I can see out my window caught fire during a wildfire, but it’s a mile or two away. The chance of it reaching me was zero.
The worst weather event was probably a storm with golf ball size hail in Sydney. Pretty much every car parked outside was totaled. I’ve been in heavy rain, fog, and wind, and a tiny flash flood–that actually might have been dangerous, but I had gotten complacent due to too many flash flood warning signs in too many dry gullies, so I just splashed through in a headlight-lit bubble of dirty water, leaving my rear bumper covered in mud, but little damage.
Better living through (food) chemistry: food chemistry question. Something odd, observed, and I don’t know what caused it. I think I can fix it.
I made mashed potatoes. A very plain, ordinary as anything, store-bought mashed potato package. The wonders of freeze-dried, powdered mashed potatoes, able to store somewhere safely away for a while. Honestly, this was a great thing. One of those wonders of the modern age back in the 50’s, I think. (Earlier?)
So. Standard instructions. Basic reactions. 1-1/2 cups water, 1/2 cup milk (another brand calls for 2/3 cup), and 2 tbsp. margarine. Heat to just boiling, turn off the burner, add the mashed potatoes and seasonings, stir very thoroughly, then let sit for a minute, then stir again, then let sit again a minute before serving. Easy-peasy. Done this many times before.
Hmm. Only the milk is just before going off. Not soured, but not perfect, either. I judge it still usable and use it. But it’ll go out in the next couple of days, if I don’t use it up.
This should’ve been the only variable. I measured right. I heated it right. I picked up the pot just before it boiled too much, since it looked like it was going to boil over. I then added the mix, stirred, and set it back on the burner, with the burner off. I let it sit there for a few minutes before stirring again. It waited while I washed up the measuring cup and put up the cooked chicken.
(Whoa, that chicken is quite coated in basil. But it’s tender like nobody’s business and wasn’t too much for it. — I saved the pan to use the drippings (and too much basil) for seasoning the mashed potatoes, the whole purpose of the exercise.)
Hmm. Odd. The mashed potatoes should have thickened fine. They did not. There was plenty of powdered mix and I knew I’d measured right, heated right, etc. — So what gives? It should have thickened by then, as it usually does.
Well, OK, I think. I poured it into the pan, stirred that around, to get the basil and chicken drippings. That shouldn’t affect the thickening of the potatoes too much. The extra oil (not much) shouldn’t hinder it. The basil might be a bit more acidic or basic, I don’t know which, but I don’t think it would seriously affect it. Well, I stirred that thoroughly and poured it back into the pot and, since it was too thin and the mix is still too hot to eat, I let it sit on the burner while I ate my lunch. In fact, I cleaned up afterwards, pan and so on, and came back to the potatoes.
Huh. The mashed potatoes are still soupy. This is even too thin to call it a thick gravy or sauce. It should not be thin, that liquid, but it is. Plenty of basil, a bit of drippings from the chicken, so broth and oil and spices. But this was a small amount, from one package of five drumsticks. (I guess someone got the sixth drumstick.) Well, that’s strange. All right, I put it in a container and put it in the fridge. Surely it’ll thicken up once it fully cools, right?
I just checked. Still thin. This is just very odd. The only thing I can think of is the quality of the milk. Whole milk, just a bit off, while it’s still OK to use, but noticeable. I don’t like doing that, but hey, you do what you do. Budget and time and travel.
Tonight, I expect I’ll fix the other packet of mashed potatoes to see if they do the same. I can mix the two batches, or I can do something with the too-thin batch, add it to a dish for flavor and dubious thickening, maybe.
So, I’m curious if there’s a good explanation for what went wrong. I don’t see why it would be that thin. It should have thickened up somewhat, close to the usual consistency of mashed potatoes, at least. (It’s Kroger’s store brand. Not super but not bad.) Not too different from any other box of mashed potatoes anywhere in the USA, I bet. Maybe not too different from anywhere across the planet. I’d imagine they all copied the idea, or corporations sold it across as much of the planet as they could.
Such a humble thing for evidence of a global civilization, nascent spacing level, ground-to-orbit, post-industrial and in the early stages of the information age and globalization.
Mashed potatoes, something so humble, everyone can agree on them without thinking about it.
My taters are too thin, y’all. I almost think I could throw in the second box and it would only get to normal thickness. But no, I want to test the other package in the box to see if it does the same.
Any ideas? No, it’s not the measurements. Cooking seemed to go fine. But it didn’t thicken. — It’s now quite chilled in the fridge, and still soupy thin. Weird taters.
I had Brussels sprouts, so my chicken did not go without vegetables. Besides, there was enough basil almost to count as a vegetable accompaniment. (Well, not quite, but it’s quite coated.) — Oh, and dired, ground basil, spice jar, store bought, as plain and typical as the potatoes.
Ideas? Laughter? Commiseration? Hah, I’m curious, and think it’s more funny than anything. It’s a fluke. I’m not *that* bad a cook. Actually pretty decent cook.
Alton Brown would probably explain it all with a skit. Or juggling baby geese. Or selling beagles….
To the extent cooking is “Applied Chemistry 101”, and I got said Chemistry degree back in the Vietnam War days when that priveleged one to actually complete one’s degree, I think it was the liquid measurement. I don’t think the milk’s condition would have played a role. The freeze-dried taters would have had a capacity to absorb a certain amount of water. If they’d been previously coated in oil/fat that might have made the water unable to get to the starchy carbo(de)hydrates. That wasn’t something you mentioned. In any event there obviously was more liquid than they could absorb. The only option then was to evaporate the water away by more cooking at a simmer.
It’s probably that, then. I know I didn’t measure exactly, but I wasn’t more than an ounce over with either milk or water..
The powdered potatoes were added last, once the water, milk, and margarine had come to a gentle boil, per instructions.
So the margarine, and the fats and lipids from the milk should’ve been in random distribution throughout the liquid medium, when the powder went in. I’d stirred it just prior, so oil shouldn’t have been in a layer on the surface to coat the potato powder. Hmm.
To add to it: I fixed the other packet of potatoes tonight. Same process, eyed the measurements more carefully. Still not as exact as if it were for a science experiment. (I only had high school chemistry, but liked it and made an A. Still, that’s nothing like the horror stories I heard from Engineering or Chem. majors, for whom Organic Chemistry was a weed-out course. Heh. I didn’t have chemistry in college. Apparently not often with other people, either…. To any great amount.) heh.
The second batch is already thicker than the first, but still not as thick as is normal. However, it’s still cooling. Now out of the pot and into a container and into the fridge. It was still too hot to eat. (My stove’s electrc, not that that has any bearing on how mashed potatoes cook, haha.) But there is a difference in how electric versus gas stoves heat up, stay hot, and cook.
I’ll see if the second batch thickens as it should. Likely, the two will get combined tomorrow and simmer as you suggested to thicken the reluctant thin batch’s addition. That should also tone down the ultra-basil to livable proportions! Haha. (Oh, dear.)
LOL, wish me luck, I’ll have mashed potatoes, 8 servings, the two packets from the usual box, for one person. I’ll find a good way to use it all. Gosh, I haven’t fixed potato pancakes in ages. That might do for half of it.
If the party of the first part doesn’t thicken up, chop up any spare veggies from the fridge, dice up a potato or two, some of the leftover chicken (or bacon if you want to be classic) and voila! Potato soup!
mashed-potato crust for quiche? Shepherd’s pie?
Did you check the date on the package of potatoes? I know dried mashed potatoes packages can be kept on the shelf a long time, but if they’re really over their use-by date they get less good at absorbing liquid and plumping up.
If both the milk and the potatoes were iffy, I’d be wary about eating it – in fact I get wary about iffy milk alone.
The second packet cooked up fine, or nearly fine. So today, I put the first packet on to simmer again to reduce down. Same volume of liquid, but it didn’t thicken. So… After giving it some time to heat and reduce, it didn’t reduce much. Hmm.
I added 2 tbsp. of sour cream and 1 slice of sharp cheddar cheese (sandwich slices rather than the small blocks). This still didn’t do much.
It tastes fine. The addition of the basil and chicken drippings, lol, that’s about all you can taste, with the potatoes far underneath.
(The milk wasn’t far enough off to be that much of a worry. If it had tasted or smelled too off, I would’ve thrown it out and not used it. But it might affect the chemistry. The amount of water and milk and margarine shouldn’t have been sufficiently out of whack to do this. No more than an ounce +/– either way.)
So, with it still too thin — I added flour. I added 5 heaping tbsp. of white flour. Hmm. This was probably overcompensating!
And yeah, adding flour to mashed potatoes? Oh, wow. This thickened up into about the proper mashed potato consistentcy. After it had cooled enough — a taste test. Hmm. It tastes still strongly of basil, chicken, and now the mashed potatoes enter into it, but they’re more overwhelmed by the flour. … So I have something that’s edible, shuold be reasonably nutritious, but… yeah, this feels more like some kid’s failed first attempts at cooking than anything I’ve cooked in a long time. Heheheh.
I had a serving at lunchtime, with a chicken drumstick. I feel fine, no ill effects noted. So… hmm, well, it’s not the finest cuisine, I’m not proud of it, but it’ll do. It’s filling and it tastes OK. LOL…. But I’ll have some veggies on the side too.
(Hah, I looked. I don’t have another box of mashed potatoes on hand. — I didn’t look at the date on the package, but they can’t be from earlier than about Thanksgiving. So I think I’m good there.)
I don’t have a potato in the house. Hmm, need to remedy that, next trip to the store. I was surprised. — But with just me, and a too-warm kitchen, I try not to buy too much anymore that would sit too long. (I *still* tend to overestimate and over-buy sometimes.)
So, instead of pesto chicken or potato soup, we have…a half-***ed attempt to rescue a dish. But it’s edible and tasty, and should do fine. Not my proudest cooking moment, but it’ll do.
(I think I’m going to have to throw out the celery I had on hand. Probably too old now. Not sure what else I have on hand, but I have carrots and I do have a package of salad greens. There’s frozen veggies, but those will wait until I’ve eaten what I have currently in the fridge.)
Mashed potatoes and flour. Sheesh.
(If I’d had potatoes on hand, the potato soup would’ve been the go-to idea. — But the pesto chicken idea has plenty of merit. Except no vino on hand.)
I’m still very puzzled why one packet would not thicken and the other did fine. There’s got to be some combination of factors going there. Liquid measures being off, how the oil and potatoes combined in solution, condition of the milk, something.
The result is somewhere attempting to be mashed potatoes, but more like a thick white gravy like you’d have with pork chops or chicken fried steak, only not as much oil and not browned like you’d brown the flour and oil before / during fixing a gravy like that. Very odd, more in concept than in how it actually tastes.
But good grief, this deserves a laugh. Really not my finest cooking moment. :snicker:
You could always mix half a teaspoon of cornstarch in half a cup of water, then pour that in. Even flour, a rue, will work as a thickener.
Interesting Nova:
pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/memory-hackers.html
Memory isn’t like a library. It’s not a mind palace. It’s more like boxes of Play-Doh (reusable modeling clay). You can take a memory out and look at it, but you get fingerprints on it and change its shape while you handle it, so when you put it back in the box, it’s different. You can take a neutral memory out and put a memory of a crime back in, an imaginary crime–you can do this just with the influence of a skilled interrogator. With a drug, you can take a memory out and remove all emotion from it, curing a phobia.
there is a supercaldera not that far away in NW Wyoming
There’s at least some evidence it’s disconnected from large sources of magma.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-tectonic-plate-blocks-magma-plume-yellowstone-simulation-shows
So the moral of the story is: Pay attention to warnings from reputable sources, and take all due precautions, but don’t let fearmongers trap you into acting stupidly. Remember the dire warnings about Y2K, then 2012? Remember the consequences — oh right, there weren’t any to speak of.
DH, being a computer geek, went round and round with the Y2K weirdos, the ones who were sure we were going to have Ghostbuster-level civilization destroying problems. After staggering amounts of research, we offered to buy the house of anyone who was sure Y2K was going to be a ‘thing’ for 20 cents on the dollar, because according to them, civilization was going to collapse and so were property values. Strangely, none of the prophets of doom took us up on it.
How are your eyes doing? Last we heard the compresses were working. Still using them?