Dreams

Like everyone else, I sometimes have vivid dreams. I usually don't remember them. But sometimes I can remember every detail. I had a dream about 4 months ago that has really stuck with me. I was working at this high school and there was a dirt ramp and a pond. Kids were flying wooden airplanes. Then we were in a very large auditorium, but it seemed like a church service or maybe a graduation was going on. Finally, as the dream seemed to be winding down, I saw the last plane take off and I knew it was going to crash. And it did and there were a lot of injuries. Two months ago, our department was asking for paramedics to assist with the Red Bull Flugtag and when I read about it, it really felt like deja vu. The event is this Saturday. I am putting this in writing so that when the event is over and everything is cool, I will feel very silly about my dream. If you don't have anything to do on Saturday, go watch. Don't watch from the landing zone end - just in case.

http://www.redbullflugtagusa.com/Texas2007/default.aspx

Lattice Entertain Mom

I worked a "payback" yesterday at a relatively slow station. We had one call around 1, didn't do anything until midnight and then got up at 0530 for a serious medical call. We got "stuck" on the truck for an hour and a half past shift change (0700). During the lull of the afternoon and evening, I watched at least 4 episodes of CSI on Spike TV. While I was lazing at work, Cy and Kimberly were busy at the house... After work, I hung around the Pflugerville/Round Rock area, drinking Starbucks and reading Suzie's next book, My Sister's Keeper (only a few pages into it, and the story is a keeper - this is going to be a GREAT read). I taught a Body Pump class at the Hester's Crossing gym, stopped at the grocery store and then home. Cy and Kimberly bought me a new rose bush and mentioned it. They didn't say anthing about the new lattice over the deck. I think I was home at least an hour before I noticed it. So while I was chilling at the station, they were busy in the back yard trimming the rest of the vines, ripping out the rotted plywood and adding the lattice. The picture is at night, but isn't it pretty? Wow! C&K are soooooo cool!

Au Natural

I do take short cuts now and then, but I am careful about what I use. I can honestly say that I have NEVER bought a box of Hamburger Helper, for instance. At work the other day, in front of about 10 of my co-workers, one of them asked if the pie crust I made for the peach pie on the grill was homemade or frozen. My response: anyone have a rock?
Food is serious business.

Web Mistress

Suzy, Retta, Cliff and Tor came over for breakfast this morning. As they were leaving, they stopped to admire the spider and her gorgeous web. The web mistress was not at home, but one of her victims was nicely wrapped in the right hand corner of her web, just waiting for her. Can you tell what it is?
Clifford grabbed a branch of the bush under the web and gave it a tug and up jumped the spider! She sped right to the center and did a couple of push-ups (she is definitely part of the family). Right after Suzy and the gang left, we watched as the little lady went and got her scorpion, moved him to the center of the web, wrapped him a few more times in webbing (you know what it looks like when you take a piece of plastic wrap and pull it out and wrap something – it looked like that), and then she had a snack. The scorpion didn’t like it much, but he was not able to do anything with his stinger, it being all wrapped up. Makes me think of the song by the Fabulous Thunderbirds…

Web Update

This morning, before I left for work, I stood and watched the spider re-spinning her web. She moved it just a little more to the left. While I stood there, a nice sized bug landed in her web. She was half way around to it, spinning a thread about 3 inches from the middle. As she got closer to the bug, the bug started to wiggle around. The spider stopped her spinning, moved quickly to the bug, and gobbled him up in a flash. Then she was back to business. I will try to get a video next time.

Pure Relief

The second most exciting thing that happened today was that I awoke WITHOUT a sinus headache. It seems like I have had one for two weeks running. So I must put a plug in for Dr. Hana’s Nasopure. It’s a nasal wash and you squirt it up your nose. Paul asked if it felt like when you get water up your nose while swimming. No, it’s much worse. But the relief is worth it. Yes, you can make your own saline solution and all that, but I like Dr. Hana’s organic, pre-measured salt packets.

The most exciting thing today was working the PT part of our hiring process. I was hoping that I would see Grant come through. Fourteen people took the written and then we got the word that only six would be showing up for the physical ability course (meaning eight people failed the written). I kept looking for Grant’s car and didn’t see it. I was biting my nails and deep in conversation with our new safety guy, when the six candidates walked past me. I had to keep from jumping up and down when I saw Grant in the group.

Peach Pie on the Grill

I made supper tonight for the gang: my chili casserole, guacamole, black beans and rice, corn on the cob and peach pie for desert.
Here’s how to make the peach pie:

8 medium to large peaches (you don’t want soft ripe ones for this recipe; the peaches should be firm)
Pie dough for double crust
3 tablespoons of flour
¼ to ½ cup of sugar depending on the peaches
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
A dash of nutmeg
(OR, you can leave out the spices and use a couple tablespoons of chopped basil)
Juice of ½ lemon
2 tablespoons of butter

Cut the peaches in half and cook cut side down over hot coals, about 3 minutes; turn over and cook another 2 to 3 minutes. Cool slightly, remove skins and slice. Mix the flour, sugar and spices together. Sprinkle the flour mixture and lemon over peaches and stir gently until combined. Line a cast iron skillet with ½ of pie dough. Add filling and put butter on top. Cover with other half of pie dough, making sure to make a couple of cuts in top. Place the cast iron skillet over indirect heat, coals should be medium. Put the lid on the grill and cook about 30 minutes, turn and cook another 30 minutes. Remove, cool slightly and serve warm with ice cream.

I made two small pies tonight, one with spices and one with the basil. They were both good, but I still prefer the traditional. This was totally worth the effort. Even my pie crust turned out good and I didn’t even inherit the pie crust gene. It skipped a generation and Suzy got it. The best thing about making any kind of pie is having it for breakfast the next morning!

Web Address

Here she is. The little lady is still here after 3 days. Check out her perfect web!

Hatch

Just look at these beauties! These are mild hatches, freshly roasted. You can get them everywhere and at CM they will roast them for you. But why? Why miss out on the aroma in your own home? These are almost ready for tomorrow. I coated them with olive oil, broiled them. Next, they go into a clean paper bag where they will stay for a few minutes, then I will peel them and refrigerate until tomorrow. I made a sort of casserole chili-relleno last week. Here's the recipe:
8 hatch chilis, roasted; 1 pound of organic ground beef; 1 large sweet onion; 3 roasted tomatoes, a couple cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin to taste. Cheese if you are not lactose intolerant.
Lightly oil (olive oil only - no cooking spray - I don't even own any cooking spray anymore) a 9 X 13 pan. Layer half of chili's in bottom. Chop and cook onions, add ground beef and cook until done. Add garlic, tomatoes and spices and cook 2 to 3 minutes more. Put meat mixture on top of chilies. Layer second half of chilies on top. Add cheese. Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes. Done. Serve with brown rice or whole wheat orzo, avocado, cilantro, pico and beans on the side. Or Spanish rice and corn. Or, whatever you fancy.

Spider Update
She moved to the other side of the doorway sometime between 10 last night and 530 this morning. I was careful to look outside before opening the door. She did have a couple of strands all the way across the entrance. I carefully broke those strands so that I wouldn't walk through and bring her entire mistress-piece down. She is still there.

Welcome!

It is never too early to get ready for Halloween. This little (she's actually about 3 inches long) beauty found a nice spot at the front door. She moved in two days after I moved the impatients to a cooler spot in the back yard. These types of spiders are always hanging out around here. Sometimes they are at various places on the front side of the house and sometimes in the back. When you come to visit, just be on the lookout. I know I'll be looking. I love seeing them there, I just don't want to have her crawling on me. If that happens, I will scream and the neighbors will be calling the po-po.

Lessons Learned and Things to be Thankful For

Things can change so fast. One second you are screaming because a centipede crawled off a discarded workout glove, and the next second, someone needs stitches.
The person screaming over the bug was me (see previous post). The person needing stitches was Kimberly. Kimberly and Cy have done a lot of work around the yard and I particularly liked the way Kimberly trimmed the big hedge in front of the house and asked her to trim the one on the other side. So while Cy was trimming wild, crazy vines on the back side of the house, Kimberly was making the hedge look awesome. Then I distracted her. The next thing you know, she says “ow”! Then she’s holding her right forearm and says she doesn’t know what happened. She wasn’t holing the clippers at the time. When I take a look, all I see is blood, so I tell her to stay put while I run to get something clean to blot up the blood. Getting a look without the blood, I am relieved to see that it’s just a lac (laceration) that will need stitches. Before I could actually see what was there, I was worried that she might have gotten bit by a snake, so the lac was better than a snake bite. This is something to be thankful for (STF).
I called my GP MD and their office was “short on doctors” so they were no help. Lesson learned: find a new GP. I called the ortho doc, but none of the orthos are in that office on Mondays, or the staff assured me, they would have done it. The ER option seemed like it would be too expensive and also take 3 to 4 hours on a good day. Finally, I remembered the clinic that opened up 4 months ago at Escarpment and William Cannon. We got right in, but did have to wait about an hour for stitches. The doc was a hippie lady in dirty keds and baggy sweat pants, but she was nice and it looks like she did a good job – we’ll see exactly in about 7 days. The nurse dressed Kimberly stitches while I went up front to pay the bill. Kimberly wasn’t supposed to see the bill, but thanks to the primping, preening, receptionist, who advertised himself, in part by having a sticky note on the side of his computer (visible to anyone checking out) with a phone number and “The Full Monty” (I am not joking), she arrived just as he was telling me the total. It wasn’t cheap. This is only information for you, the reader, should you find yourself in a similar situation. I am not complaining. I love Kimberly a lot and I found other STF: we got stitches in a relatively timely manner, pre-numbed and with a clean needle (unlike many countries where you won’t get numbed and the needles are often reused and the dullness is only secondary to how clean they are after how many other people).
Finally, we also learned that it is probably better to blunt cut your bushes, unless they are under a window that you want to discourage would be intruders from entering. What’s that saying, “better than a poke in the arm with a sharp stick”? Now you know how much better.

She Gets It From Me

It's not enough that I grew up in Wyoming with six brothers, five of them older than me, but I have also lived in two very buggy and cockroachy places (not counting Austin). When I was little, my brothers delighted in chasing me with all manner of bugs and spiders. When you are very little, you really believe it when your bothers tell you that the bug/spider will kill/blind/cripple/make you pee the bed. They even tortured me with bat stories. One day, my mother decided to "clean" the bats from behind the hayloft door. All of the bats flew, except for one. It was a mama bat with a baby on her back. Too heavy to fly, she looked for the first dark place she could find, which was up my pant leg. I screamed and stomped, knowing that I would surely die from rabies, while the rest of my family screamed at me to not hurt the poor mama bat. Remeber, I was the one with the bat heading for her crotch on the inside pant leg! What were they thinking??? But I digress...
When I was pregnant with Suzy, we visited Tehran and I remember awakening to two large roaches crawling on me. I screamed so much, the entire household spent the evening calming me and making me tea and playing backgammon with me. Oh, did I mention that we don't have roaches in Wyoming, or at least none that I ever saw.
Then we moved to Houston in 1981 and promptly moved into a roach-infested apartment complex. The first night there, I remember being "chased" by flying roaches. I swear to you that they were as big as small airplanes and they followed my every move. My screaming caused the kids to scream, so whether Suzy remembers it or not, this was her second exposure to my screaming hysterically due to large bugs.
I remain sensitive and tend to scream. A couple of years ago, I went on a call to a residence for some medical problem or another. When went to the back of the house where the patient was. Right away, I noted that there were roaches EVERYWHERE. I did not put my bag on the floor. Then, something grazed my calf...and I screamed like a girl, positive one of those roaches was heading up my pant leg. The patient's family was apologetic (and hid their laughter) as they locked up their chihuahua, who had licked the back of my calf...