You've heard of 1001 Nights? This week was 1/3 dozen doctors. (And, to be honest, 1/4 dozen doctors, since physiotherapy doesn't really count.)

The tally:
Last visit with vascular doctor.
Podiatry.
Pre-sleep study consultation (in Decatur, no less).
Also, physiotherapy.

So doing housework on Monday was actually sort of relaxing. 😉

So James' fistula appears to be healed properly. Not sure if it's ripe yet. The doctor keeps asking "When are you going on dialysis?" Well, not yet, I hope. It's not like anyone's told us. James has no symptoms: he's still urinating fine, the urine looks normal, he has no loss of appetite, edema, nausea or vomiting, or shortness of breath. (Dr. Kongara keeps asking.) On the steroids Dr. Salazar gave him, he lost five pounds.

Since we were at Glenlake anyway, we went to Merchant's Walk and checked out the new Barnes & Noble in the shopping center where the Borders used to be (the B&N is in the old Bed, Bath & Beyond). The new store is...quite trendy. The bookshelves curve and "float" around the store so you are led in a certain path around it; James didn't like it, said they didn't have enough stock. I thought it was kinda cool (but, yeah, all the bookstores can use more books!) In fact, I found a cool book about Josephine Baker's spy work there, and bought James Travis Baldree's new book. I also had to get Victoria Finlay's new book, Fabric. "But, Linda, you hate to sew." Why yes, I do, and I can't tell one type of cotton fabric from another (except flannel). But I love Victoria Finlay's writing, and this book is no different. It starts out with barkcloth and tapa, both made out of the inner bark of palm trees, and she travels to New Guinea and other South Pacific islands to meet the few Polynesian craftswomen who still practice doing the fabric the old way. She also uses the book as a way of assuaging her grief after the deaths of her parents.

We also went to Trader Joe's, where most of the Christmas stuff is out. Where are the Candy-Cane Joe-Joe's? All they had were the chocolate-covered ones.

Wednesday was Doughnut Day Physiotherapy. It was a warm day, like the previous one, and James was still in minimal pain due to the steroid treatment, so we took the rollator instead of the chair so we could use Butch and take him by the cheap ($15) inspection place. Everything was okay, and then we went on to what was a very extensive workout, and yes, the doughnut. On the way home we stopped at Publix to do the weekly shopping.

Thursday we took a box to Goodwill, dropped off our good duds at the cleaners after their appearance at Neil and Emilee's wedding, then James got his feet inspected and a good pedicure at Kaiser before we went on to Lidl and two different Publix stores, since the Scufflegrit store on Wednesday had none of my favorite yogurt flavor (chocolate hazelnut). (They had plenty of that nasty coconut almond, though!)

Friday was our 33rd wedding anniversary. (Rodney pointed out that in March we would now be an LP!) We celebrated by having to get up at a hellacious seven a.m. to drive out to Decatur, as James has not had his C-PAP vetted in a long time. The only way to get this done is have a new sleep study, and when you're on Medicare you have to have a neurological exam before the sleep study. So this was the exam part, at 10:30. At the Emory sleep center. Off North Decatur Road. (What I call the "old neighborhood" since if you drive a few miles and a couple of turns and you're at Clifton Road and CDC headquarters.)

It was cloudy and rained most of the afternoon, which made it a PITA with the power chair, but we managed to have a good time. We found the building in one shot (thanks, Waze) and the exam itself was anticlimactic (James' opinion was "I had to drive all the way out here for that?"). I'd seen there was a Whole Foods across the street, and the last time we ate at the Whole Foods in Kennesaw they had a killer salad bar, so I said, "Let's go there for lunch."

Mistake. It is (or at least at that Whole Foods) no longer killer (no more of the delicious cucumber/tomato salad!) and there wasn't a darn thing on the hot bar I could eat without risk of (1) eating something spicy or (2) eating something that didn't give me massive indigestion even with a Protonix. They had clam chowder, but it was watery. I just had a salad while James found meatloaf, tikka masala, lasagna, and something else. He brought half of it home and the darn lunch cost $34! We could have gone to Tin Drum for less and gotten better food.

We did get some nice chocolate tarts for an anniversary dessert and two chocolate bars for other desserts.

There was a Half-Price Books across the street with a JoAnn next to it, so we took refuge out of the rain there. I got lucky in HPB and found another John Douglas book; also a hardback of Stephen King's On Writing and a "Bottom Line" book for $2 (we already had it, but I wanted to make sure!). James got some cool Lego Christmas sets (polar bears, a snowman, and a train) in JoAnn. I just bought a yard of good flannel...in case we get another bird. I cut off part of Snowy's cage cover for a shroud.

Anyway, James has become addicted to his new air fryer. We went from a 2.5 quart to a 5.something quart, so he's been making everything in it: warming up burritos in it if he has frozen burritos, making egg/cheese/ham/etc. egg dishes, cooking drumsticks and thighs, etc. So instead of putting it back on the dog's crate after using it, he's just left it smack in the middle of the kitchen counter, pre-empting prep space. We have very little kitchen counter as it is.

So Saturday I did a little cleaning in the kitchen pantry closet and cleared a space wide enough to put the two clear containers we have for English muffins and for Toufeyan wraps. If I then moved the tea machine next to the toaster, there was enough room to put the balsamic vinegars, the air fryer, the Magic Bullet, and the two-level lazy susan against the back wall next to the refrigerator. This means the entire counter got clean, and also the other counter. It was a long afternoon's work, but it worked out.

Finally on Sunday we went to Costco, as we were running out of probiotics. We've been taking them for three months and it has really helped my lower GI problems, and I think they've made James more "regular." Bought toilet tissue, almond flour crackers, and a few other things, too, then dumped all the stuff at home and went to IKEA.

I remember when you could get a decent lunch at IKEA; now all they have are the meatballs, veg meatballs, or chicken strips. I had a salad that there was no dressing for, and a kids' meatball dish (four with mashed potatoes). I was famished when I got home. Found a cool light to plug into my desktop that will throw light on anything I'm copying from, a clip-on light for my side of the bed, and a cheap squirt bottle to use when I iron creases in anything. Also got some ginger cookies. IKEA's new self-checkout screens are terrible. They're not sensitive to the touch at all and take you forever.

I'll tell you, though, that I'm so glad we moved into the current house when we did. IKEA has gone back to their "roots," which means plastic bucket chairs, ugly square sofas, lots of blond and white woods, and other junky 60s-looking crap. I'm glad we got all the Leksvik furniture when we did, as there's very little I would buy there now, except for the Billy bookcases. It didn't help that they are remodeling the entire bed/bedding department.

Labels: anniversary, books, cooking, crafts, errands, exercise, food, health, shopping, sickness, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 12:47:00 PM

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I got a wild hare to make barbecue ribs for Memorial Day. James had to work, but we had a rack of ribs from an old Publix BOGO in the freezer and plenty of barbecue sauce. So I went online and hunted up a recipe.

In general I was pleased. The ribs themselves were very meaty and were juicy, but they were also very stale. I could taste that "plastic" taste that gets into stale food these days. Also, I have to remind myself that ribs cooked on low (275℉) are not pork chops; even thought they are at proper temperature (160℉), they are not "done" enough to be falling-off-the-bone tender.

On the other hand, cooking them in the bottom oven was brilliant. It did smashingly; the ribs just needed another hour to be tender off the bone. Finishing them off at 400℉ in the top oven also worked (but ten minutes was too long; five would have been enough). My basting sauce, a combination of Smack Yo Mama Big Kahuna and Sweet Georgia Brown, and my final sauce, maple barbecue with smoky bacon maple syrup, was great, too.

Next time, fresh ribs and longer oven time.

We also had fresh sweet corn to go with the ribs, and they were almost better!

And then today I went downstairs to do laundry and found one of my precious jars of Panorama Orchards (from Ellijay, GA) blackberry spread on the floor of the laundry room. It must have come unbalanced after I had to deal with a leaking cup of applesauce and fallen during the night. So I had to sweep up the glass, take up the broken jar (the mass of preserves which at least remained intact, it being so thick), sweep the floor, then vacuum the floor, then wipe up what little bit of sticky was there, all before I could start the clothes.

Sigh...

Labels: cleaning, cooking, food

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:20:00 PM

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Had a nice sleep-in this morning which must have relieved James, who probably hasn't gotten six hours of sleep a night for the last four nights. We had a leisurely breakfast and I walked the dog before we headed off for Publix. The sky was so blue it hurt, but the temperatures had risen quickly. We just had flannel shirts over short sleeves, but we needed brimmed hats!

Thanksgiving is still a week away—my goodness, that soon!—but Publix is bursting with Christmas, a whole island of baking goodies and red and green, and silver and gold trims. We did some stocking up for both holidays, BOGO flour for my baking, and veg for our Thanksgiving contributions at this year's "Friendsgiving." Bounced around the store from one end to the other to pick everything up.

We put up the perishables and then headed to Sam's Club. We were planning to wait till next week, but James was out of cheese and he's going to binge-make burritos on Saturday when it rains, so it was today instead. Probably for the best since next Saturday everyone will be in a shopping frenzy.

Even for a Thursday the place was crowded. We gaped over the newest televisions posed directly near the entrance. One Vizio was running a 3-D looking loop that showed off its picture to best advantage. It was quite lovely. Also checked out security systems and new Fitbit smartwatches before going on to what we needed (and could afford): coupon items (Reynolds Wrap, Mrs. Dash, Splenda packets) and not (bulk cheese slices, a bag of Halos). I was going to get milk, but it was more expensive than Lidl.

It was around two by then and we stopped at Krystal to get a cheap lunch: two little cheeseburgers for James, two plain "pups" for me, and a little bag of tater tots. Just right! But since it was so late, we didn't bother going anywhere else except to Lidl for the usual: bread, milk, chocolate, elbow macaroni for a steal, a big bag of small Granny Smith apples, almond windmill cookies for a treat.

The day had completely changed while we were out. From blue and sunny when we left this morning, white clouds then grey clouds crept in, until the sun was just a brighter grey sphere in the cloudy sky. I'd left my flannel shirt behind when we dropped the stuff from Sam's off, and it was almost a little too chilly by the time we got home. Found a surprise on the front porch: a new griddle that I'd ordered from Amazon Vine.  We had nothing thawed for dinner, so we trickled cold water on two of the lamb steaks I'd gotten the other day at Nam Dae Mun. In the meantime, we "killed a frog" and finally cleaned off the top shelf in the fridge, which has been a collecting ground for a mixture of jellies, jams, and sauces. We dumped a couple of things like the congealed mint jelly, and then James scrubbed off the shelf (it's too tall for me to reach the back of) and then we wiped off the good jars and put them back, sauces to the right, jellies and jams to the left, with the Romano cheese in front. I've been cleaning out the fridge one shelf at a time all week and now the inside looks quite smart.

James took a nearly empty jar of garlic jelly and another nearly empty jar of balsamic jelly with onion, and made a finishing sauce for the lamb, cooking it on the new griddle. So good! And the pieces were large enough to supply leftovers for a lunch. Mnnn. Lamb sandwich!

Spent the rest of the evening playing games and watching the Holiday Baking Championship on Food Network.

Labels: Christmas, cleaning, cooking, food, holidays, shopping, television, Thanksgiving, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:47:00 PM

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We knew it might come to this...

James went to the doctor a few days before his heart attack and had a creatitine score of 2.8. After the attack it jumped into the 3 point area, but it didn't appreciably go up after the cath/stent, just like last time. But now it has jumped to 4 and they don't know why, save that it is probably a late reaction to the dye used in the cath process. There is a chance James might have to go on dialysis.

When we saw the nephrologist on Wednesday, he wanted to try something first: taking him off his diuretic for three days, in case his kidneys are being overworked by the diuretic. So we are being oh-so-careful for the next three days with the salt (not that we're exactly using salt that much these days) so that it won't aggravate the situation. We are to watch out for swelling, weight gain, blisters on his cellulitis, and especially breathing problems to show water is building up in his body.

So yesterday I did a cooking experiment. Don't faint. I do do them sometimes. For a while I have been thinking about my mom’s chicken cutlets. As I said, I'm not into cooking, so I never much paid attention to what she did to cook them. She just grilled them in a frying pan, and they had a nice brown crusty outside and tasted good inside. I guess they were chicken breasts, or as those flat pieces are called, chicken tenderloins. I don't consider chicken breast fit food for anyone. Dry, tasteless things. Anyway, wanted to make something by hand that would be very low salt; ran to both Publix and Sprouts at lunch, with the idea of taking Sprouts' shredded chicken and making a soup with no sodium broth. Sprouts didn't have any ready (really upset at this, as Sprouts has never let me down before), so it was a good thing I had picked up boneless skinless chicken thighs at Publix.

At dinnertime I took the thighs and cooked them on the griddle on top of the stove. Minimal olive oil, showed it a picture of salt, put ginger, tumeric, and cinnamon on one side, kept them flat using the bacon press. I cooked them on each side about a minute, and they took about eight minutes each all together. When they were done I used a scant teaspoon of bourbon pineapple glaze and a half teaspoon of sweet onion relish on each as a finishing sauce.

It was, amazingly, delicious and juicy. We had it with a side of applesauce. Must do that again. Of course this stove helps. If you pay attention to your cooking it does everything brilliantly.

So today was my off day, which, yes, I took advantage of by sleeping in until 8:30. After breakfast and pooch perambulation, I headed toward Buckhead, since there was another book sale at the Northside Library today. I first stopped for gasoline at Costco, then, since I was going to be in the area anyway, drove into Buckhead to check out the Barnes & Noble. Found a new "Best of British" as well as the new "Smoky Mountain Living" and an autumn issue of "Down East." I checked out the books and the clearance items, but didn't buy anything except for the magazines. There's a coupon this weekend, but not sure I want to use it on the new Flavia DeLuce book or not. I find myself getting a bit tired of Flavia, but perhaps it was just that last book.

I reached the library exactly at noon when they open. Not a lot there, but I found a copy of Tasha Tudor's Take Joy!  Christmas book. This was badly foxed on the top, but it had an embossed cover and decorated endpapers, plus a dust jacket. Since it was only a dollar, I bought it, even though I have a copy. (Checked out my own copy and it looks like it is a less expensive knockoff. Same content, but a plainer book.) I also bought Fred Allen's Much Ado About Me.

I still was determined to try to make that soup tonight, so on the way home from the library I stopped at Sprouts. They had exactly one package of shredded chicken meat left, which I brought home with some cashews for James and some "Asian-inspired chicken soup" (it had ginseng in it) for my lunch, since by that time it was 1:30 and I was as hungry as Red-Riding Hood's wolf. The latter was good, but came up on me all afternoon. I should know better.

I spent the rest of the afternoon vacuuming, loading the dishwasher, making the bed, and fixing up the Take Joy! dust jacket.

The resulting supper soup was...okay. Needed salt. 😊 I put one container of no salt chicken broth, about half a container of no salt vegetable broth, a big sprinkle of Litehouse salad greens, some vegetable flakes, and a freshly sliced stalk of celery in a saucepan with most of the shredded chicken and just let it simmer from 4:30 to when James got home. I cooked some vermicelli noodles to go with it and it made a nice filling dinner. Later we watched Doctor Who—well, I watched it; James had dozed off during the news—and I had on a couple of episodes of Lassie until Hawaii Five-0 came on. I like that they are not forgetting that Chin Ho and Kono are gone, and are still missing them. We also met the new guy tonight, an ex-Navy SEAL. He will have to go through the police academy before McGarrett will take him on. He has a sweet smile. I liked the subplot of McGarrett getting involved with the injured drug dog.

Labels: books, cooking, food, health, magazines, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:52:00 PM

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It's always the same. If we don't need to get up early, we sleep, and sleep, and sleep. But when we need to get up early, we're tossing and turning in bed all night as if we're bopping along to Chuck Berry. So since we had to get up at 6:45 a.m., guess what we did and what we didn't do. Never mind; we made it there, even if we didn't make it at opening of Betsy's Hallmark. (Yes, it's already Ornament Premiere Weekend.) It wasn't very crowded, and we were able to get the ornaments we wanted. James picked up the new airplane (a "Mystery Ship"), Duck Dodgers, and Marvin the Martian. I got two mini ornaments (the cardinal in the pine cone and the Hallowe'en owl), the Hallowe'en raven, Judy and Nick (of course, since there's no such thing as a Betty Roberts/Scott Sherwood ornament), the swan in the 12 Days of Christmas series, Willy Wonka for the library tree, and the beautiful Los Tres Reyes Magos (the three kings), which I thought would go well for Epiphany with my La Befana.

I just realized I forgot to look for the new Marjolein Bastin ornament. Oh, well, those don't usually sell out.

I'm intensely curious now about what they are going to do next year for the 12 Days set. The first seven ornaments, as in the song, are birds (no, I'm not forgetting the "five golden rings"—it has been long believed that the "rings" are actually ring-necked pheasants, and that's how Hallmark portrayed the ornament). I had hoped the fourth day bird would be black—the original song which I learned in elementary school called them "colley birds," not "calling birds," in other words, blackbirds—but I guess they didn't think that was Christmasy. But now we are getting to people: the eight milkmaids, the nine drummers, the ten ladies dancing, the 11 lords a leaping, and the 12 pipers piping (or whatever order they have the last four in; it changes in different versions). Could they somehow stick with birds? The milkmaids could be cowbirds, the drummers ruffed grouse (they "drum" with their feathers when mating), and the pipers could be sandpipers. But what birds dance and leap? So this mystery won't be solved until next year's Dream Book gets released in April.

We decided to try Goldberg's Deli for breakfast because it was the nearest spot open. This was quite good and we had a great waiter (Jake). James was going to have lunch with the guys, so he had only a bagel breakfast biscuit with egg and turkey sausage. He said even the bagel was quite good and he'd like to try an omelet next time. I had challah bread French toast. Oy. Very filling, but excellent.

I hadn't mentioned, but we were in separate cars, since he was heading for lunch and his club meeting. So after Goldbergs we separated, but still went the same way: Roswell Road to East Piedmont, which eventually turns into Barrett Parkway. He went on to Hobbytown whereas I stopped early at Barnes & Noble (I checked out CD Warehouse, but...nothing really). I found the new "Blue Ridge Country," which has an article on the upcoming eclipse, and also picked up, with a coupon, The Stolen Pearl, which is Elizabeth Wein's prequel to Code Name Verity, featuring Julie. Also found a hardback copy of One Hundred and One Dalmatians and a trade paper of Swallows & Amazons at 75 percent off.

I stopped at Academy Sports looking for something, didn't find it, and went on to the Dallas Highway Barnes & Noble because it was on the way home and I wanted to check out their clearance; nothing there. Oh, well.

When I came home I started a different project. This past Tuesday was "Prime Day" on Amazon, sort of a Black Friday sale but in July. The pressure cooker we bought in Helen hadn't worked out (it's possible it just needs a new seal, but it never builds up to pressure), so James was still looking for one. One of the featured buys on Amazon was an InstantPot, a big pressure cooker that was also a slow cooker, rice cooker, oatmeal maker, and it could saute meat before you cooked it in the same pot. I thought it would make a great early birthday gift and ordered it (I also ordered him an early anniversary gift and also a card reader). It came on Thursday and I decided to try it out today just for something basic like slow cooking. I had boneless pork ribs thawed in the refrigerator, pulled them out, and, consulting the manual, set the unit to sauté. I put a tiny bit of olive oil in the container and then browned the pork all over. (Next time I will put the temp on low instead of normal; it started to sizzle and stick the moment the meat hit the metal, but I flipped them over quickly and nothing burned.) Then I shut off the sauté (the manual says the most important button on this unit is the "cancel" button 😀), pulled out the pork, put a teeny bit of water in the bottom to loosen the fond, poured in a small bottle of tomato and basil sauce, put the pork back in, put more sauce in, and left it on "normal" (which is supposed to be low temperature on a slow cooker and is equivalent to 190°F).

Labels: books, Christmas, cooking, food, shopping, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:44:00 PM

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It was a quiet, albeit busy Sunday. We were up until two, so we slept until 9:30, at least, and James walked Tucker, and we had breakfast. Then we got to work: James had to replenish his supply of breakfast burritos. He used to make them with tortilla wraps, but they were actually too fragile. He now uses the Toufeyan wraps (low sodium, low carb) you get at Publix and fills them with egg, diced tomato in various flavors or Rotel, and low fat ground beef and/or turkey. Sometimes he'll make it with low salt turkey and low salt ham that Boar's Head makes. A couple of weeks ago he made some like egg rolls in a burrito, with bean sprouts and cabbage.

I scrubbed out both bathrooms thoroughly except for just sweeping the floor and not washing it, and then I went downstairs to put together the little bookcase I bought at Big Lots (ironically, it's on sale this week). I noticed it has the little lock screws like the bookcases at Ikea! Once I finished with it, I replaced the old microwave cart in the hallway that's holding various surplus canned goods and cereals with it and stocked it up. It holds more and doesn't stick out as much.

I'm hoping to give the cart to someone who needs it, as well as the two surplus office chairs we have. They're pretty battered, but someone could  use them until they got something better, or put them out in the garage or a "she shed" or carport without worrying if they got messed up. None of them are really good enough for Goodwill; I'm thinking of them as merely "interim furniture" until someone can afford something better.

Got upstairs to find James finishing the last burrito; he still had to put them in bags! I made the bed and started gathering the trash and finally soothed my aching back by lying down.

Sooner than I knew it, it was time for Colour Confidential. Ion Life wasn't coming in too well, but I got to see most of the two episodes. I love Jane Lockhart's color wheel. That's her "gimmick, the color wheel with the boxes, but I love how it works. She fills each of the boxes with something that relates to the person/people she's designing for. Both guys in the second show loved cars, so her color wheel was full of car-related colors and things for cars (a yellow scrub-brush, a blue dolphin air freshener to hang from the rear view mirror, an orange model car, etc.). The previous lady was a teacher, so she had yellow pencils, red crayons, etc. Jane will ask which colors attract their attention and then she tells them how that color will make the room feel (small, large, warm, cool, etc.). Other palettes have featured food (for people who liked to cook), photography equipment (for a pro photographer), sports-related items, etc. Always loved watching her do this.

After a couple of hours cooking burritoes, James didn't want to cook. We had Chinese takeout and finally settled on Science channel and Mythbusters.

And now time to turn the alarms back on. Indeed, the saddest moment of Sunday.

Labels: cleaning, cooking, food, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:42:00 PM

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We slept in this morning, and then James had to get to work restocking his homemade burritos. Yay me, I got to go out grocery shopping. I went to Costco for milk and popcorn and mushrooms, and bought a copy of Rogue One and the book White Trash. It had rained before we went to bed last night and it was spoiling for rain again this morning, the sky oppressively grey and low. From Costco I went to Kroger since they had yogurt, paper towels, and pork chops on sale. Just as I pulled in the driveway it started to rain!

Spent the afternoon listening to the rain drum on the roof—we had several spates of "Georgia Monsoon Season," with the windows getting soaked as the wind lashed water at them—adding stuff to the Netflix queue, including The Secret Life of Pets. We watched that at suppertime: it was cute and has some good chuckles, but I thought overlong. The budgie, Sweetpea, does get to participate in the adventure, but he's the only one of the critters who doesn't talk. How odd.

Later watched the first episode of The Vicar of Dibley off Britbox and then Call the Midwife, which had a "loss" theme tonight. Thankfully one of the losses was not Shelagh's baby! Right now I'm watching a special called The Secret Life of Pigeons, which has been fascinating: how they study their homing instincts, how pigeons have served man (and not just in squab dishes), pigeon shows,  their social habits, etc. And we even saw baby pigeons.

Labels: birds, cooking, dogs, movies, shopping, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:03:00 PM

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