In Like A Lion

March is one of those odd months. Not quite winter, not quite spring. Everyone's going nuts over St. Patrick's Day (which I just don't get). But it brings with it Easter Candy (yes, I had to capitalize both words). Mmmm...chocolate marshmallow. Mini Eggs. Peanut Butter Eggs. It's the worst time for me willpower-wise. I stash them in my desk and break them out when it's about 2:45 and I'm trying to proofread or reconcile or typeset. But I digress..... I gave up buying unnecessary beauty products for Lent. I'm not Catholic, but I always feel like if I do without something, it's a teeny step towards trying to be a better person. (I also don't eat meat on Fridays - or sweets.) I'm also trying hard not to purchase anything that's unnecessary, be it sweets or something indulgent. So I can just lust over this: It's this nifty, Jetsons-like device that carbonates your water. Could I be more of a foodie geek? I could make delicious lemon-lime 7-Up without having to wait for it to go on sale. I could just make seltzer for using in egg creams. I want one. And it's on sale. I guess I'm hoping that my dear sweetie will see this sad plea since he's now on facebook and my blog rolls right over there and take pity on me. Or reward me. Either one works for me.

But there are other cool things about March. I'm doing "Children of Eden" with a local high school. Never played it before, but the MD is one of my favorites and I don't foresee playing "Wicked" any time soon, so CoE is just about the same anyway. (Seriously. I was gufawing at the blatant theivery going on from himself.) And.......my favorite columnist from Bon Appetit is launching her first book. I don't purchase many books, mostly because if I can grab the new Stephen King (although I will purchase his short stories since their re-readability is pretty good) from the library and save $$$ I do that. But books about food??? I've read Ruth Reichel's "Garlic and Sapphires" a million times. And I love love love Molly Wizenberg's writing. She inspired me to make homemade mayonnaise. And....she's doing a book signing in NYC on March 18. So I'm excited to go pick up her book and praise her with love.

Say Cheese

It's not even 11am and already I've had a CT scan. On the plus side, it's out of the way and I can enjoy the rest of the day. On the minus side, I had to drink 2 of those barf-inducing smoothies. Ugh. I get the dry heaves just thinking about it. If you've never had to have a CT with oral and iv contrast, let me lay it out for you (sadly, the picture to the right is a good approximation as to the phoney cheery face I put on the whole time. Luckily, my favorite tech was on today, so it really wasn't too phoney. The tech is a SPITTING image of Anthony Edwards, so all I can think is that Dr. Mark Greene is giving me my CT scan.):

*You drink 2 bottles of this lovely stuff. One at bedtime (whereupon you realize you won't be eating anything until AFTER your appointment and are suddenly ravenous after you started drinking the contrast.) and one the next morning. You take a swig. You think, "This isn't as bad as I remember" and proceed to try guzzling. After the first prolonged guzzle you feel woozy trying to get past the sensation that this stuff is coating your insides. You whimper as you trying thinking "chocolate milkshake, chocolate milkshake" to no avail. You try all sorts of breathing techniques while drinking, but realize it's not the taste, but the texture and no kind of breathing will get you past that. (This is of course after trying to add chocolate syrup to it thinking that will surely help. It doesn't.) You slog down the first bottle and go to bed. The next morning you dread that second bottle. It stares you down. You open it up and just the sight of that viscous while stuff is enough to make you cringe. You shudder as you force it down.

*You get to the CT scan place and sign in and fill out the same paperwork for the umpteenth time.

*By this CT scan, you've wised up and wear nothing metal so you don't have to change.

*You go into the freezing room where the machine is and glug that last bit of contrast down. (By this point you're ready to pass out if that stuff touches your lips again.)

*A few passes through the machine.

*Then a nurse (if you're lucky) comes to hook you up to an iv to administer the iv contrast.

*They start the iv and you get a hellacious taste in the back of your mouth, reminding you of the disgusting taste you'd get when you had the chemo.

*Then comes the flooding warmth through the lower half of your body.

*Then after the pass with the iv in your arm (still hooked to the machine as seen in the picture to the right), they remove it and you lay on the table for 15 minutes with nothing to do but stare out the dirty skylight. If you're lucky, there's clouds in the sky that day. (Today there weren't.)

*Then one more pass and you're free to go wait in the waiting room for the disk with the images.

*Disk in hand, you are on your way.

Repeat again in six months.

Luckily, these are to make sure I'm still healthy. But it still dredges up the same emotions and feelings and memories from back when I had my first CT scan when we were trying to figure out what was wrong with me. So even though this morning was quick and (relatively) painless, it still sucked. Not to mention the lovely things the oral contrast does to my digestive system. *Ahem*

More Baking

Since I tried an apple galette from Boston Market I've been dying to make one. So the other day I bought some gala apples and I had a refridgerated pie crust in my fridge. (Don't judge - I have insecurities in even attempting to make my own pie crusts. It's one that I will get over once I have a larger kitchen. And perhaps a food processor.) And the funny thing is, I'm so not a pie person. I'm not a fruit fan. I'm not for fruit in my desserts. My thinking is, if I'm having dessert, it better be gooey, chocolatey or decadant. And fruit doesn't fall into those categories.

Tonight I had the means and time to assemble it. I Frankensteined a few recipes together - added a layer of frangipane under the apples and popped in the oven.


It looks so pretty. I love how it looks so rustic because I pleated the crust around the filling. I'm actually quite proud of it.


It will be making its tasting debut during tonight's episode of Heroes. Which I wasn't loving last week because I was falling asleep during it, but after a second viewing, I'm hooked once again.

Easy Like Sunday Morning....or Afternoon

Sunday was one of those perfect days. Luke and I snuggled in bed. We read books. He took a nap early. And I had the classical station on while he slept. He woke up while I was finishing up getting dressed, and I heard Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune by Debussy. Beautiful. So I was happy he was awake while it was on. Then I made breakfast for us all, got the classical station going on in the living/dining room/home office/kitchen and we all ate together, enjoying a Brandenberg concerto.

*sigh*

Luke and I then picked up leftover cake from Grandma's, went food shopping and hit the library where we discovered we can go to a Mother Goose singalong next week.

It was a good day all around.

They're Cousins...(Un)Identical Cousins

Cuties. They had a grand ole time chasing each other around and being silly. I bought them matching pajamas for the holiday season so I pounced on the chance to take a picture of them wearing them at the same time in the same place.

For some reason, Luke was unhappy about the paparazzi.

Then, once it was apparent that it was a party, he warmed up a little.

A good time was then had by all.

Some Enchanted Afternoon

I actually got to work the system and chaperone a field trip. (Which means I had to behave, make sure the same number of kids came home that left on the trip and make sure everyone got home in one piece. They're super kids, I had to do almost nothing in the way of yelling.) The trip was to go see "South Pacific" and lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was fun, the kids were great and I got to see a Broadway musical. I was actually impressed with the revival. The coolest part was that the orchestra was not only revealed during the overture and entr'acte, but that they were in concert black - tuxes and nice black - no tee shirts! And Kelli O'Hara was still there singing her heart out - I liked her version of Nellie. Not too corn pone, and not too dopey and love-struck. Plus, I mean, she was the original Clara Johnson, so I got a thrill out of seeing her perform live.

Here's me and Kerry (Curly Girl) in the lobby of the theatre at Lincoln Center (we could see Julliard from the windows which was also a thrill.) She's much too enamoured with her iPhone to pose.

Miscellany

Here are photos I found on my camera that I meant to include in posts but never got around to doing so:

This was the marquee at the theatre when I was doing "Grey Gardens" over the summer. I just felt so cool that there was a real marquee - one with a picture and everything. Not just a name of the show that used backwards '3's because they ran out of the letter 'e'. Smithtown is like that though - they're pretty on-the-money.

This is Bea. She's the only Bea I know. She's one of the violinists in my quartet. She's also a party animal, hence how she fell asleep, sitting in a chair during a performance of "1776" at Hofstra. So it's also a photo of what the inside of the pit at the big theatre at Hofstra looks like.

These are amazingly delicious peanut butter cookies that I made. I had leftover ganache frosting from the birthday cake I made for my mom, so I decided to dip the cookies in the ganache. It resulted in tastiness.