The desire to be stoic and avoid the doctor or Western medication at all costs runs in my family. I wonder if it's hereditary? My father consumes massive amounts of fluids and Vitamin C when he has any sort of illness, and my grandmother scoffed at so much as an Advil when she had any sort of malady. Allowing myself to think that I can cure myself with something so small as some carrot juice and zinc supplements is almost magical in it's simplicity.
HOWEVER....
The truth it that I can only hack, wheeze and cough so much before my weakened little mind screams out to seek professional consult.
Running to my favorite doctor is exactly what I did the day after my last post. Apparently I have asthmatic bronchitis. Awesome. I have been on a steady regimen of antibiotics, allergy medicine and multiple inhalers.
Yeah, that's right. Not one, but TWO inhalers. I'll bet you're so jealous. Pause for a minute and think about that super popular kid in your middle school that toted around an inhaler and every so often whipped that puppy out, shook it like a Polaroid picture and took a deep drag. Oh wait. You can't conjure that image? That's because a super popular kid with an inhaler is something that doesn't fucking exist.
Now conjure the realistic image of that dorky kid who regularly hacked up a lung in your Bio class because it was in the basement and his sensitive system couldn't handle the mold so he got transferred to another class and you all laughed at him and pointed when he passed in the hallways.....(much easier to call up that image, right?)...multiply that image by two and you've got me. The medical community really needs to speed up development of a medication that has a hip reputation, like hallucinogens. Chop-chop, medical community!
I now regularly engage in covert missions to sneak to my office during conferences to sip on the sweet powdery relief from my new plastic buddies. Everyone knows. It's almost shameful.
After my days of tiptoe-ing around at work, I want to just veg out on the couch and surf mindlessly around on the inter-web. (Inhalers and an uncontrollable impulse to call it the inter-web, I think the bronchitis came with a heaping side of 'geek'.) But the universe had other plans. It said "oh no no no Miss Rainey, not so fast! Your computer will come down with a deathly illness as well! MuhahahahahHAAAAAA!!!!"
My poor, unsuspecting computer! Is it possible that through my close proximity to my computer I gave it a virus? I am not sure if human-computer contagion is even possible. I ran for my inhaler, trying to treat the computer the only way I knew how. The USB port looked like a natural match for the mouthpiece of the second inhaler, so I attached the plastic device and gave it a life-infusing blast of medicine. It didn't do anything! I briefly toyed with the idea of sharing my antibiotics, but there was no suitably sized outlet. Out of ideas, I panicked and started pressing buttons. Wrong thing to do.
Ok, apparently last thing you want to do when confronted with a computer virus is randomly press buttons. Or force useless medications on your computer. Blame it on the fever. Thankfully Chris is something of a computer whisperer and will be in the process of fixing my computer this weekend.
Until then it's just me and my inhaler. Correction: Inhalers.
Showing posts with label sick post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sick post. Show all posts
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Do You Have A Cat Named Garfield?
I sat down on my couch tonight to write a blog post. Guess what? My body has a case of the sniffles and refuses to allow my brain any sort of clarity.
Sooooo you all get my recipe for LASAGNA!!! Enjoy and hopefully my body will have recuperated by tomorrow so that I can finish one of the six posts I started today....
First: boil the lasagna pasta until a little below al dente. Rinse with cold water to stop the cooking. I know rinsing with cold water is bad for nutrients and all, but I don't really eat lasagna for the nutrients so I say rinse away!
Second Component: Filling! This I vary almost every time I make it. I always start by sauteing about 2-3 cloves of garlic in a couple tablespoons of olive oil, and then put in about half of a large diced sweet yellow onion, a packet of frozen spinach, a chopped broccoli crown (including the stem), and mushrooms. Sometimes if I'm feeling craaaazy I'll put in some zucchini, squash or toasted pine nuts, or sometimes ground turkey. I salt and pepper this mixture until it tastes yummy just on its own, and the veggies are still a little firm.
Third Component: Sauce. I usually buy Barilla, but really any sauce is fine. For lasagna my grandmother used to say that you don't really have to make sauce because theres already a ton of other variable fillings in a lasagna, and methinks she's right. I also usually only use one regular sized jar, but I don't like a lot of sauce, so more is good too. More just makes a bigger mess when you eat it though.
Fourth Component: Ricotta. Mmmmmm. Mix one large egg and some dried oregano (I'd say approx 1-2 tablespoons) into one large tub of the ricotta of your choice.
Fifth Component: Shredded Mozzarella cheese. Buy one to two large bags, depending on how much cheese you like.
Sixth Component (only for the top of the lasagna): Wedge of Peccorino Romano or Parmesan Cheese. I prefer the Peccorino because it doesn't go bad for a realllllly long time, and really you don't need the whole wedge for just one lasagna.
Then: LAYER! It's my favorite part! Like a craft project. Put a little sauce to coat the bottom so the lasagna doesn't stick, and then a layer of pasta, layer of ricotta (spread evenly over the pasta with the back of a spoon, not just in dollops), then veggies, sauce (spread evenly again) and mozz cheese. I've found that this layering process makes the least amount of mess, but that's another thing that's open to interpretation. Its gonna taste the same no matter how you layer the thing. Usually its about three layers, and I go right to the top of my baking pan.
The top of the lasagna, I just put a thin layer of sauce and about half a cup of the mozz, or whatevers leftover from the bag, but not enough to cover the sauce. I then shred the Peccorino liberally over the top to complete covering the sauce.
Cover in foil, and bake in the oven at 350 for about 40-45 minutes. Then take the foil off and bake until cheese is golden brown. Yum yum. You've got yourself a lasagna!!!
Sooooo you all get my recipe for LASAGNA!!! Enjoy and hopefully my body will have recuperated by tomorrow so that I can finish one of the six posts I started today....
First: boil the lasagna pasta until a little below al dente. Rinse with cold water to stop the cooking. I know rinsing with cold water is bad for nutrients and all, but I don't really eat lasagna for the nutrients so I say rinse away!
Second Component: Filling! This I vary almost every time I make it. I always start by sauteing about 2-3 cloves of garlic in a couple tablespoons of olive oil, and then put in about half of a large diced sweet yellow onion, a packet of frozen spinach, a chopped broccoli crown (including the stem), and mushrooms. Sometimes if I'm feeling craaaazy I'll put in some zucchini, squash or toasted pine nuts, or sometimes ground turkey. I salt and pepper this mixture until it tastes yummy just on its own, and the veggies are still a little firm.
Third Component: Sauce. I usually buy Barilla, but really any sauce is fine. For lasagna my grandmother used to say that you don't really have to make sauce because theres already a ton of other variable fillings in a lasagna, and methinks she's right. I also usually only use one regular sized jar, but I don't like a lot of sauce, so more is good too. More just makes a bigger mess when you eat it though.
Fourth Component: Ricotta. Mmmmmm. Mix one large egg and some dried oregano (I'd say approx 1-2 tablespoons) into one large tub of the ricotta of your choice.
Fifth Component: Shredded Mozzarella cheese. Buy one to two large bags, depending on how much cheese you like.
Sixth Component (only for the top of the lasagna): Wedge of Peccorino Romano or Parmesan Cheese. I prefer the Peccorino because it doesn't go bad for a realllllly long time, and really you don't need the whole wedge for just one lasagna.
Then: LAYER! It's my favorite part! Like a craft project. Put a little sauce to coat the bottom so the lasagna doesn't stick, and then a layer of pasta, layer of ricotta (spread evenly over the pasta with the back of a spoon, not just in dollops), then veggies, sauce (spread evenly again) and mozz cheese. I've found that this layering process makes the least amount of mess, but that's another thing that's open to interpretation. Its gonna taste the same no matter how you layer the thing. Usually its about three layers, and I go right to the top of my baking pan.
The top of the lasagna, I just put a thin layer of sauce and about half a cup of the mozz, or whatevers leftover from the bag, but not enough to cover the sauce. I then shred the Peccorino liberally over the top to complete covering the sauce.
Cover in foil, and bake in the oven at 350 for about 40-45 minutes. Then take the foil off and bake until cheese is golden brown. Yum yum. You've got yourself a lasagna!!!
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