My face is on fire. 

I could type out the whole story here, but I just had to cancel birthday and Dead Milkmen concert plans with Jenn and Jack for tonight... and it's just easier if I copy and paste what I typed to her, because I am the laziest fuck ever... but hey, I have an owie excuse.

Cut/Paste:

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And now, the bad news: We have to bail tonight. I had two root canals on Tuesday and one got infected (sexy!), and yesterday morning I woke up in agony and my face looked like Rocky Dennis from Mask. Flew to the dentist at 8am, and he prescribed mega-doses of steroids and antibiotics to get the swelling down... but we had a gig last night that I should have canceled but didn't, and I overdid it because I'm an asshole, and my face and skull are friggin' on fire today... plus, I leave for a work-trip tomorrow. 

I'm so sorry and sad to not be with you guys today. We were REALLY looking forward to it... but I really feel like I should err on the safe side. 

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(Additional thought: Plus, the high doses of steroids means I have hella reduced immunity right now, and being in a giant sweaty  Milkmen crowd is probably a bad idea... but I'm honestly not really thinking about that.)

Good god. I would love to be able to attend one goddamn event with my fucking friends without SOMETHING happening... anxiety attack, rotting infected tooth-skull, Mom emergency, etc.  I feel like a selfish jerk for feeling this way, though.

Humans are complicated.

There's so little music i want to see live and most of it happens 60-90 minutes away so when it's on a weeknight i'm too old to want to endure the commute there in rush hour and back when it's midnight and i'm exhausted.

... You are looking cute!

Specifically, you'll note there is now a little picture icon after you hit reply.

Currently you can post either a picture, or text, not both in a single comment.

Enjoy!

There is a man waiting at the tavern, his voice like well worn leather and his eyes burn with intensity. He will give you a quest. If you take this quest, you will wander far. You will walk through burning sands, to find mountains. You will climb mountains to find the lost sea.

You will cross this sea to find the haunted forest. She will meet you there, the last queen of fairie. She will take your heart. She will hold it in her hand & sing it songs. You will continue, the quest is not done, but your heart will remain with her till the end of stories.

The quest will continue to the river. You will capture a fish. The fish will tell you three lies and a truth. When you decipher which is which, placing each in the correct book, it will find your way to the Fortress of Night. Yow will enter the fortress using the lies as keys. 

Once in the Fortress of Night, you will find your way to the dungeon. The dungeon runs deep and the prisoners held within are long dead. Only bones and rags remain. When you reach the bottom of the dungeon only the guard remains, a dark apparition made of broken dreams & shadow. 

You will defeat this shade with a blade name Hope. You will drive it into the dark heart of the guard. The shadow fallen, you will claim his treasure, a spark of star light, lost long ago and now found once more.  You place the starlight where your heart once rested. 

The quest completed you will return, up the river, through the haunted forrest where your heart remains, across the lost sea, down the mountain, and across the burning sands. You will return to your tavern with star light, star fire, burning in your chest. 

At last, you will rest, your eyes burning. You will speak of a quest to someone new, your voice, sounding like worn leather, will tell another of their quest. You will send them on their way to find their own fire, till all the stories are done. 

The title says it all. The  next phase of the home renovation process is to change the windows. Of course, in order to change the windows you have to be able to, you know, get at the windows. Unfortunately 18 years of accumulation has made that nigh unto impossible. 

I'm a nerd, so I started measuring and adding and I figure I need about 100 square feet of storage space. Not much furniture will make the move to new digs, but one Hell of a lot of books and tools will. Both of which can be stacked.

So, do I rent a storage locker, which will be a sunk cost, or do I look into other options? A CONEX box, one of those stackable shipping containers, would certainly do. It would be overkill in fact. Problem being, they're a bear to move. So you've got to hire someone to deliver them, and move them, and then you've got to have them hauled away. Another sunk cost. Pods have the same problem. And their storage costs are crazy. Which leaves a trailer. Trailer's are a major up front cost, but most of that could be recouped once you move your stuff into the new place for all of your stuff and sell the trailer.

Fortunately I own a vehicle suitable to tow a trailer. Insurance is negligeble, ~$30 for six months. Registation doesn't even crack $100 a year. Wheel chocks, padlocks and security devices so someone doesn't drive off with all of my stuff will run about another $100.

So, on Friday I'm off to the wilds of Pennsylvania to purchase a trailer. Which should be an adventure, because I tow a vehicle once a year, max.

We were all set to leave for NJ yesterday so we could accompany my folks for mom's 4th attempt at knee-meniscus-repair surgery which was scheduled for this morning. 

She called me yesterday before we got on the road to say that they canceled it yet again... this time because her pre-op testing showed her blood-sugar has been too high, so her endocrinologist wouldn't clear her. 

She is really really bummed. 

I asked what the next steps forward towards rescheduling are, and she said, "I've gotta get my blood sugar under better control, I guess."  I asked her how she should do this-- is it as "simple" as an insulin adjustment?  She said in a defeated tone, "I guess I need to eat better." 

Strange that a diabetic shouldn't be subsisting on dollar-store frozen pizzas, Ritz crackers, pasta, and insulin.  *facepalm*

Anyway, I was happy (?) to hear that her endocrinologist said "Come down today from 3-4pm and meet with our nutritionist, and we'll work with you to get your blood-sugar down. We want you to have this surgery." So she's going there today.  I asked her to ask the nutritionist for meal ideas that are easy and quick because she can't stand up long enough to cook a healthy meal, which is why she eats what's easy. Is there a mail-order meal service that they recommend? I know there are meal services like Blue Apron and Sun Basket, but those require you to prepare the meal yourself, which probably requires some amount of standing.  I also don't think she'd spend that kind of money on herself, but that's a different story... and one Matt and I might be able to solve since her birthday is coming up. Maybe a few months of a meal service would be a nice gift. Or maybe that would be awful and would make her feel judged somehow... I don't know. 

I just wanna help. 

Anyway, we're heading up in an hour or so, and we'll be there until Friday. We've got a real busy weekend coming up with 2 gigs on Friday night and Saturday afternoon, and family stuff on Sunday.

By request!

Dry Ingredients

• 1/2 C sorghum flour
• 1/2 C brown rice flour
• 1 Tbs tapioca starch
• 1/2 C cocoa (be generous)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• Optional mixins up to 1/4 cup: choc chips, nuts, etc

Wet Ingredients

• 5 Tbs butter, melted (86 grams)
• 1 & 1/4 C granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp cold espresso (or 1 tsp instant coffee in 1 tsp water)

Instructions 

1. Preheat oven to 350F; lightly grease a 9" baking pan
2. Mix dry ingredients in one bowl
3. Mix wet ingredients in another bowl
4. Fold wet ingredients into dry, only until combined
5. Turn into baking pan
6. Bake 25-35 min, until toothpick in the center comes out clean
7. Cool on rack under a cloth, don't cut until room temp.
8. Keep covered in the fridge, if any survive the day.

Notes

The vanilla and coffee flavours make these extra yummy. Also mad wack chocolatey. They don't need frosting, but you could drizzle a little melted chocolate (melt 1/4 C chips in microwave, e.g.) on top once they're cut up. I've been using a 9" round springform pan; you get less of that yummy brownie "edge" but it's easier to cut them up when you can take the sides off.

NB recipe was modified by my partner from an Alice Medrich non-GF original. 

Yesterday I got really bored with the unit I was working on in my piano lesson book (pounding my left paw into a C-E-G chord has its intellectual limits) so I skipped ahead and started picking at Simple Gifts. This song was drilled into us at Quaker School (cultural appropriation: Quakers stealing from the Shakers?), and it was the processional at my wedding. so it was a more interesting way to practice chords. 

I started making mistakes, which I realized was the same mistake, and then I realized it wasn't a mistake. I remembered picking out a more complex version on the piano in high school, to learn the soprano part for choir. So I let that memory take the wheel for a bit, realizing that I can play this on eighth notes rather than quarters. I can play more of the song than the exercise called for on paper. 

Once my left hand gets the memo and stops playing chords like a hoof, everything will be fine. 

Went to one library this morning to pick up some holds. A couple SQUIRREL GIRL stand-alones, plus also SOFT X-RAY MINDHUNTERS which was recommended.

Then made my third batch of gf fudge brownies in the past seven days. In our defence they keep getting brought to parties and people other than us eat them. This batch is all ours. Also made sweet potato sticks with a bit of heat.

And now the errands are piling up again. I have four stops to make. I guess it's not terrible that I can just walk to all of them.

A different library (the big reference one) to return OTHERWORLD BARBARA which was just a bit too-too for me), dollar store for a few snack items, bulk food store for a few staple baking goods and peanuts, grocery store for eggs.

d is off at a choir intensive rehearsal until early evening. I've been keeping busy but at some point I'll probably just sit down and read. Or maybe go out and look at something or ???

I'm working on making more friends but still don't have anyone close enough to just hang out with kind of spontaneously. It doesn't help when half the time I feel too worthless to see the merit in anyone else hanging out with me. Not a good headspace to be in when meeting new people. But that's not this post.

Nope, this post is just -- hello autumn weather, I've been busy today, I made some food, I ate some food, I pet some cats, now I'm going out.

Hope y'all's day is doing you a solid.

-- edited to add -- 

Sweet Potato Sticks (air fryer)

These are dead simple if-and-only-if you have an "air fryer" device. Otherwise I probably would not bother trying to make them with manual stir-fry methods. Anyway.

1. Julienne 2lb of rinsed but unpeeled yellow flesh sweet potatoes into 1/8" x 1/8" sticks of varying lengths.
2. Add to air fryer along with 2T oil (we use bacon grease, anything is fine).
3. Season with about 2t of salt or to taste.
4. Add additional spices to taste. I've used Montreal steak seasoning, chili powder / hot sauce, whatever I feel like. I bet dill powder would be great.
5. Run your air fryer for 40-45 minutes or until some of the sticks are starting to get a little blackened. Stir occasionally if the automatic agitator kind of sucks like ours does.
6. Turn out onto a cookie sheet to cool; they'll become quite crisp.
7. Try not to eat them all immediately.

Last night we played a show in Kennett Square, opening for an impro comedy troupe.  We played a 25 minute set, and then sat in the back of the theater to watch their improv show. They invited us on stage to participate in the final improv game of the night and I protested because I'd never done any improv whatsoever... and it turns out I did kinda OK given my total lack of skill. That was kinda fun to try. Matt did great because he's freakin' effortless at everything-- I don't know how he does it. 

Today (Friday) I put my phone in Airplane Mode and stayed offline pretty much all day in what we call a NEDNOP day (NEDNOP stands for "no electronic devices, no other people"). We spent some time at a little spa down the street to finally get the last of the playa dust out of our pores.  (After we got home from Burning Man my skin was so dry and angry that I desperately wanted a facial, and I also wanted a massage because my muscles hurt from building shit and pounding the playa for a week. So today we finally took care of that.)

Matt and I got massages and facials (his first facial!), and I also got a body treatment where they dry brush you and slather you with shea butter and then wrap you in warm towels and plastic and stick you under the heat lamp like a piece of Roy Rogers NJ Turnpike rest stop chicken.  The facial and the body treatment were maybe a 7 out of 10 (perfectly delightful) and the massage was an 8.5 or even a 9. She was amazing.  

Matt and I went to get a bite right afterwards, and then hit the hardware store for some stuff for the house, and then he started feeling anxious so we came home and crawled into bed around 6PM-ish... and we fell asleep... and then I woke up around 2AM, which is why I'm typing this at 6;19am. 

While I've been writing this, I've been listening to "Who's Next" on headphones. Good lord, what a masterpiece. Roger Daltrey is a MACHINE. Pete Townshend's voice is so smooth... and John Entwistle's bass playing is so melodic and he plays it like a lead instrument. And my friend Rob summed up Keith Moon's playing perfectly, like "someone kicked Keith and his drumset down a flight of stairs and he landed on 1."  What a band. Man oh man.

OK. I'm finally getting sleepy, so I'm gonna end this. 

Xo