Silver Nitrate Is A Bitch

Why does this bairn look so dispirited? How can a kid be so low on a Friday? And anyway, when you're six years old, isn't life just a gas? Isn't life nonstop freedom from responsibilities? (Of course, to appreciate freedom from responsibilities one must actually experience them first, right?). While it's possible he's just expressing his chagrin at his mother snapping a picture of him in the hospital elevator...

...I think it's probably because he just had an "engorged" nose vein DUG OUT OF HIS NOSE WITH SILVER NITRATE AND BURNED TO SMITHEREENS WHILE HE SCREAMED WITH PAIN IN THE CHAIR.

I have to admit that I almost couldn't take it. I had the strongest urge to shove the nitrate up the doctor's nose so he could see for himself that the pain is not "like a little pinch" as he promised Max but more like a searing gut wrenching pain not unlike pouring boiling water on your bare skin. When we left the office Max asked "Has that doctor ever had that done to his own nose?". Astute question little dude. I seriously doubt it.

The last time he got his nose cauterized it really wasn't too painful but that's because it was a fairly superficial cauterization that works on most cases. They save the torture for the really stubborn big engorged veins; for the real tough cases. To be fair to the doctor, he really was doing what he knows to be the most effective way to stop the bloody noses and I, for one, will be relieved to live a life without being frequently covered with my son's blood. I hate to hear my son begging to be put out so he can't feel such pain, but the nose bleeds are also incredibly distressing to him when they happen, which is all the time. So if this little experiment in torture proves effective, then I will be grateful for it.

We're a little shaken up over here though. He's recovering his color (what little he usually has) while playing on the play station. I can tell there are going to be rough patches today though. He's pretty emotionally fragile at the moment.

When we got home he wanted me to read him a story. Guess what he brought home from school? I'll just tell you because I think you'll never guess: a book about Navy SEALS. Nice. So like a good open minded* mama I read to him all about Navy SEALS which ends with propaganda rules on volunteering. Because what six year old boy is not going to think it's totally cool to join a stealth team of assassins soldiers who get to play with explosives for the "good guys"?! Do I need to mention how heinous I find it that there are books about Navy SEALS available to little children?

There was mention of how women aren't allowed to join the SEALS and Max wanted further explanation as to why that is. I offered the simplest explanation I could which is that traditionally women are the only ones who can have babies and they need to stay out of wars so they can care for them. So he says "So the women stay home to have babies and protect them so they can grow up and become SEALS?"

Yes honey, it's what every mama dreams of.


*Well, I think it's open minded not to care if my kid becomes a cabaret singer, a cab driver, a liquor store owner, a gas station attendant, or a football player. But I admit I struggle very hard not to scream in horror every time he expresses interest in the armed forces.

Salsa Water

Notice the lipstick? I must say, lipstick really makes a difference. I've known this for so long it amazes me that I ever forgot. I do remember declaring when I was seventeen and stupid that I would never be caught dead leaving the house without make up. That was back before I learned not to use the cursed word "never". You may find yourself wondering how the hell I can bring myself to wear such outre sunglasses...but if you're asking this question then you are behind the times my friend. Didn't you know that the '80's is the new '70's?

(I have a whole dissertation in my head about the asinine nature of this particular statement which is forever cropping up in fashion magazines "Pink is the new black", "50 is the new 40" (with regards to age), "Casual is the new formal"...etcetera. You may as well say that "Penis is the new vagina" for all it really makes any sense.)

Yesterday was another gorgeous day to be out and about. I had to go back to the farm to pick up the peppers I left there, so obviously I had to pick more tomatoes too. And a few more jalapenos. I thought I might take you along. This is what the world looks like from my scooter. Hop on man, let's go to the farm! (Doesn't that make this post so interactive you almost feel the bugs in your own hair?)

Here is one of the many crosses I see on the road sides. This particular road has it's share of ghosts. I don't know what happened to Kate, Katie, and Michael, but I'm pretty sure they were Hispanic and catholic. I only guess this due to the exuberant display of catholic offerings with the slightly cooler Latino flair than my own catholic relatives are likely to have. I risked my limbs for this shot. The road is very small and there's no place to really pull over. I wonder if that's how Kate, Katie, and Michael bit it? Were they just trying to get a more pastoral shot of this pretty landscape when they were tragically bumped into the next life?

Another ghost on this road is a young man who apparently died trying to procure drugs which he was rather fond of. Meth was his nectar. Unfortunately, his body was recently found in a fifty gallon drum on a farm on this road. See, I can't stop thinking about it which I would like to do, but I read the paper last week (big mistake) and this is what I find out about. This is not useful news to me. I already am aware that there are thousands of lost bodies stashed in weird places on the planet just waiting to be discovered, or not. I don't actually need to know the precise location of where they were stashed once found, especially when it's in my neck of the woods.

This is heaven. An endless field of tomatoes. Tomatoes as far as the eye can see. My ambition is to fill every cupboard space in my house with canned tomatoes so that all winter long I can open up that sunshine and have myself some home-made tomato soup on a cold winter day with a hunk of home made bread. I had a great talk with one of the farm owners, Chris, about their policy on pesticides. Bernard's Farm rarely sprays their crops, and when they do the only thing they use is an organic natural rosemary oil. Chris says it's important to her that people be able to go out in her field, pick a tomato, and eat it right there without worrying about chemical contamination. However, they cannot be certified organic because they use a non organic fertilizer.

This is how many tomatoes fit in my apron.

(I was on a role with this post when I got a call from the school that Max had a bloody nose that wouldn't stop and it had been twenty minutes and he was getting really upset...I just got back from sitting with him while the dizziness subsided. You can't call the hospital for advice on whether you should come in to emergency or not, and the advice nurse at the doctor's office is never immediately available and generally will call you back within two hours.

So essentially, we're always in our own hands when it comes to drawing the emergency line. That really sucks. Our doctor told us that a twenty minute nose bleed is the limit they should go, beyond that we should take Max to the hospital. But what the hell will they do for him? This one stopped right at about twenty minutes. I think the office gets tired of seeing my son and I feel bad for Max having to be the kid who is always bleeding.)

This is what I took home with me.

Heading back to the barn to weigh up my pick. I love it here. It's a very calm productive spot full of potential meals and abundance, I find it addictive to come pick my own vegetables here. I love it even more now that I know for sure that they don't spray with anything except a rare dose of rosemary oil.

Before heading into the barn I couldn't help but stop to pick a few jalapenos since I used up most of my stash the day before. I didn't wear gloves to pick them. We need to talk about that later.

Over forty pounds of produce for $19.00 is such a great price. Especially when most of that is tomatoes. I fit it all on my scooter. I admit that there are moments at the grocery store and at the farms when I wonder if I'll really be able to fit it all onto my little vehicle, but I always manage.

Tuesday I made a salsa recipe that I got from Karmyn at Dreaming What Ifs... and then yesterday I used a recipe from a pamphlet of recipes developed by The Pacific Northwest Extension. The one I did yesterday was supposed to make 16 to 18 pints of salsa. That would certainly have been the case if what I wanted was SALSA WATER. I not only squeezed all the seeds out (the juiciest bit) but I had to cook that salsa for over an hour and also ladle out several quarts of watery tomato juice. I like salsa to be thick enough to hang onto a chip. So what I ended up with after a huge day of work was 8 pints of salsa.

I also made some stewed tomatoes from the leftover fifteen pounds of tomatoes I picked on Tuesday. They turned out really well, I mean, they didn't ooze out of the jars after removal from the boiling water bath, and nothing floats to the surface. I want to do this recipe I found in a British preserving book but I can't figure out how to make it work with the recommendations of the USDA. So then I was thinking of freezing some tomato sauce or soup, but I know tomatoes can well so I'm reluctant to waste energy freezing anything I'm unsure of.

I've also slow roasted a couple of batches. I will certainly post the recipe for these in the next couple of days. The great thing is that you don't need a bushel of tomatoes and it takes almost no work to do them.

Here are a few tips I'd like to give to anyone who is canning this week:

• Obviously don't douse yourself in boiling water. You'd think this is something we all already know, yet only two weeks ago I shuffled across my patio with a pot of boiling water and got myself good. So really: Don't run with boiling water kids...

• You know how people are forever saying you should handle all hot peppers with gloves? I'm a tough girl and I don't listen to pansy advice like this, do you? There's a difference between chopping three roasted jalapenos and de-seeding sixteen of them raw. The difference is: skin that burns for 12 hours no matter how hard you try to scrub your skin off of your hand. Yes, I bought myself some latex gloves for the purpose of handling hot peppers and the next time you plan to handle hot peppers, I recommend you follow that advice. Unless you are one of those people that find pain sexy, in which case go ahead and take the pain highway, just don't tell me how much you like it because things will be uncomfortable between us for a while if you do.

• If a salsa recipe says the yield will be 8 pints, be advised that in all likelihood what they mean is that you will get 8 pints of SALSA WATER, or 4 pints of regular salsa. Ladling out the watery part that settles on the top will reduce the total time it takes to get your salsa to a regular consistency.

Now I must be off to cook more tomatoes. Which I don't feel like doing because I am coming down with a cold. Think I can trick it into never arriving? I am actually shocked that it has been over a year since the last time I got a cold. Ever since Max was born I went from getting sick once a year to getting every single cold that drifted through town. Hell, if Carla in Kentucky got a cold I'd get it from her. This is the first year that I've gone back to my normal cold programming. I still wish I wasn't feeling it coming on though. So maybe I should make some delicious soothing tomato soup?

Note: Finally the advice nurse called me back and guess what? After a year of torture and agony and us begging for answers or help with the bloody nose situation, they've made us an appointment with the ear throat nose specialist. Of course, I know what will happen there too. They're going to tell us there's nothing that can be done, there are no answers that we don't already have. But the point is: it took a year for the doctor to decide that this might be an issue? They didn't think this was an appropriate step way back in (whenever that was) when I almost passed out from the bloody nose that came out both nostrils like a river for twenty minutes and the only reason I didn't pass out was because Philip DID?

The Fruits Of Other People's Labor

Yesterday I neither canned anything, nor made any duvet covers. Instead, I ran errands. I went to the newspaper office to exchange home canned goods with the food writer Nicole Montesano. She happened to be at lunch, so the exchange ended up feeling a little more like a nebulous underworld transaction where I informed the lady at the front desk that I had something for Nicole and would she mind delivering it to her desk...and there should be something there for me too, perhaps some quince marmalade, and possibly some pears? The lady said she may know something about an exchange of canned goods. She came back moments later and handed me two gleaming jars. The gorgeous fruits of someone else's labor.

I'm pretty sure the woman was trying to hide her jealousy behind a look that was meant to suggest that I am pretty much as dorky as they come. I wasn't fooled.

What I don't understand is how come I ended up with two jars of Nicole's canned goods yet she asked for only one of mine. That is hardly a fair trade. I think I will need to rectify this in the next couple of days.

This morning Max awoke to a gusher again. It actually started to come out both sides, but not as bad as the worst one he's ever had. However, my freshly changed sheets are now smeared as was I. As I've mentioned before, this is not a particularly pleasant way to wake up. He's now getting them almost every day again. I'm going to find out if there are any kid's swimming classes in the afternoons at the Aqua center downtown. He didn't have a bloody nose for almost two months. He was swimming every morning and I think it really helped. I'm not sure why, but I imagine it has something to do with keeping the insides of his nose moist. We could try getting it cauterized again, but after the trauma of last time, I'm not eager to repeat that experience.

We have a doctor's appointment for this afternoon to investigate the possible reasons his taste is off. I must say, though, that Max is like me and his mind is a powerful instrument capable of suggesting itself into a panic. Being mom to him requires that I tread the delicate line between taking him seriously while allowing for the possibility that his mind has run wild with the possibilities of ailments. It's challenging because people like Max and I are very sensitive to physical shifts and changes and often it seems that we are imagining there is something wrong with us that the doctor sees no evidence of, until a month later when something develops that the doctor can't ignore and it turns out we were aware of a very real issue at the earliest stage. However, being so sensitive also means that every little creak in the bones, every little mysterious pain becomes a sinister harbinger of disease OR DEATH.

Once, when we lived in San Francisco and had no health insurance, I got a cut on my leg that didn't heal after a week. I was accustomed to healing very quickly. I got concerned. But my mind doesn't ever relax, so within a short period of time I became certain that this anomaly meant that I had AIDS. I was a pretty amazingly low risk individual, but everyone knows you can get AIDS from one injudicious unprotected night of fun... I went to the health clinic on Haight Street and had my blood drawn and the cut examined and, of course, nothing was wrong. I just had a resistant cut.

Max is exactly as I am. So I try not to build a case up for him having terrible diseases when he has weird complaints. Like when all his food tastes like coffee. However, since he threatened to stop eating or drinking anything if it didn't stop tasting weird, I made him an appointment. The nurse I spoke with certainly felt that it was important to bring him in with such a complaint.

Today I make pesto.

How's that for a nonsequitor?

The computer won't even be looked at until Saturday. I was shocked when I found out how long this was going to take. So I just might have to download some software to allow me to put pictures from my camera onto the laptop. I am pretty sure that a few more days of no pictures and no one will ever visit me again.

I have walked with my friend Lisa this morning, with the dog too, and now I must jet off to the gym before inertia settles in. So I'll sign off with a little quote from the kid.

We were waiting for our meal to come at the Ram's Head Pub in Portland. We'd been waiting about ten minutes. Max declares:

"I would rather be shot with a grass gun and get itchy all over than wait another minute here."

Grass gun?! (The kid is mildly allergic to grass, but how does he come up with such perfect torture ideas when he is only six years old?)

(You should hear the punishments he devised for that evil sports player who was recently arrested for breeding and fighting pit bulls. The kid is a mini-despot. Now, if only we can make sure he only uses his powers for good...wait a minute...he's right, Michael Vick should be thrown in a little cell full of dog hair so he can get itchy and choke to death on it. Or be thrown in a jail cell with a vicious pit bull and let him see how it feels to fight one to the death...Or else he should be left in jail forever...)

The kid has a point. Michael Vick is an evil human being and if I could, I would throw him to the dogs myself. Bastard. Shit, I didn't want to remember about this guy. That was accidental. It bothers me to think about such awful human beings being out there in the world. Watching animals kill each other for sport is sick.

Fluffy bunnies...Fluffy bunnies...Fluffy bunnies.....


Update: Max and I just came back from the doctor's office. Max's off-sense-of-taste is a MEDICAL MYSTERY. There's nothing apparently wrong with the kid. That's so much better than finding out he has some rare but fatal taste-deficiency-disorder, otherwise known as: TDD. (I should be a medical writer, huh? I've TOTALLY got what it takes!)

On another note: how come I can't sit down and write well on a preselected topic? How come the only way I write well is by rambling on this rickety old blog? How come I can't just sit down and piss gold? (Uh, that last little bit is what happens when Angelina just writes exactly what is flowing into her head, without the necessary social filter.) (Dammit, that's a lie. Do you want to know how that would have come out if I had stuck to EXACTLY what came into my head at that moment? I would have written: "How come I can't just sit down and shit gold?". That is, however, extremely coarse which isn't a style I personally favor. It amazes me that things like that can come out of my brain in the first place.) It was also an amazing segue into a totally different conversation. I guess it's kind of obvious why I'm not the next Anne Lamott.

How To Wake Up On Sunday Morning

Late into the night my sewing machine was tapping out it's non-encoded* rhythms as we worked together to cover some cushions for a neighbor in a very cool bark cloth that, being mostly white, I could destroy in less than two minutes. In fact, when I stopped to eat some dinner at 11:30pm I had to put all the white fabric in a haz-mat container while I ate to prevent any marinara sauce from leaping from my fork onto the project as it is wont to do around here.

I've never covered cushions before and I am dying to show you the results. I'm quite proud of the zipper work. Even though I have the clearance to share this project with you, my technical team hasn't yet cracked the necessary procedures to allow me to upload pictures from my camera to my laptop.

When you watch too much Alias you can't help but start talking like a fake CIA agent.

I didn't finish the cushions until 2:30am. I kind of wish I hadn't stayed up so late. But only because of how I feel this morning. I got on a roll with them and didn't want to lose steam only to discover I still haven't finished them come next Thursday.

At 7am Max came into my bedroom with a gusher. And a mild panic about the gusher. Normally I can handle bloody noses almost any time of night or day, because I've had to. What's amazing is that until now I've never woken up to one of his extravagant nose bleeds. At first it was fine and I was awake in exactly one second, putting pressure on his nose with tissue, trying to induce calm in him. However, the bleed didn't ease up and Max was making it harder by freaking out when some blood got on his lip, then his hand. Suddenly I felt kind of sick.

Sick like I was going to throw up. Or pass out. Or throw up right before passing out. Or pass out and then throw up and choke on my own vomit and die unexpectedly leaving Philip to deal with all bloody noses in the future which would be so ironic because he's the one with vasovagal visual response to stimuli. I shoved the tissues at Philip and ran to the spare bedroom recently vacated by my mom and tried to ride out the waves of nausea.

This isn't how I prefer to start my day. A day that feels like it may turn out to be a tactical nightmare**. We need to pick up the freezer I bought at Lowe's (for $70 less than I had intended to spend-I'm so proud of that!), but to do that we have to borrow a friend's truck that has to be jump started and kept running which means we all have to go on this errand. So I suppose I also need to clear out the space intended for the freezer. We're going to Portland to see my mom, though I don't really know when or what the plan is because I'm a total lame-ass and haven't figured any of that out ahead of time. I'm not sure what we'll do with the dog, I don't want to leave her for that long alone at the house, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to bring her either. Somewhere in there I need to drop off the cushions too.

On a day like this, one should wake from a long restful sleep, refreshed, with a Stepford style calm child whose nose doesn't bleed copiously all the time, and one should have everything all planned out.

To look for the good in everything is an annoyingly noble goal. Here's some good:

• Max isn't a hemophiliac, which is a comfort. If he was he'd probably already be dead or I'd be institutionalized from the trauma of dealing with potentially deadly bloody noses all the time.

• Freezers don't have legs. This is good for many reasons, one of which is that the freezer I bought can't walk out of Lowe's without us so there's no reason to get all panicky because we have to arrange to pick it up. Us anxious types will panic about anything. We've got no discerning taste whatsoever.

• I didn't throw up. I hate throwing up and fear it. Seriously fear it. I will not tell you the lengths I will go to to avoid hurling. You could almost say I have a phobia of vomiting. Which isn't surprising since I have a highly sensitive gag reflex.

• Because I finished the two projects hanging over my head I can be free to enjoy myself and my new freezer without the guilt I would experience if I knew I should be sewing instead of chopping the last peaches of the season to freeze. Which I'm praying I'll get to do. Peaches are almost completely gone.

• Plus, I'll get paid for the projects I finished which will help to offset the cost of the freezer which, if it had legs, would be tapping it's toes in impatience right now in the loading dock. And also freaking out all the Lowe's employees who aren't getting paid enough to deal with mutant angry appliances.
  

I'm really trying to focus on the good but Max is being a complete stinker and I see what the real tactical nightmare is going to be today: dealing with Max. Max isn't going to cooperate with anything we've got to do. He's going to drag his feet and that mouth of his is going to let out the longest string of complaints that any child has ever been able to sustain. He's very skilled at this. He could win awards for his ability to maintain a constant string of negativity. Sometimes I get so weary of his bad attitude that I kind of wish I was deaf.

I guess I better go untangle the day's objectives. I could really use some good disguises too but I'm afraid that if I were to wear disguises I wouldn't look cool like Sydney Bristow, I would look like Divine. I think I should avoid that for all of our sakes.

Copy that.




*I've been watching A LOT of Alias. Everything in my head is theatrical agent talk.
**I love this expression and am constantly looking for an excuse to say it.