MFA Mama

mixed bag

*   This time they actually did the surgi-ma-callit-ectomy.  Whoo!

*   Unfortunately, they don't think Hotter really had true surgi-ma-callit-itis, and the transplant team doesn't know why he was hurting the way he was; they said to call THEM (not Dr. Kidney) if it happens again and most likely they'll try fixing the giant umbilical hernia he's got as a souvenir of his post-transplant appendectomy (they didn't do that today because it's so big they'll need to use mesh to close it, and putting synthetics in at the same time as the other stuff they did today is, apparently, begging for infection in an immunosuppressed patient).  BOO!

*   The PCA seems to be controlling his pain pretty well and he has a nice nurse.  Whoo!

*   So he's very boring.  Snoring thunderously even with an NG-tube and oxygen cannula in his nose (impressive, but...).  BOO!

*   The hospital has wireless!  Whoo!

*   This particular unit doesn't allow overnight guests and Hotter's going to be very displeased when he wakes up and finds that out (no, they're not willing to let him leave until tomorrow and even that is only if everything goes perfectly; the transplant surgeon laughed when I dutifully asked about that and said "he can be pissed off all he wants about it!").  BOO!

*   How are all of you?

/freakout [ETA]

   The scans were clear.  Thank you all for your kind words, and please allow me to convey my thanks via this YouTube video that I've been laughing at intermittently for the past three days. 

   Seriously, it never stops being funny!  Surgi-ma-callit-ectomy, Take Two tomorrow at first light!  WHOO!

* ETA: No, y'know, I actually don't know about the whole facial paralysis thing.  A nurse relayed the message to me after my second phone call to Neurology and specifically said "the interior carotid is PERFECT," and so I suppose the exterior carotid could be "perfect" or SHOT TO HELL but when you're talking about the possibility of an occluded or stenotic interior carotid artery in your loved one who already has a history of stroke, a fucked-to-hell exterior carotid starts to sound like a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card, and I guess we'll find out eventually.  Tonight, we celebrate!

rescheduled

   We got there, and Hotter wasn't speaking to me because we were four minutes late, and then we sat around and waited for three hours due to a liver transplant underway that was tying up the transplant surgeons.  Then that apparently went south and they said they'd be a while and rescheduled us for Friday.  And the XY does NOT have the kids next weekend. 

   Good times!

the GI flu and the children both left the house...

...and it was good. 

   I'll try to update tomorrow after Hotter's surgery, hospital wireless permitting, and if you follow me on the Twitter I'll probably text updates to that (and the facespace, although please remember that I am not Out As A Blogger to my in-laws on there so DISCRETION, people!) in real-time while I fidget and wait.

the short version is that Ritalin is good and black bears can kill

   I've mentioned all funny-ha-ha how Hotter lost my 90-day script for Ritalin (which being a controlled substance, is not something I can ask Dr. Shrink to replace a lost prescription for, and maybe the mail-order pharmacy is a bad idea for Ritalin, which is a very cheap drug, come to think of it), but what I haven't shared with y'all is the very real impact this is having on my ability not only to punctuate but also to hold a grudge.

   Shut up.  Seriously, that's important, because grudge-holding serves to help you communicate better with the offending party.  Savoring your own fury indefinitely like an everlasting gobstopper may be a character flaw, but holding onto it long enough to package your dismay into a "I feel x when you do y" statement at least gives someone in your life the chance to stop being an asshole.  And I?  Can't stay pissed long enough to articulate it, and people continue being asinine, and not until they've sinned again and I'm overcome with white-hot déjà vu do I remember that this has Become A Problem, Crap.

   I might think about it again, but not until after I've seen the offender again and greeted them like I'm their dog and they just came home from work, and then I look like I'm the one with the problem if halfway through kissing them hello I'm all "Oh that's right--YOU FUCKING SHITHEAD!"

   I'm not saying I've never gone that route, just that it's a horrible idea, because if the other person is a man and they find my fury hilarious then suddenly I might break my perfectly good "Patriarchy Be Cool!" stick over their fool head and have to go out in the yard and find a new one to brandish when people are wrong on the Twitter.

   Like last night, my nemesis ambushed me on the front porch and threatened to fling his vile little pod-body at my bare feet as I was coming into the house from slug-patrol (what, you don't round them up and flush them?  Well then I'm sorry to tell you that you are not living), and I was afraid that if I opened the door enough to go inside the damn thing would GET INTO THE HOUSE, and that is uncool because we already have (in addition to the flock of chickens, food-dish-humping cockatiel, two rescued snakes and pair of small brown mice going by Thelma and Louise in case the big snake is hungry that we ALLOW in here because we're sick in the head) at least one skink (again) and a "visitor mouse," as Hotter calls it, that I think is drawn to either the peanut butter or the lady mice in Poe's cage.  We keep finding it on or around the cages, and I refuse to accept Hotter's explanation that Thelma and Louise are now charging locals out the arse to come teabag a real, live snake a la Balzac, but anyway yes, LOL VERMIN and FUCK NO, TOAD so I opened the door a tiny crack and yelled for my husband, who...didn't show up.  Fortunately I do yoga and so I was able to contort myself in a manner that allowed me to grab a nearby broom without moving my feet (and thus provoking The Undertoad, as we've started to call him) and fend off my wretched foe, and once I was was armed and had hollered "HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?!?" and brandished my weapon I was tickled enough that I called for Hotter AGAIN thinking he'd get a kick out this, since he likes The Undertoad and secretly roots for the damned thing and HE DID NOT ANSWER AGAIN.

   Now, I'm not an unreasonable person, so when I did go inside I looked to see if Hotter was wearing his headphones, but y'all he wasn't, he was just playing his stupid computer game and ignoring me so yes, this was righteous fury, and I was all set to smite him when the toaster went off and I was like "OH: bagels!" and forgot to kill him and later when we were talking and I remembered and was like "heeeey why didn't you answer me, earlier?"

   If he'd copped to just being really caught up in something I think I might've been able to resist the call of the Crazy, but no he denied hearing me either time, which was clearly bogus, so then I was like "suuuure so basically I could have been eaten by a bear and you would have just let it happen."

   "Of course not, you wouldn't get eaten by a bear in the first place," he said, all patronizing, and it was on.

   "I could SO have been eaten by a bear!  There was a bear sighting in this area a couple of years ago!  A black bear, but still--"

   "Aww a black bear.  If you'd said a brown bear I could maybe see it, but--"

   And see, then I felt like I had to stand up for the bears, because he was being patronizing toward them too, and I was all "Black bears can fuck you up, y'know.  Just because they're like the black labs of the bear scene doesn't mean they want to fetch you your slippers and snuggle by the fire.  I read one time where one mauled somebody so badly they had to have a glass eye and a prosthetic face, okay?"

   "They'd be afraid of you, though, you'd just have to make yourself look big and scary and yell at them, they'd back down."

   "BULLSHIT!  What if I didn't see it coming because hello, it's night-time, they're black bears!"

   "I don't think they're nocturnal."

   "Yeah well, if it came to attack me during the day I might not necessarily notice in time to be scary, I could be out there spending quality time with Belleruth* all in the zone, mentally summoning the presence of everyone who's ever supported and cared for me, calling every good wish home, every positive thought and--RAWR!--EATEN BY A BEAR!"

   "Maybe they are nocturnal."

   "Okay, so if it's out during the day it's rabid, way to make me feel better, then it doesn't even have to eat my face because it's infectious!"

   "Your mom is infectious."

   "PROBABLY!"

   So yeah, now I'm starting to wonder whether he really lost the thing at all; maybe it was premeditated because he planned to be a jerk until after his surgery?  I don't know.  And now I'm kind of depressed, but not suicidal or anything, or even if I was, I'd never get around to doing anything about it.  Sigh.  I wasn't really worried about the black bears though, or at least I wasn't until I started defending them, but now I don't know, I mean they are still bears.  Maybe I should start playing Bingo just to be on the safe side.

   Also those little cilantro and chicken mini-wontons from Trader Joe's are amazing.  That is all.

*   Yes, that's right.  I listen to guided imagery (specifically the album for transforming anxiety) on my iPod at full-blast while I mow and that is why I love the mowing so--because it's what I do when I am about to come unhinged.  I stop, take a deep breath, and go fill the mower with gas and I tell myself that if I still need to cut a bitch after I've burned a gallon with Belleruth, the good kitchen knives will be right where I left them.  I even named the lawnmower Belleruth.  Shut up, plenty of perfectly sane people name their lawnmowers after famous psychotherapists and everything is normal here.

well, shit

*   Last month our finances here at Casa MFA were all "ouch, crap, well stuff happens I guess but srsly MFA Minivan?  Fine, so this month and next month will suck, I dig it."

*   This month I am noticing that my husband (who started his tenure as MFA Alpha Male only about five months ago at the same weight-class I am in, that of "red beans and rice din't miss ya but who cares about the extra ten pounds, that's an easy fix") actually looks gaunt, and oh crap, he really is Not Healthy on top of having been smacked with the GI Flu and damn, you really will be having a staycation at Local Teaching Hospital when they go to fix this because no way are they letting him out the same day.

*   About that same-day thing (yes the Unseen Administration at Local Teaching Hospital really did book this originally as "same-day surgery" and sent us to the Acronymous Same-day Surgery Highlights Or Lowlights, Explained Simply branch of the hospital to have a nurse ask questions about Hotter's surgical history and a nurse-anesthetist tell him what to expect from general anesthesia.  HA!  Yes, really.  And I was all "But ASSHOLES, you realize the transplant team is performing the operation and I asked for the head of anesthesia due to Hotter's floppy airway, history of smoking, and rampant thus-far untreated sleep apnea, yes?  I think we are in the wrong place.  ASSHOLES aren't supposed to work with us, we've been at this so long we could RUN this piece").  The honest to Godiva truth of it, y'all, is that Hotter and I went to the meet-and-greet with the transplant surgeons with concrete agendas, which I guess you could say were a little bit different.  Mine included making sure they were familiar with his case history, had accounted for known risks, were aware of his actual symptoms and the ways in which they veered from the usual presentation of Surgi-ma-callit-itis, and were as aggressive as we wanted them to be in correcting both current and potential surgical problems and making good use of the anesthesia time.  Hotter's included "making sure I get to leave the same day because man, I hate doctors and I WILL HAVE THE ANGRY FACE THE WHOLE TIME!"  So after I exchanged friendly fire with them over the nitty-gritty of what they'd be doing and the merits of not being pansies in general given how ugly this had the potential to become given Hotter's surgical history, current list of meds, sup-optimal functioning of one donor organ, and pitbull of a wife and they made some really big decisions about saving his life, when he stuck his lip out and asked about going home the brilliant minds with the golden hands looked at me like "is he serious" and I looked at them like "dudes you are ALMOST OUT THE DOOR" and they said "potentially, in the remote hypothetical possibility wherein we could get this done laparoscopically and without any complications SUUUUUURE!" and beat feet.  And one of the trailing minions checked "same-day surgery" on a form and there you have it: ASSHOLES.  Who were all "OMG THEY CAN DO THAT KIND OF SURGERY NOW?" and while I was extremely impressed with the nurse-anesthetist I am also just being a total cunt about MDeities Only and No Residents Please this time around because the margin for error here is very, very slim.  The surgery is in one week and clearly Mama needs to lovingly redirect a certain major teaching hospital in that time.

*   But hey, ALSO the finances this month?  Are kind of like "okay, well, we're as weak as a baby kitten and we've got an audience with the Pope, but hey what's the worst case scenario?"  Then the MFA Minivan was all jazz hands and we and the mechanic were both like "just needs a hose, HAHA, that's what she said" but guess what?  It was really the radiator.  Broke right in half.  Well, shit.

*   This leaves us, by which I pretty much mean me, with some very unpleasant choices to make in the seven whole days before Hotter's major surgery, involving things like selling jewelry and cancelling my Ladies' Social Media Convention plans and such, just to keep our heads above the water, and I has a big sad.  I seriously got up this morning feeling wobbly and gassy but otherwise potentially okay, got the call from the mechanic, went back to sleep, and here I am.  The MFA Children missed the bus and I let them stay home because the MFA Minivan isn't home and well screw it, they're just watching cartoons and having extra recess at this point anyway.  And Hotter is pissy because he hates poverty and is about done with small boys and his wife being useless, and has already yelled at me about the money and how I need to make MFA Mechanic take payments or something twice and I'm all "MFA Mechanic cuts me big breaks on labor as a favor and is a good guy but there's favors and then there's oral sex and financing a part he pays for up-front is more like oral sex than a favor and I don't feel comfortable asking MFA Mechanic for oral sex." 

*   Sigh.

peevish

*   We went to the Local Teaching Hospital today, and I hate that place.  I am always discombobulated after a trip there and invariably get lost either on the way, while there, or on the way home (but I am a grown-up and should be able to get my shit together).

*   Hotter reshuffled all of my papers looking for an appointment reminder for today's appointment over the weekend and now I can't find the two prescriptions I had stashed in the desk area prior to washing my purse (one of which was for a 90-day fill of Ritalin, and they won't replace a lost script for a controlled substance) (although I should have put these somewhere safer, so that's my fault too).

*   Hotter's labs.  Boo.  Booooo.  All over the place, inconsistent, and alarming (to me at least--the anesthesiologist pulled up his prior labs and said his kidney function always sucks like this, but I had to go and fetch the latest labs from the transplant center so that anesthesiology wouldn't stick him again unnecessarily and seeing them in black and white was...unsettling).  I am not a fan of that (but I already knew his kidney function was...suboptimal...and shouldn't worry if the doctors aren't worried).

*   We were three minutes late for today's appointment, and it was my fault for circling the Local Teaching Hospital and trying to find street parking (I have an ongoing feud with the hospital valet service; they have an overinflated sense of authority and no, actually I will not get back into my vehicle, restart it, and back it up six inches so just deal you arseholes).  Which caused Hotter to get antsy and peevish, which made me anxious and pissy, and I should have taken into account that he is rather worried about this whole surgi-ma-callit-itis thing and caved sooner, so my bad really (and it's not his fault I have Baggage With Angry Men).

*   The MFA Minivan has a sick and is at the mechanic as we speak getting a new drive-shaft.  Which: boo.  Just boo.  I know that Hotter only means to be helpful in reminding me that we ought to run a couple of errands, but I dropped the MFA Minivan off on the way back from the Local Teaching Hospital because the old drive shaft is noisy and scary and I know I have to do those other things, but killing the vehicle wouldn't help them get done (and I should have done them all sooner, I just haven't felt great the past few days and have no idea why).

*   The hang-up key on my Blackberry is broken.  This is not new, but it's still aggravating as hell.

*   I'm tired and grouchy and vaguely queasy, and Not In A Mood for my husband and minivan to try and drop dead on me today (or ever, ideally).  Someone tell me a funny, please.

partly cloudy with a chance of bullets

*   It stormed off and on all weekend here.  In between storms it was hot like the wrath of an angry Old Testament god, which I said and Hotter, who was raised with the New Testament only was all "why, is the Old Testament god of the Hebrews kind of harsh?" and HAHAHAHAHA!  I told him "mmmmyeah y'know how Jesus was all healing little birds and doing parlor tricks at weddings?  Well, Yahweh was like "wander in the desert for forty years and make your camp under this motherfucking pillar of fire at night or else I will SMITE YOU!"  Ha!  So yeah the weather was more like that.

*   This has evidently become A Cursing Blog.  I kept meaning to go all meta about that but tell me, what do you think?  I suck with polls and the like but do you a) not notice, b) notice but not care, c) notice and care in a good or bad way, d) pretty much hate it and think I need to shut my Playboy mouth again?  I suppose if any of you are fellow pedants you could also e) feel that it represents a blight upon my etymological creativity that indicates bad things or f) find it heartening in that apparently my heart and mind are more connected given that my lexicon has shaken its hair down out of the bun and undone a button at the top of its blouse.  Personally I just kind of felt like I had Hit a Limit after Hotter's acute attack of surgi-ma-callititis and our visit to That Awful Hospital.

*   Hotter had another big attack on Thursday, and a smallish one yesterday, and oh I cannot WAIT for him to Have His Procedures.  Oh yes, we have Been To The Doctor and I didn't say much about it but they pretty much said "this doesn't present like textbook surgi-ma-callititis" and I pretty much went "but his abdominal architecture has been so remodeled at this point and blah blah referred pain when the radiologist [...]" and they were like "but people can live with that for xx years and never--" and I reminded them that Hotter is immunosuppressed and opined that it might be preferable for them to do this NOW instead of when he goes SEPTIC and they conceded that I had a good point and planned an open, non-laparoscopic procedure for that surgi-ma-callititis but were still concerned about strictures or adhesions on the small bowel being The Root of What Ails Him and Medicare not liking "exploratory surgery" and I very sweetly suggested that they could declare this Surgi-ma-callitits Proper seeing as it met the criteria for atypical cases, perform the appropriate -ectomy, and then "run the bowel" while they're in there and have a look at that as well, since I was sure NONE of us wanted to submit his kidney to CT contrast and they had SUCH good eyes and hands I was sure...so yes, reason prevailed and the current plans are to open him up, treat this as surgi-ma-callititis, examine two hernias from within (both from major surgeries, not the uh, turn-your-head-and-cough kind, I feel I should specify for the sake of Hotter's Manliness On Record) and repair at least one, and run the bowel as best they can since part of it is attached to a graft that nobody wants to disturb.

*   Hotter and I are pleased with this decision.  Neither of us are fully convinced that this is Surgi-ma-callititis Proper but both of us are convinced that this is A Surgical Issue and that the transplant surgeons need to Exorcise The Demon.  Because no one is at their best when they're in abdominal agony but that gets old for the spouse almost as quickly as it gets old for the sufferer, particularly if the non-suffering spouse is really quite fond of the affected spouse and shares their distress even before the affected party begins expressing any...feelings.

*   Family therapy, y'all.  Oh man.  It continues to be a motherfucker.

*   Had a bit of a breakthrough (breakdown, same diff) as to Why All The Angry Feelings of Anger and Angry-ness and fear of same, and it made me sad.  It's good I know where my pique is coming from now, and I'm working on learning to express it.  This weekend, in the heat of the moment, I deliberately watered Hotter's (actual, literal) shoes with my soaker-can.  So I'm uh, still working on the whole "appropriate expression of" thing and it's fortunate that Hotter just cracked up laughing and was like "you watered my shoes, is someone feeling some anger, maybe?"  I replied that perhaps I was, and watered his shoes again.

*   I continue to garden out my Anger Shoes.  This weekend saw the relocation of a grave-sized strip of sod (which became a bed for sweet corn and peas, yes, more, and some intercropped carrots and iceberg lettuce), the ruthless pruning of pretty much every big, thorny, spiky, or just all-around bushy bush surrounding our little house (surprisingly many), thinning, weeding and spraying of all existing plants (with paraffin against mites and fungus, bloom-boosting hormone, and Sevin on non-leaf crops without any seed or fruit forming if they're getting demolished--judge away but while I prefer organic methods, in the end I'm going with What Will Make Us Lots of Food), and lots of raking up and watering. 

*   This purging of undergrowth did not stop my nemesis from paying me a visit one evening on the front porch while I was a little bit inebriated.  It was so...well, anyway...that I'm holding the story back for a proper post of its own (do any of you know how to make a GIF like the Hillary Duff BJ one?  Don't act like you haven't seen it, unless you really haven't in which case go and ask YouTube, but if you know how to do that could you educate me please?  Thanks).

*   Oh and that Levaquin I'm taking for my Clusterfuck-itis of the Upper Respiratory/ENT virus of filth and secondary infections?  Those big warning labels all over the bottle about sun exposure?  SO NOT KIDDING.  I'm awfully prone to heatstroke anyway and even with SPF 60 and a bandanna, etc. I got a case of true heatstroke (the kind where you stop sweating), which I've had before, and had the sense to down a bottle of water then heave myself into the tub and turn the cold tap on with the shower running before I passed out.  When I came to I knew I'd be okay because I started realizing how it would look to paramedics and sheepishly shucked off my clothes, washed my hair, and eventually stood up and went about my business all casual-like (Hotter was recovering from an attack and some residual feeeeelings and unaware why I charged into the house; he's used to my zipping around in and out banging the door like an obnoxious kid when the MFA Children are away).  Also I do not have a burn, per se, thanks to excellent sunblock, but my skin does have that tight "eh, too much sun" feeling, which I hate.

*   The pet snakes are ridiculous.  The worm snake is great but the rat snake is a wimp and I had to force-feed him for the SECOND time (he's doing SO much better now though), plus now we have a mouse that was supposed to be for the rat snake but it made friends with the stupid thing and then Hotter named it.  Bah, grumble.  I should've known the moment I said I didn't care whether they gave me a male or a female one at the pet shop and watched them drop a smelly male mouse into the cardboard box that it would live to stink up my house for years to come.  Grr...

*   Also?  Chickens.  We're getting some.  I know!  I owe you garden porn and you'll see why this is not at all over the top...also I grew up with chickens that laid excellent brown eggs and want my boys to experience that, too.  Plus apparently I've lost my mind.  Still, look.  Awww...we're getting some of these because as I recall they're very sweet if you handle them a lot as chicks and lay well.

*   We picked up our second AngelFoodMinistries order this weekend too, and it's fabulous.  We've eaten well; I swear it feels like we lived a whole week just this one weekend, good and bad and everything in between.  Maybe it's the fever?

*   And how are all of YOU?

so scratch all those plans, we've got new ones here that I'm sure we'll learn to love almost as much, maybe, with enough drugs, or maybe not but I have a fever, so.

*   I won't be starting work at that new employer this summer after all.  I'd finally managed to get a little big excited about it but Hotter is having multiple surgical procedures under one anesthesia at the local teaching hospital the first week of classes at Higher Learning, Inc. and even I am not insane enough to think I could handle both without poisoning at least one relationship, be it professional or personal.  So that's that.

*   As for Lower-Level-Institute of Higher Education (where I currently work), I don't know if both of us still want me to teach that summer class or not.  Currently yes but ugh.  It's become rather apparent lately that there is only so much I can do at one time without failing across the board and possibly dropping dead of something or other in the process.

*   Yeah, haha, about that.  The first day I thought it was from mowing the lawn and the second day I thought "eh, maybe a virus" but the evening of the second day I was frantically, tearfully delirious to the point of I think maybe scaring my husband a little bit (let's just say that "severe respiratory infection," "asthma attack," and "panic attack" can all make breathing a little fraught, and agree that the trifecta of "fever-driven terror plus hyperventilation with airway constriction and accompanying bagpipe-orchestra of sound/requisite gallon of mucus" is NEVER PRETTY) and when I woke on the third day Hotter took advantage of the grandiose, expansive bonhomie a crackling fever instills in me during daylight hours to persuade me to see a doctor despite my lapsed health insurance coverage and distaste for the prospect of surviving the next six months in general.  Which, BOO, am I right y'all?  I get to be truly happy about twice a year, once on my way under general anesthesia for something or other and once due to fever and people can't let me have my damn fun.  THE MAN Western Medicine has already gotten me down to 99-ish with their expensive, side-effect-riddled antibiotics of oppression.  Someone else fight the power for me for a while, okay, because I need another nap.

*   There are a great many Ugly Things that'll be waiting for me when I wake up, too.  Family Therapy continues to be slightly less enjoyable than female genital mutilation (at least in my humble opinion), lots of things are UNDECIDED!  UP IN THE AIR!  JUST HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE! and...well, it would all thrill me a lot less if it wasn't for the fact that I think my temperature is creeping back up.  Hmm...yep, I just successfully thought about my own potential ABDOMINAL SURGERY THIS SUMMER, AGAIN, BECAUSE WHY NOT A FOURTH SUMMER IN A ROW and didn't even start doing that creepy laughing-but-with-tears-coming-out-too thing, so I'm going to snuggle under a blanket and we'll catch up on the rest later.

comfort food the Marks Fine Foods in bulk way

   Last night Hotter had a bad case of the "nothing-to-eats," which is easy to do here at Casa MFA because honestly, most of the time?  We have our AngelFoodMinistries box, we have meats and frozen veggies purchased on sale to defrost, we have a smattering of fresh veggies and we have pasta, rice, beans and flour.  Snack foods are only for the boys' school snacks and lately I'm sending them with lame-ish snacks because cool snack food gets hoovered up at home.  If your palate years for more than cheese and crackers or perhaps a bagel, and wants it fast, you generally end up with a spoonful of peanut butter and "Angry, Lonely, or Tired" to choose from if you're still feeling froggy; we're not addicts here but H.A.L.T. is what winners do, see?

   Winners here were "angry" all around last night, due to Things Not To Be Mentioned On The Innernet and surgi-macallit-itis and, well, MY BAGGAGE surrounding both those topics, and also apparently during four specific days of the month and occasionally when I'm just REALLY het up (see archives from February onward) my blood pressure is going to be all ridic, and I'm going to have to start running again, which I wanted to do anyway, and do more yoga and maybe cut back on salt but shh...     

   Marx Fine Foods in Bulk to the rescue!  Seriously, I keep meaning to do up a real post all fancy-like for these folks, because Justin?  Is the man, not just a CEO but also a totally nice guy who is knowledgeable about his wares in a way that's niche-market HAWT!  Let's just say that when he used "umami-ful" in a sentence Hotter was lucky that I am as faithful as an old hound, y'all, because Justin not only TALKED about these salts, sugars, chilis and vanilla beans with me, he also SENT ME FREE SAMPLES AND OH MY GOD HE'S BETTER THAN SANTA, JESUS, AND ELIJAH THE PROPHET COMBINED!

   It is nothing short of amazing how a pinch of habanero salt or crystallized honey in the right spot can brighten an entire snack, meal, celebratory confection or ripely foul mood.  Seriously.  So here is what I made last night for Hotter as cheap, tasty, soothing "filler" so that he has something in the fridge to be sneaking tastes out of and doesn't open up and waste a can of specialty veg I'm saving for stir fry or anything out of boredom (alas, pickled baby corn, we hardly knew ye).

  

   You will need:

  

Implements of Destruction
   medium saucepan with lid
   set of nesting measuring spoons
   measuring cup (you'll need a half-cup and a full-cup at various points)
   ladle
   Pyrex pie plate (the oven-safe kind)
   stirring spoon
   a butterknife or pointy-ended spoon  

   Ingredients
   1 c. aromatic basmati rice (the kind you buy in a burlap bag with a cock or an elephant on the side)(I said cock, y'all), pre-rinsed TWICE
   1.5 c. milk (I used one percent because it's what we had, subbing out a higher percent milkfat or part heavy cream would tip this more toward "dessert" than "snack/breakfast")
   1 can coconut milk (the kind that's half oil anyway)
   1 tbsp. butter
   2 large eggs
   1 tbsp. granulated maple sugar
   1 tbsp. vanilla sugar
   1 "snack-pack"-size box of raisins
   1/2 tsp. cinnamon
   1 jot nutmeg (seriously, way less than 1/8 tsp, just a hint)
   1/2 Tahitian Vanilla bean
   1 pinch Black Truffle Salt

1.   Put the rice (which you pre-rinsed, yes?) in the saucepan with the butter and the milk and turn it up to medium while you add the sugar, raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and the guts from the half vanilla bean (I found that the Madagascar ones, which are actually my favorites, were a bit too powerful for this dish--I was trying to create something reminiscent of morning oatmeal here but less dairy-y due to someone's potassium issues and the Tahitians were exactly what this needed) and stir it halfheartedly in between. 

2.   Put your vanilla bean husk away in your sugar jar and top that off as needed after you add the tbsp to your pan.  Turn the oven on to 350 while you're at it.

3.   Open the coconut milk and dump that on top, then grease your Pyrex pie plate while you wait for the "milk" to scald (you're looking for steam and little bubbles collecting around the edges but not actual boiling-boiling).  Once that happens, whisk the eggs in and remove from heat.

4.   Place the Pyrex plate in the oven empty, then use your ladle to transfer the rice mixture to it (it should juuuust fit but trust me you'd spill if you filled it first, you know you would); it should juuuust fit.

5.   Bake at 350 for forty-five minutes while you cuss and pull weeds outside.  When the timer goes off, use a butterknife to test for done-ness and possibly to gouge out a core sample while the rest cools off.  Mmmn.

   I have a headache now.  I'm supposed to be staying in here playing possum until "Mother's Day Breakfast" but Hotter hasn't even done the dishes and I already had some rice pudding so maybe that can count as breakfast?  JUST LET ME OUT, YOU GUYS, AND THAT WILL BE SPECIAL ENOUGH AT THIS POINT!