I’m Knitting As Fast As I Can

First let me apologize for the font fight that overtook Sunday’s post. I tried to fix it several times to no avail. When the Blog makes up her mind that there will be no further editing, she is more stubborn than Siri. Yes, I saw The Matrix.  Damn.

Last week, I was making progress knitting this sock while watching Doctor Who. This week I was still knitting this same exact sock while watching Doctor Who.  I’m pretty sure I used to knit a lot faster. Heck, I could knit a sweater while standing up on a subway platform waiting for the A-train. A baby sweater. And maybe I was crocheting it. I crochet much faster than I knit. But I don’t care for crocheted socks.

To make matters worse, now that I finished the damn sock I can’t find a needle to finish it with.
Somehow I am missing every single metal wool needle I own. We’re talking 3 regular and at least 2 extra long needles. I checked out every project bag on my desk without the slightest luck. No wait, I think I missed the bag with the blue socks; not there, check the denim bag with the unfinished blanket ... Got ‘em.

Being “retired on disability” creates a conundrum of sorts. Certainly I have much more time to enjoy my hobbies, with knitting being at the top of the list. But having this type of disability means my annoyingly weak hands no longer move as quickly as they once did. In fact, there are times I am simply unable to support the weight of the knitted project.  To paraphrase my father, my knitting now has 2 speeds - slow and stop. This really sucks, because a year or two into this banishment/retirement, I decided to limit the number of UFOs (Unfinished Objects) in my closet. I picked two big projects to concentrate on, and I resolved not to buy more yarn, and not to cast on any new projects. I haven’t bought more yarn mostly because I have no more room to stash it, and I haven’t cast on any new projects (with the notable exceptions of three rather cute baby sweaters, but they don’t count because, well, BABIES!)

The leftover multi-project I have been concentrating on, with variable success, is socks. Somehow, awhile back, I kept casting on new socks until the number approached a statistical universe, or at least nine pairs.  Bad idea. Really bad.

So I came up with a new strategy: two of those were not too far along nor worth finishing, so they were put aside to be frogged for future use. The other seven would be worked for each project to finish one whole sock, then go back to the first project and in the same order finish the second sock. I thought it would break up the boredom of working the same pattern twice in a row, and I was right. I now have six lovely unmatched knit socks, and I’m working on the last of the first socks, and then ...

I’m gonna need more room in my sock drawer, and that’s A Good Thing.

In the event I’ve inspired you to learn how to knit and/or learn how to knit socks, I recommend that you head right over to Ravelry, the most amazing yarn-based site in the galaxy ... or at least on the Internet. And it’s FREE.

Know Thyself and Thy Dill Pickle Soup

If you can’t bend your thumb back to touch your wrist, congratulations.  Seriously, it’s a parlor trick not worth having, and worse, it is a symptom of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

Same with knees that bend backwards, or being able to touch the floor with both palms on the ground, or bringing your hands to the namaste position behind your back. I can do all that and more. But I can’t wear high heels, or ice skate or shoot a gun. No matter how often or how severely I fall, my amazing elastic ankles never break or sprain. As a kid, I was the number one gym class zero, being unable to climb ropes or hold myself up to work on the rings, and I was hopeless at volleyball. To my mother’s despair I turned out every single pair of shoes long before I actually out grew them.

I could go on but you get that I’m going somewhere with this self-diagnosis: Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a rare disorder of the connective tissue. Besides explaining a number of minor failures that afffected my childhood (because at that age, nobody likes to be different), this epiphany is helping me to know myself and more importantly, to forgive myself for a life full of physical, emotional, and even dental ailments that plague me to this day. I bruise easily and I heal badly. I drop everything. My dental situation borders on tragic.

“The problems resulting from a body built with defective collagen are widespread and variable.  Persons with EDS Hypermobility often exhibit symptoms of dysautonomia, a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system, which regulates unconscious organ function including heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, respiration and digestion. Chronic pain, sleep disorders and fatigue are common in persons with EDS Hypermobility...Structural abnormalities of the gastrointestinal track are also common, resulting in a variety of conditions including Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Chronic recurrent headaches and eyestrain are also common, as a result of abnormal intracranial pressure and enlargement of the dura, a membrane of fluid surrounding the brain and spinal column. Patients frequently suffer from allergies and sensitivities.” https://www.healthrising.org/blog/2016/07/01/chronic-fatigue-fibromyalgia-ehlers-danlos-syndrome-diagnosis/ 

What about the fibromyalgia? So many symptoms overlap, it seems to me that fibromyalgia itself is most likely a symptom of the EDS, or at the very least, a prominent comorbidity, which explains why I feel I’ve had fibromyalgia for many years prior to the 2012 diagnosis. Back to childhood, in fact. Those weren’t growing pains!

Having had this revelation you may ask how it affects my current course of treatment. Well, I had the opportunity to put that question to my neurologist, endocrinologist, orthopedist, and rheumatologist. All agreed it was a fact worth knowing, but it would not change a thing.  And the source of all this? Genetic, possibly from the paternal side. Predestined, you might say. Maybe that little bit of knowledge would have resulted in kinder treatment during my growing years.  Who knows?

I’m okay with that, really. Because when I resolved the chicken-and-egg issue and realized the EDS was the source of so much, if not all of my health problems, I felt a lot better about myself. I only wish I could tell my mother I wasn’t turning out those shoes because I was too lazy to walk the right way.

And now because you’ve been so patient listening to my endless health problems, here is one of my crazy-ass recipes to try:

Dill Pickle Soup, My Way

This is my recipe, inspired by the recipe created by Cathy Pollak for NoblePig.com. 

1 stick of butter, divided

1 bunch green onions, sliced thin, white and light green parts only (about 3/4 cup)

2 stalks celery, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

3 carrots, chopped (about 1 1/2 cups)

1 small clove garlic, minced

kosher salt, white pepper

2 large Russet potatoes, peeled and cubed (about 1 3/4 pounds)

1 - 49 1/2 oz. can Swanson Natural Chicken Broth

3 large dill pickles, chopped (about 1 generous cup) - purchase a large jar of dill pickles, as you will also be using most of the pickle juice; I use Batampte, found in the refrigerator section.  Also, I like the pickles chopped fine, but you may like them not-so-fine.

1 cup sour cream

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup water

2 cups dill pickle juice

1 1/2 teaspoons Old Bay seasoning

1/2 teaspoon white pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 

In a large pot, melt half of the stick of butter over medium high heat.  Add the green onions, celery, carrots, and garlic clove.  Season with a small amount of salt and white pepper to taste. Lower the heat to medium and sauté the vegetables for 10 to 15 minutes, until the onions are softened.

Add the potatoes, the remaining butter, and the chicken broth.  Bring to a boil and cook until the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.  Do not overcook the potatoes. Add the pickles and continue to boil for 10 more minutes.  Reduce the heat to medium. 

Combine the sour cream, flour, and water, and then add 1 cup of the boiling soup liquid, and whisk together until smooth.  Gradually add this to the soup, whisking well after each addition.  Stir in the pickle juice, the Old Bay, white pepper and cayenne, then cook for another 5 minutes.  The pickle juice is pretty salty on it's own, so don't add any more salt until you taste the finished soup.  I like salty foods, and did not need to add any more at the end.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

On Monday I had absolutely nothing on my schedule, so I set out to do stuff. I organized my calendar and made a lab appointment. (My brand new endocrinologist wants to get to know me better so he has given instructions that involve collecting and testing the majority of my bodily fluids.)  I knit quite a bit while watching the Orlando Magic lose in preseason. One point, just one damn point. I also took my regular afternoon nap, which I really needed because I’d been playing in the dirt for about an hour.

I love naps. Always have, but the fibromyalgia made them a bitter necessity rather than a lovely luxury for weekends and cruise ships. During the last year that I was working, there were times I locked my office door so I could take a quick snooze.  At least twice, I curled up under my desk.  I still need a nap almost every day, but the state of my retirement (as opposed to my former employer, the state of Florida) allows me to stretch out on my own bed, among gentle breezes from room fans and the comfort from proximity with a couple of carefully positioned pets. Anakin has taken over Chelsea’s spot nearest me, except when he decides to emulate the late, great Ira and sit on top of me to make sure I’m still breathing.

I really did play in the dirt quite a lot as a kid - I was sort of a tomboy - but now I call it gardening. I really like to get in there and do the dirty work.  Never mind that I had my nails done on Friday, I rarely wear gardening gloves unless I am handling the bougainvillea or the roses. Or picking cucumbers, now that I think of it. My garden was in need of some serious attention, and for once, the weather was not too awful, if you ignore the rain shower that arrived with little notice.

I wanted to accomplish three specific tasks - to clear the overgrown beds on the west side of the house, to straighten up the strawberry bed, and to start some seeds in my porch rail boxes.  Just 10 minutes into pulling dead tomato plants from the dirt, my back gave a twinge to remind me that people with fibromyalgia don’t generally make the long haul when it comes to stuff like gardening. That’s why you have a terrific handyman, the same one who built the terraced beds for you, my back told me, with a big sigh because we’d had this same conversation numerous times in the past.

So in the end, I got just one of those garden tasks done, and the other two are sitting out there getting beaten up by the fringe storms from Hurricane Michael.

My urban garden, started some months after the end of Life-As-I-Knew-It, has brought me much enjoyment, as well as countless vegetables.  I don’t get the really high yields, but what I do get I use in my cooking. As I was clearing the beds and pulling out dead tomato plants, I noticed that there were 3 kinds of peppers and one Japanese eggplant waiting to be harvested. In October! From an early spring planting! And let’s not forget that perennial herb, rosemary. This is her third season in our herb garden, outliving the rest of that Simon and Garfunkel song.

Simple pleasures. Life is good.

I left a couple of those pepper plants and the two eggplant plants in place, just giving them a much-needed trim.  Will they gift me with more veggies? Stay tuned.

A Post Which Definitively Answers The Question “Which Came First ...”

Most of my regular readers know I have fibromyalgia. While I’d been complaining about muscle aches and pains for years, 2010 was the watershed year, a culmination of encroaching symptoms that would gradually but definitively destroy most of my life as I had known it up to that point. It didn’t help that my former primary care physician was an unprofessional imbecile. By the time I realized I had to augment him, and then replace him, I’d run the gamut of all the ways the state and federal governments screw around with a disability application. In all fairness, the PCP did have help - the psychiatrist I had used on and off for a decent number of years had suddenly taken leave of her senses as well.

Once I had gotten my medical care back on track I was, with the assistance of a social security firm, able to retire on disability (albeit 5 years before I had planned on retiring), collect my pension from the state, and get down to the business of daily life with a dreadful disorder.  Fibromyalgia is a terrible disease that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, if I had one. But it is part of who I am at this stage of my life, and I really do try to make the best it. I can’t hike up the side of a Korean mountain during monsoon season, but I can make it to the cruise terminal at Port Canaveral, so I consider myself pretty lucky.

If you are unfamiliar with fibromyalgia, here’s a quick overview: I am in pain all the time; the only thing that changes is to what degree of pain I am experiencing that particular day. I do NOT take opioids. I experience brain fog far too often to allow me to practice law or hold down any kind of job. You get the idea. My social life is limited by my disabilities, and I spend much more time with my medical providers (PCP, rheumatologist, (new) psychiatrist, mental health therapist, neurologist, orthopedist, endocrinologist, gynecologist, dental specialist, and let’s not forget those early-morning appointments at Quest Labs) than with my friends.

One question that has popped up over the past few years is “when did I get this disorder? What triggered it to explode in my late fifties - was it menopause? Unusual levels of stress at the office? The gastric bypass surgery I’d had in 2003?  I had no answers, although my old nemesis stress seemed the most likely.

And then, a month or two ago, I had an epiphany, brought about by something that popped up on my Pinterest feed, with a picture that left me staring. I haven’t been able find that damn picture since, but it had reminded me of an old photo, and then I knew that the egg had indeed come before the chicken.

Can you see it?

Do you get it?

By the way, can you bend your thumb so that it touches your forearm?

Work on it.  I’m going out to play in the dirt before the storms come.

It’s A Girl!

After this week’s bone-chilling, depression-inducing, government-sanctioned attack on women, at least the BBC got it right. #She’sMyDoctor

This isn’t over. We will have a female U.S. President in my lifetime. We will put a stop to the crushing misogyny that seems to exist deep in the souls of too many people We will be believed and respected. We will become and remain totally individually autonomous in our own minds and bodies.

Today the newly-regenerated Doctor rates a Global Simulcast. That’s a hell of a lot of viewers for the first female in what has been an all-male franchise for over 50 years.  Great start!

Beat those numbers, Donald Trump!

Slow Cooking Madness: Barbecue Sunday Sauce

I decided it was time to clear out my kitchen freezer, which was stuffed to the gills, assuming any kitchen appliance actually has gills. I pulled out deeply frozen Italian sausage, turkey drumsticks, beef chuck ribs, about half a bag of meatballs (I didn’t make them, but they’re not too bad) and a bag of mixed color frozen peppers. From the pantries (I have 3 floor-to-ceiling, plus additional cabinets) I salvaged 2 jars of spaghetti sauce, 1 large bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce, garlic cloves, and canned mushrooms.

Before I get to the next step I want to assure you all that I still love to cook, passionately, and although my fibromyalgia has stolen much of the cooking joy from my life, I still manage to have fun while keeping my family well-fed. Sometimes that involves my dumping all the ingredients into my largest crockpot. Nothing that a haute cuisine chef would approve of, but hey, it usually works.

For this, I added the ingredients in the following order into my 8 quart crockpot: frozen peppers, drained bottle of garlic cloves, drained can of sliced mushrooms, Angus beef meatballs (from B.J.’s), whole sausages, turkey legs, and the beef chuck ribs, all the proteins still frozen. Except, there is an extra step you don’t have to take, but this is how I do it: sprinkle the frozen meats (no meatballs!) with granulated garlic and slip them under the broiler just until they pick up a little color and are easy to separate with a pair of tongs. Pour some of the spaghetti sauce and some of the barbecue sauce over each layer in the crock.  Make sure to collect all of the sauce clinging to the sides of the bottles by swishing with a small amount of water. I like to do the same with any meat juices in the bottom of the cooking pan.

Building the layers

So now you’ve got everything in the crock, all the sauces have been poured over the top, and you put on the cover. Cook on the low setting until the beef is tender and the drumsticks are cooked all the way through. Except I did something different because of the late hour. I cooked it on low for 3 hours, 7 to 10 pm, then let it cool a bit and moved the crock to the refrigerator for overnight. Next day I got rid of the excess fat, rotated the position of the meats, and went back to cooking on low for about another 3 hours.   I then moved the meatballs, sausage, and turkey legs to some baking pans while the beef chuck got more time to tenderize.

You can serve it over a huge platter of spaghetti, or go rogue and pass on the pasta. I plan on adding frozen corn fritters to the air fryer. One small step for dinner, one giant step for,clearing out my freezer.