Disgusting, semi-painful, and totally effective

The only thing more fantastic than the neti pot itself is this awesome photo of it I found on wikipedia. Hillarious man using neti pot. I'd just like to say that I have had a sinus headache for approximately 3 weeks due to some nasty form of rhinitis (many possible causes). Last night, I poured saltwater into my nose, then blew it all over my kitchen, and then, magically [twinkling sound], the headache, she was finished. All hail king neti pot. I utilized it again this morning because I was told to use it daily and let me just say that this is a testimony to (1) how terrible a 3 week sinus headache is and (2) how completely healed I was, because pouring saltwater into my nose is up there in the top 10 things I dislike. It's very much like unexpectedly getting hit in the face with a giant wave at the beach.

While I'm blogging, I'd like to say one more thing: I absolutely, positively, hate HATE the 80 bajillion circumstances in the life of a PhD student/PostDoc in which one receives completely crappy instructions on an issue (e.g., "What do I do with my ethidium bromide waste?" Answer: "Email so-and-so to come pick it up.") followed by the select so-and-so bawling you out for doing it wrong (e.g., "Ethidium bromide is a chemical hazard, not a biohazard, you have placed it in the wrong bag! In addition, you must provide me with a contact number and, furthermore, you're an idiot!") This sort of scenario seems to happen over and over again. If it's not chemical waste, it's chemical inventory. If it's not chemical inventory, it's p-card statements. If it's not p-card statements, it's my stupid parking permit or some other ridiculous red tape bs item...argh! I guess this is the pay-back for being able to show up whenever I want and not having to wear pantyhose.

Patellar tracking disorder

Sigh, and alas. I have been doing physical therapy now for about two weeks, for my knees, which hurt every time I get going in an exercise program. Turns out I have patellar tracking disorder, which may or may not be reparable. There are several things that I really hate about this diagnosis (no particular order):

(1) They suggest that I lose weight. This is annoying on two different levels. There's the obvious, not liking to be told to lose weight, and the secondarily annoying, which is that you are supposed to simultaneously stop whatever exercise made the knee start hurting.

(2) They suggest that I build up my quads, which annoys me, because my quads are already stronger than most people's (I can backsquat more than a lot of the women at my gym who are otherwise much bigger bad-asses than I am).

(3) They explain to me that this is often a hereditary misalignment thing, particularly since there was no trauma, and the various solutions may or may not work.

Anyway, the physical therapist is an improvement for two reasons. First of all, my GP just told me to take 2 aleve 2x a day...for the rest of my life, presumably? And, secondly, my GP described patellar chondromalacia, which is more of a symptom than a diagnosis. Oh, one more reason, which is that my GP said that the only alternative to the massive intake of NSAIDs would be surgery...which turns out not to be true...per se...

So, it's good to have a diagnosis. Some of my prescriptions include specific stretches, ice, and the graston technique (pictured above), which hurts. What's fun is that, at each session, there is a lot of sort of rough massage-style leg manipulation to determine what sorts of stretches I need to do. I think that part is the classic "physical therapy." I also get chiropractic pelvic adjustments. My very favorite part of the leg manipulations is that, since my quads are involved, I have to wear shorts and shave. Also, since I've watched the various manipulations, I've become increasingly aware of both how jiggly my inner thighs are, and how carefully I need to shave them. I considered telling the physical therapist, last time, about Emily and the German gynecologist, and the taking off of the pants. I decided that he might find it creepy. What he'd likely find more creepy is doing his job in Germany.

Warning! Not for children

So, a couple of weeks ago, I went to a book signing of Street Gang: the Complete History of Sesame Street. One of the stories I find myself telling over and over again is this: Apparently, if you buy a DVD of the first two seasons of Sesame Street, it comes with a warning label. According to Michael Davis, author of the Street Gang book, the scene below is one of the reasons for the label:



Other offenses include (1) a little girl sliding down a slide such that you can see her underpants, (2) as the nytimes article indicates, the "monsterpiece theatre" parody in which Alistair Cookie holds a pipe, and (3) a series of political activists appearing on the show (like Buffy there). What really makes me feel sad about this situation is the reality that we have done so much social backsliding since the '70s. Progress was made and then immediately snatched from our hands. There was also a lot of kidnapping/child molestation fear in the 80s, which is what made Snuffleupagus become real. They didn't want kids to think about a situation where they were trying to get adults to believe them and the adults couldn't see what was happening, which makes sense.

Anyway, the booksigning wasn't all depressing (although Liliana and I both had to hold back tears as the author read the script from the episode where Mr. Hooper died). I stood in line with a guy who has the same uncanny memory that I have and I shocked and embarassed my friends by breaking out into the following song with this strange man:



Hehehe, I forgot about Andy. Man, I loved that show. The stranger and I sang this song in response to the (false) rumor that Cookie Monster is going to be changed into "Veggie" Monster. We were remembering that there is already a veggie character. Apparently now Cookie Monster states that cookies are a "sometimes food." Fair enough. But, as the wikipedia entry points out, anyone who has watched Cookie Monster knows that he doesn't eat just cookies.

Prairie dog vacuum

Apparently, a lot of people are familiar with this:



I was not familiar. I am in love with it.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4182/is_19960912/ai_n10094665/?tag=content;col1

My officemate tells me that prairie dogs are really vocal and that they sort of scream as they're going into the truck. Also, apparently, they're really happy when they find one another inside the truck. Hillarious. I think that Wallace and Gromit did something similar in the Were-rabbit.

Trying to think of something interesting...

I find that, sometimes, if I just start typing, I come up with something good. We'll see how it goes. I'm learning about fungi and oomycetes (which are not fungi but used to be classified that way until people learned that their hyphae are coenocytic, their cytoplasm is granular (?), and "the apex is devoid of organelles other than numerous secretory vesicles." Geez, how could you overlook that obvious difference? Here's a picture of one that is very closely related to mine:

(http://www.uoguelph.ca/~gbarron/2008/pythiu1.jpg)

There are some good pictures of mine but they're not on this computer. Culturing fungus/oomycetes, it turns out, is only a little bit similar to culturing bacteria. This makes things fun. Culturing plankton is even less like culturing bacteria. Here's something else I've learned: If you want something to be infectious, you have to make it into a spore. If you want to make something into a spore, you need yet another protocol, meaning that, if your organism is new, you have to develop a new protocol. So, it's not just about culturing, kids. Oh, hey, Janet, maybe you know some good references about sporulation in eukaryotes. I'm a little bit unsure. P.S. To be considered a "spore" in a fungus or oomycete, you pretty much have to be nothing except sort of wandering around aimlessly, no requirement for a spore coat or heat resistence or whatever. Furthermore, people who are used to eukaryotes will constantly refer to "spores" in bacterial species. They do not like for you to stop them and point out that, if they're not heat resistant and don't have a spore coat, bacteriologists don't call them spores.

Married to a meat-a-holic

So, my husband loves to cook giant cuts of meat (see below). I enjoy cooking experiments and I enjoy being the test audience for cooking experiments. I myself made the lemon tart that Kevin mentions below, complete with homemade crust. In fact, this is my second time to make the lemon tart and the first time I stayed up later than I intended because I didn't realize that the dough has to rest for 30 minutes before you roll it out. All of that said, these giant cuts of meat are a problem. I met Kevin at the first annual "Pig Pickin'" so I can't say I didn't know, but being married to someone who enjoys staying up all night poking a thermometer into a hunk of meat can be trying. Take this Easter ham for instance. It's not a cured ham, mind you. As you can see below, it's a big raw hunk of pig. It brined for three days in a giant gatorade cooler in our shower (this was a request of mine...heaven forbid I hadn't asked him to put the cooler in the shower...I don't even want to think...). After that, the grilling and the constant temperature taking. He doesn't do the math for you in his entry so it might be hard for you to realize that this "finishing it up on the counter" occurred at about midnight the night before my big Easter church music thing, for which I had to be up at 6am. Aluminum tenting is loud, just, for future reference. Giant sheets of aluminum foil. Also, barbecued pork smells delicious at noon or 6pm. It does not smell delicious at midnight. Okay, I'm done. In the end, the pork really was delicious. I have some for lunch today, with some leftover squash casserole and broccoli (he forgot to mention the broccoli). The maple dijon glaze is also very good. I might say it was worth it...but I might not...

Kevin's Easter Ham

Kevin here. This Easter, we decided to do a smoked fresh ham. This particular ham weighed in right at 22lb - a big hunk of meat. The fun started on Thursday evening when I prepped the ham and set it in the brine. As you can see, I left the skin on, scoring a crosshatch pattern across the meat and then setting it in a brine solution in a water cooler with ice, where it would sit until Saturday morning.













Saturday morning, I set my Webber Kettle for an indirect heat and slapped the meat on. I didn't know how long this was going to take. I was shooting for a final temperature of around 160, so I was hoping to get there in 8 hours or so.








After 10 hours, we were still only up to around 135 degrees. So, I had to take matters into my own hands and move the ham inside to the oven - which I had set at 325 degrees.





After another 2.5 hours in the oven, the ham had finally reached 152 degrees. So I pulled it out and let it rest for another hour or so on the counter where it got above 160.




After a night in foil in the fridge, I put it back in the oven at 350 for 1.5 hours with a good bit of maple mustard glaze. Served with pea salad, squash casserole, and a lemon tart - it was perfect.

(Tomorrow, maybe I'll write about how he kept me up all night rattling aluminum foil and taking the ham's temperature. -Sara)