Spring Flowers

Today is a day to be enjoyed. There are so many flowers blooming in the aku room and on the deck.

I pulled over on the way down the hill to take a picture of our neighbor's yearly display of ice plant.

On the way to mom's, I saw my best friend on the offramp, picking up trash. She's often out there, but that was a first.

And at the park, where mom's caregiver and I took her to see what we could see, there was a spot on a bench near the Japanese tea house where the rhododendrons were blooming and we were all happy.

Even mom! 

Now I'm cozy at home making soup stock and marmalade.

And! I have an appointment for a COVID vaccine shot on Wednesday. And boy kitten is asleep.

It can't get much better.

Diet Noodles

One of my favorite things in the world during COVID lockdown is my local Facebook Buy Nothing group. The group members are not only generous, but they are also wry and funny. I love to give away weird stuff, and I love to get weird stuff. Especially food. If someone tells me that something has a weird flavor or they didn't like it, it makes me want it more. Those non-Gardenburgers that the lady didn't like? They were delicious! Still haven't gotten to the fish in my freezer that the lady caught but doesn't have time to cook now that she has a baby, but when I do I am sure that it will be tasty.

It was on this premise that I raised my hand for the non-wheat konnyaku noodles. Lady said she didn't like the taste. What if I try it and it becomes my favorite flavor? I raised my hand, drove across town and picked it up off of her porch.

Last Monday my podiatrist suggested that I go on a 30-day diet and exclude wheat, dairy and sugar. As readers of mrsguy are aware, these items are at the base of my food pyramid. This is really a challenge, and I feel like there is nothing I can eat. So yesterday while coming back from mom's I recalled the fake noodles and thought I'd give them a try. I looked at the package "15 calories" -- ok that is also a bonus.

I heated the noodles, added some tomato curry from the other night, and made myself a meal, with a mountain of broccoli on the side. It was...fine. I get what the lady said about the flavor, which was un-foodlike. What was striking, however, was how hungry I felt eating it. So I ate another helping. Then I ate some potato chips and a tomato. OK, that felt like a bust, as calories go.

One hour later the pain started. I felt as if I could sense the edges of my stomach stretching, and had the sensation of something pricking the edges of my stomach, on the left and right sides of my body, to get out of me (in not the usual way). So I look up "konnyaku noodles gastric distress" and find out that it is a THING. Feast your eyes on this headline: 

"Diet Noodles Blamed for ‘Unholy Levels of Gastric Upset and Rage'"

Great.

So I told mrguy and he was so concerned the he started calculating the nearest emergency room and wanted to make sure that I knew the location of my medical insurance card. For real.

Later in the evening was our monthly salon, and our topic for the month was the 7 Deadly Sins. I had intended to tell a story about Sloth, but given my recent episode, I decided to combine Wow and the konnyaku noodle story into a twofer of Gluttony.

Although things felt dire yesterday, this morning I show no ill effects of my adventure.

Gunne Sax

Jessica McClintock has died, but her brand will live on.

I always wanted to own a Gunne Sax dress, which was suuuuuper popular growing up. When I finally managed to try one on I had hair down to my waist and was wearing my go-to Kung Fu mary janes and I looked *exactly* like illustrations of Alice in Wonderland. I was finally too old for the look, or at least looking for something that made me appear more mature.

I passed.

Things That Are Marmalade

Readers of mrsguy will recall the days in which the lime tree bore one fruit a year, always known as "limey". Those days are gone, and since last year the lime tree fruits like mad and is almost as tall as our second story bedroom window. Our Meyer lemon is also hugely abundant, and it's that season where people in our neighborhood are trying to give other people lemons. For example, I got a small bag of kumquats from someone on our Buy Nothing facebook group, and she tried to entice me to also take a bag of lemons. "Thank you, but I'm *made* of lemons," I replied, and she laughed.

I turned those kumquats into a kumquat marmalade while my mom was staying with us (how I found the time while serving my queen I do not know). It was good, but super pungent. And I didn't do the full deal (i.e. canning it in a hot water bath with rings and lids). Today and yesterday I scratched that particular itch.

I found a lemon lime marmalade recipe that was weird but interesting. You take two pounds of fruit, wash it, trim the ends off and stick the fruit in a big pot of water. Boil until you can poke it with a fork. Turn off the heat and leave it on the stove overnight. The next day, save 4 cups of the water and shell the fruit over a sieve, removing seeds. Slice the shells into slivers and add that, the seeded pulp, 4 cups of lemon water and 4 cups of sugar into a pot. Boil until it's marmalade. When it is, do what you like. I chose to go all the way and boil my jars, lids and rings.

It set perfectly. All of my jars sealed. Great recipe. It was fun handling the wibbledy wobbly fruit. And mrguy says it's delicious, which is the ultimate seal of approval.

Here we are on the boil. You can see the scum pulling together. You do have to clear that scum off as it forms. And it even the scum was tasty.

Here is my finished product, packed up in a motley assortment of canning jars. The biggest one is a remnant from the days when my beloved singing teacher and I would get together and make dill jalapeno pickles. She thought that canning jars were a scam, and had a favorite brand of jarred spaghetti sauce whose jars she'd save for our pickle adventures. Here's to you, Red:

 And one last photo, of something that is also marmalade -- Boy Kitten:

Cat Tower

One of these days I will recount the difficult two weeks we spent taking care of my mom, but why do it now? Today is a day of tasks completed, which is a much nicer thing to contemplate.

First there was this creation, our cat tower. Or rather Boy Kitten's cat tower. We made it because nothing like it existed, or at least with this look. First I bought a bookshelf from Wayfair. Then I realized that this particular piece of furniture couldn't be assembled without 4 hands, so mrguy had to help.

Then we bought 15 rolls of 1/4" sisal rope. 4 or 5 at a time, because who knew that you would need so very many winds of rope to cover something like this? And this also required mrguy, who was very patient and manly and staple gun-owning and operating.

Wait for another shipment of rope.

Wind wind wind.

Add carpet tiles, hot glue and vintage carpet tacks.

Voila!

Turns out that the cat will need other shelves along with the custom-made cat bookshelf in order to get to the top of the people bookshelves (the original mission). But he has already made it to the 4th shelf (not pictured), and it is good.

One task down today!