Chewing

The morning mood, chewing at my mother's love of all that is sugary, floury and baked, eschewing all fresh and green vegetables, and my obsessing on the nutritionless attractions of her version of "unconditional love." Fairyland food, empty and ultimately sickening, but it looks so nice it takes a long time to see it for what it is. Yeah, that state of mind. There were always chocolate chips, flour, sugar, walnuts*, food coloring, sprinkles in the cupboard, but no matter how much I asked for frozen vegetables - like Aunt Alma made for me, to my mother the only vegetables were canned corn and mashed potatoes. And health food was liver and onions. That my gut was always upset bothered her not enough to change my diet, although she was constantly finding a new diet for herself to slim back down. Oh, she would safely claim she would gladly change places with me when I was sick, but not find the cause and change that. My father's verbal abuse the white elephant in the room, to be ignored.



Yeah, that mood. Snowed madly for a couple of hours this morning, blew through. Roads mostly clear most of the way to work. Nothing scary.

I really haven't indulged in treats this season. Unappealing. I really don't like cake, feel no draw toward anything home-made. Absolutely repulsed by cheap store-bought, although I do have some of the better stuff. Don't think I've had anything more than I usually would on any given day, only in the afternoon, when I'm crashy and don't have anything like an orange or dried fruit.

Remembering being at MGH PACU for day-surgery, and from Thanksgiving to New Year there would be better and better and BETTER! chocolates and treats of increasing, professional, quality that destroyed my resolve to not have any more. I think I went a bit toxic on chocolate at the end.

Funny, home-made is a bit suspicious to me. Cheap store bought unappealing. But the good stuff, yeah, that hits whatever is left of my sweet-tooth. I ate all the desserts as a kid, it seemed like I enjoyed it. Even then, cake was just a delivery system for fudge frosting. A real treat for me was spinach, or rhubarb from the garden, or a slice of lemon sucked after fish&chips at a diner.


I shopped for our Christmas Taco Gathering for Dylan's family this morning. Then headed up to work to cover lunches on a very busy day - and short staffed. Got to say goodbye to a nurse who... I liked as a person, but hated working with. She's retiring, and moving away, gave me a big hug as I left after giving her lunch. So much annoyance, but good hearted in her own way. I hope when she is no longer tied to her Perfect Nurse Identity, she is happier and less prone to anger and micromanaging. I won't miss working with her. I won't miss her crankiness or criticism. Or trying to tell me how to chart, under my own license. Or assuming I don't have enough forks at my next party (I have lots of forks.)

Dr. T gave us another Christmas bonus in Christmas cards, not as much as last year, but I didn't expect anything, so it's all amazingly good. I used it to buy beer and some sake, with enough leftover for the remaining holiday groceries.

Dylan and I have one rule for Christmas, there has to be food. I expect the stories about that are at the labels, if you haven't been told too many times. Our first Christmas together in Ft. Carson, the mess didn't tell the reservists when the holiday meal was, there were no cabs to go out to the Chinese restaurants, no one had cars, busses weren't running, and neither Pizza nor Chinese were delivering on base that day. We skipped the booze, ate some sugary treats from care packages shared, and, starving in the afternoon we scored some oranges and snuck off to eat them alone together, shaking and hungry. We made vows to each other that day, and have kept them since. Enough Food ON Christmas. One of our few Absolute Rules.

We have enough food for the whole weekend. FYI.


LED lights, not using a lot of electricity. Cheerful, though. And that is the stocking Dylan made at work, rather pretty.



We stopped sending cards many years ago. A few people still send us cards, on rare years. This is fine by us, as the good ones get packed away with the Christmas tree and lights, and are permanent features of our decorations. I think the penguin is amazing.





In an odd, but not bad mood. One more half-ish day, not a big deal. Our director of anesthesia tried to get all the cases shifted up to the Main Hospital. No one else objected strenuously. We give him credit for trying for us. It's usually a mellow day, and the patients get extra time to heal that doesn't count against their sick time. A small day, then home, and no driving until... well, Monday if I can stretch it.

Happy Solstice, it's all brighter from here.

Bon Hiver.

Let all mortal flesh keep silence.


Butts on Fire.


*Walnuts trigger awful cankers on my mouth. Probably always have. I always had them over Christmas. Gee. Wonder why.