Hot Tamales
I was gifted with a home-made tamale at work today. It was cold, so I heated it in one of the lunch room's underpowered microwave ovens. After two minutes, it was still cold in the middle, so I blasted it for another sixty seconds.
It was warm, alright. I put a small piece of the masa (at least, that's what I think it's called; the corn meal stuff that surrounds the filling) in my mouth, and it immediately stuck to my palate...and burned. It was like having molten peanut butter stuck there, and there was little I could do to remove it before the damage had been done.
In a word, "Owwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!"
I've already lost a layer of "skin" from that part of my palate. It just sort of sloughed off after dinner. Prior to dinner, I could feel it sliding around with my tongue.
Kind of gross, yeah. Yet misery loves company, so I felt compelled to share.
Anyway, this week at work was brutal. Lots of stuff to do, never enough time to do it. I'm glad I have two days off so that I can spend it working on the WFRP book. I need to have that darn thing finished this week. After that, who knows what sort of projects will pop up..?
Today, the wife and I took Stephen to a special doctor to get his head looked at. Much to our dismay, he's got a bit of flattening on the back of his cranium. Blame the "Back to Sleep" campaign, which advises folks to put their kids to sleep on their backs in order to prevent SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). The program has reduced SIDS by a large margin, but the incidence of positional plagiocephaly has increased to nearly 1 in every 30 children as a result.
The treatment for this condition includes a custom-made helmet, called a DOC Band, which fits around the kid's head and applies pressure from different angles so that the skull can grow proportionally. After two months of treatment, Stephen's head won't be quite as flat as it is today.
Of course, this sort of thing isn't cheap. We're talking $3,000.00, all-inclusive. With luck, our insurance company will cover most, if not all, of the bill. If not...well, if not, we'll figure something out. I don't need both of my kidneys, after all.
When we got home (after sitting in California traffic), the power was out. Well, "out" isn't quite right. It was more like a brown-out, in that the lights kinda came on, but nothing else worked. Not the television, not the microwave, not the baby monitor, nothing. So we burned some candles and put our little flathead to sleep and waited. I went so far as to put myself down for the night, but the power came back on and here I am to tell you all about it.
So tomorrow I will write like a demon. Assuming we still have electricity.
It was warm, alright. I put a small piece of the masa (at least, that's what I think it's called; the corn meal stuff that surrounds the filling) in my mouth, and it immediately stuck to my palate...and burned. It was like having molten peanut butter stuck there, and there was little I could do to remove it before the damage had been done.
In a word, "Owwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!"
I've already lost a layer of "skin" from that part of my palate. It just sort of sloughed off after dinner. Prior to dinner, I could feel it sliding around with my tongue.
Kind of gross, yeah. Yet misery loves company, so I felt compelled to share.
Anyway, this week at work was brutal. Lots of stuff to do, never enough time to do it. I'm glad I have two days off so that I can spend it working on the WFRP book. I need to have that darn thing finished this week. After that, who knows what sort of projects will pop up..?
Today, the wife and I took Stephen to a special doctor to get his head looked at. Much to our dismay, he's got a bit of flattening on the back of his cranium. Blame the "Back to Sleep" campaign, which advises folks to put their kids to sleep on their backs in order to prevent SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). The program has reduced SIDS by a large margin, but the incidence of positional plagiocephaly has increased to nearly 1 in every 30 children as a result.
The treatment for this condition includes a custom-made helmet, called a DOC Band, which fits around the kid's head and applies pressure from different angles so that the skull can grow proportionally. After two months of treatment, Stephen's head won't be quite as flat as it is today.
Of course, this sort of thing isn't cheap. We're talking $3,000.00, all-inclusive. With luck, our insurance company will cover most, if not all, of the bill. If not...well, if not, we'll figure something out. I don't need both of my kidneys, after all.
When we got home (after sitting in California traffic), the power was out. Well, "out" isn't quite right. It was more like a brown-out, in that the lights kinda came on, but nothing else worked. Not the television, not the microwave, not the baby monitor, nothing. So we burned some candles and put our little flathead to sleep and waited. I went so far as to put myself down for the night, but the power came back on and here I am to tell you all about it.
So tomorrow I will write like a demon. Assuming we still have electricity.
posted by Gary at 10:36 PM
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