Farklishly Nice Things

Yeah, you Facebookers know what I'm talking about.  But this is real life.  Over my shoulder I hear the click of the five dice and then the rumbling roll on the gameboard.  We call it "Zilch."  Dylan, Sarina, and Marcy each won a game and this is the tiebreaker.  Friendly family competition to relax in the heat of the night.  We already played a game of Scrabble - The Nightmare Before Christmas Edition - and I won.  I got "unique" on a triple word space.  I also got to play the word "naif."  Like Dad always told me, I quit while I'm a head.

In the background the TV is playing "Diners-Drive-ins-and-Dives."  I was hoping it was the episode where they visited Cincinnati's Terry's Turf Club but I guess it's not tonight.  It's nice to hear the threesome next to me laughing and having fun.  Oh, they've switched to "Uno" now.  I wish you could hear Marcy laugh!  Mom & Dad, thanks for getting her that playing card rack.

We went with Sarina to her ultrasound last week.  It was cool that we got to see our grand-daughter Logan and all, but I was amazed by the technology, how far it's come since our kids were tadpoles.  That GE machine showed us the girlie parts, the beating heart, a well-formed spine, a palate un-cleft.  We saw the healthy placenta, then they highlighted the cord and measured for proper blood flow.  Neat.  Then they clicked the images of the leg bones and arm bones and it calculated her size to be perfectly average for a 32-week tadpole.  It did everything but take the kid's fingerprints, and that's probably in next year's model.

I've been too busy to post much lately besides some photos and a poor excuse for writing.  Our mental energy has been poured into a few very important and time-sensitive challenges but now we are seeing the results of our efforts just as we set out to do.  First of all, the bankruptcy.  "But wait," you say, "Isn't bankruptcy bad?"  Yeah, like chemotherapy is bad for cancer!  I really like our attorney, Robert Liebman.  He reminds me of Charles Foster Offdensen, the manager/lawyer for Dethklok on the show Metalocalypse.  He nailed the bankruptcy for us and got a lien on our house cancelled.  He's a lethal legal fencing master.  We actually shared a laugh right before the hearing, tee-hee!  Next, Marcy's medical care.  We finally got her approval for state Medicaid with actual "insurance" provided by Buckeye Healthcare starting in June.  Whew!  And speaking of her condition, we also completed a symptom report for SSI.  That was not so much fun.  List ALL symptoms, what they feel like, where you feel them, whether they spread, what makes them start, what makes them worse, how bad on on scale of 10 is a good day, how bad on a scale of 10 is a bad day, how many good days vs. bad days each week, how long each symptom lasts, how often each one hits, and even more.  Grueling, but it produced a well-organized picture of Marcy's misery.  Social Security also required a Work History analysis for the last 15 years, detailing all work duties plus how much she had to sit, stand, walk, crawl, climb, crawl, stoop, crouch, reach, schlep, manipulate, write, and so on.  Done.

The Victory Garden has produced its first tomato!

Speaking of which, I found another great use for the profusely growing lemon balm:  bruschetta.  I chopped up a couple of ripe tomatoes, took a few plucked tops of fragrant lemon balm and cigar-rolled them and cut little chiffonades, slivered a few "wild onions" I plucked from the back yard, a shake of dried basil and a splash of extra virgin olive oil and presto!  Spoon that stuff onto slices of Kroger Italian bread (marked down to under $1) and it is so delicious and fresh.  And take a look at this salad I made using baby lettuce thinned from the Victory Garden, plus garlic mustard, lemon balm, chive blossoms, wood sorrel (shamrocks), and those beautiful little wood strawberries.  We had it with dinner when our old friends Terry & Loey visited.