Fat Free Waffles

I decided to make waffles this morning, so I checked that we had all the correct ingredients.  We didn't, but I decided to proceed anyway.

Let me assure you, waffles made with whole wheat flour, artificial yellow-colored dairy-free spread, skim milk and fat-free half-and-half are refreshingly flavor-free.  We do have geniune maple syrup, but it didn't help.

Still, the Brown 'n' Serve sausages were delicious.

The Lazy Man's Earth Hour

I missed the actual Earth Hour this year. Earth Hour, as you probably know, was started in 2001 in Sydney Australia as an experiment to see how much electricity could be saved if everyone in the city was asked to cut down or eliminate their electrical usage for one hour. (See the before and after photos to the right.) The idea was to raise a little awareness of our individual and collective use of energy. This year, on the last Saturday in March, dozens of cities around the globe participated. raging success, by all accounts.

Of course there are skeptics who note that cities like Sydney really only cut their power consumption for the hour by 15%, and that there was a corresponding spike in electricity demand in the hours before Earth Hour -- as if everyone just decided to run their dishwasher early in order to avoid the designated hour. Even given these cranky naysayers, I do believe that the experiment is a good one, even if it's just to make everyone a little more aware of how they use electricity in their own house.

So, since I missed Earth Hour, I decided to try my own. I even thought I might make it a monthly event, as suggested by talkgreen's Tara Benwell.

We tried it this past Thursday night. I made sure to schedule it on a night when my 14-year-old stepson was with us, and also made sure it was after dark for full effect. I thought the stepson would hate the idea, but when we decided we would turn off everything and then play a board game, he was surprisingly into it. Even better, he chose the game "Clue," a murder mystery game, perfect for playing by candlelight. It just so happened that my mother-in-law was also with us, so it was a big family affair.

As the appointed time approached, everyone actually seemed to be looking forward to it. "Is it time yet?" I was asked more than once. When the hour arrived, we all rushed madly around the house turning off lights and unplugging televisions. I thought I had explained that only things that can't be shut off (like TVs that constantly draw power) need to be unplugged, but I guess I wasn't very clear since my wife and her son went around happily unplugging everything.

Here's the "lazy man" part: we wimped out a little, I'm ashamed to say, when it came to things that were a little more difficult. If I unplugged the yard's sprinkler system, I explained to my wife, I will just have to reprogram it -- a pain in the neck. So we left it on. And, we could not figure out to shut off the little digital clock in the oven -- wired in the wall somewhere. But still: when we started the hour, the little wheel in our electrical usage meter was spinning madly, and when we were done it had slowed to a crawl. We felt pretty good.

The rest of the hour was spent playing "Clue" as Lincoln would have, by the light of several candles. This was probably the first activity that the four of us -- me, my wife, her Mom, and my stepson -- had participated in together for months. So, dear readers, you don't even have to care about the environment: Earth Hour is good for family togetherness!

Now one other thing I must admit: we didn't even make it to the full hour. I had promised to take everyone out for ice cream when the hour was done, as a reward, and the second game of "Clue" ended with five minutes left to go in the hour. We all looked at each other, then jumped up and headed for Baskin-Robbins. Yay!

Tune in next month, in which I commit to turning off the electric sprinkler system, even if it means I then have to reprogram it. I really want to see if we can get that spinning electric meter wheel to stop entirely.

Chewing

My little medical episode really put me down for the count, and I felt sick and couldn't really talk very well for a day or two.  I sounded like Brenda Vaccaro after some Primal Scream Therapy.

But now I am back to normal.

Last night I cooked a couple of small steaks for me and Ellen, accompanied by some delicious garlic butter green beans.  Or should I say, the garlic and butter tasted delicious, the only downside being the taste of green beans.

I made sure to cut my steak into smaller pieces than usual and chew them thoroughly.  I felt like that guy in "2001" who ends up a decrepit old man in a bright white room, slowly masticating his little bits of food and looking around nervously.  Ellen, I suppose in this scenario, is the mysterious black monolith?  I admit the comparison sort of runs out of steam here.

Anyway it all went down fine.  I may switch to an all-gruel diet sometime soon.

My Fun-Filled Wednesday

This is probably the most boring kind of blog entry imaginable: what I did yesterday!  But it was a relatively eventful day, at least for me, so I thought I would just set it down in prose for your enjoyment.

I spent my morning doing my first stint -- in what I hope is a weekly ritual -- volunteering for Habitat for Humanity.  I figure if Jimmy Carter can do it at 80, so can I.  From an altruistic standpoint, I'd like to do something to help my fellow man, just like us all, right?  And from a non-altruistic standpoint, when people ask me what I am doing with my time while unemployed, I want a better answer than "nothing" or worse, "writing a screenplay."

So off I went to the bare-wood-frame condo complex going up near me in Glendale.  Maybe 6 units, 1200 square feet each.  Right next to the highway, but what do you want for free?  The deal is, if you are a low-income family, and want a Habitat house, you have to put in a certain number of hours yourself toward the building of the house.  Which I think is cool.

Arriving at the site, I was a little nervous, because Accuweather said it was going to be in the 100's.  Yikes.  In anticipation of a sweat-fest, I chose shorts.  But of course, it was a quite pleasant 80 with a cool breeze.  And I dinged my legs several times on bare wood planks, due to the shorts.  Great.

My image of myself pounding manly nails with a big manly hammer were dashed as the Construction Manager assigned me to clean-up duty on the plywood-and-bare-rafters roof of one of the buildings.  Me and a tight-lipped 17-year-old, who must have been doing the "I need good stuff for my college applications" deal.  So the two of us spent five hours sweeping up sawdust and nails.  Yippee.  Five hours.  I have to tell you, at the end of that five hours, I was exhausted.  Ready for a nap.  Maybe I need to get in better shape.

Then, at around 6 PM, I headed off to meet my friend Beth for a drink at the Ahmanson Theater and then to take in a performance of "The Drowsy Chaperone."  I hadn't seen Beth in maybe two years, so we had a lot of catching up to at the lovely outdoor bar outside the theater.  The show itself -- I loved it.  It's a sort of parody of and love letter to the cheesy old broadway musicals like "No No Nanette" that didn't really make a lick of sense, but had a jaunty romantic comedy story and upbeat, silly songs.  Really fun.  It was Beth's idea to go to dinner after the show, which I was reluctant about -- I'm usually in bed by ten!  But after the show I was hungry and full of energy, only to have Beth say, "I'm tired."  Hmmph.

That's when the night really got interesting.  I went home and boiled some spaghetti.  You know the way I like it -- with just butter and parmesan cheese on it.  Almost dry with so much cheese.  Some of you might remember a previous blog entry in which I choked on some food.  Well it happened again.  As I was snarfing down the spaghetti and chasing it with delicious Sprite Zero, suddenly I started choking.  I could not breathe, unless you call ghastly croaking panicky attempts to draw in air breathing.  Ellen immediately got behind me to give me the Heimlich, with an decidedly frightened look on her face.  I really could not breathe.  But either from her efforts or just from my body trying to do its job, I spit up the Sprite Zero and some of the spaghetti.  So now I could at least take in air.

But unlike the last time this happened, I was not able to eventually swallow or spit up whatever was blocking.  I could not swallow any water without it backing up in my throat and potentially blocking my windpipe again.  Not a good feeling.  As I sat waiting for the blockage to go either up or down, even the saliva I was producing was backing up in my throat, and I had to spit it up occasionally as Ellen looked on, concerned.  Minutes ticked by, and nothing changed.  After about an hour, I acquiesced to Ellen's plea that we go to the local Adventist Hospital Emergency Room.

By this point it's past midnight, and I was feeling pretty bad.  The sensation that nothing, not even liquid could go down, and having to throw up saliva every once in a while, is a very unsettling and discomfiting situation.

It took maybe two hours to see the doctor, which is really not bad for an Emergency Room.  I thought for sure the doctor would just sedate me, snake a tube down my gullet, and poke out whatever was in the way.  But he advised that the esophagus is delicate, and snaking tubes down there willy-nilly was "counter-indicated."  So, as I was spitting and retching into my home-brought garbage can, they proceeded to try various muscle relaxers to try and get my food tube to loosen up.  First, it was a little tab of nitroglycerine under my tongue.  I thought -- are they trying to explode my blockage?  Well that didn't work.  So then we proceeded to intravenous (since I couldn't swallow anything) Glucagon, a more powerful muscle relaxer.  It's a synthetic version of a hormone naturally produced by, I kid you not, the Isles of Langerhans. (One trivia note -- check out Weird Al Yankovick's Beach Boys parody song "Pancreas" for a mention of both Glucagon and the Isles of Langerhans.)

Well one side effect of Glucagon, at least on me, is violent, wrenching nausea.  This is pretty much my least favorite feeling in the world, so far.  I prefer the kidney stone to this.  But, I admit, I've never been shot or broken a limb.  Yet.

Anyway I get a severe bout of technicolor lunch, but not much comes up.  So they double the dosage.  This time I really wretch.  It's excruciating.  But then -- it came up!  The big stuck wad of spaghetti.  After a period of recovery from the puking, I feel much better.

The doctor, the nurse, and then a jaunty trio of other nurses who sauntered past my screen arm-in-arm with a "can we see your spaghetti" -- they all expressed amazement that I could wolf down such a large relatively unchewed piece of food.  They all scolded me -- chew your food!  In fact my release form included the rather parental-sounding, chastising "Be sure to chew your food properly."

It was 4:30 AM, Ellen and I were exhausted, and we headed home.  With not a little bit of the feeling of -- it's nice to be alive.

Today, my throat is so sore I can barely talk, and I'm very tired (couldn't sleep much past 8:30) but I feel fine.  Aren't you sorry you read this entry?

Tissue? I Hardly Know You.

Here's a pet peeve of mine, for those of you who wear spectacles, like me.

Have you ever been at a friend's house and notice that your glasses are a little dirty?  Maybe you left a few too many fingerprints as you grabbed blindly for them while the alarm clock screamed?  Maybe hot grease flew onto them as you checked too closely to see if the bacon was done?  Maybe the dog licked them?

Whatever the reason, something on your glasses is bothering you, so you reach for a Kleenex (or other brand) tissue to clean them.  You breathe delicately onto the lenses to moisten them just the right amount, then gently wipe away all the imperfections, preparing for the rest of the day to look bright, shiny, and crystal clear.

Then you put your glasses on, and you realize your mistake.  Awww -- you whine to your host -- are these those Kleenex that have lotion in them?!?  You can't quite see your host, though, because your lenses are now coated with a thin, semi-translucent patina of moisturizer. The world now looks like one of those White Diamonds perfume commercials in which they have heavily filtered the lens in an attempt to make Liz Taylor look anywhere south of 50.  Good luck getting it off without Windex.  At least your glasses will now be soft and supple to the touch.

Next month's pet peeve: President Bush.

Toddenda

I wanted to add a little something to my blather about the Todd concert.

I wrote that Todd is "just a guy...." etc.  Well he may be playing small clubs, the world may not care about him anymore, but the guy has written and sung:

Hello It's Me

Couldn't I Just Tell You

A Dream Goes On Forever

Real Man

Can We Still Be Friends

Love is the Answer

and a few no one but Todd fans know

Just One Victory

Cliche

Parallel Lines

and others.

These are some of my favorite songs.

I feel like in my last column, I belittled the achievement of someone like Todd Rundgren.  OK, so maybe you don't write another great song, ever.  Or maybe you do.  Time will tell.  That doesn't diminish the great ones.

It's like, whenever I hear people complain about Woody Allen's recent movies.   Why do so many of them stink. I always think to myself -- or say aloud with a lot of attitude -- how many great movies do you want a guy to make?  Jeez -- Sleeper, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors.  Come on -- that is a staggering lifetime's achievement. 

Todd is Godd

Todd isn't really Godd, at least not anymore.  He's just a guy who used to have a few hits, sell a few records, and tour, both solo and with a band called Utopia.  I've been a fan since 1974, seen him through the ups and (mostly) downs.

For the past several years he's been living on Kauai, making music when he feels like it, making the kind of music he feels like making, seemingly without regard for sales or popularity.

But that's probably stating it too favorably.  I think he'd like his music to be more popular than it is, and can't seem to find the right groove anymore.

Which is why he used to play 3000 seat arenas, but last night played the Key Club in Hollywood to a crowd of maybe 200.  I was there, with my friend Doug and his friend John.

First of all, the "Key Club" makes it sound like some sort of exclusive, polished brass password-only speakeasy.  But no.  It's not much more than the usual sticky-table-and-bar-food music venue like all the others on the Sunset Strip, like the Troubador or the Roxy.

One notable image of the evening: Doug's friend John had brain surgery 8 months ago, and has lost a lot of weight.  He seems to be recovering well, but the surgery was a shock to his system, and he still cannot swallow anything, so he has a feeding tube in his stomach through which to put formula, etc.  But the tube also accepts dry martinis, which John proceeded to suck out of his martini glass with a large plastic syringe and inject directly into stomach via the tube.  Doctor's orders!

A lackluster opening act wandered on and off stage, whining pitifully about some Gen-Y problem or something.  Todd came out around 10:15, which of course is when I usually go to bed.  True to Todd's iconoclasm, he played only about five old songs to begin with, a few of them covers -- one was The Call's "The Walls Came Down," a song I really like -- and then launched into all 13 songs of his new, yet-to-be-released album.  13 new songs in a row is a bit of a grind for any audience.  But everyone listened politely.  I even liked a few of the new tunes.

John is friends with a few guys in the band, and had managed to get us a reserved table upstairs and our tickets comped.  But unfortunately the sightlines from upstairs sucked, so after a while I went downstairs to stand with the rest of the Great Unwashed.  This was more fun, I was pretty close to the stage.  (See the photo above, from the crummy camera in my iPhone.)

As I was stomping my feet and generally enjoying myself, I looked around and noticed everyone looked really old.  Many gray and balding heads, lots of paunchy guts.  Gross!  I suddenly felt tired.  The show ended soon after.

Todd, of course, who just turned sixty, looked great.  Come to think of it, I hate him.