Living Small

Birthday Tree

Thirty years ago, my grandparents had a pretty awesome weekend -- their younger daughter (my aunt Lesley) had her first baby (my cousin Becky) on Saturday, and their older daughter (my mom) had her first baby (me) on Sunday.  So they celebrated by planting a Bradford Pear tree in their back yard.  It's pretty big now.  Happy birthday, Becky; happy birthday, tree; happy birthday, me!

Shifting Worldview

Last Friday I left work a bit early to get my driver's license renewed (yes, this does mean it's almost my birthday!). Apparently every eight years, Michigan drivers need to go in person to have our eyes examined and our photos re-taken. A few people suggested I get a Real ID, but they aren't offering them in Ann Arbor yet. On my way, I realized that I have now been a Michigan driver for longer than I was a California driver (since I got my license at 16 and moved here at 22), which instantly changed my perception of my self. I guess I'm really a Michiganian now, so I should probably start referring to the office where one gets a driver's license as the Secretary of State rather than the DMV.

Old Friends

Last week I got an email from my friend Amir, whom I hadn't seen since high school, saying that he would be in Highland, Michigan this weekend, visiting another former classmate of ours (someone I remembered But had barely known as our graduating class was about 650 students) who had just moved here with his girlfriend. After asking David how far Highland is from here (about thirty miles but, as Elizabeth informed me, it takes longer to get there than it should), I decided to drive out to meet them for lunch. The drive was fairly long but pretty straightforward (the Michigan left was well-marked), and when I arrived they were unloading the U-Haul. I helped out a bit, and then Amir and I set out to pick up some lunch for everyone. Neither of us knew the area at all, but thanks to the GPS on his cell phone, we were quickly able to find some pizza, burgers, and salads. It was fantastic to see him again, to catch up, and to be able to laugh at some of the trivialities that seemed to matter so much back then. I'm really glad it's all in the past!

Popcorn

When I was a kid, we had an air popper for popcorn.  My mom and I would put the kernels in the popper and some butter in a little tray on top, and as the popcorn shot out into a bowl, the air from the popper would heat up the butter, which we would then pour over the popped corn.  It was a pretty big contraption, so we didn't get it out very often, but it was always fun, even though air-popped popcorn doesn't really taste that good.  We moved into our first place with a microwave when I was ten, and that was the end of the air popper -- microwave popcorn was much yummier and easier, though we were never big popcorn eaters.  I then went years eating a very limited amount of grains and only at prescribed times, which meant no popcorn, as it is usually a between-meals kind of food, but have recently rediscovered movie-theater popcorn, which is much better than I remember it being!  Then recently I was in a bulk-foods store and saw some people buying popcorn kernels.  After getting over my wonder at the fact that they weren't just making microwave popcorn, I went over to the popcorn bin to check it out, where I learned that you can make popcorn on the stove in a pot -- it doesn't require a microwave or an air popper!  I promptly forgot about it, but recently wanted a snack and found myself in front of the popcorn bins at the food co-op.  There were three colors of kernels -- red, yellow, and white.  I chose the red, mostly out of curiosity about what they would look like when popped.  By the time I got them home, I wasn't feeling snacky anymore, so I left them on the counter.  Later, when I mentioned to David that I was planning to make popcorn, he said, "so THAT'S what the kernels were for" -- apparently he thought they were part of some craft project.  I did finally get around to popping some the other day and was amazed at how fun and easy it was.  I used a pot with a glass lid, so I could actually see the corn flying around and exploding inside.  I was a bit bummed that the popcorn turned out white, despite the color of the kernels, but they still had that red kernel part inside, which made the outside seem extra-bright.  And with a bit of salt the popcorn was delicious.

If you want to pop some corn too, here's what I did (thank you, Mark Bittman!):

1. Heat oil (anything that can withstand high heat -- I used peanut) and three popcorn kernels in a large pot covered with a lid over high heat (the amount of oil will depend on the amount of popcorn -- about 1/3 of a cup of oil for 1 cup of popcorn or 1teaspoon of oil with 2 tablespoons of popcorn for a single serving).

2. When the three kernels pop, add the rest of the popcorn (about 2 tablespoons per person), cover, and shake the pot while holding the cover on.  Continue to cook, covered and shaking occasionally, until the popcorn stops.

3. Season with salt, butter, or whatever.  I think smoked paprika would also be pretty good, though I haven't tried it yet.

Popcorn is one of those things that is hard to object to, unless you are allergic to corn, on Atkins, or anorexic.  It is a whole grain and vegan if you don't butter it.  I once read an article about dating in nursing homes that compared sex among the elderly to popcorn -- no real health benefits but not bad for you, either.

ABC

I really seem to have run out of things to say, so today I'm posting this meme that my friend Sue tagged me with on Facebook:

A - Age: 29 for another week!

B - Breakfast today: millet with carrot, raisins, almond milk and flax meal

C - Chore you like/dislike: like - cooking; dislike - everything else, especially anything involving cleaning products.

D - Dog's name: I have never had a dog

E - Essential start your day item: hot tea -- green this week

F - Favorite color: it always was green, but now I like purple and orange a lot too

G - Gold or Silver: platinum

H - Height: 5'3"

I - Instruments you play: currently, none; previously, flute, piccolo (though that really shouldn't count as a separate instrument), tuba, viola

J - Job title: Research Area Specialist, Associate

K - Kid(s): none

L - Living arrangements: with my husband in a 1920s Sears Craftsman bungalow

M - Mom's name: Karen

N - Nicknames: people I like are allowed to call me Em; I've also been called Elimy

O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: two nights recovering from emergency surgery to treat an infection caused by wisdom tooth removal -- they had to cut my neck open to drain it!

P - Pet Peeve: when people use adjectives instead of adverbs or transitive verbs instead of intransitive.

Q - Quote: I try not to

R - Right or left handed: right

S - Siblings: it depends how you count -- I'm an only child; I have two half sisters; I have up to four step sisters (one of whom I have not yet met); I used to have a step brother but only met him a couple of times

T - Time you wake up: the alarm goes off at 6:15 and I'm usually out of bed by 6:40, but I'm often not really AWAKE until 9 or ten

U- Underwear: during most of my waking hours

V - Vegetable you dislike: I used to hate them all, now I can't think of one I don't like

W - Ways you relax: what's that?

X - X-rays you've had: teeth; wrists, arms, and ankles (nothing ever broken there); chest (broken ribs)

Y - Yummy food you make: it's all yummy, but my most recent hits have been cabbage gratin and moussaka

Z - Zoo favorite: elephants for sure.

Healthy Snacks?

Yesterday at lunchtime, my friend Elizabeth and I went to a presentation about how the cost of our benefits will increase over the next two years, which was pretty depressing.  Actually, the depressing part wasn't really the change, which will amount to about $100 a year unless I get a raise, but realizing that if David and I ever have children, it will cost about $1,200 a year to get health insurance for them.  But that isn't the point of today's post.  Advertisements for the event indicated that "healthy snacks" would be served.  Fearing that "healthy snacks" would be carrot sticks (I prefer my veggies cooked), I brought my own lunch of leftover broccoli-pasta-peanut salad and. When I arrived, I was super-glad to have brought my own lunch because "healthy snacks" turned out to be baked chips and Snackwell cookies, neither of which has actually been considered healthy since the demise of the 1980s low-fat craze.  I don't have anything against chips or cookies, per se, but they are most certainly NOT healthy and if I'm going to eat something not healthy, I at least want it to taste good!

Why I Don't Sew (Very Often)

This is hilarious.  For me, though, most of these things happen pretty much every time I sew, and I haven't even tried doing it at 2am.

Wishes Do Come True (Almost)

Last weekend my ex-boyfriend and still good friend Erik came to Ann Arbor to interview for a medical fellowship and had a bit of extra time to join David and me for dinner on Saturday night. Afterwards we found ourselves at Stucchi's, discussing the laws of thermodynamics (you know, because ice cream is cold -- or is it just very not hot?). We couldn't quite remember what they were, but we were pretty sure there were two laws, with the first being that energy can't be created or destroyed, and the second being that entropy can only increase (as a kid I always used that one to explain to my mom why I couldn't clean my room). By the time we got to that point, however, we were pretty embarrassed about how many people might have heard us puzzling through it, and David began to wish that he could overhear some physicists talking about how to use a semicolon.

The very next day, David and I found ourselves at Sweetwaters next to a couple if jocks on a study date (each had run upwards of thirteen miles that morning and they began by comparing their times). Then the woman asked the man what he was working on. When answered, she replied, "you're working in something way more important than me. Or is it I?" The guy was pretty sure it was "me," but they discussed it for quite a while before finally looking it up and finding that he was wrong. That is, unless what she meant is "what you're working in is way more important than working on me," which he was obviously doing as well.

I managed to kick David under the table and we had a pretty good laugh over it after the jocks left. Unfortunately, Erik wasn't there to overhear, but he really was working in something more important -- proposing to his girlfriend back in LA! Congratulations to Erik and Kelli!