I'm not sure how I got to rhubarb here, but I'm sure it's important.

[mrissa]

I am sicker today. This is not much fun. It can stop any time now. Non-fun things include: talking, eating, lying down, attempting to smell things, and moving around much. Coincidentally, those are key components in several of my favorite things. Sigh.

I am very glad to be in that part of novel revisions where I can type in changes on the order of fixing tyops and infelicitous word choices and actually get stuff done while the Sick Gnomes dance on my brain. But I can also leave the larger revision bits for until after the Sick Gnomes have finished their cotillion.

I'm not sure why I find the word "cotillion" so silly. It's like the ether that way. Every joke is funnier if it includes the ether. I learned that in my physics major. Just plain old ether won't do; that's for chemist jokes, I suppose.

I got e-mail offering me, "Crazy for presents!" I like books for presents better. Giving crazy for presents around here is like giving zucchini in high summer: everyone's already got more of their own than they know what to do with, and the ones who don't were deliberately trying to avoid it, or they would have planted it themselves.

Although it's not like zucchini in that I don't get mad if someone mixes crazy into a chocolate cake without telling me. Zucchini is not a default ingredient to chocolate cake, people! I think there needs to be a biohazard symbol specifically for zucchini, so them as wants it can eat it and the rest of us will not take a piece of cake to be polite only to find that it has been zucchinified without our knowledge.

That's why rhubarb is better than zucchini: nobody tries to sneak rhubarb into things and not tell you. They don't say, "Here's some chocolate cake -- ha ha, with rhubarb! Fooled you!" No. They say, "Here is some strawberry rhubarb pie." Or, "Here are some orange rhubarb pecan muffins." Or, "Would you like some rhubarb meringue?" Rhubarb is like Sacramento: it just can't sneak up on you.

Right. I think I am banned from similes for the rest of this illness.

Comments

[crimini.livejournal.com]

Rhubarb is like Sacramento: it just can't sneak up on you.

Truer words have never been spoken. ;)

[clarentine]

Rhubarb is like Sacramento: it just can't sneak up on you.

::grins:: You're much more entertaining when sick than I am.

[poeticalpanther.livejournal.com]

Rhubarb is like Sacramento: it just can't sneak up on you.

Is it your experience that many cities can?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hills. Hills are extremely helpful for camouflaging the extent of a city. You can ease into the suburbs and sort of not realize it until it's been ten minutes since you saw the farm supply store and you're surrounded by subdevelopments. But with Sacramento, splat, there it is, right in the middle of the plain.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you think so!

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

No, please don't ban the similes. Do,however, get well. *sends wellness your way*

[sethb.livejournal.com]

Some cities can grow on you. Does that count?

(LA especially, if you don't bathe often enough.)

[redbird]

Ah. Someone told me New York had snuck up on them once. They'd come down the highway from Westchester, with trees on one side and the river on the other, and took their exit, and suddenly City! City as in the middle of built-up residential Manhattan.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

It's not unlike that on the train from Montreal. You don't get much warning.

Unlike Toronto. Toronto is a city that doesn't know where to stop.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Conversely, one could argue that Toronto is stealthily camouflaged in all those damn suburbs that keep showing up. *g*

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

I had a mall sneak up on me once. Immediately after I said, "See, there could be a mall right around the corner, and I couldn't tell." And then there was. All smug and mall-like.

My brain is trying to make this fit somehow with how 84th Street liked me better than any of you, but I don't think it's working. So, instead: remember how 84th Streed liked me better than anyone else? Yah, good times. And then I found five bucks.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, you and 84th St. shared something really special for awhile there.

I recently had reason to refer to the causes of Michael and Jackie each being banned from choosing the movie for the group unaided. Ahh, "Road to Wellville": still the most farting and jiggling of any movie I've ever seen. And long may it hold the record.

[redbird]

Very much like. That highway into New York runs very close to the train line (though they take separate bridges).

And yes, Montreal comes on as a discrete thing when I take the train from the south.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

Also, no one leaves anonymous rhubarb on one's desk at work because they cannot get rid of all the rhubarb in their garden.

Seriously, there is a time of year in this part of the country where you can't turn your back without people leaving anonymous zucchini on your desk as though you will APPRECIATE it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If they really thought you'd appreciate it, wouldn't they leave a note?

For those of us without day jobs, it's the front step. Although we haven't had that here -- probably our stairs are too much disincentive. Go stairs.

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

Do you dislike zucchini in all forms, or just sneak-up-on-you zucchini? I've started putting z&green onions with the cheddar in scrambled eggs, & it makes a major difference in our health. (Improved!)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am not opposed to zucchini in all forms, but neither am I a fan. I find that it requires a great deal of spice to be interesting to eat. I would rather have some other green veg on the side with scrambled eggs (which we eat rather rarely) than mix zucchini in.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

That one was Michael, right, or was it both of them?

I'm proud to say that I haven't thought of that movie in a long, long time.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Alas, that one was Jackie. Michael's was "Mixed Nuts," mildly lame but not horrific -- but he'd seen it before he had us all go, and he swore it was funny, and meh. Meh! Meh, I say!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I have a recipe for a really good courgette (sorry, I can't say zucchini this side of the Atlantic, something dreadful would come down the chimney) and manchego tortilla - much the same principle, I guess. Eggs, cheese and, uh, long green things...

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

Ooh, sounds yum! Breakfast, or dinner vegetable concoction? Hmm, you did say tortilla. Rephrase: at which meal do you eat it?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Lunch for me. This is a version of the Spanish tortilla, rather than the Mexican tortilla.

Slice a couple of pounds of courgettes, to the thickness of a pound coin (or a silver dollar, perhaps, in the US? If you still have 'em? I have one, that I carry everywhere with me). Heat olive oil in a good frying pan that won't stick, and heap in the courgettes. There should be so many that they're quite difficult to handle in the pan, they keep spilling over the edges when you stir; they will cook down somewhat, but your tortilla does also need to be thick.

Stir occasionally, till they're all fried and yummy. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, beat a couple of eggs with four ounces of Manchego cheese cut into small-small cubes. Add salt and pepper.

Stir the cooked courgettes into the egg-and-cheese mixture, mix thoroughly. Put a little more oil into the pan, and pour the mixture back in.

Set it on a medium heat and let it cook without disturbance, until the bottom and sides of the eggy mixture are goooolden brown. Then slide it out onto a plate, invert it onto another plate and slide it back into the pan so that the uncooked top side is now underneath. Cook that for a couple of minutes, till it too is nicely coloured, and the tortilla is done. Eat it hot (my own heretical preference), warm or at room temperature, but never chilled. Enjoy.

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

That's how I make scrambled eggs!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Coo. Really? See, to me scrambled eggs are much softer in texture than this kind of firm omelette, and I make 'em by constant stirring over a very low heat. Which is almost totally different...

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

Yes, they aren't really merely scrambled eggs. But it is a good way to get vegetables inside Mom.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ah, right. You do what you gotta do. And if it tastes good on the way, hey, that's a bonus...