Bumblebee K-Pop Fries Dupe

 I was down with a bad cold for five days--fever on Day 3, but it was a small one and only lasted a day--and my worst symptoms were a seriously stuffy head and lots of coughing and sneezing. I sound like a croaky toad when I talk, as well. I could sing bass in the choir right now if I could sing at all. I'm still a little stuffy and I have a lingering cough, but I could tell when I turned the corner and started feeling my energy return.

I was back to work today after missing all of last week. If there were moments that I worried that my faculty would figure out they could do just fine without me and I'd be out of a job, those worries were laid to rest as soon as I walked in the door this morning. Each of the faculty members immediately told me how much they'd missed me and how relieved they were that I was back to take care of the things that I take care of. I spent the day attempting to unravel the chaos that had ensued while I wasn't there, and I'm happy to report that I've made serious inroads into restoring order and sense.

Husband has now succumbed to The Crud (is it Omicron? a flu? a cold? Who cares? Neither of us were required to get tested, and since getting tested just opens up a can of worms, we both decided to just stay home until we got better) and is on Day 3. He is also stuffy-headed and coughing, but no fever so far. Little Gary got sick when I did, and he had quite a fever, but he bounced back far more quickly than I did and now has only the smallest of lingering coughs.

To make Husband happy, I made my version of Bumblebee's K-Pop fries last night. 

Bumblebee is a Korean-American fusion fast food restaurant. It was started in Utah, and I believe it still only has locations in Utah (only three locations, I think), but it's seriously yummy. Our favorite dish is the K-Pop fries, which are seasoned fries smothered in bulgogi beef shreds, cheese, and sliced green onions and then covered in fry sauce (a Utah invention that, once you've had it, means you can never go back to mere ketchup) and eel sauce. 

My Version of Bumblebee K-Pop Fries:

Yield: 4 servings

2 pounds ground beef or thinly sliced beef steak

1 bag frozen seasoned french fries 

2 or 3 green onions, green parts sliced (save white parts for another use)

Shredded cheddar cheese

Fry sauce (homemade recipe below, or buy a commercial fry sauce such as Some Dude's Fry Sauce or Heinz's Mayochup Saucy Sauce)

Eel sauce (optional. You can find this at Asian grocery stores. It doesn't actually have any eels in it.)

Bulgogi marinade:

1/2 cup soy sauce

4 Tbsp brown sugar

4 tsp sesame oil

6 cloves garlic, minced 

2 tsp powdered ginger

1/2 - 1 tsp red pepper flakes, depending on how spicy you like it

1. If using ground beef, brown beef in a skillet until no longer pink. Drain fat. While the beef is cooking, mix the marinade ingredients in a separate bowl and pour over the beef when it is done, mixing it well into the beef. Lower heat to med-low and allow beef mixture to simmer while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. Skip to Step 3.

2. If using sliced steak, marinate the beef in the bulgogi marinade for at least an hour, though overnight is better. Brown beef on the stove or under the broiler, slice into bite-sized pieces, and keep warm until ready to serve.

3. Cook frozen seasoned fries according to package directions. When fries are done, divide them among four plates. Spread 1/2 cup or so of the meat over each mound of fries, top with shredded cheese, sprinkle with green onions, and then squirt fry sauce and eel sauce generously over the top. Serve piping hot (if you are using oven-safe plates, you can slide them under the broiler for a minute to melt the cheese).

Basic Fry Sauce

1 cup mayonnaise

1 cup ketchup

2 Tbsp pickle brine from the pickle jar (or more, to taste, and to get a squirtable consistency)

Salt and pepper, to taste

1. Mix all ingredients thoroughly and then spoon into a squirt bottle. Generously squirt the fry sauce over the fries in a criss-cross fashion, first going horizontally and then vertically. 

I Suddenly Feel Old

 I work with guys, a couple of them young enough to be my sons. This fact was once again brought to my attention last week.

After the students had mostly left the building at the end of the day on Thursday, Skyler was in my office telling me a story from his life. Tanner came in, grabbed my Sharpie marker, and said, "Dude, if you let me throw this at your back as hard as I can, I'll let you do it to me," and both of them immediately ran out of my office into the hall. I heard the thwack of Sharpie against dress shirt and flesh, a laughing exclamation of pain, and then the same thing again. Then I heard them decide to repeat the experiment.

Thwack. Laughter. Thwack. Laughter.

In explanation, Tanner stated that he just needed to wake up so he could focus on the work he had to do for the next few hours. I guess that's one way to shake off the sleepies, though it's not an idea that would have occurred to me--but I am not a guy in my mid-to-late-twenties.

 

We Survived Christmas

 We had an eventful Christmas, and I'm not even listing all the things that happened. I'm sure they'll come up later, as some of the events are having long-lasting consequences.

For one thing, Elannah came home early from her mission the Monday before Christmas. It was the right thing for her, as she had been struggling terribly with depression. She learned so much and was even able to teach and baptize a family in the short time she was in Nashville, but her mental health was going south so fast that I was getting really worried. Long story short (and there's quite a bit to that story), she made the decision to come home, and she made the right decision. I selfishly love having her home again, and now she's being a missionary to her sister, Sophia, and brother, Joseph. Her mental health has greatly improved.

And no, if you were wondering, there are no wedding bells ringing yet. As I keep telling her when she worries about not yet being ready to get married while her boyfriend is, she's only twenty! Don't take the plunge until you're sure, girl, and you've got plenty of time!

Another thing that happened was the prolonged attempt by my in-laws to get home to Indiana. It took them three days because of the constant flight delays and cancellations, and I will spare you all the exhausting, horrible details, but they finally made it home. Their dogs and cats were ecstatic. I'm sure the neighbor who had been taking care of the animals was also relieved, though she has been an angel to care for them for so long.

MIL has suffered through so many ups and downs with this cancer. She received good news that her live cancer cell count has dropped very significantly, so there's a great deal of hope. She also survived the long, horrible trip home, and that, I think, will give her more faith in her inner strength, though she has no intentions of traveling for a very long time.

We didn't get together to celebrate Christmas as a family until Boxing Day (Dec. 26th), but we had a lot of fun together. I made the traditional British roast dinner for Husband's sake, my mother brought the red jello salad that has been a staple holiday food since I was a baby, the kids all played games together and laughed loudly, and I got to hug my grandson frequently. 

Sian has now beaten her pregnancy record by remaining pregnant this long. Tyler came very early because of severe preeclampsia, and she suffered a couple miscarriages before this pregnancy, but she's had no problems with this pregnancy, and the baby is growing perfectly. She's exhausted and feels like a cow right now, but we are all very grateful for an uneventful pregnancy. I get to meet my new grandson in February, all going well.

Husband bought a rain shower shower head with his Christmas money. I love it. I live in the shower now.

I'm keeping this rather brief because I'm exhausted and want to go to sleep. I've started eating low carb/high fat again, and I'm still suffering a little of the "keto flu," though that has improved dramatically in the last twenty-four hours. I'm six pounds down in two days, though that is all water weight. We'll see how I need to adjust things as I go on. Be patient: I'm sure I'll bore you with details in the very near future.

Okay. I'm showered, blissfully tired, and going to bed now. Good night.

Showing Off Just a Little

 I could be really stressed right now, but I'm not. For some reason, I have developed the ability to look at all my responsibilities, break them down into small chunks of action, tick them off one by one, and move forward on a fairly even emotional keel. 

This welcome zen mentality might be attributable to the fact that my hormones are a little more stabilized. After a couple weeks, the evening primrose oil capsules I started taking knocked out all of the hot flashes entirely; where I was once suffering between fifteen and twenty intense hot flashes in a twenty-four hour period, I now cannot remember the last time I had one. I can once more enjoy hotter-than-the-surface-of-the-sun showers, I'm not cycling between pulling on and tossing off the blankets all night, and I haven't needed to whip out my little battery-operated portable fan to cool my sweating face in a very long time. While I wasn't having uncontrollable mood swings before (thank goodness I have at least been spared that peri-menopausal indignity!), I was almost always quietly floundering under a certain sense of doom and overwhelm. To now feel like I have the ability to handle just about anything thrown at me feels really, really good. It wasn't until I realized how calm I feel now that I realized how internally frantic I had felt only just recently.

At work, things are lovely--but they always have been. I love my job and the people I work with, but perhaps my newfound peace has helped me be more myself. I'm a little looser, a little more playful, a little less formal. I have stopped worrying about their perceptions of me while I continue to treat them with kindness and sisterly familiarity. I feel like I've finally stepped fully into the bond that the faculty share. Something has gelled in that arena that wasn't gelled before, even if we all got along just fine since the beginning. I can make them laugh now, and I am only ever funny when I am completely comfortable in my environment. I make Kim laugh so hard that he tells me I should be a standup comedian. Don't worry, I know my limits, and making a sociable, fun-loving guy from my generation laugh doesn't mean I'm the next Shayne Smith. It's just nice to feel so comfortable. I've even made the Millenials with their Millenial brand of humor, Skyler and Tanner, laugh a few times, which is a true accomplishment. 

The students are also more comfortable with me. Many of them make a special effort to come and speak to me or just say hello or good-bye. Some of them ask me for advice and actually listen to me. 

But now I'm just showing off, as my husband says.

Work is one thing. My duties at work are always neatly resolved, and I don't live with any of my co-workers or the students, which would make things more complicated. Work is tidy. Work is solvable. Everything else in life, however, isn't always neatly resolved and tucked away in a binder or file.

For example, my mother-in-law gets her second chemo treatment on Monday. She was suffering from unrelieved agonizing pain and extreme nausea, which I think even the strongest person would find demoralizing. She was in so much agony that she was ready to be done with it all and was on the verge of calling in end-of-life hospice care just to get the strongest pain relief possible, consequences be damned. Fortunately, her doctor was willing to try something experimental and injected cortisone into the schwannoma that has been growing in her spinal nerve sheath. 

A schwannoma is a benign tumor that grows in nerve sheaths, and the pain this tumor created earlier this year was what originally spurred MIL to keep going to doctors until they found and diagnosed her with the schannoma and then the metastasizing ovarian cancer, which, without the pain she was experiencing, might have been overlooked entirely until it was too late. The cortisone shots stopped the pain, hallelujah! MIL is still feeling extremely nauseated, and there is nothing they have found that can stop that, and she is also depressed and tired, but she isn't as fatalistic as she was before. Hopefully, the chemo shrinks the tumors, which will then be removed in surgery, followed by a few more rounds of chemo to finish off the smaller tumors. 

MIL and FIL have airplane tickets back home to Indiana on December 30, after which she will continue with treatment in the comfort of her own home because her health insurance will then be in Indiana. She will be so happy to see her dogs and cats again.

In other messy news, my parents, both fully vaccinated, are currently in quarantine because they tested positive for Covid. Fortunately, they haven't been very ill even though they are in their 70s. They haven't felt well, and they're very tired, but they haven't been dangerously sick, for which I am very grateful. 

Happy news: Sian is into her third trimester of pregnancy with my new little GRANDSON! Did I mention that she's pregnant with a boy? She's tired and slightly nauseated, but the baby is growing perfectly and Sian has had no symptoms of preeclampsia. We all hope that she will be able to take this little guy home with her from the hospital with no NICU stays. 

Speaking of preemies, my grandson, Tyler, is three and amazing. Of course he is! He's his mamma's and daddy's boy, and they are both brilliant. Tyler is articulate, kind, has a wonderful imagination, and knows all of his letters--both uppercase and lowercase. Most importantly of all, he loves his Nanna and always runs to give me hugs when I see him. 

Sian's husband, Nathan, is graduating with his bachelors in Computer Science next week and will begin his new job at Goldman Sachs right after graduation. Sian and Nathan moved out of the married student housing at the university and found a wonderful three-bedroom town home a little closer to The Big City. Sian is enjoying having a real kitchen (counter space! cupboards! a pantry!) and Tyler is enjoying having his own room with a big boy bed and playing in the little yard. Nathan is taking very good care of his pregnant wife while studying for his finals next week.

I'm not ignoring my other children or the long list of crazy stuff that has happened recently, but this post is long enough. My other children are doing well, however, and are having their own little successes in life. I will talk more of them next time.

For now, this cool cat is signing out.

Mortality

 As a commenter on a YouTube video put it, "It's starting to get a little weird. For the first time in history, a medicine's ineffectiveness is being blamed on those who refuse to take it."

Things are weird. But the weirdness of things is not what I want to say today. Today I want to talk about my mother-in-law.

As you know, my in-laws recently moved from just down the street from us here in our burg all the way to Indiana. While it was an excellent financial move for them, that wasn't why they did it. They picked up and moved from a place they loved because they both one day felt very strongly that the Lord was telling them to do so. The urgency was surprising, and they didn't know why they had to move, and the entire move was horrendous because it was done in such a short span of time with so much uncertainty. In the end, however, everything worked out, and they have a lovely home in Indiana near two of their other sons and their families. The fact that it was so good for them financially was interesting and welcome, but it wasn't the reason they moved.

A few weeks ago, MIL and FIL flew back to Utah (because their health insurance is still here) to go to some follow-up medical appointments for MIL, who had been experiencing a great deal of pain in her abdomen, a pain for which the doctors had not yet been able to diagnose the reason. A scan showed some masses in her abdominal cavity, but she ended up in the ER twice because of the agony she was enduring before she was finally diagnosed with cancer--presumably ovarian. 

Long story short, surgery revealed two massive tumors that, because of the amount of blood supplying them, were too dangerous to be removed. Instead, she started chemo last Monday in the hopes of shrinking the tumors and their blood supply so they could be safely removed. The pain has been excruciating and relentless, however, and MIL ended up in the ER again last night because of it. After another scan was taken, it appears that the two large tumors (unshrunken from chemo) have been joined by almost numberless new little tumors everywhere. The tumors--especially the large ones--are causing the pain. She's absolutely riddled with cancer. Even if the chemo shrinks the large tumors so they can be removed, the smaller tumors will grow and cause more pain in the near future.

MIL and FIL are not staying with us. One of my brothers-in-law's mother-in-law offered her empty, fully furnished four-bedroom ranch-style home (located near Salt Lake City and the cancer hospitals) for them to live in so they could isolate after chemo and so MIL didn't have to negotiate the stairs at our house. It's just one of the Lord's many tender mercies during this time, as that house was also available for my four BILs and one SIL, who all flew in from Indiana and England to be with their parents at this time. While they stayed for a couple weeks and spent every day with their mother at the hospital, they all finally had to go home and take care of their own families.

Husband just got off the phone with his mother, and it was a hard conversation. MIL wants to go. She is in so much pain, with only more pain to look forward to. The chemo treatments are three weeks apart, and she has two more to go before the surgery is scheduled for the two largest tumors to be removed. That's another eight weeks of this agony (two more weeks before the next chemo infusion, and three more weeks each before and after the third infusion). She is certain she can't last that long in such excruciating pain, and if she doesn't want to stay, I don't think she will live much longer, which may be the biggest blessing for her. 

There have been many sweet experiences amongst the hardships of this. These things just emphasize to me that the Lord is aware and involved in everything that happens in our lives, if we want Him to be, even if He does not always remove the trials. If we want Him with us, He will be. He holds us in His hands as we go through our trials. He gives us the strength to get through so we can learn everything that I firmly believed we wanted to learn in mortality. During a blessing that one of my brothers-in-law gave MIL, she learned that her beloved father is near her now.

MIL is in the Lord's hands. It would be a mercy if she could go quickly, if that's what is meant to be. Her children are talking to each other on Zoom and have agreed that they will support their mother in whatever she wants to do. One of my brothers-in-law is a doctor in Indiana, and he has been MIL's advocate this whole time. He's furious that MIL was allowed to leave the ER this last time with the level of pain that she is suffering and is determined to find out how the ball was dropped on her pain management.

More to come. Sigh. Mortality isn't easy. Things are weird. 

Rant from an Increasingly Invisible Woman

 My daughter, Elannah, was successfully installed over a week ago at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. As Sister Aurora, she is doing very, very well. She loves the MTC and her mission companion, who will also be going to the Nashville Mission, but she is very excited about getting out of the MTC this coming Wednesday into her mission, as well.

Sister Aurora (on the right) and her mission companion from Arizona on one of the walkways at the Missionary Training Center.

Meanwhile:

Me: minding my own business or innocently sleeping

Brain: "Okay, everyone, that's the signal! Heat the furnace to surface-of-the-sun temps and open the sweat gland spigots! Go, go, go!"

Me: "What? No! There was no signal! No signal! Turn if off!"

Brain: "You heard her! That's the signal! Crank up the heat!"

Hot flashes. Multiple times a day. 

I can feel my internal furnace suddenly kick on right before I'm completely drenched in perspiration, and for at least two minutes, I feel like I'm standing in hell. If I'm at home, I start frantically removing clothing or bedding. If I'm at work, I do what I can without exposing the faculty or students to an indecent display. I would rather dress as if it's the middle of summer and endure being chilly between hot flashes than exacerbate the problem with warmer clothing. Day or night, however, I'm uncomfortable most of the time.  

Before I got Covid, I had my hot flashes pretty tamed and was only getting one maybe once every two weeks, if that. Since having contracted and recovered from Covid, I am getting them ten to fifteen times a day. It's killing me! While I have managed to overcome the lingering Covid cough, the hot flashes continue mostly unabated, and I don't know what to do. I'm taking evening primrose oil, ashwaganda root, and maca root powder, and I'm still not seeing much relief. I think I can safely conclude that something about having Covid or being around newly vaccinated, spike-protein-shedding people at work and in the community has thrown off my hormonal balance even more severely than it was before; hopefully, long-term ingestion of these adaptogen, hormone-balancing supplements and foods (maca root is a food, not an herb) will help over time. 

I was just reading about how some doctors have seen major success in mitigating vaccine-induced spike protein red blood cell damage with the use of high-dose vitamin C, so maybe I'll start taking vitamin C doses to bowel tolerance again. A few years ago, I did an experiment on myself with vitamin C dosages three times a day to bowel tolerance, so I know what that level is now.

I went to see a gynecologist a while ago, and he was absolutely no help. I didn't want a male OB/GYN, but I had to take what I could get because the clinic was booked out for months for their female gynos. Predictably, he listened to my list of concerns and then told me that all of what I listed was natural for women of my age. Yes, I know that, but I was hoping for some guidance on mitigating these symptoms, not a condescending brush-off about just living with symptoms for which he will never have personal experience! Instead, he spent the majority of our very short visit lecturing me on getting Covid jabs before prescribing a few tests I requested, all of which came back normal (as usual) except for the finding that my vitamin D levels are exceedingly low (and I only figured that out because I got into my patient portal and looked at my vitamin D blood test and CBC results and went online to get some help interpreting each of the results. The clinic told me everything was normal and didn't even mention the vitamin D levels!). From the way he treated me once he learned I had not had the Covid jabs, I understood he did not care to have me return. I have so little faith in western medicine when it comes to women's health issues. When you are a middle-aged, overweight woman, it's hard to get anyone--including healthcare professionals--to see you as a person at all. You become invisible, to a certain extent. It's sad when I can get better health guidance from credible doctors on YouTube than I can from going in-person to a professional. 

Anyway, I've added vitamin D drops to my daily regimen. I have to be careful, however, with all my supplements. A new, fun thing I'm experiencing when I take supplements is that I get the sensation of needing to urinate almost all the time even when I don't have a full bladder. I've had to cut everything except the hormone-balancing supplements back to nearly zero in order to not feel like I need to rush to the bathroom every minute of the day. 

I'm confused about all of this, and I'm very disappointed in western medicine, but I'm not actually depressed or anything. Nor do I suffer from horrific pre-menopausal mood swings, thank goodness! I'm just irritated and uncomfortable. I've had to change my habits considerably in order to deal with so many hot flashes, but I'm fortunate that I don't have serious health problems that really keep me from doing what I enjoy doing. So, while the above is a rant, it is not sign that I am in despair. Just in case you were worried.

This stuff is delicious! I bought a cheap little coffee maker just to make this drink, which has no coffee or tea in it. It's a mix of ground chaga mushroom and ashwagandha root, and with a little cream, it's a lovely morning beverage. The lady at the health store in town has been using this to end her coffee addiction. Coffee has never been my problem, but I very much enjoy a mug of this in the morning.

First World Problems

 A couple days ago, I was craving the chocolate cake from the movie Mathilda. 

If you've seen that movie, you know exactly what I mean.

So, because none of the grocery store options appealed to me, I made a moist, dense three-layer chocolate cake covered in chocolate cream cheese frosting--all from scratch. When I finally got it all assembled and frosted, it was so tall that I couldn't put the glass lid back on the cake stand. 

I keep forgetting that I only have two kids left at home now that Elannah went into the MTC this past week. It's too much cake. I doubt we'll be able to finish it off before it goes bad, which would not have been an issue five or six years ago. I'm not sure if I'm complaining or what. Who complains about too much chocolate cake?