my grey thumb

I have found out over the last few years that I did not inherit my mom's green thumb, but when my sister got me a Shitake mushroom growing kit for Christmas, I found out I had a grey one.

Day 1





























Day 5















Day 9 - Harvest Time!

my first polish food experience and my crazy family

My sister and brother-in-law were in town last weekend. (YYAAAAYYY!!!!) Me, Tim, my sister Bob, my bro-in-law Bill, and my mom and dad all went to Anna's Polish Restaurant. This by the way was Tim's first time meeting any of them and my first time eating Polish food. I mean, I've had Pierogies before but that's it.

He won't admit it but I think Tim was slightly nervous before we got there but I think it took all of about 10 or so minutes before he felt comfortable. My family's cool. Did I just say that?

My sister got the Polish Trio Appetizer for us to share. It had two potato and cheese Pierogies, two potato pancakes, and a Polish Snausage. All of it was delicious. Now, I'm used to Jewish potato pancakes which are shredded potatoes then formed and fried but THESE potato pancakes were different. They looked exactly like breakfast pancakes but when you cut into them you could definitely tell they were made of potatoes. The outside was crispy and the inside was soft and mashed potato-like. They were pretty damn amazing. My mom got the White Borsch soup. It is made from fermented rye flour with smoked sausage and egg. It tasted awesome and the texture was heavenly.

I had a couple Polish beers called Warka. It's like an amberish beer. They were pretty good.

I got the Stuffed Cabbage appetizer as my entree. It was no shit the size of a yule log. I think Tim got the Goulash. I don't know man, it gets pretty foggy after this point. All I know is the food kept coming, the beer kept coming, and I almost made a dumpling come out of my sister's nose. Oh! I do remember the desert. Probably because of all the sugar. It was Anna's Walnut Delight. The females dug into it like a pack of ravenous wolves, as Bill put it. At the end of the night, Anna herself came to our table to ask us how everything was and if we needed anything. She is awesome! And for real, Polish. Her accent is so thick you kind of have to strain to understand her.

Somehow I, with the help of Tim and my sister, but mostly me, convinced my dad to go to World of Beer. You don't understand. My dad never goes out these days. Maybe out to dinner with my mom, but definitely not a bar. This was the first time I had been to a bar with my dad since I was like 7. That didn't sound right. But yes, he used to take me to The Eagles Club and Pinar Pub with him when I was little. He would drink beer and I would sit there and eat white cheddar popcorn.

At World of Beer we had a great time. My mom was bobbin her head to The Stones and my dad was, as usual, not part of the conversation but drinking beer and watching football. My sister told me the next day when we went to Bananas that he totally stumbled to the bedroom. The apple does not fall far from the tree.

By the way, the picture here of my dad with the finger, is an entirely different blog post all together.

Me, Bob, Bill, and Tim went to Bananas on Sunday for the Drag Queen Gospel Brunch. It was good to experience once, but I don't think I'll be doing that again. It was entertaining but far too loud. It was absolutely worth it though to see Cher shove Tim's face in her.......his.......it's breasts. And honestly, this was the first time in Bananas history that I was disappointed with the food. It just didn't have the wow factor this time. I'll still be back though. They have five different kinds of Eggs B for Christ's sake.

Why does my purse smell like beef and ketchup?!

If my New Years weekend of 2011 is at all telling of the year to come, I think it's going to be a good one.

One of the doctors let me go an hour early on New Years eve, which was pretty awesome. She knows any sort of holiday that revolves around hanging out with friends, drinking, and going out, is probably pretty important to me.

Me and my boyfriend, Tim started our night off at Cityfish, a cute, hip, laid back seafood joint. By the way that was just my first online acknowledgement of my relationship.

Anywho, we walked to City, and Rob, my favoritest bartender there, and anywhere for that matter, let me in on a little secret of his. His Cucumber Martini. It is my new favorite. Not only because it tastes amazing, but because it's a multi-purpose beverage. I can drink it with brunch or dinner. I think it just might replace the Bloody Mary for me.

Then we went to Lizzy's (my favorite Irish bar) for one drink then went to Sky60 for some house and more drinking. We did the countdown with a hundred or so people we don't know and a few we did, kissed at midnight, then had a couple more drinks.

We left downtown around 1 a.m. I got a hotdog at a hotdog stand, ate half of it and put the other half in my purse.

The plan was to take a cab home but apparently I was too impatient to wait for one so I insisted on walking home. Yes, my drunk ass walked home. Tim stayed a few feet behind me because from what he tells me I was being quite thee asshole. Me? No way.

We both fell asleep on the couch upright and woke up a few hours later like WTF? We both went to bed and of course when I woke up I apologized for my behavior and gave him lots of kisses.

Sorry Tim.

Saturday when I woke up I was not hungover at all. I think that was due to the hotdog and the walk. Then I went in my purse for something (probably to check all my receipts to see how much money i spent) and found the other half of the hotdog. GROSS! There was ketchup and grease all over the inside.
We laid around for a while then went to Papa John's for a pizza and 7/11 for some beer. The Hawaiian Volcano is pretty darn good might I add. It's a Hawaiian pizza with jalapenos on it. Nom nom. We then proceeded to watch college football. Gators won. It was a great afternoon.

My best friend for almost 20 years now, Megan, was in town that weekend from St. Augustine. We met her, her girlfriend, and two of their friends at Bonefish for dinner. Bonefish was not impressive. We went to World of Beer afterwards and drank a few awesome craft brews. Megan exchanged embarrassing stories about me when i was a kid with Tim. We all laughed and had an awesome time. There's something kind of important about the best friend meeting, and approving of the boyfriend. She not only approved, but told me that she would not be wearing a dress to my wedding. Whatever.
By the way. The food truck that was outside as we were leaving was way better than Bonefish.

Sunday the Steelers were playing.....along with the Dolphins and the Saints. We went to Smoky Bones and I got to wear my super cute jersey that i got for Christmas from Tim. We drank beer and ate food. Steelers won. It was a good afternoon.

It was a great weekend.

As of right now I have a few things to look forward to in the coming year.

• Will I become a Yelp Elite 11?? The suspense is killing me!!!
• I got Tim (and me) floor tickets to the Linkin Park concert, January 22nd. Pendulum is opening. Gunna be so awesome!!!!
• I am going back to Jamaica. I booked our room at Tensing Pen yesterday. We will be staying in the Garden Studio. It's the least expensive room/hut/thatch roofed/bungalow thingy with an ocean view. It's not until late October but I'm already excited and slightly obsessed.

Please year, don't start sucking.

Sugar, the economy, and their recent role in my life.

I have worked as a Veterinary Technician at the same clinic for about eight and a half years now. Over the past two years business has gradually slowed. This past year has been the worst so far. Although I am still very grateful to have my job, the saddest thing has been to watch clients come in with their sick pets and have to make very tough decisions based on the fact that they don't have jobs or money.

I am fortunate enough to work with doctors (well, most of them) that are kind and understanding and will try to provide the best possible care for what little some people have to work with. Two weeks ago posed an interesting challenge.

It was about 5:45 (we close at 6) when a man came in with his chocolate Lab, Nina. Nina had somehow escaped the day before. The owner spent all night, until about 4 a.m., combing the streets looking for her with no luck. He notified Orange County Animal Services to be on the look out for her. About an hour before his arrival to our clinic, OCAS called him to tell him Nina was there. When he picked her up she had a bandage on her leg, they informed him that she may need some stitches, and to bring her to a clinic a.s.a.p. When we took the bandage off her leg to see what we were dealing with, what we saw was kind of shocking. She absolutely did NOT need stitches because there was nothing left to stitch up. She had the worst case of road rash I had ever seen. Not only was her skin gone, but so was the muscle, to the point that her bone was exposed.

Dr. Garrels (who is my favorite) gave the owner two options. One: they could spend a lot of money trying to save the leg and it still may end up being amputated, or two: amputate the leg. I'm not sure if it was before or after she gave him his options that he informed us that he had just filed bankruptcy because his wife got cancer and the medical bills drained them. Yeah.

He asked for a moment alone so he could call his wife. When we got back in the room he told us that he wanted to try to save the leg. So we got right at it. We took her back and cleaned the wound and put a fresh bandage on it. We set her up in a comfy cage with lots of blankets, food, and water and left for the night. Now we had a challenge - try to save this dog's leg without racking up an enormous bill for the owner.

Even though she probably wouldn't admit it, I'm pretty sure Dr. Garrels thought about that leg all night. When she got in the next morning she said she had done some reading on sugar bandaging and thought it would be a good idea for this pet. Sugar is cheap, it has natural antibiotic properties, and it helps to "sand" away all the dead skin. This was the first I had ever heard of this but it made sense and I totally thought it was a good idea. Pretty much everyone was behind her except for this one doctor. We also called in two of her medications into a human pharmacy. One was on the free antibiotics list and the other was pretty cheap.

So twice a day for about the first four days or so we took off Nina's bandage, irrigated it well, debrided any dead tissue, poured a shit ton of sugar on it, and put on a fresh bandage. Every day her leg looked better and better. It wasn't getting infected, there was lots of healthy granulation tissue forming, and soon enough we were able to stretch what skin was left and put in some tacking sutures and reduce her bandage changes to once a day.

Nina spent two weeks in our hospital and went home today with her very happy owners and instructions to return in two days for a bandage change. She's on the road to recovery. We saved her leg and for less than what it would have cost to amputate.