leafing through

I was sitting in the waiting room at a lab this morning. Inside, I could hear this little girl wailing because she’d just gotten her blood drawn. *cringe* I could totally relate with her. I HATE anything remotely related to that kinda’ stuff. I can’t even write it out. While the mom and technicians are consoling the little girl and bribing her with candy, a young boy (4 or 5 years old?) walks out and comes into the waiting room and sticks himself in a tiny corner facing the wall. He looks absolutely terrified and doesn’t answer when his mom calls him. Finally, the mom comes back out and tells him he can’t run off like that. She ushers him back in and then you start to hear him crying. He’s older though so he has things to say. Don’t do it ’til I say so. I don’t want it. It’s going to hurt. It stings. They in turn tried to cajole him to cooperate by telling him how his little sister did it, and then they finally resorted to threatening to get the big nurse to hold him down. My heart ached. I wish he hadn’t seen his sister getting it done cuz I think it just made it so much worse. The anticipation, and seeing his little sister in distress. That’s enough to make me want to walk out the door!

Although I’m not in budget anymore, I still think that it’s where you get a clearer picture of what our country is doing, where it’s going, and current status. Earlier this month, NIH had a House appropriations hearing to discuss the FY 2008 budget request.

The latest number quoted estimates that NIH invests ~$44 per year for each American. Improvements in medicine, disease research, and the like have helped increase life expectancy. Sounds good, but now, there’s a new set of challenges. When before, cancer, heart disease, and stroke meant death, now the damage is repairable. Sort of. Instead of acute conditions being the major challenges, we’re now facing more chronic conditions and an aging population. Is that an improvement?

Testimony during the hearing also listed among other concerns, greater than expected obesity rates among youths, rising rates of depression among people 24 to 44 years old, and the “health disparities” we’re seeing in America. Although it’s not plainly stated, I’m pretty sure they mean amongst the poor vs. rich as well as the various ethnicities (often related issues). I wonder if the obesity and mental health issues are somehow related. Not saying obese people are unhappy, but maybe the stress culture we live in affects physical and mental well-being.

Oh if you’re curious, and even if you aren’t, I’ll just mention that NIH is requesting $28.9 billion for next year. For this year, they had requested $28.587 billion. That’s a lotta buh-s.

Someone in my office subscribes to The Oprah Magazine and kindly shares old copies with everyone.  I was flipping through one and read this:

Be careful how you judge others… As Scottish author J.M. Barrie said, “Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own.” We tend to judge others based on their behavior, and ourselves based on our intent. In almost all situations, we would do well to recognize the possibility – even probability – of good intent in others… sometimes despite their observable behavior.

- Stephen M.R. Covey in The Speed of Trust (Free Press)

I agree that it’s true, but it’s also hard to do.  How can you know someone’s intent except through observable behavior?  If you know someone well enough to be a good, kind person, then if s/he does something that seems out of character then this does apply.  The intent was probably not malicious.  However, if there’s a controlling spouse who thinks it’s for the best, that seems unjustifiable.  Good intentions or not.  I guess the caveat to consider would be mental stability or saneness.  Still, I can’t help but like what was written.       

 I like the magazine too.

Australian food while good, isn’t very different from food here in the US. You have your sandwiches and pizzas, and ethnic foods like Indian and Thai. A few items are different like the meatpies but if you consider them, they’re like handsized chicken pot pies, only stuffed with a variety of fillings. Coffee beverages are better than what you can find here easily, but coffee is what it is. Even dishes with Australian natives like roos, crocs, and emu are still typical dishes, just with a different kind of meat. Pad thai with kangaroo still tastes like pad thai. Maybe I’m going a little overboard with playing it down. Really, all the food we ate there was very good.

One food in particular has stayed in my mind. That stuff they sell in the grocery stores is unlike any yogurt I’ve ever had here. Maybe it was Greek yogurt and I haven’t tried that here yet. However, it was thick, creamy, smooth, perfect. They had mango and passionfruit flavored yogurts and even apple cinnamon. I love cinnamon! I had a dream last night about the Australian yogurts. My homemade yogurt while good and fresh, isn’t thick or creamy. I miss the good stuff.

April 1, 2007 Update:
Went out and got some Wallaby yogurt last weekend.  Haven’t tried them all yet, but I like the banana vanilla flavor.

Today is Spring!  I saw a little yellow daffodil poking out from the soil in our front yard today.  

Finished my taxes today. It was relatively pain free since this year, I only had one state to report. This is the first year of my working career that I only have to file one state tax return and I love it! I was a bit paranoid about checking for fat fingering my numbers so I ended up doing my Federal twice. It was a good thing I did too, since it got me an extra $4! For anybody who thinks taxes are daunting, go out and get the TaxCut or TurboTax software. It turns taxes into child’s play. As for state, I check the state’s website first. They usually provide online filing for free and some even have online programs similar to TaxCut or TurboTax which saves headaches and money. Brilliant! State governments are generally so far ahead of the game in terms of, well almost everything, compared to Federal, that this comes as no surprise. I shouldn’t be so hard on the IRS though, I mean, they do have to cater to a pretty big audience.

MeanFace and I went to a local restaurant that serves Chinese food, but really specializes in dumplings. Their dumplings are pretty big and not your typical half-moon shaped dumplings. When they’re making them they squish the filling in the dough a certain way in the hands that gives them that funny shape. Wish I could see how they did it. You can choose from the common pork and napa cabbage filling to something like vegetarian and there’s also a variety plate with four different types of dumplings. They’re served pan fried or boiled, or frozen if you want to cook them at home. We got them boiled. Pretty tasty! I’d go back. Their other dishes like noodle soups looked good too because their noodles are hand made, maybe like the chewy skin of the dumplings.

Came home and made a ginormous pot of chili. MeanFace gave me some cayenne pepper, which I couldn’t seem to find at the grocery store. They were out or something. I used a slow cooker recipe from MeanFace’s sister and combined it with a Washington Post recipe for turkey chili. Didn’t use the slow cooker because it would’ve been too small for the amount of ingredients I had. Obviously still having difficulty judging how much is enough when I shop for ingredients. Invariably, I get too much, figuring too much is better than not enough. Besides, leftovers are even better!

Here’s the gist of it:

• 3 lbs ground turkey
• 3 green bell peppers (capsicum in Australian, heehee)
• 4 medium sized yellow onions
• 8 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 cans of diced tomatoes
• 1 can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 can of tomato sauce (each can is 29 oz. size)
• 4 cups of dried beans (roman, black, and kidney) – cooked in advance
• chili powder (many shakes)
• cayenne pepper (1 tsp about)
• salt & pepper
• shredded cheddar

Cook the turkey, breaking it up. Add the garlic and onions, stir around for a bit, then add the green peppers. After it’s all semi-cooked, add the rest of the ingredients and simmer on low heat. Not sure how long I’m going to let mine simmer, but it’s still cooking right now and smells great! The shredded cheddar is optional when you serve it.

Seeing as how Winter decided to return, I thought some comfort food was in order. Last night, I made two pots of chicken soup. See? I’ve improved from the three pots I had to make last time due to too much chicken. This time, I left out potatoes and peas, and added cabbage. I also left out the thyme because my audience did not like it at all last time I made it. So it’s chicken soup, but a little different.

3-26-07 Update: Made a new batch of chili this past weekend and decided to add cumin, carrots, and a jar of salsa. The last 2 ingredient ideas came from the sister who has no qualms about adding even potatoes to her chili. Sounds good to me! Maybe I’ll add celery and oregano next time, in addition to all the other ingredients. The recipe is so elastic.

Hurray! I made it through the first week back from vacation. Actually, feeling much better today for some reason even though it’s rainy and cold outside. I’m back to my take-everything-at-work-in-stride mode again.

Get a load of this crazy weather here. Tuesday through Thursday of this week, highs reached the 80s. Today, the highs won’t even exceed 40. It might even snow! That’s March for ya. Love it though, days are noticeably getting longer. Maybe I’ll go supermarket hopping tonight.

Update: Snow & ice started this afternoon and into this evening.

Monday was yet another exciting day of traveling.  After visiting 3 airports today and spending 2.5 hours in a shuttle van cruising around town, I have finally seen my beautiful bed at last!  I caught a cold on the way back from Sydney so I’m all stuffed up now.  Call it poetic justice as I had planned to use a sick day for Monday’s absence from work.  Now it’s legit.

Clearly I’m jetlagged as its 1:36 AM and I’m wide awake (but not all here as you can tell from my disjointed thoughts)!  It’s 5:36 PM in Sydney.  Dinnertime.

I played a lot of Super Mario World last night on the Wii in California.  I’m rusty but *polish finger nails* I still got it!  Hahaha!

Major activities we did during our trip:

1. Snorkel
It can be done by nonswimmers. I can’t exactly say I took to the water like a fish but we eventually figured it out. The views to the reefs were gorgeous. After seeing this, nothing in an aquarium can quite match it. Sometimes, I just floated and watched the coral and fish swim around it like I was watching TV.

2. Taste local cuisines These are meatpies, an Aussie delicacy. Hehe, ok more like quickfood. They’re a treat though with the flakey pie crust and savory meat filling and gravy. As small as they may seem, one meatpie is surprisingly filling. You can eat it with ketchup, or as they call it, tomato sauce.

3. Explore the rainforests at the Atherton Tablelands in Cairns What I would consider a houseplant that you buy at Lowe’s grows wild in these parts. This part of Australia is hot and humid, and it rained everyday, just as a good rainforest should. I think Cairns may have been my favorite part of the trip, that, or Adelaide.

4. Go wine tasting at Barossa Valley – a first for me, wine tasting and vineyard hopping, that is

5. Clipsal500 Car Race in Adelaide
Bogans=Rednecks

6. Feed and pet the animals at Cleland Park
We fed so many animals in this national nature preserve out of our hands. Wallabies and kangaroos were especially social. The birds were always hungry.

7. Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House

8. Sydney Fish Market
So much fresh seafood. We really ate ourselves silly here.

8. Shop
This is the Rocks Market in Sydney. I thought the best shopping for good souvenirs was in Cairns. Sydney is more of your typical city. More aggressive drivers and pedestrians and lots of people walking around in suits, a lot like Wash, D.C. but not as sinister. Maybe a bit closer to Atlanta, GA perhaps?

Australia was such a fun place to visit. Our 2 weeks were packed to the brim with activities, but I would say that 10 or 12 days would’ve been nice too rather than 2 whole weeks. We started to get tired. Looking back, I’m glad we pushed ourselves to do everything we did to make the most of our time there. Many shops in Australia close by 4 or 5 PM for some reason. That also applies to cafes which was kind of a bummer because it would’ve been nice to be able to sit at a cafe later in the day. It’s so much easier to find good coffee drinks where we visited. They just know how to make good coffee. Ice coffees are made with a blend of ice cream, coffee, and milk, not coffee and ice cubes (blech). Even for a non-coffee drinker like me, it was tasty. Good or even decent TV shows are limited it seems, at least in all the places we stayed. It was fun to watch some rugby and Australian soccer sometimes I suppose. What a mess of a game though, plus, it is ROUGH! No protective gear, no rolling around on the ground yowling, none of that.

I love the Australian accent and even though we all spoke English, I did find myself going “what?” a lot because it can be hard to understand when they speak fast or use local slang. They couldn’t understand me sometimes too when I spoke. Elevators are called lifts, Rice Krispies are Rice Bubbles, takeout is takeaway, and tank tops are singlets. Aussies shorten everything and add the -ee sound at the end. Mosquito becomes mossy, cigarette is ciggy, breakfast brekky, Tasmania Tassy, so on and so forth. Cranberry is pronounced kran-ber-ree (from The Australian newspaper) as opposed to kran-bear-ee which is how I pronounce it.

It’s hard to remember which way the cars are coming from because they drive on the left side of the road so just look both ways when crossing the streets. Likewise pedestrians favor the left side of the sidewalk and the lefthand door. Drivers sit on the right side of the car and the stick shifter is on the left side (I don’t know if the numbers are also reversed but I doubt it because wouldn’t that mean it would have to reverse the transmission system too?), the windshield wiper and turn signal sticks are flipped so our American drivers wiped their windshields and changed lanes without signaling on a clear day more than once.

Most of their toilets have a half and full flush button. I think it’s to conserve water, always a good thing unless you wind up doing 2 half flushes which defeats the purpose. The Australian sun is harsh! I burned even with sun protection on. Pretty much don’t count on sunscreen lotion. I mean yes, wear it religiously, but nothing really does it better than physical protection: shade, clothing, hats.

Food seems to be more expensive in Australia. Meals run about $10 – 15 per person.

Oh yes, here’s another admission, I overpacked! There. I said it. I came back with unworn outfits. Ah well, I did better this time than the last 2 week trip I took, so I’m improving at least. I didn’t even need to expand my suitcase to bring everything home.