Sylvia's Journal

I can’t see the Cove this morning; in fact I can’t even see beyond the hedge that separates our yard from the Hooper’s. So much for being the safety pilot Bill asked me to be as he keeps his instrument skills current. This was supposed to happen later this morning after we have our plane owners meeting, where we will talk about money.

Sita sent us the link of the talks about money that she scribed in Vienna with the financial experts of the world. It’s an amazing slideshow [click here] that shows very confident scribes, facilitators and conference organizers and much more anxious looking participants. It’s probably all about how much you know. You don’t want to look too much at the text on the scribed panels though.

Last night we watched the first Obama-McCain debate to find out how much they know. The best part is actually not the debate but what the partisans say about their candidate winning, afterwards (both usually win unless one really stumbles), in the endless rehashing of who said what and what does that mean. Next debate is between the vice presidents. I can’t wait.

All this came after a productive day at work, interrupted by another pre-op visit to the day surgery center where the nerve that passes through my hand’s carpal tunnel will be set free next Wednesday. Standard procedure, they did an EKG, checked blood pressure and then asked the same questions the nurse asked last Monday. There is a lot of redundancy in the pre-op process but it’s probably there for a reason.

Exactly at 5 PM I closed my computer and started to work on an elaborate sub continent meal: slow-cooking onion and meat stew from Bangladesh with Indian cauliflower dum, recipes from a wonderful coffee table/travelogue/cookbook Mangoes and Curry Leaves that Axel gave me one Christmas long ago. At the start of the cooking I threw a fit because I couldn’t find the many spices I needed from our overpopulated spice jar cabinet. At some point I had organized by type (seeds & grains, hot & peppery, green & dried, with a non-classifiable leftover category of ‘misc.’). No one but me understood the classification scheme and it had entirely disintegrated. Axel came to the rescue and now the 100 or so small jars of various sizes and shapes are organized alphabetically. Everyone has been instructed about the new scheme. Now that Axel actually did the rearrangement I hope he ‘owns’ the new presentation of spices and abide by its ‘put-away’ rules.

With every meal we are expanding Steve’s food horizon, which started off quite limited when he met Tessa. We are still trying to get him to eat things that are round and squishy inside (you have no idea how many foods fall in that category) but under pressure from his girlfriend and in-laws he is making some progress. I predict that one day he will be cooking us something round and squishy. That will be reason to celebrate, maybe with things square and hard.