Nothing groundbreaking here

Scrumptdillidilyumptious, but certainly not groundbreaking.

Props to the Snackmaster sandwich maker, which my mom got us for Christmas two years ago. That thing makes THE BEST grilled cheeses!

I remember a while back when I got an EMT job offer addressed as this that I was all excited Now I’m getting mail with this greeting:

Pretty exciting stuff! I’m in the research phase of looking at various paramedic programs here in the Bay Area. I’ve narrowed it down to a few and am working getting the pre-requisites in order before I begin applications. It would be nice to have all the time in the world to get a whole bunch of classes done: medical Spanish, phlebotomy, medical terminology, EKG tech, micro bio, A&P I, A&P II, and on and on… but at some point I think I have to just bite the bullet and apply and go for it. Different paramedic programs seem to have varying entry requirements, but one thing I am finding as a constant is they all encourage you to have EMT work experience before applying. At least I have that one taken care of! In another couple months I should have a few of the other classes checked off as well.

I keep a running list of recipes to cook in my life-organizer yellow pad, and once I’ve made them I’ll check them off and make a note of whether or not they were good enough to want to make again. This one is an A+ will make again four-star knock it out of the park meal!!!

I found the recipe on the food network site while searching for what to do with a bunch of linguica that we had on hand. Earl and I snagged about two pounds worth of the Portuguese sausage while on a ski trip coming back from Kirkwood at this amazing sausage shop in Lockeford, CA. We were so psyched we had a cooler full of ice (formerly housed our lunchtime ski brews) on hand to bring home a nice haul of meat.

Not only was this recipe super easy and delish, but it made enough to feed us for about the whole week!
Your primary materials: linguica sausage, 8 oz. of dungeness crab, some chopped scallions and wine for the chef.

First step: cook up some rice. I used a plain old box of rice pilaf we had sitting around. Throw the pot of rice in the fridge while you do everything else.
Next step: Fry up four eggs.

Then: add rice and sausage to the eggs, begin stirring.

Next step: make yourself a little appetizer of cheese and sausage while you let that cook!

Now add your crab, peas, and scallions. Keep stirring!

Final step: Nosh! Throw on some soy sauce or oyster sauce if you please. I added just a touch of soy, E kept his plain.

Any meal that’s this easy, delicious and yields enough bounty to sustain us for a week (let me tell you how jealous my partner was in the ambulance when I busted a leftover bowl of this for lunch… ) is certainly going into the “REPEAT” file to be made again and again!

We also had a helper on hand to assist with extra sausage consumption.
Hey… I like sausage, too! Down here! I’ll taste test some sausage for ya.

Recently we had a birthday around these parts.

There was strawberry rhubarb pie to be eaten!

And wishes to be made

birthday cards with corgis on them!! (from e’s mom… lol!)

I made breakfast in bed which consisted of baked eggs with Irish bangers from this chowhound recipe

We went to the computer history museum in Mountainview, where E contemplated some logarithms.

This is the calculating machine designed by Charles Babbage in 1845. It is one of two in the world- on lend to the museum from one of the first executives at microsoft.

Watch the hand-cranked machine in action- extremely beautiful. Truly a work of art.

The world’s first computer mouse! A block of wood with a button

This is one of the first computers in existence, from the 1950s. Check out the “monitor” (giant thing on right) and the “printer” (typewriter!) in the middle:

Here’s the first computer game ever invented. Looks fun

There was an entire section on computer chess, where I could have happily hung around for a few days. You could play other people at the museum, various versions of chess computer games, and people over the internet.

After the museum, we went to “Weird Stuff” which is a computer part supply warehouse. It’s basically a museum in and of itself. Aisles and aisles of old computer parts!

Mid day pizza refueling

And then we went scotch tasting. I treated Earl to “whatever bottle of scotch he desired” in the store. Thankfully, he did not chose one of these two (yiesh!):

I don’t know if you can see it, but I love how the label on those bottles underneath the 8k price tag reads “Everyday Low Prices.” heh.

We whiled away the afternoon and into the evening sipping coffee and reading at a cafe (one of E’s very favorite activities) and then caught a late dinner at The Mountain House, which was romantic and wonderful. We had a candlelit corner table overlooking the redwoods- it was so gorgeous!

Came home yesterday after work and then the gym to find this note:

How spoiled are we? TWO WALKS? A FOUR HOUR HANG AROUND AT HER HOUSE? Plus she hangs out and plays with our cat? !!!

Linus has a very plush life. He’s with me most of the time, however the two or three days a week I go to work, he gets the royal treatment from Robin.

Our dogwalker, Robin, is the greatest. She’s such a caring and loving woman to the pets. She works with my oddball schedule that changes all the time and is extremely reliable. Linus ADORES her and they have so much fun together. A lot of the time she brings him back completely covered in mud or sand, because they play in the dirt pit at the dog park. But we don’t mind because we know he had so much fun.

If anyone’s looking for a dog walker in the Haight Ashbury area, Robin has our highest recommendations. We’ve been using her for a year now and she is stupendous. If you would like her contact info, please contact me here and I will be happy to send it to you! She doesn’t really advertise and most of her clients are found via word of mouth.

Found these on the EMT forum I recently discovered and have been lurking on. A few of my favorites:

• Try not to discuss “your day” at the family dinner table (one of the bigger fights E and I have had during the last year is when he didn’t want to hear how I massaged a living pig heart in v-fib while we were eating pizza).
• The more equipment you see on a EMT’s belt, the newer they are.  Ha!  I soooo did this
• Your social skills will be lacking, if all your anecdotes deal with blood.  No doubt.
• Yuppies involved in accidents complain how bumpy the ambulance ride is.
• Schedule your days off to avoid working during full phases of the Moon. (also- I’ve found found we get a lot of oddball calls whenever Mercury is in retrograde)

Pretty clever little list.  Similar ones exist for nurses and teachers.

Woke up this morning to the following email blast from my SF Corgi listserve:

Some of you may have seen the news about an early morning fire at the
Berkeley Humane Society shelter. They fire destroyed a significant
portion of their facility including their cat shelter and all of their
offices.

They are heartbroken to have lost a number of cats during the fire,
but about a dozen cats and all of the dogs were saved.

They are in need of emergency assistance both in the form of
individuals who can temporarily foster animals, as well as immediate
financial donations. Once the situation is further stabilized they
will need volunteers for cleanup and recovery.

As their offices were destroyed and their utilities cut, their phones
are out and they are coordinating all efforts from their website.

www.berkeleyhumane.org

Thank you!

So sad! Heartwrenching to think of the cats that perished in the fire

I just emailed them to help volunteer with the cleanup and we may also temporarily foster (if they have a dog or cat who would get along with another dog and cat!). Perhaps you would like to help out as well? They are looking for people to help clean, temporarily foster animals and also monetary donations. I’m sure spreading the news of their situation on your website, twitter or facebook would help too. Find out more updates and how you can help here on their website: www.berkeleyhumane.org

Here is hoping they get back on their feet quickly and back to helping animals in need!

Aww, man. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get out of bed to go to the gym when you’re taking a nap and the cat crawls up on your chest, takes perch, and purrs up a storm?

It was like she was physically holding me down with her paws and lulling me back into snooze with that hypnotic purr. I’ll admit- I txt’d E to bail on the gym and fell back asleep for another two hours. ZZZzzz. *yawn*

I recently plunked down for an unlimited monthly membership at a lovely little yoga studio near our apartment. Tonight I was poking around through my online attendance record and realized- wow, I really have been going enough to justify the cost! This is great news.

Check out my attendance history:

I’m coming in at about $8 per class. Which is not bad. Plus, there is the side effect of the monthly “unlimited” package motivating you to go more in the first place!

I’m really loving the way yoga has been changing my body. I feel extremely limber, and notice now that I pay attention to my breath in normal daily activities. The focus on breath has also carried over to weight lifting. I coordinate my breathing with the lifting movements when I’m pushing the iron around. Additionally, I feel the benefits on my back at work. From everything from sitting in the back of the ambulance, to lifting the gurney into the rig, to sliding a patient into a dialysis chair: I keep my spine in line and pay attention to my posture! (The backs of ambulances are curved in and almost *FORCE* you to slouch over and practically induce kyphosis!) Even something at mundane as backing the Jeep out of the garage- nowadays when I’m heading for work at 4am and twist around in the drivers seat to look out the back and make sure the ass of the Jeep is backing out straight and not hitting the garage walls, I’m thinking “spinal twist” as I turn around! Perhaps obsessive and silly, but at the very least amusing. For the record, our garage entry way is EXTREMELY tiny and it is a miracle we get the Jeep parked in there in the first place! It requires rapt attention to back out at the correct angle and not scrape the walls.

Tonight after the gym (and me waking up at 3:50am to work the 5am-5pm shift) Earl and I caught the indie movie The Good, The Bad and The Weird. It was GREAT!!

I was expecting cheesy and juvenile humor (after all, E, lover of zombieland, picked it out ) but it was surprisingly hilarious and really enjoyable! Here’s the trailer:

In addition to great action sequences, it also had an interesting plots with lots of twists and turns. Throw in some truly hilarious moments, and it was a rollicking good time of a movie. Afterwards we noshed thai at Chai Yo and took a little late evening stroll around Nob Hill.

In other news, I was offered a second job this week! Super, super excited to be teaching skills to EMT-B students right here in San Francisco. This will be a side-gig from my main EMT job at the ambulance company. I am completely thrilled to become an instructor! Starting in a few weeks.

Weekend plans are nothing all that special. Yoga, sleeping in, laundry, brushing woofer, studying, farmer’s market and probably amble on down the hill to Bay to Breakers on Sunday. Oh- I’m gonna try and attempt this Dragonfly Stir Fry Rice which combines sausage and crab (!!!!). I’ll let ya know if it comes out as stupendous as it sounds Have a good one yourself! <3, cj