The Life I Always Wanted???

So, my bf and I have officially been together for over a year.  (15 months and 3 weeks actually)  I’d say it’s going pretty well… for all intents and purposes we are very happy.  But I am a little… how shall I put this… surprised at myself.  Lately I have been engaging in some day dreaming, and I dare say the content of these daydreams is scandalous!  The content of these dreams is shocking and so out of character for me… or so I would have thought 18 or so months ago.

You see, I have been daydreaming about being a housewife.  *Scary music!!!*  When it gets particularly stressful at work, and I feel I am under a lot of pressure, I sometimes think about how great it would be to just wake up wander around my house in pajamas: making breakfast for my significant other and/or kids.  It began as a thought experiment… me wondering if I could stand the domestic life.  But as I gradually became accustomed to the idea of being at home, at least during a maternity-leave type arrangement, I started to think of it as a mental escape from the stress and redonkulousness of work.  The latest incarnations of my daydreaming include me baking cookies with cute little half-breed asian kids running around.  (Thankfully, my daydreams are on mute, so there is no boisterous screaming.)

My bf and I began negotiating the terms of our domesticity a few months ago.  We started by talking about whether we would be getting married.  Then the conversation turned to having kids.  Then it was about where we would live and raise said kids after our *ahem* wedding.  Now, first of all, I have to say that before I met him, I did not consider myself the marrying kind.  Neither would I have considered myself the motherly type, either.  I did not think that I was a relationship kind of person… so how could I now be day dreaming about being a wife and mother???

My friend Morag theorizes that at this point in my career, daydreaming about anything is more about escaping the stress of work.  I am daydreaming about a life totally opposite to what it is now because it represents an escape.  I like that theory.  It totally makes sense.  The scary part is that maybe… just maybe…  there has always been a part of me that wanted that kind of a life, but I wasn’t aware of it or was in denial.  I just hope that if I really do become a housewife, I won’t regret my decision and start daydreaming about being eyeball deep in e-mails and stupid requests from ignorant trolls.

Actually… pajamas and bunny slippers can’t be that bad after all.

Short Story Bonanza!!

So Book Club has been happily chugging along since Tipping Point.  We have ploughed through not one, not two, but THREE different short story collections.  Honest to Betsy, I did not know that we had chosen three short story books in a row.  I was going by pretty titles and covers only…  who would have guessed?  The books we chose were representative of many different backgrounds and points of view.  Overall, I would say it has made me more of a fan of short stories.  Not only because these three were beautifully written, but also because it’s super convenient to read short stories on public transit.

First up:  Pastoralia by George Saunders

This collection was comprised of quirky, off-beat stories that ranged from uncomfortable family dramas to hilarious post-mortem re-animation.  George Saunders has got to be the king of superlong sentences.  I can’t call them run-ons because they were properly punctuated but Geez!  Some comprised an entire paragraph. 

Morag and Cointrin thought a lot of the stories were depressing, but I didn’t think they were necessarily that sad.  IMO, the stories had a lot of common trends. .I thought the most common trend was people finding themselves in less-than-ideal situations and not knowing how to improve their circumstances.  In a lot of cases, it is their character flaws that prevent them from changing their behaviour.  I think we can all identify with that, so it makes the characters believable and even sympathetic in some cases.  All in all, a good compilation.

Next: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

This collection of stories centres on characters that are either South Asian or are connected to people of South Asian decent.  I have to admit that while reading this story, I would subconsciously switch the voice in my head to an Indian accent.  And it worked!  It was kind of weird how my head-voice was bang on with the accent, though… freaky.

Anyway, I found the stories in this book really sad.  Some were so sad in fact that I was crying on public transit.  EMBARRASSING!  Some of the stories didn’t end that badly, but there was a fairly melancholic theme to all of them.  I’d say I’m glad I read it, so overall, good book.

Last but not least: Naked by David Sedaris

This guys’ life is re-DONK!  The book is a collection of short stories of an auto-biogaphical nature.  The author documents his childhood and the multitude of unbelievably mad-cap adventures of his upper-middleclass upbringing.  The last story is the one that gives the collection its title.  We learn about his eccentric and OCD habits as a kid, his larger-than-life mom, and his hitch-hiking adventures across America.

I was slightly appalled by some of the stories, I have to admit.  But I did enjoy that he is honest in representing his point of view, and doesn’t try to apologize for being a less-than-perfect human.  His sister Lisa is probably my favorite character.

Things I learned about short story collections: 
1)   a lot of the stories are really sad!
2)  short stories for adults seem to talk a lot about penises
3)  sometimes the author’s actual voice sounds totally different from the voice you give them in your head
4)  zombies can be fun!

If you like stories that you can start & finish in a subway trip, short story collections are for you!  Just make sure you have a pack of kleenex if you are a sap like me.

I hope there is a tumor in my brain…

I’m becoming increasingly convinced that something is seriously wrong with me. Periodically, I experience near-crippling bouts of panic about the current and future state of my ‘relationship’. I think there has got to be a pea-sized tumor somewhere putting pressure on the logical centre of my brain… which causes mood swings and panic attacks to come out of the blue. Subsequently I freak out and then my bf picks up on my distress and when we talk about it, he also gets somewhat perturbed and it takes a while to settle back into our usual comfortable little lives.

Case in point: The most recent example of my neurosis occurred this past weekend, when I started thinking about how much I do for this man of mine and the pressure that I feel to change to make him happy. Like, how many girlfriends travel every weekend to stay with their boyfriends? It can’t be more than… say… 80-90% right??? And how many girlfriends help their boyfriends with household chores while they’re practically living with them for two or three days at a time? Surely, I am the only one to fill a dish washer or wipe the counter… do you see how self sacrificing I am???

Anyway, my little gestures performed in-the-moment and out of love were, in my tumor-induced psychosis, twisted into a laundry list of the many ways I have bent over backwards to show my devotion while I was simultaneously able to downplay everything he has ever done for me. Narcissism, thy name is Mavis.

In addition to proclaiming myself the Most Long Suffering Woman In The World, I attributed to my beau all the internal pressure that I have been placing on myself. And I vilified him as the one who has been telling me all my life that there’s some clock I should be listening to, and that my marriageability has an expiry date, and all the other nonsense society tells women about how they should live and behave.

My friend Morag gently suggested to me that I may be projecting just a teeny bit. I have to say I agree…. My problem is that I just can’t sit back and enjoy the ride. I am constantly analyzing the past and worrying about the future. I worry about whether or not we’ll still be together in 20 years. I worry about whether I will love my kids. I worry about how badly I’ll screw said kids up. I worry that one day he’ll cheat on me. I worry that we’ll stop being attracted to each other. Every now and again I can forget to worry long enough to feel really happy – but then my worrying ways come back and we launch into the same cycle all over again.  I want to be able to be more of an in-the-moment kind of person.  Hopefully meditation and chocolate will shrink my panic-causing tumour and I will be cured of my worrying for the rest of my days!!

The really scary part is admitting that I may not have a tumor, and that this is just the way I am!!!  Oh dear…

Fun with Book Club! A Double Review!

Wee!  Books!  I love to read.  It is one of the great pleasures of my life.  Curling up on the couch on a winter day, or on a Muskoka chair at the cottage, with a good book and a hot tea/cold drink is heaven.  I love it!  I also love collecting books in my book shelves.  Apparently, I love this so much that I need to purchase myself a new shelf.  The three book shelves in my tiny apartment are stuffed full of books, and there are some books that have to be laid horizontally above already-shelved other books.  The situation is so dire, I actually parted with some of my cherished books by giving them away, or selling them at the used book store around the corner.  (I made $10 last week!)

Despite my obvious need to purge my shelves/make more space, I have acquired even more books to read!  My friends Morag and Cointrin and I have decided to choose 10 books from Entertainment Weekly’s list of  100 Modern Classics and get to reading!  Our plan is to all read the same books and discuss them at our own little Book Club meetings.  First up was The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. 

I found this book only mildly interesting.  I think it’s really geared more towards Marketing or Advertising executives.  The content is presented clearly and pretty easy to understand, but I also found it a bit bland after a while.  I couldn’t read this book all day… I had to split up my reading in chunks (mostly on TTC when there was nothing much else to do).  I thought maybe I got bored because I had already studied some of the examples in a Social Psychology class in college, but even the examples that were new to me got a bit ‘Meh’ after a while. As of tonight, I am three quarters of the way through – I made it to the Case Studies!  I’m reallllyyy excited to start our next book, Pastoralia by George Saunders, because I need to read something with actual characters and a plot line.  It’s just much more pleasurable to me than a book about business/social epidemics.

Our little group of book afficionados decided that if we were going to have faux-pretentious book club meeting and discuss literature, we should choose a cute little cafe* in which to do so.  Thus the search began for an independently owned, quaint little coffee shop or cafe that is easily TTC accessible.

Our first audition of a cafe was at the Mad Bean on Eglinton West.  It has a supercute web page that made us all fall in love with it.  The cafe itself is quite small, but very cozy.  I had a sandwich and it was delish!  A plus is that the cafe also sold books and art and local handicrafts/jewellry.  Morag and I were excited to see pretty things (you know girls and trinkets)  though Cointrin was a bit non-plussed at the earrings and necklaces and such.  The owner was manning the coffee/espresso machine, and there was a delightfully nerdy young man who cashed out (and warmed up) my sammy for me.   The cafe itself is pretty small, but there are a fair number of tables and chairs.  I wish I had tried one of their actual coffee or tea bevvies to review, but I already had another coffee date earlier that afternoon and was coffee-ed out.

Overall, I would recommend the cafe, but not the book unless you are a fan of non-fiction and need to sell about a million of whatever product/service you’re schilling.

* I am sorry that I missed the accent egu on the ‘e’ in Caf(accent egu).  I apologize to all the Francophiles out there!

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to More Boredom

This morning I was all excited to hop out of bed and down the subway to see my boyfriend. But he is on call this weekend, and has conference calls up the wazoo and is no fun right now.  =(  So I’m at home trying to entertain myself…

My gross and disgusting scar is still in the process of healing, and even though I put Bio-Oil or Polysporin on it, it still sometimes gets dry and oddly itchy. This morning, I guess I was not paying attention, and probably not being as careful as I should be around my wound… itch itch itch and then(!)   Here is my internal monologue:

 ’Oh, that feels weird… what is that?  A scab or dry skin or something?  Maybe I’ll just see if I can scratch it off… Oh, I think it’s loose enough to come off.  Wait.  Whhhaaat the… Wooooahohhhmygod!  Ewww!’

When all was said and done I ended up with a length of string HANGING OUT OF MY SCAR!!!  The string was not really that long… maybe 2 centimetres or so.  But still long enough to cause me panic.  Why was I touching my scar at all, you ask?  It’s too late now for logic.  We’re past that already. 

I ended up having to disinfect a pair of scissors, and the area around the string, and snipping off the ‘extra’ string.  I think this must be the leftover end-piece of suture from sewing up my innards.  Gross!

Surprising side-effects of my Sally-ectomy

So, I didn’t really experience any major complications from my surgery… but there were really weird things that happened during my hospital stay and subsequent recovery that I didn’t expect.

The first weird thing was the burning sensation that I felt in my incision when I had to stand up for the first time after my surgery.  It was weird…. like someone pressed a hot skewer sideways along my stomach whenever I stood or sat up.  It really only lasted a week or so… but it was pretty uncomfortable.  In the early part of my recovery, I also became super worried that my guts would spill out of my body as I walked around.  Needless to say, I stayed in my hospital bed a lot.  When I did have to get up and walk around (to go pee, or when the nurses told me I had to go for walks) I was always hunched a bit forward and I held my stomach with the hand that wasn’t pushing my IV.

Nosebleeds.  I am really not sure what caused me to have frequent nosebleeds after my surgery.  I was a bit freaked out that maybe the drugs I was taking were causing my internal tissues to break down and dissolve.  I got these little sheets of paper from the pharmacist explaining how to take my pain meds and what the serious side-effects were.  One of the drugs, Naproxen, warned not to lie down for at least 10 minutes after taking the pill, and its side-effects included severe/easy bruising and the possibility of internal bleeding.  I didn’t think that the drugs would affect me so much, but I had 4 nosebleeds in one week and that was pretty frightening.  I haven’t had a bloody nose since I was in highschool!  The sight (and taste… bleccchhh!) of my own blood was pretty darn terrifying.  Who knew I was such a wimp about my own blood???

Numbness around my incision.  I still don’t really have sensation in the area right above my cut.  I can feel everything below…. that stuff feels normal.  But I guess the nerve endings go up or something?  Anyway, it’s pretty darn freaky.  I can pretty much poke myself in that numb area and feel NOTHING.  And the area right above the numb area is always sore.  Sucks!  A work friend of mine had a C-section over a year ago, and she says she’s still numb around her scar, too.

Recurring pain.  It is weird… I’ve been back at the office three days in a row now, and each and every day (including today) I start to feel discomfort on my right side at the same time every afternoon.  At about a quarter to 4, I start to feel a dull ache on the right side of my cut.  It gets so bad sometimes, I can’t sit still.  Yesterday, I lasted until almost 5 o’clock, but ended up going home a bit early cuz I couldn’t stand it anymore.  Hoping it doesn’t last too much longer.

So, those are the weird after-effects of my major surgical experience.  Hoping no other surprise bonus weirdness comes along during my recovery.  Fingers crossed!

All the fun of a C-section, but without the lifetime of responsibility!

I found out a lot of things during this surgery business… mostly having to do with how horrible major surgery is, and also how resilient the human body can be when it gets cuts into. 

Fun Things I Found Out During The Last 3.5 Weeks:

1.  I discovered how twisted some women (read: “I”) can be about losing weight…  even after undergoing this major medical event and being severely uncomfortable for a large chunk of my time off, plus now having to bear a 5-inch-long scar for the rest of my life, I’m really happy that I’ve lost weight during this process.  My parents even noted that my face is skinnier than before – an observation they made in between statements of “You don’t look well” and “You look like someone who just had surgery” – which I’m guessing means I’ve lost a noticeable amount of weight.  I know it’s ridiculous!  I did not go under the knife for weight-loss purposes!  But I’m still stoked that I dropped, like, 5 pounds in 3 weeks – even though it’s probably due to not-so-healthy-reasons like not having eaten properly for 5 days during my recovery. 

2.  How really really awesome it is to poop normally!  When I was still in the hospital, all the nurses and doctors were superconcerned about whether or not I was passing gas(!)  because apparently gassiness is a good sign that your inner parts are returning to normal function.  Since my innards were slow to kick-start after coming off the anaesthesia, I was on a semi-liquid diet for 3 whole days!  Let me tell you… hospital food really messes up your digestion.  I was so relieved about having my first normal poop since coming home I could swear I almost saw angels and heard harp music.  I was ecstatic to see that my doctor put everything back the right way when they closed me up!

3.  How awesome nurses are!  All of my nurses at NYG were super super nice and professional.  The whole healthcare system in Ontario would grind to a halt without good nursing.  I really have to head back over to the Big House one of these days to bring a box of goodies and a Thank You card.

4.  I learned that sneezing/laughing after this type of surgery is like torture!!!  You know in cartoons where Bugs Bunny would tie some poor fool up and then force them to spill the beans by tickling their feet with a feather?  Try that on somebody who’s had abdominal surgery. Not. Funny.  It would probably qualify as a war crime under the Geneva Convention.

5.  I know now what a C-section is like.  The weirdest comment I heard about my surgery came from my cousin who is visiting from California.  We were talking about my procedure (she is a nurse, so knows about this kind of thing) and she said.  “Yep!  I know exactly what they did.  It’s pretty much just like a C-section.  At least now you know what it’s like!”  I guess now I do… although I thought it was kind of weird that she would say that.  Does anybody really want to test-drive a C-section before having to go through one?  There are a lot of women, moms and moms-to-be, who apparently choose to have C-sections over natural childbirth because they can be scheduled ahead of time.  It seemed like it might be a good choice for super organized women before I had my surgery, but now that I’ve gone through this procedure, I don’t think I’d ever want to again.  Not that pushing a watermelon through your hoo-ha sounds like that great an idea, either. 

6.  Last but not least, I learned how amazing and supportive my boyfriend is.  He let me laze around his condo during my recovery.  Brought me glasses of water,  my meds, and helped me get in and out of bed and on and off the couch.  He sometimes was so overprotective that I had to sneak around to put dishes away while he was at the gym or in another room.  He carried bags for me and rubbed my shoulders.  He cleaned up after me even though I was well enough to do it myself.  And everytime I did something nice for him, he would say ‘thank you’.  I always knew he was great… but he totally blew me away with how awesome he was during my entire recovery.

Four fights in five minutes

So I have been recuperating  at my wonderful boyfriend’s house since Sally* came out a couple weeks ago.  All this quality time together can be a bit grating on the nerves, since I am basically doing nothing more meaningful than sleeping and eating, and my boyfriend works from home.  22.5 solid hours together in a 900-square foot condo can do things to you.  Here, for your reading pleasure, the most ridiculous kerfuffles we’ve had so far during my recovery:

Mr. Neat Freak - My boyfriend is a sporadic cleaning nazi!  He will let dishes pile up on the counter, but God forbid I leave my clothes anywhere but my designated drawer!  This leads to situations where my man knows more about where my belongings are than I do.
Me: Babe, do you know where my pyjamas are?
BF:  Which ones are your pyjamas?
Me: The grey pants and grey tank toppy-thing.
BF:  You mean the grey tank top.
Me: Yeah, the pants and the tank top.  They were in my bathroom, but they’re not anymore.
BF:  Why do you say ‘thingy’?
Me: I dunno!  Have you seen them?
BF:  I put them in the hamper.
Me: Why?
BF: I thought you were done with them.
Me: If I was done with them I would have put them in the hamper!!!

PMS/tendency-to-worry-too-much – I sometimes over-react to small spats.  For instance, my bf comes back from the gym in a weird mood sometimes (I guess it’s all the testosterone and manly aggression that you need to push stuff around) and doesn’t like to talk a lot until he’s settled down.  I know this, intellectually at least, but it doesn’t stop me from having a hormone-induced breakdown!
BF:  Hey, baby I’m back.
Me: Did you have a good workout?
BF:  Meh.
Me:  Are you hungry?  I’ll heat something for you.
BF:  Thanks honey.
Me: How much chicken do you want?  The whole breast?  Or the breast and the leg?
BF: Yes…
Me: So, the whole thing?  And how much other stuff you want?  I’ll split the carrots and the greens between us?
BF: ‘K.
Me: (tears welling) Babe, do I make you happy?
BF:  Yeah, why do you ask?  (looks up)  Aw… don’t cry!  It’s ok.  What’s wrong???
Me: I just…*sob* want you to be happy.  And… *sniff sniff* if I can’t make you happy, I want you to find somebody else *sob*
BF: Honey, I think you’re over-reacting.
[He takes me to the couch where I messy-cry into his sweaty tank top]

Conference Call Conundrum – there is one toilet in the condo that seems to act up occasionally.  Of course, it’s the one in my bathroom.
Me: Babe?
[No response]
Me: Oh shoooot…  *start trying to plunge and flush the toilet to fix it*
BF: [Opening the bathroom door]  What is going on?  I’m on a call!
Me: I was trying to fix it…
BF: It’s really distracting and loud.
Me: You’re mad at me because I didn’t just leave a mess?!?!? 
BF:  Could you do it later?  I have to get back on the call.
[I sulk in another room, and he has to fix the toilet when his call is over]

The Opposite of ADD – I am not good at multi-tasking.  I know I’m a girl, and females are supposed to be excellent multi-taskers but I really can’t watch television and pay attention to anything else at the same time.  It’s one or the other when it comes to tv, or reading e-mails, or watching a movie, and talking to my boyfriend. 
Me: [Watching some show or other on the tv]
BF:  Honey?  Maves?  Mavis?  MAVIS???
Me: Huh?  Yeah babe?
BF:  I called your name, like four times!
Me: I’m sorry!  I was concentrating on my show.  What did you say?
BF:  Nevermind.  I was just asking you when you think we should go to the grocery store.  Before or after we stop at the bank? … Babe?
Me: *watching tv again*
BF:  Oh for crying out loud!
Me: Huh?  Were you talking to me?

*Sally is the name that Morag  gave to my homunculus cyst.  I had to have surgery to evict Sally from my lady parts.

The horror…. the horror…

So, it is almost exactly one week after my cystectomy, and I am out of the big house!  Yes, I was discharged last week and am now enjoying being completely useless at home rather than in the hospital.  Before having my surgery, I freaked myself out about hospital super-bugs and getting flesh-eating disease.  I was also semi-convinced that I wasn’t going to wake up from the anaesthetic, or that they would ‘put me under’ but I would be able to feel them cutting Sally out of me during the procedure.

Now that the surgery is over, I can happily say that the whole experience wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be.  My initial fears were partly because of my pre-operative appointment at the hospital.  Suffice it to say, I am very relieved that the surgery went more smoothly than this visit.  Let me detail for you the horrors below:

12:10pm – Arrive for my appointment twenty minutes early and request my overnight accommodation at  patient registration
12:20pm – Check in with the receptionist for my pre-op appointment and take a seat.  Thankfully I have a book with me.
12:40ish – Get called by the receptionist and moved to a smaller, more claustrophobic room down the hall.  And this is where the horror begins, people!

Once I deposit myself in this other waiting room, I notice that there is a family with two small children.  The children are probably between 2-5 years old with over-developed lungs.  I presume that one of these unlucky kids is here to have tests done, if merely by witnessing his parents drag him screaming into the bathroom to get a urine sample.  The unlucky kid is particularly cranky and cries almost constantly for the next 40-50 minutes, with the crying being interrupted for play sessions with his dad in the hallway, which are even louder and echo through the small waiting room.  I am not impressed with this child or his parents, and try to cause him to spontaneously combust with the power of my mind for a few minutes.

Also in this waiting room is a man who is cerebrally challenged, and cannot guage the volume of his voice while speaking on a cellular phone.  Between his yacking, the kid crying and not spontaneously combusting, and having to wait almost a full hour with this cacophony, I am having a nervous breakdown.  I’ve long given up on reading, and can’t put in earplugs for fear of missing my name being called. 

I suddenly notice that I’m hyperventilating, so I pick up my things and rush out of the room and down the hall towards the elevators.  I have to grab hold of a metal handrail by the windows while I continue to hyperventilate.  Thoughts of abandoning this whole operation thing are running through my mind.  ‘I don’t have to do this’ ‘I can live with it until it ruptures’ ‘I’ll just stab myself with a steak knife in the emergency room and get it taken out’. 

It takes me a few minutes to calm down, and eventually, I make my way back to the waiting room of death.  The lady who was ahead of me was called in a few minutes ago, so I’m thinking I must be next when an elderly nurse-lady who I will call Crazy Nurse Helga walks in… but she calls “Mrs. Mavis Smith?  Mavis Smith?  S-M-I-T-H, Mavis Smith?”  I am staring daggers at her, but don’t move cuz, who knows?  Maybe Mavis Smith is here for her pre-op appointment too?  Crazy Nurse Helga shrugs her shoulders and walks away with a huff.  A few minutes later, she returns and calls out “Mavis Peabody” - I get up as soon as I hear my last name, and she launches into apologies.  Now, I know last-names can get tricky… but I had a chance to read the label she was looking at, and nowhere on that thing were there any combination of letters and vowels that resembled ‘SMITH’ on it.

Crazy  Helga turns out to be a nice person, and talks me through everything that’s going to happen on the day of my surgery.  I had come with a list of questions, but she managed to answer most of them during the course of the appointment.  The last gift she left me with will probably be the most traumatic blood-letting of my adult life (at least I hope so).  She has to take 2 vials of blood from me.  No biggie, right?  Except that she has to fish for my vein and then forgets to remove the turnicate after finally finding blood.  I, as a normal person, don’t notice since I’m not the health professional here!  But she is having me pump my fist to fill two vials while this turnicate is restricting the blood flow!  Two thirds of the way through the second vial, she notices and releases the turnicate, but my arm is already massacred.  Then, after removing the needle, she pushes her thumb so hard on my gaping needle wound that I still feel a bruise TO THIS DAY!

The total appointment plus blood-letting time was probably less than 30 minutes, but the wait time was more than an hour and I now have ever-lasting trauma.  Thankfully, my surgery went much better.  Shout-out to the nurses in the Operating Room, in Recovery, and 5South at NYG.  Holla!

Fantasy Farewell Picnic!

So, I have to have a leeeetle surgery done on my mid-section in about 10 days.  My doctor felt “something” during my last checkup and sent me to the ultrasound clinic to get it checked out.  I expected to receive news of a tilted uters… instead I got news they found a cyst the size of a grapefruit in my girly bits.  Not such great news.  My friend Morag nicknamed my homunculus “Sally” after the jabba-the-hut like representation of Sally Struthers in South Park. 

Anyways, Sally needs to go.  Hence my surgery has been scheduled for the end of the month.  In honour of my soon-to-be-departed guest, I was inspired to host a farewell picnic with medically-themed foods.  However, all the cooking and prep would be a huge pallaver, so I’m going to share the menu for my imaginary picnic instead!

Farewell Picnic Menu:

“Tennis Elbows” – Macaroni pasta tossed in green pesto (pine nuts, garlic, parsley, olive oil, salt, pepper)
“Ruptured Spleens” -Stuffed Red peppers (recipe below)
“Severed Digits” -boiled hot-dogs cut into shorter pieces to resemble toes or fingers, and one end dipped in ketchup
“Fatty Liver” – Foie gras, served with cruncy croustinis, of course!
“Savory Sallys” – Scotch eggs, molded into Sally-esque shapes before frying
“Eyes-ing on the cake” -white chocolate truffles, with pupils painted on to look like eyeballs

I love the idea of a party to send me off to the hospital in good spirits.  If nothing else, it gives me fun ideas to distract me from thinking of my painful recovery.  Just for funsies, I found a recipe for ruptured spleens on foodtv.ca.  Enjoy!  And Bon appetit!!

*Recipe by Doug DiPasquale, Holistic Nutritionist

Ingredients

• 4 red  peppers, tops removed and seeded
• 1 cup brown rice
• 1/2 cup dried red lentils, soaked overnight, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup kasha
• 1 cooking onion, diced
• 1 small zucchini, diced
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons organic olive oil
• 4 teaspoons organic butter
• Unrefined sea salt to taste

Directions

1. In a large saucepan, sauté onion and zucchini in olive oil with a pinch of salt until browned.
2. Add rice, lentils and kasha, stirring well.
3. Add garlic and 4 cups of water.
4. Add another pinch of salt. Cover and simmer until all water has been absorbed.
5. Remove from heat, uncover and let cool for several minutes. Stir in walnuts.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
7. Spoon mixture into peppers. Top each with a knob of butter.
8. Place peppers on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until pepper is soft. Serve as a side or as a vegetarian main course. Enjoy.