Thanks again.

You're welcome! I'm just sorry I wasn't around last night.

It's a funny world when you avoid the stress of life by hiding out at work. (Not personal stress. More 'the government wants to kill us all' stress.) I have got a lot of paperwork done today.

Sending you even-keel~ma, Anne.

One of my coworkers has discovered she has IBS, and she is asking what else she can do for herself besides taking Probiotics. Am I remembering right that several Bitches have found it useful to eliminate wheat and/or gluten?

It can help, but it depends on the person. Cutting out lactose also helps certain people. Steph's info is what I want to say only better! I've benefited a lot from cutting right down on gluten and lactose, but I suspect that's because they were aggravating my symptoms, rather than causing them.

You're welcome! I'm just sorry I wasn't around last night.

Not to worry, she really appreciated it, and I was glad to be able to put more accurate information from someone who has experienced it, in front of her.

It can help, but it depends on the person. Cutting out lactose also helps certain people.

Thanks, Seska! I know she has had lactose-intolerance for years. I hope she can find what will give her relief. She's deserves to not be miserable.

Posting is sparse today! It's making it really hard for me to procrastinate!

I am very surprised how slow today is going.

Posting is sparse today! It's making it really hard for me to procrastinate!

Okay! Here I am generating content.

Cooking Tips I've Recently Learned:

1) After watching Jacques Pepin make a Proper French Omelet on YouTube I am now all about making French-ish scrambled eggs. Which involves working the egg in the pain constantly so that it breaks up into smaller curds which gives it a much lighter and creamier consistency.

2) Also, I can't emphasize enough that having the right size pan makes a huge difference when making eggs. This has to do with how quickly eggs cook in the pan so you need a certain size relative to the number of eggs you have going. Obvious I guess but that lightbulb only went off over my head in the last year.

3) Fresh thyme is great in eggs!

4) Sorry ita for all the egg talk.

5) Another obvious thing I've sorted out recently with my cooking is that while garlic is a strong flavor, it's also really delicate. I'm now putting my finely minced garlic in later in my cooking so I don't cook off all those volatile oils. Previously I'd been putting in the garlic to flavor the oil. I'm getting much more garlic flavor now that I'm adding it later.

6) Those little Stuffin' Muffin savory bread pudding things I made were really good.

7) I'm getting into using ginger in my cocktails. I like ginger. (And, I like Ginger.)

8) Baseball: Yikes, the Red Sox got both Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford. While the Yankees got stuck paying overpaying for Jeter. If the Yanks don't get Cliff Lee they're fucked next year.

9) TV - we're going to be talking to Jen K. and her beau about how they watch the TV shows without cable costs. Roku? Apple TV? Torrents of TV? I think the cable monopoly is crumbling and the long predicted merger of TV and internet is happening before our eyes.

10) I get a happy feeling thinking about the good work smonster and shir are doing in the world.

11) Tep, you need to come visit SF again.

12) Mortality has been much on my mind lately. My mom died around Thanksgiving, and then the recent news about my first girlfriend Julia's death. Also, one of the coach's I knew in Little League committed suicide. There's just that very weird, irreconcilable feeling that comes with death: they were here. Now they are not. How does that work? My first lover's body is not in the world anymore. Time and mortality are blank walls of mystery to me right now.

(oatmeal, REPRESENT!)

I just found gluten free oatmeal. How is that even possible? I haven't made a bowl of it yet but am anxious to find out if I get the same super negative experience as I do with glutenful oats. It never really occurred to me, but despite how much I like oatmeal as a food stuff, it has always given me straight up hell. Massive acid, low digestibility, burping, etc.

I guess I assumed everyone responded to oats that way.

I've just had the tech support guy for a company call in and say "OK, we're installing a new server, I've done this and this and this, and now we need this." And the first thing I had to say was "OK, undo this, this, and this, do this instead, then do this." Always fun to tell someone to undo a couple of hours of work when they think they've been efficient.

the long predicted merger of TV and internet is happening before our eyes.

Woe is me.

I haven't owned a television since 1997...I've always been pretty addicted. Now? Doesn't help a whit.

Still, watching when I want, what I want, avoiding at least some of the adverts and being able to spend less time through fast-forwarding, make it somewhat better, I suppose.