ita !, that is late enough that either she needs to give you a bigger window, so that it is an actual window and not just a "things might have me leaving in this twenty minute gap and then maybe traffic or something but I am definitely seeing you in this small gap of time" because she's bad at it and it adds stress to you. Trying to bust through a headache likely doesn't need even more stress.

Six hours on the road just makes my hips so sore, though.

That amount of driving (okay, anything over a short trip) brutalizes my hips. Helps to stretch them and helps to try and stay really centered in the car but it's still just pain.

and Rosie played in the yard and possibly ate a wee bit of dirt (it's good for her, right?) and got to touch an earthworm

If she didn't eat the earthworm, she's doing better than P's youngest. Plus the dirt challenges her immune system and makes it up its game. Totally an evolutionary win.

Ooooh! Possibly. We are going to Utah for a bike ride on June 1. If I survive that...

You'll totally survive. Come and play Watch Cool Animals with us.

Still, I cannot with the flavor of these sweeteners in actual food

Stevia doesn't taste horribly off to me but it disagrees strongly with my insides. Burning, burning heartburn and I just feel gross.

I mean, it's natural. But so is arsenic and stevia lacks that lovely almond fragrance.

But I totally can do things with splenda and aspartame. I don't think I even register a difference. I do aspartame in my morning coffee or tea because sugar makes me feel weird and so I don't do it daily.

I've decided to try to eat up some of the stuff that's been hanging around my pantry/freezer for way too long, so I've got baked beans in the oven, heavy on the salt pork, light on the beans (because I had 3/4 lb of salt pork in the freezer and only 5 oz of dried beans in the pantry and using things up means using things up), and full of tomatoes both sun-dried and in paste form. I'm interested to see how it turns out.

I am going to guess delicious and porky. Mmm, porky.

It was indeed porky, but also on the salty side. On balance, though, delicious enough!

But so is arsenic and stevia lacks that lovely almond fragrance.

I think you are thinking of cyanide. Arsenic lends your skin a nice gothy pallor.

I think you are thinking of cyanide. Arsenic lends your skin a nice gothy pallor.

I totally am. This is why one does not multitask while making flip comments on the internet. You mistake one poison for another. Kinda embarrassing.

I think I am making kitchen pasta for dinner later and it will involve roasty/sautéed mushrooms, a little ricotta and a little smoked gouda. And then a bunch of veggies and salad when I clean out the rest of my fridge.

I have the Kink's "Come Dancing" in my head. And it makes me sad... I miss going out dancing and that song totally touches on what happens when you grow up.

Mmm, that sounds delicious. The pasta, not the poison. Although now that I am thinking along those lines, I wonder if arsenic-eaters liked the taste or just the effects.

Eta: I love that song, Kat, but, yeah, it's sad.

Timelies all!

Posting from the Toronto airport. Our flight's been delayed, so we are having a sit-down dinner.

what makes me sad are all the songs declaring how "our generation will see it right" and such, and realizing how young the singers were then and how old they are now.

And how much less right it is now.

We went bike riding today. It was CycLAvia today and the route went right by our house. So we put everyone on bikes and went down to Venice! Much fun, but now my legs are tired and my brain isn't quite up for grading, so I'm punting on that one and doing it tomorrow. Instead I'm sipping on a Lemon Drop.

Kat, yes--I do remember the meaning of that song shifting as I grew up. And now it's a personal kind of sad--before it felt like dancing was being taken away, and it's the responsibility of the dancer themselves.

I haven't found an artificial sweetener that I can handle the taste of yet. Come on, technology!

I have switched to agave a lot more, but I think that's part of my question: I'm making 2 changes to the CI oatmeal muffin recipe. I'm sweetening with agave instead of sugar, and I'm using jumbo pans. Two in a row have been too dense. Delicious, but dense and hard to find a right baking time for.

Other than upping the baking powder, what's my best bet for getting air back in? It's a dry into wet recipe where you let it sit for 20 minutes before putting it into the oven, so I'm not sure what the baking soda contributes. I feel the problem is too big for changing the flour to contribute much at this point. But they don't rise until the last 5 minutes of baking, and even then, not more than a centimetre.

Maybe I should hang out in Gelson's and ask passers by for recipe recommendations.