I spent 4 hours in the infusion clinic this afternoon getting loaded up with iron. There was a couple there for her first chemo treatment. The husband seemed to still be in shock over her diagnosis. They were both in so much anguish over the whole thing and there I am in the corner with something so mild in comparison. I felt like a fraud. I wish there was something I could have done for them to ease the situation.

I am exhausted. I haven't been able to sleep all week, not sure the cause but I'm hoping that tonight I can zonk out and get some refreshing sleep.

Note to self: Cheesecake Brownie ice cream is very soothing.

Tomorrow is the first night, so the menorah should look like this:

[link]

Scrappy, sending your mom lots of recovery and good outcome vibes. So glad you get to be with her soon.

Dag, I thought tonight was the first night. Will revise!

My brother is threatening us with disembowelment and mystery gifts unless we send him wish lists. Is it wrong that I'm kinda excited about the mystery gifts? My brother's humor is so weird, I'd expect tumor cell slides or used lab equipment or who knows what!

So far all I've come up with are impractical for having to bring home in luggage- ladder, rechargeable multi-speed drill/screwdriver (I have a drill, it's just not so good as a screwdriver.) Meh.

I think I've discovered the recipe for my department's white elephant / bakeoff - eggnog cake.

(ita, the recipe says the trick to a tender crumb here is whipping the eggnog into a foam before folding it in - might be the muffin fix you were looking for?)

might be the muffin fix you were looking for?

Not unless I use the cake method to make the muffins--I'm not creaming the shortening and aerating that way, I'm pouring wet onto dry and folding minimally. I don't know if the state of the wet affects the end result of the crumb.

I'm catching up on TV from last night, and was amused (and yet surprised it took so long) when on Scandal she said "I'm just feeling a little Sally Hemmings/Thomas Jefferson about all this!!"

Hah. The show is fun, though. And while I didn't like last night's episode of Grey's all that much (kinda boring, don't care about the new interns), I do still appreciate that I could point out to my roommate the many times it passed both the Bechdel test and whatever any sort of minority-Bechdel-test might be called.

I didn't care about the last crop of new interns, either, until I did! They did a good job of bringing some in. I just wish Shonda Rhimes knew how to write people out of shows without killing them off.