GLUTEN-FREE fairy wings?

I am a speshul snowflake because I can eat ALL THE GLUTEN, as long as it isn't wheat gluten.

What is this roux of which you speak for mac&cheese? My mom made baked m&c, but for stovetop: boil elbows (shells, spirals, your choice), drain, return to pan. Turn heat down to simmer, add butter, stir. Add shredded cheeses, a handful at a time, stirring constantly while it melts. Add milk or half and half, continuing to stir, add in rest of cheese. Throw in a quarter cup cottage cheese for giggles, stir. Sprinkle with paprika (most important. Like cutting off the ends of the ham), serve. I don't think anybody I've ever made mac&cheese for would have waited long enough for me to make roux. Wooden spoons are excellent for beating off ravening importunists.

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commenter: Thanks for posting that recipe. I'm lactose intolerant, so I made it without the cheese and cream. It was a little bland.

A light roux doesn't take long. I cooked the elbow macaroni and left it in the colander while I melted a tablespoon of butter and mixed in about a tablespoon of flour. Once it was well mixed and bubbling I let it get a tad golden while I got the milk and cheese out, then added about a cup of cold milk, a bit at a time, to the roux. After the milk was incorporated I added the cheese and about 1/4 teaspoon of mustard powder and mixed it all well. I folded the macaroni back in and turned off the heat. Mac and cheese achieved. I think it took maybe 15 minutes.

So, good news/bad news from the end of the workday: My office boyfriend has an actual girlfriend! And now I know.

That sounds yum, Calli.

Well I'm...happy and sad for you (-Real Genius), Jesse.

In excellent news, I do not have glaucoma. My eye doctor, in prep for the cataract surgery, saw some spots in my eye that he wanted to take a better look at. So I went in for a field of vision test. Damned annoying. "Stare straight ahead and click the clicky thing when you see a flash of light."

Hi, I have cataracts. In bright light situations, my vision tries to white out, and in any case there are floaters in my eyes that can look like flashes of light. Plus, your flashes of light are smaller than pinheads and only a literal flash. So I didn't know if I was missing flashes or clicking on hallucinations or what. Only the fact that I objectively was not blind and have decent peripheral vision reassured me.

Turns out, I do have a largish blind spot in my right eye, but that's because the eyeball is so long that the rods and cones have been pulled out of kilter and the base of the eyeball tissue is where vision tissue should be. Like the rug not covering all the floor. But that's just the nature of my eyeball.

So in a month and a half, eye surgery! The techs were saying "Oh, you probably won't need your glasses at all, the brain will compensate for you not being able to see out of your other eye with the vision from your good eye." Doc himself said, "It's going to be a challenge, we may have to fiddle with reading glasses to compensate for you not having good close up vision in your repaired eye. We may have to pull the lens out of the right side of your glasses."

Which is why he's the doctor and not just the tech.

The techs were saying "Oh, you probably won't need your glasses at all, the brain will compensate for you not being able to see out of your other eye with the vision from your good eye."

I had one good eye and one very near-sighted eye. I could see, but I got blinding headaches trying to focus on some things before I got glasses.

That list is the best thing Mallory has ever written.

That list is perfection embodied, but in a world that contains Ayn Rand's Sweet Valley High, Dirtbag Arthur Miller, and Karl Marx Works Improved By Quotes From Dune,I'm not sure I can agree with you there.

no that's exactly how you eat an orange

In excellent news, I do not have glaucoma.

That is good news!

In retrospect, I think I always do this for a minute when I have a straight guy friend. I think "I mean, I like him, so doesn't that mean I like him-like him??" (And, um, not just straight guys sometimes...)