Across and Inside my Universe

Who Ordered All This Snow?

This is me, 9pm Friday, after shoveling 4-5 inches more of snow. Before this storm, there was 5 inches of old snowfall on the ground.

Weds night they said that from Thurs afternoon to Fri afternoon the valleys would get 3-6".

HA!  We had 4 inches in the first 3 hours yesterday.

This morning, my husband attempted to leave for work but got stuck backing out of our space; the snow was higher than the undercarriage of the car, higher than the bottom of the bumper, so after plowing through a bit it just was too much.

I was worried, with his Nov. 26 arthroscopic shoulder surgery, that he'd be shoveling and stuff; I got out there and helped get him back under our covered parking spot, but there was alot of pushing on my part.  Didn't know I had it in me!

So then I shovel a path back to our door (our landlord is the King of Cheap, no shoveling and he won't let us use salt either it ruins the concrete), taking many breaks because 16+ inches of snow on the shovel was alot!  That's just an estimate, it could have been more but I doubt it was less, given how high it was for trying to drive through it.  

Oh yeah, and more snow is coming throughout Saturday too.

I'd shoveled some with the next door neighbor the evening before.  (He had a stroke partway through his medical residency, and well if he's living next door to us he's in hugely reduced circumstances. I also didn't want him to think I didn't think he could shovel the walk, I just wanted to help as well as get to know our new neighbors.  All true!)

I'd say it's' snowed about 20-24 inches (or more, it's still snowing.)  I haven't seen so much snow in a long time; there used to be a big, big storm almost every year but the weather's been messed up for awhile.

So, we came back inside, my husband had already called in to work (it'll be an unpaid day off, he used everything paid for the week off for surgery, and even that didn't cover the whole week.)  It's a treat to have him home from work, and not from being sick, either.

We planned a day of coziness, cocoa, board games, and movies or shows like Doctor Who, just whatever we felt like.  I love dipping buttered strips of toast in my cocoa, like I did when I was a kid, but found out we were out of bread.  Oops.

It was nice to know I was capable of shoveling that depth of snow, narrow though the path may be.   I feel more capable, which is cool. 

Edit:  I just read the below posts on Tips for Shoveling snow, and I did great at all of them but one; bend knees, back straight, don't bend at waist.  It looks like I'll get to improve my technique tomorrow. 

Related articles

Tips for Shoveling Snow Without Injury to You!

Shovel safely tips to avoid post-snowstorm injuries

Seeking British Food for our Olympic Opening Ceremonies Party

By party, I mean the three of us celebrate.  No one ever comes to anything we invite them to, except a scattering to birthday parties, except now those are held at the in-laws' houses.

So, we have made our own traditions for the three of us, and one of them is that whenever the Olympics come 'round, we either do a meal of just appetizers for the Opening Ceremonies, or we try to do native cuisine from that country.

We kind of put things off until the last minute this year, so tonight I did a search for British Import food shops, and found one surprisingly close to us!  It's actually South African, with some British stuff and several British or British-influenced menu items.

It's called Souties, and when I looked up the definition, I was a bit startled.  I'd never use the term, except of course as the title of this "hole in the wall" tiny menu'd charming, quaint restaurant/shop.

We actually didn't order any fish & chips; from the reviews in the Souties link above, apparently they are to die for!  We'll have to go back sometime.  The menu prices are also outstanding!

We did not get any spotted dick.  What we DID get:   Cadbury Flake, Nestle Aero, Nuttikrust Caramelised Oat Biscuits, Bakers Romany Creams - Crunchy Choc Coconut Biscuits, Fry's Turkish Delight, Bangers, two Cornish Pasty's and three Sausage Rolls.

We'll be having Bangers & Mash tomorrow, and Fish & Chips too (well, Opening Ceremonies are long!).  It won't be the healthiest supper and dinner ever, but it's a party!

We tried a Flake at the store while waiting for our freshly prepared scones.  It was good, and a texture like no other chocolate treat in the USA.  When our scones were ready, ooooh so luscious looking!   We took them out to the car and ate them.  My first bite:  Heaven!  Melt in your mouth, somewhere between a tender tender american biscuit and an american scone in texture; it was fantastic!  Halved, buttered, jammed, and topped with cream (possibly lightly sweetened, much lighter than Americans do).  Oh these were heavenly!  We had to wait while they whipped us up some cream, fresh!  We'll definitely be going back for these, from time to time!  There's only one halved scone pictured because my husband was driving and couldn't eat them until we got home.

If you haven't had a real, fresh English scone topped with fresh cream, you need to try it!

We'll also be drinking warm soda (the British do not put ice in their soda, it's served from the tap or a non-refrigerated bottle etc.) and putting malt vinegar on our fish & chips.  I've read that the British don't do tartar sauce, although apparently Souties offers it (a nice version with no pickle relish, perhaps the South Africans do tarter sauce).

However, I don't know which Bangers & Mash recipe to try, there's endless versions!  Guess I'll just pick one.

I may try a Yorkshire pudding recipe from scratch, before the Olympics are over.  Now to eat our Cornish pasties and sausage rolls tonight, with some fresh steamed broccoli on the side!  Hail, Brittania!

This n' That 6/30/12

Upon looking through a family Scottish cookbook, my daughter was reading out loud about Haggis.  I asked her, what does it say about it?  She said, "Haggis is a mixture of . . .EWWWWW!" and she backed away, as we all cracked up laughing for the next 5 minutes.

Apparently Haggis is a mixture of ewww.  I'd agree with that!

******

After more than a week of no progress on the bedroom cleanout/organize project, I've made a leap or two forward by getting the area in front of the closet cleaned out.  SIX bags of stuff to go to the thrift store (toys, clothes, fabric) and four bags of garbage.  How did all that stuff fit there?  There'll actually be another bag for the thrift store after we finish washing the rest of the clothes to donate.

Progress is great!  Makes me feel good.

*****

We're trying to plan our Olympic meal/party for the opening ceremonies coming up.  We usually do a meal of a variety of appetizers, but this time we want British stuff, for at least part of it.  Fish and chips are the first thing on my daughter's list, and that sounds great to me too.

When I mention "spotted dick" to her, she screws up her face, says "ewww", and swiftly goes elsewhere.  I think she thinks I'm saying something different than what I think I'm saying.  It's a spongy sort of cake fingerish sort of thing, with currants in it I think for the spots.  So it's a wierd variation of a Twinkie, basically.

I just say it to tease her, though! 

I need some ideas for London food!  Welsh Rarebit is cheese on toast/bread.  I think.  I always thought it was a roasted rabbit when I was little.

See, I have Scottish, Britsh, Welsh, and maybe some Irish heritage too.  My maiden name is from a Welsh ancestor; means stone mason.  Which, funnily enough, my ancestors were, all the way down to my grandfather.

Oh, my married name, tradition has it, came from Ireland with a Mc in front of it.  Still not the easiest name to have, but I guess it makes sense.  So there's me some Irish (and Dutch Royalty too; if you go to St. Thomas or St. Croix, there's a Rum/sugar plantation and castle that's ours.  I mean, our Dutch Royal ancestors.)

*****

My therapist is back!  It was hard to prioritize what to talk about, and in fact it wasn't until a day after therapy this week that I remembered some of the important stuff I'd been going to talk about, and forgot.  I did pretty well though with what I did remember.

I'd been getting rather piled on by a variety of stuff, including one SIL who says I have a heart of gold but she doesn't want to be friends with me.  That was painful, but we're hammering out how we're going to relate to each other in the future. 

Part of me wonders, however, if I have a heart of gold, what's so bad about me that it drowns out the heart of gold?  But that's personalising; her choice is about her and what she wants in her life, and doesn't want.  It's hard to not take that personally, though.  It's sort of freeing to not be stuck in hurt at why she seemed to not give a fig about me; I can move on, now.

****

A pet peeve of mine about blogs with alot of pictures, especially food and craft blogs; don't take 6 pictures from a zillion angles of your dish, cookie, necklace, scarf, whatever and post them ALL.  Really, one (or at most, 2, if one is a closeup or something) will do.  I know you're in love with how it turned out, and how well it photographed, but get over it.  Please.

*****

I tried a macaroni and cheese in a mug recipe that's popular on Pinterest.

Don't do it.  It sucks.

However, an Eggnog Pound Cake recipe I tried from Pinterest last Christmas, is now my preferred way to consume egg nog.  8^D 

Man, now I want egg nog, and it'll be months and months before it's available!

*****

Quote from Utah Governor yesterday, in regards to all the people rubber-necking the wildfires up by Herriman (and elsewhere in the state, like, 360,000 acres) and who are getting in the way of fire people getting to the fires:  "You can't outlaw stupid!"

You can possibly try, but you'll never get rid of it.

Utah Medicaid servers hacked!

ARGH. First, a year ago, we had information hacked off of Sony's servers, things like names, credit card numbers, account information, things like that.

NOW the state of Utah has been incompetent enough to install a server that didn't have the proper security measures in place, allowing hackers easier access . . . to all sorts of information, on my, my daughter, and 24,000 other Utah Medicaid people. I'm guessing there's more people on Medicaid in Utah than that, so it wasn't everybody; the state's response that they are going to send letters out to everyone affected, and provide credit monitoring services to those whose Social Security Numbers were exposed, indicates the same.

What is WITH these companies, entities, agencies, that are trusted with all this information, that they screw up like this? With Sony, they seem to have had a company-wide lax attitude; in Utah's case, it seems to be some technician's error of either installing a server that shouldn't be installed for such a secure situation, or perhaps someone ordered the wrong type of server and the errors began earlier. Human error, but . . . there should be triple checks, at least, on this kind of thing!

I am feeling very vulnerable, and very violated/exposed . . . .

16 years ago I had someone steal my checkbook and a few things from my wallet, and then they got a woman accomplice and made up a fake id with my name and her picture, and they went around writing bad checks, like for $200 of groceries, and other things. So I know a little about what can happen, although I know identity thieves can do worse.

How safe is YOUR state's Medicaid information? Or your health insurance company's system? Or your credit card company's, for that matter, I believe some big companies recently had hacks as well.

I think that something needs to change, as these are so frequent as to be ridiculous. Perhaps harsher consequences for both the hackers, and companies caught with their pants down. Perhaps laws to create or incentivize better checks and balances on this stuff, at least for government, if not for health insurance companies and other sensitive information as well.

Then again, hackers will get into almost anywhere, unless perhaps you have a government-sized budget to protect a Pentagon-level system. And even that one isn't perfect, no system is.

More attention needs to be paid to these things, because I'm fed up (wait, more attention needs to be paid because of ME? Lol, I'm not that arrogant, that's not exactly how I meant it.)

 

Pummeled by Wind

Well, I was going to blog about what last thursday's wind storm, clocked at 102+ right at the worst of it where we were (and that was the worst of it anywhere) was like, but I feel weary because the winds are coming again. They just started, and will supposedly last for about 13 hours.

Sleep? What's that!

Last Thursday's winds started at 2 am and tapered off around noon; they were equivalent to category 2 hurricane-force winds. Apparently they were NOT canyon winds like was thought for the first half of the storm; I forget the technical term for it, but when the winds come at JUST the right angle, instead of pouring down the canyons they'll just ride up the slope on the other side of the mountains and waterfall crash down on top of us right from the peaks. It certainly felt like something massively violent was crashing down upon us.

The worst of it psychologically was hearing the destruction going on around us; tearing metal, siding peeling away from our building like a banana peel, strip by strip, with extra worry every time one came off, hoping it didn't hit the windows. Hearing a bunch of metal clattering and clanging as things over in the store parking lot to the west of us were torn up, from small things like shopping cart returns (boy those metal poles make a racket when they're flying through the air!), pieces of signage, and other things, added to the discord and sense of destruction.

The tendency to anthropomorphize the wind into some sort of ferocious beast, lashing at us sometimes with whip-like cracks of wind on the windows, or voracious-sounding swirls that seemed hungry for targets, or the sense of being under Thor's Hammer, well these things weren't that helpful to dwell on, although hard not to think about as the violence around us went on. Sleep was out the window; thank goodness nothing broke the windows because also, anytime any debris slapped up against one, there was worry.

But, we surived, power out and all, the place cooling uncomfortably, with us nestled in wool socks and beneath blankets. Storm over, we eventually pulled up roots and stayed elsewhere for the night, leaving faucets dripping to avoid frozen pipes.

The damage and debris afterwards around town were quite startling. Heck, 1000 trees on golf courses alone were down. The ones down in neighborhoods were much more jarring. A 20-30 foot tree limb with branches crashed down yards from our back window. It's still there.

One of the eerie things was how swept beyond clean the front lawns were; I eventually nailed down the "unreal" feeling as the fact that it looked like the artificial lawns/environment in the Truman Show movie. Most of the debris here got swept into our lower stairwells.

Anyway, here's hoping the power doesn't go out tonight cause it's a cold one. I also hope the stupid school district makes better decisions, faster, than last Thursday. I had to decide myself she wasn't going in then 96mph winds about half an hour before school closures were announced. The school was closed Friday as well, so I'm worried they'll push for staying open even if it's dangerous tomorrow morning . . . my daughter walks to school, and I haven't been able to wrangle a ride for her yet if school is open in the morning.

Anyway, we're in for a loud and unnerving night, but the winds should be supposedly only gusting up to 60-65 (last time they said 70 or so, so I'm taking this prediction with a grain of salt.)

Thankful for brick construction despite the peel-off siding (well, in hurricane winds it's peel-off siding lol.) Thankful for our safety, and power, and warmth.

"You Are Not a Resident of Utah"

That's news to me!

I knew I was expecting some forms in the mail from Medicaid or Department of Workforce Services, since my husband starts work at the end of the month and I needed them to send an employment information form to report the new job information to them.

As well I needed to know what they needed to get my daughter on my Medicaid.

So today I get a thick envelope, with a letter and form for the employment situation, and a letter saying what they need to consider my daughter.

But smack on top of the pile, is a NOTICE OF DECISION. Regarding me, and it says action taken is CLOSURE (of Medicaid benefits). Reason given? "You are not a Utah resident."

WTH? I've been living in Utah since the late 80's, people! I figured, after a few heart-palpitating moments, that since I had them amend my address last week (they'd been forgetting the apartment number so sometimes I wouldn't get my Medicaid cards), that the system now thinks the Apt. number is on the line of the address that city and state used to be on, so it thought that I'd left Utah since Utah wasn't on that address line any longer.

I called the guy I talked to last week (thanking goodness that I'd gotten his direct number, because he was layers and layers and layers in to the various recorded menus in that phone system) and he said that the computer shows that this notice was sent, but there's no reason for it. He said sometimes it messes up. He says my benefits are open, and not going to close, although they ARE waiting for the new employment information. But the benefits aren't going to close at the end of the month, and I asked him if I needed to appeal like the notice said and he said no.

I really, really hope he's right, because if I miss my time period for appealing something that needs it I'll be really angry and upset. Still, I can see that this could be a stupid computer error based on what I said above . . . . but WHAT an error!

Government can be so stupid sometimes. At least it was "efficient" in sending me all of these papers in one envelope.