The very good news is that I have been going back to the gym and getting in some good workouts. The bike has been declared good to go and I went out today and bought a new helmet. I still need to get a final CT scan to clear me to ride. That will happen Thursday and the weather gods willing, I might be back on my bike Friday, exactly one month to the day.
I have been going back to the gym for the last two weeks, and am now capable of doing a decent two hour workout of core, light resistance, and cardio or jogging intervals. Go me, I think .
In between times I have been baking bread using a recipe my daughter gave me for pizza stone bread. It's a basic white bread that is done peasant (rustic or artisan style, as it is callled these days) which means that you mix all the dry ingredients, add the liquids, and don't proof the yeast. After letting it raise for a couple of hours, form it into a loaf, throw it and a cup of water into the oven on a hot pizza stone. The water flashes to steam and makes a nice crisp crust while the hot pizza stone cooks it from the bottom.
I made up a batch of dough the other day. After an hour it had grown out of the large bowl I had mixed it in and so I divided it into two bowls almost as large. A couple of hours later as it was beginning to flow out of the two bowls, I divided it into a couple of very large covered containers and put it in the refrigerator. Two hours later I was scrapping dough off of the shelf and the wall of the fridge . In desperation, to make room in the container, I formed up two loaves and baked them off.
Both loaves came out a bit lighter and not quite as dense as usual but with the same taste. Two days later, when I went to bake off the third loaf, it had grown to the top of its' container and was looking for a way out. This in spite of the fact that cold is supposed to slow down if not stop the growth in the yeast.
I have been puzzling out what I did different with this batch. Phil usually does the pizza stone bread and I do the bread machine bread. The only differences I have been able to identify are that it was a fresh bag of flour and a fresh bottle of yeast, and that because the directions were so scanty, I dissolved the yeast in the water before mixing it in with the flour and salt. Of course the only way to tell is to repeat the experiment, but I think I need to get some really really big containers before hand. Of course if I go out and buy new containers, the yeast will never ever run amuck again.
Other oddities
Last week I noticed a new church called The Church of the Fallen Rock. Not so unusual perhaps, except that the new sign didn't come anywhere close to covering up the big K Mart sign behind. So there you have it, The Church of the Fallen Rock formerly known as K Mart.
As we all know, Monday was Presidents' day. In a splurge of misguided patriotism or some other motive, the majority of local politicians running for re-election on March 2 all decided that the obvious way to benefit from this contrived holiday was to place pre-recorded telephone calls to all of their constituents and random other names out of the telephone book to encourage recipients to vote for them. I counted 13 messages plus another 6 that were hang ups. Like what I want to do is spend a day rushing to the phone to talk to automated messages.
We went out to lunch the other day in a sort of "restaurant row" in one of the local malls. From where we were sitting we could see the name of another restaurant that looked like "Masada Wok." We had a great time trying to imagine what they might serve. Possibly things like "sweet and sour matzo balls " or "gefilte fish stir fry." When we left and drove past the sign we realized it was actually called "Masala Wok" which makes more sense. Still it was a fun fantasy.
Finally, I often find myself wondering why it is that all the Cialis adds for male ED on the television seem to end with the couple holding hands and sitting in separate bathtubs in the middle of a meadow. Inquiring minds would like to know : what do bathtubs have to do with ED? Isn't the idea that taking Cialis will correct the condition and lead to the big S word? Why separate bathtubs, why not a hot tub? How did those bathtubs get out there into the middle of that meadow, and who hauled the hot water. If the water isn't hot, isn't that self defeating to the whole concept of correcting male ED where thhe E stands for erectile.
Silly, I know, but sometimes question like these can keep you up at night.
I have been going back to the gym for the last two weeks, and am now capable of doing a decent two hour workout of core, light resistance, and cardio or jogging intervals. Go me, I think .
In between times I have been baking bread using a recipe my daughter gave me for pizza stone bread. It's a basic white bread that is done peasant (rustic or artisan style, as it is callled these days) which means that you mix all the dry ingredients, add the liquids, and don't proof the yeast. After letting it raise for a couple of hours, form it into a loaf, throw it and a cup of water into the oven on a hot pizza stone. The water flashes to steam and makes a nice crisp crust while the hot pizza stone cooks it from the bottom.
I made up a batch of dough the other day. After an hour it had grown out of the large bowl I had mixed it in and so I divided it into two bowls almost as large. A couple of hours later as it was beginning to flow out of the two bowls, I divided it into a couple of very large covered containers and put it in the refrigerator. Two hours later I was scrapping dough off of the shelf and the wall of the fridge . In desperation, to make room in the container, I formed up two loaves and baked them off.
Both loaves came out a bit lighter and not quite as dense as usual but with the same taste. Two days later, when I went to bake off the third loaf, it had grown to the top of its' container and was looking for a way out. This in spite of the fact that cold is supposed to slow down if not stop the growth in the yeast.
I have been puzzling out what I did different with this batch. Phil usually does the pizza stone bread and I do the bread machine bread. The only differences I have been able to identify are that it was a fresh bag of flour and a fresh bottle of yeast, and that because the directions were so scanty, I dissolved the yeast in the water before mixing it in with the flour and salt. Of course the only way to tell is to repeat the experiment, but I think I need to get some really really big containers before hand. Of course if I go out and buy new containers, the yeast will never ever run amuck again.
Other oddities
Last week I noticed a new church called The Church of the Fallen Rock. Not so unusual perhaps, except that the new sign didn't come anywhere close to covering up the big K Mart sign behind. So there you have it, The Church of the Fallen Rock formerly known as K Mart.
As we all know, Monday was Presidents' day. In a splurge of misguided patriotism or some other motive, the majority of local politicians running for re-election on March 2 all decided that the obvious way to benefit from this contrived holiday was to place pre-recorded telephone calls to all of their constituents and random other names out of the telephone book to encourage recipients to vote for them. I counted 13 messages plus another 6 that were hang ups. Like what I want to do is spend a day rushing to the phone to talk to automated messages.
We went out to lunch the other day in a sort of "restaurant row" in one of the local malls. From where we were sitting we could see the name of another restaurant that looked like "Masada Wok." We had a great time trying to imagine what they might serve. Possibly things like "sweet and sour matzo balls " or "gefilte fish stir fry." When we left and drove past the sign we realized it was actually called "Masala Wok" which makes more sense. Still it was a fun fantasy.
Finally, I often find myself wondering why it is that all the Cialis adds for male ED on the television seem to end with the couple holding hands and sitting in separate bathtubs in the middle of a meadow. Inquiring minds would like to know : what do bathtubs have to do with ED? Isn't the idea that taking Cialis will correct the condition and lead to the big S word? Why separate bathtubs, why not a hot tub? How did those bathtubs get out there into the middle of that meadow, and who hauled the hot water. If the water isn't hot, isn't that self defeating to the whole concept of correcting male ED where thhe E stands for erectile.
Silly, I know, but sometimes question like these can keep you up at night.
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