07.01.2007

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Don says:

One of our readers, a fellow named Roy from Springfield, Missouri, sent us a letter with no return address and no surname.   Of course I remembered Elroy Fyffe, whom I've never met, who also lives in Springfield, Missouri and is a great-uncle to my daughter Lily but I guess that'd just be too much of a coincidence.   Anyway, in his closing paragraph Roy said "Yes Don I will bet you can even make a computer do a waltz but I will also bet that when it comes to Lisa your stupidity index is 150 out of a possible 100!   That is how Mother Nature put us of the male gender together."   Well, sorry Roy, you're wrong on that.   First off, I've made about every mistake a man can make only with former spouses *grin*.   I've behaved myself completely since I married Lisa.   If this one gets away, it's NOT going to be my fault.   For example, this morning for breakfast I stir fried some brown and wild rice along with diced ham, chopped onions, diced celery, tossed in some sliced ripe olives and baked the whole works into a quiche.   For supper we made Chicken Pot Pie from scratch.   While she made drop biscuit dough with brown rice flour, garbanzo bean flour and tapioca starch, I diced veggies, simmered them in homemade chicken broth while I thawed out and diced an eight ounce package of boned chicken (cooked, boned out and packaged in advance by us) from the freezer.   When all the veggies (fresh celery, carrots, cabbage, onions, garlic and seasonings) were done I thickened the mixture with sweet rice flour and poured it into a large corningware baking dish, she spooned in the biscuit topping and it went into the oven for about 50 minutes.   Then, while she was working on the website she's making for her Texas Master Gardener group I made a chocolate/apricot cake (with Hershey's special dark cocoa), from scratch and baked it.   It's cooling right now and in a few minutes we'll cut ourselves a slice and top it with some of the homemade apricot jam I put up a few weeks back.

Yessir Roy, I take good care of my wife and I tell her how much I love her several times a day.   I try real hard to do my share of the cooking, laundry, and dishwashing (we have a machine but never use it).   You said you'd managed to stay married for over 50 years, well, I haven't done quite that well yet but I have been married for over 30 years, just not to the same woman.   Win some, lose some, but I'm hoping I've finally gotten it right.

I should add that Lisa has food allergies which make it almost impossible for us to use any sort of prepackaged prepared foods.   She has to avoid wheat, corn, oats, buckwheat, milk, sunflower seeds, peanuts and the Nightshade family (potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant).   Stop and think about what dietary exclusions these sensitivities entail or just read the labels on a half dozen items, chosen at random, from your pantry; it shouldn't take you long to get some idea of what we're up against.   Surprisingly enough, we manage to eat quite well in spite of her sensitivities but it means we have to cook.   We get fresh seasonings, lots of different teas, citric acid crystals (to combine with soda to make our own baking powder) and arrowroot flour from San Francisco Herb.   We get coarse ground rye, garbanzo bean flour, brown rice flour, white rice flour, sweet rice flour, tapioca flour, quinoa (which Lisa likes for breakfast), and sea salt from Bob's Red Mill.   We get some snack foods from a health food store in Marble Falls, soft peppermints and Smarties candies (containing no high fructose corn syrup) at the dollar store and we have a different list of "safe" items for each supermarket in the region.   We know which convenience stores sell bags of mixed nuts without peanuts, pepitos (shelled, roasted pumpkin seeds), Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bars (low in milk content and containing no corn syrup), and soft drinks bottled in Mexico (containing no high fructose corn syrup).   On very rare occassions we get to visit a Central Market store in Austin or San Antonio where we can find all sorts of wonderful, mostly imported, foods which we can use to add variety and adventure to our diet.

There's also unanticipated fringe benefits from Lisa's diet.   I used to go through a 150 count bottle of antacid tablets in about two weeks but, if I stick to her diet and don't cheat much, the same bottle lasts me for up to three months.   My mother has had chronic constipation all her life and been forced to use strong laxatives.   If she sticks to Lisa's diet she doesn't need laxatives.

Life is good, love is wonderful and Texas is soaking wet because it's rained for days now.   I'm thinking of building a rowboat, our yard isn't ark-friendly.

Later Y'all

Lisa says:

Pulling my hair out.   Yes, that's what I've been doing for the last few days.   You see, I took a course to become a Llano County Master Gardener.   In return for 50 hours of top-notch education provided by the county Extension Service and hosted by Texas A&M University, students perform 50 hours of community service to earn the title of Master Gardener.   Included in the bargain are many opportunities for advanced education, enriching our gardening knowledge and enhancing the community.   So, what idea did this cocky MG-to-be have to fulfill her hours of service?   Why I piped up and said, "How about I build you a website?"   Did it matter that I can barely edit the pages of our web site without serious handholding from Don?   It did not.

Turns out, the Llano County MGs have only been in existence for a couple of years and wanted a website, but had no one to do it.   They jumped on the idea like a flock of geese on a crawly snack.   Now I have to learn HTML and CSS pronto.   I've gotten a good start the last few days.   Here's a rough outline.   Not all the links work, you'll have to mouse over them to see which ones do.

One thing that's contributed to having the time to take a crash course in HTML is the fact that it's been raining.   No, folks, really raining, rather a lot more than 40 days and 40 nights.   The ground is saturated, the lakes are full and some residents of surrounding communities have been evacuated from low areas.   Central Texas gets this much rain on an average of every 500 years.   This may be the year.

The adventure continues...