Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Monthly Archives: January 2022

• What’s Cooking?

  Posted at 8:07 pm by kayewer, on January 29, 2022

  

  My television viewing this week was interrupted by an advertisement for a product that drew my attention for all the wrong reasons. As if there weren’t enough things to annoy us in the world already.

  The product is an oven called Tovala, and it’s touted as the latest in easy preparation meals. They have taken home delivery and technology and combined them into a service revolving around a special oven which depends on your Internet to work. The company sends fresh one- or two-serving meals every week to your home, and a scan of a barcode enables the oven to source the instructions using your Wi-Fi (via a mobile app) and prepare it for you. In other words, there is no timing in a microwave, no pre-heating as with a standard oven and, naturally, no prep. Also, no involvement; you don’t even need to read directions.

  Some things are missing from such apathetic meal handling, such as a real cooking experience. Quick home meals are the next best convenient thing to the fast food drive-through, but a meal cooked from scratch is a vanishing art except on cooking shows.

  There is something about meal preparation that needs a structured time schedule to get right. With fresh ingredients, you take charge of what goes into your body, because you bought them. Your pre-heating time is part of your prep time, and the time spent cooking is taken up by other menu items or even clearing your prep materials. For a complete meal, you use basic math to figure out when to cook what, and if you have ever eaten flaccid broccoli florets because you had to microwave them with your Salisbury steak, you know how important those individual cook times are. When you get it right, your reward is a meal with each component perfectly prepared, the proper temperature, and even seasoned to taste. Try getting that from pre-measured components in a tray.

  And what happens when your Wi-Fi is interrupted? Do you lose the meal? Can you reheat in the Tovala or even the microwave? The questions on their site make it obvious that you have little choice but to depend upon the strict requirements of the oven, which you buy and then maintain a subscription to the meal delivery to use it. If you stop receiving the meals, the oven is useless.

  I cook using a standard oven and microwave. I even use my cooktop. Who needs something else to take up kitchen counter space and seems costlier than the other options out there? I don’t think cloud-based cooking will become a thing. At least not in my kitchen.

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• The Nose Knows

  Posted at 4:44 pm by kayewer, on January 22, 2022

  

  Are you a nose breather, a mouth breather, or a combination of both? Whether you are fond of that dual-holed appendage fronting your face or not, it’s an important part of daily life. Respiration depends upon having those holes available to transport oxygen into the lungs. The mouth is supposed to be back-up, which is exactly the opposite of what happens when we have problems eating, as anybody who has been tube fed through a nostril can attest.

  I read an article this past week about a man who spent several weeks with silicone plugs in his nostrils which were secured there with tape, along with several devices to register his vital signs, in order to study what happens to the bodies of chronic mouth breathers. It seems medical studies show that depending on getting oxygen through your mouth instead of your nose can cause a variety of problems including attention and behavioral problems, sleep disorders, poor oral health and the dynamic grouping of heart disease, high blood pressure and obesity.

  According to the studies, air passing through the nose undergoes a complex cleaning process which enables the lungs to process the incoming oxygen more efficiently. The mouth, which seems a more direct and intake enabling route, instead deprives the lungs of this quality check. The inside of the nose contains structures designed to cleanse incoming air and remove irritants before going into the chest cavity. Breathing through the mouth sends everything you take in from the outside directly to the inside. It’s like not installing an air filter and allowing dust and particles to circulate unchecked.

  The poor fellow in the study found out that his snoring increased twenty fold which naturally meant he wasn’t getting any healthy sleep. His mouth was dry all the time. By the time the study was over, he needed to thoroughly flush out his unplugged nostrils before he could enjoy the intake experience he was used to. Recovery took a while.

  There also seems to be a social stigma attached to not using your nose to breathe, which is why some people go into exile when they get a cold and their noses clog. However, there are a number of reasons for somebody to need mouth breathing, so it’s improper to judge somebody by that. As part of a quest for better sleep, it may be a good idea to examine whether mouth breathing may be a partial cause.

  The concept of how our health is affected by how we take in air was fascinating, and a bit scary. Fortunately I could sit back and breathe a sigh of relief. Hope you can, too.

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• Let the Right Cold In

  Posted at 4:31 pm by kayewer, on January 15, 2022

  

  Cold weather is more difficult to deal with inside your home than warm weather. The temperatures drop and suddenly frigid air begins to infiltrate your home, and there seems to be no escape. In summer you can always turn on a fan or guzzle iced tea, but in winter you can only layer so much, and then it’s a lost cause. Just remember how little brother Randy looked getting ready to go outside to walk to school in A Christmas Story. When you can’t move because you’re wearing sixty layers of stuff, and you’re still cold, you’ve lost the battle.

  Lots of companies tout their methods for fixing this annual problem right about now, but who wants to open up their home to even more cold, in order to try to prevent its intrusion? That’s why I feel all cold-stopping activities should be relegated to warmer weather when you won’t be uncomfortable while they do the work (though admittedly you will feel a bit of discomfort when you settle the bill).

  I just received word that my replacement windows have arrived and are ready to be installed after quite a long wait due to supply chain issues. This means the old windows will have to come out right when I need them. On the other hand, they are not as efficient, so when they do get unceremoniously pulled like decayed teeth and tossed to the ground, the opening left behind will simply allow the cold air easier accessibility, without having to seep in through those hard-to-navigate cracks and crevices. If you’re going to torture me, cold air, let me make it easy for you.

  When the new windows are installed, I should feel more warmth. That’s the general reason for doing a major project like this. However, I’m also not as comfortable with the roofing, or my siding. Sometimes it’s the process of elimination that finally gets to the root cause of cold air intrusion. That or an energy audit from the power company. I would consider that last option, except they can’t come and see my house until I do my spring cleaning.

  Flummoxed again. In order to have an expert determine why my house is cold in the winter, I have to do winter cleaning.

  Gee, just hand me the electric blanket.

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• Gone to the Dogs

  Posted at 4:57 pm by kayewer, on January 8, 2022

  

  The old philosophy about working with children and dogs is at least half true. I found that out this past week when one picture got noticed in a big way.

  At least in a big way for me, because I’m a little social fish in a big network.

  My friend’s dog is into climbing. Her favorite practice is to summit the back of the chair I sit in when I visit, and then perch on the top. Since my friend always has her phone at the ready, she snapped a picture and sent it to me. Without even thinking about it, I summoned it on my phone and posted it to social media with a cute comment about my being a dog’s version of a mountain.

  It has gotten 40 hits in six days. For me, that’s a lot of recognition for one post.

  So the key is to have a dog in the shot.

  Maybe if I had a child there, too, it would have been even better, but my world is childless. As in totally devoid of anybody familial under voting age. I suppose I could have borrowed somebody from the neighborhood, but I worry about the creepy factor: “Excuse me, can I borrow your kid for my attempt at getting a photo liked on social media?”

  Fortunately the dog was much more photogenic than I am, and the shot focuses on her instead of me. It would not have gotten any views at all, let alone 40 likes. And it got some comments, including one from the ex-BF, who noted how adorable the shot was, and that the dog looked cute, too. Gosh gee. This from the ex. What have I done?

  I did a photo with an animal.

  You can’t top that, and I’m certainly not going to exploit this success by bombarding my social media page with more of the same. Since I can’t do photos with kids, I wonder what my next picture will be? Maybe I can post some of my digital photo attempts with scenery and such. No, that won’t do.

  Sometimes successes are best left alone.

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• Cracking Up

  Posted at 4:37 pm by kayewer, on January 1, 2022

  The biggest treat for cats right now is paste in a tube, which I like to call kitty crack. It comes in meat and seafood flavors, squeezes out like toothpaste, and cats seem to go wild for it. If somebody has more than one cat, they will quickly be surrounded by the entire feline army when one of these tubular delights is torn open.

  If you get to do it before the cats do.

  When you buy it, don’t set it down and walk away. You will never see it again. If you think it’s difficult to keep crunchy treats from burglary, or destruction of their pouches or even plastic containers, try holding onto some of this stuff. Fangs and claws can easily render packaging useless, so be prepared to invest in a sturdy, immovable safe hiding place for extra supplies.

  Also be prepared for the fact that they may not last long unless you buy in gross. The tubes are normally sold three to a pack, and at a reasonable price if you’re somebody who likes to see your cat at a time unrelated to when you’re awoken by a meowing clawed fur ball in your face at two in the morning.

  If you plan to get a cat with the idea that they will sit through prime time television with you, think again. And adjust their fickle little mindsets with a supply of kitty crack, to be used on your timeline, not theirs. It’s certain to bring them running.

  Whatever is in this stuff is magical; cats will stand, paw, beg and stretch for a taste, and lap at the tube as if their nine lives depend upon it. They will shuffle for key positions in front of you while you hold the tube for them to feast upon. Some pugilistic scuffles may occur.

  Some pet supply retailers offer BOGO deals, because they know how fast it goes out the door and into kitty tummies. Perhaps it was a CEO at one of those chains who came up with this idea. Whoever the inventor is, they came up with a winner for cat owners. You get to see your pets, and they get to party like the dickens.

  As the saying goes when it comes to pets, dogs have owners and cats have staff. Now we’re just moving on to outright bribers, dealing in tempting tubes of flavor to appeal to our felines.

  Yet we still love their fickle little hearts.

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