Remember how I said I was back? That might have been a lie. I am once again in the TUX, spending my days in hospitals and my nights in either hospitals or hotels.
Things hospitals are good for:
Things hospitals are not good for:
So, I've spent the majority of the last couple of weeks subsisting off of the World Class Dining Service (sic) that the hospital provides (though, to be fair, the options for visitors are much better than the options for patients) and essentially catnapping on foldout couches in between vitals checks and overeager resident visits that occur through the wee hours of the morning. Happily, things are looking good to not be in TUX for much longer and maybe we'll actually get to stick around PHX for more than a night or two and enjoy the double-digit(!) temperatures that are forecasted.
However, before this villainous return visit, I at least was housesitting and actually had the chance to cook for myself on the rare occasions I left the hospital before it was dark. You know how success is 99% perspiration? Well, these dishes were 99% desperation, combined with whatever I could loot from the fridge (supplemented with some purchased vegetables once I figured out where the Whole Foods was) and jerry-rigged cooking contraptions (because it wasn't until about a week in that I figured out where the lids were). And maybe a smidgen of pure terror at what a diet of pop, Sun chips, and mac & cheese was doing to my digestive system.
Dish the first was a vaguely Mediterraneanish salad composed almost entirely of things I managed to steal from the lovely people who were letting me squat in their house. I fried up some chickpeas and broccoli with some garlic, then added little rings of thinly-sliced sweet peppers, halved cherry tomatoes, and a squeeze of lemon. Mix this in with some couscous blend and some surprisingly-good feta cheese, and while it won't win you any roses at the county fair, it will soothe a cafeteria-ravaged stomach.
Things hospitals are good for:
- Quasi-experimental surgery
- Drugs on demand
- Socks with the little grippy things on the feet
- Warm blankets
- Attractive surgeons
Things hospitals are not good for:
- Sleeping
- Not contracting diseases
- Eating
- Olympic-caliber bobsledding
So, I've spent the majority of the last couple of weeks subsisting off of the World Class Dining Service (sic) that the hospital provides (though, to be fair, the options for visitors are much better than the options for patients) and essentially catnapping on foldout couches in between vitals checks and overeager resident visits that occur through the wee hours of the morning. Happily, things are looking good to not be in TUX for much longer and maybe we'll actually get to stick around PHX for more than a night or two and enjoy the double-digit(!) temperatures that are forecasted.
However, before this villainous return visit, I at least was housesitting and actually had the chance to cook for myself on the rare occasions I left the hospital before it was dark. You know how success is 99% perspiration? Well, these dishes were 99% desperation, combined with whatever I could loot from the fridge (supplemented with some purchased vegetables once I figured out where the Whole Foods was) and jerry-rigged cooking contraptions (because it wasn't until about a week in that I figured out where the lids were). And maybe a smidgen of pure terror at what a diet of pop, Sun chips, and mac & cheese was doing to my digestive system.
Dish the first was a vaguely Mediterraneanish salad composed almost entirely of things I managed to steal from the lovely people who were letting me squat in their house. I fried up some chickpeas and broccoli with some garlic, then added little rings of thinly-sliced sweet peppers, halved cherry tomatoes, and a squeeze of lemon. Mix this in with some couscous blend and some surprisingly-good feta cheese, and while it won't win you any roses at the county fair, it will soothe a cafeteria-ravaged stomach.
The second dish was a bit more exciting, mostly because I got to go real grocery shopping for the first time in weeks and got to spend my evening cooking instead of sitting in the surgical ward AND I saw my first-ever coyote on the drive home. This time, undoubtedly inspired by the Asian noodle salad that The Husband so kindly wrote up for me, I sauteed up some garlic, broccoli, peppers (notice a food-trend?) and onion in a little oil and soy sauce, then added some bok choy and spinach and let them cook until wilted. I cheated a little and made some Trader Joe's miso soup mix (about a cup) and poured that in to simmer for a few minutes. The veg were served over udon noodles and topped with some sliced scallions (you may also note some roasted Brussels sprouts, but they were added to reduce the number of dinner plates and simplify transporting dinner from the main house to the casita, and they were very tasty on their own, just drizzled in olive oil and a generous sprinkling of salt and roasted in a toaster over until tender, then blasted under the broiler to brown up, though some of them did soak up a little of the miso broth, and they were also pretty fantastic, but Brussels sprouts are pretty amazing and maybe one of my favorite vegetables, so they're kind of hard to ruin). I was endlessly pleased with myself after this one, though I may just be incredibly easily heartened by not-takeout at this point.
Hopefully, we will be hitting the long, dusty interstate back to PHX (for good!) tomorrow, which means a resumption of normal life and good food and relaxing days (only briefly interrupted by panic over the manuscript deadlines I have hovering about my head, but at least I've learned that there are four stages to sepsis progression and that you can't be an ethical nurse unless you can explain Kantian deontology).
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