This Weekend: Sickness and Health and Sister

Friday afternoon Matt called me at school to tell me he had a bad headache and was losing portions of his vision and thus going to the ER. Because nothing around here is simple, I ran to the subway, took a train, and then caught a cab to (finally!) arrive where he was lying in a dark room with IV fluids running. (They had also given him a combination of morphine and Compazine which helped his headache, but made him feel strung-out and jittery for the next 24 hours.) Diagnosis? Migraines, probably retinal migraines, which we have since found out afflict a number of people in his immediate family. That's somewhat reassuring, since it makes it probable that the diagnosis is correct, as opposed to something more serious; but, as with atopy or IBS or anything else, it's never welcome news to be diagnosed with a chronic condition. For right now, though, we're just infinitely thankful that it wasn't anything more dangerous than that, and we're happy that he's feeling better.

Despite the fact that Matt was essentially post-dromal until Friday night or Saturday morning, we had a wonderful time with Rebecca here; as she put it, when we were all untidily inhaling massive plates of pasta one of her first nights here, "I like it that nobody's trying to show off for each other here." And that was pretty much the tone of the weekend. Since Matt still wasn't feeling very well, we laid pretty low for the most part, but Rebecca and I were able to take in the National Archives (having whetted our appetite by watching National Treasure the night before), the Smithsonian Art Museum, and the Natural History Museum (or "the dead animal zoo," as Matt called it), which we loved. It rained impossibly hard all day Thursday and Friday and into Saturday morning, making for some very wet feet and lots of soggy standing in line, but Saturday it finally cleared up just before noon and so we all went down and walked around the monuments--Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and all the usual suspects. Then we went to Georgetown, where we had a tasty lunch and then walked it off shopping.

In short, we walked ourselves sleepy every day and came home and hit the hay about 9:30 every night. We also consumed lots of good food (what else would you expect? If there's anybody who loves to eat more than the two of us put together, and I don't think there are many, it would be Rebecca). This includes making Hootenanny for breakfast one day, which is something Matt introduced me to last year that his mom used to make, and which I love. It goes like this:

Hootenanny (Or however you'd like to spell it!)

Ingredients:

6 eggs

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 Tablespoons butter

In blender or large bowl mix 6 eggs, 1 cup of milk, 1 cup of flour and salt. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Melt 6 Tablespoons of butter or margarine in 9 x 13 inch pan. Pour in egg mixture. Bake about 20 minutes or until puffy and golden. Serve immediately. It is like a souffle and will slowly fall. Serve with syrup, jam or fruit.

We eat it with syrup and we also broke down and had sausage on the side. It was great, and CHEAP. (And, you know, full of butter, but that's beside the point.) I, for one, am hoping it shows up on the breakfast (or dinner) stage more often as the weather turns cold.

Today, we took Rebecca to the airport, had lunch at Thai Place and then hit Filene's Basement because they were having a suit sale and Matt, distinguished businessman that he is, goes through those things like water these days! :)

Tonight, we made a second batch of potato soup (a double batch, in fact) with croutons for dinner, and then used the onion butts, celery ends and leaves, and potato peels to make vegetable stock! We filled a pot with water, added the above vegetable matter along with a carrot and a few pinches of rosemary and savory and about a tablespoon of salt, and let it simmer for a couple of hours. Then we strained it and put it in yogurt containers (just because that's what we have on hand) and plan to freeze it. We're hoping to spend this winter experimenting with that perfect conjunction of healthy/frugal/comfort food that is SOUP. This will be an excellent start. We ended up with about 70 ounces of stock, and it turned out great! Made from nothing but essentially vegetable garbage, water, and spices! Chalk up another point for "made from scratch."

And now, because this post was the last procrastination I was going to allow myself, I have to go finish my paper that's due tomorrow.