Thursday, April 05, 2007

Not Dead Yet

At last, I am released from toil. Oy. Wherever my personal Egypt is, it has a lot of unwashed dishes and uncut root vegetables.

Unfortunately, my dear friend Belle-et-Bonne who came all the way from France to visit and do Seder with me again? She promptly fell ill and spent the next four days horizontal, and only made it through the matzah ball soup before returning to bed. Also, to really emphasize the 'all who are hungry, let them come eat,' someone invited two extra guests, and five people didn't tell me they were coming.

Formal dinner for 11:
First Seder
Complete with wedding tablecloths and some of the 100 napkins that my mother sewed. (I would have been happy with paper! Really!) Plus a plate for Elijah. Fortunately, we have twelve plates.

This morning I returned to lab (well, eventually; first Belle-et-Bonne and I had a leisurely breakfast first, including one of those entirely frank and refreshing conversations that, Mr. S tells me, he and his male friends avoid like a plague of boils).

I promptly walked into the cold room, and spent the next ten minutes wandering about muttering 'What is that smell?' Like a chicken died. Because last week, someone pureed chicken breasts in salty buffer. And... then let the goo stand for a week. It smells just like the last time I forgot raw poultry in the backcountry of the refrigerator.

After I finally determined what the Nasty Icky Smell was, I looked at my abandoned experiment that I was going to come do Monday, but instead I spent it waiting for the doctor with Belle-et-Bonne. And! My dialysis tubing burst! It is now dissolved in two liters. Glycerol ensued.

Glycerol
I love the sugary ribbons it makes when it stirs, and watching the threads whip around in lacy patterns. The photo doesn't do it justice.

Am I a total geek or what?