Criminalize the symptoms while you spread the disease

[rachg82]

Ugh, worst part about being on my period? Even worse, perhaps, than the uptick in depression, irritability, and anxiety? The increase in my freaking "Good morning! Not! Muahaha" migraines, that's what. I HATE HORMONES.

Anyway, I'm tired of lying down with an icepack, so I'm in one of those "Y'know what, pain? I can't even hear you. La la la"-moods, trying to distract & detach. Ergo, spam for you lot. Enjoy.

First, another meme (P.S. I plan to answer your questions from yesterday's meme soon, promise):

Lyric Meme

Give me a character or a ship and I will give you a lyric (or a few) that reminds me of them.

And now for rambling:

1. Let me get this straight, this guy gets the death penalty amidst all the controversy (eyewitness testimony? Really, people? Do I need to point out the studies indicating how effing unreliable that shit is?), while these cruel bastards get 4-15 yrs? It's certainly not news to me, but it just sucks to be reminded how frakked the justice system in this country really is, not to mention the safety net for mentally ill/homeless people. My schizophrenic uncle's just lucky to have been in halfway homes & on proper medication for so much of his life, including the medication he takes now to deal with all the side effects from the shock therapy he received back in the day.

I like the comment too from the person who was all, "His dad ~let~ him be homeless and now wants to sue the police?" Yes, because A. his son's life ceased to matter after becoming homeless, apparently, and B. it's super easy to control a mentally ill adult, force them to live where you want, force them to stay on the right medication--or even have good access to it--and get them the help they need after most of the old hospitals got shut down & shelters/ERs across the nation became understaffed & overloaded (I still remember talking to ER nurses & listening to them vent about the system while my mom slept there on a gurney for days, waiting for a single bed to open up in the psych ward). I'd like to invite that guy to actually be related to a seriously unstable individual for a decade or two & then get back to me on that. God. Someday I will learn to stop reading Yahoo comments, but apparently that's still a work in progress.

2. I have several ignorant cooking questions to ask.

-I bought more ground hamburger meat than I could eat (before I knew it'd go bad, I mean -- I put it in the fridge after buying it, thinking it'd get used up quickly. Two days later, there was still a huge amount left), so last night I just cooked up the rest & stuck what didn't get eaten in the freezer. That's okay, right? I'm pretty sure I remember hearing you could do that, & it'd then stay good for up to five days. Am I correct?

-On a similar note, I bought a package of hot dogs recently, prepared & ate two, then stuck the rest (not prepared) back in the fridge, wrapped in foil because the package was torn open & all. How long can they now stay in the fridge before going bad? And was I supposed to drain the juice first or anything? I swear, this stuff makes me feel so ridiculously stupid, but I want to learn.

-I'd like to try shredded pork tacos (like I'm used to when I eat out, same goes for shredded beef), but don't know what should go into that. I need advice. Where to buy it (the butcher?), whether I need to shred the meat myself, etc.

…and I think that's enough for now. Obviously, this is the result of making tacos already (with ground meat), which I at least feel pretty spiffy about. Heh. I mean, I fried the corn tortillas myself & everything, just like dradiscontact showed me when she visited in December. I need to try this brand when I can, though, so I can avoid corn as well. But this was a start.

3. I haven't talked about Parenthood yet, so I should probably rectify that:

-The premiere felt a little off to me; I thought I remembered Jasmine & Crosby getting back together in last season's finale. Or did I misread that? It seemed they were suddenly just separated again last week, and I was all, "Wait, what? Are they intentionally skipping ahead without explaining, wanting us to wonder what happened?" If so, it was a tad sloppy, imo. Like, I get that there was a time jump, clearly, but I still want to know what changed.

-Whoever's doing Haddie's & Max's hair this season needs to shut it down. Are they rationing scissors for the war? Planting them in a victory garden? (that joke doesn't even make sense, hee. But shh)

-Julia & Joel are still hot. Check!

-It kind of amuses me how Lauren Graham is so totally just a slightly varied version of Lorelai Gilmore in this show. Like, Lorelai if only she'd been born into a different family. I'm not complaining though -- I love Lorelai. Glad to have her back. Heh.

-It's fun to come back to Parenthood after watching so much Friday Night Lights this summer. I'd already seen Abby & Alex last year, of course, but seeing Abby in the "last season"-clips & Alex in new eps now still left me all, "HEY, IT'S LYLA & VINCE!" Just waiting for the great Kyle Chandler to make a cameo. *prepares streamers*

-I noticed they kept focusing on people's hands with the camera this week, jumping back & forth. WTF. It was awkward.

(unrelated note/pathetic whining: my head is really starting to hurt at this point, so please forgive any typos if some appear. I didn't wear my biteguard last night either--not a bright move--so my whole jaw aches, too, right up to my ears. And my next-door neighbor's dog is howling & barking, so I've got headphones on with music playing, trying to drown out the sound, and it's not. working. eialghoighgh)

-As always, Max cracked me up this week. I just love him & relate. His issues are much worse than mine ever were, but there's still a lot of similarities. The "don't correct people" advice made me bust out laughing, as did the scene in the classroom. That brought back some serious memories, for real. Ha. I didn't get in trouble for failing to raise my hand when answering a direct-to-the-class question, though; for me, it was failing to raise my hand when blurting out questions or non-prompted comments, either because I kept forgetting or simply didn't see the logic in it -- I mean, if no one else was speaking, or even if the teacher was speaking but had her back turned to the class, thus unable to see hands being raised, I was like, "I'll just shout out. They should understand" (plus I've always had difficulty timing my interjections into a conversation/situation; I interrupt without realizing or thinking about it. It's been something I've had to keep working on well into adulthood). Then I'd proceed to get in trouble for "backtalking" & questioning why I NEEDED to raise my hand in those cases. Haha. Just like Max! We should've been besties. Except, his teacher was way more tolerant--I would've been sent outside or something, and WAS, many times (I set a record in the sixth grade, hee). I doubt he got pulled to the corner by his ear on the first day of Kindergarten either.

…I swear I was a well-intentioned, good kid though. Heh. A lot of teachers loved me, actually.

Also: I was so happy to see Max get friends at the end of the ep. Aww, little gamer nerds! ♥s forever.

-I hope Drew gets more attention this season with Amber moving out. Not that I want Amber to get less attention, but he's sort of an invisible character on the show.


4. I watched "When We Were Kings" this week. It had a lot of clips I'd already seen (my dad had a vid of the entire Rumble in the Jungle match when I was younger, which included various bits of news footage from those years. I watched it with him once), but there was stuff I'd never seen too, and it was very entertaining overall. I'd listen to Ali talk all day. We're gonna get it on because we don't get along! Haha. Love him.

5. Facebook continues to be the devil. What's worse than obligatory friendships with people who really aren't your friends anymore? Seeing them talk to each other like BFFs & not include you. It's my fault though. For one, this is why I hide them (then occasionally look on their wall anyway, like some kind of masochist. It's like the Yahoo comments thing), and for two, it's not really obligatory to keep them as "friends" at all. It's just hard to defriend. You know people make such a big deal out of it, will probably tell the others, "Oh, you know, Rachael actually defriended me this week" (cue: "What's with her?" bla bla bla gossip), despite the fact that for all intents & purposes they haven't BEEN my friends for a good year now. It's just so annoying.

6. The guy I talked to at unemployment yesterday said his records showed that I called on the 13th, so the form's deadline shouldn't be an issue. Of course he also kept being like, "They'll honor the date of the postmark, don't worry" and was obviously not paying attention to my question. But I broke it down for him AGAIN, and was like, "The form is going to be postmarked LATE. L-a-t-e, late. But it also said I could call, which I did. And you show that, correct? Which means I'm okay?" And he said yes. So…I guess it's okay. I didn't really trust him though. We'll see. Either way, it still leaves the problem open-ended because I don't know if they'll reopen my claim, but I at least don't want it to be denied because of a postmark date of all things.

BTW, I wasn't really that rude to him, heh. But I'm feeling venty today, so just go with it.

7. I have a phone appointment with the SNAP people this Friday to determine my eligibility for food assistance & state health care. Fingers crossed, folks.

8. My first appointment with Luke Dorf is Monday. The intake lady told me that the crisis team already gave me a preliminary diagnosis of major depression, which didn't surprise me (I've been diagnosed with it before + Generalized Anxiety Disorder & Social Anxiety Disorder). It sounds like I'll be getting a full assessment next week though. The one I got with the psychiatrist wasn't one of those "let's diagnose you" deals, more so a medication check up with a short series of questions. The person I'll be seeing is only listed as a QMHP, though, I think, so I don't know what level of experience to expect or how relevant it'll be to my situation. But I hope it works out.

9. As for a RL update on how I'm doing, the last few days have been somewhat hard, emotionally. Not just for the financial stuff, but thoughts & dreams of family, friends, loneliness, etc. But it is helpful to know I'll be talking to someone soon. I did take a walk yesterday as well, for the first time in a while, which was nice. Sometimes it makes me sad now to be in nature, because I used to spend so much time outdoors with my nephew (we'd go for what we called "expeditions" and what-not, make it into a whole big thing, wandering in the forest, looking for bugs & animals, stuff like that), but it's still soothing to me, and brings my spirits up when I pass by toddlers driving their parents crazy with non-stop questions & the like. Heh. "Why is the dog sniffing that?" "Because that's what dogs like to do." "Why do they like to do that? Moo-oom? Why? Why do they like to sniff? Why--" "Because they just do." "Where'd the sky go? Where's the river?" "We can't see it because of the trees. It'll be back." "When?" Seriously, non-stop, this little girl was. I had to fight myself not to laugh.

10. For my Vid of the Day, here's some more purty music:

Comments

[careyleah.livejournal.com]

Once you freeze meat it's good for...man, months, at least. Freezer burn/compromised taste is really your only worry. You could have just gone ahead and thrown it in the freezer raw too, as long as it was before or on it's sell by date. Just don't freeze, thaw and refreeze (raw meat).

Hot dogs are basically fully cooked and full of preservatives so they can stay good for a long time too. Weeks? Or longer. My family may push it, but no one's ever gotten sick from it! You can drain the juice or leave it as you prefer. Also, fine to freeze them too if you think you won't eat them in a couple weeks or whatever.

Making your own shredded pork can be a bit complicated, I've never attempted it myself, but I'm sure Jasmine has tips. In pork tacos I like onions/salsa, hot sauce, some kind of tangy cheese, queso fresco is best, but if you can't get that feta or goat, and then maybe a little raw shredded cabbage. I always tell my mom tacos have no rules! Whatever you think is tasty, throw it in there!

[rachg82.livejournal.com]

Coming up with stuff to add to the tacos is no problem for me. I was more so wondering about the meat itself, hoping there was some simple method for buying & preparing a small portion of shredded pork at a time. Sounds like not so much. Heh.

[juliedarling.livejournal.com]

I've never made shredded pork tacos per se, but there's a braised pork tacos recipe I love that's pretty easy to make and uses pork shoulder, which is pretty cheap. (I usually halve it using the halving instructions and follow user recommendations to use more orange.) Another thing I do if I want to cheat and make super easy pork tacos is to just cook up some chorizo with some onion, garlic and cilantro and squeeze on a little lime. Could not be easier, and is very tasty.

What Carey said about hot dogs; they are not like regular meat and last a while. You can rely on color and smell with a lot of meats to help determine if they're okay--if your beef starts to get brown or smell funny, definitely never eat it, but if it's all pink and fresh-meat smelling, it's usually fine. One thing you can do to avoid spoilage problems and wasting food is to take your fresh meat from the grocery store and separate it into individual portion sizes before freezing. Have some small freezer bags ready and separate chicken breasts, hamburger-sized patties, etc. into separate bags and freeze them individually so you can just grab as much as you need when you're about to make dinner. It's really hard as a single person to use a whole pound of ground meat or a whole package of chicken before it spoils! So if you can't find individually-wrapped chicken or ground beef, just wrap them up yourself as soon as you get back from the store.

[rachg82.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I've had chorizo before and liked it, so that's a good idea. I'll probably do that!

[jasminelily.livejournal.com]

What Julie and Carey said is all totally right! The only thing you have to worry about with freezing is you don't want to defrost uncooked meat, and then put it back into the freezer -- that could get nasty. But you can totally take it from the freezer, cook it, then put it back into the freezer fully cooked.

To make shredded pork can be easy, but also time consuming. This is a recipe that I love, and you can totally not use some of the herbs and spices. Pork butt and pork shoulder are the same thing, fyi, and it's usually a super cheap cut of meat. You can cut that recipe in half easily, and then freeze it in plastic baggies well wrapped and then defrost quickly to eat. BUT that might be more than you can handle right now, so no worries if you need to work up to that. The good thing about any braised meat is that it's kind of hard to mess up -- you can burn it, yes, but that's only if you keep the temperature up too high or don't have enough liquid in it. But otherwise, braising meat just makes it tender, and it can cook for a long time, you can add all sorts of flavorings, and you won't risk undercooking it if you worry about that.

[rachg82.livejournal.com]

It's okay if I put the cooked ground beef in a tupperware container in the freezer, right? It doesn't have to be baggies?

Also: once I'm ready to reheat/recook the frozen ground beef, how should I thaw it? As I'm cooking it or put it in the fridge the day before, or something else? Will it become dry tasting by recooking?

[jasminelily.livejournal.com]

it can be in tupperware, the goal is just for it to be as airtight as you can, so if it's in tupperware, wrap it in some plastic wrap first maybe just so that the air doesn't get in there and give it all freezer burn. It won't make it go BAD, it just won't make it taste as good.

For ground beef, what I'd do is just reheat it as you cook it -- like if you're making spaghetti sauce, just toss it in the sauce as you warm it up. If you're making tacos, either stick it in the fridge a little while before, or just stick it (still in the well sealed tupperware) in a bowl of lukewarm water to help defrost, and then I'd just add it with some salsa into a warm pan and warm it all up together. It might get dry if you cook it all the way from frozen, but if you defrost it so it's cold and then cook it quickly, it should be fine.

[rachg82.livejournal.com]

then I'd just add it with some salsa into a warm pan

Salsa is something I only eat sparingly, because of the acid reflux, and I never add it onto tacos (I'm finicky with it -- only dip chips into it). Could I just fry it by itself again? Or just add a little oil?

[jasminelily.livejournal.com]

Omg, I'm the stupidest person in the world -- I never think about microwaves because I don't have one, but you should totally just warm it up (slowly, on low heat) in the microwave, and then you can add more oil to the pan on med-high heat and crisp it all back up.

[rachg82.livejournal.com]

Heh, I don't have a working microwave either (it broke a while back & is just sitting on my counter like a stage prop now), so no worries.