Ratatouille for kids

My kids, especially the boy, love Disney's Ratatouille. Rocket wants to be a chef when he grows up. So for fun, we made kid-friendly ratatouille and ate it while watching the movie. Lots of fun.





It's just summer squash, calabacita, and tomato sauce with italian seasoning on top. It was really good, although it was more like italian food than french food, I'm sure.

Speaking of food, you should read this

The Doom Room

I feel antsy. Nervous...I feel the need to stockpile. Up till now, the huge insurmountable problem has been space, but something finally drove me off my fat butt to clean out the hall closet (well, mostly).
So here it is:




As you can see, I already have the basics; a box of Alchi-Checkers and a Kokopeli candle holder, but I'm looking to branch out. Only enough for a few weeks, I'm not trying to recreate Ruby Ridge or anything...

Here's what I think I need.

20 gallons of water, or thereabouts.
20 cans of beans
20 cans of tuna
20 cans of fruit
20 cans of veggies
4 cans of propane for the camp stove
1 bag of dog food (let's face it, they can probably forage a whole lot more efficiently than I can)
3 bottles of Old Crow (for, you know...wounds and stuff)
Probably some gauze...
Coffee

It's hot.

Samurai Repairmen

It was they who instructed me in the Way of the Laundry Appliance.
It was they who gave me the confidence to act with...Confidence.
It was they who directed me onto the path of Awesomness.
Bow before the Samurai Repairmen!!!

www.fixitnow.com

Canyon Lake

We got to see a deer as we were driving to our campsite.



Here's the view from our picnic table...It was unbelievably hot, but we set the baby's play pen up underneath the little picnic area and got everything put together.



Pete and the kids went down to the lake and found a nice place to wade. Unfortunately, the water was warm.




We had two barn swallow pairs nesting in our roof, and we got to watch them hunt bugs for their babies. I don't think they were very impressed with us, though...



Pete fiddling with the tent.



Breakfast time! Roland and I didn't actually sleep, so I was up early. I set up the campstove, then realized I hadn't brought anything to heat the coffee water in. So, I used the can from the kid's orange juice. It worked pretty well. Bacon, eggs, etc. were enjoyed by all.



There was some frisbeeing.



And some general silliness as we packed up.



Here's the fishing dock, lying on dry ground next a sign that said "Water levels may vary, watch for obstructions".



Here's a nice picture:



On the other side of that tree, is a big, battered travel trailer, three ATVs, two lounging hound dogs, a guy in his boxers & a wife beater, a woman in a pair of daisy dukes and plaid shirt knotted around her belly. These two were throwing the deer corn, as one of their young sons lounged on the ATVs drinking either Diet Coke or Miller Light. I actuaslly saw him crush the can on his head.
The other kid was sitting on one of the dogs, trying to keep them from scaring the deer, I guess.

It was really surreal.

OMYFRIKKINDAMMIT(some cussing ahead)

So, I went in for my root canal...I had an actual, lung-crackling, vomit-inducing panic attack, but the tiny, little, rational part of me was like "It's cool, it'll all be over soon!"

Nooooooo, you ignorant slut!!!

I went to the dentist, she numbed me up good, then started drilling. It didn't hurt at all. I was good to go. I had read up on the procedure before hand, so I kind of knew what to expect. It went pretty quickly.
Then, it was time for them to stick pin-like drills into the roots of my teeth and take X-rays, to make sure that they had drilled all the way down. Cool, I'm still numb. However, I have a tiny mouth(don't laugh, it's true). Taking X-rays has always been kind of hit or miss with me, and I mentioned it to them before.
Anyhow...They stuck the files in three times, took three sets of X-rays, before they got a set they could use. My mouth had pretty much un-numbed by this time, as she was seeing other patients in between working on me. Whatever.

Finally, after about two hours, she realizes that they haven't gotten the entire nerve out. So does she re-numb me? NO, she just drills the fuck out my teeth as quick as she can.
Whatever, it's almost over and I just want to be done with this. So they stick cotton in my teeth and go off to do other dentist stuff. When they come back, the assistant is like, "Wow, that's a lot of blood!" And the dentist is like "Stick another wad of cotton in there!" So I wait some more, and I wait some more...
And then the dentist comes back and starts digging around with her little hook, trying to figure out why I'm still bleeding (When I bleed, dammit, I BLEEDS!).

"Oh wow, she says, You have a fourth root!"

Cause, you know, three X-rays are apparently not enough to detect an anomalous fourth root.
Well, she can't deal with that, so now I have to go see an endodontist, who will charge me approximately twice as much (according to Metlife's handy cost estimator).
Okay, whatever, it sucks. So the receptionist calls to make me an appt but, bad news. They can't get me in till the 6th of August. I'm not going to be here in August, so I said what about September? figuring that if waiting one month is okay, waiting two wouldn't be a big deal. OH MY GOD, NO! They are shocked! I can't wait THAT long!

So I call the endodontist later and find out that they have a convenient opening on the 6th of JULY. WTF. The kicker is, the receptionist asked if I wanted to let them keep the money I had paid to put towards my fillings...Even though the fillings are going to cost half what the damn root canal did.
Somebody just kill me.

Dental jitters

I'm getting a root canal and a butt load of fillings Thursday morning at 9:00.
Hopefully it won't take too long.