Ifferjenn Independent

I’m a little behind here, I know. And I totally wrote 5 more posts, except they were in my head, which is where you never want to store ideas. I’ve kind of been cheating on you, Creative Endeavour. I’ve been acting. And oh my goodness, I missed it so.

You can see me starting July 21st either in the park, or August 21/22 in the Hanover Theatre. The play is Taming of the Shrew.

Ok, technically, I’ve been writing this post all day. The first one was an actual complaint…after that, I got a little silly. I know, shocking.

1. Some days I love the 8-hour break called work. Then I feel bad for feeling good about leaving the whining. Fun! #motherhoodsuckssometimes
2. I find it a little disturbing how I can hear my skin sigh with relief when I put on moisturizer. #havingdryskinsuckssometimes
3. It’s so hard to lay out the plastic sheeting just right…there’s always that tell-tale leak. #beingaserialkillersuckssometimes
4. Craving s’mores… #beingavegetariansuckssometimes
5. Just found the bobby pin I was using as a stylus behind a pen. And I’ve been dating things 6/18 all day. #beingditzysuckssometimes
6. How does it feel? #sucksucksuck
7. FYI…If you don’t know me that well, I have a dark kind of humor. And sarcastic. And I’m listening to #NIN now.
8. I’ll spare you the story behind this one… #beingmaturesuuckssometimes
9. I was talking to those who might be concerned about my emo-sounding tweets today. Obviously not you @litdreamer.
10. Because secretly I want to be Queen of The Army of Sarcastic Bitches. #aspirationsiamnotthinkingthrough
11. #beingundeadsucks:RT @MikeWas -Go to http://www.newsweek.com Perform Konami code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Enter)
12. Last RT via @litdreamer – Even Ethan went AAAAHHH!! over it!

And if you don’t follow me on Twitter, you’re not really my friend. And if your friends don’t follow me on Twitter, they’re not really your friends. Or something like that.

One great thing about John is how he’s gotten me hooked on all kinds of delicious food I hadn’t eaten before. Falafel is one of them…mostly thanks to visits to The Falafel Palace in Central Square, Cambridge, MA. After a couple visits, we wanted our own falafel at home, so I got to learn to make it. It’s actually quite easy, particularly starting off with this recipe, which I’ve modified a little bit in the year or so since I’ve been making it.

Ingredients:

• 1 can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained
• 1 small onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tsp. coriander
• 2 tsp. cumin
• 2 Tbsp. parsley
• at least 3 Tbsp. white flour

First quarter the onions and toss into a food processor. Give them a bit of a whirl to start mincing them, then add your garlic. Whir again to mix the two together. Add your spices and whirl until everything is mixed well. These measurements are for dried spices, which are easier for us to buy in bulk. If you are using fresh spices, you should only need about half. Add your chickpeas, then whir until everything is mixed fairly well.

Take everything out of the food processor and transfer to a  large bowl. This starts the trickiest part: getting the consistency just right. You’ll want to add flour until you get a moist dough you can roll into small balls. I’ll usually start with 2 heaping tablespoons of white flour, but will sometimes add 2 more, one at a time. With some experimentation, you’ll get the hang of it. Your goal will be to make about a dozed golf-ball sized dough balls, which you should squish down slightly so they’re like little patties.

In a big frying pan, pour about 1.5 inches of olive oil. Heat the oil, then add the falafel balls. Fry on one side for 4-5 minutes or until golden brown. Flip and fry on the other side for an additional 4 minutes. Drain on a paper lunch bag. Wrap in Syrian bread or a lavash rollup, or stuff inside a pita pocket with lettuce, tomato, hummus, pickles, onion, and feta cheese. Also makes great leftovers heated up and over a salad with hummus for dressing.

Now, I make the recipe with a food processor, because it is sooo much easier on me. Prior to using the food processor, however, we used an old school potato masher, which also helps to build up your arm muscles. If you’re doing it that way, you’ll want to make sure to finely mince your onions and garlic, as well as heating up (then cooling) your chickpeas to help them mash better. I’ve also experimented with wheat flour, which did not help to hold them together very well, and frying in peanut oil, which definitely gave them a different flavor. I also don’t make them more than once or twice a month, so I’ll usually double the recipe, as they do make very good leftovers.

This weekend’s weather forecast; take it away, Meteorologist Ethan:

Saturday: PM Showers, 58 – 71 (Mom, what does F mean?), 40 perhaps chance of rain.

Sunday: Scattered T-Storms, 40 perhaps chance of rain?!

Let’s skip to Spree Day on Friday – 81 and Sunny, 0 perhaps chance of rain, woo-hoo!!

Okay, so I was going to have a picture for today, but I’m just now getting them off the camera. Why? Well, I’ve turned into a full-fledged geek this weekend. Not only did I upgrade the memory on the Wii (then figured out the only reason it wasn’t saving the GameCube games was that that save cartridge was in backwards), but I took apart a laptop completely. Why would you do that? Well, if you want to replace the fan on a laptop, apparently you do so through the keyboard. Which means every single component has to be taken out.

Oy!

I’m most impressed, however, that despite a stripped screw that had to be drilled out, I got the whole thing apart. Even more impressive, I got the whole thing back together. With only seven screws left over! And, and, AND everything works!! Well, the hard drive needed to be replaced too, and after pounding the stuck screws with a hammer and screwdriver, that got changed, and windows was re-installed.

And all the little geeks lived happily ever after. The end.

Two things I found out with my last post:

1. If you leave WordPress alone overnight it logs you out. But it doesn’t actually tell you that you’re logged out. You just get this on your screen:
   
   But note how they don’t say what you don’t have permission to do. So you can happily type out your blog entry and weep when you hit “Publish” and it sends you to the log in screen. Then you can write a worse blog entry. Which I’ll say happened, just in case you didn’t like my writing.
2. I learned how to screen capture on a Mac! Since there is the annoying lack of a “Print Screen” key.

I didn’t actually lose my entire entry because I didn’t log in. Just the paragraph after the quote due to HTML fail. Which somehow resolved itself. But trust me. The first time around, that paragraph was awesome.

On the ride home, I was listening to the radio. For me, listening to the radio is either a very active thing, or a very inactive thing. Most of the time, I’m not really paying attention, just using it as background noise. Then something will happen unexpectedly in the song, and I’ll be confused. This song in particular had a weird siren thing going on in the background, at which point I thought the cops were following me. They weren’t.

This time.

But it reminded me of going through the DSM-IV criteria for ADHD with my therapist. For inattentive ADHD (mine), you should exhibit 6 of these 9 criteria:

1. Often does not give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities.
2. Often has trouble keeping attention on tasks or play activities.
3. Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly.
4. Often does not follow instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores, or duties in the workplace (not due to oppositional behavior or failure to understand instructions).
5. Often has trouble organizing activities.
6. Often avoids, dislikes, or doesn’t want to do things that take a lot of mental effort for a long period of time (such as schoolwork or homework).
7. Often loses things needed for tasks and activities (such as toys, school assignments, pencils, books, or tools).
8. Is often easily distracted.
9. Often forgetful in daily activities.

I exhibit all 9, just so you know. But for most of them, I’ve developed ways to cope. The music thing is  a perfect example. When people are talking to me, I can generally follow them most of the time. But I’ve also learned to watch them when they talk. That way, I am not only having the auditory stimulation, but also the visual stimulation from their face. Bonus points if they talk with their hands.

The radio seems to lack this visual stimulation, so it’s much easier for me to get distracted. This is harmless enough when I’m listening to music, but so much more frustrating when I’m trying to catch the traffic report. You see, the highways I drive on are generally at the end of the report…unless there’s a rollover or something else going on. So I have to listen the whole time. But usually a shiny car drives by, and next thing I know, they’re onto a commercial.

On the other hand, music actually does help me concentrate more. When I’m working, I need to be listening to something I’m familiar with. It helps to occupy my brain a little bit, and tame the easily distracted elf who runs my brain. That way, the Very Serious Elf can get some work done. And if there’s a paper to be written, I bust out the classical music, and the Very VERY Serious Elf takes over. My theory is that classical music is more regimented, so there’s less chance of a surprise.

Unlike this song. Where that little background ditty in the last verse distracts me every. single. time.

I had two New Year’s Resolutions this year…both of which I’ve broken, by the way. First was to update my blog every day. Which, as you can see after I took another week-long hiatus, is going just swimmingly! What can I say…I do have ADHD…

But to help with that, I also resolved to use my Twitter every day as well. Not that I’m asking you to follow me there as well, except that I am. I like the succinct-ness of Twitter, but more than that, I like following the celebrities on Twitter. At least the interesting ones. But it’s become a little weird…

When I first started following Twitter, I started following both Neil Gaiman, since I’ve followed his blog for a while, and Amanda Palmer, since I’m a big fan and she groped me at a Dresden Dolls show once. Shortly after I realized that they sounded like they knew each other, they announced their engagement. I was all kinds of giddy, which made no sense since I didn’t actually know either of them. The celebrity following became more odd when I was perusing Thomas Dolby’s blog (from She Blinded Me With Science), and saw that he appeared at an Evelyn Evelyn show with Amanda Palmer.

Woah.

Aside from that, I’ve been having probably too much fun on Twitter. I started following The Bloggess there, and was giggly when she started following me back. And today, I’m heading up to New Hampshire to see Chuck Palahniuk kick off his book tour: a gig put together by a friend of a friend.

Wait…I actually know a real person on Twitter? How did that happen?

We are in the process of reading a novelization of Disney’s Pocahontas, and we get to the point where Governor Ratcliffe puts a British flag on the shore.

Ethan: That’s supposed to be the American flag.

Me: Well, before we became America, we were part of England.

Ethan: Were you alive back when we were part of England?

Me: *glares* No.

Roughly a month ago, Ethan went to visit his pediatrician, and we had him diagnosed with ADHD. To start, we got a prescription for 10 mg of extended release Adderall, and an appointment to come back in a month to check his weight.

Well.

Being an amphetamine, Adderall can suppress hunger, hence it made a great diet drug. Unfortunately, it also means that it did the same to Ethan, who really does not need to be losing weight. Which is what he did, losing 4 pounds in a month. It’s also apparently lasting longer in him than it usually lasts in kids. For him, it wears off around bedtime, though he’s also been waking up during the night, which he’s rarely done since he started sleeping through the night. But, it’s also definitely helping him at school.

Apparently, Ethan takes after his mom a lot. As a comparison, I’m on 5 mg of Lexapro regularly. Whenever I tell a doctor that, they always look at me and say, “Really?! And that helps?!” Well, yes, it does. But I’m apparently really sensitive to medications. So is Ethan, as we’re finding out. But we don’t want to abandon the Adderall altogether, so we’re going to switch him over to 5 mg as well. We’re also going to switch to traditional release, as opposed to the extended release kind. For average kids, it’ll wear off around lunch time, so hopefully his will take him through the end of the school day.