This, That, and Something Else

We just spent about ten minutes talking about menus for next week. We find that our lives go just a little bit more smoothly if we know in advance what we'll be making for dinner. Neither of us -- okay, neither of me -- is particularly adventurous when it comes to dinner, so we made up a list some time ago of the things we most like to have, and when we make up the menu we go down the list checking off what we'll have, and when. Only this time, it was a little different, as I was also looking through some collections of dessert recipes that I've printed off or otherwise acquired, and this week I'm going to make one of them -- probably the sandwich cookies, though I won't go to the lavish extent that Gourmet magazine did in their Holiday Cookies issue. My ultimate goal is to be able to routinely and easily make about fifteen or twenty different kinds of cookies (yes, variants of chocolate chips are okay, but no more than two or three), and to that end, I thought that I would find a recipe every couple of weeks and try it. Those chocolate chip cookies I made the other day were surprisingly good, so I have high hopes for these, as it comes from the same collection. Though I was surprised, as I was putting things away, to find yet another folder with some wouldn't-these-be-nice dessert recipes that I'd found and squirreled away. Very, very few 'real food' recipes attract me (I do look for them); but desserts? Very few don't.

My daughter came bounding up the stairs a few moments ago, and once again I remarked to myself on how incredibly tall she's gotten. Part of it was optical illusion, I know -- she had shorts on, no socks or shoes -- but part is real. She's now up to my wife's eyebrows, and just below my chin. We have started bopping her on the head to keep her where she is at, but it doesn't seem to be working. And as of last night, she is officially a teen-ager -- she just turned thirteen. First sign: she is now fascinated with Japanese anime style graphic novels. Tomorrow I take her and four friends ice skating, and then back here for a bit of a party. No sleepovers this year, which is good: three of them are male.

I finally started reading the Roosevelt book again. I noticed to my surprise that I was continually rereading novels I've read multiple times before. That's mostly because I only read in five or ten minute spurts, and I didn't want to have to start remembering who was who in the Team of Rivals book (though I do really, really like it, theres a certainly intellectual commitment required that I was finding difficult to meet). But Roosevelt is, though not easy reading, a lighter commitment, and I do want to have read it.

Monday a woman is coming to the house. She is a physical therapist in private practice, and she's going to advise me on whether I can realistically expect any further progress with my arm, which is stuck at about 75% of capacity. I can do almost everything I want to do with it, barring reaching up to high shelves, so its not a major impediment, but I would hate to find out that I could have gotten more if I'd pushed. My feeling about the therapists where I had been going is that they were all competent, and had differing styles of intensity, though none really pushed. I would like to get some pushing, if its effectively not too late.