A Mouse in the House

Really?  First a raccoon almost tried to eat my soup, then a cat came into my house, and now I have a mouse?!   It was garbage night last night, so the only thing I can think of is that the mouse came in while I was taking out the garbage if I didn’t shut the back door all the way.  I came inside, got my comfy clothes on, and walked back into the kitchen and a tiny mouse scurried across my kitchen floor and made a B-line for the basement.  There are plenty of spiders down there if that’s what mice even eat, so I guess I’ll have to pick up some mouse traps.  But that’s a man’s job.  I don’t mind doing other things, but that one is giving me the heebie jeebies.  Tony wouldn’t flinch at all at that one!

Thanks to my blog reader Moe (hey Moe!) I got a Starbuck’s protein box and my first seasonal coffee – a skinny peppermint mocha!  Only 100 calories for the tall, and super delicious.  So you all know I wouldn’t eat that protein box out of the plastic container, right?!  I plated it and scooped out the Justin’s peanut butter and put that on a spoon.   You can buy the individual peanut butters online – about $7 for 10.

I had a couple things on my lunch menu this week that I just never had time to make.  One of the recipes I didn’t have time to make was these Thai chicken meat balls.  When I cleaned out my pantry I discovered I had FOUR cans of coconut milk.  I was going to serve them over brown rice and sautéed zucchini.  How amazeballs does that look?!

Instead I went freezer diving, and brought leftover chicken noodle soup and had a piece of sourdough toast on the side.  I ended up working at my desk during lunch so that I could leave early to get to Tony.  I hate leaving him alone for so many hours, although I am told by the nurses that he sleeps quite a bit.

I ended up getting to the hospital just after five, and he still had 90 minutes left of dialysis.  The process is pretty amazing to me.  Dirty blood leaves him, goes through a machine and cleans it, then puts it back!

Sadly Tony’s back has been hurting a lot, so they upped his pain meds, and gave him a shot right after I got there, so he basically slept the entire time I was there.  Every one in a while he would open his eyes, look to see if I was there, and then fall back asleep.  I ended up leaving him a note when I left because he was still sleeping.

Since the dialysis nurse was in the room the whole time, I popped downstairs for dinner around 6:00.  I was getting kind of sick of my chicken finger salad, and saw that they had a ham and Swiss grilled cheese on the board.  It’s made to order, so I waited a couple minutes for it.  When she handed it to me I was like “huh.”  It almost looked like French toast for the bread.  Maybe they were trying to do a croque monsieur?   But then I laughed and thought “this is a hospital cafeteria, what am I thinking?!”  Well I ordered it, and paid for it (getting the employee discount again!) and ended up taking exactly two bites before throwing it out.  How you can have a ham and Swiss cheese sandwich devoid of any salt is beyond me.  And the inside of the bread was still kind of “eggy.”  Just gross.  No amount of mustard could redeem it.

I ended up getting home from the hospital around 9:30.  And taking one look at my messy kitchen, I knew I couldn’t live like that anymore, so I did a deep clean of the kitchen, and literally it took me all of 15 minutes – gah!  After I cleaned the kitchen I was hungry, even thought it was nearly 10 p.m.  Of course I had pizza dough in my fridge (hint – pizza dough lasts up to 7-10 days in the fridge!) so I made myself a mini sausage and cheese calzone.  I should have taken a picture of the paper towel after I cut the baby calzone in half, but there was hardly any grease stain.  Having a deep fryer contains the heat at the proper temperature, so nothing tastes greasy at all.  I know when it’s time to change the oil when the food starts tasting greasy.

This was delicious – the dough was nice and crunchy, flakey even and just enough sausage and cheesy goodness.  I had to stop myself from making a second one!  And again, even without an official workout, I almost got all my steps – I think a lot of it is walking from my car to Tony’s hospital room 4 x a day!

Good news! I wrote the above post before I went to bed and got a call around 10:30 that Tony was being transferred!  I wish I could be with him for the transfer, but that just isn’t in the cards.  Even though they said he’s “ready to go” at that time, it could be a couple hours by the time they bundle him up and get him transported to the new hospital – at least at that hour the traffic won’t be too bad – they should be able to get there in an hour or hour and fifteen minutes that time of night.

But since the new hospital is 50 miles from our house, I won’t be able to see him before work.  I wrote everything on his board in his room at the local hospital of everything that needs to go with him, so hopefully his clothes, cell phone, charger, etc. makes it with him.  Hoping I can sneak out early tomorrow and make the trek downtown.  Thanks again for your continued support – I will catch up on all the comments at some point!  and for the record, I brought the tablet with me to the hospital and I totally love it.  So I think it’s a keeper.  I can just tell Tony it’s my Christmas present.