Fromage Roulette

Many of you may not know, but I like to live life on the wild side. Indeed, sometimes I can be quiet the rebel. One of my favorite ways to live dangerously is to play Cheese Roulette. Cheese or Fromage (depending on my mood) Roulette started with an over abundance of cheese. I pick up a new cheese just about every time I go to the store, and I had acquired quite a collection. So I decided to make a grilled cheesy sandwich - one of my very favorite things. But I had so many cheeses, which ones would go well together? And that's when Cheese Roulette was born.
At first it was pretty tame, a quick jaunt over the line of convention. Things like Fontina and Mozzarella, or Jarlsberg and Gouda. Then as cheeses came and went, it became a necessities game. I had cheddar, Monterrey, and Manchego - which to choose? Sometimes the combinations were clear winners, and other times they were less than satisfying.
Which leads us to my adventure today. Today I had a variety of cheese left over from a Grilled Cheese Party I hosted a couple weeks ago. I took out my great bag of cheeses and saw that goat cheese was winning in the quantity department. I don't eat a lot of goat cheese so I decided to cut down on the amount. As I put the goat cheese on the bread, I thought some mozzarella would add some stringiness to the otherwise crumbly goat cheese sandwich. As I was getting the mozzarella I remembered how good bacon was. Unfortunately, I did not have any bacon. but I did have turkey bacon from a failed attempt at going on the P90X diet. As I was in the fridge getting the turkey bacon, I saw strawberries. Strawberries would definitely offset the goat cheese and add a lovely sweet and juicy flavor to the salty turkey bacon. So together they all went: butter, bread, goat cheese, mozzarella, turkey bacon, and strawberries.
I'm not going to lie to you, at this point I was seriously worried about my sandwich. It was 9 pm after I worked a long shift and came home to wash my car and bundle stray twigs. I was hungry. And this sandwich looked, well... ambitious.
While I cannot say this will be appearing on Wolfgang's next frozen pizza creation, or even at an ambitious fusion restaurant, I can say that it was pretty tasty. It might not be a Drew, but it was a unique little blend of things that filled my belly and intrigued my taste buds. So next time anyone has an abundance of cheese and is feeling a little dangerous - to them I say, Walk on the wild side, and play Cheese Roulette. Because even when it's bad, it's still pretty good.

Good Life Choices

It has been gorgeous here in Massachusetts - Spring has sprung! We even installed an air conditioner at work because it's been so warm.
To celebrate I went for a pleasant ride up to Walden and back through Wellesley. It was an absolutely beautiful trip full of rolling hills, some hills I wish were a little less rolling, and a sign to Drumlin Farms Woolapalooza! If that doesn't sound like a party, I don't know what does.
Later that evening, I met up with some friends in Harvard Square to see the midnight premier of The Hunger Games! It was such a fun night! I re-learned how to play Hearts, someone brought us ice cream from J.P. Licks and I got to sit down and rest my bike weary legs! And it was soo warm! The theater was actually just hot, they never turned on the air conditioner. But at 2:35 in the morning as I was walking back to my car and it was 67 degrees!
Unfortunately for me, however, I got home around 3:30 am and then woke up for work at 6:30. Not a fun Friday at work for sure! But well worth the fun Thursday!

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

My first resumé, fresh out of Loma Linda, was pretty basic. I had zero real world experience, a wicked expensive fancy education, four sets of blue scrubs, and a need for monies. Once I landed my first job largely based on the grace of a doctor who hated interviewing, I was looking to update my resumé to add all my real world awesome experience. I was working two days a week and hoping for four.
I wanted to have a resumé that dazzled. I wanted everyone to be like, 'Whoa, what a great resumé. I don't care what position, I want to hire this person.' After a few weeks, I realized I had no patience for formatting, no money for software, very little helpful creativity and I didn't like being criticized. So my resumé took an interesting turn. I decided to use language to make me seem more interesting and awesome. My resumé then included the phrases, "To engage in the practice of fulfilling dental needs," and "Seamlessly integrate quality hygiene care with modern technology," and finally, "Gently and thoroughly approach the topic of oral health care for patients." I wanted to be engaging – well CHECK! Anyone who read my resumé would walk away remembering the word engage, and maybe they would be confused and think, “I was engaged by that resumé!” I don’t really know why I put seamlessly integrate. But that sounded a little mathy. I live near Boston. Boston is a little mathy. Maybe that would make me seem local (in case Loma Linda didn’t give it away that I wasn’t). Plus dentists always like to think their office is ‘modern’ even if the last update happened in 1974. Apparently having a single computer in the office makes the office ‘modern’ and ‘high-tech.’

But the funniest one to me was the gentle and thorough approach. I don’t know where I got that. No one has ever said to me after a cleaning – Wow! I feel like you did a thorough job! That is until I got my new job. The one with this resumé. I think people tell me I did a thorough job about 90% of the time. I hear this often (like 6 times a day), “Doctor, that hygienist of yours did a great job! Very thorough! I don’t think I have had such a thorough cleaning in years!” At first I thought this was a backhanded compliment saying I was rough, or not very gentle. So I toned it down – considerably. I asked patients if they were comfortable throughout the entire cleaning. I warned them before any deep scaling, and made sure they didn’t wince a single time during a cleaning. And guess what, everyone still tells me I am a ‘thorough’ hygienist. Everyone. The 81 year old lady with 9 teeth, the 24 year old man with immaculate hygiene. Sometimes I wonder if they peeked at my resumé before coming in, or if the last hygienist was just terrible. I don’t know. But I guess it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I said I was, “gentle and thorough’ and now I know that I definitely am.

Yoga

This morning, I just wanted to go to yoga. I bought a Groupon fitness pass - and I know a lot of things on Groupon are hit or miss. But I've been to a few other places with the fitness pass and they were awesome! When I tried to sign up for this yoga class last month, everything was full. So I have been anxiously awaiting this class for a month.
I picked a closer location so that I could bike there when the weather is nice. And I was really looking forward to some awesome yoga.
Here is what happened today: I worked out my shoulders yesterday, so I was really sore. Reaching to get plates from the cupboard weas a struggle. It felt like my shoulder was on fire - and not in a good way. This morning dawned rainy and cold, definitely not biking weather. But that was ok - I would persevere anyway. I put on my yoga pants, got a mat and water bottle and headed for the studio. Things were going to be great, I thought. Very erroneous thought.
As I'm paying for parking, the wind knocks down a sign on the sidewalk which slams into my ankle. OOWW! Why would you do that? Ohmygoodness - shooting pain on my left ankle and leg.
Shake it off, yoga is going to be great. Walk into the studio - the woman in front of me is taking off her shoes. Great sign! I don't like shoes in yoga, so I kick mine off as well. As I walk into the building - there is no one. There is so much incense burning it stings my eyes a bit. Shake it off, it's yoga time. I wait 7 minutes - still no one. The woman who entered before me is in the bathroom and I can hear her peeing from the lobby. This is awkward. Where is everybody? Once the woman emerges, I ask her what I am supposed to do. She grabs a small - Angela looking person in what looks to be a martial arts uniform. She whispers to me that this is not like regular yoga, but is more based on my meridian - not stretching or strengthening muscles. Also there is a lot of 'tapping' or pounding your body with your first or palms. Oookkkaaayy.... But what the heck - let's give this a shot. It could be fun. It's cold outside and I am looking forward to a good sweat.
Enter the room. Where everyone is standing, 'tapping' themselves on the abdomen - (p.s. we didn't do most of the things on the video - it wasn't an 'essential' class) like that's a normal thing to do on a Thursday morning. So I start whacking my belly like everyone else. And I feel weird. Just weird. The whole time. Then everyone takes turns counting out loud. Again, weird. But maybe this is just the warm up? Next is 'intestinal exercises' where I need to focus on my Dong Jung. Not only do I not know what that is, I am also working out my GI tract? Next up some circling exercises. I got this. I can do this. I am comfortable and happy with this. But why aren't we working out yet. This is the longest warm up ever. More pounding ensues, then tapping. Btw if you tap your head and you are a little sore by your right temporal - that's your gall bladder trying to tell you something. If your left hips is sore when 'tapped' that's your spleen. Release the energy! Open your meridian!!!! Breathe with your palms. I couldn't shake the feeling that this was a large scale practical joke. But everyone there seemed dead serious. They even laughed aloud on command (to add vibration energy).
Then they finally lost me. Up until this point I was handling it, albeit uncomfortably. Then - around minute 35, we bent our legs into a slight squat, tilted our hips forward, and raised our hands above our heads. Opening our palms towards the sky we were told to breathe with our palms. Then she told us to get comfortable - we would be here a while. And she wasn't joking. 5-7 minutes later she announces, "Nothing can harm you in this pose. Your body will try to tell you to move, but you don't need to move from this pose. This is a nice position. Stay in this position. By standing still, we are building our energy and being strong. The temptation to move will weaken you." Keep in mind those burning shoulders from earlier. I really thought my arms would light on fire then fall to the earth in ashes. I was done. I snuck out after we finished our death pose and everyone started pounding again. I can legitimately say that that was the most awkward, and weirdest 'workout' of my life, and it was also a huge disappointment. I had scheduled like 10 classes there. What a bummer. I just wanted to go to yoga. A nice, normal planking/warrior/downward dog yoga.