J'ever have one a those days?

Before I get anywhere else, I have had a number of folks ask about my eldest son. I got him into a hospital, the doctor there transferred him to one of the major hospitals in Savannah where they hung on to him for awhile, diagnosed major liver problems, and began to remove some of the fluid from his abdomen. They stuck needle in and took out five and one half liters of fluid. It didn’t near do the job. but they sent him home. It seems that they can only take that much fluid out about every three weeks, because if they took out more his kidneys could fail. He is now at home, taking medicine and he is absolutely prohibited from using salt, or alcohol in any form. The salt thing is bugging him because he is a cook (not by profession, by fun, and the things he cooks are smoked turkeys, barbecued shrimp shish kabobs, smoked Boston Butts, etc.) He is now staying with us quite a bit of the time, and his salt problem is getting to me a little as well.

Yesterday, I roasted a Boston butt with lots of spices and no salt. It came out pretty well. (I try not to put my salty Barbecue sauce on it in his presence. )

Today I spent a lot of time working outside. I planted a couple of tomatoes (One of the “topsy turvy ones you see advertised, and one in a similar gizmoe that I made out of a six inch plastic pipe) They are both doing well, so I took the pump on my swimming pool apart for repairs. In the afternoon I needed a wire brush to clean part of the pump, so I went into the utility room where I keep my tools and voila, my freezer was hanging open, the floor was covered with water, mixed with fruit juices and blood from thawing fruit and meat. So far I have blamed everyone but the pussy cat (who no longer lives at our house) for leaving the freezer open, but I know in my heart that it was me, when I removed said pork butt from the freezer over a day ago.

Fortunately the door was only open a little way, so that though everything was thawed, most of it was still cold and “salvageable”.

This was one of those days when I wished I had been wealthy enough, when I bought the freezer, to have bought a frost free one. Though probably some of the layers of frost helped keep the foot cool for awhile. About the only good things about this are the fact that my freezer is cleaned out and I have inventoried what I had in there. I had fourteen pounds of rhubarb. You laugh but rhubarb is precious to a man who was raised where rhubarb is so common it is almost a weed, and to the working poor (actually pretty middle class) rhubarb is almost a food group. Yummm. So I bought this big box of frozen rhubarb and we have been taking out some and cooking it (Pies, bowls of cooked rhubarb, strawberry and rhubarb jam etc.) as needed. It is now rhubarb mush, though a fair amount made it to the cooking pot with some of the other fruit in the freezer. The rest is compost. Also had fourteen pounds of flash frozen strawberries and we are seeing what can be salvaged there. I had about ten two cup bags of blackberries, and equal number of frozen raspberries, and about three times that much of blueberries. Some of the blueberries were still frozen and were salvaged that way, but the rest of these were mixed together in a sort of fruit compote (about a gallon and a half) and are now in a large tupperware bowl in the fridge where I hope we will eat them day by day. Actually I kept the blueberries separate and Janet plans to make the mother of all blueberry cobblers in the morning. About a dozen Marie (I think) Calandar frozen dinners bit the dust. A LARGE frozen Stauffer’s lasagna went into the oven, and another equally large chicken alfredo joined it, so we have a newly roasted butt, large lasagna and chicken alfredo all ready to eat. We don’t even have company invited.

I rewrapped most of the meat and put it back in the freezer. Inventoried: I have six Boston Butts, two large boneless pork loins, four of these little round boneless pork loins, about ten pounds of pork chops, three pounds of Italian sausage, a pound of two of just plain ground sausage, and a fresh picnic ham. I think it is pretty obvious that I am not Jewish. In beef, I have about fifteen pounds of various steaks, mostly boneless top sirloin, but a fair share of T bones and four New York Strips (bone in). There is also a bunch of hamburger, but it was so thoroughly thawed that it went to the fridge till we can eat enough of this other stuff to justify firing up the grill. There is also a fair amount of chicken. One whole roaster, ten pounds of rear quarters, a package of thighs and miscellaneous. My problem is that whenever I find meat that is REALLY on sale, I tend to buy it, stick it in the freezer (love these little vacuseal gizmos) and have to really work to remember that I have it so I wont buy more.

I am too old to clean freezers, wrap meat and mop the blood and fruit juice off the floor and do all that stuff after dinner should have been (but wasn’t ) eaten.

Janet was just given permission yesterday to walk without her walker, but she tried to help for a while and ended up in bed with a vicodin tablet.

By the way, I didn’t mention what a mess six or eight half gallon (actually a bit less that that now) containers of ice cream can make when they are well distributed around the freezer. Not much salvageable there unless you want to drink what is left out of the container (I did a little of that).

I’m on my way to shower off the freezer remains and collapse in bed.

didja ever have ona those days?