Pure Food Joy

There are very few things in this world as purely good as homemade sour cream coffee cake.

Every time I decide to make it, I wind up wondering halfway through why on earth I bother. It's a pain in the rear, even for a baking addict like myself - two different kinds of cinnamon streusel, half an hour of mixing and blending and inevitably realizing that the butter is either too soft or not soft enough and that I'm a quarter-cup short on sugar or flour and have to make up the difference in some sort of creative fashion. Then, of course, there's the challenge of trying to grease a ten-inch tube pan well enough to keep the cake from disintegrating upon removal, and the two hour wait for breakfast while it cooks and cools.

And then I taste the first bite, and remember why it's worth all that nuisance. Cinnamon, and pecans, and vanilla, and the richest, tenderest buttery cake I can possibly imagine, and even more cinnamon. And I wonder why I don't make it every week.

Then I start nibbling on the leftovers three days later, and realize it actually does get better over time, like the recipe promises.

Coffee cake makes the world a better place.

State of the Knee

Well, it's official - after talking to my physical therapist, my orthopedist, and a surgeon today, they all agree that I need surgery for my knee. The big challenge now is scheduling it.

I had anticipated spending at least a month or two jumping through hoops dealing with consultations and referrals and pre-evaluations, winding up with getting cut somewhere around the end of May. My work schedule is already full through the end of July, but I had at least told many of my clients for May and June that I might need to cancel a day or two for medical reasons.

Instead, I've been scheduled for surgery in two weeks. This is good, because the sooner I can have surgery, the sooner I start to get better. It's also good because the week that I'm scheduled for the procedure, I'll only need to cancel two days of work. (The surgeon said I'll need to take a full week off, and I believe him - I want to do everything right, since I have no desire to go through this twice.) On the other hand, I'm not supposed to cancel unless I can give a full month's notice, and this would leave the practice I'm supposed to be working at entirely in the lurch.

I've left messages for the agent I work through, and I honestly hope that she tells me to go ahead with the surgery. It's not exactly an elective procedure, and my knee has been getting worse instead of better. Also, the surgeon is apparently not scheduling for May at this point, so I'd have a heck of a hard time getting a month's notice no matter when I wind up being cut.

I've found so many benefits to relief work - now I think I'm starting to run into the downside.

Of course, fretting about work and schedule is at least doing a good job of distracting me from fretting about the fact that someone is going to be cutting my knee open and stuffing a camera into it.....