From the annals of mishearing (a continuing series)
Caught in tv commentary this morning, what I heard as an alert about cell farming. Cell farming — the production of cultivated meat — is a real, though still very fringe, thing; the meat-simulacrum is expensive to produce, and many people are deeply wary of it. But there it is.
Then a visual flashed by — of a wrist scored by cuts — and it became clear that the warning was about self-harming.
Today’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro offers a pun using the available resources sparingly: piñata coladas — piña coladas as made by (anthropomorphized) piñatas:
Helpfully, with a recipe (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are only 2 in this strip — see this Page)
Today’s foodmanteau — the hybrid food’s my very own, composed yesterday (8/22) to be served for the first time today — is
biryanestrone = biryani + minestrone
The elements: (1) from the Hyderabad Dum Biryani in Mountain View CA, lamb keema biryani plus paneer (spicy fried cheese cubes); (2) from the Menlo Park Safeway store, Signature brand minestrone soup.
The gratifying increased sharpness of my senses of smell and taste continues to enhance my life (it’s presumably a gift of the increased prednisone dosage). Leading me yesterday to create a stunningly rich-tasting casserole out of simple leftovers from a local Nick the Greek outlet (I don’t actually cook, but instead microwave new dishes — tending towards the soup and stew zone — using leftovers from restaurant take-out). The gyro casserole.
A few days ago I suddenly developed an impressive case of laryngitis — utterly painless, but incredibly annoying — which I attributed to a change in my medications (a huge increase in the dosage of the steroid prednisone). And so it might have been.
Then after breakfast this morning (around 4:30 am) I was visited by the unmistakable intestinal symptoms of cryptosporidiosis, crypto for short — notably uncontrollable watery diarrhea, dammit. Some days earlier, when a widespread US outbreak of the infection was reported, I had put great mounds of possibly infected greens down the garbage disposal, but apparently I had already eaten enough of them that the parasite was just lying in wait, gathering in strength to wreck havoc on my guts. Fortunately, I have weapons of my own, and have been able to do a pretty good job of wrestling crypto to some kind of standstill. But let me tell you, it’s no fucking picnic.
It’s incredibly tiring — I’ve had two long naps today — and requires me to consume mass quantities of rehydrating liquid. Meanwhile, it seems likely that my laryngitis is a respiratory symptom of crypto; my breathing is now often uncomfortable (though not disabling).
Sing out, Louise! Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Corn Dogs, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Corn Dogs; it’s a mantra, in trochaic (Strong + Weak feet) tetrameter (4 feet per line ) —
Strong Weak . Strong Rest | Strong Weak . Strong Weak
(There’s a Page on this blog about my postings on chants, cheers, mantras, and onomatomania)
But it’s all about the food, and that’s appropriate for August in the US; it’s a variant of the American State Fair staple, the corn dog. From NOAD on the basic object:
compound noun corn dog: North American English a hot dog covered in cornmeal batter, fried, and served on a stick.
And then the corn-puff variant, which popped up on my Facebook page yesterday:
It’s 7/30, penultimate July, tigers about to exit; this is a lightly edited version of e-mail under header turning point, sent this morning to family and caregivers.
