Belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY wishes

For my beloved friends/family who celebrate their birthdays in December and who did not receive timely greetings and best wishes from me because I screwed up all of 2010 birthday-wise (having misplaced/lost my master list of everyone's birthdays).

You have my most sincere apologies and little Salsa Dog below dances for you. We both hope, you are so taken by her puppy ernest cha-cha-chas that you forget to remember that Claire forgot. Cha Cha Cha!

OK, this is weird...

For reasons I'm not going to detail, today I took a spirometry, or lung, air-capacity test. The test consists of sucking in as much oxygen as one can hold, then rapidly & explosively exhaling. I've had the test in the past for asthma - no big deal. So I expected this to go today simularly uneventful. The test used a way-fancy computer with monitor that showed a little sail boat. The technician that gave me the test, explained that as I exhaled the little sailboat would drift across the monitor, left to right; no big whoop.

So, after twice explaining to me how I was to breathe and what to expect and such it was time for me to give it a go. 'Fine!', I thought, 'let's get this over with.'

So... breathe in, that's it Ms. Miller, breathe in again, OK, again.... OK... 1, 2, 3 EXHALE!
EXHALE! EXHALE! EXH...!

I could hear a voice, vaguely in the distance, but didn't know what was being said. Slowly my mind emerged from a fog and I opened my eyes to see some person or the other, some woman, who was messing with a machine and nattering on. Where the HELL was I? Where am I? What the.... HOLY CRAP! I PASSED OUT!

I was flabbergasted. I've never passed out before in my life. Thank heavens I was in a chair. The technician turned and noticed me, asking if I was OK.

"No! I... I fainted! I've never done that before in my life!"

The technician didn't seem all that surprised, after all, she had told me I would take the test sitting because she'd had a patient that passed out and fell down.

So, she told me the machine wasn't quite working right and we'd give it another go, or two as necessary.

I wanted to run screaming. Really. I did. You know, I hear all the time about kids doing things like inhaling glue, or taking other people's medications for a buzz, but let me tell you, that isn't me. I do NOT like feeling buzzed from alcohol or anything else, and I sure as hell don't like waking up not having a clue where I am... shite!

Still, I felt rather coerced into giving it another go. So there were the three deep inhalations... one sharp, almost violent exhalation...

....vaguely I could hear a voice, and the waves by the shores of Narnia were loud. I drifted... I opened my eyes... where was I? Who were these people.... FECKING A! I passed out again!

I was again, totally rattled and now feeling frightened. The technician decided to take me to the doctor for the rest of my physical and said we could complete the lung capacity test afterwards.

Long story short. After my physical exam I told the doctor, a lady doctor, that I'd passed out twice and did NOT like it. Happily, she told me that was enough for one day and she dismissed me from re-doing the lung capacity test.

So... I'm totally freaked by today's activities. I will never, and I mean never, ever take another lung capacity test, and I don't care what the feck it means job-wise. I am never going to pass out again for the rest of my life, not as long as there is... you know it's coming.... get ready for it.. not as long as there is breath left in my body.

Got Tamale?

Hurrah! Today, my friends, the Terrys held a tamale making party. There was quite a crowd when I arrived late. Bugger! Though I recieved their invite I had immediately lost it - electronically! Yes - I am now clever enough to misplace things in 2 different mediums.

'Little Terry' was heading up the tamale making when I arrived

All were already busy getting the masa meal on to the corn husks. Some used dinner knives, but many used a new implement of destruction! Genuine, 'Texas Rolling Pins'. I actually saw the things and assumed at first that the Terrys found a new use for spackling tools. Nope, they were just using the latest development in the long history of tamale making.

Using a handy dandy "Texas Rolling Pin" to spread the corn masa

There were so many of us there were 3 work stations
Big Terry was the lead tamale maker. She also set the theme for the party by buying and designing the 'Got Tamale?' aprons we wore. She designed the logo on her computer, then the patches on our aprons. All the Terrys guests got one of the cool & official cook's aprons. I told her I can't wait to steal her ideas for some future hen party.

Big Terry spreading masa and modeling her apron creation

Soon enough there were piles and piles of masa spread corn husks covering all available surfaces - it was time for some stuffing! Pre-party, the Terrys prepared tray after tray of pork in a lucious green 'verde' sauce. The next step was spooning the pork and sauce onto the husks and folding them. Big Terry gave us all a demo of the method. I learned to roll tamales by a different method at a Nancy & Rick tamale party last January. So it was remedial tamale training for me to get used to not rolling and securing the tamales using a strip of husk to tie the tamales shut. Happily I got over that and was soon stuffin', foldin' and pilin' with the best of them.

Loading the green verde pork onto the tamales

The tamales piled up pretty quickly
Before long there were humongous piles of Texas roll 'em and hold 'em tamales, all ready for the next step. Terry put HUGE steamer pots on the stove. She put pennies in the bottom of the steamers so she could hear the pennies bopping around and know there was still water in the steamer bottoms - another clever idea for me to remember. The pork tamales needed to steam for up to two hours.

Loading tamales into the steamers

OH NO! A Problem - sort of... we were out of the green chile verde pork meat but we still had loads of masa spackled corn husks. What to do? I think it was little Terry's idea, or someone's to make dessert tamales. Soon, Little Terry was thawing large bags of frozen blueberries and Big T was making a nice cinnamon and quesso cheese mix for mixing the berries in.

Back to work, stuffing the yummy
blueberry mix into the masa spread corn husks

Lots of hands make light loads - or some such - soon the blueberry/queso dessert tamales were complete.

We all realized that if we waited for all the tamales we made to get steamed, we were going to be camping out at the Terry's home until the wee hours. So! It was time to bag up pork and desert tamales for everyone to take home. We could all take our tamales home and steam them for ourselves. Shucks! I had to get home before dark to lock my hens in their run so the local wild raccoons wouldn't also have a tasty treat to look forward to.

Bagging up the tamales at the end of the day
Before I knew it I was on my way home with a tamales my precious bag o' tamales. That was such a nice way to spend the day-after-thanksgiving. Really, from the shared stories of the participants, it was easy to tell we all really needed something fun to get our minds of the economy and onto more pleasant things like spending time with new and old buddies.

P.S. Just tried my first chili verde pork and blueberry queso tamales: YUM! Honestly, they are savory and succulent. Tamales are well on their way to being one of my favorite foods.