The scientist from Sarasota flew into Midway Saturday evening and was only slightly delayed by the snowstorm. We needed to eat and Janet had a hankering for real Mexican food, so I suggested Atotonilco Taqueria on 47th west of Ashland, the flagship restaurant of the company that makes what I consider the best tortillas in Chicago (yes, better than El Milagro). So we moved slowly through the snow from Midway and had an egg torta (Janet) and egg or avocado tacos (Pam and me), with orchata or licuados to drink.
I wish I could say the food was great, as that's what I remember from when I discovered the place maybe 15 years ago, but it was just so-so, a bit dry and with big pieces of winter tomato that didn't make things better. And they were frying up a bunch of carnitas for the next day's
Sunday-noon traffic, which didn't make things especially appetizing for us non-carnivores. But the tortillas were good, very fresh (the factory is half a block west) and a bit crispy.
Now our own Sunday lunch, that was better. Pam made her famous chipotle potatoes with sides of green beans and avocadoes, and I fried up some Phil's free-range eggs. We cleaned our plates while Janet told Granny about her new concentration in cancer immunotherapy and Granny told us about her awesome immune system and her quick recovery from the recent stent placement in her leg.
That's two kids home with Kevin due to arrive on Wednesday, so Pam and I went to Dino's (now known as Devon Market) and filled up the shopping cart with wide variety of foodstuffs, just like in the old days when we had to feed five hungry people every day.
That's what I call fun stuff.
3 comments:
Wow, seems like I'm really missing out. Well, I guess someone has to take care of our morbidly injured tomato plant after the high winds. I don't know for sure, but its starting to look like an amputation may be in order. Right now its touch and go, but the eggplant and pepper plants are by its side hoping that it will pull through this difficult ordeal. Anyways, I didn't know granny got a stent. I'd be interested to hear more about that. I hope you guys are having a wonderful time!
Freddy, Pam and I think you should go in there immediately with a sharp knife and cut off that broken tomato branch. It's never going to be healthy if the stem is half broken, so get rid of it and let the plant concentrate on the other branches.
Janet reports that the plants are thriving and that "it's actually kind of exciting." She mentions that you're contemplating a second row of pots. Good idea. You can put the lettuce and arugula behind the other ones so that it doesn't get too hot.
Now on to the stent, or stents, actually. The doctor threaded them in through the femoral artery, starting on the left (good) side and shoving the instrument through the scar tissue from radiation across to the right side, into the superior femoral artery (or some sub-category of it). He used three stents, "two fives and a six," for a total length of 16 cm, or about six inches. I asked if they were drug-eluting stents and he said, no, these are about twice as big in diameter as the ones they use in the heart and the drug coatings don't seem to work very well (at reducing scar tissue) in the leg anyway.
If the stents aren't effective at improving blood flow, he said, there is still the possibility of a bypass operation later on.
Funny, the tomato and stent situations are related, aren't they? Both are about blocked circulation systems.
After hearing the prognosis and recommendation from the gardening experts I went ahead and scheduled surgery. The limb went to pathology and we won't have the results for a few days. Its unfortunate because all of the tomatoes were on that branch, so now we're starting over. I have them inside today (I put down some plastic Janet)due to the chilly weather (50s, 40s at night)
Post a Comment