The task list for today:

1) Freecycle
2) Clear out a flower bed
3) Rake some leaves
4) Plant a metric buttload of bulbs

Accomplished:

1) Half the stuff I offered has been picked up. The other half hasn't gotten any nibbles. On the other hand, the last time I offered stuff, there was a lot of drama about when people could pick stuff up, so I just pulled it back. This time, I used anti-drama wording. So it's probably a win.

2) The flower bed has been weeded and dead annuals pulled out.

3) I dumpled about 5 tubs of leaves into the woods in back of the house. This is an excellent start, as there are still many leaves on the trees, so I will have to spend a lot more time at this as the leaves fall.

4) I got about half the bulbs I wanted to plant done.

What should have been added to the task list:

I (re)discovered the bag of day lillies that a colleague gave me (in exchange for some bearded iris). These have to be planted also.

This was probably three hours of work, punctuated by lunch and chatting with the freecycler who took the coats and sweaters. It's a beautiful day, a perfect autumn day. And I'm glad I spent a good chunk of it outside. I had a radio with me, allowing me to experience the real time Schadenfreude of the abrupt end of the Red Sox' season.

I moved into my house in Hamden a bit over eight years ago. I pay taxes to the City of Hamden, at a fairly high rate for cities in my state. In exchange for those taxes, I receive municipal services, including trash and recycling pickup. For the entire time I have lived in my house, trash pickup has been every Friday morning, and recycling pickup has been on alternate Fridays. So, I have a routine: Thursday night before bed, the trash and recycling are moved to the curb. Generally, due to the alternate week pickup and the fact that I subscribe to two newspapers, I have substantially more recycling than trash, in weight and volume. I have no garage, so the recycling is stored in the house until alternate Thursday nights when I take it to the curb.

In the past few months, the recycling pickup has slipped to Saturday morning. Whatever, so long as it gets picked up. Well, this morning, it wasn't. My neighbors' recycling was picked up, but mine wasn't. It's at the same curbside location that I've used for eight years, in the same city-issued recycling tub that I've used for eight years. And because the pickup slipped to Saturday, every single office that I can call for an explanation is closed, and will be closed Monday for the holiday. They'll listen to their voice mail on Tuesday.

In addition, the city has a transfer station for items that are ineligible for curbside pickup. In addition to its weekday hours, it's open on alternate Saturdays. Today isn't one of them, and I have all-day plans next Saturday.

So, I guess I'm going to be one of Those People who leave stuff at the curb for weeks at a time. I simply don't have space in the house for a huge pile of damp, rained on newspapers. And I don't have a garage. I really hope the next-door neighbors, whose house just went on the market, don't mind too much. Meanwhile, I'll just steam.

Lunch today was a salad, sourced as follows:

Lettuce, from a local farmstand
Radish, from the farmstand
Sliced onion, from my garden
Cherry tomatoes, from my garden
Cucumber, from the farmstand
Hard boiled egg, from a local farm (may have been bought at the supermarket)
Havarti cheese, from a local cheese shop (I'm not sure whether they made it or not; they have both cheeses that they've made and cheeses that they get elsewhere)
Dressing, home-made, from my standard ingredients, all mass-produced
Half an apple, from the farmstand (new crop!)
Peanut butter, all-natural brand from the supermarket

Here were the second round playoff predictions:

East:
Rangers-Pens
Flyers-Habs

West:
Wings-Avs
Sharks-Stars

Yep...That's a big 0 for 4. I was wrong about all four series.

And now the more general predictions:

As for the more general predictions:
(1) an epic overtime game ended after midnight: well, the only multi OT game (game 4 of Flyers-Caps) ended in the second overtime, and Knuble's winner wasn't particularly fluky. But there are three rounds to go.

Well we got the epic OT game. But Morrow's goal halfway through the 4th OT wasn't particularly fluky.

(2) an Avs-Red Wings hate-filled series: we'll have the series but the jury's still out on the hate

What hate? That series was a total snoozer.

(3) a young player not named Crosby or Ovechkin developing a reputation: Daniel Brière, I'm looking at you, and at you, Brandon Dubinsky

Daniel Who? I got your R. J. Umberger here. Not to mention Johan Franzen and Brenden Morrow.

Marion Hossa already had the reputation…of coming up small in the playoffs. No more. He did OK.

(4) an older player rediscovering his youth and carrying his team: Kovalev? Jagr? JR, if he can keep it up.

Well, Kovalev and Jagr couldn't carry their teams, and JR couldn't keep it up. Is Marty Turco old enough to be an "older player rediscovering his youth and carrying his team"? How about Chris Osgood.

(5) Mike Milbury trashing Jagr: With both Boston and NY telecasts available, I managed to avoid most opportunities for Milbury mishegoss.

Milbury. Blech. Enough said.

And maybe this round we'll get the epic OT game.

I left this in because, boy, howdy, did we ever. I was a wreck at work today, but it was so worth it to stay up until 2:30 AM to see the end of this game. There is nothing, I mean nothing in the world of sports like sudden-death playoff hockey. The two teams played 7 1/2 periods of hockey last night. That's 2 1/2 games.

And now for the conference finals:
East:
Pens–Flyers

West:
Stars–Wings

Two weeks ago, I posted a series of predictions about the NHL playoffs. Since the first round is over, it's time to revisit those predictions.

First the outcomes (predictions in bold, outcomes underlined):
East:

* Bruins-Canadiens
* Pens-Sens
* Caps-Flyers
* Rangers-Devils

West:

* Wings-Preds
* Ducks-Stars
* Sharks-Flames
* Wild-Avs

Six out of eight ain't bad. However, one of the series I was wrong on eliminates my predicted Cup final; the Sharks may well win, but they won't be beating the Caps, at least not this year.

As for the more general predictions:
(1) an epic overtime game ended after midnight: well, the only multi OT game (game 4 of Flyers-Caps) ended in the second overtime, and Knuble's winner wasn't particularly fluky. But there are three rounds to go.
(2) an Avs-Red Wings hate-filled series: we'll have the series but the jury's still out on the hate
(3) a young player not named Crosby or Ovechkin developing a reputation: Daniel Brière, I'm looking at you, and at you, Brandon Dubinsky
(4) an older player rediscovering his youth and carrying his team: Kovalev? Jagr? JR, if he can keep it up.
(5) Mike Milbury trashing Jagr: With both Boston and NY telecasts available, I managed to avoid most opportunities for Milbury mishegoss.

And now the second round:
East:
Rangers-Pens
Flyers-Habs

West:
Wings-Avs
Sharks-Stars

And maybe this round we'll get the epic OT game.

Game on!

Eggplant-walnut recipes

Eggplant-walnut paté

Similarly, from the California Walnut Board

Eggplant with walnut dressing

Melitzanosalata me karythia

Toasted walnuts

Oven-toasted walnuts with rosemary and sage

Hot and Spicy Toasted Walnuts

A while back, I underwent screening for a study at a local hospital. I passed the screening, and am now enrolled in the "walnut study". The study is looking at the effects of walnut consumption on cardiac health in type 2 diabetics. Essentially, over a period of six months, I will have two months in which I eat 2 oz of walnuts every day. And I will have two months in which I eat no walnuts.

Right now, I'm in the walnut phase. The study provided me with an absurd number of 1 oz bags of walnuts. After two days of eating 2 oz of walnuts, I realized that some creativity would be required. There's one word for eating lots of plain walnuts: boring!

On Tuesday, I checked out mini food processors at Target, but didn't much like what I saw. Wednesday I hit Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and bought a 3-cup Cuisinart, to go with my larger model. This morning, my breakfast was a walnut and cream cheese spread, on low-carb toast.

Walnut cream cheese spread


Place all ingredients in work bowl of mini processor, and pulse until well mixed
Enjoy.

I really, really, really want this, but it's expensive and I'm not sure I really have room for it in my kitchen. But, if it works as advertised, I could roast coffee year-round without smoking up my kitchen.

This is a local merchant that I like dealing with. And November was a three paycheck month. My plans for the extra money were to pay extra on my mortgage principle and to make a contribution to Knitters Doctors Without Borders. And it looks like I might need more dental work...But, coffee!!!!!

Lunch today was: 1/2 flax wrap, egg salad (with freshly snipped oregano and chives), a few slices of gruyere cheese, lettuce from the garden, two thin slices of tomato, all held together with mayo. With it I had a tall glass of iced tea (home-brewed decaf Earl Grey, with a bit of Splenda). My blood sugar an hour or so after eating was 123 mg/dl, and an hour after that it was down to 117 mg/dl. Not awful by any means, but it's still higher than I'd like. You sometimes have to wonder whether the low-carb, high-fiber products like the flax wraps really are as low carb as they claim. It would be a shame if they're not, because I like eating something sandwich-like for lunch. On the other hand, I'd prefer not having blood sugar spikes either. Aside from the incremental micro-vascular (and macro-vascular) damage they can do, if my blood sugar is too variable, I feel like crap.

Inspired by frivolity's CSA posts and willendorf5761's meal posts, I'm going to try some of the same. My doctor's been reminding me that I need to do more post-prandial blood sugar testing. She thinks I should be below 140 mg/dl two hours after eating. I'd be happier being below 120 by one hour after eating; everything I've read suggests that vascular damage begins at 140 mg/dl, and a two hour that high suggests that blood sugar would have been even higher earlier.

So, it's 10:20 now. I just finished dinner.

Dinner was: a 2 egg omelet, with scallions (from the garden), a bit of tomato (from the farm stand, but not, alas, native), gruyere cheese from a local cheese store (given that it's an Italian store, I suspect that they didn't actually make the gruyere, but I do get fresh mozzarella there to accompany mid-August tomatoes from a colleague's garden), and chopped cilantro (from a farm stand near where my parents live).

I also had a decent-sized salad. Its base was lettuce and arugula from the garden. But I added a bit of radish and cucumber from the farm stand, some more of the tomato, chopped scallion from the garden, a wedge of avocado, a few olives (from the Italian cheese store), and some grated cheese (also from the Italian cheese store). The dressing was a home-made vinaigrette, as usual. The only difference was that, instead of dried thyme, it's seasoned with fresh thyme, which I macerated in the vinegar for 24 hours before making the dressing.

I'm still sipping the glass of Shiraz that I poured to accompany the meal.

EDIT: It's now 11:20. I finished the wine, paid some bills (on-line banking rocks!), and did a bit of knitting. My blood sugar is 101 mg/dl. I'm pleased with that, but I'd be happier if it were even a bit lower.

SECOND EDIT: 12:20, still 101. That suggests to me that it might have been higher at 90 minutes or so after eating. I'll have to test then next time I have an omelet for dinner.