{"id":804,"date":"2007-03-18T20:30:51","date_gmt":"2007-03-19T04:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/?p=804"},"modified":"2007-03-18T20:30:51","modified_gmt":"2007-03-19T04:30:51","slug":"walk-me-through-this-armstrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/?p=804","title":{"rendered":"Walk Me Through This, Armstrong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, while I waited for my pasta to cook, I removed the necessary ingredients from the fridge:<\/p>\n<p>butter<br \/>\nmilk<br \/>\nhot sauce<br \/>\ncheese<\/p>\n<p>and suddenly noticed what I had not noticed before: a list of ingredients on the cheese wrapper.  <i>Milk, lactic whatnot, whey pickles, tonnes of yummy goodness <\/i>it read.  And the last line: <i>May contain colour.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>(I should clarify that this was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.straightdope.com\/classics\/a981002b.html\"> orange cheddar cheese.<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>MAY contain colour.  Are you implying that it may NOT?  Am I to believe that orange cheese is made from milk the colour of a tangerine, a tulip, a turbid glass of lower mainland water after a windstorm?  (sorry &#8211; I needed another &#8220;T&#8221; word after the first two.)<\/p>\n<p>Also, if YOU, cheese-selling-dudes, don&#8217;t know whether or not there is colour in your cheese?  You should either find out, pronto, or lie about it.  <\/p>\n<p>Then I drained the pasta, put the butter in, splashed some milk in, a quick dash of flour to thicken things up, hearty glops of hot sauce and as much cheese as I could grate without activating my carpal tunnel syndrome.<\/p>\n<p>The other day, Wednesday, I was out with my mom and cousin.  We were talking about stress and anxiety and how we deal; we have family who deals by not eating &#8211; too stressed to eat! My cousin said <i>no way &#8211; the minute I get the bad news, I look around for something to stuff in my mouth <\/i> and my mom said, <i>yes, comfort food, very much so, <\/i> and they asked me what do I do, am I an anxiety eater or an anxiety not eater.  I said I didn&#8217;t know.  But yesterday, as I shoveled the above-described lunch down my hollow gullet, I had a &#8220;hammer-to-head&#8221; realization about what sort I am.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for the really nice commiseration and advice around <b>Trombone&#8217;s First Big Freakout 2007!<\/b> (we&#8217;re getting t-shirts made)  From the depths of hell, I found two things useful.  <\/p>\n<p>1. Singing alternate lyrics to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Brahms'_Lullaby\"> Brahms&#8217; &#8220;Lullaby&#8221;<\/a> in my head while I hummed and hummed and hummed for 4 days.  Because these words: <\/p>\n<p><i>Lullaby, and sleep tight, hush! My darling is sleeping,<br \/>\nOn his sheets white as cream, with his head full of dreams.<br \/>\nWhen the sky&#8217;s bright with dawn, he will wake in the morning.<br \/>\nWhen noontide warms the world, he will frolic in the sun.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>were not doing it for me.<\/p>\n<p>One of my versions:<br \/>\n<i>It&#8217;s a phase, it&#8217;s a phase<br \/>\nit will not last forever<br \/>\nit means he&#8217;s growing and getting smarter<br \/>\npretty soon he&#8217;ll be in school!<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s a phase it&#8217;s a phase<br \/>\njust hold on one more day (sometimes segue into Wilson Phillips here but not often)<br \/>\nit&#8217;s a phase it&#8217;s a phase<br \/>\nenjoy all that new grey!<\/i><\/p>\n<p>and 2. counting my blessings.<\/p>\n<p>Besides internet support, I also received two phone calls I didn&#8217;t return (sorry!), a few emails, a beautiful bouquet of tulips, a book, a tear-inducingly-cute pair of baby sneakers, a new recliner and a mei tai.<\/p>\n<p>OK the last two I paid for.  But if YOUR baby wasn&#8217;t sleeping and YOU were spending hours on end rocking him wouldn&#8217;t you think it a blessing if, during the day, you walk past a consignment store and see The Perfect Chair (TM) just sitting there, waiting for you to buy it for a reasonable price?  It&#8217;s a La-Z-Boy.  <\/p>\n<p><a href='http:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/lazyboy.jpg' title='my chair'><img src='http:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/lazyboy.jpg' alt='my chair' \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href='http:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/lazyboy2.jpg' title='my chair!'><img src='http:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/lazyboy2.jpg' alt='my chair!' \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It rocks.  And reclines.<\/p>\n<p>The second picture features Baby Tad, who restored sanity to Trombone&#8217;s wee Freakedout brain with soothing lullabies, played at the press of his (her?) right paw.  Foot.  Frog thingee.<\/p>\n<p>The Mei Tai came from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.coastalsling.com\/V3\/\"> Coastal Sling Baby Carriers<\/a> just across the Patullo Bridge from us.  We traipsed out and had a very helpful demonstration of Trombone + Mei Tai. He liked it and so did I.  This way I get to carry him on my back and he gets to gently stroke the nape of my neck with his delicate fingers.<\/p>\n<p>Ha ha ha ha!  I&#8217;ll be bald by June!<\/p>\n<p><a href='http:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/eating_baby.jpg' title='help!'><img src='http:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/eating_baby.jpg' alt='help!' \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, while I waited for my pasta to cook, I removed the necessary ingredients from the fridge: butter milk hot sauce cheese and suddenly noticed what I had not noticed before: a list of ingredients on the cheese wrapper. Milk, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/?p=804\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cheese","category-trombone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/cheeseblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}