Friday, March 17, 2023

Three Beautiful Things 03-16-2023: Icing my Left Big Toe, Two Powerhouse Teams Panic, Quesadillas for Dinner

1. The good news, I guess what you'd call the beautiful thing, is that I know how to treat it. Not so beautiful, however, is this occasional problem I have with either of my big toes becoming suddenly inflamed. I've written about this before, but it's been quite a while since this malady last occurred. 

In Eugene, I saw three different Urgent Care doctors when this problem flared up. All of them confirmed, independently of one another, that it's not gout. One of them did a blood test that confirmed that it's not gout.

The treatment?

Ice. If I ice my toe about five, six, seven times a day, in about two, three, or four days my toe calms down and I can walk freely and sleep well.

I made progress today. 

2. I watched a lot of basketball throughout the day. 

I thought both of the upsets were largely due to the favored teams losing their composure -- would I be exaggerating to say I thought they panicked?

In Virginia's loss, late in the game, the Cav's experienced and seasoned point guard, Kihei Clark, got trapped in the backcourt by at least two Furman defenders. Clark must have thought that if he launched a pass high into the air and downcourt that time would expire. Or, he didn't think. He panicked. 

Either way, as a result of his desperate heave, a Furman player intercepted the pass, quickly sent the ball up court to JP Pegues who hoisted a trey and buried it, wiping out UVA's two point lead and capping Furman's upset of the Cavs.

Arizona looked panicked to me late in their loss to Princeton. Whereas Princeton looked poised and self-assured, Arizona's guards dribbled around helter-skelter, made wild turnovers, took some very difficult shots, and, to me, looked like they lost their heads. It was contagious. With the guards playing nervous, the other Arizona players also seemed to be playing in a state of disbelief that these Ivy League fellas were not only taking the powerhouse Wildcats to the wire, but were beating them, mentally, physically, and on the scoreboard.

Alas! The inevitable madness of March! 

3. A day of off and on icing helped me gain enough mobility again that I could not only fix Debbie a cocktail when she returned home, but I also was able to fix dinner.

I followed the step by step instructions of HelloFresh and made Debbie and me delicious quesadillas.

All I had to do was thinly slice a red onion, chop up a couple of tomatoes, chop a green onion, and chop up cilantro. 

I made a quick salsa with some of the tomatoes and cilantro and onion, plus a splash of vinegar. 

I also made a very simple sauce with sour cream, a southwest spice blend, and water.

I cooked the thinly sliced onions and chopped green peppers. Once cooked, I added the rest of the chopped tomatoes and more of the spice blend with some water, cooked it until the tomatoes were tender, and then took the pan off the heat and added sour cream and cilantro.

I put out two flour tortillas. I covered each with grated Mexican blend cheese, put the onion/green pepper/tomato sauce over the cheese, and topped it all with grated pepper jack cheese. 

I folded both filled tortillas in half and cooked each side until the tortillas browned and the cheese melted.

I cut the folded and stuffed tortillas into wedges and covered the wedges with the salsa and sauce I'd made and with guacamole. 

Debbie and I then dug in and were once again impressed with this HelloFresh offering. 

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