Three Beautiful Things 02-10-2025: Daylight Driving Time, Making Bi-Weekly Labs Fun, Pork and Panko

1. Now that daylight is creeping into our mornings a bit earlier each day, I decided I'd like to drive to Spokane for labs and some gallivanting in mostly daylight. Therefore, I hit the road a little later than usual and arrived at Sacred Heart a little later. It worked out fine. I was done not long after 8:00 and so just over twelve hours had passed since I took my last Tacrolimus pill, in keeping with the doctor's orders.  I took my 8:00 pills at around, oh, 8:30 and that's fine, too. 

I went to the hospital cafeteria and the Thomas Hammer coffee bar and ordered my first ever Macchiato, a traditional Macchiato, not a caramel one that is popular at Starbucks.

The traditional Macchiato is a shot of espresso topped with some milk foam. It's intense, a good drink for coffee drinkers who enjoy bitterness, and I now think I'll experiment with making Macchiato like drinks at home. 

I'm having fun playing around in the world of espresso coffee. 

2. I fast before my labs, so it had been over twelve hours since I'd eaten. 

So I beat a retreat to Great Harvest for a Morning Glory Muffin and some coffee. I also wanted to stock up on bread, but bread wouldn't be ready for purchase until around 10:30 or so. 

No problem. 

Trader Joe's is a short distance from Great Harvest, so I dropped in and did some "if it looks fun buy it" shopping and I hope the Mediterranean Salmon Pinwheel I purchased is as fun on our dinner plates as it was to see in the store! 

I returned to Great Harvest and found out my buying habits there had earned me a free loaf of bread, so I came home with two loaves of white bread and a loaf of Harvest Blend, all right out of the oven and cooled for the proper amount of time. 

I then blasted to CdA, glided into Pilgrim's Market, stocked up on produce, and returned to Kellogg. 

3. Back home, I beat an egg in a bowl, dipped two pork chops one at time in the egg and then rolled the chops in panko bread crumbs seasoned with Everything But the Bagel seasoning. Before frying the chops, I sautéed rings of red onion and I steamed chunks of Yukon Golds with broccoli. Before frying the chops, I cut the meat in bite-sized pieces and before long we had a delicious dinner of breaded pork chop bits and red onion with potatoes and broccoli on the side. 

Mom used to cook pork in a similar way, using crushed saltine crackers. I almost did that tonight, but I'm kind of crazy about panko bread crumbs, and so I used them and was very happy with how the Everything But the Bagel seasoning worked with the panko. 

Espresso fun! Great Harvest fun! Trader Joe's fun! Pilgrim's Market fun! Fun in the kitchen! 

A fun day. 

I hope to hear on Tuesday what the transplant team has to say about my labs. I saw numbers I liked a lot and noted one thing out of whack. I'll reserve comment on that for later after I find out if it concerned the team.