As if Fabiola could magically turn a Volvo with a D12 Engine back into an 18 year old Ford ...

As if Fabiola could magically ...

Rant off. As is often the case - comments are more interesting than the post -- so those stay, Fabiola's ranting has been edited.

Wednesdom -- Persistence and Vegetables

Persistence
Persistence isn't using the same tactics over and over. That's just annoying.
Persistence is having the same goal over and over.

Seth Godin

The man is genius. Fabiola adores him. If you are one of the 12 people in the universe that hasn't read his blog -- go! Scoot! You will come back with at least one great idea that will improve your mind set if not your life. You will.

That brings Fabiola to vegetables. The Fella will not eat vegetables in any form (except corn and potatoes and if you are in the position of feeding folk nutritious food, you know that corn and potatoes, while wonderful --- are starches -- sigh.) Regardless.

To the best of her knowledge, Fabiola does not believe that the ever inspiring Mr. Godin has addressed the question of adult men who won't eat vegetables. But just today he did talk about persistence.

Fabiola has tried everything that she can think of to get him to eat vegetables, all to no avail, if he recognizes them, he won't eat them. Period.

Which leads to Gordon Ramsey and his BBC show "Kitchen Nightmares". The show about the Fenwick Arms and the campaign for real gravy.

Fabiola's fella won't eat vegetables, but he will eat gravy. After stealing an idea from that particular show -- Fabiola had a plan.

Roast vegetables at the same time as the day's chunk of dead animal (but not for the SAME LENGTH OF TIME - just until caramelized and soft), when the roast is done, discard the fat from drippings by skimming, drippings into blender, roasted vegetables into blender, splash of broth, blend, add more broth to make gravy consistency, add a few drops of Kitchen Bouquet (essentially browning for sauces and gravies that you want to be brown but aren't), salt, pepper, ground celery seed (if you didn't make celery one of your vegetables). One last whir, done.

Real gravy. It worked. Yes to a hand full of carrots, one garlic clove, onion, about half a potato, and as part of the broth a small can of V8 juice. No to grease and flour as a thickening.

Persistence.

Fabiola Just Knew it -- Prescription Drugs In Drinking Water

Fabiola has her eye on some folks. (Ok, that is really a photo of one of Mary's eyes - yep acid blue real color - freakish - but Fabiola digresses and Mary is part of this story).

The local Tee Vee news tonight reported that pharmecuticals are showing up in drinking water.

Which Fabiola has no doubt is true to some extent. Kinda sorta.

It is a fact that the constituents of water can be measured in parts per TRILLION? True. Parts per trillion. In the news story no concentrations were cited. Imagine that.

Also true is the fact that if all arsenic were removed from the water, we would all be less healthy. True. But that isn't what Fabiola is talking about at the moment. Fabiola doesn't talk about these kind of things unless there is a good story attached to it. As it happens ...

Backing up. Maybe five years ago or so, Mary (Fabiola's largely fabricated alter ego) ran into someone online - someone who IM'd her for what ever reason. It wasn't as if she knew this person.

In any event, the conversation turned to work (has Fabiola mentioned what a drag Mary can be?) Regardless, this person identified themselves as someone from one of those eco scare (um, I mean activist groups) and this person posed the question (remember that this was five years ago).

"What would you say if I told you that we are studying prescriptions drugs showing up in drinking water and the effects that this MIGHT have on unborn children".

Yikes.
Mary's first thought was massive lawsuit against the drug manufacturers a'la the tobacco lawsuits. Lawyers and states making boatloads of money, that sort of thing. Scare scams.
That is what she thought.

Her actual reply to this person was more along the lines of ...
If it were possible that prescription medicine not absorbed by the body and excreted (this person mentioned Prozac specifically - why I don't know) into the waste stream where it was diluted by the waste water of people who don't take prescription drugs and in some cases storm water run-off then traveled through the waste treatment process and emptied into a river, where it was diluted again, traveled downstream where it got picked-up by the intakes for a water plant, processed, run through pipes and delivered to a tap, where it was absorbed by drinking or showering ...

If, in fact, after all of this, the concentrations of the prescription drug absorbed was at a level sufficient to attempt to frighten people over -- then the phrase ...

"I am just not awake until I have had my morning shower" would have a whole new meaning. Now wouldn't it?

With the quantity of coffee, sodas (and now energy drinks) that Americans consume if the activists theory was worth frightening people over, we wouldn't need Jaun Valdez and his damn donkey anymore, now would we? Think about it.

The activist's response to Mary was "who are you"?

Someone who thinks before freaking out. That is who Mary is. Someone who wants to hear numbers. Yanno the facts, silly inconvenient thing that they sometimes are. Call her crazy.

Repeating: Constituents of water can and are routinely measured down to parts per trillion. The Tee Vee report didn't cite any numbers. Wonder why.

Someone has been working on this story for five years (at least). Be a Fabiola, ask for the numbers before you freak-out.

Meanwhile Fabiola has to set up the coffee pot for tomorrow morning.

Sometimes Reality Takes Over (don't you just hate that?)

Mary posted an entry about where she lives.


Fabiola has been neglecting her readers. Fabiola apologizes. Mary is all wrapped up in a project and forgets that she needs Fabiola.

She will suffer the consequences, but for the moment, she is all facts and figures and do this and then do thats with no time for "I wonder what would happen if ..."

She doesn't understand how important that is. Fabiola will be waiting for her to come to her senses, Fabiola hopes that you will be too.