Kind of been a long week here in a number of ways. Mom was diagnosed with a fracture in one vertebra this week and fitted with a back brace. She's looking at having to wear that for 3 months or so, but the good news is she will most likely not need surgery. The brace is a bit of a two-edged sword. On the one hand it's going to be a long and uncomfortable 3 months. On the other hand, it gives her a little more confidence that she can move around without doing further injury to her back. That at least helps with the short term goal of getting her semi-independent again.
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On a brighter note, I made lasagna again this week, this time using a recipe from The Pioneer Woman. It was a resounding success:
(Does this pic look good? I mean, I think it does, but I no longer trust my judgment on that score.)
That was after the first baking. I baked it again and served it the next day. I could hardly stand the wait.
This recipe used cottage cheese and it tasted great, but I'm going to go back to ricotta for the next batch.
One thing I really liked about this recipe was the use of sliced mozzarella instead of shredded. The slices on top of the cottage cheese mix made the assembly go easier by having a firm barrier between the cheese and the meat layers.
I need a deeper pyrex pan though, because I just barely got it all to fit and I want to ad lib a little on the next one. One more layer of noodles and a thin layer of meat sauce topped with shredded mozzarella and romano in addition to the parmesan you see above. This is a big and beefy recipe so there's plenty of meat sauce to make that work. I might try a half recipe as well. The full recipe is a lot of lasagna and I don't often cook for that many people.
It looks like our legislature here is going to legalize gay marriage here. I've stated before that I'm okay with that as long as it follows a legislative process, not a judicial one. However, I think the religious exemptions in the bill that passed that stop at "for profit and "secular" activities are going to be tested. Tolerance is a two way street, and if gay marriage backers immediately turn around and aggressively challenge religious institutions there will be a backlash that they will regret. Take it slow.
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Earlier this week I saw yet another silly story about a kid getting suspended for a symbolic gun at school. I go back and forth on this, but sometimes I think this is less about an irrational fear of guns and more about the dumbing down of education with zero tolerance rules of any sort.
I've heard from educators that one reason zero tolerance rules are necessary is many parents no longer trust the subjective judgments of teachers and administrators. But then part of the reason that parents no longer trust educators is the pervasive practice of covering for the lazy and incompetent teachers and administrators within their own ranks.
The story linked above has a statement from the school system that other children might have felt threatened by the two boys ponting pencils and making gun noises, even though they admit the boys didn't point at or menace the other students in any way. In that context, fear of the pencil is not a rational response because it is actually harmless.
In an adult that sort of fear would be considered an anxiety disorder, but in a child it is just the sort of irrational response that parents and teachers are supposed to help children get over. Instead, I get the impression that Suffolk Public Schools is coddling and, intentionally or not, encouraging it.
Look at it this way. The teachers at that school would never see the buses off at the end of the day with cries of "Hope the boogie man doesn't get you tonite" or "One day your parents will abandon you." Any student who came to them with such fears would, I assume, get the appropriate attention and reassurance. Does a student with an irrational fear of the harmless pencil in this situation get the same attention and reassurance?
I could be wrong on this, but I get the feeling from the school system's statement that the answer is no. After all, wouldn't that undercut their zero tolerance policy? Even a child can understand that it's pretty stupid to punish someone for behavior that's harmless.
There are times I regret not having kids. This isn't one of them.
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