The February theme was Bake the Baking Pantry. This was a month where I used the special ingredients that I already had in the baking pantry. Things like different kinds of chips and even a wine syrup from a forgotten in the fridge bottle of wine from Christmas.

I have been judiciously buying ingredients for CTIAT for as long as I have spearheaded it. By that I mean that I strategically buy ingredients for the month’s theme.

Some of the themes were Inflation Baking and the Eggceptional theme, the last time egg prices were egregious. This let me expand my cookie offerings while still keeping the price reasonable.

But I always managed to buy some ingredient during the month, be it flour or sugar or eggs. I just wanted to keep on theme.

This month’s theme was going to be Baking the Freezer and I will keep to the theme. But I will add to the theme by doing a CTIAT No Buy month. If there is an ingredient in the freezer that requires me to buy an additional ingredient to make it work, I will keep the ingredient in the freezer.

By the way, the Bake the Baking Pantry did not even put a dent in my supplies so there will probably be an additional month of that.

Off to inventory the freezer.

…

Okay, I’m back. There are many vacuum sealed bags of peaches that I chucked in there after I got over-zealous and bought a bushel of peaches.

That will be the freezer ingredient today.

Peach cobbler style cookies.

I have baked them and I have to say they are some of the prettiest cookies that I’ve made.

See picture for details.

Colleges and universities are widely and wildly unsettled at the moment.

Much like those of us who are burdened with empathy.

There are some who don’t know better that are cheering the unrest. I hope they don’t know better. Otherwise I am forced to conclude that they are terrible people. People who relish in the difficulties of others.

Not so very far removed from the bullies that I railed against yesterday.

With a swipe of a pen and, I imagine, an unholy grin, much of the research landscape was decimated.

There are those who rush in and wish to dance upon the ashes.

I hope they don’t require any help from the research that has been destroyed by the mad one’s whims. Nor any of their families.

As we are barreling past the point of no return in getting the flu vaccine formulated and prepared for the start of the fall flu vaccine campaign, I hope that this upcoming flu season won’t bite them in the ass.

I will certainly be masking up if there is no 2025 flu vaccine.

But students and professors alike are in unsettled times.

I know I am.

And I don’t know how to react.

Part of me wants to wash my hands of the whole thing and hope for the best.

After all, healthcare workers JUST lived through a global pandemic and we are staring down the barrel at another. With less than half of the tools that we had in 2020 with covid 19, and even less than those tools for the 2013 Ebola outbreak that wished it was a pandemic, and even less than the SARS in 2002, and less still than the swine flu in 2008.

Still we educate others and seek education for ourselves.

I have no answers.

May whatever god you believe in have mercy on your soul.

Because those in power who are giddy and bloated with it certainly won’t.

Most people think that the holidays are over with the New Year’s celebrations.

Or when the tree is packed away, ornaments carefully wrapped to protect them from breakage during the year.

Or at 12th night celebrations, which is 12 days after Christmas, on the eve of the Epiphany.

Or when the kids go back to school after a 2-week holiday/winter/Christmas break.

Or when the credit card bills come rolling in and you swear not to overspend this year. Spoiler alert, you may or may not keep this promise to yourself.

For the operating room, the holidays are truly over in March.

Hell, for the hospitals, the holidays are truly over when the flu season ends. This is usually in the spring. But, as with all things infectious, this comes with a caveat.

Hospitals are currently having the worst flu season since 2009, so who knows when the end will be.

For the operating room, there seems to be an increase in cases. Yes, despite many, many people starting their insurance deductible over for the year.

I call the Holiday Hangover.

And it is keenly felt on the off hours.

Slips and trips and fractures.

Purulent cases. Of all sorts. Reminder, pus can collect anywhere.

Foot infections from the free-wheeling people who go off their diet at the holidays. Because what does it hurt?

Icy/wet conditions that lead to slips and trips and fractures.

New and urgent diagnoses.

There are those who want to get the deductible meeting over with so that the rest of the year and the rest of the care is free. It’s not really free but it can be heavily discounted.

It all contributes to the Holiday Hangover.

The fact that many healthcare workers are sick from the flu is icing on the cake.

‘Tis the season.

The season of coughing and sneezing and nose blowing and tissues.

Oh, my.

The best thing is a good defense.

These include

1. handwashing
2. Mask-wearing when in a crowded area
3. Mask-wearing when you are sick
4. getting your flu vaccine

But, Kate, what happens when all of this fails?

Time to go on the offensive.

1. get plenty of rest
2. drink lots of fluids
3. procure supplies such as ready-to-heat and eat meals and paper goods such as tissues
4. seek care if you have a sustained fever over 102 or are coughing up nasty green stuff
5. seek care if you are coughing up a steady stream of red
6. take that nap already
7. cancel plans if you aren’t feeling up to them; people will understand
8. take medications if you think they are helping

As my house has been enjoying ill health all week because our defenses were breached, I can tell you that the most important thing is number 9- clean up as you are using the tissues. Mr. Kate and I do this by having readily available receptacles for snotty tissues.

I am not a medication taker. No NyQuil for me as that may mask symptoms I need to pay attention to and also I am not a fan of the paradoxical effect after a few days.

Don’t worry about us. We are on the mend.

After all, Dot, the cat is taking good care of us. Not really, of course, but she is offering much needed comic relief.

The tiredness you are feeling from the non-stop, nonsensical barrage of horrible news from this administration? The tiredness that makes you want to put up your phone, or to navigate away from the News app? The tiredness that makes you want to disengage from the news altogether?

Yeah, same.

I have to ask you not to.

This unrelenting flood of bad shit is by design.

Except maybe the planes. That is a series of disasters directly related to their actions.

But the rest of it is absolutely intentional. So much information into your brain can have a numbing effect. And a nauseating one.

But you must continue to pay attention.

Even if it rubs you raw and makes you sick. Even as it infuriates and makes you see red.

Because the pain and sick feeling you are feeling is the point. They want to make people so tired of the endless bombardment of shit that they take their attention off what is happening.

Imagine what they will do then. Bad things happen in the shadows. Worse things happen when attention is voluntarily given up because of the pain and sick feeling.

I don’t want to imagine that. My imagination is doing enough on its own dealing with the non-stop-daily-24-7 ream of shit.

But I know that I cannot look away, that someone has to keep paying attention and documenting this madness.

The same thing happened with covid. It became so much worse when no one was paying attention to it.

Let’s not go there again. Let’s not watch over a million Americans die because of this.

Let’s give them the attention they so desperately want. Even if we don’t want to.

Especially if they don’t want us paying attention.