I've heard about benefits like this. Now I get it.

Today I had my first ever, at-the-office professional massage. (I know. Feel free to roll your eyes. But I am old now. And this has been a thing for a while. And suddenly, this thing as an accessible service makes a lot more sense.) 

Last Friday, I woke up at 4am in excruciating pain. I couldn't look up. I couldn't look right. I could look left. Which is more useful than being unable to move your head at all. But unsurprisingly, not enough. Even looking left hurt. Like my neck was telling me "Screw you. I left you this little bit. Do you want me to take that away, too?" 

For the record, when I went to bed I was fine. I hadn't done anything more strenuous that evening than catching up on a couple of episodes of 'Cutthroat Kitchen' off the TiVo.  

We have a masseuse/yoga instructor at the on-campus gym here at work at couple of days a week, but I had never used her before. It's $15 for a 15 minute chair massage. I don't know what the rest of her rate card is. I had always kind of mocked the people who used the service. I mean, seriously, what kind of person gets a massage at work?

Turns out: I'm that kind of person.

I figured that with my neck actively trying to sabotage my ability to do complex maneuvers like Looking At Things or Getting Up From My Bed, it was pretty much a good time to try. 

I sent her a note and arranged an appointment on her next on-site day. (Today). I know she does the longer, normal type massage, but I figured the 15 minute thing was a good start.

I showed up in slightly better shape than I had been - the past few of days and a couple of evening bourbons had gone some way to loosening things back up again. I can look to my right now. But up still hurts. 

Think about it: How many times a day do you tilt your head back and look up? 

Wrong.

It's way more than that. Which I didn't know until I was forced to count the tears I shed every time I tried. 

I explained things to the masseuse. 

"How do you normally sleep?" she asked. 

"Er... horizontally, most often. It's worked for me until now."

"Has this ever happened before?"

"No. And I've been sleeping almost every day for pretty much my whole life. At least once a day. Sometimes twice. I used to be pretty good at it. Suddenly: not so much." 

"How many pillows do you use?"

"One. Maybe two." 

She nodded sagely. "You should think about using less"

"Less than one is zero. I should use zero pillows?"

"Well. At least think about it." 

And then she jabbed her thumb into my neck.

"I bet it hurts right here."

"Erp!"

Over the course of the next 15 minutes, she poked and prodded and twisted expertly and turned the tight knotty balls of agony in my neck into a reluctant surrender to normality. And hey. You know what? I can look up now. 

The on site massage should immediately by law be made A Thing. It was awesome. 

The Wolf of Bedford Road

A few weeks ago, my 11 year old daughter came downstairs and told me, "Dad, I want a new phone." 

"Uh-huh, Critter. Let me know how that works out for you." 

We got her a phone last year. I was pretty much against it at the time, and I still have distinctly mixed feelings about it.  But she's involved in more after-school & extra-curricular things. She calls us when she needs to be picked up from the stables. She can ring us when she needs to stay later at the library. And we can use "Where's my phone" apps to check in on her progress when she's biking around.  The phone is handy, and she's responsible with it. She's never lost it, and she doesn't text or talk like crazy on it.  I'm just old-fashioned enough to begrudge giving a kid a phone.

We got her an older iPhone in one of those "free extra phone" deals when my Bride renewed her contract. It's serviceable. She doesn't have her own account. And she has to ask us to buy or download anything. The deal has been that if she breaks or loses it, she gets to pay for the replacement. And I get all the passwords, forever. And the stated assumption that I will read every mail, text or note. I'm in IT. I can do that. 

The phone she has is definitely slow, and it's more than one generation out of date. But whatever. It's a phone. And it's perfectly capable of doing phone-ish things. So when she came downstairs and said she 'needed' a new phone. I just laughed. 

"Go ahead an buy whatever phone you can afford, kid." 

"Ok. I'm going to get the gold iPhone 5s."

"OK, Sweeti -- Wait.  What?" 

She pulled out a hand drawn chart & a wad of bills from her pocket and started counting. She had calculated how much she'd need for the phone, the case she wanted, and sales tax, and made up a hand drawn spreadsheet.

Let's be clear: Our kids have never received an allowance. And that's not about to change.  Any money the Critter gets comes from collecting, boxing and selling eggs to our neighbors at three bucks a dozen, the occasional farmer's market scheme (she has sold duct tape wallets and doll blankets she had made a few times), and a little bit of birthday money from the grandparents.  Occasionally, I might throw her a few bucks to wash my car. (Very occasionally. I don't remember to wash my car more than once a year or so).

And? We make her take 1 out of every 3 dollars, and put it in the bank.  

When she was done counting, she had over $300 in a pile. This kid has more disposable income at 11 than I did when I was 31. 

But instead of the ~$100 dollars that would've gone into the bank, she kept back only $175. The rest she said would go into savings. Then she colored in her chart and hung it next to her bed with some stern warnings for herself. 

She printed out a picture of the phone she wanted, and tucked it into her own duct-tape wallet. "As a reminder," she told me. "That way, whenever I go to spend money, I'll see it, and maybe think more about saving the money instead." 

Then she went to the library and checked out a couple of books on small business ideas for kids, and announced to our friends that she was available to help tutor their young children. She talked to the Boy's tutor about techniques and started lining up gigs at $6 an hour. 

Next week, I'm going to ask her to review my capital project request that I've put together for our company Board of Directors review and give me a few pointers. 

Lamb prosciutto

Last year, my Bride had given me a copy of Edward Lee's fantastic cookbook Smoke & Pickles, which is just full of fantastic goodies & recipes. (It's where I got the bourbon-pickled jalapeño recipe, which my whole family loves). 

One of the recipes that I was really itching to try was his lamb prosciutto. I've occasionally found this on menus at restaurants with good charcuterie plates, and I was especially intrigued as the recipe said you could get a good cure on in about 100 days. As opposed to the 18-24 months it takes for a pork prosciutto. 

So when I dropped off my pigs at the butcher in November, I asked Mike to set aside a bone in leg of lamb for me.  I don't know why the hell we're so averse to lamb here in the US - when we lived in England, it was easy enough and therefore relatively reasonable to get a leg of lamb for a Sunday dinner. Fortunately, our butcher is well equipped to source pretty much anything. 

Leg of lamb? No problem.  I've spared you the raw photo - but here it is after the cure. Isn't she lovely? 

Edward Lee's recipe is for a curried prosciutto - mixing the normal salt and spices with a curry powder rub. I like a good curry, but I had a hard time imagining it on my prosciutto. And besides, this was my first go at this one, so I kept it simple. 

I followed my typical prosciutto cure - a whole lot of salt, and a little pepper thrown in for good measure. I rubbed the whole leg down well and left it to sit in the salt box for a few days - checking on it and rubbing salt in the areas that were exposed every other day or so. Give it a good turn. Check again in a couple of days. 

After about a week or ten days of this, I hung it with the other prosciuttos, and walked away. 

I actually ended up leaving the leg to hang for about 120 days or so.  Because it was winter, and because I was leaving it for less time, I didn't bother putting a muslin sack on this one (which keeps any flies off in the summer). 

The leg of lamb is, of course, smaller than a pork leg, and because it cures faster, the change in the texture, size & heft of the meat is more noticeable.  When I pulled it down, the surface felt taut & firm. And the leg was so small, I wasn't sure how the slices would turn out. 

I cut off the main portions of meat as you can see above, and the meat was a lovely, dark, dark rose, with beautiful firm streaks of fat still visible. I sliced a few slivers off on my deli slicer to try. The flavor was amazing - more rich and (for lack of a better word) "lamb-y". 

I kept slicing. 

I ended up with more than I thought I would, from such a small leg. My slicer was set on about as thin as it could go, but still, the leg wasn't huge. However, as you can see - I ended up with plenty to keep, and plenty to give away to a few friends. 

Because the meat was so rich, a little goes a long way - a few slices on top of a nice salad with goats cheese & light citrus vinaigrette, or maybe paired with a perfect poached egg for that lovely yolky silkiness. Perfection. 

I'll definitely be doing this one again.