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No tornadoes yesterday so far as I know. All is well weather-wise. Closed the windows when I got home and left the A/C running this morning so the cats wouldn't overheat.

Called the butcher in town; they don't generally carry pork belly. My best bet seems to be to either ask at Whole Foods or to go to someone in the North End. Unless one of you guys who happens to live in the Boston area knows a farmer I can talk to, anyway. Bear in mind that I'm not likely to be able to work with more than about 3-5 pounds of meat at a time- more likely on the 3 end since I got a small grill, but I assume I can freeze anything extra until there's room for me to work with it. Alternatively, if I run across a butcher who has lamb belly for some reason, I'll be happy to work with that instead. Oh- and I need to get celery. I don't want to work with pink salt for this. I am aware that celery contains nitrites just as much as pink salt and that 'uncured' bacon still has nitrites thanks to being soaked in celery juice. This is not a health thing. This is an 'I don't feel comfortable leaving that stuff lying around the house just in case the cats find it' thing combined with an 'I don't want to deal with stuff that dyes my meat pink so that I feel better about the way it looks' thing. Apparently if you use enough celery juice in the brine you get the same effects chemically. I don't have a juicer but I have a feeling a few minutes with a submersible blender will convince the celery to give up on its dreams of structural integrity and collapse into a puddle of goo.

Beef jerky turned out pretty well this time, if a bit hotter than usual (1.5 pounds of beef for a 2 pound recipe, also some cayenne along with the dried chipotle flakes and two kinds of paprika). Brought it in to work. They love it here, and since I'm always glad to have an audience for the stuff I make, I'm good with that. I'll be writing that procedure up on Tumblr.

Probably going to stop at Whole Foods tonight and pick up some half and half and eggs. My ice cream maker bucket is in the freezer and I finished the apple mint choco ice cream the other night, so I might as well make some maple ice cream- it'll be my first stab at a recipe that requires making a custard. I've got Grade B syrup to work with, which is preferable in cooking since the taste is stronger (syrup grading isn't based on quality, it's based on opacity, from what I recall- the more maple compounds in it the stronger the taste and the less light gets through it). They don't sell grade C in stores, I don't think. It's mostly reserved for being made into flavoring. If I'm wrong, let me know.

Most of what's going on beyond that has to do with work, so I'm not gonna bore you guys with that- oh, I wanted to note that Adagio Teas has wonderful stuff and that I am very grateful for the birthday gift certificate that introduced me to them. And that if you go looking for their fandom-inspired blends (tea blends concocted by users, I think) and get the Kaidan Alenko blend from the Mass Effect line, it makes really good refrigerator iced tea. Thought you should know.

HUMC again.

Hey, remember this? The people at Cigna told me, when I sent them the bill, that HUMC was arguing internally over whether they'd agreed to the insurance company's "discount" or not (translation: O NOES THEY REALIZED WE CHARGE THREE TIMES THE COST OF A STANDARD VAGINAL DELIVERY TO TAPE UP A PAIR OF CUT FINGERS, CHANGE THE BILL). They said it was now in HUMC's court.

HUMC called today and told me that Cigna was claiming I had never contacted them about this particular bill.

This is bull puckey, although the fact that my response from Cigna came over the phone rather than via email makes me a bit unhappy. I printed out the email that I sent to Cigna on the 23rd, and the scanned copy of the bill from HUMC that I attached to that email, and faxed it to both HUMC and Cigna, and then phoned HUMC and left a message saying "There's your proof, I faxed it to Cigna too, now you deal with it".

If you are ever, ever, ever in need of urgent medical care in the Hoboken, Jersey City, or Bayonne area... hail a cab and go somewhere else. These coal mining company executives will charge you a baby* for a cut finger. It isn't worth it. This crap is exactly why I passed my last kidney stone at home- because as soon as I recognized the pain I knew that I had two choices, and one of them was going to Hoboken University Medical Center. Better to take a lot of ibuprofen, drink a lot of water, and suffer until it passed on its own than to go anywhere near these jerks. They'd probably want the kidney as compensation.

*as opposed to an arm and a leg

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Took the kayak out again after work today. Managed to circumnavigate Snake Island, admittedly at high tide. There was one brief moment of SKROONK as I grazed a rock on the bottom- I wasn't paying attention to how shallow the water was- but no damage got done. I also saw these birds, which took me ages to identify online. Apparently they live on the island. (I didn't disturb any nests- I never came ashore. They were flying near me and went back to land when I passed.) I'll have to be more careful in the area and keep my eyes open for more species, and not disturb anything if I can avoid it. That's their land, not mine.

Been debating whether I should name the kayak or not. Regular boats get names, I know, but do little inflatable paddle boats get named?