Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I saw the physical therapist today. After I told her about falling last week, and about my suspicion that part of the problem is proprioception rather than balance, she gave me a couple of exercises to improve my awareness of where my limbs are and the position of my feet.

She also suggested occupational therapy, for cognitive diagosis and help. I'm OK with that, so need to talk to either my primary care doctor or my neurologist.

Note for next time: wear looser pants, possibly with leggings as an underlayer. I was supposed to be paying attention to how my legs and feet felt, and sensation on the bottom of my feet, and I was distracted by the denim of my jeans against my thighs. (These are the heavier denim jeans, but not the ones with a fleece lining for really cold days.)

I stopped on the way home at Lizzy's and got three pints of ice cream to take home. I didn't get any to eat right away, because yes I can walk and eat ice cream at the same time, but maybe not after dark, on a less-than-even surface. 36F/3C isn't too cold for ice cream, but it's too cold to sit outdoors on a metal chair.

Then I came home and made duck soup with matzo balls. I'd turned the duck carcass from our Thanksgiving bird into broth yesterday, saving the meat. Today I made the matzo balls, heated the soup, and added the meat and matzo balls to the soup. It was good, and very welcome (Adrian had had a hard day). I tried making smaller matzo balls than usual, yielding 11 instead of 7-9 from the same amount of glop, and they came out denser than usual, which is also denser than I like. Still worth eating, but not as good, so I'll go back to fewer, larger matzo balls.

ETA: Or maybe it's the cooking time: I cooked the matzo balls for about 31 minutes, rather than 38-40 (the recipe says "30 to 40 minutes."

I've been making matzo ball soup by making the matzo balls, putting them aside, and then putting them into chicken broth with leftover cooked chicken, cooked carrots, celery, and spices.

Notes: simmer the carrots in chicken broth, in a covered saucepan, for an hour or so. A bit of ginger powder seemed to improve this. (You can cook carrots by microwaving them, but the broth adds flavor. If I wanted to make glazed carrots, I might use the microwave.)

Cutting up a few scallions and adding the green bits, and maybe some of the white bits, to the bowls of soup after serving is a good idea. Yesterday, the white parts of the scallions went into the broth, because onion is good in chicken soup.

Spices: powdered ginger, powdered shallot (Penzey's), garlic powder (I used the Penzey's "toasted granulated garlic." Throwing in a piece of ginger root also works, but fish it out of the soup before serving.

The chicken broth was a mix of "Pacific Foods" brand boxed broth -- this is the one that tastes good and contains neither dairy nor mushroom powder -- and chicken-flavored "Better than Boullion." If dairy is a problem, don't get the "premium" better than boullion, because it contains whey. The one we want is the "organic" chicken soup base.

[cattitude can't have mushrooms, and adrian_turtle has to avoid dairy. I'm almost always cooking for one if not both of them as well as myself.]