News and Views From my kids accomplishments, to my heretical perspective of the world

Playing basketball (of course) Wednesday morning, when I reached in to steal a pass. Instead, the ball impacted the tip of my pinkie which immediately started bleeding. It didn’t hurt much, so I wrapped it up and kept playing.

That day was OK, though it hurt a little to type with that finger. I assumed it was just another jammed finger, of which I have had plenty.

The next day the whole hand started swelling and hurting. It got so bad that I had to take oxycodone in order to sleep last night. So this morning I went to an Urgent Care center and had x-rays taken.

They splinted it, prescribed pain and antibiotic medication, and said I should see an orthopedic surgeon. Not sure if I will bother. Nothing to do but wait till it heals, 3-4 weeks.

Update: I made an appointment with a hand surgeon for Monday. Dr Haber is the hand surgeon for ASU and the Phoenix Suns, so I should be in good hands…

There was a cheese factory in Cuba, NY, the town I was born in. I grew up eating this cheese in everything from toasted cheese sandwiches to macaroni and cheese. It is unique and delicious.

Living in Arizona I don’t get much opportunity to eat Cuba cheese any more, but I recently came into acquisition of two and a half pounds of the precious substance.

The problem is that the Cuba Cheese Factory doesn’t use mold inhibitors in their products, and it shows. The cheese will start showing mold in a week or two, and there’s no way I can eat 2.5 pounds of cheese that quickly. Once I cut into the wrapper the clock starts ticking and the mold starts growing.

One solution we have tried in the past is freezing. This does stop the mold, but it renders the cheese crumbly and seems to modify the taste a little. It’s better than mold, but not ideal.

This time we’re trying something new: Wax. I bought some cheese wax, cut the big loaf into quarter-pound pieces and dipped each piece into the melted wax. The heat of the wax is supposed to kill any mold that may have started. I’ll store these pieces in the refrigerator and only cut into each piece as we finish the last one.

It’s the first time I’ve tried this so I can’t be sure how well it will work. Maybe enough spores survived the dipping and when I remove the wax I’ll find huge mold growths. I’ll find out in a few weeks.

When I was in my teens our family spent several vacations at Rocky Point in Mexico. It was a sleepy little Mexican village, and we camped on the beach, either in a trailer that we hauled down there, or in tents, or just on a tarp on the sand. We spent several idyllic weekends there in my youth.

Last week my family went down to Rocky Point again and spent 3 nights. What a difference! There are huge luxury condos up and down the beach. The town doesn’t seem much different, with many dirt roads, but it is certainly larger. We stayed on Sandy Beach, while in my teens we camped at Shell Beach. We didn’t get a chance to visit Shell Beach, so I don’t know how much it has changed there.

Right in front of our resort. It looks the same in the other direction. That’s Gisele looking at sea shells.

The heat wasn’t working in the first condo we took (a 3 bedroom/2 bath — about 1600 sq ft) and it was freezing cold. They tried to find us another one that night, but the heat wasn’t working in the other ones they tried, so we were stuck. I turned the electric oven on and opened the oven door, put on extra blankets and we slept OK.

The next day they moved us to a nicer condo (3 bedroom/3 bath — about 2000 sq ft) and instead of charging us more they gave us back part of the rent for the first night, so for two nights we got to sleep in a very nice condo on the 7th floor with nice views of the beach.

We chose a particularly cold time to visit the beach, with night time temperatures around freezing, days mid-50s and windy. The boys and I soaked a little in a hot tub, but it wasn’t the optimal time for a visit to Rocky Point. On the other hand, the crowds were very thin

I unfortunately brought something home with me, with the resulting diarrhea, head ache, chills and fever (101.1). I don’t feel bad-bad, just not very good.