Review: Taco Bell Breakfast

I actually started to write this review a few months ago when Taco Bell first rolled out breakfast in our area and for some reason never did.  However, this past Saturday I happened to be up early (that's another story) and decided to take my daughter P to get some breakfast.  P being who she is really wanted chicken so I took her to White Castle to get some chicken rings, but I wanted breakfast.  I had been seeing quite a few Taco Bell commercials recently and decided to give their breakfast another shot.

Now the first visit a few months ago, M had brought me a couple of things home, specifically the Sausage Flatbread Melt, and a Sausage Waffle Taco.  The melt was pretty good, albeit a touch on the smallish side.  However, the Waffle Taco was a bit of a disappointment.  Perhaps my expectations were too high, but the waffle was on the soggy side and it also was smaller than I expected.  Now as to the soggy part, yes it was brought home to me, but we also only live about 1.5 miles from Taco Bell so it's only a couple of minutes home.  As far as the size of both, I suppose it's typical advertising as the finished products - especially in the restaurant industry - never seem to match up with is shown on television.  I'm not saying either was "bad", they just weren't good enough for me to try them - or really any other breakfast items from there again.  At least until now.

This time I chose to sample the Steak and Egg Cheesy Burrito, and the Steak A.M. Crunchwrap.  Unfortunately, by the time I decided to picture(s), I had already eaten the burrito and actually had taken two bites of the crunchwrap as well.  That being said, here's what's left of the crunchwrap.

Since that's what I have a picture of, lets start there.  Per Taco Bell's website this is how they describe it:

"Fluffy scrambled eggs, a golden crispy hash brown, real cheddar cheese, marinated premium thick cut steak and creamy jalapeno sauce wrapped up in a warm flour tortilla and grilled, so it's good to go."

As to what I thought of it - well I'm not sure the picture does it justice, but it's again on the smallish side.  I've had a few Crunchwrap Supreme's in my time and normally they are big enough that the tortilla doesn't quite close on the folded side and this not only did close there was a fair amount of overlap - more than I felt the picture on their website shows.  The hash brown was a touch on the soggy side, not horribly so, but considering I was probably eating this within five minutes of leaving Taco Bell I would have expected it to not be as soggy as it was.  Beyond that, everything was as it should be and actually it tasted pretty good.  I don't think there was nearly as "stuffed" as the photo on their website - but as I said above that's a fairly common complaint with most every restaurant.  

Now to the burrito.  Again per Taco Bell's website:

"Fluffy scrambled eggs, lots of warm, melted cheddar cheese, marinated, premium thick cut steak, and creamy jalapeno sauce all wrapped up in a warm flour tortilla.  Also available in Fresco Style."

Frankly, I was more impressed with the burrito than the crunchwrap.  From a size perspective, it was about what I expected and resembled the website photo.  The contents were evenly distributed and truthfully it was one of the better things I've had at Taco Bell during any day part.  I'm not sure if it was good enough that I'd make a special trip to Taco Bell to get it, but it was good enough that if I were to be going there for breakfast it would be one of the items I'd lean towards ordering.

Some final thoughts.  The total for these two items was nearly $6 with tax - $2.99 for the crunchwrap and $2.49 for the burrito.  While it's a little more than I'd normally spend on a fast food breakfast, I also would note that the pricing is in line with Taco Bell's lunch/dinner items containing steak.  I could have opted for either a sausage or bacon crunchwrap and the burrito also comes in bacon (and maybe sausage too) - and those options would have been at least somewhat cheaper.  As such I'm by no means saying their pricing is "out of line" with other fast food restaurants - I'm simply not much of a breakfast person and normally if I were out at that time of the morning I'd probably just grab a cheap sausage biscuit from somewhere.  

The food itself was good (the burrito being the better of the two), but not great; although that's a typical fast food issue, but the calorie count was incredibly high.  I believe it was about 650 calories for the crunchwrap and around 450 for the burrito which turned that into 1100 calories which is at/over half of my limit for the day.  Now the burrito is available "Fresco Style" which would reduce the calorie count from 450 to 320, which is more palatable - albeit probably not as tasty either.  

So to summarize these items have changed my mind a bit on Taco Bell's breakfast offerings, but not enough to decide to just up and go there for breakfast.  It's more along the lines of - if I was out and wanted something quick to eat I would consider visiting there.  I would definitely have to just grab *one item* and not two as I did here and it would likely be the burrito as it was the better of the two items and the calorie count is much more in line with what I can/should consume for breakfast.

- M

One Nasty Comment....

I wrote a couple of entries over the weekend - which I've since removed.  I wrote them for a couple of reasons, one because I was a bit frustrated over how this past Friday/Saturday went for J and I, and a second because as I said in the first entry - I do tend to try and be very "positive" here when I'm writing about personal things and I think it's important to show that it's not always positive.  Perhaps there are people out there who have never had a disagreement with their spouse/SO/etc - but I've yet to meet one.  I'm not saying I like to have disagreements with anyone, but I do firmly believe that it is inevitable that they will occur.  I also firmly believe that how those disagreements are handled really and truly define a person and by extension the relationship in question.

So why did I remove the posts in question?  Well, partially because despite them being posted on two separate days, they were written "back to back" - it just happened that one went up right before midnight and one right after.  Not that it matters that they were written back to back, but what does matter is that I wrote them when I was still a touch upset over things instead of waiting.  I do try and normally hold off on writing things so I can have a less emotional perspective before I share my thoughts and in this case I chose not to do that.  Once I did go to bed that night (well morning) and get some sleep I did decide that I would at a minimum go back and edit the posts with more of an objective viewpoint, if not flat out delete them.  However, before I was able to get to doing that, a comment was posted on one of them that upset me more than a bit and that's the impetus for this post.

The comment made a negative reference to the state of my marriage to J.  I was frustrated when I wrote those two posts and I'm certain it showed as it wasn't a great couple of days for us.  However, I would really like to think that anybody who has read much of anything in this blog would know how much J and I do love each other and how much we mean to each other.  Since the comment in question was made by someone that I really don't know, but rather only an acquaintance from Google+ - then perhaps they had not read anything prior to those posts and as such perhaps the comment wasn't intended to be mean/hateful (which is how it came across).  However, in that case I would like to think that before making the comment that was made that the person in question might have taken a few minutes to read some other entries to get some context on things first.  On the other hand, if they had read much else here then I can only believe that the intent of the comment was to be mean/hateful and that really does bother me.

If it would have been from someone from say Facebook - well the friends I have there are honestly almost entirely people that I (or at least J) knows personally.  I strongly doubt any of them would have made the comment as they do know one/both of us; but even if they had - well at least I would have known for sure it wasn't made with malice.  In this case - well I'm not so sure.  That bothered me as the people I'm acquainted with on Google+ are only people that would know me as "Madison" and as a trans-woman and in general those people are normally very understanding and supportive of not just me, but also each other.  And I definitely didn't find the comment supportive in the least.

Now this is probably strange to say considering the content of this entry so far; but while the comment did bother me a bit - it really didn't have much of an affect on me.  I was at a minimum going to modify the posts regardless and I was considering deleting them anyway.  However, it did get me to thinking about other people who have taken down blogs, ceased being active on places such as Reddit or Google+, or in some cases simply went completely stealth.

I cannot being to speak to the reason(s) why any specific person might do those things, and there are a lot of possible reasons.  Among the ones that come to mind as things such as:

• Experiences becoming less relevant.  I've detailed things here such as my Orchiectomy, but as time goes by that will become less relevant as Dr. Arnkoff will retire at some point so what was specific to him will no longer be relevant.  Medical procedures evolve over time, and so on.
• Some people may simply feel that they "no longer have a dog in the fight".  To an extent I feel this way about a lot of things.  My birth certificate has been changed to show me as being Madison and being "Female", which means that I no longer pay as much attention to the laws surrounding doing something like that.  Other common topics such as HRT, shopping, and so on - well it's the same thing.  Those are "normal things" for me by now and as time moves on it's harder to think back to how new (and in some cases even "scary") those things were when I first started.  I imagine that once I have SRS, I'll reach a point where I'll feel the same about that as well.  Even with those things being said, I do still try and be active here and elsewhere; but I can also see how it would be easy to cease doing so.
• As a corollary to the above, some people may simply want to not think about how things were "pre-transition".  I don't personally feel that way, but I can definitely understand how some people would simply prefer to forget about or not discuss things pre/during-transition.

However, the comment I referred to above brought another reason to the top of my mind.  Be it via a blog such as this one (or a better one <G>), via places such as Reddit or other web forums, or even social media such as Facebook or Google+ - people are choosing to share things.  Some more than others and some get more personal than others - maybe even more than they should (probably including me).  In doing so, it means opening up for criticism at times and negative comments at times, but it still doesn't mean that I - or anyone else who does open up - likes those.  

I'm not saying that people have to be all "rainbows and unicorns" when it comes to comments,etc., but when someone does go out of their way to be mean/hateful/etc., all that does is encourage people to quit sharing and I firmly believe that this happens far too much.  I'm all for differences of opinion(s), but it just boggles my mind that some people cannot express a difference in opinion or viewpoint in a civilized manner.  Even as open as I am, when I see some of the things that are said to not only myself, but even more to others, it makes me question why I am open and why I do share things.  In my case I usually let them roll off my back - as I've mostly done here (despite the diatribe I've written), but a lot of others may not see it my way and who wins when they "take their ball and go home"?  I share partially because it's a good outlet for me, but mostly because others have shared before me and it's made what I (and J) have undertaken a far less scary proposition and I truly believe a far easier journey that it would have been otherwise.

Ultimately the people who read this probably are not the people that I'm talking about and I suppose that's a shame, although I suspect most of those people probably wouldn't take any heed of it anyway.  But in this case it's made *me* feel better to vent *my* thoughts on it and as such it's been worth the time to do so.  So with that I'll wrap things up for now.

- M

Recipe: Baked Pasta

As I've talked about off and on, I have developed an appreciation for cooking.  I'm by no means overly proficient, but certain things do seem to come out pretty good and this has been one of them.  A couple of things to get out of the way first - and these are pretty much generic things for any recipe I'll post here:

1. This recipe is adapted from someone else's that I ran across on Pinterest, it's by no means something I came up with on my own, and as such I'm linking to the original page I pulled it from, it may or may not be that person's original recipe.  
2. I also tend to cook more by look and taste than exact amounts.  So things below such as the amount of cheese used is approximate - I use whatever it takes to make things "work out" - sometimes that's more, sometimes that's less.  I also am not always picky about certain things such as cheese - I almost always have cheddar and at least one other kind (sometimes several), but unless the recipe really needs something in particular, then I will use what I have versus making a special trip to get something.

With all of that out the way, on to the recipe.  I'm going to list the ingredients that *I* use and after that I'll mention the differences between mine and the original recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 package of Angel Hair pasta (16oz) - this is what M prefers, although I've made it with spaghetti as well.
• 1 package of "meat" - normally we use Salsiccia or in a pinch Chorizo, but ground beef will work as well, especially if you want the dish less spicy.
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2-3 cans/jars of spaghetti sauce - I normally use Hunt's 4 cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan - despite my affection for fresh grated cheese, for Parmesan I normally use Kraft grated Parmesan or the equivalent
• 8 tablespoons butter (1 stick)
• 3 cups of fresh shredded cheese - for this dish I normally use 1 1/2 cups of Cheddar and 1 1/2 cups of Mozzarella.  I do reserve a bit of each cheese for the very top, more of the mozzarella than cheddar for this
• Italian bread crumbs (1 cup or so)

Optional Ingredients

• 1 container (16oz) Ricotta cheese
• Crushed red pepper to taste
• Hot sauce to taste
• 2 eggs
• 1 onion, chopped

Differences From Original Ingredient List

Since M likes spicier food I add a fair amount of crushed red pepper and a few dashes of hot sauce.  The other "optional ingredients" are in the original recipe and if I have Ricotta I will use that in the sauce as mentioned below.  I always omit the onion as M is a bit of a baby about onions, and the eggs - well I've tried the recipe both with and without them and I have not seen a noticeable difference.  In fact I think M and J like it better without them.  The original recipe did call for Spaghetti in lieu of Angel Hair which works; and it called for ground beef, but as I said above we prefer spicier food so I substitute the Salsiccia or Chorizo.  Lastly the original recipe calls for 5 tablespoons of butter and I use 8 - I've found that J and M prefer the extra butter (and lack of eggs) in mine to the original.

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. In a large skillet brown the chosen meat along with the garlic (and onion if using).
3. Once that's complete, drain the meat and return to the skillet. 
4. Add 1 can of spaghetti sauce, the seasoned salt, the Italian seasoning, the crushed red pepper, and hot sauce.  I will let it just barely simmer, stirring occasionally.  If using the ricotta cheese, I also add it in at this point.  I do believe it makes the end result better, so I do try and use it when possible.
5. Cook the Angel Hair as per the instructions.  I tend to break it in half before I cook it - partially because that's how I saw my mother cook pasta, but mostly because I feel it's easier to deal with and eat if it's shorter.  I tend to cook it to just "al dente" since it will further cook when we bake the dish.
6. While the pasta is cooking I prepare my baking dishes.  I usually have enough for a 9x13 dish and two smaller 4x6 dishes which makes it nice for those nights when I need to do a split dinner.  If cooking for a smaller audience, the recipe can be halved easily enough.  To prepare the dish(es), I simply open another can of sauce and just cover the bottom of the dish(es) to prevent the pasta from drying out in the oven.  I then add the rest of the can to the sauce/meat mix that's simmering.
7. I will then melt the butter in the microwave and then whisk in the grated Parmesan cheese.
8. By now the pasta is done, I drain it and return it to the pot and quickly add the butter/Parmesan mixture and toss it together.  If you let the pasta sit too long it becomes difficult to work with.
9. Now it's assembly time.  I place a layer of pasta on top of the sauce in each dish, then I will put down a thin layer of grated cheese - usually a 2:1 cheddar/mozzarella mix, then a thin layer of the bread crumbs, and then cover that with the sauce/meat mix.  I then repeat the process, but using a 2:1 mozzarella/cheddar mix this time to finish my cheese up.  By then it's usually at the top of my baking dishes based upon the amounts I've used.  I top with the reserved cheese and then I will usually sprinkle a bit of grated Parmesan and perhaps a bit of oregano (or simple some more of my Italian spices) on top.
10. I normally bake for about 20-30 minutes based upon the pan size, and I'll usually put it under the broiler for 2-3 minutes at the end to get a slight browning of the cheese on top.
11. Once it's done, I will let it sit for a few minutes to "set" and then serve

Final Thoughts

By no means is this some "gourmet" recipe or really anything all that special.  But J and M do like it, and while I'm not really a "pasta person" outside of perhaps an occasional piece of Lasagna - I also think it's pretty good.  It is a really simple dish that I can prepare in advance and finish in the oven fairly easily; often with some garlic cheese bread.  I don't normally think to take photos of the process - something I'll correct going forward, but I do have one of a recent attempt.  It's of one of the smaller 4x6 dishes when J was working a late shift so I made hers later.  The larger dish looks the same though.  As always thanks for reading.

- M

The (Seemingly) Never Ending Weight Loss Struggle...

I've talked about my weight off and on throughout this blog.  When I started it nearly a year ago I had lost about 20-30lbs already, and as I sit here today I'm literally almost in the same place I was then.  The first 20lbs came off fairly easily which surprised me since I had been in the 250-260lb range for 10+ years.  What had encouraged me to finally try and lose the weight was the desire to at some point have SRS and some/many/most of the surgeons do have a weight requirement.  As I've discussed before, those requirements do vary, among the most stringent seems to be Dr. McGinn (BMI <= 28.0) and she would be on the list of surgeons I would consider seeing.  Dr. Bowers, has a bit more relaxed standard of 210lbs and truthfully when I set out that was my target since I had (and still have) hopes that our insurance is going to cover surgery and she's one of the few surgeons that really and truly works with insurance completely.

Now the insurance thing - that's been a bit of a frustration this past week.  As I've mentioned, I'm on my wife's plan since her's is a bit better than my own was and her open enrollment was coming up.  With the recent Medicare decision and her companies apparent desire to cater at least a little bit to the LGBT community I really felt that for the 2016 plan year they may well cover it, but I also held out a small bit of hope that they might for the 2015 year which was coming up.  However, Thursday evening they released their plans and despite the fact that the insurance company these use in our area does cover it, they have elected not to.  It really put a damper on me the last several days.  I guess it shouldn't have as I never really expected anything this coming year, but as I said I did hold out a bit of hope, but that's not really what I came to talk about.

Back to the weight, those first 20lbs did come off quickly and I attribute a lot of that to J being out of town for training for the better part of two months.  With her gone and M/M2/P on nights, we often didn't have formal meals and while I probably didn't eat very healthy, I was able to control how much I ate fairly easily.  I also slept a more normal schedule which meant I wasn't up snacking at 2am all the time which really helped.  One thing I did *not* do was really exercise.  I'm *very* sedentary and having the weight come off so easily without adding in much (if any) exercise made me think I could easily get down to the 210lbs or perhaps even 180lbs (which is a 28.0 BMI for me).

Well when J came back from training I did drop another 10lbs down to 220lbs, but we got into the holidays and I gained about 10lbs back at Thanksgiving time, lost it in December, and gained it back at Christmas time which is where I stayed until March - right at 230lbs.  That's when we got the Fitbit Ones and the Aria scale and I did start losing weight again, albeit slowly, but I still really wasn't exercising the first month or two.  I managed to get down to about 225lbs or so and finally decided that I'd have to exercise if I was going to make progress as by then I was cooking more and with J home for meals I did enjoy having dinner with her (and M as well).

So for the better part of six weeks starting in mid-April until the last week of May I was walking quite a bit and was slowly losing weight.  I lost about 10lbs in that six weeks, down to about 215lbs and I was happy.  However, that's when I started not feeling well and ended up in the hospital as I've talked about.  When I went to the Doctor's office that day I was actually down to 209.8lbs so I had lost a touch over 5lbs that week.  A good part of that was dehydration as by the time I checked out I was back up to 214lbs - I'm guessing mostly from the fluids they were pumping into me as I didn't exactly eat very much there.

But even at 214lbs I was still pretty happy with my progress and I went back to walking - in fact I was to the point where I was averaging about 25,000 steps per day which worked out to about 10-15 miles depending upon how I walked - I tend to walk faster by myself with the iPod than if I'm out with J or M and the faster I walk the fewer steps it takes for each mile.  If I'm out with them I seem to go about 2100-2250 steps per mile and if I'm out alone it's usually closer to 1800 steps per mile.  I still managed to put on about 5-6lbs or so and end up around 220lbs.  But I was steady there for several weeks, *until* we hit a 90-100 degree stretch for a couple of weeks and I just couldn't get outside too much.  We have the treadmill and the elliptical, but I hate to walk inside and as such I went all but quit walking for a couple of weeks, and even when the weather started getting better I couldn't get motivated.

So where does that leave me?  Well a year later and I'm back at almost 235lbs which is actually a touch heavier than I was a year ago and I'm frustrated.  I had been making progress the last week or so - I had a 13 mile day, and several days in the 7-9 mile range, but it rained quite a bit last week (and is doing so today as well) and then J was off for the weekend so we went running around which meant walking didn't happen much either day.

Now I suppose this isn't the end of the world since as I expected my target for surgery would be 2016, so I've still got a good 15-20+ months before the end of 2016 to lose what I need.  And for that matter, if J and I have to end up paying for the surgery ourselves, it does open up other options - including surgeons that aren't necessarily as stringent with their weight requirements.  Additionally, I'm just getting ready to start hair removal "down south" which most of the surgeons I've targeted want done.  It doesn't mean I'm happy about having to wait another year - despite basically expecting that - nor am I happy about what's happened with my weight, but "it is what it is" and now I have to do something about it.

I will say that my opinion of the Fitbit One/Aria has *not* changed.  It's been a great motivator for me to be more active, I just need to increase my dedication to it and to get back to watching what I eat better.  Less eating out - despite things like "Red Lobster Endless Shrimp", "Olive Garden Never Ending Pasta Bowl", and various Chinese buffets - and for that matter perhaps I need to do less of the grocery shopping.  It's easier to do it myself if I'm doing most of the cooking, but I seem to have trouble not picking up things *I* like that aren't necessarily good choices.  Some things are, but many aren't and that's really the big issue.  I'm not saying I need to go back on my "Hot Pocket diet" - but there are things I can buy that are quick and easy and reasonable on the calories - and that's what I need to get back to.

I guess I'll wrap this up, I'm not really sure what the point was other than for me to ramble/vent a little - which I guess I've done.  I'll try and make the next entry less of a rant/vent and more something that people will find interesting. :)

- M

St. Louis Area TG Experiences - Part 9

Well it's only been a few weeks since I've written a post on this subject, so that's a bit of an improvement. :)  

UPDATE:  Since the "prior" posts links were getting a bit long, there is now a page with links to all of the posts:  My Transgender Experiences.  Additionally, I've went back and added more links and made some updates to some of the individual entries below since over time some things have changed.

Restaurants:

• Olive Garden (Wentzville, Missouri) - I had to run out with M recently to T-Mobile (a story in and of itself), and we decided to grab some lunch.  It was a last minute thing both to run out and to get lunch and since I had just had a laser session my face wasn't up for makeup anyway so I went out more or less "as-is".  I used to say androgynous - but that's not really a fair statement anymore - I may not always wear (full) makeup and/or my wig, but I dress feminine and even without being shaved the laser has done enough that unless someone gets really up close and looks their isn't much visible hair/shadow.  I'm not a fan of Italian food for the most part, but M is and they were running their never ending pasta bowl promotion so I acquiesced.  We were greeted as "ladies" when we walked in, and the server did the same as she walked up.  Now, since I wasn't "done up" I wasn't thinking and didn't make a concerted effort to speak in a feminine voice (and I mentally kicked myself for that afterwards) - so as soon as I ordered my drink I could see the realization on her face.  I think it made it a bit awkward for her the rest of our meal as she had greeted us as ladies, but I was actually happy as without having made much effort I was reasonably passable - at least up until I opened my mouth.  I really think that made me feel better about myself and my transition then about any other interaction I've had the last couple of years.  I'm by no means as "happy" with my appearance as I'd like to be - although I believe a great many women - both cis and trans - probably feel the same way; but to be at least reasonable passable in the state that I was in really did make me feel good.  And don't get me wrong, despite me feeling that the server felt a bit awkward - she was professional and polite and we could not have asked for a better experience.

Retailers:

• Wehrenberg Theaters ("Mid Rivers Mall" St. Peters, Missouri) - J, M and I were out for a girls night out, shopping, dinner, and what ended up being two movies - the first one here and the second one at the theater below.  In this case we saw the new Liam Neeson movie, A Walk Among The Tombstones.  The movie itself was "good" I suppose, not great like I felt Taken was, but good enough to see.  As I mention below, it was "$5 Tuesday" so that helped as well.  Everyone here was very polite, although there were a total of six of us in the theater for this showing, which was a bit surprising for a 6:15pm show - even if it was a Tuesday.  The young lady who sold us our tickets, the gentleman who took them, and a helpful employee at the snack bar were all very polite.  The bathrooms were clean and nice enough, although the lock on the first stall I went into was broken.  I would definitely go back again, although I prefer the theater below since it's closer - we just happened to be near the mall as M wanted to visit that Goodwill and we ended up killing some time at Deb Shops and got several tops among the three of us for $7 each.  Here's a picture of what we looked like that day.

• Wehrenberg Theaters ("Town Square" Dardenne Prarie, Missouri) - J, M and I recently saw Guardians of the Galaxy here.  Actually J and I had seen it previously, but we were out with M and had done some shopping, had dinner, and saw a different movie at another theater earlier.  I'm not sure if M really wanted to see this one or not, but it's what we settled on.  It was a 10:15pm showing on a Tuesday and we were the only three in the theater.  The couple of people we interacted with were very nice - a young woman who handled buying our tickets, a young man who took them, and what I'm assuming was the manager when we left as we were the last show playing and he appeared to be the only one left.  The theater itself is nice enough, the bathrooms were in good shape, and all in all I'd happily visit here again.  The fact that it was "$5 Tuesday" didn't hurt either.  :)
• MERS Goodwill (St. Peters, Missouri) - I'm not a big Goodwill person, but M is and she was looking for some cheap work clothes for their new dress code.  Normally I'd not be a fan of that, but considering the job she does it is a bit silly to spend a lot on clothes that she will ruin fairly quickly.  This location is always busy, but everyone was polite and I managed to run across a Galileo thermometer I grabbed.  One of my junior high school science teachers had one and I always wanted one.  I wish it was bigger with more bulbs - it only has 5 bulbs at 4 degree increments, but it's still neat.  I've actually found another slightly larger one (8 bulbs with 4 degree increments) at another Goodwill and I ended up ordering a large one from Amazon (10 bulbs with 2 degree increments) - I'm starting to develop a collection of them . :)
• *UPDATE* - Schnuck's (Dardenne Prairie, Missouri) - I've tried to avoid updates unless something as changed at a place I've previously mentioned, but J and I had a similar experience here the other day as I did at Olive Garden.  Again it was sort of a spur of the moment thing and with my face being tender from a recent laser appointment I was dressed "as-is".  Again, we were repeatedly identified as "ladies" and as I said above, I often tend to think that's just people being polite, but just as with Olive Garden - I was in a position to have to speak and again without thinking I neglected to use a feminine voice which gave me a way.  However, just like at Olive Garden, the look on the deli associates face told me that I had been passing right up until that point which again made me feel good.  And even with the realization, she was still as polite and courteous as she was before I had given myself away.

It's late (well now early), so I think I'll wrap things up now.

- M

Transitioning And The Legalities Of Marriage...

Same sex marriage is definitely not a "new issue", but it has really come to the forefront the last couple of years.  State after state it's becoming legalized, albeit often after a multitude of court challenges.

Let me get a bit of a disclaimer out of the way before I go on.  I am not a lawyer.  What is below are simply my opinions and my understanding of things that have gone on so far and may go on.  If anyone disagrees with my opinions, or believes I am wrong about something, please feel free to say something either via the comments or privately.  I'll be more than happy to debate my opinions and/or correct anything that may be inaccurate.  With that being said, on to the topic at hand.

Today the Supreme Court elected to not hear appeals of several cases which could have decided things once and for all.  This in effect means that for many states where the subject was still in contention that the lower courts rulings will stand allowing for same sex marriage.  Unfortunately for those states where there has been no traction made on the subject, as well as those states where it's still winding its way through the court system - including my state of Missouri - well not a lot has changed as of today.  In the case of the latter states it appears that the various court processes will have to continue to play out, which is a bit of an agitation for those who are waiting for a ruling.

Now, as I tend to do I thought I'd discuss this first from my point of view as to how it does/doesn't affect J and I; and then more generally.  So if you aren't particular interested in me particularly, feel free to skip down a couple of paragraphs.  :)

J and I were married well before I chose to transition, much less have my gender marker legally changed.  When we decided that transitioning was the right decision for both myself and us as a couple, the impact it might have on our marriage was one of our primary concerns.  Even when she spoke to her parents about our transition, despite the fact that her father is an attorney, they weren't even sure of the legalities of the marriage going forward.  I spend hours upon hours researching it as best I could, but definitive answers were hard to come by.  I talked to some other married trans-women that were married and live in Missouri, and even a couple of lawyers, and while there were no cut and dried answers there was at least a reasonable consensus.  That consensus - which has some basis via court cases - was that since my marriage to J was legal when it was performed - ie I was legally a male - that it remains legal now.

However, even if we accept that consensus - which we basically do - there are concerns about it.  For one, the county we live in actually specifically states on their website that they follow the Missouri state statue 451.022 which specifically states in the 4th bullet point that Missouri - and specifically by extension our county - will not recognize a "same sex marriage" even if it was/is legal where it was performed.  Now, again - it was legal at the time it was performed in this county - so we believe we are on reasonably strong legal ground with that, but it's still a concern.  Another large concern is when/if a moment comes where we need to prove we are married.  There have been far too many instances in the news where a same-sex partner has been denied access to an ill partner, been unable to make decisions for an incapacitated partner, and so on.  Now the latter could easily be addressed via legal documents, but the former - well that could be an issue.  And while we do have a copy of our marriage license as well as copies of my court orders for my name and gender change where J and I can easily get to them - they aren't things we "carry around" either.

So while some - perhaps including myself - might say that I really don't have a "dog in this fight" since I am already married to J - I think I do at least somewhat.  I would like nothing more than to take my court orders down and pursue getting our marriage license amended; but until the day that Missouri recognizes same sex marriage I'm really almost afraid to do it as I think it could cause more issues than it might solve.

Now that I've talked about myself, lets talk about everyone else.  For starters, let me say that I really have a hard time understanding the fierce opposition to same sex marriage.  I just simply cannot wrap my head around why anyone would really care what two consenting adults get married; or how it "cheapens" their own marriage.  My marriage is what J and I make it and no other marriages will make my own stronger or weaker.  Then there is the religious argument and that's one I as a trans-woman really find frustrating as I tend to get it on not only the same sex marriage front, but also the transgender front.  I'm the first to admit that I'm no expert on the Bible, but I can cherry pick things out of it with the best of them.  It seems that a great many people who are against same sex marriage want to use the Bible to support their claims - and that's their choice, but until they stop "picking and choosing" things from the Bible then I personally will continue to simply dismiss their arguments.  If that's the basis of your argument then I just don't see anyone can simply pick and choose what to follow from the Bible - I find that as nothing more than hypocrisy and somehow I really doubt those same people would like it if they were on the receiving end of any hypocrisy.  Those aren't the only two excuses, just two that I seem to see a lot and really have a hard time finding a basis for buying into.

That's why I'm actually a bit upset over the Supreme Courts actions today - or really lack of action.  I understand having some reluctance to step into this issue as marriage has largely been something that states set policy on - but reality is that it's already being appealed in multiple Circuit Appeals courts which handle multiple states each so it's gotten bigger than state level to start with.  At the time of this writing there are 93 pending lawsuits - 60 of those in Federal court - per this page. And by choosing to take no action and let those Circuit Appellate decisions stand - well for states such as Missouri where the issue hasn't been "decided" - well it's going to have to continue to navigate it's way through the court system in those cases.  I suppose for the most part that's not necessarily a horrible thing as same sex marriage has been on an incredible roll of successes in court; and if the Supreme Court had taken a case and ruled against it - well all of those wins might have became essentially worthless.  However, I still think that at some point the Supreme Court is simply going to have to make a decision on the issue one way or the other, so I really wish they would have done so now rather than continuing to put it off.

To me the bottom line is that if two consenting adults wish to be married, well then what is really the big deal?  I just really and truly think that we as a country should really quit worrying about if two consenting adults want to be married and instead concern ourselves with some of the *real problems* that are out there.  If same sex marriage bothers someone so very much - well then they shouldn't marry someone of the same sex - but to continue to try and prevent those that want to marry someone of the same sex, well I simply thing that's wrong and I've yet to see a compelling argument put forth to try and change my mind.

I suppose I should wrap this up now, so let me dig up a picture so I have a thumbnail. :)

Well I have newer pictures, but apparently I left the camera in the the car, so I'll go with one from a couple of weeks ago - I posted one with the same outfit with J and I together, but since I haven't used this one by itself, well it'll have to do. :)

- M

A Year Of Legally Being "Madison"...

It was one year ago tomororw that I went to court to get my name (and gender) legally changed.  I went into details about that day HERE, it was definitely a good day for me.  I've had a lot of good days in the last year and for all of those I'm very grateful.  Don't get me wrong there have been some bad days too - getting so sick a few months ago, those times when J and I do fight, and so on.  But those few lows, despite how low they may have been - well they simply pale in comparison to all the good.  From a selfish perspective it's nice to hear "Madison" and know it's my name; it's nice to have the "F" on my license and birth certificate; it's nice to be even more confident and happy when I do choose to venture out of the house.

But all of that is minor in comparison to the happiness that I have with J.  She means so very much to me and I know without a doubt that I would not have ever undertaken my transition without her and her unconditional support.  Not that I haven't had support from others such as M, D, and so on; and I'm not trying to minimize the help it's been; but J is the person who has allowed me to finally be me and I'm eternally grateful for that.

Normally I try and write something longer on Fridays for the weekend, but I intend on writing something else this weekend so I think I'll cut this short now.  Let me part on this - J I love you more than anything and as good as the last year has been I sincerely hope the next year and all the years after that one are better and better.

I've been a little lax about thumbnails lately, so I'll share a picture of my first attempt at cake pops earlier today.  I don't eat many sweets at all, but my daughter P tried one and she seemed to really like it so I'll have to assume that appearance aside that they must have came out pretty good.  :)

- M

An Open Letter To Corporate America...

I, along with a great many people, work hard and when I go to spend the money that I've worked hard to earn I want it to be a pleasant experience and all too often it's not.  In fact, far more often than it should be, it's just that it's not a pleasant experience - it's simply an (often very) unpleasant experience.  So, I thought I'd share a few thoughts here on how I'd fix some things with some companies.  Not that anybody who matters will ever read them, but I'll feel better having said them.

• White Castle - Growing up you were one of my favorite restaurants, even more than McDonald's.  Your food was fairly cheap, the service was fast, the restaurants spotless - what more could I ask for?  Now - not so much.  So how would I fix things?  For starters, get rid of a good 50-75% of your menu and go back to basics.  That would greatly improve your speed of service among other things.  I'd also look into dropping your prices somewhat.  Look, your burgers are very good - when they are FRESH - but all all too often they aren't fresh anymore and the quality suffers far more than many other fast food restaurants when your burgers aren't fresh.  But regardless of how good they are, I'm hard pressed to spend (currently) 69 cents on one White Castle when I can go many other places and get a full sized burger in the range of $1-$2.  Maybe I'm wrong, but it sure seems to me that you were built on lower margins and higher quantities and you've tried to improve margins by adding to the menu and I just don't think it works for you.
• Charter Communications - I'm not even sure where to begin with you.  We've had your phone and Internet for a long time now and for the most part we're happy with the service; but last year when you convinced us to add cable - it was a disaster.  You missed two installation appointments completely; the tech that finally did show up didn't want to install since we insisted he run his own wires as we were keeping our DirecTV for the time being (and it's a good thing we did); the cost you quoted us - well you never managed to send us a bill for that - and it went up three times in six months; you disconnected my second phone line at one point by accident; and so on.  You could not have bungled our account worse if you had tried.  Look it's one thing for the Internet to quit working because you upgraded the system and neglected to replace my modem with one that could support the new 8 channel bonding - I can forgive that - but when you completely screw so many things up as you did over the cable - well we'll never go back to that.  So what do you do now?  You call us every 4-6 weeks trying to get us to get cable again.  Each time we do the same song and dance - you make promises that we both know you can't keep and waste both of our time with me telling you that we're done with your TV service.  And it's nice that you've upgraded Internet speeds for people, but considering you took those on the 30MB service to 100MB (which is what I had) and you've only given me a token bump to 125MB - why am I paying double what the lower tier is?  I hear promises that those of us on "Ultra" will see upgrades first, but I'm only going to wait so much longer until I downgrade the service.
• CenturyLink - You guys, almost as bad as Charter.  We had your phone and Internet when we moved in - FTTP - so we had 20MB down, but only 768KB up?  WTF, 768KB up on a 20MB down line?  Seriously?  And you wonder why we left.  And now when I call to see if you have any better offerings you try and tell me how fast and wonderful the same 20MB/768KB despite me telling you I had a 100MB/5MB connection from Charter.  You really think I'm going to find the 20MB/768KB you are offering fast?  Here I am trying to give money - two phones lines and Internet - and you can't offer anything faster here when we've had FTTP since we moved in?  I'm just boggled at that - those speeds were fine years ago when we did move in, but get with the program guys.  How about rolling out Prism (or whatever it's called) here?
• Netflix - Keep doing what you're doing, you're one of the few companies who makes it easy for me to spend money with you and lets me get what I feel I pay for (probably more than I pay for).  Your customer service has always been top notch, shows like House Of Cards and Orange Is The New Black help keep me coming back for more.  Other than the misguided attempt to split the company a while back, you guys just *get it* and I hope you keep on getting it.
• Best Buy - You know I read a quote the other day that rang so true in regards to you - it was something along the lines of "Best Buy - Amazon's show room"...  Sad but true and you have nobody but yourself to blame for it.  Too many rude and/or less than competent employees roaming the store for starters.  The in-store merchandising - it's often a joke.  Seriously, you've went from a store where I spent a large amount of money each year to one I simply try and avoid at all costs and that's sad.  I could go on and on, but why bother - I honestly see you going the route of Circuit City sooner rather than later and that's sad.
• QuikTrip - As with Netflix, keep doing what you're doing.  Your stores are clean, your people seem to work hard and get me in and out quickly.  Your new QT Kitchens in the store are great - although you could keep them open a bit later.  Your guarantee on gas is comforting - and I saw you stand behind it with my mother several years ago so I know you mean it.  Even your hot dogs and doughnuts are top notch.  We need more companies like you.
• DirecTV - You know a few years ago I probably would have had a lot of things to say about you, but not so much anymore.  I think you're a touch over priced, but I appreciate the stands you've been taking against some of these media companies the last few years and I will say despite some initial reservations - I do like the new Genie setup - although I am still a bit miffed that you brought me a HR-34 model that doesn't have optical out so it won't connect to my sound bar, but that aside, I'm actually fairly happy with you.
• Burger King - I have one simple thing to say to you - if you go through with your Tim Horton's "inversion" - well then I'm done with you completely.
• T-Mobile - Short of an incident just today where instead of upgrading our data you disconnected it, requiring a trip back to your store - well I have nothing but good things to say about you too.  And just so you know I still get a chuckle out of the fact that your CEO showed up at the AT&T event at CES earlier this year.  I really like his style and what he's done for you - I hope he keeps it up.

I could go on and on, but I think I've reached a stopping point, but I do have one last thing to say - probably more important than anything above - and this goes out to ALL COMPANIES:

QUIT LETTING MY CREDIT CARD DATA GET STOLEN.  Is it asking too much for me to trust you enough to use a credit card at your business?  There's absolutely no excuse for these things to still be happening in this day and age and I'm sick of it.  I'm to the point now that anybody who is breached - well I will simply no longer spend money there.  

- M

In The Kitchen...

I've always taken an interest in cooking, although up until I transitioned I never really did much of it.  I'm not saying one thing necessarily has anything to do with the other, just simply that's how it's worked out for me.    I did touch on this a little bit in an entry a couple of months ago (So What's For Dinner?), but I thought I'd go back to it and elaborate a bit.

For those that aren't necessarily familiar with our "living arrangements", let me touch on that briefly - although one of these days I suppose I should write about the way we came to own the house, that's not really the point here.  Currently it is myself and my wife J, my ex-wife/best friend/de-facto sister M and her husband M2, and P who is M and I's daughter.

Planning meals for the house does tend to be a challenge due to the varied tastes of everyone (that's a story in and of itself), but even more so because of the work schedules of everyone - M/M2/P all work overnights, J is on a "rotation" where she works early two days, later two days, and then off two days (although it changes at times such as around the holidays), and I work more or less "bankers hours" although I tend to do a lot of work off hours since I work from home and find times like now when it's quiet good for getting things done.

With the schedules and eating preferences being what they are, we've pretty much settled on dinner about 8:45pm every night.  It's a bit later than I personally prefer, but it fits in nicely with everyone's schedules for the most part - J's late nights are a bit of an issue with that so I try to make something I can either reheat easily for her, or better yet something I can split and cook fresh when she gets home.

So my intention going forward I am going to start posting some of my favorite recipes and thoughts from the kitchen.  For today I think I'll talk about some particular things I do when it comes to meals and preparation.  Now I don't know if it is just because I pick things that are "more involved" than I probably should, if I'm just too slow/diligent with how I do things, or if I simply under-estimate how long a particular meal is going to take; but it seems that more often than not I was ending up in a push to have dinner ready at 8:45pm and that was a bit of a problem since M/M2/P leave for work about 9:45 or so.  So over the last few months I've gotten to the point where I try and make meals where I can do the majority of the "prep" beforehand in the morning or afternoon and simply do the actual baking/frying/whatever, at dinner time.  For some meals this makes dinner a real snap as if it's say Baked Spaghetti (which I'll be posting later this week), I can get that completely made in advance and simply have to pop it into the oven about 8pm or so.  I can also have the garlic cheese bread ready to go and as soon as the spaghetti comes out the bread goes in and it's done about the time the spaghetti is "set" a bit.  For other meals there's still a lot to do at "dinner time" such as if I'm making homemade chicken strips or catfish nuggets; but even those I can have the prep work done in advance, but frying 3-5lbs of chicken/fish - especially if I'm using a batter - well that still takes time.  However, a meal like that also lends itself to frying some of it for M/P and/or M2's dinner and then frying the rest when J gets home so I try and make those kinds of meals on her late nights.

Of course I bring some of the issues on myself.  I don't tend to go as overboard as M does - she will make multiple entrees to try and suit everyone and multiple sides for the same reason and she has a real problem getting everything done at the same time and often we ended up with some dishes that were very good and some that were cold from being done too early.  I tend to keep it to a single entree and 1-2 sides; but I also have my particular nuances that can cause issues.  One of the biggest is that I refuse to use pre-grated cheese anymore.  It simply doesn't work as well in many dishes, I don't think it tastes as good either, so I grate all of my own - with one exception and that's grated parmesan - I buy that in a jar, often times as a mix of parmesan and something else.  But grating enough cheese for the size meals I often end up making takes time - not a lot of time - but often a good 10-15 minutes by the time I get the grater, a cutting board to grate on, a container to put it in, the cheese itself out and opened, and cleaning it up; and invariably that would throw me behind.  Sometimes I will go ahead and do this ahead of time, but I'm not keen on doing that if I can help it since fresh grated cheese tends to stick together and I don't like that.  I have seen some solutions to doing that, but for now I'm sticking with grating it as I need it if I can help it.

I should probably cut this short now as I have a (very early) conference call with somebody over in Ireland for work, although she's apparently running late which is a bit agitating since I'm up well earlier than I should be to account for the time difference.  So with that, I hope everyone is having a great week.

- M