This is going to be just a short announcement, here, to point out that the Woman Who Does Not Travel, the Woman Who Thinks A Trip to the Greenville/Spartanburg Airport is a Pretty Goddamn Big Deal, in other words, me, is flying to San Francisco next week for a couple of days. Jet set! Whoooeee! Holy shit! And assorted other euphemisms, exclamations and general hooting!
Yeah. I don't quite believe it either but I tell you what, sometimes you just gotta get the hell outta Dodge (and by Dodge, I mean Asheville - clever!) and also sometimes, occasionally you (and by you, I mean me) have an awesome relative who has recently moved to said mythical city of San Francisco who will give you a plane ticket. So I am going to San Francisco. I am currently attempting to decide the necessity of the putting of the flowers in the hair, because, like, if it's totally customary and stuff I guess you have to, otherwise, you know, forget it.
I haven't been on a plane since before 9/11 and I wasn't exactly what you'd call a frequent flyer then. This is because I am unearthly deathly terrified of flying but, well, my desire to get out of here for a while has successfully trumped that fear. Also, I'm not giving myself time to think about it, work myself into a frenzy and refuse to go: I'm just going to leave on either Wednesday night or Thursday morning and fly. This is why, after all, god invented drugs and honey, I got a prescription and I know how to use it. Also, they have bloody marys on planes. I can do this. I will do this. And I am going to do this.
I know nothing whatsoever about San Francisco except that everyone seems to like it. I have been to California exactly once before and I was seven, then, so it is possible that both California and I have changed a bit over the intervening years. When I think of San Francisco, first that damn song comes on in the back of my brain and then I get a montage of Rice-A-Roni TV commercials from the 60s playing in the foreground. Oh wait, and those Armistead Maupin novels! I read those! How are the discos doing?
Anyway. We will return you to your regularly scheduled blog sometime this weekend but in the meantime, let me just say, I AM GOING TO FUCKING SAN FRANCISCO, Y'ALL, NEXT WEEK!
Friday, February 26, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Addiction Therapy
We all know that I have one of them there addictive personalities. I seem to be able to get addicted to almost anything with the exception of gambling, which strikes me as boring. I tried it - I went to Atlantic City and dutifully lost $100 on the slot machines but the gambling still bored me. Now, the decor, the free drinks and the buffets completely got my attention and were not boring at all, but that's another story. I tried Keno, too, when I lived in Maryland, but it was less interesting than lighting five dollar bills on fire and I know this because I did just that at the same bar on the same night I tried Keno. Alas, nobody except me thought it was funny.
However! Let's talk about my two current addictions! One is new and it is this stupid game. Yes. I have gotten addicted - for about the fortieth time in the last ten years - to a variant of Tetris. There has to be a support group out there. Tetris is old. It is antique. In internet years, which are sort of like dog years only faster, it is positively antediluvian and yet I cannot disconnect the Tetris addiction synapse link in my brain that was forged back in the early 90s when I discovered it for the first time. Not only am I playing that Retris game every time I sit down at my computer (which is also kicking my carpal tunnel back into high gear) but I'm playing a realish Tetris game on a handheld thingie in the bathroom. It's evil. It's sick. On the other hand, believe me when I tell you that I can pack a car or a box like nobody else on earth - Tetris is not all bad.
My other newly rediscovered addiction - and, sicko that I am, I have inextricably involved my daughter in this disease - are Janet Evanovitch's Stephanie Plum novels. If you don't know them, these are totally formulaic somewhat funny semi mystery novels about a bail bondsperson in New Jersey named Stephanie Plum, who, with the help of her varied cast of amusing one dimensional supporting characters, has lots o' misadventures. Also, sex and tons of it. I am cringing in shame as I write this, okay, but at the same time I cannot WAIT to get home, because thanks to Mr. K's Used Books, I still have one more Stephanie Plum book toread devour. I bought three on Sunday. Yeah, no, they don't take long to digest. I could not possibly tell you what is so great about these damn books but I was addicted years ago, beat the addiction, forgot about it and then, lo and damnation, discovered that while I wasn't looking, a whole bunch of new books had come out! So I'm reading them and so is Audrey and our conversations now sound like this:
Me: I don't think it's fair that Stephanie gets both Morelli and Ranger.
Audrey: I KNOW! I was just thinking about that. She should totally give one up. You know (dreamily) Ranger is the perfect man.
Me: Do you really think so? I think I might like Morelli better. But I would totally have sex with Ranger.
Audrey: Absolutely. I don't see how she hasn't done it yet! I think he likes her better because she just keeps him dangling.
Me: I KNOW! It's totally infuriating! She should just fuck him and get it over with! What is wrong with her?
Audrey: It's not even like she's all that.
Slight pause.
Me: Um, we do both realize that these are fictional characters, right?
Audrey, unconvincingly: Oh yes, yes, of course.
However! Let's talk about my two current addictions! One is new and it is this stupid game. Yes. I have gotten addicted - for about the fortieth time in the last ten years - to a variant of Tetris. There has to be a support group out there. Tetris is old. It is antique. In internet years, which are sort of like dog years only faster, it is positively antediluvian and yet I cannot disconnect the Tetris addiction synapse link in my brain that was forged back in the early 90s when I discovered it for the first time. Not only am I playing that Retris game every time I sit down at my computer (which is also kicking my carpal tunnel back into high gear) but I'm playing a realish Tetris game on a handheld thingie in the bathroom. It's evil. It's sick. On the other hand, believe me when I tell you that I can pack a car or a box like nobody else on earth - Tetris is not all bad.
My other newly rediscovered addiction - and, sicko that I am, I have inextricably involved my daughter in this disease - are Janet Evanovitch's Stephanie Plum novels. If you don't know them, these are totally formulaic somewhat funny semi mystery novels about a bail bondsperson in New Jersey named Stephanie Plum, who, with the help of her varied cast of amusing one dimensional supporting characters, has lots o' misadventures. Also, sex and tons of it. I am cringing in shame as I write this, okay, but at the same time I cannot WAIT to get home, because thanks to Mr. K's Used Books, I still have one more Stephanie Plum book to
Me: I don't think it's fair that Stephanie gets both Morelli and Ranger.
Audrey: I KNOW! I was just thinking about that. She should totally give one up. You know (dreamily) Ranger is the perfect man.
Me: Do you really think so? I think I might like Morelli better. But I would totally have sex with Ranger.
Audrey: Absolutely. I don't see how she hasn't done it yet! I think he likes her better because she just keeps him dangling.
Me: I KNOW! It's totally infuriating! She should just fuck him and get it over with! What is wrong with her?
Audrey: It's not even like she's all that.
Slight pause.
Me: Um, we do both realize that these are fictional characters, right?
Audrey, unconvincingly: Oh yes, yes, of course.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Giving Yourself Permission
I gave myself permission to get nothing done this weekend. That was surprisingly helpful: I mean, there are lots and lots of weekends where I get absolutely nothing done unless you count sort of noticing how the light moves across the bedroom ceiling in between naps as getting something done, but usually I feel guilty about it. This is much better, since I have no guilt whatsoever at the moment despite the constant humming presence of all the shit I generally feel guilty about: deep, deep levels of house grunge and ballooning waistline and unwalked dogs and troubled children and the death of fish and the general, you know, messy and utterly lacking in perfection state of my life. I addressed nothing this weekend, instead, I drank a lot of coffee, sat around a lot, went to the fish store with my auntie, went out for pizza and beer with my friend Jay and went for a long walk - without the dogs! - at the Arboretum and I feel fine. Well, fineish. It would be finer if I had gnomes or brownies or something to clean the house and walk the dogs and go to the grocery store and, while they're at it, improve the status of my bank account but the damn things refuse to show up no matter how many saucers of milk I leave out.
I hadn't been to the arboretum for a long time. The guy at the gate was really sweet and let me in at a discount because I didn't have enough cash with me - 8 bucks to go the arboretum these days, goddamn, you young whippersnappers with your 8 bucks, I remember when it was free - and I had a great wander through the woods, which were damp and surprisingly still snowy. I took pictures but most of them sucked: the woods are great but they are not photogenic. It's like, there you are with all the trees and the air smells great and there's a creek burbling away and all is good and you take a picture and it is. . . trees. Lot o' trees, there! Wow, sure are some trees! Yeah, well, some of my best friends are trees and I love them but en masse, they don't photograph so good.
After the arboretum I went over to the used bookstore where I had $42.50 worth of credit and I bought, by some miracle, $42.80 worth of cheap paperbacks to devour, including a book about a flock of sheep who solve a murder mystery, which I had to buy, obviously, because, well, how could I not? With numismatic luck like that, perhaps my lottery chances are not nonexistent after all. Right?
I hadn't been to the arboretum for a long time. The guy at the gate was really sweet and let me in at a discount because I didn't have enough cash with me - 8 bucks to go the arboretum these days, goddamn, you young whippersnappers with your 8 bucks, I remember when it was free - and I had a great wander through the woods, which were damp and surprisingly still snowy. I took pictures but most of them sucked: the woods are great but they are not photogenic. It's like, there you are with all the trees and the air smells great and there's a creek burbling away and all is good and you take a picture and it is. . . trees. Lot o' trees, there! Wow, sure are some trees! Yeah, well, some of my best friends are trees and I love them but en masse, they don't photograph so good.
After the arboretum I went over to the used bookstore where I had $42.50 worth of credit and I bought, by some miracle, $42.80 worth of cheap paperbacks to devour, including a book about a flock of sheep who solve a murder mystery, which I had to buy, obviously, because, well, how could I not? With numismatic luck like that, perhaps my lottery chances are not nonexistent after all. Right?
Friday, February 19, 2010
More Random Shit
Somebody just told me to keep my box of rocks and I believe they are correct. See, I have a box of rocks and shells in the garage that I haven't unpacked in the last three moves and it has occurred to me that perhaps I could part with it. But as we all know, I'm a pack rat and the thought of losing my box of rocks makes me breathe funny. That is okay, because I have thought of a use for it. I will carry it around with me and when it is necessary to chide someone for their stupidity I will point at it and say, "Do you know what you are as dumb as? This. This is what you are as dumb as." I see no flaws in this immaculate plan.
I think my fish oil got old and stopped working; either that, or the sheer overwhelming weight of crazy horrible shit that has landed on my head over the course of the last ten days has just overwhelmed it. Tangentially related, another fish in the aquarium has died. My son inquired why we should keep on buying fish, since they just die. I responded by singing - well, mangling, since I don't know any of the words - that horrible song from the Lion King about the Cycle of Life, which would have been way more apropos if I was a) eating my fish and b) king of them. Perhaps I should be melting them into oil rather than throwing them away. Anyway, I need more fish now. You can mail them to me.
I am not watching the Olympics because I don't really have a TV set. That is to say, there are actually two TV sets, old ones, in the house but they're both downstairs in Teenage Wasteland so the teenagers can play video games on them and watch informercials in the wee hours of the morning. I would kind of like to watch the figure skating - all the other sports bore and confuse me and then I start shouting at the TV because I feel they pay too much attention to the Americans, when I would really prefer to use the Olympics as a sort of National Geographic thing and focus on small, strange countries that have one athlete competing in one obscure unheard of sport. This is probably bad for me, and I don't want to see figure skating enough to venture into teenage wasteland, so I am just not watching. It's okay, though, because the internet is gleefully dissecting the figure skating costumes for me and that is pretty damn awesome.
I think my fish oil got old and stopped working; either that, or the sheer overwhelming weight of crazy horrible shit that has landed on my head over the course of the last ten days has just overwhelmed it. Tangentially related, another fish in the aquarium has died. My son inquired why we should keep on buying fish, since they just die. I responded by singing - well, mangling, since I don't know any of the words - that horrible song from the Lion King about the Cycle of Life, which would have been way more apropos if I was a) eating my fish and b) king of them. Perhaps I should be melting them into oil rather than throwing them away. Anyway, I need more fish now. You can mail them to me.
I am not watching the Olympics because I don't really have a TV set. That is to say, there are actually two TV sets, old ones, in the house but they're both downstairs in Teenage Wasteland so the teenagers can play video games on them and watch informercials in the wee hours of the morning. I would kind of like to watch the figure skating - all the other sports bore and confuse me and then I start shouting at the TV because I feel they pay too much attention to the Americans, when I would really prefer to use the Olympics as a sort of National Geographic thing and focus on small, strange countries that have one athlete competing in one obscure unheard of sport. This is probably bad for me, and I don't want to see figure skating enough to venture into teenage wasteland, so I am just not watching. It's okay, though, because the internet is gleefully dissecting the figure skating costumes for me and that is pretty damn awesome.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
4 Paragraphs WIth No Common Thread
1. I make it a rule to not blog about my job (that would be because, uh, I want to keep it) but I must say that in other places where I have worked, if we had had a day like today the entire staff would be leaving at 4:30 for the nearest bar. Which might be the sensible solution.
2. The weather is supposed to improve this weekend. I'm not sure I believe it. I am so cranky and miserable it's difficult to describe - you would think that it was hormonal but I swear to you that it's not. It's fairly simple, actually: I just want to kill everyone and everything I see and then I would like to cry for a week solid and then, to wash down the tears, I could conceivably get behind eating an entire cake or some girl scout cookies, or, hell, some suitably barbecued girl scouts, because I hate puppies, kittens, unicorns and the universe. Sunlight may help. It may not, too.
3. We sucked at Quizzo last week and it's your fault. Yeah, you. You should have shown up and helped out - I don't care if you live in Kuala Lumpur and had a fever of 107 degrees on Monday. It was just me and Audrey and Jay and his son Dustin, which would be awesome except that Jay and I have essentially the same knowledge base, which means we are almost useless as teammates. Dustin shows promise but he is too young and Audrey did her best but what we really needed was a sports person. Also, I was already tired and cranky (and I flubbed the one art question, which made me more tired and homicidally cranky) and the bar was full of weird kids in their early twenties with giant backpacks and facial piercings. That is unusual for Jack of the Wood, which I stopped going to a few years back because, get this, I began to feel that it was a Gerry bar. As in Geriatric, yes, and since I myself seem to qualify as Gerry in some people's minds, let me tell you that Jack had gotten really really Gerry, as in its customer base was being siphoned off the cafeteria at the Givens Estates. I am pleased to see that it has bounced back and there are now people of all ages there, which is the way bars should be, but the backpack people got on my last nerve. I grant you that last Monday Hugh Jackman naked carrying roses and a six pack of Fat Tire would have gotten on my nerves - unless, conceivably, he had an epic grasp on sports minutiae - but still.
4. Speaking of Hugh Jackman! I watched Wolverine: Origin of Species or whatever it was called; an X-Men spinoff movie purporting to explain where Wolverine came from. Hint: he's older than he looks. Extra spoiler: he has a brother (evil, duh) who is probably going to show up again! More unsurprising spoilers: This was not the absolute best movie I have ever seen. Shocking, I know, but it was just not the creme de la creme of cinema, even in the X-men subgroup. Y'all may not know that I am fond of the X-Men, but, actually, I kind of am. I used to read the comic books whenever I came across one, which was more frequently than you might think. Thus I identified with Rogue, because, let's face it, most of the other female X-Men - the X-Women! - are kind of boring in that they're either All Evil All the Time or annoyingly goody two shoes boring, although none of them with the possible exception of the pointless Jean are as incredibly goody two shoes boring as stupid Cyclops Scott with the laser eyes. Anyway, back in the comic books, Rogue's boyfriend was Gambit and, since I am Rogue, more or less (okay kissing me hardly ever leads to an immediate coma - it usually takes another hour or so) I am happy to report that movie Gambit is frickin' gorgeous. Therefore I have told my daughter that she can have Wolverine as long as I get Gambit and we are both happy with this trade.
2. The weather is supposed to improve this weekend. I'm not sure I believe it. I am so cranky and miserable it's difficult to describe - you would think that it was hormonal but I swear to you that it's not. It's fairly simple, actually: I just want to kill everyone and everything I see and then I would like to cry for a week solid and then, to wash down the tears, I could conceivably get behind eating an entire cake or some girl scout cookies, or, hell, some suitably barbecued girl scouts, because I hate puppies, kittens, unicorns and the universe. Sunlight may help. It may not, too.
3. We sucked at Quizzo last week and it's your fault. Yeah, you. You should have shown up and helped out - I don't care if you live in Kuala Lumpur and had a fever of 107 degrees on Monday. It was just me and Audrey and Jay and his son Dustin, which would be awesome except that Jay and I have essentially the same knowledge base, which means we are almost useless as teammates. Dustin shows promise but he is too young and Audrey did her best but what we really needed was a sports person. Also, I was already tired and cranky (and I flubbed the one art question, which made me more tired and homicidally cranky) and the bar was full of weird kids in their early twenties with giant backpacks and facial piercings. That is unusual for Jack of the Wood, which I stopped going to a few years back because, get this, I began to feel that it was a Gerry bar. As in Geriatric, yes, and since I myself seem to qualify as Gerry in some people's minds, let me tell you that Jack had gotten really really Gerry, as in its customer base was being siphoned off the cafeteria at the Givens Estates. I am pleased to see that it has bounced back and there are now people of all ages there, which is the way bars should be, but the backpack people got on my last nerve. I grant you that last Monday Hugh Jackman naked carrying roses and a six pack of Fat Tire would have gotten on my nerves - unless, conceivably, he had an epic grasp on sports minutiae - but still.
4. Speaking of Hugh Jackman! I watched Wolverine: Origin of Species or whatever it was called; an X-Men spinoff movie purporting to explain where Wolverine came from. Hint: he's older than he looks. Extra spoiler: he has a brother (evil, duh) who is probably going to show up again! More unsurprising spoilers: This was not the absolute best movie I have ever seen. Shocking, I know, but it was just not the creme de la creme of cinema, even in the X-men subgroup. Y'all may not know that I am fond of the X-Men, but, actually, I kind of am. I used to read the comic books whenever I came across one, which was more frequently than you might think. Thus I identified with Rogue, because, let's face it, most of the other female X-Men - the X-Women! - are kind of boring in that they're either All Evil All the Time or annoyingly goody two shoes boring, although none of them with the possible exception of the pointless Jean are as incredibly goody two shoes boring as stupid Cyclops Scott with the laser eyes. Anyway, back in the comic books, Rogue's boyfriend was Gambit and, since I am Rogue, more or less (okay kissing me hardly ever leads to an immediate coma - it usually takes another hour or so) I am happy to report that movie Gambit is frickin' gorgeous. Therefore I have told my daughter that she can have Wolverine as long as I get Gambit and we are both happy with this trade.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Weather and More
On Sunday I got to take pictures of something other than snow and dogs in snow and ice and bleak picnic tables in snow. This was kind of amazing, because frankly I had sort of forgotten what a world that's not completely drawn in shades of black and white looked like, particularly after Friday's unscheduled yet extremely annoying small snowstorm. That was the storm (every Friday like clockwork! Aaaargh!) in which we only got 3.5 inches which somehow rendered all the roads unnavigable. I had to leave my car on Haywood Road and I will never tease my brother about having an SUV again - Audrey nearly had to spend the night at work and she never could make it back to West Asheville, taking shelter finally with a Subaru owning friend.
Anyway, that is normal now that we all live in a snowglobe in the Yukon! Onward to the less normal, also known as Sunday. Audrey and I ventured out of the house and checked out the Mardi Gras parade. I have never actually lived anywhere that had a a Mardi Gras parade before - note that I have lived in Asheville for a decade now - and so it was doubly awesome. It was pretty much what I thought a Mardi Gras parade would be like, only with less nudity, which is understandable given that it was a balmy 27 degrees or so and I could hardly look at the dancers in their skimpy outfits, poor things. It was a short parade with the aforementioned dancers, who were great, and drummers and people in wild, colorful costumes that I have no idea what they represent if they do in fact represent anything other than "Hey! Costumes!" I even got some beads. Then we went and drank some beer at the LAB and I talked to a couple of people I haven't seen in some time, so, all good.
Then it snowed again, or, to be precise, it's sort of still snowing a little bit. I know, this is not the kind of snow they have had in Baltimore, which frankly I am a little - not much, but a little - jealous of because it is Real Snow like we had in December. I remember Baltimore in the great snows of 96 and 93 -my house was on TV because I used young Miles' playpen to hold my parking space! That same young Miles stepped off the stoop in his yellow Winnie the Pooh snowsuit and promptly disappeared in a drift! I had to reach over and pick him up by the peak of his yellow Winnie the Pooh head, thwoop! - and it was kind of exciting, as opposed to this endless snow that never amounts to enough to be exciting but is more than anyone can really cope with. It's always cold and the streets are always just icy enough where you don't really feel that going anywhere is justifiable. Ick, in other words, and I am going stir crazy, in other other words and god almighty, I have never before been so ready for some decent weather.
Anyway, that is normal now that we all live in a snowglobe in the Yukon! Onward to the less normal, also known as Sunday. Audrey and I ventured out of the house and checked out the Mardi Gras parade. I have never actually lived anywhere that had a a Mardi Gras parade before - note that I have lived in Asheville for a decade now - and so it was doubly awesome. It was pretty much what I thought a Mardi Gras parade would be like, only with less nudity, which is understandable given that it was a balmy 27 degrees or so and I could hardly look at the dancers in their skimpy outfits, poor things. It was a short parade with the aforementioned dancers, who were great, and drummers and people in wild, colorful costumes that I have no idea what they represent if they do in fact represent anything other than "Hey! Costumes!" I even got some beads. Then we went and drank some beer at the LAB and I talked to a couple of people I haven't seen in some time, so, all good.
Then it snowed again, or, to be precise, it's sort of still snowing a little bit. I know, this is not the kind of snow they have had in Baltimore, which frankly I am a little - not much, but a little - jealous of because it is Real Snow like we had in December. I remember Baltimore in the great snows of 96 and 93 -my house was on TV because I used young Miles' playpen to hold my parking space! That same young Miles stepped off the stoop in his yellow Winnie the Pooh snowsuit and promptly disappeared in a drift! I had to reach over and pick him up by the peak of his yellow Winnie the Pooh head, thwoop! - and it was kind of exciting, as opposed to this endless snow that never amounts to enough to be exciting but is more than anyone can really cope with. It's always cold and the streets are always just icy enough where you don't really feel that going anywhere is justifiable. Ick, in other words, and I am going stir crazy, in other other words and god almighty, I have never before been so ready for some decent weather.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Let Them Eat Bad Cake
Things are getting kind of stressful and bad again around Hangover Headquarters and no, I am not going to blog about it, because it's all just too fucking depressing for words. So I am stressed again! Whoo! That's cool though: it could be worse. Face it, unless you are actively lying face down in a ditch while zombies gnaw off your fingers and your children get eviscerated while your house burns down and your car insurance gets cancelled, plus you have a telemarketer on the phone, it can always be worse. And we are fortunately not in that situation - yet. We do all have a roof over our heads and health and all that good shit and, if we're not super picky, enough to eat. Or, we would have enough to eat if, driven by despair and madness, I hadn't decided to bake this cake last night.
A couple of years ago I decided to make a cake because it sounded weird and I became intrigued with the pure-D bizarre factors of the recipe. That was a Guinness cake and it was truly horrible - turns out that there's a damn good reason people don't generally mix Guinness into chocolate cake batter. Who knew? This cake is similar: it also sounds weird and has pure-D bizarro world ingredients. Rather than Guinness, it has olive oil in it. Olive oil! What's not to like? And fresh rosemary and pepper and, whoa, cheese, plus, naturally, a cup of sugar and a shit ton of lemon zest. Nifty, I thought, this is unique! This is a new thing! So I made it.
And it did make the kitchen smell heavenly for all the hour and forty minutes that I had it cooking because it turns out that the inside of this cake never cooks. No, never. Never cooks. But that's okay because you can eat off the ends and it actually tastes a lot like lemon pound cake. That is awesome and great right up to the point where you come to a disconcerting chunk of fresh rosemary or an even more disconcerting hunk of black pepper or, get this, the creme de la creme of disconcerting: a piece of rubbery burnt parmigiana cheese! That is not what you want to find lurking in your oily, uncooked lemon pound cake! So it was a total cake disaster. Actually, I am kind of glad, because not only did the house smell wonderful and I saved myself a lot of calories but I laughed hysterically for the first time in some days at the cake and, even funnier, the reactions of my children as they tried to eat it. Twisted, probably, but what the hell, I felt better.
I am down enough where I caught myself trying to come up with a mantra as I was running out for lunch today. Audrey told me how during the last but one snow emergency (hey! There's another one on for tonight! Just fucking shoot me now!) as she was driving home she kept thinking "I am a good, careful, competent driver who knows what she is doing and I can do this." I thought this was very clever of her and decided I should try it myself. Therefore, I started thinking to myself, "I can handle this, because I am a smart, competent, talented, attractive woman who . . . is obsessively fondling a dog biscuit in her coat pocket. Yeah, me!"
So the mantra didn't work. It doesn't matter, though, because in an attempt to lighten up the atmosphere a bit, I then read this uplifting and heart warming short story and then this light, delightful article on why things are the way they are. That is how I know that things can always get worse and, hey, probably will! I don't know about you, but as the snow falls again and a lawyer friend of mine says calmly that the local court system is completely and utterly broken beyond repair and real unemployment rises and grocery prices keep right on going up to the sky and the stock market falls and aging takes its inevitable toll, plus, adding insult to injury, it's fucking Valentines Day again, or, as I like to call it, National Make Single People Feel Even More Like Shit Than Usual Day - my least favorite holiday - I find this thought strangely calming.
Note: Those are not really cheerful articles, okay? But they are very good indeed.
A couple of years ago I decided to make a cake because it sounded weird and I became intrigued with the pure-D bizarre factors of the recipe. That was a Guinness cake and it was truly horrible - turns out that there's a damn good reason people don't generally mix Guinness into chocolate cake batter. Who knew? This cake is similar: it also sounds weird and has pure-D bizarro world ingredients. Rather than Guinness, it has olive oil in it. Olive oil! What's not to like? And fresh rosemary and pepper and, whoa, cheese, plus, naturally, a cup of sugar and a shit ton of lemon zest. Nifty, I thought, this is unique! This is a new thing! So I made it.
And it did make the kitchen smell heavenly for all the hour and forty minutes that I had it cooking because it turns out that the inside of this cake never cooks. No, never. Never cooks. But that's okay because you can eat off the ends and it actually tastes a lot like lemon pound cake. That is awesome and great right up to the point where you come to a disconcerting chunk of fresh rosemary or an even more disconcerting hunk of black pepper or, get this, the creme de la creme of disconcerting: a piece of rubbery burnt parmigiana cheese! That is not what you want to find lurking in your oily, uncooked lemon pound cake! So it was a total cake disaster. Actually, I am kind of glad, because not only did the house smell wonderful and I saved myself a lot of calories but I laughed hysterically for the first time in some days at the cake and, even funnier, the reactions of my children as they tried to eat it. Twisted, probably, but what the hell, I felt better.
I am down enough where I caught myself trying to come up with a mantra as I was running out for lunch today. Audrey told me how during the last but one snow emergency (hey! There's another one on for tonight! Just fucking shoot me now!) as she was driving home she kept thinking "I am a good, careful, competent driver who knows what she is doing and I can do this." I thought this was very clever of her and decided I should try it myself. Therefore, I started thinking to myself, "I can handle this, because I am a smart, competent, talented, attractive woman who . . . is obsessively fondling a dog biscuit in her coat pocket. Yeah, me!"
So the mantra didn't work. It doesn't matter, though, because in an attempt to lighten up the atmosphere a bit, I then read this uplifting and heart warming short story and then this light, delightful article on why things are the way they are. That is how I know that things can always get worse and, hey, probably will! I don't know about you, but as the snow falls again and a lawyer friend of mine says calmly that the local court system is completely and utterly broken beyond repair and real unemployment rises and grocery prices keep right on going up to the sky and the stock market falls and aging takes its inevitable toll, plus, adding insult to injury, it's fucking Valentines Day again, or, as I like to call it, National Make Single People Feel Even More Like Shit Than Usual Day - my least favorite holiday - I find this thought strangely calming.
Note: Those are not really cheerful articles, okay? But they are very good indeed.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Yet Again I Fail to Win the Lottery
I am in a lottery pool. Why yes, I am bad at math, why do you ask? It's my very own tax! Yay! I know, but, look, being in a lottery pool makes my chances of winning go from infinitesimal to infinitesimally less infinitesimal, in that we're playing more numbers each week for the same investment. So far, Susan and Jodi and Audrey and Linda and I are the only players, but we are anticipating more buy in soon. Of course, when we eventually win we'll have to split the proceeds, at which point we will all probably go from being the best of friends to bitter enemies overnight, but we'll save that drama to be relished later, when the shouting starts - "No! One yacht is no longer enough! I must have TWO yachts and you? You deserve only half a yacht! Half a yacht for you, you ignorant slut!"
Anyway, we have been in this pool for a month or two now, ever since we were sitting around at Broadways feeling broke and bitter and cold, those three little adjectives that sum up so much of my life. That was when I insisted that Susan begin this lottery pool she had been talking about ever since her third cousin won big with a pool in West Virginia. Frankly, that part worries me, because I feel that if you even know anyone vaguely, like, say, your third cousin's best friend's hairdresser's mother in law, who won the lottery, than, on the lightening never strikes twice theorem, your own chances to win immediately go to nil. I recognize that there may be a flaw in this logic somewhere, but part of me believes it strongly. Whatever, though, I put superstition aside, because I dearly want to win the fucking thing and I'm never going to get around to actually buying the tickets and doing it by myself. No, what happens with me is I buy lottery tickets and forget that I have them, but Susan is organized and she goes off to Gas Up or BJs (terms of the pool dictate spreading our lottery buy out a bit, just as part of the terms of the Great West Asheville BJs vs. Gas Up Peace Treaty of 2006) and gets them twice a week and then even checks the winning numbers and everything. So far we have not matched one number, not one, which seems to me to be a statistical feat in itself that probably deserves a pity prize from the Lottery Commission, but I doubt they share my views.
Therefore, when I saw on Twitter that the Powerball winning ticket was sold in Asheville, I was sure it had to be us. Alack and alas, though, the news soon escaped that that ticket was sold at the Wilco that's practically in Candler and I know that Susan rarely ventures out that way. Neither do I, for that matter, although I think I have been to that Wilco once, but it was several years ago before we even had a lottery. And so it was: yet again we didn't match a single number and somebody in Candler won, making our chances go down even further. But, well, lightening can strike twice and what the hell, the pool continues. I need that lottery win: it's my retirement plan.
In other news, Audrey's cat can apparently dematerialize and rematerialize at will, which is cool; we came in second - by ONE POINT - at Quizzo last night, which is cooler; and over the weekend I cleaned up Teenage Wasteland and hooked up my ancient stereo to giant 1970s speakers, thus making the entire house shake to old, old Genesis, which is coolest.
Anyway, we have been in this pool for a month or two now, ever since we were sitting around at Broadways feeling broke and bitter and cold, those three little adjectives that sum up so much of my life. That was when I insisted that Susan begin this lottery pool she had been talking about ever since her third cousin won big with a pool in West Virginia. Frankly, that part worries me, because I feel that if you even know anyone vaguely, like, say, your third cousin's best friend's hairdresser's mother in law, who won the lottery, than, on the lightening never strikes twice theorem, your own chances to win immediately go to nil. I recognize that there may be a flaw in this logic somewhere, but part of me believes it strongly. Whatever, though, I put superstition aside, because I dearly want to win the fucking thing and I'm never going to get around to actually buying the tickets and doing it by myself. No, what happens with me is I buy lottery tickets and forget that I have them, but Susan is organized and she goes off to Gas Up or BJs (terms of the pool dictate spreading our lottery buy out a bit, just as part of the terms of the Great West Asheville BJs vs. Gas Up Peace Treaty of 2006) and gets them twice a week and then even checks the winning numbers and everything. So far we have not matched one number, not one, which seems to me to be a statistical feat in itself that probably deserves a pity prize from the Lottery Commission, but I doubt they share my views.
Therefore, when I saw on Twitter that the Powerball winning ticket was sold in Asheville, I was sure it had to be us. Alack and alas, though, the news soon escaped that that ticket was sold at the Wilco that's practically in Candler and I know that Susan rarely ventures out that way. Neither do I, for that matter, although I think I have been to that Wilco once, but it was several years ago before we even had a lottery. And so it was: yet again we didn't match a single number and somebody in Candler won, making our chances go down even further. But, well, lightening can strike twice and what the hell, the pool continues. I need that lottery win: it's my retirement plan.
In other news, Audrey's cat can apparently dematerialize and rematerialize at will, which is cool; we came in second - by ONE POINT - at Quizzo last night, which is cooler; and over the weekend I cleaned up Teenage Wasteland and hooked up my ancient stereo to giant 1970s speakers, thus making the entire house shake to old, old Genesis, which is coolest.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Snowpocalypse III: Return of the Yeti
Another day, another snow day, another lifetime's worth of staring blankly out the window at gray rain and white snow, wondering just why you even bother, thinking about whiskey or possibly laudanum, feeling your soul just seep - SEEP! SEEP! - slowly down into a morass of mud and broken dreams. Ha ha! It's funny because it's true! Also, you're out of staples. Or rather I am - not, like, the potatoes and bread and beer kind; those I waited in line at Ingles for an HOUR last night to obtain, but the actual stapley metal kind - and since it takes staples to hold up the garbage bag that is acting in lieu of the more traditional bucket to contain the leak from the porch roof, that is serious and I might have to take off my gnome pajamas and go get some.
However. This is not just another snowed in cabin fever oh my god do you have to chew so loud post! No, it's a Review. I actually got sent something to review. This, I understand, apparently happens to more successful bloggers constantly but being as how they are more, like, successful, they get stuff like diamond necklaces and ferraris and vacations in Bali and then they go off to Bali draped in diamonds to drive ferraris and then they write blog entries that say stuff like "Hey! Ferraris and diamonds and Bali are most excellent! You should try them!" I have long been awaiting my chance at this largesse and finally, because the world is kind and I am wildly successful, what I got sent to review was two tubes of hangover medicine. Go figure! What a crazy stretch!
So. The stuff came in a black plastic tube, about 2 and a half inches long, that says THC on it in large friendly yet urban red letters. As you can imagine, this got my hopes up. Alas, they mean something completely different. It is you see, what is known as a double entendre. How sophisticated! How annoying! Yet I figured that nobody was going to send me actual THC to review - damn it. Anyway, next to the promising letters THC is the standard lurching martini glass and underneath it all it says the hangover cure (notice how they don't use caps, there. That means they're cool and edgy.) and then it says www.drinkTHC.com. The URL, you will note, is to make sure you don't smoke it by mistake. The directions tell you to drink - not smoke! - the contents of one tube in a glass of water after a night of debauchery.
I was waiting for some true debauchery to arrive but there wasn't much around for a while there and then the dogs, naturally, ate one of the tubes. They seem to be okay - nothing much fazes my dogs, after all - but I figured I had better get right on the debauching so I drank several - 5, to be specific, which is really pretty debauched - beers last night. The sacrifices I make! Anything for the review! Then I drank my THC. No, wait, I smoked - wait. Never. Not me. Anyway, I drank the contents of the tube. It smelled suspiciously like Emergen-C, the tropical variety. It tasted exactly like tropical Emergen-C, although possibly sweeter. Our suspicions (Audrey was part of this experiment but since she is not currently debauching due to a middle ear infection and resultant massive antibiotics and painkillers, she was strictly observing only.) were thus suspiciously aroused and we compared the label to a packet of Emergen-C (note to THC people: next time you should probably choose a blogger who is not, like me, an Emergen-C junkie. I drink it every day, sometimes twice a day. I mean, I knows me some Emergen-C.) and lo, what we had here was basically Emergen-C in less eco-friendly packaging.
Well, to be fair, it isn't exactly Emergen-C, it has 3 extra things in it: milk thistle, L-cysteine and L-glucamine. Oh, and slightly more sugar. Milk thistle is supposed to be good for your liver and I'm going on the scientific premise that anything that begins with L- has got to be good for you, so presumably the THC is extra excellent. I had high hopes. However, this morning I had a headache, which, oddly enough, is exactly what would have happened on any given night that I had 5 beers and drank an Emergen-C. I usually do that every night anyway - I don't know if it helps at all, but, like eating hopping john and collards on New Years Day, it is better to be safe about these things than sorry.
Therefore, here is my review of THC - not, you know, the fun kind, which I have previously reviewed, probably. Dude, if the packaging was a little more friendly - black plastic tube with red and white letters is not doing it for me; it's a lot of tube to throw away for a tiny bit of powder - then it might be slightly, oh slightly, better than Emergen-C, but not much. Still, it's not actively bad for you and it is fairly delicious particularly if you mix it with seltzer, so, hey, whatever! I'm sure I could be feeling worse right now if I hadn't drunk it at all. In summation, six thumbs up, four thumbs down and bring on the ferraris, diamonds and trips to Bali or, actually, pretty much anywhere that isn't Asheville and isn't fucking snowing, sleeting or just plain gruesomely winter miserable.
However. This is not just another snowed in cabin fever oh my god do you have to chew so loud post! No, it's a Review. I actually got sent something to review. This, I understand, apparently happens to more successful bloggers constantly but being as how they are more, like, successful, they get stuff like diamond necklaces and ferraris and vacations in Bali and then they go off to Bali draped in diamonds to drive ferraris and then they write blog entries that say stuff like "Hey! Ferraris and diamonds and Bali are most excellent! You should try them!" I have long been awaiting my chance at this largesse and finally, because the world is kind and I am wildly successful, what I got sent to review was two tubes of hangover medicine. Go figure! What a crazy stretch!
So. The stuff came in a black plastic tube, about 2 and a half inches long, that says THC on it in large friendly yet urban red letters. As you can imagine, this got my hopes up. Alas, they mean something completely different. It is you see, what is known as a double entendre. How sophisticated! How annoying! Yet I figured that nobody was going to send me actual THC to review - damn it. Anyway, next to the promising letters THC is the standard lurching martini glass and underneath it all it says the hangover cure (notice how they don't use caps, there. That means they're cool and edgy.) and then it says www.drinkTHC.com. The URL, you will note, is to make sure you don't smoke it by mistake. The directions tell you to drink - not smoke! - the contents of one tube in a glass of water after a night of debauchery.
I was waiting for some true debauchery to arrive but there wasn't much around for a while there and then the dogs, naturally, ate one of the tubes. They seem to be okay - nothing much fazes my dogs, after all - but I figured I had better get right on the debauching so I drank several - 5, to be specific, which is really pretty debauched - beers last night. The sacrifices I make! Anything for the review! Then I drank my THC. No, wait, I smoked - wait. Never. Not me. Anyway, I drank the contents of the tube. It smelled suspiciously like Emergen-C, the tropical variety. It tasted exactly like tropical Emergen-C, although possibly sweeter. Our suspicions (Audrey was part of this experiment but since she is not currently debauching due to a middle ear infection and resultant massive antibiotics and painkillers, she was strictly observing only.) were thus suspiciously aroused and we compared the label to a packet of Emergen-C (note to THC people: next time you should probably choose a blogger who is not, like me, an Emergen-C junkie. I drink it every day, sometimes twice a day. I mean, I knows me some Emergen-C.) and lo, what we had here was basically Emergen-C in less eco-friendly packaging.
Well, to be fair, it isn't exactly Emergen-C, it has 3 extra things in it: milk thistle, L-cysteine and L-glucamine. Oh, and slightly more sugar. Milk thistle is supposed to be good for your liver and I'm going on the scientific premise that anything that begins with L- has got to be good for you, so presumably the THC is extra excellent. I had high hopes. However, this morning I had a headache, which, oddly enough, is exactly what would have happened on any given night that I had 5 beers and drank an Emergen-C. I usually do that every night anyway - I don't know if it helps at all, but, like eating hopping john and collards on New Years Day, it is better to be safe about these things than sorry.
Therefore, here is my review of THC - not, you know, the fun kind, which I have previously reviewed, probably. Dude, if the packaging was a little more friendly - black plastic tube with red and white letters is not doing it for me; it's a lot of tube to throw away for a tiny bit of powder - then it might be slightly, oh slightly, better than Emergen-C, but not much. Still, it's not actively bad for you and it is fairly delicious particularly if you mix it with seltzer, so, hey, whatever! I'm sure I could be feeling worse right now if I hadn't drunk it at all. In summation, six thumbs up, four thumbs down and bring on the ferraris, diamonds and trips to Bali or, actually, pretty much anywhere that isn't Asheville and isn't fucking snowing, sleeting or just plain gruesomely winter miserable.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Ah Cabin Fever
Yesterday I woke up full of energy - that's always alarming. I suited up in many layers and walked with the camera to Izzys, a coffeeshop on Haywood Road about a mile from my house. It was pretty awesome - I forget how delightful walks without the dogs can be. I had a cup of coffee and sat on the porch and smoked a cigarette and decided to bring Annie over some coffee and a bagel, so I did that. Walking down an icy, deserted road balancing a tray of coffees on one hand is fun. No, really, it is, I swear. You sort of feel like the Uber Waitress - the Server God - and Annie, when she came to the door, was properly astonished and delighted when I said, "Did you order some coffee?"
So that was all good and then I walked all the way home, happily jazzed from the coffees and the snow and the exercise and the fact that I didn't hurt myself or the camera when I slipped on Annie's street, which had everything in common with an Olympic skating rink except the Zamboni. I had two more cups of coffee when I got home because by this time I was sort of more coffee than person, a highly entertaining situation and I felt, why stop? Thus I did all the laundry and vacuumed the house and watered and cut back - really cut back. Perhaps cut back too much. - all the houseplants and cleaned up the porch and went to Sam's Club to buy junk food and then I fixed the leak on the porch roof by stapling a couple of gallon sized plastic bags to it (they were full of ice this morning, which was kind of cool in a creepy wow that's a lot of ice man I need a roofer kind of way. Then I vibrated around for a while complaining about how bored I was. Drugs are great, aren't they?
Today has been nowhere near as productive. I only get one day like that a month at the most, so, hey, I feel that getting the computer/guest/Audrey's room into shape, which it is now, after much cursing and heaving of furniture and vacuuming, is enough. I also replaced the gallon zip lock bags with a large stapled trash bag, which is filling up with roof water even now. It strikes me that perhaps this is not an ideal long term solution but that goddamn leak has resisted all Adam's best efforts for over a year now and, short of replacing the whole porch roof which would cost money I do not have, I can't come up with a better solution. Anyway, it looks kind of cool in a fairly terrible way.
All this snow sponsored activity has been great, but, jesus, enough already. Somebody on Twitter said that they didn't realize I lived in Duluth and actually neither did I, assuming that the twitterite meant by this that I should not live in a cold and snowy place, with which sentiment I heartily agree. Of course, it could have just been some kind of random twitter comment that made no sense. One never knows. What is Duluth, anyway? Is it cold there? I'm not really interested enough to google it. I usually say the Yukon, myself, a lovely word that not only summons up images of Yukon Cornelius and Mr. Neutron, but just sounds cold and snowy. Although given our new, improved weather here, perhaps we can all just use Asheville as shorthand for too much snow now.
So that was all good and then I walked all the way home, happily jazzed from the coffees and the snow and the exercise and the fact that I didn't hurt myself or the camera when I slipped on Annie's street, which had everything in common with an Olympic skating rink except the Zamboni. I had two more cups of coffee when I got home because by this time I was sort of more coffee than person, a highly entertaining situation and I felt, why stop? Thus I did all the laundry and vacuumed the house and watered and cut back - really cut back. Perhaps cut back too much. - all the houseplants and cleaned up the porch and went to Sam's Club to buy junk food and then I fixed the leak on the porch roof by stapling a couple of gallon sized plastic bags to it (they were full of ice this morning, which was kind of cool in a creepy wow that's a lot of ice man I need a roofer kind of way. Then I vibrated around for a while complaining about how bored I was. Drugs are great, aren't they?
Today has been nowhere near as productive. I only get one day like that a month at the most, so, hey, I feel that getting the computer/guest/Audrey's room into shape, which it is now, after much cursing and heaving of furniture and vacuuming, is enough. I also replaced the gallon zip lock bags with a large stapled trash bag, which is filling up with roof water even now. It strikes me that perhaps this is not an ideal long term solution but that goddamn leak has resisted all Adam's best efforts for over a year now and, short of replacing the whole porch roof which would cost money I do not have, I can't come up with a better solution. Anyway, it looks kind of cool in a fairly terrible way.
All this snow sponsored activity has been great, but, jesus, enough already. Somebody on Twitter said that they didn't realize I lived in Duluth and actually neither did I, assuming that the twitterite meant by this that I should not live in a cold and snowy place, with which sentiment I heartily agree. Of course, it could have just been some kind of random twitter comment that made no sense. One never knows. What is Duluth, anyway? Is it cold there? I'm not really interested enough to google it. I usually say the Yukon, myself, a lovely word that not only summons up images of Yukon Cornelius and Mr. Neutron, but just sounds cold and snowy. Although given our new, improved weather here, perhaps we can all just use Asheville as shorthand for too much snow now.
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