Don't Even Get Me Started on the Almonds...

Someone in the cafeteria where I work has pissed off God.

That's the only explanation I can come up with for the TWO floods that have plagued the good people who work there. I mean, even Noah only got one flood.  I don't know what that person did, but they should probably work it out with their personal savior so that we can get our "special eggs" on.  I suspect the offense had something to do with Turkey Thursday, but I can't prove it.

Anyway, being that our normal lunch spot was underwater, we meandered over to a smaller cafe with a sandwich bar. While we waited in line, we saw a sign.  I have seen similar signs to this, but not ever with this wording.  I have seen numerous nut warning signs that say things like:

"May contain nuts."
"This area contains products that may contain trace amounts of nuts."
And even: "Cannot guarantee that this product is nut-free"- a label that I think applies to more than just allergies...

But recently, at our small contingency sandwich shop, we saw a sign that said,

MADE IN THE PRESENCE OF PEANUTS AND WALNUTS.

Which of course my brain translated to:

A Short Excerpt of a Domestic Conversation

The boyfriend and I are lounging, discussing his text message traffic (homeboy maintains a large, chatty posse.)  One of his friends is discussing a current potential paramour...

He: He's a German... furniture maker?
Me: Must be a hipster.

This is when he shoots me an "explain" look...

Me: Furniture makers are all hipsters. Or the Amish. Or people who do it because their father gave them a store, that was given to him by his father.  That's it.

He:  You should draw that.

And so I did- See?

I don't know why I imagine the Amish are so angry. But I do.

Mad props to the iPad app Paper by 53, for helping me draw this.
Also mad props to Karmin, because every time I drew something today in Paper, I sang, "I'm makin' paper!"

Accidentally Domesticated, or a Recipe for Strawberry Ginger Chicken

So I can't cook.  I've burned water.  My ramen always comes out looking less like Justin Timberlake's hair, mid- N'Sync, ane more like Anna Nicole Smith's towards the end there... (too soon?)

I digress.

I've been telling the boyfriend this secret, me not cooking, for months- a loud and clear disclaimer to warn him of impending foodborne pathogens. 

Unfortunately, everything I've made so far has turned out decent, by some fabulous fluke, so that I maybe actually started taking an interest in this cooking thing.  The people at Taco Bell started missing me, I am pretty sure.

So anyways, this fabulous luck with cooking for the boyfriend, coincided with my discovery of the best time-wasting site on the planet- Pinterest.

I found that there was a mess of stuff I wanted to try, and if I liked it, I could pin recipes to a board, with my modifications in the comments, so that I could repeat.  This seemed like a decent system, and a good excuse to feed my innernets addiction.  Wendy's called and begged me to return.

So, I was getting a repertoire, when today, I noticed that I had defrosted chicken, and had no recipe to use on it.  Being in a rank mood, I threw the chicken in a bowl to figure out some sort of marinade, and re-opened the last glass of chardonnay in a bottle that had been sitting in my fridge, so I could drink and cook, like it was the fifties or some such thing.

Alas, the wine had moved into vinegar territory, so I tossed it into the bowl with the unsuspecting chicken.  Figuring that wine is beigey-yellow, and ginger is beigey-yellow, and I had to use some more of that fresh ginger before it went bad, and remembering that the boyfriend goes kind of nuts for ginger, I grated a whole mess of it on top of the chicken. 

And then I saw them.  The motherflippin' strawberries. 

So, the boyfriend and I live mostly alone.  A small tornado in the shape of a twelve year old boy descends on the weekends.  We don't hold dinner parties.  And yet, for some reason, the boyfriend bought a container of strawberries the size of a Prius.  Of course, at Costco.  Besides endlessly snacking, I thought about this amazing blackberry barbecue chicken sandwich I have for lunch sometimes. If blackberries go well with chicken, why not strawberries?  So I grated the strawberries (is that even a thing?  Do people grate strawberries??) into the chicken next. 

I figured I might need some real ingredients after this, so I added enough soy sauce to make the dish look legit, and some oregano, chili pepper, black pepper and a whole mess of garlic powder, in case it turned out bad, I could blame the garlic.  I let that sit for about two hours, while the boyfriend whipped up some completely nomming yellow potatoes and broccoli (because unlike me, he CAN cook.) and thought about whether or not to open more wine....

Eventually, the timing was right to put the chicken in, so I turned the broiler onto high, and put the two breasts on a drip pan, dusted a fine layer of parmesan cheese (because everything is better with cheese) over the top of the chicken and put them into the oven. After they started to brown, I flipped them, sprinkled parmesan on the bottom, surfed the innernets (did I mention I'm an addict?), and then after I cut into the biggest one (maybe 20 minutes?) and saw that it was cooked all the way through, I yanked those bad boys out.

And then I went to post my revisions to the recipe on pinterest.... and realized I had nothing to pin, because I made the whole thing up.  So here I am, munching on strawberries and posting this so I can pin it.

The End?  Or maybe I should post this in recipe format?

Strawberry Ginger Chicken

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts- defrosted
1 glass worth of old chardonnay, prolly a Central Valley wine
Grated ginger, grate until you don't feel like grating any more (maybe half a cup?)
Grated strawberries (again, is this a thing?), four or five really big ones, not the green parts.
Soy sauce- a few good shakes (perhaps a cup? 3/4 cup- definitely enough so the chicken is still visible, but like, doing a breast stroke in it...)

A whole mess of:
Oregano
Black pepper
Garlic powder (or salt? crap- one second....nope, definitely powder)
Ground chili powder
Enough parmesan cheese to sprinkle over both sides.

To Do:

1. Combine everything but the parmesan in a big pink bowl. Mix well and let sit for about two hours.
2. Set Broiler to High, place chicken breasts on broiler pan, and dust with parmesan cheese.
3. Cook for about 20 minutes, or when the middles don't scream "SALMONELLA!" at you.  About halfway through, flip and dust the reverse side with parmesan cheese.
4. Do something with the leftover chicken sludge.  I guess some people might use this to baste, but is this not introducing raw chicken to cooked chicken? That seems wrong somehow, so I dumped it.
5. Con your significant other into making a side dish by being cute and appealing to his very expansive generous nature.

This served me and the boyfriend, with leftovers, because I wasn't very hungry.

On Copy Machine Tyranny

Ordering Copier Toner- Old Regime:

I call, I say my six digit serial number VERY CLEARLY.

They transfer me to Tiffany in Jamaica (no joke.)

She confirms my name, location and number, while saying the  phrase, "by the way" far too often. I don't have the heart to explain that "by the way" isn't a lead-in phrase.

One minute later, I have a confirmation that cyan/magenta/yellow toner is zooming towards me... within three days.

Ordering Copier Toner- New Regime:

Call 800 number. Follow several prompts until I reach a human. Give the human my serial number. Human tells me I need to call my local office. Gives me local office, and representatives name.

Call local office, which disavows any knowledge of said representative, and also my machine. Offers to take a message. I leave a message.

TWO WEEKS LATER...

I call again, and get processed through a phone tree, which directs me to a website.

I try to order toner through the website, which directs me to the same 800 number.

I call the 800 number again and get the following-

PRESS 1 for for supplies under a contract

1

If you have an all-inclusive contract, press 1

1

If you would like supplies, press 1

1

Press 1 for supplies under a contract

1

To order supplies, please see our website.......

At which point, my head exploded.  Luckily, my brains are cyan, magenta, and yellow, so my co-workers were able to restock the machine with them nicely.

New Digs- A List!

You know how some people say, "Out with the old, in with the new," when January rolls around?

I decided to take that to the max, because I'm hardcore like that and say, "Eff my old apartment and my hometown- I'm out!"**

**which really sounded more like "I love you" "I love you too" "let's live together!" "hell yeah!" "Yay" "SMOOCHSMOOCHSMOOCH"... but you get the picture...

Soooo, I'm moving. My last few moves consisted of:


- Hey, we have no stuff. Let's put our clothes on the carpet and search craigslist!
- Hi Mormons! we have no one to help move our stuff... Hey, THANKS, Mormons!
- Um, I'm 8 months pregnant and need help moving... oh, you have a videogame to play? Cool, I'll just be out here throwing my back out...
- Hey, thanks Marine Corps, for moving all our crap.
- Hey, thanks Marine Corps, for moving all our crap.
- Hey, thanks Marine Corps, for moving all our crap.

So I find that with my limited experience moving, I am thinking all sorts of thoughts and finding out new things about the process all day.  Things like:

1. My mom can probably carry a water buffalo on one shoulder.
2. I own more jackets than one human being should.
3. There is nothing quite so satisfying as laying on your new carpet for the first time, before koolaid and hair balls have a chance to sully the experience.
4. If two people are moving to the same place- they should get walkie-talkies. Sure, it would prolly make communication smoother... but also FREAKING walkie-talkies!
5. This:

6. I am now 98% certain that while I sleep, mischievous gnomes come into my place, and leave belongings. What else would explain how I amassed as many belongings as an entombed Egyptian king, in only a mere 34 years?
7. I am now co-owner of a Costco account. I'm pretty sure that's more legally binding than marriage.
8. I am already plotting pillow fights and hide and go seek bouts and art nights in and bad movie night and drunken Trivial Pursuit matches... and we'll have fun when the boychild is there too.
9. I can already imagine how we'll decorate for next Christmas, and hope we get Trick or Treaters on Halloween.
10. It's an adventure that I'm glad I have such an amazing partner to share it with.

Adventures in the Digital Realm

or On Being a Gen-X'er, Raising a Millenial

Boychild found a disposable camera in my junk drawer. It's there in case of emergencies. What kind of emergencies might necessitate a disposable camera? I have no idea, but I feel better with it there.

After a weekend of teaching him to sew, and then watching him operate on every single stuffed animal in the house (seriously, one poor kitty cat has zero in the way of guts now), I figured he was done making mischief.

I clearly am unschooled in the ways of eleven year old boys.

As I said, he found the disposable camera, and delighted in flashing my eyeballs blind, taking the requisite Myspace arm photo and then shooting randomness in the house. I wish I had cleaned up more.

Now let it be known that I have an entire Flickr set devoted to pictures that boychild takes. He is not new to the idea of photography. He is, however, new to the idea of "old-fashioned photography."

After showing him how a manual flash works, and after he gleefully blinded me repeatedly, and shot avante-garde shots of the coffee table (I kept warning him he had finite amounts of shots...) he turned to me, with about 13 shots left, and asked (while trying to pry the camera body open),

"Okay, how do I see what I shot?"
"Umm, well, you finish the roll, and then we go down to Walgreens, where they process it over a week or so, then you pay for the prints. Also, if you open that case, all your shots are ruined."
"Like ACTUAL prints?!"
"Actual prints."
"But then I have no idea if I took good shots!"
"Welcome to my childhood, son."
"Your childhood was CRAZY!"

Remember That Time I Tried to Write That Novel?

Sometimes, I tell people I am a writer.

This is true in a really literal way, sure. I am a writer in the same way I am a breather, or a blinker, or a walker. I have written things. Countless things.  Diaries, emails, grocery lists, to-do's, and yes- sometimes poems and short stories. I have long held this teensy little dream of being a novelist, but have never been able to get farther than 120 pages into a story, and have certainly never come to any conclusion with any of them. Either plot-wise, nor public-wise.

I always described my dad as a poet by heart and a housepainter/firefighter by trade. I suppose his daughter is a storyteller by heart and a residency coordinator by trade.  I have a small library of books intended to motivate someone to finish a book. They have all succeeded... in reminding me how hard I fail at finishing this seemingly simple task.

Even right now, I am 20,000 words behind a writing challenge. That's a literary fuck-ton of words, right there. Am I working to rectify this? Um, unless you have inabilities to put concepts together (and my apologies to those with that disorder...), you have figured out that I am writing a blog, instead of catching up on my 20,000 words. Halfway through the challenge, I believe this is what one calls, "giving up." Or rather, "giving up again." Because I've been here before. Three times, in fact.

In 2005, I checked out Chris Baty's book, "No Plot, No Problem."  I was intrigued by it's claim that I could write a stress-free 50,000 word novel in 30 days. It seemed insane, yet doable. After reading it, I decided to take the the next 30 days, and try it. It wasn't November, but April, 2005, and I got about 11,000 words into it before a work change, a kindergartener, and a crushing bout of writer's block brought on by forgetting where I was in the story and growing tired of my main character forced my hand into committing literary infanticide.

For the next few years, I was busy writing my own story by way of living it, but by 2009, I had heard that Baty had started an online crew of writers, who were doing this whole, "One novel, one month" thing together, under the name NaNoWriMo.  which is a completely silly break down of National Novel Writing Month. Which occurs in November. You know, when we all spend all of our time Christmas shopping. Or personally, when my work kicks into overdrive. Also of note in November, it gets dark and cold. These things make it hard for me to write a novel.

Recognizing a "begging-off" excuse when I hear one (even from myself!), I jumped into the fray in 2009. And tanked about halfway through. I had a killer novel that I actually loved. I got 27,000 words into it, and then I missed a week due to random busy-ness. Realizing that I could never catch up from there, I gave up. I started turning on my story, deciding that zombies were passe (of course they're passe- they were only new in the 60's when first introduced.)

In 2010, newly single, I decided to give it another shot. I logged on to the NaNo site and registered. I loved the little progress meter and the ability to see where my friends were with their projects.  I also started with a plan this time. To avoid the forgetting characters, and to fool myself into writing many short stories, I decided to have a main story that unfolded via several smaller, seemingly unrelated vignettes. I got about 12,000 words into it, before my dating life shot into gear and I gave up writing for socializing. Fail number 3.

This year, I started with no idea what I would write. I had a strategy that I would keep track of characters with an ingenious system using Flickr's ability to tag and cross-reference. I assigned each character a picture, and tagged them with words that I could call upon if I needed a refresher. It was a brilliant system. I revived the "Several short story in a bigger novel" structure, in the hopes that that would keep me able to bite up chunks of wordage. The new boyfriend was fully recruited as a cheerleader and even found me awesome spots to write, and drove me to the midnight write-in on November 1st. I started carrying my laptop with me, in case I found myself somewhere I could chill for a few hours and bang out a story. I typed and typed, not giving a second thought to what I was even typing. Plot? Who needs a plot?!  Characters? Does it matter that they are poorly fleshed out and have no discernible reason to exist? Psh!

And then week two happened to me. Sudden, total brain lock. A dark cloud the likes that I hadn't seem in years rolled over and prevented me from even desiring to work on anything- not brushing my teeth, or feeding myself, or even opening my eyes more than a slit. I had just enough energy to go to work, come home, climb under my blanket on my couch and console myself with Rachel Maddow and uber-liberal political discourse. I am currently at 5,000 words, halfway through the month. And I think, waving my white flag.

There's always 2012....