annie oakley

This weekend the "fun hog" (so called because no matter how much fun you're having, he's having more fun - some how he's made a career out of always being on vacation somewhere cool doing something fun like a hut trip or dirt biking in Moab). We were checking out a new mountain biking / dirt biking / climbing area.

The climbing area was closed. The mountain biking was epic, but fun. Even more fun was being on relatively deserted BLM land where we could shoot guns.

It looks like an elephant gun, but it's not. I'm just small compared to the gun.

I accidentally screwed up the scope by knocking it around with my armpit while I was trying to cock the gun so we took it off.

I managed to hit this bottle cap from 30 feet away first try. Then I drank more beer and couldn't hit small stuff anymore. I don't think it was the beer. It's my bad jew eyes.

Text to my dad:
"Drinking beer and shooting shit. Target practice with dinner plates!"

His reply:
"Beats having to clean up the plates!"

Safety and efficiency are my motto.

more mazatlan pics

I will be writing more about my trip, but in the mean time I've had some requests for pictures...

Crashing through the white water to get out to the break at Olas Altos...

Most of the time you don't want to be surfing the white water.

Gross. These jelly fish showed up in the afternoon almost every day. Miraculously I did not get stung.

Part of the historic district of Mazatlan, as seen from Olas Altos.

This is sort of what it looks like while paddling out to the surf break. But scarier. I almost drowned just trying to get out to the break.

This isn't even the big gun. Imagine me trying to get this thing out through the break.

"Hey, I think there's someone with a hat who might want to buy another hat!"

P discovered my kryptonite. I am a total neat freak but for some reason I always ended up a sandy mess. No matter how often I rinsed my feet or shook out my clothes I ended up covered in sand. The nickname for the Mazaloans is "pata salada", sandy feet. So I guess I must have some Mazaloan blood in me somewhere...

I LOVE mangos!!!! These awesome mangos were carved out by the mango man at Playa Bruia and they're covered in chili sauce. SO GOOD.

Mangos post consumption. Those cookies are from the Playa Bruia restaurant. They were presented to P and I with a flourish which implied they were tasty. They actually tasted like sand and sugar. I'm imagining the mango pit on the left saying to the mango pit to the right "hm, I wonder where these cookies came from." Kind of like my room service art.

Best happy hour is on top of the best western. Beautiful balcony, amazing view, but the elevator doesn't go up there so it's not overly crowded.

Cotton candy, yum!!!! And some idiotic german kids. The girl in the pic above kept striking poses on the beach. Did she think she looked cool?

My birthday dinner was here. The inside of this restaurant is a huge courtyard. Very beautiful. The food was fucking great.

Mexican divorce? This guy is burying his wife in the sand.

My mom was asking about my pink hat. I got it at REI and it's for children 4 - 7 years old. I have a really small head.

Stone Island

The first day in Mazatlan P and I went to Stone Island to watch a surfing comp. We were accompanied by Willy, a local Mazatloan. Since it's late in the season, and beach conditions were not conducive to swimming, there were few tourists. We only saw some from the shore, on a booze cruise boat.

Beach at Stone Island. It was the calmest beach, but not exactly conducive to wading and swimming.

None of the restaurants were open so Willy found a guy with a cooler and bought beer. We had pacificos, which have more alcohol in them there than in the US. They also taste better.

As we were walking to a restaurant to have some ceviche I hesitated by the side of the road and asked Willy "Is it legal for us to walk down the road drinking beer?"

He gave me a quizzical look, then said "Franki, everything is legal in Mexico".

Isla de Chivos

On Wednesday, my birthday, P and I went to Stone Island for my second day of surfing. I managed to get up on the board and ride a wave in which was awesome. As I was exiting the water a woman stopped me and congratulated me on my ride. And an older Mexican grandmother gave me a nod and a huge smile. Pretty cool.

epic surfing - olas altos

Note to self: surfing during hurricane conditions is challenging

More updates on my vacation to follow. Here's a vid of the surfing conditions at Olas Altos:

And here's surfing conditions at Playa Bruia:

Mazatlan (can't make the thing over the last "a")

Ever wake up and think to yourself  "I'm fucking tired and burned out and need a vacation and I'm turning 43 next week and still don't know how to fucking surf"?

Me too.

That's why I decided on Thursday to go to Mazatlan to learn to surf. I'm leaving tomorrow. Luckily my manager and projects I'm supporting took the news well - normally I have to schedule vacation 6 months in advance. One project manager sent me an email that said "Look out sharks! Franki + surfboard = shark injury".

Ha. Ha. Ha. It's not easy being an uncoordinated jew.

I realized talking to my friend Cam last night that the last vacation I took where I didn't do any work related stuff was December 2000. But, I was on crutches and had just had knee surgery so it wasn't a super great vacation.

In other news I decided to buy a bathing suit since I don't have one and they're kind of critical to laying on the beach and looking good. I let Kristin at swim n sport talk me into buying a bikini (Cherry Creek mall, she is so awesome - figured out first try what size I needed and I bought the first thing I tried on). I have never, ever, worn a bikini. Chaos may ensue. But it's cute, hot pink with little ruffly flowers on it (I didn't buy this bottom though, I got this one).

I look like a fucking birthday cake, fuck yeah!!!!

My manager from two companies ago died unexpectedly of a heart attack on Tuesday. He was just a few years older than me, in great shape, and the day before he died we were exchanging emails about doing a century bike ride together in California (I'd like to think I was somewhat of an influence on his daughter, who is studying engineering).

Life is short. Fuck it. Take a vacation.

oops, got my aspie score wrong

This is the result of an aspie test a doctor had me take after a woman in my writing group, who's writing a book about asperger's, suggested I might have it:

I should never tell my friends I'm an aspie

Asperger's. Yeah. Great for engineering work. Not so great when you have friends and you read their emails really fast.

Friend:
Don't read the text, just quickly look at the picture and answer the question if which chocolate bar you would give the kid.

 

Me:
I picked the milky way. Don't know why. I think they're gross. Actually, the midnight ones aren't bad. But that puffy crap freaks me the fuck out. What is that puffy crap? It's in snickers too.

Friend: 
You're not too far on the spectrum of Asp., they don't know which one the kid wants... From a book on decision making I"m reading.

Me:
So which one did the fucking kid want? If he wanted something else why is he looking at the milky way (weirdly, after you said I was wrong I looked at the pic again to see why I might have picked the milky way - I realized I hadn't looked at the kids face and was picking more due to the placement of the candy bars - but I must have subconsciously noticed him eying the milky way that he apparently doesn't want - fucking kids)? See, that's what's wrong with people. I would look at the candy bar I wanted. Doing anything else is illogical. Anyway, all those candy bars suck. I like gummi bears.

For the record, I'm a 220 out of 225 on the aspie scale and 25 out of 225 on the neuro normative scale. The doctor didn't believe me when I told him I was a consultant.

(note that I interpreted my friend's response as me picking the wrong candy bar for some reason - was distracted)

Friend:
You're good at hiding the differences.... That's from a cool book about decision making and how our heuristic processes work, cool.

Me:
But which candy bar was the right answer?????

You're killing me!

Friend:
You got it "right," the kids eyes were pointing toward it as you note!

(for some reason I interpreted the "" as not as right as I could have been) 

Me:

But it wasn't the right answer? What's the right answer?

Aaaaahhhh!!!

My friend has not responded. Maybe I drive my friends crazy.

flowers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ever since I moved into my place I've wanted to do a flower garden on the upstairs deck.

Done.

That only took 7 years. Sheesh.

I texted my dad because the line at home depot was insane. He told me that mother's day is the busiest day at home depot. Nice. Take your mom/wife to a hardware store on her big day.

Flowers in their planters. Not sure what's going on with flower number five from the end. It looks like it's retching. Too much to drink last night or maybe doesn't approve of my color scheme. I was in mad "just buy some shit and get the fuck out of here!!!!" mode so it wasn't until I got home that I really looked at what I bought.

There are some cool annuals. Can't believe I have to replant all this shit next year.

the BEST designer in the WORLD

I've teamed up with my kitchen designer Christine for my upstairs remodel. How awesome is she?

She's fucking awesome.

I wanted a vetrazzo slab for my upstairs bathroom to match the one in the downstairs bathroom. Of course I asked Christine to help me since she can do anything. At first she said I probably wouldn't be able to find a vetrazzo remnant. Then I got an email from her:

I saw these today and snapped a picture, thought of you.  They are remnants, one is Vetrazzo, the other is the sister to the smiley face one that was discontinued.  

Not only did she find me a vetrazzo remnant, she found the EXACT one I wanted.

 THANK YOU CHRISTINE!!!!!!! BEST DESIGNER EVER!!!!!

it's all my fault

Tonight I was in a restaurant with my nephew and he drew the following cartoon (based in part on drama because my sister put her dog in the car while we ate and my niece was worried about him - I tried to assure her that the dog would be fine and was probably driving around looking for a gas station). It's hard to read so I added captions (he drew it on the table in the restaurant):

"One day Aunt Franki let Max (the dog) drive"

Max: I'm going to a gas station, Me (off panel): OK

"He hot wires the car and drives to Washington State" (we're in Virginia, this is a map with the dotted line showing Max's trip cross country)

"Crash!" (obviously, because dogs can't drive)

I'm to the right of the panel saying "I thought you said you were going to a gas station!" Max is to the left saying "In Washington".

My sister is depicted to the left freaking out that Max has wrecked the car. She pointed out that she is drawn with abnormally long arms when in fact I'm the one with abnormally long arms. Max is in the middle saying "Aunt Franki did it!" I'm that potato shaped character to the right (for the record, I am NOT potato shaped) saying "Hey!"

me: How come you drew me in the shape of a potato?
my nephew: I like french fries.

Oh.

I ended the evening by climbing into the trunk of my dad's car because I was pretending to be a dead body in the trunk. My niece and nephew were very amused, the people in the parking lot were confused, and I ended up feeling car sick because I rode the whole way home in the trunk because I couldn't get it open to get out after I climbed in.

chocolate cheese cake

I made a chocolate cheese cake that was awesome. And I made it by hand with a mixer that will probably give me carpal tunnel.

Looks like dog shit. Tastes good.

And my dad really IS trying to learn how to cook. Or is pretending to so I will watch these vids on learning how to cook:

Learning to cook. Right after I finish my course on meteorology.

I remade the cheesecake at my rents' house today. Too bad we couldn't figure out how to reduce the power in the microwave to melt the chocolate properly. There were lumps of it in the cheesecake where it hadn't melted properly. Fuck. My dad tasted it and was like "Hm. It tastes like chocolate."

Perhaps he doesn't trust me after I bought him an overly large cart for his birthday. The cart he bought is to the right. The one I bought is to the left. Yeah, it's big.

can I babysit your dog?????

No beers were harmed in the taking of this picture.

"I'll just have a tiny piece of cheesecake"

Everyone's afraid to eat anything I cook now after my last batch of egg rolls disintegrated in the refrigerator and after I accidentally cooked a steak in my slow cooker for 2 days thinking that would make it even more tender.

When I removed the springform the cheese cake poofed out like a fat woman taking off a girdle. I think it's supposed to do that but perhaps it seemed unsettling to people who were offered a piece. That's the raspberry sauce with chambord in the back...

Smallest. Piece. Ever.

For the record, it was good. And my dad has been watching the food network because he thinks if I can learn to cook he can too.

I may have died and gone to hell this weekend (and by hell I mean IKEA)

That's my belief, anyway, if for no other reason than I had to put together an IKEA bookshelf. You know, the one with the weird instructions where the thing that looks like a tear drop with eyes is calling the IKEA hot line and where you have to line up like 12 screws to put on the side of the book shelf and they don't line up and then you drop the bookshelf on your toe which really hurts because the fucking thing weighs 75 lbs. Which you know because the guy in the IKEA loading zone told you as he was watching you struggle to lift it and put it into your car and then he goes "I could have helped you with that" and you don't even respond to him because you're pissed that the most important part of the bookshelf, the casters, were sold out and you watched a couple take the last set from the far end of the IKEA furniture pickup warehouse. When you checked on line the hour before there were 8 sets left.

For real. They sold out in 45 minutes?

I should have known better. I haven't been to IKEA since I was almost killed by one of their closets in NYC.

BTW, the IKEA here doesn't have cookies. What's up with that?

As I was struggling with my bookshelf I started thinking it would be really funny if that 70 virgins waiting in heaven for matyrs was a typo and when they die and get to where ever they're going they instead have to put together 70 pieces of IKEA furniture. For the record, the arabic word (one of them) for virgin is "baakira". I could see how someone not paying attention could translate "virgin" instead of "IKEA".

lemon curd cheesecake, engineer style

Today I decided to make a "healthy cheesecake" recipe (cheesecake with lemon curd) because I feel I'm neglecting my new kitchen and the dinners I've made so far have been, for the most part, inedible.

Anyway, who doesn't love dessert.

For the record I've never had cheesecake because I'm allergic to it.

Ready to start cooking! That red thing in the back is my new mixer. I was going to buy a mixer with the bowl and shit attached but the italian, who went shopping with me because he knows I can't really cook, said "why don't you buy the $20 mixer, and it you find you really like mixing shit, you can buy the $300 mixer." He also made sure I got a spring form pan. I thought "spring form" was a brand name, so if he hadn't been with me I would have screwed that up. He also showed me how to work it.

So far so good. Crust.

They left the part out in the directions about moving your wine glass away from the mixer when mixing the heavy cream. Splatters. I drank it anyway because I read somewhere the best chefs drink while cooking.

The "cheese" part of the cheesecake. It's just cream cheese and heavy whipping cream and some other shit. How hard can that be? I tasted it and it tasted pretty good.

Broke my lemon squeezer thing making lemon juice for the lemon curd. Guess I'm working out too much.

To make the lemon curd that goes on top of the cheesecake required a double boiler, which I don't have. So I rigged this up - a glass bowl in a pot that has some boiling water in it. Recipe for disaster? Maybe. No. Probably.

 Also, the directions said to cook the curd until it was the consistency of Hollandaise sauce. Since I've never had Hollandaise sauce I had no idea what that meant. I mean, who orders eggs with egg sauce on them? Meta egg sauce... Anyway, I texted the italian, and then called him when he didn't respond to my text. Surprisingly he answered even after the prank fart gone wrong. He was drinking with a cop friend of his in a bar so the conversation went something like this:

me: Hey, how thick is Hollandaise sauce?
Italian: You mean Hollandaise sauce?
me: Fucking however you say it. How thick is it?
Italian: It's definitely sticky.
me: Not STICK, THICK.
Italian: Why? What are you up to now?
me: I'm making a lemon curd and it has to be as thick as Hollandaise sauce and I don't know how thick that is.
Italian: A lemon TURD?
me: CURD!
Italian: Jesus! A lemon curd? WHY are you doing THAT?
me: For the cheesecake. With lemon curd sauce on top.
Italian: I'm not eating any of that.
me: Fine. But how thick is it?
Italian: It should pour off the spoon at the consistency of a millimeter* (obscured due to bar noises) and the spoon will (obscured due to bar noises).
me: What?
Italian: Pour it off a spoon and when (obscured due to bar noises) the spoon will have (obscured due to bar noises).
me: MY CURD MAY BE BEING RUINED! IT'S ON THE STOVE! I CAN'T HEAR YOU! HOW THICK IS HOLLANDAISE SAUCE????
Italian: Like syrup.

Feh.

So the lemon curd eventually gelled or what ever the fuck it's supposed to do (I hope). Then I realized, reading the directions (should not do real time cooking) that I needed a fine mesh screen to pour the curd through. Fuck. I briefly considered cleaning the screens of one of my windows and then remembered I had a flour sifter.

Problem solved? Maybe. At least some shit collected at the bottom of the sifter. Think that's a good sign.

The cheesecake is currently in my refrigerator "setting". I might be able to get someone to eat it. I've decided to make a raspberry sauce to go over the top of it. With lots of alcohol in it.

Bet the italian will have a piece if I offer it to him after he's been drinking. And who doesn't like sauce with alcohol in it?

Stay tuned...


*the italian is an engineer

in case you're stupid, this is the front

Tuesday I decided to take a day off work to go ski with the italian. They got at least 8 inches at A basin so it was worth the trip.

I got us rooms at the holiday inn in Frisco Monday night since my points are about to expire and we didn't want to drive up in a snow storm Tuesday morning. An american car company got rooms there too to test out their new cars. I found that out because when we pulled into the parking lot Monday night there were all these cars covered in tarps. Under the tarps the cars had more tarps taped all over them (so they could drive with the tarps on). The italian, who knows a lot about cars (I think from watching shows like "R U Faster Than a Redneck", which I watched with him Monday night after I fixed my TV remote by punching it repeatedly with my fist - the italian thinks it's not necessarily that I don't know how to work a TV but that I always get broken remotes - but he wasn't sure) said they are prototype cars and they're all taped up so no one could see them.

In case the car testers are REALLY stupid they identified the front of the car

It was a fun ski trip marred only by the fact that I have only been skiing once in the past 2 years. I invented a new move I call "the flying starfish" where the skier eats shit when her ski gets stuck in the fresh powder and she goes tumbling down the hill with skis flying. The italian gave me some coaching instructions and said I'm easy to coach, so hopefully my skills will continue to improve unless the italian gets tired of coaching me because I fall, and not just little falls, but massive wrecks.

Skiing in deep fresh powder is not as easy as it looks in the Warren Miller films.

Don't worry. The zombie knee is safe.

don't drink the raging bitch

Last night I went to the rack house with some friends and decided to have the raging bitch belgian IPA. It gave me nightmares last night, the worst of which was:

In my dream I was staying at a ski resort with my brother Bob and my sister Cat. But it wasn't an ordinary ski resort. I realized after I got there that they kept arranging the hotel around so it was hard to find my room (it was always in a different place). They were doing this because they were slowly killing all the hotel guests and were hoping no one would notice because they were so busy trying to find their rooms. The guests that were to be killed were put on these cartoon painted buses. I knew which buses were the kill buses because they stopped at the edge of a boat dock that was off by itself, unconnected to the hotel, in the middle of a field of snow. The bus would show up empty and people would get on it and then look out the windows as the bus drove off pleading for me to help them. I was mad at the people for getting on the bus because it was obvious they were going to die.

The hotel had a 4 lane highway that was the main hotel corridor. We would drive over the highway and then suddenly it would end and we would be in free fall. When we landed (the car would vanish) we would then have to take a series of elevators, escalators, and stairs trying to find our rooms.

I finally decided we should leave, but Bob and Cat wanted to find the famous hotel deli and have lunch there. Somehow I got separated from them and ended up in a bookstore that was five stories high and all glass. I found two rare math books that I had always wanted and they were only $5 each so I decided to buy them. But when I went to the counter to pay for them the guy couldn't scan the bar codes and he said, even though there was a price tag on the books clearly showing their price, that since he couldn't scan the books he couldn't charge me for them.

So he gave the books back to me and told me to go up to the next floor and check out a travel book he had written about the area. I found the book and went back downstairs to pay for all my books but the checkout counters were all gone. So I cautiously walked out of the store and no alarm went off so I assumed the guy meant for me to take the books.

Then I was walking down a long corridor and the ceiling was 80 feet high. Bodies kept falling off the roof and landing behind me. I got scared and wondered where Bob and Cat were. I started running and found myself suddenly at the end of the wooden dock.

I was like "fuck! I need to get off this dock before the bus comes!" but the bus suddenly materialized in front of me. Weirdly, it was full of people. Then I noticed the guy from the book store was on the bus staring at me in an accusatory fashion. I didn't want him to think I stole books from the store so I started putting on chap stick and avoided looking at him. Suddenly my chap stick started melting and I realized the guy was melting it by using a laser beam in his eyes and that he was going to kill me next. I looked around and there was a little boy standing next to me eating a pistachio ice cream cone.

I thought "who the fuck eats an ice cream cone at a ski resort in the middle of winter?"

Then I woke up.

don't try to buy a hammer if you have a facial injury

On Saturday night I returned home around 9 pm after a 6 hour cleaning session at a friend's house (yes, my friends invite me over to clean their houses - your point is?). I was going to brush my teeth so I opened my medicine cabinet, which has a metal mirror door. I should also mention that it opens lefty side (much to the chagrin of my contractor who thinks I should have my new medicine cabinet open right side - maybe he has a point about that).

Anyway, my toothbrush, which flashes a smiley face at me when I've brushed for 2 minutes, needed a recharge, so I reached into my vanity cabinet to get the charger out.

That's when I discovered I had a leak in the pipe under the sink. I tightened the plastic, what ever it's called, thing that holds the pipe to the sink, and then pulled out a basket of lotions and soap I have that were mired in water.

As I stood up with the basket my forehead made contact with the edge of the mirror. I wasn't sure what happened at first because I felt no pain. There was, however, horror movie style blood gushing everywhere.

I hit the mirror hard enough that pieces of the mirror, which broke at the edge, are still coming out of the wound.

Sunday I had to go to home depot to buy a sledge hammer because I'm going to fix my fence, which was broken when my neighbor's tree fell on it, with this product called fence mender. Installation requires a sledge hammer.

There was a this hammer, that hammer, all kinds of hammers, but nothing that said "sledge hammer". A sales guy who must have noticed my bewildered expression inquired if I needed help. I was like "yeah, I'm looking for a sledge hammer".

He pulled something called an engineer's hammer (engineers are so awesome) and said "this would probably work for you". Then he must have interpreted the confused look on my face (I was thinking "but why wouldn't they say in the directions I needed an engineer's hammer instead of a sledge hammer?????") as doubt because he said "Well, we have bigger sledge hammers in gardening."

Then, looking at the still bleeding cut on my forehead:

"But, probably you should buy something smaller."

Fucking what ever.

My friend whose house I cleaned, who on Sunday found my wound amusing, suggested I use my "special jew healing powers" to heal the huge bloody knot on my forehead.

Worked. It's getting better.

Now I just look like a half ass Manson follower rather than someone with a huge bloody lump on the forehead.

In conclusion, I need my fucking bathroom redone like yesterday.

super taster meets fat viking

It's not easy being a super taster like I am. Your reputation tends to spread. Which is why a friend of a friend of a friend asked me to taste test his micro brew beer.

Skinny girls drink fat viking???

The beer was good. But not quite Caution or Wit's End breweries. And not just because I can't ride my bike there because there is no "there" yet for this dude (he hasn't officially opened yet).

In other news, if you go to Wit's End, the Italian invented a new drink. Mix Jean Claude Van Blonde with the Super FL (pronounced "fly) ipa. Guess it could be called the Italian Stallion. Make sure you stare at the Mr. T plate when you drink it.

opera Denver style

Last night my italian friend took me to see Don Giovanni. The opera got great reviews and I hadn't been to the opera house before so I was really excited.

My friend has abnormally long legs so he got us seats in the back because they have more leg room (it's where they put wheelchairs and stuff).

While the position of the seats was good, the seats themselves were broken. The seat part wouldn't lower down so my ass was semi squished between the seat and the seat back. Also, my feet couldn't touch the ground (considering I have a 33 inch inseam that's saying a lot). My friend started laughing because I looked stupid and then he sat down and his seat had the same fucking problem (though he could put his feet on the ground). I started laughing hysterically and couldn't stop (perhaps this was in part because we drank a bottle of wine before the show).

Then the opera started and our translators didn't work (the translator is mounted on the back of the seat in front). That made me laugh (silently) even harder. The woman sitting next to me was drinking nyquil out of a bottle and coughing. The guy sitting next to my Italian friend was wearing a "JC Penney's dress shirt" which he found "distasteful and horrible" so he was trying to not touch the dude's shirt.

My Italian friend was quietly trying to translate what was going on (I'm italian too but only know bad words) but obviously he couldn't explain everything. Towards the end of the first act he just said "it's almost intermission".

As soon as the lights went up the nyquil woman tried to get out of her seat but was having a hard time (she was not thin and her seat was broken too, just not as bad as mine). I started laughing again and couldn't stop. I also had to pee so we ran across the street to The Office and then my friend decided maybe he shouldn't take me back for the second act since I couldn't stop laughing.

Instead we walked home in the rain. It was fun.

herb garden bitches!

This weekend I planted an herb garden in my office.

Found this cool blue watering can and decided to buy some plants to water with it.

The garden includes chives, basil, um...cilantro...maybe parsley?...and....something else.

I'm going to use them for cooking, once I learn how. And I guess I can look up online what these plants are since I can't fucking remember and it's probably not good to add stuff to food when you don't know what it is...