homeless, but will live in suitcase

Last night my friend Cam and I went to Chada Thai for soup. Actually, we were supposed to go to Tengu but it was closed last night for a maintenance issue. She looked at my broken toe, which has a weird thing on it, which might be a blood blister, and said I should tape it for surf camp.

WHICH STARTS IN A FEW DAYS!!!! HOORAY!!!!!

And yes, I am already packed. And have religiously followed my training plan. And I've been practicing my pop ups with my neighbor who learned to surf when he was 10.

In fact today I finished the last of my errands, which included getting enough books to read (from Tattered Cover, of course), getting a pedicure (which ended up being the worst pedicure I've had since Abu Dhabi), and digging out my beach hat which is made of recycled paper but which has survived 3 trips to the beach. My neighbor came over earlier this week to watch movies with me (as a break from pop up practice) and said "you are the only person I know that gets ready for surf camp by watching surf movies and shark attack documentaries."

my beach books - for the record, I've already started reading the senate intelligence committee report on torture and it's riveting

I've also, through my end unit neighbor, met a homeless guy name Darren that I might hire to fix my back fence which was damaged when my neighbor's tree fell on it. Darren's a friend of my end neighbor's cleaning lady. My end neighbor let Darren and her cleaning lady stay in her house while she was in Costa Rica last fall because Darren and the cleaning lady's house burned down and they were homeless (the house burning down is a long story).

Darren is still homeless but has a camper and he has devised a scheme to stay in an office park parking lot because he doesn't like camping out at the local wal-marts or trailer parks. He's a bit of a raconteur and has tons of crazy stories about his life (for example, he knew Buck Owens and a bunch of other singers because his mom made vests for all the country singers back in the day; he was once given $20,000 and some city award for stopping an armed robbery in a bank in downtown Denver - he tripped the robber).

He said he wants to introduce me to a friend of his who has an art gallery on 16th Street who has visions that come true. He said "the guy is such an amazing artist that his paintings look like pictures but he won't be able to draw you even if I paid him a million dollars." I was like "why wouldn't he be able to draw me?" and Darren said "because you know things and so all he would be able to do is draw you as a stick." Um, okay. There is a side story about this artist and a table he made which Darren bought before he knew the artist. The table was possessed and caused people to bump into it and hurt their shins so Darren took it into the woods and burned it. But then it turned out the artist had made a twin table and he offered it to Darren one day when Darren was visiting his studio years after he had burned the other table. Or something like that.

In any case I've foisted the details of the fence rebuild on my neighbor. And Darren asked me to write down his stories and maybe put some of them on my blog. Unfortunately most of his stories take 45 minutes to tell and involve detailed descriptions of cars (Darren was born in a '54 something or other car), tv references, and references to events that happened in Denver before I was born so they can be difficult to follow. Darren suggested I make a video of him telling his stories and then asked if I have any contacts with TV people who could give him his own show.

For the record, I do find him more entertaining than the things I've seen on TV.

Also, he asked if he could hide in my suitcase when I go to surf camp because he's never been to Costa Rica. I was like "even if my suitcase was big enough to hide you where would you stay?" and he said "I could live in your suitcase...if it was big enough."

For some reason I keep visualizing the steamer trunks in Joe vs The Volcano...

Soprano stuffed shells

Today I decided to make stuffed shells because it was snowing outside. I also wanted to test out some of the sauce tips I picked up from the Sopranos.

my neighbor suggested adding a carrot to the sauce so I did

throwing all the tomatoes and spices and shit in the slow cooker

added the sauted vegetables and some wine instead of water (just like Jesus would have done) and added two meatballs for flavor (also a trick I learned from watching the Sopranos)

the stuffing for the shellls

shells stuffed - it was surprisingly easy - I decided to put sauce on the bottom of the pan thing so the shells wouldn't stick

then I doused them in sauce

out of the oven - they're really good! I brought some over to my neighbor

dear grubhub - STOP

Grubhub is becoming a worse influence on my than my fitbit (how is that even possible).

So, grubhub, listen up, because I am being TOTALLY serious (even though I'm lying actually).

I don't need ANY MORE COUPONS FOR SUSHI.
I don't need to know about new sushi places that deliver to my house. Especially if they have a 4 star rating. And are trending a roll that's like a philadelphia roll but it's covered in tempura and has that stuff that looks like cheez whiz, but isn't, on top of it.
BECAUSE THAT SOUNDS FUCKING YUMMY.
And from order to delivery only takes 20 minutes. How is that even possible? Restaurants don't serve that fast.

it was like I had no control over my body and someone else ordered a bunch of sushi including that tempura philly roll with that orange stuff that I love on it

In short, grubhub, I HATE YOU. Which is to say I love you but you're no good for me. I can't eat sushi every night until that new sushi place opens that's only 5 blocks from my house and I'll have to walk there but that's okay because I love to walk as much as I love sushi.

Fucking technology.

so long Jake

I picked my friend Jess up at 4 o'clock today in my new car Major Jake. She was my first passenger in my new car.

We went to work + class for dinner (goat, lamb, salad, and believe it or not brussel sprouts - my friend Cam got me to eat some at Panzano's and now I like them) and Jess paid. Then we went to my house and I turned over all Jake's maintenance records, the car stereo manual, keys, and title.

It's going to be weird going out to the garage tomorrow morning to not see Jake there. And I hopefully don't forget when I get home from Costa Rica in a few weeks to look for my new car instead of Jake. Well, I might not take Major Jake to the airport. We'll see.

I feel oddly sad, not in a bad way, it's just strange after 14 years and all the adventures we had to have a different car. I spent more time with Jake than I did with all the guys I dated in that time frame combined. My favorite adventure was driving in a snow storm with my friend Joe after climbing at Hyalite. Joe made a video of the drive but I don't know what I did with it, otherwise I would post it here.

Luckily I will still get to see Jakey from time to time. Just got a text from Jess saying "it's so nice to be able to see out the front windshield!" (her other car has a pretty pitted windshield).

To my sled dog subaru Jake, thank you for the fun, and thanks for getting me out of trouble, you were always there when I needed you. Subaru loyal forever.

another stupid (or genius?) idea

Last night I watched the documentary Marwencol, about the artist Mark Hogancamp, who created an imaginary town with dolls and stuff he finds in his back yard. He lives a parallel "life" in the town. I highly recommend it.

And that got me to thinking about the croco-diamond book, and how fucking hard it is to draw pictures of made up animals when I have no artistic talent. And suddenly it occurred to me that maybe I could follow Mark's lead and just buy some toy animals and then decorate them to look like the animals in the book, and then I could stage scenes and take pictures for the book.

Yes, I had been drinking when I came up with that idea.

This morning when I woke up I was excited to go out and try to find stuff for my fake croco-diamond world. I figured I would go to a toy store, get the animals, and then go to goodwill to get some of the other props I would need, and then get to work on my fake town.

Here was my list of things I'd need for the town:

• crocodile, plastic, must have movable arms and legs, show teeth, and be able to stand
• kangaroo, stuffed (at least 1 inch shorter than the crocodile)
• giant man, plastic, must be dressable, must be twice the size of the crocodile
• chef doll, plastic (to be the italiani), must be smaller than the crocodile
• clay (to make stuff like cringle roots and termaters)
• paper dolls (to be the crowd at the market)
• baskets
• car to be the ticky tap tap
• child's skate (for the kangapult and zippy shoe skate)
• drink umbrellas (for the umbrellears)
• construction paper
• fedora for the kangawrong
• red socks for the giant man
• glitter
• glue
• fake jewels for the croco-diamond's spine

And that was just to do a few scenes.

Anyway, do you have any idea how fucking impossible it is to find a plastic crocodile? Or a stuffed kangaroo? I went to three different toy stores, nothing. Target, nothing. I couldn't even find tiny baby mittens for the whitey biteys. Pretty much the only things I managed to find were construction paper, glue, and some markers. Which gets me about nowhere unless I make everyone out of construction paper which could take the rest of my natural life.

Internet search you might suggest. Believe me, I've spent the past 3 hours looking at crocodile toys and stuffed kangaroos. Nothing has come up that will work for my vision of the characters, or the size requirements. How is it that a guy can buy a stuffed animal to have sex with and I can't find a cute stuffed kangaroo?

Then I also remembered that Mark was sort of an artist before he built his town, and he's pretty crafty. Me, I couldn't even make a hand turkey at thanksgiving. Every craft I've ever made has ended up glued to a table or worse.

So maybe I should stick to drawing for the moment...and maybe some other great idea will pop into my head to illustrate my book...

my new car - major jake

My new car was finally ready today. My neighbor gave me a ride to pick it up and I think she was more excited than I was when she saw it.

The car is about the same length and width as Jake, but it's a lot taller.

my new car at the dealership

inside interior - smells like leather!

my new car next to Jakey

this pic does not do the size difference justice...

Pretty excited about my new car!!! Can't wait to take it to the mountains to see how it does in the snow!

Area 51

I've been reading this cool book that my dad recommended called Area 51 (here's the interesting back story about the book). I'm only 80 pages in but have found out some crazy stuff...for example...

The crash in Roswell was real. But it wasn't an extraterrestrial space ship. It was a Russian craft and that's why it was covered up. The craft was flying in that area because there were a lot of sensitive military installations there.

Something else interesting...Russia was paying attention in the late 40s and early 50s when UFO mania was sweeping the US. Of course it was partly because they crashed their "UFO" (at Roswell) but they also were interested when the hysteria happened over the radio broadcastof war of the worlds (when people thought the US was really under UFO attack). 

In any case they started a campaign to encourage the UFO mania in the hopes that they could some day launch a real attack and get away with it because they thought the US gov was not taking UFO sightings seriously. The US, however, was taking them very seriously though they dismissed them in public. 

The reason the gov started secret programs like Project Blue Book to investigate UFOs was not because they thought they were extraterrestrial but because they thought they were Russian incursions in our air space. That was especially true after the Russians found out about the U2 flying over their airspace (US was worried about a retaliation). And the US was worried about public backlash if people found out the Russians were flying over the US and the US was doing nothing in response.

So how weird is that? Ufologists thought the US gov was covering up real UFOs and it turns out they were just worried about a Russian attack...haha!

It is noted in the book that there were some UFOish phenomena that could not be explained... 

luckily unlucky

I was supposed to go pick up my new car today. The side panels to protect the doors finally came in. But then...

...my sales guy called me around 2 PM today and said that while the side panels were being installed one of my doors got scratched. So my new car is now at a body shop getting the scratch fixed. I'm said that I'm not getting my new car today but for my inconvenience I'm now getting the side panels for free which just saved me $400.

All's well that ends well. Though my dad has me paranoid that the paint repair will be noticeable.

my 2015 new year's resolutions

1. I will quit being paranoid that every time I buy AA or AAA batteries at the store the check out person thinks the batteries are for a vibrator. For the record I do not own a single sex toy or any pornography.
2. I will stop picking up produce at the grocery store and pretending I'm trying to see if it's ripe or not because I honestly have no idea and no one in the produce department is watching me thinking "wow she must be a great cook because she's really checking out the produce to make sure it's ripe, I'm so impressed."
3. I will use my new rower at least 4 days a week to build up my arm muscles in the hopes that some day I may be able to carry it upstairs.
4. I will stop obsessing about my fitbit (caveat: I'm getting the one with the HR monitor as soon as it comes out so I might obsess about the new one for a week or two) and having my feelings hurt when it chides me to get in 500 (or how ever many) more steps. My fitbit is just a little computer and it actually doesn't care how much I work out. So stop taking it personally. And being obsessed with getting badges. It's stupid. No one cares if I got the India badge. Australia badge, though, that will be impressive. Did I just say that? Stop. With. The badges.
5. I will only order sushi delivery once a week. Or less. Did I mention a restaurant opened near me that delivers sushi? Have I died and gone to heaven? No. And if I really want to eat sushi three times a week I should walk to the restaurant except for once a week, or less, when they can bring it to me. Once a week sushi delivery isn't excessive is it?
6. I will learn to meditate without my mind immediately filling with that 1970s United Dairy Farmers radio commercial playing in my head. UDF. United Dairy Farmers. Your neighborhood food store. Fucking stop it already.
7. I will learn to harness the powers of my droid maxx because my brother Steve said my phone should be able to do almost anything for me (if my phone orders sushi delivery without my knowledge that's not my fault...is there an app for that? I hope not because I might install it by accident not knowing what it does).
8. I will complete my cooking class and my astronomy class by February.
9. I will eat 2 carrots a day and will eat asparagus at least 4 times per week instead of just eating arugula all the time. Anyway, the arugula sucks lately.
10. I will stick with my disgusting herb treatment until the end of March and will complete 3 more acupuncture treatments and will take it seriously and stop thinking "and after this I get to drink some toenail tea" when I'm supposed to be embracing positive energy and universal light and all that shit. For the record, the tea tastes awful.

So here goes 2015!

finally closer to 2015

This past week I've been very busy updating my stuff.

I finally got a "smart" phone (droid maxx) because 1) it was free and 2) my brother Steve got me addicted to freakonomics and other podcasts that I couldn't listen to on my blackberry. When I went into the Verizon store the guy who helped me said "we've been waiting since July of 2013 for you to come in." I asked why and he said I was their only customer that still had a blackberry. He insisted on checking to see if I could get any money for my blackberry (answer: $0).

Also, since I sold a bunch of stuff on craigslist and because they were on huge sale I bought a rowing machine. It was pretty easy to put together, but I'm not entirely sure where in my house it will end up. Right now it's in the kitchen. I can just hear my architect saying "why are you trying to turn your kitchen into a gym?" I just used it for 15 minutes (got to build up my arms for surf camp!!!!) and have a feeling I will not be able to lift them tomorrow.

On new years day my friend Cam and I went to see the movie Wild in a theater. I realized it has been about 10 years since I went to a movie theater. The movie was good. Maybe I should go to the movies more often. She also took me to dinner on Saturday and lunch (columbian place that just opened near her house) on Sunday. In exchange I helped her organize her garage which also involved cutting a bunch of carpeting up into pieces that we could put in her trash cans. And I got 8 really nice ceramic pots as a result of the garage cleaning (Cam didn't want them anymore). I'm going to use them for my herb garden this summer.

Finally, and this is the real shocker, I bought a new car. It's a xv cross trek. I had some extra things installed so I'm hoping I can pick the car up tomorrow or Wednesday. I bought the car on Friday, which ended up being a good thing because I was the only customer at the dealership. It's sapphire blue with a leather interior.

When I walked into the dealership I was immediately approached by a sales guy and I said "I haven't been in a car dealership since 1999 and my brothers were scaring me about how horrible it might be to buy a new car." Luckily the sales guy was nice and walked me through everything. He did seem a little terrified on our test drive because I kept driving through the slushiest, snowiest, iciest patches I could find on the road (survey is out on the stock tires for my new car, may just sell them and get Michelins which I have on Jake and love). Anyway, the car only has 3 miles on it (from my test drive).

I would also mention as I was leaving the dealership they said "see you in 14 years!" since I kept Jakey for 14 years...

urban herbs

Since it's new year's eve I decided to do some self maintenance so at noon I went to Urban Herbs for some acupuncture. I know what you're thinking and you're wrong. The place has real chinese herbs and has nothing to do with pot.

Anyway, Chloe gave me an assessment and then said I needed two acupuncture sessions. The first 15 minute session was to treat the "trauma" of fucking up my knee (that is actually typical of eastern medicine, they treat not just the physical injury but also the emotional injury). Trauma, in my case, was treated by having a bunch of needles stuck near my elbows and wrists, in my abdomen (I hate that) and above my knees.

While I was being punctured I was supposed to "breathe negativity out and inhale positivity". I was not sure exactly how to do that so every time I exhaled I said to myself "out with the old" and when I inhaled said "in with the new". Except that I kept saying "out with the old" when I was inhaling and vice versa. Even my thoughts are uncoordinated.

Also, Chloe threw a blanket over my feet to keep them warm and it was hitting the middle toe on my left foot which I broke last friday when I dropped my vacuum cleaner on my foot (don't ask, it was a freak accident). It's almost twice the size of my other toes and has an interesting grey black color to it. I would mention my Fashion Nails pedicure DID NOT chip. Thanks Vicki!!!!

Then came time for the energy enhancing treatment acupuncture thing. That was supposed to increase blood flow or some shit. I missed the explanation because as she started the explanation she was sticking 9 needles on the inside of my ear. That was pretty horrific. Also she put needles around my knee, in my face, in my ankles and feet, and in my wrists again.

After sitting there like a deranged pin cushion for another 15 minutes I was free to go. But not before being talked into buying some herbs. The concoction she made up has, among other things, peony tree bark, rehmannia root, alisma rhizome, sour jujube seed, zizyphus seeds, indian bread, and silktree bark. I've never heard of any of those things either. I'm guessing I'm allergic to all of them but we'll see.

The herbs come in a packet that you boil in water for a while. I think I boiled it wrong because there was supposed to be 8 cups of liquid and I had only 1 1/2. I added more water and am hoping for the best.

smells like a slow cooked shoe sole with some dog food thrown in - also, some items in the packet look suspiciously like toenails

I'm going to try it tomorrow, first thing in the morning, just in case it makes me puke.

getting rid of shit

This week I've been focusing on getting rid of things that I don't really need. I used craigslist to sell some things which kind of sucks because people are so fucking stupid and rude. I've yet to have someone turn up at the time they said they would come (if I was waiting 30 minutes, I understand - of 4 people who came by one was an hour late, two were over two hours late, and my fourth person is headed for the record at 3 hours late, if he shows up).

 I would add that as a person who isn't very big I feel much more comfortable with people coming by during the day than the evening. I am not too happy about strange guys wanting to come by my house at 830 or 9 o'clock at night. I've taken to carrying my mag flashlight into the garage (most of what I'm selling is in the garage) just in case.

And I get the dumbest questions. For skis listed as "women's volkl queen attiva blah blah skis" I received 5 emails (I'm not kidding) with the question "are these skis for women?" No, I just listed them as women's skis to fuck with you, and I guess "queen attiva" didn't clue you in that they are women's skis and apparently you've never heard of google so you could look them up and find out in case you doubted me.

I won't even mention the email from a person asking if my 22 foot ladder could be extended to 23 feet. Yeah I will, because that was the stupidest thing ever.

I will say though that once the people did show up they always had a good story about why they were buying something. Maybe made up, maybe not. The guy who bought my ladder needed it to fix a problem with his roof due to all the snow we've had and he just bought his house so he couldn't afford a new ladder (nod to that). The guy who bought my cruiser got it for his mom. He's worried she isn't exercising enough.

And the woman who bought a ski set I listed (it was my original skis, boots, and poles from when I first moved here - I listed the set for $20) got it because her daughter gets a  free ski pass through school and she wants to ski with her daughter. She works with the school system and her husband works with the homeless so they have no money (but 4 kids). She said my listing was a christmas miracle to her and she gave me a big hug after we closed the deal. I actually felt bad charging her so I told her she could have everything for free but she insisted on paying me. I am going to donate the money back to her school.

She brought her daughter Katie with her, who I would guess is around 8. Katie walked into my house and said "I love this house! This is what my house would look like!" so of course I liked her immediately. She asked me questions about my pictures and shark teeth and nesting doll while her mom tried on the ski boots. Then she buried her nose in a book while her mom and I talked about boring adult stuff. Kind of reminded me of myself...

Then today I took some jewelry in to get rid of it (wedding ring, wedding earrings, etc) and the guy at the jeweler's took a shine to me because I am, to quote him, the first woman to come into his store and show more interest in his crystals and fossils than the jewelry.

After we completed the transaction he brought me into the back of the store and showed me, among other treasures he's found, a femur from a huge dinosaur, a vertebrae from a huge dinosaur (he dropped it a year ago and showed me the inside, it was crystallized and looked like gemstones, very cool), a dinosaur tooth (I said I would guess the tooth belonged to a meat eater based on my knowledge of shark teeth and he said I was right), and a very cool square rock with an entire fish fossil in it. BTW, he talked to a guy at the museum of natural science (who's also a client) and he said to store fossils in tupperware with a cup of water and a towel over the fossils to keep them from decaying.

Then he said I should stop by the store any time so he could show me the new things he's found (I walk by his store almost every day). He and his wife just bought 40 acres of land in southern colorado and they are finding all kinds of things. Also, his kids just got him a state of the art drone so he will find even more stuff (we talked about search grids, it was fun).

Planning a few little adventures for new year's eve tomorrow...

I cook drinking game

My chef friends has been hanging out in my kitchen while I cook, I would presume because I give them alcohol and food. They invented a drinking game on Friday to help with my cooking skills. They had to take a drink if I did any of the following:

• Turned on the wrong burner
• Washed something (e.g. a measuring spoon) and put it in the dish washer and then had to take it out of the dishwasher to use it again (two drinks if I rewashed it after taking it out of the dishwasher)
• Said "oops, fuck!" while in the vicinity of the food I was cooking
• Ran the garbage disposal (one of my friends said I run the garbage disposal "excessively" - is running the garbage disposal 3 times in the space of thirty minutes excessive???)
• Sprayed disinfectant in the sink, then wiped down the sink with dish soap while in the middle of prepping food (two drinks if I then ran the garbage disposal - my friend who owns a restaurant said I am welcome in his kitchen anytime to clean)
• Vacuumed the floor in the middle of food prep
• Asked my CIA trained chef friend "is it supposed to look like that?" or "is it supposed to smell like that?"

Anyway, my technique is getting a lot better and I hopefully won't end up going broke buying alcohol for my friends.

more cooking, and a cleaning disaster

Yesterday I made green chili chicken in my slow cooker, partly from a recipe, and partly from shit I decided to throw in. It was really good.

Today I took the left over green chili chicken and am making chicken soup. It tastes really good, though I'm going to let it simmer for a few more hours.

my neighbor has already brought over a bowl - I promised to share the soup with him

I think I've got cooking down. I made food in my slow cooker, on the stove, and in the stove. I have 10 recipes that I managed to make without fucking them up. And for the first time in my life I can make a recipe based on stuff I already have in my kitchen instead of having to go to the grocery for the ingredients.

Of course, with the good comes the bad. There was a spot of some ick stuff on the bottom of my oven. I was going to clean it manually but my secretary suggested I use the self clean function and save myself the work.

I don't know how self clean normally works, but with my oven it was a disaster. The oven automatically locked after I turned on self clean and I couldn't shut it off. Minutes after I turned on self clean my house filled with the worst smell ever. My eyes started to water from the fumes and I felt sick. I turned on my hood fan as high as it would go, and that kind of helped. Then I went for a walk to get some fresh air.

After self clean shut itself off I turned my heat down and opened the back door. Three days later the house smells like it normally does (except for the cooking food smells, which are not normal). I'm just going to clean my oven manually from now on. Fucking self clean feature...

more food adventures...

I've been working with my chef neighbor on my cooking skills this week. I realized that maybe I can't learn to cook the way a normal person can, and I have learned more failing on recipes than succeeding. One of the things we did yesterday was to go through a recipe I made that failed (that horrible chicken) and figure out why the recipe failed (turned out I was right about the vinegar and red wine not being a great match for chicken, and the chicken smothering the vegetables so they didn't cook).

After going through one recipe I went through 20 more with her and tried to predict whether it would be a good recipe. I guessed right most of the time. So today I decided to make a recipe for enchilada orzo. It's vegetarian.

smells good at least! will know in 3 hours if it sucks

And I also decided to make a spinach quiche:

actually, it's two quiches - I didn't read the directions right and got normal crusts instead of deep dish crusts

There were a few disasters in the making. First, I didn't realize the frozen spinach was supposed to be defrosted. Then, because I was splitting the recipe into two quiches, I didn't have enough eggs so I had to add an egg to each quiche after I poured the original eggs in. Well, the new eggs didn't blend with the old eggs so I had to kind of whisk them in which is not easy to do in a already filled pie crust. I think it will be okay though.

they look good, and smell good, they have to cool for 10 minutes and then I'll see if they taste good

I also was worried the timing would be off because I used regular pie crusts instead of the deep dish one...

Well, just had a piece of quiche. It's fantastic! I think I'll bring one over to my chef neighbor's house tonight. She invited a bunch of us in the neighborhood over for a christmas turkey dinner.

dinner party, take 3

Yesterday I was looking at quiche recipes when I got a text from one of my neighbors who was supposed to come to my dinner party. He asked if he and his wife could come by and I was like "of course!" because I had meatballs and sauce that could feed an army. First, I would mention that they loved the spaghetti and meatballs (he had three helpings). Second, I would mention that the french bread was good right out of the oven but by the next day it was rock hard. My chef neighbor said it's not my fault, it's the dry climate, and maybe to add some gluten next time. Considering it took me 12 years to find tahini in the grocery, I doubt I will be able to find gluten.

Anyway, it turns out my neighbors blew off my dinner party to watch the broncos game (even though they were the ones who suggested we have the dinner party on Monday - ?????). I had gone to a new restaurant in the neighborhood, Dunbar's, with them on Sunday and the husband was trying to explain fantasy football to me. Apparently monday was the super bowl, but not the real super bowl, it was the fantasy super bowl, and there wasn't even a real game that was played. But there's an app that tracks the points you get when your fake team does things like catch the ball and that's the game, which is actually a bunch of games and then stats are collected for the fake game but only certain people can be in on your fake game because everybody who wants to play fantasy football would be too many people for one game. Or some shit like that.

On Sunday the husband's football team was winning but then, as he said, "it all fell apart" on Monday night because his defense got negative points which he said never happens and his quarterback only got one point. Don't ask me to explain. His wife thought he got bad luck because he blew off my party to watch football (or, fantasy football, that point was not clear to me). He lost $600.

Then my other friends who were supposed to come to the party showed up too. They said they were too tired after skiing yesterday to come by. When I was like "why didn't you text?" one said "we were on BPT" and I was like "what's that?" and he said "black people time" (after they had a few glasses of wine I found out they had fallen asleep at 5 pm and didn't want to admit it because they're almost 20 years younger than me and always teasing me for leaving dinner parties early to go to bed - I would add that was not a racist comment, they are both black). They liked the dinner too. And even though the recipe said it served 10 people I have only a little bit of sauce and one meat ball left.

Then we watched one of my favorite movies In The Loop.

dinner party, take two

I invited some friends for dinner this evening. I made homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs (recipe from the Jewish - Sicillian cookbook my dad gave me), plus a loaf of bread.

First, let me mention, it was not only edible but really good! I'm shocked.

gross - raw meat - the secret ingredient for these meatballs is to use wonder bread instead of bread crumbs

frying the meatballs - I only put a few in the pan at once to make sure I didn't burn them

I froze half the meatballs and put the rest in the sauce

spaghetti sauce - I added red wine because no Italian makes spaghetti sauce without wine

loaf of french bread, got the recipe from high altitude cooking blog - it is a "can't fuck it up" recipe

for the first time ever in my life a loaf of bread I made rose

I called my neighbor, who is a chef, to see if the loaf was cooked - it was!!! - and she brought me a huge piece of homemade coconut cake, made from a REAL coconut that she grated

The only problem with this great dinner? None of my guests have shown up yet. I know two of them went skiing today. Maybe the rest were scared off by stories of my last dinner disaster...

a collaborative christmas

My friend Jeffy sent me this picture, and my neighbor came up with a great caption for it and sent it to his friends as a christmas card:

it's hard to find out what Santa's bringing you for Christmas

finally, a success in the kitchen

Today I had to go into the office for "healthy snacks day" (no, I'm not in kindergarten). I have been stressing for a week about what to bring. I decided to make oatmeal raspberry cookie bars because they are easy and usually are edible.

The VP brought sushi that was store bought. One male colleague brought nothing and the other male colleague brought these weird potato chips made by injecting the potato with air or some shit. Even dipping them in the hummus he brought could not correct the styrofoam taste.

My admin brought gingerbread that she had made in the microwave (chewy....beyond chewy).

I mention this to say, in the healthy snack competition, I didn't have a ton of competition.

In any case, after I got home I received the following email from the VP:

VP: Your pastry was awesome! You left before I tried them and then exclaimed "who made this?" Delicious! You have a food future as a pastry chef.

 (question: are cookie bars pastries? I honestly don't know)

Me: Thanks! I'm not sure about the future in food though. Those oatmeal bars are the first thing I've made this year that was edible. [My admin] is helping me with my cooking skills.

VP: Well...stick to pastry as you obviously have a knack for it. Thanks for bringing them in!

I will also mention that besides giving me the nicest gift bag (travel size sanitation wipes, a box of band aids, a freezable gel pack for my knee that can get through airport security, a small pen that fits in my back pack, and a stress ball) she also printed out the above email and put it in a little frame so I can hang it in my kitchen. 

if you're a moron, shop at amazon

After weeks of trying to figure out and research good presents to get for my family I was finally ready yesterday to get them ordered. I got all of my shopping done except for my mom's gifts, which I ordered today. I ordered a gift for my dad and my brother from amazon.

As I was ordering my mom's gifts today, however, I realized that I accidentally had my dad and brother's gifts sent to my house. For my dad's gift (spoiler alert), no big deal, it's the sopranos box set so I can easily ship it to him (I got him something else too). But my brother's gift is, without giving it away, heavy and not easy to ship (i.e. I couldn't take it to the local post office or even UPS, and reshipping would cost a lot of money). I was like FUUUUUUUUUCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!

So I tried to change the address through amazon's web site. No luck, because the gift was already in shipping. I called them and spoke to someone in customer service. She tried to change the address but couldn't. She redirected my call to the retail department and there a very nice woman Janelle told me she also couldn't help me. I asked if I could have the number for the shipper in the hopes they could change the address but the gift had not been assigned to a shipper yet.

I must have sounded really sad, or maybe Janelle was bored by my sad tale of trying to get my baby brother something cool for his birthday/Christmas (and that his birthday is on christmas) and totally failing because she finally said "look, I'm going to keep an eye on this order, and as soon as it's assigned to a shipper I will call them and change the address". Right at that VERY MOMENT the shipper was assigned. Seriously! Good thing I kept talking to her...

Anyway, I gave Janelle the right address, she called the shipper and had them change it, and said she'd double check the order when the tracking number comes in (I will as well, obviously).

BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER. I've already sent a note of thanks to amazon for her help.

Anyway, if you're an idiot like me, shop there.

Speaking of shopping...

I was at safeway yesterday getting "groceries" and Ms. Catherine was at the check out so I went to her line because Ms. Catherine is the greatest. She laughed when she saw my groceries and said "you got more stuff there for cleaning than eating!" In my defense, they were having a big two for one sale on cleaning products. As I tried to justify myself she said "honey, you're in a BMZ!" and I was like "what's that" and she said "black mama zone!" Then she sent the girl bagging my "groceries" to produce to get me some bananas.

I froze the bananas and put half of one in my smoothie this morning. That didn't work out too well. Not sure what I did wrong but even after adding two cups of rice milk the smoothy was so thick I could hardly drink it with a straw...

sex and submission: the art show I went to last night

A few weeks ago a neighbor invited me to his gallery for an art show. I told him I would go because he lives in a cool building and I wanted to see the inside. He also said the show was for up and coming young artists. I was imagining an evening of crap wine but cool art.

Then, when I talked to him a few days ago to confirm I was still invited, he mentioned that there would be some "performance art". He wasn't kidding. Most of this blog will be pictures, because I'm guessing you won't believe what happened at the show.

First of all, my neighbor said the show was from 7 - 9. I figured I would show up at 7:20, hang out for 40 minutes, and be home in time to watch Shelter (the surf movie, not the other movie). But when I got there they were still setting up. I was embarrassed and apologized for being early and Errol said "don't worry, the night is evolving". No shit, as I soon discovered.

I helped this really cool Korean artist, who was running the show, get everything set up. That's when I started noticing that all the art had a bondage or bitter naked woman theme. One painting (for $1800) was a close up of a woman's ass, with a fart coming out of it that said "fuck you!"

Then one of the artists tried to hang some light thing he created on a metal beam going across the ceiling (he couldn't, in the end, get it to stay). I stood on a short ladder and watched as he pulled himself up to the beam. It was terrifying. Even worse was when he climbed down. The floor of the gallery is concrete and I was imagining something horrible happening. Unfortunately I got no pictures of that because I was spotting the artist as he was hanging from the beam.

you can see the rope still hanging from the beam and how high up it is - the artist that climbed up to the beam is on the left, standing on the stairs

Then the next "performance" piece started. A dominatrix from the red hand gallery wrapped her "slave" in plastic and then red duct tape and then put her on a massage table and, in turn, tickled her feet, pinched her toes hard, and tied a balloon to her.

"slave" bound up in plastic and duct tape - that's salsa chicha taking a picture - she was a very nice drag queen who hung out with me the first half of the show so she could explain what was going on - she also complimented my eyelashes

"slave" with a balloon tied to her

while this part of the performance art was going on many of the women in the group started donning "costumes", like this leather straight jacket the woman to the right of Salsa Chicha is putting on

Errol asked me what I made of the plastic wrap piece and I said I thought it was showing how women are bound in society and not able to be free. I had some theories about the red tape representing menstruation and how babies also trap women. The feet tickling and feet pinching I thought represented an abusive relationship. Finally I thought the balloon represented how women put emphasis on the wrong things in their lives (their looks, clothes, jewelry) and that makes them ridiculous.

But when I asked Star (the slave) what she thought, she said "I find it very liberating to be wrapped in plastic and duct tape".

Oh.

Then the next piece started. I'll just explain with picture captions.

the dominatrix put Star in a big balloon - she then added air to the balloon to make it bigger

here Star is popping her head out of the balloon asking others to join her - I was strongly encouraged to go into the balloon with Star, I suspect because I was one of the smaller people in the crowd - however, I had no desire to get into the balloon with a naked except for a thong Star

as people in the crowd (I am NOT making this up) started disrobing the korean running the show agreed to get into the balloon with Star - he wore his boxer shorts - the dominatrix is spanking him as he is trying to get into the balloon because he's letting all the air out - I would also mention here that I have a little crush on him because he's very attractive but I suspect too young for me - as a weird coincidence he teaches judo at the Buddhist center I was thinking to check out and he invited me to come by there some time and he would introduce me around

adding air to the balloon - you can see the korean's head and Star's head as the balloon is crushing them

reinflated - and there is a third person, outside of this picture because she's totally naked, about to get into the balloon

there are now 4 people inside the balloon - apparently the dominatrix has gotten as many as 14 people in a balloon - this one popped seconds after I took this picture - Errol was impressed because I suddenly said "let's not stand here anymore" and moved to the opposite wall, and seconds later the majority of the popped balloon hit the wall right where we were standing

At this point I decided to go outside because the gallery was getting uncomfortably crowded. It was 930 by then and people were showing up in droves (the balloon thing is very popular I guess because all of the new arrivals were in a hurry to get into the gallery to see it). I asked one of the guys standing outside how he had heard about the show and he said it was posted on something he called "fet place". I thought at first he said "pet place" but he corrected me and then said "it's like face book for fetishists". It turns out he's a furry and has two female slaves (one of the reasons I thought he said "pet place" was because he was wearing a biker style jacket, but where the biker gang theme would go he had a patch that had two stuffed animal puppies).

At that point I was pretty disgusted with the people in the gallery so I left. There wasn't a single male submissive at the gallery and all of the art work was derogatory toward women (women getting a come shot to the face, tortured women cursing men, woman on woman domination). And MOST OF THE ARTISTS WERE WOMEN. WHAT THE FUCK????????????????

Also, I found the women there annoying, bragging about being someone's slave and being led around in bondage gear. Errol said I was taking things to seriously but I don't think I am. That's why women in the middle east are held down. They have to walk around in fucking burkas. I would also say that Salsa Chicha agreed with me.

Anyway, I have some interesting neighbors...

another dinner disaster!

I offered to make my neighbor dinner last night as a test run for a larger neighborhood dinner. In fact, I had 5 recipes for each day of the week and was planning a new and exciting dish for every night with the idea that I could give my two neighbors some of the dinners and maybe they would cook something for me next week.

The recipe was from a famous french restaurant, and was for red wine chicken. Who doesn't love red wine? And aren't the french supposed to have great food? The recipe looked easy, just make the marinade, marinate the chicken, chop some vegetables up, and cook. I also found a recipe which CLAIMED to be easy to mix, no fail, slow cooker baked apple butter rolls. I found that on a blog written by a woman who claims she can't cook and she posts recipes she can cook. With pictures as proof that the recipe turned out.

Immediately I was a little worried when the marinade, which the chicken had to sit in for 24 hours, smelled, well, weird. In retrospect, chicken and red wine don't seem to be a great mix. And the recipe called for potatoes, but it only mentioned pre-cooking them for 2 minutes before adding them in with the chicken.  That seemed strange because potatoes take forever to cook.

at least the vegetables LOOKED good

Here's what the chicken looked like pre-cooked. I didn't bother to take a cooked pic because it looked basically the same, only more beige. Under those chicken thighs are 6 carrots, 3 onions, and 18 ounces of baby potatoes which I cubed even though the recipe didn't suggest that. As it cooked a mild vinegar smell permeated the kitchen. I should have known that was not a good sign:

why do most chicken recipes look like botched abortions?

The chicken was SUPPOSED to cook for 45 minutes. It ended up taking 1:15 minutes to cook through. The potatoes? Pretty much as raw coming out as they were going into the oven and they were inedible (I learned on NPR this weekend that raw potatoes can kill people - same is true of raw beans - it was a TED talk about how cooking aided evolution - surprised my ancestors survived, but that could explain why I eat a lot of salad). The carrots were good but also not really cooked. The chicken was okay where the marinade hadn't soaked into the meat.

As for those fucking apple butter no fail so easy to make a moron could do it rolls?

the dough smelled good but looked like petrified poop

and I will never again trust a recipe that gives the cook time as "60 - 90 minutes" - are you fucking kidding? a 30 minute difference????? also, instead of filling my house with the smell of baking rolls my house smelled like burning paper from the parchment paper I had to put in the slow cooker

we tried, but we couldn't taste the rolls, they were too hard to bite into - I've been throwing them at the asshole squirrel who is eating my lawn furniture

So, basically my neighbor asked that I never, ever, ever, EVER cook EVER again. I'm not sure what went wrong but even my neighbor's cat wouldn't touch the chicken parts that had marinade on them. They went home and ordered pizza, which I know because I saw the delivery guy.

Sigh. I swear I exactly followed the recipes. I'm trying to not give up on cooking. But I think I'm genetically programmed to just eat out all the time. Side note, an anecdote my aunt told me at thanksgiving: my grandmother (on my dad's side) told my grandfather she couldn't cook. And he said "but you can read, can't you?" and handed her some cookbooks. After a week of eating her food he became the cook for the family
 

further signs my Buddhist mind control is working - the singing lobster, in person

My manager, who I still dislike after spending two days in person with him, gave everyone on his team calendars that he had made at shutterfly using photos he's taken over the years. I guess that was a nice idea. I'm trying to not be insulted that he gave everyone else (guys) calendars with hiking themes, and I got a calendar called "sunrises and sunsets". To be honest I do like sunrises and sunsets (perhaps an indication that some of my thoughts are leaking into my manager's head? let's hope not!). Well, the insult wasn't so much the theme of the calendar but his surprise that I had done almost all of the hikes that he put in the guys' calendars. As if women don't hike...

Anyway, I was flipping through my calendar, and most of the pictures were taken at the beach. And at the bottom of the square date boxes on the calendar, for every beach picture, he included a little graphic. For his birth month, he included this graphic:

SERIOUSLY!!!!!!! I know you won't believe me, but that is the EXACT mental picture I had of the giant singing lobster

He made the calendars THE DAY AFTER I implemented the giant singing lobster plan (I asked him, pretending that I wanted to make a calendar). And it was only while trying to figure out the significance of the month the lobster appeared on (with the help of my admin) that I found out it was his birth month (everyone in my group gets cake or whatever on their birthday).

Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe not.

Any Buddhists with ideas of what this means should feel free to let me know.

rats! delays!

First, may I say to Southwest, just schedule the 8:30 Oakland to Denver flight for 8:55 PM since the flight is ALWAYS delayed.

I had an odder than usual "adventure" flying home last night from Oakland. The flight was late, as usual. But there were only 47 of us on the flight (which is funny, because I was A47 so figured I'd be last on the plane but there were some B and C boarding passes - WTF?) We boarded by 8:50 but a baggage truck pulled up around then to load some boxes (assume this is because the flight only had 47 people on it so they had room for extra cargo). I was sitting at a window seat and watched the baggage guys SLOWLY load the boxes. Seriously, it took them 19 minutes (I timed them) to load 30 boxes (I counted them). Then we got out on the runway but had to wait for 3 planes to land.

Also, I had made the mistake of sitting in the "creepy consultant" area of the plane.That's the area where all the middle age guys in suits with expensive watches and little briefcases sit. It is to be avoided at all costs, but I guess I was tired and not thinking. 

The guy sitting in the aisle seat kept trying to offer me drink tickets (as if I've never been on a plane before and would be impressed he had so many drink tickets he would give them away to strangers) while also bragging loudly to his colleague seated across from him and in front of him about some great deal they did. They were high fiving each other and generally being obnoxious. 

And then they complained to the stewardess about the box loading guys, as if she could do anything to make them go faster. And of course they had to flirt with her and ask personal questions. I felt bad for her. 

We finally left the runway after waiting for 3 planes to land (20 minutes) and I put in my headphones and ignored the creepy consultants (I LOVE the this american life phone app) until the creepy consultant sitting in front of me (in a row all to himself) leaned over the back of his seat and said "would you mind if I put my head in your lap?" I gave him my asperger's stare until he sat back down. He moved to the seat in front of me and reclined his chair all the way back. I would have called him an asshole but I'm still working on my Buddhist thing.

We got into Denver at 12:32 am and I ran to the train (they only run every 10 minutes when you fly in after 11:30 pm) to get to the main terminal (you can't walk from C gate, which is where I was). The trains arrive in a hall like area, with a train potentially showing up on either side of the hall. 

A train showed up right away but after I boarded it the lights went out and a computer train voice said "this train is out of service". So I crossed over to the other side of the hall and another train showed up about 2 minutes later. Everyone got on it and then the lights went out again and the voice said "this train is out of service". So we crossed back to the other side of the hall and finally a train showed up and we got to the main terminal. I would add the train was going so slow in the tunnel that all of us in the car started laughing because it seemed like the stupid train was trying to prevent us from ever getting to the main terminal. One guy even said he was going to get out of the train because it would be faster to walk.

To complete this bizarre experience, as I was leaving the parking area I got stuck behind a bunch of construction trucks going 10 miles an hour. They were blocking both lanes. I have NO idea what they were doing besides causing a traffic jam.

Finally got home at 1:45 this morning.