Jeffy wishes I would learn to ride the gondola

Last night I had this really bizarre dream. And, shut up Jeffy, I know you hate reading about my dreams, but you were in this one.

I dreamed that Jeffy and I had gone skiing in Europe, and oddly the resort was at the top of the mountain, and we had to take this weird silver ball-shaped gondola thing down to the base of the mountain to get on a ski lift to go back up the mountain so we could ski down again. I know that doesn't make any sense, but my dreams usually don't.

I was worried because I wasn't sure how to get into the gondola thing. The guy running the gondola said "we take the top off and you get in". So he took the top off and we got in so now we were sitting in basically a silver bowl with chairs but nothing to hold onto except the side of the bowl. Then the gondola guy pushed the bowl off of the platform we had just been standing on. I was like what the fuck is this guy doing? we aren't strapped in yet!

I looked up and saw that the bowl was suspended to a beam by four stretchy ropes, and we were plummeting down towards the bottom of the mountain when suddenly the ropes got taut and made us bounce up towards the platform again. Jeffy was sitting with his arms spread out on the chairs to either side of him, and he had his legs stretched out in front with one foot crossed over the other. He didn't seem to have a care in the world. I was clinging to the side of the bowl for dear life and sliding off of my chair.

Then the bowl flipped over and I almost fell out. I yelled to the gondola guy, as we fell past him, that I wanted off the gondola. He said "no one gets off the gondola". I was like "oh god Jeffy, we're going to die" and he said "I wish you would learn to just relax and enjoy yourself". I said I was afraid because we were falling and the gondola was out of control so how could I relax and he said "no matter how many times I take you somewhere, you never learn to ride the gondola, and then you annoy me".

I looked over the edge of the bowl and realized we were about to hit the ground at a very fast speed. Then I woke up.

why I make fun of canadians - my fake shark attack

Sometimes people think I make fun of canadians because it's so easy. But that's not true. I make fun of them because they have this canadian way about them. You know how clothes are sold in discount places if they're defective? Canadians would be the defective americans sold in those shops.

Case in point...

I was on a vacation in St. Maarten with my friend Rita (links to other stories from this vacation are at the end of this post; they also make fun of canadians). On the second day of our vacation, after spending the day snorkeling, we went to a pizza place for dinner. We overheard some canadians talking about how dangerous it was to swim in the waters of St. Maarten. Rita, being much more social than I, interjected into their conversation to report that we had spent the whole day in the water and except for seeing some barracuda, had no problem.

One of the guys (who later in the night tried to bite beads out of my hair, subsequently getting us kicked out of a bar) said "No, it's very dangerous! Just today I saw a woman get attacked by a shark in knee deep water!" All the other canadians decided they would be safer spending the rest of their vacation golfing.

I thought golfing in St. Maarten? Seriously? For fuck's sake. Or maybe I said that out loud to them. I was a few beers into the evening so the rest of the conversation is a blur. But, being obsessed with sharks, I found it intriguing that there had been an attack. I made Rita promise that the next day we would go snorkeling to find the man eater.

Later in the evening, however, I realized that I was the one that the canadians thought had been attacked by a shark. What happened was...

Earlier that day, I had promised Rita I would teach her how to snorkel, but I was so hung over all I could do was lay on my chair 3 feet from the water and contemplate cutting my head off so it would stop hurting.

I finally fell asleep, and Rita, who was pissed about the snorkeling, decided it would be funny to put some cheese puffs between my toes. I hate cheese puffs and had been making fun of her for eating them all morning. Finally the drinks guy came around, and I managed to wake up enough to order a pina colada (hair of the dog that bit me).

Then I decided, after my drink arrived, that I would feel even more refreshed if I went into the water. I should mention here that the beach we were on was a topless beach. So, there I was, topless, hung over, carrying a pina colada and smoking a cigarette as I waded into the water. I imagine myself looking like a blond, skinny version of Bill Murray.

I waded into the water, focusing on not getting my cigarette wet, when suddenly I felt a pinching pain in my foot. I looked down and about 10 fish were biting my right foot. "What the fuck" I thought to myself. I lifted my right foot out of the water, and the fish suddenly focused on my left foot, biting me again. "God dammit!" I yelled, and then proceeded to start high stepping in the water, boobs flopping around, trying to keep at least one foot from getting bitten. Finally I am pretty sure I shrieked like a hysterical school girl and ran out of the water (spilling my pina colada).

Rita was doubled over on her chair laughing. I threw what was left of my pina colada on her and yelled "I could have DIED!" Later she told me about the cheese puffs between my toes. We ended up taking them with us when we finally went snorkeling, after I had a second pina colada that didn't get spilled, so we could get the fish close to us.

So that was my fake shark attack, courtesy of canadian imagination (bet you didn't know they occasionally have imagination).

I wish I could say it was the worst thing to happen on that vacation (besides almost drowning in the hotel pool, having a pervert lick my foot, and being accosted by other canadians), but later that week, because of snorkeling, I almost killed myself in the bathroom. For more on that vacation see http://blonstar40.blogspot.com/2009/03/hott-tomato.html and http://blonstar40.blogspot.com/2007/02/commodal-concussion.html.

Luv R/X - climbing for couples

So My Other Nine Lives is not my first two year book project...

In 2007 a guy named Dave was looking for a co-author for a book that was the brain child of my friend Joe (aka Brassy, I've written about him before - http://blonstar40.blogspot.com/2009/03/rebuttal-by-joe-josephson.html), who at the time owned First Ascent Press (at this point I didn't know Joe). The book was supposed to be a serious relationship book to help couples who climb together.

Dave initially wanted to get this girl who was a famous climber with big tits to help him. Unfortunately she was depressed and hating on men because she had just had a bad break up (which begs the question why Dave thought she would be a good co-author - see comment about "big tits"). Anyway, he was talking to my friend Will and Will sent him a link to my blog. Then Dave read my blog and asked Will what I was like because he was looking for a co-author.

So I was sitting in a customer office at 730 in the morning when I see this email from Will:

She's one insanely bright, very ironic and overall entertaining person. She could well be good for the project. As per usual, the best way to deal with her is straight up, so I've cc:ed her. FF, meet Dave and vice versa. You two have no fun together now, y'hear?

I was like, what the hell is this? Then I saw this email from Dave:

Will,

 

Thanks. “Bright” can be a bit of a liability in the molasses of the modern aether, However, irony is always appropriate, and “insanely” anything is invariably promising. It’s the next question that always gets me into trouble.

 

“But can she type?”

 

Hi, Franki.

I was excited about the prospect of writing a book, and a bit put off by the "can she type" question. So instead of doing the appropriate thing, which would have been to think before responding, I sent this:

  

Of course I can type. My favorite word to type is vagina. If that's not in your dictionary maybe you should switch to the US version of English, rather than the Canadian version. In the lower 48* we also recognize crotchless as a word.

Hi David.

*based on contiguous land mass

 Surprisingly, Dave took me on as a co-author. I was excited and put together an outline, with bullets for each chapter. I put together a schedule, estimates on the words for each chapter based on the overall word count Dave had supplied. Will must have known what I was in for, because his last email said:

Nice to see two friends having some fun and possibly work. I take all credit and no responsibility for the creative celebration or disaster that may ensue. Good luck.

(highlighting added by me)

Over the next 6 months I wrote 140 pages, about 50K words. Dave wrote nothing. He didn't even read the stuff I wrote. I would send him chapters with a request for comments, and when he finally got around to responding to my emails it was usually a one word sentence making fun of me, with a picture attached of Dave skiing, climbing, or doing other stuff that was NOT writing the book.

In the end, Joe's publishing business went bankrupt. The book was never finished. Dave never wrote anything, except to add a line that said something to the effect of  "allowing your climbing partner to have a bite off of your gas stationed purchased burrito shows you are a true climbing couple".

I recently talked to Joe about taking what I wrote and trying to condense it into a series of articles for a climbing mag. He seemed enthusiastic, but he hasn't read anything yet. 

That's why I need to paint him a magic writing dinosaur. Then maybe he'll want to write with me.

 

painting and plants

If you've never been to the Denver Botanical Gardens (http://www.botanicgardens.org/) I highly recommend it. It's almost a crime that I lived here for so long and just went. I liked it so much I bought a membership for myself and my dad.

There's tons of cool indoor plants. This one was my favorite. It's called the lollipop plant. How ridiculous does that look? And I guess I have a more than usual appreciation of people who can grow plants and not kill them. I've even managed to kill a cactus. One of my favorite cacti has some kind of mange. And my stupid white peace roses are probably dead (there's nothing but stems left, though one stem is still green) and the dirt has some kind of mold on it.

There's a whole room of orchids, and plenty of outdoor gardens to walk through, with cool statues. It was fun to see even with all of the snow.

And, hee, I had to take a picture of this person's painting. In the main building I saw 3 painters set up in these little areas where they can put an easel. She paints like me! But maybe worse.

Which reminds me, I owe my friend Joe a painting of a writing dinosaur...maybe I'll do that today...

soup!

My soup turned out really well! It even looked like the picture in the book. And I didn't die even though the chicken broth I used had expired.

I brought some soup to the FRG when we met at the climbing gym, and he said it was good.

Maybe I am learning to cook. Which is good, since I plan on redoing my kitchen, and want to justify the cost beyond adding to the resale value of my house.

dead babies, dead ambition

My brother and I were joking all last week about the dead baby painting at DIA (http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_denver02.htm#Part%20Four%20-%20Dead%20Babies%20and%20Commander%20Skeletor). So at first I thought that's why I had a disturbing dream on Saturday...

In the dream there was a completely featureless crying baby, and me. We weren't even standing on a floor or in a building. The space around us was three dimensional, and gray, but it wasn't "real" space. Anyway, the baby was crying really loudly and annoyingly (even though it didn't have a mouth) and I started smacking it, and then hitting it really hard to try to make it stop crying. Even though I was hitting it hard it didn't make a difference, the noise stayed the same. So finally I thought "I have to kill this baby to get it to shut up" and then another part of me said "if you kill this baby, you will die".

So, understandably, I was freaked the fuck out when I woke up. I knew the baby was mine even though I don't even have a uterus to have a baby. So I looked it up in my dream book and under baby one of the things it said was "represents a secret dream or ambition". I think the baby is supposed to represent my book, and even though I keep wanting to give up and just say fuck it, I have to see it through because it's going to scream in my subconscious for the rest of my life if I do.

Or else, I had too much to drink that night, and had a fucked up dream that is the fault of my brother constantly laughing about the dead baby painting at DIA.

By the way, don't shake the baby.

http://www.practicenotes.org/vol1_no3/dont_shake_the_baby.htm

puree of vegetable soup - another reason why I hate cooking

So today I decided to make some healthy vegetable soup. My friend Cam lent me a Williams Sonoma cook book with soup recipes that, she said, "even a moron could follow".

So I decided to make the puree of vegetable soup, which is leeks, carrots, potatoes, zucchini, garbanzo beans, some tomato paste, and a few other things. I used a box of open chicken broth for the broth part, even though it's been open in my frig for 4 weeks and expired 4 March. I asked the FRG and he said it was okay to use it.

Anyway, the first thing I had to do was finely chop leeks and put them in some oil. I've never seen a leek before, and had no idea what part of it I was supposed to put in the soup. So I watched this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6zHAIfyJxI. I gave it a thumbs up even though it wasn't really helpful because her leek didn't look like my leek.

Then I texted the FRG and asked if a leek is comprised of one leaf thingy or the whole stalk thingy. He said to put in the whole stalk thingy, which is not what was in the video. And he said to peel off the outside leaves if they looked "old and dry". Well, the whole damn leek looked old and dry to me. I started peeling off the outside leaves and then there was like nothing left. So finally I just chopped off the really bushy looking parts and this is what I had left. I have no idea if this is the "leek" part that was supposed to go in the soup.

The FRG insisted I get one of those rocker knives that make it easy to cut shit up if you know how to use a knife. I decided to use it today to cut up my leek and vegetables. After about 30 seconds I stabbed myself in the palm with it and changed my game plan to putting everything in the chopper thing I bought from pampered chef at the party where I got drunk because I saw some guy get hit by a train in downtown Baltimore (got the chopper back from Miss Daisy when I moved):
(http://blonstar40.blogspot.com/2008/02/bad-train-story.html).
The whole soup had to go into the blender anyway, so I figured who cares if I cut it by hand or not...

So I got everything "simmered" (not sure what that means, so I put the heat on medium and went outside and smoked for a while), pureed in the blender, and was down to the last step, when I came across the sentence "add salt and pepper to taste". What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Why don't you just tell me how much salt and pepper to put in? Because this is supposed to be a cookbook for morons! I don't know how to taste if something needs more salt or pepper!

I swear, this is why women get a bad rep. The cook book was written by a woman. Why don't you just tell me how much fucking salt you want? Why are you making me guess? Oh, I know, so you can say "that's wrong, I wanted more salt (or less salt) you don't know me at all, I guess you don't care about me". That's why guys get frustrated with women, all you ladies out there. So, next time you write a cook book, think like me, a female engineer. Add MEASUREMENTS because I know you are capable. How do I know you are capable...

Because most women can tell you how much they weighed ten years ago and what size clothes they wore. So how is it that they can't tell you how much salt they put in their fucking soup?

I may bring some soup to the FRG tomorrow if I don't die from eating expired chicken broth. I'll let you know what he says (unless I am dying from food poisoning).

speaking of "holy", my pitch letter for the holey wars

I found this doing research for my book. It's the first pitch letter I ever wrote, pitching an article Mayo and I wrote for Falling magazine. I did hear back from the gentleman I sent this to, but they never did publish our story. The story can be found here: http://blonstar40.blogspot.com/2007/02/holey-wars.html

Almost too embarrassing to read this now:

I tried to submit this via the email listed on the Falling web page but the server seems to have disappeared. No comments on the skills of the web master.

Anyway, Mayo suggested I email this to you. He would have sent it himself but he's busy right now getting Banff blow jobs and soloing something called "the pencil" (not a name to impress the ladies – even "the eraser" would imply more, um, girth). Now, take a couple of shots of your favorite scotch/bourbon/whatever before you proceed further into the ACTUAL MESSAGE:

To the esteemed editor of Falling Magazine:

I have always been a fan of your country, including the hard working Mounties with those oh so shiny buckles. And I'm an even bigger fan of Falling, as many of your articles have helped me improve my climbing and inspired me to make even more fun of sport climbers. 

Will Mayo and I have written an article for your review, titled The Holey Wars. It concerns the dangerous and unprecedented jihad going on in the climbing community against people who bolt climbs. We feel that this information will be useful to your readers.

The article includes:

- an interview with the Jewish Jihadist who chopped all the bolts on the Royal Caribbean cruise ships

- an update on the Pentagon's latest bolt technology

- a short plug for the new drink Red Bolt

- more information on the blow up doll debacle on Everest

We hope you enjoy it.

Sincerely yours on belay,

Franki & Will

p.s. if you didn't find it amusing, please have more shots and then start again, from the top, up we go...

baptist bastards

I was just reading an article on NPR about the Westborough Baptist church in Topeka Kansas. They've been protesting at military funerals against gay people and were sued by the father of a soldier who died in Iraq (his son wasn't gay):

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134194491/high-court-rules-for-military-funeral-protesters

What the fuck is wrong with these people? Though the supreme court voted they can continue protesting at funerals because it's their first amendment right, if those stupid fucks really had an issue that they wanted to resolve, they should fucking go to Washington and protest there. Disturbing the families who have lost someone in the war is unconscionable, sick, and not christian. Obviously they are trying to get media coverage, and they carry signs like "god hates fags" and "pray for more dead soldiers".


If hatred and prejudice was the answer, all of the world's problems would have been solved a long time ago. These protesters will accomplish nothing, at an emotional toll to families that shouldn't have to suffer more. Idiots. I hope all the toilets of the people participating in this protest back up and cost thousands of dollars to fix.

proposal is done!

I am so damn productive today...I also just sent off the final version of my newly revised book proposal. The last three days have been hell, trying to write a proposal that was funny, to the point, and informative about my book. It was a great exercise though. And even no agent picks up my book, I think they will laugh at at least one of the jokes.

When I get feedback from David I'll post my new proposal, for any of you aspiring writers.

And now back to writing. Finishing up the last edits on my book. Then on to the next project...a children's book about a giant, an alligator, and a kangaroo who's arms are too short. If anyone can think of a catchy title please post it in comments...

bread in a blanky

 I'm making bread again. I know you dudes are thinking, like, what kind of disaster is it going to be this time.

Well, for your information, I did things differently. When I added water to the dry ingredients I used warm water (though my brother told me that the yeast is supposed to be refrigerated or it goes bad or some shit like that, I'm going to have to research that in more detail because I looked at the yeast packet and there was NOTHING saying to put it in the refrigerator). And this time, instead of just covering it with plastic wrap I also gave it a little bread blanky to keep it warm.

So far the results are good. The dough rose this time. I just made it into a ball and put it in a towel, as the directions stated. We'll see if the ball really doubles in size or not. Hm. Wonder if I should use a lighter towel. What if the bread can't rise because the towel is weighing it down?

I also realized I left out two steps last time I made the bread. The first was to flour the dough and let it rest for 15 minutes before making it into a ball (will have to research to find out why I had to do that). The second thing is I forgot to take the lid off of the dutch oven the last 15 minutes I was baking the bread. Oops. Also, I think I only baked it for 30 minutes instead of 45.

I'll let you know how it comes out. My brother, his girlfriend, and the FRG are coming over for dinner tonight. FRG is making everything but the bread. Thankfully.

phone book procrastination

I'm procrastinating finishing my book proposal, YES, I'm writing it AGAIN, new format this time. I'm following the format from The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published. It's a great resource for any writer (I'm not just saying that because they are helping me with my book). There's samples of EVERYTHING and explanations on why, for example, a pitch letter or proposal is good. I finally started reading it after talking to David Sterry a few weeks ago and wish I had this book a year ago.

It turns out a lot of the stuff I had in my original proposal and cover letter was right. Then two editors, who are actually great editors, gave me all this advice about making my letter and proposal sound "more professional". Instead of the funny stuff I wrote they had me put in boring crap. So now I'm taking the proposal I wrote 1 1/2 years ago and trying to enhance it along the guidelines in Essential Guide.

But it's taking a long time. It's hard to summarize things. And then I have to make them funny. I can make stuff short but then have to re-edit to get in some one liners, then it's too long, then I have to fix it again. Ech.

I'll put it out on my blog when I'm done.

I've also spent the past week editing and rewriting large parts of my book. Again. I thought I would be done by Friday but I was so burned out I decided to work on the proposal instead. Anyway, the final rewrites will be done by Wednesday of this week. I think the book is funnier and I hope I've taken care of the problems people complained about (two stories had "no point other than climbing" and "not enough personal stuff"). I think the ending is much better too.

Maybe someday...this damn thing will be on a bargain bin shelf at Barnes and Noble...

bye bye phone books!

I just read an article about this great new service that lets you opt out of receiving phone books! The address is www.yellowpagesoptout.com. You can choose to receive no books or only certain books.

Who uses a phone book these days anyway?

bronchitis

Have you ever wondered what it would feel like if you injected bleach into your lungs? It feels like bronchitis, which I have had, seriously, for two fucking weeks. So much for bragging that I haven't been sick in 5 years...

Surgery, oh yeah, that thing. It's going well. I have some gross scars, a little pain, but other than that, I've fine, except that I got bronchitis. Which is the worst illness I have ever had. Especially when I have a coughing fit and this green stuff that looks like spackling flies out of my mouth. I've been told by my doctor that the spackling stuff is what's known as a "productive cough".

Great, because other than my cough, I haven't been productive at all.

I was also told that quitting smoking cold turkey right before my surgery was "a stupid thing to do" and "possibly the stupidest thing a patient has ever done". I'm allowed, by my doc, to smoke 2 cigarettes a day to help my lungs get through this difficult time. I know it seems counter-intuitive to smoke while sick, but it helps with my cough, which is exacerbated by suddenly quitting smoking.

Right, enough bitching about being sick. I promise to go back to writing interesting things in the next few days, assuming my bronchitis keeps getting better...

I give Joe the finger

My friend Joe "Brassy" Josephson was driving to the outdoor retail show the night I had surgery, but he wanted to know how I was. I sent him this picture giving him the finger (hee). For the record, because I've had frostbite in a lot of fingers, my middle finger was the only one they could get a reading from.

Check out all those jacked up IVs they put in my arm. I was like you dudes are doing that because I have good veins, not because I need them. Which made the nurses laugh because I do have great veins and it gave the interns a chance to practice. Interesting fact - new needles for the IVs are plastic, not metal. But still, I don't like having that shit in my arm. See that blue thing? That's to monitor my oxygen. I unplugged it and forgot to plug it back in...oops...I got yelled at for that.

 Joe had recently burned his fingers, so he sent me this pic of his finger in response to my middle finger picture. Of course, he's not really giving me the middle finger.

And now, I have to go lay back down on the sofa and watch a movie or something. Still feeling tired and it's uncomfortable to sit up for long periods of time. And somehow my eyes are messed up, they've been blurry since the surgery...

surgery

 The surgery was a huge success. It's amazing that, even though my innards were chopped up I have less pain now than before surgery. My doctor said that the tumors were sitting like a bowling ball on top of all my other organs and that's why I was in so much pain. And all along I thought I just had an ulcer.

My anesthesiologist did a great job (and was a smoker, and told me that he would have snuck me out for a smoke break if the doctor hadn't shown up). He gave me something he called "medicinal bourbon" to relax me. I don't know what the fuck it was, but I literally felt it hit my vein. He said it normally takes a few minutes to kick in, but right as it went into my arm everything in the room got crazy. I vaguely remember saying "Did anyone else notice that everything in the room just turned purple?" Then I don't remember anything. My mom said that I was carrying on as if I had been on a drinking bender for hours. I'm glad I don't remember what I said.

When I came to in the recovery room, I was still pretty jacked up. The nurses said I kept laughing uncontrollably. Surprisingly I didn't vomit once. The key is to take Dramamine before surgery if you are allergic to anesthetic. Wish someone had told me that 10 years ago. I'm normally vomiting my brains out in recovery. This very sweet orderly took me to my room. I remember telling him "look, you've had a lot to drink, maybe you should let me drive". He told my mom that I was the first patient he's ever wheeled up to a room that was like a happy drunk.

I stayed at Rose Medical Center. Say what you will about the annoyances of HIPAA, one good thing is hospitals can no longer crowd patients into a room. I had my own room, a huge contrast from my last hospital stay when they packed 3 other patients in a room the same size as the one I stayed in at Rose.

,

The nurses were bored because there weren't many patients on the floor. They kept bringing me stuff to eat, even though I wasn't hungry. They would show up with ice cream and then say "oh, you can't eat this can you" and then they would eat the ice cream while sitting on the edge of my bed. After re hydrating I started feeling more human and was able to show the nurses how to do a little hack on their computer system to make it easier to enter patient information. I learned how to use all the computers in my room so I could get out of bed to pee or wander the halls without setting off any alarms.

After getting knocked out for surgery your lungs get lazy. One thing I had to do was breathe into this machine to register how strong my lungs were working. My lungs were kind of shit (this is also supposed to keep you from getting bronchitis, but I got sick anyway because my mom got it, supposedly because she was with me in the hospital).

I had asked the nurses what I had to do to get out of the hospital as quickly as possible. I met all of the tasks they gave me by Thursday night, but they wanted me to stay so I did. At 3 in the morning me, two nurses, and a nurse intern had a contest with the breathing machine. I won for the strongest lungs, which surprised them because I smoke(d). Then they said I kind of cheated because I didn't tell them that I also run.

One of the nurses, Kathy, came in to see me every hour. I always woke up when she came into my room and she would tell me stories about her family. She also would bring me popsicles and as much coke as I could drink even though I was supposed to be drinking water. She kept telling me to order a sandwich from room service (yeah, hospital with room service) but I really couldn't eat anything. And she took me off the "standard diet" delivery so I could order what ever I wanted for breakfast and dinner.

When I left the hospital they didn't even make me ride down to the car in a wheel chair.

If you're ever in Denver and need surgery, I highly recommend Rose Medical Center. It was seriously the BEST hospital I have ever been in.

five points batmobile

While doing laps around my neighborhood (you have to walk a lot after having abdominal surgery) my mom and I came across this.

Weird. What the fuck is this thing? The batmobile with empty gun turrets? Oddly, on the same corner some guys were selling drugs. Maybe it's their car.

Very subtle. Not.

weird things the French eat

Yesterday I was way swamped with work tying up loose ends before my surgery. It didn't help that I had a conference call from 754 to 1030 last night...

FRG offered to make me dinner since I didn't even have time to go pick something up. Dinner consisted of potatoes broiled in spices that are from FRG's "prah vansss" and salad. If you can roll the S sound out really long when saying provence you get extra points from the French.

He also brought two kinds of cheese. One was Roquefort cheese, which I've had, and the other was Morbier, which FRG used to make when he lived in France. For the record, we americans do cheese wrong. It was in the wrong kind of plastic packaging and the sticker on the cheese, according to FRG, "is stupid and sucks". I guess in France the cheese is served in leather jackets with matching pants.

There was a very long explanation about the temperature at which you serve cheese, as well as how it's made. Morbier has this green stripe in it because back in the day farmers didn't have a big enough pot, or what ever you make cheese in, to make the whole cheese (I didn't know cheese had to be a certain size) so they would put some stuff (I didn't really understand the word) in to mark where the cheese was stopped so the next day they could make more. Making cheese is totally stressful. You have to press it, get the whey out, make some bacteria grow in it, and beat it to pieces with some metal blender thing, but if you beat it too much all the cheese goes down some drain thing. But it you beat it into too big of pieces it's "totally fucked up" as the FRG helpfully put it.

I disgraced myself by sticking a knife into the middle of the cheese and pulling a blob of it out to put on my baguette. FRG looked at me as if I had picked the cheese up with my toes and said I must never do that again, specific guidance being "You cut a whole slice, put it on your plate, and then you can spread it on your bread". Who knew... He also cautioned me not to eat the rind of the cheese. As if.

I was a little worried about the cheese because it smelled sort of like feet, and things that go into your body come out smelling at least 4 times as bad. I figured if the Morbier cheese made me fart they would have to block off my house as a toxic waste site.

He also brought prosciutto to go with the potatoes. I never had it before, and was not pleased to see that it looked like the skin that's peeled off of an infected blister. Gross. Also, the label on the package said "Boar's Head". It took about 5 minutes for FRG to convince me that was the brand name of the meat place and not where the meat came from (I have reasons to be suspicious - he told me about how in his village people drink blood from a pig right after it's been killed - "with spices" he said as if that makes drinking blood alright - you apparently have to share your blood with your neighbors and they share their blood with you when they kill a pig - I'm glad you can't raise pigs where I live).

After smelling the prosciutto and attempting numerous times to put it in my mouth, I finally ate a piece. It was like pig sushi. So gross. I told FRG "this tastes like raw bacon" and he said "that's essentially what it is". I almost puked.

He said I have to be more adventurous in eating if I expect him to continue cooking for me. So I plan to take him for sushi after I've recovered from my surgery. We'll see how he does with raw quail eggs.

Fair is fair, even when it comes to the french.

French translation

While hanging out with my French rope gun (who would have imagined I would become friends with someone who is French, real French, not Canadian French, and worse, from southern France) I've had a few moments of confusion over his English. I've provided some translations of French English in case you decide to become friends with someone French who "speaks english".

While we were driving in the worst traffic ever on Saturday to go skiing, FRG was (oh wait, I just noticed, the abbreviation of french rope gun almost spells frog - I did NOT do that on purpose) telling me a story about getting in trouble in high school while taking some test they have to take to graduate. He didn't study for the exam, but he and his friend devised a little plan to pass the test. But, what I heard when he was telling the story, was "I was accused by my teacher of being a shit" (I can see that, he's french) and "she accused me of shitting with my friend" (okay, that sounded weird, even for french boys in boarding school). I finally figured out shitting was cheating. I have not corrected him on that word, and have encouraged him to tell that story to more people because it was so funny.

He was also telling me, after skiing that he was worried about his harm. He then went on for a few more minutes about his harm. I thought at first he might have been talking about how dangerous ski conditions were on Saturday (half the runs on the mountain were closed because of high winds, and I literally could not see more than 2 feet in front of me due to blowing snow while I was skiing). I finally realized he was talking about his arm. Which is interesting BECAUSE...

A few days previous he was showing me pictures of climbing areas in France and Washington State. In one of the pictures he said "Look, that is art lake". I thought that was a kind of stupid name for a lake, though it was very picturesque and had a nice reflection of flowers in it. So I said "Yes, I can see why someone would want to paint that, which is why it has that name I guess." He looked at me as though I was a moron (that happens a lot, especially in the gym when I am trying to learn proper footwork or how to use a gri-gri). Later, in another picture, I noticed that the lake was in the shape of a heart, and realized he had been saying "heart lake".

So I accused him of randomly leaving out or adding an H to words. He said that he doesn't like to say "arm" because "it sounds stupid, and is a stupid word". So he will add an H or extra vowels to words he doesn't like to make them "sound better". He also leaves off consonants on words. He refuses to say "th" and replaces it with either an F or an S sound. If I make fun of his pronunciation he asks me to say phrases in French. He especially likes my pronunciation of my cook ware, Le Crueset. When he says it it doesn't even sound like a word you could spell.

I guess I'm going to have to learn some French so FRG can write a blog making fun of me...

my quit smoking program

So I will hopefully quit smoking starting this thursday, when I show up at the hospital at 530 am to get my uterus cut out. Fun.

Don't recommend that as a quit smoking program for everyone, but getting rid of the curse and a nasty nicotine habit all on the same day seemed like a good idea to me.