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...

faren't you glad I called?

I have a friend who purposely farts around me because he knows I will laugh like a four year old, especially when he farts on things he doesn't like (like when his tablet is running slow) or on dogs (it's not animal abuse, and when the dog runs away it trails the fart smell which makes me laugh even harder).

I have never talked to this friend on the phone. And I assumed, like me, he ignores all phone calls. One of the reasons we're friends is that we are both extremely anti-social. It's nice to have friends that don't expect you to do friend stuff. Like talk to each other in real life.

Anyway, my nephew was kind of gassy this evening after eating Indian food. I'm talking farts that sound like the fabric of the universe ripping. So I got the great idea to prank fart call my friend. Then my niece decided we should enhance the prank call with this app she has on her ipad called "big button box". The plan was, when voice mail picked up, for my niece to press the "incoming!" button and then after my nephew farted to play another button that made a toilet flushing sound.

Instead what happened is my friend answered the phone, but on my end we were all laughing so hard and my nephew was farting and my niece pressing all the buttons on the big button box that we didn't notice. Until he hung up and the line went dead.

Now, seriously. Who would have imagined my friend, who I never call, answering his phone when he sees it's me calling?

On speaker phone.

While with his family.

In a restaurant.

Oy vey.

tigers r us

My sister and her two kids are in town this week. So today I took them to the wild animal sanctuary today where there are (a running theme in my blog lately) lots of carnivores.

They aren't fucking around when it comes to tigers. They have like a billion tigers.

The, haha, cat house. These are new tigers being introduced to the sanctuary. Once they start to like their neighbors they get to be placed in an open environment. Where, hopefully, they won't kill each other. These tigers came from some facility that was shut down. They were being raised for their fur.

Cats sleep 18 hours a day. These tigers are like "fuck you non profit, I don't move around for less than $10,000 a day, raise your money some other way bitches."

Lions. "We're hanging out together because it's cold, but we don't like Ralph over there because he farts a lot." Disappointingly, lions smell like a public portable toilet. But, worse.

Okay, horrible picture, but this lion was standing around with 3 other lions when he decided to take a huge shit. Then he walked away from the group all like "Haha, smell that bitches!" My niece then recounted the time she saw an elephant pee and then shit at a zoo. And I quote: "One elephant shit is like the equivalent of what people shit in two months." The makings of an engineer because she's quantifying things? Perhaps.

Baby black bears. Yeah, I know they aren't black. But science says they're black bears and if you argue with Tony he'll spew facts at you until to freeze in the wind. The blond on the left has just fallen off those logs. The brown dude on the right is about to step into a water pond that isn't frozen. Kids, learning shit the hard way.

Oh, that's what happens when you step on thin ice. Quick, pretend you meant to do that so you could get a drink. Meanwhile blondie is about to tumble down the snow hill. Note to bear self: snow is kind of slippery.

This pic was taken in another cat house where 8 tigers rescued from a zoo that abused them are being socialized. Tiger on the left is pissed at tiger on the right, maybe because she has an exercise ball. Tiger on the right is under the hay bales shrieking like she's getting paid. Bitches starting shit and being passive aggressive. Never see THAT with humans.

 Sanctuary was a lot of fun but super cold to visit in the winter. Think I'll go back when it's warmer. I definitely recommend it for visitors. Tip: you can push them off the elevated walk way if they are annoying visitors. Pretty sure someone will eat them.

Speaking of eating:

In other news, my niece made mexican lasagna for dinner tonight under my tutelage. I let her do everything including browning the meat. It was pretty good (the lasagna). Though, I should NOT be teaching anyone to cook given my track record of ruining stoves and almost burning down apartment buildings. She also made oatmeal bars which were very good. No comment on whether she washed her hands before starting the cooking process (no). What does not kill us makes us stronger.

shit I didn't need to know about cow heads

On a related barn yard animal topic, I would like to mention a recent disturbing discovery.

In 2007 I was dating a guy who had a friend who was super rich because he designed the chairs used in the fast food place Chipotle. I had never heard of, much less been to, Chipotle so the dude I was dating insisted we go there post haste.

Initially I ordered a vegetarian burrito, which sucked. So the next time we went there he suggested I have the barbacoa burrito. It was good.

During the barbecuing of my egg rolls last week a conversation ensued between my friend, who is an amazing cook, and this red head dude (who can supposedly steal souls because he's a redhead) who does some great shit with game meat that he shoots himself and apparently drags out of the woods for miles with his dog named Doc who's never had sex (I know this because I watched him have "not have sex sex" with a female lab named Norma (after Marilyn Monroe)).

The conversation was about the soul stealer's new recipe for barbacoa beef made in a slow cooker (my friend and soul stealer are both foodies who talk non stop about food when they aren't talking about sex, motorcycles, and sex, oh, did I mention sex already, then, um, the third thing they talk about is micro brews).

I told my friend "you should totally get that recipe!" (for the barbacoa beef, not sex)

because I thought I liked barbacoa beef.

When I mentioned the need to procure the recipe again on Saturday (friend's initial response: "I cook you all kinds of shit and now you're telling me to get a recipe from a soul stealer?") someone mentioned that barbacoa is beef cheeks.

Not cow ass cheeks. Like. Their. Fucking. Cheeks. On their faces cheeks.

Who THE FUCK eats ANYONE'S cheeks?????? Besides SERIAL MURDERERS.

(fish excepted, they're just fucking fish, fish cheeks are good)

Apparently me.

Aforementioned so called friend had told me, when I asked about where on the cow was barbacoa beef, since he seems to have the anatomy down about all animals and what the parts you can eat are called, and I quote:

"Barbacoa is just a style of cooking beef. It's just steak with seasoning."

And then he took me out for some barbacoa tacos.

Which sucks because I was like "Bastard! You ordered me cow face tacos!" and he was like "And you loved them!"

I don't think I'm a serial murderer.

But, don't ask me to babysit your kids.

chickens and pigs

My group at work is using the scrum method to do some major reorganization. Basically scrum means you have 30 days to do a bunch of work and deliver stuff at the end of the 30 days instead of doing the normal project thing which is to dick around for 6 months and not get anything done. We'll see if it works.

There's a concept in scrum of chickens and pigs. It all stems from this stupid joke:

A Pig and a Chicken are walking down the road.

The Chicken says: "Hey Pig, I was thinking we should open a restaurant!"

Pig replies: "Hm, maybe, what would we call it?"

The Chicken responds: "How about 'ham-n-eggs'?"

The Pig thinks for a moment and says: "No thanks. I'd be committed, but you'd only be involved!"

Um, yeah. I don't get it either. But it bugs the shit out of me because I have to sit in 3 hour meetings where people talk about pigs and chickens. Some software person will burn in hell for scrum.

So to make things more interesting to myself I had the following exchange with my scrum team:

Team Member 1: So, the pig will be signing off on the...
me: Excuse me. Is there a kosher version of scrum? I find the reference to pork offensive.
TM 1: Well, um, see the pig is supposed to...
TM 2 (from India): I don't like pork either. It's definitely offensive.
TM 1: Well maybe we could use goat instead.
me: I'm also a vegetarian.

And that's why we now use turnips and carrots instead of pigs and chickens. Fuck you who ever came up with scrum.

 

egg rolls, redneck style

I made egg rolls on Wednesday night. I started with a recipe and went a little rogue. The idea was egg rolls that had liquid in them like dumplings.

They looked good.

On Saturday night I took them over to a friend's house since he was having a pot-luck dinner and I can't cook the egg rolls because I'm afraid to fry things because I might burn my eyes. He had been trimming trees in his yard and was burning the branches in a fire pit. So dinner ended up being a barbecue.

Which is how the egg rolls ended up being...barbecued.

um...

...yum?

People seemed to like them and ate all of them.

Full disclosure: aforementioned people were drinking.

dating again - the list

A friend of mine recently entered the dating cess pool after being married for a long time. He asked me for some advice (yes, he's that desperate that he's asking me for dating advice). I sent him a list of rules and he suggested I post it on my blog.

Caveat: I've never been in a relationship that lasted longer than a year. Which means I'm either really experienced at dating or I have a lot of lessons learned from failed relationships...

The joys of being single...I guess it's not traumatic for me since I've never had a relationship that lasted longer than a year but I'd guess it's hard if you aren't used to it. I'd offer this advice on dating:

1. Don't. Just sleep with people and have fun with your friends.
2. If you have to date don't take advice from friends / acquaintances. They're usually wrong, especially the married ones.
3. Not kidding about the throw away year (i.e. the first year after getting out of a relationship is throw away - you won't have a meaningful relationship with someone else because you're adjusting to being out of your old relationship).
4. It's more important to figure out what you can't put up with than what you can and avoid women with that quality even if they have everything else going for them (fuckable tits, nice wax job, large inheritance). For example, lots of guys 86 their wives because the wife wants more kids - I've seen it first hand, the breeding instinct can turn women into sperm zombies. If that's something you don't like avoid interest in anyone who seems breeder-ish. Women will lie like fucking roadkill and once they have you trapped try to force you into having a kid with them or worse, as just happened to a friend of mine two weeks ago, they "accidentally" get pregnant. That dude is marrying someone he doesn't really love and having a kid he doesn't really want because he was too trusting. Women are scheming bitches (myself excepted) and they'll sense it if you're naive. Trust no one.
5. Also, shit that used to drive you crazy about your ex will be amplified in who ever you are dating. For example, if your wife shopped too much you'll notice every time the person you're with spends money. This is not fair to the person you're with (again, throw away year) but it's going to happen.
6. Keep your distance. I've seen a lot of friends jump right into a serious relationship because that's what they are used to. Then suddenly they're like "fuck this, I'm going to fuck a bunch of people!" or worse "fuck me, I'm in the same relationship I used to be in".
7. Keep any relationship you have in the hole. Friends and exes are good at creating drama which you do not want to deal with.
8. Never talk about your ex to anyone you are with. Bad things will happen.
9. Don't waste money trying to impress women. They're throw away at this point anyway so why bother with a financial investment.
10. Stay away from needy women or slacker women. They're the ones who are going to latch onto you and expect to be taken care of. They'll also boil your pet bunny and slash your tires when you dump them.
11. One break up and that's it. If you guys get into more than one huge fight it's just going to be drama down the line. Get out while it's still easy.
12. Be up front that you aren't looking for a serious relationship and if things start sliding towards that (e.g. you guys are practically living together) put on the brakes and reiterate that you are not looking for a serious relationship. Women are stupid but they eventually get the message.

what's going on in the kitchen these days...

Yes, I used a level when I was putting them up.

My spice rack finally came yesterday. And the company gave me 10% off because it was so late.

brain fog drink

I also made a brain fog drink:

2 cups of spinach
2 cups of cucumbers
1 bunch celery
1 ts ginger root
1 bunch parsley
2 apples
juice of 1 lime
juice of 1/2 lemon

Throw it in the blender. Not all at once because if your blender is like mine it won't do shit. Also, cut stuff up really tiny. Otherwise you'll be blending for forever. It's supposed to make you think better. Don't know if it's helping me with that but it's a cool color and doesn't taste horrible.

BTW, if you don't eat a lot of raw fruits and vegetables it might make you fart a lot. Or so I've heard.

Finally, I made dinner for a friend:

Montreal steak in the slow cooker - it's been cooking for 12 hours now

But he decided to help a friend move or something like that instead of coming for dinner.

Hm. It smells good. How bad could steak in a slow cooker suck?