Farmer’s Market

I love farmer’s markets.  It’s the next best thing to having a garden.  Tomatoes taste like tomatoes.  Cucumbers have flavor.  You believe that the vegetables you are eating actually grew in the dirt, rather than some 100,000 square-foot warehouse surrounded by flourescent lights and vitamin-water.

Today we tried out the local farmer’s market, and though it wasn’t my favorite of this year, we found a good bunch of carrots, baby cucumbers, and a big basket of tomatoes.  My 2 1/2 year old was quite disappointed at the lack of tractors and cows, but he did proclaim loudly “There’s the farmer!” when a man brought a new bag of corn out from under the table. 

I’m hoping to get in early on a CSA next spring. 

 

More Side Effects

Check out George’s new drug generator.  Just refresh the page to see the next life-saving pill!  Don’t delay.  Talk to your doctor now.

 

Mr. P

My high school advanced biology teacher, the late Mr. P, was pretty awesome.

I mean, as a person.  I think as a teacher, he was fatally flawed. 

If anyone who attended Butte High School reads this, I should expect hate mail over this.  Mr. P was a perennial favorite of everyone.  Here’s why.

He never flunked anyone, nor did he ever give anyone less than an A.  If he was wearing his favorite green sweater (which he did at least three times a week) and you told him “Hey Mr. P, you’re wearing chlorophyll!”, you’d get ten extra credit points.  Each class he turned over grade-taking duties to a kid in the back of the room.  He’d hand the entire grade book over to said kid, and said kid would immediately begin filling in 100%’s for assignments that hadn’t even been assigned yet.  In AP biology, the kid in the back of the room who was suddenly in charge of our grades could not have been more inappropriate for the job. 

Mr. P had been going to college ever since he left high school, and when I was attending BHS he was in his late fifties.  Mr. P had a pile of master’s degrees.  And because teachers there get paid based on expertise, Mr. P was very well compensated.  At the time, Mr. P was rumored to be the highest-paid district employee, possibly making more than the superintendent.

After classes ended, you could find Mr. P sitting on a barstool a couple of streets away from the high school.  He was always friendly, always polite, and always professional.  There was just something so childlike about him.  He clearly loved learning.  It’s really too bad he taught high school students, who were too immature to appreciate this in him.  We mostly skipped class to head over to Bob-a-Louie’s for a burrito and a Coke, instead of listening him to ramble on incoherently about phlya. 

And that’s the thing about Mr. P.   He really did spend the entire class teaching.  He would go on and on about things that no one could comprehend.  He was using advanced university type terminology in front of a class full of kids who couldn’t wait to cruise the strip on Friday night. 

I’ll never forget the science fair that year.  Normally I loved the science fair.  But not my senior year.  I was way too busy having fun.  I hate to admit this, but me and my two science class partners threw our project together on the way to school the morning it was due.  (Don’t worry you two…your identities are safe with me)

Finally senior finals week arrived.  Mr. P’s biology final was a killer.  Or it would have been, had he not been somewhere in space.  The test went something like this:  On a slide projector, Mr. P flashed up twenty different kinds of fish.  We’re talking rainbow trout to large mouth bass to clownfish.  Our duty was to (from memory) write down the kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species of each fish.  Absolutely no one in our class knew a single answer.  I remember what I wrote though.  My answers were:

One fish

Two fish

Red fish

Blue fish

My score?  98%. 

 

Will I die if I eat a habanero?

Today someone found my blog by typing “will i die if I eat a habanero?” into Google. I am terribly torn up at the thought of some lost and lonely soul, peering into the seedy pith of a fiery hot pepper, debating should I?  I hate to think of anyone falling into temptation of habanero consumption, ready to dive into 250,000 Scoville units of pure tongue-numbing terror without guidance.  So I am here to tell you about the day I got habanero juice in my eye.

Yes, my eye. 

I had been dating a Louisiana native for a while, and I was suddenly really into spicy foods.  I would use peppers and spices to liven up regular stuff.  One day my dad was visiting me in Washington, D.C. and I chose to make homemade chicken soup.  While shopping for celery, potatoes, and carrots, I grabbed a little orange pepper that looked like it “could add color” to my soup.  Heck, I liked peppers.  Those green and red bell peppers always were nice.  Surely this little, wrinkled orange one would turn out to be tasty, too.

This turned out to be my first brush with a habanero pepper.  In retrospect, I think petting a rattlesnake might have been more comfortable.     

So I was there in my kitchen, putting the soup together (I love making homemade soup…cans are for losers).  My dad was on the other side of the kitchen island, watching a Western.  I tossed the ingredients into the pot.  It came time to add the pretty pepper.  I chopped it up too.  I guess I got a little to excited about tossing the vegetables, because some of the chicken broth splashed me on the cheek.  I reached up to brush off my brow.

MY EYES!  Oh, the pain!  I hadn’t rinsed my hands from chopping the pepper!  I applied fresh, orange-tinged habanero juice directly onto my eyeball!  My instant reflex was to raise up my other hand and grab my face!  NO!  THE BLINDNESS!  Now my other eye was full of habanero juice!  I was thrasing up and down-unable to see, unable to speak, unable to breathe.  My eyes burned like they were full of needles.  My nose and lips were going numb from the pepper juice.  My dad chuckled at something Clint Eastwood said.  I reached over to the sink to rinse my hands, but all the water did was smear the toxin around.

I can’t really remember how this scenario ended.  I think the trauma of the pain erased my memory of the afternoon. 

The moral of the story is, don’t just go eating a habanero, whoever you are.  I am pretty certain that your stomach lining will dissolve, and you will most likely not be able to sit down for weeks.  (That’s if you can actually get past one bite.)  You’ll have to run out and buy one of those ‘hemorrhoid donuts’ to sit on from the inevitable swelling that will take place several hours after consumption.  These are not candy, people.  These are the kind of peppers that destroy lives and eyesight. 

Please use caution.

 

Trees?

Today at the gas station the SUV in front of me had a bumper sticker that said:

TREES ARE THE ANSWER!

There are plenty of goofy bumper stickers out there, but trees are the answer?  Come on now.  Granted, this SUV also had a license plate that said TREHUGR so what do you expect? A mature person might smile and say “Well isn’t that just swell!” Or better yet, disregard it as a catchy slogan for Greenpeace. 

But we are talking about me here.

I had to think about this for the rest of my commute to work.  Trees?  Now I am as big a fan of a functional, clean, working ecosystem as the next person, but I am pretty sure that trees are not the answer.  At least to most questions.  So in order to get over the viewing of this wretched bumper sticker I had to think up some questions where trees would in fact be the answer:

“Hey!  Where should we tie this tire swing?  I’ll be danged if I can’t think of a single place to put it!”

“Gosh darn it all!  The neighbors just painted their house purple!  Whatever can we do to block it out of our line of sight?!?!  I’m thinking Legos!  Really big Legos! Does anyone have a better idea?”

“Damn this unexpected ice age!  We’ve burned all the furniture, Maude!  We’re going to freeze to death! What in the world is left to burn?”

 

Problems with Printing

Howdy. 

Sometimes I come to this blog to kick start the writing.  Still editing…catching up for lost time.  There was a good month and a half in there where I wasn’t writing at all.  Right after this blog I am going to go crank out more fixes.  I printed what I had so far on paper, and that was a lot different than reading on the screen.  (in a scary way…errors and things I am not happy with jumped directly off paper in a way that for some reason, were invisible on screen) I guess it is a good thing.  Well, thanks for listening.

Oh, and if you have no idea what I am talking about…sorry. 

M to the K to the S

 

The Treadmill Rule

Well in an effort to someday be able to run three miles again, I have a treadmill set up in my bedroom.  I would have been on it tonight, but there was a massive pile of clothes on it (see previous laundry post).  I did tell myself that I was not allowed to watch TV this fall/winter unless I was watching it while walking 3.5 mph at a 3.0 incline.

Over the summer I got hooked on Grey’s Anatomy reruns.  The new season starts next Thursday.  House is back as of two weeks ago, so that is where I will be at 7 PM on Tuesdays.  There is a new show I really like, found it by accident this week when I was sick and bored on the couch, called Men In Trees.  Add those three to Lost, 24, and The O.C. and there go many hours of free time this fall and winter!   

I guess the good news is that if I can stick to the treadmill rule, you may see me in the Olympics.  (ha!)

 

This cheered me up

 

Don’t Come Knocking

I finally saw Don’t Come Knocking, a 2005 movie directed by Wim Wenders.  This majority of this movie took place in Butte, MT.  I heard mixed reviews about the movie from fellow home-towners, but one thing everyone seemed to agree on was the movie’s visual awesomeness. 

I was totally impressed with the movie!  It had a good story to it, the colors were great, and I forgot why I wanted to watch it in the first place (to see cool Butte scenes, of course).  The few comments I have are:

- Loved the M&M action that took place in much of the movie, although Skye (Sarah Polley) surfing on a Macintosh in the M&M was a tad…uh, never gonna happen.

- Attitude of main (Sam Shepard) dude’s son (Gabriel Mann) is a little over the top

- The inspector (Tim Roth) was fantastic.  Hilarious scene with the cookie offer.

So for you fellow Butte peeps, do rent Don’t Come knocking.  You will see lots of familar sights and scenes (to include the mirrored car) and you really have never seen Butte looking this good.

 

Burma-Shave

Isn’t it amazing that once you learn a new thing, perhaps a word or an expression that you never heard your entire life, suddenly it starts turning up again and again? Here is one for you:
Company picnic today at the Flying W Ranch, a cool place where you can ride a train and eat a chuckwagon supper and watch cowboys croon and crawl in a teepee and so on. We drove in on a long gravel road to get there and on the left hand side of the road was a small, plain sign that said

BURMA- SHAVE

Jesse and I looked at each other and said “Burma shave?” We thought it was a really odd thing to put on a sign.

After the picnic we headed to Target where I had to pick up a few things after my trip. We were browsing the toothpaste selections when I remembered that I needed a new razor. There are so many razors to pick from. There is actually one you can purchase with five blades. Five! I usually grab a ten-pack of the double bladed kind (you know, with the purple moisturizing strip) but a voice in my head said Live a little. Go all out. So I picked up a fancy razor with four! blades. It was a little pricey but I am hoping four blades last a while. Plus you can buy refill cartridges.
Well the preliminary tests of the four-bladed behemoth were a little iffy. It shaves alright, it shaves like…well, like a really awesome expensive razor shaves. It clearly needs to be in the hands of a surgeon, or at least a skilled mechanic, because I nearly lost a toe. So I decided to write a blog about how ridiculous razors have become and in my research, I found a tiny link to

BURMA-SHAVE

Ok, now how likely is it that you have never heard of

BURMA-SHAVE

and then you hear about it twice in one day! I clicked on the link and read all about it. Burma Shave is an old brand of shaving cream, famous for its advertising campaign. If you click on the link above, you can read about it. According to the Wiki article, Burma Shave had signs in 44 states. There would be five signs in a row, the first four would spell out a little jingle. The fifth would say

BURMA SHAVE.

The signs were poetic and funny! For example:

Grandpa’s beard / was stiff and coarse / and that’s what / caused his / fifth divorce / Burma-Shave!

So there you have it. Mystery solved, all in a day! My favorite poem (again, from Wiki) was this one:

The wolf / is shaved / so neat and trim / Red Riding Hood / is chasing him / Burma-Shave!

 

Genetic Defect

I have a genetic defect.
Luckily it is not the horrible, life-wrecking kind. It is the simple, hidden kind that drives husbands nutty.

I was born without the laundry gene.

I cannot do laundry. No matter how many times people explain the correct way to do laundry to me, I still cannot do it right. Here are some of the results:

- I mix lights and darks, even though you aren’t supposed to. Physically and mentally, I cannot separate laundry.

- I overcompensate the detergent. I do not trust the recommended detergent dosage on the back of the detergent box/bottle. I never believe it will be enough. I usually double it, meaning I have to rinse twice or smell like Mountain Breeze everywhere I go. Doing this with powdered detergent is really bad - it can result in pancaked white clumps on your blackest pants.

- I cannot comprehend water temperature. So I just wash everything in hot.

- I cannot balance a load. Every time I do laundry, the spin cycle creates this loud banging as the washer starts traveling madly across the washroom.

- Folding. Don’t even ask me about folding. *shudder*

- Using hangers. I try, try, try to hang up my clothes the right way, but I can’t do it. I can’t hang things up in a row. My clothes hangers are crossed and wedged with each other, creating a plastic web of cotton and polyester that I cannot find anything in.

For all of these reasons, I have determined that I am missing the laundry gene. Never, never ask me to throw in a load for you. You will not be happy with the results.

 

Things about Hotels

Perhaps this is not true about really fancy places, but if you are looking for a blog about a really fancy hotel, then you best look elsewhere. This list is about hotels that are not the Ritz, but nicer than Motel 6.

Things about Hotels that always bother me:

- Please don’t fold my TP roll nicely, with a little triangular pull on the end. I always feel like I have to put it back nicely and I cannot make it look quite as lovely. So from the first wipe post-fold, the TP looks all messed up to me. This is a downer.

- Fabric softener would be just swell. I mean, I know it is an added cost, but you keep throwing away my perfectly good once-used bar of soap. Let me have one bar of soap the entire stay, and splash some Downy on those sandpaperesque towels.

- Quit saying my name when I call the front desk! I mean, I know you can see it on the computer and all, but it is freaking me out! Leave a little mystery in the world, will ya?

- Change the sign on the door. It always says the price of a room that is about five times higher than what you are charging me. If this is to make me feel like I am getting a deal, it’s not working. It makes me feel like everything else here is going to be inaccurate too.

- Why is the remote control in the fitness room always lost? Can’t you put it on an elastic cord or something? The channel is always stuck on some sports station. Sheesh!

Thanks hotel. You really are kind for putting up with my antics. Like how I always put my shoes approximately three centimeters from the edge on the top of my zipped suitcase. That way if they are four or five centimeters from the edge, I will know you peeked at my underwear. It is good of you to let the paranoid stay too.

 

Sleeping In

Today I slept in.  To nine thirty.  I cannot, cannot remember the last time I slept in that late.  Oh wait, just a few weeks ago at the reunion.  But I mean before then.

I drove out to Eastern MD to visit my friend Kelly.  Spent pretty much the whole day there then came back to the hotel room.  Could have gone somewhere great but decided on room service instead.  Then I went to the gym and to the pool and to the hot tub.  Reading a book and enjoying the day.  I feel like I should be doing something, perhaps involving a diaper or cooking utensils (not simultaneously though).  I have this whole weekend of free time and I just don’t know what to do with it. 

I am sure I will figure it out. 

 

Hazards of the Desk

I am at my desk and something, something smells like Magic Marker.  But I can’t be sure it is real or if I am imagining it.  Last Friday, Dorie had Casino Night (which ROCKED by the way).  For the makeshift blackjack table, she drew on a piece of green felt with magic marker.  That whole side of the room was high.  Eventually the felt had to be tossed outside on the deck before the gamblers fell over unconscious.  Ever since then, I keep smelling magic marker.  But I am also sitting at my desk at home, which might actually have magic marker somewhere on it.  I can’t find it, but I smell it.  Could this be a lingering effect from Casino Night? 

Magic Marker.  If you type that enough in one paragraph you start to feel silly, like…uh, I better go open a window.

 

MySpace Quizzes…why oh why

Ever since I joined MySpace I am inundated with quizzes, or what my husband likes to call “chick games.”  Here is a random sampling…

How many siblings do you have? Claim?
1/0

Have you ever been searched by the cops?
yes

Do you close your eyes on roller coaster?
No - I want to be looking at my final moment…

When’s the last time you’ve been sledding?
2002

Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone?
Alone, more room to kick

Do you believe in ghosts?
Products of evil forces

Do you consider yourself creative?
Yes

Do you think O.J. killed his wife?
Probably

Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie?
Team Aniston - Angelina Jolie is the antichrist

Do you know how to play poker?
Yes

Have you ever been awake for 48 hours straight?
56!

What’s your favorite commercial?
Any of the careerbuilder.coms
If you’re driving in the middle of the night, and no one is around… Do you run a red light?
Totally
Do you have a secret that no one knows but you?
Probably

boston red sox or new york yankees?
None of the above

Have you ever been Ice Skating?
I love both speed and figure

How often do you remember your dreams?
Often - they are too bizarre to forget

When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried?
I do this all the time

Can you name 5 songs by The Beatles?  Yes

Do you know who Ba-Ba-Booey is?
Yes

Do you always wear your seat belt?
YES

What talent do you wish you had?
The ability to blow people up by staring at them

Do you like Sushi?
yes

Have you ever narrowly avoided a fatal accident?
Yes

What do you wear to bed?
t-shirt

Been caught stealing?
No - not a thiefer
Do you truly hate anyone?
Probably

Rock or Rap?
rock

Do you know anyone in jail?
yes

Have you ever sang in front of the mirror like your favorite singer?
Yes

What foods do you dislike?
Liver, ’shrooms, pork rinds, squid

Have you ever made fun of your friends behind their back?
When I was a teenager

Have you ever stood up for someone you hardly knew?
Yes

Have you ever been punched in the face?
Yes

Have you liked someone as long as you can remember and they probably dont know it?
Back in the day, yes.  

If you could fly where would you go?
Argentina and Nepal

What is your least favorite drink?
Wine

Have you ever been involved in a Hit-and-Run?
Yes

Have you ever kissed someone the same sex as you?
My mommy when I was wee

How many books do you think you read in a year?
Fifty

Do you prefer baths or showers?
Baths

One food you could not live without?
Steak

Favorite kind of cookie?
Chocolate chip

Are you a dog person or a cat person?
Cat person

What is your first memory?
Being carried in my dad’s backpack in a snowstorm

First book you can remember reading?
Charlotte’s Web

What is the first movie you saw in a theater?
Popeye - the Robin Williams version