Back during the spring, Shearer’s, the snack company, offered to send me a huge box of chips. My response was something resembling language, but was mostly a lot of exclamation points and grunts.
Shearer’s wanted me to know about two things: the measures that they’ve taken to become a “greener” company and some of the new delicious snacks that they’re rolling out. After reading another blogger’s report about their new manufacturing plant, it’s pretty impressive. Shearer’s earned platinum LEED certification from the US Green Building Council for their manufacturing plants, which feature lots of natural light, rainwater collections, and energy recycling. Awesome, right? Right. Now, what of the chips?
The idea was for me to have a party where my friends and I could sample some of the classic and new Shearer’s chips. I scheduled a party and was really looking forward to it…until the husband realized that he had double-booked himself. Argh. I made a couple attempts to reschedule, but then we started getting into the really busy parts of summer and the opportunity to have a party simply slipped away. But! I still had a huge box of chips and several family vacations to take. I had chips in the car on the way to Conneaut Lake, Washington D.C., and the Outer Banks, and plenty to go around for my whole family. It was cool! I became like my family’s own snack caterer. I would bring bags of chips to the lake or to the beach and say, “Please eat these!” Luckily, chips aren’t a hard sell.
I gave everyone free reign over the traditional flavors like barbecue and sour cream and onion. But some of the alternative (?) snacks were so delicious that the husband and I squirreled those away for ourselves. The two bags of whole grain Shapers in cheddar and cinnamon were quickly gone. The cinnamon started out kind of tasting like light churros, but were sweetened with sucralose which was all that I could taste. However, the cheddar flavor…
Yeah.
They also sent me a few bags of their riceworks snacks, which are so, so good. They’re kind of like rice cakes but chips, if that makes sense. I saved the sea salt flavor for the drive to the Outer Banks. It almost lasted a whole five seconds into the 10-hour trip.
Disclosure: Shearer’s provided me with several bags of their snacks and a $250 gift card to Giant Eagle to purchase party supplies. Since I didn’t have a party, I put those funds toward drinks and dips and whatnot during our vacations.
Aside to regular readers: I know product posts like these are considered increasingly gauche, but I like to support businesses and events that are in or near Pittsburgh. Shearer’s is from Brewster, Ohio. And while their likely allegiance to Ohio sports teams is unfortunate, I’ll support them anyway. 😉
I write to you from day 3 of my juice cleanse and you know what? It’s not bad at all. I’ve been following the travails of the Serious Eats crew, who were one day ahead of me and decided to read the comments, hoping for some input from other people who have done it. The problem was that I forgot that Serious Eats is a huge site and has the douchey commenters to go with it, nearly all of whom ridiculed the juicers for being stupid and buying into fads. My instant reaction: “They hate me, too.” Because that’s the kind of super-sensitive-you-hurt-my-fee-fees week I’m having.
I mean, I get that plunking down some pretty serious bucks on 18 bottles of juice with perhaps little to no scientific research behind their efficacy is pretty dumb, but for me I was really needing to do some serious resetting. The cleanse gave me the opportunity to really examine how I behave about food and what kinds of hunger give me anxiety and what my instinctive reactions are. Do I feel “cleansed?” I don’t know. Physically, I don’t feel wildly different, and I didn’t experience any lightheadedness or other signs that I was without food, aside from an odd brand of dry mouth. (Though I did try to roll up my yoga mat while I was still standing on it yesterday, which was not my finest moment.) Mentally, though, I feel much better and I’ll take what I can get in that arena these days.
My point is, people spend a lot of money on much dumber things.
Just sayin'
Another cool side effect is that my sense of smell is super heightened. And not in the early-pregnancy “Ugh, what is that?” way. But everything smells so amazing right now. I guess my sense of taste is getting something of a rest since I don’t have the juice in my mouth as long as I do food, so my nose is picking up the slack. Yesterday, there was a mobile BBQ truck on campus for an orientation event and I swear I walked past it three or four times just to take in the aroma. Then I scowled at the people in line. “Look at them. Just grabbing the BBQ like it’s whatever. They don’t understand the magical meat that they’re holding in their hands!”
It’s also made me more excited about ramping up my already healthy eating. Like one of the Serious Eats writers, it made me a little more confident to have more vegan days during the week than I already do. Though, obviously, I’m not going full vegan any time soon (see: BBQ lust). This morning on the bus, a guy in front of me was having a frosted honey bun and a huge bottle of Brisk iced tea. It made me feel ill. But not sanctimonious! Eat what you like. Swearsies.
Tomorrow I’m supposed to take it easy introducing foods back into my life, but I don’t think I’ll be able to resist a bowl of oatmeal or my first cup of coffee since Monday (!). The caffeine part, by the way, was not too bad. Last night, I decided to drink some chai and nearly vibrated out of the house. I’m also surprised at my energy level, which I guess is the other physical effect. I don’t feel like I could run a 5k, per se, but I do feel light and unburdened.
Anyway, the husband and the baby are in New York this weekend. I’m excited to have some time to myself, but I do miss them something terrible. Especially when the husband sends me pictures like this:
He fell asleep reading last night. Could you die? Also, apparently one of the first things that he did upon arriving in NYC was to buy a Kangol hat.
Oh, hello. We were in the Outer Banks last week and I’ve spent this week so far “not holding it together” as the husband would say. Crappy life stuff knocked me down so I took a few days off of work to recuperate. My recovery regimen has included sleeping a lot, watching Mad Men on Netflix, and doing a juice cleanse.
Yes, god, I’m doing one of those things. A blog that I read did one some time ago. And a few weeks ago, Tracey had expressed her plans for one while she and Charlie were here visiting. However, they were going to be doing the whole shebang with juicing their own produce and whatnot. I was intrigued, but knew that I wouldn’t be a good candidate for the homemade version. Too much work and I’m at the office all day.
Last week, while I was elbow-deep in one of my potato chip lunches, I noticed that I felt really…swollen. I knew exactly what the culprit was: incredibly delicious North Carolina barbeque, wine, chips, wine, chips, candy, chips, fish, wine, chips, wine, and chips. Having been on a similar diet just two weeks earlier while in Conneaut, to say that I felt kind of gross would be an understatement. That’s close to a month of eating like the apocalypse is upon us. So, I busted out my credit card and purchased a three-day Renovation Cleanse.
I had timed my cleanse for when the husband and the baby would be in New York City for the weekend, my reasoning being that I would be less likely to kill them should this whole thing go horribly awry. Also, coming back from vacation our cupboards were pretty bare so I wouldn’t have too much temptation.
My juices arrived yesterday morning and were waiting for me when I came home from a walk. I had planned to start it today but figured since there were already there and I was home, I might as well jump on in.
I find the juices to be just fine. The Pineapple Apple Mint is especially delicious. I have not, however, had the experience of the Serious Eats crew of feeling too full to finish any of them. I wasn’t starving, either, but I’ve definitely been hungry in between juices. I’m mostly dealing with a mild headache which is probably due both to hunger and lack of caffeine. I don’t think I’ve been doing as much extra flushing as I’m supposed to do, as I’m supposed to keep the water and green tea coming in between. Frankly, I’ve been afraid to go into the kitchen, lest I find myself munching on dry cat food.
I can tell you that I’ve noticed just how many food blogs I’m subscribed to, as I can barely stand to look at my Google Reader and all of its delicious things. I’m really excited to eat healthy stuff after this. My mom and I have big plans this Saturday to visit the new Target in East Liberty (it has a cart escalator!) and I’m sure we’ll have to veer over to Whole Foods so that I can stick my face in the salad bar.
By the way, “juice cleanse” is just one of the phrases that’s been falling out of my mouth lately that makes me want to punch myself in the face. Others include, “my therapist says,” “guided imagery,” and “energy.” I fear that I’m a vision quest away from carrying crystals around.
Not long after I published my post on Friday noting that I hadn’t uploaded last day of school pictures, I realized that I totally had and just forgot all about it. Dur. So, here is the (not so much) baby on his last day of third grade.
That crumpling sound you hear is my heart. Please ignore.
But anyway, I’m coming off of one of the best weekends I’ve ever had and I have the messy kitchen and piles of dirty laundry to prove it. Friday night I accompanied the husband to Eclipse where he was playing records. That place is decent, though I was a little put off by the Ikea-heavy decor and the odd 1998 look of the place. However, the original glass block bar is so cool-looking. I gawked at it for a good 20 minutes. We took off kind of early because we had a big day on Saturday.
I got myself and the baby up kind of early and my mom took us into Shadyside where I was getting a long-overdue haircut and pedicure. My mom dropped me off at home and she and the baby went to Legofest at the convention center and I made one more stop to the nail shop to get my fingers looking nice. It was, as Truvy from Steel Magnolias would say, “a full day’s beauty.” Then the husband and I got dressed and headed into town.
Aren't we swell?
We ate at Seviche, which we’d been dying to return to since we ate there last year, and had one of the best meals ever. Here’s our obscene list of tasty things:
Strawberry Mimosa Champagne Mojito
Cuban Pomegranate Martini
Trio of Chips and Salsa
Traditional, Curried Tropical Fruit, and Fire & Ice Seviches with Ahi Tuna, Scottish Salmon, and Hamachi
Mojo Criollo Nigiri
Bistec Bocadillos with Filet Mignon
Chorizo Wrapped Diver Scallops
I also made the executive decision to order a really expensive bottle of Malbec and noted to the waiter that we splurged because of the special occasion. As a surprise at the end of the meal, he brought us a piece of Tres Leches cake with fresh strawberries and two glasses of Champagne.
After dinner, we walked over to the Consol Energy Center for the Sade concert. It was a happy coincidence that it came around the time of our anniversary, because it was the no-brainer special event. And the concert was so, so amazing. Sade the singer and Sade the band are all so beautiful and talented and smooth and wonderful and sexy. Sade didn’t speak much, but when she did her soft British accent made things like, “Pittsburgh, you’ve built a lot of bridges and they all lead directly to my heart,” and “He charms the birds out of the sky because they want to bask in his light,” sound beautiful and poetic instead of kinda cheesy. The stage was gently lit and adorned with sheer white curtains that would dramatically fly away or drop into the recesses of the floor.
The music, of course, was beautiful. The highlight for me was “By Your Side.” I’ve always liked that song just fine, but never really regarded it as one of their greatest. But for that song the stage was lit in this warm, sunset color and at the end confetti was shot out over the audience. The husband and I were literally by each other’s sides and I knew that we would remain that way for many more years to come.
Edited to add: Can’t believe I forgot to mention Father’s Day, which we spent at my mom’s house with my dad, grandparents, aunt, and uncle. After a slight panic early in the afternoon, we had a rad cookout and then went to see Super 8 at the drive-in. Yeah. This weekend ruled.
Over the long weekend, we made our annual pilgrimage to Detroit. After carefully considering the lineup and cost for this year’s festival, we decided to not attend the festival proper, and instead save our time, money, and energy for the after parties and the city at large.
It felt a little weird to not be marching down Jefferson toward Hart Plaza every day. But, as I explained to someone who asked, I just don’t feel like it’s for me anymore. The promoters are catering to a different crowd (read: wealthier and, I’m sorry, not at all sophisticated in musical taste or public behavior). The lineup is just not as worthwhile for me to endure the discomfort of sharing a space with people who are either too young or too old to act the way that they do…not that there’s a good age to wake up and say, “Today I think I’ll experiment with wearing just underpants.” Although, from what I understand, the behavior of festival attendees in general was extremely subdued compared to that of people in town a few weeks ago for a country music festival. Apparently, nightmares came to life and rode into town on John Deere tractors.
Anyway, our loose plan was to do some touristy things that had been on our list for awhile, take it day by day as far as the festival goes and set aside money for daily admission if there was someone who we really wanted to see and didn’t think we would have another opportunity. We would eat well, check out the sights, head back to the hotel for disco naps, and then enjoy the nightlife.
This worked out wonderfully.
My Twitter and Facebook remained virtually silent throughout the weekend, until finally I stopped laughing long enough to report:
By that point, I had spent nearly every minute since Friday afternoon with the husband, the sister-in-law, the sister-in-law’s boyfriend, Frank, and Noleian, plus other groups of Pittsburghers like Jwan, Liz, Adam, Preslav, Shawn, Kristine, Curt, Amanda, Tony, Sarah, and Arnie. We had been all over the city, exploring eateries and neighborhoods that we’d never seen before. Then we would go out and dance ourselves silly before returning to the hotel and waking the birds up with our slumber party antics. We had so much fun.
There was a decent amount of cutting loose, including an ill-advised plan on Friday to sample Four Loko and Blast by Colt 45. As I heaved the cans down from their shelves at the party store, I explained, “We’re all going to try a little bit of each. It’ll be like a wine flight!”
I took some tasting notes from the assembled imbibers:
“It smells like…something I’ve smelled before.”
“It looks like…something I’ve seen before.”
“Hmm…It’s like you soaked a urinal cake in beer and drank it.”
“Gives you corpse tongue.”
“Tastes like they had a bum swish this around in his mouth and then spit it in a can.”
The Strawberry Watermelon was terrible. The Blueberry Pomegranate was okay, but we were alarmed when a small amount spilled on the nightstand and stained it immediately, as we suddenly became aware of what this concoction might be doing to our insides. The Lemonade Four Loko was almost pleasant, but it’s worth remembering that we were probably irrevocably brain-damaged by the time we cracked that bad boy open.
With that milestone behind us, we headed out to see Suburban Knight and Juan Atkins. Suburban Knight was awesome. Juan was apparently hiding a wet blanket in his leather pants because he immediately made things weird and not fun, so we left.
On Saturday, the sister-in-law and her boyfriend and I went to Hamtramck, which is a city within Detroit, and met up with the husband, Frank, and Noleian at Detroit Threads. It was a cool record store but is also a vintage clothing store. This was a huge bonus for me. When I go on record shopping trips with the husband, I usually poke around for a little bit and keep an eye out for stuff that I know he’s looking for, but I can’t help but get bored after awhile. The selection of clothing that they had was really impressive and well-organized. The sister-in-law and I both actually found a number of items that were a) cute, b) decently priced, and c) fit us. It’s pretty hard to find all three of these qualities in many vintage stores, in my experience. I bought two dresses and a totally badass coat that I’ll have to take pictures of and show you. So excited about them.
We were going to go to Slows BBQ for dinner but they had a two-hour wait and we were getting murderously hungry. We ended up at Mexican Village, which was decent but not outstanding. I was pretty proud of us for going through multiple pitchers of salsa (yes, pitchers of salsa) and margaritas.
That night, we went to a cafe/performance venue to see Kai Alce and Omar S, which was so, so great. The venue is notoriously hot and within minutes we were all sweating. This did not deter us from going crazy the rest of the night, especially since Omar S’ set was completely bananas. I kept looking at the husband and saying, “What is this track?” and was frankly disturbed when he didn’t know any of them, because that dude is a veritable walking encyclopedia of dance music. I then said out loud, “I think maybe Omar S was abducted by aliens and they gave him a stack of records to play. I’m concerned.”
We finally got to a point where we had to step outside, and the husband and I bumped into Scott Grooves. He and the husband needed to exchange records, so we walked with him to his car. It was a unique kind of delight to come upon Scott’s mid-80s Pontiac Parisienne and to watch him open the trunk to reveal a meticulous collection of plastic bags. What an odd fellow.
On Sunday, we went to a Detroit Tigers/Boston Red Sox game at Comerica Park. It was slightly miserable for the first inning or so as it was in the mid 90s and sunny. But it eventually cooled down. It was cool to see a Major League baseball game somewhere other than PNC Park and we got to see Big Papi hit a home run. Comerica Park is very…busy. It seems like when it came time to decorate it, anything that was standing still was outfitted with a tiger, a baseball, a bat, a Chevy, a fountain, a bridge, or sometimes all six.
Also, this happened:
Which only bolstered my suspicions that aliens were present and indicated to me that CLEARLY I need to drink and get little sleep more often since it does so much for my critical thinking capabilities.
For dinner, we went to Buddy’s Pizza, which was ridiculously tasty. I’ve not done extensive pizza taste tests over the country, but I feel like, objectively, Buddy’s has some of the best.
The after party that we had planned on attending was shut down and without a real back-up plan we ended up just staying in for the night, which was kind of dumb. We should have just gone out, but oh well.
Monday we finally made it to Slows which was OHMYHOLYGOD delicious. Let me blow your mind here for a second (vegetarians, look away).
Green beans, pulled pork, chicken, and brisket. The brisket literally melted in my mouth.
An unfortunately too dark picture of our ribs, macaroni and cheese, black eyed peas, and baked beans. I wish I could have documented the meal better but my hands were shaking in anticipation from the meat fumes.
Banana pudding with banana slices and Nilla wafers. Swoon!
Then we were all kinda meat-drunk.
Since we were right by the iconic Michigan Central Station, we decided to walk off a little bit of our meal and check it out like good yuppie wannabes post-industrial ruin tourists urban explorers I-can-see-this-becoming-some-really-wonderful-loft-apartments-starting-in-the-low-300s!
It’s just…stunning. It’s huge and smells kinda weird but is still really, really beautiful.
Someone who used to work there just happened to drive past and told us how gorgeous and busy it used to be. He didn’t sound sad. Just matter-of-fact.
I felt kind of bad about the pictures that I took this year, since so many of them capture what people would see as negatives. But it’s hard to capture stuff like this:
…a grown man and his friends, laughing, for a few precious days not caring about whatever has them down, genuinely having a wonderful time with people who truly understand each other. Or this:
…the beauty of a renaissance center shrouded in fog late at night. If you’ve been there, then maybe you understand what I’m talking about.
Anyway, our last night was going to be at a house party featuring Andres and Malik Pittman, both of whom I adore. I was especially excited about Andres since he’s responsible for one of my personal anthems.
Unfortunately, the barbecue turned on me and I spent an ungodly amount of time in the bathroom. I resigned myself to the fact that I was too sick to go out. I crumbled into bed and turned on TV while everyone else went out. I was in the middle of a really depressing program about Gettysburg (the average time of a limb amputation in field hospitals was 12 minutes) when Frank texted me and asked if I felt like I could possibly make it out. “Maybe,” I replied. Then I decided that there was no way that I was spending our last night there in bed. The husband drove back to the hotel to get me and I shuffled to the car, ginger ale in hand. When we got to the venue, the bouncer let me in for free because I was wearing my Northland Roller Rink shirt. I was pretty proud of myself for rallying, even though I had to elbow some people out of the way to get some choice real estate near a window, as it was too hot for me in my, er, sensitive condition.
I came home to Pittsburgh feeling tired and kind of gross, but my spirits were totally rejuvenated. I love my friends. I love my husband. I love that we do this together every year.
I’m trying to not think about earthquakes because they scare the shit out of me and aside from donating money for relief there’s not a whole hell of a lot anyone can do about stuff like that. Earth got a wedgie. Then everything went boom.
* * *
I’m ordering new checks and have the option of adding a pithy expression to them. I’m so tempted to add something ridiculous and untrue, like, “Horses are my life.”
After writing it out, it seemed so deranged and wonderful that I went ahead and ordered them as such. So now, at least in my checking existence, horses are my life.
* * *
I’m still jogging, as you can see from the widget over there on the left. I’m working on building up my speed because I have this somewhat arbitrary goal of being able to run 5K in 30 minutes. I decided to accomplish this by redoing the Couch to 5K program but using it to incrementally increase how fast I can go. It’s pretty cool, because I can remember getting on the treadmill around this time last year and barely being able to survive going 4.0 miles an hour for longer than a few seconds but eventually, after weeks and weeks, getting to 4.7 miles an hour and thinking, “Wow! I hope my face doesn’t peel off from going so fast!” Now, 4.0 mph is my warmup/cooldown walking speed and I’m pushing past 6.0 miles an hour.
One of the students where I work checks in on my progress occasionally. He did the Couch to 5K about two years ago and now regularly competes in triathlons and stuff. He’s obviously more hardcore about the whole thing, as I don’t think I’m really interested in working toward that big of a goal. He did encourage me to sign up for a 5K race, though. I told him that I had been hesitant to do so because I didn’t want to be embarrassed by how slow I am or how many walking breaks I might have to take, but quickly gobbled up my self-doubt with, “But, I KNOW that that doesn’t really matter. It’s far more badass to go out there and just do it than to stand on the sidelines and pout about how much better everyone else is.” He paused and said, “No, it matters.” To which I replied, “Oh…oh.”
A few days later he emailed me about the Race for the Cure, encouraging me again to go for it, adding, “There are lots of old people, so you know you won’t be the slowest person there.” Thanks, man! Now I’m thinking about making a point of running past old people at this breast cancer shindig and saying stuff like, “OOOOHHHH in your FACE, coffin-dodger! How does my ass look jogging further and further away from you? What was Prohibition like?” But I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if an 80-year-old elbowed me out of her way. We’ll see.
* * *
And in stark contrast to all of that health and exercise talk…
Since it’s the first Friday of Lent and we’re celebrating my mother-in-law’s birthday today, we’re going over to her house for fish sandwiches. I am far too excited about this. And I agreed to make her a birthday cake. So, knowing that she really likes Oreos, I made her a Chocolate Oreo Cake, the recipe for which I found at Sing for Your Supper.
The hardest part was actually cutting Oreos in half. They’re such brittle cookies. Even still, I didn’t finish up with this until nearly 1 a.m. because I had a horrific stomachache that kept me confined to the couch for a few hours.
This morning, I was putting my oatmeal on the stove and the baby was supposed to be getting his shoes and jacket on. When I came out of the kitchen, he was reading a book. “BLAFGGHHHAHAH!” I shouted. We made it to the bus stop just as the bus was pulling up to the light. The bus driver actually said to me, “You know, you almost missed the bus,” to which I replied, “Hehehe,” which is what I say when someone has just said something so thoroughly annoying and obnoxious and unnecessary and I need to prevent myself from saying, “ALMOST DOESN’T COUNT AND ALSO I ALMOST HATE YOU EVERY OTHER MORNING WHEN I STAND HERE FOR 15 MINUTES WAITING BECAUSE I GET HERE AT THE PRESCRIBED TIME.” I don’t like to provoke the people commandeering large vehicles containing my child. I’m overprotective.
Anyway, this past weekend, I consumed like a good American.
Movies:
The Duchess
Yawn. Very pretty-looking period drama about the Duchess of Devonshire, but I get so bored with heavy-handed, “You’ve come a long way, baby,” pearl-clutchers in which women are overtly oppressed in such a way that we’re supposed to go, “My, it’s so good that sexism is all gone now.”
The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia
I can’t remember why, but in one of my short story classes in college we watched The Dancing Outlaw, about the wild mountain dancer Jesco White. He was a character and not always likable but entertaining enough. It never occurred to me what kind of cloth he was cut from. But someone went back to Boone County, WV and made a documentary about his family, including matriarchs Bertie Mae and Mamie, Kirk, and of course Sue Bob, aka The Pretty One.
I admire their loyalty to each other and their determination to live exactly the way they want to. But it was undeniably fucked up to watch Kirk snort crushed up pills in her hospital room while her newborn daughter slept nearby and to know that even if they do get sober, the only real option they have is to break their backs working for a coal company and still be more or less broke. Blargh.
ANYWAY
The Glories of Big Box Commerce:
We went to Teh Wal-Mart to procure groceries. Most of the time this is a purely robotic venture. We march up and down the aisles, grabbing stuff on our list and try to make it out of there expeditiously so that we can get on with our lives. But sometimes if you really look at the stuff that’s available to purchase, it all seems kind of surreal.
Chocolate-covered Froot Loops. You can tell from the startled expressions on the faces of the banana, orange, and cherries that this was an unexpected development. I’m not really opposed to chocolate-covered anything and really if you’re eating Froot Loops, why the hell not dip them in chocolate at that point?
It’s never encouraging when your food barfs before you even eat it. “Ugh, I’m nauseating.”
This is very clever product placement. Next to the condoms, you have both the Gatorade Prime, for the pre-game, and the Gatorade Recover. It’s got electrolytes.
Doo-do-doo, I’m strolling through the hair care aisle. The last thing I’ll run into is pla–
I had heard of placenta treatments for hair, I just never imagined seeing them in Wal-Mart.
Charlie Sheen and Ronald Reagan. A double dose of “I just can’t bring myself to give a shit,” and “Thanks for the legacy, a-hole.”
“Alright, buddy, go upstairs and get dressed. We need to get going.”
Ten minutes pass while I make sure that lunch and piano books are packed. I head upstairs and foolishly expect to see the baby in some advanced stage of dressing, at the very least wearing pants.
Instead, he is crouched on the floor in his pajamas, reading a book.
“What are you doing?!!?!” I hiss. “We need to GO!”
“I couldn’t find any pants.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake…”
I rustle some clean clothes together and toss them in his room, explaining again that we need to leave in just a few minutes. I start getting dressed myself and poke my head into his room because I sense something off. Something procrastinating. He’s wearing pants, but no shirt, and is playing with some magnets.
“Dude. Seriously. Come on.”
“Oh, FINE!” he sighs, as though going to school is some inconvenient favor I’ve just asked of him.
Downstairs, he has not put on his shoes like I told him to, but is looking for the gloves that he threw somewhere in the house when we got home last night.
I finally get him out the door and hustle him to the bus stop, explaining along the way that he has to go to school so there’s no point resisting and when he goofs off in the morning we risk missing the bus, which would screw up everyone’s day.
“Understand?” I ask/demand.
“Yessssss,” he moans.
We stand and wait for the bus. He breaks the silence by innocently asking me, “Can you take heavy blows to the head?”
* * *
In non-bludgeoning news, my dad’s birthday was on Sunday and we had him over for dinner and cake. He brought Champagne. He’s my favorite father.
He’s getting ready to blow out the candles in that picture. He’s not overly excited about or terrified by the cake that I made despite how it might look.
I’ve had two mostly low-key weekends in a row, which means I’m due for another whirlwind. Tonight we’re trying to go see the new Harry Potter movie. Tomorrow morning, I’ll be hanging out with some other blog types at 77kids to check out their holiday displays and to learn more about their charity initiatives. At some point, I need to bake some cookies because later in the day, I’m going to hitch a ride with Allison to Michelle‘s house for a cookie swap. Then I will ponder who I am, doing all of these nice, wholesome things. Sunday, my mom and I are supposed to do some hardcore cleaning at my house. I may have to drink throughout that process.
There are a bunch of things that I hope to do in my life.
I want to go on a honeymoon with the husband. We couldn’t when we got married, but our fantasy trip was to Brazil.
I kinda want to have another baby. The husband is diametrically opposed and I recognize that it’s kind of a bad idea. But still…the desire is there.
I want to see the light on my son’s face as he watches the sun rise over the Great Pyramids in Egypt.
Those are the big things.
The main thing that I want to do in life, the thing that I just want to accomplish no matter what, is hosting Thanksgiving and/or Christmas at my house.
This might sound kind of boring or crazy to those of you who have hosted such events. And I recognize that it’s a ton of work and is probably pretty stressful on holidays that are supposed to be fun. But there’s something about this goal that just seems to have everything that I truly want in life wrapped up within it.
Every culture feasts. Feasts are a time to bring all of your best work to the table and share it with the people that you care about to mark special occasions, like holidays or achievements. Being able to host Thanksgiving or Christmas would mean that I had the ability to provide my family with a meal, that I was financially able to procure all of the ingredients and that I had a workspace that was adequate enough to prepare the meal without disaster. Attempting a big meal in my current kitchen would downright unwise.
I love making food for people. It’s one of those things that I always, always put forth my best effort for and seeing someone enjoy something that I made for them makes me so happy. I want to do that for our family and friends. I want to set the scene for some of their warmest memories.
Day 01 Something you hate about yourself. Day 02 Something you love about yourself. Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for. Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my buddy Frank is getting married. The wedding is now just a few days away, which meant that it was time to bake.
Weddings in Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania in general have a pretty rad tradition: the cookie table. The cookie table is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a table piled high with cookies. The New York Times wrote about it, which officially makes it Serious Business. Traditionally, the cookies are made by friends and family members, though sometimes this task is outsourced to a bakery. Frank had asked me some time ago if I would be willing to contribute to the cookie table. I was honored and put myself down for about 30 dozen cookies.
Now, I could have done all of this baking myself, but I would have had to have started a while ago just to manage that much output from my tiny kitchen, so I was worried about freezing cookies for that long and having them taste not that swell. So, I got the idea to recruit my baking partner-in-crime, Mary, for an epic baking session much closer to the wedding.
Friday evening, Mary picked me up from work and we stopped at my house to grab my Kitchen Aid and some baking tools before heading to Costco to get our ingredients. Saturday morning, we woke up early and got right to work.
Behold…The Butter
We spent the next 8 hours churning out batch after batch, stopping only for quick bites to eat and sips of water. It was an extremely efficient operation.
The whole house smelled absolutely HEAVENLY. We had a really hard time containing ourselves in the midst of so much deliciousness.
Drool
When it was all said and done, we made somewhere in the neighborhood of 375 cookies: Mexican Chocolate Cookies, Chai Butter Cookies, and Snickerdoodles. We were going to make Pomegranate Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies, but in planning the recipes, I totally forgot that late September isn’t yet pomegranate time. So we replaced those with Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies and experimented with a small batch of Salted Dulce de Leche Cookies just to see how hard or easy they were to make. (Verdict: making the dulce de leche is a little tricky, but the results are so delicious that I don’t even care.) On Friday, I’m taking the day off of work to go to the dentist and to finish baking some of the other cookies that I felt were too delicate to freeze, namely the Salted Dulce de Leche Cookies and Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Icing.
It didn’t hurt that the weather was pitch-perfect autumn weather…perfect for baking. I’ve really missed baking over the summer and can’t wait to do more of it.
