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All About Me(me)

Published September 18, 2007 books , childhood , fashion , film , food , humor , meme , movies , music , reading 20 Comments

Prada Pixie has bucked the establishment and made up her own meme and I say Good for her! It’s a great one, so of course I stole it because I’m lazy and I think I’m coming down with the cold Ken had this weekend and I just spent $200 on my dog’s shots and allergy shot and heartworm pills and, shit – it’s Monday.

What is your all time favourite book, from childhood, as an adult? Little House on the Prairie/Pillars of the Earth. I’ve read each numerous times and I even live close to a town that has a Laura Ingalls Wilder day once a year. They don’t, however have an Observant Bystander day. Yet.
All time favourite movie as above? The Wizard of Oz/The Philadelphia Story. Again, numerous viewings and yes, I’ve done the WOZ/Dark Side of the Moon thing which totally rocks by the way. A little known fact is that you can do the same thing with The Philadelphia Story and Frank Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours album.
Favourite type of chocolate, and how much of it do you eat a week? I only eat Nestle’s chocolate chunks because, well, nothing says big hunk o’ chocolate like chocolate chunks.
Favourite drink, non alcoholic and alcoholic? Iced tea with lemon. Amaretto sour. No joking around with the liquor, no sir.
Where is your all time best holiday destination? For Halloween, I like to go a few blocks over to this big house that looks like a castle and has a blue tile roof (I shit you not, people), because they change the doorbell chime to sound all scary and stuff AND they give out full size Hershey bars.
Where is your dream holiday destination? Oh shit, I just realized this was written by a Brit. Which means I’m supposed to be answering these holiday questiont by substituting the word vacation. Well, I’m not changing the answer to #5 because it’s truly the best Halloween destination. As far as dream vacations go – I’d have to vote for a tour of famous cemetaries. I tried to talk my dad into visiting Jim Morrison’s gravesite in Paris, but even after I explained who Jim Morrison was, he still wasn’t interested. Oh, and Italy. Yeah, I’d really like to go to Italy.
Which is the best Beatles track of all time? I Want You/She’s So Heavy from Abbey Road. Nuff said.
What are you most proud of having achieved (having children doesn’t count) Making it out of my twenties alive.
What would you want for your last supper ever?(assuming it’s food you like now and not liquidized mush when you are 90!) Cheeseburger, really salty fries, chocolate milkshake.
How old were you when you had your first snog, name of snoggee if you dare? Haha! I know what snog means! OK – 16 and no, I won’t say (cause a lady does NOT kiss and tell – did you hear that Monica Lewinsky???). He had the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen in my life though.
Do you have an unfulfilled ambition? Yes!
If so what is it? Well, besides being a World Famous Blogger, I want to learn how to take pictures well.
What yer gonna do about achieving it? I’m shopping for a camera as we speak (thanks, Deb!)
Describe the outfit that best describes you as you are. Soft, wornout bellbottom jeans, gauzy shirt, chunky shoes. The hippie girl never died.
If you were on Desert Island Discs which one piece of music would you want to keep? Wow I had to Wiki this one! ONE PIECE OF MUSIC? OK, but tomorrow I might now feel the same way – Hold on Hold on by Neko Case. The words are perfect to me.
And what would the luxury item be, as in no use at all, on a desert island? An art deco still life painting I have.
Outside of your partner, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Beyonce Knowles, J-lo who do you fantasise about? You mean I can’t choose George Clooney?? Billy Bob Thornton cause he’s sooooo nasty.
Describe the contents of your purse/wallet, ie receipts/ bus tickets/ plastic you never use/ and if your lucky enough money.(English use of the word purse here) Gum wrappers, lots of gum wrappers, hair ties and headbands, lotion, big fat red wallet, cell phone (somewhere in the bottom of the purse where I can never find it to answer it), cigarettes (always where I can find them), sunglasses, medications (old women have to carry their medications with them ya know), and various types of paperwork (currently camera research).
Outside of the family what item would you save from the inferno? Just to be clear here, my dog IS my family so he’s going regardless. Other than that, my purse.
How much would you like me to stop now.? But I LIKE talking about myself…

what’s for supper?

Published April 13, 2007 food , relationships , Uncategorized , women 2 Comments

You know the Lean Cuisine commercial where the (obviously single) women are discussing what they had for dinner the night before and the conversation goes something like this?

“I had 62 pistachios and some almond paste.”
“Well I ate 6 Hostess cupcakes and some Havarti cheese.”
“A half a chicken and some ice cream.”

And then the 4th woman has to go and rain on everyone’s parade by saying, “I had grilled salmon on a bed of rice pilaf, and steamed French vegetables on the side. It was a Lean Cuisine Fancy Pants Meal.”

Well, I’m not like Miss Fancy Pants. I’m like her 3 friends – but only when I’m single. In my previous married life, it seems like I spent an inordinate time thinking about meals, specifically about the dinner meal. My last ex was a lean man who liked to eat and I’d wake up in the morning thinking about what to prepare for dinner that night. My shopping list was long and detailed and in a constant state of editing. There always had to be food in the house, and I’m talking prepared food here – like roast, or a casserole, or some other kind of dish that contained a substantial amount of protein – you know what I mean. For 15 years, I thought about his stomach and what I was going to put in it.Sometimes I fantasized about the rat poison I would have LIKED to have put in his stomach.After we split up, one of my very first thoughts regarding single life was “I’m Free! No more obsessive meal planning!” If I wanted to skip dinner, I skipped dinner. If I wanted to eat crackers and peanut butter for dinner, that’s what I ate. My shopping list went from a massive tome down to 10 items which were kept in constant rotation. And then things changed.Ken moved in with me last summer, which seems to have reactivated my domestic gene – the one that had gone blissfully dormant for 6 years. Once again I found myself thinking about dinner when I woke up in the morning. The shopping list got longer. I started cooking actual meals again. And I began to remember just how much work it all was.

Now don’t get me wrong. Ken is nothing like my ex-husband. In fact, I sometimes call him the Anti-Ex. If anything, he’s every woman’s dream mate – kind, considerate, self-sufficient, helpful, funny, outgoing, trustworthy. And he’s the kind of guy who’s perfectly capable of putting together a meal for us. No, the problem isn’t Ken. The problem is me. The problem is that I put all the responsibility on myself. The problem is that when I just want to eat some crackers and a handful of grapes for dinner, I don’t do it. I fix a meal instead. Maybe it’s the appreciation factor. Guys love a home-cooked meal and I love to hear how much they love it. It makes me feel like I’ve, once again, fulfilled my proper role as a nurturing female.

The other night, I really, really didn’t want to think about food preparation. I just wanted to do what I usually did when I was single – graze from the pantry. However, instead of hauling my ass down to the kitchen to stare at ingredients for a pasta dish I thought I could muster up the energy to cook, I did something daring. I told Ken “Honey, I just don’t think I can do it tonight. I can’t cook. Really.” And instead of sulking, or getting disgusted like my ex-husband would have done, Ken, the Anti-Ex, said “No problem. Would you like for me to cook instead?”

Wow. Just like that.

We ended up fixing up something simple for ourselves – he had soup and beets (ughh). I warmed up some canned black beans and a bag of pre-cooked rice for myself. It was great. Now I’ve found that it’s actually nice cooking for a man who has absolutely no preconceived notion of me as his live-in cook. Because I can take the night off if I need to. And the next night if I want.

Now THAT’S a soul mate.

defective candy product

Published March 2, 2007 food , tootsie pops 1 Comment

The Tootsie pop I purchased today was the worst one EVER. The local quickie mart must have had a run on Tootsie pops lately because they were down to 5 watermelon and 1-1/2 cherry flavored ones. I say 1-1/2 because one was just the round part – no stick. No way was I going to buy a sucker with no stick. No way. Plus, I have to have the cherry flavor because that’s just the kind of person I am. I like cherry flavored anything. So I bought what seemed to be the only whole cherry-flavored tootsie pop, which I had been looking forward to eating after my lunch today.

Lunch today was provided by the local Boy Scouts. We bought 5 spaghetti lunches from them, which they promptly delivered at 11:30 today. Pretty good except for the stale bread. I don’t begrudge them the stale bread, they’re just kids anyway. So what if they belong to a nationally recognized organization I like to refer to as The Misogynistic Homophobe Society? (sorry charles – you know who you are). The lunch only cost $5, plus it came with two pretty spectacular chocolate chip cookies.

I’m glad I had those two cookies because the much anticipated tootsie pop was defective. First of all, it was missing the entire bottom half of the candy part. It wasn’t stuck in the wrapper – it just wasn’t there at all. The part that was left on the stick was this weird cracked mess of candy that pretty much disentigrated in my mouth in about 2 minutes.

I’m worried about quality control at the tootsie pop factory. Plus, what’s up with the watermelon flavor? Did they steal that idea from Jolly Rancher?

I would so sue them if I was Jolly Rancher.

lost in translation

Published February 15, 2007 food , Ninjas , restaurants 1 Comment

Ken & I ate out at a local Japanese restaurant last night. It was one of those places where you sit at a table with strangers, and the cook comes out and prepares the meals in front of you. I have never been to such a place before, and although the food was very good, I realized that I have a problem with someone doing performance art directly in front of me.

I think there are probably two kinds of people: People who love to have someone perform just for them, and those that feel unworthy and self-conscious – like me. The cook came out and started doing interesting things with eggs and knives – which was quite impressive – and all I could think was “God, he probably thinks we’re all a bunch of idiot Americans, going to a restaurant just to see a Japanese guy do a baton twirling show with knives.” and “Geez, he probably hates his job. I know I would.”

It probably didn’t help that we eight strangers were a rather subdued audience. I can usually blend in and be my usual wallflower self if there are at least a few more gregarious people in the group. But, except for Ken, we were all pretty quiet. Ken was the only outgoing one trying to catch the shrimp in his mouth when the cook was flipping them up in the air. Ken loves stuff like that, and even though he didn’t actually catch anything in his mouth, it didn’t embarrass him at all. I would be really embarrassed if I had to do that in front of a bunch of strangers. I’d be thinking “Karen, have you totally lost your mind?”

Ken says we should go to this other Japanese restaurant in the city which he claims is much better. “The cooks do more stuff and it’s a lot more fun!” which makes me wonder just how much food they make you try to catch in your mouth before you’re served your meal, and if the cooks dress up like ninjas before they start the knife showmanship. Ninjas are cool. I would like it if they dressed like Ninjas instead of cooks. Maybe I would feel more worthy of them cooking me a meal if they looked like tough ninjas. At any rate, my plan is to have a few drinks first – because I think I could totally get into it if I’m liquored up. And maybe we should take some fun-loving friends with us, which would be a lot better than eating with strangers. And maybe we could dress up like Ninjas too! Wouldn’t that be cool?

Anyway, unbeknownst to me, as I was searching for an appropriate picture for this post, I discovered that there are ACTUAL NINJA-THEMED RESTAURANTS in New York and Japan. Cool. If you ask me, that’s just what the Midwest needs right now…

Ninja cook at Ninja-themed restaurant
He doesn’t look very tough or Ninja-like, but maybe it’s a grimace, not a smile…