Selina tagged me. I'm pretty sure if I didn't have tags, I would forget to post most of the time. I've been trying to think of things that are "quirky" about me. I've come to the conclusion that I'm pretty normal.
Here we go.
1. I can take my socks off and roll them into a ball using only my toes. I'm also very good at pinching with my toes. Rich hates this. I still do it.
2. It grosses me out and makes me gag to drink milk out of a paper cup. (Especially at large gatherings where the milk has been out and is slightly warm, ew ew ew!)
3. I am terrified of moths.
4. When playing cards, I have to have the largest number on the left, but I put the largest number on the bottom and go down in numerical order from there. (This drives Rich nuts. Try playing Phase 10 with him. He freaks that we're not "living in an Asian country" and that "my numbers are backwards.")
5. I like eating saltine crackers with butter and a slice of cheese. I push the cheese slice down so the butter comes out of the cracker holes. This makes me smile.
6. I don't like carbonated drinks because they make my nose fizzy.
7. It makes my heart hurt when I see family-owned businesses empty. Like I want to go and be a customer just so they don't look so lonely in there and so they don't fail. When I was in NY and a new dry cleaner opened up on 14th, I walked past and there were no customers and the man was just standing there staring out into the street. There were no clothes on the racks. You could practically see his thoughts and they were sad. It was heart breaking. I wanted to rush home and bring some dry cleaning, but I couldn't cuz' I was too poor to dry clean my clothes. Also, every time I pass Lanikai Grill in South Jordan I have to look inside to see if there are customers. And if there aren't, I cry a little inside. And then I remind myself to eat there soon. I just have these little stories in my head about how they are just trying to provide for their families and it's not working and it's so sad. (I'm literally tearing up while writing this. I also cry at grocery stores when I see elderly people bagging my food.)
So, I'm not sure if that last one is a quirk or just an indication of how emotional I have become. But at least it's proof that my black heart is not completely black, perhaps there's a gray tint in there still.
I am positive that my lack of imagination made me forget some of the quirks I have, so feel free to comment and remind me of how weird I truly am.
And I hate tagging people. So just do it if you feel bored.
November 23, 2008
November 12, 2008
Prancing is Underrated
Nobody really prances anymore. Though, while writing that the thought came to me "Did people ever really prance from place to place?" I mean, did the ancient Egyptians prance to and fro?
I've been meaning to discuss this topic for the past week--ever since I saw the most adorable grandpa prancing down the street. There he was in all his elderly glory. He had a yellow bow tie--which, of course, was covered in polka dots. He had a tweed sport coat with elbow patches. And his erect, cocked wrists proudly displayed the apple he was carrying and the OLD SCHOOL MEDICAL BAG. That's right. That deserved capitals. I mean, as if the prancing didn't make him adorable, the fact that he still carries his medical bag around for house calls makes him precious. (I'm absolutely convinced that had I been allowed a peek inside his bag I would have found wonderfully old and wonderfully useful medical tools. Don't ruin this for me.)
I'm not belittling. Really. This man really made me smile on a Monday morning. So I'll be forever grateful. He was just so full life. I've been composing posts in my head for the past week trying to give this man the literary justice he so clearly deserves. I'm pretty sure I wrote an entire short story based solely on this man that included embellishments from my apparently very bored imagination.
I'm not sure you can fully grasp the wonder that was the sight of the prancing country doctor on a Salt Lake City street. But I wish you could. He definitely seems like a man who would pull from his pocket a lemon drop covered with bits of coat lint to make a child's day. He is definitely that man who has been doing his Army calisthenics every day since Korea. I know this because there is no other way a man that age could get his knees up that high. He is definitely the man who strictly adheres to the adage "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." Why else would he be grandly holding his red delicious for the world to see? Perhaps he was taking it to someone who had not been following this advice in exactness. In short, this man was everything I would have imagined him to be. The only thing missing was his hat.
I've been meaning to discuss this topic for the past week--ever since I saw the most adorable grandpa prancing down the street. There he was in all his elderly glory. He had a yellow bow tie--which, of course, was covered in polka dots. He had a tweed sport coat with elbow patches. And his erect, cocked wrists proudly displayed the apple he was carrying and the OLD SCHOOL MEDICAL BAG. That's right. That deserved capitals. I mean, as if the prancing didn't make him adorable, the fact that he still carries his medical bag around for house calls makes him precious. (I'm absolutely convinced that had I been allowed a peek inside his bag I would have found wonderfully old and wonderfully useful medical tools. Don't ruin this for me.)
I'm not belittling. Really. This man really made me smile on a Monday morning. So I'll be forever grateful. He was just so full life. I've been composing posts in my head for the past week trying to give this man the literary justice he so clearly deserves. I'm pretty sure I wrote an entire short story based solely on this man that included embellishments from my apparently very bored imagination.
I'm not sure you can fully grasp the wonder that was the sight of the prancing country doctor on a Salt Lake City street. But I wish you could. He definitely seems like a man who would pull from his pocket a lemon drop covered with bits of coat lint to make a child's day. He is definitely that man who has been doing his Army calisthenics every day since Korea. I know this because there is no other way a man that age could get his knees up that high. He is definitely the man who strictly adheres to the adage "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." Why else would he be grandly holding his red delicious for the world to see? Perhaps he was taking it to someone who had not been following this advice in exactness. In short, this man was everything I would have imagined him to be. The only thing missing was his hat.
November 6, 2008
Cooking Woes
I take some pride in being able to cook. Not that I'm a great chef, nor are my meals magical (though I hope someday to have someone critique my food as "whimsical"), but I think it's fun to cook, and I enjoy making good things to eat.
Anyway, this has been a rough week in the kitchen. I decided to make some tomato soup with all of those tomatoes I have going bad and eating away at my conscience. Rich made it clear that the last tomato soup I made (which was amazing) wasn't great because it wasn't creamy tomato soup. When I found this crock pot creamy tomato soup recipe (from one of my favorite blogs btw) I was pretty excited. The reviews said this was a winner. However, I ruined the recipe beyond repair and had to end up throwing it all away--after Rich kindly made comments like "Just burns a little on the way down."
The disaster began with the recipe calling for cooking sherry. I do not own this. The Internet people (Google, you let me down) said that substituting apple cider vinegar straight across would work. Fast forward to Monday night. I walked through the door and immediately my nostrils began to twitch from the acrid smell coming from the crock pot. I promptly added A LOT of Splenda to try to offset the vinegar taste. I should have realized this wasn't working when the Splenda made the soup start to fizz--almost as if I'd created my own 4th-grade volcano science project. In desperation I decided to add the cream. Apparently vinegar makes cream curdle. So instead of "creamy" tomato soup, we have tomato soup that looks as if white sprinkles are floating in it. Undeterred and determined to make this work, I added some mozzarella (because cheese makes everything better). This did nothing. And it's still super vinegary. Then I decide to add some honey--and a lot more spices. This does not work. In the end, I put it on the table knowing it was disgusting. I lost a little respect for myself by doing this.
However, I did toast some bread up nicely. We ate that for dinner. With some apple slices. I rock at slicing up apples.
Anyway, this has been a rough week in the kitchen. I decided to make some tomato soup with all of those tomatoes I have going bad and eating away at my conscience. Rich made it clear that the last tomato soup I made (which was amazing) wasn't great because it wasn't creamy tomato soup. When I found this crock pot creamy tomato soup recipe (from one of my favorite blogs btw) I was pretty excited. The reviews said this was a winner. However, I ruined the recipe beyond repair and had to end up throwing it all away--after Rich kindly made comments like "Just burns a little on the way down."
The disaster began with the recipe calling for cooking sherry. I do not own this. The Internet people (Google, you let me down) said that substituting apple cider vinegar straight across would work. Fast forward to Monday night. I walked through the door and immediately my nostrils began to twitch from the acrid smell coming from the crock pot. I promptly added A LOT of Splenda to try to offset the vinegar taste. I should have realized this wasn't working when the Splenda made the soup start to fizz--almost as if I'd created my own 4th-grade volcano science project. In desperation I decided to add the cream. Apparently vinegar makes cream curdle. So instead of "creamy" tomato soup, we have tomato soup that looks as if white sprinkles are floating in it. Undeterred and determined to make this work, I added some mozzarella (because cheese makes everything better). This did nothing. And it's still super vinegary. Then I decide to add some honey--and a lot more spices. This does not work. In the end, I put it on the table knowing it was disgusting. I lost a little respect for myself by doing this.
However, I did toast some bread up nicely. We ate that for dinner. With some apple slices. I rock at slicing up apples.
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