Kevin and I go grocery shopping together sometimes. If there's anything that American grocery stores are known for, it is the high royalties they are willing to pay in order to have the hottest music playing throughout your shopping experience. That said, the song you are listening to right now (assuming your computer isn't muted) started playing in the store.
Growing up, my mom listened to Magic 99.5, Light rock, less talk. Because of that, I have grown to know and appreciate such artists as Lionel Richie, Rod Stewart, Steely Dan, Billie Joel, and apparently Grover Washington.
This happenin' tune was playing through the grocery store, and I was happily shopping, humming along, and grooving to the sultry sounds of light rock....
Then Kevin pipes up, "It's a shame they had to come along and ruin a perfectly good rap song."
I stared at him for a moment, shocked that someone can read The Odyssey for FUN and still be uncultured when it comes to the smooth sounds of the eighties.
So continue listening, my dear friends/random strangers reading this blog.
And answer me this: Who sings it better, Grover Washington or Will Smith?
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Case of the Midnight Pig: Case Closed!!
So tonight at Young Women, it was Senior Appreciation Night. There was just one senior this year, so it was Channy's show! Woo woo! And it was short. Woooo!!!!
So afterwards, I was talking to some folks in my ward, and I told them the story of.... the midnight pig. Well, Eileen, one of my friends and neighbors, had been talking to people, and apparently, one of the ladies in our ward has a big pet pig, and it got out. And ate my compost pile, apparently. :)
So it's not as scary as I thought.... I think a wild boar made a better story, though.
And the last couple nights I've made dinner for some people in our ward. Last night I made fajitas. And I make dang good fajitas! Basically, I use the marinade as the sauteeing sauce, and I use my stir-fry methodology learned in China.... and there you have it! Awesome fajitas. Kevin said they tasted better than a restaurant's. So bringing these fajitas to a friend for dinner did nothing but inflate my pride.
Which immediately got deflated tonight. It was cold today, and I made meatloaf. The meatloaf was good. My biggest problem is that meatloaf goes well with potatoes, and I don't like potatoes. Therefore I never make potatoes and don't know how to make anything good with potatoes. Well, you can't go wrong with mashed potatoes, and since we had butter and sour cream on hand, I knew I could make some awesome mashed potatoes.
I tasted them and thought they tasted nice. But apparently the texture left something to be desired. We don't have a hand mixer, so I'd used this hand blender thing we got for our wedding that I use all the time instead of a hand mixer. Mixer, blender. What's the difference?
Well, apparently the hand blender leaves your potatoes-- instead of light and fluffy like whipped potatoes-- a little more like... paste.
Well, she didn't have to eat them, did she? She could just accept the stupid potatoes with grace and decorum, take a bite, and then scrape them into the garbage. Maybe that's what she did. Either way, it looked better than just showing up with a meatloaf. I mean, it has plenty of vegetables in it (onions, carrots, tomato sauce), so it could be considered a complete meal. But it looks pretty sparse.
And for you folks (ha ha, fools) who read to the bottom of this long, rather rambly post, I have a question:
What kind of digital camera do you have, and what do you like/not like about it? We need to buy one, but we can't decide on the details.
So afterwards, I was talking to some folks in my ward, and I told them the story of.... the midnight pig. Well, Eileen, one of my friends and neighbors, had been talking to people, and apparently, one of the ladies in our ward has a big pet pig, and it got out. And ate my compost pile, apparently. :)
So it's not as scary as I thought.... I think a wild boar made a better story, though.
And the last couple nights I've made dinner for some people in our ward. Last night I made fajitas. And I make dang good fajitas! Basically, I use the marinade as the sauteeing sauce, and I use my stir-fry methodology learned in China.... and there you have it! Awesome fajitas. Kevin said they tasted better than a restaurant's. So bringing these fajitas to a friend for dinner did nothing but inflate my pride.
Which immediately got deflated tonight. It was cold today, and I made meatloaf. The meatloaf was good. My biggest problem is that meatloaf goes well with potatoes, and I don't like potatoes. Therefore I never make potatoes and don't know how to make anything good with potatoes. Well, you can't go wrong with mashed potatoes, and since we had butter and sour cream on hand, I knew I could make some awesome mashed potatoes.
I tasted them and thought they tasted nice. But apparently the texture left something to be desired. We don't have a hand mixer, so I'd used this hand blender thing we got for our wedding that I use all the time instead of a hand mixer. Mixer, blender. What's the difference?
Well, apparently the hand blender leaves your potatoes-- instead of light and fluffy like whipped potatoes-- a little more like... paste.
Well, she didn't have to eat them, did she? She could just accept the stupid potatoes with grace and decorum, take a bite, and then scrape them into the garbage. Maybe that's what she did. Either way, it looked better than just showing up with a meatloaf. I mean, it has plenty of vegetables in it (onions, carrots, tomato sauce), so it could be considered a complete meal. But it looks pretty sparse.
And for you folks (ha ha, fools) who read to the bottom of this long, rather rambly post, I have a question:
What kind of digital camera do you have, and what do you like/not like about it? We need to buy one, but we can't decide on the details.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Hidden Treasures
If you want to grow carrots, you don't probably want a lot of rocks in your soil. So last night I decided I'd loosen up the garden dirt in a nice row for my carrots. I got the big shovel and started turning up the dirt. I even got the sieve to take out EVERYTHING crunchy and have nice, smooth soil.
This went smoothly for about two feet. Then *clunk!* there was a rock my shovel couldn't move. *Clunk!* There was another one. *Clunk, clunk, clunk!* The rest of the row was full of rocks.
Have no fear, I will succeed! I told myself.
So I got down into the dirt with my little trowel and started excavating. It was really weird, and I'm not sure what purpose it held, but the obstacle my shovel had found was a whole row of large (maybe 1/2 a cubic foot-- basketball sized) rocks wrapped in black plastic. I pulled out three of them, and on the bottom of one was a giant (well, not tiny) spider. Weird! I didn't know spiders could live under rocks two feet under the ground. Unfortunately... they can.
So that's my not-so-interesting story. Of all the places I decide to soften the soil for carrots, it's the place with the buried rock patch.
This went smoothly for about two feet. Then *clunk!* there was a rock my shovel couldn't move. *Clunk!* There was another one. *Clunk, clunk, clunk!* The rest of the row was full of rocks.
Have no fear, I will succeed! I told myself.
So I got down into the dirt with my little trowel and started excavating. It was really weird, and I'm not sure what purpose it held, but the obstacle my shovel had found was a whole row of large (maybe 1/2 a cubic foot-- basketball sized) rocks wrapped in black plastic. I pulled out three of them, and on the bottom of one was a giant (well, not tiny) spider. Weird! I didn't know spiders could live under rocks two feet under the ground. Unfortunately... they can.
So that's my not-so-interesting story. Of all the places I decide to soften the soil for carrots, it's the place with the buried rock patch.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Repetition
So here's an interesting coincidence...
http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/video/episodes.shtml#vid=239103
You'll have to select an episode at the bottom, and please choose "Night Out." This, as you well remember, is the episode where Michael and Dwight go to New York to visit Ryan. Ryan seems a bit... out of sorts. You see, he has a hobbit-like friend who has dealt him some substances of questionable legality. Yeah, he's completely high and admits at the end he has a drug problem.
Now fast-forward a few weeks to Jay Leno's Tonight Show from 5/9/08
http://www.nbc.com/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/video/episodes.shtml
Harrison Ford is on there "promoting" his new Indiana Jones movie, but what he seems to be doing is an excellent impersonation of Ryan, except with a bit more incoherent babbling and fewer completed sentences. Only he doesn't admit at the end that he has a drug problem. But most likely he'll be the next one we see admitting himself to rehab.
http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/video/episodes.shtml#vid=239103
You'll have to select an episode at the bottom, and please choose "Night Out." This, as you well remember, is the episode where Michael and Dwight go to New York to visit Ryan. Ryan seems a bit... out of sorts. You see, he has a hobbit-like friend who has dealt him some substances of questionable legality. Yeah, he's completely high and admits at the end he has a drug problem.
Now fast-forward a few weeks to Jay Leno's Tonight Show from 5/9/08
http://www.nbc.com/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/video/episodes.shtml
Harrison Ford is on there "promoting" his new Indiana Jones movie, but what he seems to be doing is an excellent impersonation of Ryan, except with a bit more incoherent babbling and fewer completed sentences. Only he doesn't admit at the end that he has a drug problem. But most likely he'll be the next one we see admitting himself to rehab.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The rules are simple: 
1. Go to http://www.flickr.com/
2. Type your answer to each question in the "search" box.
3. Using only the first page, pick an image.
4. Copy and paste the picture into your blog.
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. Where did you go to high school?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
Monday, May 12, 2008
Shadows at Midnight
I haven't been sleeping too well lately. Sarah and Dave are living in our house, and Kevin and I have vacated to the "pink room" where we're sleeping on a blow-up mattress. Also, I've caught a bit of a cold, which means that combining all these factors, I sleep for about an hour at a time between nose blows.
At 4:30 this morning, I awoke to notice that it was really gusty and raining. Then in my sleep-deprived mindset, I panicked about my cardboard shoebox of vegetable seeds that I'd left outside in the garden (unplanted).
I jumped out of bed in my sweats, donned my flip-flops, and ran frantically outside into the rainy darkness of night. The wind had blown my shoebox down a few feet from where it was originally, and I tiptoed through the mud to pick it up.
As I was bending over towards it, I noticed a big black shadow towards my left, maybe four feet away from my face. In the dark, I thought it must be a big, black dog sleeping in the grass, and in my drowsy state, I was surprised, but not terribly worried. I did take a step back, though.
As my eyes adjusted to the dark, and as my slow-motion brain tried to catch up to speed, I realized that big black dogs don't sleep in the grass during rainstorms. If it had been a dog, it would have looked up at me, barked, or at least flinched or reacted when I approached it. So it wasn't a dog. It was big, black, not really hairy, but very fat with its black skin kind of stretched over its cylindrical belly section. It was... a huge black wild boar rooting through my compost pile!
I yelled at it to, "Hey, get out of here," but it didn't even look up from its rooting through my rotten vegetables, crunching, snorting, and smacking its lips.
Now my brain had again caught up with itself, and I realized what a stupid thing I was doing, shouting at a giant (four feet long and two in diameter) wild animal that was chowing down on its newly discovered treasure. I've seen movies of these beasts in action (think Pumbaa bowling for buzzards), and while I couldn't see its face in the dark, I didn't want to be around when its tusky front end noticed me. So I high-tailed it back into my house.
Now I bet you're wondering what happened with the seeds. I sat in the living room stewing about this same problem for a while, all the time knowing that the more I waited, the wetter my seeds were getting. I crept back outside, and the midnight pig was gone, or at least it was far enough into the shadows that I couldn't see it. Happily, I retrieved said seeds and trotted back into the house.
Next time I'm bringing a flashlight.
At 4:30 this morning, I awoke to notice that it was really gusty and raining. Then in my sleep-deprived mindset, I panicked about my cardboard shoebox of vegetable seeds that I'd left outside in the garden (unplanted).
I jumped out of bed in my sweats, donned my flip-flops, and ran frantically outside into the rainy darkness of night. The wind had blown my shoebox down a few feet from where it was originally, and I tiptoed through the mud to pick it up.
As I was bending over towards it, I noticed a big black shadow towards my left, maybe four feet away from my face. In the dark, I thought it must be a big, black dog sleeping in the grass, and in my drowsy state, I was surprised, but not terribly worried. I did take a step back, though.
As my eyes adjusted to the dark, and as my slow-motion brain tried to catch up to speed, I realized that big black dogs don't sleep in the grass during rainstorms. If it had been a dog, it would have looked up at me, barked, or at least flinched or reacted when I approached it. So it wasn't a dog. It was big, black, not really hairy, but very fat with its black skin kind of stretched over its cylindrical belly section. It was... a huge black wild boar rooting through my compost pile!
I yelled at it to, "Hey, get out of here," but it didn't even look up from its rooting through my rotten vegetables, crunching, snorting, and smacking its lips.
Now my brain had again caught up with itself, and I realized what a stupid thing I was doing, shouting at a giant (four feet long and two in diameter) wild animal that was chowing down on its newly discovered treasure. I've seen movies of these beasts in action (think Pumbaa bowling for buzzards), and while I couldn't see its face in the dark, I didn't want to be around when its tusky front end noticed me. So I high-tailed it back into my house.
Now I bet you're wondering what happened with the seeds. I sat in the living room stewing about this same problem for a while, all the time knowing that the more I waited, the wetter my seeds were getting. I crept back outside, and the midnight pig was gone, or at least it was far enough into the shadows that I couldn't see it. Happily, I retrieved said seeds and trotted back into the house.
Next time I'm bringing a flashlight.
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