I wrote this earlier and my blog got eaten. What a world.
SNACKS
Bob and I have been talking about cleaning out our shop for months. The “shop” is a room off the garage that’s a handy place for throwing empty boxes, broken chairs, old moldy tarps – you get the picture. We never seem to get around to it so I decided to schedule a time. Last Friday I taped a sign to the microwave that said, “Sunday Shop Cleaning 2-4pm, Featured snack: vegan chicken nuggets with dipping sauce.” Bob thought this was hilarious. I explained that I thought a snack would ensure participation.
CINCO DE MAYO
For Cinco I made a bunch of festive foods. I tried a Sunset magazine recipe for Green Chili Rice which came out great even though I didn’t have some of the ingredients and I didn’t follow the directions very well. The recipe said to add to make 3 cups of liquid but I accidentally put in 4 cups of liquid so I just threw in some more rice and we didn’t have long grain so I used short grain — if you enjoy eating it that’s all that matters, right? Then I made sweet potato quesadillas which sounds like a yuppie restaurant food, but we liked it. Next time I’d mash the sweet potatoes better. The last thing I made was chicken posole soup and I used the slow cooker which turned out to be a mistake. But we added green chili rice and salsa to our bowls which perked up the boring soup.
GARDEN
I’m behind in the garden. I got one row of greens in a month ago and now that the sun’s come out they’re growing like crazy. I put in two more rows last weekend and bought my tomatoes yesterday. Earlier I reported that I’d planted about 60 peas and only about 3 have come up — the slugs eat them as soon as they show their faces. Next year I’ll sprout them inside first.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
I hesitate to even write this because that goofy guy from SW Airlines is probably going to come back and beat me up again for having my panties in a wad and wanting the world to run my way. (Well, we all do, don’t we?) But since when did customer service turn into employees running over to you the instant you pause in a store to ask, “Can I help you find something?” Yeah, it’s nice to see there are employees around who can help you if you need it and if I need help I will ask for it, but sometimes you just like to look at the salad dressings to see if there’s a new one to try or you need to stand there for a minute to remember what you need and you’ve got some employee interrupting you and saying, “You look like you need some help.” Sometimes I want to hand them my shopping list and just go wait in the car with a magazine and some cookies. The latest that got me going was this goofy guy in this bookstore downtown who says across the entire store in his priggy voice, “May we help you?” when I very clearly did not need help.
