The Banterest visited China. Hilarious stuff like this classic: Using the Squat Toilet.
Rule One: Exhaust all other possibilities.
If you are truly in need and condemned to use the squat toilet, comfort yourself with the knowledge that you are several thousand miles from friends and family. No one has to know.
Proceed as follows:
Most stalls do not have toilet paper. This is the best time to realize this.
This week David Spade did a bit on his show about DVD extras, collector editions and deleted scenes.
He said that studios put out DVDs with different covers and call them collector editions. He calls them: Nerd Bait.
The line that got the biggest laughs was on deleted scenes. He said there’s a reason they’re deleted. “It’s like saying you want the shit they left out of the hot dog.”
(The picture above is of the Portland Library and has nothing to do with content of this post.)
Last night was grocery shopping night and we were both running late. Bob had a meeting and I was going to pick him up at school so we could go forage for food together.
But there was a stall on I5 and only one lane could get by, so it took me an hour to get home and by then Bob had walked 9/10ths of the way home so we didn’t hit the store until after 7pm.
We forgot the list. We were tired, hungry and just trying to get it over with. The whole thing was not optimal for effective grocery procurement. (The next day we were laughing because other than buying batteries and “lots of juice” we didn’t get anything useful.)
As we finished up, tossing a few onions into the cart, we tried to figure out what would be dinner. We didn’t want to do any work. We both sidestepped over to that heat table thing with the bright lights and sweating roast chickens in plastic bags. We shrugged at each other as if to says, ‘Sure, if YOU want to.’ We stuck one in our cart.
When we got home we put leftover microwaved rice on a plate, tore off chicken meat and poured on some juice from the bottom of the bag. We hoovered it, looking at each other as if ashamed to admit it. “This is good.”
Tonight I picked the rest of the meat off the chicken of shame and made a peanut sauce and some udon noodles that I’ve had in the cupboard for ages and finally used. The instructions are as follows (edited very slightly for length.)
1. Loosen Udon and put it in an ample boiling water. Boil for about 20 minutes (do not steam it for the food served in the pot).
2. If steam for about 10 minutes over a weak fire by keeping the lid covered, gentle and nice Udon is ready. You may enjoy the great variety of dishes according to your preference, for example.
We did.
1. Almost every morning between 7:15 and 7:45 am, when I am sitting at my desk at the office, a squadron of emergency vehicles with lights flashing and sirens blaring zooms through downtown. Is there really an emergency almost every morning?
2. Does anyone get how to cut a mango? I bought a nice big pretty one and this morning I attempted to slice it into a container and what really happened is that I chopped at juicy pulp and carved a bit of bright orange slush at the bottom of the bowl. It tasted fantastic but overall was a long run for a short slide. I think the champagne mangos have more fruit on them and are half as big.
3. Hey you! You commuting on I5 northbound out of downtown Portland between 3pm and 6pm when the car pool lane is in effect. You are the only person in your car. You are in the car pool lane. You are zooming by all of us with your blinker on as if you are trying to move out of the lane.
You are not fooling anyone.
Good effing God. What a sorry project this has turned out to be. At this point, I think our only solution is to move.
Working with drywall is like working with pastry dough. I was supposed to cut out (at a bevel!!!) a piece and use that to recut where the hole is so that the piece fits into the hole. It was like the pie crust recipe where they tell you to fold the dough into quarters and then unfold it into the pie plate. CAN’T BE DONE.
And the small hole didn’t work because I didn’t buy the right thing and I didn’t like the stuff I bought. So I didn’t even get to use my putty knife.
As I was sitting on the floor swearing and trying to remember how to put the drill in reverse so I could remove some screws (this was after taking about 10 minutes to figure out how to put the blade in my new utility knife) Bob came in to tell me he was going to Dinners Done Right to make us some dinners for the next month. Nice role reversal, eh?
Since the drywall was a bust, I went on to the wallpaper, first scoring it with my paper tiger and then spraying it with some warm water. Then I stood back and waited for it to fall off the wall.
Apparently this wallpaper was installed with a titanium alloy adhesive. It took forever before I could even scrape a tiny corner up and it’s coming off in wispy fragments. And I’m not sure, but I don’t think that’s even a real wall underneath. It looks like a prop from a grade school play about a land with no real walls. Assuming I ever get all the wall paper off, I’m going to be sanding and/or priming and/or patching these “walls” for the rest of my life. Especially if I keep complaining about it and not doing it.
It’s safe to say I’m not going to going into the home improvement business anytime soon.
I just got home from Home Depot. Now I know what a man feels like when you send him to the grocery store for fennel and fusilli.
As I have written before, we have never done any home improvements and my best idea for a reason why is that we don’t want to.
Recently I’ve been on this crafts thing. I want to make everything. I have zillions of ideas for cool things to make and how to decorate myself and my surroundings more creatively. I would make a list of the crafts but it’s pretty much everything except ceramics. And soap carving. And macrame. But pretty much everything else.
So far I’ve been big on looking at books and websites and looking for classes. The only class I signed up for so far, sewing, was canceled in winter and not offered in spring so I’ve been meaning to go to the sewing store and just buy a bunch of stuff and try to make something see how I do. I’ve bought a few crafty things but I don’t have a good storage area so I had this idea that I would make over my closet with shelves.
Then I realized if I was going to do that I should at least paint the closet first. Then I realized if I was going to paint the closet, I should probably paint my whole room and now it’s turned into a Home Improvement Project.
I broke it down into small parts to keep from getting overwhelmed. I’m going to need to patch drywall. There are nail holes and some scuffs and one good sized hole the previous owners used for a cable. And there’s a large hole from what we will call, a situation.
I also need to remove wallpaper, figure out what the hell is wrong with this leaky window and fix windowsill and pull up carpet in closet and put something else in there. Then I can get started on the painting part. But I figure once I get my feet wet I’ll be inspired to do other projects around the house.
This weekend was the planned drywall fix weekend and I did my homework which involved looking at 3 different online tutorials and making a list of things I would need. Then I went to the store and looked at all the stuff and got psyched out and left empty handed. My next step was to consult with my next door neighbor and my Dad and this morning went to Home Depot (because we had a gift card there.)
I had to call Dad once from the store, but look at all the swell loot I got:
I didn’t get it in the picture but a very nice man named DW “found” me some drywall scraps. He asked me a few questions and quickly figured out that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing so he very helpfully made me two (2) scraps so if I screw up one, I have another chance.
My First Putty Knife
Now I have all my stuff home and spread out on the floor. It’s more fun documenting this than actually trying to do the work. I guess I’ll try the small hole first and see how I do.
Stay tuned for updates.
I remembered what I was going to write earlier.
Bob and I watched a fantastic move last night : Breakfast on Pluto. It was a teeny bit like Big Fish but not really. I don’t know how to describe it but we were surprised how much we loved it. Great music. Fantastic tone. It has a lot of heart.
It was directed by Neil Jordan based on a novel by Patrick McCabe (which I didn’t learn until writing this post) who wrote The Butcher Boy, a book that I read a long time ago and made a big impression on me, and became a movie which I never saw.
The lead performance is fantastic and I kept telling Bob, It’s the guy from Match Point. Wow, you can’t even recognize him. It doesn’t even seem like the same guy. And that guy is Jonathan Rys Meyers who also played the dreamy soccer coach in Bend It Like Beckham.
I watched this incredible performance, trying to find a trace of the soccer coach or the fantastic performance in Match Point and was speechless.
This morning I put the DVD into this envelope and learned there was a good reason he was unrecognizable. Because the actor in this movie was Cillian Murphy. DOH!
Mr. Murphy is another great Irish actor, (der, they all look alike, those pretty Irish boys) who was in Batman Begins and another odd favorite 28 Days Later. When I say odd, I’m not referring to the movie which is a great piece of filmmaking. I refer to my own reaction because it’s a zombie movie. Not normal movie food for me. But really a brilliant film.
My other update is the fantastic dinner we made tonight.
Bob found a great piece of salmon at the farmer’s market. I had a recipe for baking that involves butter and Worcestershire sauce. I had a shallot that was rapidly aging in the fridge so I sliced it and added it to the mix. We roasted asparagus, too. And we had some strawberries that I sliced and sugared earlier this afternoon which we put over ice cream. Fantastic. The house smells incredible.
It’s Saturday, it must be Chore Day
But I’m sitting here typing.
Yesterday I got all the dahlias in. I lost a lot in the “I’m going to divide my dahlias this year disaster (scroll down to Mar 2).” But I had plenty left and I bought a bunch of new ones which you will get photos of later this summer.
Do you ever go out to the yard with more tools than you come in with? Where do those tools go? I like to use a cheap kitchen knife for lots of stuff and now I’ve been through 3. I looked through the compost and everything. Now that the dahlias, garden and flowers out front are done, I’m losing interest in gardening. That must be why my yard always looks only about one third done.
This morning I started a new book and I can hardly drag myself away. If I’m going to be unproductive, I might as well go finish it. It’s book #2 of Midnighters. Nothing better than a book you can’t wait to get back to.
I’m working on my painting project which I will write more about tomorrow. I’m taking apart my room which feels like the end of the school year in college where you take down all the crap you’ve taped to the walls and goofball mementos you’ve nailed up all year long. Except in this case, it’s been about 8 years since we’ve moved into the house.
I had more when I sat down but now I’m drawing a blank. I guess I should get back to work.
Why, Why, Oh Why Do I Go To Jantzen Beach?
Every time I try to buy something in Jantzen Beach, I regret it. It’s an awful, awful place.
Today I was all hot on this home improvement project that I will write more about later plus I had several lists for several stores for things to help out with this project.
Jantzen Beach Target is a big store filled with nothing you need but lots of cool things to buy. I got totally distracted from my mission although I did do valuable reconnaissance for future home improvement projects. I only managed to find one thing that I was actually looking for, plus a few other things that kept it from being a total wash.
Then I made the super critical error of going to my most loathed big box worthless chain store: Office Despot. I used to buy the office supplies there because it was an easy place to stop and even then I always complained about what a bad store it was.
One thing I wanted was Magic Markers. Do they even exist anymore? Did Sharpie buy up all the markers so it’s Sharpie or nothing? Because I didn’t want a Sharpie. I wanted a Magic Marker and there were none to be had. I also like these certain neon highlighters that had to be bought by the dozen, so I nixed on those. I wanted those cardboard magazine holder boxes and they had a super ugly one available only in a 6-pack (I figured I could collage them and make them pretty) or some sort of simulated leather thing that was also super ugly in a 2 pack. I know I’ve seen nice looking magazine boxes. I probably should have looked at Target.
I found one other thing on my list and went to the only line I saw, you know, the old slow guy who also has to answer the phone while all the other employees are running around doing godknowswhat? He had some complicated deal where he had to credit something and recharge something else and while he was sorting it out, I chatted with the other customer. Ten minutes later they get it all finished and old slow guy says: I’m going to ask you to go to another register. We’re closing up.
Me, aghast: After I’ve been standing here for 10 minutes?
Then, like the perpetual Ms. Congeniality that I am, I put my stuff on the counter and said: I have a better idea. I’ll spend my money somewhere else. And I stomped out.
Which, yes, really showed him. Because now I’ve been in Jantzen Beach for almost 2 hours and I have accomplished almost nothing except getting cranky. Damn you Jantzen Beach!
I Forgot To Include This Below
I found this doing a research project this week.
IRS Publication 525 Taxable and Nontaxable Income actually says this:
Bribes. If you receive a bribe, include it in your income.
