You're Doing It Wrong

Microplane zester — great product. You can grate Parmesan, chocolate, garlic, excellent tool for lemon/orange zest. And works great on the human body too. I did a number on my thumb last night that was extremely gross. I had to clean the zester after I was done swearing and applying pressure with a thickly wadded paper towel — nothing like skin zest to kill an appetite. Today I have a lovely moist, pink area on my thumb.

Why is it always so hard to come back from vacation? So many things to do, the yard (weeds) is out of control and there are so many maintenance things to do – you know, bills to pay, big pile of crap to sort through, tape of Daily Shows to watch.

I got back from Orleans yesterday. I had the best time and have a lot to write about later. One point is that I only got one good night of sleep the whole time I was gone so I’m still a little tired. I took a nap yesterday and we went to Rhonnda’s birthday party at the Green Room last night but we sneaked out pretty early. I slept in until 8:30am (amazingly late for me). Tonight we have Ray Charles and tomorrow already back to work.

I’m a little overwhelmed at the moment since I’m tired, the yard needs much attention and I have all these notes and things to do to follow up on my adventure last week. I think my intention will be to not get so wound up.

More to come.

Okay, here’s a story for you. I have a festival of plantar warts on my left foot. About 10 years ago I had a major plantar wart on my big toe, right foot. I ignored it, thinking it would go away, until finally it hurt to put on shoes.

At that time I had no doctor and for my “health insurance” you went by your zip code and I lived in North Hollywood. That was how they referred me to a doctor. Huge reading between the lines here.

So I make my appointment with the foot doctor and I arrive at my appointment at the lovely clinic in a strip mall and my doctor never came in that day so some other doctor says he can handle it and proceeds to give me the shot to numb my foot. Imagine a big long needle (and I’m not afraid of needles, normally) BENDING into my big toe to numb it for my procedure. My unfortunate but very devoted boyfriend at the time, Brian, (who is still a good friend, and all bow heads and think nice thoughts for B who is in Montana right now finishing his undergrad degree after all these years – go guy!) came in with me and I almost killed him squeezing his hand off. The doctor’s assistant complimented me for not screaming. So the witch Dr. carves the thing out of my toe and wraps it up.

Brian took me to Dances with Wolves after this nightmare medical office experience — which haunts me to this day. Although I will go into a medical office, I cannot hear about Dances with Wolves or Kevin Costner without telling them about my plantar wart.

So now how do I handle this new crop?

Monday was my brother-in-law’s birthday and we went out to dinner. We went to this place called something like Salyer’s Old Country Kitchen in Portland and there is no reason to go to this place unless you are going to eat a big old slab of red meat.

Their gimmick is the 72 oz. steak (that’s 4 1/2 pounds, in case you’re slow at math) and if you eat the whole thing, you get it for free. You have to sit by yourself and you get one hour and you also have to eat a salad and some french fries and a celery stick or something — there are specific regulations. In the lobby there are newspaper clippings showing some of the challengers and it made me lose my appetite. Do you know how big a 72 oz. steak is? Can you imagine digesting that thing? There is no way that can be good for you. There’s also a tally board with how many people have tried and how many succeeded. I can’t remember the exact numbers but I think it was like, 8 women out of 90 who tried and 150 men out of 600. And this is since the restaurant opened in 1946.

I had a piece of grilled halibut and some vegetables for my dinner, since as you may or may not know, I am not a red meat eater and can count on one hand how many times I’ve eated red meat in the last 10 years.

There is this song I like. I’ve heard it on the radio on a couple of times — it’s sort of a hip-hop kind of song and not what I normally like and not the usual fare on the radio stations I tend to listen to. I really want to know who the band is but can’t figure out how to do that. Last time I heard the song I dutifully waited for the DJ to tell me but instead he told me about some great product I should buy or maybe it was some contest I could win, but it was not the name of the artist. I also tried going to cdnow.com and I went through several of the charts and clicked on the samples to see if I could find the band that way — labor intensive and yielded nothing. Someone asked me how it goes and I said “do do-doo, do do-doo” which also didn’t help — I’m apparently not a gifted vocalist or even capable of humming in a way to make the song easily identify-able.

The person that cleaned our office quit in November, pretty suddenly, because we dared question the quality of her work. In the meantime, we’ve done without cleaning and I’ve emptied the trash and ran the vacuum and scrubbed the toilet bowl now and then.

If finally was getting to me because the office was getting grunge city so I went in on Sunday and did the full monty cleaning pam-style which means I move furniture and everything. I took some cds to listen to, including Limp Bizkit. We have a potty mouth jar — .25 per word and we’re pretty lenient and only charge for sh*t and f#ck and variations. Also, the boss is exempt by his own choice. We still have managed to accumulate over $30 and talk about using the funds for a trip to Disneyland.

Anyway, Fred Durst owes the potty mouth jar about $35 and I intend to collect.

omigod. I haven’t been here in almost a week. What happened?

It’s not lack of thoughts. I can make an essay out of a library card application.

Yesterday on the radio as I was driving in to work they were talking about 80’s bands which I consider myself to be pretty expert at. The guy was saying this stuff that was DEAD WRONG like David Coverdale used to sing for Rainbow, or possibly DIO. I think the only person that ever sang for Dio was Ronnie James Dio — correct me if I’m wrong. Then he talked about John Waite and mentioned he was in The Babys (which I STILL own on vinyl) and a band called Modern English. doh! Someone called and corrected him. It was Bad English.

So one of the other DJs was just amazed at this guy’s knowledge and he was like, “yeah, I know all about 80’s bands.” In the meantime, I am bursting a blood vessel screaming at the radio because these people are such bucket heads.

I don’t understand this whole morning radio thing. Every single station needs to have their team of “funny” DJs who pull pranks and get people to call in a humiliate themselves or others. When I’m in my car and I’m driving to work, I want to hear traffic reports relevant to me and I want music.

Yesterday I got home from work and immediately jumped in — making dinner, emptying the dishwasher, folding clean laundry. Basically doing 100 things at once because I wanted to try to watch Buffy that I’d taped.

So someone leans on the doorbell. DingdongDingdongDingdong. Normally I ignore the doorbell if I’m not expecting anyone, but I’ve been trying to change my ways to be more neighborly and what do I get for my efforts but the Bible thumpers and the Sierra Club. I believe there is no excuse for being rude so I try to be honest, but kind.

So Mr. Sierra Club starts his song and dance with the whole manipulation how all my neighbors have signed his clipboard and the Arctic and oil drilling and save the polar bears, etc. So I’m standing there, hungry and tired and he’s talking to me like he suspects I don’t understand English. I am politely listening and then he asks for my signature and $75!

I snort and hand him back his clipboard, like I have $75 laying around. And he pushes it back at me, “you can donate at any level.”

Now isn’t it sort of presumptuous to show up at some strangers door, ask for personal information, a signature and $75? I say, “Look, I’m tired, I’m hungry and I don’t even want to think about this right now.”

So he gives this pained look and checks his watch and says, “oooh, I’m only here until 9 o’clock. Should I come back?”

“No,” I say, and hand him back his clipboard.