You Say, Love Is a Chew Toy

I had a maid service come by today and do some hard core cleaning before I leave for vacation. Yes, scant readers, I am broke. However, I secured this service for six hours of maid work for $60 through Groupon, and I dirtied up my house a-plenty to be sure that I would get my dollar's worth. Side note - if you have never heard of Groupon, look it up immediately. It is my favorite business idea since Netflix. Side-side note, Netflix is going to dominate with its streaming business once it has connectivity to more platforms.

I came home from work today to a fresh-smelling and sparkling, slippery-floored house. The service I used did a great job. One of the indicators of said great job was that probably 10 of Sophie's otherwise black-holed toys had reappeared in her toy basket. I am assuming the maids had dug these out from cushions or found them when actually moving the couch to sweep, mop. (My approach to cleaning is more of a if-I-don't-see-it-it's-not-there approach.) Anyway. I had to crate Sophie during the day so the maids could do their work. When I let her out, she immediately ran over to her toy basket (which has been empty for a couple of months now) and began pulling out each toy for some sort of chew-inspection.

She has ignored me since, which, now that I think of it, is not that bad of a thing considering she thinks she is a 75lb lap dog and I am all crampy and pre-menstrual. But. It IS pretty hilarious. I mean, these toys are probably the most crap-basket of toys. She has gotten each one of them out, and she has been moving in circles, from toy to toy, to be sure to thoroughly enjoy each one before it gets kicked back underneath the couch.

In this view, you can see an old t-shirt that has been knotted, remainders of one vanilla chew bone (Sophie's favorite and IMPOSSIBLE to find), a pink squeak bone that has had gory hunks torn out of it (which I am assuming had been swallowed and then deposited in my yard), a pink Kong she's had since I first got her and she weighed 6lbs, and the remains of another chew bone that I believe was filled with some sort of synthetic peanut butter flavoring. She has been on this rug the entire night, only coming over every so often to drop one of these soggy, disgusting things in my lap in an attempt to get me to play.

Simple things.

I am leaving for Florida in five days with my dork dog. I have a feeling she is going to spend the week drinking and then puking up ocean water. Happy Holidays!

And... BEDTIME.

I'm having one of those days when I am about ready to pack it in and go to bed.

I was working on this presentation for work and therefore grappling with PowerPoint all day, my MOST hated of Office programs. I think that Microsoft designed Office with the expectation that everyone using it was brain dead and it therefore had to be on hyper, rabid watchdog mode trying to correct all of the user's incorrect logic. Didn't people go on killing sprees over that stupid paperclip in previous versions? Just taking away the mascot for that Office-Knows-Best BS is not going to prevent people from having aneurysms. It doesn't help that I am OCD and I need to have my bullets line up or that I hate Times New Roman.

Anyway, with a day full of PowerPoint, I didn't notice that I was drinking WAY too much coffee. I am hyper-sensitive to caffeine. I think I get caffeine-rage. My stomach was rolling around all day in that nervous fashion that somehow also makes me feel paranoid. I was working myself up into this sort of annoyed frenzy watching the Food Network. I wanted to put my fist through something when I saw Giada make the same thing on two different shows. It doesn't help that, again, I am OCD and this somehow violates my order of things (who needs TWO separate shows for a shrimp cocktail recipe???) or that I hate Giada.

I get home, and my dog has apparently spent the entire day EATING the rug I have in my sun room. Not chewing, not tearing. EATING. Don't even get me started here. This dog must have a stomach of steel and a brain of some supposedly dumber animal. I have given up long ago trying to root around in her mouth for soggy, half-chewed crap. I figure one of these days, she will learn on her own when something tastes disgusting and makes her gag. Hasn't happened yet. She has been ringing the bell to go outside for potty like every ten minutes. The rug must have had a lot of fiber.

Then, I started reading my issue of Time magazine, which has a picture of Sarah Palin on the cover. I am already in a caffeine-rage, and somehow I think I can make it through an article on Sarah Palin? One quote from her and my head could spontaneously combust from how stupid she is.

Even Angry Birds couldn't calm me down, even though I might somehow better sympathize with their anger.

I have food on my shirt (not unusual), a headache, and the prospect of having to do actual Christmas shopping this weekend makes me depressed. I don't even have anything to drink as a downer-fix for my caffeine spree today. I DO have sleeping pills, however. Here's to tomorrow being better.

The Howling Fantods

This is what my copy of Infinite Jest looks like at this point. I finished this book for a second time awhile back in August, but I left it out because I had dog-eared a few passages that I wanted to think some more about. My brother was asking me if he should read this book. I bought him copies of two of DFW's short story books for his birthday in August. I told him to start there, and if he decided from those books that he liked Wallace's style, THEN he should consider reading Infinite Jest. It is an undertaking, but well worth the time and effort - unlike Ulysses, which I still haven't gotten through or The Sound and the Fury, which I DID get through but felt no reward in doing so. Finishing this book reminded me why it was one of my top five favorites. It was better reading it the second time around. Another excerpt.

"White Flag is one of the area AA meetings Ennet House requires its residents to attend. You have to be seen at a designated AA or NA meeting every single night of the week or out you go, discharged. A House Staff member has to accompany the residents when the go to the designated meetings, so they can be officially seen there. The residents' House counselors suggest that they sit right up at the front of the hall where they can see the pores in the speaker's nose and try to Identify instead of Compare. Again, Identify means empathize. Identifying, unless you've got a stake in Comparing, isn't very hard to do, here. Because if you sit up front and listen hard, all the speakers' stories of decline and fall and surrender are basically alike, and like your own: fun with the Substance, then very gradually less fun, then significantly less fun because of like blackouts you suddenly come out of on the highway going 145 kph with companions you do not know, nights you awake from in unfamiliar bedding next to somebody who doesn't even resemble any known sort of mammal, three-day blackouts you come out of and have to buy a newspaper to even know what town you're in; yes gradually less and less actual fun but with some physical need for the Substance, now, instead of the former voluntary fun; then at some point suddenly just very little fun at all, combined with terrible daily hand-trembling need, then dread, anxiety, irrational phobias, dim siren-like memories of fun, trouble with assorted authorities, knee-buckling headaches, mild seizures, and the litany of what Boston AA calls Losses -

'Then come the day I lost my job to drinking.' Concord's John L. has a huge hanging gut and just no ass at all, the way some big older guy's asses seem to get sucked into their body and reappear out front as a gut. Gately, in sobriety, does nightly sit-ups out of fear this'll all of a sudden happen to him, as age thirty approaches. Gately is so huge no one sits behind him for several rows. John L. has the biggest bunch of keys Gately's ever seen. They're on one of those pull-outable-wire janitor's keychains that clips to a belt loop, and the speaker jangles them absently, unaware, his one tip of the hat to public nerves. He's also wearing gray janitor's pants. 'Lost my damn job,' he says. 'I mean to say I still knew where it was and whatnot. I just went in as usual one day and there was some other fellow doing it,' which gets another laugh.

- then more Losses, with the Substance seeming like the only consolation against the pain of the mounting Losses, and of course you're in Denial about it being the Substance that's causing the very Losses it's consoling you about. -

'Alcohol destroys slowly but thoroughly is what fellow said to me the first night I Come In, up in Concord, and that fellow ended up becoming my sponsor.'

- then less mild seizures, D.T.s during attempts to taper off too fast, introduction to subjective bugs and rodents, then one more binge and more formicative bugs; then eventually a terrible acknowledgment that some line has been undeniably crossed, and fist-at-the-sky, as-God-is-my-witness vows to buckle down and lick this thing for good, to quite for all time, then maybe a few white-knuckled days of initial success, then a slip, then more pledges, clock-watching, baroque self-regulations, repeated slips back into the Substance's relief after like two days' abstinence, ghastly hangovers, head-flattening guilt and self-disgust, superstructures of additional self-regulations (e.g. not before 0900h. not on a worknight, only wen the moon is waxing, only in the company of Swedes) which also fail -

'When I was drunk I wanted to get sober and when I was sober I wanted to get drunk,' John L. says; 'I lived that way for years, and I submit to you that's not livin, that's a fuckin death-in-life.'

- then unbelievably psychic pain, a kind of peritonitis of the soul, psychic agony, fear of impending insanity (why can't I quit if I so want to quit, unless I'm insane?), appearances at hospital detoxes and rehabs, domestic strife, financial free-fall, eventual domestic Losses -

'And then I lost my wife to drinking. I mean I still knew where she was and whatnot. I just went in one day and there was some other fellow doing it,' and which there's not all that much laughter, lots of pained nods: it's often the same all over, in terms of domestic Losses.

- then vocational ultimatums, unemployability, financial ruin, pancreatitis, overwhelming guilt, bloody vomiting, cirrhotic neuralgia, incontinence, neuropathy, nephritis, black depressions, searing pain, with the Substance affording increasingly brief periods of relief; then, finally, no relief available anywhere at all; finally it's impossible to get high enough to freeze what you feel like, being this way; and now you hate the Substance, hate it, but you still find yourself unable to stop doing it, the Substance, you find you finally want to stop more than anything on earth and it's not fun doing it anymore and you can't believe you ever liked doing it and but you still can't stop, it's like you're totally fucking bats, it's like there's two yous; and when you'd sell your own dear Mum to stop and still, you find, can't stop, then the last layer of jolly friendly mask comes off your old friend the Substance, it's midnight now and all masks come off, and you all of a sudden see the Substance as it really is, for the first time you see the Disease as it really is, really has been all this time, you look in the mirror at midnight and see what owns you, what's become what you are -

'A fuckin living death, I tell you it's not being near alive, by the end I was undead, not alive, and I tell you the idea of dyin was nothing compared to the idea of livin like that for another five or ten years and only then dyin,' with audience heads nodding in rows like a wind-swept meadow; boy can they ever Identify.

- and then you're in serious trouble, very serious trouble, and you know it, finally, deadly serious trouble, because this Substance you thought was your one true friend, that you gave up all for, gladly, that for so long gave you relief from the pain of the Losses your love of that relief caused, your mother and lover and god and compadre, had finally removed its smily-face mask to reveal centerless eyes and a ravening maw, and canines down to here, it's the Face In The Floor, the grinning, root-white face of your worst nightmares, and the face is your own face in the mirror, now, it's you, the Substance has devoured or replaced and become you, and the puke-, drool- and Substance-crusted T-shirt you've oth worn for weeks now gets torn off and you stand there looking and in the root-white chest where your heart (given away to It) shoul dbe beating, in its exposed chest's center and centerless eyes is just a lightless hole, more teeth, and a beckoning taloned hand dangling something irresistible, and now you see you've been had, screwed royal, stripped and fucked and tossed to the side like some stuffed toy to lie for all time in the posture you land in. You see now that It's your enemy and your worst personal nightmare and the trouble It's gotten you into is undeniable and you still can't stop. Doing the Substance now is like attending Black Mass but you still can't stop even though the Substance no longer gets you high. You are, as they say, Finished. You cannot get drunk and you cannot get sober; you cannot get high and you cannot get straight. You are behind bars; you are in a cage and can see only bars in every direction. You are in the kind of a hell of a mess that either ends lives or turns them around. You are at a fork in the road that Boston AA calls your Bottom, though the term is misleading, because everybody here agrees it's more like someplace very high and unsupported: you're on the edge of something tall and leaning way out forward...

Wallace, David Foster. Infinite Jest. 1996. Back Bay Books / Little Brown and Company. New York, NY 10017. pp. 345-347.

Cold Weather Recipes

Here are some of my most recent recipes, perfect for the cold weather.

If you are having a football party, then there is nothing better than a recipe that incorporates Velveeta.

Buffalo Beer Dip

1lb Velveeta, cubed

5oz blue cheese crumbles

1/2c sour cream

12oz light beer

1 bunch of green onions, chopped

Hot sauce (pick your poison)

Easy. Put all ingredients in a Crock Pot. Turn the Crock Pot to low. I like Louisiana style hot sauce, and I use a LOT of it. Serve the dip warm with raw vegetables or tortilla chips. My dad does his Velveeta dip with Rotel and a can of Hormel chili with no beans. While delicious because it does incorporate Velveeta, I like the above better. Go Bears!

Niederbayerisches Bierfleisch (Lower Bavarian Beef in Beer), served with cauliflower puree

For the stew...

1-1/2 lbs stew beef

8oz pork belly, sliced into thin strips

2tbsp butter

2 onions, diced

3 green peppers, diced

1 medium bunch of celery, chopped

(I like the trinity for stew vegetables, but if you prefer mirepoix substitute carrots for green peppers)

12oz dark beer, such as a bock

Dried marjoram

1 dried bayleaf

4-5 fresh sage leaves

1 bunch of fresh parsley, roughly chopped

Red wine vinegar

Salt/pepper

For the puree...

1-1/2 lb frozen cauliflower, cooked

2tbsp butter

1/2 block of cream cheese (1/3 less-fat)

2tbsp minced garlic

Cream

Salt/pepper

Brown the pork belly in a fry pan. Melt the butter in a casserole on M/H and seal the beef in the butter. Add the onion, green pepper, and celery and brown briefly. Add the pork belly. Add the beer. Season liberally with salt/pepper and marjoram. Add the bayleaf and sage. Turn the heat to M/L and cover. Allow it to simmer for about 45min. Add about 1/3 of the chopped parsley. Season with a few splashes of the red wine vinegar until it achieves the desired piquancy. Cover and simmer for another 10min. Remove from heat and take out the bay and sage leaves. Garnish with the remaining parsley.

While the stew is simmering, add the cooked cauliflower to a food processor. Set to puree while adding in the butter, garlic, and cream cheese. Add cream to the desired consistency (I used a couple of tablespoons). Salt/pepper to taste.

I was going to serve the puree on the side, like a mashed potato. However, I ended up putting about 1/2c to the side of a bowl and pouring about 1c of stew around the puree and garnishing with the parsley. Fantastic!

Nothing like a good stew when the weather is like this. I got this recipe from a German cookbook. You can use any type of cured pork product instead of the pork belly. If you use ham, use Black Forest ham or some other raw ham.

Doodoos Escapes!

I got yelled at for not producing in the blog department. So. I thought I would restart by telling the story of Doodoos' daring escape from the fenced confines of my backyard.

This was a few weeks ago. After Sophie had rang the bell hanging from the back door about five or six times to be let out, I allowed her a brief escape from the apparent depravity that is my house. Poooooor dog. Cooped up all day with a doting parent (me, who fed her about half a turkey on Thanksgiving) and three cats she can terrorize. I was working on something at the time, so I sat back down to my computer. An hour or so later, I get up to let her back in, and I see that the gate is open. There is a small hole at the base of my gate, which allows rabbits to taunt my dog and then run to safety. I am not sure what happened, but I am assuming after one extreme rabbit taunting, Sophie had somehow pried the gate open (the lock sucks) and... ESCAPED.

Like I said, it was an hour before I noticed she was missing. My immediate reaction was to begin blubbering. Realizing this would solve nothing, I grabbed her leash and set out walking up and down my street calling her name. I live on a busy street, and it is semi-rush hour as I am doing this, so it does nothing to alleviate my distress, cars whizzing by at the approximate speed that could maim my precious little Doodoos. About twenty minutes pass. Nothing. Unfortunately, as it is fall, there are a bunch of dry leaves blowing about and a billion or so squirrels, so I am turning around in circles at every noise expecting to see my dumb dog chasing a leaf into oncoming traffic.

I realize I can cover a lot more ground in my car, so I go back into my house to get my keys. The real blubbering begins. Only this time, there is no rational thought that can stop it. I get in my car and proceed to make concentric circles of ever-widening radii around my neighborhood. All of my windows are rolled down. I am driving 10 miles per hour. I am crying and yelling "MEEEEEHEWWW!" out of the windows. (This is "Sophie" in blubber-speak). Nothing. I stop EVERY person I see (and there are a lot outside in my neighborhood, very walkable) to ask them in Blubber-English if they have seen my dog. My face is blotchy from the crying, and I am almost sure my grimace was scaring them. One postman offered me the helpful tidbit, "Oh, I wouldn't want my dog to get lost on THIS street, it's so BUSY!" "GWAArrrrYAH!" I cried as I drove off.

I drove for an hour around my dumb neighborhood. Somehow, I was able to stop the blubs long enough to come up with a more rational plan. I went back insidethe house and called Animal Control. BRILLIANT! No one answers. FUCK! I call the police department. "What kind of dog and what did her collar look like?" I tell the woman, and she goes off for what seems like five minutes in (I am sure) a frenzied search among her PILES of paperwork (this, the whitest of white suburbs in America where absolutely nothing happens EVER). She comes back to the phone. YES. Some woman had called in with a find that matched my description. She gives me a phone number. I call it. YES! My idiot dog had followed this woman home who was walking her own dog. Followed her for SEVEN blocks. The woman had put Sophie in her back yard for safe keeping. I spew out some sort of religious sentiment about her being a saint and in needing of immediate canonization or something. I go to pick up my dog.

Sophie is all a-wags when I get to this woman's house. I was seriously so mad. SO MAD when I got there, and I am sure still all red-faced and blotchy from crying. Then, I was led around the side of the house to the backyard, and Sophie is hunched over by the gate waiting for me, wagging her tail like no one's business. She bursts out of the gate when it is opened and does like ten frenzied laps around my left leg and gives me snuffles and snuffles. A snuffle, you poor souls that don't know, is when a dog gives your snorts/kisses on your ear. After she has snuffled enough to secure her place among the living (seriously, I was SO MAD), she trots over and jumps in my back seat. What. An asshole.

So. She has been grounded the last few weeks. I follow her outside whenever she has to potty and I wait for her to be done. That is ALL the outside time she has gotten off of her leash. The next day, I go to PetsMart, and I get her another tag made with my name and phone number. I also make an appointment to get her microchipped. I was driving home talking to my dad, telling him the story. In classic Dad fashion he says, "Well. Why don't you get her TAGS?" Thanks, Dad. You're a genius. Later that night, I get an email from him. "Can't you put some sort of CHIP in her or something?" Double thanks, Dad. Here is the most recent picture of her. This is the face she has been wearing for the last few weeks. I think it says, "give me more turkey," but a little part of me thinks it also says, "Sorry I scared you. It won't happen again."

Doggie Smell Update

Today, being the 1st, is medication day for Sophie. On the 1st of every month, she gets her heart-worm preventative and her monthly flea medicine. Sophie is on a diet. The vet yelled at me the last time I was in, describing Sophie as "looking like she swallowed a watermelon." I resented this. First of all, dogs (and other things such as babies or cats with tiny heads) are cuter when they are round. Second of all, I thought the vet would understand that she has a lot of skin, which adds at least a few pounds to her heft. I mean. Can he not SEE how much skin she has? She is all jowly and wrinkly-necked and the amount of skin causes her to have the droopy eyes of a bloodhound. Plus, when she walks, her skin rolls from one side of her body to the other giving her an especially attractive swagger. Anyway, all of this being said, Sophie is on a diet and not allowed any treats or human food. Therefore, she LOVES getting such delectables as heart-worm preventative pills or ice cubes. The flea medicine, she does not love so much. It comes in this little tube, which I have to apply at four points on the skin along her spine. This is more difficult than it sounds considering she now senses when something unpleasant is going to happen and proceeds to gallop around the house until I can horse-collar her and throw her to the ground. Once the medicine is applied, it ends up spreading across her back in this greasy streak, as shown below. Also, scant readers, you can use this picture to inspect and form your own opinion as to the presence of any sort of watermelon.

This streak will stay for a couple of days before it is either absorbed into her plentiful skin or rubbed off on my furniture. And then. It is not only gross and greezy ('z' added for special disgusting emphasis), but it makes her smell like celery, which because my house is sequestered from all fresh air in order to run the air conditioning and keep it freezing cold, it also makes my house smell like celery. Celery times 20 too, like MSG-loaded cream of celery soup. Also, because she is about due for another bathing, this smell also includes a Frito garnish. It is strangely making me crave a Bloody Mary.

Lazy

I'm starting to hate the month of August almost as much as February. I realize I have not typed in awhile, and I really think it is because I am starting to hate this oppressive heat just as much as I hate the oppressive gray of winter. My thermostat is set at 71 degrees making my utility bills ridiculous. I get eaten by mosquitoes even walking to my car. Trying to breathe outside is like drinking soup. The cicadas are about ready to lift up my house and fly away with it. I have not only had to implement a 95 degree rule on mowing my lawn, but a 105 degree rule in which I don't even leave my couch unless it's to mix another icy beverage. Plus, whenever Sophie has to go outside (which, according to the clanging of the bell hanging from my door specifically to alert me to that purpose, is every five minutes), she stands petrified at my deck door before the wall of heat and screaming bugs. I have to literally shove her outside and not five seconds later she is whining to be let back in. Also, I think I am getting claustrophobia from the lack of fresh air and the constant clouds of Febreeze I am having to spray to cover the pet stench.

I am depressed. It is making me depressed, and I just want it to be fall so I can wear sweatshirts again, and I don't have to take into account a 30 minute cool-down period every time I go outside to make myself presentable after a gallon of sweat per 100 feet of walking. I miss football, the pre-season (as usual) just isn't cutting it, and I am sick to death of the Cubs. This weather has gotten me to the point where I don't want to do ANYTHING that involves being outside even driving around in my car. When Mulva takes 20 minutes to cool down, fans blowing, AFTER I shut her down, there is a major effing problem.

Here's to the last day of August and the welcoming of September. Watch out February, you have a competitor. I am thinking that next year, my warm-weather Feb vacation will be matched with a trip to Canada in Aug.

Velvet

Every so often, I come across a song. Maybe I've heard it a million times (as in this case), maybe not, but it just kind of hits me in the right spot. Every year for the past four years for Christmas, my brother, Fatty, makes me a set of CDs. I don't listen to the radio (unless it's NPR) because the radio tends to ruin things for me. Like Fake Plastic Trees. Stupid radio, get a clue. All of my music, I kind of discover on iTunes or via Rolling Stone or Spin or I just randomly hear it. This is where Fatty helps. He has more time to dig through iTunes than I do. Maybe he feels sorry for the fact I am getting old and he wants me to "get with the times." Probably. But to that I say, happy 30th birthday in December! Anyway, this song was on one of CDs. I've probably listened to it 50 times, but TODAY I noticed it. (It takes me a long time to fully digest CDs). I am putting the lyrics here.

The Big Pink - Velvet

I've seen it in my hands, burn in my heart
Seen it in my past, back in my home
But does it make sense to see her again?
I don't, know
I felt it for some time, and not at all
Poison in my head, god love hurts
I'm not looking for love, but it's hard to resist
I don't recall being this dead

She's the only one, lost the best I had
I found her in a dream, looking for me
This heart's on fire, I'll bring myself
Up to fall, and down again

These arms of mine
Don't mind who they hold
So should I maybe, Just leave love alone
You call out my name, for the love you need
But you wont find it in me

These arms are mine
Don't mind who they hold
You're made for me, and I'll leave love alone
You call out my name for the love you need
But you wont find it in me

I've seen it in my hands, burn in my heart
I found her in a dream looking for me.
But does it make sense to see her again?
I don't, know

I can see the end of what I begun
A tale of a love, come and gone
But now my love, no promises
I won't go, falling in love

I've downloaded it on iTunes to try and do some ringtone thing, but I've grown frustrated and have since given up. I highly recommend you give it a listen, especially, scant readers, if you've ever known what it's like to have a broken heart. Oh, and by the way, I know you all love my dog, but Doodoos is stressed out this week and she had an accident in her crate, one I can't bear to type out of fear it will provoke my gag reflex. She needs some time off, so I am giving her a break on being in my blog.

Steak Dinner!

I cooked dinner for my mom tonight. After volunteering to mow my lawn, apparently out of sheer horror at the jungle I had allowed by ignoring my yard in all of its weedy and mosquito-ridden glory, she spent the last TWO days not only mowing, but hacking away branches and pulling weeds and raking and shoveling. I mean, she must have sensed the angry neighbor mob about ready to form outside of my house. I stayed inside and peeked out the window every so often to check that she hadn't been abducted by the raging, bullet-sized mosquitoes that attack any exposed section of flesh during even the most brief ventures outside my house. She did a great job. She showed me the difference between "trees" and "weeds about ready to become self-aware." Hopefully, I did something semi-worthy of her efforts.

Kansas City Strip Steak with Smashed Potatoes and Cucumber/Tomato Slaw

4 KC strip steaks

2.5lbs new potatoes

1 yellow onion, chopped

2 heaping tbsp minced garlic

1/2c heavy cream

1/2 stick butter

2 cucumbers, peeled and sliced

4 tomatoes, chopped

1 red onion, chopped

1/2c sour cream

Balsamic vinegar

olive oil

salt

pepper

A few hours beforehand, put the steaks in a brine. I always brine anything for the grill because I am not very good at grilling and the brining sort of corrects for minor mistakes by making the meat more tender. If you have some time beforehand, it's also a good idea to make the slaw since the longer it can chill, the better for the flavor coming together. Prepare the cucumber, tomatoes, and red onion. Place all of them in a large bowl. Stir in the sour cream. Add the Balsamic a few tablespoons at a time to taste. Add some cracked pepper to taste and put the slaw in the fridge. When you are ready to cook, put the potatoes in a pot and cover with cold water. Leave the skin on. It is nothing to be afraid of. Turn the oven to high until the water is boiling, then reduce heat to medium and allow the potatoes to cook for 30min. Chop the yellow onion and saute over medium heat in some olive oil for about 20min until the onion begins to brown, stirring constantly. Add the minced garlic, and saute about 5min more. Remove the pan from heat and set it aside. Prepare the grill and allow it to heat up. Take the steaks from the brine, pat dry, and salt and pepper both sides, pressing the seasoning into the meat. Once the grill has come up to temperature, put the steaks on, 4min each side for medium rare. Let the steaks sit for a few minutes before serving. The potatoes should be about done. Drain them and place them in a large bowl. Mash them with a slotted spoon. Stir in the butter and the cream. Add the onion/garlic mixture and stir. Finally, salt and pepper to taste. Pull your slaw from the fridge and all should be ready to serve.

I love Balsamic vinegar and usually making this slaw, you use regular vinegar and sugar, but I think just going with the Balsamic adds the sweetness and keeps the whole thing very fresh without any added sugar. Also, my steaks weren't perfect... 5min per side was probably closer to medium well, so above I recommend only 4min. It's SO hard to control heat on a grill, but again, the brine came through so the meat was still tender. Also, I did accomplish a nice sear so the meat ended up being OK. However, I'm not going to be the next Food Network star any time soon. These potatoes were to DIE for. I cut back on the butter from the 3/4stick the recipe recommended. They were still creamy and the garlic and onion really put some flavor in without having to add too much salt. I could eat a trough full of these potatoes. My mom went back for seconds and I almost clubbed her in a caveman-like urge to protect my sustenance.

Just kidding. Love you, Mom. My yard looks great.

Total Lack of Cat Bias

OK, so, you're right. My cats do deserve some of the limelight. They are hilarious as well and insanely smart. Although, by smart, I mean diabolical and plotting my death. This is the alpha cat, Chicken. He is six years old. In this picture, he is chewing on a vase full of fake flowers as I am sitting not two feet away yelling at him to not chew on the flowers. He is an asshole. He knows perfectly well what I am saying. He is pristine, constantly cleaning. He will also do whatever possible to annoy the crap out of me. He likes to escape into the garage and hide under my car. My garage is like a sauna right now, but I still go crawling around after him getting all dirty and sweaty until I give up and go inside. The second I shut the door, he begins squawking. He then comes back in all dusty brown (somehow), looking pissed at me that due to my negligence, he now has to go clean himself again. He is going to be famous someday.

Gross Dirty, The Final Frontier

When my brother was a baby, he had this yellow blanket that had been bequeathed to him by... well, me, I guess. My brother was born when I was six, so by the time he inherited this blanket, it was well-worn and more than a little tattered. He took it with him everywhere, dragging it on the floor, into the yard, to the grocery store. It earned the nickname Gross Dirty as I am sure, scant readers, you can imagine. Instead of the butter-yellow color it was when it was mine, when my brother carried it, it was the color of dishwater. Now, I PROMISE (sort of) that this will be my last post on this matter, but to the left, you will see cow carcass, which has become Sophie's Gross Dirty.

It has been a week, and Gross Dirty no longer resembles any animaloid creature. It has three stumps remaining, which could, I suppose, be considered as legs. There are no feet. No innards. No tail. She ripped the face off this past weekend. I think I found a snoutish thing the other day, but who can tell at this point? However, instead of abandoning this toy as soon as all of the squeaks were gone, as I had previously thought, she carries it with her. EVERYWHERE. She takes it outside to go potty. She lays on top of it when relaxing on the couch. She brings it to bed with her. It stays in her crate when I am at work. It is filthy and it stinks. Maybe I will try to get it away from her so I can wash it, but I am scared because I am pretty sure she likes cow rind better than me, and I don't know what will happen if I take it away. I don't want stumps for limbs.

Sophie cracks me up every day. I have always been a cat person. We never had dogs growing up, so I was unsure of what to expect. I will say this. Dogs love you in a way that cats never could. I love my cats, but I never worry about them like I worry about Sophie. I mean, cats don't spend inordinate amounts of time chewing into poisonous cleaning supplies. I think I was also unprepared for how gross dogs are. I'm sorry, but GROSS. Exhibit A being that disgusting, stink cowhide that Sophie has been carrying around in her mouth for the last week. Plus, Sophie needs a bath this weekend. She smells like Fritos when she needs a bath. Mmm. Fritos, right? NO. No living, breathing thing should smell like corn chips. Plus, it's corn chips x 20. Finally, she will eat ANYTHING. Besides poison. Gross things, like dirty Kleenex, cat litter, anything she finds on the ground (I used to just get annoyed with litterers, now they make me furious, as I have to dig around in my dog's mouth for whatever some lazy ass couldn't throw in a garbage can), and oh yeah, she likes to dig around in garbage cans too... She has recently been taking little mouthfuls of dirt from my house plants, which she then smacks around in her mouth until these little mud boluses are created for her to sprinkle on my rug. This picture here is of all of the detritus she has placed on my deck. This actually does help when I am mowing, but still. The thing on the left is a soccer ball. I have 6' fences surrounding my backyard. I also don't play soccer. Where in the hell did she get this? I don't know, but I doubt she could have found a more disgusting soccer ball. I am actually frightened of it.

I Was Wrong

Annoying cow toy has yet to be retired. Notice the bit of green fuzz that is sticking out of Sophie's mouth? There is still much more carnage to be had. Sophie keeps coming over to the couch and sort of flipping this grungy, soggy cow carcass onto my lap. She may be trying to be sweet by giving me a gift, but look at her face. Look how bitchy she is! She flips it on my lap because she KNOWS how much I hate having this disgusting, slimy thing near me and that I will throw it as far away as possible. Which means she gets to bumble off after it and then act all proud when she returns it to me. She has not yet learned the command "Drop It." I think she pretends that she THINKS "Drop It" means "Tug and Growl" and that "Get that disgusting thing away from me!" means "Drop It."

Sophie's New Toy

I went over to my aunt's last night to see my baby cousin. I brought Sophie with me, maybe not the best idea since most of my time was spent trying to keep her from giving the baby slobber kisses. After dinner, we all went for a lovely evening stroll in the shade of the bountiful elms lining my aunt's street. Um. Not. Our walk lasted maybe five minutes before I gave up and ran back to the house for safe cover in the air conditioning. It took me twenty minutes to stop sweating. Stupid lousy weather. I hate it. Grumble. Ahem. Anyway, I am not only sick of the weather, I am sick of bitching about it. The point is, my aunt gave Sophie a new toy for her to take home. Pictured below is Sophie happily chewing on said toy.

As you can see, scant readers, this toy is MOST exciting. First of all it is soft and cute, which means it should last her all of ten minutes before it is ravaged and strewn about my floor in little cow bits. Second of all, and I can not make this readily apparent in the picture, but this toy is literally gorged with various obnoxious squeak items. Each one of those checks has a squeak. The legs squeak AND the head squeaks. This does not make for good sleep preparation. I was reading, trying to get to sleep last night and she was playing some horrendous squeak-cow-jazz-sonnet at the foot of my bed. Finally, I took the toy away from her. She sat at the base of my dresser staring at it and looking all pathetic and miserable, until she noticed that I wasn't paying much attention and gave up. I finally fell asleep, and had wonderful dreams in which Sophie did not own such a beast of a toy. I woke up this morning to the sound of her huffing puke noise. HORK! HORK! HORK! She puked up fluffy cow bits right in the doorway to my bedroom. Although she did have two infections recently, not to mention a horrible case of fleas from being outside at a bonfire in Bloomington, I had not had to clean up puke in awhile, so I let this one slide.

Now, I am sitting on my couch, catching up on news after having had dinner. I had given Sophie her toy when I got home from work, and she has been chewing and squeaking and rendering asunder all night. Finally, the squeaking just stopped. When I go to look to see what had happened, I find this. Here is a picture of the carcass. You can't really tell, but the cow is missing one of it's feet and it's tail, as well as four or five of the plastic squeaky innards. Oh, and if you look carefully, you can see bits of green fuzz strewn about, which I believe she ripped from the cow's head. Such carnage. Where is Sophie? Well, after striking down with great vengeance and furious anger upon this hapless (albeit annoying) cow toy, she apparently got bored and is now sitting on a rug in another room chewing on a peanut butter flavored bone. Now, I have to go pick up these fluffy green bits and deflated plastic squeaks. I will keep the empty cow hide in case she becomes interested later, but I have a feeling that this pitiful thing has served its purpose.

Chicken Pasta Primavera

I'm making an effort to cook at home more. It's healthier and less expensive and food just tastes better when there is labor involved. Luckily, I didn't cut myself tonight making dinner. I'm getting more skilled with the knives, or as my brother would say, "blades." :)

Chicken Pasta Primavera

1 rotisserie chicken

8oz whole wheat spaghetti

3c broccoli florets

2c sliced mushrooms

1 tomato, chopped

1 heaping tbsp minced garlic (I like garlic)

3.5oz jar pesto

3/4c fat-free evaporated milk

olive oil

salt

pepper

Boil a pot of water for the pasta. Pull the meat from the chicken and shred into bite-size pieces. I leave the skin on because it adds great flavor while cooking. Set aside. Add the pasta to the water, reduce heat to M and in about 10min you should have the desired texture. Drain the pasta and set aside. While the pasta is cooking, heat some olive oil in a large skillet at M/H and add the minced garlic. Once I hear the garlic start to sizzle, I add my chopped vegetables, first the broccoli, then the mushrooms, and finally the tomatoes. Watch the broccoli. Once it becomes bright and tender, but still crisp, the vegetables should be done. Add the chicken to the vegetables and stir until the chicken is heated through. Add salt and pepper to taste. Reduce heat to L and stir in the cooked spaghetti. Spoon the pesto on top of the mixture and stir until the pesto is combined. Remove the skillet from heat and add the milk. Again, stir to combine.

I use rotisserie chicken for most recipes calling for chicken. The flavor is great and it is simple to combine it into many dishes.

Also, you need a pretty large skillet to be able to fit everything in this recipe. I don't mess around with any measly 10" skillets.

This recipe is great. The pesto really highlights the chicken and vegetables well and the sweetness of the milk pulls everything together. I mean, who doesn't love pesto anyway? Plus, I get to eat dinner for like a week on this recipe... which is awesome because I am pathetic and can't afford to go to the grocery store until next Friday.

Goose Island Sofie & Trivia Night

Even though I've moved a state over, I am going to make an effort to get to the Flying Saucer at least once a week. They just put Goose Island Sofie on tap. In recognition in what I believe (with some bias) is the best mass-market brew company in the U.S., interested parties, you should make an effort to get a hold of this beer. Brew master's note is as follows: "Fermented with wild yeasts and aged in wine barrels with orange peel, Sofie is a tart, dry, sparkling ale. A subtle, spicy white pepper note, a hint of citrus from the orange peel and a creamy vanilla finish make Sofie an intriguing choice for Champagne drinkers and beer drinkers who are fond of Belgian Saisons." WHAT? OK. My palate is not sophisticated. All you had to say was Belgian and citrus, and I get it. Delicious.

On a sadder note, my love of citrusy beverage deliciousness did not help our trivia team tonight, named "Ban Comic Sans (Except in Cleveland)." I love trivia night. Our team usually does really well among the 20 or so teams there. When we do lose, we lose on the last question, which today involved Lyndon Johnson's love for Fresca. No go. I thought Fresca was invented in the 1990s. This was a harsh reality check as to my worldview. Just because I hadn't heard of or noticed Fresca until my freshman year of college apparently did not mean that it did not exist before then. One helpful trivia cohort suggested that this might be because that my freshman year of college was the time I should have discovered Fresca as I was experimenting on what would be best mixed with vodka. Fair.

Groundskeeper Christa

It's like soup outside. I HATE humidity, and I hate the constant battle I have to wage versus my fluffy lion hair every day living here. I was supposed to mow my lawn tonight, and I when I walked outside after work it was that sort of bastard gray color. Dark. CRAP! I drove home as fast as I could, screeched into my garage, changed, let Sophie outside and then rushed to my (rented) lawn mower with Gogol Bordello on my iPod. I basically ran laps around my backyard while Sophie ran laps around me and the lawn mower until it started raining. There is now this annoying furry landing strip along the South edge of my back yard that I couldn't get to in time. Being OCD, I almost think it's better to have not mowed at all. I have to make an effort to not look out my back windows until it is dry enough to mow again or that furry landing strip might be the death of me. How can anyone take care of their lawn in this state? I made a 95-degree rule earlier in June. If at any point in time during the day, it gets hotter than 95, my lawn isn't getting mowed and my neighbors can suck it. With the rain, this means that since I've moved here (April 1), I've mowed my lawn probably six times. My one next door neighbor made the helpful suggestion that I get up early to mow my lawn when it is less hot. He apparently doesn't understand my night-owlishness and my propensity to stay up to stupid hours of the night entranced by reruns of Law & Order that I've probably seen 10 times anyway. I am NOT a morning person. Anyway, I thought I would enjoy working in my yard, considering I like green stuff and being outside and junk. I also like the smell of grass when it is not masked by puppy land mine death stench. I HATE humidity, however. My thermostat is set at 70, and I am staying inside. I did what I could, little lawn. You can keep your landing strip until next week.

Infinite Jest

I have a Barnes and Noble problem. I have all of these books shoved haphazardly into this bookcase that is taller than me, books that I haven't read. My input rate is faster than my consumption rate. There is no mass balance here. I should be reading the books I haven't read yet, but instead I decided to read Infinite Jest again. (I like this copy - forward by Dave Eggers is good). I miss David Foster Wallace. I remember I was taking the Metra to Chicago for work when I found out he died. I felt so sick. In your life, you choose to put certain people on pedestals, and the result is nearly always painful in some way. Anyway, I had dog-eared this passage, which I am posting excerpts from here.

"Gompert, Katherine A., 21, Newton, MA. Data-clerical in a Wellesley Hills real estate office. Fourth hospitalization in three years, all clinical depression, unipolar. One series of electro-convulsive treatments out at Newton-Wellesley Hospital two years back. On Prozac for a short time, then Zoloft, most recently Parnate with a lithium kicker. Two previous suicide attempts, the second just this past summer. Bi-Valium discontinued two years, Xanax discontinued one year - ad admitted history of abusing prescribed meds. Depressions unipolar, fairly classic, characterized by acute dysphoria, anxiety w/panic, diurnal listlessness/agitation patterns, Ideation w/w/o Intent. First attempt, a CO-episode, garage's automobile had stalled before lethal hemotoxicity achieved. Then last year's attempt - no scarring now visible, her wrists' vascular nodes obscured by the insides of the knees she held. She continued to stare at the doorway where he first appeared. This latest attempt, a straightforward meds O.D. Admitted via the E.R. three nights past. Two days on ventilation after a Pump & Purge. Hypertensive crisis on the second day from a metabolic retox - she must have taken a hell of a lot of meds - the I.C.U. charge nurse had beeped the chaplain, so retox must have been bad. Almost died twice this time, Katherine Ann Gompert. Third day spent on 2-West for observation, Librium reluctantly administered for a B.P. that was all over the map. Now here on 5, his present arena. B.P. stable as of the last four readings. Next vitals at 1300h.

___

"The doctor chose his second-finest pen from the array in his white coat's breast pocket and made some sort of note on Kate Gompert's new chart for this particular psych ward. Crowded in among his pocket's pens was the rubber head of a diagnostic plexor. He asked Kate if she could tell him why she had wanted to hurt herself. Had she been angry at herself. At someone else. Had she ceased to feel as though her life had meaning to it. Had she heard anything like voices suggesting that she hurt herself.

___

"Kate Gompert stared at a point over the man's left shoulder. 'I wasn't trying to hurt myself. I was trying to kill myself. There's a difference.'

The doctor asked whether she could try to explain what she felt the difference was between those two things.

The delay that preceded her reply was only marginally longer than the pause in a regular civilian conversation. The doctor had no ideas about what this observation might indicate.

'Do you guys see different kinds of suicides?'

The resident made no attempt to ask Kate Gompert what she meant. She used one finger to remove some material from the corner of her mouth.

'I think there must probably be different types of suicides. I'm not one of the self-hating ones. The type like "I'm shit and the world'd be better off without poor me" type that says that but also imagines what everybody'll say at their funeral. I've met types like that on wards. Poor-me-I-hate-me-punish-me-come-to-my-funeral. Then they show you a 20 x 25 glossy of their dead cat. It's all self-pity bullshit. It's bullshit. I didn't have any special grudges. I didn't fail an exam or get dumped by anybody. All these types Hurt themselves.' Still that intriguing, unsettling combination of blank facial masking and conventionally animated vocal tone. The doctor's small nods were designed to appear not as responses but as invitations to continue, what Dretske called Momentumizers.

'I didn't want to especially hurt myself. Or like punish. I don't hate myself. I just wanted out. I didn't want to play anymore is all.'

'Play,' nodding in confirmation, making small, quick notes.

'I just wanted to stop being conscious. I'm a whole different type. I wanted to stop feeling this way. If I could have just put myself in a really long coma I would have done that. Or given myself shock. I would have done that. Instead.'

The doctor was writing with great industry.

'The last thing more I'd want is hurt. I just didn't want to feel this way anymore, I don't . . . I didn't believe this feeling would ever go away. I don't. I still don't. I'd rather feel nothing than this.'

___

"The doctor wrote down something much too brief to correspond directly to what she'd said. He was nodding both while he wrote and when he looked up. 'And yet this nauseated feeling has come and gone for you in the past, it's passed eventually during prior depressions, Katherine, has it not?'

'But when you're in the feeling you forget. The feeling feels like it's always been there and will always be there, and you forget. It's like this whole filter drops down over the whole way you think about everything, a couple weeks after --'

___

"Kate Gompert finally took a real breath. 'And then but no matter what I do it gets worse and worse, it's there more and more, this filter drops down, and the feeling makes the fear of the feeling way worse, and after a couple weeks it's there all the time, the feeling, and I'm totally inside it, I'm in it and everything has to pass through it to get in, and I don't want to smoke any Bob (Hope), and I don't want to work, or go out, or read, or watch TP, or go out, or stay in, or either do anything or not do anything, I don't want ANYTHING except for the feeling to go AWAY. But it doesn't. Part of the feeling is being like willing to do anything to make it go away. Understand that. ANYTHING. Do you understand? It's not wanting to hurt myself it's wanting to NOT HURT.'"

Wallace, David Foster. Infinite Jest. 1996. Back Bay Books / Little Brown and Company. New York, NY 10017. pp. 68-78.

I thought this was supremely interesting and hilarious. Depression is so horribly simple, but so very difficult for people who don't have it to understand. All of the characters in this book are fantastic. It is funny and human and raw. It isn't easy to get through. I am about a tenth of the way, but I already know it's worth it...

Now, if I just got the guts to attempt Ulysses again... Ugh.

In the beginning...

I’ve been meaning to create a website for a long time. Who knows why I haven’t gotten around to it. I guess Netflix really sucks up your time. I mean. Not in a bad way. I mean. I fully support Netflix and believe it is one of the greatest ideas ever. Anyway, I used to be a journal person or notebook person (I'm not journal-fancy) way back before I knew anything about the interwebs. I haven’t been writing as much, as in at all, as in the last two years. I don’t know why, but I suspect it has something to do with the Prozac. I used to only write when I was crabby or annoyed or sad or stressed. I spent most of my time in some heightened emotional state. Therefore, I was writing a lot. I miss the sort of connection I had to myself then. I am hoping this bloggo-space will help me write more and find that groundedness. I think that’s a word.

I needed to post this “first blog” as I am designing my new website. I am hoping that future posts will be more interesting. I am too busy in creation-mode to find anything interesting to say right now.

The first picture here is of my dog, Sophie. She just turned 1 this week! That’s pretty much how she looks all of the time. Sleepy and giving some sort of stink-eye. When she DOES busy herself, she busies herself getting infections and chewing into 409 bottles (TWICE) requiring activated carbon treatments (yes, TWICE).

I love her more than anything. There's just something about her stupid, stinky face.

So, here it is. The beginning. More to come.