1) i am thankful that although it is november there is still no snow because driving in that stuff is the only thing i hate about winter (besides indoor recess).
2) i am thankful that i will be spending my birthday in the city that never sleeps. i am going to party like it's 1999. (yeah, right)
3) i am thankful that i am so grown up that i get to host thanksgiving dinner in my new house, but i'm not going on a cleaning frenzy like my mom does the night before thanksgiving. i think i'll skip that tradition.
4) i am thankful for my new bookshelf (that i put together backwards).
5) i am thankful that i still don't have the swine flu even though i spend most of my time in tight quarters with 27 unhygienic kids who think nothing of picking their noses or hacking in others' faces.
6) i am thankful for those same 27 kidlets who are so excited to learn the thriller dance for the talent show. (it will be epic)
7) i am thankful for a friend who can read my thoughts and finish my sentences. (she is my perfect match)
8) i am thankful that i do not qualify for the biggest loser.
9) i am thankful for my gym which has so many attractive rippling male bodies that it is TOTALLY worth my membership fee.
10)i am thankful for one mom, one dad, three brothers and one nephew.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
some like it hot
and that is one reason why i love indian food more than anything else in the world. so i twisted emily's arm and we went to india fusion immediately after school on wednesday. (we sometimes like to eat at four...with all the senior citizens) i hadn't been to india fusion for a long time and they had a new item on their menu: phall challenge! what is phall?
"it is one of the hottest forms of curry regularly available, even hotter than the vindaloo, using a large number of ground standard chili peppers, or a hotter type of chili such as scotch bonnet or habanero," says wikipedia.
and because i think i am rough tough stuff when it comes to spicy food and never one to back down from a dare (note i said dare. i hate being challenged, but i like dares.), i ordered the phall, despite the valiant attempts of the waitress to dissuade me. i knew i was in trouble when the fumes stung my eyes. (emily informed me later that the waitress said the chef has to wear a mask while preparing phall.) but i could not show any weakness. i dug in.
tears ran down my face. my nose dripped like a faucet. and for the first time in my spicy food career, i started sweating. my throat felt like it was closing up, so i was pretty sure i was going to suffocate. i couldn't taste a thing. (good thing i got the chicken and not the lamb, that would have been $3 down the drain) i also wanted to die. i was so miserable i politely asked my personal cheerleader to please stop talking. i had a 30 minute time limit and had actually finished half of it within 10 minutes. then i hit a wall. mostly because there were rumblings i'd never experienced, which i later realized was the sensation of my dinner burning holes through my vital internal organs. then deja vu: the same feeling i had this summer in egypt after being a little too carefree in what i ate: total and utter rejection by my previously supposed cast iron stomach. i visited the bathroom. (so glad it was clean, i spent lots of time there) i'll spare you the details, but i will say that it hurt just as much coming up (all 5 times) as it did going down.
so then we left. and emily felt so bad for me that she offered to buy me an ice cream (plus, i was hungry and that waitress did NOT box up my leftovers like she should have). we crossed the street to walmart where emily went to check out the ice cream and i went to check out the restrooms. luckily there was a screaming baby (i'm pretty sure her mom was pulling out her eyelashes) and two obnoxious teenagers, so no one heard me retch 3 more times. or if they did, i'm sure they all just thought it was part of the circus that is walmart. because after all, it makes perfect sense to leave the nice indian restaurant to throw up in the toilets of walmart. and what they say is true, the 8th time IS the charm because after that i felt just fine. (well, until the next day, but that is beside the point)
"it is one of the hottest forms of curry regularly available, even hotter than the vindaloo, using a large number of ground standard chili peppers, or a hotter type of chili such as scotch bonnet or habanero," says wikipedia.
and because i think i am rough tough stuff when it comes to spicy food and never one to back down from a dare (note i said dare. i hate being challenged, but i like dares.), i ordered the phall, despite the valiant attempts of the waitress to dissuade me. i knew i was in trouble when the fumes stung my eyes. (emily informed me later that the waitress said the chef has to wear a mask while preparing phall.) but i could not show any weakness. i dug in.
tears ran down my face. my nose dripped like a faucet. and for the first time in my spicy food career, i started sweating. my throat felt like it was closing up, so i was pretty sure i was going to suffocate. i couldn't taste a thing. (good thing i got the chicken and not the lamb, that would have been $3 down the drain) i also wanted to die. i was so miserable i politely asked my personal cheerleader to please stop talking. i had a 30 minute time limit and had actually finished half of it within 10 minutes. then i hit a wall. mostly because there were rumblings i'd never experienced, which i later realized was the sensation of my dinner burning holes through my vital internal organs. then deja vu: the same feeling i had this summer in egypt after being a little too carefree in what i ate: total and utter rejection by my previously supposed cast iron stomach. i visited the bathroom. (so glad it was clean, i spent lots of time there) i'll spare you the details, but i will say that it hurt just as much coming up (all 5 times) as it did going down.
so then we left. and emily felt so bad for me that she offered to buy me an ice cream (plus, i was hungry and that waitress did NOT box up my leftovers like she should have). we crossed the street to walmart where emily went to check out the ice cream and i went to check out the restrooms. luckily there was a screaming baby (i'm pretty sure her mom was pulling out her eyelashes) and two obnoxious teenagers, so no one heard me retch 3 more times. or if they did, i'm sure they all just thought it was part of the circus that is walmart. because after all, it makes perfect sense to leave the nice indian restaurant to throw up in the toilets of walmart. and what they say is true, the 8th time IS the charm because after that i felt just fine. (well, until the next day, but that is beside the point)
Monday, November 9, 2009
my new home is great
it has a blue wall.
well, actually, it's "soft jamaican dream" which, in case you are not fluent in wal-mart paint colors means: light turquoise. if that sounds ugly, you might be right. but i love it and i still sometimes just look at it and smile at my boldness. it's not for everybody, but it is for me and i'm the one who has to look at it...until b moves in. but he is getting such a good deal on his rent that he better just shut up. (by the way, i am planning to get some vinyl lettering on the blue wall as a welcome gift to b. it will say: b smells like butt. he will love it.)
anyway, there is one thing about my new home that is not so cool. it is that i now have cable. i have survived for the last several years with an old tv with bunny ears. it got two channels: fox and kjzz. and that was just fine because with those two channels i could watch all the shows in my triumvirate: the office, the simpsons, and friends. occasionally, if the weather was right and i stood in the right spot and held my breath and didn't blink, through the fuzz i could see the office on nbc. but that was a rare treat. so imagine my great surprise when i was checking out my future home and they said i could include their big fancy tv in the offer because they wanted to get rid of it (it wasn't so big and fancy that it was attached to the wall, but it was a far cry from my bunny ears). imagine my greater surprise when i found out that hoa fees for my future home included comcast cable. there was no getting around it: i have cable. me! world's biggest cheapskate! and i have taken full advantage of it. i have over 50 channels. Among them: four sports channels (one of which is dedicated entirely to golf, which got me thinking that if i ever want to torture someone before i murder them in my new home, i will tie them up and turn on the golf channel), disney (yuck), food network (yum), four spanish channels (don't need to go to paraguay anymore, i'll just turn on telemundo), bet (i had no idea that black people had their own network. watching it makes me feel like a spy), several others that i can't think of (still trying to memorize them all) and the piece de resistance: the travel channel (76) and the history channel (10)!!! the travel channel has been highly disappointing, but oh, the history channel. it's everything i've ever dreamed of. i've learned about a brothel in pompeii, the first 24 hours after jfk's assassination, david koresh and waco, the history of the universe, vlad the impaler, a big hurricane in connecticut and several facts about the states (did you know that the state tree of south carolina is the palmetto? this is one of many useless and uninteresting facts i have learned while watching "the states"). it is so exciting. and when tv is slow on the history channel, i can almost always find a nice rerun of csi: miami or criminal minds. it is a couch potato's dream come true. this newly acquired cable will be the death of me. i will lose my job and gain 50 pounds and sink into a deep depression. there will be a permanent imprint on my couch and the cops will be called in because of the smell. and all because i couldn't turn off the law and order marathon on spike.
i can't wait.
well, actually, it's "soft jamaican dream" which, in case you are not fluent in wal-mart paint colors means: light turquoise. if that sounds ugly, you might be right. but i love it and i still sometimes just look at it and smile at my boldness. it's not for everybody, but it is for me and i'm the one who has to look at it...until b moves in. but he is getting such a good deal on his rent that he better just shut up. (by the way, i am planning to get some vinyl lettering on the blue wall as a welcome gift to b. it will say: b smells like butt. he will love it.)
anyway, there is one thing about my new home that is not so cool. it is that i now have cable. i have survived for the last several years with an old tv with bunny ears. it got two channels: fox and kjzz. and that was just fine because with those two channels i could watch all the shows in my triumvirate: the office, the simpsons, and friends. occasionally, if the weather was right and i stood in the right spot and held my breath and didn't blink, through the fuzz i could see the office on nbc. but that was a rare treat. so imagine my great surprise when i was checking out my future home and they said i could include their big fancy tv in the offer because they wanted to get rid of it (it wasn't so big and fancy that it was attached to the wall, but it was a far cry from my bunny ears). imagine my greater surprise when i found out that hoa fees for my future home included comcast cable. there was no getting around it: i have cable. me! world's biggest cheapskate! and i have taken full advantage of it. i have over 50 channels. Among them: four sports channels (one of which is dedicated entirely to golf, which got me thinking that if i ever want to torture someone before i murder them in my new home, i will tie them up and turn on the golf channel), disney (yuck), food network (yum), four spanish channels (don't need to go to paraguay anymore, i'll just turn on telemundo), bet (i had no idea that black people had their own network. watching it makes me feel like a spy), several others that i can't think of (still trying to memorize them all) and the piece de resistance: the travel channel (76) and the history channel (10)!!! the travel channel has been highly disappointing, but oh, the history channel. it's everything i've ever dreamed of. i've learned about a brothel in pompeii, the first 24 hours after jfk's assassination, david koresh and waco, the history of the universe, vlad the impaler, a big hurricane in connecticut and several facts about the states (did you know that the state tree of south carolina is the palmetto? this is one of many useless and uninteresting facts i have learned while watching "the states"). it is so exciting. and when tv is slow on the history channel, i can almost always find a nice rerun of csi: miami or criminal minds. it is a couch potato's dream come true. this newly acquired cable will be the death of me. i will lose my job and gain 50 pounds and sink into a deep depression. there will be a permanent imprint on my couch and the cops will be called in because of the smell. and all because i couldn't turn off the law and order marathon on spike.
i can't wait.
Monday, November 2, 2009
i've been racking up the frequent flyer miles for years
ok, so maybe if i was really "racking them up" it wouldn't take me 5 years to accumulate enough to fly out of state. but the point is, i finally have enough to go somewhere in the continental u.s. (no alaska ice fishing for me) so for months i have been trying to find the perfect opportunity to spend my miles and have a free trip. new york? dc? boston? this is not a decision i have taken lightly, what with my inherent cheapskate-ness. i did not want to waste those miles. but after months of deliberating i have finally made my decision. on february 4th i will be flying to....
IOWA!!
and unfortunately, i am not even joking about that.
good times await me in cedar rapids, iowa, my friend. in fact, their official website says
"Cedar Rapids is a vibrant city, encompassing unique attractions, exciting events, specialty shopping, a dynamic arts scene, and a cosmopolitan nightlife."
yeah, right. when they say "vibrant city" do they really mean "quiet farm town"? "unique attractions" or "oh, look. another corn field"? exciting events? well, that one might be true. i will be spending my time at the convention center interviewing for jobs. and i really can't think of an event more exciting than a job fair at a crowded, noisy convention center full of overeager teachers...except maybe standing in line to get a swine flu shot.
so, i have wasted 35,000 of my precious and rare miles on a weekend trip to dynamic and cosmopolitan cedar rapids. but, if it gets me my dream job in paraguay, then it will be totally worth it. besides, at least i didn't have to fork out $400+ for a ride to iowa, like some chumps i know. (hi, emily) that would be way more depressing.
i'll send a postcard.
IOWA!!
and unfortunately, i am not even joking about that.
good times await me in cedar rapids, iowa, my friend. in fact, their official website says
"Cedar Rapids is a vibrant city, encompassing unique attractions, exciting events, specialty shopping, a dynamic arts scene, and a cosmopolitan nightlife."
yeah, right. when they say "vibrant city" do they really mean "quiet farm town"? "unique attractions" or "oh, look. another corn field"? exciting events? well, that one might be true. i will be spending my time at the convention center interviewing for jobs. and i really can't think of an event more exciting than a job fair at a crowded, noisy convention center full of overeager teachers...except maybe standing in line to get a swine flu shot.
so, i have wasted 35,000 of my precious and rare miles on a weekend trip to dynamic and cosmopolitan cedar rapids. but, if it gets me my dream job in paraguay, then it will be totally worth it. besides, at least i didn't have to fork out $400+ for a ride to iowa, like some chumps i know. (hi, emily) that would be way more depressing.
i'll send a postcard.
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