Hometown: The Roch, MI (aka. The Crotch, aka. Crotchscratcher, aka. Crotchmolester, aka. Rochester)
Currently Living: Clawson, MI
Height: 5'8
Weight: Ha ha, yeah right
Favorite Color: Blue (preferably navy)
Profession: Researcher
Favorite Nickname: Trick, Sloan
Favorite Drinks:Vodka Tonic, Guinness, Diet Dr. Pepper, Dirty Martinis, red wine
Favorite TV Show: Friends, Sex & The City, Project Runway, The Amazing Race, Iron Chef America
Least Favorite TV Show: A Baby Story, I Love Lucy, Martha Stewart, Everybody Loves Raymond, every hour long drama
Favorite Books: The History of Love, Beloved, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Fight Club, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The of Being, SurUnbearable Lightness vivor, Empire Falls, The Corrections, The Bell Jar
Favorite Movies: Little Miss Sunshine, Anchorman, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Wordplay, American Beauty, Life is Beautiful, Amelie, Breakfast Club, Singin In The Rain, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sleeping Beauty, Dancer in the Dark, Duets, The Virgin Suicides, The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Austin Powers I, II & III, My Best Friends Wedding, Moulin Rouge, Tommy Boy, Billy Madison, The Shining, Gone With The Wind, Bridget Jones' Diary, Chicago, Love Actually
Guilty Pleasure Movies: Xanadu, Dirty Dancing, Overboard, Groundhog Day, Steel Magnolias, 10 Things I Hate About You, Bond movies, Footloose, Clue, Murder By Death, High Spirits, A Cinderella Story
What I Do Too Much: Check email, crossword puzzles, complain about my job to friends and family,
Obsessions: sushi, Indian food, ranch dressing, toenail polish, song lyrics, hands, awards shows, symmetry, avocados, maps, dreams, This American Life, the display in my car that tracks my MPG
Pet Peeves: loud eaters, slurping, gulping, arrogance, snoring, bad grammar, repetition, late mergers, ripping cardboard, the word "chunky", intolerance, couples in a restaurant sitting on the same side of a booth, pop-up ads, privacy manager, men that drive without shirts on, being foolish, unfairly jumping to conclusions, being made fun of, cat-calling, people who type too hard
Greatest Fear: crossing bridges
Relaxing Activites: late night drives to sing by myself, headstands, hot baths,
Wish I Was: Ansel Adams, Jenifer Aniston, in love, living alone
Prized Possessions: ring from my grandparents, flower pot of my Grandma's, electric blanket (temporarily broken), tongue scraper, my bed
Craziest Thing Ever Done: getting a tattoo, strip Jenga
Things I Eventually Want To Do: skydive, buy a guitar, learn how to play the aforementioned guitar, take flying lessons, travel to France, write a novel, learn how to play the harp, tap dancing lessons, run a marathon
Thursday, October 12, 2006 The future's no place to put your better days....And a big sigh. Amongst grrrrrrs....Sick of it. Sick of it all. The same laments for years. The same issues for years. Is this how boring everyone's life is? Even a new problem would be fine to handle. I will trade you financial woes for a broken arm. Deal? With my luck, I'll probably break my arm tomorrow and then have to deal with both.
7:27 PM
Monday, October 09, 2006 You were there, and it was good in the beginning....I think that, quite possibly, the best way to start off a Saturday morning of tailgating (yes, our asses were there by 9am, and yes, the game started at 4:30pm) is with the good ol' Captain Morgan and cider. I will refrain from giving you the ratios of rum-to-cider, but suffice it to say that it was enough to have most/all of us a little bit intoxicated by 10am. Which led into the rest of a fantasticly perfect fall Saturday. We had a nice group of teachers, roommates, significant others, old friends and even some former students rally up in Ann Arbor - Spartans and Wolverines alike. I actually think us Wolverines may have been outnumbered. We drank, ate obscene amounts of beandip, played a brutal game of spoons (this was around that 10am mark, so it was rather amusing as well, with a couple diving plays across the card table that may have left some bruises). And then there are those of us who weren't smart and didn't put on sunblock when everyone else was and had a wicked sunburned face complete with awesome sunglass rings around the eyes.
The boy had never tailgated at UofM before, and was kind of creeped out by the amount of crazy preparation that some people put into their tailgating -- the guy with the ENORMOUS grill that had about 5 tiers, 4 side burners and pots and that was a separate hitch on the back of his truck, the people with the 10-foot tall inflatable Sparty, the people with their flat screens set up in the back of their SUVs, the people with a maize and blue Michigan satellite dish (where the fuck do yo even buy something like that??). It is always a sight to behold at how manic some folks are. Shoot, we didn't even splurge for tablecloths this year. We were happy to have remembered a bottle opener.
But the day flew by (seriously, what the hell did we do all day??) and by game time, there were some seriously tanked folks where we were -- the guy in the mesh shirt (oh yes, a SEE THROUGH mesh shirt) was hunched over passed out in a chair. I hope he didn't have tickets to the game cos I don't think he made it. Since none of us acutally had tickets, we saddled up, maneuvered our way out of the golf course and went and watched the game at Amy and Dave's. This allowed us to actually watch the Tigers KICK THE YANKEES' ASSES at the same time.
So I don't know if I could have possibly dialed up a better day. Except for the raging headache that I incurred late in the afternoon on into the evening in spite of the multiple Aleve and many multiple bottles of water I consumed. And except for the obnoxious stomachache that I also incurred (the boy as well. We're going to blame it on the gorging on beandip). So I was content to lay motionless for most of the evening, since any amount of standing or walking made the pulsing action of my headache more painful. And the boy and I were content to smile and chuckle about what a fantastically fun day it was. In spite of his non-tailgating ways, I think he had more fun than anyone. So thank you all who came and played with us for the fun fun day!!
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Multiple oddities and happenings:
~Last week when I was at the grocery store, the woman behind me in line was critiquing the food I was purchasing. And not in a quiet-to-herself kind of way. In more of a "Oh, you really like fresh vegetables," way. Or a "Oh, you're buying chicken broth, are you making soup this week?" way. Or a "Oh, you like yogurt, I can't really get into it," kind of way. She had a nice disapproving look and comment to dish out when I plopped down the 12-pack of Labatt's on the conveyor belt. I'd like to point out that all she was buying was about 30 bags of frozen mixed vegetables.
~After I left the grocery store and when I was turning into the drug store parking lot to run more errands, there was a police chase that went rolling right on by me at about 60+ mph. I don't know why someone would think they could outrun 3 police cars on a 35 mph road that has traffic lights every quarter mile or so. I don't know whatever happened. I didn't see it on the news or anything. But not necessarily something that happens everyday within 5 minutes of my house in the middle of boring suburbia.
~Attempt #1 at sushi making: not so successful. I have my mat and my seaweed wraps. All the gear except for the right rice. And I didn't wrap them tightly enough and the rice was warm so it made the seaweed wrap warm and difficult to cut. So as soon as I went to slice them up, they all fell apart and I ended up eating the pile of mess on my plate with a fork. Oh don't get me wrong, it still tasted damn good, but I'm just that good yet. But don't you worry. I will be. Oh yes, I will be.
Alright kiddies. It's Columbus Day (do you know how it started? If you read Devil in the White City you'll find out) and no one is at work today. So I need to get back to work, since I'm the only one here and all. Happy Monday!
10:17 AM
Monday, October 02, 2006 Cos I miss you, yeahhhhhh, I miss you....Alright. I'm getting a little sick of this spinach ban bullshit. Cos I tend to eat spinach...ooohhh...every day or so. Maybe every other day. I know, what can I say? I love it. I'm a little obsessed. Popeye is my muse.
So I'm starting to go through withdrawl. Being forced to eat other vegetables like broccoli and zuccini? (Although I would eat grilled zuccini everyday if I had to as well. That is, if I could soldier through the winter months and grill in the cold. And I'm not allowing George Forman to be a sufficient replacement here). They're just not sufficient replacements.
But I have a new mission for what I eat. I always rant and rave about how damn obsessed I am with Indian food and sushi. So I have decided that instead of making the crap that I normally do, I'm going to learn how to make Indian food and sushi well enough to make it more affordable and to not hate my own cooking so much. That way, on days like today, where I'm insanely craving that delicious buttery taste of salmon nigiri or the delicious hotness of wasabi and soy sauce, I'll have it allll at my fingertips.
Don't think I'm not serious. I'm pricing rice cookers as we speak (with this saucy little red number at Target only $15!!). I'm going to buy my sushi mat, seaweed, and that good spicy sauce they use for the spicy rolls next time I go to the Japanese store (yes, there is THE BEST sushi place by me that I frequent a lot that happens to be a grocery store. And a video store. And a bit of a drug store too). And I already printed out the recipe for my favorite Indian dish, palek paneer. However, since I can't buy friggin spinach, that recipe may be put on the back burner for a while (no pun intended).
The only problem with this? It's in conflict with the good ol' South Beach. So I'm going to have to be the first crazy person to try California rolls with brown rice or naan with wheat flour. Which I'm sure will just taste awesome!
Just wait, oh yes. Soon. It will alllll come to be. I will become a worldy chef of not-so-epic proportions.
By the way, have you ever noticed that when you're trying to diet and eat healthfully, you watch significantly more Food Network? There should be a research study done on that. Because even shows I normally would roll right past (Showdown with Bobby Flay) I will sit and watch from start to finish (especially when it's a chowder cookoff. Mmmmm....chowder). Just to see all the beautiful things that I'll never eat. **sigh**
Also by the way. Did you know that women whose ring finger is longer than their index finger have been shown to be better athletes? Says so right here. Is yours longer? Cos mine is. But I think my athletic performance might actually prove the theory wrong....
4:54 PM
