The Temptation on my Desk

I spent a large portion of the day yesterday reading archives from this blog. Feeling all inspired, I decided to use my "Lock & Lock" food storage containers to pack a lunch. My Nanny bought me these containers from QVC, which is her most favorite-est mall ever. More about that another time.

So, today's menu: two frozen meatballs from Trader Joe's, mashed potatoes, and edamame (can I please just call them soybeans?) with sesame seeds. I was inspired by Biggie's morning prep work on her bento box lunches. Normally, if the cupboard was bare, I would just get McDonald's or something for lunch or bring one of my shelf-stable packages of Trader Joe's lentils. Seriously, try the Indian themed lentils. But, hey--if a woman with a preschooler can make 3 healthy, creative lunches in the mornings then I can surely handle it. So.

The meatballs:
Yeah, these involved no prep work. They are frozen. I opened the bag and put two into one of my bigger Lock & Locks.

The mashed potatoes:
A few weeks (OK, months) back, I bought a bag of frozen veggies. It was a mix of baby corn, baby carrots, red peppers, broccoli, and tiny new potatoes. I have eaten everything out of this package except for a handful of potatoes and the carrots, which--sorry--went in the trash. So I just took the frozen little potatoes (so cute!) and threw them into my tiniest sauce pan of salted boiling water and went about my business until they were cooked to a near mush. Then I tossed them into the colander, then back into the pot. Then I added a splash of half & half and a pat of butter. They may be the best mashed potatoes I've ever made--no trying to get fancy or worrying about proportions. And, really--isn't the proper proportion of butter to anything else infinity:1?

The soybeans:
I just boiled them in their pods from their frozen state, then shelled them and put them in smaller Lock & Lock with rice vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, and some toasted sesame seeds. They are the temptation on my desk. I want to eat them right now. I decided not to put them in the fridge, because they don't really contain anything that can't sit safely at room temperature for a few hours. And because they look so delicious. I like knowing they're there. The promise of a delicious lunch.

Enough about lunch? OK.

Live Music and the Modern Woman

Growing up, I was against music that did not sound exactly as its most familiar (to me) recording. I was disappointed in live musicals that didn't sound the way they did on the Original Cast Recording cassettes I listened to ad nauseum. I also didn't really like concerts because, hey, "THAT'S NOT HOW THAT SONG ENDS!" This went on unabated for many years and, truthfully, there is still some aspect of that lingering in my little adverse-to-change mind. I didn't like seeing The Lion King on Broadway--despite the small fortune my Ma shelled out for tickets--because I knew the story and the songs and this was different. And don't even get me started about album recordings of live shows. Just KILL me, why don't you?

Past a certain age I moved on from my dislike of concerts. I think the trick was to think of the concerts as separate and different from recorded works. Like, "this isn't like Better Than Ezra's Deluxe album, it's Better Than Ezra live." More recently I have come to love some live albums, but I think it depends on the quality of the performance/performers, the quality of the recording, and whether you can accept that the music doesn't sound the way it's "supposed to." Yeah, it's a blend of the inter- and the intra-.

Here are my humble submissions for the live album Walk of Fame:

• The Smoking Popes, At Metro
• The Kinks, The Kinks Kronikles
• Cowboy Mouth, All You Need Is Live

Mood Music

I listen to Pandora online radio at work. Depending on my work tempo and level of stress, I will flip through my self-created stations to find something that either soothes or inspires. I have several stations. For those of you not familiar with Pandora, it works like this: You create an account, then create stations based on a song or an artist that strikes your fancy. Pandora then finds other music with characteristics similar to those of the chosen song or artist. They say it more eloquently on the page, so I probably should have just copied that, but I already typed this so there it is.

My stations are:

1. Claude Debussy
2. New Kids on the Block
3. Golden Years (by David Bowie)
4. Chain of Fools (by Aretha Franklin)
5. New Pornographers
6. Poison
7. Reel Big Fish
8. Rusted Root
9. Rod Stewart
10. The Music of the Night (from Phantom of the Opera)
11. Better Than Ezra

This list is not to brag about my ecelectic music taste. Frankly, the stations tend to overlap, sometimes in ways I do not understand. Par example, the same God-forsaken Coldplay song has shown up and been thumbs-downed on 4 different stations.

Anyway, since my music taste changes with my mood, I often find myself wondering why I gave certain songs a thumbs up. There are some really grating songs that I apparently decided were worth listening to a second time. In the end, they were not. Also, I have no particular allegiance to Debussy: I was looking for some good classical music to have playing in the background when lyrics would just ruin my train of thought.

Well, there's work to be done.

Twice in One Day!

More than once per day, I send a loving, affectionate, sometimes lewd e-mail to my Darlin' at work. Often they say things about what we will have for dinner, sometimes they contain pictures of baby animals, occasionally they reference his package. Without fail I will click send and then immediately panic as I start to wonder whether I did indeed type the correct e-mail address in the "to" box. My heart races as I madly flip to the sent messages folder to make sure that it did go to Darlin'@mydarlin'swork.com and not in response to the last person to send me an e-mail. In this case, it would have been a response titled, "Don't You Love Me Anymore?" reading, "Tacos for dinner!" to the message, "this document does not have a number because it is not part of a series."

Now on to the subject of this post.

I have an unhealthy relationship with the CVS near my work. It's on the small side for a CVS, selling only 20 or 30 brands of deodorant instead of the usual 90, but it serves its purpose. However, I never carry cash, thus I always need to use my card and I always feel like I need to spend more than $5 to justify the use of the credit card. I have no sound reasoning for why I believe this. The CVS cashiers would most likely allow me to charge 45 cents worth of merchandise. This may not be a problem for a normal person but I am notoriously bad with money. And because I go to this CVS oh, 5 times per week, I end up spending a lot of money there. Today for example, I went once in the morning and bought a hairbrush and deodorant to keep in my office, then decided to buy a box of tissues to bump my purchase above $5 (reasonable purchases all). I went again in the afternoon because I had forgotten to purchase the item I went there in the morning to get. The item in question, though, was only $2.50. So, naturally, I had to buy $2.50 worth of Little Debbie cakes so I wouldn't have to feel weird consumer guilt about using my check card for this.

Shoe Shopping

Recently, I've come across a fashion blog that I find irresistible: Fashion is Spinach. I like this girl for several reasons, not the least of which is that she refers to herself with the royal "we." Anyway, she was posting about shoes and then I started thinking about shoes. Naturally, when I think of shoes (and shopping at work), I think of Zappos. So, I'm on Zappos and they're advertising new Spring! shoes, which are most certainly different from my Winter shoes* (no exclamation point)**. I'm poking around and come across a Steve Madden shoe named "Crunk." Admittedly, the shoe is a little, um, trashy for my taste. But even if it was the most beautiful shoe in the world, I wouldn't be able to get past the name. CRUNK.

I'm probably overly sensitive to shoe names and I have no sound psychological reasoning for it. I just couldn't bring myself to order CRUNK from Zappos, even if it was a darling yellow patent leather mary jane. CRUNK.

(When I was in college I dated a guy whose dad was a Croatian immigrant. The boyfriend's Dad's name was Luka. I actually bought a pair of sandals named "Luka" because I couldn't resist. The shoe name thing--it's pathological.)

*I'm using this asterisk as a segue into my next topic. I started my first real live big-girl job in November of last year. I had tons of dark-colored, wintry, somber clothing from my career as a law student in Michigan, where Winter is the most beautiful nine months of the year. Now that Spring is coming, I'm getting nervous. When I lived in hot, humid Louisiana, I had little use for business clothes, so I have nothing to show for Spring time office wear. This is a shallow concern. I would gladly go buy a billion dollars worth of bright colors and light fabrics, but ohyeahimpoor.

**My favorite cousin Vic and his now wife Melissa were having a conversation with me before they were married, where Melissa gave a silly but impassioned speech about nothing important. She finished the whole thing by saying, "EXPLANATION POINT!" and drawing an exclamation point in the air with her finger. I think of that ALL THE TIME. I like to remind Vic of it, too, because it's so funny and if you can't laugh at your wife's expense, well, why did you get married?

Well, it's worth a shot...

For starters, let me say that, as a rule, I'm pretty anti-drug. I understand that the world is full of mitigating circumstances, but rarely do those circumstances come into play when someone is arrested on possession, intent to distribute, etc. I.e., it's unlikely that you're smuggling 1,000 lbs of marijuana into the country because your grandmother suffers from glaucoma.

Some of you (those who went to law school) may remember the hullabaloo about use of peyote in certain hallucinogenic religious rituals. I just don't think that's the case here, for our friend Robert:

If children can drink wine during Holy Communion, then Robert George Henry insists he should be able to smoke marijuana without being hassled by the cops.

The Franklin County man claims he is a rolling-paper-carrying member of the Hawaii Cannabis Ministry, a denomination devoted to the use of marijuana as a sacrament.

Henry will ask President Judge Edgar B. Bayley to dismiss drunken-driving and marijuana possession charges filed by state police on grounds that his drug use is a constitutionally protected religious practice.

OK, I could see your "marijuana use as a religious experience" argument here. But you were also arrested for drunken driving. Does that enhance your religious experience, Robert? Because I'm sure it enhanced your toking experience. Also, YOU WERE IN A CAR. I know churches are getting all new age and hip, but I have to wonder about a denomination that involves drinking and getting high by yourself IN YOUR CAR. Sorry, friends, I don't buy it. (article courtesy of PennLive.com - http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/120459211064760.xml&coll=1)

In unrelated news, I have a light green Nalgene bottle that came with my Brita pitcher. Yesterday, I made some Crystal Light in it, then refilled it with water when I was mostly done. As such, the water inside has a slightly pinkish tinge that, when seen through the light green plastic, makes it look like I have a large bottle of urine on my desk.

Are you freakin' kidding me?

So, I have tried home bikini waxing before (abrupt change in blog tone, anyone?).  It didn't go well.  It just became a glob of hot wax mixed with hairs that refused to come out and me pulling, pulling, pulling at my skin, trying to figure out how to get the wax off without tearing off my flesh.  It turns out you have to let the wax cool.  OH. MY. GOD.  Had I known that this, THIS tiny little change in behavior could have saved me the mind-numbing agony of yanking warm, sticky wax off my very sensitive bikini area...oh, not to mention that I bought no fewer than 3 separate d-i-y bikini waxing kits.  Sheesh.

I suppose it could just be that (a) I didn't read the directions and (b) I did not have any hands-on experience with at-home waxing growing up.  Not that I can really blame my Mom for not explaining the intricacies of at-home bikini area care*.  I mean, really--who wants to think of their mother in this context?  And for anyone out there thinking, "Well, your children need to develop a healthy understanding of sex and sexuality," I firmly believe that no good really comes of thinking about your mother's goodies attracting any sort of attention.

*She did, on the other hand, repeatedly stress the importance of not shaving our diego mustaches because they would grow back thicker.