What do you do when a house doesn't exist?

More Streetlights: What this city (and surrounding cities) needs

Came home last night at nearly ten. Little while later, Mike and I are on the road driving to Albany (nearby town) for a free wardrobe. We have the directions and the address, but still miss the last turn somehow (see first sentence of post) and end up on the next street down. We have the number of the house/driveway where the stuff is supposed to be, and when we reach the right block, we park and go walk over to the house to check out the stuff.

We were looking for 512 Blah Street. We walk up Blah Street and realize that while there is a 510 Blah Street and a 514 Blah Street, the house we want doesn't seem to exist.

First suspect: Incorrect keyboard input either on the part of the advertiser or Mike keying in directions. Not much we can do about that out here without internet, though, so...next!

Second suspect: Handwriting. Is that 5 in 512 really a 5? Could it be another number? Did we go too far? Being out at night wandering around even in a car isn't the way I'd like to spend my evening, but it's a shame to drive a few miles to get some free stuff and come back empty handed.

We thought the number might actually be 312 Blah Street, but we also had the distance down Blah Street we were supposed to go (thanks to Google Directions). And since we missed the turn originally, we weren't checking the distance (0.7 mi) because we had to find our way back to the original street.

Back in the car. Circled the block, started a trip odometer upon turning properly onto Blah Street from Blah-1 Street. Carefully watching the trip odometer while still paying attention to house numbers.

No big surprise here: 0.7 miles down Blah Street led us almost exactly to the nonexistent 512 house. Great.

"Let's just go a little further and see," Mike suggested. And at this point, I had no better ideas, and he was driving, so I obviously went along.

Crawling down to where Blah Street T's with an unknown street, I looked over to my right and saw two tall lamps on the side of the road.

me: "Hey there are two lamps over there. Hey stop the car! Fuck yeah two lamps!"

Mike: "Do you want me to pull over?"

me: "Nah, I'mma just get them."

Nabbed two lamps. No idea if they were supposed to be for someone else. They looked nice.

Turned around at the end of the road and started for home (also tried to make friends with a cat on the side of the road...not so successful...cat ran off all scared-like). At this point we planned to stop at 521 Blah Street just in case Sir Lysdexia had visited temporarily. As we were nearing our final stop for the night, something on my right caught my eye.

The wardrobe!

Sitting behind a car on the driveway was our treasure. With way too much noise and one minor thumb injury, we managed to haul away our "new" wardrobe. Woo hoo!

Answer to the post title question: Go take other stuff from somewhere else.

Revelation

Two dreams this morning between the time I woke up to see if I had to go in early for orientation and the time when I actually woke up.

The first was simple: I wore a watch and happened to look at it and the center connection piece for the hands of it was broken. The hands spun as I moved my arm. Watch didn't work. I was afraid of not knowing the correct time.

The second was epic: I wish I could visually present this dream to you, because any verbal description will not do it justice. It had plenty of cinema qualities and yet was as real to me as anything I'd ever dreamed or even experienced in consciousness. Even though I had full control over myself in the dream, certain plot elements were not revealed to me until later, and I'm still wondering how I could know something without actually knowing it. That might not make sense...

For some reason, Mike and I weren't together, and I had been sort of sent off by him on some epic journey to find myself someone else. But I didn't really know this. I just knew I wasn't with him, and was off on my own somewhere else. I remember interacting with another guy who, on paper, had all these qualities I supposedly wanted in a mate, and there was even a pre-intimate scene in the dream with this other guy, but it quickly turned awkward as I realized this wasn't right for me. I don't remember who he was, or anything really about him, except that he wasn't real (he was real in the dream, but wasn't someone I know). My made-up extended family in the dream seemed to like this guy, and was sad when things didn't work out between us. After that whole thing ended (without emotion, surprisingly), I ended up talking with an ex in the late afternoon sunset between a couple buildings. We talked about ourselves and how we wouldn't work, except the conversation didn't seem real at the time. The cement I was sitting on became flexible and it bent down and I slid along, bracing myself on the ceiling that appeared, until I reached the ground. Maybe this was some sort of symbolism of regaining my senses. At this point, the entire point of this journey was revealed to me in a series of flashes. Totally movie-quality cut-screen effects, complete with that heart-wrenching music that only the best string orchestra can provide. And as I sat on the finally-settled concrete, the camera panned around me, catching the sunset on each revolution, and I saw all kinds of things. It was as if Mike had made a bet that if he let me go, I'd come back. And I'd found some made-up-to-be-great guy and he'd failed, and of course the ex had failed but I guess we needed a past example to balance the pseudo-future one. So I sat and watched all of these things in my mind, even the non-visual things had visualizations. All of these things that he had going for him over anyone else. It was so surreal and yet real at the same time. I woke up gradually, in kind of a hazy shudder, not quite understanding what I'd dreamt. Took a moment to gather my thoughts. He was still asleep. Turned to him and simply said, "You're him."

Might be too many details. If so: *apologizes*

Weird revenge

Yesterday I was looking at free stuff on Craigslist and happened upon an ad that offered free sex toys because a store had gone out of business and had to store the items and it was costing a lot of money to pay for storage. So he was giving them away. It had a phone number.

I just couldn't resist the offer, so I called. No answer. I called a few hours later. No answer.

A little while later we were checking the free stuff ads again and noticed the ad had been taken down. I guess it'd been flagged or something. We kind of forgot about it.

Later on I saw an ad for a free guitar and amp and asked Mike if he wanted it. He said sure, so I checked the number on the ad, and just happened to notice the similarity...

It was the same number as had been on the sex toy ad earlier that day. Strange. But maybe this guy was really moving or something and was just trying to get rid of stuff.

I chickened out of calling since I'd tried already, so I hand Mike my phone and he calls the number, and the guy answers so loudly I could here him:

"No fucking sex toys stop calling!" And he hung up.

Uh, okay. At this point something seemed fishy. Mike called back on his phone and the guy answers and he asks him about the guitar, and the guy just says "No" and hangs up.

We're pretty sure someone Craigslist-pranked this dude. I don't know what he did but he must have ticked someone off pretty well. Later that evening was another ad in similar format for some exercise equipment. Same name and number on it. Poor dude.

Common ground

After a late evening grocery store run, we made breakfast for dinner. I'd put bread in the toaster and asked Mike if he wanted butter on the toast (he said yes). I found a pan + lid to put the buttered toast in while we finished preparing the rest. I said I loved it when toast got buttered and could sit and stay hot while the butter soaked into it.

I can't accurately explain what happened as I said that, because all that really occurred was Mike turning to me and saying "Yes!" in beaming agreement as I said "Then when you eat the toast it's still crunchy but all mmmmm buttery, too."

But there was some kind of happy glow in the kitchen right then, and I decided to do my best to make my life a string of those kinds of happy moments.

I do seem to pick the nice stuff

Lots of nice people at orientation. Only one person thus far who really rubs me the wrong way, and sadly it's a loud, annoying way that isn't easily avoided. I'm just hoping we don't have any classes together.

Aside from that, I'm struggling with the idea of fitting myself into some category of chemistry just yet. People keep asking, and I want to say to them: "You people told us at the spring visit that at Berkeley there weren't any divisions, there weren't any categories, so why do you keep asking me?"

I don't know whether I'm going to be considered organometallic, organic, or inorganic just yet. It's scary to think that I won't be an organic chemist, but the more I talk to people and groups, the more it seems like the inorganic path is the way for me. Not that I'd have to abandon all organic knowledge or techniques, but I think inorganic methods will be more useful to me if I do intend to do. Two reasons for vagueness: 1) personal privacy for the time being, 2) I'm not quite sure.

Some dude named Jeff was on an environmental mission and approached me today. He rubbed me the wrong way so hard that I had it in me to be a complete meanie-head to him, but instead I decided to tell him Yes, I am a hypocrite for agreeing with you that we should fight global warming but refusing to pledge money to this organization of yours. Yup. And he did the guilt trip thing, even to the point of asking if my beads (the necklace I wear) were plastic, and I said I didn't know (I'm pretty sure they're ceramic, dingbat), but I think if I'd said yes there'd have been some mini-lecture on how that's bad, too. He said he hopes I benefit from the work of others. Man, that was like the harshest thing ever. I had to say something at that point, so I told him of my proposed alternative energy research and he finally backed off once he realized someone else was walking by and probably looked like an easier target. He really ticked me off.

I wanted to write something more elegant about that incident, but I think that's adequate for now.

We got a free television stand tonight and it's pretty awesome. Random dude walking by our apartment helped us get the thing up onto the porch. I was pretty exhausted at that point, so it was really nice of him to help. At some point I'll do an actual count, but right now I think 80% of our houseware possessions are second-hand. And some other large percentage were free. Good times.

The internet really does have everything

Craigslist, I love you.


If it hasn't been removed yet, it can be found here.

Material goods and failed Samaritanism

Got a love seat for free on Friday. Had to clean it a bit, but now it looks pretty nice. I need to find a ~2" piece of wood sometime to make a leg for it. It's got five legs, so this last one isn't terribly important, but it's on one of the corners, so maybe a little piece of scrap wood will show up nearby soon.

Went garage-sale-ing yesterday! We got...
-double papasan chair frame (no cushion yet)
-2 little electric fans
-nice little dish set (IKEA brand, be proud, David)
-a big George Foreman grill
-big mixing bowl
-Nautica cloth shower curtain (shall be used as a door curtain for now)
-Games! Taboo, Pictionary, and Boggle!
-2 of those woven bamboo-looking food trays

Oh, and that love seat I mentioned has a related story. We had the love seat out on the front porch of the apartment building while we were cleaning it on Friday. As we were cleaning, this guy was trying to parallel-park his SUV in a spot right out in front of the apartment building. The guy backed up too much trying to straighten out his vehicle, and bumped the car parked in the space behind him. Whoops. I didn't see it, but Mike did, and when he told me what had happened, I turned around in time to see the parked car still rocking from the impact.

We stood there kind of watching what the guy was going to do, and it looked for a moment like he was just going to park. I asked Mike if we should do anything regarding the bumper bump, but didn't have time to discuss it because the guy did an awkward turn and sped away. I went down a couple stairs to get a better look at the car, and caught six of the seven characters of his license plate number. Another car parked in the spot as the SUV pulled away, and we asked the guy in that car if he'd noticed what type of car it was. He was pretty useless ("It was a brown SUV") and walked off, but the accident wasn't his problem so I couldn't blame him.

I wanted to do something, because I think it's lame that people get away with stupid shit like hitting cars just because no one sees them. And we'd seen it happen, so we had the upper hand on the situation, except we didn't know what we'd do, or whether it was really our place to do anything ("Hi police, I witnessed a bumper hit on [address]" "Was the car damaged?" "Uh, it wasn't my car." "Oh, so why are you calling?" "Good citizen?").

So I decided to write a note describing what had occurred and giving the license plate info and leaving it on the windshield of the hit vehicle. We continued cleaning the love seat, figuring everything would work out.

The hit car's driver showed up while we were still out there. He loaded his kid into the car seat in the back of the car, and then got in the car and drove off.

Didn't even see the note we left on the windshield.

Mike's awesome theory of what might happen: "The guy drives off with the note on the windshield. It blows off while he's driving and lands on another car's windshield. The driver of that car happens to work for the DMV. This guy actually sees the note, gets ticked that someone hit his car, finds out who the original car-hitter was based on the license plate number, and goes to his house and beats the shit out of him."

Marvelous. I might make that into a comic sometime soon.

Feels more like a home now

Mike and Cam made it here yesterday at about 11:00 a.m. We unloaded the SUV and let Ellie get adjusted to the new place. After getting everything inside, we played some Brawl and in the middle of it, there was a buzz at the door. The mattress! We let the mattress guys in (we'd already set up the frame) and they set up our box spring and mattress.

Brawled some more and then went out for a late lunch at a gyro place since Cam had never had a gyro. As we sat in the gyro shop, we people-watched, and Mike commented that people here seems generally happy. I told him when you leave the homeless people out of the equation, he's probably right.

Cam: "It's a good day to be homeless!"

Went back to the apartment and zonked out for a while. I slept a total of 2-3 hours, Mike slept a few hours longer than that, and Cam didn't get up until the next morning. But they'd driven all night so it's quite understandable.

Got up at about 8:00 this morning, played more Brawl and had breakfast. Cam's playing Super Mario Galaxy, and Mike and I are about to head to Target to return a comforter (tore it last night...innocently I swear), and get a few other things for the place. Ellie's calmed down a lot and has been a lot less adventurous than she was yesterday. Craziest thing yet: She jumped out one of the windows onto the fence outside...then luckily jumped back in once she realized THE WORLD IS BIG AND SCARY. So I think window screens might be in our future.

Because it'd be cool to grow old together

I'm not sure if I'm being caught in the middle of a double standard, or whether there's some other relationship rule I'm not seeing here.

Mike and Cam are driving across the country, and I'd told Mike before they left (with gentle suggestion) that it's not so good to drive at night. After they did end up driving quite a bit in the dark the first day, I tried to be firmer with my opinion and desire that they not run into things they can't see. Not sure how successful I've been. I keep updating my parents on their progress (because they're caring individuals) and I told my dad that I told Mike they really shouldn't drive at night because it's dangerous.

His response? He told me don't be a pain about it.

So, okay, thanks for that, Dad, since it's okay for you to remind me of anything multiple times all the time whenever you think I should know, but it's somehow not okay for me to tell the boy I want to love forever HEY I DON'T WANT TO GO TO YOUR FUNERAL JUST YET, KAY?

*rolls eyes* It's not like I'm threatening him or even doing the guilt-trip thing (aside from saying I'm worried about him, which is true, I can't help but worry, it's a LONG LONG DRIVE). So I feel put off from being chastised by my father. I know it's a much stronger relationship between parent and child than between significant others (right? maybe?), and maybe that's what qualifies parents to give repetitive advice/suggestions that significant others just can't give. Because it's okay for parents to be a pain in the ass, at least after the kid has moved out. And of course I don't want to annoy the boy who is traveling all this way to live with me. But I'd much rather him be upset with me for a few days or a week and be alive and safe here, than deal with an injury or (gasp) death of someone I love so much. Reasonable risk? *sigh* I don't know...

Anticipating unwanted social interaction

Tons to do once I wake up in several hours.

I want/need to wash the sheets for the new bed since even new store-bought sheets need cleaning before they're used.

There were three things I didn't like about getting this apartment:
3. There is no dishwasher.
2. There are no closets.
1. There is no laundry access inside or in the building or anywhere in sight from the apartment.

Those are listed top to bottom because I dislike the laundry situation the most. There is a nearby laundromat, but anything with an open doors policy and no observant owner is bound to draw in the vagrants. Creepy! It's hard to say you don't have change when you're plunking quarters into a washing machine. But last summer I learned that being a cold-hearted, uncaring bitch is easier on the wallet than being compassionate. And I support politicians who want to tax us, so it all evens out.

To-do: Laundry, more insurance details, set up the bedroom, organize the living room, paint the dresser and shelving, more Craigslist fun (I love it), fun painting, get a parking permit, pay internet bill

I need a shower. Goodnight!

Pro-Chat for Customer Service

This may be a little preemptive, but I give the best compliments sooner rather than later. So here goes:

A few weeks ago I signed up for Comcast high speed internet service using one of those sites that has special promotions for things like that. The deal that I found was good, and I jumped on the offer because it was only going on for a few more days. Initially I paid for some equipment, but made no payment for internet service itself since nothing had been installed. A couple confusing phone calls later, I figured out that I couldn't use a self-installation package because I don't actually have any cable services here in the apartment. This meant an installation technician had to come out to install stuff for me. That went pretty smoothly and I've been enjoying my internet access since then.

Today I got a bill in the mail for the installation and the first month's internet access, and it was about $13 higher than expected because they were charging me more for access.

Great.

Now, in the days following my order for service, I made four or five different calls to Comcast and the outside deal-provider trying to figure out some things, and although I spoke to probably eight different people during those calls, one thing remained the same: It was a big pain in the ass.

If you've ever made a customer service call before, you know why you don't like doing it:
-You never get instant service
-They play terrible music while you wait
-If you call with a cell phone, the terrible music sounds even worse because of the connection
-When you do get to talk to a human, they usually don't speak English well (It's true. This is a true stereotype of customer service people)
-You get transferred to some other place or branch or person
-This leads to more waiting on hold and hearing terrible music
-When you have to give information over the phone, people don't hear nearly as well as you'd like

...And many more reasons that I'm sure you've experienced. So with my incorrect bill in hand, I pondered calling Comcast. Then I remembered they have this live chat option on their website.

I'd used it before, and found it very helpful and convenient, so I gave it another try. This time there was a queue of people waiting, and I was #25 in line. The number of people in front of me decreased pretty quickly, and within a few minutes (probably three), I had a live person typing to me. How nice!

It was about 1:15 when I started talking to the rep, and by 1:33 I was all done, with everything fixed. (Note: Because of previously mentioned problems with phone conversations, my bill had spelled my name incorrectly and also had a mistake in my address)

No annoying music. No overly polite people. Easy information sharing. Good English skills. No cell phone minutes used. And the convenience of being able to do other things while chatting, since you're at your computer.

So use online chat customer service when you can! It's pretty awesome.

All this to say nothing's really changing

I've grown tired of self-archiving my Daily Sixes. So I've joined Twitter (thanks Adam and Paul) with the excuse that it will auto-archive my Daily Sixes (if I can remember to write them). But of course I really just want to be cool.

So the Daily Six text area is gone and has been replaced. You can follow me by clicking on the link in the new Twitter space on the side column. I'll fix everything else up so it's clear if someone happens upon the old Six Word Memoirs page.

Final pre-Twitter Six Word Memoir: Twitter helps me do this better.

No sad goodbyes here, just a smooth transition to more efficient updating.

And of course, since now there's no word limit (although I only have 140 characters), you know there will be crazy stuff popping up there a lot. Because I'd rather not have one-sentence blog posts.

Read this during the Olympics commercials

I walked to the nearby Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Berkeley, and on the way back I found a nightstand on the side of the road. For free! The woman who owned it happened to be leaving her house as I was looking at the nightstand. She said it was free and that I could have it. Awesome! It wasn't as awesome to lug it the 3.5 blocks home, but I'm really happy to have a nightstand. I'll have to go to that fellowship at least once just to try it out.

By now, you've probably seen an anti-Obama ad by McCain that contains this line:

"The real Obama promises higher taxes, more government spending, so: fewer jobs."

Now, I'm no genius on politics, or on logical fallacies, but isn't this some kind of non sequitur? If the government has more money and spends it on the states, then it's probably going to be in the form of programs and services (in addition to straight funds), and I just don't see how money is going to cut jobs. Wouldn't it create jobs? And even if the money doesn't go to the states (ooh corruption) Maybe I'm missing something here.

[edit] I love having intelligent friends. I just got owned in an email from a friend who has extensive knowledge of economics compared to me (and probably compared to you, too). But in addition to explaining the reasoning behind the "higher taxes = fewer jobs" concept, he at least said that my reasoning up there would hold water at least sometimes. So that felt good. Anyhow, if we want to start/continue to harvest our own energy in this country, there's got to be money for it from somewhere. [end edit]

Here's your weird link for the day. This sounds really neat. I like learning about how animals can positively contribute to modern medicine* without us having to kill them or simply use them as test subjects.

I can do two pull-ups on the bar that's mounted in one of the doorways here. Real pull-ups, with my palms away from me and extending my arms all the way down before pulling back up. But that's it. Only two. For now...

Male gymnasts...wow. I don't like excessive muscle, but geeeeeez, the strength and precision needed for these routines is so incredible.

___
*Even in the form of callus removal...but the article also mentions using fish to treat other skin conditions like psoriasis.

A real bed in six days!

I'm terrible at predicting how y'all will comment. I thought my five things to tell my children post would totally bring in some alternate viewpoints or at least some semi-promises to complete the meme on your own online place. But no, instead y'all are all OOH BREAKUP RECOVERY CALCULATOR and I'm glad you like the weird things I write about more than the standard, personal stuff. Although, I was totally ready to get into how fearing regret really stunted areas of my life. But now I have more fun things to write about.

First, let me take a moment to tell you that China knows what they're doing when it comes to anything technology related for television purposes. The opening ceremony for the Olympic Games was simply spectacular. Go watch it online somewhere if you haven't seen it. Just watch some part(s) of it to get that incredible feeling of "Yep, we're dedicated to being awesome" that the Chinese people who put on that production provide so well.

Next, goal completion is really what keeps me going in life. If I don't make lists somewhere and barrel through the objectives, I end up just watching television, stuffing my face with chips and salsa, and forgetting about things like showers. So here I go:

Here were my "New goals": Get California driver's license. Register vehicle. Change current address with postal service and bank. Learn and remember new address. Set up internet access in apartment. Clean apartment well. Find cheap furnishings. Find linens on sale. Play with HD antenna and television. Complete graduate student instructor online course prior to orientation (Aug. 18th). Watch Olympics in a couple weeks. <-- well, I plan to do this one.

Yay progress! And that's with the ten days earlier due date for that online course (i.e. today). I thought that was pretty mean. Anyway, the apartment could be cleaner, and it still needs more furnishings, but I'm okay with that for now. More garage sales Saturday if I can drag myself out of bed in six hours.

I'll finally have a real bed next Thursday. Surprisingly, the double-thick air mattress setup has, truly, become comfortable. It's the first time in a long, long time that I've slept without a body pillow. This is because the bed sinks in and envelops me in a soft, cuddly way that strangely supports my body quite evenly. I recommend this setup to anyone bed-less. Speaking of bed, it's really late. Goodnight!

One week of solitude remains

I set up the television and KiWii today, and got the internet connection correctly working on the second try, after I realized I had to tell the Wii that there was a signal there and then give it the right password instead of the other way around. Yay online Brawl capabilities.

Just yesterday I had the bright idea to find out if there was a closer grocery store than the one I'd been driving to (5 miles away) and there's another just 3/4ths of a mile from my apartment. Fifteen minute walk. So that was a nice discovery. I had no idea there was happy commerce a golf club's shot away from here. Not that there aren't stores in other directions, but I just didn't expect a full sized supermarket (full-sized for out here, not like a friggin' Supercenter) to be there.

Wandered up to said grocery store today and took in the shops and offices on the way there and back, kind of tourist-like. I wrote down places of interest and where they were, trying to remember the general layout of things for the next long walk. Of course, there are so many damn coffee shops and little special eateries that my mind just started blurring them together, only separating them by street intersections and blatantly out of place things like The Post Office.

Well, the Mike and Ike's my mom sent me lasted all of three days. All but one of the mango ones are still here because they are disgusting. I accidentally ate one while in auto-candy mode. *wants more sugary unhealthy things*

*sigh*


Riiiiiiight. Because this cleansing product is really going to give you the rush of cocaine, heroine, or amphetamines. Good to know that Requiem is still popular enough to encourage this sort of commercial.

Hey Paul! I partially thawed the rest of the chicken until I could (not so violently) snap them apart and put them into separate bags. One became part of a chicken/mushroom/black beans and rice dinner. Thanks, Zatarains. I'm not good enough to remember to stir the rice while it's cooking, but you're good enough to make rice that doesn't burn even though it sticks to the pot. Real meals are awesome. I'm almost healthy again. Maybe 15-20% of sickness remains. Totally doable.

Sleep schedule is still weird but at least I'm productive until 11:30 or so at night. Going to bed tonight before 2:30 will be an improvement. I want pizza. I started developing an actual formula for how long it takes to recover from a break up. I've joked about it before with friends but last night (this morning) it really seemed like it would work. As a predictor. I just need to figure out the numbers of it. Just because.

p.s. The OLYMPICS start today and holy crap am I happy that NBC comes in so well with the antenna. Yea!

For the next generation

Tonight feels like a meme night. The only thing that happened today that you might find entertaining is that I lost a paint can lid in my kitchen while painting. I looked all around the kitchen but could not find it. The can was empty so I did not care. As I walked into the living room, I heard a clunking noise and saw the paint can lid stuck to my pants. So that was fun. Anyway, here's the meme:

Five Things You Want Your Kids to Know (Before They Grow Up)
(because sometimes I enjoy talking about hypothetical children)

5. Sometimes talking about personal matters with someone you barely know is significantly more helpful than talking to people who you know (and who know you) very well. It's okay to confide in other people besides me. I'd rather you talk to someone than to no one.

4. You control your own destiny. People may make you think they can stop you, change you, fix you, or deny you, but when all is said and done, you make your own choices.

3. Don't be overly greedy or self-centered, but remember to keep yourself happy. Making other people happy at your own expense is not healthy over extended periods of time.

2. Regrets are inevitable. If you don't have any regrets, you aren't taking enough risks. Stop worrying about what you'll regret and live an adventurous life.

1. Love is real, and it will (probably) make you happier than anything else in the world. See #2 and #4 for help on this one.

The Shear Moment

All I wanted was my rice.

But I could not find it. I searched the entire apartment. No rice.

The plan was to make barbecue chicken with pineapple and serve it over rice. Without rice, this dish would be a lot less filling. So I needed rice.

But I could not find my rice. The rice that I specifically took with me. The rice that I bought sometime last year but didn't use and was looking forward to using. It was organic brown rice. And I could not find it.

So I went a little nuts.

And then I went a little more nuts when I remembered that the chicken was still in the freezer and needed to thaw.

Six whole boneless skinless chicken breasts purchased last week on sale were sitting in the freezer, all frozen together in the styrofoam pan. And I needed to eat one of them.

"Thaw in the refrigerator or microwave" the package read. I have no microwave. And I did not have time to thaw them in the refrigerator. Perhaps if I could remove only one chicken breast from the package, I could thaw one in some proper way and salvage the rest for later. I did not want five other chicken breasts thawed and needing to be eaten.

I attempted to take one chicken breast from the package. While still frozen.

It is at this point that I must tell you this: If you have never sheared one portion of frozen meat from another portion using physical strength, you have not lived.

For I attempted to thaw one chicken breast by running water over it (I had removed the plastic packaging), but this process was much too slow and I feared thawing the other pieces of meat at the same time. So out came the steak knife. I had managed to thaw a quarter inch or so of the meat, and from there began sawing at it with the knife, not knowing exactly where one piece ended and the next began, and caring only about having a full belly at the end of the night.

I sawed until I figured there was enough cleavage to break the end chicken breast off of the rest of the frozen five. I was wrong in my calculations. It did not snap, since there was probably an inch or more of frozen connective tissue to break through with a single force. And I did not have that much leverage.

By this point, from the water running and my struggling with the package, there were probably twelve ounces of salmonella splattered on my shirt. But I was hungry. And did not care. Because of the disagreeable chicken breast, I became angry. I literally pounded the top of the chicken breast with my fist once, twice, three times and SNAP off it came, leaving beautifully sheared muscle tissue exposed. It was a surreal moment of satisfaction, disbelief, and glory. I fell silent in awe of my strength and the sheer coldness of both my hands and forearms from struggling with the meat for so long.

Swiftly I lay the desired portion on a plate, then packaged the rest of the chicken up tightly and placed it back in the freezer. After some more of the same methods of water-thawing with the single piece of meat, I ended up making chicken in barbecue sauce with pineapple and mushrooms.

It was pretty delicious. I ate it all, and was so happily full.

In conclusion, if you get the chance to be physically violent with frozen meat, don't pass. It's an oddly good time.

Slather on the omegas

Mayonnaise is my most recent addition to a group of food products including ketchup, guacamole, half-and-half, and certain jams. These products are things I love to eat so much that I eat other things just so I can have the topping/condiment. I used to indulge in French fries for the sole reason of eating ketchup. Half-and-half, especially when there is sugar involved, is a main reason I drink coffee. If there is no cream or half-and-half around, it's rare that I'll intentionally get a cup of coffee.

I got Smart Balance Omega Plus mayonnaise when I purchased other sandwich materials a week or so ago, and I was a little afraid I would not enjoy it, since it is healthy and not real mayonnaise. I like real mayonnaise. It is all fatty and tangy and delicious with meat, cheese, and veggies. This SMOP mayonnaise is the best thing I've had since real mayonnaise, and I might even like it better. So go try it, if you want a healthier alternative to mayo. It apparently has some cool oils like canola and flax in it, too, in addition to having less fat overall. They do the vinegar/fat combo just right so that it's creamy and tangy without trying too hard

________

I feel like I sound a little more normal now. Despite still feeling lethargic, I got more staples today and finished re-covering the chair I started working on yesterday. It feels good to finally have something done. Now I just need to find a home for it out of the kitchen so more things can be finished.

I want to eat more sugar.

This flower's petals have dimples. Or indentations. They're cute and floppy, that's all I know.

Paste saves the day

I decided to flake on garage-sale-in' today for a number of reasons.

1. I still feel crappy, and because of that I...

2. Slept way later than I should have, and missed getting first pick at the sales.

3. I need a shower.

4. Mike keeps saying he needs to pay me back for the upfront costs, and me not going out buying more stuff for us will keep that dollar figure from increasing for now.

5. On my way back into the kitchen after pouring myself some more cereal, I dropped the cereal box while trying to close it. Me carrying things today doesn't seem like a good idea.

6. I almost locked myself out of the online wireless router configuration page by changing the password and then writing it down incorrectly. But luckily I'd typed it correctly elsewhere, and Ctrl+V saved me.

Because some women are hot

The most important thing comes first, and it is this...



...because the thought of Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz together in some sexual situation made my head explode (in a good way) when I saw the preview on television. Not that Cruz is the hottest thing ever, but her voice definitely does it for me, and come on, Scarlett Johansson has enough hotness to go around. Yum.

Once upon a time there was a thug who didn't pick fights until he knew exactly what he was going to fight. He would taunt his opponents until they were furious and showing all their weapons and strengths. He would make snide remarks about their mamas and refuse to throw a punch until he could see the steam coming from their ears. This thug was magnificent at hand-to-hand fighting and would always succeed, seldom calling upon the help of outside sources such as knives or guns.

One day this thug died and was reincarnated as my immune system.

And as much as I love my immune system, it seems like when I get sick, I have to reach the full potential of the sickness before my immune system starts doing anything. I dread going to sleep that first night after I feel a sore throat coming on, because I know the next morning will be so much worse. During the night, my muscles think it's their last day to live, and decide to grab a bone and make love while I'm asleep and then refuse to move without causing pain for at least 24 hours. At the same time, my nose and throat get in a big curse-filled, furniture-hurling, knock-out fight and decide that they need a few days off of work. Meanwhile, my brain is sitting up there processing all of this and thinking "If only I could move, I would kick so much ass right now!" because my brain is logical, and knows that if everything would just hold together for a day or so, the tough-thug immune system would wake up and beat down whatever infiltrated my body. But of course, this does not happen and my brain does not beat down the rest of my body. That might be painful.

In sum, I'm still kind of sick and I sound really bad but feel better than I sound. So if you call, be prepared to listen to my funky voice.

I have California plates on my car!

I'm working on getting more free/cheap furniture. Goin' garage sale-in' tomorrow.

I installed a doorknob! Without outside help (I did use the instructions) and without any cursing! I did yell a little bit because the stupid original doorknob would not come off without clever complicated motions. But I figured it out. Because I am a badass.