Succinctly Yours Week 230: Them Pale City Folk

Thank you to Grandma of Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours. Participants are invited to serve up a story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer based on the photo. This week’s bonus word was “tingle.”

Prospecting for gold on the streets of Chicago took some getting used to, but they all felt a mighty tingle when three rings and a watch were dug from that can.   130

The police commissioner got a little tingle when he thought of it: The city needed cowboys to herd the people and keep them in line.   119

Though the street vendors’ authentic presentation made some tingle with its satirical nature, others felt their use of an old baked bean can was just gross.   131

The campout abruptly ended with the tingle of Whitey’s slap. All Slim had said was that he should roast the sushi over the fire rather than heat it in the baked bean can.   138

Don't you DARE take the name of Texas in vain. –Sandy in Spongebob Squarepants

Take That in Your Traveling Tupperware and Stuff It

Hooray for this time of year, when in true holiday fashion I can take something reasonably healthy, like oat cereal, and corrupt it until it retains virtually none of its nutritive elements, and like a culinary alchemist, change it into tasty, cholesterol-and cheese-laden gold. Here are

10 Things I Feel Like After Too Much Holiday Food:

1. A humongous, slightly mobile appetizer made of cream cheese, semi-sweet chocolate morsels, bacon bits, Cheeze Whiz, mayonnaise, and mini-marshmallows on top
2. Gurgling cheese ball
3. Chocolate-engorged food tick
4. Over-moussed moose
5. Raw, overstuffed poultry
6. Ginormous, un-popped cheesecake zit
7. Big glob of extremely well-marbled, past-its-prime rib
8. Giant, bloated gravy truffle
9. Piggy-food-bank
10. Baked couch potato loaded with sour cream, bacon, chives, and Cheeze Whiz

Shouldn’t there be a list of acknowledgments for detractors, naysayers, underminers?  All the people who did not believe in you.  The people who got in your way or who tried to bring you down.  These people deserve to be acknowledged, too.  They should be on lists titled F*** You and Special F*** You and Very Special F*** You.  ~Cynthia Kaplan, Leave the Building Quicikly

Improper Poll: Tiny Poof of Magic

I have a theory that there are wine people and coffee people. I wish I were a wine person. Wine people are cool. They are calm. I imagine when not sipping wine, they go to gyms. I picture them celebrating relaxation by inviting small groups of people to eat gourmet health food and discuss…what? I have no idea, but I bet it’s cool. I bet it makes them all laugh softly and toast one another.

Like it or not, I am a coffee person. I walk too fast, eat at my desk, and have been known to laugh until I have to run to the bathroom because all that caffeine is a diuretic. Gourmet health food, to me, is buying the GOOD TV dinners.

Usually I drink it black, but this summer I developed yet another vice when I discovered that the little parking lot shack a few miles away makes a mean iced coffee. On more than one occasion I’ve found myself driving miles out of my way. Then I started making it at home.

The easy version doesn’t taste as good as shack-bought, but I secretly get a little thrill pouring the fat-free half and half into the glass. It’s a moving work of art that’s gone in the blink of an eye. It’s so quick, I couldn’t even get a decent picture. That tiny, magical poof was almost done by the time I picked up my camera.

Gone in an instant.  Goodbye, summer. Farewell, iced coffee.

Do you have a weird little thing that gives you thrills every time?

Improper Poll: Feed a Cold

I haven’t blogged lately because I recently took one of those colds that makes you feel like someone stuffed steel wool into all of the orifices in your head, and then cemented it in there with super glue and maybe some of that expandable foam insulation. And then they unscrewed the head and baked it at 350° for twenty minutes in a toaster oven, eyeballs up.

The good news is that I can now eat the off-brand chips I bought on impulse from a Walmart display that have been sitting in my pantry all summer possibly emitting radiation. Although the brand sounds like an island in the South Pacific, they are “Fuego” flavored and make my eyes water just by opening the bag. They are fire engine red and rolled up like little Cuban cigars, and they might be making my throat bleed, but who cares? I can sort of taste them and they are delicious.

What is the nastiest snack food you’ve ever eaten?

Don’t Eat Rubber Grapes and Other Vital Warnings

When I was about ten years old, my mother bought some rubber grapes and put them in a bowl on the dining room table as a decoration. Then she delivered the very dire warning: Don’t eat the grapes! They are rubber. Don’t eat them! They may look real, but they are not. Not real! They will poison you or lodge in your throat and choke you to death!

I was ten—why on earth did she seem to think I’d want to eat rubber grapes? To me, the implication was that I went around indiscriminately vacuuming up objects into my mouth, like a giant goldfish, in case they might remotely resemble food. Worse than a goldfish, even, to inhale with such force that they would lodge in my windpipe.

Besides, this was in our formal dining room, which was not a place I associated with eating, anyway. It was for homework and jigsaw puzzles and class projects. But the main thing was, the grapes were rubber. They looked rubber. And even if they had looked that real, wouldn’t I have figured it out when I tried to pick one? And even if a rubber grape made it to my mouth, would I swallow it for lack of knowing what else to do with it?

So I was pretty insulted by that warning.

But then came the time I was grown and trying to germinate poisonous Morning Glory seeds in a little container in my kitchen. Being apparently more passive aggressive than my mother, I made a little Post It note that said, “Don’t eat! Poisonous seeds!” And I drew a little skull and crossbones for good measure. My daughter was then about twelve. She looked into the little cup at the brownish water with a few little black things floating in it, looked up at me, and said merely, “yum.”

She was right—they didn’t appear very appetizing. But still, I was a mother and couldn’t take any chances.

Then the other day I discovered a jar in the kitchen that looked like a science experiment. Both of my children are into science, so I wasn’t surprised. It was a jar of water with colorful chunks in it. Turned out she’d found some old “Magic Rocks” in the basement that she’d missed as a child, and she and her friends had mixed them up. Under the jar was a note: DO NOT DRINK GROWING ROCKS!

I am so proud.

Also, our caretaker, Mr. Filch, has asked me to remind you that the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a most painful death. ~Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter and the Socerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Improper Poll: The Beast

I recently discovered a new recipe by accident. It goes like this.  Heat one trunk to 150°.  Add one pound ground beef and cook in a sealed garage all weekend.  This is a recipe for The Beast. This recipe is the pot-potpourri equivalent of manna...from hell.  Because it will serve everyone within about a 12 foot radius.  Indefinitely.

The ground beef was double wrapped, too, so it's not like anything leaked out.  Still, Holy Cow Guts, does my car stink.  So I sprayed everything thoroughly, first with one product and then the other. Both are anti-bacterial air purifiers that promise to kill the source of the odor. But I guess since my ground beef was already dead, it refused to die all over again. Almost two weeks later, it reminds me of my favorite Seinfeld episode about the B.B.O. But this is G.B.O. Or maybe R.B.O., because it’s rotted. Either way, it really is The Beast.

The R.B.O. has sent out airborne molecules to infuse, like microscopic zombies, into everything in my car. Another car parked next to it in the same garage had its windows rolled down, and now IT smells of R.B.O., as does my garbage can (long since emptied) and the garage itself. Should I be washing my hair in tomato sauce? I keep asking random people to do smell-checks.

I went to a car parts store and asked them what they recommend, and now my car smells like chemically-infused-cardboard-jasmine with strong R.B.O. top notes. Gak.  Left my car outside with the windows down in the hot sun. Threw out the cardboard box that the R.B. had fallen into when it first began this invasion of O. molecules. A neighbor (who obligingly performed The Smell Check, and I don't even know her very well)  suggested baking soda.  It sort of amazes me who will smell you if you ask them.

I admit it—I haven’t had my car steam-cleaned yet because I keep thinking surely The Beast will give up the ghost, as it were. Move on to greener pastures. Something. Should I sage my trunk to clear out evil spirits? Call in an exorcist?

Have you ever done battle with a horrifying odor? If so, do you have any suggestions?  Other than driving my car into the city and walking away?

Improper Poll: Way Past Prime Numbers

 

My daughter is a renowned expert on expiration dates. So when she isn’t here, I am defenseless against those little stamped numbers which are often hard for me to read even if I can distinguish them from mysterious product codes. Does 022012 mean February 20th of 2012 or just February in general? Usually I only remember to check during canned food drives, because I wouldn’t want to give someone else expired food.

Here is a confession: The other day I knowingly drank expired coffee. It was a powdered instant mix, and really, how much could powder degrade? Still, I was worried enough that I warned my daughter ahead of time in case that special, relaxing “me” time from the commercial became non-relaxing rush-me-to-the-hospital-time and she needed to know what to tell the paramedics. It smelled and tasted fine, though. And I lived. Oh, and the expiration date was a year ago.

I was going to have a contest to see who could locate the Most Expired Food Item in their pantry, but I was afraid no one would want to participate.

Or that I would lose.

You’ll be pleased to know I’m not going to tell you what’s in the back of my refrigerator. In fact, I am not even going to look! Instead, I’ll ask this: do you have expired food, or am I the only one?

The Hot Guy Diet (Part I)

We are trying to go healthier at my house.  At some point, the cookie jar morphed into the Healthier Snack Jar.  And I keep inventing diets that are so much fun I want to stick to them.  I call them doable diets.  Problem is, the doable diets don’t always…do much.

My current one is the Hot Guy Diet, or in my case, the WWBT (What Would Brendan Think) Diet. I have actually had some success with this one before. Since I do most of my eating at the computer, I have a picture of Brendan Fraser on my desktop as my wallpaper, and he is just so darned cute, I really can’t eat in front of him. [I’ve heard Brendan Fraser is lusted after by librarians and English teachers everywhere. I can’t explain it. I do know I once subbed for an English teacher who kept an autographed poster of him in her classroom. If I were a little less honest, she would no longer have it. If I were a little more smart, I would have taken a quick trip to the copy room.]

Just today, I was operating the mouse with one hand while holding a cup of coffee in the other while a glob of chicken-salad-filled croissant oozed from my mouth. When I shut down the program I was working on, there sat Brendan looking all ripply-muscled and philosophical at the same time. Horrors! He didn’t quite look disapproving, but he didn’t look enchanted, either. That croissant was out of there. He even improved my posture a bit. In fact, I fixed my hair a little, too. WWBT?

Part Two to be continued….

They had a hard time miking me in my loin cloth. I mean, where were they gonna tape it? ~Brendan Fraser discussing “George of the Jungle”