Nah, she's not spoiled!
So um… this is what happens when I don’t bother to make my bed in the morning…
’nuff said!
mm.. Onions! October 31, 2008
So, there I was last night, making a special dinner, and a stroke of culinary genius inspiration hits, causing me to tweak an old “special day” standby into something just a bit different.
In my wisdom, as a confirmed blogger, and cookbooky kinda person, I decide to take pics along the way. Cool!
Only, for some silly reason, Yours Truly had a series of ah, shall we say, “issues” which resulted in all of one decent pic of said dish.
So much for that cool idea.
But dang, don’t those onions look yummy? All caramelized and delish?
mmmm... caramelized onions....
The next steps involved smothering those little pearl onion flavor power balls with an uber-creamy, spiced bechamel sauce and topping with bread crumbs – yep, I did the little suckers au gratin.
Oh yeah, they were a hit. And there are no left overs.
Ya call that kid a Cracker Jack… October 6, 2008
C’mon, who remembers it?
Sure, most of us do. And some of us are even old enough to recall when the “Secret Toy Surprise” was not made of paper, but could be something like a tiny toy train, a miniature magnifying glass or even a metal and plastic ring (Breakfast at Tiffany’s anyone?)
Ooo, cool!
Those charming trinkets of yesterday gave way to paper printed with riddles, silly pictures or, the latest one, baseball trivia: Collect All 34!
Chicago White Sox
Blame the “choking hazard” of all those tiny plastic and die cast metal parts. You can also blame the cost of all those tiny plastic and die cast metal parts.
This little walk down memory lane comes courtesy of an afternoon munchie attack where the call of the office vending machine was too great to overcome (couldn’t have had anything to do with the fact that I had left my lunch on the kitchen counter, and had no time to run get real food, now could it?)
Surveying the selection of nastiness that inevitably lurks within the scary depths of a snack machine is something of a depressing process for me. I can eat chips that contain enough MSG to bring on several migraines. I can opt for a candy bar that has enough fat and calories to make up for two meals, plus that will cause a sugar crash like no other. Or… OH! Wait!
They put in Cracker Jack! When did those arrive? Well…they could have been there forever, I so rarely go to the vending machines…
Life is good. The snacking is good. What’s not to like – popcorn, peanuts and caramel. Oh yeah.
C'mon, ya know ya want some!
Bag in hand, I return to my desk, happily staving off the massive munchie attack with a snack that, in reality, isn’t that bad for you. It’s been years since I’ve popped open a bag (hmmm…used to be a box!) of Cracker Jack, and the nostalgia factor was pretty high.
But, oh how things change!
They taste just the same. That, thankfully, hasn’t changed.
The prize is different, that’s for sure, but that’s life. Besides, who eats these things for the prize?
It was the little note stamped in bold letters on the back, right under the ingredients:
CONTAINS A PEANUT INGREDIENT.
Really? Gosh! I’m so glad you said that! Since the “Caramel coated popcorn and peanuts” on the front and the picture of peanuts wasn’t enough of a clue. And if I had any questions, the list of ingredients that puts peanuts as ingredient number four removed any lingering doubts.
I realize peanut allergies are serious stuff – but really. This is akin to saying that peanut butter is processed on equipment that also processes peanuts. Huh?
OK. I’ll stop. I’m really too busy enjoying my Cracker Jack to think about it right now.
Only problem is, now I have a mad urge to go to a ballpark, and I’m not a baseball fan… Take me out to the ballgame…
A sticky situation? July 27, 2008
I admit it, I’m an addict of odd news stories. I just love reading things that are slightly outside the norm. It probably started when I got the oh-so-fun assignment of researching stupid crook stories for one of the magazines I used to work for. And yes, Snopes is one of my favorite bookmarks.
A brief of the news story:
LEBANON, Ind. (AP) – A woman accidentally stabbed herself in the foot with a 3-foot-long sword while performing a Wiccan good luck ritual at a central Indiana cemetery.
Katherine Gunther, 36, of Lebanon, pierced her left foot with the sword while performing the rite at Oak Hill Cemetery, police said.
Gunther said she was performing the ceremony to give thanks for a recent run of good luck. The ceremony involves the use of candles, incense and driving swords into the ground during the full moon.
Gunther said she was aiming to put the sword in the ground, but hit her foot instead.
“It wasn’t the first time I performed the ritual, but it was the first time I put a sword through my foot,” she said.
Gunther immediately pulled the sword out of her foot, and her companions took her to Witham Memorial Hospital, where she was kept a couple days for treatment, suffering a compound fracture.
No charges were filed, police said. The Wiccans were warned that being in the cemetery in the city about 20 miles northwest of Indianapolis after posted visiting hours constitutes trespassing.
Wicca is a nature-based religion based on respect for the earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons.
Now, ummm… well. Wow. The moment I read this I knew I had to post on it… But my brain went in so many different directions!
First, I started searching for more details on the incident. Guess what I found? Several Christian sites quoting the event and wondering if perhaps the devil was trying to tell the hapless witch something. Nice. Yeah. Well, perhaps god was trying to tell something to that pastor who decided to use a dirt bike to illustrate his sermon and then drove it off the platform, breaking his wrist?
Or perhaps we should stop trying to ascribe deeper spiritual significance to things that are simply part of the human condition – like screwing up your aim with a three foot long blade, or having a complete and utter brainless moment thinking that riding a dirt bike around on an indoor platform sounds cool.
Meanwhile, a part of me wondered, “hmmm, if this had happened during something other than a Wiccan ritual, it wouldn’t have even been news…” And I spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with a reasonable analogy. Let’s see, if this were a Christian event, and in the process of doing an illustrated sermon on the armor of god, they managed to… And the more I thought about it, the sillier it became. While I could easily imagine any number of non-Pagan groups doing incredibly silly things and the resulting injuries, I finally realized that the issue here wasn’t necessarily the slip up and the injury itself. Like real estate, it’s all about location, location, location.
Had our intrepid heroine been celebrating her good fortune in her back yard, or on the beach, or the mountains, or any other outdoorsy kind of place, this probably would never have made the news. It was the fact that this group of celebrants was in a cemetery, after hours no less, that made it newsworthy. The fact that the celebration is practiced during the full moon just makes it even more attractive, but again, had this happened in a more mundane location, I doubt anyone would have thought much of it, and darling Katherine could have lived out the rest of her life without this particular 15 minutes of fame.
The things I do for pictures! December 19, 2007
Though I’m not the world’s greatest photographer (far from it!) part of my job often involves taking pictures of events I’m at. One thing I’ve learned is the best shots are those that are a little, well… unusual. For the purposes of my job, it’s all about the angle – and I’ve gotten into some strange positions in order to get the shot I want.
Shooters were to slide down the fireman’s pole to retrieve their gun and begin shooting. In order to get decent shots, I was literally crammed in a corner underneath the pole (out of their way, of course) and carefully leaning in and aiming the camera to shoot up the pole as the shooter came down.
Oh yeah – consider the above absolute proof positive that The BF has no butt.
