Saint Valentine was an arse

As a small child, I loved Valentine's day. I still fondly recall in school that halfway through the day, we'd stop our studies and get out shoeboxes, doilies, glitter, and colored paper and craft our own Valentine's day card boxes. We then would display the boxes on our desk and walk about the classroom, placing a valentine card into every box. Some cards included candy, and often a few mothers would come in bearing cupcakes for the classroom. It was a sugar and crafts filled fiesta of great awesomeness. On a sad side note, few schools do this anymore, what with NCLB, testing, healthy school initiatives...

Once the opposite sex became part of the marvel of Valentine's Day, coincidentally around the time Valentine's Day class parties became simpler, this special day became anything but.

I had my first crush in 4th grade; I was head over heels in child-like love with a boy named Kevin. He was the popular and "hunky" boy of the class, not my usual forte, but he seemed to like me back..something that was unheard of for dorky old me. He chose to sit next to me, me of all people! So when Valentine's rolled around, I decided to say goodbye to painfully shy me and into his Valentine I slipped a candy heart which read, "Date me".

I remember watching him open it up as I held my breath, the envelope seemed like it took forever to open. Slowly, a smile began to creep across his face when, lightning fast, his jerkwad friend ripped the card from his hand and laughed deviously,"Kevin has a girlfriend". The class went quiet and I did my best to find composure and stay unnoticed. A whisper began to fill the room, as the jerk whispered to the person to his left who then whispered to the person to their left...a game of telephone sped towards me. I then heard the words in my ear, something about a date me candy inside the card, ha ha, how funny, pass it on. I shuffled my feet nervously, bit my lip, and pretended to pass it on. I could feel a heat rise in me, could feel tears swell up behind my eyes, could feel my body expand like it would explode in a wail of pain. I sat frozen, in agony, looking at the door. To leave the class to say, use the restroom, "cost" 200 points, something that could take weeks or months to earn. I did not have 200 points. I could not get out of jail free, but I had to. I had to let this pain and sorrow, this humiliation, this hatred of myself and my stupid stupid lovestruck decisions, out. I did it. I ran for the door and collapsed in the hallway, racked with sobs. A few minutes later, my teacher walked out to find me sitting in the hall, sniffling, trying to calm myself. She had to know, I thought, but no one can know. This was my secret. I mumbled a pathetic lie, that I had to use the restroom but was short points and that was why I was in tears. My teacher, not the consoling type, said whatever points I had would be used, and at least to tell her next time in such an emergency. I walked back into class, numb, and do not remember the rest of the day.


After this day of doom, I began to hate Valentine's day, yet still romantically held onto hope. I would see girls get extra lovey dovey cards from a cute boy, flowers, chocolates...boys would strut around with teddy bears and chocolate heart boxes. As classes no longer had everyone give Valentine's, my figurative card box went empty. Like my sad little soul. I would hear announcements over the PA system in high school, about candy grams and Valentine's dances and hold on for hope, yet knowing I would just be lonely. No one wanted me, and I sure as hell wasn't going to take the initiative again and give a boy a candy gram or ask him to a dance. I had learned from my mistake. And I had come to conclusion that Valentine's day exists to torture the less fortunate. That Saint Valentine's guy (and the Hallmark card industry) was a giant arse.


(As a happy ending, I am married, loved, and yet still harbor a resentment for Valentine's Day. But duh, I of course gorge myself on a huge heart shaped box of candy. It is Valentine's Day after all.)

America Loves Football

...Which must be a generalization as I do not love football. I call the Super Bowl the stupor bowl. I respect people's rights to love the game. But for me, no thank you. It saddens me that we waste millions on the idolatry of football stars, halftime shows, commercials, merchandise. Super bowl parties...when there are much better things to throw our momey at. Education and poverty to name a few. And the sheeple spend their money and look glazy-eyed at the screen, rooting on some team throwin around a ball when we have real heroes amongst us that go without congratulations.

Alas, I will be spwnding the super bowl away from the tv screen, and I do not intend to claim I an better or mightier than asuper bowl fan. We are all human. I just, as said, woild like to see us idolize real heroes who sacrifice all ,beat all odds, to bring beauty, love, paeace, freedom, and enlightenment to this world. So, I silently celebrate the Gandis, MLK jrs, Mother Teresas, military vets, etc etc today. They deserve much fanfafe.

Hipsters

My family was at Starbucks, sitting outside in a rare but nice 80 degree February day, when I realized my last-bits-of-the-flu demanded a tissue. I asked hubby if he could go in and grab me one since he was going in for a refill. He obliged. Kind of.

He comes back empty handed.

Hubby: Sorry didn't get you a napkin
Me: why?

Hubby: hipsters. There were hipsters.
Me: huh? You were scared of hipsters? Dude, you power lifted like 800 pounds. You have been to the Amazon and in the worst part of Los Angeles dressed as a fairy (Halloween) and you're scared of hipsters?

Hubby: well...the napkin area was like ten deep in hipsters! You should have seen it! I just couldn't...
Me: again, you've done all this stuff and they scared you off?
Hubby: well yeah, you should have seen-
My son: I skee
Hubby: what do you see?
Son: I skee
Hubby: ice cream?
Son: (smiling) I skee.
Me: ok I will get napkins from cold stone. (Yup it was hipster-free)

nablopomo some mo'

Here I am doing nablopomo some more and this time, despite the short month, it will be difficult. Last time was themeless and this time, love and all that stuff that I am not good at. So it is a personal challenge...28 posts about mushy gushy love stuff! Yuck! So let's go....till tomorrow...

I have an evil scientist on my hands

If day cares are petri dishes (they certainly are), then toddlers are evil scientists who need to discover the glory of rights protected patents.

When you drop your child off at daycare, you expect them to learn their ABCs and ride tricycles and sing songs. Sure, they do that, but it is a FBI style undercover disguise for what they're really up to.

These evil little geniuses are concocting new viruses and resurrecting eradicated diseases like little Edward Jenners and Jonas Salks.

Jacob calls over little Kayden to spit into the sippy cup, and then asks Madison to delicately lasso some snot into the cup. When no one is looking, Kayden adds some urine, shakes it, and then steals baby Mia's bottle of formula and adds a splash to the sippy cup. It is left under the pack and play for a week, until Jacob recovers it and "tests" it out on poor unsuspecting Jackson and Nevaeh, who bring it home. It baffles the urgent care doctors and pediatricians, who shrug and label it "a virus" and send them home. Really, Jacob created viral-tonsil-rectum-pox-itis-jacobus, a brand new disease.

But don't fret. Jackson and Neveah get their revenge when they lick the dog's foot and play in the cat litter, then fingerpaint with Jacob and put their fecal-mattered hands into the blue paint. Jacob suddenly concocts smallpox, but is diagnosed with chicken pox since smallpox has been eradicated...so we thought.


Three miles away in another town, Emily had visited her cousin Jackson and brought home viral-tonsil-rectum-pox-itis-jacobus. She goes and licks the noses of all her fellow playmates and they then spread the disease, until Daniel decides to sneeze as he is being licked and so begets a new strain of viral-tonsil-rectum-pox-itis-jacobus.

Really, these little "scientists" need to patent their discoveries. If Jacob patended his concoction, it would be kept locked up top secret and Jackson's parents wouldn't be moaning and groaning and fighting one another for the last can of ginger ale. Emily, Daniel, and Nevaeh would be healthy and they too would not copy Jacob's disease. One might make a new one, but it would stay at that.

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search terms

Search terms which have begot my blog...
No bra required
exermacise
disorderly babies
didn't date as a teen
ay chihuahua tissues
a bygone era in America


Hmmm. Interesting.

When Cake Strikes Back

Sometimes I get daring and try new foods; in some cases having no clue what I consumed until later. I picked up this habit as a toddler, being the strange little girl who preferred carrots to candy and who enjoyed gorging herself on octopus, escargot, and caviar. That is, until too many adults went 'bleck" at what I ate, with that look of utter disgust. Enough of that and I began to turn my nose at those things and preferred simpler fare. With parents who have only had Sweet & Sour Pork at a Chinese restaurant and have never had or wanted to have sauerkraut, nigiri sushi, pupusas, pierogies, etc, I basically didn't try anything more adventuresome than would be featured at Applebees.

Along came college and I figured since I was in n actual town with more than one restaurant in a ten mile radius, I'd venture out and try new things again. And thank God I did, my nomadic foodie desires brought me to such delicacies as hummus, yellow-fin nigiri, falafel, tikki masala...some of my favorite foods that make life worth living.

But, alas, sometimes you lose the gamble with new foods. For every pita and tzatziki or sag paneer out there, there are ugly hideous monsters lurking. I try and stay open minded. I TRY everything once. Natto, for example;. It is fermented soy bean paste that has a texture like rubber cement glue, and a taste like the smell of coffee grounds that you left in the pot. For a few weeks. In the summer. Then there are the foods you eat once, and once is enough, but they're not revolting. For example, horse tongue is bumpy and game-y and just a little too much for my palate, and to me, morally wrong. Crab brains were like if you put crab through the blender with a pound of salt, and something to make it very mushy. Not bad, but not good.

I hadn't been adventuresome for quite some time, and was in a very ethnically diverse area recently. I'm talking one block has Sri Lankan and Afghani food, taquerias, shabu-shabu, and dim sum. My husband and I are suckers for ethnic food (I'm the main culprit) and he was dying for dim sum. So we went and we waited in line. We waited and waited. We waited nearly an hour and heaven shone upon us with those char siu bao barbeque pork buns I love. And then, a twist of fate sent us on a downward spiral. No one spoke English so they'd mumble in Cantonese and point at a closed bamboo basket, trying their best to bridge the language gap and sell you things. There could be more pork buns, I thought. We got some shrimp shu mai which were okay. We got clay pot chicken which I had eaten once before and it was good, but this was like chicken neck and the wiggly things roosters have, pickled in a clay pot with tea and wine, served ice cold. It was another food I ate and appreciated for what it was but would not eat again. Then came the cake. Cake! Who doesn't love cake?!?!

Let me tell you, cake can be a tricky bastard when it bridges the language barrier. I should have learned this lesson in Hungary when I wanted cheesecake and got a roll with a port salut cheese. At least it was decent, but when you crave some sweet cheesy dessert with cherry topping and get a roll with port salut, you are disappointed. Heck, even cookies got in on the game in Japan with unagi pie, eel cookies which surprisingly weren't bad or too eel-y at all. But cake was a tricky mistress again today. The Chinese lady came around with her cart of food, pointing at the bamboo baskets and muttering what sounded like English. "Cake. You like? Try. Yum. Daikon. Cake. Try." She was very convincing and full of smiles. So try cake we did. Yeah. Us dumb guai-lo took the cake bait.

It was a terrible mistake.

I am being open minded, in that I tried it and had two bites and think it is cool the cake I ate is a special Chinese New Years comfort food and that it brings good luck. That's awesome, right? BUT and a big but at that, it is not for me. Radish cake didn't even taste like radish. It would be like calling beef stew "bay leaf broth". Sure there's bay leaf in there but its called beef stew because beef is the primary ingredient and when you eat it you think, mm, beef, not mm, bay leaf. Same goes for radish cake. Radish cake was bay leaf broth's ugly cousin. It was made of carp. You know, relative to the goldfish. A pungent mackerel-tasting very fishy fish that lives in swamps. I know carp itself is a sought after fish in many cultures and they can have it; I prefer to look at them in a tank and not on my plate. And especially not disguised as freaking CAKE. When you think cake, you think moist, crumbly, sweet, vanilla overtones. When you add radish you think, maybe it is a rice cake, like sushi with radish. A mild radish flavor could make it not too bad. But when radish cake tastes like the smell of rotten gold fish and nothing more, it messes with you.

Fish cake. I hate you, fish cake. You better be chock full of good luck because you were hard to stomach and have made me crave a steak for dinner. And I'm the weird girl who would live an entire lifetime without steak. The Chinese can have their good luck fish cake.

I'm staying away from cake for a while, but trying to bank on that good luck thing. I deserve it after that fish cake.

Attempting the challenge at YeahWrite. Join me? Browse, comment, love, and return!