epic fail

egg on my face

not what I got click to see how it's done right

I’ve been known to do some pretty goofy things. I have an opinion about this, by the way. I think all people do goofy things, but unlike other people, I don’t mind sharing them.

For example, recently I twittered about accidentally using a quick tanning product as moisturizer. That one was definitely labeled #FAIL. I looked like a leopard. I wish I could have looked like a cougar (okay, no. definitely not).

Anyway, yeah. I had a splotchy arm that took days to fade.

Another time I thought it would be a good idea to use a leaf-blower to get rid of the dog hair in the house. Um. It worked! It removed all the hair instantly from the floor. It also deposited the hair on every single surface above the floor. Another #FAIL.

So this morning I had a hankering for a hard boiled egg. Of course, I thought about this long after I was dressed and had coffee and puttered around the house a little. In other words, I was ready to leave.

That’s when I put the egg on to boil. After a while I figured it had been boiling for an interminable amount of time, so I removed it from the heat and let it sit in the hot water for a bit while I set a load of laundry (because of course, it wouldn’t be a day in my life without laundry). As soon as I cracked it I knew it wasn’t done enough.

I hate runny eggs. I’m developing a gag reflex just writing about it here.

Unfortunately, I had already mashed the whole shell, so I just peeled it off and studied it for a moment. I really didn’t want to throw it away. I wasn’t going to eat it like that. [gag] And I wasn’t going to put it back on the stove for it to boil some more (hey, I’ve done that before — I was just late for work now).

In the tradition of leaf-blowers and tanning products, I thought it would be okay to stick it in the microwave.

Have you ever put an egg in the microwave? I’ve always heard they explode.

I didn’t want an exploding egg so I approached the situation scientifically. You know, because my degrees in English qualify me for such analysis.

I thought 10 seconds would be just enough to get it cooking and I could remove it and set it on the counter and wait for it to continue to cook itself. So that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what I did.

I stood in front of the microwave risking imminent danger to make sure the egg didn’t explode. I’m not quite sure what my presence watching was going to do in the prevention department, but since I live in a constant state of delusion anyway, I proceeded with the full confidence that there would be no explosion.

It worked! Evidently not only can I do laundry AND grade papers, my mere presence in front of the microwave can prevent culinary disasters. On to part II, letting the egg cool on the counter.

Hoo boy! There was a lot of steam coming off that egg. I was ever so confident that my plan had worked. This, gentle readers, is a first for me. I’ve never had a half-baked plan work out (maybe I should have considered that it was really just half-boiled).

In spite of my obvious success, I was still a little skeptical about the actual done-ness of the egg. I was certain that the yolk wasn’t quite done, so I proceeded to slice it in half–you know, just to make sure before I took a bite.

(Let me interrupt here to tell you that when I was in high school, my favorite thing to do in chemistry was make dust explosions. I don’t remember how to balance an equation, but I do know how to use an empty roll of paper towels and some sawdust for a little magic).

As soon as the knife cut through the egg I heard a pop followed by a combination of steam-cloud and dried egg yolk dust.

It was epic.

And I was late for work. I had to go wash my face and glasses.

I just drank poison

It’s called Cherry Coke Zero.

Look, I used to smoke cigarettes and drink Tab; it’s not like I have an aversion to chemicals. But, really. This is the sickest thing I’ve had in a while. Grosser, even, than Vanilla Coke, and that tasted like sucking on a vanilla candle.

Why can’t Coca-Cola leave well-enough alone? And why does the high school think it’s a good move to remove all the high-calorie Coke products because of health reasons, but leave the foul and poisonous cancer-causing saccharine products?

Riddle me this Batman: What’s in a sexy little bottle disguised with the Coke logo and a silly cartoon cherry? Cherry Dimetapp.

Who thought medicine was a good taste for a soft drink?

Not me.

Coke, you have disappointed me for the last time. I’m drinking water from now on. From the water fountain.

the cardinals…again

One of the most popular posts I have ever published is this one, clickie here. It was just a little pun –a picture of some birds (cardinals), and some priests (Cardinals).

That is all — just a little fun in the afternoon.

Spring comes with a vengeance around here, and once again my yard is absolutely teeming with birds which reminded me of that post. Anyway, evidently “cardinal” is a huge search term, because it drives a lot of random traffic here.

I’m sure that the bird-lovers figure out rather quickly that a) I am not a bird-lover, and b) this is not a tree-hugging site but a rather random Catholic hodge-podge of my personal psychosis of the day.

So, if you get the joke, enjoy the pictures. Evidently someone who didn’t get it thought it was smart to tell me that in the comments. LOL. That’s funnier than the cardinals. I wonder what would have happened if I had referred to them as Princes?

rant rant rant

There are few things in my life that really annoy me, as opposed to the number of things that just generally annoy me. Having NO SENSE, or as I prefer to call it, BEING STUPID, and its close cousin, BEING INCONSIDERATE, rate up there in the annoyances that generate a blog rant.

Welcome to my rant.

The South has an undeserved reputation for being slow and talking funny. Well, ok, people do talk funny here, but the reputation for slow is misunderstood. It’s a different culture in the way that each region of the United States is a different culture, too.

Southerners, perhaps because of the agricultural economy, are just not in a hurry. Think about it. Unlike in the industrial areas, ruled by factory shifts and assembly lines, things around here get done when they’re done. It’s not better or worse, just different.

For example, if I have to take a file to an office on another floor, I’ll chat with the secretary for a moment and ask after her momma ‘n ’em before plopping the file on her desk. She’s competent — it’ll get done. Skipping the pleasantries isn’t going to make her work any faster. In fact, I’d venture to say that precisely because of the human touch I’m likely to get good service (not that it’s my motivation in this case).

That human touch, sometimes called southern hospitality, is what I want to share with you. It’s saying “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am” and “Please” and “Thank you.” Opening doors for women.

Pulling over to the side of the road when a funeral procession passes and staying put out of respect, for the deceased as well as the family.

That one is a little unusual for me. I have to admit that while I spent my childhood in Atlanta, the later formative years of living in Miami, you know, that southernmost burrough of New York City, turned me into a Yankee. The last almost fifteen years of living in the South again have retrained me. Still, I was kind of taken aback the first time I saw every single car pull over to the side of the road for a funeral procession. I’m no dummy. I did the same and quickly learned that it’s one of those things that’s done out here.

Of course, that was many years ago. Today, there are strip malls where I would have pulled over. McDonald’s and Burger Kings litter the landscape, and poison, not just our bodies, but our minds with the need to rush. To get moving.

To not slow down, not even for the anonymous reminder of our mortality.

Today, sadly, we buried a dear friend of the family. It was a tough week. It’s a journey we all have to take and something that I experience more and more as I get older. As Catholics, we are called to a powerful but often difficult task of burying the dead. This corporal act of mercy requires that we do one last thing  — bury the deceased with dignity and respect, and provide the family and friends with the solace through the beautiful funeral rites, that all who love the Lord have the promise of eternal life. Funerals are sad, but filled with consoling graces.

Funeral processions, on the other hand, are just short of circuses. Thankfully, the family is up front, and probably too grief-stricken to be aware of the insanity that follows them through the streets on the way to the cemetary.

As luck would have it, we ended up as the second or third car after the family. We were moving through the streets at a steady pace, escorted by motorcyle cops that stood at attention when they weren’t corralling us through lights. A number of people pulled over to the side of the road. In fact, quite a few people, and we were in the city, where I would expect a large number of transplants and “fer-ners.”

Unfortunately, there were more morons than not on the road. At first, I was sad that this last little piece of southern culture seemed to be on its way out when a psycho-pig zipped alongside us and couldn’t wait for the procession to pass. No, this idiot actually cut into the funeral procession! Yes! I still can’t believe it. This guy wedged himself into the procession, travelled with us for several miles, and then turned off when he got to his destination.

Wow.

I don’t know which makes me angrier, that he could possibly be so callous and disrespectful that it was an intentional act, or that he was so totally unaware of his surroundings and the world and customs and everything that he would totally ignore all the clues like cops and lights and flashers and, oh, I dunno, A HEARSE.

I would have given him the benfit of the doubt and imagined that he was rushing home to his pregnant, in-labor wife, only, no. He pulled into a Publix. I guess he needed to get a box of Dings Dongs to match his critical thinking skills.

unable to let go of the theme of snow, given its rarity here, I present to you: Snow Day!

Um, where’s the snow?

This is what snow looks like in metropolitan Atlanta (very close to where I live):

Recognize the shirt? A gratuitous plug for CNMC 2010 🙂

 So that’s what snow looks like. We went about our lives relatively normally.

This is what a snow day looks like:

 Do you see a discrepancy? It’s subtle, I know, but it’s there. Well, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth!