Evil Strawberries of DOOOOOM!

It's not so cold this morning. As I was coming in to the office, I saw three deer scamper off into a nearby field. I miss the deer. I used to see them all the time in my apartment but now, living in a more urban area, I never see any. I see plenty of squirrels and the occasional bunny but no deer.

I woke up in a bad mood this morning. Don't you hate that? I've been trying to be in a good mood but it's the type of day where I just feel like sniping and being crabby. It'll wear off in a while, I hope. I just can't help it. Sometimes, we just wake up in bad moods. I realized I was in a bad mood when I was yelling at my toast for popping up too soon even though it was my fault I hadn't adjusted the darkness level. My toaster is not a good toaster. In order to get the bread to pop up, you have to turn the dial all the way to the left. This is fine until you make toast again and you forget to readjust it. It means soggy toast. Soggy toast doesn't make me happy as crispy toast.

It's still toast, however and I am not a Monkeypants who turns down toast, even the soggy kind.

I am going to try to pull myself out of my bad mood. The problem is that I stay up too late. I plan on going to bed early and then when it's time, I realize I had intended to get a lot more done with my evening so I don't end up going to bed for at least another hour. Nevertheless, it could have been worse. Fortunately, I don't have any meetings today so I can stay at my desk and be bad moody by myself.

Wait, correct that...I do have a meeting. Bugger. Oh well, I'm always complaining I never get invited to meetings while my coworker, supposedly my 'equal' goes to about five or six a week. She's the one that gets put on the project teams. Me, I get to stay at my desk and make sure everything else gets done. Not that I'm bitter.

Oh, who am I kidding?I am bitter today. It's a result of my crotchety mood. I don't even get to go to this meeting today by myself; my coworker is going to join me because heaven forbid I actually get to do anything on my own to show that, you know, I actually have skills.

Still, I quite like meetings. I've taking to doodling and making origami. Yesterday, I made a large pencil topper origami thingy that I called the quadopus. It's an octopus with only four tentacles. Hence the quad part. That's the latin word for four, right? It actually more looks like a circus tent but in my mind, it's a quadopus. I think the origami might have been a bit distracting so maybe I should keep to my doodling.

Lately, my doodlings have been odd. It started with a little picture of fruit that I called "The Evil Strawberry of DOOOOM!" I then drew a sad banana that I labeled, "The Sad Banana." I also drew "Boomer Blackberry." For some reason, I seem to enjoy doodling fruit. I'm not sure why. Yesterday, I drew "The Great and Awesome Pumpkins", "The Raincloud of DOOOOOM!" and "The Squashed Strawberry." Clearly, the strawberry had done something in my mind and had passed off its dooming mantel to the raincloud. Don't ask me, I just doodle.

It's ok until my boss asks me what I'm doodling. I think he thinks I'm not paying attention. The thing is that if I don't doodle, I can't focus. I need to be doing something like that so I can listen. I rarely take notes in meetings anyway unless I deem it necessary. If I doodle, it streamlines my brain so that I can actually listen to the exciting talk of WAR files, API's, server switching and XML files that really doesn't affect me that much. I showed my boss one of my doodles the first time he asked. It was a picture of the Kool Aid Jug Man as a vampire. My coworker was wearing a shirt with the Kool Aid Jug Man on it with a caption that said "Oh, yeah!!!" Apparently, this is something I should know but the only exposure I've had to the Kool Aid Jug Man is on "Good Eats" with Alton Brown on the food network. He was making some disgusting frozen pickles that he flavoured with a 'drink mix' that he wasn't allowed to name for license purposes. However, he gave us a 'clue' by having a Jug Man crash through a wall and say "Oh, Yeah." I figured it was Kool Aid but I had to Google it to see what the "Oh, Yeah" thing was about. I'm still not sure except it was part of the advertising campaign way back when.

I seem to make a lot of things monsters in my doodles. Aside from making the Kool Aid Jug Man a vampire, I made a pine tree into a Frankenstein. In our conference room, we have one of those paintings with Indians in it (meaning the Native American kind, not the Asian kind). They're on a trail in the snow and there are pine trees all around. So I drew a tree and it turned out crooked so I made it into a Frankenstein.

I suppose my corruption of normal-seeming objects into monster-type things speaks of some psychological misfire on my part. I'm not sure. All I know is that it's quite fun to draw Evil Strawberries of DOOOOM! Actually, it's just fun to say DOOOOOOM!" which is probably why I always label my Dooming objects.

I'm not sure what I'll doodle today. I'll let you know if it turns out interesting. I consider it a stream of consciousness thing. I rarely plan my doodles. I just go with the flow. Which, now that I think about it, might not be something I should really admit because that may make me seem a little twisted.

My boss just came by to see how things were going. He does that from time to time. He's not in the office much lately; he's too busy trying to get our new building up and running. We just found out that we'll now be there by the first weekend of December. Two days ago, it was "definitely by Thanksgiving." I know our lease in the current building expires at the end of December so we have to be out by then. As long as the weather cooperates, I can live with it.

My boss is gone now, obviously. He doesn't really have a clue what I do. I think he tries to but he'd rather do the more technical stuff and I can see his eyes glaze over when I tell him what I'm working on. Also, he doesn't really know how to talk to me because he thinks every thing I say is sarcastic which, actually, is not true at all. Still, he doesn't seem bothered with how I spend my time as long as I am working. For the most part, I am. I just think I need to get in a better mood.

Maybe I'll doodle some more evil fruit.

Happy Tuesday.

Morning Musings...

I keep reminding myself that tomorrow is Friday. Sometimes, that's all it takes to get going in the mornings on a Thursday. Today, it's not quite enough but it helps.

My Thursday is off to one of those starts. I was already running late due to my ambitious attempts to get a loaf of bread baking in my breadmaker so it's ready by the time I get home from work for dinner. I have a horrid feeling it's not going to turn out. Try as I might to keep the liquids and yeast separated, there was a slight tidal wave incident as I was pouring in my olive oil and the yeast got soaked by that and the water.

Traffic was not fun this morning either. It meant I made it into the office eight minutes later than usual. My coworker had beaten me in to the office; this rarely happens. While many days, she's a lot of fun, she's also one of those people whose mood you can sense when you walk into the office based on how she responds when you say "Good Morning!"

Today was not a chipper response. Today was one of those, "talk to me again and I'll rip your throat out" responses. It's not that she's not a morning person but she's a person whose agenda and duties rank way higher in her own mind than they do in anyone elses' and so there are days when she's far too busy and important to deign to speak to me or our other office-mate. Usually, these are the days where we remain quiet and don't speak because she's a little scary. I don't mean that I'm actually physically afraid of her, it's more that to rile the beast is to have to listen to it and we do not like to do that.

She's also a little, um, noisy. She does not know this. On any given morning, there is the jangle of a bracelet on a keyboard, heavy sighing, the squeak of rubber since she sits on an exercise ball and the frantic, frenetic typing of one who has far too much to type in far too little time.

Of course, as I write this, I'm crunching loudly on a piece of toast. I finally gave in and joined the people who cook in the office. Sometimes, I don't feel like eating my toast while I'm driving in the mornings and today, I figured I might as well join the masses and use the toaster oven in the office. A good choice, I'd say. Having toast at work just makes it a better day.

My crunching toast led to a discussion about toaster ovens vs. toasters. Personally, I concur, toasters are easier. However, we don't have one in the office. We do, however, have a toaster oven. My coworker thinks it takes too long. To that, I say, "it's toast, it's worth the wait." Also, it's not like I'm standing there staring at it. I put it in the oven, walk away and when it tings, there's my toast. Voila!

Ok, so it doesn't pop up but, instead, is waiting for me in the oven which means it actually stays warmer for longer.

I think it might just be that lately, I've learned, sometimes it's better to take your time over food preparation and enjoy the process than just throw something in the microwave.

I blame the Food Network.

Of course, I blame them lately for everything food-related. It's almost like I've undergone a "Foodie Conversion." I still have the Lipton fettucine alfredo mix in my cupboard to remind me of how far I've come in a year. A year ago, I added margarine and butter to my soggy noodles and, voila, fettucini alfredo.

I'm not enough of a food snob that I still won't make this. Quick food has a time and a place and sometimes, it's all you want.

Yet, no more do I reach for the Lipton when I'm craving Alfredo and don't want to spend the money to go out. Mario Batali has shown me that with four simple ingredients, I can make delicious fettucine alfredo.

Bobby Flay has shown me that sometimes, the sauce makes the meal. You can dress up a piece of meat with a few fresh ingredients by making a sauce that tastes good and is usually nutritious.

Giada deLaurentis has shown me how to make simple italian food with easy ingredients that tastes as good as any restaurant food.

Alton Brown has taught me that breaking down what seems to be complicated methods of cooking is actually quite easy. Also, my Alton Brown salt pot is ridiculously useful.

I could keep going but you get the idea. Celebrity chefs are teaching me to cook and I didn't even plan it.

It's put a whole new dimension on my life. I used to mock my friends who used to go to kitchen stores and admire the tools. Now I go to the same stores and do the same thing. This weekend, I was extremely excited to find a nice potato ricer at TJ Maxx. I also got a new saute pan, some stoneware baking dishes and a new grater.

I'm sad. I'm obsessed. Cooking has become part of my life. I think it's probably filling a void but I don't see anything wrong with that. I'm hoping it's not trying to fill the void that I have because I'm not writing as much. I think that's really up to me though, isn't it?

I have thought about writing about cooking. Not a cookbook but a book about someone who likes to cook. Yet there is already quite a plethora out there. For some reason, there's an excess of books about women who seek fulfillment in life and find it in baking. Occasionally, there's a twist and they actually cook, not bake, but it's usually the result of any of the following:

1)Grief over the death of a beloved husband.
2) A way of finding themselves after the husband has left them for another woman.
3)A hidden love of cooking coming to the forefront as a woman discovers herself
4)An accidental discovery as a side effect of running away and needing to make a living...so they cook and discover they're geniuses at it.

You'd be surprised how much this happens. I've come to the conclusion that while chick lit aimed at the Bridget Jones' of the world tends to put the main character in either PR or a magazine setting, chick lit for the generation above them tends to put a recently divorced/widowed woman in a bakery or restaurant.

Anyway, I think for now, I'll keep my cooking separate from my writing. I can do both...I hope. In the meantime, I'm going to try to get some work done. That is if my coworker stops her jangling/squeaking/sighing/"oh shitting". Either that or I put my headphones on and tune her out.

Headphones it is.

Thanks for reading. Happy Thursday.

Passing "The Toast Test"....

It's a sunny Wednesday today; still cold, but sunny. For some reason, I'm feeling nice and positive today. I think it's because I had fun writing last night. That's always good for an energy boost. I'm hoping it lasts through the workday. There's nothing better than having a day at work where I don't want to hurl something at my computer screen or, occasionally, at a coworker.

I have exactly one week before I'm supposed to find out if I'm eliminated from the Amazon contest or I move on. The forums have been reduced to bickering and petitions about buttons- there are 'do you think this comment adds to the discussion- yes or no' buttons on each posting- and apparently some people have been saying 'no' and causing trouble with their negativity. The clique is back in full swing because the reviews that we all got were posted and there's an awful lot of sour grapes and bitterness going around. I'm sure that some of the review were a little harsh and probably inaccurate but having been booted out in the first round last year, there comes a point when moving on is wise. I hate criticism, I hate reading bad stuff about my novels but...one thing I've learned....listening is wise, even when it stings. I know it's easier to say since I did make the quarterfinals but I'm considering it my "get 50 rejections, get 1 piece of hope free" bonus.

So, needless to say, I finding other ways to entertain myself on the internet. Believe it or not, I get a lot of work done in the day but I have learned that since my job is working with computer software, documentation and testing, I cannot do it solidly all day without taking quick breaks. My concentration wavers after a while and so a quick surf of Facebook or Entertainment Weekly online puts me to rights and working is easy again. Or easier, at least.

Yesterday, my surfing 'break' was spent trying to find a recipe for dinner. I'm not much of a cook, and my dabbles in the kitchen, while sometimes succesful, often result in disasters. Yet sometimes, I get the urge. I've learned that I should stick to what I know and what I feel comfortable with. My favourite thing to cook is vegetable dishes. This is probably why I like making soup; I love veggies and soups allow me to feel like a cook without too many scary incidents. Last night, I decided to venture out. I had a ton of fresh vegetables in my fridge. I'm very susceptible to produce departments and farmer's markets. I can go into a store or market with the intention of buying some bananas and a loaf of bread and emerge with a cart full of fruits and vegetables. This happened this weekend because I went to Jungle Jim's again.

I knew in my fridge, I had asparagus, green pepper, tomatoes and other assorted goodies. So I thought I'd try something pasta-related. I looked for a recipe but didn't find anything that appealed. I found a couple of ones that made me realize that if I used the chicken stock I had left over from making soup this weekend, I could make something interesting. So I did what any occasionally-terrible-cook shouldn't do...I made something up.

Surprisingly enough, I accidentally made something edible, healthy and...tasty. I'm on a healthy kick because I'm trying to lose my winter weight. I ended up simmering asparagus, green peppers, cherry tomatoes, onions and garlic in chicken broth and white wine, grilling a chicken breast and putting that in just before the vegetables soften and tossing it with pasta. When everything was simmering, I tasted it and it was a wee bit bland so I though, "hmmm...wonder what would happen if I added a little fat-free cream cheese." I am a genius!

Well, not a genius, just lucky because the cream cheese didn't ruin the recipe, it just added the right amount of creaminess and flavour that the recipe needed. I like to toss in stuff from my spice rack so I chucked in a little bit of dill and oregano. I ended up enjoying a rather large bowl of pasta in front of the television with "MI-5" and the lovely, if slightly traumatized, Adam Carter. In case you hadn't figured it out, I'm slightly in shock that I cooked without a) setting a tea-towel on fire as often happens b) didn't accidentally turn the colander into which I drained my pasta upside down and accidentally lose my spaghetti down the sink (as has happened more times than I'd like to share) and, c) I actually ate the food I made and didn't have the thought that ordering a pizza would have been tastier and easier. I usually test my culinary efforts against what I like to refer to "The Toast Test".

I love toast. I've mentioned that many times in my blog, I'm sure. It's the perfect food. I like to put things on my toast like Marmite, baked beans, spaghetti o's, scrambled eggs, cheese...you get the idea. So, when I cook something that could be considered more culinary than, say, heating up a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli and putting it on toast, it's exciting. Thus, I created the toast test. If my recipe/cooking makes me wish I'd made toast for dinner instead, it fails. When I make soup, sometimes I make toast to go with it. If one of my soup recipes only tastes nice because I get to eat toast with it, it fails The Toast Test. If I'd rather make plain old toast and eat it with marmite than eat another bite of my recipe, it fails.

Last night, I can safely safely say I didn't want toast for dinner. I wanted my pasta. Needless to say, I was so excited I wrote the recipe down so that I could try it again. This is not to say I'm bragging about my culinary skills because, well, trust me, I'm not. If you want a real cook, you should look at the blog for Rad Linc Crafts: now that's cooking. I dabble. I try not to set things on fire. I try to make something edible. These are not lofty goals. So, when I make something that is not only edible but tasty, I consider that a victory. Score one for Captain Monkeypants.

I followed up my cooking with some quality writing time. I started a new novel with an existing character from another novel. I'm writing about his childhood at the moment. When I went back and reread what I'd written last night, I had one of those amazing, unreplicatable bursts of elation that only writing can bring me when I realized that I could hear the adult voice of my character in his words as an eight-year-old and I hadn't even planned it. That's the moment when I realize that I'm not just 'creating' a character but, rather, the character has found me and from then onwards, even if our relationship isn't always harmonious, a novel will come of it. It's one of the best feelings in the world, trust me.

So, I start this Wednesday in a great mood, a feeling of content that even a day full of software testing of a very buggy program can't take away. I hope your day starts just as well.

Happy Wednesday.

In which I pick up a Stray...

There are some days that seem like they were made for not getting up. Today is one of them. The temperature is warmer today; it's supposed to reach almost 50 degrees. For Ohio in December, that's rare. It's also welcome because it means the ice will melt, the ground will clear, renewed and ready for the next snowfall. Today, however, it's raining. It's the gloomy kind of rain that is set in for the day. The sky is a charcoal gry, the clouds angry and heavy, the drops falling sporadically but heavily and the ground is soaking wet.

Naturally, I love it. I love the sound of the beating rain against the window. I got to hear that last night. Despite my intentions to go to bed early and get a good night's sleep in hope of kicking this dark Pootle cloud that I've been under since Sunday, I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned and tried to sleep but it wouldn't come. I hate nights like that. On nights like that, it's hard to clear your head whether it's a 'to-do' list, a writing idea, a bad experience you keep replaying over again or just a dejection at the way life is going. It's hard to sleep with that much on your mind.

When my alarm went off this morning, I was already awake. Though burrowing further under my covers would have been most appealing, I finally got up. I keep the heat low at night because I like the room to be cool while I'm cosy in bed. It was chilly though I knew it was warmer outside. I followed my normal routine but somehow managed to leave work a little earlier. The vague thought of Starbucks danced in my head but I wasn't that early. As I was going out to my car, I was stopped by a man I've seen around my building. He was stranded; he was a student at the university for which I work, his car died and his ride hadn't showed.

Though I don't actually work on campus, I drive right by. I felt sorry for him. I hate being stranded. So I gave him a ride. It turns out he recently moved from San Diego, California, had been in the Navy and now was a part-time student. He was friendly and he was nice. I dropped him off.

That was it, really but, in a way, it was much more than that. It was a break from my routine. It not only took me on a different route to work but it actually gave me a chance to interact with a human before I got to the office where, depending on how you see my coworkers, some of them never seem quite human anyway. Sometimes a little human interaction is all you need to give you a little boost. I love living alone but sometimes I get trapped inside my own head and those shadows of doubt that I blogged about last week seem a little deeper. Playing on Facebook doesn't always help, either. I have a lot of friends on Facebook, most of the time I love that. Yet every now and again, I'll receive a suggestion for a friend that takes me by surprise, it's a face I haven't thought about much in years. It's not always a face that comes with fond memories. Most of those faces are on photos that include children, wives and families. And every now and again, I see a former acquaintance and I can't help but think "HE/SHE has kids?" and then the inevitable "What's wrong with me?" starts.

So, I know, sometimes I need to get outside of my own head. But sometimes I have to go there, particularly when I'm writing. It helps to shut out the world and let my story/characters in. Lately, the writing isn't so easy. I can't get a grip on it. I can't settle down and let it flow. My character's voices aren't so clear as usual. That's a strange feeling for me.

I know that it's times like this that make the sunny days and snowfall seem that much brighter and uplifting. After all, you can't have the shadows without the sun which means eventually when the clouds part, the sun will shine brightly and the darkness will fade. Sometimes, all it takes is a good, fluffy, wet snowfall. Sometimes, for me, all it takes is a trip to the post office, a slice of toast and a mug of tea and a little change from routine.

I've already had my change from routine for the day. Tonight, I get to go to the post office. For most people that's not fun; for me, it always makes me feel like I've accomplished something. I love the order of the post office, the stamps, the flat-rate envelopes. Yes, I know I'm weird but we've established that. I'll save my full adoration for the post office for another blog. In the meantime, tonight I'll pick up my package, go home, make some toast, drink some tea and relax, hopefully to the sound of pelting rain against my patio doors. And, if not, it means the clouds are going away and tomorrow the sun might shine.

If that doesn't work, maybe I'll find another way to break the routine, to try something new, to climb out of my shadows on my own. Sometimes, all we can do is ignore the darkness and find our own light. I still have the glow of my two-hundred Christmas lights. I've added more since then. I figure if I keep adding them, maybe I'll drown out the darkness completely. Either way, I'll try to be cheerier in my blog tomorrow. Maybe I'll pick up another stray. I'll keep you posted on that.

Happy Tuesday.

Captain Monkeypants and the Art of the Calamity

I'm very sleepy this morning. It was one of those mornings where I debated staying in bed for another half-hour and going in late, making up the time this evening. Yet I got up anyway. I never get much benefit out of lying in bed for another half-hour unless I'm actually sleeping. Mostly, it's spent hiding my head under the covers and thinking about how much I don't want to get up which leads me to constantly check the clock to see how much time I have left rather than actually sleeping. If I actually do get up, it's just easier.

It's freezing out this morning. The snow patches are still clustered in the shadows and my car was iced-over. I'm too lazy to scrape: I've taken to starting my car ten minutes before I want to leave. It's SO much easier and, I find, actually safer because even when you scrape, you never clear your windows completely. I saw a girl driving an identical car to mine this morning but she'd only managed to scrape a little hole on her windshield. She practically had her nose against the glass, trying to see out. The rest of her car was so frozen that there was no way she could see out of her windows. This is why I start my car early. Also, having just got my car fixed from my last accident, I do not want another one, thank you very much.

So, now I'm at work. It's quiet in the office. I'm sipping vile coffee again because I cannot get my act together enough to make a pot at home. I'm really only capable in the mornings of getting ready for work, starting my car early and then a maximum of one non-routine task. Often, it involves putting things in my crockpot to cook for dinner. I do the preparation for this the night before. Other times, if I'm REALLY ambitious, it involves making toast. I adore toast. It's a joy in my life. I do not, however, really enjoy my toaster. It was one of those $7 deals from Walmart. It's a two-slot toaster but it's not deep enough to toast the very top of the bread so by the time it pops up, the top of the bread is still soft and untoasted while the rest is fine. Also, it does not have one of those nifty buttons to hit to make the toast pop up on your command. You have to turn the dial to the lowest setting and then it pops up. This is great except I like my toast dark and I inevitably forget I turned the dial to low until my toast pops up and it's still white. I need a new toaster.

This morning, I decided to try my new bread maker. It was actually my parent's but it's new to me. There was no instruction book. My mother provided instructions on how to put the ingredients in which was very helpful. There's a lot of buttons though. I like hitting buttons. I think I might have set the timer right on it since it was counting down as I left the apartment. If all goes well, I should be greeted with the scent of fresh baked, yeasty bread when I get home from work. Either that or it's The Breadmaker of Doom and is counting down for more ominous reasons. I prefer to think positively, however.

Aside from adoring fresh bread, I decided it might be a good idea to introduce a new smell to my apartment other than rather-cheap-wine-covered-up-by-Christmas-candle. You see, last night, I had a rather large accident. I have this wine rack that is very pretty but the bottles aren't terribly secure. They sit on a rather thin ledge and are easily dislodged. I bumped the rack last night causing the top layer of bottles to fall onto the ones below. You wouldn't think this had much effect but I am Captain Monkeypants, Mistress of the Calamity. No, this top level bottle shattered the bottle beneath which lead to a nasty mess. I try to keep my good wine on the top rack, the Two Buck Chuck on the bottom. I should probably explain that the difference between the Two Buck Chuck and the Top Level wine is about $3. I like good wine. If I had a nice fat income, I'd probably splurge. However, for now, Sutter Home is my friend. Not that it isn't good wine. It's just not good wine, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, so, I stood there, taking in the sudden and unexpected calamity, I realized I had to Act Now or Forever Lose The Newness of my Carpet. So I flew into action, sopping up the worst of the spill and reading on the internet the best way to remove wine stains. Did you know everyone says white wine works as a stain lifter? I did not. I also prefer red wine and so I lacked white wine. Also, I would have felt rather cross if I'd hate to waste more wine like that. So I ran to the store, purchased some Oxy Deep Cleaner and went back to work on the carpet. Fortunately, I managed to remove the stain, I think. The carpet looked ok in the pretty lights of my Christmas tree and my not-so-bright lamp. I'm hoping that in the light of day, it'll look fine too.

So, by the time my scrubbing was done, my apartment smelled a bit more like Oxy Clean and a little less like Two Buck Chuck. I lit my Glade Gingerbread candle. It seemed to help except somehow the smells seemed to combine and now my flat smells like a Christmas pudding. For all you non-Brits, a Christmas pudding is a very dark, raisin-y, rum-my, fruity concoction that is steamed and served with brandy butter. I just like the brandy butter, truth be told. Though when I was little, the tradition was to hide money in the Christmas pudding for the children so that when you'd get your piece, you'd find a nice 5 pence piece, usually when you'd bite into the pudding. Yes, that was back before people were quite so germaphobic. Which was probably not a good thing, now that I think about it. I didn't realize that my parents were the one putting the money into the pudding until I was quite old. Yes, I really thought it came that way, ok?

Anyway, once more, I digress. Back to my point: Fresh Bread. I'm hoping that the bread maker works and that I have nice crusty bread waiting for me and that my apartment smells just like fresh bread rather than Christmas pudding flavoured bread because that would be a bit vile. I'll keep you posted on that.

So, the moral of this story is really Don't Spill Wine on the Carpet. It is a bad thing. However, if you do, may I recommend Oxy Clean and Glade Candles to alleviate the disaster a little. As long as you don't mind the smell of Christmas pudding. Also, as an added side bonus, Sutter Home crushes Two Buck Chuck. Literally.

Happy Wednesday

Random questions...

So, I don't feel like being too deep today. Maybe it's 'cause it's Thursday and my day is about getting my work done so I can go home and watch TV tonight. Maybe it's 'cause I'm tired. Who knows? Anyway, I decided to blog anyway because it's a good habit and that way, I'm at least writing, even if I'm not writing my next story for rejection (and yes, this means I'm not quite over being rejected yet. It usually takes a couple of days. It used to take longer.)

So, I figured I'd just through some questions I have for the world, out there to the Interweb. It's a bit like tossing a penny into a body of water- you know you'll never get what you wish for but sometimes....you just have to.

Which, actually, I'll make my first question.

1. Why do people throw money into random bodies of water? I mean, I get the whole wishing well thing but it's a fountain at the mall- seriously...and at the zoo- I've seen people throw money into the penguin pool. What, you think the penguin looks broke? Penguins don't go shopping. They might eat the money and then choke to death and die. Do you REALLY want that on your head?

2. I saw an Amish lady with a carseat last week. Why? For anyone who doesn't know, the Amish follow a very old-fashioned way of life in which they aren't allowed to use modern conveniences such as cars, electricity and microwave ovens. They have horse and buggies to get around. So, if they can't drive cars, why is the baby in a carseat?

3. Fashion...why? I saw a girl wearing leggings under jeans under a skirt today. What, she couldn't make up her mind what she wanted to wear so she wore all three? Or how about the girls wearing Uggs with a tank top, mini skirts and scarves? I don't get it.

4. Where are Green Day? I love Green Day- they're my favourite band. And now they've dropped off the planet after doing a couple of shows and one album under one of their alter egos, The Foxboro Hottubs. I miss Green Day.

5. Why do I now like Coldplay? I spent years disliking Chris Martin's whiny voice and now I actually get happy if I hear them on the radio. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? (oh, wait, I don't think I want that one answered....)

6. Who can really ride a bike with no handlebars? Is it that the bike is really a unicycle and has no handlebars or do the Flobots really mean they don't hold onto the handlebars when they ride a bike?

7. Why is toast so tasty? And how come people don't like toast? I think I might be a little suspicious of anyone who doesn't like toast. Toast is one of my favourite creations. Ever.

8. Why don't we make the election more like American Idol? Millions of people watch that show. Maybe if Simon Cowell had a go at the candidates, people would actually vote. Hey, you know what'd be good? Having Simon Cowell and Gordon Ramsey on a panel- brutal but fun.

9. Why did Borders stop sending me text messages with coupons in them? I miss that. It was the coolest thing to go to Borders and show them the coupon on my phone. Now I actually have to remember to cut out the coupon and take it to the store. All that extra effort...sigh...

10. Why does Olive Garden charge $5.95 for soup, salads and breadsticks at lunch but charges $9.95 for it at dinner time? It's not like 'all you can eat' changes from one time to the next. It's not like they give you anything extra. It's. The. Same. Amount. Of. Food.

Ok, so I'm sure I'll probably do this again. I always have questions. I don't always get answers but, like I said, I thought I'd throw 'em out there anyway....it never hurts...