Thoughts on the Irony of being Mugged by a Mug.

As you may have noticed from previous posts, I occasionally have a problem with the proper handling of knives, cheese graters, king crab claws and other sharp objects, not excluding my temper. My narrative today, however, borders on the ridiculous. Unlike other accidents, I was neither in a hurry, nor reaching into a place where misplaced knives may lie. There was no lack of skill nor common sense involved.


I was merely turning a mug upside down. You may deduce from the photos exactly what occured.

Among my various amputationary mistakes of the past are the following.
1.) Incorrect holding of a cheese grater.
2.) Talking while chopping.
3.) Not using the correct tomato slicer.
4.) Stupidity.
I would be much obliged if someone could please enlighten me as to the correct procedure for safely inverting a coffee mug.

Dinosaurs and Darned Best Friends.

Eventually all of the household pets will make their way into an angry Facebook rant. The hampsters have fallen from "highly obnoxious" to "mildly unpleasant". Even Mango, since she saved me from certain death at the hands- er, paws- of a local black bear has become more tolerable. (Really, if I wanted to run with the wildlife I would join the high school boy's track team.) Today, however, the angry eye has fallen upon the last remaining furry "friend", Tika. (Imagine said 'angry eye' as resembling something like the eye of Mordor, peering from behind the bamboo curtains of a bedroom window.)


Before I continue, you should know that there are multiple levels of anger in everyone's personality. There is:
Annoyance- characterized by grimacing/mumbling, such as when someone other than yourself ate the last piece of pie.
Irritation- characterized by much whining, such as an outdoor homework assignment on a rainy day.
Mild displeasure- characterized by glaring/complaining, such as when you are up to your elbows filleting a fish, and your nose itches.
More mediumish displeasure- characterized by muttered swearings, such as when one's hairtie breaks when one is climbing up a cliff in 90 degree weather.
Anger- characterized by throwing non-life threatening items (eg: mashed potatoes or silly putty) at the offender, and yelling loudly. May be incurred by such an incident as little brothers using your womanly undergarments to to tie up captured indians.

And the most violent of all...
Intoxicating rage- characterized by the impulse to skin and roast over an open spit the object which is making you angry. Usually reserved for the event of terrorist attacks, and barking dogs at ungodly hours. Other symptoms of such rage may include spontaneous literary ranting.

So, dear reader, after I narrate my morning, I will grant you exactly one guess as to whether I was grimacing, or reaching for a battle axe. Five days a week, I awaken at 4:15 am, in order to begin work at 5. Two days out of the week I get to sleep until 7:30. And believe me, that extra three hours and fifteen minutes of sleep is like Christmas. Today, my last day of partial rest before the holocaust of pre-morning rising, at exactly 6am, both dogs erupt into such racket that naturally I assumed that there was a T-rex on the loose or a horde of marauding vikings. At the very least, a rabid squirrel. Of course, when I groggily peered from the window, not yet with the angry eye, I saw nothing, so it was most likely a bear, which is therefore justifiable barking. 5 minutes later, my mental arrived at the more mediumish displeasure stage, and I screamed a rather unpolite request for immediate silence through the window. Mango laid down immediately.

Let me skip ahead an hour and let you know that there is a stage past intoxicating rage. At that point, a degree of despair occurs which calls for desperate measures. Tika, it turns out, it impervious to all manners of sailor-jargon, threats of sudden death, threats of slow death, and threats of being mailed express to the Siberian Tiger exhibit donation section of the Alaska Zoo. Believe me, I blew right on through the intoxicated rage level; I just wanted to sleep. I propose a vote as to whether to exchange this specimen of "man's best friend" in for a more tolerable companion, such as a beta fish. Because at 7:30 I arose from where I had laid down an hour before, in a last hope attempt at rest, the only place in the house where the incessant alerting of non-existant dangers was drowned out. When was the last time your best friend made you sleep next to the fridge?

Vigilant Vocal Chords and Violence.

Dear Mango,

I hate you.
You are a stupid dog.
Normally I would tolerate your unintelligence if only for the fact that a little girl named Abby adores you.
But lord knows that it is 1:30 in the morning and that I have to be semi-consciously flipping eggs in five hours.
To sum up, deal with whatever problem you are having outside, or I will walk out the door in my bathrobe and crocs and remove your vocal chords with my bare hands.
Love always,
The girl who feeds you, takes you running and secretly is planning your assasination.

PS: If your problem is something like a grizzley bear, mongoose, large dinosaur or an alien invasion, please leave it alone. I'd like to kill you myself.

PSS: (Five minutes later.) Great. You woke the marathon hampsters up. Your life is so over.

Idle Hands Catch Frogs.

Today was a good day. I didn't have to work, which meant I didn't have to get up particularly early. I did though, because I'm crazy. At least, that's what I decided around mile six and a half. It's a good rule of thumb when running to reserve just enough energy to take a shower afterwards. Today I really pushed that boundary, and let me tell you, it is a pathetic feeling to run out of breath while shampooing your hair.


One chick flick/recovery nap and a handful of trailmix later, I was ready to enjoy my day offCanoeing sounded like a pretty fabulous idea since the sun had finally decided to poke out. After the preceding few weeks of monsoon weather, I was sure there were an abundance of lakes to choose from, though we decided to visit an already established one, since it happened to come equipped with a canoe.
Lisa/mom, and Abby/8 year old goblin-mad scientist-wannabe dictator-ballerina-frog hunter, and I/Brenna, loaded up our oars and flotation devices and headed out for Long Lake. Putting a 3rd grader in a semi-unstable boat is a recipe for an impromtu bath, but thankfully the only disaster we encountered was a renegade spider in the boat. For being a cool headed frog hunter, worthy of her own show on the Nature Channel, you would think that Abby would have a better tolerance for arachnids. But no. I personally would rather squish a bug than hold a slimy reptile. At least spiders don't poop on you.

Threatening to maroon Abby for being too wiggley turned out to backfire, since being stuck on an island and living off the land (aka: eating 10 million blueberries) and digging for treasure didn't sound too bad. I can remember having similar thoughts a few years ago, but only when the sun was shining and there was no sign of man-eating mammals (bears, leeches etc) and my mom was sitting right next to me.

When we returned to the main land, I decided that the next order of the day was definitely to give my car a good wash. Note to self: wanting to stay dry, and handing an 8 year old a hose is an oxymoron. Actually, it's more like just being a moron. Because they won't do it "on purpose", and they will be "sorry" that the spray went over the truck onto your side, and that there were just trying to "help" by spraying on full blast the door you were scrubbing (while standing back themselves). What can you do? Besides grab a towel.
Or don a wet suit.

Sensible Say-so's.

Mom always told me that she would rather I learn from her mistakes than to make them myself. Her logic was perhaps flawed because, to my knowledge, she was always right. In fact, thought I have been out of her house for quite some time, I keep finding out she was right about all sorts of stuff I thought she didn't know a thing about. This sortof makes me nervous because it's likely that I actually got away with a lot less than I thought I did.


But anyways, like I have said before, you learn new things every day. And though she was an unfailingly amazing mother, there were just a few things she forgot to mention in her raising of me; or perhaps they are things that were covered in the "common sense" lessons that I didn't pay enough attention to. Since I have learned them now, I will pass these on to you.

1.) Microwaving avocadoes does not hasten the ripening process. Similar to the theory that coffee will not make a person any less intoxicated, and all you will have is a hyperactive drunk, if you microwave an avocado, all you will have is a very warm, very hard (fruit? vegetable? Mom you should know this.) and it is still impossible to make guacamole.

2.) Balancing on one foot on a beer keg is a bad idea, no matter how badly you need the garlic that some moron put on the top shelf of the walk in.

3.) Don't anger an 8 year old with a tennis racket, although it is perfectly acceptable to bestow sweaty post-run hugs if said child is unarmed.

4.) Boys are picky about food, but only in what it tastes like, whether or not it looks like bird barf, and how much they can have. They really don't care whether you made your pasta sauce from scratch or borrowed the work of Classico.

Also, don't introduce them to new ideas without explanations. Such as the breakfast cookie. Undefined, breakfast cookie could simply mean balls of scrambled eggs with chocolate chips.

Or Guryere cheese. Grey cheese? Like grey matter? No. Guryere.

Or pesto. The male ear hears a cross between Raid and Draino.

5.) Mascara is not condusive to crying. A cry is good once in a while though, at least until you can get your running shoes on. If your main focus is breathing it's difficult to be in hysterics. And it might save you a small fortune on kleenex and chocolate ice cream.

Of Boys and Bumpers.

Hang around Alaska Magic Mountain sled shop long enough- or even for just 6 hours- and you will learn a surprising variety of things. Stuff I learned today:


1.) I'm lucky if I can keep my vehicle in running order, but boys are determined to spend hours modifying perfectly decent equipment. Hence, Cooper's front bumper is now a viable apponent toward most objects: foreign hotwheel cars, moose, double wide trailers and possibly Mt. Rushmore.

2.) Stitches do not have to be removed by a doctor. In fact, a grumpy sled mechanic can do it on a greasy work bench with a razor blade and/or clippers.

3.) The same batch of pasta can be served in more than 8 different ways to accomodate picky eaters.

4.) I accomplish crosswords at a rate of about 1 every 3 hours.

5.) Household birds are louder than dogs, small children being pinched, car alarms, and southern gospel choirs.

Common sense and Backpacks.

Back packs are handy items. They are especially useful for carring around neccesities. Commonly found in my lime green backpack would be my keys, my gym pants, a chef's hat, a toothbrush, and an odd assortment of peanut butter and other ingredient (eg: banana or cheese) sandwiches. Since the depths of the average backpack is a dark and jumbled mess, and to find anything one must dig violently around, carefully consider the dangers which you are subjecting your hands to.


Such as fillet knives. If you are going to keep such items in your backpack, at least do more than just make a mental note that they are there. Mental notes may be compared to dry erase boards filled with important messages, but which are cleaned by a zamboni at random intervals. Use red tape, or draw a skull and cross bones on the front, or invest in one of those sticks of gum that when you pull it it shocks you and use that as a zipper pull. Anything to slow down the mental zamboni.

Reasons to store knives properly in knife cases and not create backpacks of death:

1.) Stitches hurt. (Though they do make you look like a pirate, which is pretty much sweet.)

2.) Bandaids are expensive, and sometimes there aren't any normal ones left on the shelf and you end up with something like spongebob or Hannah Montana personalized bandages.

3.) No matter how small of a cut it is, blood is a very sneaky substance and will end up smeared across any white article of clothing you are wearing.

4.) In case you haven't realized, the average person only has 10 fingers. The average person also lives to be about 70. That means that you can only afford to lose about 1-1/2 fingers every 10 years. If you keep your knife in your backpack every day, for your average career of 40 years, and you cut yourself once in every 10 times you're digging for your lunch, and you lose 1/10th of a finger every time...well. Don't ask me what the math is but I'm pretty sure you don't have enough fingers to go around.

5.) If your thumbs are the first to go, your wardrobe will be limited to sweatpants, velcro shoes, sports bras and any shirts you don't have to button.

6.) Even if your teeth are in perfect condition, you will have to nourish yourself through a straw. If you are still foolishly intending on keeping you knife in your bag, I would suggest you invest in a blender. (On a side note, once you're down 6 or 7 digits you won't be able to hold a toothbrush anyways either.)

7.) You will be hungry a lot because there is a knife guarding your sandwich. This problem will eventually be eliminated, however, by reason #6.

8.) You will always have to tip your waitresses around 75%, because not only will they bring you food, they will have to feed you. Or provide you with a blender and push all the buttons for you.

PS: Other items which should never be found in backpacks: rattlesnakes, chainsaws, vials of hydrocloric acid, rabid guiney pigs, and last month's peanut butter sandwich.

Epic of a Hampster.

Dude, so. This is the story, of a hampster.

An epic hampster.
An epic, nocturnal hampster.
An epic, noctrunal..marathon-running hampster.
The very hampster which, in fact, lives right outside my door.
My bedroom door.

This hampster runs enough miles on its little wheel thing, that if we could somehow wire it to a generator, it would power the house.

(This is not taking into account the number of hampster we would most likely electrocute before the contraption was correctly wired. Which might be why all good inventors use guiney pigs. But moving on..)

If you were to come over during the day, you would not believe my story. Because during daylight hours, this hampster is the most lethargic being you will ever see. Like a teenager in small rodent form.

But when the lights go out, or more specifically, when I crawl into bed and roll over, fully intending on being asleep in the next few moments at the latest, a starting gun somewhere on a hampster wavelength sounds.

Which leads me to wonder, what the heck do they make those hampster wheels out of? To describe the noise, it resembles the sound your car makes when you are traveling those 20 miles an hour over the speed limit you know you drive on potholey back roads because you just can't stand how long you have to be on them traveling at 35 mph. That hang onto your dentures, hold your glasses on with one hand, your rear view mirror is about to fly off noise.

I have thought of a few different solutions. One, I could remove the wheel. But that involves standing in a dark hallway and reaching into a cage that I can not see, and fishing around for a rodent with unknown sized teeth. All I will say about that is that I have personally seen this hampster stuff an entire pecan into either side of its mouth, so I know there is more than enough room in there for my thumb.

Two, I could clean the cage and accidentally "lose" the hampster, but unfortunately the phrase "man's best friend" has become rather a broad term as applied to pets and the emotional attachments laid upon the rodent by other members of the family would load onto my shoulders a guilt trip not worth the crime.

Like I said, I thought of a few other solutions, involving super glue, duct tape, a hampster treadmill, a few blankets, and, most recently, a shotgun. However, as I lay here writing this, Bilbo (Yes, the hampster is indeed named after a beer guzzling midget that wears the same shoe size as Shaquiel O'Neal'.) is nearing about mile 7.

So, dude.
What would you do, what would you do
If your roommate hampster
Could outrun you?

Less Than Ordinary

No one wants to be ordinary. The American dream is "bigger and better" moving forward, learning, aquiring, upgrading, making more, doing more, going farther, setting records. Beyond even the American dream perhaps, this defines the human spirit everywhere. No one wants to end up the old cat lady; or the man whose highlight of the day is picking up the newspaper at the end of his drive and reading about the accomplishments of others, the people beyond ordinary enough to gain attention in the media.

The ordinary person drives a car.
The above ordinary person drives a nice car, a newer car; has enough money to keep it clean, maybe even modify and customize it.
Am I less than ordinary because I walked to Safeway this morning for my groceries?
Would I be more than less ordinary if maybe I washed my backpack or put a snazzy keychain on it?

The ordinary person has a kitchen.
The above ordinary person has a nice kitchen, and maybe never even uses it because they have someone to cook their food for them.
Am I less than ordinary because I prepare the same four or five meals every week, using only a coffee maker?
Would I be more than less ordinary if I occasionally threw in a microwaved item?

The ordinary person wants to be more than ordinary.
The above ordinary person doesn't know they are.
Am I less than ordinary because I don't want to be more than ordinary?
Would I be more than less ordinary if I tried to achieve a greater degree of less ordinary?

Lobster face.

If you ever wondered what Sam felt like when he killed Shelob, go stab a lobster.
The effect is especially accurate if you're a natural dwarf.

So.

So pretty much, it's almost spring. I woke up, the sun was shining (and kept shining for another 30 minutes before the rain woke up), there were puddles everywhere, and the air smelled like fish. Yep. Spring. And I was like...what the heck. Because I have been waiting for winter for...apparently all winter.

Whatever. Time for spring shopping =)

Hmm.

Wow, I'm really bad at keeping this thing up.
I think I will sum up my life with photos and sub-5 word explanations.

Frozen yogurt and little sister.

Culinary arts: where we turn apples into birds.

Riding!

Sushi!

Japanese day. Whooo.

Yes dear?

Today's topic: pet names. How many are with me here, either 1) you hate pet names in general, or 2) you, like me, have noticed that the usage of pet names is coming from a younger and younger generation. I can't tell you how many times, but only recently, I have been in a conversation with a friend, usually younger than me or close to my age who, out of the blue, says something like, "Oh, well I'm sorry hun!"; or ends a letter with "Love you sweetie pie!".


And I am left wondering.."Didn't we used to play in a tree fort, make our brothers lives miserable, have tea parties and groan over 2nd grade homework together? I still consider myself young, since when do you have the dentures neccesary to justify phrases like 'honey', 'sweetie-pie' and 'precious'?"

Let me emphasize. Do NOT refer to me as hun, honey, sweetheart, sweetiepie, precious, etc...UNLESS:

1) You are my grandparent. That's their job. This only excuses 4 people though.

2) You are old enough to remember the 70's show in real life.

3) You are dating me, AND taking me out to eat at least weekly.

4) I, for some reason, become mentally incompetant and no longer care. Physical inabilities do not count. If I lose a leg but am still mentally sound and my sister calls me hun, I will run her down with my wheelchair.

5) You have at any past time had to put up with my shenadigans while babysitting me. If you were ever one of the poor souls who endured my obcession with tormenting anyone my mom bribed into being in authority over me for a few hours, you deserve to make my life a little irritating and lie and call me sweetheart.

6) I am facing a real tragedy and you are being truly sympathetic, in which case a large amount of chocolate must also be supplied.

7) You are awarding me a good sum of money that I have in no way earned. In this case all pet names and unneccesary congratulatory endearments will be temporarily overlooked.

8) You have excellent medical insurance and don't mind spending a few hours in the dentist chair.

9) You have honstly mistook me for someone under the age of 10. This excuse can only be used once.

10) Your last name is Tatum and your first name is Channing and you're trying to teach me how to dance.

11) You are over 7 feet tall. In this case I have no arguments with you; please just concentrate on not stepping on me.

12) You mistook me for the largest honey jar in existence. However, you had BETTER be over the age of 85 and/or be accompanied by someone in a white coat.

13) You are trying to piss me off..in which case, prepare to have all your belongings and your pet armadillo posted for sale on craig's list.

14) OR, if you are my mother. She can call me whatever she wants, just don't call me late for dinner.

Updated dorm tomb..er. Room.

So I guess the last dorm room you remember is the cruddy one you and Thomas moved me into, right mom? Well, sometime around Thanksgiving I upgraded, but today is really the first day it feels like more than just a space to put my stuff. Today, everything in my room has a place. And there is room for more than just the bare neccesities. There's just enough creativity put into this tiny place, that it feels just a bit like home. What a satisfying feeling.

The beginnings of the poorly instructionalized, overpriced, boringly colored shelf. White was chosen because it's the easiest color to paint over at a later date. Ha ha. Thankfully the hatchet you see pictured was not neccesary, but at this point I still wasn't sure whether the end result would be a bookcase or a bonfire.

About here the hope began to dawn. All the contents of my dorm floor were shoved against the wall and it was still a very tight squeeze. You may have doubted my intelligence after reading the toilet paper post, but this one should give you hope again. I did indeed put this entire beast together by myself. With minimal reference to the destructions.

Here you can see I did eventually have victory. Those bins that fit the spaces hold clothes excellently and I no longer have to shove them in my closet. My ceramics/dishes collection is visible in the upper right, with plenty of room to be expanded. Working three shifts a week is growing it rapidly. What's really nice is that now I have space to have more than the bare neccesities in my room, without making it look crowded. The two canisters on top are ceramic also, one holds my tea collection (which you are welcome to contribute to mom!) and the smaller one holds sweeteners, honey packets and juice drinks. All my textbooks are in the upper left and my coffee has its own shelf right below them. Ha ha.

It felt soooo good to have everything organized again. Dad, I've been holding out on your for pictures of my room for a long time, but it's finally clean today so I felt motivated to take pictures.

This is the view from the door. Slightly unmade bed, and coffee maker strategically within reach. =)

Here's the view from being backed up between the bathroom door and the coffee maker. I'm currently sitting were you see facebook opened here. Haha. The green pencil can you see to the left of my laptop is also a creation of the ceramics lab..Oh, and that's a snowflake stuck to the side of my desk.

Here's looking back at the door from the edge of my bed. I guess you kinda get the perspective now. My keys always hang from my door handle or I'm nearly guarenteed to walk out the self locking door without them. What a pain. Also, shoeboxes are my best friend. What's in my closet is only a small part of the collection. Of course, my walls are covered in stuff. Habits are hard to break, ha ha. Not too bad though huh mom? Much better than the old one...this is kinda a boring post but I've been bugged for these pictures for months. And I like sitting at a clean desk. And I ran out of things to do on Facebook.

Summary of the week.

Started out the week with an afternoon drive to Cooper Landing for lunch at a burger place. Very cute little spot. And amazing chili nachos.
Beautiful day for a drive.

Perhaps my biggest accomplishment for the week was literally a third of my weight...in carrot cake.

Yes. There are indeed more carrots on top of the cake than in the cake itself.

The rest of the week consisted of, obviously, forgetting my camera at opportune picture moments.

Food post.

Bring out the munchies, you're about to need them.

Nope, I did not make these, but they are examples of cream puffs on plates decorated with chocolate squeezed out of a ketchup bottle, and raspberry coulis dabbed gently onto plates and made to look good by my chef.

My first ever lattice pie..

Matt's apple cobbler.

The blueberry pie I attacked with cookie cutters.

Chocolate mocha swirly cheesecake.

More plate decorating. I thought this one was genius...mom, you should appreciate playing with food.

Coconut cream puff as...a coconut. Pure genius.

Snake vs. Mouse. Less genius is sometimes better entertainment.

If the Queen of England were a pirate...

Seriously...

How do you refill one of these? Maybe it's just that I'm so used to all appliances being laughably idiot proof that when I was actually faced with a minor challenge...I was dumbfounded. There aren't any handy little latches or instructions posted on hard to see surfaces. It can't be that hard, I mean, the janitor does it every day and well..he's 50 years old and still a janitor for a reason.

If they would just give us reasonably sized rolls, the average person would know to just use the smaller roller, which as you can see, is also on the wall. A few trees might be saved as well. So, check out the picture, and see if you come to the same solution I did...

Let the roommate deal with it.

What I've Been Up To...

Well..since the beginning of this semester, my blog has been sadly neglected. Oops. Somewhere in the world of adultness homework comes before computer time. Anyways..Christmas break was peachy, and I'm going to sum up the last two weeks in pictures since I'm too lazy to be brilliant and I have a tutor student seeking my wisdom in an hour on a chapter I haven't read...

Here we have the results of the yearly challenge to get 8 people to all convincingly grimace at once...

On the way back to Seward from Christmas break I had a fantastic time with Megan and Brianna Aspelund. Here we are...3 hours early...for the 3D version of the movie Avatar. Fantastic, by the way. Totally worth the dorky glasses.

If Louis and Clark had been chefs...

If Superman had been a chef...

If the three little monkeys were chefs...

If the Thinker was sculpted by a chef...

Who cares about cowboys? Shoulda been a chef.

The latest disasters..

Kitchen quotes:
"It's not burned! It's cajun style." -Matt

"It's like a movie. Forgotten at 400 degrees."

My first lattice pie, pre-oven.

And all done...

Masterpiece, pre oven.

Martha Stewart status!!

That's a lottttt of pies...

Charlene (hiding behind the giant 60qt. mixer bowl)
Will, freaking out for unknown reasons
Lora, smiling because she's making a chocolate pie.

Patrick and Ashley.
Yes mom, typical.