Utils in Bat Country

Abrassive?

The following is a rough transcript of a conversation I had with a fellow server at the restaurant last night. It was really amazing.

Her: Hey, I was thinking about doing this dermal abrasion thing. You interested in going along?

Me: What the hell is that?

Her: It’s a thing where a spa basically sandblasts your face with diamonds. It takes all the dead skin off your face, and they say it can reduce scars and wrinkles, and make your skin look a ton better.

[Cut for length and non-funny discussion of our faces, skin, and an awful story of her being attacked by a dog.]

Me: Wait! Wasn’t that the thing from Sex in the City that Samantha had done? The one where her face looked like shit right after?

Her: No! That was a chemical peel. NOT that.

Me: OK, brass tacks here. How much is this going to cost?

Her: Well, there’s a take home version that’s much cheaper than the spa or cosmetic surgeon.

Me: Take home?

Her: Yeah, but it’s basically just a cream that you apply to your face with exfoliates in it, and then you rub this wand thing over it all.

Me: So what you’re saying is that the at-home version is like me rubbing mayonnaise with salt in it on your face, and then smashing it all in with a dildo?

Her: Well, yeah, I guess it kinda is like that.

Me: Unless, of course, you prefer Miracle Whip. And the salt should certainly be kosher. You know, so the crystals are big.

Her: Yes. And if you get a double-sided dildo, we could do our faces at the same time!

 

By this point, we were laughing so hard we both had tears running down our faces. Work was slow last night, but this conversation TOTALLY made it worth it.

Hedgehogs of the Non-Sonic Variety

I started dating a guy around Halloween. Because he works a grown-up job, and I wait tables, we don't get to see each other very often, which is slightly burdensome. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, he was out of town, and my parents were in town. No big deal, he and I talked on the phone a couple of times, my folks and I hung out, everything was kosher.

He came back into town that Saturday night, and the plan was for him to meet my folks Sunday. This was a twofold plan, because it allowed us to see each other that weekend, and I adore my parents.

Let's take a step back, before I continue this story.

My parents and I get along. We almost always have. We never went through that stage were a kid hates their folks. I mean, my teenage years weren't perfect, and of course we had issues. But they were never ever bad. And really, compared to some things my friends went through, my life has been a cakewalk where family is concerned.  My parents and I talk, joke, and generally get along amazingly well. We irritate each other occasionally, but we are human and we are related, so it's inevitable, especially since I embody a little bit of both of them. It's normally what is common about us that irritates us, although I'm just realizing that as I'm typing this.

Anyway. I tried to explain to my guy that my folks and I have a really great relationship, because some people aren't prepared for that. When he came to the house that Sunday, we decided the easiest thing to do was walk down the street to the diner and have brunch. We got a table, ordered our food, and chatted away.

As we were all finishing our meals, my mom had a large quantity of pancakes left, and offered them to my dad. Funny, because (hi, mom!) she sometimes complains that my dad is a little on the larger side than he should be, and then she gives him pancakes from her plate slathered in butter and syrup. But whatever! It was a holiday weekend!

Dad takes a small portion of the pancakes, as he's sitting to her right. I was sitting across the table from her, and I reached across to take some with my fork. The pancakes were really good, so pops and I started divvying them up. Kind of. In reality, we started fork-fighting over them, including me stealing some from his plate, and cackling about it, and a small tiff, with me sitting across the table jabbing my fork onto my mother's plate and my dad trying to fend me off. I then accused my father of stealing tomatoes from my restaurant salads for most of my life- an accusation that is true, by the way- and we continued whatever conversation had been going on prior to the Great Pancake Battle of 2010. (It cannot be a war, as my father and I have this particular fight often when out to eat. Or sometimes at home. The War of Food Theft Aggression is going on 30+ years [I have to assume he let me have my baby food back in the day, but I don't count on it] and we're no closer to declaring a victor. But he better hope when he's old and decrepit there are more than tomatoes on his plates if I'm around.)

I was struck, following the food fight, that the guy (who is going to require a better moniker than that soon) might think this was something we did to be cute. You know, showing off our wonderful family ways, and how well we get along. But whatever! I thought I'd explain it to him later.

When we got back to my house, we sat around chatting for a little while, before my dad decided he really wanted to go see things in Bmore. But before that, we were talking about movie stars.

My dad used to work at a large university hospital system, as a float. That is, he was assigned different offices and different duties as other people took vacations or were out sick. He worked with a LOT of women, with whom he had little in common. They were mostly nice, and he got along with them, but we're not talking about folks with an appetite for knowledge or reading.

Sitting in my living room, talking to my mom, me, and the guy I've been dating for about six weeks, my father tells this story:

One day, dad and some women were talking about their favorite movie stars. The conversation came around to my dad and they asked who his favorite actress was. My father replies, with a straight face, that it's Jenna Jameson.

Jenna Jameson

(For those of you who know who she is, the link is 100% safe and from wikipedia. For those of you who don't know, just that warning should indicate what kind of actress she is.)

We are perhaps 1.5 hours into meeting my parents, and the conversation has turned to porn stars.

My father then brings up Ron Jeremy. I don't remember how, something along the lines of "well, at least I didn't say my favorite actor was the Hedgehog!"

BUT THEN! My guy, sitting next to me on the couch, looks at me and says he doesn't know who Jenna Jameson is. I look at him. In this moment, I could praise him for claiming not to know who a particular porn star is. It is possible he was saying this to look better to my folks (never mind the fact that they're the ones who brought this up.) Except the look on his face was 100% believable. He really had no idea who JJ was/is. My reaction could have been a quiet explanation that she's an adult film star (which he had worked out from the Ron Jeremy comments...he HAD heard of him.) I could have moved the conversation to safer topics.

Instead, I said this:

How the hell do you not know who Jenna Jameson is?! She's, like, the most famous porn star ever!

I would qualify my tone as indignant, to say the least.

Then the conversation turned to Traci Lords.

Then we took my dad to see a statue of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

The end.

 

Pumpkin Carving

The inspiration

The (freehanded) result

I can't decide if it looks more like a diseased cactus or some sort of bizarre sex toy. 

Cooking Class

A couple of months ago, when I was signing up for my Intermediate Access class, I noticed that there was a series of classes that dealt with cooking various types of Italian dishes.  As a birthday gift, D signed me up for one. 

Start time was 5:30 yesterday, at 5:13 when I was adding another item into my Google calendar, I noticed that the class started in 17 minutes.  SHIT.  I raced out of the office and headed towards Whole Foods. 

(Now, the Whole Foods is in a plaza with a Barnes and Noble, Walgreens, various restaurants and other stores and the parking lot can accommodate pretty much the Walgreen shoppers.)  I find a spot and am going down the aisle with my blinker on and this other car swoops in from around the corner and steals it.  Rage.  I finally park, get into the store, go upstairs to the second level and get to class about 10 minutes late.  

I walk in the - full - classroom and realize that my cooking class is really more of a $52 cooking demonstration.  Fine.  I pick up the recipes and the only seat left is in the last row, next to the trash can, sort of to the left of but mostly behind one of the supporting columns. 

I look around at my classmates and I am the youngest person by at least 30 years, except for one or two people.  Holiday sweaters, ahoy!  There was one guy who appeared to be in his 40s that I thought was the teacher's husband at first because he kept going up to the kitchen area and helping her chop things, but no, he's just some random overzealous participant.  Apparently, the rest of the class and him have been going to these lessons for a couple of years so they're asking him about his latest work trip to Africa and where he's going next and he's talking about a trip to Azerbijan and then someone else is like oh, this one time in Poland...pasta? Italy?  In the row in front of me was a guy and a girl who were getting a bit irritated with helper guys brown nosing and the inanity of the rest of the class and would roll their eyes and make huffy noises and I have found my people. 

All class long, some women kept asking about how to do different things with various tools and the teacher, Francesca, was just not giving in.  Loved it.

- When toasting almonds: question, what type of pan is that?  answer, just use shallow pan you have.  followup, but that pan is more important than the almonds! answer, not in this class.

- When mixing flour into a pot of water to create gnocchi dough (a really cool method, actually): question, have you thought of doing this in a mixer with a dough hook? answer, no.

- When discussing simmering braciole for six hours: question, can you do this in a crock pot?  answer, -withering glare- I don't use those.  

- Talking about different flavors that can be added to gnocchi: question, don't you think it would be fun to make these like an appetizer with some sesame seeds? answer, .... 

- Different types of pasta sauces: question, isn't there a type of sauce that has vodka in it?  answer, yes, that's vodka sauce.  follow up, vahhhhca sauce?  what's that?  is that an italian word?  how do you pronounce it?  is that a type of wine? answer, really? 

- Question, what does antipasto mean?  answer, before the meal.  follow up, how is that different from an appetizer or hors d'oeuvres ?  answer, is the same, one is the English term the other is the French.  Followup, oh, then I think we should use the French term, it's much easier.  answer, wha? 

- Making eggplant rollatini: question, my mom always told me to buy a female eggplant, what's the benefit?  answer, eggplants have genders?  

And then.  Francesca had an uncut eggplant and was trying to determine how to tell the gender and she picks it up and says well, I guess this would be the man, is smaller at the top and then gets wider at the base and she starts running her hands up and down the eggplant to demonstrate the increase.  THEN.  People from the class start to go up to do the same thing and I thought I was going to die from lack of oxygen.  Eggplant violation!

Overall, the class was quite good.  Francesca was hilarious and spoke just like one of my Grandmas.  She was talking about one of the dishes and kept saying 'finish to cook' and making all the hand gestures and now I'm homesick :)  When she was making the gnochhi, the class was saying how fancy a dish it was an it must be in the finest Napoleon restaurants and she was like, eh, not really, people make it so much at home it's very common, it's not something they'd want to pay for at a restaurant.  You could tell that she was looking at the class like right, so I can't tell you that you're being kind of ridiculous but dudes, zomg. 

And, (this is for you Tass), she could do the one handed egg crack.  Cooking tip!  When you add egg whites to a dish it makes it firmer, when you add egg yolks to a dish, it makes it softer.  Who knew? 

Now I need to figure out which pot I can afford to sacrifice when I try to make the gnocchi.  Because dumping two cups of flour into two cups of boiling water (and an egg yolk!) can't possibly end badly. 

Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?

Steph just sent me (Hi! Tassie here!) the most AMAZING thing in the world.
Source 

Now, before you get all freaked out, let me tell you what this REALLY is.  It protects delicate fruit from bruising by transporting it in the cleverly designed Banana Bunker. Dishwasher safe. Set of 2.
Set of two, people! HIS AND HERS.

You know what your mom wants for Christmas?  This. I'm serious. I know these things.

The only thing I can possibly add - best stocking stuffer ever.  (heh).

Hair Product and Cooking

But not the two combined, thankfully.

First, the hair product.

Because of another blogger, I bought Bed Head After Party Smoother for my hair recently. Now, if you click the link, you will see that the bottle is...more than slightly phallic. And when you use it, you push down on the top, and some rather thick, white creamy stuff comes out, which you slather in your hair. Right. RIGHT. So.*

Yesterday, after only having used said phallic product for a week or so, I couldn't get any to come out. (Can we see yet where this is going?) So I pushed again. And still, nothing. So I pushed down several more times, rapidly, and was eventually rewarded by a big old squirting sound, and a rather large handful of the aforementinoed white, gooey, creamy stuff.

That's the most action I've had in months.

Cooking thing.

You know that fancy pants trick that people on cooking shows do, where they crack an egg, open it, and dump it into something all with one hand. I just totally did that. FoodNetwork, here I come!

(We will not talk about the fact that I was cracking said egg to put into some ramen.)

* I give the After Party high marks both for what it does to my hair, as well as its general shape and demeanor.