That I'll never see that recipe again

The year is over already? It's going to take me until June to remember to write '07 on things, you know. Who has time for that sort of thing? I know I don't. There should be robots designed to do these things for me. If they can make a roomba, they can make a scheduleba. Are you listening to me, science community?

Also I am on one tremendous Japan kick right now. It's so bad, and there isn't even any anime involved. It started with my discovery of Kurosawa films, which snowballed into a massive crush on Toshiro Mifune and segued into J-Rock. Now I find myself listening to playlists of Dir En Grey and Shonen Knife and X Japan and wondering what went wrong. I thought I got past all the japanese stuff in high school with that anime/manga business. Apparently I was mistaken. Here it goes, here it goes, here it goes again, aw here it goes again.

Anyhow, Jayme is going to pick me up at 7:30 and we're going to Niamh's apartment for a little shindig, which I imagine will be very pleasant and perhaps slightly dull around the edges. That's fine. I have to work tomorrow morning.

Happy new year, y'all.

I'll be hangin' from the hope

It's raining. On my birthday. I'm not, you know, offended or anything, it's just...rain on my birthday? When does THAT ever happen? This is a very strange winter indeed.

When this gray world crumbles like a cake

When I walked into the breakroom today to take my last 15, I found five people seated around the main table. Considering the store's employee demographic, it was not surprising to find that they were all black.

"We having a regular nigga party in here!" noted Janice. Myron nodded sagely, adding, "yeah, we all niggas here." Camilla was quick to point out, however, that I was not, in fact, by any standard working definition, a nigga, which prompted Tauriauna to disagree heartilly. The vote came in, 4 - 5 in favor of me being a nigga, and Keith motioned me to the only available chair. Then they all coached me on my pronunciation of "whatup" and "a'ight." I forgave Camilla for being the sole nigga-status dissenter on the grounds that I'm about as much a nigga as I am a neurosurgeon, though I appreciate the sentiment. I think.

I'm not sure I'll ever actually be able to say "nigga" aloud without wanting to hide under a table. I'm getting better at "whatup," though.

And the lawn gets wet though I've withheld my consent

As I walked to the bus stop (with an umbrella this time, for I am a crafty she-devil), I found myself engulfed in a most peculiar precipitation as the heavy rain took a sudden turn for the frozen. It was like mother nature had absently flipped the "rain" switch this morning and when she noticed a few hours later what she had done, she panicked, overrode the failsafes, and turned it all into snow at breakneck speed. But it wasn't actually snow, it was really more like razor sharp clumps of wet ice that sliced at any available exposed skin and soaked everything else. I wasn't sure if it was snowing water balloons or raining shurikens, but I was losing either way.

And then, of course, the drunkest man in the city sat next to me on the bus. I'm sure there have been drunker men in the history of mankind, but on average they are not riding the bus with me at 1 in the afternoon. There were three people on an otherwise empty bus, and he lurches down the aisle and sits on my purse. Fortunately I had forgotten my lunch this morning, or there would have been goulash everywhere. He spent the rest of the bus ride alternately leaning on me, trying to get his mack on with the severely disinterested woman in the seat ahead, wishing the world a "mer' chrsmsss inna hap...happy n'yurr!" and asking to listen to my ipod (answer was no).

That was the longest bus ride ever.

Well the rain falls down without my help I'm afraid

I can't believe it's fricken' raining again. What is that. Nobody wants a wet Christmas. And nobody wants to walk to the bus and stand in a whole bunch of December rain today. At least Guns'n Roses didn't do that one.

Christmas is almost go! I just have a few more gifts to get and zero time to get them because I work every day until I go home. That kind of sucks. And I only got out a quarter of the intended cards because I ran out of stamps, and I just got more stamps yesterday and now I can't for the life of me remember where I put the cards. And also, Aunt Kay, apparently my addressing job on your card wasn't good enough for Stewartville because they wrote "insufficient address" on it and sent it back. I don't know what else they were looking for. It's not like I just scribbled "give to aunt kay plz" on an envelope or anything, there was a whole address on it. Is there some sort of Stewartville secret code I don't know about? Stewartville must be pretty snooty.

Augh, time to run. In the rain. Awesome.

Go go Godzilla, yeah

ATTENTION BLOGWORLD:

How do I wash a comforter? I mean, if I stuff it in a washing machine and run it like a normal load, will I be totally bummed when I open the washer later? I got this comforter, see...

Anyway I can't really blog right now, I have to run all willy nilly to the bus so Lizard and I can roam the nearer reaches of Dinkytown for dinner and then watch movies or something. Woo! Ridin' the bus all willy nilly!

Willy nilly just doesn't get the love it deserves.

Oh no, there goes Tokyo

I officially have a raging addiction to bubble tea, or rather more specifically the boba in them. I bought a big bag of boba (the marble-sized tapioca pearl "bubbles" in bubble tea) over Thanksgiving when I was in Rochester, and I have now gnawed my way through well over half of it. I only hope I can make it to Christmas so I can get to Hyvee and buy more. I drink them in juice, and tea, and pop. I eat them in soup. I eat them with honey. Sometimes I just eat them. I don't know what it is! They're so bizarrely addictive. I am drinking them in grape juice right now. I wish there was some kind of superfood benefit to tapioca, I would be fighting crime and shooting lasers out of my eyes by now for sure.

Go go Godzilla

Work today was awful.

So in light of the day's suckitude, I blew off the christmas party and went home. I made pesto for dinner and it didn't make me want to die, so I think I may have done something right this time around. Maybe it's the fancypants factor; I bought all the ingredients from the global market yesterday. Speaking of the global market, holy crap, I could wander there for hours and still have to be dragged out.

And speaking of holy crap, what the heck is my neighbor doing? It sounds like she's got an electric bass cranked up to 11 and is trying to play it with her toes or something. For all I know, that's exactly what she's doing. She seems a little weird.

Oh no, they say he's got to go

A man came up to my register the other day with a very serious look on his face.

"I need to tell you something," he said.
"Ok," I replied.
"What do you call a baby kangaroo that just sits around all day and doesn't do anything?" he queried.
"I...don't know?"
"A pouch potato. There, wasn't that stupid." And he walked away.

Thanks dood.

So tomorrow is the Savers christmas party, and I am totally not pumped about it. Hanging out late into the evening, watching my coworkers get drunk and try to bowl? Sign me up for sure. I do not have very high expectations for this christmas party. Oh, well, it's free.

As he wades through the buildings towards the center of town

So Christina calls me up to the registers today. "Betsi," she says, "You gotta help this guy shop for a suit (psst I think he's mostly blind just help him out ok)."

Oh crap. I hate this sort of thing. I can shop for myself, I can shop for, like, halloween costumes, but other people? Aggggggggh. But I'm stuck for it. I turn to the guy, smiling, and realize this is going to be tougher than I thought as he stares back at me with two crazed eyes. Or rather, one eye examined something directly to the left while the other spun in tight circles vaguely in my direction. He grinned, toothlessly, and farted softly as he walked behind me to the men's suits, where he proceeded to demand that I read him the inner label of every single suit, especially the "Made in _____" part that most of them didn't even have. He settled on a stunning green polyester number. "Now I need a shirt," he barked, and I hurriedly scurried off to the right aisle, and then to shoes, and socks, and ties, and belts, and wallets, and fax machines, and telephones, and dog sweaters, with Tim Burton's vision of Mr. Magoo close at my heels all the while.

This is why I do not support time travel as a scientific endeavor. Because seriously, if some time during my developmental years it had come to my attention that I would one day be playing Vergil to these demented Dantes, I would not be blogging right now. I would probably be wandering thrift stores and cackling as my eyes rolled madly in their sockets.

That's kind of what I'm doing anyway, come to think of it.

He picks up a bus and he throws it back down

So yeah, my hair? It's amazing. Lizard and Mara reached a new personal best in the hair dye department this evening, when they dyed my hair green, blue, and purple.

We finally made it in to Hairpolice, and that place looks pretty sweet. If I ever get dreads, I'm gonna go there for it. A full head dreading runs about $275, which is insanely beyond my budget's wildest dreams, but I'd by lying if I said I wasn't sorely tempted. Anyway, we went there because they sell Special Effects hair dye, which is pretty much the only brand I use at this point and I've never found it for sale anywhere else outside of the internet. Got my green, Lizard brought the blue, I already had the purple, we popped Fistful of Dollars into the dvd player and went to town on my head, and the results are very impressive indeed.

And now tomorrow I'm going to take the bus to the U and hang out with Lizard after work and we're going to go buy bubbletea and bring some to Mara at work so she'll give us free food for dinner and then we're going to go back to Lizard's dorm and watch Yojimbo or Rashomon or something and it's gonna be super exciting to actually do something on a Friday night for a change.

Golden years, go-ee-old, wah wah wah.

Scream bug-eyed as he looks in on them

Ok, internet recipe, here's the scoop:

I agree, this chocolate cake is wonderfully moist and delicious. However, all that is lost on me when it WON'T COME OUT OF THE DAMN PAN.

I mean, ok, I ripped out a few chunks and threw them in a bowl and drizzled some hot caramel on them and that's very nice and all, but if God wanted us to eat cake in chunks out of bowls, He in His infinite wisdom would not have invented cakes that COME OUT OF THE PAN IN ONE INTENTIONAL PIECE.

I'd better go clean the kitchen up before Mara gets home, it's extra-special disasteriffic tonight. I had a minor cocoa powder malfunction and at one point the Mixmaster threw a chunk of butter at the wall and I think it's still there. Neat trick, Mixmaster. Don't do that anymore.

Helpless people on subway trains

As the bus passed a park on the way to work today, I looked out and watched from a great distance what appeared to be a man punching himself repeatedly in the face. Then he turned his head and spat and I realized he wasn't puching himself in the face at all, he was actually brushing his teeth. I guess his hand was just moving so fast I couldn't see the toothbrush.

Personally, I liked it better when I thought he was punching himself.

He pulls the spitting high tension wires down

I usually go to and from work listening to my ipod, which provides both entertainment and an I-can't-hear-your-crazytalk alibi, but the battery was dead this morning so I had to do without. Ordinarily I would be half out of my mind by the time I got home, but I wound up talking to a friendly older black man at the bus stop, who told me to go easy on the hair dyeing or I'd wind up looking like "that Shin...huh...Shania? That bald singer girl from a few years back. ("Sinead O'Connor?") Yeah, her." And on the bus itself, a (very drunk) couple sang "Glory of Love" to one another for about fifteen minutes. That is not a fifteen minute song. At least, it isn't if you aren't drunk and know any of the words. It was pretty funny, but everybody else was dead quiet until the hammered lovebirds finally stumbled off the bus, and as the bus rolled away the middleaged native man who had been seated stoically across from them the whole time finally started to chuckle, which quickly slid into a full-blown belly laugh, and everybody else on the bus joined in, because honestly. "We did it awwwwll for the glowwy of *hic* lawwwwve!!" indeed.

After getting home I headed into the kitchen with the intent of making a cheesecake, but got distracted and ended up making rosettes instead. Or at least giving rosettes a game effort. I dunno, man, they taste rosette-y and all, but they're pretty darn ugly. And I have no reddi-whip. They're just not right without reddi-whip.

Also I dunked an oreo in some of the leftover batter and deep fried it because I am apparently insane. I won't be opening a booth at the State Fair any time soon, but it was suprisingly not that bad.

With a purposeful grimace and a terrible frown

Check it, dawgs, I got me a stand mixer, still new in the box, for $12.50. TIIIIGHT. Now I wanna go bust out some chill funky grooves with the Mixmaster, but we have no sugar, and I'm pretty sure all the chill funky grooves I know call for sugar. Sorry, Mixmaster, you'll have to hang in the crib a while longer.

That's just how we do in the 612.

...

Yeah, I know, this entry is more painfully white than Sam the Snowman runnin' the dozens with the Wu-Tang Clan. Don't gotta get all up in my grill about it. G.

I'll be gone in a day or two

Huh. I found out belatedly that we apparently ran out of milk sometime during the day, so I ended up using whipping cream in my mac'n cheese. I am somewhat underwhelmed, but at least it turned out better than last time I tried to make macaroni and cheese and we were out of milk and I decided it would be brilliant to just use more butter. Not so brilliant after all, it seems.

I also added turkey, which worked pretty well. I can't believe how long that damn leftover turkey is lasting. I've had turkey sandwiches, turkey quesadillas, turkey mac'n cheese, turkey added to soup...man, and it wasn't even that much turkey to begin with. I wonder what I could do with fish and loaves.

Take on me, take me on

Ooh, something is on fire in the parking garage and there are like five fire trucks outside the building right now! It's very exciting. If I put my face up to the window and look to the right I can see the smoke pouring out. Erik is worrying about Mara's car. Come on dude, chill, this is exciting.