Hot Cranky People

Animal Crossing is the game that convinced me to purchase my GameCube a couple of years ago, and the release this week of the sequel, Animal Crossing - Wild World has convinced me to purchase a Nintendo DS just to play this game.

It’s too hard to describe the game accurately to anyone who hasn’t played, but those who have understand it’s irresistable charms, I’m sure.

Right now my character is wearing a “post-op patch” over one eye, and a giant afro.

There’s a lunar lander in my house.

And I bought insurance from an otter this morning.

What’s not to love?

Any friends out there who are playing and want to visit my town, shoot me an email with your code and player/town info. I’ve got pears, and in a day or so I should have blooming trees with all the other fruits. Except coconuts. I could use a coconut. Hook me up.

About a month ago, I started battling an irrational craving for buffalo wings. The last time I ate a buffalo wing was around 2002, but some friends mentioned them and suddenly it sounded like the BEST FOOD EVER. I resisted, however.

Just before Thanksgiving I saw the new Harry Potter movie in a theater that smelled like buffalo wings. For almost 3 hours. I even leaned over to my mother a few minutes in and asked, “Do you smell buffalo wings? WHERE IS IT COMING FROM?”

We left the theater and there, across the parking lot, was a gleaming beacon of hope. A giant sign for a place called…wait for it… The Buffalo Cafe.

“WHAT IS THAT PLACE? LET’S GO THERE.”, I commanded.

So I had wings. And man they were good. I assumed that this would get it out of my system, but the plan backfired and ever since then it’s all I want to eat.

I’ve had them twice more since then.

I’m like a shark who has had a taste of blood.

Spicy, tabasco blood, with a side of blue cheese.

As some of you know (because I posted about it last year), one of the Pnut Family Thanksgiving Traditions is the ceremonial Carving of the Cheese Sculpture for the top of the cauliflower au gratin.

Every year, this responsibility falls to me.

Frankly, it’s a lot of pressure.

To recap:

Historically, the cauliflower au gratin is laden with an intricate lattice made of Kraft Old English Slices. None of that real cheese. No, only “cheese food” is acceptable, because of its ability to withstand heat and still maintain its shape. The strips would puff up into hard, brown plastic-like rectangles.

It was actually kind of gross.

Sadly, no photographic record of these works exists.

In 2002, Mom left off the strips. This sent a panic through the household. NO PLASTIC CHEESE STRIPS? Sure, they may be gross, but come on, you don’t mess with tradition. Mom said, “But nobody ever eats them.” We said, “Yeah, so?”

I decided to top the cauliflower au gratin myself. Rebel that I am, I decided to try something new, shunned the lattice, and instead opted for the pastoral scene you see below.

Note the turkey, the native foliage, and the giant head of cauliflower (that’s the blobby thing on the right). The hot sun beats down on the land, and in the sky you can see the tiny airplane that carried my sister and I home for the holiday.

(Ok, fine. The plane was supposed to be a bird but it didn’t come out so hot.)

This work withstood the heat of a 350 degree oven and came out pretty much intact.

It was not only decorative, but delicious.

2003 rolled around, and once again I was given this responsibility. Being short on time, and also concerned about being able to live up to the hype of the previous year, I copped out and opted for a lame yet still relatively intricate Cheese Cornucopia. A Cheesehorn of Plenty, if you will.

This one did not hold up so well during the baking, and ended up looking more like a Blob of Plenty.

Before we move to 2004, I should mention that at some point between 2002 and 2004 there was another, non-Thanksgiving cauliflower au gratin at Pnut’s Mom’s table, at some family event which I have forgotten. I can’t find the photos of this one but I will instead describe my work. I took a scientific approach, opting to sculpt the chemical formula for cauliflower au gratin, which was, of course, a giant:

CAuG

It was well received.

Moving on to last year, 2004. This time I dug deep and went way, way back in history.

And carved a Triceratops.

He browned nicely.

Which brings me to today. I took suggestions from many friends, and decided to go with an architectural landmark, in honor of my relocation to San Francisco.

I present…

The Golden Baked Bridge.

I must say I was pretty please with this one.

I think this is the first year the cheese actually looked better after baking.

I am now taking suggestions for 2006. I’m open to pretty much anything. Except dinosaurs. They are totally played out.

Ok.

Here it is.

Ready?

I watch The Ghost Whisperer.

Yes, I know it sucks. Hard. But there’s something mesmerizing about the RIDICULOUS FALSE EYELASHES that Jennifer Love Hewitt is wearing 24/7. Her eyelids must be exhausted from holding those things up.

I can’t look away.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the laundromat. My friend Dot was kind enough to visit me while I was doing my laundry (now that’s a good friend), so while we were waiting for the industrial dryer to finish shrinking my clothes beyond recognition, we wandered over to the Asian grocery store around a few doors down.

I had seen this store a zillion times over the last year, but never gone in. Now, I love food. I’m always one to try new foods, embrace the cuisine of other cultures, all that good stuff. I was excited to find some new and unusual things to try. WOOHOO!

We entered the store and started the adventure by heading over to what I can only describe as the “Wall of Unidentifiable Meat”. Frankly, I don’t want to eat any sort of meat with the word “flap” in the name. While I’m sure most of the items are delicious, to my untrained American eye an awful lot of them were just plain scary.

And speaking of eyes.

Near the Meat Wall was “Seafoodapalooza”. I’m surprised there wasn’t a sign saying, “Now with more eyes!” Seriously, there must have been about 900 eyes in that place. Connected to things. (Later on we found a jar of more eyes. There were at least 438 eyes in that jar alone. EYES.)

And those were just in the fresh food sections. We cautiously ventured down the other aisles. “Cans of Crazy!” was one of my favorite areas. Is that fruit or fish? I CAN’T TELL. I also enjoyed “Tapioca-rama”. I had no idea how many sizes, shapes, and colors tapioca balls came in. It was like a chewy carnival in there. Awesome. Dot called one particularly festive bag a “birthday party in a package”.

Unfortunately, the clock was ticking and we had to get back to my laundry. That, and the sheer number of eyes took its toll on us and we had to JUST GET OUT.

There was all sorts of cool stuff though, so it was decided next time we would take our time, be adventurous and find some interesting (eye-free) items to purchase and try.

I’m all for the kitchen gadgets.

But this is ridiculous.

The chicken mystery continues. This just in:

Subject: lost grey and white spotted chicken

Hi,
I live at 123 XYZ Rd and have lost my grey and white spotted chicken. Herman saw her last night but she got away. If anyone sees her tonight please email.
Thanks

My super-talented singer/songwriter friend Allison Bazarko is in the final four of a jingle singing contest for Net10 and she needs your vote.

So head on over to this page and vote for her ASAP. You will have to register at the site, but Allison rocks and is worth it.

Go Baz!

My parents belong to a neighborhood e-mail list.

Mom forwards me the good ones. Most of these are about animals. Animals people have lost, in this quiet residential neighborhood.

For example, earlier this year there was a lynx on the loose. Yes, a lynx. Apparently someone in the neighborhood breeds exotic cats. Go figure. Luckily, it was apprehended:

“On Monday an alert neighbor in the XYZ Drive area spotted the elusive lynx and called the police. A neighbor on XYZ Hills Court also spotted the cat and called the owner. The neighborhood security patrol officer, along with Atlanta police and a security officer from a nearby neighborhood searched the area but did not find him. The owner arrived and set a trap (cage) with chicken parts as bait. When he checked the cage on Tuesday, the lynx was there. We can all breathe a little easier now that this animal is back home. Let’s hope he stays there!”

My next favorite was this tale of a llama on the loose:

The continuing saga of getting DirecTV installed in my new place is long and frankly, too boring to post here.  I just would like to point out that it took, over three days of phone calls, speaking to 10 PEOPLE to finally get the work order for my install submitted correctly. Mind you, it won’t be installed until next week, so there’s still plenty of room for something to go wrong. But I’m crossing my fingers that the 83 MINUTE CALL from yesterday will be the last time I have to speak to them for a while.

You know, I just thought to myself that 10 people sounds excessive and there’s no way that could be right, so I counted again.

I was wrong. It was 11 people.

I’m back. I needed a break. More to come.

And Sally’s been keeping an eye on all of you.

It’s fun to draw eyes on produce.

While searching for an online version of my favorite logic puzzle, I came across this fun time-waster.

Segmation Paint By Numbers

More entertaining than it should be.

Every time I go to the local pet supply place, I feel like I’m in a low-budget independent film. Without fail, I will encounter something odd, or have/overhear a strange conversation with an employee there.

Like on Valentine’s Day when I asked the checkout woman how she was, and she launched into a monologue about how her ex-boyfriend had given her this necklace, the kind with half a heart, and how he kept the other half, and did that mean he wanted to get back together?

Or the customer demanding to see the manager and saying as he headed off to the aquarium department, “Well, when he gets in tell him I’m over in the seafood aisle.”

Well, today I was perusing the cat dental care aisle, when I noticed the woman a few yards down was wrestling with a two piece litterbox. She seemed to be having difficulty removing the top part. I pretended not to notice, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. After a minute or so, she muttered, “I guess I’m just mechanically challenged today”. So I offered her some help.

“Do you need some help with that?” I wandered over and looked at what she was doing, and saw that the two pieces were tied together with one of those plastic things you have to cut off. Duh, of course it doesn’t come apart.

“Well, I’m not sure. I have one cat who looks exactly like this.” She pointed at the picture of a white cat on a litter box label. “She’s about 10 pounds. I have another one who is small. I mean, he was supposed to get bigger, that’s what the vet said. Oh well, $500 later, what are you gonna do? And I have a Himalayan.”

So…what did all of this have to do with getting those two plastice pieces apart? At this point I realized I was in trouble. She continued.

“So anyway they crap a lot. And I’m confused about liners, and filters, and all of this.”

I asked her how many litter boxes she had, for these three cats, and if she used scoop or clay litter.

“One. And I use the scoop kind. They are very particular about the smell, you know, they only like the scoop kind.”

I’m still not sure what she was asking me, so I tried to sum up. “Perhaps you should consider getting a second box? My vet recommends at least one box for each cat in the household.”

“Oh, I’m going to get two new boxes today. Hmm. The big one wouldn’t even fit in here. What’s the difference between the liners? Where do the filters go?”

Sigh. She pointed to 7 or 8 items on the rack and asked me what they are for. What’s that? Where does that go? What size? I’m finding it hard to belive at this point that this woman has ever had a cat. But she has three. I explained you didn’t need to use a liner with the scoop litter, and the the filters fit into the little grid thing on the litter box hoods. I explain the liners are really just like little garbage bags, and I see on her face that it finally sinks in.

And then she says, with concern in her voice…

“Oh. My son is terrified of bags.”

What? What on earth?

“Yeah, I used them to teach him not to climb on the counter. You know, I would crinkle them.”

So now she’s gone from crazy cat lady to just plain crazy lady. Did it not occur to her that instilling a fear of bags into her child might cause a problem or two down the road? Crazy lady asks Billy to please take out the trash. Billy screams AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGH NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! and collapses in a quivering puddle of fear.

At this point I decided I was done and had to get away. “So…good luck with…everything”, grabbed my jug of litter, and bolted.

Now, at this point I was thinking what a great story this was. So I came home and started telling it to some friends. It wasn’t until I said it all out loud that I realized she must have said something like, “Oh. This one is terrified of bags.”

A cat. Not a son. Not a child. The whole stay-off-the-counter thing suddenly made a lot more sense.

So now the story is even funnier to me, but mostly because I’m dense.

It’s Wednesday. Trash Day. Guess who is back?

Yep. The Bandit. It’s been a few weeks, but he struck again today.

I find it strangely comforting now when we find the can on the lawn. It’s as if everything is in its place, and there’s harmony in the world.