Bringing the Drama

well, it’s not really a mailbag, but i got this unsolicited email today from one of my 6 readers:

You need to post another blog post soon. It’s screwing up my daily reading not to have one.

this week i’ve dealt with drama at work, made two kinds of muffins at the same time, after tomorrow will have gone to 3 Hornets games, and been able to get at least 6 hours of sleep a night. i haven’t really been inspired to blog about any of it yet though. sorry reader, but your patience will hopefully be rewarded soon.

also, i’ve been noticing that people are finding my blog by searching for ‘letters of disappointment’. they are finding my entry from back in September where i wrote about how i was disappointed over a band and the Saints mostly. why would people search for letters like that though? can’t you just come up with a letter on your own about how someone is making you sad? would you really need to get inspiration from googling the term? now i’m disappointed in them. it’s a vicious cycle.

and now a couple of links i’ve seen this week:

a real life movie stunt…the guy jumped onto the roof of a moving car as his g/f was trying to get away.

a couple of guys went into a bar full of bikers and tried to rob the place with knives. GENIUS!

Thursday afternoon i had to go to the dentist to get a filling. before you think i don’t take care of my teeth, it was to fill a groove apparently produced by brushing. anyway, i hadn’t had a filling since at least high school, and the last time i had anything major with my teeth was to get my wisdom teeth taken out, also in high school. they had given me laughing gas that time, which was awesome, except for the time they left it on too long and i got sick. so i go to the dentist on Thursday and i get sent to a different exam room than the usual one at the end of the hall. i figure this room was the one where all the crazy stuff happened like fillings because there was a big poster of a tropical beach with RELAX really big on the bottom.

right after i got in there, i got the bib, and then the hygienist put some kind of cream stuff on my gums with a q-tip. no shot, and boom, that section of my mouth was numb. nice, right? no giant shots! wrong! the dentist came in a few minutes later so i was ready. i close my eyes whenever i’m at the dentist when someone has their hands in my mouth, so i was not looking as the dentist used the big needles in my mouth. i felt NOTHING though, which was awesome. the shots made half my mouth numb, and felt like the bottom part of my jaw had expanded to twice its size. no matter though, once the filling procedure started, it went pretty fast, and felt like it was done within 15 minutes. the funny part was, right as he’s beginning to do the filling, Behind These Hazel Eyes came on the radio, and i was having to tell myself not to start singing to quell the nerves because someone was drilling in my mouth. the total time in the office was probably 45 minutes. not bad at all, and no pain later. despite the painless filling adventure, i hope to not have to get one for the foreseeable future.

today i went and volunteered at this math competition called MathCounts. it’s basically some jr high kids getting together and taking some tests, then the all stars go to a state competition. i had volunteered last year, and my friend Paul and i graded some tests. this year, Paul couldn’t go, but i did, and they had too many people. they had like 25 people to do work that half that many could do. so really, i didn’t have anything to do. i did go and read a book (finally actually reading books now!). i happened to be ‘paired up’ with the most annoying guy in the room to help make sure the tests went to the right rooms. he seems all too eager to work the problems from the tests and get the answers. he was also an ex-competitor, as he wore a MathCounts shirt from 1989. (i think, it was definitely an old shirt from when he competed) i noticed he had also brought a book to read, a dating book. maybe contained in that book is a way for him to learn to tone down his personality so he doesn’t come across as “the most annoying guy in the room.”

since the turn of the new year i’ve not only been running like crazy (70+ miles so far) but i’ve also been trying to eat according to the food pyramid a bit better than before. i started paying attention to the labels on fruit juice instead of just buying the low calorie “beverage”. so now i’m drinking orange/strawberry/banana juice, plus it’s cheaper to buy than the OJ i had been buying. double score! last week there was a special on Roma tomatoes at the store, so i bought some, and i also bought a bag of salad. i actually made myself a salad at home. it was pretty good, i even added some cheese and used balsalmic vinegarette dressing.

i bought some new salad the other day and had it for lunch today. it wasn’t as good as the first kind, so i think i need to stick with what tastes good rather than what looks cool. plus i think there was too much cabbage in this new kind because it had a unique smell.

last week i also tried to make the bobby flay biscuits for a second time, trying to make them thicker so hopefully they’d come out better. i made them about twice as thick as before, and they did come out much better.

no need for jam and really no need for anything. i was also a bit more liberal with “brushing” it with the heavy cream before i put them in the oven (i just slowly poured the cream over the top of the biscuits), so that may have helped improve the moisture content and keep them from drying out like last time. the only thing that makes me want to try a third time is that i think i did not put in enough baking powder.

speaking of food and blogs, my friend Brandy started a food blog and she is really hoping people go read it (ie desparate for attention), so you should probably go check it out.

this past weekend i watched the ENTIRE All Star Saturday Night. i don’t remember doing that ever honestly. i used to rag on the NBA with regularity, but like the page being turned on the NFL, i have become a fanatic about the NBA. i bought season tickets for the Hornets for the rest of the season. THE HORNETS! with the ASG of course came all the lead up from all the national writers….”NOLA needs this…blah blah blah”. i kind of got tired of it. i got tired of it because i don’t like NOLA being a charity case anymore. we get it, the hurricane happened, we’ve moved on, people are rebuilding, life is advancing. people were doubting NOLA could pull off the ASG. seriously…after the Sugar Bowl and BCS title game with LSU, people were wondering if the ASG could go off without a hitch. well, OF COURSE everything worked out. what was cool was reading some of the articles in the aftermath. one of my favorite writers is The Sports Guy. the article he wrote made me think “he gets it”, which is surprising because he’s written stuff that kind of made you think he thought it was stupid for the NBA to keep the game here. i loved it. i’m even going to email him to tell him, and i haven’t written anyone at ESPN since college when someone wrote about Kareem and then a week later i SAW Kareem in an elevator (he wasn’t very friendly).

having the ASG here was so incredible, and it wasn’t just the basketball, which by itself was fantastic (did you see the dunk contest?!?). the day of service thing the NBA did made me feel so good. it wasn’t just some random people going out to work on houses, it was players, it was execs, it was writers, etc. i’ve hated on Kobe since he was drafted (by the Hornets!), because i remember watching the draft that night and going “dude, you just got drafted out of HS, shut up and just play!” instead of bagging the day and using his pinky as an excuse, he was out there. the commercial they ran during the ASG with the pictures from Friday made me actually say something good about Kobe Bryant.

the game itself was great, and i loved how they showed off NOLA, especially the music. it was awesome. it was cool seeing something you’ve been around for so long on tv like that. what’d be cool is if Harry Connick Jr actually played around here. he could do a residency concert set type thing and it would be great. maybe someone will figure that out one day and make it happen, just like people figured out NOLA’s not still under water.

a couple of weeks ago, my friend Peter blogged about his distaste of local Minneapolis weatherman, Keith Marler. the ridicule was later retracted, and the weatherman and Peter became email penpals. i am not sure whether or not they still keep in contact. yesterday i was reading a message board thread that is about NOLA HDTV, but somehow one of my local weather people were brought up. Dawn Brown works for the local CBS affiliate, and most of the time on the weekends is laughing hysterically just before having to explain that yes, it will rain again tomorrow….or it might not. anyway, i’m here to say i like Dawn’s broadcasts, and i blame her weekend newscast team members for making her laugh so much. actually, i think if i was them, i’d make the weather person laugh too.

(while i’m talking about local newscasters, i also want to thank Krystal Boothe for helping me navigate traffic in the morning. i know they get up at something crazy like 3 am for the morning show, which is insane, but i applaud the commitment.)

also, yesterday the local paper ran the following picture of the NOLA police chief and mayor on the front page of their website. they issued a clarification today for being stupid. with the NBA ASG coming to town this weekend, i figure the mayor is just getting ready in case Pac Man comes to town.

also also, yesterday morning my newest friend Mandy lamented about how her car doors were frozen shut in Nashville. i woke up this morning with the outside temperature below freezing, and opened my door comfortably this morning. i love my garage. though i do remember living in South Carolina the days of having to scrape my windshield. i think Mandy should just buy a real ice scraper. she’s from Missouri after all….don’t they just hand them out on November 1st?

so tonight i finally went to start down the road to being a youth group counselor. the current youth leader at my ‘home’ church, was a counselor back when i was going to youth group, so i had talked to her before just showing up. i was kind of nervous before i went. i changed shirts twice before going. i have no idea why i was worried about dressing to impress the kids, but i ended up going with the david crowder shirt over ryan adams because i figured someone would know DC. when i got there, i was faced with a room full of youth not knowing anyone but my old leader. most of the other ‘counselors’ were parents, which resulted in me having an awkward conversation with one of the fathers. it’s tough to come up with topics as the person is shredding his plastic cup. in his defense, tonight was also his first time trying to be a counselor. the guy working the sound booth is a guy who led in the dismissal of the last pastor at the church, which led to me going less and less often. i really liked our last pastor because he actually talked about Jesus and salvation and didn’t bow down to the church politics. unfortunately there are people at the church who would rather ‘yes’ people and will stoop low enough to get people transferred unwillingly. it took a lot for me not to say something like “so when’s the next coup d’etat going down?” i was also shifted from a committee that mattered to the one that worries about what kind of trees to put next to buildings because of that guy. to think he’s a normal part of the youth group now kind of makes me a bit ill. anyway, i talked with a few of the actual kids which was kind of cool. i remember being in their place, but without the nintendo DS. the meeting itself felt different….there was an actual bible lesson and worship time with a band. i don’t remember any of that happening very often when i was in youth group. i don’t remember much of how the old meetings went. i remember making advent wreaths and scavenger hunts and outrageous olympics, but none of the regular week to week meetings. one of the parents asked me how much the meetings had changed, and i really couldn’t say much other than tonight’s meeting was a big change and improvement. at the end of the meeting, my old leader introduced me so now i’m known just by my first name….kind of like madonna.

i was able to successfully avoid hearing about the clemson game until i got home to watch a recording of it. i was able to watch the entire game including the first OT and then the fox sports feed switched right before clemson was to inbound the ball with 1 second on the shot clock and 3.3 seconds to go in the first OT. THANKS YOU BUNCH OF JERKS for switching me to some kind of UFC match. i had to call my friend Bill to get a recap. what happened was what i thought would happen, after it was forced to go to OT. they just fell apart at the end of regulation with stupid plays. at least this time i was kind of preparing myself for a loss. i was not going to believe the miracle would happen until it actually did, so i was not near as upset as the last time. one day the streak will end, i know it!

yesterday afternoon i was on my way to meet up with my friend Faith to look for some dining room furniture. i had people over the other night, and after a couple of days i realized i guess i’m kind of over the whole “when i have people over some of them have to sit on the floor or in fold up chairs” thing. anyway, i’m driving to meet her, merging from one interstate to another and behind another car. we were coming up to an intersection where another lane merges with ours, but THEY have a YIELD sign. unfortunately, most people ignore this sign and are fine to cut people off in order to force their way in. this can be especially dangerous when those people are 18 wheelers. as we start to make the gradual turn, i see a white honda odyssey coming from the lane that has the YIELD. i see the car in front of me start to hit their brakes, as if they’re going to let the honda in. i don’t like when people do that, because it’s like “why let the kid know it’s okay for them to do a bad thing”….so i start honking my horn. the car notices and keeps going. the van on the other hand also keeps going. she starts driving on the shoulder and forcing her way in. it was a van and there could be kids in it, so i wasn’t going to force her off…she was already doing it to herself anyway. i laid on my horn to let her know what was up. of course, a few expletives flew out of my mouth too, but people can’t see or hear those in other cars. we come down to get on the interstate and i pull along side the van, ready to flip her off (because that’s what i normally do to these people who think they are above obeying common courtesy and the LAWS OF TRAFFIC!) as i turn i see she’s got her 5 or 6 year old son in the passenger seat. so instead of flipping her off, i just kept going. i hated that she used her son as some kind of excuse to cut me off. like i was supposed to just let her drive like an idiot because she had a kid in the car. i’m sure she was explaining to her son that i was crazy for blowing my horn at her, instead of saying “no son, i cut him off when i blew threw that yield sign. even with you in the car i drive like a stupid person.” i thought later yesterday afternoon that i SHOULD have flipped her off anyway, because then that might have been the first time her son had seen anyone flip anyone off, and then she’d have to explain to him why i was doing that. i could have been ‘that’ guy. stupid morals.

yesterday i made the bobby flay biscuits. i stopped by the store the night before to get the necessary ingredients, because i don’t keep things like heavy cream and buttermilk in stock regularly. i went to the nicer of the two grocery stores i frequent (the other being walmart) since i was nearby and figured they’d have what i needed. they did have all the items i needed and then some. there was a teenage kid standing near the dairy aisle helping people. he was so new to employment at the store he had a nametag sticker instead of a real name tag. the shirt he had on was from the store, so he wasn’t some random kid helping people pick out items. i figured i’d let him help me find stuff since he was standing there anyway and most people were just brushing past to get a gallon of milk or something.

i woke up and cleared off some counter space. fortunately since i had people over Sunday night, there was some counter already cleared off. i keep a normally cluttered kitchen.

i combined the dry ingredients and then cut up the butter. also, i did ALL of this without a mixer or a rolling pin, both things which could have been useful, esp the rolling pin. i hadn’t really thought of the rolling pin, but i figured i could get by without a mixer.

i added the butter and the buttermilk, and the dough started to come together. i tried the whisk, but that was a bad idea. dough just started sticking to the whisk, so i cleaned it off and went to using my hands. that worked much much much better.

i set out the flour on the counter in preparation for spreading out the dough and cutting the biscuits.

i couldn’t find a ruler to measure how thick the dough was, so i used my fingers.

since i don’t have biscuit cutters either, i went to the versatile and widely used stadium cups.

with the biscuits cut, i spread them out on the cookie sheets with the parchment paper. i had not thought about getting a basting brush, so brushing the heavy cream on the biscuits was done with a paper towel. i had bought a pepper grinder to put the “not coarse, not fine” pepper on. it worked great.

i put the biscuits in the oven and melted down the butter that would go over the top once the biscuits were done in the oven.

once they were out, i poured the butter over, and waited for them to cool. they came out a bit thin, but the dough i think was too thin, so i wasn’t that surprised. i’m sure if i make these again (the jury is still out on that) i’ll use a rolling pin. the lumpy one that was the result of the remainder of the dough, that came out thick, was really good.

i did not make the jam that was supposed to go with the biscuits, but upon eating the biscuits, i realized why the jam would be good. they had a taste of “biscuits not meant to be the only thing you eat”….you need the flavor of the jam. the biscuits were good, but i think they came out a bit dry. i think that had more to do with how thin then were then the recipe. overall i’d give them an incomplete and will probably try to make them again with the use of a rolling pin and probably make them thicker. i still have the heavy cream and buttermilk, so i need to use that stuff anyway….unless i find a recipe before next week that can use both.

i’m sure at least some of the 8 people who read my blog have seen the show Take Home Chef. i was watching it today (since i’m off today and tomorrow for mardi gras) and again noticed something i’ve seen before. today he picked up a woman who was pretty much samantha from S&tC. it was both funny and creepy at the same time. this episode came on after a less creepy episode where the woman was laughing nervously throughout. “oh, you want me to put this in the oven? hahahaha, oh curtis!” come on now. i’ve never seen him talk to a guy, and he only stops people in really nice grocery stores, which pretty much would rule me out. it’d be cool to meet up with him on my way home from the gym or something (like i stopped to get biscuit ingredients last night). too bad i shop mostly at walmart for groceries, because it’d be nice for someone to spot me in a store, buy my groceries, and then buy the necessary tools (to leave at home with me) to cook me and my friends a gourmet dinner. seriously…..some equal representation on TLC would be good…like maybe a female chef that stopped people in ALL kinds of stores, not just the ones where the orange juice is $5.

to any producer of the show, some evenings i stop at Rouse’s #22 and i can have some really cool people at my house on a moment’s notice. i also just got new stainless steel cookware and have a gas grill.

so last weekend started off well with dinner at my friends zach and faith’s house. it was good to get together and swap stories and drink margaritas….even if there were no mangoritas. the next morning, jacob and i headed down to the pub to watch soccer, grab a couple of drinks and some lunch, and most importantly a parking spot for Endymion. i hadn’t been to Endymion since ‘04, so i was kind of excited about it. plus i knew someone on one of the floats from work, so i kind of had an ‘in’. one of the fun parts about waiting around for a parade is the people watching. it was pretty easy to tell who was a tourist, who was a local, and who was from the metro area but not specifically NOLA. anyway, the parade finally starts, but is shortly after that delayed for about 20 minutes. it had JUST started to go by, so unfortunately there were no floats in front of us, just some of the doll people.

the float where i knew the guy from work was right up front, shortly after Kevin Costner, so we fought to stay up at the front. the float starts to come by, and jacob and i see Vaughn (the guy i know) and start yelling. he finally sees us, and manages to throw us a pair of gigantic disco ball beads. they were so large i had to explain how i knew a guy on a float and i didn’t buy them to go down to Bourbon St later. the parade overall was fun, but i was disappointed at the people who were ON the floats not throwing anything and rather taking pictures with their cameras or their cellphones. they are supposed to throw beads, not take pictures of the crowd. we each caught footballs, one legit and one stolen from a guy who had one go off his fingers (those are the rules, if you can’t catch it in the air, it is fair game). it was fair since jacob had missed one earlier off his hands only to have it taken by a little kid behind us. the footballs were pretty much the prize, because in our lifetimes, we’ve both caught our share of beads….so now we go after cups (nice plastic cups to use at parties) and things like footballs (that you can throw around at said parties).

sunday was the super bowl party. we have had parties around football games before, but this season resulted in both parties being Saints’ losses, even if one of them was the greatest preseason party EVER. the festivities kicked off later than i thought, which was okay because i was in the midst of making the apple pie when people started arriving. and despite the pie sharing the oven with a giant oven container full of ribs and sausage (to heat it all up, not to cook) and a loaf of garlic bread, the pie gained rave reviews. the game itself was stuff of legend. i mean, will you ever forget the play where Eli scrambed out of a sure sack then to throw a bomb down field to a guy who made a leaping catch using his HELMET to help secure the ball? that was probably the greatest play i’ve seen in any super bowl. then the Giants actually won…it was pretty unbelievable. and contrary to one of the pictures taken, i did not celebrate doing pushups. when the last hail mary went up, while other people stood up, i laid down on the floor to watch. i tend to do that for big huge plays that have the game riding on them. i think it may have been the first time some of my friends had watched a football game like that with me. the two Saints games were blowouts, so by the 3rd or 4th quarter, no one really was paying attention. last night though, we were all leaning forward hoping for history to be made (and by history i mean, we were all Giants’ fans last night). anyway, good friends, good food, good game, and even asher tried on my vader mask….you can’t ask for anything more.