Pepper Imposter

Black pepper is, without a doubt, my most favorite spice. In fact, I find it quite interesting that it’s called a “spice” – I think of it more as a staple. A necessity, really. Like water or legumes or Snickers Ice Cream bars. I do not understand how people dislike pepper. It’s practically the most perfect thing ever – not as acerbic as salt or as fiery as cayenne or as halitosis-inducing as garlic powder.

To be asked to eat something without pepper is, to me, sacrilegious. And though I could never not shake, shake, shake black pepper on a dish I’m about to devour, there is nothing worse than the counterfeit, contemptible “pepper” that adorns restaurant tables.

It’s positively blasphemous. I do not understand how eateries and fast food joints get away with serving those gray and black flakes of dandruff. Horrific! Such an imitation.

For the love of food! Please, please dear restaurants and Dunkin’s, diners and delicatessens, dives and McD’s – please. Can you just provide your devoted customers with some friggin pepper grinders?

There is nothing better than fresh ground pepper. Especially when the peppercorns are black and red and green and white. My oh my! I kiss the glass those shriveled berry balls reside in. It's so unbelievably satisfying to flip over that bottle and grind away, to shake those fresh, fresh specks over salad. Or soup. Or, as is usually the case with me, an entire plate.
Pepper really makes the dish. Every dish, every time.

So why the fjkeajfka do restaurateurs – or households, for that matter – use the imitation stuff? It gives black pepper a bad name. And those packets! Those stupid, minute little packets. Do they really deem that a SERVING? They are such a joke. This isn’t salt, people. A pinch will certainly NOT do.

The pepper found in packets and shakers is pretty much The New York Times ripped and shredded and chopped into diminutive crumbs. That’s why they want you to recycle newspapers, duh, so they can make black pepper out of them!


Lets all start a boycott, shall we? No more using those faux flakes that dining institutions call “pepper”. It really is an insult to the Piper nigrum and its most hallowed, venerable vines.

Ah. In my dreams. If only I had the strength to reject that phony black pepper. Alas, I cannot. The second food is in front of me I reach for that paltry, pathetic shaker. Perhaps it’s mental, but I suppose I would rather suffer through the imitation stuff than eat something that has not been properly peppered.

So until pepper grinders are omnipresent on both plaid, plastic tablecloths and in polished oak dining rooms ‘round the world, I suppose that shaking the bejesus out of the sports section will have to suffice.

Sigh.

The Voice in My Head.

I've always had an odd, somewhat demanding relationship with the voice in my head. And the one in other people’s heads for that matter.

I remember going on a road trip when I was little. My older brother was driving me caaa-razy (for once - usually it was the other way around). He would not stop humming the Star Wars theme song.

And his humming was by no means quiet.

“Sing it in your head!!” I yelled. Then proceeded to pout and pester and push...and pout...until he stopped (not much has changed, one might notice...oh how I kept up - er, keep up - such a façade of innocence).
Who knows what happened (I do have a horrific memory, after all), but I seem to recall being laughed at. My parents thought it was funny that I would say such a thing.

Sing a song in your head. HA.

What’s wrong with that request, I ask? Does no one else have this kind of relationship with the goddamn voice in their noggin? Oh, perhaps instead you prefer - à la Trissi - to talk out loud to yourself.
No, no. Everyone’s got that tiny little angel. And that big fat devil (happy 20th Homer!) - they’re called thoughts.

Man oh man, I even made the horrifyingly obtuse assumption that everyone’s inner-voice (as in all people all over the world) - speaks English. You know, just like me.

Such a patronizingly American supposition.

(In my defense, I was young and naïve when I thought this and really had no concept of the human mind and that it’s possible for people to think in their own tongue. Silly, silly moi.)

Nevertheless, I am f-e-d u-p with the loud, whiny, abusive, relentless, enabling voice inside my head.
Totes O.I.

(That means over it for those of you not down with my colloquialisms.)

From my youth onward, I’ve been hyper-aware of that noisy little monster that sounds, unsurprisingly, just like me. (And I do mean monster.)

We have an extremely tumultuous and tempestuous relationship.

I’ve judged the voice. Tried (unsuccessfully) to squelch it. Disagreed with it. Paid attention to it (perhaps not as often as I should). Told it to shut-the-eff-up cooooountless times.
But there is one regard I have towards the voice that blows all other feelings out of the water. I find that, more than anything, I am angry with my stupid, vapid inner-voice.

It manages at last to work out the perfect sentence, form the perfect speech - then goes and forgets everything before I can say it aloud or write it down.

It tells me my outfit is nice when in reality...ah hem. (Exhibit A - yikes).

It tells me not to eat that fifth cookie, then completely rationalizes my eating it by saying I’ll be good starting tomorrow.

It keeps me awake at night. Good LORD does it keep me awake at night. Insomniarama indeed. No matter how tired my body may be, that little voice inside my head just keeps talking and talking and talking. Nada but nonsense.

Unfortunately, though, it seems like I’m stuck with that damn voice for as long as we both shall live.

Wamp wamp.

Blue Pen Blues

I love making lists. Grocery shopping lists, invite lists, to-do lists.

In fact, I think it’s one of the most fulfilling tasks (of those most mundane tasks that we must fulfill): to write a to-do list and, one by one, cross things off.

Sometimes all the time I add things to my to-do list that I’ve already done, or am in the process of doing, simply so I can cross them off. So I can obtain those little bubbles of achievement before they burst away.
But there is – of course – a catch to my afternoon-list-making delight. A snag in my willingness to write something down and put that perfectly symmetrical X through it. An impediment that leaves me unready, unwilling, and unable to enjoy making a To-Do.

You see...if there is nada but a blue pen present, I simply don’t delight in writing things down and crossing them off. Blue pens leave me listless – in all senses of the word. (How I love the English language! Hooray for homographs!)

Blue ink is positively inferior to black ink. It’s purposeless. Red pens, fine. Teachers wouldn’t know what to do with themselves sans their correctors.

But blue pens? Pointless!
Now don’t misunderstand me. I don’t dislike the color blue. Aqua oceans and cerulean skies are two of my most favorite things. I love the color navy (those sailors aren’t all that bad either). Blue eyes are purdy – though common to a fault.

My point is, I ain’t haterating on the hue de blue – just blue BICs. And Pilots. And Paper Mates. And Zebras. And Pentels.

Poor paper! It’s poisoned by that pernicious, boring, humdrum fad of a color, that stupid, senseless indigo ink.
Poor handwriting! My old fashioned a’s just don’t look as significant and stately in blue as they do in black. Ugh, and it makes barely legible scribbles positively hieroglyphic.


Poor eyes! I feel sorriest for them of all. Those sad, sad little orbs. They actually have to pay attention to that ink long enough to decipher words from its dizzying, unsavory grip.

I daresay the institution of the blue pen is unprofessional. It belongs in middle school along with the other pink, purple, teal, and orange ballpoint misfits.
Believe you me, I loved colored ink! But that phase of my life ended with the last bell of my last class. As it should have ended for everyone with a job. We’re in the real world now, people. This isn’t a place for pretty ink pens – that includes you, blue.



If I can’t find one of my black Pentel R.S.V.P's (medium point, naturally), on my mess of a desk, and there’s only a blue BIC in my line of vision, I seriously think twice about writing something down.

Then I wonder how the hell a blue pen got into my cube.

Then, later, I scold myself for forgetting what I had to do.

All because someone invented blue goddamn pens!
 
Let me just leave you with this thought: There is a reason for the Black Pen Only rule on very important forms and documents.

Easy Difficult Bake Oven

It’s kind of funny that my cooking career peaked before I was 25. Here’s hoping my future husband enjoys making dinner!

I kid...kind of.

Not that I don’t like to cook. I love making intricate, difficult, delicious meals with tons of ingredients.

But now that I live by myself - what’s the point? Part of what I enjoyed most about cooking is sharing the meal, watching other people enjoy it. Both filling and fulfilling!

Me, myself, and I really don’t really give two shits about gourmet dins.

Well maybe I would if I could - but I can’t so I don’t. You see, my rabbit hutch is rather ill equipped to handle any sort of epicurean feast. It’s not properly outfitted with real, grownup kitchen crockery and the sort (I am one of those few miserable NYC folks who went from having a dishwasher to not having one…devastation).
So because it’s just me, and because I don’t have a real stove (or any counter space whatsoever), and because I’m essentially cooking in my bedroom (it’s quite strange), I never really make much.

Boring, yes, but I eat the same thing practically every night: grilled chicken, veg, potato. Sometimes couscous. Maybe spaghetti and meatballs every now and again.

The keyword? Easy. You see, being the spoiled brat that I am, my mom still has a major hand in my dinner. She buys, trims, pounds, marinates, and grills me chicken breasts every time I see her. Which I, in turn, freeze and defrost as needed.

All I have to do is microwave a plastic wrapped potato and boil some brocc or asparagus and voilà - dinna is served.

(Wow, this all sounds quite disgusting. But hey, you’s gotta eat. And it does beat Ramen for sure.)
When I was home sick last week aaaaall I wanted was my mother’s chicken soup. Unfortunately I’m not super duper spoiled rotten - Trissi didn’t make me a pot and hand-deliver it to NYC.

She did, however, share her recipe - and I took matters into my own hands. Yessiree, I put my kitchenette to use and made my very own chicken soup.

Boy oh boy was it a pain in the ass.

I felt like a five year old making a cake in my Easy Bake Oven. Except instead of two ingredients - water and powder - I was juggling ten.

The most difficult part was the chopping. While I don’t have any counter space, I do have a little (very little) chopping block/cart type thing.
Using only paper towels and plates - I haven’t ever used a cutting board in this apartment - I impatiently chopped a sweet onion. I de-stringed, sliced, and minced five stalks of celery. But there was no where to put my chopped goods!

I had to use my bed as a surface while I diced half a bag of mini carrots and some large white mushrooms.

It was annoying. Infuriating. Troublesome. Tiresome!
As if making soup isn’t difficult enough - the all-encompassing time consuming-ness, the plethora of ingredients, the tasting and re-tasting, the stupid, insipid, never-ending simmering - I had to do all of this on a stove the size of a school desk...
...in an apartment the size of a r____t h____h. (Fill in the blanks. Though I do make fun of my apartamento mucho, I love it so and hate to talk too much smack).

Luckily there were no disasters. There was spillage and spitting from the simmering pot, and droppage of the choppage onto the floor. There were dishes and pots and silverware galore (cooking with no dishwasher is madness, I tell you, madness). There was too much soup for my small pot.

But in the end…unlike that funfetti cake I baked that poured out over the top of the pan and coated the bottom of my easy bake oven…there was, indeed, success.

Mmm mmmmm goooooood.

Close Encounters of the Awkward Kind

Now it’s really kind of crazy - insane even - that we New Yorkers manage to bump into people in a city of 8 million. Frequently, even. Goddamn run-ins with people we do not want to see!

Nuts.
What is it about this island? Seriously. Maybe Manhattan has some supernatural powers - like the island on Lost (so sad for the last season!) - and being the vindictive little shit it is, this island just can’t help itself from causing cataclysmic run-ins of an über awkward kind.
I’m sorry, dearest Big Apple, that some lowly inhabitants choose to litter and pee and spit and puke all over your glittery streets - but why take it out on the innocents?

Come on NYC Gods! I’m a good kid! Goody two-shoes even! I never ever (fine, hardly ever) do anything bad to hurt your feelings! So why you’s gotta hurt mine?

Yeah, it could be way worse. I could run into an old boss. Or a rival-sorority archenemy. Or an ex. Or an ex and his new girlfriend.
Thankfully the Manhattan Mystics have spared me from any sort of reaaaaally problematic melodramatic encounter.

But what is up with the universe, yo? Is it sending us signs? Am I supposed to be bff’s with that chick I couldn’t stand in college? Am I meant to marry that dude I went out with a few times? Should I never have quit that awful, awful job? Who knows.

Whatever the spectral spirits of NYC are trying to tell us by throwing people from our pasts into our present paths, well. I effing hate it.

It’s plain awkward!
There I am, huffing and puffing down the street, bebopping to my iPod, and suddenly someone catches my eye. Then there’s the token “Oops, I’m caught” darting glance away. Followed by the holy shit is that who I think it is oh.my.god.oh.my.god shit, shit, shit!!!!! re-glance.
It makes me want to cover myself with my bag, celeb-style. Ugh!

Perhaps my most horrific, most embarrassingly awkward run-in was with someone who I’d kissed (innocently enough) and given my number to (hey, I was tipsy).

Imagine my sober dismay the following day when this guy friended me on Facebook, called and left a message (of course I screened - he wanted to hang out - eek!), then actually had the audacity to text me. It was like Drew Barrymore’s character on He’s Just Not That Into You complaining about endless technology portal problemos - except dude was too into me).
The beauty of said technology, though, is that we can ignore. Dismiss. Delete. Defriend. Block. Screen. Sidebar.
 
However, technology does not save you (unfortunately) from face to face runs-ins. I saw aforementioned freak-of-nature-super-stalker at a party. I pretended to ignore. I played dumb.
It did not work. He approached. Red face, palpitations, and sweaty palms ensued. And I don’t mean the “Oh I like this boy!” kind. More like the “Oh dead LORD this guy is going to stalk and kill me” kind. Horrendous.

And you know, one would think that sunglasses would make you at least a little incognito on street-side run-ins - but no (if they don’t work for celebrities, they’s certainly not gonna work for us common folk). I recently ran into someone I’d had a bit of a crush on plodding along in the Village with a short, mousy brunette. Can we say complete opposites?
 
My Jackie O disguise failed. Uncomfortably unpleasant conversation ensued. N.o. D.a.n.k.e.s!
Alas, I was psyched that I’d put a tad bit of effort into my appearance that morning. Phew!

And so dearest, maniacal, nasty ass universe - all I ask is this: Please oh please oh please at least let me look super cute if I ever have to endure one of those cataclysmic run-ins of an über awkward kind.

Yikes!

Not-So-Sweet Heat

What is it up with New York City radiators? I cannot stand their noise!

Sure, they’ve probably not been switched out or updated in decades. And they do work ten times harder than the average radiator (that’s why we NYCers keep our AC on in the wintertime).

Perhaps they’re so over tenants demanding heat from them. Well, not tenants - landlords. (Seriously, why don’t property owners realize how much MONEY they would save if they knocked down the temp a few degrees in all the buildings in all the city?)

Anyway, so unfortunately I stayed home sick from work last Friday - bronchitis. Wamp wamp!
In my Ventolin-Advair-Levaquin-hydrocodone-NyQuil semi-hallucinatory state, I truly thought the heater was alive and out to get me.

Like the one that Macaulay Culkin was so petrified of in Home Alone.

Unlike Macaulay, though, when I was a youngin’ I liked the heaters in our house. Only now, in my later years do I have a troublesome relationship with them.

I find myself very much annoyed with my radiator’s raving racket. Scared, even, of its clinking and clanking (well, kinda - it was the meds I tell you!)

I get positively peeved at its splishing and splashing and steaming and hissing and roaring and rattling and clattering. Ugh.
What happened to the lovely heaters of yesteryear?

I have such fond memories of our little farmhouse furnaces. Sweet heat, indeed!

I remember taking bowls of Neapolitan ice cream and hiding in the corner near the couch in our living room. I would sit atop the floor vents, waiting for the heat to kick on, slowly eating my sugary snack.

After a seeming eternity, the furnace would get down to business, sending up hot air through the rectangular vent - the time had come for ice cream soup.


Though I never much liked how the ice cream turned brown - so boring - I would stir and stir and watch it melt. Then I would drink down the melty, messy, soup with sheer delight.

But the sweetness of the heatness didn’t end there!



The day Airheads found their way into the Parry household - what a day. We were quite taken with those tart slabs-o-taffy. Thank the lord for Costco and their big bargain boxes!
We had a little grey space heater in our kitchen and one day my mom (who has quite a sweet tooth - methinks that’s where I get it from), laid the Airhead on top of the heater.
I’m sure you can all guess what happened - the tough-to-chew Airhead became soft as putty. Boy was it delish!

So you see, heat in NYC is not so sweet. I suppose I could put a bowl of ice cream on top of my radiator (I wouldn’t dare put an airhead on that dirty behemoth) - but I don’t want to turn the rattling radiator on for all its noise, noise, noise!

Sadness.
I guess there’s nothing I can do. It’s a fight I cannot win. I could not beat the heater in a battle of wits. It’s always going to be loud and obnoxious and scary and clinky and clanky and grouchy. So I suppose I’ll just pile on another blanket.

I miss the days of ice cream soup and soft, melty Airheads. Sigh.

Now all I have to look forward to is a delirious night’s sleep under one too many quilts.

Stop (Auto) Correcting Me!

As a self proclaimed member of the Grammar Police Brigade, I daresay their’s nothing more embarassing then comitting a foh pah.

Ha. Ha.

And yet...I have a love/hate relationship with the Institution of the Auto Correct & Format.

I’d say it sways more toward love a lot of the time. But there have been so many instances lately, mostly on the good old iPhone, where I simply want to gouge out Mr. Auto Correct’s metaphoric eyes. Stop watching me auto correct, you sleek, slender creep!

(And let it be said that I know auto correct can be added and taken away...a technicality for the sake of this entry.)

Fine, I appreciate auto correct most of the time. It’s better to be shamed by an electronic genius in the privacy of my apartment than to cringe and cower when I notice that I’ve spelled something as simple as “occasion” wrong on the world wide web. (That word! Always! Dammit.)

I fear that Microsoft Outlook (GASP!) deserves a big shout out too. Buddy boy tells me when I’ve messed up words in my work emails. He even capitalizes my name for me when my Shift-key-reach doesn’t take. Kitschy lingo flies on Urban Dictionary and Gmail, but it don’t so much fly in an office enviro, got my drift yo?

And though the instances may be (very) few and (very) far between (ha), I am grateful for the time or two where auto correct has called me out on my erroneous homophone usage.

But other than THAT. Seriously auto correct, you pompous ass you! If I’ve made a fragment, then it’s probably on purpose. So shut UP, no I do NOT want to “consider revising” thank you very much. Otherwise I’d screw up the whole point I was trying to get across.

And why the red and green scary underline colors? Though I love, love, love Christmas, I think that’s a little small-minded of you, auto correct. Get some culture up in there.

And update your dictionary. I should not have to “Add” words for you. Get off your lazy ass. It is not my job to

overhaul your entire electronic system. Bonafide is, actually, a real word. So quit it with your threatening dotted red line.

Perhaps I’m more readily able to forgive Word and Works and Pages and, fine, Spell Check in general (though Blogger’s spell check is horrendous - I’m talking dark ages vocabulary), because they prevent abysmal mortification.
But iPhones? In. Sane. Insane I tell you! Yes, texting is faster and easier and lovelier than having to press actual keys. But the downside is that your clumsy fat thumbs get in the way a lot and, so, misspellings are quick to transpire.

iPhone is great when he hits his stride, when he’s being telepathic and reading my mind. I get so excited when a word that looks NOTHING like what it’s meant to be actually pops up after you hit the space key. WAHOO!!



Then there are times that I completely lose faith with the phone. I want to shout at it and, again, gouge its stupid eyes out.

For instance: twas becoming tWas. Why the capital W, iPhone? What language do you speak? Don’t you think that capital W is a little unnecessary? Far too excessive iPhone, shame on you.

And stop capitalizing my abbreviation for tomorrow. I don’t have any friends named Tom.

Quit trying to make “etter” into “errrr” - that’s three letters off! Add ONE letter instead and you’ve got “better” - DUH. Get with the program, iPhones!

Your Maker (Mac-er) is totes brill - so why aren’t you up to snuff yet?

Oh Hi, Dry.

That was a very begrudging “Hi” indeed. An extremely dry “Hi” if you will.

Cause you see, I did NOT miss you at ALL, dry skin.You know, I don’t think I will ever run out of things to No Dankes when it comes to wintertime. And fall and early spring, for that matter.

I’m gonna knock it up a notch. I daresay I hate the bitter cold that is descending upon us for the unforeseeable future.

But when it comes to winter, I despise one element most of all. You see, with winter comes fake heat. And fake heat squeezes the shit out of any moisture our skin can muster. Squanders it. Squashes.

Add to this the superfluous amount of germs. flu germs, namely (which have been running exceptionally rampant this winter! Which translates to more hand washing. Incessant hand washing, actually. (For me, at least.)

I dread the time of year when the heat comes on and the flakes come out (skin not snow). Dehydrated epidermis is awful yo. Awful!

Hot showers are no longer soothing, they’re your worst enemy. I can literally feel my skin contracting, tightening, shriveling into itself after a hot shower. So I make some sacrifices and have a far less enjoyable warm shower instead. Under five minutes (as all showers should be).

Radiators and heat vents are no longer beacons of inviting warmth, but lamentable purveyors of the dreaded - eek - cracked, raw skin.
 

And beware of that pipe running through the corner of your apartment - it is most likely HOT and will undoubtedly BURN YOU. Trust me, I speak from experience.

As if it’s not bad enough that every square centimeter of our winter bodies are red and split and flaking and itching and painful, there’s not a single good remedy for it.

Sure, drink more water. Yeah, like that will do anything. That’s like telling a plant to go find some shade in the middle of the Sahara.

Then there’s: Go put some put lotion on. But of course! Let me just sting the shit out of my poor, poor skin even more. And while it’s burning and flaming and apparently being zapped by a thousand little needle heads, let me try to pick up my can of soda.

But oh, wait, there goes my drink everywhere because it slipped through my slick, greased up hands (this happened to me last week...all over the book I was reading - devastation).

With the advent of wintertime, we become a society of geriatrics - what with our Head and Shoulders, our Lubriderm, our moisture sockies and glovies, our nonstop, 24/7 humidifiers, our omnipresent Vaseline.

It’s a battle, I tell you. A fight against the radiator, the institution of showering, against itchy wool sweaters and bottles of alcohol-based hand sanitizers (60% minimum!), against the icy, cutting wind outside, and hot-air, thirst-inducing office vents within.

It is a very serious, very expensive, very painful battle.

Painful and expensive indeed! This may be a little TMI but my come winter, my legs get so dry they could moonlight as a dried up lake in Death Valley under a microscope. And dry (for me), means itchy. Obviously the last thing you should do when something itches is scratch it.

That’s what landed me an Rx for Cordran Lotion. Liquid gold - literally. That little 60 mL bottle is $50 - with insurance. Without it, gah...I shudder at the thought.

Cordran is a lifesaver. It has saved me from my rabid, scratching self on many occasions. But as it’s pretty much the price of gold, I restrict its usage to very exception(ally bad) occasions. For everyday I use Lubriderm - 13-15 pumps worth for each leg.

That’s.a.lotta.lotion.

While I’m whiling away winter cause it empties my pockets, Johnson & Johnson is loving every second. Rolling in the dough. Man oh man they must sell a shitload of lotion. Ugh.

Reduce.Reuse.Recyle, Retards!

I’m not gonna pretend I’m all “Save Mother Earth” all the time. Of course I waste electricity, paper, water. I am human. But I think what sets me apart from a whole slew of other peeps is that I’m hyper aware of it.

I’m aware of what/how much I waste and put forth (some) effort in curbing it. I don’t take long showers (though that’s twofold - I don’t want me no dry skin), I turn the water off when I brush my teeth, I use a Nalgene bottle, I b.y.o.bag when I go grocery shopping, and - most importantly - I recycle.

Yes friends and foes, kiddies and cousins, moms and pops and grans and gramps, remember those three clever R’s - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle? Well you need to start abiding by that mantra. Like, yesterday, yo!

I know, I know. We city dwellers have it made. It’s as simple as dragging our bags downstairs and eeny, meeny, miny, moe-ing between garbage (plain aluminum), glass and plastic (blue), and paper products (green). Yes, it’s even color coded. Foolproof!

But for you non-city folk, recycling takes effort. It’s different when you’re the one in charge of properly disposing of recyclables (i.e. making trips to da dump - Papa P’s favorite pastime). It’s a pain in the ass. I hear ya! But I’m telling you, you need to suck it up and comply. No ifs ands or buts.

Last week I had dinner at Whole Foods and, come clean up time, was utterly befuddled by their trash system. They’s got a shit ton of garbage options!: landfill, food and dirty napkin waste for compost, clean paper products for recycling, glass, cans, excess COFFEE, omg can’t even remember what else.

I stood there dumbfounded, reading and rereading the instructions before Kelly led me by example. It was bananas.

I know, guys. Not only is recycling a pain in the buttocks, it can also be intimidating. You might feel stupid and silly for a couple of minutos. Perhaps you’ll even feel put-upon (how DARE you ask ME to do some of the sorting, Waste Management!! Who do you think you are, huh? Huh!?!)

This is understandable. Whole Foods and some new fangled sports venues (à la Yankees Stadium) do guilt trip you into recycling - I concur. But they do so with good reason. Don’t you leave those trash cans feeling like you’ve accomplished something, like you’ve made your carbon footprint smaller? Infinitesimally so, yes, but still. Smaller.

And that, my friends, is what it’s all about.

Now please, I don’t henceforth want to be called Preacher Parry - but come on peeps. Get off yer lazy asses and at least, at LEAST start taking proper care of your glass and plastic containers. Maybe even b.y.o.bags when you go shopping. Sing it Maria: Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start!
I cringe - literally cringe - when I see people tossing their Mountain Dew n’ Bud Light bott’s into the garbage right along with their Big Mac leftovers (yikes, musta gotten sick before they could even finish!) Or when I see people swigging out of Poland Springs bottles at the gym. Or when I see piles of soiled newspapers sitting on the sidewalk.

I hate it when certain stupid, lazy citizens of this country - people with full use of their legs AND complete access to recycling bins - toss their no good, very bad toxic containers into landfill-bound garbage cans. They do so without a second thought as to where it’ll end up.

To those of who could care less about doing a good deed, about helping out our planet (oh BOY do I sound mushy or what?? Shut UP Parry!), at least do it for the cash incentive. 5¢ surely ain’t much, but if you collect a whole bunch of 5¢-ers, you could at least buy yourself a few rounds of PBR!

I’ll leave you with this:

“Every year, Americans throw away 50 billion food and drink cans, 27 billion glass bottles and jars, and 65 million plastic and metal jar and can covers. More than 30% of our waste is packaging materials. Where does it all go? Some 85% of our garbage is sent to a dump, or landfill, where it can take from 100 to 400 years for things like cloth and aluminum to decompose.”

That is deeeeesgusting. So let’s quit it, shall we?

(Whew, have I missed my mission in life? Environmental Activist? I think not. But the least you can do is check out recycling areas near you. And yeah, I fully expect a PBR paid for by recycled cans when next we meet.)

FU, Fall-izing

Ooooooobviously you all know my disdain for fall. And winter, for that matter. I don’t really enjoy dead leaves on the ground, no leaves on the trees, everything brown, nothing green, days getting dark so early, days that are freezing and windy and rainy and grey.

What I like even less, though, is the prep work that goes into getting ready for these depression-inducing months. Serotones is slipping! Seriously, bears have it MADE. I wish I wish I wish I could hibernate the fall and winter and early spring away!

Alas, we humans have no such luxury. Life is just so unfair! We must slip and fall on stupid slick leaves and plod through dirty, icy, sloppy slush. And to do so, we need to be somewhat prepared.

I have held off for as long as I possibly could. But it’s been in the back of my mind: I had to succumb to fallizing sooner or later. So I sucked it up and ripped that band aid off. Major ouch.

For some people, fallizing is “fun”. It’s “enjoyable”. Something they “look forward too”. These people are the reason serial killers exist. (Hence why Ocean State Job Lot is still in business). For them it’s all excitement all the time. They just cannot WAIT to break out the red and orange table cloths, the apple and cinnamon candles, the faux pumpkins, the goose-neck gourds. Me oh me oh my!

If only “fallizing” was that easy pour moi.

But no. You see, unfortunately my rabbit hutch can only accommodate two seasons at a time. Fall/winter and spring/summer. In other words, my entire closet, shoe rack, dresser, and all of my under-the-bed storage bins much be switched out.

Thankfully I have Tim and Trissi for parents and they dutifully bring in all my winter clothes, or summer clothes, to be swapped with the opposite season’s goods. (Hmm...I wonder how old I have to be for that super-duper-favor to stop...)

My horrific-cold-weather clothes have been trickling in since last month. But, ever the dreader, those freshly dry cleaned sweaters have been forming a formidable mountain on the floor in my one available corner.

So last night, after bickering back and forth with myself, I made a compromise. IF I didn’t go to the gym, THEN I had to change over the ole wardrobe and clean.

An hour and a half into it, I surely wished I had chosen the stupid elliptical. Dust bunnies GALORE. I’m telling you, there was enough furry grey particles full of hair to cover a giant rabbit. It was deeee-sgust-ing. So disgusting I can’t even bring myself to read what else dust is comprised of - hair and dead skin particles are enough to induce vomit.

I packed up strappy sandal after strappy sandal (thinking, perhaps, that I have too many strappy sandals), open-toe flats, flip flops. I tearfully unhung flowy, flowery frocks and replaced them with drab, sweltering sweater dresses. I neatly removed the mountain-o-sweaters from my floor and piled them on the top shelf in my closet. I sadly pulled out heap after heap of tank tops and short-sleeved shirts and put turtlenecks - TURTLENECKS - in their place.

Then I attacked the bunnies. Boy were they crazy, hyped up bunnies. Flying all sorts of everywhere, sticking to my legs, dashing just out of reach the second I tried to scoop them into the dustpan. It took a very, very long time. I swept my floor for fifteen minutes straight - that’s practically a minute per square foot. Nuts! And I washed it. Twice.

Then I dusted. But again, I’s not gonna go into details cause I don’t want to think what’s in the dust.

I tackled the bathroom, the “kitchen”, I Windex-ed the mirrors, the hanging pictures, cleaned the surface of my TV, the top of my fridge, my microwave, my stove. Then I thought, wow. I’m not just fallizing. Oh no. It’s much worse than that. I’m spring cleaning. But it’s fall.
I’M SORRY, THERE’S FALL CLEANING, TOO?????? Omg.

Sure, the bunnies wouldn’t be so bountiful if I kept after their grey, furry little asses. Fine. All I can say is I’m soooooo happy that switching out seasonal wardrobes is something that only comes but twice a year.