Some Things Friday, July 10, 2009

My, my, my. I haven't done one of these in a while. But, I'm feelin' it this morning, so here goes...

Some Things I Love:

1. Today I love winter. It has been a really, really, really HOT summer this year. Bring on the cold weather. Bring on a little snow. Bring on the ice storms. Just give me a couple of weeks to get my Aerogarden started with herbs and I'm ready!

2. My new camera because I can take photos like this...



3. The wonderful 4th of July weekend we had in Memphis. We started out at B.B.King's where Tom had the biggest plate of fried dill pickles. Yes, folks, really...Fried Dill Pickles. Only a southerner could conjure up something like that. I mean, what were they thinking? "You know, I've fried the chicken, and I've fried the catfish, and I've fried the potatoes, and I've fried the okra, but I have a shit-load of grease left. Oh, I know, I'll fry some dill pickles!! Okay, I admit, I had a couple and they are not half bad. But that would also make them only half good. So anyway, after a plate of these...



...you are left with a plate of this...



...which would suggest that the grease that is left on the plate is just a small portion of the grease that WAS on the plate that is now swimming around in his arteries. Yuk!! But the weekend was great anyway!

4. Shopping online. What I can't find here, I can almost always find online, particularly for cooking Asian food.

5. Watching the critters than come into our backyard. We have birds, squirrels, rabbits and we have feeders and food for all of them to make sure we keep them coming, even in the winter.


Some Things I Hate:

1. This summer. If you knew how much I really LOVE summer, you would know that it is a huge deal for me to say I hate it. I really do love summer and I have since I was a kid growing up in Fresno. Fresno gets hot! Really hot! Even after the sun goes down, the temperatures outside can still be in the 80's and 90's. It didn't matter. I swam in our Doughboy swimming pool, rode my bike, climbed trees. I hated being inside. I was always outside. I'm not much different now. But, this summer here in Arkansas has already been brutal and we're only into the first 1/3 of July. It's too hot to eat dinner on the patio. It's too hot to garden. It's too hot to sit on the swing under the pergola. It's even too hot to go to the lake.

2. I've gained back the 6 pounds I lost while we were on vacation. Well, actually the first week of vacation. We did a lot of walking in Ft. Collins and then at the Grand Teton National Park. Who knew that repeatedly gasping for air at 7,500 feet could rev up my metabolism. Who knew that returning to 200 feet could be so fattening!

3. Big headlines: "CNN Wins Michael Jackson Memorial Service Cable News Ratings Race", translated means CNN was the biggest whore of all the news networks. They should be so proud.

4. Waffle House. What is with the south and their Waffle House. They love them! I've even been in a meeting with other professional administrators whose agenda it was to prepare a plan for the direction of a state university, only to find the discussion has turned to how the Waffle House is just the best darned place to eat breakfast. Hellooo...have you ever walked into one of them? I have. Once. They smell horrible, just like old, used frying oil, coupled with, I'm certain, the most cigarette smokers you can pack into 2,000 square feet. All for a waffle? No thank you.

5. Kansas. I wish we were able to eliminate the necessity of driving through Kansas the same way we eliminate column in Excel...highlight, right click, delete. It would make our trip across the U.S. soooo much faster and far more interesting!

Some Things I Just Don't Get:

1. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah...seriously girl, we need to talk...and you need to just shut up!

2. We buy lot of stuff in bulk. We started this when we moved out to the country. Now we do it because it's just more convenient than going to the store every other day and because it's a lot cheaper, too. But, when I send Tom to Sam's Club in Little Rock and he has "rice" in his list and he comes back with this...



...well, you just have to wonder about his thought processes sometimes.

3. Oh...My...God...why anyone would be interested in Gwyneth Paltrow's newest internal cleansing! Ew, ew, ew!!

4. Bruno...and Borat for that matter.

5. Yesterday I visited the "Farmers Market" here in Conway for the first time since we moved here in 1993. My garden is just gross and unproductive this year and I wanted to shop for fruits and vegetables grown by people who are better gardeners and farmers than me. I wanted beautiful heirloom tomatoes, deep purple Japanese eggplant, bright green peas and crispy green beans fresh from the garden. I came home with two small eggplant and a small bag of yellow squash. I think they are using the term "Farmers Market" loosely. This is our "Farmers Market"...



Five tables, five gardeners/farmers and baskets of sickly tomatoes, small yellow squash, misshapen zucchini, pickling cucumbers, unidentifiable potatoes, midget eggplants, about 5 skungy looking apples and one basket of purple hull peas that the farmer wanted to sell for $15.00 a pound! Oh, yeah, and some woman selling homemade apple and pumpkin butter. That was it! That was the extent of the "market." Why would any rational person even remotely consider that a Farmers Market?? I was so disappointed that I was in a pissy mood all afternoon. Obviously, it doesn't take much, does it?

Well, that's it for this week. We are staying home this weekend. I'm going watch my micro-greens grow. I am also going to make homemade mozzarella, Tom will take the photos and I will post it on my food blog next week.

What are you doing this weekend? And if you share your plans, please don't say you're doing something that will make me jealous and want to rip your lips off!