Cook This For An Instant Addiction

Except for my friend @kazoofus, of course...she should not try to cook....anything.  She knows I say this with love.

OK, here we go--it's pasta, it's vegetarian, and it's ridiculously awesome.  What I have done here, because I am a horrible person, is crafted a version of the Pasta Fresca dish that you can find at Noodles and Co.  What can I say?  I'm devoid of original thought.  Also?  I'm not a chef, so this recipe doesn't have measurements so much as it has...estimates.  Sorry.  You can wing it!  It'll be good!

One box penne pasta

One half bunch fresh spinach, coarsely chopped and washed.  Actually, you should probably wash it, THEN chop it.  Just sayin...

Two roma tomatoes (or...just whatever kind of fresh tomato you have around...not a big deal), cut to about 1/2 inch dices

1/4 cup sliced kalamata olives

1/4 to 1/2 cup of diced onion (depends on how much you like onions, my dear...)

One Tablespoon diced garlic (the amount is also negotiable, but come on...it's garlic.  What's not to love?)

Roasted Red Bell Pepper (the jarred kind)

Good Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing--virtually any will do

Feta Cheese

Cook the pasta according to package directions.  Cook enough pasta so that when you eat this for the first time and notice that it's amazing, you'll have enough for you to come back for seconds.

When the pasta is nearly done, warm a few tablespoons of olive oil on low heat in a high sided frying pan for a few minutes, and add your onions.  Cook on low until the onions are fragrant, adding a bit of salt and pepper as you are cooking them.  When the onions are smelling yummy, add the garlic and continue to cook, stirring occasionally.  Now add the olives and a couple of tablespoons of chopped roasted red bell pepper, along with a couple of tablespoons of the liquid from the pepper jar.  Continue to cook on low for another minute.

When your pasta is done, drain it and hold on to it--you're not ready for it yet!!  You have some nice tasting stuff on the stove, but we're still building this dish!

Stir in a scant 1/3 cup of the vinaigrette and the tomatoes to your pan and continue to cook on low for two more minutes.  Check seasoning!  Now add the drained pasta and spinach, and stir to combine. Cook until the spinach is just wilted.

Scoop a large portion of this yummy goodness into a bowl.  Top with feta cheese (or parm, if you must) and FEAST!

There....I've done my public service for the month.  You're welcome!

Re-Creep

Because I'm all about me, and read my own writing like it's good or something, I thought you'd enjoy this old post from 2007 

 

 

You're welcome. 

 

 

(Was that bitchy?  Meh...I guess I don't actually care if it was...)

 

 

 

Creep

 

 

There is a guy who lives in my town, who runs a business and is successful and appears to have a lot of friends and all, but...


Something about him is just "not right".


And I don't know exactly what I mean by "not right"--I guess I would have to say that if somebody told me something "shocking" about him,  (ie he spent all of his "alone time" looking at wildly inappropriate materials on the internet) I would not be shocked. 


There is something happening that he's not sharing.


Anyway, even though he and I don't really run in the same circles, I do manage to run into him from time to time.  He is always polite and friendly.  And he always coordinates a seat right next to mine.


A lot of women think that they are Creep Magnets...I just happen to have some doozey stories about this kind of thing, so when sharing Creeper stories with other women, I usually win, trumping with the tale of the guy who hid out in a dumpster of the restaurant across the street from my apartment so he could watch all of my comings and goings.


Perhaps all the stalkerific experiences from my past have simply made me hyper-vigilant about this sort of thing.  Maybe he's a really nice guy who is simply misunderstood.


Or, he's a total Creeper.


Hmmm...


Lets approach from another angle--a bit of perspective...say you're out with friends, and there is a guy who has been staring at you enough for you to notice.  Do you base your Creeper Assessment on whether or not he's cute enough to make you want to stare back?  Be honest...


Anyway....the same Creepy Rich Guy, nice and all, not unbearably unattractive, but not cute enough to make me want to stare back, always manages to find me at any event we happen to be attending together.  The latest was one of those forced-march holiday things where they put you in a room with a bunch of people you can barely tolerate and a couple of people that you genuinely enjoy (Hey Kim and Marty!), so you spend the evening hanging out with the people you genuinely enjoy and make those audible pleasant sounds when the people you can barely tolerate make their "rounds" to wish everyone a Happy Holiday--really, you're just too nice to tell them that you'd really rather be at home right now, snuggling up with a warm cat and a blisteringly-cold martini.


Because Creepy Rich guy is, well, rich, and well known around town, he gets invited to these things, is non-committal about the invite ("...maybe I can make it...we'll see..."), then, when he shows up, it is almost unexpected.  He secures dinner and drinks for himself, and generally gets everything free most of the places he goes since everybody knows him, and gosh, what a surprise to see him, since it didn't sound like he was going to make it when he was invited. 


After all that, he plunks himself down in the chair next to mine and asks me if he can get me anything.  Six or seven times.


There are women, I suppose, who would find this impressive.  As you may have guessed, I'm not one of them.  "Beware of the man buying you drinks," I always say...


It is quite possible that there is some element of imagination in all Creep Magnets--that is, maybe this is all in our heads?  Maybe that guy means no harm, has no other motive than just being friendly, and he's just socially awkward?  I can accept that.  I mean, the guy doesn't hit on me or anything (in the traditional sense), he's just...there.  Creeping me out.


But when this sort of thing happens, I tend to run through the Creeper history in my brain and remember Creepy Dumpster Guy, Creepy Bus Stop Guy, Creepy Guy In The Parking Lot After Work At 2:00AM, Creepy Dude Trying To Get Me Into His Car, Prominent Creepy Guy Who Told All My Co-workers That He Was Madly In Love With Me (I never met him), Creepy But Nice Guy Who Never Took No For An Answer, Creepy Guy Who Tried To Get Himself Invited To Thanksgiving Dinner At My House, Creepy Guy From The Hotel Who Followed Me Around, Random Crazy People who always seem to find me in a crowded room when I'm trying  not to be noticed and insist that I "party" with them, along with other, less aggressive types, and I just sort of throw the Creepy Rich Guy in on the growing pile.  After doing the math, I realize that there have been a LOT of people who have wanted hang out with me who would never be admitted into the fortified inner circle.


*sigh*


The reality is...I'm such a weirdo.  Meaning, I actually have a Fortified Inner Circle--you can practically see the line on the ground.  I'm such a social idiot that I can't even imagine having a large group of friends--seriously, if I don't know you, the chances of me speaking to you at all are slim to none.  Mindless banter makes me twitch.  If I do happen to speak to someone who doesn't know me, I always feel like I made a complete ass of myself because they maybe just wanted to talk about the weather, and I, of course, have a STORY about the weather, which is long and may be damned funny, but, they don't have the time to hear the whole thing, so they walk away in the middle of it, leaving me smacking myself on the forehead and proclaiming myself a complete moron for trying to stuff a monologue in a hole the size of a "Yup".


Ultimately, the people who eventually become my friends have taken a fair amount of time out of their lives to dedicate to this purpose.  Believe me, I appreciate it.  They are also, like me, story-tellers.  Weird, Bizarre, or Cool things happen to them and they call me and they start off their conversations with "You would not BELIEVE what happened to me today..." and I perk right up because I love listening to stories, even more than I love telling them.


I think the difference between Creeps and Friends is the story.  Creeps don't tell a lot of stories about weird, bizarre, or cool things that have happened to them.  It makes you wonder what they are hiding (ie hours and hours of "alone time" looking at wildly inappropriate materials on the internet).  And they also hear stories differently from other people.  Usually, people just smile or laugh and move on with their day when you tell them a funny story.  Creeps hear a story and internally determine that you have now invited them over for Thanksgiving Dinner, then they get pissed when you act surprised.


Anyway...considering the fairly large number of Creeps in my life and my bizarre ability to rattle them off from memory (On Comet, On Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen!), I think that I might be, maybe, a bit of a Creep Magnet.  Just a little. 


But, like anything else, Creeps make for some (hopefully) interesting stories.  Like this one.  Which I will someday use to make an ass of myself at a party.  Where I will be seated next to someone who is, all the while, thinking:  How come I always get stuck next to the Creeps?

Talk It Out, M-Kay?

The sheer volume of catching up that would be required between the Paula Deen no-longer-an-announcement-anyone-is-talking-about thing and now will require some editing--not that I've been doing all sort of exciting things lately and don't have the room, but just because...meh, you'd be bored.

What?  You're already bored?  Oh....OK...

Here's the briefest of brief versions:

Dear Daughter #1 got a boyfriend.  He's hot and dangerous.  Well, probably not actually "dangerous" but he likes to portray that persona where, if someone told you he was in an Asian street gang, you'd find it plausible.  Which makes him hot.  He drives a BMW.  Normally, I don't care much what kind of car a guy drives, but if you're all, I-could-be-in-an-Asian-street-gang, it's appropriate that you drive something stylishly sort of expensive.

Dear Daughter #2, got a job.  Not to worry, she already had a boyfriend.  Boyfriend also has a job, at the same place.  Everyone but me warned her away from working with her boyfriend.  I dunno...I tend to like my work people more than I like my home people.  It's all business, very few tears shed.  Just...work.  Makes you mind clean, and if you're doing it right, makes your body dirty.

Which reminds me, I really need to check into getting a gig digging ditches.  My work?  I could use the distraction of a boyfriend, is all I can say about that.  BTW?  The lovely Vikki at uppoppedfox.com thought she'd like to join me in the ditch digging biz, and she even thought up a company name:  Bitchez Diggin' Ditches.

I like it.

One of my friends from college passed away last weekend.  When I say "friend" I do want to qualify that by saying that I hadn't spoken to him in a long, time--could be as long as 20 years--so I'm not going to go all, "I lost my (sob!) friend!" on you or anything.  He was an extremely memorable person, Stan.  We met at the college radio station, where I suppose he was our version of Dr. Johnny Fever.  He was ten years older than me, and I thought him very wicked, mostly in a good way. He was also a serious alcoholic who would occasionally show up at my house, wanting to talk, and he would end up talking to me about how wrong I was about everything, but mostly about abstract things, like, God and Heaven.  After he became sober, which he was for over 20 years, all the way through the rest of his life, he still managed to be right about everything, so, you know...he was obnoxious.  

But, he was cuddly obnoxious, if there is such a thing.  

Stan, I know you're up there, wherever the hell "up there" is, and I bet I'm more right about where "up there" is than you were, you bastard.  Besides, my "up there" is way nicer than any "up there" you ever imagined, so ha!  Suck it!  And...enjoy a little peace of mind, for once in your life--take a fucking vacation before you come back to Earth as another difficult person, sent here to teach me how to be tolerant of difficult people.

Yeah, I said it!  Reincarnation!  

I bet now that you're there, you're glad I was right, aren't you, Stan? 

Love you, man.

The rest of what I have to say is about the cancer.  

Not my cancer, my father's cancer.  

My father, 74 years old, has been diagnosed with lung cancer.  He has a two-inch mass in his left lung.  

I firmly believe that it is not the cancer that will kill my father.  If he should die any time soon, the ones I will blame are the craptacular doctors dragging their feet and telling him that he's "no spring chicken" as if they're not going to bother doing a fucking thing about the cancer.  I'd like to just take this opportunity to tell those doctors to fuck off.  No pussy footing around this one.  Get off your fucking asses and treat him.  Don't say, oh, you need an MRI and then tell him that the soonest he can get one is April 30th.  Fuck you.  74 is old, but it's not that fucking old.  He could do another 10 years, easy, if you'd all stop being such a bunch of bitches.

Here's the thing...although my father has a fair amount of skepticism toward these oncologists and surgeons telling him "it's serious" while simultaneously telling him to cool his jets, he's of a generation that still thinks doctors are some kind of gods.

I'm not.  I talk to doctors as a part of my work, and although most of them are great, really care and bust their asses, some of them are lazy, period.  They're just like you and me--in your job, you have the one guy who sort of sucks a little, right?  Maybe they're not quite as good at it as some of the other people at work? (If you don't have one, then maybe it's you...)  Well, doctors have the same thing.  Most of them?  Great?  Some?  Well, the reason they are accepting new patients is  close to the same reason the Phillip Morris company is accepting new smokers.

Problem is...exactly how does one insert themselves into this situation?  Or, does one insert themselves into this situation at all?  I mean, yes, my impulse is to say, "Dad, I'll be driving you to your next doctor appointment," but his doctor appointment is 400 miles away from my house.  So...I'm a little frustrated and pissed off.  

Well, obviously, I'm more than just a little pissed off.  

But I wonder if I'm pissed off because I'm thinking what I'm normally thinking, which is, "oh for the love of gawd, just LET ME DO THE TALKING!" , a statement usually followed by my stomping in and living my motto, If You Want Something Done Right, Do It Yourself.

Should I just....let them handle it without making a scene?  I mean...it's fucking cancer.  Not some dumb shit that will go away if you ignore it, but quite the opposite of that.  Cancer.  It could be the very worst time in my life for me to suddenly develop self control.  I'm going to have to meditate on this one, although, I know that's not what Stan would have done...