Quotes To Live By

Shouldn't be all rainbows and sparkles. Because those are the quotes that, once everything turns to the wind and scatters the perfect little bubble the quote revolved around, get tossed over a shoulder and trampled into the dirt.

They should be the quotes that you can read in the hard times or the happy times, and yet still get the same amount of insight out of them.

My current personal favorite?

"Life isn't about staying dry, it's about learning how to play in the rain."

Judging

We all do it.

Some people just deserve it more than others.

Best example: People who suck.

I Want

For it not to be now.

I want it to be a week and a half from now.

So that I can go to the east coast with ma daddeh and look at all of the fabulous colleges.

I also want my summer homework to go away.

Please Tell Me If You See Any Vampires

Because apparently, according to mosquitoes everywhere, my blood tastes awesome.

And if they like me, I'm fucked if I ever meet a vampire.

Stop Clapping. Seriously.

I was watching some stand-up on Comedy Central tonight. Mike Birbiglia. He had that wit where he would tell his jokes as if he was just saying them because they were funny in his head, but he didn't really expect for people to laugh at them.

Unfortunately, the poor man couldn't even get a whole joke out before he was completely drowned out by the noise of the seals in the audience flopping their little hands together in some sort of deranged appreciation for the jokes that they couldn't hear.

Like, seriously, is that the way that you show your appreciation for somebody?

"Oh my god, he's soooo funny, I'm going to laugh at the first couple words of any joke that he starts, and even though he hasn't actually gotten to the part that is going to make it funny, I know it will be eventually, so I'm going to prematurely congratulate him by applauding over the rest of his words so that he is forced to take unnaturally long breaths in order for my applause to die down enough that everybody else in the audience can hear him."

Honestly. Is that their strategy?

Just stop clapping.

Idina Menzel Is My Hero

So, apparently promptness on posting isn't my strong suit... Who knew.

Anyway, I got to see Idina Menzel in concert with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra on Sunday, and, in a word, it was amazing.


While watching her sing, Menzel is totally lost in the music. She is completely in character, and nothing but serious. She even sang a few songs from Wicked, and as a fan who knows the songs by heart according to her voice from the recordings, she might as well have just painted herself green before she got on stage, because she sounded exactly like Elphaba, not Idina.

At least, she did until she forgot the words.

It was only Defying Gravity. You know, no big deal.

She wasn't always serious though. She's an incredibly personable performer, managing to look stunning in a bright yellow gown and at the same time telling embarrassing stories and drinking orange juice (which, may I add, she almost choked on a couple times. Apparently that happens when you're trying to breathe and drink at once).

She didn't wear shoes. She sang us songs that she and her husband made up for everyday occurrences with their baby boy, such as the song for when he falls asleep while breast feeding and the song for when they're going for a car ride with their black, Jewish dog.

But mostly, she just sang. It was fantastic.

Her voice is so effortless and smooth, and it just makes you want to go home and sing for hours.

Sigh... just thinking about it... Sigh.

Official Beyotch of the Night

In customer service, you see some pretty colorful characters. Anybody could tell you that.

Most of the time they're just weird. Or stupid.

Sometimes, they're little slices of hell cast down to Earth to make the rest of us suffer for sins that we may or may not have committed. Jesus died for them, these people live for them.

Here's a basic rundown of a conversation I had tonight.

First, let's set the stage. It's about 8:30, the store's not terribly crowded. I'm helping one group of people, there's another lady up front, and a couple people sitting on the benches waiting for their order.

As I finish with the little group I'm helping and they go toddling off, drink cups in hand, another guy walks in. He's in his twenties, cute enough to be pleasant company but my pulse is still exactly where it should be. The lady who was there before him is standing awkwardly between the two registers, but closer to the one that I'm not at, staring awkwardly up. Like, I can't tell if she's reading the menu boards, or if she just shifted her gaze in that general direction and got stuck. There was so much awkward in her situation, I didn't even know what to make of it.

Some people stand in such awkward manners because they're truly dumbfounded by the contents of the menu board and, despite the fact that they have been there now for multiple minutes, they still can't really decide what they want. And considering how many we get of that specimen, let's just say I wasn't phased.

So said hey, and asked how "they" were doing today. That way, if Madam Awkward was feeling like she was finally ready to get in the big kid line and place an order, she could snap out of her freaky little trance and head over to my register, aka the only one with a person standing in front of it. 

She did not.

She continued to stand exactly where she was, looking exactly where she was.

So the guy kind of starts to head up, we're both in that unsure mode of "Who's next? Is it you? I don't know, she was here, but she doesn't look ready... ah hell, it's you."

He steps up, orders, goes to sit and wait, easy peasy.

As soon as he walked past her, boom trance over.

"Excuse me, I was here first. Why would you help him first? I had been here. That is so RUDE. I mean, I've been here, and what is this, just suddenly this cute guy walks in and you just ignore me? I cannot BELIEVE how RUDE you are. I CANNOT BELIEVE it. That is so ridiculously rude."

Woah there lady, calm it. Now don't be fooled by the fact that I used periods instead of exclamation points. That does not mean that she was any degree calmer. In fact, she was stark raving pissed. Here I was, thinking that she was just another dumbo who couldn't decide what she wanted for dinner, but actually she's some ego-bruised middle age devil sent here to make generalizations about teenage girls. Who knew?

So she's going on about how ridiculously. rude. I am, while I'm telling her that it really wasn't what was intended at all. My manager comes up after she says that I ignored her for a boy (who, let's face it, really wasn't even that cute) and assures her that that's really not the case at all, and it's definitely not the way we work. Then he gives her a 70% discount on one of her dishes, throw a few free desserts at her, and the whole time we're apologizing.

"I'm really very sorry, ma'am. I didn't intend to ignore you at all. We just have a lot of people who come in and are looking at the menu, and I didn't want to rush you. I wasn't sure if you were ready. I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to ignore you, I really didn't."

"It's so just unbelievably rude. I wasn't looking at the menu, I was watching my food get put down over there. (She was there to pick up a phone-in... who knew). And then I watched that girl in the pink sweatshirt try and take it. (Actually, she was checking to see when her order would be ready). I just can't believe that you would ignore me. I was here first. You just wait until you get to be my age and people ignore you."

Mind you, she wasn't that old. Forties, maybe early fifties? Yeah, not that old.

So we apologized many times, and sent her grumbling out the door. Only after she asked for my name, of course, probably so that she could lodge an official complaint on the website against the obviously sex-crazed teenage girl.

The Work Emma was very apologetic. Yes ma'am, of course ma'am, it's all my fault ma'am, I'm very, very sorry.

If it was the Real Emma?

"Excuse me, ma'am, do you realize how obscenely abrasive you are? I mean, Jesus Christ, you weren't even in a line. What is this, Mobs-R-Us? No ma'am, we form lines here. In fact, we even have little ropes to help you out. Generally, the best idea is to just stand right behind the person who's currently being helped, that way you're next in line. Get it? Oh, and by the way, while you were lurking by the second register, we clearly told you on the phone to come to the third. And either way you count it, the one you're standing by will always be the second, because it happens to be in the middle. So props on following directions, Satan spawn. And you know what? He is cute, and he's a hell of a lot cuter than you are, because let's face it, you're getting on there in years and you  have way too many wrinkles to be considered attractive. Also, any inkling of a desire that I may have at one point fostered toward wanting to help you has been completely and brutally extinguished by the fact that you are a huge bitch who needs to locate whatever has been stuck up your butt and dislodge it, asap. OH, and if you're still hungry, there's a Wendy's next door. Open 24 hours. Have a good night."

If only...

Endeavors of the Kitchen

Yesterday, I told my mom that I wanted to make dinner.

She was so excited / relieved, I'm surprised she didn't just throw a dish towel at me and run giggling into the other room.

Ah, the simple joys.

Anyway, tonight my agenda was to make for dinner strawberry & white wine chicken breasts coupled with a salad of fresh lettuce and spinach, strawberries, almond slices, feta cheese, and poppyseed dressing, followed by a dessert of almond cake.

I found the recipe for the cake first, on a new blog I just found called Orangette. Of course, it wasn't until after I baked the cake that I realized she is in Seattle, and so the ingredients might need to be slightly altered, considering I live about 5000 feet higher than her and in considerably less humidity.

Regardless. I made the cake.

So while that sat out to cool all afternoon, I set the chicken marinating in the fridge in a mixture of white wine and rosemary, and went to a voice lesson and a going-away party. When I got back, it was go time.

I'd really been wanting something with a strawberry flavor, so I found a recipe that was not just a salad with strawberries in it, but an actual meal with a hint of strawberry flair.

The cooking was fairly easy, but thinking back on it I would have toned down on the amount of spices put into it, and let the rosemary simply sit in the white wine and mix with the marinade instead of heaping it on top of the chicken in the overly aesthetic way that I opted for.

So when time came to actually serve dinner, it all looked pretty nice.

And may I just say that for the record, if you're ever trying a new recipe or branching out your cooking in a way that you're not entirely 100% certain of the quality of your results, try it out on your parents. Or at least the one who eats the most. They make a great audience. 

Everything was good. Actually, it was really good.

The chicken could have used fewer spices, the strawberry sauce could have been thinner.

And, if you ever get a recipe from a lower altitude than you, it's probably a good idea to be proactive about that.

It was supposed to be crumbly, instead it was a little bit softer and more oily, so closer to a pie than a cake. If you want the recipe so that you can muck it up same as me, you can find it here.

However, once again, the father-eating-audience made all of the imperfections completely okay by gobbling down his piece like a diabetic with low blood sugar and asking if he could "have another, please."

Overall? Not the best dinner I've ever had. It could use improvement. For instance, the next time I go to make the almond cake, I'm going to add more flour and less almond extract, and make sure that the cooking spray on the parchment paper is nice and light. 

But hey, at least my mom didn't have to make dinner.

Ooh, Worldly

Browsin' my stats last night. Page views. Oy, it's by country. Score.

People have read my blog from Malaysia and the UK?

I FEEL SO WORLDLY.

That's actually really awesome. So, if you're from a different state or country or something, some place where I probably don't know you, let me know! I think it would be wicked sweet to get comments from people who aren't even from my country.

Wicked. Sweet.

On a different note, I really like feta cheese and strawberries. Now if only there were actually recipes in which they went together.

Maybe I will make one up.

I will call it... "Fetaberries."

Keep you posted on that one. Because let's face it, it sounds like quite the gem.

Productivity, I Own You

Today, I learned a new song on guitar, painted our porch, made dinner, read a story in French, and brought pudding to my friend whose face is determined to have it's revenge for her removal of its wisdom teeth.

What did you do?