PMS Tastes Delicious

I was working from home the other day and had a nice lunch of whole wheat spaghetti with grilled veggies and chicken and I thought, "You know what this needs? Cheesecake."

So I made a cheesecake.  It's been a while since I've done a recipe, but here it is:

Suniverse's Fuck That Whole Wheat Spaghetti Cheesecake
Serves 1 to dozens, depending on the severity of the PMS

Ingredients

Crust
1 sleeve slightly expired chocolate graham crackers [relax, they'll be fine]
3 tablespoons butter, melted

Cheesecake
5 8oz packages of cream cheese [or get that giant brick at Costco], softened
5 eggs, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup sour cream [optional - I had some in the fridge that needed using]
1Tablespoon-ish vanilla

Directions
1. Plan ahead.  Set out the cream cheese and the eggs for a couple of hours to take the chill off.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
3. Crush the shit out of the graham crackers.  I used the food processor since the husband was going to be doing the dishes later.
4.  Line a 9 x 13 baking dish with parchment paper. I like to make the cheesecake like this instead of in a springform pan because I am lazy and also it's a lot easier to freeze squares of cheesecake in cupcake liners for later.  If there is a later.
5. Mix the graham crackers and butter together. I just do this in the baking dish since I am, as noted, lazy.
6. Using an electric mixer, or a wooden spoon if you are Popeye, whip the cream cheese until it's smooth.  This could take a bit of time, but you want it nice and creamy.
7. Add the eggs, one at a time, and continue mixing until they are completely incorporated.
8. Add the vanilla. I usually add more than I'm supposed to because I don't feel like getting a measuring spoon and I like the flavor. Who cares?
9. Smugly pour the cream cheese mixture on top of the chocolate crust, thinking about how simple it is to make cheesecake, stopping after you've got half of the mix on the crust when you realize you forgot to add the fucking sugar.
10. Get the goddamn sugar.
11. Pour it in the mixing bowl.
12. Stare at the pile of cream cheese mixture on the chocolate crust. Slowly scoop some of the mixture back into the bowl, stopping when you realize that you're pulling up crust.
13. Say fuck a few more time.
14. Mix the sugar up in the half of the cream cheese mixture that's in the bowl.
15. Layer this in the baking dish on top of the unsweetened cream cheese mixture.
16. Put it in the oven and hope for the best.
17. Bake for 45 minutes or until the center is only slightly jiggly [like my ass].

I know people get super bent about water baths and high heat and then low heat and blah blah blah, cracked top, but seriously, cheesecake is not that hard to make.  It's only got a few ingredients, which, if you actually use them all at once, make for some delicious tasting treats.  And if it cracks? WHO CARES? It is cheesecake.  Put a topping on it and call it a day.

Cracked like a motherfucker, and still delicious.

Ugh. Spring gives me stress.

I hate Spring.

I know, I know - everyone loves Spring because of all the rebirth and good weather and flowers and bullshit, but you know what else happens during Spring?

THE BUGS COME BACK.

Which makes me very stressy.

Like this morning, when I was in the shower, and I happened to glance out through the gap between the shower curtain and the wall and I saw, on the ceiling, a giant spider hanging over my towel.

STRESS.

I quickly finished showering with my head cocked to the side and one eye dedicated to keeping track of that spider - which is quite an accomplishment when you are trying to detangle a giant mop of hair.

I yelled to the husband to come in and save me [MY HERO] and he knocked the spider off the ceiling and onto the floor, where, you know, MY FEET WERE. But he killed it and I was able to scurry to safety.

I realized then I need to spend more time cultivating relaxation - so I'm dedicating myself to yoga.  I'm over at Aiming Low today, sharing my yoga secrets.  Stop by and read. And comment. It relieves my stress.

If you knew Jesus like I knew Jesus.

The husband has taken up tennis in the past couple of years.  He is an energetic player, and super competitive, so we tend not to play together. [Also, I am terribly out of shape.  And very competitive. It's a recipe for disaster, is what it is.]

So the husband has been playing tennis with various friends and family, but the problem is, he wants to play a couple of times a week, and people are busy. Particularly those of our friends who are parents of kids the girl's age, but who didn't have the foresight to send their child away to boarding school [PS Prom is Saturday! I hope she takes at least one fucking picture!], and who are thus over-extended driving their not-quite-drivers-license ready kids to after school activities.

The other day, I was going to get my hair done after work [it looks amazing, by the way. I got highlights!] so he decided to play with a coworker he doesn't know very well.

Who proceeded to spend the entire time asking the husband if he knew Jesus Christ.

Yup.

The husband got witnessed to while trying to play a game. By his coworker. Who he had to remain polite to [which, as we later discussed, why don't proselytizers have to be polite? Why do they not take, "I'd like you to stop talking about this" as a friendly warning? Why do they keep pushing and pushing until you have to say, "STOP FUCKING TALKING TO ME?" Huh? Why?] because the husband may be a heathen, but he's not a dick.

The husband said that this guy told him GOD spoke to him and directed him to save the husband.  Which is . . . flattering?

I confess, I laughed.  Because he continues to mock me about the Jehova's Witnesses who keep dropping their literature in our door on Saturday mornings. [Weird aside, the friends I have who are deeply religious - and I am friends with evangelicals, people; I know that's hard to believe - have NEVER ONCE asked me if I was concerned about going to hell.  Is it because they have good manners? Or do they just not give a shit that they won't see me in the after life?]

Also, the level of swearing the husband reaches when discussing his forced witnessing? SUBLIME.

PS I will be at the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop this weekend. If you're going to be there, come talk to me.  I'll even listen to your spiel about Jesus.

Diligence

The other night, I woke up in the middle of the night [as per usual] [at least several times a night] [does anyone actually get hours of sleep in a row?] and went to the bathroom, you know, for something to do.

I came back to bed and, because my bedside lamp was on [because I'm up a lot and will read myself back to sleep] [also to keep away scary monsters] [but not aliens, because I think they are impervious to light], I notice a GIANT SPIDER near the ceiling at the head of the bed.

I immediately woke the husband and made him kill it [why else would I keep him around?], which he did.  And then he said, "Did you feel all its eyes watching you? Is that why you woke up?"

No wonder I don't sleep through the night. I have to be constantly on guard for spiders.

Also monsters.

The Wheel of Misfortune.

The husband and I were having dinner before getting ready to head out for the evening [I know! We went to a party, like real people do! With fun and drinking and talking and FUN!] and, because he is a man, the husband turned the t.v. on to watch baseball in the few minutes before he was going to change so we could go out [I, of course, looked fabulous, because I always wear cocktail dresses during the day, just in case I get a last minute invite to a party - not that I wait around for last minute invites, because MY TIME IS PRECIOUS and I AM THE BEST EVER and EVERYONE LOVES ME! So disregard any pissy-moany blog posts indicating otherwise], and then, somehow, Wheel of Fortune was on, and we started talking shit like you wouldn't believe about one of the players.

Because she kept buying VOWELS.  EVERY TIME! And not just one vowel, like she was stuck on the phrase and had already bought the T, S and H which are in every puzzle.  No.  She hadn't bought ANY of those, just stone cold decided that VOWELS were what she needed, so the puzzle ended up looking like this:

W _ O    D O E _   T_ I _ ?

Who does this?

THERE IS NEVER ANY REASON TO BUY A VOWEL. Can't you sound shit out? What the hell? I get that you may be stressed out, what with being on the tv, but COME ON. ALL THE VOWELS? WHY?

The husband left the room to get ready and I actually called him back in to witness her buying MORE VOWELS. At which point we actively started rooting for her to hit the Bankrupt spot. I'm sort of ashamed to say that our collective juju allowed her to hit the MILLION DOLLAR spot, and then, because she kept buying vowels on her subsequent turn, she hit Bankrupt.

With great power comes great responsibility.

So don't buy vowels.  It's better for everyone.

Superlative Free World

Growing up, it was never enough to be good at something, I had to be the best. Part of it was me, part of it was family, all of it resulted in making me feel as if I were never quite good enough, as if my accomplishments mean nothing.

This has been rolling through my head lately in that I'm trying to rework my thinking.  I know, intellectually, that I am enough, but emotionally, it's just not true. There is always someone smarter, better, prettier just ahead of me.

It's also been rolling around in my head in that I'm trying to figure out what it means to just be me.  If I'm not the funniest person on the internet, or the one with the most followers, or the best worker-bee, or the most dedicated employee, where does that leave me?

What if I'm not a superlative? Does that mean I'm not worthy?  I know, if I were talking to a friend or, in particular, my daughter, I would tell her that just being her is enough.  That there is no race, no contest.  That just being her [or him, for my guy friends] is what makes her [him] superlative.  And that's all good and well for everyone else, but what about someone whose entire world view is that there is the superlative and then there is the abyss? That the only thing I would have to offer anyone, anywhere is my resume of superlatives?

Which is lacking, anyway, because there is always someone ahead of me in everything.  That's just how the world works. I'm smart enough to know that there are smarter people, I'm self-aware enough to know that I'm not the center of the universe.  YET.

So how do I live a superlative free life? I'm reading my zen books and talking to lovely people but I feel like disparagement and self-loathing are just waiting for those quiet moments to suddenly pounce.  What is good enough? And how do I get there?

Frugality? Or incipient hoarding?

I have mentioned before that I tend to stockpile stuff. Like food, because who knows when I'll be able to get to the 7 [SEVEN!] grocery stores/markets within 2 miles of my house [how do they all stay in business? Is it my bulk shopping? Seriously? SEVEN?] when I am in danger of running out of beans [Note: I will never run out of beans, because I keep buying both cans and bags of dried beans because I keep thinking, "You know what would be great? Bean soup!" and then I never make bean soup.].

The corollary to this is that I tend to try and get all the use out of something before I get rid of it.  Well, not everything, because I am perfectly o.k. with having thrown away Ziploc bags without reusing them [sometimes] and deciding that once is enough times to use plastic utensils from a party [always].

But the things I do tend to try and get my money's worth from are lotions.  I get super, ridiculously dry skin / eczema some winters and I have pretty sensitive skin all the time, so I end up paying a lot for lotion.  Which is actually a bargain, because there is no price to high for non-itchy, non-peeling skin. 

Of course, you can never get that last bit of lotion out of the tube, so I end up with almost completely empty containers of hand and body lotions, jeering at me with their wastefulness before I relent and set them aside to . . . use later? I don't know what my plan is, exactly, as I can't get the lotion out without cutting open the container, and I do not have that kind of time [I could be on Twitter, instead]. 

Today? I discovered 5 almost completely empty lotion containers under the sink.  Five.  Containers that I keep telling myself I'll somehow, magically, miraculously open so the tiny droplets of lotion left will be made available for my use.

So I shut the vanity door and walked away, vowing to deal with it . . . later.  Because that's just too much crazy to deal with all at once.

Do you keep stuff you know you shouldn't? I'm not the only one, am I?

My giant ego

I got sick. Again. Which is complete and utter bullshit.

And I had to take my car in to get fixed because blah blah technical I have no idea [I am a mechanic's wet dream - "Your flugelator needs to be repaired.  That'll be $350." "WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Uh. Fine."] and because I am an idiot, I made an appointment to drop the car off at 7:30am on Monday.  Granted, this was before I got sick over the weekend, but still - that's just a stupid time.

I needed a ride home, since I wasn't going to sit and wait around, and also because I had a shit ton of work to do from home, and also I'M SICK, as my pallor and coughing would indicate.  So it's me and a couple of old guys waiting for the courtesy van.  I asked if they'd mind if I was dropped off first because I was dying, and that was fine until some younger-ish guy jumped in and was like, "Does anyone have to work? Because I work nearby and have to be at work." And I wanted to scream, "I WORK, ASSHOLE!! I'M SICK AND WORKING AND I AM WAY MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR STUPID SORRY SELF, EVEN THOUGH I'VE NOT SHOWERED AND I'M WEARING THE SAME SWEATS I'VE WORN FOR THREE DAYS." 

Because . . . I am crazy, and evidently an entire van full of people need to know that I WORK.  And that guy's time is in no way more important than mine, because I WORK.  Even when I'm SICK.

And, I swear to god, after we dropped off Mr. Jobby McJobberson, I kept trying to figure out how to tell the two old guys and the driver that I ALSO WORK AND WILL BE WORKING FROM HOME TODAY IN ADDITION TO BEING SICK.

I am fucking nuts.