So delicious, you'll keep it for yourself.

First, I want to thank LAJuice for her delightful guest post.  I love when my friends get together.

Second, I want to remind everyone that I've started my new job today and so spent last night in a minor frenzy of anxiety.  GAH.

Third, if it's Wednesday, it must be RECIPE TIME.  [I totally made that up.] [But it's still Recipe Time.]

Anyway . . . I was thinking about parties, because we're going to be having a couple for the girl and also my birthday is coming up [AUGUST 13th I LOVE PRESENTS] and I was also thinking about food, because of course, and then I thought about guacamole.

Mmmm . . . guacamole.  So tasty.  So delightful.  So fucking easy to make.

This has become the dish I bring whenever I am invited somewhere.  You'd think I'd get sick of making it or people would get sick of eating it, but it is one of those things where I'll be invited to a party and before I can even finish asking, "What can I bring?" I hear, "BRING THE GUACAMOLE."

So I bring the guacamole.

You can make as much or as little of this as you'd like.  For just us, I use one or two avocados [Maybe three.  Seriously, it's really good]; for parties, I'll use 8 or 9.

And the best thing is? IT IS SO EASY TO MAKE.  I mean, sure, people will be happy you've brought it and whatever, but a winning party recipe that takes about 15 minutes at the very outside to create?  YOU'RE WELCOME.

Don't you just love it when you get an avocado that actually looks this good? It's like you don't even want to waste it on a bunch of lamers who wouldn't recognize your goodness if it bit them in the ass.  And it might.

The Suniverse's Kick Ass Guacamole [That You Can Tell People Is Your Own Secret Recipe.  I'm O.k. With That.]

As noted, this recipe is highly adaptable - it can hang out at the poshest soiree or enjoy a hoedown in Hickville.  Wait.  What the hell?  It's highly adaptable because you can make as much or as little as you'd like.  I'd err on the side of making a ton.  You'll eat it.  Anyway, I tell you this because I'm not going to put measurements in the recipe.  You'll be fine, trust me. 

INGREDIENTS
Avocados, nice and ripe [I usually get them at least 2 days before I'm going to make this recipe.  Did I tell you about that time I was going to make this for a party but forgot to actually purchase the avocados beforehand and then went to THREE DIFFERENT STORES a couple of hours before the party trying to find ripe ones? Yeah.  That was awesome.]
Red onion
Garlic
Lemon
Tomatoes [I use the tiny little grape ones because I find them the least acidic, but you use whatever you like.  I give my permission.]
Kosher salt
Pepper

DIRECTIONS

1.  Chop your onion.  I'd go about 1/8 - 1/4 of a medium red onion per avocado. 

2.  Mince your garlic.  A clove is plenty.  I know that there are people who just smoosh their garlic with the flat side of a large knife, but that is lazy and frankly looks like boogers.

Foreground: Correctly minced garlic.  Background: Diced red onion.  To the right: A SUPER SHARP KNIFE.  LOOK OUT.

3.  Cut your lemon in half and seed it.  Make those little "shitshitshitshitshit" noises when you realize you have a thousand little paper cuts all over your hands.

4.  Dice your tomatoes.  I sprinkle a little kosher salt on them, because that makes them taste good.  I use about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of diced tomatoes per avocado.  But be advised that I am making that amount up completely.  I'm not even sure what those sizes look like.  I also may have made up the amount of red onion to be used in the recipe.  Just go with it.

5.  Get your nice, ripe avocados and cut them in half.  Scoop out the delicious greeness with the edge of a spoon and yank out the pit.  I know you're supposed to be able to whack the pit with a knife and easily twist it out, but I advise against it for the following reasons:  1. I'm afraid I will get a little carried away with the whacking and end up knifing myself.  Or, more probably, the husband, because he can make me a little testy sometimes.  2.  It's just as easy to scoop it out with a spoon, or your fingers, plus, if you use your fingers, you get to lick the avocado off them.  I do not recommend licking the knife.

6.  Dice your avocado.

7.  Put your ingredients in a bowl.  I am lazy and also am not so thrilled with the mixing bowls I own [isn't that a weird thing to have an opinion about?], so I just use the bowl I'm going to serve the guacamole in.  If you're in a hurry, you don't even have to cut up your avocado.  Just put it in the bowl and smash it up.  Really get your aggression out.  It's fine!  You may be resentful that you actually have to make something to serve at a party YOU ARE NOT EVEN HAVING or that you have to share something so delicious with people you can only tolerate at best, and this is an amazing way to feel better about it.

Your cast of characters ingredients. Seriously, how ridiculously perfect is that avocado?

8.  Mix everything together.  I like a chunkier guacamole, but the husband and the girl like it more dip-style.  Depending on how benevolent I'm feeling, we'll see who wins.  Because it is a contest.

I was feeling quite generous toward the husband and the girl that day, so the guacamole is relatively smooth.

9.  Squeeze the lemon over the guacamole and season with salt and pepper and mix it up some more.  I like adding a little extra lemon juice because it gives the dip a really nice tang.  Not TANG, because I think only NASA still gets that.  A kind of tasty zing.  I'd start with 1/2 a lemon and work up from there.

Eat this with tortilla chips or on grilled chicken or just from the bowl.  It's really, really good.  Would I lie?

WARNING:  Make this once for a party and you will be making this FOREVER any time you have an event. 

I think you missed one - a love letter to my family.

As you may have gathered, I do pretty much all the cooking in our little household.  I don't mind it, generally, because I am pretty particular about my food [Let's talk about crazy food issues! I'll see your eating disorder and raise you crazed paranoia about potential allergies and possible poisonings!] and I'm also that person who says stuff like, "I'm hungry," and then shoots down everything offered as an option by anyone ever in the history of the world.

I'm fun to be around! Let's have a sleepover!

Anyway, the upside to doing all the cooking is that, in general, I'm relieved of clean up duties.  The husband usually does them and lately we've tried to get the girl to be exclusive kitchen cleaner since it's summer and she has no other obligations and we don't want her to lack in the womanly arts department.

I still end up doing the dishes sometimes.  Mainly when it's supposed to be the girl's turn and she's tired or it's late or there are so many dishes to wash.  Evidently I want her to be soft and unskilled, like veal.

We have a double sink, but limited counter space, so I came up with the ingenious idea of putting a dish drainer in the sink that doesn't have the garbage disposal in it, since we so very seldom handwash ANYTHING. God bless whoever invented the dishwasher.* We don't really need two sinks and we really do need somewhere to put the microwave and the coffee maker, so it worked out perfectly for everyone.  I think that's what synergy is.

However.

Every once in a while when I'll do the dishes and actually handwash something and it will sit in that fucking dish drainer until the End Times because both the husband and the girl evidently have transitory hysterical blindness and can't see anything in that part of the kitchen.

Please ignore the water spots in my stainless steel sink.  Thanks!

See? That martini shaker has been there since July 4th.  That tile that the girl painted when she was maybe 4 years old and we use as a spoon rest?  Has been there at least 3 months and is now completely wedged into the space.  It's never coming out.  The meat thermometer?  A couple of weeks, at least.

WTF, people.  WHAT THE FUCK?

*Shockingly, it was a woman named Josephine Cochran in 1886 who invented the first working dishwasher.  Or at least that's what the internet tells me.

_________________________
Many thanks to the lovely Poppy from Funny Or Snot for coming up with this delightful posting topic.  Kudos, dear Poppy.  Kudos to you.





________________________In BIG GIANT AWESOME NEWS, I'm over at The Misadventures of Mrs. B doing a guest post.  Go take a look - if you think I've gone over the edge with my cheesy goodness mac & cheese recipe yesterday, wait until you see this.

He just needs to stop. Seriously.

Scenes from a marriage:

SCENE ONE

The husband: I'm gonna light the grill.  Is the chicken ready?

Me:  Almost.  Hey, I haven't been able to light the grill the last couple of times I've tried.  Is that ignition thingy broken already?  What the fuck?

The husband:  I dunno.  It worked last night.  I'll check it out.

[A minute or so passes.  I rinse and season chicken.  The husband is out on the deck, making fire, like a real man. He comes back into the kitchen.]

Me:  Did it work?

The husband:  Yes.  It works fine.

Me:  Well, what the fuck?

The husband: . . .  Did you turn the propane on?

Me: . . . .

The husband: . . . .

Me:  . . . No.

The husband:  Well, see, you have to turn the propane on -

Me: Shut. The fuck. Up.

END SCENE

**************

SCENE TWO

[We don't have cable, so we usually end up watching Hulu or Netflix or DVDs. Every once in a while, we'll watch something on one of the regular channels that come through the air.


The other night, it was The Hardy Boys.]

Me: Oh, my god, they're driving a Rape Van.

The husband:  This acting is terrible.  Is that Valerie Bertinelli?

Me:  Yes.  Parker Stevenson looks as good as I remember.

The husband:  You know what we should do?

Me:  What?

The husband:  We could totally make this into porn.

Me: . . . .

The husband:  Just hear me out.  You can leave the show as it is - wooden acting, terrible plotlines, cheesy dialog.  They've already got the porno music; you just add in sex scenes.

Me: . . . .

The husband:  Seriously.  I mean, listen to that dialog.  And Valerie Bertinelli as some multiple personality chick, where one of the personalities is a crazy biker?  This writes itself.

Me:  Are you kidding me?

The husband:  No.  See?  Right there, where they go off to "take care of it," even the Hardy Boys could get some guy on guy action. Wouldn't you like to see that?

Me:  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  NO!  I mean, Parker Stevenson, sure, but not Shawn Cassidy.

The husband:  It's a gold mine.

Me:  I seriously doubt that.  The acting is terrible.


*************

SCENE THREE

The husband:  I need new pillows.

Me:  I just bought new pillows a few months ago.

The husband:  These pillows suck.  They're too flat.

Me:  I purposefully asked and checked on pillows to get you pillows that would be comfortable because you sleep on your face.  Those are the pillows.

The husband:  I don't like them.  I need new ones.

Me:  Well, go get them.

The husband:  I can't go get new pillows.  I don't know what kind to get.

Me: THE KIND THAT YOU LIKE.

The husband:  You're better at picking out pillows.  You're the pillow expert. 

Me:  So even though you hate the pillows I just got you, you want me to pick out new pillows for you.

The husband:  Yes.  That's the rule.  You're in charge of pillows.

Me:  You deserve bad pillows.

Not as erudite as I thought.

Last week I got an email asking if I wanted tickets to go see Bizet's Carmen.  Well, sure.  I actually like opera and classical music and getting dressed up and going places. 

Granted, this wasn't New York or DC or even LA.  It was a Midwestern performance of an opera which, for some reason, I thought was Italian.  It's not.  It's French.  Strike one for my aura of smartitude.

Anyway, the tickets were cheap. 

So yeah, sure, the husband and I decided to go.

We get to Will Call and find that the tickets are so fucking cheap because the seats are in the LAST POSSIBLE ROW of the balcony.  I knew they'd be in the balcony, but last row? COME ON.

Did I mention to you that I get vertigo?  And not the Jimmy Stewart kind [which, seriously @modinkpeeb ? Jimmy Stewart is in no way sexier than Cary Grant.  NO WAY.].  The swoopy kind of vertigo.  It's not fun. 

So we climb and climb and climb stairs and finally get to the BACK of the place and sit down and I'm deep breathing [o.k., almost panting, whatever, I'm starting my water aerobics this week, let's relax, o.k.?] and trying not to look down except you know what? DOWN IS WHERE THE SHOW IS.

So I spent the show with my head turned sideways and looking out of the bottom corners of my eyes.  I highly recommend this viewing method next time you are at the opera.

ALSO - why the fuckity-roo do operas have to have those supertitles?  I first saw them about 15 years ago when we went to see a Wagner opera [of course I don't remember which one.  It was in German and had a boat.  Das Boot, maybe?]  I mean, I've got the libretto so I know what's going on, and I may not be fluent in the language, but I don't need to see exactly what words the people are singing, I can get that from the whole ambiance of the play, and also? The person in charge of the supertitles at Carmen? Was high or drunk, because they never matched up with what was going on.

So I kind of felt all superior and thought, "Screw these infidels, I'm not looking at the supertitles anymore because I am SO ABOVE ALL THAT [And not just because I needed a sherpa to get to my seat.  And also not just because it made me dizzy to look at them.]."

Until I recognized Carmen's first big number, Habanera, in Act I.  Because I recognized Carmen's song from Sesame Street.



I get props for it being Denyse Graves singing on Sesame Street, right?  [If you have never seen this, please do.  It's amazing.]

Then in Act II, I recognized the Toreador song from Gilligan's Island.  I was pretty mortified and leaned over to mention this to my husband, who said, "That's o.k., I recognize the songs from Bugs Bunny."  Yeah.  We're together.

At the end of Act II, I asked the husband if we could leave, because it had already been well over 2 hours of sitting with my head twisted & there were two more acts, which meant at least 2 more hours and frankly? I was more than willing to just get a DVD and watch the last two acts.  Don't get me wrong, I really love the music and I am a HUGE fan of live theater, but I realized that I am a huge fan of live theater on the main floor only.

So we left, after I carefully made my way down down down down down the stairs. 

I highly recommend classing up your day with opera to see how much of a rube you are.  I bet I win.

Loquacious.

I do.
We did.
Honeymoon baby.


***********
Six Word Memoir Prompt. Shit's hard.

I missed you so much it's like an ache in my heart. Or tooth. Or ear.

I missed you!

Evidently not enough to get online, but I did.

This was a pretty good weekend, even if I did have more than my share of moments where I sat in the car by myself going, "I really, really, REALLY fucking hate everyone."  I'm not exactly sure why, and I can't even blame PMS, but there it is.  Maybe this UNRELENTING STUPID HEAT.  Maybe.  From 60 to 90 in 3 days is not right.  Is there a complaint box? Because I have some stuff to say about this ridiculousness.  This is NOT how you run things.  It's just not.

We saw a family and friends and had fun and also lots of tasty food and snacks PLUS I got a ridiculous sunburn on one side of my neck and half my chest.  I look like a before and after ad for sunblock.

We also went to Greenfield Village, thanks to the good auspices of Unmitigated Me, and saw the Civil War Remembrance activities.

I'm sweating just remembering them.

At which point I realized that I have become an old lady because:

1.  I immediately had to go the bathroom.
2.  I wanted my sun hat.
3.  I struck up conversations with EVERYONE. The ladies in the Temperance camp, the woman sitting next to me at the fashion show [fancy! but HOT!], the young men at the Civil War pavilion.
4.  I made the husband wear a badge identifying him as a veteran.
5.  I routed our day so that we were near bathrooms AND buildings where we could go in and cool off.
6.  I made the husband go and get the car.

It was a lot of fun.  I highly recommend going.  And taking the husband, because he will get the car AND turn on the AC full blast.

We also took part in our annual Family Water Balloon Fight on Memorial Day.  My cousin filled over 600 water balloons and we went nuts.  Well, mostly everyone else went nuts while I took pictures with my sister's camera and tried to stay out of the line of fire, like a good war correspondent.

The younger kids are now old enough where they are wily and plan out their attacks.  The husband was bombed mercilessly.  I was hit by friendly fire RIGHT IN THE STOMACH while I was trying to take pictures.  That hurt A LOT.

Next year, I'm bringing a supersoaker.  Or a hose.

Did I tell you about that time a near-stranger found our stash of porn?

If I did, you can ignore this post, or just read all about it again.  It's pretty entertaining.

Many, many years ago, the husband and I bought a house in a very religious city, in a whitey-white American town, in a conservative area, basically, in a place we never quite fit into.  I mean, we're not building tributes to Burning Man on our lawn, but we do tend to listen to a lot more Public Enemy than our neighbors.  That kind of thing.

The main reason - the only reason, really - we moved to this city is because of its schools.  The district has the only gifted magnet program from 1st grade on [which gets less delightful as time goes no, but that's a whole other post] where the nerd kids are in their own school being nerds in all classes, from math to art to gym.  I highly recommend it as an elementary school program.

Anyway, we moved here when the girl was in preschool, because her preschool was in the area and we liked the city [leafy parks, nice swimming pools/clubs, good neighborhoods] even though it had no soul [no real downtown, 1970s era school buildings and city hall].  The people were nice.  I mean, not all kinds of demented fun and they tend not to swear as much as I do [but then, who does?], but nice people.  Churchy.  Conservative, but not in that Newt Gingrich-y sleazy kind of way.  Just whitebread America.

So we bought the house and a few years later, our house had appreciated [remember when houses did that?] and mortgage rates were dropping, and we decided to refinance for a lower rate.  Smart, sensible, what everyone else was doing.

Well, in order to refinance, your house has to be reappraised.  I made an appointment with the appraiser and set a day and time.  At that point, I was working part time and going to grad school [totally worth it!], so my schedule was more flexible than the husband's.  Also, he hates dealing with people, so I'm usually the person who has to make appointments and call for carry out and send emails to teachers.

Anyway, the appraiser shows up, and I start showing him around the house.  He says, "I think I know you from somewhere."
I think, "Great. I'm getting either hit on or ready to be fileted, neither of which is a great option right now." I say, "Hmm. . . I'm not sure I recognize you."

He says, "Oh, our kids go to preschool together.  My daughter is Blond Girl."

Oh. Sure. Fine.  I've been president of the cooperative preschool for about 3 years and know his daughter, and I'm kind of whatever. Small world, yadda yadda.

We continue our tour through the house and head down into the basement, which has been refinished into a really nice rec room area.  There's thick carpeting, drywall, and block windows that have been trimmed out with blinds hung from them.  There's also a fuse box that has been trimmed out with blinds covering it.

Him:  Can you show me the electrical box?
Me:  Sure, it's right here.

I walk over and pull on the cord for the blinds, yanking them up and displaying the utility box and:

Yeah. Pretty much this. Source.

At which point I die.

And grab the giant VHS boxes and say, "Huh, I'm not sure why these are here," and stuff them behind a blanket on the couch.  

To give him credit, the man continued his appraisal in a very professional manner.

Love means never having to say you're sorry, which is good, because I am too awesome to say I'm sorry.

As a companion piece to this loving tribute to why the husband is a bummer, I bring you:

Reasons why I love the husband [sometimes]:

1.  It's midnight, I'm up with insomnia watching Gilmore Girls [of course] when the husband climbs into bed, eyes already closed from being so tired.  It's quiet, except for the t.v., until I hear the husband, with his eyes still closed, say, "I'm sorry, there's no fucking way Rory is valedictorian over Paris.  That's fucking bullshit."

2.  I pull on the chain for the ceiling fan and it snaps off inside the fucking fan part.  The husband will let me stew in my anger for a few days, hating how anytime anything breaks in this house, it just stays broken [bedroom window, bathroom fan, Jesus, we are the fucking Beverly Hillbillies before they discovered black gold].  Then he'll try and fix it.  He usually can't, but I'll give him points for trying.  Although I also deduct points for letting me stew.

3.  When it's dark outside, he will go outside and close the garage door or take out the trash after we've watched something scary, even though there may be chupacabras or sewer monsters or  those fucking creepy ass people from The Strangers:

Source. This is what I think happens when you go outside at night after watching something scary.

4.  He thinks I'm a great writer/person/parent and can do anything I put my mind to.  This is great, even if I tend to discount his opinion sometimes because duh, he's my husband, he's supposed to say that. 

5.  His genes gave the girl these amazing giant eyes and mile-long eyelashes.  Because I have tiny, squinty eyes and sparse lashes, I am very, very grateful for this.  As is the girl.  Or she will be when she realizes what a lucky draw she got.