Hmm. It was too perfect. Something had just struck me: I had a blue bike and a blue helmet, Zach had a green bike and helmet, Trey had orange, and Johanna had black and pink. It just seemed to fit, and I inwardly laughed to myself. (I would hope it was to myself... the alternatives aren't very attractive, hahahae.) Anyways, we were all set for a nice ride through the mountains; it was my first time going dirt biking for real! (There was a fake first time two years ago, but it was much less glamorous and hardly counted in the first place.) We all sat on our bikes and surveyed the path ahead; yup, it'll be great! Ten minutes later I finally got my back started and going after dozens of previous attempts ending in a pathetic stallout even before I'd moved an inch. I wasn't very used to the... well, anything really. It was all strange and new territory for me. A dozen or two yards down the way I stole a look back and saw everybody staring up themselves. We were off! I turned left at the road, only to find out we were going right. So I tried to turn around, but stalled out. Ugh. Nine minutes later I got it going again, and I puttered away. This was Johanna's second time biking, so she wasn't super confidant herself in terms of going fast, so she and I went slow down the road while Zach and Trey went off the road and cruised amongst the trees and went up the hills a little ways and came back and so forth. Eventually I got bored of just going slow along the main road and went off into a little baby clearing. I navigated between the trees and bushes and rocks, but stalled it again. Eventually I got it going again, only to stall it promptly again. Everybody else stayed in the general area, and kind of more or less drove super sloppy circles around me while I tried to start it again. It was slightly frustrating. Johanna said a word of encouragement whilst puttering by, and Zach gave me another tip for starting it. After getting going again, we went back out on the road so I could get used to driving around and not stalling out before reentering the woods. So off we went.
By and by I found myself a little ways up front, Zach and Trey a bit behind going off the road for a bit, and Johanna trailing not too far behind me. All of a sudden I broke out from the trees and found myself amidst a large grassy area with loping hills and no rocks. Then I got excited: here was a nice spot to finally drive around not in a straight line without trees to get in the way and make me stallout! So I started driving wherever I fancied in this grassy mountaintop fieldy area. And then, it clicked. I got it. At once, everything made sense and it was as if I had been seeing through a mirror darkly, but now it was clear! Now I didn't take the easiest, clearest route, I instead went wherever my heart longed to. At one point I came across a sudden rise in the ground (i.e. a hill or bump) and gave the throttle a good burst and did a little baby jump! Both wheels got off the ground maybe twelve inches or so; it wasn't much, but I was stoked! Then Zach arrived, and together we drove around in a seemingly random fashion going up hills and through ditches and so forth. It was amazing!
After that everything was fun. I didn't have to think near so hard about what I was doing, and I could go wheresoever I pleased. Eventually Zach and I found ourselves ahead of the others a little ways. There was a cute little rectangle of tall grass off to the left that ran alongside the road for a good long ways, so we turned off. Down further to the left ran a a beautiful stream, and we both puttered slowly along the better to get a good look at it. Zach even stopped altogether to gaze at it and take it all in. I puttered past him, and then he started pointing straight ahead to where I was heading; evidently we weren't turning around here but were going to continue along down the road. A moment later I turned my gaze back from the stream to where I was going, and noticed something funny: the grass up ahead didn't look like grass. It was much coarser and... huh, that's funny, it looked almost like the top of trees. All at once my mind became undeceived and I deciphered what I was looking at: it was a gorge! It was too late to turn around now, I was only a few feet away from the edge. "Here goes nothing!" I said to myself, "Guess we'll just have to try and ride it out and make it up the other side." I crashed and ripped through the brush and little trees, reached the bottom without dying, and then a grin creeped across my face. "Heh heh, I got this." I added more throttle as I started up the other side, and halfway up, the brush and little trees were too thick and the throttle not enough, and all at once I just stopped where I was. The bike didn't even fall over, and I was still sitting down when I took my helmet off and started laughing. Meanwhile, Zach didn't know how deep the gorge was, for all he knew it was a veritable mountainside cliff. He ran over quick as he could, and when he reached the top and saw me on the other side, he too burst into laughter. By this time Trey and Johanna pulled up and also got their fill of comedy. I started beating down the brush so I could push the bike out, and then Zach and Trey came and helped me, and together we got it up the other side of the gorge.
We all decided to take a quick break and laugh about what happened and recount it back in detail. Had I gone about a foot and a half more to the left, I would've ran straight into a boulder at the bottom of that gorge, and it'd've been a whole different sort of story. Handily, I walked away with only a handful of scratches on my hands. Anyways, I ran down to the stream to slake my thirst, and upon my return we set off again. The rest of the day was loads of fun, (Trey did a lot of cool tricksy stuff on his bike, like riding up in a semi-circle along a super steep sheer rock cliff, among other things) and on the way back I got into fifth gear going some fifty odd miles an hour. It was exhilarating and left you wanting to keep going on forever, but darkness has a way of convincing one it's time to call it quits, and so we packed up and left. So ended my first trip to the mountains for bike riding. Hopefully there'll be more to come!
Thursday, June 7, 2018
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Hotsprings + Diving
Friday, March 9th, 2018
Sometimes I wonder how I manage to survive. Whether it's by accident, on purpose, or a little of both, it always seems to work out in the end. That being said, all my more significant injuries could have been easily prevented by a little dose of prudence, good judgment, and just all round common sense. Perhaps running around barefoot in the dark in the desert in a large backyard you've never been in before might not be such a good idea after all. Maybe jumping off a roof onto the open back door of a suburban wasn't the best decision either. And maybe, just maybe, getting a good running start down a narrow icy path laden with rocks wasn't quite the amazing plan I thought it was. One day I'll learn from all my mistakes and not hurt myself in such remarkably preventable ways. One day, yes, maybe so, but not today. No, not today. Let's start it way back where all good stories start: the beginning.
It all began years ago when I was seven years old. I had just gotten a new pair of shoes when I... hahae, no, not that far back. Let's just go to the beginning of the day, sound good? Good. Let's go. Well, today was the day! It was the second day of being done with finals, which, to digress a little bit as I am wont to do, was quite the action-packed week. It was both short and, with the exception of furnishing the worst translation in the history of Latin translations, sweet. It even ended with a bang as I raced the clock to finish my screenwriting assignment. It was due at 11:59pm on Wednesday, and at 10pm of that night I decided it'd be a fine time to rework my entire screenplay. I worked fast and furious the entire duration of those two hours, culminating with me blasting out the last few changes as I listened to the song 'Indian Outlaw', and I even pressed the submit button as the line, "...so proud to live, so proud to die..." sang out. Gulp. It was 12:01am, a full two minutes after the deadline. I was exhausted, and fairly surprised when I looked up to see that the whole gang had gathered around my little cubicle in the UI library. None of them were in the screenwriting class, so I like to think that's why they were afforded this luxury. In reality though, most of the other had already finished and submitted their screenplays by this time anyways, and it was only by means of my procrastination that I was there typing away shortly before the deadline. Oh well, I suppose that's how it works sometimes, eh? Brooke and Anna decided to be reasonable and go to bed, but Benjamin and Caleb and I decided to celebrate and go to Taco Bell. Or at least, I was celebrating because I was done with all my finals, they still had one or two left. It was a great ending to a decent finals week.
Anyways, Friday rolled around, and with it the desire to get out of town and do something, and what better way than to go swimming? Well, we weren't going swimming exactly, our destination was more of a natural hotsprings, but doubtless there'd be water there to enjoy. Froh and I made it down to the meeting place at the appointed time, only to find we were the first there. Except Bobby was there too, still trying to put the finishing touches on an assignment that should've been turned in already but hadn't been due to sickness. I preached to him about all the reasons why he should still come with us, and by and by he was convinced; he finished it enough to submit it, dropped the rest, and came along. Everybody was glad of it too. Eventually everybody else showed up and we got on our way; Froh, John, Bobby, Joelle with Christy in her car, and Handerson, Charli, and myself with Mandy in her (borrowed) car. And we were off! All the people in our car brought a ton of snacks for the road, everything from apples, to cookies, to cheezits and chocolate-covered cranberries(?). When we had about crested the large hill outside Lewiston, Handerson and I told Mandy to take the fun way down, which involved getting off the main road and taking the scenic route called The Spiral Highway. This is a road that twists and winds all the way down the grade, and is super fun to drive on. Part way down we opened the sunroof to let in the sun and the wind, and, heh heh, an idea flew into my funnel. I unbuckled my seatbelt and stood up through the sunroof! It was sooo much fun! I turned and waved at the other car in the convoy behind us, and tried to hit them with some almonds I think it was. I was unsuccessful, but it was fun nonetheless. Then Handerson pressed a certain button, and the sunroof started to close, pinching me in place. We all laughed and I climbed back inside.
Eventually we made it to the bottom of the grade and started driving along the highway beside the river. We followed this for a long time, and eventually stopped by the side of the road at a pulloff. There was a nice little rivulet running down from the hills and under the road feeding into the river, so I took it upon myself to crawl through the pipe under the road all the way to the other side. Upon emerging, it was plainly evident my hair had caught at least a pound of spiders' web on the way. Heh heh, the cost of fun I guess. We all then roamed along the rocky shoreline, jumping from rock to rock to log and enjoying ourselves, but eventually we had to go back to the cars and get on with it.
An hour or two later, we finally arrived at the place: a little parking lot at the start of something like a mile long trail. And the best part? Over here it was snowy! Bobby and I quickly ran to this huge mound of snow, both trying to get to the top first, each pulling the other down and trying to shove him out of the way, and more often than not getting snow in his face or falling over backwards. It was great. And then I spotted something that I'd always wanted to do: there was a little tiny bathhouse with a roof totally full of snow, perfect for creating an artificial snow slide. A moment later I was clambering up and trying to get all the snow to fall off the roof, but no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn't budge. Eventually I had to let it be, for everybody had already started down the trail and I would be left behind. It was a nice trail, not very wide, and the snow was hard packed and offered but little traction. It meandered along the side of the hill with a fairly steep climb on the one side, and an equally steep drop on the other. Along the bottom of this hill ran a nice stream, not so small as a rivulet or creek, nor so large as a small river. This stream playfully produced pleasant sounds of laughter as it skipped over the rocks and bumped into the frozen banks: it rivaled even some of the most beautiful of bird choirs.
By and by, after walking a bit further and talking along the way, we arrived. There it was, a nice little hotspring nestled among the rocks above the stream. All the rock face was free of snow because of the water running down from the spring which collected in a pool partway down. If you didn't already know, water from a hotspring is hot. That's why they call it a hotspring, because it's hot. Why don't we have coldsprings? I don't know. But I do know that many springs produce cold water. But that's besides the point: this spring was hot, and that's why the rocks were free of snow. At any rate, we were soon all getting into the pool created by the hotspring. Well, except for me. I had a funner idea to do first. I clambered down the rocks and logs down to the streamside. Froh called out, "What are you do-ing!" and I just laughed and carried on. I was now at the stream itself, and I looked around for a deep enough spot, where I waded in. It was cold. Most of the water do doubt came from snowmelt which is notorious for being cold, and today was no exception. The spot I had chosen was perfect; I submerged beneath the water and delighted in the coldness of it all, and the current was pretty nice too, bringing an unending trail of fresh cold water in its train. I resurfaced, then went under again, and then decided that was enough and began making my way up the rocks again toward the hotspring. Now that my hands were like little frozen ice mallets, I found that the rocks were harder and sharper on the way up than they had been on the way down. Funny how that works. But by and by I made it to the top.
The hotspring was a warm relief to the falling temperature of my hands and feet, it was so great! There's nothing quite like it. If you ever get the chance to go to one, you should. When I got there, Handerson, Mandy, and Charli decided they'd go down to the stream proper as well, so they took off. The rest of us, meanwhile, talked and laughed and just generally had a good time. Eventually the three girls who'd gone down to the stream returned, but only Charli had followed through with the idea of going swimming down there. Perhaps the other two didn't actually plan on going into the water in the first place, but oh well. By this time I was well warmed up and ready to go do something cold and fun again, and I had an idea. I jumped out of the water and ran to the trail again where there was snow, and found a nice little snowbank. Heh heh. It's always fun to dive into a snowbank. And so I did.
Let's take a little intermission here. This is the part that I had actually intended on writing when I started writing this post. For some reason I feel necessitated to include everything that lead up to it even though it actually had no bearing on what was about to occur. Oh well. Perhaps I should get better at writing hare posts, not mammoth ones. Anyways, I'd also like to point out that if you take the 'v' out of 'dive' you get 'die'. Coincidence? I think not. Also, did you notice that I hadn't depth checked the snowbank to make sure it was deep enough? I hadn't. You should always do this. I also said it's 'always' fun to dive into a snowbank. This is demonstrably false. With that said, let's continue.
So I jumped up and dove into the snowbank. It wasn't a shallow dive either, it was a full on swan dive. I was really getting into the spirit of pretending the snow was water, which it was clearly not. My arms, head, and tips of my shoulders made it into the bank before my hands struck the hillside rather forcefully, sending pain racing up my central nervous system. You've never seen a wave of depolarization so fast. The rest of my body not in the snow that flopped over down the hill, leaving my head and arms in the snow. Discombobulated, I pulled my head out of the bank and assessed the situation. There was a little bit of pain here and there, but an uncanny amount centered on my left hand and ring finger. My hand did not wish to move. So I walked back to the spring and rested it. I found out later that I'd fractured the carpals of my hand, and it was a full six weeks before it would fully heal. All that from one decision to go swimming in a snowbank that was far too shallow.
After that we continued sitting in the spring, and eventually it started getting dark, so we packed up and headed back to the cars. It was much more interesting making our way back in the dark, but we got there eventually and were fortified at the end by Christy's banana bread. The drive back was uneventful, except that we ended up taking a very roundabout way of getting back and ended up on a lonely country road. We stopped at the crest of a hill and told the other car that we wanted to look at the stars, which we did for a couple minutes before getting cold and carrying on. And so ended the day. Each went make to their respective homes and we called it a day.
Sometimes I wonder how I manage to survive. Whether it's by accident, on purpose, or a little of both, it always seems to work out in the end. That being said, all my more significant injuries could have been easily prevented by a little dose of prudence, good judgment, and just all round common sense. Perhaps running around barefoot in the dark in the desert in a large backyard you've never been in before might not be such a good idea after all. Maybe jumping off a roof onto the open back door of a suburban wasn't the best decision either. And maybe, just maybe, getting a good running start down a narrow icy path laden with rocks wasn't quite the amazing plan I thought it was. One day I'll learn from all my mistakes and not hurt myself in such remarkably preventable ways. One day, yes, maybe so, but not today. No, not today. Let's start it way back where all good stories start: the beginning.
It all began years ago when I was seven years old. I had just gotten a new pair of shoes when I... hahae, no, not that far back. Let's just go to the beginning of the day, sound good? Good. Let's go. Well, today was the day! It was the second day of being done with finals, which, to digress a little bit as I am wont to do, was quite the action-packed week. It was both short and, with the exception of furnishing the worst translation in the history of Latin translations, sweet. It even ended with a bang as I raced the clock to finish my screenwriting assignment. It was due at 11:59pm on Wednesday, and at 10pm of that night I decided it'd be a fine time to rework my entire screenplay. I worked fast and furious the entire duration of those two hours, culminating with me blasting out the last few changes as I listened to the song 'Indian Outlaw', and I even pressed the submit button as the line, "...so proud to live, so proud to die..." sang out. Gulp. It was 12:01am, a full two minutes after the deadline. I was exhausted, and fairly surprised when I looked up to see that the whole gang had gathered around my little cubicle in the UI library. None of them were in the screenwriting class, so I like to think that's why they were afforded this luxury. In reality though, most of the other had already finished and submitted their screenplays by this time anyways, and it was only by means of my procrastination that I was there typing away shortly before the deadline. Oh well, I suppose that's how it works sometimes, eh? Brooke and Anna decided to be reasonable and go to bed, but Benjamin and Caleb and I decided to celebrate and go to Taco Bell. Or at least, I was celebrating because I was done with all my finals, they still had one or two left. It was a great ending to a decent finals week.
Anyways, Friday rolled around, and with it the desire to get out of town and do something, and what better way than to go swimming? Well, we weren't going swimming exactly, our destination was more of a natural hotsprings, but doubtless there'd be water there to enjoy. Froh and I made it down to the meeting place at the appointed time, only to find we were the first there. Except Bobby was there too, still trying to put the finishing touches on an assignment that should've been turned in already but hadn't been due to sickness. I preached to him about all the reasons why he should still come with us, and by and by he was convinced; he finished it enough to submit it, dropped the rest, and came along. Everybody was glad of it too. Eventually everybody else showed up and we got on our way; Froh, John, Bobby, Joelle with Christy in her car, and Handerson, Charli, and myself with Mandy in her (borrowed) car. And we were off! All the people in our car brought a ton of snacks for the road, everything from apples, to cookies, to cheezits and chocolate-covered cranberries(?). When we had about crested the large hill outside Lewiston, Handerson and I told Mandy to take the fun way down, which involved getting off the main road and taking the scenic route called The Spiral Highway. This is a road that twists and winds all the way down the grade, and is super fun to drive on. Part way down we opened the sunroof to let in the sun and the wind, and, heh heh, an idea flew into my funnel. I unbuckled my seatbelt and stood up through the sunroof! It was sooo much fun! I turned and waved at the other car in the convoy behind us, and tried to hit them with some almonds I think it was. I was unsuccessful, but it was fun nonetheless. Then Handerson pressed a certain button, and the sunroof started to close, pinching me in place. We all laughed and I climbed back inside.
Eventually we made it to the bottom of the grade and started driving along the highway beside the river. We followed this for a long time, and eventually stopped by the side of the road at a pulloff. There was a nice little rivulet running down from the hills and under the road feeding into the river, so I took it upon myself to crawl through the pipe under the road all the way to the other side. Upon emerging, it was plainly evident my hair had caught at least a pound of spiders' web on the way. Heh heh, the cost of fun I guess. We all then roamed along the rocky shoreline, jumping from rock to rock to log and enjoying ourselves, but eventually we had to go back to the cars and get on with it.
An hour or two later, we finally arrived at the place: a little parking lot at the start of something like a mile long trail. And the best part? Over here it was snowy! Bobby and I quickly ran to this huge mound of snow, both trying to get to the top first, each pulling the other down and trying to shove him out of the way, and more often than not getting snow in his face or falling over backwards. It was great. And then I spotted something that I'd always wanted to do: there was a little tiny bathhouse with a roof totally full of snow, perfect for creating an artificial snow slide. A moment later I was clambering up and trying to get all the snow to fall off the roof, but no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn't budge. Eventually I had to let it be, for everybody had already started down the trail and I would be left behind. It was a nice trail, not very wide, and the snow was hard packed and offered but little traction. It meandered along the side of the hill with a fairly steep climb on the one side, and an equally steep drop on the other. Along the bottom of this hill ran a nice stream, not so small as a rivulet or creek, nor so large as a small river. This stream playfully produced pleasant sounds of laughter as it skipped over the rocks and bumped into the frozen banks: it rivaled even some of the most beautiful of bird choirs.
By and by, after walking a bit further and talking along the way, we arrived. There it was, a nice little hotspring nestled among the rocks above the stream. All the rock face was free of snow because of the water running down from the spring which collected in a pool partway down. If you didn't already know, water from a hotspring is hot. That's why they call it a hotspring, because it's hot. Why don't we have coldsprings? I don't know. But I do know that many springs produce cold water. But that's besides the point: this spring was hot, and that's why the rocks were free of snow. At any rate, we were soon all getting into the pool created by the hotspring. Well, except for me. I had a funner idea to do first. I clambered down the rocks and logs down to the streamside. Froh called out, "What are you do-ing!" and I just laughed and carried on. I was now at the stream itself, and I looked around for a deep enough spot, where I waded in. It was cold. Most of the water do doubt came from snowmelt which is notorious for being cold, and today was no exception. The spot I had chosen was perfect; I submerged beneath the water and delighted in the coldness of it all, and the current was pretty nice too, bringing an unending trail of fresh cold water in its train. I resurfaced, then went under again, and then decided that was enough and began making my way up the rocks again toward the hotspring. Now that my hands were like little frozen ice mallets, I found that the rocks were harder and sharper on the way up than they had been on the way down. Funny how that works. But by and by I made it to the top.
The hotspring was a warm relief to the falling temperature of my hands and feet, it was so great! There's nothing quite like it. If you ever get the chance to go to one, you should. When I got there, Handerson, Mandy, and Charli decided they'd go down to the stream proper as well, so they took off. The rest of us, meanwhile, talked and laughed and just generally had a good time. Eventually the three girls who'd gone down to the stream returned, but only Charli had followed through with the idea of going swimming down there. Perhaps the other two didn't actually plan on going into the water in the first place, but oh well. By this time I was well warmed up and ready to go do something cold and fun again, and I had an idea. I jumped out of the water and ran to the trail again where there was snow, and found a nice little snowbank. Heh heh. It's always fun to dive into a snowbank. And so I did.
Let's take a little intermission here. This is the part that I had actually intended on writing when I started writing this post. For some reason I feel necessitated to include everything that lead up to it even though it actually had no bearing on what was about to occur. Oh well. Perhaps I should get better at writing hare posts, not mammoth ones. Anyways, I'd also like to point out that if you take the 'v' out of 'dive' you get 'die'. Coincidence? I think not. Also, did you notice that I hadn't depth checked the snowbank to make sure it was deep enough? I hadn't. You should always do this. I also said it's 'always' fun to dive into a snowbank. This is demonstrably false. With that said, let's continue.
So I jumped up and dove into the snowbank. It wasn't a shallow dive either, it was a full on swan dive. I was really getting into the spirit of pretending the snow was water, which it was clearly not. My arms, head, and tips of my shoulders made it into the bank before my hands struck the hillside rather forcefully, sending pain racing up my central nervous system. You've never seen a wave of depolarization so fast. The rest of my body not in the snow that flopped over down the hill, leaving my head and arms in the snow. Discombobulated, I pulled my head out of the bank and assessed the situation. There was a little bit of pain here and there, but an uncanny amount centered on my left hand and ring finger. My hand did not wish to move. So I walked back to the spring and rested it. I found out later that I'd fractured the carpals of my hand, and it was a full six weeks before it would fully heal. All that from one decision to go swimming in a snowbank that was far too shallow.
After that we continued sitting in the spring, and eventually it started getting dark, so we packed up and headed back to the cars. It was much more interesting making our way back in the dark, but we got there eventually and were fortified at the end by Christy's banana bread. The drive back was uneventful, except that we ended up taking a very roundabout way of getting back and ended up on a lonely country road. We stopped at the crest of a hill and told the other car that we wanted to look at the stars, which we did for a couple minutes before getting cold and carrying on. And so ended the day. Each went make to their respective homes and we called it a day.
Friday, April 20, 2018
How To Wave At People The Fun Way
Wednesday, April 18th, 2018
It was just another average day cleaning at the Stormcellar. Nothing too exciting. I was vacuuming some rugs near the back of the store, when who should walk by but Karis. I waved, and she waved back, and that was that. I see people I know walk by all the time, and I almost always wave if I happen to notice them, so I thought nothing of it and went back to work. A couple minutes later she came back again, and, since she knew I was still there, she evidently thought it would be a great idea to wave excitedly at me over and over again whilst smiling and walking backwards along the sidewalk. This seemed perhaps a little strange, but I went along with it nonetheless and waved back with exaggerated arm movements until she was out of sight. I laughed about it and went back to work.
Several hours later a thought occurred to me, so I decided to message Karis... and I found out that she hadn't seen me at the Stormcellar at all today. Which means that... who was I was waving to!? I don't know. Some random person evidently. Awkward. It would appear that I have an affinity for strange interactions with random strangers, but oh well. Nothing to do about it but laugh and move on I guess!
It was just another average day cleaning at the Stormcellar. Nothing too exciting. I was vacuuming some rugs near the back of the store, when who should walk by but Karis. I waved, and she waved back, and that was that. I see people I know walk by all the time, and I almost always wave if I happen to notice them, so I thought nothing of it and went back to work. A couple minutes later she came back again, and, since she knew I was still there, she evidently thought it would be a great idea to wave excitedly at me over and over again whilst smiling and walking backwards along the sidewalk. This seemed perhaps a little strange, but I went along with it nonetheless and waved back with exaggerated arm movements until she was out of sight. I laughed about it and went back to work.
Several hours later a thought occurred to me, so I decided to message Karis... and I found out that she hadn't seen me at the Stormcellar at all today. Which means that... who was I was waving to!? I don't know. Some random person evidently. Awkward. It would appear that I have an affinity for strange interactions with random strangers, but oh well. Nothing to do about it but laugh and move on I guess!
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
The Land Of Oranges And Lemons
Summer of 2010 or 2011ish
We made it. My grandpa and my great uncle and I had just driven down to Phoenix from Kansas city, and it was quite the ride. All along the way they'd remind each other where it was safe to speed and where it wasn't. "Oh, don't speed through here! Remember that one time we got that $900 ticket? They mean business here." and sometime later one would say, "Alright, we're good for the next 40 miles. Let's get going!" And so it went the entire way down. They've probably spent a small or medium-sized fortune in speeding tickets over the years, but at least now they're pretty good about not getting caught. I sat in the middle of the pickup truck the whole way down since I was the smallest, and listened to many a story of way-back-when or, if it wasn't that, it was talking about whatever politics Rush Limbaugh was railing about at the time. Besides getting hit by a cherry-picker truck at a gas station, it was a pretty great trip. Not that getting hit by the truck was a bad thing. Little thirteen-year-old me thought it was pretty great, especially the rush of seeing the truck approaching our cab and head straight for us. That was the best. Uncle Don tried to dodge him, but he couldn't get it in reverse fast enough, and... crunch! Both trucks stopped. Grandpa and Uncle Don immediately found their insurance information and started going over all the details of what happened and rehearsed their story to be sure to get it right. After decades of experience, Grandpa knew exactly what to do to get the payout that was inevitable, and he even got the license plate number in case the driver drove off before we got his insurance information. (Actually that was the first thing they did. I read and continually repeated the license number while they scrambled for pen and paper and recorded it.) Well, the driver was very apologetic about messing up our front end, and we got his information and that was that. On the way down Grandpa called the insurance company to get everything arranged. And they payed up too. No insurance company could get past Grandpa when he was barking up their tree!
And so we made it to Phoenix. Uncle Don had several trees in his backyard, as well as three cows and a bull. We walked out to the trees. And oh! They were so pretty! It was my first time seeing real citrus trees in action. There were grapefruit trees, lemon trees, and orange trees! I didn't know which one to run up to first. Which utterly delightful fruit should I bite into first? I didn't know, and I still don't know. The grapefuits were twice the size of my fist, and the oranges and lemons only slightly smaller. And then I took up an orange. It was a good and decent weight, with a good healthy peel on it. I sunk my fingers into it, and was surprised at how thick the peel was. It came off easily, in big playful chunks. The wedges were so big, and the little capsules with the juice in them were so large, that you could almost eat them one at a time if you had the patience. I did not have the patience. My teeth plunged into the sweetness, and I couldn't help but smile at the orangyness of it. It was perfect.
I picked as much fruit as I could carry, and brought it inside to the kitchen table. Uncle Don introduced me to eating grapefruit with sugar, and it was pretty good. He even had special spoons for it! And then, the lemons. I'd never seen such humongous lemons in my life. When I took my first deep bite of lemon, my face puckered up tighter than fallen plum on a scalding August day. And it was so good. I ate the whole thing, much to the amusement of Grandpa and Uncle Don.
That was my first real experience in Arizona. Sure, I'd been there at least once when I was real little, but this was the first time that I really remembered well. I spent a solid summer month living with my Grandpa, and pretty much every day we'd swing by McDonald's and Grandpa would get a senior coffee and a sausage biscuit, and I'd usually get two breakfast burritos. I spent most business hours in his insurance office during the day doing school or playing minesweeper and spider solitaire and other such computer games. I also prowled the parking lots and put insurance advertisements on each car windshield I could find. Soon enough I learned not to put advertisements on the windshield when a person was sitting inside. Evidently people don't take to that too kindly... hahae. The afternoon would always find me swimming in the pool in his backyard. It was on the miniature divingboard that I completed my first ever backflip. I was so excited! In the evening we'd eat dinner, sometimes pizza that we ordered, or hamburgers and onions and baked beans that Grandpa cooked up, or something else. We'd eat it while watching the news, or, more often, and more exciting for me, NCIS. And so it went.
By and by it was time for me to leave, but, since we'd driven down and I was flying back, I hadn't brought any of my stuff in a bag that I could take on the plane. So we went to Big Lots and Grandpa bought me a nice little brown suitcase with roller wheels on the back and a pullout handle for $15. After all these years I still have it. I used it just three months ago in fact. It's slowly breaking and stands lopsided, and the plastic is brittle and breaking and the handle barely goes up and down anymore, but it's still hanging on a while longer. Before we drove to the airport, we stopped by Uncle Don's to stock up on citrus, and that was that. I made it back just in time for the potato harvest and setting up more fence, and life soon returned to normal again.
It'd be several years before I would again set foot in Arizona. By that time the lemon trees were dead, the grapefruit trees dying, and the orange trees not producing quite like they used to. But there would always remain a soft spot in my heart for Arizona citrus. Especially the oranges, and especially the lemons. Nowhere else has lemons so delicious nor oranges so sweet.
We made it. My grandpa and my great uncle and I had just driven down to Phoenix from Kansas city, and it was quite the ride. All along the way they'd remind each other where it was safe to speed and where it wasn't. "Oh, don't speed through here! Remember that one time we got that $900 ticket? They mean business here." and sometime later one would say, "Alright, we're good for the next 40 miles. Let's get going!" And so it went the entire way down. They've probably spent a small or medium-sized fortune in speeding tickets over the years, but at least now they're pretty good about not getting caught. I sat in the middle of the pickup truck the whole way down since I was the smallest, and listened to many a story of way-back-when or, if it wasn't that, it was talking about whatever politics Rush Limbaugh was railing about at the time. Besides getting hit by a cherry-picker truck at a gas station, it was a pretty great trip. Not that getting hit by the truck was a bad thing. Little thirteen-year-old me thought it was pretty great, especially the rush of seeing the truck approaching our cab and head straight for us. That was the best. Uncle Don tried to dodge him, but he couldn't get it in reverse fast enough, and... crunch! Both trucks stopped. Grandpa and Uncle Don immediately found their insurance information and started going over all the details of what happened and rehearsed their story to be sure to get it right. After decades of experience, Grandpa knew exactly what to do to get the payout that was inevitable, and he even got the license plate number in case the driver drove off before we got his insurance information. (Actually that was the first thing they did. I read and continually repeated the license number while they scrambled for pen and paper and recorded it.) Well, the driver was very apologetic about messing up our front end, and we got his information and that was that. On the way down Grandpa called the insurance company to get everything arranged. And they payed up too. No insurance company could get past Grandpa when he was barking up their tree!
And so we made it to Phoenix. Uncle Don had several trees in his backyard, as well as three cows and a bull. We walked out to the trees. And oh! They were so pretty! It was my first time seeing real citrus trees in action. There were grapefruit trees, lemon trees, and orange trees! I didn't know which one to run up to first. Which utterly delightful fruit should I bite into first? I didn't know, and I still don't know. The grapefuits were twice the size of my fist, and the oranges and lemons only slightly smaller. And then I took up an orange. It was a good and decent weight, with a good healthy peel on it. I sunk my fingers into it, and was surprised at how thick the peel was. It came off easily, in big playful chunks. The wedges were so big, and the little capsules with the juice in them were so large, that you could almost eat them one at a time if you had the patience. I did not have the patience. My teeth plunged into the sweetness, and I couldn't help but smile at the orangyness of it. It was perfect.
I picked as much fruit as I could carry, and brought it inside to the kitchen table. Uncle Don introduced me to eating grapefruit with sugar, and it was pretty good. He even had special spoons for it! And then, the lemons. I'd never seen such humongous lemons in my life. When I took my first deep bite of lemon, my face puckered up tighter than fallen plum on a scalding August day. And it was so good. I ate the whole thing, much to the amusement of Grandpa and Uncle Don.
That was my first real experience in Arizona. Sure, I'd been there at least once when I was real little, but this was the first time that I really remembered well. I spent a solid summer month living with my Grandpa, and pretty much every day we'd swing by McDonald's and Grandpa would get a senior coffee and a sausage biscuit, and I'd usually get two breakfast burritos. I spent most business hours in his insurance office during the day doing school or playing minesweeper and spider solitaire and other such computer games. I also prowled the parking lots and put insurance advertisements on each car windshield I could find. Soon enough I learned not to put advertisements on the windshield when a person was sitting inside. Evidently people don't take to that too kindly... hahae. The afternoon would always find me swimming in the pool in his backyard. It was on the miniature divingboard that I completed my first ever backflip. I was so excited! In the evening we'd eat dinner, sometimes pizza that we ordered, or hamburgers and onions and baked beans that Grandpa cooked up, or something else. We'd eat it while watching the news, or, more often, and more exciting for me, NCIS. And so it went.
By and by it was time for me to leave, but, since we'd driven down and I was flying back, I hadn't brought any of my stuff in a bag that I could take on the plane. So we went to Big Lots and Grandpa bought me a nice little brown suitcase with roller wheels on the back and a pullout handle for $15. After all these years I still have it. I used it just three months ago in fact. It's slowly breaking and stands lopsided, and the plastic is brittle and breaking and the handle barely goes up and down anymore, but it's still hanging on a while longer. Before we drove to the airport, we stopped by Uncle Don's to stock up on citrus, and that was that. I made it back just in time for the potato harvest and setting up more fence, and life soon returned to normal again.
It'd be several years before I would again set foot in Arizona. By that time the lemon trees were dead, the grapefruit trees dying, and the orange trees not producing quite like they used to. But there would always remain a soft spot in my heart for Arizona citrus. Especially the oranges, and especially the lemons. Nowhere else has lemons so delicious nor oranges so sweet.
Friday, April 13, 2018
A Walk Down The Block
Friday, April 13th, 2018
The clouds were high in the sky, like they are wont to be, and it seemed like they droplets might issue forth at any time; indeed, a few of the more intrepid fellows ventured out from time to time, but to no avail, their brethren would not be persuaded to join them. Apparently morale was low. Jex and I ambled along down the street in a part of town away from our usual haunts, and by chance we ended up down a street with a cul-de-sac at the end. It'd've been slightly boring, not to mention lame, to turn around and go back the way we 'd come, so Jex and I decided to walk across this grassy patch and into the parking lot on the other side. We soon realized, however, that our way was barred by a rivulet turned stream by the recent rains. It was sufficiently wide that I doubted whether I could make it across or not, especially since there was precious little good footing on either side, being mostly mud and washed-over grass. I looked about me. On the other side of the stream sat a concrete block wall a little taller than myself that stretched for a good while down the way, but, and this is the good part, I spotted a crossing just a dozen or so meters from me. I harkened to the spot. It was an old, dilapidated, decrepit, slightly decomposed, short little tree that hung its last weight-bearing limb halfway across the stream in a last-ditch effort to be of some use to somebody, and maybe perhaps bring a little more joy into the world. Despite this tree being far from its platonic form, it succeeded in doing just that; I smiled.
Turning, I looked at Jex, then back at the limb. Finally, I spoke into the cellular phone which I'd been talking on this whole time, "Oh, dad, I'm gonna have to put you on hold, I've gotta jump a creek real quick." I didn't hang up but put my phone back in its accustomed spot on my belt. Stepping up on the limb was the matter of a moment, and Jex, just as delighted to be doing something fun as I was, hopped up too. She wagged her tail and smiled, but didn't quite understand what we were up to. And she was more or less standing in the middle of the limb that I needed top get across. Ergo, I called to her to move, and she did, and I took point position while she watched our six. I centimetered my way out along the limb. It was a little wider than it would normally be, thanks to all the grasses and twigs that had gotten caught there before the water level had subsided, but the extra material didn't make the limb any sturdier. It shook and bounced a bit as I reached the furthest point of it, or at least, as far as I could go with at least a certain degree of surety that it could hold me. I looked to the other side of the stream to consider which clump of soggy grass would be my landing point, and finally decided on the one I thought was a little bigger than the others.
Looking back at Jex, I saw her look at me as if to ask, "Are we really going to do this?" I replied by turning around and jumping to the clump. Water immediately started to seep into my shoes as I depressed the mud with my weight, so I jumped up, grabbed the top of the concrete wall, and clambered up out of the mire. I then turned around to look at Jex. She had advanced to the same part of the limb I had been on moments before, and was scanning the other bank just as I had. Then she looked up at me to see if I really wanted her to come to the other side with me. I called her to come. Without further thought, she made the jump, gracefully landing upon a good clump of grass. She then looked up at me and had a slight worried look in her eyes as she wondered how in the world she was supposed to climb the wall. I started walking along the edge of the wall toward the point at which the wall terminated and you could simply go up an incline and reach the top. For a few seconds Jex was worried that she couldn't reach me and scampered along to try and at least stay close, but then she realized what we were doing and ran ahead to make the loop and rejoin me. I then put her leash back on and we carried on our merry way. By the time it was all said and done, it was about a three kilometer walk, and the sun had been below the horizon for a good chunk of time by the time we got back. It was a good walk.
The clouds were high in the sky, like they are wont to be, and it seemed like they droplets might issue forth at any time; indeed, a few of the more intrepid fellows ventured out from time to time, but to no avail, their brethren would not be persuaded to join them. Apparently morale was low. Jex and I ambled along down the street in a part of town away from our usual haunts, and by chance we ended up down a street with a cul-de-sac at the end. It'd've been slightly boring, not to mention lame, to turn around and go back the way we 'd come, so Jex and I decided to walk across this grassy patch and into the parking lot on the other side. We soon realized, however, that our way was barred by a rivulet turned stream by the recent rains. It was sufficiently wide that I doubted whether I could make it across or not, especially since there was precious little good footing on either side, being mostly mud and washed-over grass. I looked about me. On the other side of the stream sat a concrete block wall a little taller than myself that stretched for a good while down the way, but, and this is the good part, I spotted a crossing just a dozen or so meters from me. I harkened to the spot. It was an old, dilapidated, decrepit, slightly decomposed, short little tree that hung its last weight-bearing limb halfway across the stream in a last-ditch effort to be of some use to somebody, and maybe perhaps bring a little more joy into the world. Despite this tree being far from its platonic form, it succeeded in doing just that; I smiled.
Turning, I looked at Jex, then back at the limb. Finally, I spoke into the cellular phone which I'd been talking on this whole time, "Oh, dad, I'm gonna have to put you on hold, I've gotta jump a creek real quick." I didn't hang up but put my phone back in its accustomed spot on my belt. Stepping up on the limb was the matter of a moment, and Jex, just as delighted to be doing something fun as I was, hopped up too. She wagged her tail and smiled, but didn't quite understand what we were up to. And she was more or less standing in the middle of the limb that I needed top get across. Ergo, I called to her to move, and she did, and I took point position while she watched our six. I centimetered my way out along the limb. It was a little wider than it would normally be, thanks to all the grasses and twigs that had gotten caught there before the water level had subsided, but the extra material didn't make the limb any sturdier. It shook and bounced a bit as I reached the furthest point of it, or at least, as far as I could go with at least a certain degree of surety that it could hold me. I looked to the other side of the stream to consider which clump of soggy grass would be my landing point, and finally decided on the one I thought was a little bigger than the others.
Looking back at Jex, I saw her look at me as if to ask, "Are we really going to do this?" I replied by turning around and jumping to the clump. Water immediately started to seep into my shoes as I depressed the mud with my weight, so I jumped up, grabbed the top of the concrete wall, and clambered up out of the mire. I then turned around to look at Jex. She had advanced to the same part of the limb I had been on moments before, and was scanning the other bank just as I had. Then she looked up at me to see if I really wanted her to come to the other side with me. I called her to come. Without further thought, she made the jump, gracefully landing upon a good clump of grass. She then looked up at me and had a slight worried look in her eyes as she wondered how in the world she was supposed to climb the wall. I started walking along the edge of the wall toward the point at which the wall terminated and you could simply go up an incline and reach the top. For a few seconds Jex was worried that she couldn't reach me and scampered along to try and at least stay close, but then she realized what we were doing and ran ahead to make the loop and rejoin me. I then put her leash back on and we carried on our merry way. By the time it was all said and done, it was about a three kilometer walk, and the sun had been below the horizon for a good chunk of time by the time we got back. It was a good walk.
Monday, April 9, 2018
Photosynthesis + Polenta
Monday, April 9th, 2018
The sweet sing-song notes of Froh's decadent morning alarm reached my as-of-yet unsuspecting ears; it was one of those moments where you're awake enough where, if you really wanted to, you could wake up, yet asleep enough you could roll over and go back to sleep. Since it was a Monday morning, I opted for the latter. (There is a peculiar phenomena where, whenever people use 'the former' and 'the latter' they always choose to use or refer to the latter. Poor former. One of these days I will choose you! But not today. I guess that's just how the cookie crumbles.) An hour or so later, I finally awoke a tad after 9am I believe. Right away I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs, threw a pot of water with some raisins on the range, turned on some music, and cleaned the kitchen. By the time I was done with that my oatmeal was ready, and I surfed facebook and checked my email whilst consuming it. I glanced outside: it was beautifully gorgeous, the sun was shining, all was right with the world. I smiled for joy, washed out my breakfast bowl, and grabbed a book and hopped outside. We just so happen to have a deck chair sitting out on our back patio, so I sat on it and propped my feet up on a 5-gallon bucket. I read. And I read some more. I felt like a bearded-dragon or perhaps a black snake coming out to soak up the wonderful warmth of the sun. No, better yet, I was a petunia, nay, a black eyed susan! gleefully soaking up the sun's life-giving rays. I was photosynthesizing. After many moons of snow, rain, and clouds, the sun was back and we plants could finally get a bite to eat. Boy was I hungry for some sun.
I read out there all the way until an hour after noon, at which time I went inside to craft a sandwich. (With authentic sourdough bread from Winco, mayonnaise, rice, pepperjack cheese, mushrooms, zucchini, sliced turkey, and onion.) Twas a glorious sandwich, towering a whopping... I forgot to measure it, but it was tall. Only problem was, it was so tall that when I opened my mouth to try and fit it in, I had to open my jaws soooo wide. Much wider than I usually do on your average day. So wide, in fact, that my jaw got a charlie horse and was stuck and didn't want to move. It was kind of sad, there was literally sandwich in my mouth my I couldn't close it to take a bite! A dozen excruciating seconds later I summoned the unction to clamp my jaws shut, and after that I was good again.
2:30 found me sitting in class, and an hour later Christy and Sarah and I discussed all the photosynthesis we did earlier in the day, and an hour after that Keziah and I were talking about concrete stuff and how his dad just got a fancy new contraption that'll make it loads easier. I'd have to see it to believe it, but it sounded pretty legit. After that I sat down to read in the commons, and Mandy and Rachel were there. An hour or so went by, and Rachel left to go somewhere. Then I came across some really good parts from a book I'm reading called 'Propaganda', by Jacques Ellul. I started cracking up and chuckling pretty good to myself, enough so that Mandy looked up from what she was doing to see what was so funny. Here are two of the quotes I satisfied her curiosity with: "Almost every man feels a desire to kill his neighbor, but this is forbidden, and in most cases the individual will refrain from it for fear of the consequences. But propaganda opens the door and allows him to kill the Jews, the bourgeois, the Communists, and so on, and such murder even becomes an achievement." [pg 152] And the second: "When a man obeys necessity, he wants to prove that such is not the case and that he really obeys his conscience. On the day when the draft is introduced, everybody discoers he has a fervent love for his country." [pg 157]
By and by Rachel came back, and then a chance comment from her sparked an animated conversation: she said, "So I made some hominy today." And then it all came crashing out, and I told them the story that hominy had reminded me of: How I"d been tricked into buying a gallon of polenta. See, it happened like this. I was walking through Winco the other day, and I stumbled across some polenta in the bulk food section. It looked kinda like grits, so I bought some in the wild hope that it might taste like grits if I cooked it up. I went back home, tucked it away in my pantry, and promptly forgot about it. Five or six weeks later it happened again: I rediscovered it, forgot I'd already bought some to try, and then bought some more to try and see if it was like grits. This happened one more time several weeks later. Then, probably two weeks ago, I found all my polenta. It was indeed a copious amount, enough to fill a gallon-sized icecream container to the top. And then I cooked some up like it was grits, and then happily dug into a bowl of it when it came out... but it was wrong. All wrong. It was goopy, like a useless bowl of cream of wheat. And... it tasted awful.. horribly awful.. I almost gagged. Now, anybody that knows me knows I'm not big on wasting food, but this... it almost wasn't food. I threw it in the trashcan. Yes, the entire pot of polenta went by-by, down the drain, kicked the bucket, down to sheol, maybe purgatory at best. It was so sad, and so disappointing. I was mentally prepared for grits, and what did I get? A cheap knock-off of the singularly disappointing food that is called cream of wheat. I ended up eating oatmeal that day.
Anyways, I now have a gallon of almost worthless polenta, so I asked Mandy and Rachel if they had any good polenta recipes. And so it was we spent the next 10 minutes scrolling through various polenta recipes. Some were hilariously bad, others just plain bad, and a handful were perhaps worthy enough to be tried. One of these was a recipe for polenta and mushroom pizza, so one day here soon I'll give that a try and see how it comes out. So now I am on a quest to find the best way to edibly eat polenta. If any of yall have any wonderful polenta recipes you're just dying to share with the world, feel free to comment below or send them to me: I've got enough polenta to try out any recipe you can send my way.
So that's about it for today.Once I got back from school I took Jex for a walk and then made a big fat burrito for dinner, then did some more reading a tad of writing. Pretty good day if you ask me!
The sweet sing-song notes of Froh's decadent morning alarm reached my as-of-yet unsuspecting ears; it was one of those moments where you're awake enough where, if you really wanted to, you could wake up, yet asleep enough you could roll over and go back to sleep. Since it was a Monday morning, I opted for the latter. (There is a peculiar phenomena where, whenever people use 'the former' and 'the latter' they always choose to use or refer to the latter. Poor former. One of these days I will choose you! But not today. I guess that's just how the cookie crumbles.) An hour or so later, I finally awoke a tad after 9am I believe. Right away I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs, threw a pot of water with some raisins on the range, turned on some music, and cleaned the kitchen. By the time I was done with that my oatmeal was ready, and I surfed facebook and checked my email whilst consuming it. I glanced outside: it was beautifully gorgeous, the sun was shining, all was right with the world. I smiled for joy, washed out my breakfast bowl, and grabbed a book and hopped outside. We just so happen to have a deck chair sitting out on our back patio, so I sat on it and propped my feet up on a 5-gallon bucket. I read. And I read some more. I felt like a bearded-dragon or perhaps a black snake coming out to soak up the wonderful warmth of the sun. No, better yet, I was a petunia, nay, a black eyed susan! gleefully soaking up the sun's life-giving rays. I was photosynthesizing. After many moons of snow, rain, and clouds, the sun was back and we plants could finally get a bite to eat. Boy was I hungry for some sun.
I read out there all the way until an hour after noon, at which time I went inside to craft a sandwich. (With authentic sourdough bread from Winco, mayonnaise, rice, pepperjack cheese, mushrooms, zucchini, sliced turkey, and onion.) Twas a glorious sandwich, towering a whopping... I forgot to measure it, but it was tall. Only problem was, it was so tall that when I opened my mouth to try and fit it in, I had to open my jaws soooo wide. Much wider than I usually do on your average day. So wide, in fact, that my jaw got a charlie horse and was stuck and didn't want to move. It was kind of sad, there was literally sandwich in my mouth my I couldn't close it to take a bite! A dozen excruciating seconds later I summoned the unction to clamp my jaws shut, and after that I was good again.
2:30 found me sitting in class, and an hour later Christy and Sarah and I discussed all the photosynthesis we did earlier in the day, and an hour after that Keziah and I were talking about concrete stuff and how his dad just got a fancy new contraption that'll make it loads easier. I'd have to see it to believe it, but it sounded pretty legit. After that I sat down to read in the commons, and Mandy and Rachel were there. An hour or so went by, and Rachel left to go somewhere. Then I came across some really good parts from a book I'm reading called 'Propaganda', by Jacques Ellul. I started cracking up and chuckling pretty good to myself, enough so that Mandy looked up from what she was doing to see what was so funny. Here are two of the quotes I satisfied her curiosity with: "Almost every man feels a desire to kill his neighbor, but this is forbidden, and in most cases the individual will refrain from it for fear of the consequences. But propaganda opens the door and allows him to kill the Jews, the bourgeois, the Communists, and so on, and such murder even becomes an achievement." [pg 152] And the second: "When a man obeys necessity, he wants to prove that such is not the case and that he really obeys his conscience. On the day when the draft is introduced, everybody discoers he has a fervent love for his country." [pg 157]
By and by Rachel came back, and then a chance comment from her sparked an animated conversation: she said, "So I made some hominy today." And then it all came crashing out, and I told them the story that hominy had reminded me of: How I"d been tricked into buying a gallon of polenta. See, it happened like this. I was walking through Winco the other day, and I stumbled across some polenta in the bulk food section. It looked kinda like grits, so I bought some in the wild hope that it might taste like grits if I cooked it up. I went back home, tucked it away in my pantry, and promptly forgot about it. Five or six weeks later it happened again: I rediscovered it, forgot I'd already bought some to try, and then bought some more to try and see if it was like grits. This happened one more time several weeks later. Then, probably two weeks ago, I found all my polenta. It was indeed a copious amount, enough to fill a gallon-sized icecream container to the top. And then I cooked some up like it was grits, and then happily dug into a bowl of it when it came out... but it was wrong. All wrong. It was goopy, like a useless bowl of cream of wheat. And... it tasted awful.. horribly awful.. I almost gagged. Now, anybody that knows me knows I'm not big on wasting food, but this... it almost wasn't food. I threw it in the trashcan. Yes, the entire pot of polenta went by-by, down the drain, kicked the bucket, down to sheol, maybe purgatory at best. It was so sad, and so disappointing. I was mentally prepared for grits, and what did I get? A cheap knock-off of the singularly disappointing food that is called cream of wheat. I ended up eating oatmeal that day.
Anyways, I now have a gallon of almost worthless polenta, so I asked Mandy and Rachel if they had any good polenta recipes. And so it was we spent the next 10 minutes scrolling through various polenta recipes. Some were hilariously bad, others just plain bad, and a handful were perhaps worthy enough to be tried. One of these was a recipe for polenta and mushroom pizza, so one day here soon I'll give that a try and see how it comes out. So now I am on a quest to find the best way to edibly eat polenta. If any of yall have any wonderful polenta recipes you're just dying to share with the world, feel free to comment below or send them to me: I've got enough polenta to try out any recipe you can send my way.
So that's about it for today.Once I got back from school I took Jex for a walk and then made a big fat burrito for dinner, then did some more reading a tad of writing. Pretty good day if you ask me!
Monday, March 19, 2018
Red Bell Peppers
Wednesday March 7th, 2018
Today I'm going shopping! I can't wait! My pantry is getting frightfully empty, and rice and lentil burritos are getting a little tiring too. Six and a half long weeks and a hundred fifty dollars later, I'm ready to buy food again. So lez go!
Ah, Winco. My ultimate favorite grocery store. I confidently strode through the doors, pushing my big fat fancy buggy, and immediately temptation knocked on the door: red bell peppers were 48 cents a piece; normally they go for $1.28 a piece, and the green peppers are the cheap ones at 78 cents a piece. Well, these discounted red bell peppers were beautiful, in perfect condition. I could almost taste them. And they all sat together, fully filling four big brown cardboard boxes. I looked up down the aisle. I looked down up the other aisle. Nobody seemed to be noticing. Heh heh. I grabbed one of the boxes and plunked it in my cart. Oh what elation filled my soul! This was a good bell pepper haul, complete with nice prices, high quality produce, and a good quantity to boot. Ohh yeah. I finished up the rest of my shopping and bought all the things: flour, rice, beans, oats, cornmeal, polenta, raisins, mushrooms, cucumbers, potatoes, cheese, bread, milk, sour cream, butter, baking powder, porkchops, some sliced turkey, bacon, tortillas, various sauces, and I even splurged and bought some 40% bran flakes. It was glorious. It tallied to $160. This is the most I've ever spent at the grocery store at one go. Perhaps the 36 bell peppers had something to do with it.
Later that day, after all the groceries had been put away, I gave Mandy a ride somewhere, and she made a strikingly perceptive comment, "Hmm, it smells like bell peppers in here." Very impressive olfactory senses if I do say so myself. A day or so later, I began to realize that I'd never be able to eat that many bell peppers before they all went bad, and there was only so much room in the freezer to store them. And so, with beating heart and breathing lungs, I decided that I'd need to sell some. It wasn't until the following Saturday that I finally got around to actually selling them, but boy did it happen fast. Mandy had already said she'd buy 4 several days earlier, but I kept on forgetting to bring them down to the school. Ergo, I texted her asking if I could just bring them by her apartment before I forgot them again. She said it'd be fine to bring 'em by, and so off I went. I did, however, bring along the whole box of them with me, even though she only needed four. I had a plan you see, heh heh. But before I made it out the door, who should show up but good ole Taylor boi. He was super excited about seeing the big box of peppers, and immediately asked if he could buy two off of me. I readily obliged.
Soon enough I was over at the Hill apartments walking up the stairs to Mandy's place with my box of peppers.She was filled with a small sense of wonderment at why I'd brought the whole box of them, but then I explained that I was going to go to all the other apartments of my friends and see if they wanted any. She laughed then chuckled and said good day, and then I walked out the door, took one more step, and knocked on the door. It was Wesley. He and Keziah were slightly surprised to see me there unannounced, but were more than happy to buy five or six peppers. We chatted for a bit before I made my exit and headed down the stairs to the next one. I knocked. It was Charli. She looked at me, smiled, blinked with slight shock, and then said, "I thought when Mandy texted me saying you were coming over to sell bell peppers she was joking!" I just laughed, both on account of Charli's reaction, and from the fact that Mandy had texted about me selling peppers. Charli ended up buying two. Later that week Bobby bought five, and that left me with about fourteen peppers left. I placed two in the fridge for my own personal delight, and proceeded to chop up five more for freezing them. It took me forever to chop them though, since one of my hands was broken and I had to hold the pepper down with my fist while I chopped with my good hand. I only actually chopped up those five, and left about seven others for later; I was too tired of chopping them single-handedly. The following Sunday I was talking with Rachel and happened to mention my pepper troubles. She perked up and told me to just bring them by later that day (since there was a movie night at her house) and she'd cut them up for me then. It was by far the sweetest thing anybody had done for me all week.
By the end of that Sunday, a week and a half after buying them, all my bell peppers were all taken care of. A couple had already been eaten, several sold, and the rest carefully diced up and thrown in the freezer. What a good ending to yet another bulk food impulse buy. I think the last time I had one of those was a couple years back in Arizona when I bought 140lbs. of bananas for $6. Boy, that was fun taking care of all of those. Anyways, that's the long and the short of it. I expect sooner or later I'll find another amazing deal on some food item, say for instance, two cent loaves of bread or something, and I'll just go ham and buy a ton of them, but at least for now I've managed to stave off the danger of all my bell peppers going to waste. Big shoutout to Rachel and all yall who bought red bell peppers, yall're the best!
Today I'm going shopping! I can't wait! My pantry is getting frightfully empty, and rice and lentil burritos are getting a little tiring too. Six and a half long weeks and a hundred fifty dollars later, I'm ready to buy food again. So lez go!
Ah, Winco. My ultimate favorite grocery store. I confidently strode through the doors, pushing my big fat fancy buggy, and immediately temptation knocked on the door: red bell peppers were 48 cents a piece; normally they go for $1.28 a piece, and the green peppers are the cheap ones at 78 cents a piece. Well, these discounted red bell peppers were beautiful, in perfect condition. I could almost taste them. And they all sat together, fully filling four big brown cardboard boxes. I looked up down the aisle. I looked down up the other aisle. Nobody seemed to be noticing. Heh heh. I grabbed one of the boxes and plunked it in my cart. Oh what elation filled my soul! This was a good bell pepper haul, complete with nice prices, high quality produce, and a good quantity to boot. Ohh yeah. I finished up the rest of my shopping and bought all the things: flour, rice, beans, oats, cornmeal, polenta, raisins, mushrooms, cucumbers, potatoes, cheese, bread, milk, sour cream, butter, baking powder, porkchops, some sliced turkey, bacon, tortillas, various sauces, and I even splurged and bought some 40% bran flakes. It was glorious. It tallied to $160. This is the most I've ever spent at the grocery store at one go. Perhaps the 36 bell peppers had something to do with it.
Later that day, after all the groceries had been put away, I gave Mandy a ride somewhere, and she made a strikingly perceptive comment, "Hmm, it smells like bell peppers in here." Very impressive olfactory senses if I do say so myself. A day or so later, I began to realize that I'd never be able to eat that many bell peppers before they all went bad, and there was only so much room in the freezer to store them. And so, with beating heart and breathing lungs, I decided that I'd need to sell some. It wasn't until the following Saturday that I finally got around to actually selling them, but boy did it happen fast. Mandy had already said she'd buy 4 several days earlier, but I kept on forgetting to bring them down to the school. Ergo, I texted her asking if I could just bring them by her apartment before I forgot them again. She said it'd be fine to bring 'em by, and so off I went. I did, however, bring along the whole box of them with me, even though she only needed four. I had a plan you see, heh heh. But before I made it out the door, who should show up but good ole Taylor boi. He was super excited about seeing the big box of peppers, and immediately asked if he could buy two off of me. I readily obliged.
Soon enough I was over at the Hill apartments walking up the stairs to Mandy's place with my box of peppers.She was filled with a small sense of wonderment at why I'd brought the whole box of them, but then I explained that I was going to go to all the other apartments of my friends and see if they wanted any. She laughed then chuckled and said good day, and then I walked out the door, took one more step, and knocked on the door. It was Wesley. He and Keziah were slightly surprised to see me there unannounced, but were more than happy to buy five or six peppers. We chatted for a bit before I made my exit and headed down the stairs to the next one. I knocked. It was Charli. She looked at me, smiled, blinked with slight shock, and then said, "I thought when Mandy texted me saying you were coming over to sell bell peppers she was joking!" I just laughed, both on account of Charli's reaction, and from the fact that Mandy had texted about me selling peppers. Charli ended up buying two. Later that week Bobby bought five, and that left me with about fourteen peppers left. I placed two in the fridge for my own personal delight, and proceeded to chop up five more for freezing them. It took me forever to chop them though, since one of my hands was broken and I had to hold the pepper down with my fist while I chopped with my good hand. I only actually chopped up those five, and left about seven others for later; I was too tired of chopping them single-handedly. The following Sunday I was talking with Rachel and happened to mention my pepper troubles. She perked up and told me to just bring them by later that day (since there was a movie night at her house) and she'd cut them up for me then. It was by far the sweetest thing anybody had done for me all week.
By the end of that Sunday, a week and a half after buying them, all my bell peppers were all taken care of. A couple had already been eaten, several sold, and the rest carefully diced up and thrown in the freezer. What a good ending to yet another bulk food impulse buy. I think the last time I had one of those was a couple years back in Arizona when I bought 140lbs. of bananas for $6. Boy, that was fun taking care of all of those. Anyways, that's the long and the short of it. I expect sooner or later I'll find another amazing deal on some food item, say for instance, two cent loaves of bread or something, and I'll just go ham and buy a ton of them, but at least for now I've managed to stave off the danger of all my bell peppers going to waste. Big shoutout to Rachel and all yall who bought red bell peppers, yall're the best!
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