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I made beef stew this evening. Stew is not difficult to prepare, it just takes a long time since it's, well, stew. I made a lot, so I had about a gallon leftover. I retrieved a large plastic dish and began pouring the contents of the pot into it. I don't really need to finish this.
September 2—The tea wasn't even good enough to justify it. This morning, I was preparing myself some hot tea. I lifted the kettle to pour the water into the mug, and the kettle tipped forward, and it bumped into my arm. The kettle of course was full of boiling hot water, so it was rather painful; I now have a small first-degree burn on my arm.
I purchased a curling iron this evening. Probably not a good idea since, apart from my hair being highly resistant to curling, I am notoriously clumsy, and I had visions of dropping the thing over the side of the counter and setting the toilet paper on fire. That did not happen, but damn near. I set about curling my hair and only burned myself twice, and then it happened. I dropped the curling iron, and it crashed to the floor behind the toilet, bouncing off every conceivable surface along the way. I'm just relieved it didn't plummet into the toilet or take a chunk of my hair with it. I probably shouldn't still be using it after that fall, but I refuse to get rid of it so soon.
Yesterday's incident reminded me of a similar story a few years back. I was dating the Republican, and he was going to grad school at A&M in College Station. I went to visit him one weekend, and I brought my hair dryer with me since I had very long hair that took ages to air dry. When I went to retrieve my things to leave, I grabbed the box with my hair dryer in it, and the end of the box burst open, and the hair dryer rocketed out at the speed of light and bulls eyed into the toilet. It was perfect; there was no splash or ricochet or anything, and the coil was still neatly wrapped around it. There followed a deafening silence filled with a lot of blinking. He didn't dare laugh at first, but inevitably did. I made him fish the hair dryer out of the toilet for me. He bought me a new hair dryer for Christmas that year.
September 5—People like me are the reason for all those "no food or beverages" signs. I went to Barnes and Noble tonight with a friend. He wanted to hang out; I took advantage of the opportunity to look at art magazines. I'm not particularly interested in art magazines, but I've been eyeing a guy who is, so I figured I'd better check them out. Anyway, I beat my friend to the bookstore, so I bought an overpriced (and not worth it) cup of coffee from the Starbucks. I burned my tongue and dribbled sticky crap down the side of the cup and onto my fingers. Miraculously, I did not spill anything on the books or magazines.
September 6—How do you miss it? Tonight I was talking online to the same guy I hung out with last night. Yes, this is another story of a lack of social grace rather than a lack of physical grace. Anyway, as we were talking, he made a remark about hating charity. I thought "WTF?" and hoped he was joking. He was not. He ranted about hating charity and how all charity did was create more homeless people. I begged to differ, but he wouldn't budge. At that point, I recalled something a couple of weeks previously, when he'd referred to the Nazis as national socialists. At the time, I thought that was a bit odd but shrugged it off. Talk about missing a red flag, or perhaps more accurately, a red, white, and black flag. So of course this evening I felt really ridiculous for not having spotted that sooner. *sigh* Yes, he's blocked now.
September 7—This also seems to run in the family. The story I told yesterday reminded me of a family trip I took as a child, before my parents divorced. My parents and I were staying in a motel, and my mom went to dry her hair one morning. Right in the middle of drying it, the hair dryer shorted out with a blinding blue flash and a small burst of flame. My mom screamed (of course) and dropped the hair dryer. It was many years before I let a hair dryer anywhere near my hair.
September 8—They were round and rock-like, but the resemblance ended there. I stopped at a gas station on the way home today. The station on the corner used to have a sign up advertising Round Rock donuts, so I went in and purchased a few. It wasn't until I arrived at home that I realized that the sign hadn't been up, and the donuts weren't actually Round Rock donuts but rather some generic and slightly dried out things. Oh well.
September 9—I don't want the job now. Today I applied for a job in Round Rock. On the way back, as I drove down 620, I saw a sign announcing that the next signal was for Lake Creek. Lake Creek intersects with Lakeline, which is how I get home, so I waited a small eternity to turn onto Lake Creek. Then I discovered that, duh, it's not the same Lake Creek. Apparently parts of Austin do the same thing for which Houston is notorious: The street ends and then starts again miles away, but you have to drive all over the place to reach the continuing street. So I drove around for a bit, trying to figure out how to get turned around, and I got completely lost and unintentionally wound up on the grounds of Round Rock High School, and I wound up dead ended by some kind of after school marching band practice. Why they practice in the middle of the street, I don't know. Anyway, I managed to get turned around without plowing over the band and drove home, not taking either Lake Creek.
Today I ran a few errands. I was contemplating purchasing a new skirt, either knee length or floor length, to go with my black lace up boots. I hate walking in heels, but it had to be done for the sake of trying on skirts to see what would go with it. I went to a couple of Goodwills but couldn't find a skirt I liked, so I went to—the HORROR—Lakeline Mall. It was raining, and I had to walk through puddles in my nice boots to reach the building. Once inside, I proceeded to the directory. I had just located the shop I sought when some eighteen-year-old kid (tops) in a black trench coat approached me and asked if I needed help finding anything. Because obviously people in black trench coats should stick together. *sigh* I politely declined and walked away. I think he said something else, but I conveniently had my iPod on and didn't hear him, which was precisely why I purchased it.
September 11—Social ineptitude counts as clumsiness. This morning, after a week of stalking back and forth with a guy online, I decided that it was finally time to e-mail him. I had hoped he'd e-mail me first; sadly, this did not happen, and I ran out of patience. I also ran out of good ideas and sent him the most apocalyptically awful e-mail I've ever sent anyone in my life. When I sent it and reread it, my head began to hurt. Stunningly enough, he actually wrote back, which in a way is more embarrassing than had he ignored the e-mail as it deserved.
September 12—It runs in the family. I gave my dad a box with three varieties of loose leaf tea this evening. He opened the box and set about making himself a cup of tea and grabbed the snap mesh tea infuser. Rather than spooning the tea into it, he tried to scoop the tea with it and didn't know how to control it, which predictably resulted in an explosion of tea leaves all over the counter.
I made Hungarian goulash this evening, for which I wasn't really prepared. My meat was not fresh enough, and I lacked canned tomatoes and thusly used real ones plus extra tomato paste, which proved excessive. I forgot to add a bit of lapsang souchang tea to the broth, so the goulash lacked the smoky flavor I like. It was still pretty good, though, but then—of course—I spilled some on the counter as I was ladling it into a bowl to eat, and it was too hot to clean up, which I didn't discover until I'd already burned myself.
September 14—I got carpet burn, and not the good kind. Today I worked a call at the convention center, which of course involves a lot of industrial double sided tape since a lot of the work is just taping carpet to the floor. Double sided tape comes on rolls with a Teflon-like peel-off strip along one side of the tape so the tape will not stick to itself on the roll. You lay the tape on the floor and then pull the strip off, exposing the other sticky side, and then lay the carpet over that. One of my coworkers found a roll of tape that was clearly the result of a factory error and escaped before quality control caught it: The pull-off strip was on the inside, and the sticky part of the tape was on the outside, rendering the roll useless. We laughed about it, and then my coworker pondered throwing it away, but I suggested, "Give it to some idiot, and see how long it takes him to figure it out." Right on cue, a guy who'd been annoying me all day wandered over. "What's up, guys?" he asked. "Here you go," my coworker said, handing him the tape. "Oh, thanks," he said. I tried not to smirk. My coworker and I very quickly turned our backs and walked away. "Hey!" cried the newbie seconds later. My coworker and I burst out laughing and explained the tape mishap, which I rather doubt the newbie understood. Well, maybe having tricks played on him will teach him a lesson.
This evening I went into the half bathroom downstairs only to discover—too late—that there was no toilet paper. So much for my rule of "Always look before you sit."
September 16—I'll never be able to accept a job that mentions multitasking again. I cooked some bacon in the microwave this afternoon while I washed some dishes. Of course, I took too long with the dishes and the middle of the bacon burned. My kitchen filled with smoke—such a lot of smoke from approximately one square inch of bacon—and I had to turn on the fan and open all the windows, and of course my robe and freshly-washed hair picked up the smell.
Last March, our old TV broke. We bought a new one, moving the heavy old one to the living room floor near the front door . . . where it remained for the next six months. At first, we had an excuse for not getting rid of it properly what with my grandfather's death and all, but by July, it was getting ridiculous. We couldn't figure out where to get rid of it, but about a month ago I discovered that Goodwill took old TVs. Presumably they only meant working old TVs, but by September, I was more than willing to overlook that snag. Sick of tripping over it, I had enough this morning and took it outside to my car. Of course, by "took" I mean "heaved across the floor six inches at a time with many ominous cracking noises and scrapes across the cement outside before dragging it through the mud by the driveway." Then I couldn't get it into the car by myself, so I woke my dad up to help me. He did not appreciate being woken up, but he was apparently too excited about getting rid of the TV to care. He put some clothes on and helped me heave the TV into the trunk of my car, carefully not commenting on the flattened roll of toilet paper in the trunk, tying the TV in place and then getting into the passenger seat to accompany me to the Goodwill at the end of the street. Upon arriving at Goodwill, we spotted a couple of people loitering in the parking lot, although the store didn't open for another two hours. We concluded that they were probably hoping to steal something from the donation drop off and snickered that it would serve them right if they stole our broken TV. We left the TV on the concrete, slammed the car doors and locked them, and got the hell out. My dad advised me to drive fast and peered over his shoulder all the way down the street. I scolded him, "Don't look back!" Back at the house, I said, "Thank you for helping me. I'm glad you're not more principled; I would never have gotten away with this otherwise." He didn't have much to say to that, so I added, "The relief is diabolical, isn't it?" with which he had to agree. But, you know. Karma's a bitch. There was an inevitable incident: I set about vacuuming the carpet where the TV had been sitting, and in the dawn's early light spied what I mistakenly believed to be a small piece of plastic broken off the old TV (which would have explained some of the cracking noises it made as I moved it). I bent over and picked it up, only to discover that it was in fact a dead roach, which got all over my fingers, and I swore incoherently as my dad laughed hysterically.
I bought some delicious cinnamon chips at the grocery store tonight; they're akin to chocolate chips to put in cookie dough. I made the oatmeal cinnamon chip cookies, which were delicious, but the first batch came out far too small. The recipe said "drop by rounded teaspoons," which produced tiny cookies, so I wound up with about twenty tiny cookies and twenty or thirty normal sized cookies. Either way, I should have halved the recipe . . . oops.
September 19—It took a while to type this. This evening I made some coffee to drink with the oatmeal cinnamon chip cookies. I poured the coffee, and it sloshed out of the French press and over my left hand. I have a first-degree burn over the base of my left thumb now. I ran cold water over it; then I took a shower (trying to keep my burned hand out of the water) and put a bandage on it. That in itself proved a klutzy incident: I put ointment on the burn and tried to wrap gauze around it, which tangled around my thumb. So I ripped it off and threw it away, washed my hands, reapplied the ointment, and put a large gauze pad over the burn, wrapping paper tape around my hand to hold it in place. Considering the lack of severity of the injury, it looks a bit overkill, but I figure the sooner it gets healed, the better.
September 20—When it rains, it pours. I reached for the salt shaker in the kitchen cabinet this evening, and of course I dropped it. Made of wood, the salt shaker has a rubber plug in the bottom of it, which always pops off when the shaker is dropped, causing salt to fly everywhere. I spilled salt all over the floor and refilled the shaker, noting in the process that the Morton shaker was empty, and I had to open another one. Actually, the Morton shaker was not completely empty, but the last little bit was stuck together in a clump at the bottom, so it wouldn't come out. So much for the "free flowing agent" they add to the salt to ensure that "when it rains, it pours." Bullshit. Then again, it poured quite well over my kitchen floor.
September 21—Good thing I didn't have company coming. Since I didn't get around to cleaning up my salt spill yesterday, my kitchen floor was still quite crunchy. I vacuumed it up today, vacuuming the living room floor as well but forgetting to clean the couch cushions as I'd intended. Instead I forgot about the vacuum and left it in the middle of the floor all day.
I broiled myself some steaks for dinner tonight, except I didn't do it right. I trimmed the gristle off and seasoned it, but then I didn't cook it long enough. The bit I ate was fine, but the others were still bloody in the middle. Ew.
September 23—I'll just Google more thoroughly next time. I headed to Barnes and Noble and two Half Priced Books this morning on a quest for Erich Maria Remarque's The Black Obelisk. I don't really care one way or the other for the book since I'm not familiar with it; I was only looking for the quote often attributed to Stalin about "the death of one man is a tragedy; the death of millions is a statistic." Anyway, I failed to located the book. I also failed to bring my umbrella with me, and it poured rain, meaning my freshly washed hair got damp.
September 24—I'm beginning to think it's just not meant to be. I went to Goodwill searching for a cute jean skirt today. I've been looking for such a thing for some time, but either the skirts don't fit, or they're just ugly. Anyway, I tried on three this morning, but I only put two back on the rack. No, I didn't buy the third one. No, I didn't steal it. I left it in the changing room because I couldn't get the damn thing off the coat hanger and nearly ripped it in the process. I did succeed in removing it from the hanger, which I then dropped. It clattered to the floor and snapped into three pieces. I left the pieces and the skirt in place, slunk out, and went home.
With Halloween, my favorite holiday, only a month away, I spent the morning looking at possible costume ideas. I have a French maid's outfit already, but I don't have a feather duster to go with it. I went to three Halloween costume shops and several department stores looking for one, but in the end, I had to go to HEB instead. I walked down the aisle with the brooms and mops, looking for dusters, and found them. I got in the way of an old man who was looking for a sponge, who apologized to me, which I didn't hear because I had my iPod on. At length, I selected an ugly brown duster which will clash with my black outfit. Oh well.
September 26—Self Objectification Today I purchased a Playboy Bunny costume. While this was against my better judgment both due to the cost and the fact that I'll never be able to wear it in public, I couldn't bring myself to wear the French maid's outfit with that awful feather duster, and I didn't want to wear that outfit without that accessory. So a change in costume was in order, and the Bunny outfit was just too cute to pass up. It didn't occur to me that I could have bought a nicer feather duster for less than the cost of the Bunny costume.
September 27—That's the way the cookie crumbles. I ate the last oatmeal cinnamon chip cookie this evening. It was about a week old and therefore a bit dried out, and when I bit into it, crumbs flew everywhere. They went down my shirt and got in my bra. Then, to make up for lost cookies, I made some chocolate chip cookies. When I added the flour to the mixing bowl and turned the mixer on, I switched it to a higher speed too soon, causing flour dust to fly out of the bowl and over the countertop and floor (including my fresh-out-of-the-shower feet).
This afternoon, I enjoyed a bowl of raspberry sorbet, and when I went to put it in the sink, my dad saw and mistakenly thought I was eating his Vienna sausages (as if). Horrified, he exclaimed, "You're eating my little pigs! You're eating my little pigs!" I immediately Googled a knitting pattern for a finger puppet resembling a pig, and I made it over the next hour and a half. I completed it, placed it on my finger, and went into his computer room. I raised my finger with the puppet on it over the top of his computer monitor; it was like a scene from E.T. Actually, this entire household belongs in a science fiction film.
September 29—I worked the Journey show tonight—and nothing happened! Earlier today, I went to Salvation Army looking for short sleeved shirts since I have a hell of a time finding any. I found one of the ten or so I tried on, one of which stayed in the dressing room after I broke the coat hanger in an eery flashback to my trip to Goodwill the other day. This time I didn't even drop the hanger; I just handled it wrong. Surprisingly enough, that was my only Klutzy Incidents; I didn't have any mishaps working at the Erwin Center tonight.
September 30—I always thought I was more like Eeyore. I worked the load in for ACL today. I arrived at one (after missing the exit, fighting with parking lot attendants who assumed I was with catering even though I was carrying a tool belt and work gloves, and nearly not arriving at the catering tent to check in because three shuttles sped past me without stopping) and left at seven. The in between time consisted largely of unloading trucks, which of course was uphill and hot. Then we began to set up for audio, which meant lowering a lot of subs into the pit. I hopped off the stage into the pit as instructed, only to be told that I was needed onstage after all. I scrambled back onstage but couldn't make it up and had to get one of the other hands to give me a hand up. I felt like Winne the Pooh stuck in Rabbit's hole. It was very embarrassing.
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