Category: Food and Drink

Need a Nap?

~ riggledo ~ 3 Comments

Just in case you were in need of some extra zzz’s and couldn’t fall asleep, I bring you the following:

I’m on stay-cation next week. There’s no particular reason, except that I have three float holiday’s that I will lose on December 31, 2011 if I don’t use them and I’m also dangerously close to maxing out on my Paid Time Off hours and if I don’t start taking some, I’m going to hit the max early next year and will be essentially giving my PTO back to my company. Stupid.

Having all of next week off should come in handy as I am (Gasp!) 14,513 words behind if I plan to complete NaNo this year. More importantly, I’m in a difficult to digest portion of my story and I’m having a hard time finding the space to do the writing unencumbered by numerous distractions. I hope that by being home and with little on my plate, I’ll be able to power through and get to a good pace again (and caught up).

I do have plans to go, next week, to a local clinic where I will FINALLY get my pre-employment physical done so that I can move forward with getting my ambulance driver license, the latest in a series of obstacles that have provided me with good excuse not to have gotten an EMT job yet.

After a conversation with my friend Micah who was a class or two ahead of me and who I became friendly with when he was the other “Teaching Assistant” last spring, I am now aware that while I have the paper work the Doctor needs to fill out for my physical, there is another little card that I needed to have, which could not be downloaded. So for lunch today, I went to the DMV. Fun right? It needn’t have taken long. I wasn’t doing anything but grabbing a form that was supposed to be out for the taking… And it was, only since I was there, I figured I should ask about getting an Ambulance driving Manual.

See, while I’m basically getting a commercial driver license, I couldn’t believe that the 160 page document I printed that is very broad could possibly be what I needed. It’s Friday, it was bout 1:30, the DMV wasn’t terribly busy, so I asked the young man (GET OFF MY LAWN!!) at the front desk if I had the right book. He told me I did not. I asked if I could get it from him, he said yes, it’s $5.00, and made no move to get the book for me. I asked him how long the wait would be. He looked at his computer screen and said, “not long”. Everything is relative.

Aside: Why does he not have this book at the front counter where he could take my money, hand me my book and send me on my way?

He handed me a number and I waited for… well, I don’t know how long… two and a half chapters in the book I’m reading, long. Finally I was called to a window were a very sniffly, coughy, non-hand-washy girl very lacadasically went about selling me a $5.00 booklet that they clearly printed and stapled together in the back room.

Aside: Why could I not just download a PDF of this book on-line?

My oldest nieces birthday was on November 5th. My status as “Favorite Uncle Kevin” is quickly dwindling away as she has not yet received a gift from me, nor did I call her on/for her birthday. Don’t judge me! Have you spoken on the phone to a 9-year-old child lately? No thanks!

Being 2550 miles away, I have no idea what to get an 9-year-old girl, I don’t spend nearly as much time with as I would like, for her birthday. So I asked her mother. Prepare for cringe worthy moments ahead…

After thinking about it for a couple of days, my sister came back and told me that what Caitlin really wants is “to get the clutch on her motorcycle fixed“. This bad idea is going to cost about $600.00 and so the suggested gift for the 9 YEAR OLD GIRL was a “rechargeable visa card” with some money on it that she could add to until she had enough saved to pay for the repair.

Aside: I hate the idea of my 9-year-old niece being on a motorcycle, let alone owning one of her own, so I at least take comfort in the idea that it doesn’t run, and since I was only going to spend about $25.00, it’s not like I’m going to put her over the top or anything, but still!…

Reluctantly, I agreed to this plan, only, I really have no idea how to go about procuring a rechargeable visa card for a 9-year-old, and so here we are 13 days after her birthday and I haven’t even started the ball rolling…

My sister has since suggested that she thinks I should be able to get it at my bank and so, since I was already out at the DMV (see, you didn’t think these stories were related, did you?) I figured I could go into a branch to inquire there about whether and how they could make this happen. So when I finished my DMV business I went back to the car and I asked my iPhone, “Siri? Where is there a Bank of America around me?” And, well, I have an iPhone 3Gs, so, my iPhone didn’t say anything back, but the app told me where there was a Bank of America, less than half a mile away. As it turns out, I already knew this Bank of America was just where it was, I just didn’t realize I was so close to it while at the DMV, which I did not know where was and had to have my GPS direct me.

I drove toward the BofA, thinking how long I had been at the DMV, and how long I had already been MIA and what I should have for MDM (Mid Day Meal – otherwise known as lunch.) As I rounded the corner in front of the BofA I was reminded, ’cause I saw the sign, that there is a Boston Market right next to the Bank. Seemed like a good idea. Nothing fried there; that’s a plus right?

I walked in the front door of the bank and saw a longer line than was at the DMV and turned right around and walked out again. Thirteen days and counting, still dont’ know how I’m going to go about getting my niece her card.

At Boston Market, I ordered a combo plate with meat and two sides. I ordered brisket. No matter how good my intentions are when I go into a place like a rotisserie chicken restaurant, if there’s red meat there too, it’s almost guaranteed that’s what I’ll order.

Looking at the sides though, I thought, this place is supposed to be healthy? There sides are all carbs! New potatoes, mashed potatoes, loaded mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (actually yams, yuck!), stuffing, corn, green beans, creamed spinach… OK, granted green beans and creamed spinach are probably not that high in carbs, but, yich! Don’t like either of those.

I ordered loaded mashed potatoes and this squash, zucchini casserole thing topped with melted cheese (who doesn’t like melted cheese?) That shouldn’t be too bad, right? Squash isn’t high in carbs. There’s the cheese, but I’m less worried about a little extra fat than I am a lot of extra carbs.

Lo and behold it was some sort of stuffing type thing with the sliced squash over top and the cheese over that. It was delicious, to be sure, but still… Someone said, “Oh, wait. There’s not enough carbs in this dish, we need to rectify that!”

Also, I had an extra slice of cornbread.

This Is Not the Post You Are (Probably) Looking For

~ riggledo ~ 8 Comments

…Though that will come sooner or later…

This post is about hanging out with Lil’B.  I’ve amended our hanging out schedule a little bit and now, I see him every other Sunday afternoon and on the week that I don’t see him on Sunday, we’re going to have dinner on that Monday night.  I have been aware that our every other weekend schedule has been insufficient for him.  I could tell that he wanted more, I’ve just been slow in making that happen.

Last night was our first Monday dinner and I could tell when I picked him up he was excited about it.  He was all smiles and he even dressed up… in fact, I found out later, he dressed up more than I thought.  He borrowed a pair of black fabric tennis shoes from his 19-year-old sister “because all [his] shoes were dirty.”  (Fortunately, they didn’t look particularly like girls shoes.  Amazingly, they fit him perfectly, his toes right where they should have been.)

I was a little bit unprepared so we went to dinner at Applebee’s in Alameda, not too far from our houses.  I plan to take him to all kinds of fun places and explore our neighborhoods and the ones around us.  I want to try to balance exposing him to the neighborhood he lives in with lots of his own culture (he lives in what could be referred to as Little Mexico), but also get him out of the neighborhood and show him other walks of life.  Basically, I want to teach him not to be ashamed of where he comes from, but that there is more to the world and to life than what he sees now.

When I picked him up, I asked him if he had any homework we should bring with us and take a look at.  He happily pulled his math homework (something he doesn’t need any help with) out of his backpack and brought it with us.  In the car I asked him the usual questions:

“How was school?”

“Good.”

“What’d you study?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’d you have for lunch?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Did you have an afternoon snack?”

“No.”

“Hmmm.  Well, we’ll see how hungry you are when there’s a menu in front of you.”

He’d never been to an Applebees and he thought it was pretty cool.  He was especially impressed with the fact that the waitress brought him a second Pepsi when his first one was gone, even though no one asked for it.  (I think that’s pretty cool too, but probably for different reasons.)

They fold the kids menu into a little packet with four crayons inside it, which Lil’B thought was pretty cool and he enjoyed the games on it.  He ordered Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese, which was a pretty neet racket, since they charged me $4.99 for what amounted to about a quarter (if that) of a box of Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese which you can purchase at the store for about a buck fifty, but whatever.

When we finished dinner, he gathered his things so we could leave.  He had his homework packet, a pencil and his menu (which he had folded back up into a packet and tucked the crayons away).  He took about three steps and dropped his homework.  He stooped to pick it up and took a couple more steps before he dropped his pencil.  He stopped and picked it up and took a couple more steps and before he dropped the menu packet.  As he stooped and picked that up, I chucked congenially and as I joked, “got anything else you wanna drop?”, I gesticulated wildly, and a ring flew off my right ring finger and hit the wall in front of him.  I’m pretty sure he didn’t catch the irony in that, but I thought it was pretty funny!

We talked about Halloween.  He’s really looking forward to trick or treating and getting lots of candy!  He told me that this year his school instituted a rule for costumes that they can not include weapons and they can’t include blood (too scary for the kindergarteners) so that really reduces his options for costumes.  He said he thought he might be a soccer player.   I was pretty happy with that since last year he was a monster and the year before that he was the killer from Scream that had a pump that made fake blood run down the face.  (Later his older sister told me he was probably going to be a zombie soccer player.  I’m less impressed.)

In the course of that conversation he told me he had never had candy corn.  How is that possible?  At almost ten years old, he’s never had candy corn?!?  I had to correct that post haste, and fortunately, there was a Walgreens in the same parking lot with the Applebee’s.

When we walked into Walgreens they had a display of Halloween decorations, including a Scream guy with a knife in his hand.  You press a button and it lights up, makes a noise and the knife comes at you.  Lil’B pressed the button and jumped when it lurched toward him.  For all his talk about monsters and zombies and stuff, I thought that was pretty funny.

All in all, he seemed to have a really good time, as did I.  The outing seems to have been a great success, which is really good, because I just realized, this may be the most boring blog post I’ve ever written….

Tears On My Pillow; The End Of An Era

~ riggledo ~ 1 Comment

A couple weeks ago, before fleeing the country, my friend Karin and I had a conversation about depression. Fortunately for her, she doesn’t have this affliction and she admitted to not really understanding it. She didn’t know much about the clinical types of depression and so I explained my “condition” to her.

My version of clinical depression, the one that – for those of you who don’t know – is the most common type, is called dysthymia. Basically people with dysthymia have a “low grade” depression pretty much all of the time, with occasional lapses into more severe depression and, at least in my experience, even less frequent bouts of feeling not so bad. (God forbid it should be characterized as “feeling good.”)

Karin asked me where I was on that spectrum at the time. I told her, “I guessed I would have to say that I’m on the high end… and that’s almost worse.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because it’s not real,” I told her. “Because all the time that I feel this way, I know it’s only a matter of time before it ends and the bottom drops out again.”

~~~~~

I had a really shitty day yesterday.

My doctor told me I was twenty pounds heavier than the last time I saw him, fourteen months ago. I knew I had gained back some of the weight that I lost, but I didn’t realize it was that much. To be honest, I’ve been in a bit of denial about that. Trying not to think about it and definitely not accepting how bad it really is. Most days I feel like I’m not that heavy. My birthday party should have been a wake up call…

Weight is an issue for me. Always has been and most days I want to just throw in the towel and say, “Fuck it! I’m never going to have any control over this anyway. I should give up trying.”

The only success I’ve ever had is being vigilant about following the nutrition program on the Abs Diet program I’ve talked about before and by going to the gym regularly. The nutrition program is good but it becomes tedious after a while. I don’t know how to use most of the weight equipment in the gym and so all I can really do is aerobic exercise. The only time I can stomach going to the gym is mid-morning or mid-afternoon. Any other time is either too crowded or too early/late for me. When I can get there mid-morning or mid-afternoon it works out pretty well, except that It takes 90 minutes to two hours round trip (including travel, changing clothes, shower and dressing again.) And if there’s any disruption in the office schedule, like someone not being there, then it’s hard to get away.

I’ve given up any hope of ever being buff like I really want to be, just being fit and healthy – thinner will do, but even that seem so far out of reach…

I’m ready to consider more drastic measures. While I was waiting for my doctor to come in to the exam room yesterday I noticed a flyer on the wall. My healthcare organization now offers Cosmetic Surgery. I was shocked. Liposuction was listed. Someone recently told me that you can’t get fat again after liposuction because your body doesn’t grow new fat cells. Is that true? One of the side effects of liposuction is hair loss… I don’t have to worry about that…

A few months ago, my friend Lori (have you noticed all my friends are girls – sad) started a medical fast. She has lost 47 pounds in about six months. When she started, I thought it was overkill, to be honest. I tried to be supportive, though I’m not sure I succeeded, but I didn’t think she needed to do it. She was not grossly obese, in my estimation, and I felt like if she had the determination to stick to the fast then she had the determination to change her thinking and watch her nutrition. Now…. I’m wondering how much it costs, and if I would have to pay for it all at once or if I could make installments.

Once upon a time, specifically because I drank too much and knew I would feel better faster if I threw up, I tried to induce vomiting. I apparently have no gag reflex (something that might be useful someday – but probably not) and I don’t think bulimia is an option. Not that I could really be bulimic. I hate to vomit and will do everything in my power to prevent it.

I don’t know what to do.

~~~~~

I’ve been obsessing all day about my ordeal yesterday. And I’m pissed off because IT’S NOT RIGHT and I have no recourse. My options are to get the physical and pay the money, effectively paying my health care provider twice for one instance of service, or not getting the physical and not being able to get my ambulance driver license. Clearly, I don’t really have a choice, but the egalitarian in me can’t let this injustice go. I’m getting screwed and there’s nothing I can do about it. That makes me physically ill.

~~~~~

Last year, my boss, John, decided that I should be involved in the Green initiative for our building. Then he went off to Hawaii for four months and expected me to run the program in his absence. The fact that I have made it abundantly clear to him that I don’t give two shits about green initiatives was irrelevant. He had created this Green Advisory Council with a handful of building employees who wanted to be involved in “greening” the building. The whole lot of them are hippies (sorry Karin) and they’re all gung ho about the programs. They all annoy me in that capacity, but there’s one person on the council who is like a rabid dog with a juicy bone. He will not let anything go. He comes up with an idea that is not achievable with the limitations we have (or just not advisable at this time with good justification) and when told “no” brings it up again at the next meeting. He just keeps bring it up and keeps pushing until he gets what he wants, because ultimately, John is a push-over people-pleaser who will say “yes” just to satisfy this guy, even though it’s not the right thing for the situation. He pushes my buttons at every turn and as hard as I have tried I just can’t manage to like him. After the meeting today, I’m finished even trying to like him.

~~~~~

I’m lonely. When I left work today, a Friday, at around 6:00, I tweeted this:

~~~~~

All day today, when I wasn’t feeling murderously angry, I felt like I needed to cry. But as we know, I don’t do that.

~~~~~

Between me and the fence post, I’ve been craving Vodka for a couple days…

~~~~~

You know when I started this post, it was going to end with me saying, “I hope this is just a bad day and not the end of that all too infrequent “not so bad” time. Now that it’s written…

(Sigh) It was nice while it lasted.

Nobody Thinks This Is Funny But Me

~ riggledo ~ 3 Comments

One of my favorite blogs to read when I need a good laugh, The Bloggess has a tag on her blog “Nobody thinks this is funny but me”.  It’s almost never true, of course, but I think today, that’s probably going to be a perfect tag for this post.  I forgive you.

~~~~~

I was working on my menu for next week.  You know, the one that comes up on my nifty little website that has weekly meal plans and exercise plans?  You know, the one that I’ve done a pitiful job of following for months now?  You know, the one that I could actually do a pretty decent job of controlling my weight and getting into shape if I’d just follow it?  You know the one for which I’ve been paying for over a year, even though I only half-@$$ed follow it…  Yeah, that one.

I was working on next weeks menu, and I came across a menu item, for breakfast that I did not want.  One of the things I like about this website is that it provides the menu, but then you can substitute anything they suggest that you don’t like for something that you do.  You gotta know, every time they suggest “brussels sprouts” I hit that swap button faster than you can say, “ew gross.”

I confess that I usually change the breakfasts they suggest because I don’t have a lot of time, or gumption, in the mornings to prepare the smoothies they recommend (not to mention I only own two blenders and that’s a lot of dish washing if I follow their suggestions.)  I usually change breakfast…

These were the suggested alternatives… FOR BREAKFAST!! :

Now you know why I like this program!

Days Which Should Never End

~ riggledo ~ 3 Comments

It rained almost non-stop on Saturday.  I didn’t care.  I got to spend the day with Heather.  I’d have driven through a hurricane for that.  Neither rain, nor sleet, nor the gloom of night, shall keep me from my– wait, that’s something else.  Eh nee way…

It was a great day.  I never get to see Heather and when I do get to see her (which clearly contradicts that “never” statement) it’s usually with other people in tow.  Not that I don’t like the people who come in tow, but it’s nice to get to spend some time alone with the one person on this entire planet who truly understands me and sees through all my defenses and facades to the core of the real me.  We don’t even have to do anything terribly special for it to be, well, special.

I picked her up at noon and we went to lunch at California Pizza Kitchen where we shared a lunch of Avocado Egg Rolls

and Pear and Gorgonzola pizza.

After lunch we went to see I Am Number Four which was a really good movie we both enjoyed a lot.  Heather said she hasn’t been to a movie since seeing Avatar.  I haven’t been to a grown up movie since…  Well, maybe since seeing Avatar.  Well, OK, that’s not really true.  I’ve seen a few “grown up” movies with Lil’B, but I don’t know when the last time I saw a “grown up” movie with a grown up was.  Anyway, the lead actor (Alex Pettyfer) is someone I’ve not seen before that I can recall, but once his hair is bleached blond (it’s part of the story) he reminds me a great deal of a young Ryan Phillipe, which is a very good thing.  Dianna Agron from Glee is also in this movie and does a fantastic job.  Personally, I really enjoyed Timothy Olyphant who always reminds me of Josh Duhamel.  I would say something here about how Timothy is underrated as an actor and deserves to be more famous than he is, but let’s be honest.  He’s good looking and had great hair in this movie.  Whatever.

After the movie we went to do a bit of traditional shopping.  It’s traditional because, well, every time we get together, we end up going to Target, Trader Joes, See’s Candy and TJ Maxx Home Goods.  And that’s just what we did.  After dropping off the purchased cold and frozen items at Heather’s Grandparents’ house we went to a “Billiards Cafe” to shoot some pool together.  We are both fairly terrible so it was fun (I hate playing pool with someone who is pretty good and all I can do is sit and watch them play.)  I ended up winning the first two games and Heather won the third one. And then we went to dinner at Chevy’s “fresh mex”.  We were both fairly stuffed, but Heather had mentioned a place nearby, earlier in the day and we were determined to check it out.

Orange Leaf is a self-service Frozen Yogurt Bar where you go in and get your cup, select yogurt from about 15 different flavors and add whatever, and however much of, the toppings you want.  They charge by the ounce, which has a tendency to be not nearly as good as you think starting out.  I got Chocolate and Peanut Butter Yogurts, side by side, and topped it with every kind of chocolate and peanut butter candy topping I could find.  This proved to be a bad idea as, in the process of eating the delicious concoction, I managed to dislodge the wire on my lower jaw from the back brackets on both side of my mouth.  It doesn’t hurt, but it’s a bit of a nuisance and I’m going to have to get it reinserted.

We had a really great day together and, as usual, I was really sorry it had to end.