First, thanks to everyone for stopping and reading this when there is so much other stuff to read and watch, like TikToks and memes of Bernie Sanders at the inauguration. I know it’s been a while, but apparently, I’ve been storing up a few rants over the last few months.
One of my resolutions this year, in addition to just trying to be nicer to people, is to try some new recipes and stop making Hubby eat the same five things every week, plus pizza or cereal night. Sounds pretty basic, right? Well, who knew that the most challenging part of this would be getting to the actual recipes online!
When I finally find a recipe that has less than 10 ingredients, doesn’t call for some weird spice (like celery salt) that I’ll only ever use once, and doesn’t contain anything resembling fish oil, I have to keep it together long enough to scroll
down,
down,
down,
through the author’s family history, passion for turning said recipe leftovers into a gross smoothie afterward, and tips for cleaning my house while I stand on my head and cook.
To the people who post recipes online: No one gives a crap about how your grandmother used to clean her oven or that your 5th cousin is from Bulgaria and that’s where the recipe came from. We just need the damn ingredient list. We’re tired from being at work all day and we don’t want to touch anything more in Kroger than we have to, so stop making us scroll with grocery store-COVID fingers. We just want to cook without ads popping up that we have to close with raw, chicken covered-fingers.
So please, for the love of all things cookery, STOP giving us your life story and just post the damn thing with a picture of the finished product so I can see where I messed up!
Filed under: Exercise, Food/Drink, Posts | Tags: alcoholic, bars, chardonnay, drinking, drinks, Exercise, lactic acid, wine, workouts
What my friends give me when I get uppity and ask for a buttery chardonnay…
Chardonnay is the perfect substitute for an intense workout.
Yeah, you heard me. I said it.
Now let me work my way around to it and you’ll see how my flawless logic enabled me to skip many a workout, guilt-free.
When you workout, your body converts sugar into energy. During intense exercise, there may not be enough oxygen to complete the process, so your body makes lactic acid in response. But this can build up in your body more rapidly than you can burn it off. Symptoms of lactic acid build-up are cramps, nausea, weakness and exhaustion.
Chardonnay’s delicious buttery taste comes from lactic acid produced after the first fermentation. Too much Chardonnay can leave your crampy, weak, nauseous and even exhausted the next day.
So…if you don’t like to exercise, stick with a buttery Chardonnay. You’ll be fooling your body into thinking you had a workout!
You’re welcome. That is all.
Filed under: Food/Drink, Misc. Humor, shopping | Tags: advertising, commercials, marketing, poop, sales, shopping, television, toilet paper
I pity the advertising firms that have to come up with new ways to sell toilet paper and not offend anybody. Toilet paper has one specific purpose, and it’s gross. Sure, you can say it has other uses, like failing to adequately remove eye makeup, or sticking to your shoe when you leave the port-o-john, but let’s face it: we don’t buy thick, soft toilet paper because of those little perks. I buy it because I don’t like wiping my butt with the tree bark found in public restrooms.
The other day I heard a commercial for Cottonelle that asked the experts (young kids), “How clean do you feel after going to the bathroom?” And of course, the kids all had cute things to say like “I feel as clean as a white, tiny kitten.”
Kids are cute, but they are not a surefire strategy for selling your product. If you really want to know if the toilet paper is any good, ask a hairy man – he’ll tell you. Ask a woman with IBS – she’ll know. Ask a woman who’s recently given birth – there better be some soft paper in her bathroom or somebody will pay once she gets a couple of hours of sleep. Or ask someone who has dogs that poop on the carpet a lot – they can tell you how durable and flush-able it is.
But don’t ask little kids about toilet paper and how clean they are – they can’t know.
Young kids are inexperienced wipers. I know because I taught preschool for 10 years, and I can’t tell you how many times kids would try to get me to come in the stall (I didn’t – teachers aren’t allowed to) and check to see if they “wiped right” or “got all the poo off.” Thanks, pedophiles, for not only making it inappropriate for teachers to hug a crying child, but for creating a situation where children learning to use the toilet stay itchy all day and develop rashes because teachers can’t check and answer that simple question.
Charmin got it right – they used bears in their commercials. Bears are hairy (i.e. credible), but still inoffensive because everybody knows if a bear shits in the woods and nobody’s around to see it…it didn’t happen.
But the real question is, do we need commercials at all for toilet paper? I think there are two rules of thumb for this:
- If it’s the generic brand, don’t buy it unless you must choose cost over comfort.
- A commercial isn’t going to tell you that more than 5 squares clogs the toilet, or that it comes apart in your hand mid-wipe. Your friends tell you that kind of stuff, so go by word-of-moth when it comes to TP purchases. And if your friends don’t tell you this, you need better friends.
Filed under: Food/Drink | Tags: adulting, dining, fish, Food, humor, Kona Grill, pizza, restaurants
I recently had a restaurant fail that made me realize:
- Food should always be clearly labeled
- Not everything “tastes like chicken”
- I have a very weak sense of smell
- Customers should not be too proud or shy to ask questions
A month or so ago I went to a local chain restaurant for lunch with work friends. I like to try new things on the menu and saw this:
I like mushrooms and Brussels sprouts. I don’t know what bonito is (I do now), but it sounds like another kind of fancy mushroom, so I’ll get it. And no, I didn’t just Google it because I was being polite and not using my phone at the table.
This is what was delivered to my table:
It MOVED.
I freaked out until I realized the heat from the bread was making whatever that was wave like things you see swirling around your feet at the beach – they don’t hurt you, but you don’t want to think about it much, either.
I ate about three pieces before I realized that my friends were looking at me like I’d just pulled a rabbit carcass out of my pocket, put it on the table and kept eating. About the same time, the smell emanating from the plate finally penetrated my sinuses and I got a whiff of…fish. And not a good, seasoned salmon or tilapia, either. It smelled like fish that had sat on the counter too long and the cats were thinking they would reach Nirvana if I would just let them have it.
My stomach flopped and I stopped eating. Lacy, my co-worker with a five-year-old’s palette, took pity and offered me one of her BBQ sliders. (Lacy I will not make fun of you again for at least a month).
I didn’t get sick, and I know I’m partly to blame for not asking questions. But seriously, who puts mushrooms, Brussels sprouts AND FISH SHAVINGS on a flatbread? And what part of the fish did that come from? I don’t think you can shave anything on a fish except maybe the skin, and I sure as hell don’t want to eat fish skin unless its salmon and deliciously crunchy inside a sushi roll.
The only kind of fish shaving should happen here.
Filed under: Food/Drink, Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Travel | Tags: adulting, bars, beach, crime, drinking, fun, girls, hot tub, lifeguard, north carolina, Outer banks, relationships, rental, vacation, Virginia
Dear Rental House Owner –
Thank you so much for your nice letter and for helpfully providing your lawyer’s name and address, although I don’t think it will be necessary. We had a great girls’ weekend staying in your beach house, and everyone was so friendly! It’s nice when a bunch of middle-aged women can get together for some relaxing quiet time at the beach. I hope you saw that we replaced the wine glasses and re-stocked the liquor cabinet. The combination for the replacement padlock is written on a sticky note by the phone.
And thank you for asking if we got home okay after our night out. We had no idea that your friend Jim owns the _________________ Bar – he was very sweet to escort us personally to our car after Sarah twisted her ankle on the stage. It was also very kind of him to kick that married guy out after he said, “I like your rack” to Lisa. Those drinks the married guy sent over for us that tasted like liquid Skittles were nasty – give us good wine or bourbon any day – what was he thinking? Please tell Jim we hope we didn’t drive too many of his younger customers away with our dancing. Those millennial girls just don’t have the moves we do, and I think they were embarrassed at how much better we were. (They sure do know how to roll their eyes though.) But one nice girl came up to Cheryl and said it must be nice to trust your friends enough to let them hold while you hang upside down like that.
Your next-door neighbor was also very nice, letting us come up on one of his balconies to watch the sunset. When Terry fell and broke her wine glass because she miscounted the steps, he asked if she was okay and didn’t even comment on her speech impediment (it’s often confused with slurring). We cleaned up the wine and broken glass for him, but he had already gone inside so we couldn’t say thank you in person.
You must have a lot of crime in that area – that explains all the cameras. We would greatly appreciate it if you would please tell your other neighbors we were only trying to be helpful when we checked that their hot tub was clean and the heater was working (it was). You might also want to pass on that the cleaners didn’t do a very good job. There was lots of sand in the bottom of the hot tub and two bottles of Fireball had been left on the porch rail. We didn’t want the cleaners to get into trouble so we finished the Fireball off – hence the empties. There wasn’t much we could do about the sand. But if your neighbors find a diamond stud earring, they can put that towards the next cleaning fee.
We noticed that things were a bit dry in North Carolina, so we decided to save water for you by bathing over there. Lisa’s suit color tends to run, so she thought it might do better in the pool. Oh, and by the way, the neighbors also might want to have their pool deck leveled out. Apparently, what they saw on the camera was Lisa falling on the uneven pavement as she was putting her clean bathing suit back on. She must have bumped her head, because she put it on upside down and inside out. We still haven’t figured out how that’s even possible, but that’s Lisa for you. But don’t worry, she says she doesn’t have any interest in litigating the injury.
Yes, we did have one extra person stay overnight. The nice lifeguard we met at Jim’s bar offered to drive us home, and it’s a good thing he did because there aren’t a lot of Ubers around on the off season (none seemed available that late at night – we kept getting declined). I wonder if you know him? There can’t be that many lifeguards who also have a degree in tribal mating dances – that’s probably what you saw on your cameras. But it was extremely fortunate he was there because Cheryl must have had some kind of reaction to the food at the bar – she required mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The lifeguard was very concerned for her privacy so he took her into the other room and managed to revive her after several minutes. After that, it was late and he was tired, so the least we could do was let him spend the night. He was a real gentleman – he even fixed us all breakfast the next morning.
If you find the following items we would appreciate it if you would return them:
2 black bathing suit tops
1 pink thong
1 blue bathing suit bottom
1 floral eye mask
3 pairs of readers – black, navy blue and hunter green, varying strengths
Thanks again for your letter of concern, and as you can see, no lawyers will be necessary. We are happy to pay for any damages we didn’t already repair, but I don’t think the tire tracks in your front yard were from us. Sadly, there were a lot of drunk people out that night – some people just can’t handle themselves on vacation. Even the nice police officer who stopped us on the way home said the lifeguard was just driving a little fast. After looking into the car when Cheryl starting yelling “Don’t slur your driving!” and seeing that Lisa was a bit green around the gills, he decided to let us go. What an understanding young man! He even fist bumped the lifeguard. Your beach town is such a friendly place! You must feel so proud to have a house there!
Until next year,
The Girls.
Subourbon Mom 