Sausageboobies!

When you’re hungry and you don’t have the brainjuice to magic up complicated dishes in the kitchen, then hot dogs is a simple and tasty alternative. At least that’s what Mr Chooch and I decided on the other day. We picked up a bunch of sausages and those funny French hot dog breads. But… well…. We opened the hot dog bag (they come in a bag here, they do) and saw that they weren’t sausages. They were SAUSAGEBOOBIES!

Not sure what else to say, really.

We still ate them. There are people starving in this world, after all. But we did remove the nipple ends and feed them to Pooch. She didn’t think they were creepy at all.

Tuna & Thesis

.I have never been a breakfast person. My stomach wakes up around noon, completely independent of when the rest of me wrangles itself out of bed. Every once in a while I do make an exception. This is mostly because I feel like I should. I've had my head piped full of “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” and stuff like that, ever since I was a kid.

The other day was a forced exception. My step-sister came over for breakfast. Technically, I suppose it was more of an early lunch, but my stomach wasn’t awake yet at any rate. I sat down at the kitchen table and started making a tuna sandwich.

“mayo…adding tuna…one, two, three slices of pickle…” I said, carefully documenting everything, not because I didn’t know how to build a tuna sandwich, but because I’m not all that accustomed to preparing breakfast and so it took a bit of concentration. I realized that I didn't have to narrate the entire birth of my sandwich, but I was on a funny sort of an auto pilot.

At some point The Step-Sister asked about The Thesis (of doom) and I gave out my standard reply, all the while intensely focused on the collection of bread, salads and whatnots on my plate. Then she and The Step-Mum chattered on for a bit, before she turned back to me and asked “are you nearing the end of it soon?”

I carefully examined my sandwich and responded: “yeah, just about done now. It just needs a bit more lettuce.”

Lesson learned: drink more coffee before breakfast.

Life lessons vs. pizza

When I was a kid and I didn’t want to eat the crusts on my sandwiches, my mum would remind me that there were children starving in Africa. I thought that, in the event that I should put my bits of bread in an envelope and send them to Africa, they would be pretty inedible by the time they got there. Also, it seemed to me that the best way to help the starving, would be to not stuff yourself full of food when you were no longer hungry.

I guess what my mother was really trying to teach me, was to be grateful for the things that I had, and not how to solve world hunger.

Last night, I tried to keep that lesson in mind after I dropped my last slice of pizza on the floor. Pooch knows full well that if something edible lands on the ground, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s hers to pounce on. However, if this something edible falls directly on her head, the rules change.

At that moment in time, Pooch, at least, was very grateful for what she had…

Cheer up, cocoa!

Every year I have the same New Years resolution. It’s a fairly common one, as far as New Years resolutions go: to start a better, healthier lifestyle. This year was no different from any other year, resolution-wise. And it did start fairly well.

Then classes started up again. Yawning, I moseyed off early every single morning to class and I rambled home late every afternoon, head spinning with information and The Tiny Voice inside insisting that everything would go so much easier with just a tiiiiny sugarkick, but I mostly resisted the urge.

Today I was determined not to give in to my sugar craving demons, who were extra insistent. I’d stopped by the store on my way to Hellhole U to pick up a bag of fruit for my oh so healthy lunch. I was going past the cafeteria, when I heard a small voice calling me.

It was the cocoa-machine wondering if I didn’t want a nice cup of hot goodness this morning. It sounded kinda sad. Rejected, sort of. I hate making people – and cocoa-machines, apparently – sad, so I indulged it. Just to make sure it wouldn’t be upset anymore, I helped myself to a double.

But tomorrow is going to be different. It is. Isn’t it?

Buttmunching

Today I am completely exhausted, and I'm not quite sure why. I could probably figure it out if I gave it some thought, but I'm too damn tired. Still, I did read something in the news the other day that I thought I might share with you all, knowing that you enjoy twisted things almost as much as I do.

There is a man in Sweden who has eaten parts of his ass on tv.

That's right. I did not make this up. Just to make sure that you're all paying attention, I'll repeat it.

There is a man in Sweden who has eaten parts of his ass on tv.

Another man cut of two small slices, which the swede ate and concluded that they tasted exactly like sellery. Later a spokesperson for a religious community went out into the media and said that he finds the whole stunt tasteless and that he sincerely hopes that it won't become a trend among the young.

Imagine that... Just when the cops were getting good at stopping underaged drinking.

To deep fry or not to deep fry.

My head is empty. I don’t know where my brain went, but I think I might have packed it in one of my boxes. I’m sure I can do without it for a few weeks.

Yesterday I tried my hand at deep frying bananas in batter. They didn’t turn out quite like I’d imagined, I have to say. The inside was completely mushy and on the outside they looked like poops. Still, they were good, though. Especially with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. And all the while The Pooch regarded me with her I-can’t-believe-you’re-eating-that-look. I had no idea she had one of those. And then came the overwhelming desire to throw up like that kid on the Exorcist.

Today I have a bag of frozen French fries in the freezer, and I am ready to deep fry once again. Sometimes my memory is more selective than that of Pooch.

Treadmills and fried bears

Yesterday was the fifth day of rain in a row. Six days ago there was almost sun. Almost. And before that there was more rain. With other words, there wasn’t much to do other than shopping for stuff I don’t need online.

I considered buying a treadmill. Then I remembered that I don’t really like running. I’d run if I was being chased by something. Like a bear or Tony Blair. Luckily that hasn’t happened yet. So I ordered one of those machines that deep-fry things. ‘Cause that’s almost the same thing, right? Yay.

I’m wondering what sort of things I can deep-fry. You have the standard choices like pork, chickens or a nice banana, but I enjoy trying out new things. Maybe chocolates. Or my stuffed bear. The little, ugly one that I won at a carnival, not the one that actually like. Or maybe the guy in the booth where I won the little ugly bear. Hey, if I fry an actuall bear, that’ll piss it off and it’ll chase me. Then it’ll be as if I did buy a treadmill.

See? I’m brilliant.

Dead slugs and the thing that barfed itself to death

I spent an hour on the phone with a good friend of mine, Mariè, on Wednesday. We used to hang out all the time, back when I lived in the city (Ah! Civilization – I remember it, vaguely, in the back of my mind along with the red wagon I had when I was three), but there aren’t a lot of opportunities for us to get together these days. The girl, Parisian by birth, is one of those chefs who love to cook even after she goes off work, and used to have friends over for dinner all the time. Mostly, this was terrific, but for a while it became almost bloodcurdling.

I know what you’re thinking. “Listen to her! She’s got a real, live chef cooking for her, and this is how she shows her gratitude. What a spoiled *****” Well, you know what you’re words were. And yes, at first it was brilliant. Absolutely, completely and totally superb. But then it changed. She started cooking some seriously weird stuff.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; slugs weren’t meant to be eaten. Those of my friends who are French either by birth or in spirit, will object now, of course. Jazz once said that the idea of eating snails was less daunting if you called the dish “Escargot”, like they do in France. This didn’t help me when I was sitting by Marie’s round kitchen table with three friends, staring the content our round dinner plates.

“Don’t look so sceptical. They really don’t taste like anything at all. The seasoning provides all of the flavour,” she said to me, as she was cooking the revolting little things. We were all supposed to turn up at her flat just after she finished cooking (I’m guessing that she was going to feed her Escargots to us poor, unsuspecting victims, and then let us know what we’d just eaten once it had started working its way through our digestive systems), but she gave me the wrong time, so I came early enough to see what she was up to.
“Well, then you eat those and I’ll lick the frying pan,” I said.
Mariè laughed. I wasn’t joking.

Just as I had stuck my fork in one of the little nightmares, my cellphone rang.
“Hello. I’m calling on behalf of The Really Wonderful Newspaper. Would you like to hear about our subscription services?” chirped a woman’s voice in my ear.
“Okay, I’ll be right over,” I said. Then I put on my regretful face and told my friends that I had to go. To this day, I’ve never eaten a snail.

The week after that, Mariè served her last scary meal - a fish. It had been baked whole in the oven and now it lay on an elegant serving platter, surrounded by various accessories, with stuffing coming out of its open mouth. It looked a bit as if it had barfed itself to death.

After that, things returned to normal.

Eye pic by Fazen for www.Flickr.com

Snail pic by Giamil for www.sxc.hu

Grocery shopping and the seagull-head

I believe in the unconscious, but I have to say that I prefer the conscious. They pay more attention, if you know what I mean. The cashier at the grocery store on Saturday, for example? She was unconscious.

A friend and I decided to put together a taco pizza, so off we went to the grocery store, happily picturing our soon to be meal in our heads. When you have friends over to cook, eating while you’re cooking is part of the fun, so we picked up a bunch of snacks, as well. Pretty soon, our shiny wagon was filled to the point of almost bursting with all sorts of figure-ruining things.

We balanced the overstuffed wagon between the isles and towards the checkout line, still eager to sink our teeth into its content. Operating the cash machine, a bit like a seagull picking on a dead fish, was a teenaged girl with black mascara smeared underneath her eyes which in turn were almost hidden under dishwater blonde hair.

Every pin-code she fed into the registry was acknowledged by a short *beep*, as it should be, with a few exceptions. The first was my see-through bag of rolls.

“How many?” asked racoon-girl and held it up in the air.
“I forget,” I said. “Count them, dumbass,” my inner voice added.
It turned out to be five, and I can understand that she needed to ask. Five is, after all, a difficult number.

A couple more beeps later, she picks up yet another bag. Paper, this time.
“What’s in here?” she asked. The word "Figs" were written on it in capital letters just above a picture of… Guess what! Figs. Also, it was partly transparent, so that you could clearly see the content, which matched the picture perfectly. At this point, I felt like saying something rude. However, my friend cut in, answering the girls question. My inner voice did have some things to say, of course, but I won’t repeat them here.

Then came the small can of corn which I found sitting by itself on a shelf with all the other canned goods. The registry refused to beep at it. Simply refused. As the girl fixed her gaze at me once more, I could feel my patience packing up its stuff and making a run for it. I wondered how she’d react if I were to reach across the counter and slap her.

“Was this part of a pack of three?” she asked. I answered (surprised at how patient and polite I sounded) that I really didn’t know. It had been sitting on the shelf by itself. The seagull reached under the counter to ring a buzzer. Then we waited (and waited, and waited) until the store manager turned up. Mascara-face asked her about the can of corn, and she went off to check. When she returned, she smiled and explained to me that “this particular can came from a pack of three such cans which cost so-and-so, blablabla, so that a single can would cost me this much”. As if I gave a damn. I smiled politely, and said thank you. My inner voice used much more colourful phrasings.

After what seemed like a small eternity, our groceries were finally paid for and we were given one – one – bag to pack them into. You know that trick that they do in circuses where they see how many clowns they can stuff into a mini? It was a bit like that. And there was no way that we could fit all of our clowns into that tiny, little bag. We tried asking seagull-head for another bag, but she overheard us. So we were forced to get creative, stuffing groceries into our handbags and pockets.

I hate doing my grocery shopping in Hellhole…


Pic by Wallula Junction for www.Flickr.com

Chinese food, unconsciousness and a new discovery

There’s a Chinese restaurant in town where I like to eat. It got busted on health regulations a few years back, but then they changed owners and now you can eat there without having to worry about kidney failure.

Anyway, I was having lunch there with a friend on Monday. I’d been in classes all day, since early in the morning (the kind of early where there should be a law against getting out of bed, unless you have a cow to milk, or something), and I’d hardly had any sleep all night, so it was fair to say that I was barely conscious. After I decided on what to eat (which took forever, due to the previously mentioned lack of consciousness), the waiter asked what I wanted to drink.

“I’ll have… Uhm… Hmm,” I said. Usually I order Cola, but I had an idea in my head that I wanted to drink something else this time. However, there simply wasn’t enough juice in my brain (or whatever it is that brains run on) to both produce an alternative drink and transporting the name of it out from between my lips. Once again, I ended up with Cola. I’ll be original next time, when I have the energy for it.

Another thing I noticed, that I hadn’t really paid any attention to before, is the fact that the bathroom sink in that place is placed really, really low. I’m a tiny, little dwarf by Scandinavian standards, and I almost had to bend over double to wash my hands. Even a really small Chinese person would find it a bit disproportionate. But, as I said, I never noticed this before. And as I’ve been in there a few times, it is possible that I was hallucination due to exhaustion. I’ll have to check again next time.

A special kind of stupid

Today (as well as every other day lately) I was followed around by the sound of complaining stomachs. It happened first in my math class. I sat at my desk, trying to understand a formula that might as well have been in greek (actually, I think it probably was in greek), when a deep, roaring sound made it's way towards me from somewhere on my left. The noise persisted, making it's presens known every five minutes or so, right up until recess.

Now, you might think that this would be a good time to go get something to eat, but you'd be wrong. After the break, the sound was back, more grown-up than ever. And it brought friends. Growling noises now came from every corner of the room. It was almost like something I once heard on Animal Planet.

And the phenomenon kept repeating itself throughout my day. From mathclass to the coffeebar to the lectures in philosophy. Growl, growl, growl. Why don't these people eat? Do they forget? Because it takes a very special kind of stupid to forget something like that. Once or twice is (maybe) permissible, but when it becomes a daily thing... It's the very same kind of stupid that led to the invention of such things as the motorized picnic table and the insomniac helmet (a gigantic contraption that you strap onto your head, and it gives you a head massage to help you sleep). Or maybe they can't afford food? But they don't really strike me as being poor, either.

So I guess that just leaves stupid...