Yam, bam, thank-you ma-am...

I love the holidays!

Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, all those fun little holly days in between. Not for their religious value of course, not for the child-like intrinsic quality these holidays bring,
but because I
like
to
Feed
people.

And not just a meal either, not just a feast, not just a Gourmet feast, but something more like a Big-Yummy-Little-Old-Ukrainian-Grandmother-Style-Stuff-You-Til-You-Puke-And-Then-Make-You-Another-Plate-And-Complain-About-How-Skinny-You-Look Gourmet Feast.

I like to cook. lots.

So, I'm on the web this morning looking for side dishes to make, cuz wouldn't you know, I don't think that Turkey, Ham, Chorizo stuffing, mashed taters, broccoli and cauliflower bake, Red pepper salad, corn muffins, cinnamon buns, 2 kinds of pie, and homemade breadsticks and buns are going to be enough. Plus, I totally forgot about Yams! My poor little tubers! Now how could I do such a thing?

So I look up the fated tuber, and up pops all these icky sweet desserty thing to do with yams. Really? eww. candied yams? Saw a picture and it looked like upchucked peach slices. yuck. Baked in a pie? with marshmallows?
I remember a friend tried to do that once for a dinner I went to , but he was poor and didn't have marshmallows, but amazingly enough had marshmallow topping, and he wasn't really a good cook either, cuz the crust was burnt, and the eggs had separated from the yam mixture so there was hard baked egg bits in it, and he put the topping on after baking the pie, and cuz the pie was still hot the marshmallow topping started melting and it looked like somebody sneezed on the pie, but that's not the real reason I have a substantial fear of cooking with yams, nope...

Anyways, I thought that the sweet desserty thing was the sweet potatoes job. What? they're the same thing? No... really? You wouldn't believe how many recipes I found where the chef thought it was the same thing! you probably wouldn't even care!

Well I looked it up, cuz I was Really Confused. and No. For all you fantastic would-be chefs out there, The Sweet Potato, and the Yam are two completely different tubers.
Idiots.

So I spent the next hour or so reading up on why these two tubers are so different, how a yam is actually naturally sweeter than a sweet potato, and how yams are actually tropical, and can grow to be 7 feet tall (takes a backhoe to get it out of the damn ground), and all about the amazing health benefits of each tuber, (I Really like the word Tuber), and where the word Yam even comes from (for all you geeks, it's from the african term njam, nyami, or djambi, meaning "to eat,". who knew?)

and basically wasted my morning without finding a single recipe to cure my side dish blues.
well...

whoa!! long time!!!

hokay...
HI!.....
it's been a long time....
how's it going?
yeah, yeah me too. really busy.
no time really to even scratch my ass or pick my nose.
yep.
busy.
that's me.

uh-huh.
eeyeeahh......
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Okay, okay, I lied, I've been doing nothing but scratching my ass and/or picking my nose, but I can explain.

I was, at one point,*insert dramatic sigh* too poor for internet.*insert 'pity me' sob*

Okay, okay, that's a lie too, I'm obviously rolling in the "dough", but really I'm sure if you're patient enough with me, I can come up with some kind of excuse you can be happy with, just hold on.
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nope, nothing. oh well.

And now for something completely different....

I'd like to take a moment to go completely off topic here, and talk to you about something that has great importance to the world today. Something that, in my personal viewing experience, has gotten completely out of control as of late.

As you all know, it is Winter. And, in most cases up here in Canada, it gets very cold. Sometimes it's very, very, very cold. Such as this past week. The temperature's been stuck somewhere in the range of -30 to -40something, so, yeah. chilly. As you might Not know, here in Saskabusch, there happens to be an abundance of old people. And particularly in my work environment, Old men. some creepy, most harmless, but still, unavoidably present.

Which brings me back to my issue.

If it's so damn cold, why must I still be subjected to an abundance of hairy old man chest? I mean come on!

Lemme give an example, just to bring an image to the horror that I've faced lately.

-Scream richie, go on! scream like the little girl you wanna be!

That scary enough for you

X-mas Closure

Ready?

Ok!!

All together Now!!!

IT'S ALMOST OVER!! IT'S ALMOST OVER!! IT'S ALMOST OHH-VHEE-EEE-ARE, OVER!!!

Thank you for your time.

My newest X-mas gift!

I like to dance. A lot. I like to dance for real, I like to dance for audiences, I like to dance when I'm happy, learned some good news, and yes, sometimes I do a little angry dance.




I also like to make up stupid little rhymes and songs/chants just for the fun of it. Usually it's because I'm bored, but sometimes, it's just because I'm a little bat-shite crazy. Okay. The chant thing makes it sound like I'm a hippy (which there's nothing wrong with, but I'm not) or some weird pagan-ey type person, which I am also not. Lemme explain.

Example:

Me and my guy have been looking for a house, one that allows multiple pets, and found two that I looked at and liked, and so filled in the appropriate applications for. Then comes the waiting. Both places said they'd call back this morning, and my guy was feeling skeptical about it, since most places for rent don't allow pets easily, if at all. Well, this morning, I got a call back from one of the places, and let me tell you, the guy I was talking to sounded so enthusiastic about having us live there, I pretty well signed on right away, but he was with the more expensive place. So I told him I'd think about it and get back to him. Not even ten minutes later, the other house called me back.



(Now lets take into account at this time in my story, that I was at work when this happened, although the store wasn't open yet. kay. back to my stupidity.)

So this other guy calls back, lets call him guy 2 for now, and guy2 is telling me how he thinks the place is ours, just have to drop by the office and drop a down deposit so I can guarantee a hold on it. and in the middle of this conversation, my work phone rings. I don't want to be rude to either person on the phone, so I swivel around the cell phone with guy2 on it, pick up the other phone, and do my little "Thanks for calling the gladly-take-your-money-store, can you please hold?" bit, (Multi-talented, that's me) and put that phone down so I can concentrate on guy2 who's in the midst of telling me move in dates, and the such. a short 30 seconds later, I'm off the phone with guy2, beaming stupidly to an empty store, and congratulating myself on winning the bet that both places would call back, even though my guy didn't actually make a bet, but I needed some way to fill my childish competitiveness up for the weekend. In fact I was so pleased, I got up and started doing a little 'winners' dance. And then I started chanting. 'I fukin told yuh, I fukin told yuh, I fukin, fukin, fukin, fukin, fukin, told yuh.' I finished up my dancing and juvenile chanting, and got back to work.



Only half an hour later, when I had just opened up the store, did I realize that I hadn't gotten back to the lady who I had asked to hold. I checked the phone of course, but there was no answer. Why should there be?

So now I'm left to wonder whether some random lady heard my potty-mouthed ranting, or if I got off the hook because she was impatient and couldn't wait for 35 seconds....







on a completely somewhat different topic, I had a lady come in that tried to give me $6.20 on an $8.47 bill. Between my saying it out loud and the computer screen telling her you'd think she wouldn't've had a problem. She blamed it on me not speaking properly, and how I should get my speech problems fixed, and did I know that roughly half of the younger population cannot speak properly? I replied in a properly low mumble,' did you know that about 75% percent of the population over 65 wear hearing aids, and about 35% percent probably need them?'

The Theatre that I work at sometimes gets me to play hostess for the night, so the others can have a chance at making tips (just kidding!) Don' get me wrong, I like the job, I getty to wear high heels and dress up in my fancy pants, boss everyone around a little bit, (a tiny little bit), and so on and so on. But there's one thing that's always kinda bugged me. A thought that's just been burrowing away in the base of my spine, the very fringe of my grey matter. Lemme explain.
We have a coat check room beside the hostess station where the busser, (and sometimes a hostess or two) get to hang up all the coats/mitts/boots/hats/dead ferrets/etc/you get my point. And on the desk of the hostess station there's a little wicker basket that people throw their change into to tip/pay coat check. Now when it's very cold outside, which it's been for a week or two now, both hostesses help out with coat check, as customers tend to appear all at once, totally ruining our calm and collected appeal, and practically turning the front door area into a war zone. okay, that may be a bit of an overstatement, but it gets pretty hectic in there. Anyways, that little wicker basket comes into play at the end of the night, as, hopefully, many people have thrown many bits of change into it, and then it gets split up between the hostess and the busser.
This is where my quandries and thoughts start a-naggling at me. When I was in grade three, we had a school dance. I really don't remember anything about it other than I wore a black 3-tiered mini skirt with neon trim in pink green and orange, and that I won a dance contest with another boy in my class. The prize was a box of icy squares. I remember going to the stage to pick up the icy squares, going over to the bench with the boy, and divvying up the squares equally, because, gosh darn it, we had both worked very hard to win that competition.
How different is a couple of people dancing around a coat check room, working very hard for the prize, then going to the back room(it's where the paying public are prohibited. most of the time,) and sorting through the change til it's in two piles, and having that slightly proud feeling of accomplishment when you get a big tip out? So this is my problem. Every time I hostess, I get swept back into grade three.

Favorite winter tradition pt.2

ok. where was I? oh yeah. at the paraffin treatment.

So after she got through learning her numbers on my back, arms and lower legs, She left me momentarily to grab the paraffin, whatever that was. Now ladies, I know you'll understand me when I say I was a little uncomfortable waiting on a foldable table half nekked, with just a sheet on in too-bright lighting.
NE ways,
So she comes back with four long plastic bags half-filled with pink goo. Think Ghostbusters 2, and the bath tub. I couldn't bathe for a week after seeing that movie, mind you I was only 5, but still, little creeped out when I saw those bags. I swear for a moment there, I was holding my breath to hear a disembodied Vincent Price-like Cackle. But no dice.
So she proceeds to put my hands and feet into the pink goo, squooshing it around some to make sure the wax hit every corner of my extremities, and then tying up the plastic bag like a tourniquet, and then pulling on a white lobster mitt over the whole mess. when she was done this process I'm sure I looked like some kind of rag-doll, with the nosn-descript hands and feet. Sure felt like it. So, then she gave instruction to 'relax, have a quick snooze, it'll take about 15 minutes to set, and then I'll be back.'
15 minutes?
and what did she mean by letting it set? that sounds like cement! will I not be able to move my hands? how will she get this shit off? with a mini jack-hammer? belt sander? where was she when I had all these questions going through my head? gone of course. scarpered off while I was contemplating the probability of amputation.
bitch.
So three minutes into my sentence, and I find that I can still move my fingers and toes a little, having been frantically wiggling them to see if I still had feeling in them. I did. So I calmed down a little, and found myself giggling over my hypochondriatic situation.
Minute 7. My inner ear started to itch. Followed by my right nostril. Lucky for me, I can't move my hands anymore, due to me stupidly trusting the goo and backing off on the wiggling, not too mention that those stupid mitts had no sharpish corners into which I could dig into either orifice to my hearts content. As the itching grew worse, I found myself rubbing my head on anything I could find, pillow, blanket, shoulder, feeling like a retard and wondering if they had a camera set up in the room specifically meant for taping this type of thing. Candid camera or whatnot. piss me off.
Minute 13.? finally get rid of the itching in my ear, can deal with the nose itch now, feeling mighty tired after all that exercise, and I find my eyes closing on their own, despite my anger.
Not even 30 seconds later, my torturer shows up at the door, cryptic smile on her face, approving of how I did get a quick nap in after all.
bitch.
So, all in all, not the most relaxing experience, but certainly one of the most entertaining and challenging ones I'm sure I'll have in my lifetime.

p.s. is it a new standard procedure to wear latex gloves when giving a massage, or did my massager just have a fetish? hmmm....