MAY-DAY! MAY-DAY!

Probably one of the worst things that could happen to me happened today.  About 5 min. ago.  I came home with a load of groceries and as I approached my door I saw a small dark lump in front of my door.  And as is customary for me here in Arizona I crept a little closer to inspect what kind of creature it could be.  And of course, what was it?  A GIANT MOTH.  It was was sitting there perched in front of my door like a guard dog for hire.  I had no idea what to do.  I had all these groceries and it was soo hot outside and I couldn't get in my house.  I put my groceries down and just stared at it for about 5 min. willing it to want to leave.  I didn't have anything good to throw at it really so first I chucked my empty horchata cup at it and barely missed and nothing.  So I looked for the next best thing and all I had were my receipts.  I crumpled one up and it landed right next to it and still nothing.  I tried my last receipt and it too had no effect.  I literally had nothing decent left to throw at it except a watermelon, yogurt or some eggs and those aren't things you ideally want to hurl at cement.  

All I had left besides my gorgeous blue leather purse which I was not going to sacrifice, people please!, was my new Instyle.  I remember looking at it at the grocery check stand and I thought no, I shouldn't.  But inspiration told me to do it and boy was inspiration right - that magazine saved my and my perishables life.  I hurled it and splat!  It landed right on top and I shuffled all the groceries in the house safely and successfully.  Only, what now?  I had my brand new magazine brimming full of beautiful things and it was the gatekeeper for the newly obliterated intruder.  So I got my broom and tried to flip it over from a distance.  After shuffling a bit around the hallway outside my door I finally succeeded in getting it flip and as it did little moth body parts began to fall everywhere.  It's not my fault, it had its chance to live.  And then I had no choice but to rip off the back cover and throw it away, RIP Gucci ad.  

I know this all sound highly unrational but it's my cross to bear.  As I wrote this I was getting sickening waves of painful goose-bumps cascading up and down my arms and legs.  I think I need a break from all the excitement this afternoon.  

The emperor's new clothes

It is too hot to do anything.  It is too hot to wear anything, eat anything, or clean anything.  Sometimes I just lay on my bed under the whirring ceiling fan and do a mental checklist of my closet offerings.  Denim, merino wool, tweed, hounds-tooth, acrylic, cotton-poly blend.  No, no, no!  I can't bear to put any of them on.  My wardrobe is the result of living pretty much my entire life in Utah where there are four seasons and although the summers may get hot they are child's play compared to the Arizona melt-down starting to occur now.  

Most days the only thing I can bear to wear is one of my Mexican dresses.  They are the most comfortable and cool and all the colors are an instant shot of valium for the eyes.  I just...love them.  The only problem is that sometimes I'm surrounded by large groups of Mexicans.  Don't get twisted, I LOVE the Mexicans.  I love the culture, the food and hello, have you seen a Telenovela yet?  

For all you gringos they are translated as follows from top to bottom: "Fire in the blood", "Sins of others", "When you're mine", and finally "Don Juan and his beautiful dame".

Young and the what?  They totally trump our soaps.  But back to the Mexican dress.  It's not like anyone else is wearing them - and I mean ANY one else.  I'm the lone wolf sporting my cotton hand-embroidered frock.  And it just so happens that the last time I was wearing my dress I found myself in just the predicament I mentioned above: surrounded by crowds of Mexican people.  I can't remember why but we took an impromptu trip to one of my favorite places ever: The Ranch Market on Southern and Stapley.  It is this HUGE Mexican grocery store/eatery.  They had a really famous one in Phoenix for years and they just opened this one 5 min. from us.  It is pure heaven once you enter the doors that say Bienvenidos (welcome).  

So there we were in the parking lot about to enter and I looked down.  "Oh no, I'm wearing my dress" I said to Ricky.  There wasn't much I could about it at that point so I sucked it up and went in anyway.  But for those who are a little confused it would be kind of like you entering a grocery store in Germany wearing lederhosen and ordering a bratwurst and a beer.  Silly.  They don't wear lederhosen and Mexicans don't wear those dresses.  Oh well, I guess I just showed exactly how much I like them.  Although I felt a little sheepish I went about my business eating my huaraches, drinking my agua fresca and ordering queso fresco from the deli.  

Now I'm just trying to get other clothes into the rotation, as much as I hate it, to avoid this happening again.  Man I love that dress.

*editors note: If you haven't tried queso fresco you really should.  It is mild and soft almost like cottage cheese pressed into a mold.  It is slightly salty and totally refreshing, and compared to most others cheeses it is really good for you.  Trust me, you are going to love it.

Badges? We don't need no stinking badges.

I have been thinking A LOT lately about what to do with my life.  Do I go back to school, and if so, for what?  Do I get a Master's degree in something I kind of like, become a dental hygienist or certify to be the teacher everyone wants me to be that I don't want to be.  And as I was talking to Ricky about it tonight I remembered a little something my oldest sister at the Jet set gave me a couple of years back:

I think she was on to something.  I think it was part joke, part what I think about my style of life and a big part true.  I repeat, I think she was on to something.  Sure, to some people I have lived a crazy life traveling every couple of years and hardly studying just to get through college, but to other people who have fancy degrees and bajillions more frequent flier miles than me I am just a regular person.  Voila! Mediocre!  

I don't want to be mediocre anymore!  But I'm stuck between getting into school loan debt, my ticking uterus clock and taking the GRE (that alone makes me ill).  And as I searched for the Mediocrity poster to share with you all I found this:

Something to look forward to as I begin this journey.  I relate to this one quite well right now.  Does your job or lack thereof define you?  I need an answer.

Let's eat!

I did something I never do: I clicked on a link advertised above my gmail inbox because it said vegetarian chili and hey, I love a good vegetarian chili.  It sounded so good at the moment and it was the best thing I ever did.  I came upon the most delicious website of some nice lady named Heidi.  It has the MOST delicious things posted.  I just sat there clicking on recipe after recipe and drooling.  I started taking a mental note of everything in my kitchen and started an actual list of ingredients to go out and buy immediately tomorrow.  The recipes are all mostly vegetarian but don't worry all you tofu haters you can leave out the tofu (which is only in some recipes) and add in whatever you want but they are just good, healthy, fresh meals for anyone.  I'll take mine with tofu please.  Just look at the chili:

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Grilled Fava Beans

Mmmmm....I want it even though I hesitate to make it in the pleasant 102 degree weather here.  Also, the nice thing is the ingredients aren't too crazy so you get them wherever you are.  You can get the recipe here and start searching through the site and let's get cooking!!!  Cousin E - I thought of you this whole post, enjoy!  Bon appetit.

*update: Check out these cookies - no butter, no flour, no egg, no sugar, no way!!  Yummmm

Oh my "H"

"Mother....lover".  "Son  of a .....bisquit".  Stupid piece of.....shi".  "Unbe....freakingleivable".  And my favorite, "how the haetch is this happening to me"?  

All are things either being mumbled or screamed in my apartment tonight.

My stupid mother - loving sewing machine is a piece of shat that I can't take anymore.  

Now to those who harp with the utmost virtue that substituting swear words is still bad or even worse, to those who think you just sound stupid when you substitute like-sounding words for the real ones: FU.   I would so much rather yell "you MOTHER LOVING PIECE OF PISS" while around others then use the real deal.   It is just not very lady like and to be honest I'd rather save up me swears for a truly deserving bar brawl - should it ever come along. 

I just don't know what else to say.  I'm not a sewer, I don't particularly gain any real glee from throwing something together other than the wind sock I made in Junior high because that thing truly danced in the wind.  But I decided that since I no longer have a grandma to exploit I have to do the darning and mending myself.   I pulled out the sewing machine my mom gifted me 2 years ago and I just can't do anything right.  It is dirty inside and making all the thread gray and greasy so I opened it and took it apart and cleaned it.  Verdict:  thread still dirty.  It was sewing all fine and dandy and dirty until I decided to sew an actual garment and the bottom thread keeps getting clogged.  Verdict: immovable needle due to thread tangle below.  I cleaned out the bottom thread and reset the two threads.  Verdict:  thread clogged again.

I'm at my wits end.  I know a lot of this is human error on my part but c'mon.  I gave up and walked away tonight and left everything where it was.  

And now I'm afraid to open my mouth because the only thing ready and willing to come out is fake swear words.  Humiliation.

Thus I have tried blog therapy and I'm hoping this will work or I may never sew again.  At the very least, not around children.  I just can't clean up this fake potty mouth.

Anti-dentite

I'm so mad at my Dentist (may he R.I.P.), but not really.  I love my dentist.  Sometimes I feel like the deranged girlfriend of my dentist and I hate it.  In my head I still picture us together on center st. in Orem just looking out the window and rinsing with fluoride just like he taught me.  I miss the small talk we used to have throughout the years about what year in school I was and we both couldn't believe how big I was getting.  I was there through the boring years when you just had to stare at the ceiling and rejoiced for my dentist when he had televisions installed in each cube and you could watch pictures of people's before and after smiles.  Sure, we had our ugly moments involving cavities and lectures on flossing more, but he always left me with a goodie bag to let me know he cared.  

Then one day I fell off the insurance wagon and suddenly he wanted to charge me money to let me see him.  Money to let me see him!  We had been together for soo long.  Didn't he care if I got gingivitis suddenly?  Or what about a root canal?  Would he only care if I payed him everything in my savings bank?  I wanted to counter with "but we have your daughters wedding announcement on our refrigerator!!!  How many patients can you say that about?  Huh?  Huh?!".  But I couldn't do it.  I was forced to wait behind a desk and communicate second hand through the receptionist. 

And the worst part was that I could still see a peek of the world I had been tossed out of without so much of a glance.  There they were, all the blessed patients happily being buffed and flossed in their cubicles of light never knowing that I had ever been there.  We used to be a family my dentist and I.  We never had doors and he kept all the pictures we ever took together.  I couldn't bear it any longer so I skipped town...permanently. 

And today I was reminded of the insurance restraining order I had back in Utah as I waited 2 1/2 hours to see a Dental student at the free clinic at Ricky's school.   Oh the fall from grace.  The indignity!  I used to get right in.  They expected me.  This time I had to wait until I was finally admitted and then they took my blood pressure and weighed me and finally poked my sensitive tooth with an ice pick to make sure it was still alive.  It was and it... hurt.  It hurt almost as bad as missing my dentist.  But it is I who will have the last laugh when I show up next month on center st. in Orem and demand that he fix me up for free - or at the very least for very, very cheap because this whole mess was his fault.  

I guess he figured if he couldn't clean my teeth then no one else could, so he messed up on purpose just to see me again.  

Oh Mr. Dentist...you shouldn't have (giggle).

Summer love

I'm currently obsessed with bathing suits.  Ever since I discovered the a one piece can be flattering that is all I want to wear.  I have spent so many years feeling kind of comfortable in my bathing suits and now I feel like I have a new lease on life!  It sounds so silly but now I want to be in my swim suit all the time.  And thanks once again to my trusty TJ Maxx I have recently acquired a new piece to add to the line up.  Finally I can look the part of the pin-up girls I have always wanted to be:

  

It's the glamorous, the flossy, flossy.  I'm still having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that my dearly beloved tankinis will probably be laid to rest this summer and maybe every summer thereafter.  But they've had their day in the sun...pun intended.  I've done a complete 180 from the low rise jeans and tank tops of my first youth and now during my second youth I am purposely shopping at stores I NEVER would have gone in because they were "mom stores".  In fact, I went into New York and Co. the other day for the first time and walked out with the best fitting pair of white pants I have ever tried on.  No kidding!  White pants!!  I feel completely changed and electrified and it seems my future is so bright I've gotta wear shades (big Armani ones with gold sides).

  

Bird flu

I don't get it.  If you wouldn't put it on your shirt, why would you put it somewhere else?

And if you would wear it on your shirt then I know where you can get it.