Archive | February, 2012

Feb

27

2012

Want Some Cold Duck?

Grampa started in early with offers of Cold Duck. The same Cold Duck he had obviously already been enjoying. Even my Dad didn’t want any of that swill. Instinctively, I shrunk back, standing behind my Mom.

Although Mom and Dad assured Grampa no one wanted any Cold Duck, he would check in with us on this point every few minutes anyway with a barrage of “Want some Cold Duck? You sure? Cold Duck?”

While nudging each other and repeatedly asking, “want some Cold Duck” would eventually become a running joke in our family, at that moment we were trapped in a loop of Cold Duck offers. Would we ever be able to leave without drinking Cold Duck?

Perhaps he was so drunk, he thought he was funny. Or perhaps he was so drunk he kept forgetting he had already checked on our desire for some Cold Duck. Or perhaps he was so drunk, he didn’t realize how inappropriate it was to offer his grandchildren Cold Duck.

The only thing I knew for sure…he was so drunk.

Luckily, he snapped out of his Cold Duck obsession long enough to remember he had ice cream.

“Do you want some Metropolitan ice cream?”

I shot a look at my Mom. Did I? We were all wary. What the heck was Metropolitan ice cream?

“What’s Metropolitan, Grampa?”

“You know, chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry…Metropolitan.”

“Oh, you mean Neapolitan?”

“No, it’s called Metropolitan.”

We went back and forth on this until Grampa was good and pissed. He insisted he was right and said, “I’ll show you.”

We dutifully followed him to the kitchen, dreading the moment when he realized his error.

But instead, we watched in disbelief as he held up the carton of ice cream and said, “see, it’s Metropolitan” while simultaneously pointing to the word “Neapolitan.”

Grampa did not need any more Cold Duck.

This post was inspired by the Write on Edge RemembeRED writing prompt to write a memoir piece in which wine, coffee, or chocolate features prominently.

My Dad’s parents were a real treat…but making fun of Grampa was usually good for a laugh. Neapolitan isn’t very common anymore, but whenever I see it, I still call it “metropolitan.” And I still don’t want any Cold Duck, thanks for asking.

Feb

24

2012

Photo Friday: A Complex Food Colloid

From Ice Cream Sixth Edition by Robert T. Marshall, H. Douglas Goff, and Richard W. Hartel:

“Ice cream is a complex food colloid embodied in a product the consumer associates with pure enjoyment. It is paradoxical that what can seem so simple is indeed so complex.”

And that about sums up Ice Cream 101, y’all. In a word…overwhelming. Leave it to me to select a food to sell that is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations. I was trying to get away from working for the man.

If I wait any longer to write about Ice Cream 101, I won’t, so here are my thoughts:

“Ice cream” has a standard of identity defined by the federal government (so recipe development is not as simple as you might think, unless you are willing to sell something you have to call “frozen dairy product.”).

The mix must be pasteurized (even if your dairy ingredients are pasteurized). Before the professor hammered this point home, he said, “now is when I shatter your dreams.” We were told 98% of ice cream shop owners purchase their mix and most of us sighed dejectedly.

Who knew ice cream could be such a pain in the ass?

This was hour one of a two-day course. Quite frankly, I tuned out a little the rest of that morning. I want to MAKE ice cream, not flavor and freeze somebody else’s mix.

During the tasting lab, I ended up being quite attracted to the version of vanilla made with artificial sweetener instead of sugar. Oops. My taste buds must have been exhausted by then…

A presentation on the business side of opening an ice cream shop likened the process to having a baby. Unfortunately, conception is the only part of pregnancy that sounds like any fun, and I worry the ice cream business might feel the same. The part of his talk that stuck with me most was the following off the cuff remark: “if I could get rid of all my staff and I could get rid of all my customers I would have the best business in the world. Just go down and make ice cream.” Uh-oh.

On the afternoon of day two, several batch freezer (basically a huge expensive ice cream maker) representatives hawked their wares. They demonstrated their machines and let us taste the ice cream. The moment I saw fresh ice cream extruding from the first machine, I was back on board. I wanted to remove the bucket from under the spout and replace it with my open mouth.

I’m a very risk-averse person. I learned there is a lot I didn’t know about making ice cream. And I know even less about starting and running a business.

In the short term, I plan to make a lot of ice cream. We’ll see if it’s as much fun as I thought and whether my friends and family think it’s any good. My lovely husband ordered me a snazzy new ice cream maker for Valentine’s Day. Last weekend, I made my first batch of my signature flavor idea, basically ice cream that is supposed to taste like chocolate chip cookie dough (I threw in actual cookie dough for good measure). I couldn’t decide if I should share the full view or close-up, so you get both.

Feb

22

2012

An Ambush of Alarms

How do you feel about getting up in the morning? Do you need an alarm…or four?

When my alarm goes off on work days, I sometimes ask God to kill me. I don’t mean it, of course, but that gives you a taste for how much I hate waking up.

Thus, I use several alarms. To steal a phrase from Elvis, circa Aloha from Hawaii, I’d like to introduce the members of my alarm clock team to you, before we go any further:

For those of you counting at home, there were three alarm clocks in my reenactment video. Some of you might also remember Tocky, my fourth alarm clock who has been on the injured reserve list for several months.

While I waited to see if the Tocky people would send me a replacement (and they did, yea!), I purchased the light alarm clock in the first video. I thought it would be a more natural, less jarring way to wake up. Less jarring is right…zzzzzzzzzz. Also, the chimes gave me tinnitus. Well, I never stop hearing them anyway.

I had hoped being exposed to that light would make it easier to get out of bed in the morning. But that hasn’t happened. That will require more sleep.

A 14-year veteran of Catholic school, I find Lent to be a tonic for my otherwise weak will. So even though I’m no longer religious, I continue to make use of the Lenten season to work on stuff. I’m pretty sure Jesus won’t mind.

Even though I failed miserably last year, I still need to work on my sleep issues, so this year is Lenten promise: Sleep Edition, Part 2.

Lenten Promise 2012

1. No screens after 11pm.

2. In bed by midnight.

So let it be written…so let it be done.

Speaking of writing…since I do most of my blog-related crap during the late evening/night hours (as you can see by the clocks in the first video!), I expect my post frequency here to suffer. But if I get more rest, maybe I’ll make more sense when I do post. We can all look forward to that.

Do you give up anything/do something special for Lent?

NOTE: For the title, I wanted to use an animal group name that starts with “A” for alarm or “C” for clock. Did you know a group of tigers is called an “ambush?” Seemed appropriate for my alarms. Also seemed appropriate given the mini stuffed cheetah who stars in the first video. Dave gave him to me after I finished my first half marathon and I mistook it for a tiger because I am a moron.

So I call him “chi-ger” now. By the way, a group of cheetahs is called a “coalition,” which I considered using for the title (“a coalition of clocks”), but that sounded a little too civilized for alarm clocks.

Feb

17

2012

Photo Friday: It’s Always Better on Holiday

Every day for the past few weeks, I have walked by this advertisement.

Part of a set of ads with “humor” customized for DC, they miss the mark for me in that they resonate just enough to remind me how annoying DC can be (it’s an election year, so I’m extra cranky) but not so much that they are funny.

Another example of the hilarity: “It took an act of Congress to get you out of bed this morning.” HA! Get it? Mornings are hard…and this is DC, so like Congress makes laws here and shit. So yeah. That’s hysterical. It’s not as if I get out of bed every morning so I can continue to receive a paycheck.

A quick internet search yielded the news that others find these ads charming. Oops. Apparently they also ran ads in New York, and the NYC ads are a little more clever, like maybe they were written by people who actually live in New York. They inexplicably used the dumbest ad in both markets: “A text-walker ran into you while you were text-walking.” Is this thing on?

But back to the holiday ad, which really fries my ass.

You see, this Monday is a holiday. Indeed, my calendar most certainly does mention that fact and I’m sure yours does too. And I’m not likely to forget a paid day off, whether it’s on the calendar or not.

So you can imagine how charmed I was when some people I’m working with who don’t get the day off kindly scheduled a meeting I need to attend on the holiday.

The splash or 12 of vodka I plan to add to my OJ will be the only good part of that particular DC morning. Thanks for the daily reminder of my missed holiday, Tropicana!

Happy President’s Day. If you have the day off, enjoy! If you don’t, grab a mini bottle of Tropicana on your way into work. Tell ‘em Congress sent you!

Feb

16

2012

Free Birth Control on the Subway

Remember that made for TV movie, the Boy in the Plastic Bubble? If I could commute in such a contraption I would. Instead, I create my own protective bubble: listening to music and playing a game on my iPod or reading prevents me from inadvertently encouraging conversation. Talking on my commute makes my brain hurt.

Having spent most of my day watching the spinning blue circle on my computer go round and round, during my commute tonight, I transformed into “Captain Introvert” on the train platform and used the “you are invisible to me” cloak to pretend I didn’t notice “talkopotamus” next to me. Entering the train, I turned the opposite way and plopped into the last available seat. Crisis averted…until!

One stop later, the man sitting next to me got up to offer his seat to someone. He stood in front of the seat, blocking my view, and then two small children squeezed past him and climbed into the seat next to me.

Crap.

I wanted to get up, but there was nowhere to go on the packed train and the man blocked my view of whoever accompanied the kids. I leaned over until I could see around the man. I caught the attention of a young woman clutching a large stuffed penguin and offered her my seat. She smiled and shrugged and said a little too brightly, “Oh no, that’s OK!”

So I would be sitting with Taylor and Tristan.

Like Bill Cosby’s comedy bit about the annoying 4-year old boy “Jeffrey,” I remember their names, because the woman they were with used them incessantly in a futile attempt to get them to behave.

Taylor and Tristan jostled for position in the seat they were supposed to share. While they encroached on my personal space, that wasn’t the worst thing. You see, children don’t respect the protective commuting bubble.

They peppered the air with very loud questions. Then they started directing their questions at me, interrogation style.

T&T: “Why did the train get broken? Why did the train get broken? Why did the train get broken?”

Their decibel level combined with their awkward grammar made me cringe. I had no idea what they were asking.

Then Taylor screamed: “Tristan bit me!” She turned on the annoying fake cry kids like to perform.

Woman: “Tristan, don’t bite.”

I shot a sidelong glance at Tristan. I wondered if he was up to date with his rabies shots.

Tentatively, I leaned over Tristan the biter and asked the woman again, “Are you sure you don’t want to sit down?” OMG, let’s please figure out how we can both climb over this man and trade positions. Of all the people on this train, I had to be the least well-equipped to interact with Tristan and Taylor.

Tristan: “What’s your name?”

Ugh. I didn’t answer. Just didn’t seem like a good idea to give Tristan my name. But they would not stop asking me questions. I started to feel the eyes of dozens of adults on me. They wanted Taylor and Tristan entertained. I pushed my headphones back so I could hear.

Taylor (pointing to my headphones): “Why do you have those music things?”

Me: “~~To drown out the sound of your piercing voice.~~ Uh, because I like music.” Duh! Kids ask dumb questions.

Taylor reached her little germ-infested hand for my iPod, “What’s that game?”

Me: “Collapse.” How jerky will it look if I snatch my iPod away from her hand?

Then she pointed at the post-it note on the back of my iPod. “What’s that?”

Me: “My list of things to do tonight.” Get the hell out of this seat needs to be added.

Taylor: “Oh yeah? What did you do today?”

Some of the other passengers snickered.

Me: “Not a whole lot, actually.” I started to feel self-conscious about how deep and flat my voice sounded. Aren’t you supposed to speak in a higher pitch and add fake excitement when speaking to children?

Then Tristan rejoined the conversation: “What’s your name?”

Feeling ever so slightly more comfortable, I answered this time: “Tracy.”

Tristan (smiling): “afdl5$%k!”

Woman: “Tristan! That’s not nice!”

Wait, what? I needn’t have worried about not understanding what he said, because the admonishment egged him on.

Tristan: “Yucky! That’s yucky! Yucky!”

What’s yucky? My name? Me? Being such an annoying kid? I started to fantasize about elbowing Tristan hard enough to show him who was boss.

Tristan edged a little closer. “I want to sit there. Can I sit there?”

Hell to the no.

Me: “I think you’re good right there.”

Tristan: “No, I’m not good.”

This brought more snickering from the crowd. No disagreement from me, kid.

During a break in the action, I tried to go back to playing Collapse. That lasted about two seconds before their hands were all up in my iPod’s business. So I let them play Collapse. My iPod has some sanitizing wipes in its future. Both Taylor and Tristan were sniffling, so I’m certain to have small pox tomorrow.

After a few more minutes, their mother/nanny/zookeeper told them to get ready, they had just one more stop.

And finally I found my excited voice: “One more stop!”

Feb

14

2012

At the end of the funnel

I didn’t notice life was a funnel until I looked back and saw the light grow fainter and fainter. Each decision made reduced the infinite possibilities of youth as if I were living in a “choose your own adventure” book.

I never felt I had finished one of those books until I read each ending.

I hate the idea that decisions made at twenty can extinguish the light from other paths forever.

I’m ready to shine a light on all those other paths. While I wish I could see the ending before choosing, those paths are still there to take.

———————-

I’m linking up with Lance’s 100 Word Song prompt at My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog. The idea is to write 100 words, inspired by the song. This week’s song was “See A Little Light,” which reminds me of my youth. In the hopes of finding my writing mojo, I’m not grinding over this. I wrote until there were 100 words and I’m not massaging it.

Feb

10

2012

Photo Friday: Early Spring

How about this weather? Spring flowers are popping out all over our neighborhood. Our neighbor’s quince started blooming in January.

I’m taking a five-week photography class and I decided to use the quince blooms for last week’s homework assignment on “equivalent exposures” (basically taking the same shot, but messing with the depth of field). So the top picture blurs the background (my neighbor’s house).

I’m excited that I now know how to use my camera on manual mode. But this class has mainly just confirmed my camera is possessed by Satan. The first week of class, the instructor said “the camera will always focus on what is closer.” Nope. Not my camera anyway.

The only thing that should differ between these two pictures is how much of the picture from front to back is in focus. But even though I set the focus point to be the stamen in the middle of that main flower and used a tripod, the stamen are not in focus in both pictures, even though all I did was change the aperture and shutter speed. I even checked to make sure the red focus dot hadn’t moved. I’ve discussed this issue with my instructor and she can’t explain this. I clearly need a new camera, right?!?

Happy ~~Spring~~ Winter!

Feb

8

2012

30 Seconds of Greatness

It’s been awhile since I wrote about music. I still plan to input all of the songs I highlighted (in a positive way) during my iPod shuffle challenge into Pandora to try to train it to offer me new music that I’ll like.

But for now, I’d like to highlight a song that being a tennis fan has ingrained in my brain. That’s because I’ve seen the following commercial a thousand times over the past two Australian Opens:

I became obsessed with this music last year. First of all, what a great selection to make someone want to visit Australia. “I want to go where you go when you’re gone…” Australia is exotic, it’s always the opposite season! Adorable marsupials live there! You would be wearing a cute sundress if you were there right now! Secondly, it just haunted me until I did a search to find out what it was.

It is “A Heart Divided” by Holly Throsby. Unfortunately, I like the 30 seconds highlighted in the commercial considerably better than the rest of it. It almost seems as though the rest of it doesn’t fit, like she couldn’t think of where to go from the excellent beginning. Overall, it’s still quite pretty, but I kind of want it to be different. Last year I just couldn’t quite pull the trigger to download it.

What do you think? Do you like the song? Am I just too attached to the part in the commercial to be objective?

Feb

5

2012

Time Nadal Stole From Me

My favorite sport is…tennis. Yeah, I realize that puts me in the company of…me. I find it considerably more interesting than other sports. The average intellect of tennis commentators seems greater than for most other sports. The ESPN2 commentators (for the most part) entertain me. And the sport itself is unique. It’s just two (I’m talking singles here) people on the court, trying to figure out how to win. There’s no coaching, there’s no teammate to pick up the slack. There’s no building up a lead and running out the clock.

Speaking of the clock…I have spent large chunks of my time eight weeks out of the year watching Grand Slam coverage for years. But I’m getting over it. I don’t have a favorite on the men’s side anymore. Nadal seems like a nice enough kid and he’s obviously super talented, but watching him play drives me insane. The jumping bean warm ups (dude, watching you do that is sapping all of the stamina I’ll need to sit on my couch and watch this match), the anal-retentive beverage set up, the purposeful pokiness getting up after change overs, and the worst…the ridiculously long time he takes between service points.

I was at the Ice Cream course the weekend of the finals. Even though I knew the result, I was excited to watch the men’s final I recorded. But sitting down to watch it was another matter. Nadal and Djokovic are the two pokiest mother fuckers in men’s tennis.

Yes, many of the points were breathtaking, and required more recovery time, but come on. Time is money. I don’t have 6 hours to watch tennis, especially when over half of it is between-serve hair arranging, ball bouncing, and underwear wedgie grabbing. I found myself fast-forwarding through large segments of the match, because the between-serve time was lulling me to sleep.

How do I know how much time was spent between points, you ask? Early in the second set, ESPN2 showed a graphic with the average time between service points for both men. In my frustration, I calculated from those averages and the number of service points each men played that over half of the time was spent not playing tennis. But that’s not really fair, because the rules allow 20 seconds between points. Taking that into account, the match would have been 1 hour and 20 minutes shorter had they followed the rule. That’s a long time.

My favorite part of the coverage was watching them both squirm in agony (eventually officials brought them chairs so they wouldn’t pass out) during the very long speeches given at the trophy ceremony. See, how do you like being made to wait for the good stuff?

God bless the person who created this video:

Feb

3

2012

Photo Friday: From Cow to Cone

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post and shared tips. Ice Cream 101 at Penn State was great, but overwhelming. The “it’s 5am and I’m still awake and my alarm is set for 6:05″ insomnia Friday night into Saturday morning didn’t help. I haven’t had a chance to catch up on sleep so I’m still exhausted. In brief, I learned a lot and the class didn’t fully talk me out of this ice cream business idea. I plan to write about what I learned, but only after I’m no longer hallucinating from exhaustion.

In the meantime, here are two photos from the weekend. It was hard to get decent shots with only our small point and shoot and its max ISO of 400.

We got a behind the scenes tour of Penn State’s Creamery. There were pipes running everywhere, all carefully labelled as to their contents (raw versus pasteurized milk, etc…).

I didn’t get any good shots of ice cream being extruded during the batch freezer demonstrations, but here’s a shot I like of ice cream being mixed and frozen in a cool European machine. It seemed like more of a novelty machine than a workhorse. The only way to get the ice cream out of the tub is with this huge paddle-like thing. The company representative demonstrated how you can make the ice cream in front of your customers and then ~~basically shove the paddle full of ice cream in their face~~ offer up the paddle full of fresh ice cream for them to sample. Kind of reminded me of fudge demonstrations at Niagara Falls.