December 2010
Can I Please Have Some More Veggies?
Annie and I frequently visit her kids and grandkids in Denver. While we’re there I usually like to take over the kitchen since I enjoy cooking and no one else seems to mind.
One Tuesday, upon our arrival, I cooked a delicious spinach and pepperoni lasagne that everyone loved— except her 9 year old grandson, Jason.
Jason picked around the spinach and mostly just rearranged the food...
"Ha Ha! (hmmm...)"
Do you know what has 10 breasts and 6 teeth? Third shift at Waffle House.
Big Thinkers
The guy who impresses me the most is the one who first tasted a coffee bean and upon discovering that it tasted like crap decided to stick with it ‘cause it might still have potential.
Personally, I would have moved on…
“Maybe if I roast this bean it will taste better. “
So he gathered some wood, went and bought a flame from the guy who invented fire, accumulated a nice bed of coals and...
Scared Straight by the Unfashionable Police
I have a dear friend who’s young adult daughter committed a minor youthful indiscretion that caused her to run afoul of the law. The most unfortunate part of the incident is that she had to spend a night in county lock-up.
Her mom was understandably terrified for her daughter’s safety and well being and, apparently, for good cause. When her daughter called to tell her she was okay...
judyschu asked: OMG You are cracking my shit up!!!
I know...what kind of cook DOESN'T use bacon?
And let's get in the way-back machine...
From the land of sky blue waters...Comes the beer refreshing...Hamms!
Happy Christmas and thanks for the follow-back!!!
I know...what kind of cook DOESN'T use bacon?
And let's get in the way-back machine...
From the land of sky blue waters...Comes the beer refreshing...Hamms!
Happy Christmas and thanks for the follow-back!!!
judyschu asked: OMG You are cracking my shit up!!!
I know...what kind of cook DOESN'T use bacon?
And let's get in the way-back machine...
From the land of sky blue waters...Comes the beer refreshing...Hamms!
Happy Christmas and thanks for the follow-back!!!
I know...what kind of cook DOESN'T use bacon?
And let's get in the way-back machine...
From the land of sky blue waters...Comes the beer refreshing...Hamms!
Happy Christmas and thanks for the follow-back!!!
30 Minute Lasagna from Scratch-- Seriously
Lasagna can be one of the very simplest dishes to prepare— yet it is SO delicious! Everyone makes lasagna their own way— which is half the fun— and you can personalize it in so very many ways!
I’m going to start with the very quickest and simplest of lasagnas and then suggest ways to improve it beyond the basics.
First of all, you need a lasagna dish. Go buy a nice Pyrex...
Gift Suggestions for the Procrastinating Husband
It’s December 24th, the day that guys traditionally do all their Christmas shopping. While HIS gift has been wrapped since October, he is still hours away from even REALIZING that he needs to buy one for you.
Year after year he buys your Valentine card on February 14th and your Christmas gift on Christmas Eve— and each of these shopping activities doesn’t typically happen...
Winter Legs
This is some valuable information for the guys:
One of the realities of winter is that in the same way that you let the yard gradually decline into a state of unkempt disrepair, we typically allow our personal grooming to take the same route.
Thanks to slacks and long sleeves the absolute necessity of keeping legs and underarms perfectly smooth at all times virtually disappears. Shoes and...
Why Tattoos and Google Translate Go Well Together
Today must be “Body Art Day” or something. Annie and I went to a friend’s, tonight, and had some henna body art applied to each of us— and I just found out that another friend of mine, Ashtyn (who I hadn’t realized was the impulsive type) got a tattoo last night of some Chinese characters.
She says the characters say “Faith” and, for her sake, I hope they do! I have never been big on...
Jesus Christ!
Jesus Christ!
Sound vaguely familiar? He’s the guy that “the holiday which has come to be nameless so we just call it ‘a holiday’” is named after.
I am glad that I am old enough to remember when Christ, Christian and Christmas were NOT dirty words which needed to be removed from polite society.
Now, Christ has been relegated to the witness protection program, given the name “Mr. X” for his own...
Haikus for Bored Night Owls
Note: I normally give everyone “blog names” that are slightly different from their real names (for privacy) but these haikus would not make any sense if I referred to my best friend, Shweta, as “Sharon.”
So if you made it here- you now know her real name.
It is two thirty
I am writing this haiku
What will I do next?
***
Another haiku
Here are seven syllables
And...
“When they name a road “Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd” why do they...”
– Chris Rock
“I have the absolute worst luck. I have flown 39 times since 9/11 and I have...”
– Middle Eastern Comedian, Hood Qa’Im-maqami.
“Believe me, I get it. I am no different than you are. If I get on a plane and...”
– Middle Eastern Comedian, Hood Qa’Im-maqami, who wears a tee-shirt when he performs that says, “It wasn’t me!”
Mexiconians
I was feeling mischievous one day and decided to mess with the minds of a couple of dingy young women who were socializing with our group that particular afternoon.
This is the conversation that took place:
Girl1: Why are so many landscapers Mexican?
Me: You mean “Mexiconian.”
Girl1: I thought it was “Mexican?”
Me: Where’s the “I?”
Girl1: What “I?”
Me: There’s supposed to be an “I” in it. ...
Fast Cars and Interstates
You would imagine that a couple in Annie’s and my situation would have a few hurdles to overcome— particularly with her being heterosexual and all— and that counseling would be an obvious path toward resolving the various issues we will face as a result of the journey I am on.
And your imagination would be correct.
One of the major issues that we had to overcome in counseling is...
What's in a name?
This blog is entitled “Musings (blah blah blah)”, which is fortunate because this post will, at best, qualify as a musing.
Graffiti might be a more apt description.
That said:
My old name, which I will continue to assert was “NotChelle” was obviously a two syllable name. Many people, however, prefer to call family, friends and acquaintances by nicknames— often a one syllable...
“With all good comes some bad and with all bad comes some good.”
– “Finally” Chelle (my favorite expression for the past 30 years. If someone said it before me then so much the better!)
“I’m not particularly exotic but I’m working on it…”
– Matt Kailey
Treasured Moments
There are three teens that I have known since before they started kindergarten. Amelia, Brad and Emma Leigh truly are awesome kids. Smart, fun— REALLY fun, actually, Christian, outgoing kids. Even at such a young age they are not content to ride through life in the passenger seat. Instead, they grab onto it and live it fully— all the while making good moral decisions grounded in...
Granite Bliss
If you ever want to let your sweetie know what you want for Christmas I would suggest very subtly announcing it to the entire world in your blog.
It worked for me!
Annie gave me my Christmas present early, last night, so that I could immediately begin using it in my various cooking adventures. It is a beautiful, solid granite mortar and pestle and it is as much a work of art as it will be a...
Freaks and Pervs
Maybe I’m a little hormonal, today, but I find that I must mildly vent on a subject near and dear to my heart. Please bear with me as I develop my argument:
Do five year olds typically know anything about sex? I think not. Even if they heard talk about sex they would most likely have no idea what was being discussed.
Can a five year old be a sexual freak/pervert? Well, if five year olds don’t...
www.finallychelle.com
If you have my blog bookmarked in your favorites you should probably:
1) Get out more. It’s a wonderful world out there and you’ve got a lot better things to be doing than reading my blog!
2) Change the bookmark to: http://www.finallychelle.com
By using the above domain name it will make it easier for me to switch blogging services, down the road, by simply redirecting the URL to...
Helpful Hint From Chelle-oise: "Duck, Duck, Foie...
I try to be “green” and, on balance, I think I do a pretty fair job of it. One way that I achieve more greenness in my life is to use my crock pot as a mini-oven to save electricity and to keep from heating up the house during the air conditioning months.
Crock pots are great for slow cooking inexpensive cuts of meat into tender, delicious meals but they’re also great for roasting whole...
“During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in...”
– Al Gore (who began serving in the United States Congress in 1977, speaking about the Internet, which was invented in 1969.)
“Studies show that 97.4% of all statistics are made up on the spot, including the...”
– Unknown
Toes in the Ocean
This is something I wrote for my sweetie’s 49th birthday as I anxiously anticipated her imminent move to Georgia. She has given me permission to post it, here, to share with you all:
Toes in the ocean. My very favorite thing.
Whenever an experience is overwhelmingly rich I like to focus on one sense at a time and build the image in my mind, layer by layer. I find this to be a very...
My Name is Chelle and I'm a Blogaholic (Hi,...
I am pathetic.
I’ve only been blogging for one week and I was already jonesing only three hours into the “Big Tumblr Outage of 2010.” I’m not sure how many times I clicked “refresh” over the past 25-1/2 hours but I know the number is absurdly (and disturbingly) high and surely indicative of some pathology that will be very expensive to fix.
Damn. I’m...
Sam I Am
Annie and I were at Universal Studios, in Orlando, back in October. As we walked through Seussland we ran into a larger than life version of “Sam, I am” and he was eagerly posing with the ladies who came his way. Annie took a picture of him and me (sorry, but I cropped myself out of the photo) and I wrote the story, below, to go with it.
I rounded the corner And there standing...
The Straight Poop on Hormones
Note: My uncle says that this post “bashes guys.” That was certainly never my intent. I saw it more as good natured ribbing between the sexes. Please take it as such! Guys just have no idea. They really don’t.
To them, hormones are things that make you horny— that’s it. So, obviously, “more-is-better.” Low T? No problem, we’ve got a pill...
“This… stuff’? Oh. Okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with...”
– Miranda (to Andy) in that beloved movie, “The Devil Wears Prada”
Dittos: A Threnody
I miss dittos.
We had them in the “olden days” before photocopiers— and the chemical used to produce them smelled absolutely wonderful.
Magical in fact.
Thankfully, it took awhile for the smell to wear off and, as such, all of my fellow students would join me in “smelling our tests” before even writing our names at the top of the page.
It filled up my senses...
The Giblets of Our Lives
As I lay awake, all night, every night, I ponder on many weighty and profound things. One revelation that came to me, at 4:30 this morning, is how our relationship (and I’ll let you decide if that is too strong a word, but I think not) with giblets changes with the decades of our lives.
When we’re under the age of 20 we’d rather not even know that giblets exist on the same...
Get Your Mojo On!
My saucy Latina gal pal, Stella, suggests crock potting pork with Mojo Criollo— a staple in Cuban and Puerto Rican cuisines.
A quick check over at Wiki informs me that in Cuban cooking “mojo” applies to any sauce that is made with garlic, olive oil and a citrus juice of some sort. Mojo sauces can be herbed and spiced in many, many ways beyond the basic ingredients so there can...
Dear Annie:
This is the most subtle way I can think of to let you know what I would like for Christmas.
I would really love a mortar and pestle. A nice one. Preferably granite. A set that has enough heft to it so that most of the work is done by the m&p rather than by me. Then I wouldn’t have to use your “Magic Bullet” food processor to grind my spices.
And if you win the lottery,...
Shoe Show Euphoria!
I was at a funeral on Tuesday and the girl next to me said, ‘What size shoe do you wear?’
These were the first words ever to pass between us.
Sheepishly I said, ‘13W.’ She said, ‘Me, too! I love your shoes, where did you get them?’
Anyway, to make a long story longer, she told me that Shoe Show carries lots of 13W’s. So I went there today and found a very comfortable pair of dressy shoes that...
Should I be Insulted...?
When you only have four people “following” you it becomes pretty obvious when someone UNfollows you and you drop down to three.
I had been excited because out of the four people who followed me— two were strangers! (from k8zeez blog)
But now there is only one stranger.
I guess I was too boring.
I don’t know what I would do to make it more interesting. Probably...
Crock Potting 101
I love to cook and end up blogging about it fairly often. Since many people don’t use their crock pots to their full potential (to roast a duck, for example) I wrote this post in hopes that it will motivate some of you to use yours a little more often!
In cooking there are very few “one size fits all” recipes, but when you use a crock pot you can come pretty close. I will make...
For a Perfect Little Baby I Know
I wrote this for my best friend’s baby who is such a huge part of my life. Tiny baby, perfect baby, sleeping on my breast. My love I freely give to you yet I’m the one who’s blessed.
I memorize your face each day, you change before my eyes. The image, in my mind, of you I constantly revise.
When e’er you laugh or smile while you sleep it brings me joy, ‘cause even...
Requiem for a Great American
My friend died today.
When I first met Tony Sellier, 14 years ago, I noticed that he began virtually every conversation with a compliment.
A genuine compliment.
Then he would ask a specific question to continue that conversation. He wasn’t one for a generic “How are you?” Instead it would more likely be, “Didn’t you just go on a camping trip? How was...