You're Doing It Wrong

It’s February 15 and that means at your local grocery store they’re putting away the Valentine’s candy and breaking out the Easter candy.

I just had my first Cadbury egg of the season! To be honest, I was a little disappointed. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it’s been in a warehouse since last season. It wasn’t the best Cadbury egg I’ve ever had. Meanwhile, I’m on a huge sugar high right now. That’s going to feel great when I crash in 15 minutes.

Let me tell you about the best tv channel in the history of anything ever.

I like to keep the TV parked on a particular station so that when I turn it on I don’t have to see a snippet of any kind of show that I don’t like. For a long time the channel was the Syfy channel but they sometimes show Saw or some other gross horror thing and I don’t like that. Then I had it on Fox Soccer for awhile and that wasn’t too bad except I’d get sucked into soccer.

Then I discovered the Science Channel. It’s channel 272 at our house.

They have this series called: How It’s Made. They show you how stuff is made: clothespins, cough drops, swords, highlighter pens, water skis, laundry soap, taco sauce. The list goes on and on. Do you know how cool it is to see how things are made? Conveyor belt pr0n for days.

I think this show should be mandatory on airport TVs. Also any place that does car-related work.

Still lots of crows downtown. They weren’t around yesterday but back at about half-force this morning.

The NYT Dining section seems to be in an endless race to out-stupid itself. A couple of weeks ago there was an article about people who seriously injure themselves when putting their fingers into the sharp bits of their immersion blenders.

Then there was an article about the overweight chef who likes to eat a lot including a pizza and bucket of wings when he gets home from work. He goes to the extreme step of hiring a ‘food strategist’ who churns out so many ludicrous quotes I’m going to go ahead and link to the article so you can read it yourself. (Sneak preview: “Let me put you on the Concorde to thin.”)

Then there was the article this week about dinner kits. All the various ingredients are measured out and packaged together. You cook it yourself. Let me point out that I am not mocking the idea. There will always be a need for simplified meal preparation. Why not this? It seems like it would be especially valuable for people who eat away from home often because of travel and work obligations and don’t have a well-stocked kitchen.

But this is a quote from one entrepreneur who runs such a service, “When we started jobs in New York, we realized that cooking dinner is really, really hard.” He goes on to say, “There’s not enough time in modern lives to recipe-select or grocery-shop.”

Why not say, this is a great alternative for folks who don’t prioritize cooking or find themselves bringing home a pizza and bucket of wings because they’re too tired at the end of the day. But “really, really hard?” He sounds like a second grader. I’ve got a bazillion activities that I’m juggling and I manage to recipe-select and grocery-shop. Is it that my life isn’t modern?

Let’s think of some articles to pitch to the NYT. They’ve already covered kitchen danger, food makes you fat and cooking and shopping are hard. What else? Washing dishes is no fun! Ethnic foods have weird ingredients! Sometimes couples don’t like the same foods!

Leave your ideas in the comments.

This is the quick version of what I was going to say about the Superbowl:

During the insanity that is the world during Christmas time, I sometimes think about people who don’t celebrate Christmas. What would it be like to have to deal with the crowds and the chaos when it has no connection to your life?

Even when you do celebrate Christmas do you ever find yourself thinking, “I need to deal with “X” but if I do it now I’m going to have to flog myself into rage dealing with traffic/parking/maniac shopping so I’ll just wait until January?”

That’s how I feel about the Superbowl. I’m not a hater, I’m just not interested and I was amazed at the endless chatter about it.

Here are two quick doing it wrong items.

#1 Book Publisher – I was thinking about trying the first book of one of those series with the same character solving mysteries. I think there are over a dozen out by now. The first one was written over 10 years ago and would cost $9.99 for my Nook. The store said they also had a packaged deal where you could get the first five for $49.99.

How is that a package deal? If it had even been $47.99 I might have paused over it, although I think $39.99 would have been the way to price it. I’m pretty sure I can find a used copy of the paper book for $5. Now I bought zero books. Way to go book publisher.

#2 Health Clinic – I went in for a check-up and had my co-pay ready. The check-in desk told me it would be easier to bill me after the appointment. Two weeks later I received via mail, a bill for my co-pay. How is this easier?

I’ve had another post that includes now past due thoughts about the Superbowl half-started for over a week but I still don’t have time to finish it so I’m doing this quickie.

This used to be a planter at the building next door.

It was a pitiful planter and I felt bad for the two woeful little plants trying to stay alive among the cigarette butts and neglect.

I always hoped that the building should put some more plants in to let the existing plants know that they were meant to be there.

Some homeless kids started sleeping there with their dog. About a week after they started I noticed the plant bed looked fresh, like they’d put bark dust and I was happy for those poor plants. But upon closer inspection, I realized it was gravel.

A few days later it was all concrete. No one sleeps there now.

The crows are still downtown. I thought maybe they’d moved on because morning they weren’t overhead when I stepped off the bus. But as soon as I turned the corner I could hear them. They’d just moved up a block.

If I leave the office later when it’s darker, they’re returning. They fly between the buildings and the trees. These photos don’t come close to showing the numbers.

The sidewalks are covered with bird crap. Every morning there’s someone on one of those blocks power-washing the sidewalk.

I had created this myth that January was going to be an easy month with lots of free time and turns out it was a delusion.

For some reason, this is one of the most viewed photos in my photostream. It must be on a website somewhere. This is from my Mom’s birthday a few years ago.

Last night was grocery shopping night and we decided to have dinner at this little cafe that Bob has been wanting to take me to. As we drove up there was a fire truck with flashing lights out front but when we drove by we could see the restaurant was open so we parked and went in.

This is one of those mixed use buildings with apartments above and restaurants and shops on the main level.

When we get into the restaurant there was an alarm going off inside that was loud enough to peel paint.

It’s one of those tiny, family run restaurants. The owner apologized and said he didn’t know how long it would last but he would seat us. He showed us to a table.

I stared at my husband, astonished that anyone would even entertain the notion of eating under those circumstances. The owner returned holding a box of tissues.

This is when I noticed the rest of the customers. There were only 3 or 4 tables busy and the customers had stuffed tissues in their ears.

Not like, made a ball of tissues and stuck them in their ears. Like made a ball in one corner of the tissue and stuffed it in their ear and left the rest of the tissue hanging out like a big white elephant ear.

I am not making this up. It would have been hilarious if my head wasn’t about to explode from the noise.

We left. I guess the entire building alarm was going. I feel bad for a small business owner losing business over that. We’ll try again.