Food topic

It's about time that I devote a few lines to one of the finer things in life - food.

It's midsummer, and with midsummer comes the traditional food feast. Since we are not spending it with my parents this year, and since we are all bringing our own food to where we will be going, I decided to forgo the typical herring and potato thing, it does very little for me anyway. Instead I bought a tuna steak, which I will marinate in soya sauce, fresh ginger and some lime juice, and which will be lightly grilled and deliciously pink in the middle. With that I'm making a potato salad, consisting of fresh potatoes, spring onions, dill and rucola, tossed in an olive oil, white wine vinegar and dijon mustard dressing. Very easy to make and very cheap, and since I spent a bloody fortune on the tuna that's a good thing.

I'm also planning to make something that Nigella Lawson made once. It's a watermelon and feta cheese salad. It's really simple, consisting of cut up watermelon, feta cheese in chunks and thinly sliced red onion with lime juice. The lime juice is supposed to take away from the bitter taste of the onion. I hope it's good. It certainly sounds it and I thought it's the perfect salad for a summer day.

For dessert I'm making a chocolate roll-up cake filled with butter and vanilla cream and chopped up Daim bars. I've made it before and it's really simple to make and usually very appreciated. I know I like it.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow, but I suppose that's ok. I'm used to it. If I can manage Vancouver winters, I can manage anything.

Madness galore

Here is how deeply some people feel about the royal family:

Since today is the day of the wedding between the crown princess of Sweden and her beau, some members of the hoi polloi are dressing up in gala gowns, as though they are actually attending the wedding itself, and are drinking pink champagne while watching the wedding on T.V in their homes.
Yikes!

Some hardcore royalists have received permission from the police to salute at the exact time when the bride and groom while be exiting the church as a married couple. How they are planning to salute I'm not clear on. Perhaps a gun, a canon, who knows.
Jeez!

Having my literary roots firmly rooted in the absurdism genre, I can see the humour in it all. Before I wasn't able to, but suddenly now I can. This reminds me of the good old days when I was writing about a mad house, which I described in an earlier post. In some chapters, the inhabitants of the Funny Farm would be watching their neighbours from the kitchen window as the neighbours were having a barbecue. The people of the Funny Farm never had any food and couldn't go outside because they would be lynched. Therefore they lived vicariously by watching their neighbours eat barbecued meat, while they themselves would be chewing on dried meat.
Although this is a very sad situation, there is something in it which appeals to the absurdist in me. I suppose the same goes for people's reactions to the royal wedding. In a way, it's comical, almost endearing.

I'm not boring, I'm really not. I will and will always be against monarchy because of the premise upon which it is based. I have a strong sense of injustice, and a society where people are divided into social spheres and where some are regarded as finer merely because they were fortunate enough to be born into money, or because their ancestors accomplished some great feat once upon a time, is a warped one.
It's not about being boring or unromantic, or strange for that matter, it's about injustice.

One of the most annoying celebrities would have to be...

Naomi Campbell. I'm not one of those people who is overly impressed or fascinated with supermodels. I think Lauren Hutton and Helena Christensen are gorgeous, but it's just appearance, not as thought they've done something spectacular for mankind.
It puzzles me why someone like Naomi Campbell can attack people physically by beating them with her telephone and get away with it. Why is this woman not put away somewhere? Just today she was in the news for having beaten her taxi driver with her cell phone. Before it was her housemaid, again with her telephone. Does she have an issue with phones or is she just generally disturbed? An even more vital question is why no one has knocked her on her ass yet. If she came at me with a cellphone and started beating me with it, I'd quickly show her that I don't give a flaming fig about how famous she is. I'm so not impressed with celebrities, and I would never take a beating from one of them, especially not some bony model who clearly has some emotional problem and who is on a power trip because she thinks she's some great diva. Well, welcome to the real world. A lot of us have our problems. Doesn't mean we go around beating people's heads in with our phones.
Also, in order to be regarded as a diva in my eyes, you will have to accomplish something more than posing for pictures and showing off fashion. I know being a model is probably a lot more trying than we think, but come on, there are so many other people out there who work a lot harder and who don't physically and verbally attack people just because they're frustrated. Think of the people who work in the health care sector, people who work around the clock with very strenuous job tasks, such as lifting immobile people to and from their bed, dealing with dying people etc. Even Walmart workers have it tough. Imagine all the crap they deal with day after day. My point is that there are a lot of people out there who have more reason to erupt rather than the likes of Naomi Campbell.
I almost wish she'd attack me, I would get the delight of defending myself.
It's a petty topic I know, since the Naomi Campbells of this world matter very little, but I have zero tolerance for people who are famous without having really done anything to deserve it and who treat other people badly just because they think they can. I admire their beauty, but that's it. End of story. They haven't accomplished some great feat, they just happened to be born with good facial structure. I know that this sounds like envy talking, but I can honestly say that it's not. When I was 14 I went through a stage where I dreamed of becoming a model, but as soon as I got older I started aspiring for more. I don't think a model's life is all that easy. Being a model isn't the gravy job people think it is. I think they have to endure quite a lot on their road to fame. All the same, I'd rather be famous for using my brain.
Speaking of which, I came across the dumbest T.V show I have ever encountered the other day. Paris Hilton's best friend show. It was laughable!

Bad movie

I watched the movie "Old Dogs" tonight and unfortunately I thought it was a real turkey. I like Robin Williams and John Travolta and they usually perform better than this, but perhaps they didn't have very good material to work with. The characters were so flat and stereotypical and the script felt like it was a rehash of stuff we've already seen a million times before. Same plot, just worse lines and some slapstick thrown in to please the kids and adults of lesser intelligence. It jumped wildly from scene to scene, location to location, it was almost hard to keep up despite the thin plot line.

There were a couple of giggles in there but the cheap kind. Basically, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I feel bad for saying it because I know that John Travolta and Kelly Preston lost their son somewhere around when this movie was filmed. Their daughter plays the part of Robin Williams long lost daughter in the film. She's very pretty.

What were Robin Williams and John Travolta thinking?

Tired and listless

I'm tired of everything today. Tired of people. It's Nick's birthday today and we're doing a birthday BBQ tomorrow and have invited around 12 people. Things come up, of course, people get sick or have other commitments. I know this. However, I'm one of those control-freaks that doesn't roll well with the punches when people cancel on me. There's a reason for why I don't plan anything for my birthdays. I simply hate the hassle of finding a date that suits everyone, worrying about who to invite, when the event itself comes, worrying about whether or not the apartment is clean enough and whether or not people are enjoying themselves. I know that other people's enjoyment is something I have very little control over, but I can't seem to help myself from feeling insufficient anyway. The truth of the matter is that I don't really like people. I'm not a people-person now, never have been and never will be. I prefer animals to people. Animals are simpler. They're a lot easier to communicate with and they're a lot more honest. They don't gossip about you behind your back and what you see is what you get.
So, now I'm tired and listless, physically and mentally, but since today is Nick's birthday I of course want to make it nice for him. So I have just baked two cakes, one vanilla and one chocolate, which I will fill with white chocolate mousse and milk chocolate mousse and then ice it with dark chocolate mousse. So basically it's a triple chocolate mousse cake. Hopefully it's not a disaster.
I will also try and buck up, so that I don't tell off a particularly grumpy guest that's coming over tonight. When will I learn? I made the decision years ago to cut out negative people from my life and only focus on those that bring something positive into it. Yet it seems I still have some trimming to do. Snip snip...cut cut...

Even princesses fart

Today when I was at the optometrist I needed to use the washroom. This blond girl of the princess-type came out before I went in, and as I entered the washroom the delicate aroma of poop was lingering in the air. It could have been gas as well, sometimes the two are easily confused. In this case, it turned out that the smell actually came from the sink and not that girl. The pipes in that washroom were moaning and groaning, they sounded like they were threatening to erupt, and I suspect the smell was due to crappy pipes.
The thought had already entered my head though, that even the beautiful fart and poop. Even movie starts and queens do it. It is hard to imagine though isn't it. Oddly enough, I have pictured it my mind, and every time it's equally bizarre. Not so much with beautiful people, but definitely with movie stars and queens. When I was a kid I used to picture the Queen of Sweden wiping her bottom, and it just seemed like an anomaly to me. It seemed like that type of lowly activity wasn't performed by such fancy people. For some reason, I couldn't imagine her having a bowel movement at all. When I think of pooing I get an image of a lumberjack on a porta potty out in the woods, I don't think Catherine Zeta Jones or the Queen of England, even though they naturally do it too just the rest of us mere mortals.
A friend had as his status on Facebook recently:

"Ah, home sweet home. you know that smell in the elevator? the one where the beautiful woman wearing the expensive perfume just ripped one shes been holding all night? ya, that's the smell of home right now."

See, even beautiful people fart. Even a princess can rip one off. We're not supposed to think they do, but they do it. We all do it. Give me one person who has never passed gas. I once knew someone who claimed she had never farted in her life. She was a blond Southern belle from the U.S, very feminine and dainty. She told a bunch of us that she had never passed gas. Obviously we didn't believe her, and someone sarcastically said that by the time she's 50 she'll probably explode.
Why is pooping and farting such ugly things? When we're in the public washroom stalls we try to avoid being heard doing it. It's shameful. Yet we all know that everyone does it. Farting in public is like the kiss of death. You never forget it. It's a traumatic experience, if you're easily embarrassed. I'm not that easily embarrassed now but at the age of 15 I was. So you can imagine my shame when I ripped one off in karate class. When it happened, we were all seated on the floor and the instructor was talking, so ironically the room was quiet for once, unfortunately.

The point of this disgusting and rather useless entry is that no one is too fancy to fart or poo. Even a princess or a queen has to drop a load, take a dump, lay cable, take the browns to the superbowl, pop a squat, do a number two or my personal favourite: pinch a loaf.

Remembering high school graduation

I wasn't really happy. I wasn't happy because in those days I was never happy. I also wasn't happy because I had barely applied myself in my studies at all. My classes were mostly spent writing or drawing and not paying any attention to what the teachers said. I was also not happy because I knew full well that a high school diploma, especially a diploma from a 2-year program in home economics, means butkus on the job market. I glided through high school oblivious to the fact that I was approaching the real world. I had no clue as to what I wanted to do with my life. I glided through my graduation the same way I coasted through high school.
Sure it was fun with all the hoopla, even though I knew I really didn't deserve it because it had hardly been an accomplishment. Cards and banners saying "You did good!" seemed rather phony and perfunctory. Those are the kind of things relatives write on greeting cards, but in my case it was definitely not true. I enjoyed the attention, and drinking champagne with my friend at 10:00am downtown. I enjoyed playing the part of a happy student. I was so oblivious back then that I didn't even reflect on what I really felt. I just went with it all. Played my role. I don't remember being unhappy, I honestly don't remember feeling anything but nervousness. I was nervous, but excited, when it was my class' turn to enter the steps outside the school that are supposed to symbolize taking a giant leap from childhood to adulthood. Somewhere out there in the crowd was my family, standing there with their cameras trying to pinpoint which white hat belonged to me so they could snap a picture of this landmark moment. On the way home to our place, where the grad reception was held, we stopped to take pictures of me with my flowers hanging around my neck and grad plaque in hand, adorned with a picture of me when I was 7 with uncombed hair and a look of bewilderment on my face. A friend was videotaping our march up that hill as well, as our apartment was located really close to the school and we could all walk there together. I wouldn't smile for the pictures. In the video I'm standing there with a tense look on my face, like someone shoved a poker up my butt. My grandfather finally calls out "Laugh a little!", but not in a mean way. I force out a stiff half-smile, not even showing my teeth, I almost look angry, and then we proceed up to our apartment for the festivities.
We have champagne, more champagne on top of what I had already had that morning, and finger food, and strawberry cake with whipped cream. I get presents, mostly money, some jewelry. A pair of earrings from the relatives that I could never wear since I don't have pierced ears. I ended up exchanging it for a ring that was cheaper than the earrings and then blew the rest of the dough on candy. Like a child. In fact, I was just a child. A 17-year old with the emotional development of a 14-year old, and no clue what to do next. I was the most nervous during the grad reception with my relatives and friends. In the videotape from this occasion I'm almost completely tongue-tied. I wasn't used to being in the spotlight.
When I graduated from university 11 years later it was a completely different feeling. That was one of the best days of my life. I really felt like I had accomplished something, and I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to do next. It didn't turn out the way I thought, but that doesn't take away from the specialness of that day.
I can't speak for all kids, but for me, my high school graduation was no big deal. To be quite frank, how hard is it to earn a high school diploma? I barely worked and I still passed. As long as you stick with it and don't drop out, the diploma is in the bag. But I know that the pomp and circumstance that surrounds H.S graduations isn't really about accomplishments, if the size and significance of a graduation would be measured in accomplishment, there would be more emphasis on university graduations instead. It's more about taking that first step towards adulthood and autonomy, and of course about the partying.

Attractiveness isn't all it's cracked up to be

Good looks actually won't get you much. It's true. I know a lot of us strive for it, but it really doesn't matter all that much when it comes down to it. It's not going to automatically make you happy. It may get you some admiring glances from the opposite, or same, sex at a party, but unless you have the brains and personality to back it up you really have nothing. At the most all you will get are guys, or girls, who want to have a one-night stand with you. To attract someone more interesting and worthwhile, one needs to have some substance, something more than just a pretty face.
It's not true that being socially successful is connected to your level of attractiveness. What really matters is your personality. Well, it depends on what type of social circle it is we're talking about. In some settings, looks is everything, but in my opinion that type of social setting isn't worth much anyway. Interesting, pleasant social group tend to value a good personality rather than a pretty exterior. Even the most beautiful woman will be excluded if she's nasty or socially awkward. I can't imagine what group of people would tolerate bad behaviour from someone simply because she's beautiful. Perhaps soap operas and Hollywood film productions? Maybe the Ms. Universe pageant.
I'm not a dog. I've been told I'm reasonable attractive and I don't think I'm that bad. So, if I'm pretty, why aren't I more socially successful? The answer is: Because I'm socially awkward. It doesn't matter how beautiful I become, if I'm still socially awkward I will never quite fit in. See, good looks isn't some automatic guarantee of happiness and belonging. What truly earns you respect is how savvy you are in social settings. Even your achievements come second.
Take groups of high school girls for example. You can see which groups belong to the "in-crowd" and which don't. The girls from the more popular groups are no more attractive than the loners that you see, walking by themselves. It's not looks that really matters in high school, it's how well you play the game. Of course, if a girl or a guy as a huge nose or a big mold on their forehead, they might not be as popular as they would be had they looked more like the norm.
Then as you get older and more mature, personality starts to matter more and more, which is at it should be. However, life is always a game, and looks just don't make it very far in the long run. Looks fade. It's nice to look at someone beautiful, but really, how long will that last and how far can you go with only that? It's all fluff and veneer unless there is more beneath the surface. Any person who would be with someone just because they're attractive must have very low standards. There are so many other things to take into consideration, such as intelligence, kindness, sense of humour.

The coffee table part deux

He has now put away half of his stuff! This is pretty major. I can actually see the surface of the table again. Miracles do happen!

The coffee table

Day 5 - The coffee table is still a mess. He still hasn't cleaned it. I'm at the point where I'm threatening to take my arm and shove it across the table, knocking everything to the floor.
You may ask why I don't clean it myself. Well, the answer to that is that he gets mad when I put his stuff away. And since most of it is technical gadgets and cords anyway, I don't really know what to do with it. If I put it all in the storage box that we bought for his technical gadgets, he complains that I messed it up and now he can't find what he's looking for and something has gotten damaged in the process. It's not the kind of stuff that you can just throw away. If only it was! I want to throw it out.

To be continued...

I just thought of another one

Another thing I would never do.

I would never, for any reason, stand outside an event that involved celebrities, such as a wedding, a party or a premiere of a film. I can think of much more useful things to do with my time than to stand around for hours hoping to get a glance of people I don't even know. There are actors, actresses and film directors that I truly admire, but a quick glance of them passing by wouldn't do anything for me. I would love to have a chat with them, person to person, but standing around with hundreds of others cheering and calling out their names is degrading. Also, if I'm not invited to a party, I'm certainly not going to belittle myself by hanging around outside like a loser. Even as I write this, there are tourists and other people that have gathered outside the Royal Castle in Stockholm, where the royal family is having some kind of engagement reception. I ask myself, have they nothing better to do with their time? Don't they have lives of their own? Yes, I know, people are for some inexplicable reason fascinated with royalty.

And yes, I am crabby today, and sick of walking on egg shells. Regardless of that, I would still feel the same way about these types of events.