Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Generational obsessions inherited from plasticmom

Bags: especially bags to hold other bags...v. meta
Bob Slate & Office Supplies: notebooks, pens, paper, etc.
Shopping for Performance Outdoor Gear at REI: appropriated for a sedentary indoor lifestyle
Plastic: cups, plates, etc...hence plasticann and plasticmom
Food Safety: throwing out the milk before the expiration date hits because it smells slightly "funny."
Ice Cream: as a pre-lunch snack
Dishes: glass, ceramic, you name it. [Here's a tip, always check by running your finger over the unglazed bottom of dishes to gauge roughness and prevent scratching tabletops. If it cuts your finger, it'll do some damage to your tabletop. To sand down rough bottoms, rub two bottoms of dishes together.]
Books: plasticmom refuses to check out books that are "dusty" and have less than a 5 star rating on Amazon. It works for the most part, but it's not a foolproof system so sometimes she does get some duds.

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Analogies

Particleboard : Wood
Chicken McNuggets : Chicken

Idiot Tax Again

I walked out of the house this morning with no t-pass, no keys and no phone so I'm paying the "Idiot Tax" today...$3.75 kaching! At least I had my wallet and I didn't have to resort to begging for token money from a panhandler.

Monday, July 26, 2004

What am I doing next Monday night?

As I'm registering for a business school info session thing next Monday night, I hear from the next office:

Steve: Hey Ann, what are you doing next Monday night?
plasticann: I'm going to the "3rd Annual: 2004 MBA Admissions Panel."
Steve: [having recieved the same e-mail] Good...just checking.

moments later

plasticann: Hey Steve, what am I supposed to be doing next Monday night?
Steve: Going to the MBA thing.
plasticann: Good...just checking.

Maybe we'll pretend not to know each other at the event...or we could amuse ourselves by unprofessionally mocking other participants...I'm sure that would endear us to the admissions panel.

For everthing else...there's

Hours of cleaning: Ten
Bags of trash [not actual trash, but things I'm trashing]: Eight
Bags of paper recycling: Four
Bags for Goodwill: Four
Extra showers to relieve itchiness from dust: Two
Bags of paper for shredding: One
Number of Adams helping with the room detox process: One
Kristen admiring my nearly empty room: Priceless!

Friday, July 23, 2004

I hate those little trees

One of my coworkers has a young daughter who no longer likes to eat broccoli. She says, "I hate those little trees." Perhaps she'll rediscover the little trees when she's Steve's age.
Mount St. Sundae

My housemates and I pursued a sugar high as a last hurrah last night at the Cambridge Hyatt hotel lounge. Although we had been warned the sundaes were "huge" and they usually ordered three sundaes for a dozen folks, we lived dangerously and each ordered our own sundae. When I saw the picture of the sundaes on the sign, I scoffed, "childs play...these sundaes come in martini glasses...how big could they be," except the martini glasses were almost 18 inches tall with a liquid capacity of at least 1 liter. Never have I encountered such an extreme instance where the actual food item was disproportionately larger than the picture of the said food item on a sign/billboard...usually it's much smaller. I ordered the Turtle Smoosh with Haagen Daaz Dulce De Leche ice cream and Eli's cheesecake. In retrospect, I should have gone with the banana split to balance out all the ice cream with some fruit. The Turtle Smoosh was actually smaller than the Mount St. Sundae, which was basically a mountain of ice cream and pastries. Prices were quite reasonable at six to seven dollars and the ice cream was premium. Jittery sugar high...accomplished.

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Not Bouncy Church

Steve forwarded me this link on ebay for a fully inflatable church complete with inflatable pews, alter, candles, etc. It's out of control, but it's not a "bouncy castle" for kids...there's nothing bouncy about this inflatable house of worship. Coming soon...the inflatable pub.

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Compelling
 
The following is a reconstructed conversation regarding joining a group at church:
 
plasticann: So I think I'm going to check out C*&^e's tomorrow night with MGDub.
Adam: I thought you decided not to join that one, what changed?
plasticann: Well, MGDub made a pretty compelling argument so I decided to at least visit the group.
Adam: What was the argument?
plasticann: That we're friends...
Adam: ...and?
plasticann: I thought that was a pretty compelling.
Precocious Kiddies

These kids run their own catering business for gourmet dinner parties. I can't decide if they're totally awesome or just a tad bit odd. I wonder if their nimble little fingers give them that competitive edge when it comes to tiny hors d'oeuvres. When I informed Nina that one of the pair would be matriculating at her alma mater, she responded with "Oh Brother."

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Pass The Butter
 
Our lunchtime conversation about schools indirectly reminded me about "Pass The Butter," a game my friend Zarc would play in high school. [Hopefully I remember enough key details to do the story justice.] Apparently, the high school cafeteria served bagels with disproportionately thick pats of butter. Kids, in classrooms, would take chunks of the butter, write someone's name on it and throw it at them. The person whose name was inscribed on the butter was expected to catch the butter and this throwing butter game would continue from one end of the room to the other end where a chalkboard covered the wall. Kids closest to the chalkboard would catch the butter and smear it into the chalkboard. One day, they arrived to find the row of desks closest to the chalkboard pulled away from the wall. When asked what happened, the janitor responded that the kids had been rubbing their "greasy hair" on the chalkboard rendering saturated board unusable.

Monday, July 19, 2004

Summer Tea
 
I had some folks over for a summer tea party yesterday afternoon, all the usual suspects were accounted for. MGDub and Lindsey brought some delicious spreadable fruit to share after Lindsey's jam selling shift...I highly recommend the peach melba. As I jotted down my post party analysis, I concluded the following:
Too much lemonade and made too many mini scones
Too few cucumber mint sandwiches and not enough mint iced tea
The cucumber sandwiches were such a big hit, I had to discretely ration them.

Friday, July 16, 2004

Martha Martha Martha
 
As a sign of support, I've resubscribed to Living. Given that I gaze longingly at Living everytime I'm at the market or bookstore, I figured a subscription would be money well spent. I also purchased some stock because I have an irrational appreciation for Martha's talents and good taste. I'm rooting for MSO and I do think they put out quality products...go FOOD. However, my past stock purchases do not indicate any stock picking brilliance on my part. To my credit, the stock did go up, but no one wants to buy a delisted junk bond and given the very low per share price, I've probably earned about twelve bucks despite a ten percent increase.

Thursday, July 15, 2004

More Granola...Version B

I made more granola last night and I think I like my first batch better. I'm not sure if which of the following: reduced fat, lack of pecans, extra cinnamon, inclusion of applesauce or all of the above that did it in so it's hard to tell.

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

I Make Granola

Inspired by my coworker Leah, I made granola last night adapting this recipe with what I had on hand: coconut, pecans, dried cranberries and crystallized ginger. It's nice and crunchy and tasty to boot. I'm going to buy the biggest thing of rolled oats at the market and make more.

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Alaskan Cruise Top 10

10. Cheese plate of the day...for the table.
9. Steve the "Bingo Guy"/"Senior Assistant Cruise Director"/"General go to guy when Dane the Australian 'Cruise Director' isn't around"
8.
Multiple servings of multiple courses...two servings each of a five course meal equals ten courses.
7. Kid who dutifully squirted her stuffed dog's paw with hand sanitizer after sanitizing her own hands.
6. Creme Caramel...gotta love flan.
5. Discovering the "secret" lounge equipped with an espresso maker on the 7th floor.
4. Cutie Pie Henry
3. Hearing the blue icebergs crack and watching chunks of ice fall and splash into the ocean.
2. Baby Zess wearing her Baby Uggs daily.
1. Discovering a talent for ingesting food all day everyday.

Monday, July 12, 2004

Henry

While on our Alaskan cruise, the Henrys would be lurking in all the hallways during the day. They were adorable so I had to take a picture (or ten) of Henry on our last day. Henry is very expressive, depending on the camera angle he looks shy, happy, etc.
Oh my god...I can't see!

A bespectacled MGDub graciously picked up Adam and I last night from the airport and conveyed the following anecdote:

MGDub: Since I usually wear my contacts, I forget when I'm wearing my glasses. I can see with my glasses so driving is not a problem. I usually take off my sunglasses when I drive through tunnels so when I was driving through the tunnel on the way to the airport just now, I thought to myself, "it's night time...why am I wearing my sunglasses...I better take them off." Once I took off my "sunglasses," I realized, "Oh my god...I can't see." I put them back on, but it was scary.

Friday, July 02, 2004

Celebrations

To celebrate surviving our latest big project unscathed, we walked over the river into Boston for lunch yesterday at the Beacon Hill Bistro on Charles Street. For all you foodies out there, here are some stats:

Lunch party: 6
Lunches with fries/frites: 6
Lunches with no fries/frites: (6-6)=0
Hamburgers: 3
Steak: 2
Desserts: 2 (lemon tart and flourless chocolate cake)
Man Trouble--Mrs. Z's latest book: 5

We've been joking that we should read Mrs. Z's new (not autobiographical) romance novel about a romance novelist who falls in love with a billionaire hotel developer as a primer for our project so I purchased a copy for each member of the team as a memento. I sure hope they'll proudly display their copies of Man Trouble on their bookshelves. Folks at Z Corp. seem to share the sentiment since one of her other novels is #6 for Z Corp. on Amazon or maybe the tech geeks at Z are romantic suckers.

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Cookies by MGDub

MGDub made some delicious homemade cookies yesterday. I got to try her oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and they were nice and chewy. On another note, MGDub promised to buy a pot of jam for GJDubya.