Its about me.
The singer from Hank and the Cupcakes has shiny pants. I just got back from their concert at the Beachland Tavern and their music grew on me. She was pretty energetic, it was hard not to like them with their 80’s Euro-ish techno-ish something or another music. She danced on the drum set for crying out loud (weird phrase that is, crying out loud). Check them out.
Rory’s Story Cubes Story II
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Some people say that sheep have special powers. How else can an animal live with so little excitement in their lives. Really think about it. What does a sheep do? Eat, sleep, and make a little noise. That’s it. Sheep have to be special. The exceptional dullness that occupies sheep’s daily lives allows them to focus all of their conscious thought upon breaking dimensional barriers. When they look like they are just grazing to you and I, they are in reality spending their vast intellect and abilities breaking into other dimensions with their thoughts alone.
Shane was one of those sheep. He was renown among all sheep as one of the greats. He know the secrets of the universe. He knew it wasn’t a full moon that was special. It was a waning gibbous that affected the Earth the greatest. He knew that it wasn’t the North or South Poles that were ley lines, it wasn’t even the equator or the Prime Meridian. It was a spot. Just a blip on the map in North Carolina. Not near in a city, but in a small suburban town. Shane belonged to a family called the Bilkens who just happened to own the property this blip fell on. And it was grazing on that spot on a daily basis that made Shane so special.
This story is not about Shane though. Sadly he died recently when a neighborhood boy threw a flashlight in a fit of rage that just happened to hit Shane in the leg causing a major fracture. This in turn got infected and he died a horrible death over the course of a few weeks. He passed away at four am on a Tuesday. The Bilkens were quite sad (especially the children, they knew with Shane gone they would have mow the lawn a lot more often).
If it makes you feel better about Shane’s death you can take solace in that a rainbow appears on that exact blip where he grazed every year on the anniversary of his death.
And the neighborhood boy that accidentally killed him?
He died years later while working at a flashlight factory when a friend jokingly slapped him on the back causing him to choke on his gum. The Scales of Justice are fair after all. It just takes time for them to even out.
This story however is about Smitty. He was a mouse. And like most mice he had wanderlust. He never could find a place to call home. This here…. Its the story of how Smitty found a home.
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I realize this more of the start of a story and not a whole story. But I’m very much ok with that.
It’s been a long time coming. We were originally told we could move back in July. So moving the second weekend of September made it seem like we’ve been waiting forever. And sadly, it meant that we had packed, and then unpacked and then had to pack again. So as prepared as we were to move, we had a lot of stuff that was half in boxes and had been unpacked because we just didn’t know when we would be moving.
Regardless though we managed to get everything moved in two days. It helped that we were only moving one floor up, although our address has changed. And we basically did all by ourselves, although one of Sam’s friends showed up to help, but she showed up in a dress (to be fair she did help move the couch and a couple other small pieces of furniture.
Anyways, I’m exhausted and heading to work. But later this week I will post a video of the new place. Its pretty big. At least compared to my old apartment. We do still need to clean the old place, we’ll get on with that later today. But the cats are adjusting well and Ginger is in a temporary set up.
Shoot me an e-mail if you need my new address.
Sam doing her homework last week. I’ve been having fun playing with filters and image editors lately.
First day of school and I’ve got a strange dream.
In my dream I’m heading to work, but riding with someone. I’m not sure who, but I know we were running late because I was shaving in the car. While shaving I was also talking about all the crazy weather in Southern Ohio. In my dream I was telling someone how there was serious flooding there, and a category 8 tornado (I don’t think tornados are measured the same way hurricanes are). We stop to pick someone up. The problem is we don’t know where that person is so we have to look through this slum-type neighborhood on foot to find them. I find a house with a mirror where I notice that I only half shaved my face.
A dog is running around my feet and I follow it (or something) because the next thing I know is that I am in a field with Carrie watching a field hockey game. Carrie goes to talk to the coach, but its not the same coach she had in high school. We leave to go looking for that coach and find her in the basement of Crandall Library. The dog I saw in the slum is there. I don’t know what Carrie and the coach are talking about, but I sit at the table and all I see are a ton of fingerprints and in the middle a huge pair of footprints. I mean gigantic. Jack LaBombard shows up for some reason (but he is younger than when I knew him). He says something to me but I can’t remember what. I ignore him and just go back to staring at the footprints.
See. Weird. Strange ass dream.
I like to cook. Its not a secret. Buffalo Chicken Dip (started making that years ago). Vegetable stew from scratch. Baking cookies, cinnamon muffins, and other goodies. Recently I’ve started making pizza from scratch (including dough) as well as pretzels from scratch. I even experimented with a bunch of Mac n Cheese variations.
This last weekend I got a craving for Pizza Logs. I haven’t ever seen pizza logs outside of Buffalo. I first started eating them when I was in college, and then later when I lived in Buffalo. You could order them just about anywhere. They looked like a really thing dough pizza slice rolled up. An order came with maybe four of them and a thing of marinara sauce for dipping. When I became a vegetarian it became even harder to find them. They usually came with pepperoni in them. Occasional I could find a store that sold them, but the majority of the time I had to order them from fast food places.
So on Saturday I decided I would make some. After looking up recipes online I went with one made from Egg Roll shells. I ran out to the store with Sam and picked up Egg Roll Shells, mozzarella cheese ( a big hunk), and some pizza sauce. Thawed out the Egg Roll shells when we got home and we got started. You place the Egg Roll shell diamond ways, put some sauce, cheese and whatever else you like to add in the middle (Sam and I experimented with crushed red peppers, spicy sea salt, blackened cajun spice, honey and hot sauce; as well as adding different cheeses with the mozzarella. Not all at once, but on alternating wraps). Fold the wrap almost in half (not quite triangle shaped), fold the two corners inand then roll up the shell. Use water (like we did) or use a beaten egg to seal the Egg Wrap shut (a little moisture locks it in place). Now in my greasiest memories Pizza Logs were definitely deep fried, but we baked them on a greased cookie sheet in the oven at 400 for about ten minutes (turning once). I used the rest of the pizza sauce as dipping sauce.
It was pretty amazing. Both the honey and the hot sauce turned out really well. We did decided that instead of spicing up the pizza log itself, it would be better to spice up the dipping sauce. But really, they were fantastic. And really easy and fast to make.
Tonight after a light dinner (buffalo chicken wrap: diced chicken, lettuce, tomato, cheddar cheese on a big burrito shell with hot sauce and blue cheese dressing) I wanted a little something more. I took four 6 inch flour taco shells and cut them up with a pizza slicer. I then heated up some vegetable oil in a skillet and lined a cookie sheet with paper towels. I fried the tortilla shells in the oil for about 20 seconds on each side and then threw them on the cookie sheet. Sprinkles them with some sea salt and a little bit of lemon juice (I didn’t have any lime juice) and bam; I’ve got myself some tortilla chips. They were a little bit thicker and just a slight bit softer than store bought, but really tastey and filling.
So yeah, quite enjoying cooking. I’ll keep at it I do believe.
