The Realms of the Exotic

So for our anniversary we went to lunch at Tandoori Oven. It's only a block away from our apartment and we've been wanting to try it for . . . well, about a year now. I'd seriously been looking forward to this for, like, a month. Trying new food = awesome.

We walked over there - and that was definitely a good thing since it was a buffet! I have to admit I was a little nervous since I've only had the tiniest of tastes of Indian food at the Food & Wine Festival. (unrelated note: food & wine is also so the only place/time I've ever gone to a concert that was not orchestral/symphonic in nature . . . Shay's still jealous that I went to a Beach Boys concert, lol.) But it was good!! I was hoping to like everything, but fully prepared to not eat very much at the same time. It was a really weird feeling.

Verdict: YUMMY!!! Okay, I have to admit that I discovered (well, reaffirmed really) that I have a very American palate - I'm totally used pretty bland tasting food compared to pretty much every other ethnic food ever. So some of it was totally delicious - the tandoori chicken, the super spicy chicken tikkla . . . something or other . . . The biyami. The breads. Yum. Major yum.

Some of the other things were a bit much, but I think I could acquire a taste for them - the spicy coconut rice topping thingy for instance. The combination of coconut and spiciness was tasty, but just a little too odd for me - but maybe next time.

Then there were a couple of things that were just plain . . . anti-yummy. For example, saffron may smell good (I really wouldn't know) but it tastes pretty nasty. The saffron pastry square things totally reminded me of these cookies my friend Cyd (who lives in Logan now, yay!!!!) made back in college. She bought this Shakespearean cookbook from the Shakespeare Festival (soooooooo have to get down there some summer soon . . . ) and made cookies flavored with rose petals and (I think) orange peel. Because apparently that's what they flavored things with back in the day. They smelled really good. They tasted like soap. They smelled like soap too actually, but soap smells good. I've never eaten soap, but I imagine it would not taste good. I imagine that they would taste a lot like the soap-scented cookies. Or the Indian saffron pastry thingy.

Best part: the drink. By far. I had a strawberry lessi, which is a strawberry/yogurt drink. Sooooooooooooo good!!! Tasted more strawberry-y than pretty much any strawberry flavored anything I've ever had and super smooth and creamy. YUM!! (side note - there's also a sweet lessi made with rose petals . . . and rose petal ice cream. The ignorant American in me wants to go around telling people that Indians eat soap.)

I think I love Indian food. And my future book club restaurant picks have probably been influenced. Heck - my future any restaurant picks have been influenced. :-) Also - best anniversary ever. Not there was a lot of competition . . . yet. :-)

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So, as many of you know our song was "So Close" from Enchanted. The plan was to actually do the dance they did in the movie - how awesome would that have been?! - but that kinda didn't happen. The whole "Luke not knowing how to dance" thing coupled with the whole "we kinda gotta find a couple of jobs" thing combined with the "my mom never believed me when I said I didn't care about tiny reception detail x so I spent more time shopping than I'd expected" thing combined with the "it's a half hour drive back to my bed no matter what time of night I leave" thing and . . . well, life in general it just didn't happen. Sad. :-( Anyway, here's a totally cool version of one of my favorite songs ever.

Just How Did I End Up Teaching?

I really have no idea. But it pays. That's all I really care about. I suppose I should really say "teaching" because I'm not sure I've taught anybody anything . . . whatever. Anyway, a few happenings -

1 ~ About a month ago my schedule was switched. Instead of going to the fourth grade homework room, I stay in the second grade classroom I'm already in and work with three kids who need a little extra help. (Hannah) doesn't seem to need a lot of help, she just needs a quieter room than one full of a couple dozen chatty 8-year-olds. (Peter) . . . well, it's almost the end of the school year and I think his reading level is about the equivalent of a kindergartner. Toward the beginning of the year. And then we have the adorable little girl who needs someone who knows she can do the work and is not the helpless little damsel in distress she'll sometimes pretend to be and makes her actually do the work herself. Good times.

2 ~ Fourth graders are a lot easier to converse with than second graders. As in, it is possible to converse with fourth graders. You might not be discussing Sartre or politics or pop culture and its effect on society, but at least the talking you do can be considered "conversation" as opposed to just "talking to." After two and a half hours, I am sooooo done. Ashli - you are officially nuts.

3 ~ I would have to seriously reconsider my current occupational path after my "making kids cry" total hit two today. Good thing it was the same kid a second time, not a second kid. She didn't want to finish her spelling since everyone else went out to recess whilst we were in the middle of the list. So she threw her little "I can't do it" fit and cried a bit. Then, when she realized I seriously wasn't letting her go outside until we finished . . . well, it was amazing how quickly she remembered how to spell the rest of the words. That said, when she finished she did apologize before going out to recess, and after school she was - well, not perfect but very good. She's really a sweet girl when she's not trying to get you to do her work for her.

4 ~ So I'm doing spelling with (Sam) at the end of the day, and he sneezes right as a couple of fourth grade girls walk by. He says "I'm allergic to girls." I give him a silly/hurt/offended look. He smiles a little and says "Except for teachers." Awwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!! . . . I think . . . ??

5 ~ My job officially ends with the school year, and at the moment there's no guarantee that I'll be back next year. I hope they can find room in the budget for me.

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One should not laugh at these. I fully admit to feeling a little guilty. But they are sooooooooooooo funny!!!

*SQUEALS*

So we had our first anniversary present delivered today. (to clarify, first present for the anniversary, which is also the first anniversary. Confused yet, lol?) The first, and only one we're expecting to see. We weren't really expecting this one either, actually. I mean - do people do that? I thought it was all "oh, yay, you're getting married, here's a big old pile of stuff" . . . " anniversary? Whatever, suck it up and get your own stuff!"

So imagine how much I was not complaining when my mother asked what we would like for our anniversary. Lacey's answer: we get anniversary presents?! SWEET!!!! *happy dance*

And as long as I'm pickin' what we get . . . well, there was one thing on our registry last year that I was really hoping to see in that big old pile . . . and it did not materialize . . . and it was just a little to much on the frivolous side to justify using our pile of gift cards on it. But when it's a present it's okay to be a little frivolous. And now - WE'VE GOT ONE!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!

I remember when I first discovered the awesomeness that is the ice cream ball . . . I was still a CP, and when I saw it at Walmart I immediately wanted it. However, it was during the time of my first set of roommates, and I was aware that to purchase it then was a bad idea. (One of them walked off with my fantabulous-ginormous-road-trip-sized mug - still sad about that one. *sniffle*) And then . . . I never saw it again. Every time I went back to Walmart it was gone. Sad day! Especially considering how much I adored making paper bag homemade ice cream at girls' camp - I was dying to make some again. So naturally when we were registering a BB&B and I saw it there wasn't even the slightest question as to whether it was going on the list or not. Luke didn't even know what it was. And then he laughed at how excited I got explaining it. But now he's totally on board with the awesomeness.

And now . . . we have one, dangit!!!! And I'm sooooooo glad Luke's back on day shift (even if his days off are still up in the air at the moment) because that means I'm picking him up from work in a couple of hours, we're going out for the ingredients we don't already have, and we're having homemade strawberry ice cream tonight!!!!!! With real strawberries!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Admit it. You're jealous. :-)

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Oh, the giggles. Nothing special, this one's just silly. But silly is good.

Have You Heard?

There's a rumor in St. Petersburg! But apparently only in Polish . . . grrr.

Seriously though, Walmart has strawberries for a dollar a pound!!!!! Sweet!!!!!

It was really quite fortuitous that we even discovered this fabulous factoid. So we decided to have tacos for dinner Monday . . . and then discovered we only had three tortillas left. Blargh. Rather than changing the dinner plans, we decided to make an emergency tortilla trip. And to get onions too, because we were out of those. But we knew that going in. Anyway, what to our wondering eyes should appear but a massive display of ginormous strawberries!!!! So we bought three of them too. Three little plastic cases, I mean. Not three strawberries. That would be lame.

Straaaaaaaaaaaaaawberries . . . . MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!! So big! So juicy!! So lucious!!! Totally reminded me of our reception too, because we had giant strawberries for the chocolate fountain. We also had a thoroughly nasty chocolate fountain lady who, when I meandered over and chocolate-d up a pretzel for myself, lectured me on how she doesn't allow the bridal couple to partake of the chocolate delights they procured for their own wedding reception because she doesn't want to get sued when they spill chocolate on their fancy clothes. Umm, seriously? 1) Dresses can be cleaned. 2) Let's be realistic here, this dress is most likely never going to be worn again, so does it really matter if it gets stained? 3) Excuse me, but I am the reason you are getting paid to be here, and now you're saying I can't have any? I don't think so! Naturally, I was only able to articulate these perfect rebuttals a couple of days later - don't you hate how that always works? - so the nasty chocolate fountain lady did not get the piece of my mind she deserved. At the time, I must admit, I was really rather stunned by the fact that she actually lectured me. I mean, is that even allowed? Surely there's some law that says you can't lecture/chew out/insult/etc./etc./etc. a bride on her wedding day - especially not at her reception. I mean come on, surely some bridezilla somewhere has clawed her way into Congress and gotten it passed . . . and Utah's certainly the most likely place. :-)

Anyway. Back to this year's strawberries. YUMMY!!!!!!! And so very healthy too. Of course, it probably somewhat negates the health aspect when you put half a pound of chopped strawberries on top of a dish of ice cream as we did Monday. Or use a pound of strawberries to make two large milkshakes as we did yesterday. But hey, at least we didn't use strawberry syrup or something, you know. Also: totally need to go back and get more strawberries, as well as the rest of the ingredients to make this. I still dream about this divine little concoction, even though I've only had it once and that was more than two years ago now. Also, an old friend gave me a recipe for strawberry banana cookies - totally need to try that one out too.

Most importantly, there has been no sign of food poisoning. And considering Luke and I have both eaten three dozen (at least) deviled eggs and two pounds of strawberries a piece in the last three days . . . well, I'm a little surprised that we aren't sick.

(And yup, we did boil and dye 3 dozen eggs for Easter . . . meaning we had six dozen deviled eggs. Deviled 'em on Sunday, and they were gone by the end of Monday. We like our deviled eggs around here!)

If the strawberries are gone next time I go shopping, I think I will cry. Make sure you save me some when you shop!

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Here's a new one. You saw it here first kids! Not even a million hits yet!

It's International Become a Plurker Day!

But first: Lacey's Completely Non-related Picture!


And believe you me, I tried. And we didn't even have Nintendo!



So. International Become a Plurker Day. And just what is a plurker, you may ask? (If you already know, you're more of a geek than I am. Just sayin' . . . ) Well, sit back and get ready for story time.

*insert cheesy sitcom dream sequence wavy thing here*

My freshman year of college was . . . well, rough . . . in multiple ways. Particularly the roommate way. We got along (except for the one that hated all of the rest of us) but I didn't really "click" with them. And being the horribly, paralyzingly shy person that I am the thought of going to some campus event to meet people by myself - well, it did actually occur to me (believe it or not) but my shy self always talked my lonely self out of it. I think my record was about 2.8 seconds - and that's the record for the time it took the longest! So, yeah, I got pretty lonely sometimes. Luckily, I finally had my own computer, a laptop I semi-affectionately dubbed the Craptop. Because it was. Whenever I actually needed to do something important for school I typically went to a lab because those computers were far less likely to crash. But I digress . . .

Anyway, since I now had constant high-speed internet access as opposed to the constantly-disconnecting-itself-dial-up I discovered that - wonder of wonders! - there was a whole lot more to do on the internet than just check one's email. Woot! First there was the amazingness of MSNMessenger. Then I signed up for hotsaints.com (which after a quick search appears to not exist anymore . . . sad!), my very first (and only) internet dating profile, AWWWWWW!! Two reasons for that: 1) I was chatting with a friend from high school and it seemed like a fun/funny thing to do to both of us at the time and 2) to freak out my mother when I told her I'd done it. It worked. :-) I only logged in again once or twice, and there was absolutely nothing resulting from it in the form of male contact. Story of my life, y'all. Well, most of it. But I digress again . . .

Okay, coming to the point now. Remember, this was 2002. Attack of the Clones had just come out that sumer. Everyone was still holding onto hope that Revenge of the Sith would redeem the prequels, even though we didn't know what it was called yet. So naturally I wandered over to starwars.com before long. And since it was free to register I did - even though that didn't really get you anything at the time. BUT - that meant that you could post on the forum message boards. Now I'd done the random chat room thing once or twice, and of course I was on msnmessenger pretty much all the time at this point in time, but this message board thing was new to me. So at first I spent most of my time reading what everyone else was saying, only posting a little bit. Over time I started posting in a couple of threads pretty regularly, and I actually made some good friends . . . who's real names I couldn't tell you if my life depended on it. :-) Sadly, upon my return to the land of dial-up for the summer I didn't spend much time on the boards, and my sophomore year was drastically different from my freshman year so even though I meant to start hanging out there again I never really did, and I'm betting if I were to go back now no one would even remember me. Assuming, of course, that anyone I knew is even still there. It has, after all, been almost ten years. (And it weirds me out profoundly to say that!) I miss the boards and the people I met there sometimes, but it's more in a nostalgic than sad way. It was the perfect situation for me for that one year - I'd even go so far as to say I needed it. But then I got some awesome, social, friends for roommates and I didn't need the (sort of) virtual friends I'd hung on to the year before.

So anyway, plurker. If you haven't figured it out already, in message board-ese a poster is someone who posts a lot. A lurker is someone who never posts, but is always reading what everyone else posts. Which can be a little creepy because there's no way to know they're there. (Now I want to use "their" in a sentence just to prove I can use all three correctly. Holy biggest pet peeve!!) And which is also why you have to be especially not stupid (also known as careful) with what you say on message boards. Good thing I knew that going in, eh? Anyway, obviously, plurker is a combination of the two, and is exactly what I was when I first started hanging out on the boards. Actually, I never really fully overcame my plurker-ish tendencies. I'm even shy online!! Grrrrrr.

So. Today. International Become a Plurker Day. I'm really hoping you've guessed by now that I totally made it up. But if someone else can declare today Teflon Day, then I can make up my own holiday too, dangit!!! (btw, how's that for a totally circa 2002 looking website? Holy retro, lol!!) So - have you been watching the insanity that is my blog and not commenting? Comment!! Has it been so long since you commented that it up for debate whether you're still reading or not? Comment!! Do you comment on every single post? Comment!! It makes me feel popular, and everybody deserves to feel popular sometimes. :-) Also, it tells my shy self that not everyone is laughing at me and thinks everything I say is utterly ridiculous and dumb. Post with no comments = big box office blockbuster that flopped. Epically flopped. It's illogical. It's irrational. It's silly. It's me.

To be completely honest, while I have had this post simmering in the back of my head for a while now, I posted it today because it's spring break so I have no work to go to all week. It's been two days and I'm already bored out of my mind. I am sooooooo not looking forward to summer.

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A friend of mine sent me this one. I've seen a couple of others done this way, but I think this one is my favorite. Long live books!!!!!