Saturday Night’s Alright for Embarrassing Self-Discovery

Ed is in Vegas for a Boys’ Weekend* so I’m house and Molly-sitting all by myself.  I haven’t lived alone in roughly two years and as much as I love and adore my family and Ed I had kind of forgotten how much I enjoyed living alone.  But I think the past couple of days have proven that CKD Cannot Have Nice Things, Nor Should She Be Left Alone Without Adult Supervision.

Realizations that have come to light since left to my own devices:

• I will drink a whole pot of coffee and not eat anything, turning me into something resembling a hyperactive monkey coming off a three-day crank bender.
• I will watch 17 Again, starring Zac Efron.  I will do this in a manner completely devoid of irony and mockery.  I will tell tell myself it’s because Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon are in it.  I will admit to myself that’s a big fat fucking LIE.
• I will develop a crush on Zac Efron, obsessively Googling him and watching this scene in 17 Again.  I will LOSE MY SHIT when he takes off his sunglasses.  I will be relieved upon discovery that he is 22 and there will be no Amber Alert issued.
• I will text Boy Chris about all of this, since he is really good at talking me down from The Crazy.  He will declare that I am “dead” to him.
• I will eat the crappiest of meals, usually on the bed.  Tonight’s menu: macaroni and cheese AND mashed potatoes and gravy from KFC.  I will wash this down with hard cider.  Because, you know, I wouldn’t want to break my Lenten resolution and have a Coke.
• I will fall asleep earlier than most third graders.
• I will play music much louder than anyone over the age of 19 ever would or should.  I will dance around the house and sing along and do weird half-assed high kicks.

This weekend’s playlist includes:

Wanna Take You Higher – Sly and the Family Stone

Dreams – Brandi Carlile

The Underdog – Spoon

Mr Blue Sky – ELO

You Are the Best Thing – Ray LaMontagne

*People give me a raised eyebrow look when I mention this, like he and his friends are reenacting The Hangover.  Hardly.  They are going to NASCAR races.  At best he’ll meet a woman with a mullet.  I am not terribly concerned.

Bring It

Dying to ask me something?  Get to it: http://www.formspring.me/CKD1

Slightly worried that either a.) no one will ask anything or b.) this is inviting stalkers.  Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

 

Fuck. Yeah.

Talkin’ About My Generation

My mom has often told me that as a small child I struck her as an “old soul.”  I was more comfortable around adults than kids my own age and was happiest playing cards with my grandparents.  After taking a 14 question quiz, it has now become FACT, yo: in terms of my lifestyle, I am a Baby Boomer.

Yeah, we have a landline and I don’t have any tattoos and I don’t have any video games, but really?  A Baby Boomer?  I thought I’d at least land in Generation X.  I mean, I wore Doc Martens with flowered dresses, and my love for Reality Bites is well-documented.  WTF?  Also, what’s up with “Millenials” as a generation?  I had heard of Generation Y (meaning, “following X” oh how fucking original) and even the Echo Generation (the backlash or echo of Gen X) but Millenials sounds like a candy. 

And while I’m on an old person rant: according to their birth chart thingy, I should fall into Gen X, but I had always been told I was born just shy of the cutoff, ironic accessories or not.  When did that get adjusted?   WHO IS MAKING UP THESE RULES?

Given that the title of this post if from a song from my parents’ generation, yeah, I think this quiz was juuuust right. 

I am five seconds away from turning the hose on the neighbor kids.

A Gold Medal Contender If Being a Raging Dork Becomes a Sport

Some confessions, Olympics-style:

1. I am full-on into Curling now.  I find myself thinking about strategy as I watch and sometimes have to remind myself to breathe because I tend to forget to exhale when I’m intensely nervous.
2. My mom was asking why professional athletes are allowed to participate in the Olympics, so I Googled the IOC’s rulings and spent A LOT of time reading up on the policies.  I am still not 100% clear on when the rules changed and why it’s only for certain events. 
3. You know what the winter games mean?  A shitload of hockey.  I am in heaven.  I miss going to Sharks games and drinking a beer and watching guys slam each other into the glass.  I am a woman of refined tastes.  It’s also getting me in the mood to watch Miracle again.  Have you seen it?  Kurt Russell+late 70’s haircut+Underdog Hockey Story=Cinematic Gold.  However, I have to say all of the intense media coverage of the 1980 hockey victory is starting to feel like a bit much.  I am in NO WAY trying to undermine the event, but, as the great Wayne Campbell would say, “Live in the now!”
4. Aside from the complaints that the Russian ice dancing team costumes were offensive, their routine was lame as hell.  And what the fuck was up with that ridiculous little nose-nuzzle they did at the end.  Barf.  Fun fact: my dad hates ice dancing as it is NOT, in his opinion, a “sport.”  I tend to concur, but I can’t look away.
5. Alright, so this one is not an Olympic Confession, but it’s by far the most horrifying: I am watching the Full House episode right after Uncle Jesse and Becky get married and the whole family is sad that he’s not living with them anymore and there’s this flashback and I am all choked up but also kind of hating myself. 

If anyone has any answers about #2, hit me up.  I’m for reals curious.

Adventures with Mom

Holy shit y’all.  My mom has joined Facebook.  Within a day she made Dave change his profile picture* and has been asking me “Who is so-and-so?  How do you know so-and-so?  Why does your hair look so weird in that picture?”  Like I told Dave: it’s going to be a whole new Interweb with Mom on the loose.**

But, my mom walks up to me after a day of errands and hands me this.  “I figure you can use it when you’re at a bar.”  So if she wants to play 20 Questions, I can deal.  Few moms care so much about purse hygeine while you drink.

*In her defense, it was a ridiculous picture from Clockwork Orange so I get it.

** She is far from technologically retarded, but she isn’t one for texting, social networking and the like.  I’m 98% certain she has never HEARD of Twitter.

Yes, It’s Just Soup, for Crying Out Loud, But Let Me Have My Victories, OK?

I made dinner this weekend.  This would mark the second time in one week that I have cooked.  And you know what?  I enjoyed it.

When people would ask my why I don’t cook, I always dismissed the notion with a wave and “Oh, I’ve always been so lucky to be surrounded by great cooks and I’m happy to be the clean-up crew.”  Throw in some jokes about me being easily distracted by shiny things which means everything tends to burn and there you have my general philosophy on CKD and Her Skillz in the Kitchen.  While all of the above is true, I rarely admitted to another key factor: I didn’t like the process of cooking.  I didn’t find satisfaction in creating something and serving it to others.  But that always sounded so…lazy?  Apathetic?  Like I didn’t care enough about the people around me to feed them.  Which isn’t true at all.  Possibly even more embarrassing: I was initimidated by cooking.  Well, not by the stove or something, but by the juggling and improvisation sometimes involved. 

But lately it has struck me as crazy that if pressed to do so, I couldn’t come up with an adequate meal to serve to guests or my family.  I finished a marathon once and didn’t shit myself, so I figured I could start learning to turn a bag of groceries into something not only edible, but delicious.  Plus, it occurred to me that if I ever had a couple of mini-CKDs running around I couldn’t in good conscience, feed them Taco Bell every day.  Or take them to my mom’s house all the time.

So, yeah.  I cooked for Ed and my mom and Dave last night (nothing fancy, just the lentil soup, at my sick mom’s request) and my mom looked at Dave – master chef of our household, foodie extraordinaire and all-around nice guy – and said, “You need to learn to make this.  From her.  Let her show you how she does it.”  She’s on hardcore cold meds so she might have been hallucinating.  I knew I could make this meal; it wasn’t a mystery and it’s actually pretty simple (the worst part, for me, is chopping onions) and I’m not a complete idiot.  The crazy part was that I volunteered to take on the cooking responsibilities and I really liked it.  I had the luxury of time and quiet and it was nice to prep everything and have food cooking and oh dear God the house smelled amazing.  As a bonus, I think it was a nice break for Ed, who is a talented, confident cook and baker.  I like that I could lighten his to-do list if only in a small way.

I know this sounds insane, like using the stove and chopping carrots constitutes a hardcore life epiphany, but I’m all about celebrating steps toward confronting my fears, nutty as they may be.

Then again, I did act like a complete ass when we played Aggravation and beat my parents 2-1.  So there goes that whole “maturing” theory.

Grab Your Kevlar: It’s Bullet Time

End of the week mish-mash, yo!

• My poor mother has been in bed with the flu all week.  While this totally sucks, it does mean I get to skip a baby shower this weekend since we had a “I’ll go if you go” pact.  I’ll still send a gift, so don’t get all uppity.
• It’s Lent and I skipped Ash Wednesday Mass but I have given up soda.  This may seem like a lame thing, but lately I’ve been on a bender, and it’s been messing with my energy levels, which in turn fucks up my mood and then I’m a nightmare to be around.  Seems like Jesus would be on board with doing something that is good for my health and makes me a pleasant person. 
• I desperately want to go to BlogHer this summer.  I could geek out and talk to writers I admire (See: Blogroll) and IT’S IN NEW YORK CITY.  I fucking love New York.  So what’s stopping me?  Oh, just my crippling fear of being around strangers and talking to people and whatnot.  Also, where the hell do I get off thinking I’m in the same league as Heather Armstrong or Susan Wagner?
• This may make me a bad American, but I don’t typically get into the Olympics.  As a kid?  Sure.  But not so much lately.  But for some reason this year I’m keeping up and watching events in the evenings.  I mean, the interviews with the snowboarders are fucking hilarious, and curling is oddly compelling. 
• It’s a well-known fact that I have brilliant friends (no idea what they see in me, but whatever) but I’m going to brag a bit about one in particular. Congratulations to my dear friend Cece who has been officially promoted!  I know that her brilliance, talent and amazing performance as interim director sealed the deal, but I’d like to think maybe her wardrobe had something to do with it.  Good work, Lady!
• The sunshine has left and we are back to gloomy weather with forecasts of rain.  Let the collective bitching commence in 3…2…

 

Have a lovely weekend, Kids.  Stay cool.  Well, warm, I guess.

Toss Up

I’m not sure which is more concerning:

That fact that Lane Meyer/Lloyd Dobbler is in this movie.  (Talk about a waste of talent.  I won’t feel bad about napping during that one.)

OR

The fact that my real-life boyfriend wants to see it. 

He’ll have to redeem himself by taking me to see this, now won’t he?

I Cooked Something, We Ate It, and No One Died

Let me preface this sort-of Valentine’s Day wrap up that I am not – even when in the shmoopy throes of love – a huge fan of this holiday, really.  People get so crazy with insane expectations and it can sort of suck out the fun of being romantic.  Plus, trying to shop or eat out anywhere becomes an instant nightmare.  Since Christmas feels like it happened last week and my birthday was five minutes ago, Ed and I figured we’d skip going out (and forgo the prix fixe menus), get each other a card and make dinner and dessert for each other.  Yes!  Brilliant idea!  Homemade gifts are so touching.  Unless they result in a trip to the hospital due to food poisoning.  That didn’t happen in this case, but cooking novice CKD was nervous.

The big winner in the Tell CKD What to Cook Event of 2010 was Miss Eileen and her famous coq au vin.  I have dreams about this stuff, people, and asked her for the recipe a month ago.  While reviewing all the possible submissions (and they were ALL fabulous and easy and sound delicious and will be used at a later date) I settled on this one not only based on its rating on the scrumptious meter, but because the name is French*.  And therefore, it is fancy.  Oh la la!

Ed made amaretto cheesecake.  Have I mentioned that cheesecake is my all-time favorite cake?  The amaretto just seemed to continue the “cook everything in booze!” theme of our meal.  Ah, romance.

Without further ado…photos of our labor of love.

Chopped carrots? Check. Chopped onion? Check. Leftover cheesecake batter that I wanted to eat straight from the bowl? Check.

Two cheesecakes in the oven = my dream come true. Ed gave the mini one to my parents. They love him, obviously.

This made me miss the Brunchies. Oh, did I mention this recipe includes bacon? And everything was cooked in the bacon grease? So. Amazing.

Cutting up raw chicken was probably my least favorite part of the whole process. Ed offered to do it for me but I powered through. Highly satisfying, if a little gross and slimy.

Hello, Lover.

The coq.

The vin.

Simmering now...

Aaaannddd... finally ready to eat.

*Speaking en francais was sort of a theme for the weekend what with the Olympics taking place in Canada.  I’ve either been speaking in French, speaking English with an obnoxious French accent, or talking like John Cusack’s mom in Better Off Dead and exclaiming “Peru!” at the end of every sentence.