YEE-HAW! IT'S BEEN A WILD RIDE, FOLKS!

   Yesterday was the last day of Houston's annual rodeo stint. Lots of trail riders, cattle being auctioned, wagons and horses and bbq (Oh, my!) and singing cowboys.

Did I attend? Uhhhhh ... NO! A very DEFINITIVE no! I'm just NOT a rodeo kinda gal. Never HAVE been. Never WILL be! I love RIDING horses! (Note: I'm pds - pretty darned sure - the horses are thankful my bad leg prevents my big butt from climbing onto their backs anymore.) But just because I don't RODEO doesn't mean I don't feel as though I've been on a buckin' Bronco for about 5 days. Here is an abbreviated version of how just my Thursday through the weekend went: 
Please, note that these descriptions are by no means the EXTENT of my days. In fact, I'm omitting a HUGE part of the craziness and will share THAT in my next post.
 1. Thursday  - taught a 3 hour writing workshop that had been postponed because of street flooding/heavy rain a while back. Came home and worked on a HUGE manuscript the author wants edited by Wednesday. Stayed up ALL NIGHT. 
 2. Friday - played phone tag off and on all day with my landlady who invited us to a Saturday lunch. (ATT had some phone issues early on and our phone was out for about 2 hours. That counts as one EXTRA headache.) Taught writing workshop #2 - also a rescheduled one from the same rain mess. EDITED. A LOT. Cooked for weekend. Edited all night. Again.
 3. Saturday - Taught a make-up craft class at Michael's, went to lunch at a Korean bbq place with our sweet lil' landlady, edited ALL FREAKIN' NIGHT except 10:30- 12 P.M. when my sighted eye hurt so I 'took a break' and scrubbed the house.

 4. Sunday - Taught LAST of the 4 make-up classes - another craft class - at Michael's. Came home and hosted a lunch and Trivia game afternoon with friends who work at Barnes and Noble. (FUN!!!) Early afternoon because they have inventory today and had to be at work at the crack of dawn. PLUS, I had to - you guessed it - edit. Pulled ONE. FINAL. ALL-NIGHTER. The editing is FINISHED!!!! So am I. Whew!

   I feel as though I have taken a NUMBER of rides on a buckin' bronco. (And I was THROWN.) I'm really exhausted. (Understatement.) And guess what we are getting starting TODAY? Heavy rains, probable street flooding. VERY strong winds. BAD THUNDERSTORMS. Possible hail and/or - gasp - tornadoes. At the first SIGN of the bad weather, I will shut down and unplug the computer. (And people wonder why I HATE Spring. Ugh.) 

This doesn't LOOK so bad, huh? But you should HEAR the gloom and doom warnings from the meteorologists this morning! UGH, UGH, UGH!!!!

                                      

                                               HOWEVER ...
... as Ma, from Little House on the Prairie always said, "There's no great loss without some small gain." I remembered her words all throughout the 30 days without power after Hurricane Ike.

NOTE: If I could look like ANYONE IN THE WORLD it would be her! I'm SERIOUS!!!! I've always thought she had the sweetest face I've ever seen.

I crafted by daylight, and read at night by candles and stick-on-the-wall battery-powered lights. IF we lose power at any point this week, I will be frustrated (and HOT 'cause it's yukky-humid here) but I will simply enjoy creating and reading. May even take a cat nap here and there. Goodness KNOWS I could USE a few!

   Yep! These last few days have been one WILD RODEO RIDE. And I could SO do without rodeos, ya'll.   

COMING NEXT POST: Why I Have a Black Eye OR Seniors Gone Wild!

                                        

Take THAT, Benjamin!

Daylight Savings Time. BAH HUMBUG, I say! What GOOD is it? It disrupts sleep patterns, does NOT, NOT, NOT save one red cent as far as electricity is concerned. And - well - it annoys the (okay, I HAVE to say it) DAYLIGHTS out of me! I started wondering what IDIOT had the idea to declare that in a certain month we would ALL happily lose one hour of sleep so that he or she (Ha! I KNEW a woman would NEVER have come up with such a ridiculous idea. We are sleep-deprived ENOUGH as it is!) could stand back from afar, laughing his a** off at us. Soooo, I did a little Googling and looky what I found!

Daylight saving time, a source of confusion and mystery for many, will strike again this weekend. The idea of resetting clocks forward an hour in the spring and back an hour in the fall was first suggested by Benjamin Franklin in his essay "An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light," which was published in the Journal de Paris in April 1784.

                                                          
Franklin's suggestion was largely overlooked until it was brought up again in 1907 by Englishman William Willett, who penned a pamphlet called "The Waste of Daylight." Although the British House of Commons rejected Willett's proposal to advance the clock one hour in the spring and back again in autumn in 1908, British Summer Time was introduced by the Parliament in 1916.

Many other countries change their clocks when adjusting to summer time, but the United States only began doing so towards the end of World War I in an attempt to conserve energy. The House of Representatives voted 252 to 40 to pass a law "to save daylight," with the official first daylight saving time taking place on March 15, 1918. This was initially met with much resistance, according Michael Downing, author of the book "Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time."

"When the Congress poked its finger into the face of every clock in the country, millions of Americans winced," Downing wrote. "United by a determination to beat back the big hand of government," daylight saving time opponents "raised holy hell, vowing to return the nation to real time, normal time, farm time, sun time—the time they liked to think of as "God's time."

Benjamin Freakin' Franklin???? REALLY???? For crying out LOUD! Didn't you have ENOUGH to do, Ben Franklin, without deciding that playing MUSICAL CHAIRS with the nation's clocks was a good idea? You know what I would tell you if you were still alive? I'd put my hands on my extra wide hips, give you my best, "I'm SO disappointed in and disgusted with you stare, then holler, "GO FLY A KITE!"

                                    

YUMMY, YUMMY, YUMMY!

Food. I like it! In fact, if you were to see me in person, all 5'4" of my - gasp - 260 pounds - you'd KNOW I like it. A lot. Having said that, I will tell you all, quite honestly (and considering I am so open about my weight, my age, etc., you KNOW I'm for real - LOL!) that I DON'T eat anywhere near what you may expect. Here is my normal food consumption for four of the seven days each week. The reason I do everything so freakin' early is 'cause I rarely sleep:
5 A.M. - 2 BIG mugs of coffee - with creamer (sugar free) and  1 Nutra Sweet packet
10 or 11 A.M. - 1 Lean Cuisine (I'm addicted to the ease and deliciousness of these - have been since 1990.) 1 individual sized Breakstone low fat cottage cheese (another long time addiction) and 1 Yoplait yogurt. Total calories around 450. Oh - and more coffee - 2 more big CUPS, in fact.
2:30 - 3 P.M. - EITHER 1 cup of 'light' soup OR 1 whole grain bread with fat free mayo and tomato slices OR 1 tbsp. cream cheese, and sliced cucumbers, plus another yogurt.
6 P.M. - a cup of tea or a glass of Crystal Light depending upon the weather.
And at LEAST 2 quarts of water daily. AT LEAST. Usually way more.
   Yes, I'm 100% serious. I do not eat after 4 unless I haven't eaten all day (that happens periodically when I get busy) and then I eat yogurts (sometimes 3 of them) before 6 P.M.! Otherwise, I just drink water. On 1 of the alternate (non-Lean Cuisine) days, for my 10 A.M. meal I make something different: maybe couscous with craisins and pistachios and a teeny bit of goat cheese or a roasted beet salad over arugula, or maybe a quinoa with avacado salad. And on Sundays and Mondays I cook a bigger meal and eat SOME of it, with Ray, my housemate, eating the majority. I'm just NOT a big meat eater most of the time. I LIKE some meat, but VERY little. I do love fish (except salmon - ugh) and could eat talapia, red snapper, or (insert heavenly choir here) seared scallops EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And only once in a blue moon do I REALLY have to have some meat! This weekend I'm making Ray fideo, roast with mole, tortillas, and guacamole. I'll eat a bit of the fideo with some of the mole sauce and some guacamole (no chips.) So, as you can see, my excessive weight is NOT directly food-related. My metabolism is hideous, especially after I took a large (prescribed) dose of Prednisone for nearly 2 years back in the early 90s. I USED to trust doctors. Grrrrrr! It was for the pain affiliated with Systemic Lupus which I have. But it destroyed my skin, my teeth, my hair, and added 105 pounds to my medium build 5'4" frame. At around 160-170, I wasn't petite to begin with. But I ALSO wasn't a hippo. Hmmmmm! I have been off the meds - off ANY meds except for the only one I DO take for BiPolar Disorder. (Yes, I am. Don't be afraid. I TAKE my meds and I'm SO grateful for them!) Anyway, the fact that I have a shattered kneecap which cannot be repaired - another long story - keeps me from doing what I did for 10 years - exercising like a crazy person. I STILL exercise 6 mornings a week, 2 hours each time, HOWEVER it's all upper body and crunches to keep my body's core strong and semi-compensate for my useless lower body. What I do doesn't really burn calories. With all THAT said, I am BIG, BIG, BIG! UGH! And yes, I STILL LOVE FOOD! I DON'T eat chocolate (allergic, thank goodness!) but keep me AWAY from bread pudding. It attaches itself to my butt. And, with all that prefacing (what a chatterbox I am) I thought I'd share 3 recipes with you. (I HEARD THAT!!! You asked, "Is Kai NUTS? All THAT crap was a lead-in for freakin' RECIPES? We were ROBBED!) Two are actually from Tatortots and Jello's recent Weekend Wrap-up posts. (I LOVE  T and J's posts!) Both recipes I have already tried. Both I altered JUST a bit. The third recipe is one I've been making periodically since 1988. It's a West African dish and I LOVE IT! It's rich, hot, and has both meat AND peanut butter in it. I generally will not TOUCH peanut butter. Hope you try, and hope you LIKE at least one of these! 

PINEAPPLE-AVACADO SALSA; altered slightly to suit myself
Ingredients:
2 large ripe avacados, diced small
1 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple, juice and all 
1 small red (or white) onion, diced small
1 tbsp. honey (a little more is fine)
salt and pepper to taste
1-4 seeded (or not - I did NOT seed mine because I LIKE heat!) jalapenos, diced very small
fresh cilantro to taste
 1 nice large JUICY lime, squeezed
DIRECTIONS:
Mix all ingredients in a bowl, cover and refrigerate several hours to overnight, and eat on tostadas, beans, chips, your hands, in your coffee ... heehee ... the stuff is righteous! It's rolling on the FLOOR good. I HATE, HATE, HATE pineapple, but I LOVE this salsa. 
Note: The acid in both the lime and the pineapple keep the salsa fresh and the avacado from darkening!   

The second recipe was INTENDED to be 2 ingredients ONLY. I made it as written for my housemate and he said it was dry. So I made it again and added 1 egg and 1/2 cup of water. WORLD of difference! Here goes:

TWO (OR 4) INGREDIENT CAKE
INGREDIENTS:
1 box yellow or white cake mix
1 can pumpkin puree
As I said, I added 1/2 cup of water and 1 egg the 2nd time.
You also may want to add pumpkin pie spice. Up to you. I did!DIRECTIONS:
Mix  ingredients. Pour into cake pan (I used a bundt pan) which has been well-sprayed with Pam or other vegetable spray. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30-35 minutes. Allow to cool.
   I'm not a big fan of ANY cake but housemate scarfed it down.
   Finally the dish I'm making for NEXT weeknd:

PEANUT BUTTER OXTAIL STEW WITH PLAINTAINS

NOTE: Stop saying, "EEEEWWWW! GROSS!" It's NOT! It's DELICIOUS! TRUST ME! (I told you my WEIGHT, didn't I?)

INGREDIENTS:
Mix of large and small oxtails (Yes, they ARE costly!
Yes, they DO look gross. But yes, they are seriously GOOD!)
2 LARGE onions diced
6 large carrots, peeled and diced
2 large green bell peppers, seeded and diced
a good sized chunk of fresh ginger root, peeled and diced
2 RIPE jabanero peppers (use gloves!) or use a pepper that isn't so hot if you are a big ol' coward you do not like intense heat
1 medium can of tomato sauce plus enough water to cover, not drown, ingredients
1 cup of smooth OR crunchy peanut butter (more if you have LOTS of oxtails)
DIRECTIONS:
Using a big, deep pot (because you'll be glad you did when it starts bubbling) and starting with the oxtails, put everything except peanut butter in pot. Cover completely (again, don't drown - just cover) with water. Let contents come to a good boil, then stir, and turn heat to medium-low, keeping a close eye to make sure nothing sticks or scorches! You CAN add small amounts of water if you really need to. When the oxtails (or, as my housemate calls them, 'oxbutts' - sigh) are super tender, turn heat on low, and scoop out about a cup and a half to two cups of the liquid. Put it in a blender, add the peanut butter (you may need to do this in two batches) and blend it, then mix it back into the pot. Turn off heat.
Serve with boiled plantains, rice, or just bread. It's spicy, exotic, and delicious!
NOTE: Don't be a wuss like I was the first time I had oxtails. LOL! I looked at them with all that fat, and thought, "How am I supposed to EAT this thing?" and I nibbled at it, all the time concerned with making a mess or getting a mouth full of fat. You WILL make a mess because it's inevitable. You will PROBABLY ingest some fat the first time or two. But you'll get the hang of it. I should know! I'm a PRO at eating those suckers now! And I love them! Hope YOU give this or even all three recipes a try! 

BUYING IN BULK

How many of you buy in bulk? I'm not talking about purchasing the 12 pack of Hefty paper towels. I mean buying TEN 12 packs of those suckers when a store has them on sale for 'X' number of $$ AND you have a bunch of coupons you cut out of your weekend paper (plus the ones you got up before daylight to steal from all your neighbors' papers. I'm not saying I'd do that, you understand. But I've actually SEEN coupon thieves!) Those paper towels are not going to spoil because they don't have an expiration date! YAY! And, assuming you have adequate storage, you got a bargain. Sometimes buying things in bulk makes lots of sense! I wish I had a big old freezer because I buy a LOT of Lean Cuisines and I could really stock up when they're on sale.

I also like making double or even triple batches of meals such as stews, Mexican food, etc.! But my little fridge has a small freezer with storage space that often makes me use up all my best cuss words in one fell swoop!
          


Okay! So THIS isn't my fridge, but you get the idea. Mine SUCKS!

 At any rate, buying what you  actually USE all the time at a real bargain price is a great thing. Ahhhhh ... but here's where I fall short. I promised myself something awhile back. Whenever I found myself happily and mindlessly throwing multiples of an item in my cart, I'd stop and ask, "Do you REALLY need more of these?" That has happened in a number of stores. In the grocery store, it's usually right after I've watched some show on the Food Network. The chef has made a yummy-looking dish that calls for 900 different flavored olive oils. I will march my oversized booty to the oil section and start loading up.

Basil - check! Garlic - check! Lemon - check! Roasted red pepper - check! Am I calculating the $12.95 for each bottle? Am I taking into account the fact that olive oil has a rather short shelf life? Huh-uh. Because, by golly, Anne Burrell or Bobby Flay SAID I NEEDED THEM! Dumb a**! (Not THEM. ME!)

I've caught myself doing that with many HAVE TO HAVE ingredients for recipes I printed out and will most likely NEVER make. (I do use lots of olive oil - just not enough to warrant all THAT.) Another unnecessary bulk purchase? White chocolate chips! Really, Kai? Seven big BAGS to make white cranberry bark at Christmas? I really don't EAT candy; it hurts my teeth. THESE were for 'my kiddos' at Barnes and Noble and McDonald's. I mean, I was going to wrap them so cute, too! Stupid!!! You are STUPID, Kai. Not a necessary bulk purchase. THREE bags made MORE than a sufficient amount of bark for everyone on my list with bark left over to create a freakin' cranberry white chocolate TREE! Sigh. Now let's get out of the grocery store and head over to Hobby Lobby or Michael's or any OTHER store which may carry crafty things. Bulk buying in these stores is IFFY at BEST! I do love it when Michael's has a great bargain on their dollar tables. They had paper mache birds, fruits, etc. about a year ago - a dollar each. I bought forty bazillion. I also had to go to Target for two HUGE plastic containers to hold them. Cost? $29.18. THEN I had to find a place in this already overly-crowded craft room. But they DO look cute through the plastic! And I BET I'll use them all up for something by - oh, let's say 2029! GREAT purchase. Bulk shopping at its finest! Then there are the rhinestones and feathers. The question is: How the Sam Houston many feathers or rhinestones does ANY human being POSSIBLY require?

 Even Dolly Parton couldn't use this many of the sparkly lil' things! Definitely NOT as many as I have!

 Last but not least: BOOKS. A picture is worth a thousand words.

THESE ARE ACTUALLY SOME OF MY BOOKS - INCLUDING THE OVERFLOW IN CONTAINERS - IN MY HOUSE. AND THESE ARE NOT ALL OF THEM. SIGH ...

                                             
 These BOOKS are worth a lot more than a thousand words. TRUST ME. Do I NEED to buy books in bulk? THAT should NOT be what I am asking. I SHOULD ask: Do I need to purchase another book in my LIFETIME?  Lest you think I'm being negative about buying in bulk or getting a bargain, let me finish by saying I strongly BELIEVE in stocking up on certain items. But I need to learn to choose my items. Carefully. Sensibly. You DO know what bulk buyers can turn into, right? 

Huh-uh! This is SO not my house! (Yet.)

                                        
Hoarders. Yes!!!! Feather and rhinestone wearing, white chocolate bark covered, book reading, paper towel storing HOARDERS. Be afraid! Be VEEERY afraid! And don't steal your neighbors' coupons! They really MAY need flavored olive oil! 

BACK-HANDED COMPLIMENTS AND PURE OLD DELICIOUS SARCASM

Okay - I'm guessing a LOT of you - probably MOST of you - are not old enough to recall the movie, "A Hard Day's Night" which starred the then WILDLY popular Beatles. Was it a brilliant movie? Goodness, no! Totally goofy, and a means of making money during the frenzy the 'Fab Four' were causing not only in their native Liverpool, but here in the U.S.A. and worldwide. Mostly, it consisted of the four guys pulling silly faces and promoting their songs. They were DEFINITELY not actors, those fellas. However, there WAS one older gentleman who played Paul McCartney's grandfather who THOUGHT he was an actor. During the course of the movie, he behaved as something of a rascal.

McCartney's steadfast comeback to his antics was (and DO say this with a Liverpudlian accent, if you please) "Well, he's a CLEAN old man!" Even at the ripe old age of 13, I KNEW a backhanded compliment when I heard one. Goodness knows, I'VE received plenty of those through the years. Forthcoming examples include but do not come CLOSE to totalling the number. "You have such a pretty face!" (That, needless to say - tho' I WILL say - is completed by the unspoken, "if ONLY you would lose weight.") First of all, DUH! Second, I do NOT have anything LIKE a 'pretty' face so to YOU who told me that over the years I say, "Liar, liar! Pants on fire!" Another one I often heard was, "Well, you ARE smart!" SOMETIMES that was meant as, "I'm surprised you are intelligent!" which is NOT a backhanded compliment, but simply a rude statement. So THERE, you buttheads who said it! (HEEHEE!) Most often, however, it was intended to  buffer the remaining unspoken words, "... because you SURELY aren't PRETTY!" Backhanded compliments are obviously NOT true compliments, but a sly way of being RUDE. I don't like or appreciate them. I much prefer good old fashioned SARCASM! And, believe me, I applaud those who know how to wield a snide, snarky sarcasm! It need not (in fact, I prefer it not to be) directed at a personal aspect of someone's appearance or intelligence. But it SHOULD be quickly delivered and biting. One of my favorites is something Judge Judy (I TOLD you she's my hero) quoted her father as saying when someone tried to get something over on him.

Okay, so it's been paraphrased here, but the original was as I quoted below! Honest!

He'd say, "Don't pee on my foot and tell me it's raining!" O.M.G.! POINTS!!! I do believe I told you how I talk back to tv commercials. I'm absolutely notorious for it! It drives my housemate insane! And I get alllllllll my frustrations out DOING it! My daughter is as fond of the art of sarcasm as I am. She was a natural at it by the age of 8. Do any of you recall the Taster's Choice Coffee commercials? They would show a 'touching' little scenario meant to warm the cockles of our hearts, then fade to black with everyone happily sipping a cup of their coffee and saying, "Times like these were made for Taster's Choice!"  My smart a** brilliant child and I were in a FANCY tea room having a nice lunch one Summer day after having spent the morning enjoying a shopping expedition together. I said, "It was fun having a girls only day with you. Did YOU have fun?" She put down her fork, lifted her glass of milk and, in a sickeningly sweet (and EXTREMELY LOUD) voice, replied, "Of course, Mommy. Times like these were made for Taster's Choice."

Sigh. I'm certainly not planning to humiliate myself by telling you some of my own naughty comebacks or observations. But to give you just a taste of my sense of humor I WILL tell you my all-time favorite EVER sarcasm. On the old TV show Nash Bridges with Don Johnson and Cheech Marin, Cheech won MY award for funniest comeback when he approached a con man, looked him in the eye, and said, "Nice face! Whatcha' gonna do when the baboon wants its a** back?"

BWAHAHAHAHAHA. I SOOOOO stole it. Yes. I blatantly STOLE his line. And - on the SPOT - I crowned him KING OF SARCASTIC REMARKS. I still use that line. Often. Probably TOO often. But 99% of the time I'm talking to idiots in tv commercials. Or people who tell me I have 'such a pretty face'. So, of COURSE, it's justified! 

P.S. Last night I saw a preview of Wednesday's Survivor and heard yet another funny sarcasm. Colton, one of the players, said something to the effect of, "I'm RUNNING this show! And if you can't see THAT, you're Helen Keller!" Oooooh, how I DO love a smart-a**! LOL!

THIS WEEK I'M GOING TO BE A NOT-SO-LEAN, DEFINITELY NOT GREEN BLOGGING MACHINE

WHAT? Who's this, you ask, posting on the absentee Kai's blog? Yep! I've returned to my usual daily routine, refreshed and ready to annoy the living daylights (what ARE daylights and CAN one annoy them?) out of my sweet Bloggy friends! I hope all of you had a WONDERFUL week! Did you? If so, I want details! No holding back. Seriously, I really did have a great time-out from my normal (NORMAL????) life and it did me a world of good! I realized something during my vacation, too! I am a MUCH more solitatary old bird than even I knew. I enjoyed creating aka making my crafty lil' messes, reading a TON, playing with a sweet black-and-white cat (obviously not MINE - sigh) and scribbling ideas on a tablet. Ideas for WHAT? Blog posts. I intend to be exactly what my post title CLAIMS! I also wrote a draft for a short story that's been in my round head for some time. I MISS writing. OH, how I miss it! But I get so busy editing other writers' manuscripts, I rarely have time anymore to do anything about my own. THAT is going to stop. Wait. It HAS stopped! I remembered the days when I wrote, sang, created, watched movies, paused to read or simply THINK at any given time. It was WONDERFUL, and I'm never going back to my regimented ways. (See? THIS time I didn't say ANAL. Some of you told me I should not use that term for myself. I AM anal, of course - I'm a VIRGO, folks - but I will henceforth respectfully refrain from SAYING so.) I'm smiling a lot because I feel free. My house will be cleaned, my editing will always get done, and I will not stop paying bills. (HA! As IF the power/water/cable companies would LET me!) However, EVERYTHING else will be on a 'when I feel like doing it' basis. Ahhhh ... life is gooooooood! Vacations - even MINI-vacations - are better than vitamins! And now I'm going to head over to YOUR blogs and see what you have been up to! I MISSED you!  

OOOPS!

This is the fastest way I have of quickly reaching everyone who matters! Tonight I am headed 'out on the town' with a good friend! FUN!!!! Then, in the morning I am going to my friend MaryBear's until Sunday the 4th! She WAS coming HERE for a couple of days but plans changed, so I am OFF for a week of visiting and relaxing! Hope all of YOU have a great weekend & a super good next week! I'll MISS you!