yoga, books, movies, tv & too many crime procedurals – not necesarily in that order
Corey Haim seemed like he was in half the movies of my adolescence. My all time favorites were Lost Boys and Dream a Little Dream – where Corey Feldman probably reached his peak of Michael Jackson wanna-beism. I loved Dream a Little Dream SO much that it was possibly the first soundtrack album I ever purchased.
I’ll always think of Corey Haim as the ONE person who was probably actually Corey Feldman’s FRIEND while Feldman was insane. It’s too bad that the drugs got a hold on him because Haim was actually a decent comedic actor.
I was awake for almost 24 hours yesterday which made me a bit cranky by the time I got home. All-nighters in college were no sweat but an all-nighter where you actually have to do physical labor? Not so much fun.
In unrelated movie news: The Runaways really makes me want to see it mostly because Joan Jett and Lita Ford (but especially Joan) were my HEROES during the ‘trapped at the crazy church’ years. Joan was one of the first celebrities I remember seeing who looked like me (ish. If Joan was a Missionette.) – skinny, boy-like shape – but kicked as much ass as I hoped to.
The Ghost Writer looks good and if it hadn’t been made by an unapologetic child-rapist, I’d probably see it. Not gonna lie, the SERIOUSLY mixed reviews of Alice have me not feeling even a LITTLE bad about missing it. Take that Johnny-it’s-okay-now-because-he-has-a-family-Depp. P.S. Having a family doesn’t make it LESS TRUE that he drugged, raped and forcibly sodomized a 13-year-old.
Real runners like to run outside and enjoy the scenery and run for the joy of it. At least, that’s what SEEMS to be the case. I’m not a real runner.
First clue: I like to run on the treadmill. I’d rather run on the treadmill than anywhere else. There are a lot of reasons for this, the first being my Barefoot shoes. Since my last pair of “running” shoes (possibly in conjunction with running on the road) gave me Achilles tendonitis, the Barefoot shoes have made a resurgence. No Achilles tendonitis. Also, no running outside -what with the snow and ice and Barefoot shoes. My love of the treadmill is bigger than shoes.
When I was in junior high and high school I ran track. I ran sprints, more specifically – at one point or another, everything from the 100 to the half mile. Either through lack of coaching or sheer stubbornness, I managed to avoid distance training. The end result is that I have two comfortable speeds – walking and sprinting. The treadmill is good because when I’m running a program it forces me to adjust my stride and speed, which I wouldn’t do running on my own. As a result, I get a better overall workout.
I’m also competitive, though mostly with myself. I don’t like running with other people because it puts me off MY pace (see above) and the treadmill insures that doesn’t happen. More importantly, if I’m tired or slacking I have to OWN it. When I’m outside running, I can kind of slow down and there’s no real consequence. On the treadmill I actually have to admit surrender or defeat and HIT THE BUTTON to slow down.
The other thing that proves I’m not a real runner is how loud I am. If my life ever depends on running through a deserted building or silent forest at midnight to avoid a psychopath, I’m fucked. I sound like a Clydesdale on a hamster wheel. My husband – more than twice my size – runs more quietly than I do. I’m not sure why – maybe it’s the footfall (I run on the ball of my foot) but I’m LOUD. Treadmills mean I can keep it a secret.
Today’s half-assed, almost homemade Mexican-style feast:
2 packages of Old El Paso Spanish Rice (the kind that preps in a minute)
1 value pack of chicken breasts (I think it was 5 breasts)
1 package of Fajita seasoning
2 sm 10 oz cans of RoTel Diced Tomatoes with Green Chiles, drained
1 large pkg (4 cups-ish) shredded Mexican cheese blend
1 can black beans, drained
1 large can Old El Paso Enchilada Sauce
Flour tortillas
So first I made the rice and while it cooled, put the flour tortillas in a 13×9 pan. I put them in propped together taco-style but you could also just make a top/bottom layer probably. I filled the bottom of each tortilla with the Spanish rice
I put fajita spice on the breasts and put them in a pan with a tablespoon or two of vegetable oil. Cook until browned on one side, flip them.
While the chicken is cooking, put the tomatoes and beans in a bowl and stir to blend. Once blended, scoop beans/tomatoes into each tortilla.
Once the breasts were browned on both sides, I took them out and sliced and then cubed them, then putting them back in the pan to finish cooking and added the rest of the fajita spice.
Once the chicken was done, I scooped it into the the tortillas, put in a handful of cheese each, and then closed the tortillas. I had to use toothpicks but whatevs. Poured in the can of enchilada sauce, covered the whole mess in cheese, and baked at 325 degrees for about 40 minutes. When I took it out of the oven, I took out the toothpicks, put them on plates and put on more cheese. Served with tortilla chips.
Dudes, it was WICKED AWESOME. Delicious and since I didn’t use more than half of my chicken meat, we’ll have another pseudo-Mexican meal later this week.
Anyone who knows me knows that I hate housework. “Loathe” wouldn’t be an exaggeration. When I was working part-time I managed to come up with a system that worked and kept the house tidy. When I started my holiday job (in addition to the part-time job) I was working 60 hours a week and pretty much didn’t touch a broom for two months.
Now that I’m down to 40ish hours, I’ve been re-evaluating the system. When I work afternoons (leaving the house at around 1pm or later) I find that I’m actually MOTIVATED to clean in the mornings. I get up, put things away, wash the dishes, et cetera. When I work mornings, though, I get up at about 4:30 am so that I can leave the house by 5:30 and let me tell you there is NO HOUSEWORK HAPPENING. If you’re lucky, I remember to clean up after myself so that there aren’t clothes strewn about the house and makeup all over the bathroom countertop.
The problem with working mornings is that when I get home I’m TIRED. It’s typically been a full 8 hour day and my shifts involve physical labor- not just standing at a cash register. I get to decompress on the drive home (45 minutes, more or less) and then by the time I’m at the house, I want to lay on the couch. Alas, dinner needs to be made and let’s face it, Spouse is the breadwinner no matter HOW many hours I work. I’m cool with the cooking and cleaning being part of my job, I just don’t LOVE it. The cooking is generally a nonissue but when I get home from work, there are invariably the dishes from Spouse’s breakfast (cooking and eating) sitting there, as well as the clean dishes from the night before and probably clean dishes in the dishwasher too. Not exactly INSPIRATIONAL.
This week I decided to do an experiment, since last week’s cleaning BEFORE work went so well. I’m still not going to clean at 4am but I thought I’d do something to help with an afternoon energy boost – enough to pump me up for cleaning and then I could cook and relax. So after I got home from work, I let the dog out and got on the treadmill. It turns out that a nice solid 30 minute run (intervals of some sort usually) gives me enough energy to beat the midafternoon tired slump and then I could clean with the music cranked up. Once I get the dishes done (one of my least favorite things) I put laundry in (once a week) and did a quick run of the floors (every other day). After that, I start dinner and clean up as I go. Once dinner is done, I’m all about the couch – at least until about 9 (when I have to pass out or risk not hearing the alarm for work).
So far I’m optimistic about the new system working. It looks like my morning schedule will be more regular and the run has the added benefit of making me feel good (in addition to keeping me awake).
In my ‘Newest Music’ playlist this month: MoZella – Belle Isle, Ben Folds – supersunnyspeedgraphic, Chin Chin – Chin Chin, Hurray for the Riff Raff – Young Blood Blues, Ladytron – Velocifero and the Glee Soundtracks.
And no, I do NOT mean the Winter Olympics.
Got a notice from Verizon last week that I was due for a phone upgrade. I LOVE my LG ENV2. Love it. This is the phone that, not even two weeks ago, survived three hours in the freezing slush of the work parking lot and possibly being run over by a coworker. LOVE that phone. So I wasn’t really inclined to change when I had a perfectly acceptable and functional phone, right up until a friend mentioned that she kept her really good phone as a backup and upgraded to a new gadgetier phone. That planted the seed. Then I made the trip to the local Verizon dealer to scope out the offerings. The only thing really catching my eye was Droid.
The store didn’t have either droid model in stock (Motorola Droid, HTC Droid Eris) so I went home and checked out gizmodo and cnet and the usual suspects about the two models. I know people love the iPhone and, no lie, it’s a sweet device, but AT&T provides absolute shit service up here – so much that the tourists CONSTANTLY bitch about it. Not only that but it’s not exactly CHEAP.
I got to mess with the display models at the store and while the Droid has some really nice bennies, the slide out keyboard frankly feels cheap. Like plasticky might-break-if-you-drop-the-phone cheap. The Eris doesn’t have the same battery life but it comes with an 8 gig micro card and is upgradeable. It’s also got Google with voice search and sweet market apps and frankly, the keyboard didn’t mean that much to me – especially because it felt like a crap feature. So. Droid Eris.
Dudes, I LOVE THIS PHONE. I spent a ridiculous amount of time finding and discarding apps, customizing the look, and setting up all my contacts with Google so that I can access my rss feed, my twitter account, my gmail, and pretty much everything I love on this phone. I’ve got Pandora, a great calendar (which is shareable) and this AMAZING app called Ringdroid. Ringdroid lets you take any audio file and customize a ringtone from it. It is THE BALLS. I now have a ringtone that says “I swear to god I’m going to PISTOLWHIP the next asshole who says SHENANIGANS!”
LOVE.
So pretty much all my free time has been sucked up with searching for neat shit on my phone and tweaking my apps. It’s sad. I know.
I’m also a good chunk of the way through Middlemarch, thanks to audible.com. I bought the audiobook because I couldn’t bear reading it and it’s turned out to be surprisingly good. I’m leaning toward the test of a good book being it’s ability to show interesting parallels between its time and now ( whenever “its time and now” happen to be). Also (unsurprisingly) it’s full of great social commentary. So there you are. Go classics!
Last night we had a homemade mini-pizza party with post-apocalyptic virus film chaser. It was kind of fantastic.
In TV news:
Mercy knocked it out of THE PARK this week. I’m always surprised by how much I enjoy this show and that they’re willing to be (sometimes) shockingly honest while at the same time (sometimes) screamingly funny. I laugh out loud during every episode and I also see something that makes me think. I love that. One of our friends who was a career nurse ALSO has great things to say about it and that seems to be a rare thing in med-drama circles.
I’ve been working early shifts which generally means going to bed early, but our DVR was otherwise occupied on Thursday and wouldn’t record The Mentalist. I wanted to go to sleep but it was all Cho, all the time and I just couldn’t pass it up. The writers do such a great job on that show – I knew whodunnit as soon as the culprit was introduced but I DIDN’T CARE because they did such awesome character stuff.
Chuck continues to be awesome. Kristin Kreuk is 1000% less annoying than when she was on Smallville and I’m digging the new team dynamic. Having Superman aboard isn’t hurting things one bit.
Castle is consistent and engaging. I found out during the Superbowl that it’s a local-friend fave as well.
I haven’t caught up on all my Thursday and Friday shows yet.
Work is good! It looks like I’ll continue on mornings/days full time. I’ve been enjoying my tasks and team work so I’ve got zero complaints. Life in general is pretty kick ass.
