Currently viewing the tag: "getting to know the mrs."
Step 1: Congratulations! Here begins your meteoric rise to culinary greatness. Start by selecting a recipe. I suggest something that will require at least an hour and a half to two hours to prepare. For example, I chose Williams-Sonoma’s Butternut Squash Risotto with homemade butternut squash puree.
Take a second to get pumped up, and imagine how much better your life will be after you’ve prepared this meal.
Step 2: Make an elaborate show of announcing the mind-blowing meal you plan to prepare.
I recommend giving your loved one(s)–in my case, the Mr–a minimum of eight hours to ready his stomach to receive the gift of pure love in the form of rich, savory food. Stretching is encouraged.
Step 3: Use the enormous sense of self-satisfaction you’re feeling to propel your body to the grocery store, where you will acquire the fixings for your fancy supper. Parade down the store’s aisles like the smug, sanctimonious sonofagun you’ve earned the right to be.
Your strut exudes stone-cold dominance, so people might be intimidated by you. Get used to it. You’re on the verge of mastering this one recipe the kitchen THE UNIVERSE.
Step 4: Prepare the meal according to instruction. Make sure to time the preparation perfectly, so that you are just adding finishing touches when your spouse or partner arrives home. Use boisterous, Emeril-like gestures while chopping and stirring. Too much pride is never a bad thing.
Step 5: You’ve been cooking for two hours now, and even though you’re quite tired, you feel a swelling of pride in your chest as your meal is nearly ready. This risotto is going to be effing beautiful. For a brief moment, you imagine the look of elation on your spouse’s face as he takes the first bite. “He’s going to propose all over again tonight,” you think.
Add the final ingredient–a requisite 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese–with a flourish. You’ve been stirring this risotto for nearly an hour. Your arms are weak, but your edible victory is close.
As you sprinkle in the last few bits of cheese, realize that you’ve been slowly contaminating your meal with molded Parmesan.
The cheese is blue and green, and dead all over. And now so is your risotto.
Check the expiration date. The cheese has not passed its “sell by” date.
The only plausible explanation: This mold is some kind of hell-born monster sent to destroy your will to live.
Your food has betrayed you. In seconds, your risotto is no longer edible–instead, it’s a health hazard. The demonic mold has negated hours of your life, pulverized your soul and now seems to be mocking your dying dreams of an ascent to super-hero status.
Step 6: Begin your crying jag by throwing something across the room.
I chose a spoon, but you’re kitchen is filled with objects sized and weighted just right for flinging, like salt and pepper shakers, and ripening fruit. By all means, get creative with your selection.
Step 7: Greet your spouse at the door as he arrives home, scaring him within an inch of his life by running toward him screaming. Tell him that everything is wrong and the world is over, and launch into 15-25 minutes of ugly crying.
Step 8: After nearly 30 minutes of hard sobbing, you’re famished. Realize that you still have to eat something for dinner, and rummage through your kitchen for food. Find alcohol. Drink it.
Step 9: Enjoy a small pity party on your kitchen floor. Invite your new buddy, booze, because now that you’re a failure at life, booze is all you have left.
DO NOT invite your spouse, because he can’t understand your special brand of crazy. Also due to your persistent claims that he would dine on a giant bowl of heaven, he’s starving, and you can’t afford to be bogged down with other people’s needs right now.
Step 10: I can’t really remember what happens during this step.
Step 11: Start to feel woozy and realize that your best bud, alcohol, is actually poison, engaging in an angry battle with your body and–probably–your already weakened soul.
Decide you’re going to need some food in your stomach to help your body fight off alcohol’s warring advances.
Step 12: Pour cereal and milk into a bowl, adding dashes of shame and self loathing and just a pinch of tears.
Jake, we need to talk.
Can you put that down for a second?
Listen. We’ve know each other for a long time. More than a decade.
Frankly, sometimes I can’t believe how young I was when we first met. I mean, I was only 13.
If I’m honest, I find it disturbing that you would prey on the emotions of such a young girl. So weak and naive. A better man might have recognized how fragile I was and walked away. But my age didn’t even slow you down. And I never stood a chance.
You drove into my heart in your red Porsche, with your shiny hair and your so-called appreciation for awkward girls, and I was hooked.
Cumulatively, I wasted weeks–maybe even months–daydreaming about you in school.
I’m pretty sure you’re the reason I still don’t understand Algebra, Jake!
But did the time I wasted waiting for you to show up on my front door ever bother you? Nope.
You continued to play fast and loose with my emotions. Every time I saw you, you were the same, dreamy hunk, pretending to be looking around for a girl like me.
Well, I’m finally onto you, Jake Ryan.
You’re not looking for a serious girlfriend. You’re not looking for someone who you can love. You’re just playing the role of who you think I want you to be. You’re only toying with my emotions.
I should have seen this coming when you recklessly allowed a drunk minor without a license to drive your ex-girlfriend home, but I was too distracted by your sparkly smile. I should have know better when you never even followed up on the fact that, even though you made said minor explicitly promise not to leave your ex-girlfriend in a parking lot, that was exactly where she woke up.
You’re incorrigible, Jake Ryan.
Don’t look so surprised. And I’m sick of your empty promises.
You’re never bringing me a birthday cake. You’ve never called my grandparents up in the middle of the night to ask me for a date. And if my sister ever gets married, I know you won’t be waiting outside of the church for me.
Oh, the web of lies you constructed. Like a sad little puppy following you around, I believed every word. I thought all I’d have to do to get you to notice me was to write about how I might “do it” with you and then leave the note on the floor of an empty classroom.
Tried that. Nothing doing.
And those things you said about how guys “think it’s cool” if you stare at them? No one appreciates your sarcasm, Jake.
All of that feigned insecurity? The “I hope that nerdy girl likes me” garbage you threw my way? That was the worst. Guys like you aren’t insecure about anything when they’re 18. Young. Athletic. Unspoiled by baggage. You’re m*therf#cking invincible.
What finally did us in, though, was when I found out that you’ve been stringing THOUSANDS of other girls along–many of them even younger than I was.
What the hell kind of sociopathic man whore are you?
By now, I’m sure you’ve guessed that I’m here today to end it.
And you’re right. We’re through.
But there’s more to say than that.
Every time the Mr doesn’t perform a romantic gesture, I think of you. Whenever I feel awkward and particularly unlovable, a picture of you swims across my mind. You’ve destroyed me for other men, Jake. I want an apology. I need an apology.
I know this is a gesture you’re not capable of making, something I’ll never see you do.
But you deserve to know that while I used to consider your unchanging romanticism as warm and comforting, I now see you for what you really are: a life ruiner.
Jake Ryan: I will see you in hell.
Oh, Valentine’s Day! A day when we all fall victim to some kind (if not multiple kinds) of emotional shrapnel.
Here’s something that probably won’t surprise anyone: I’m not really a fan of Valentine’s Day.
At the risk of sounding cliche: I hate Valentine’s Day. I used to refer to Valentine’s Day as “Good luck finding me tonight, because I’ll be face down in a gutter somewhere” day. But it never caught on. (Weird, right?)
I don’t have a special reason to dislike Valentine’s. It’s just a whole bunch of expectations and over-the-top gestures and disappointment for a lack of over-the-top gestures. And I don’t really enjoy feeling like I’ve been set up to fail, you know? I mean, I can set myself up to fail just fine without the help of St. Valentine. So, to me, the holiday seems a bit superfluous.
This year, though, I’m having a hard time being mad at Valentine’s Day, because I have a new friend called the Internet.
You might be thinking, “Mrs, what do you mean new friend? The Internet’s been around since before forever.”
And you’re right the Internet has been around for a long time, but I haven’t spent much quality time with the Internet in years, not since I was in college, back when Facebook was just a tiny baby monster and you had to have a .edu address to play with it.
My excuses for why I’ve been estranged from the Internet barely even make sense to myself these days, but let’s just say I was doing other things. Working-my-face-off-in-a-job-where-I-only-got-to-use-the-Internet-for-research things.
It took me quitting my job, moving to a new town and not knowing a soul to really discover what the Internet has to offer.
Let me tell you a story. I like to call it: How I Found the Internet Five Years Later Than You
Our story starts a few months ago, when I was feeling pretty lonely in an unfamiliar city. Having exercised all of my usual outlets for entertainment (see: watching Netflix, reading magazines, organizing my pantry and composing songs for my dog), I decided to pay a visit to my old friend, the Internet.
*For the purposes of our story, the role of the Internet will be played by a stick-figure robot. You’re welcome (and I’m sorry.)
At first, the reunion was a little awkward. The Internet had changed a lot and so had I.
Of course, I wasn’t completely ignorant to the ways of the Internet, but save for a few YouTube links, my experiences with the Internet in the last five years had been mostly utilitarian.
I wasn’t even sure where to start. I had had some good times with the Internet, but that was so long ago.
It’s safe to say, I had no idea that the Internet was throwing the biggest, non-stop celebration of everything ever.
But I was mesmerized by the glittery good times.
I mean, the Internet was always fun, but five years ago, I feel like it was a lot more relaxed. More contained. Things moved slower.
If you’ve been partying with the Internet for a while, let me tell you from an outsider’s perspective: The first time you catch a glimpse of what’s going on on the Internet these days, it’s hard not to have a strong reaction.
My reaction? I was jealous. Even a little hurt. The Internet had created a thunderdome of mayhem, AND NOBODY TOLD ME! I wanted to party with the Internet!
So, I took a look around to get a lay of the land.
There were lots of Blogs.
And the Blogs were geniuses who had mastered every skill imaginable–cooking, writing, photography, making fun of poorly constructed cakes, telling the funniest jokes you’ve ever heard. You name it; they had done it.
Then, the Internet introduced me to Twitter.
And Twitter scared the bejesus out of me, because it moved super fast–like a cracked-out chipmunk–and I’m still not sure when it sleeps or bathes.
But after a few days of partying with Twitter, I think I kind of loved it. Although, I’m willing to believe that’s just the Stockholm syndrome talking. See, the thing about partying with Twitter is that I never want to leave.
I catch myself thinking, “What if someone tweets something hysterical, and I miss it because I’m brushing my teeth!?! I can’t afford to miss that! I CAN’T AFFORD TO BRUSH MY TEETH!!!”
There were also some things at the party that I recognized from the old days of hanging out with the Internet, like Spam. Which continues to crash the Internet’s party.
Despite all of the chaos, I’ve spent the last few weeks like a love-sick teenager.
I wonder what the Internet’s doing when I’m not around it. I wonder when I’ll get to party with the Internet again.
I look forward to the next time I send the Internet a new blog post.
You guys, I–I think I might be falling in love with the Internet.
Since the Internet has showed me such a good time and mostly treated me like a lady, I’ve decided to make the Internet my Valentine.
Now, I know that not everyone wants the Internet to be their Valentine. I mean, considering how far behind the curve I am, maybe you’ve already married and divorced the Internet twice.
To those people: I’m sorry it’s Valentines Day.
It could be worse, though. Today could be “Congratulations, you’re pregnant with a T-Rex day.”
And one more thing: Just in case you forgot to buy Valentine’s Day cards for your frenemies. I made this for you to share with the people you hate to love or love to hate:
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