Cooking Up a Fire Storm

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all my food/American history lovers out there! This year I set out to cook my own Thanksgiving feast with my roommate and brother. I was excited, I was motivated, I was… not at all prepared for the stress that comes with cooking a large meal. Not just a large meal, but a large meal with such high standards attached. I mean for god’s sake this is the meal when the Indians totally forgave the white man for being real jerks and broke bread with them. Peace was accomplished, bygones became bygones, I’m pretty sure this is where the high-five originated. That is A LOT to live up to.

The struggles started in the grocery store. As someone whose grocery shopping is limited to spaghetti, vegetables and almond butter, I was flustered. I felt like I had never been in a grocery store before. When did those things get so confusing? I had so many questions. Many of which I was too embarrassed to ask of a real person. What if my questions were common sense? What if anyone who spent more than 12 dollars at the grocery store at one time could answer them? Does everyone know if active yeast is the same as nutritional yeast? If Lilly’s pure pumpkin is the same as pumpkin puree? The difference between kosher salt and regular salt or where the piecrusts are?

After we left the grocery store my nerves settled and the ease of Thanksgivings past crept into my mind, surely this year would be the same! I envisioned us laughing casually, nibbling on the cheese and crackers we set out and gently waving an oven mitt over a steaming dish to cool it down. Of course all of these visions were in slow motion because isn’t that how we all make memories? These images clouded the reality that would soon hit me.

The afternoon started out so peaceful and smooth, but it was not long before the fast-paced, high-risk activity of making sure every dish received the proper cook time and attention began. I cannot even accurately put into words the transition that occurred in the kitchen. And probably more likely than not, I was the one who instigated this transition from calm and collected to THERE’S NO TIME!!!!!! Gravy was flying, measuring cups went missing, people were crying! (a lot of the recipes called for onions.) My brother and I had a quick, pointless snap at each other over why we didn’t buy a potato masher. Honestly, I was treating each situation/minor hiccup as if a bomb were going to go off if we did not have each dish piping hot and on the table at 6:30.

But… SPOILER ALERT! I panicked for no reason. Dinner was delicious. We laughed, we drank, we cheers-ed to multiple things for which to be thankful, my favorite being that the house didn’t catch on fire when we burned through a pot while boiling potatoes. Oh, did I not mention that? It’s okay it wasn’t a disaster. Unless you call mashed potatoes that smell like burned steel a disaster, then, yes it was a disaster. But it didn’t matter; we had successfully cooked Thanksgiving dinner on our own! Maybe next year we’ll try to cook a turkey. Or maybe we’ll just buy a rotisserie chicken. Because I KNOW where that is in the grocery store.

Here is our wonderful dinner:



Here is the pot we burned through to make that beautiful dinner:

Home for the HOlidays

For some reason, during my last trip home to Colorado, I decided to get really into reminiscing. It might have been the crisp, nostalgic feeling of Colorado fall or the challenge I had made for myself to stop depending solely on the Internet and TV for entertainment (I’ve been feeling dumb lately) but I started looking through a bunch of old stuff in my childhood room. Okay, fine, the Internet was down. You can really learn a lot about yourself by looking through all your old stuff. And the things I learned were shocking.

Shock number one came from when I decided to check the small trap door under the ceiling vent in my room where I had routinely hid a treasure box. I was hoping to find extra cash, an ironic keepsake I once cherished, or at the very least, a funny note from my youth. But instead I found a (ONE) shoelace and the spare key to the very “treasure” box I was holding. Obviously I was disappointed. But that disappointment was quickly replaced by confusion.

What value did I place on shoelaces to warrant hiding them in the ceiling? Had something spectacular happened with this shoelace and it needed to be hidden in memoriam? It couldn’t have been making a game winning shot in a high school basketball game, because if that were the case I might as well have hidden all of my shoelaces (I was an all-star, okay?)

Why would I go through all the trouble of hiding something if I wasn’t even going to bother locking it? Did I really regard the ceiling vent as the end all be all of hiding spots? As if anybody determined enough to check this ceiling vent should be rewarded with an unlocked box. I mean they obviously put in the extra legwork. Either that or they are our electrician. What if banks took on this same mentality? A bank robber, after getting past security, would find all the cash divided into perfect to-go bags and a getaway car idling in the parking lot. Ya know, because they must have worked really hard to get there.

I guess I can only speculate as to what made this lone shoelace worthy of being hidden, but apparently not a lot has changed, because I put the shoelace and keys back in the box and returned it safely to the ceiling vent to relive this anticlimactic discovery in another 15 years.

After putting away my “treasures” I set my sights on my senior yearbook. And this is where I made my second shocking discovery: my family wanted my high school graduating class to remember me as a ho. There is a section in the Cherry Creek High School yearbook where parents of graduating seniors submit a baby picture and note for their child. In these notes parents usually gush about how proud they are and how excited they are to see where the future takes their shining star. My note was just like everyone else’s except for the extra special, “P.S. Oh I remember her…” signed at the bottom. While some families quoted scripture, my family quoted the famous Steve Carell line from “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” that ends with “…she was a ho. Fo sho.”

I know why the quote is there, it was my brother’s attempt to insert one of our favorite jokes and lighten the mood of what I can only assume was the most life altering transition in my parents’ lives (it is really difficult when your favorite child leaves home). I appreciate the connection my brother was making but the unfortunate reality is that our “inside joke” makes me look like a slut. I mean, “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” was huge when I was in high school; EVERYONE saw that movie. There was no way to utter the words, “I remember her” without someone following it up with “She was a ho!” It’s a hilarious scene in the movie, it’s a fun line to quote at parties, it’s NOT a great way to be immortalized in your high school yearbook.

The worst part, or best part, depending on your sense of humor, is that yearbooks are all about remembering. My note reads like my parents are predicting the future of what my fellow classmates will say out loud when my name is mentioned at reunions, etc. Or in an alternative scenario, a fellow classmate is also reminiscing while home for vacation and upon flipping through the ol' HS yearbook, stumbles upon my baby picture and note and thinks, “oh, wow. That girl must really have been a ho if her parents will so candidly put that in her yearbook. Who are they fooling? We all know the end of that quote.” Of course this person would be someone that clearly did not know me in high school (which is a high possibility; I had a graduating class of nearly 1,000) because I was anything but a ho in high school and that’s what’s FO SHO.

Child Stars All Over the Place!

Because we are huge ballers and love collaborating, my brother, Eli, and I are entering the Dorito’s Crash the Super Bowl Contest. The Crash the Super Bowl Contest is a competition for the average Joe, giving he/she (in our case literally he/she) the chance to shoot a Dorito’s commercial, send it in to Dorito’s executives (I’m assuming there is a division of Dorito’s dedicated to this contest) If they think it’s good enough, his/hers commercial moves on to the public voting stage, if it wins the voting, it is shown during the Super Bowl. THEN if it is ranked high enough among all the Super Bowl commercials, including the pros, then you can win anywhere from 400,000 to 1 million dollars. Any participant can enter up to ten commercials*, we came up with ten pretty fantastic ideas but after some realistic budgeting of money and time we decided to just do two.

Both of these commercials star children, meaning we had to hold the most difficult auditions of all time. We had to audition toddlers, kids and teenagers. I knew that instructing kids would be difficult, but because I’m not the director and because I wanted some extra entertainment, I let Eli take the reigns for the first few rounds just to see how he would handle kids.

Eli talks to children like someone talks to the person holding them at gunpoint: with a very polite, yet terrified, high-pitched voice. His interactions were an odd mix of a business agreement and a psychologist trying to explain to a child why their parents’ divorce isn’t their fault. I can’t really blame him, auditions are awkward to begin with but are even more so when you are trying to establish a calm and fun yet slightly authoritative relationship with a toddler in just a few minutes. I still can’t really wrap my mind around the idea that kids that age even totally understand what acting is. How are they not weirded out or uninterested? Why would a three-year-old do or say something for no reason? Why would a three year-old push over a 6’5” guy who is wobbling towards them in a squatted position, pretending to be a child? The answer is they might not. Kids are stubborn. A three year old will poop his pants to prove a point. I know, I’ve witnessed it.

But like I’ve said a million times: all you need to survive a day with a toddler is a really high high-five. Actors over the age of five but under the age of 18 are a different story. The hardest part of auditioning non-toddler aged kids is finding the appropriate language to use. Especially when you have six-year-olds coming in right after sixteen-year-olds and vice versa. Can you say, “jerk” to a third grader or do you still use “meanie”? Can you tell a child to act “pissed off” or is that like telling an adult to act “fucking pissed off”? Words that are G-rated to Eli and I are obscene to children but G-rated words to us are like PG words to teenagers, super lame and not nearly edgy enough. I knew Eli was having a hard time with the language barrier when he used the word “crap” when talking to a teenager. I have not heard my brother use “crap” in probably ten years. But it was a great choice because “crap” is like the training wheels for swearing and therefore perfect for a fifteen-year-old.

Aside from the kids, I was publicly dreading, but privately hoping for, encounters with stage moms. I wanted the kind of moms that would jump in and audition themselves for the part, but there were none! We had a real mix of parents throughout the day. A lot were clearly supporting their child’s dream, not their own. These kids were outgoing, talkative and truly entertaining. I saw how some people are born to perform.

We saw one parent who could not have been more bored with his son’s amazing audition. He looked like he would rather be anywhere else in the world than chained to this, what I can only predict will be, child star. Well guess what, pops? That’s what you get for naming your son (no joke, only first name has been changed) “Brady Rock Starr.” The kid has two options: child star or porn star. Rock star is out because that’s just repetitive. And there is nothing the music industry hates more than repetition.

A few kids were really shy, wouldn’t talk and clearly didn’t want anything to do with us. This was when I had a hard time believing these kids were begging their parents for auditions. One woman came in with her father (roughly 70 years old) to audition her young son (two years old.) She told us her son was a natural, could repeat anything we wanted and was great with direction, but he would not come out from behind his mother’s legs.

We did what had come to be our “toddler ice breakers” but the boy refused to look at us. It wasn’t long before the mother started talking briskly to her son in Russian, trying to peel him off her leg and turning to her father for some extra help. The grandfather then joined in on directing the child in Russian. I cannot say for sure what happened in the next five minutes, mostly because Eli and I had lost control of the room and Russian was the only language used for the duration of the audition. Eli and I sat silently as the boy turned away each time the mother moved him to face us. At some point we all ended up squatting on the floor where the mom would occasionally push me down to show her son what he needed to do. And because I don’t speak Russian, these shoves came without warning.

After a few more hits from the mom, we decided it was time to shut it down. In order to cut off the audition we had to first establish the language change. Then we had to excuse them based on the fact that the boy only understands, but still doesn’t respond to, Russian. After the mother backhandedly blamed us for her son’s performance (or lack there of) they left.

Two days of long auditions, fake smiles and tons of high-fives later, we have our actors and they are all the cream of the crop. We shoot in a couple of weeks and I’ll keep everyone posted.

In other news, I got another nannying job. AW, YEAH! So when I said that chapter in my life was over. I was lying. But this chapter is much more interesting and financially supportive than the unemployment chapter. I have been in Colorado since Friday for CU’s Homecoming weekend and will be here through Halloween and my m’fin’ Bday y’all. I will hopefully/probably/most definitely have something to blog about in the next few weeks. Hold on tight!

*Do not quote me on any logistics of this contest because there is a decently sized chance I could have mixed up some regulations.

Long Time, No Post. MY BAD.

It has recently been revealed to me that I have bigger feet than my male roommate. I wish I could say this is the first time this has happened, but that would make a liar. And I am many things; a riveting writer, a fantastic driver, friend to all, but I am NOT a liar. It is no surprise to me that I have big feet. It’s a reality I have been living with for years. And unlike most disproportional body parts that children grow into through the years, my feet have been large at every stage. My hands are also large, I can palm a basketball (if you don’t understand this then you should be even more impressed than if you do understand) God, if I was a guy I would have a biiiiiiig… selection of shoes because I have a normal sized foot for a male.

The worst thing about having big feet is the fact (okay, maybe not so much a fact but the belief I cant seem to shake) that it is weird and not at all cute to have the same sized feet as a boy. Especially a boy that you are interested in. I have had to rule out a lot of great date ideas because of my feet. Anything that involves me voluntarily revealing my shoe size is out. See ya, ice-skating, skiing, snowboarding, and his and her pedicures.

I will go to great lengths to keep my foot size a mystery. In college, my sorority had a roller skating date dash and I had to meticulously plan out a casual way to get away from my date and order both of our skates alone, a plan I was especially thankful for when it turned out we were the same size. While he never found out, unless he reads this blog, embarrassment in that situation was not totally avoided. I did have to tell the roller rink employee my shoe size. He reacted normally and emotionless but I can’t be sure that he did not burst into hysterics in the roller rink employee break room later. Trying to explain the freak-show-like shoe size that accompanied an otherwise very normal looking girl between heaves of laughter.

With careful planning I can make some foot-related activities work. But bowling is just out of the question. Having a foolproof way of getting my shoes alone means nothing when the size is telegraphed on the back of each shoe for the world to see. And of course bowling just haaassss to be the only sport where spectators watch from behind.

Someone needs to step up and represent women like me. I’m going to establish a community called WWBAF: Women With Big Ass Feet. And as the spokesperson, I will be a supporter and advocate for shoes that can be passed off as unisex (a special shout out to TOMS for making progress in this field) and stricter security systems at Nordstrom Rack to ensure that shoes are in the correct area. If I have to lunge at another cute wedge shoe only to find it’s 3 sizes too small, and in the wrong section, WWBAF (I) will start a riot.

Good thing I never actually revealed my shoe size in this post and left it to your imagination. Now you all probably think I have size 14. Or is it 12? OR IS IT BOTH? I can tell you accurately it is not both. But like many women in Hollywood who lie about their age, I will always, always lie about my shoe size. Except to the employees at roller rinks, because there is nothing worse than skating in discomfort.

I love (the idea) of football!!!!

The time we have all been waiting for has come; college football season is finally here! This past weekend I went to the CU alumni watch party for the game against our in-state rival, Colorado State. Long, truly kick-ass story short, Colorado won. I was in my element at this watch party. Surrounded by my fellow Buffaloes. It was great to talk about how amazing our college experience was and say things out loud that I am POSITIVE my swagger says for itself.

I LOVE this time of year, though I’ve come to realize that my love for drinking beer and yelling can be mistaken for a love for the actual sport of football. Let’s get some things straight. I could care less about any team other than the Colorado Buffaloes. I could care less about Colorado’s history with other teams. I could care less about Colorado’s odds in the present game. As long as I am wearing black and gold, have a Coors Light within in reach and can be prompted by those around me to yell obscenities then I AM GOOD. I can see how I confuse others when at the mention of college football I ask, “How ‘bout them Buffs?” This is asked not to start a conversation about our offensive line or our defensive prowess, because if those are the topics then, honestly, I don’t know ‘bout them Buffs. No, I ask simply to assert my blind loyalty and begin phase one of my newest project: Tell everyone I ever meet how great Boulder is.

Out of the Motherhood

Well it’s official. I’ve finished the “nannying” chapter of my life and am revisiting the “unemployment” chapter. And while I complained a lot about being a three-year-olds bitch, I’m going to miss that little guy. My time as a nanny was truly a give and take. With each positive came a negative. For example, there is nothing better than a hug from an overjoyed toddler, but there is nothing worse than a sneeze in the face from a sick toddler. In one simple move, a tickle of the toes, you can make a toddler laugh uncontrollably, but with a simple (and warranted) disciplining, you can make a toddler cry wildly. There are always delicious snackable treats around because the appetite of a toddler is ever present, but when they spot you eating your own snack you have to share because the nosiness of a toddler is also ever present.

Being a part-time mother has really changed how I think about a lot of everyday situations. I never realized how fire hydrants are so inconsiderately placed. Um, how am I expected to maneuver my stroller around this fire hydrant when there is a telephone pole on one side and a busy street on the other? Don’t be a jerk, city planner.

I never used to care but I now question whether I cut my food into small enough bites. Let’s be real here, guys; choking is a serious issue at any age.

I am aware of common objects/activities/toys posing a potential threat to a toddler. I surprised myself by how grown up and authoritative I sounded when I snatched a Frisbee out of the air and told the ten-year-old boys who were playing with it that they didn’t have good enough control of their throws to play so close to young children. I felt so accomplished, but it was a completely different sense of accomplishment than I had ever felt in my life. I felt the accomplishment of having just saved this child’s life. While at most I saved him from was a bruise and a good cry, the point is I SAVED HIM from that.

Throughout my time as a nanny I was exposed to some ridiculously annoying, grumpy, loud children. I was very lucky to nanny the boy I did. He was well behaved AND adorable. Because I wish to keep his identity anonymous, I will refer to the boy I nannied as “Mort” for the remainder of this post. The reason for the name Mort is two-fold. First of all, it was the first name that came to my mind. And secondly, it’s actually pretty fitting because he was very much like an old man stuck in a three-year-old’s body.

He had such well developed speech that I often had to remind myself that although he was using big words so casually he was still only three years old. His vocabulary tricked me into thinking he understood complicated concepts but when he would answer me in nonsense, I remembered he was just a child. It was very much like working with a senile old man. Mort would often repeat highlights of past conversations instead of addressing the issue at hand. Our conversations would go something like this:

Me: (after seeing him throw sand) Hey, we don’t throw sand. Do you remember why we don’t throw sand?
Mort: Because… because… We actually don’t throw sand because… I left all of my watermelons in the garbage truck.

Because he did not mumble like other toddlers, and spoke with such intent, it was hard to believe he didn’t actually think that was why we didn’t throw sand. Mort’s clear speech and large vocabulary produced hilarious quotes which brought me some of the most unexpected joy of my life. My top three Mort quotes are as follows:

3. (In reference to the sing-along songs we were listening to)
Mort: “Anna, who sings this?”
Me: “I don’t know, it’s just the same nursery rhymes we listen to every day.”
Mort: “I think it’s Lady Gaga.”

2. (Pretending a marker was a squirt gun)
Mort: “Anna, I’m going to squirt you with ice…and poop…and dog poop… and fire!”

1. (Wielding a magic marker as a magic wand)
Mort: “Anna, I’m a baaaaad guy. I’m, gonna turn you into a dress!”

Not only is it ridiculous that Mort knows who Lady Gaga is but he also followed up this comment by consistently humming the deep and rhythmic “mamamamaaa” from the beginning of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” while I made lunch. Being told you are going to squirted with the two most extreme temperatures and two different kinds of feces is borderline torture and just about the most unexpected thing to come from a three-year-old. And, yes, you are a bad guy if you are about to turn me into an inanimate object.

Ah, memories.

I will forever reflect fondly on my time as a nanny, but I am also so happy it is over. It is time for another environment to absorb, be awkward in and, obviously, blog about.

Crime Watch

I recently moved into a new house that I’m sharing with two other friends. One of my roommates went home to Oregon for a month and the other is set to make his move from New York to LA at the beginning of September. So I have been living solo for pretty much the whole month we’ve been renting. I like moving into new places because you can kind of start fresh; decorate differently and trick yourself into thinking that this will be your first grown up house. The place where you will host parties with appetizers and wine glass charms so there are no mix-ups. But then you carry your beer bong in and store it on the dining room table and you are taken harshly back to reality. The one thing I do not like about moving is having to learn all the quirks of your new place.

For instance, I’ve had to learn that the fan in the bathroom sounds like a terrorist attack, but is harmless. I’ve had to come to terms with that fact that my bedroom door only has a doorknob on the inside; making it clear to NOT go inside if the door is closed because there must be someone (not me) inside. I’ve had to grow accustomed to the squeaky front gate being the perfect entrance sound for a psycho killer, and reminding myself it’s probably just the landlord coming to turn on the sprinklers or his grandkids using the hose to fill up their water guns. And yes, all my concerns about the quirks sprout form a place of fear and that is because living I’ve been living alone for the past few weeks and THAT means I have had way too much time to think. I’m pretty confident that no one is going to break in, I live in a very safe and quiet neighborhood…And I check each door and window three times before I go to bed and use the deadbolt of my one-knobbed bedroom door each night. I’m safe.

The thing is that IF someone were to break in no one would know I was in danger because I don’t think I would scream. I think it’s unrealistic to think anyone can muster something more than a loud gasp when they are surprised by something/someone. I mean I know I can yell. But that is must more in the cheering sense. Like, I’m great at sporting events. I don’t think I would make a sound if I were in danger, most definitely not one of those bloodcurdling shrieks in movies. I’m sitting here at my computer and, for practice’s sake, can’t force myself to scream, and I’m not even paralyzed with fear right now. How could I possibly handle the real deal?

When I share this concern, which is actually much more of an observation than a concern, people tell me that in the heat of the moment, with an adrenaline rush I could and probably would scream. I beg to differ. The only screaming I’ve done off an adrenaline rush was telling an opposing player “I will fuck you up” in the middle of a basketball game. The problem being 1. It wasn’t really a scream; it was more of a low, winded, lie. And 2. I wasn’t in danger. Except of losing a playoff game. My senior year. When we really had a talented team. But WHATEVER IT’S IN THE PAST.

When I was much younger my dad told me that if there was an emergency and I needed help right away I should yell ‘fire.’ Yelling ‘fire’ gets the speediest results because a fire can affect a lot of people very quickly. I really wish that a barely audible ‘oh shit’ did the trick because then I wouldn’t be so concerned about my safety.

Don’t get me wrong I don’t actually think I will be attacked/robbed/or mugged, I have much more realistic things to worry about like running out of gas on the highway and flying. I do think, though, that I would be most okay-ish with being mugged. First of all, who mugs anymore? It’s useless. No one carries cash these days and you can cancel all your cards in a matter of 15 minutes, which might not even be necessary if you only have a debit card and the mugger doesn’t know your PIN. You really could argue that technology has affected muggings the most.

Mugger: (with gun) “Give me all your wallet!”
Muggee: “Okay, okay, here” (tosses wallet to mugger)
Mugger: (rifling through) “Dammit! No cash!”
Muggee: “My bank charges to take cash out so I never do.”
Mugger: (searching wallet) “Dammit! No credit card, only a debit card!”
Muggee: “I don’t want to develop bad credit.”
Mugger: “Fine! Give me your PIN number! Now! Give it to me!” (pointing gun at muggee’s head)
Muggee: (panicking) “Umm, okay okay. Let me think, it’s my birthday…”
Mugger: “Come on!”
Muggee: “I’m sorry I can really only think of my PIN with a keypad in front of me.”
Mugger: “Are you serious?!”
Muggee: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m a little flustered.”
Mugger: (pulling out iPhone) “Here, here use the keypad on my phone.”
Muggee: “I don’t know how to use these touch screens!”
Cops arrive.
Mugger: “Dammit!!”

Now, obviously this is the ideal situation. Honestly though, I think I would be okay with a mugging as long as they leave me my drivers license, ‘cuz, I mean, come on. No one likes going to the DMV. Don’t be a jerk.