Mumbling Madly

Saw it first on smarmy but babies laughing is really worth watching.

Josh bought me an ice cream maker for my birthday. I’ve wanted one forever, especially since I kept seeing these recipes for amazing ice cream in various publications. I also wanted to experiment with controlling the amount of fat, preservatives, corn syrup, etc. that goes into my desserts. Ice cream seems like the next step in my low fat ‘cooking’ quest.

In our enthusiasm Josh went out and bought a bunch of imported strawberries at the local Safeway (despite my brief protest that we should wait for farmer’s market quality berries) and we dove in with the hardest strawberry ice cream recipe in the book. We started off with a custard base which involves bringing cream to a simmer and then gently adding a cup of it to a batch of egg yolks. It’s a balance between warming up the yolks and not scalding the milk. Then you have to strain the custard and wait an agonizing three hours for the custard to cool. Our first batch of ice cream took six yolks–we weren’t dicking around. Josh also felt like we need to go all out with the whole milk and the heavy whipping cream as the base. The first round of ice cream was crazy rich with the strange aftertaste of Safeway quality strawberries. The second round I took into my own hands.

I wanted chocolate ice cream…but KNOCK OUT quality. The kind that makes you ooh and aah over the spoon. I wanted fancy restaurant style ice cream…you know the $7.00 dessert you choose over the $4.00 cheesecake. I bought a block of fancy semi-sweet chocolate, I minimized the custard base to one egg and one yolk, and I low-balled the sugar. Basically, I put a ton of chocolate, cocoa powder, a smattering of sugar and vanilla, espresso powder (to make the chocolate ‘bloom’), the eggs, non-fat milk, and heavy cream into the ice cream maker and VIOLA! A concoction was made! My first thought when I tasted my homemade ice cream was: I’ve created a monster. It was that good. I actually had to cut the chocolate with a dash of whip cream and almonds to mellow it out. This was a slightly lower fat version–I had to use up the full fat dairy products in the fridge–and it still tasted dynamite. My goal is to make a product with virtually no fat…which means I might have to cross over to frozen yogurt land. I know, I know, what do I think this is, the early 90’s? Well, all the TCBY’S closed, ok! Josh’s father calls them To Crummy to Be Yummy but my family used to love those frozen yogurt joints. It was a big deal to go to TCBY and pick out your own flavor with toppings–and my DAD actually ate frozen yogurt and he NEVER ate dessert. I realize when you mess with fat content you mess with texture, but it’s worth it to me to construct my own dessert and know my latest food obsession won’t show up on my hips. Stay tuned for more tales of the ice cream maker…

Several weeks ago I diligently called my dental office:
Me: Hi, I need to make an appointment. Do you have anything on Friday?

Receptionist: No. We don’t work Fridays.

Me: Oh…ok, what’s your last appointment of the day?

Receptionist: 3:15.

Me: That’s your LAST appointment? Huh…OK, I’ll need to take work off. What do you have this Thursday?

Receptionist: I can’t schedule in June yet because I don’t have my calender.

Me: Uh…it’s May 29th and you don’t have your calender for JUNE? That’s only in a few days.

Receptionist: I know. It’s my higher-ups. They haven’t given me my June calender so I can’t schedule you. Sorry.

Me: OH…I guess I’ll call back.

So, I called back in a week and got an appointment for 3:15 on Thursday. I arrived fifteen minutes early and decided to sit in my car, in the parking lot, and read a book. At 3:08 the receptionist opened the door and hollered, “Mara?!”

I was so startled I dropped the apple I had been eating (to get my teeth sqeaky clean). “Yeah?!” I yelled out my car window.

“They’re waiting for you!” She yelled looking exasperated.

“My appointment isn’t until 3:15,” I replied, noticing my clock read 3:08.

“No, it’s 3,” She said and went back inside.

I packed up my things and exited my car, pausing to look at my day planner: Dentist 3:15 (Leave work at 3). I felt annoyed. I sat down in the dentist chair and mentioned to the Hygienist that I had been told 3:15. “No one is mad at you,” the hygienist claimed, which I found to be a total lie. This woman was the most passive aggressive dental hygienist I’ve ever met. When she asked me if I wanted fluoride and I said no she said, “Well, you know, you were inquiring what you could do to avoid cavities, next time you get a chance, just swish a flouride based mouth wash around.” I decided to opt for the fluoride. My actual dentist isn’t bad, even though he pronounces my name “Mare-uh” which I HATE but haven’t bothered to correct him because, you know, I only see him every six months. It’s not like I see him every day. After he did his work (patched a little cavity and gave me a seal on a receding gum line), the hygienist plowed through my mouth like a woman who wanted to leave for the day.

After I diligently swished my flouride, the receptionist informed me she had a bunch of paperwork for me to fill out, “This is why we like to have people in a few minutes early.”

“Hey,” I said, wanting to lay it out, “My appointment was scheduled for 3:15.”

The receptionist lowered her voice, “I know, but the hygentist saw you sitting in your car and said, ’she’s just sitting in the parking lot eating an apple!’ so I said I would get you. When we say 3:15 we actually want you in the dentist’s chair at that exact time.”

“I did not know that,” I replied, making a mental note to never bother with this dental office again. “That’s good to know.”

“Are you leaving soon?” The hygientist asked. “You’re parked behind my car.”

So, dear readers: any Seattle/Renton dental recommendations? I feel like I’ve gone the random route before (read: conveniently located near home or work) and now I want to raise my standards. Word of mouth should be leading me to someone better, a little more flexible, without a hygienist who wants me out of the chair ASAP.

Josh has been working 7pm to 5am this entire week and while it’s fun to pretend to be a single gal living it up in my big house, the novelty has worn off. The first few days of multi-tasking, getting a massage, taking class, making jewelry, watching movies has now lapsed into aimless wandering. Oh sure, I’m still making jewelry and experimenting with painting blocks of wood. But I’m a big baby when it comes to sleeping alone, and I look forward to Josh’s return to a normal schedule.
At work I baby-sat a six month old who was charming for ten minutes and then spent a half hour roaring with tears over a stomach ache. He cried until he was purple, he cried until he got the hiccups, he cried until his little fist became balls, his sobs switched to random bursts as I pumped his back with my hand and walked him up and down the wheelchair ramp of our building. Multiple co-workers aided me in the struggle and it was certainly confirmed: he was constipated. Forty five minutes later his mother apologized, saying she hadn’t slept in two days due to his stomach troubles. The batteries were promptly removed from my maternal clock.

A few weeks ago an unhappy customer at the studio threatened me, “I’m a blogger.” She said this menacingly, as if she had already composed a hateful passage about how expensive the baby classes are, how few people were in attendance, and the hellacious parking. This was after I had done everything I could to abate her, appease to her sensibilities, and yet she came in with a big chip on her shoulder and no way could we knock it down. I realized the threat, “I’m a blogger” is a very new millennium insult. From the days of bad mouthing school mates on Live Journal to slandering businesses on the web we have reached a scary age of intimidation. I was hard pressed to respond, and told her, “Well, we’re not for everyone.” Sure enough, a scathing review of our business popped up on several websites. I’m sure I was mentioned but I have no interest in finding out. Of course she doesn’t mention the personal phone call the owner made to try and work it out with her…or how nice I was by helping her carry her double wide stroller up the steps.
In other news, I recently confirmed my participation as a “Freedom Dancer” in a Soft Rock Spectacular premiering at the Rebar in June. It should be fantastic.

I was hanging out, working the box office at the improv theater with the house manager. She’s a super crazy cool girl, the kind of person that makes you want to shed all your inhibitions, take a shot, and start an impromptu dance party. Recently she revealed one of the coolest things ever: her legal name change. It’s so awesome and so funny I just had to take a picture of her license and share it with you all:

Supposedly, her older sister asked her what it would take for her to legally change her middle name to Nippletweaker: “I told her I’d do it if she gave herself a really horrible old lady perm and styled it like a comb over.” A judge denied Vanessa her name change request in court three times until she finally got a judge who mispronounced it Nipplay-tway-ker–which is almost as funny. I think I admire Vanessa’s drive and determination the most out of this story.

It took me two hours to get home last night and twice I considered ditching my car. As you may have guessed Seattle was dusted by snow last night. Silly me, I was still in my Colorado mode, where you don’t even think about snow in terms of anything to get freaked out about. It snowed, you got to work, that’s the mentality in the Rocky Mountains. Josh and I had at least one car that was four wheel drive hanging around; I learned how to pump my breaks, go slow, and watch for snow plows.
We watched an enormous black cloud envelop Seattle in a matter of thirty minutes outside the huge windows of the chi-chi studio I work at. I left an hour early, preparing to take Airport Way and avoid the highway…how foolish I was to think the north part of downtown would be unaffected by Seahawks traffic. I sat on the James exit off ramp for a half hour cursing and swearing and calling Josh periodically from my cell. I finally cut over to Cherry and made the arduous journey uphill in increasingly heavy snow conditions. I found myself terrifyingly creeping up an enormous hill praying I wouldn’t have to stop and be stranded. I’m not great with using the parking break to keep my stick shift car from rolling backward…I usually kill the car and I knew that if I ended up having to stop I would roll right back into the car behind me. Ice had begun to collect on the roads, and everywhere I went there was traffic sitting around trying to get home like I was. All the back roads were clogged with ill equip cars skittering around and the main roads were a parking lot. I ditched Boren for James, I left James for Marion, I slid down most of Marion, pumping my breaks furiously and yelling into my cell phone at Josh, “I’m sliding! I’m sliding!” I finally cut across to Jackson and 22nd, only to get stuck behind a lady who simply turned her car off and walked away! The rest of us had to creep around her car as we made our way to Jackson and 23rd. I sulked inside a Starbucks for fifteen minutes before tackling the trip home.

Once I hit Rainier things became immensely better, the roads were barely covered with snow–although that didn’t stop a cab from driving down the center of the road instead of opting for the two lanes. I finally started picking up speed from my tedious one mile and hour pace and cruised the rest of the way home. There was a point where I was buried in the Central District thinking I was going to pull over and hike to Kris’ house. Kids were throwing cheerful snowballs at my car; good Samaritans were directing traffic and pushing at the tails of sliding cars. Josh was a saint, coaching me through the neighborhoods via Google maps over the phone.

Last night I ate a pot pie and drank hot chocolate and watched the Bachelor with my sister-in-law (who is currently living with us while she transitions to her new job at Boeing). Ice coated the roads this morning so we remained home.

On my way home, several blocks from my house, in the middle of a five way intersection I watched my first solicitation of a prostitute. She was standing on the corner at four o’clock in the afternoon waving and strutting her stuff in tight jeans and a pink tank top. It was the top that really tipped me off because, c’mon, the temperature has drastically dropped in Seattle since the weekend. I sat at the stop sign and waited forever to get through it so I had plenty of time to watch her. I tried to think innocently, “Oh, she’s probably just waiting for a friend or something…and she’s really friendly and likes to wave at strangers.” And then she made eye contact with a guy in a truck and it was ON. He discreetly pulled into the parking lot of an old apartment complex and she took FOREVER crossing the street. Even though she was crossing at a crosswalk and cars kept stopping she insisted on waving them on, “no, no, go ahead!” At one point a cop drove by and I had this eery feeling, like part of me wanted to abandon my third wave feminist nature (that’s largely pro-sex work) and yell, “She’s a prostitute! Her client is right over there! I saw it all…and right by my house, the horror!” But part of me was sort of enthralled in a weird way, like I was watching COPS on channel 13 and it was all about hookers and there I was in the middle of the deal going down.

I’ve always felt that a certain level of permission should be given to grown adults making decisions regarding their bodies. I recently voted against a local inititiative to ban lap dances, increase lighting in strip clubs, and enforce a six foot minimum between dancers and clients because, frankly, I think law enforcement have better things to do with their time. I’m certainly not against strippers making money and men throwing it at them in their spare time…but sex for sale is a little different because of the bad associations with it. You know the rap: all sex workers are on drugs, on welfare, poor, down and out…etc. So, here I am, sitting at an intersection near my house and I’m sort of scandalized that this woman is so blatant. And I’m a little nervous…even though the park down the street from our old crib was supposedly a haven for prostitution (until it got its make-over from Starbucks), we never really saw any of that sort of activity. But then I rationalized, “Well, she’s not really hurting anyone…this is only a block away from the road rage shooting after all…I guess if I had to pick between drive-by shootings and prostitution I would pick the latter.”

That’s right…give me hookers over gang activity anytime.

Yesterday I was pulling out a bag of garbage at my work when the unthinkable happened: the can went with the garbage and than dropped down with force on to my big toe. “YEEEOWW!” My toe immediately turned pink, red, purple, and then settled into a horrible shade of black. The pain was so intense I felt nauseous. I mentioned it to my boss–because, you know, I was injured on the job–and she said, “Oh, yeah, that happened to me once.” I shook it off and went into auto-pilot mode, trying to get shit done so I could close the place up and leave. I gimped to my car and drove in rush hour traffic for forty-five minutes while steadily ignoring the waves of pain and nausea.

When I got home I tried to distract myself with bad television…but it was no good, I couldn’t ignore the horrible pulsing of blood collecting under my tonail. I finally gave into fitful crying, freaking Josh out and prompting him to call around for advice at local medical centers. This proved to be useless, because before advice could be dispensed, we had to prove we were insured with said medical center. This involved being put on hold for along time. At one point an on-call gynecologist from the women’s center contacted me only to say in all sincerity, “well, I guess if you’re in horrible pain you should go to urgency care…I mean, this isn’t really my specialty, being a gynecologist and all.” We finally wised up and turned to the internet and this is what we found:

Home Treatment

• Apply ice and elevate the injured area as soon as possible to minimize swelling and relieve pain. Acetaminophen will also ease discomfort.
• If you have severe, throbbing pain, make a hole in the nail to relieve the pressure. (Do not do this unless you are confident you can do it without burning yourself. Do not do this if you have diabetes or circulation problems.) Follow these steps:
  
  • Straighten a paper clip and heat the tip in a flame until it is red-hot.
  • Place the tip of the paper clip on the nail and let it melt through. You do not need to push. This will not be painful, because the nail has no nerves. Go slowly and reheat the clip as necessary. A thick nail may take several tries.
  • As soon as the hole is complete, blood will escape and the pain will be relieved. If your pain is not relieved by this procedure, you may have a more serious injury, such as a broken finger or toe or a deep cut. In this case, you should see your physician.
  • Soak the finger 3 times a day in a half-and-half mixture of hydrogen peroxide and warm water.
  • If the pressure builds up again in a few days, repeat the procedure, using the same hole.

OK, so I’m sure this is all much easier to read than to actually do…but Josh and I gave it a try. The first attempt, I ended up putting too much pressure and feeling a bad burning sensation from the paper clip. I ‘yeow-tched!” and “aaack-ed” my way through several attempts with Josh using the paper clip and me applying the flame. After calling my Mom and blubbering over the phone she quoted back to me the same instructions above. I decided this was getting serious…who wants to show up to the emergency room with a black tonail? Not me, I’m not that big of a baby. So I iced my toe for twenty minutes, handed Josh a BBQ torch and an unbent paper clip and went to work. My toes are pretty thick and gnarly from years of dancing. It took us many tries, but we worked down a system where Josh would fire up the torch until the paper clip glowed red and I quickly wedged it into the growing hole in my toenail. Finally, finally, we heard a snap and blood SPURTED straight into the air and glug-gluged all over the kitchen floor. The relief was incredible…within seconds my tonail went from being solid black to purple and then a simple shade of red.

My tonail looks like it has a little bullet hole in it or something, but I may actually keep my nail. I know this is a pretty gross post, but I just have to share this amazing technique. It saved me from agony, turned my tonail back to a normal color, and returned my appetite! Next time you squash one of your appendages, remember this post.

I had to dismantle a large cardboard structure today in the little area between the stairs and a cement wall at my work.  As some of you may know, I’ve occasionally had to wake people up in the morning who are sleeping around the stairs.  It really is a nice little spot, warm and sheltered, but it’s starting to get a little out of hand.  It used to be one guy, and I guess he’s a normal homeless guy, a ‘regular’ who wakes up promptly and is polite.  Many nearby businesses have been tagged with spray paint, but our building has been spared largely due to the presence of our sleeping vagabond.  However, this fellow has recently allowed meth addict friends to shack up with him, and this has started to get creepy.  They sleep behind mounds of cardboard so that, for a little while, I didn’t even notice them in the morning.  Today they left a bag of stale bread in the parking lot which was attracting a huge amount of birds.  The owner’s begged me to don gloves and go out and remove the bread and put the cardboard out for recycling.  What the hell…I’m trying to score points at work and the situation is becoming a bit of health hazard.  I actually didn’t find anything too incriminating in the cardboard, just lot’s of cigarrette butts and garbage.  I have to admit: I felt bad when I threw a toothbrush away.

Somebody has made the horrible mistake of giving the neighborhood kids a recorder…and I don’t mean a tape recorder, I mean the terrible wooden clarinet looking thing that one blows into to produce sound. The kind of recorder that is now passed out in droves to small children as they line up in groups and play Hot Cross Buns or something easy. Only the kids two houses down aren’t playing the recorder they’re painfully blowing in and out of it and producing a sound similiar to a canary being squeezed repeatedly and painfully.
This morning, at eight o’clock, I briskly walked the four blocks to my new work from the bus stop…as I approached our parking lot I saw a huge mass of what appeared to be tarps and blankets piled against our front door. My first thought was that whoever closed last night was unable to officially put the party rental stuff away and left it in a disheveled heep outside. “What IS all that?” I thought to myself as I approached, squinting to make out the folds and creases of fabric, and then I totally and completely gasped: It was a sleeping man. I’m sure many of you predicted this before I wrote it, but I was totally and utterly shocked. I was in a quandry: Do I wake him up? What if he’s surly and mad in the morning? Do I call the non-emergency police number and ask them to wake him up for me? Should I call Josh? Do I ask someone walking by if they wouldn’t mind helping me wake this guy up? I decided to call my boss on her cell phone. I took a few steps back, just to give us some distance, and I fumbled forever trying to find her number. Of course, she didn’t pick up, and I was stuck wondering what was the next step. Luckily, the blankets rustled and started moving and the guy woke up. I cautiously approached, just when the man was wiping his eyes and yawning.
“I have to open the store,” I said lamely.
“Oh,” the homless man said, “I usually wake up when I hear cars…”
“Well, I take the bus,” I explained, and then I generously offered, “I’ll be here opening up at eight every morning.”
The guy nooded amicably and started shuffling around, “Well what are you waiting for?” he said.
“Uh, I’m waiting for you,” I realized I was staring.
“Oh, well, here,” He moved his feet out of the way, “You might as well go in and open up while I clear out.”
I gingerly stepped over his sleeping bag and quickly unlocked the front door. While I mopped the studios, I kept an eye at the front door and noticed that it took a good fifteen minutes for the man to fold up all his gear and leave. Overall, he wasn’t belligerant, but the incident made me feel weird. Turns out, he regularly sleeps in front of our door, he’s just usually out by seven according to the owners. When I told Josh about this he reminded me, “Well, you were the one who wanted to move back to the city…”