I Am Woman; Hear Me Snore: Part Two

Ian: "We really need to keep cooking dinner every night."

Laura: "But I'm so tired after work. The last thing I want to do when I'm exhausted and starving is spend an hour cooking dinner."

Ian: "We can't just eat out every night."

Laura: "I used to cook dinner every night when I lived in my apartment. Except I was so hungry, I'd eat a huge bowl of cereal first. Then I'd cook an actual dinner. That's like 6,000 calories. I got really fat."

Ian: "If we have kids, we'll have to cook."

Laura: "Whatever. Once the kid outgrows baby food, I'll give her dog food."

Ian: "Gross."

Laura: "She'll get an Alpo sandwich every day for lunch. On wheat bread."

Ian: "Naw, you'd giver her an Alpo sandwich on two slices of cardboard."

It's gourmet!

Laura: "And then the kid will have permanent dog food breath so her teacher will call Child Protection Services."

Ian: "This is awful. We shouldn't joke about this."

Laura: "The kid will be fine. Purina offers all the vitamins and minerals a growing puppy needs."

................................................................................................

I Am Woman; Hear Me Snore: Part One is here.

The Sad Story of Jessup Hush'up

The Tuesday after we married, Ian brought home three hens and a rooster. His co-worker had a friend who needed to get rid of all four birds, and Ian had agreed to take them.

Being a responsible pet owner, I scurried to prepare for the new birds' arrival:

Laura: "We'll name the hens Maybelle, Caroline, and Polly. And the rooster shall be Jessup."

I knew we had entered troubling times when I pulled into the driveway that evening and immediately heard the ear-piercing sounds of the rooster crowing.

The rooster crowed non-stop. I'm talking every ten seconds. I walked to the backyard and stared at the monstrous chicken:

Laura: "That thing's gotta go."

Ian: "He's been crowing all day. All day. He never stops. I thought he might slow down once he settled in. But he keeps crowing."

Laura: "Jessup's full name is Jessup Hush'up."

We attempted to hush up Jessup by covering his cage and placing him in the barn. Jessup continued to send his crows blaring through the neighborhood.

Ian: "I keep waiting for the neighbors to call the cops. Should we kill him?"

Laura: "We have to. Loud roosters are prohibited. We can't let him crow all night."

Ian: "Are you sure we want to kill him?"

Laura: "We can either slaughter him now, as humanely as possible, or we can wait until two in the morning when I'll stamp outside, all sleep-deprived and pissed off, and kill him in a murderous rage. We should do it now."

Neither of us have a natural inclination to kill chickens. We picked up Jessup and stared at him and tried to work up the nerve to turn him into dinner.

I was too squeamish to watch, so Ian carried out the task. Through the flurry of feathers and chicken blood, I contributed by making encouraging comments:

Laura: "The honeymoon ends so quickly. One minute you're marrying the man of your dreams and the next you're watching him execute a chicken."

After Jessup breathed his last breathe, we stuck the him in boiling water for ten seconds and then plucked the feathers.

I read instructions aloud from Google on how to gut a chicken, but by the time I reached the section entitled, "How to Disembowel Your Chicken: Ten Easy Steps to Removing the Anus," we decided we only wanted the legs.

Ian chopped off the legs and some of the breast and disposed the rest of the carcass in the trash.

Ian: "Keep your voice down. The neighbors will wonder what the hell we're doing."

Laura: "WHAT'S THAT, IAN? YOU WANT TO HIDE THE BODY IN THE BARN?"

Ian seasoned the meat with chili powder and sea salt and stuck it in the oven. After it cooked, he ate the chicken breasts.

Laura: "Is it good? What's it taste like?"

Ian: "It tastes like chicken."

Laura: "Wow!"

Ian: "Aren't you going to eat some?"

Laura: "Gross. No."

The legs were overcooked and dry, so Ian and the dog split up the rest of the chicken meat.

Ian: "Winnie loves this stuff. She's begging for more... She's gonna fart blood tomorrow."

Laura: "There's a chicken demon in your stomach. But you made that entire meal, from start to finish."

Ian: "I don't know whether to feel ashamed or proud. I guess Jessup's in a better place now."

And he was.

Fat Larry's Barbeque

My brother writes a blog in which he reviews barbeque and soul food restaurants in the city: http://memphisque.blogspot.com/

On Monday night both Ian and I felt stressed from work, so I insisted we eat barbeque. Because that's what stressed out people should do, apparently.

Here's my own barbecue review (and obviously you should check out my brother's blog for real reviews).

Fat Larry's is a visually terrifying place: very dark and creeping with portraits of Gothic pigs and stuffed boar heads. Some would call it "kitschy." It has all the marks of an authentic barbeque place:

Ian: "I'm scared."

Laura: "Me too."

I'm allergic to pork and eating it makes me violently ill. I dearly miss pulled pork sandwiches, so I try to replicate the barbeque experience by ordering barbeque chicken.

Usually this merely serves to anger me since pulled pork tastes fifty million times better than chicken. Chicken is the blandest, driest, weakest meat in the world. Chicken is sissy food.

Ian ordered fried chicken tenders with french fries. I wouldn't consider that sissy food. Those chicken tenders had "hypertension" written all over them, so you could argue it took some guts to eat them.

As for my food, our waitress plunked down a platter with a small hen basted in a radioactive red sauce. Fat Larry doesn't "do" sissy food. Fat Larry ensures his baked chicken is a manly feast fit for a man.

I didn't like the smell of the radioactive red sauce, let alone the taste. It tasted, well, manly. Ian sniffed the chicken and proclaimed it an ordinary-smelling chicken.

The barbeque beans were delightful. They reminded me of home... Of a time past... Of better days... Then I realized the beans included chunks of pulled pork. I hadn't eaten that magical food in years.

I slurped the beans down, realizing I would suffer later. The slaw seemed good, probably because it was the only foodstuff that wouldn't destroy me.

By the end of the meal, I still had an entire chicken sitting on my plate. I got a to-go box, but here's something else: our refrigerator is currently broken. And when I say currently, I mean permanently.

Laura: "We can't preserve this chicken. I should just throw it away."

Ian: "No, let's take it. I'll eat it in a dark room when you leave to walk the dog. So I can be alone with my shame."

Laura: "No! I won't let you! You already ate four deep-fried chicken tenders and a basket of fries! You'll hurt yourself!"

Ian: "It's for the greater good."

Ian can't stand to waste food. I knew it would be tough to argue him down.

Upon arriving home, I went to the bedroom for a second and then returned to this gruesome sight:

Laura: "Ian! No! It's not worth it! SAVE YOURSELF."

Ian: "You should have thought of this before you dragged us to a place called Fat Larry's."

Ian continued to rip through the chicken, a man determined to press through the pain.

Laura: "Please stop! I CAN'T WATCH ANYMORE."

After Ian ravaged the chicken, he staggered out to the barn, drunk on excessive poultry. He fed our chicks their dinner, with the smell of chicken still on his hands, to "let them know who's boss."

Then he collapsed on the bed and fell asleep.

Meanwhile I walked the dog, fighting stomach pains and acid reflux caused by the pulled pork I'd consumed.

Ultimately, our night at Fat Larry's left us feeling ashamed and weirdly drunk. I'm not sure I can recommend this restaurant. I mean, the food is good, but the place itself made us mildly insane.

I suppose it would make for a good restaurant if you were craving a night of feeling disturbed and unsettled. It was like a watching a scary movie, except we were in it.

Tread carefully at Fat Larry's, my darlings.

Yes, Please

My mother is a peculiar creature. She has a nursing degree, years of experience in the medical field, a stick-thin figure, and an avid belief in eating appropriate-sized food portions.

But, that's just her. As far as she's concerned, the rest of the world needs more fun-sized Snickers bars in their lives. Pronto.

My mother crams her kitchen with jars of seasonal-colored M&Ms, baskets of fun-sized candy bars, and bags upon bags of sugary shit you haven't seen since you were five years old.

Remember Dum Dums?

Gelatin orange slices?

Candy corn?

Laffy Taffy?

Licorice?

Tootsie Roll Pops?

All manner of diabetes death traps sit on her kitchen counters. Candy greets you the moment you enter the door.

Laura: "We need to run to my parents' house for a minute. Is that okay?"

Ian: "Sure. I can eat candy. I hope your mom still has those gelatin orange slices. And Butterfingers. Oooo, and candy corn."

Laura: "I'm sure she will. She never eats that candy. I swear, she's trying to bait children so she can steal them and raise them."

My mom feels a twinge of sadness that her children have grown up and moved out of the house. She makes up for it by cooking fatty meals for us whenever we visit.

Laura: "We're eating dinner with my parents tonight, remember?"

Ian: "Cool."

Laura: "She's making corn casserole so, you know, prepare yourself."

Ian: "That stuff's The Shit. I'm going to hate myself tonight, aren't I?"

Laura: "Yes. As will I. She uses an entire stick of butter in that thing. Plus, she adds cornbread made with honest-to-God, pioneer-authentic lard. Lard, Ian. And we both know we'll eat the whole casserole. Remember when the two of us ate that entire rotisserie chicken? "

Ian: "Your mom must look at me and think, "Ian's a poor scrawny boy. He needs more ham."

Laura: "That reminds me. Mom's cooking a ham tonight."

Ian: "She's making me fat, Laura."

Laura: "It's her mission in life. Have you seen the size of her pets? Her cats look like beach balls."

Ian: "Seriously, I'll eat an entire plate of food, and then your mom will ask, 'Would you like more ham, Ian? More potatoes? More salad? More cheese ball? More brownies?' And I always say, 'Yes, please.' To all of it. It's a sickness."

The fun extends to Winnie. When Winnie spends a day with Grandma, she devours bacon, chips, crackers, tuna, bits of steak, meatloaf, and, in all honesty, probably an entire damn cheese wheel.

My cries of, "No table food, Mom! No table food!" fall on deaf ears.

After an entire weekend with my mom, Winnie has been know to lurch miserably to my car.

At home, she'll lie around listlessly, until I scoop her up and run her into the bathroom, just in time for her to hork up a garbage can's worth of food.

We just consumed a combined 14,000 calories at Laura's mom's house, and we think we're going to die.

No, really, this is the face of despair... man, that ham was good.

I Am Woman; Hear Me Snore

I am terrible at playing housewife. For one, I never cook. I also find cleaning house tiresome after working a 40 hour week.

I mean, God, people. How am I supposed to find time to Google pictures of hot, obscure rock stars (hellooooo, Win Butler) and watch blurry Youtube clips of South Park (despite having every single South Park episode in high definition) if I spend my free time cooking and cleaning?

It's called priorities, you know?

I consider myself an "eleventh-wave" feminist. Basically, I cherry-pick my feminist sensibilities based on whatever conveniences me.

You see, I can wear make-up and put dresses on the dog and yell for Ian to kill the slug in the bathtub, because as an eleventh-wave feminist, I embrace my femininity.

I am female, dammit! I don't burn bras; I love bras! I celebrate gender differences! I am soft and emotional! I am womanly! I do womanly things!

But the minute talk of cooking comes up? Like, cooking actual meals? OH, HELL NO. I AM A FEMINIST, AND I DON'T DO THAT SHIT.

Ian: "I always cook. You haven't cooked a single meal since I've been with you."

Laura: "You are correct."

Ian: "You don't even try to deny it!"

Laura: "Why would I try to deny it? I don't cook."

Ian: "What if we have kids? Would you feed them macaroni and cheese every night for dinner?"

Laura: "And chicken nuggets from the microwave."

Ian: "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Laura: "Shut up; it's protein."

Ian: "I think I'm going to have issues with this."

Laura: "I'd nuke a can of corn, too. We can tell the kids corn's a vegetable, even though it's a grain."

Ian: "I'm not sure that's going to work."

Laura: "Hey, I can make milk. Have you seen how awesome these things are?"

Ian: "No complaints here."

Laura: "I'll breastfeed until the kid's 5 or 6. Then he can go on the reduced lunch program at school. And the reduced breakfast program. They make breakfast, too."

Ian: "............ I think I'm going to have issues with this."

Laura: "I bet I can make enough milk for you, too."

Ian: "Wouldn't breast milk taste bad?"

Laura: "No. I've read it tastes sweet. You'd love it."

Ian: "It's too bad you can't blog about this."

Laura: "Or can I?"

Ian's Birthday

Ian's birthday was last week. We felt pretty psyched about it.

We had made plans with Ian's mom to meet at the Botanical Gardens in Alabama.

We awoke at 5:00am on Friday morning, Ian's actual birthday, to go meet Ian's mom. We dropped Winnie off with my parents and drove into the ritzy town across the way, as directed by Google Maps.

Suddenly, we saw blue lights flash behind us.

Ian: "I'm being pulled over."

Laura: "Why? You weren't doing anything wrong."

Ian: "I know. I'm confused."

A young, bleached blonde man strode over to Ian's window.

Bleached Blonde Cop from Rich People Land: "Do you know why I pulled you over?"

Ian: "No."

Bleached Blonde Cop from Rich People Land "You went straight in a turn-only lane."

Ian: <Baffled>

Bleached Blonde Cop from Rich People Land: "Are you from here?"

Ian: "No."

Bleached Blonde Cop from Rich People Land: "Do you know where our court house is?"

Ian: "No."

Bleached Blonde Cop from Rich People Land: "Here's your ticket."

Ian: "Thanks?"

Bleached Blonde Cop from Rich People Land: "Do you know where our court house is?"

Ian: "No."

Bleached Blonde Cop from Rich People Land: "..........."

Needless to say, Ian felt a little angry.

Ian: "He didn't even say happy birthday."

We motored on. Google Maps had indicated a three and a half hour trip.

Google Maps was mistaken. The drive lasted five hours.

At the gardens, we spent the day strolling the grounds with Ian's lovely mom. We basked in the surprisingly pleasant weather and considered our luck changed. We bid farewell to Ian's mom at 3:30 and drove towards home, confident in a simple trip back.

Five Minutes Later 

We found ourselves in bumper-to bumper traffic, ensnared in an ocean of cars, going at a snail's pace.

Thirty Minutes Later 

We passed the wreck that was holding up traffic and got back on our way. Hooray!

Forty Minutes Later 

Laura: "What should we eat for dinner?"

Ian: "Mexican food? I saw a ton of Mexican restaurants on the way here."

Laura: "Okay!"

One Hour Later

We saw zero Mexican restaurants. Our route was a wasteland of McDonald's and Wendy's and Burger King's. But no Mexican restaurants.

Ian: "I must have been dreaming when I saw all those Mexican restaurants. I'm starving."

Laura: "Me too."

Twenty Minutes Later 

Ian spotted a Mexican restaurant. Yay! It's in the scariest part of town on the scariest road in Alabama, but we can eat!

Ian: "I bet someone steals my hubcaps while we eat."

Laura: "Do you hear that? A little dog barking? In that building. Wait... Oh my god! There are two dozen Chihuahuas in there! And they're going ballistic!"

The Chihuahuas were housed in a dark, blank building directly next to the Mexican restaurant.

Laura: "Is that a Chihuahua puppy mill?"

Ian: "The restaurant probably owns them and uses them for food."

Laura: "Eww. What's this place called?"

Ian: "El Parian."

Laura: "That must be Spanish for 'fried Chihuahua'."

We walked into the restaurant and gratefully ordered dinner.

Then the food came.

Laura: "I had no idea food could taste this bad."

Ian: "They have a buffet table for lunch. I bet they reheat the old buffet food for dinner."

Laura: "This stuff would make great diet food. Because nobody would ever eat it."

The restaurant's decor was, well, colorful.

Ian: "Don't ask why, but I feel the distinct need to take a photo of you right now."

Laura: "Toucan Sam and his sugary gang are staring me down. I feel funny inside."

We left the restaurant feeling queasy and more suspicious of the Chihuahuas next door.

But, we were on our way home! Home! We could put this awful car ride behind us!

One Hour Later 

Ian: "Does any of this look familiar?"

Laura: "Not really. But then, everything has looked the same on this trip. Sorta redneck meets Twister. I can't tell if it looks familiar or not."

Ian: "I think we're lost."

Laura: "How can we be lost? It's a straight shot down 72, and we've been going straight on 72."

Ian: "What road are we on?"

Laura: "Umm. Highway 13. Highway 13?"

Ian: "I must have missed a turn."

Laura: "How could you miss a turn? We're meant to go straight for a million miles. The only way we could be lost is if you had suddenly made a U-turn and driven in the opposite direction."

Ian: "That's true. We must be on the right path."

Two Hours Later 

We were not on the right path. We had been barreling forth in the wrong direction for hours.

We were deep into Deliverance country, following the sounds of banjos, the stench of hard liquor, and the screech of the weekly chicken fight.

Ian: "Oh my god, we're in Jasper. How the hell did we end up in Jasper? We drove hours out of our way! @#$%^&*()_++_)(*&^@#$%^&*()#$%^&*(@#$%^&*($%^&*()!@#$%^&!"

One Hour Later

Laura: "Hi, Dad. Remember how I said we'd be home by 6? And then I said we'd be home by 9? Umm, well, we should be home by 1:00 a.m. Hopefully."

Dad: "Are you lost?"

Laura: "Not anymore."

Dad: "Okay. Winnie can spend the night with Mom and me."

Laura: "Thanks."

Ian: "@#$%^&*()@#$%^&*()!@#$%^&*()."

One Hour Later

We drove into Memphis. We were met by unholy construction and a snare of cars and semis.

Ian: "@$#^%%*(&$#^%&(()&**&^#@$*@$#@$$$#@^%$."

Fifteen Minutes Later

We got lost in downtown Memphis.

Ian: "$#!@^$&*()*(^%$#&)&@%$#!%#@!%$#^%$#."

Ten Minutes Later

We arrived home.

And it was the best birthday ever.

Happy Birthday, Ian!

When the Dairy Queen Gave up Dairy: My Attempt at a Food Blog

Food blogs are all the rage these days, so I thought I'd rip them off to gain more viewers. Unfortunately, I'm of distinctly English and Scottish heritage, with only a tiny bit of Native American thrown in for street cred.

What does that mean? I'm white. Very white. And very white people must eat very bland foods.

My DNA is coded to destroy me if I eat anything other then sad boiled chicken or sad boiled potatoes. Everything else wreaks havoc on my stomach.

Here's a list of foods I enjoy but have proven destructive to my Celtic DNA.

Pork:

Being a Very White Person often means suffering from Very Bad Allergies. I have severe allergies to anything in nature. Nature= Bad. Micro-biologically Sterile Environment= Good.

At age 20, I underwent allergy testing and results showed I was allergic to everything on the planet.

My results also showed an unmistakable allergy to pork. Pork causes acid to surge through my chest, my throat to swell, and my stomach to ache.

As a child, I ate a lot of ham sandwiches and pulled pork. I also experienced frequent stomach aches.

When I was Five:

Laura: "Mommy, my stomach hurts."

Mom: "Your stomach always hurts. It's psycho-somatic. It's all in your head, darling."

Laura: "But my stomach really, really hurts."

Mom: "Nonsense. Here. Eat some ham."

Fifteen Years Later: 

Laura: "Guess what? The allergist said I'm allergic to pork. I wasn't faking illness for the past fifteen years! I have definitive medical proof!"

Mom: "Oh. Well, live and learn."

Laura: "You were essentially poisoning me as a child! Munchausen by proxy!"

These days, I only eat pork by accident.

Ian and I sometimes buy Kroger sandwiches for dinner. We always want turkey. Unfortunately, Kroger doesn't label their sandwiches.

Laura: "Yay! A turkey sandwich! I shall soon alleviate my hunger!"

Ian: "Yay! My sandwich came with Cool Ranch Doritos instead of Double Cheese Cheetos!"

Laura: <Eats half the sandwich, ignoring weird taste> Wait a second. Does this turkey look pink to you?"

Ian: "Yes."

Laura: "Oh no. Is this ham? This is ham, isn't it?"

Ian: "Yes."

Laura: <Undergoes 24 hours of intense acid reflux and stomach pains. Takes 16 extra-strength Pepcid AC pills, 8 regular strength Zantac pills, and unknown quantities of Pepto-Bismol>

Ian: "Are you chugging Pepto-Bismol?"

Laura: "Yes."

Peanuts, Walnuts, Cashews, Pecans:

The allergist also confirmed I'm allergic to a variety of nuts. Despite my allergy, I often eat nuts. (That's what she said, y'all!). 

Nuts don't provoke such a severe reaction. It's more irritating than painful. Usually.

One time, my co-worker, upon cleaning out her desk, offered me an old bag of glazed cashews, thickly coated in a gunky pomegranate and vanilla crust.

They were nuts. They were expired. And they were free. Did I take them? Hell yes.

The bag was still nearly full. Despite my nut allergy, and clearly void of any common sense, I ate almost an entire bag of rancid cashews.

I had to use two full sick days from work afterwards.

Dairy:

I love dairy. A few months ago, I was consuming vast amounts of milk and cheese and yogurt.

I clung to the school of thought that good nutrition springs from "everything in moderation." Do you want to eat french fries and ice cream and doughnuts and cheeseburgers? Go ahead! Eating everything in moderation is part of a healthy diet!

So I consumed plenty of dairy. It's got it's own square in the Food Pyramid! It's healthy! The government said so! When has the government ever lied? It's healthy! EVERYTHING IN MODERATION! GOT MILK?

The dairy did something. Something...splotchy. It made me break out like a hormonal 13-year-old. I couldn't figure out why I was suddenly perusing the zit-control aisle at Walgreen's: I'm a 25-year-old adult, damn it.

Then, one day, I chanced upon a New York Times article on the link between dairy consumption and acne.

And I was all: light bulb! I cut out cheese and yogurt from my diet and switched from cow's milk to almond milk. My skin cleared up within a couple of weeks.

Still, I adore dairy. And I'm weak. Occasionally, I'll eat a yogurt parfait for breakfast. (Everything in moderation!). Inevitably, my skin revolts.

Ian: "Do you want to go get food?"

Laura: "I can't go in public. I look like I'm on meth."

Ian: "No, you don't. I mean, kind of. You still look beautiful. You're always beautiful."

Laura: "Even when I look like a meth head?"

Ian: "Yes."

Laura: "Awww."