The post where I discover that I am the problem.

I have this thing with blogs. If you make it hard for me to read, or are constantly posting ridiculously long entries that are boring, or have 15 million archives that I don't have time to read and it is impossible for me to just jump in...yeah. I am not going to keep reading you. I'm just not. 

Someone today said that having a conversation with me is like diffusing a bomb. There is very limited time for it to happen before my ADD takes over and I have moved on. I don't know that I actually have ADD. I was told once that if I can read a book for more than an hour, I don't have ADD. YET. It is nearly impossible for me to carry on a conversation sometimes because there is so much shit in my head. 

I am digressing here. My blogging pet peeve and pretty much a guarantee I won't read you anymore...putting only a little blurb of your blog on my reader and making me click on it to read more. I read 99% of my blogs from my phone. So, if not only do you make me click, but your site isn't mobile friendly, you are pretty much dead to me.

But, there is this blog that I love that is like this. It is fairly new blog about the drinking scene in the city. Everything from what our local distilleries are doing, lists of local Christmas ales and bars with the best happy hours. It is an awesome site. But, I find myself just marking it all as read and moving on because I don't want to click on the damn website. And the website takes FOREVER to load. FOREVER. Because it has flash! FLASH! The sin of all sins. Who uses flash? Gah!

It is so frustrating because it is like this site is made for me. It is everything I want to know about beer/wine/liquor. And it is helpful to my job because we only carry local microbrews, so knowing what is out there is key. 

I tried leaving them unread until I am at my computer. Just now I had 30 unread posts from them. I took one look at that list and just marked them as read. 

I realize this is a ridiculously long and boring blog post and I am pretty much a giant hypocrite, but it made me so mad. Two weeks of alcohol knowledge I will never know. Life is sad.

What are your blogging pet peeves? I am curious. Also, I probably do all of them.

Stupid Winter in Stupid Ohio is STUPID.

This is the time of year when I want to curl up in a ball on the couch and never leave the house. I don't think I have seasonal affective disorder or anything. I just hate the dreary, cold, Ohio winters. But, I have shit I need to get done. Like running errands. And grocery shopping. When it is nice outside, it is perfectly reasonable to come home from work, change, and go back out. Yet, here I am on the couch fully dressed justifying not going out. I have frozen vegetables and all that pork and rice, I could easily make a delicious meal out of that. And I can totally go get the stuff to make Christmas presents this weekend. And that beer/wine is not going to drink itself. Well, it's settled. I am staying home!

See. This is what I do. And I am trying REALLY hard to not do this. It is 5:30. Yes, it is pitch black outside and raining, but it is 5:30. The boy will not be home for dinner until around 7 or 8. I have tons of time to accomplish this tonight.

But, I. DON'T. WANNA.

Welcome to December through March with Erratic. It's just months of convincing myself that Ramen and frozen peas is a perfectly acceptable adult meal and Amazon has lovely, not homemade presents I could buy and have delivered in just two short days.

Amazon sells groceries, right? I think I may be on to something here....

Thanksgiving Roundup

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. Here is a brief summary of mine.

Wednesday - Airports. More airports. Delayed flights. Airports. Yay! 

Thursday - My cousin's wife's brother-in-law was stabbed and killed Wednesday night, so Thanksgiving was a tad somber. He was only 26 and it was just a random crime while he was waiting for a cab outside of a bar. They have the man in custody and hopefully justice will be served. Other than that, my niece who I have not seen in about 5 years was in town. I should clarify - step niece. We spent a lot of time together and took about an hour walk where we just talked. I wish her life wasn't so hard, but holy shit, she is an amazing kid.

Friday - Another drunken decorating success! At some point I drunkenly recited an X-rated version of A Night Before Christmas to a room full of about 20 people. My dad laughed so hard he fell over. There is supposedly video. I will do my best to figure out how to post just the sound. Once I hear it and make sure I didn't sound like a total fucking moron.

Saturday - We lost to Michigan for the first time in 7 years...on a nostalgic note, the last time we lost to them, Facebook didn't exist. Nor did iPhones. These facts make me feel better. Stupid Maize and Blue.

Sunday - Our anniversary is on Tuesday, so we went out to dinner and then to the Blue Jackets game versus the St. Louis Blues (WE WON!) Yes, I am still a Blues girl at heart. And I completely thought of Bradshaw the whole time. There was a crazy drunk guy who looked like he fell out of 1976 two rows in front of us who was also a Blues fan. Clearly, Bradshaw was the better choice in ally.

Random Weekend Thoughts - My cousin's twins are possibly the cutest things ever. Big Jed knitted them Sock Monkey hats and my cousin bought them matching outfits for Drunken Decorating. They are just so amazingly independent and well behaved. Probably because they have damn good parents. I fall in love with them more and more every time I see them.

My cousin (the boy one, not the one with twins) taught my cat how to fetch. There is stuffed football making appearances in my dreams now. NCH will not let this game die.

I cooked the food for Drunken Decorating and it was a hit. I realize that this seems obvious to some of you, but I often am amazed that I can do this. It felt good to have other people agree.

The wake is today and the funeral tomorrow for my cousin's brother in law. I don't pray, so I would never ask you to do so. But, good thoughts her way. Her family needs this during this senseless tragedy. I feel so bad for her.

My sister only threw a few temper tantrums, but was generally pleasant. I found myself happy to see her. She even talked about having kids...which...sort of made me fear for humanity. But, baby steps. It was a good trip.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of loving family, hilarity, and comfort. Oh, and cats that can't fetch.

Dinner Follow-Up

I know that almost zero of you care about this, but I have to gush. And I almost did it on Facebook, except I tagged the restaurant in the post and I felt like a total food dweeb.

My dinner this evening was absolutely balls to the wall, epic, fucking awesome. 

We started with Oysters on the half shell that had an AMAZING cocktail sauce that tasted nothing like generic shrimp cocktail sauce. Imagine that with the sweetness of pomegranate. It was just unreal. I can take or leave oysters...this was probably the single greatest bite of food that I have had in a year. I am not even kidding.

Then we moved on to escargot cassoulet. Now...if you have never had escargot, I am judging you. It is delicious. Not in an acquired taste way either. I only excuse you if you do not like the texture of mushrooms because they are very similar. In place of the normal garlic, butter sauce that accompanies escargot, it was a creamy butter sauce with sauteed greens. It was very very different and something I would order again.

Then we had their signature salad that was a blue cheese cream dressing with candied walnuts. It was divine.

Here is where I am going to get you all on board, or at least the bacon lovers.

Pork three ways.

First was the ham and beans. Meh. It was OK. I don't particularly like baked beans. And they are one of those dishes that I think in order to stay true to, have a very typical flavor I don't love.

Then came the country pork rib with an ancho chili sauce. It was smoky and moist and I ate every bite of it.

THEN. The smoked pork belly. It quite literally melted in my mouth. I wanted to coat my entire body in it and die. It was decadent in the absolute best of ways.

I got to-go dessert for the boy, a dolce de leche panna cotta with homemade doughnut holes. He was equally impressed.

I am so full I am questioning if I am going to throw up all over my living room, while also having that delicious light-headedness that a great meal brings. If you have never gotten "food drunk," well, I feel sorry for you. Symptoms may also include the meat sweats.

I absolutely adore my culinary life.

Changing the Subject

Thank you all for your comments and support. I love you all so very much.

Now, we are going to move past all that so I can put it back into the little tiny box in the corner of my very cluttered head where I like to keep it. K?

I should be cleaning. I am not, in fact, cleaning. I am trying desperately to come up with a blog post because then I can say, well, it's not like I was doing NOTHING. I was blogging! That's productive! I get shit done.

I totally don't get shit done.

When Krackle and I lived together, we would give ourselves deadlines. Like, at 7:00 I am going to get up and make dinner. 7:00 would turn into pizza delivery. We were terrible at actually meeting these deadlines when we had something to do. Krackle and Big Jed were over for dinner last Friday and she asked if I still did this. I hadn't thought about the fact that it all started with the two of us, but, yes, I TOTALLY still do that. So does she. We have ruined each other forever.

Right now, I have a goal of 5:00 to get up and clean for the onslaught of family coming in town tomorrow.

You guys, Thanksgiving is two days away. I have no idea how it snuck up on me, but it did. And I don't like it.

I believe that there will be close to 30 people here for the actual meal on Thursday, which I am thankfully not cooking. Because, just, no. But, this means we have a house full again, which is totally fine because nobody is bringing dogs. And my sister threw a big enough temper tantrum that she does not have to stay here. Oh, the temper tantrums. Apparently staying at my house is the equivalent of a homeless shelter. Who knew? Here I thought I had a lovely home. Biotch.

Tonight I am going out to dinner with a friend and I am so excited to not cook, I don't have words. Sipping wine and having someone else do the work is a luxury I am never willing to give up. It is my favorite thing ever.

So, did I adequately change the subject? Good. 

I will be MIA until after the infamous Michigan/Ohio State game, so all of you have a wonderful holiday full of mimosa's and perfectly cooked turkey. I'll see you on the flip side. (Also, I promise never to say "see you on the flip side again.)

My Story

 

A part of me can't really believe that I did it.

I don't talk about what happened back then because it isn't who I am now. I don't talk about it because I don't want sympathy. More importantly, I don't want pity. I am a happy person. I am a strong person. Just like every single one of us, I have my baggage, my bullshit. It is not who I am. It doesn't define me. And it is really important to me that it doesn't.

I debated sharing this here. For a long time. This story was submitted months ago, but there is a long list of people who have stories to tell. When I got the email from Maggie, I thought I was going to have a panic attack. Oh. This is happening. I am doing this.

I chose to tell my story because I have never told it before. Not in it's entirety. I have told bits and pieces and not to many people at all. I have never told anyone of any kind of authority. I did not speak up. I did not do anything to stop what was happening. To me, my mother, my stepsisters.

Maybe I give a voice to someone who felt just like me.

Maybe I make someone feel less alone.

Maybe I feel less alone.

Regardless, it happened. I am stronger because of it, and weaker as well.

I am broken and whole.

Happy and sad.

But, please don't feel sorry for me. I don't want your pity. I simply want to say, that, yes, these things happened to me. It doesn't change the person you know, the person who blogs here. It's a small part of a very complicated, very erratic person.

http://violenceunsilenced.com/erratic/

Fucking, Fuck. Brave.

Someone said to me once that we all come from something...this someone may have been on Law & Order SVU. What? They are my friends. Right?

I would like to note that I am a little intoxicated. On accident! Not on accident. Ugh. I feel like I am telling my mom about the time I broke curfew to meet a boy.

I come from something. I decided to tell a very small part of the story of where I come from. But an important part...a life changing part.

My story will be told on Monday. I want to scream and cry and curl up into a little ball. Bravery sucks. Stay tuned.

http://violenceunsilenced.com/

Someone distract me from food.

RESTAURANT WEEK IS OVER. Hordes of local foodies are at home experimenting in their own mother fucking kitchens instead of eating at my restaurant!

To say we were busy was an understatement. Our restaurant seats about 50. We can squeeze in 60. It's a very small restaurant. We made $30,000 in one week. That is HUGE for a restaurant of our size. HUGE. It felt like a blur.

This week one of my coworkers had a death in the family, so it is going to be another crazy week. No, I didn't forget about all of you. Or my adventures in the pork deal of the year. I haven't cooked a meal at home in two weeks. All that is floating in my mind is pancetta and lemon aioli and how to make that into a delicious sandwich for the feature tomorrow.

What are you all up to?

Oh, hey, soap box. I am going to spend some time on you today.

I am sure all of you have heard about the Penn State drama. If you haven't heard about it, I recommend packing a bag and leaving your cave for a day to read up. I will wait.

I live in Columbus, OH. And, yes, I realize that I my anonymity fails. I am one post away from posting a picture of myself in front of my house holding a sign with my social security number on it. What can I say? I know most of you in real life anyway. Also, my identity sucks. I am willing to trade.

Most of the people I have encountered on Facebook are upset because of the way he is leaving, the terrible downfall of a great coach. A legend's reputation tarnished. 

Dear Everyone,

HE ALLOWED A MAN TO CONTINUE RAPING CHILDREN.

Love,

Common Sense.

Oh, he told his superior, you say? Bullshit. Not good enough. Bull Fucking Shit.

Wait, you say. Wasn't MY city and MY team recently involved in a scandal? Oh, yes, we were. We traded free tattoos for sports memorabilia. And our couch was forced to resign. A coach who overlooked some kids being kids.

CHILD. RAPE.

Ugh. This world. Joe Paterno should be prosecuted as an accessory to rape. Everyone who knew should be prosecuted. There are a lot of crimes that are somewhat understandably overlooked. THIS. SHOULD. NEVER. BE. ONE. OF. THEM. Ever. 

Innocent children.

So, if you are one of the people who sympathize with Paterno or think his end in college football is sad, please stop reading this blog.

I may be crass and inappropriate. I may be a terrible person with a room reserved in hell. 

But, I would never, ever, ever allow someone to hurt a child. I would never stand back and do nothing. I would never do what Joe Paterno did.

I talk about vagina's too much.

This week is going to kill me. 12 hour days of getting my ass handed to me, or as my kitchen crew prefers to call it, bending over and taking it in the ass with no lube. Sorry, guys. Kitchens are crass. Today's theme was seeing how many baby raping jokes they could make before I snapped and went off. The answer, in case you are wondering, is they never made me snap. I did, however, lose all faith in humanity halfway through the first joke.

I am getting off track here. I started this with a point...

The culinary field is primarily male. In fact, I am the only woman who works in our kitchen. Well, there is this one girl who works like 10 hours a week, but whatever. I don't count her because I never see her.

Our pastry chef is also a woman. And she frequently says things to me like "us women have to stick together" and "it's a man's world in the kitchen, so we have to have each others backs."

Here's the thing. No. No I don't. I have her back because I respect her. Because she works her ass off and is really, really fucking good at what she does. 

I am also white. So, how fucked would it be for me to be like, hey, other white people, we have to stick together? 

Answer: THAT IS COMPLETELY FUCKED.

I have been asked at every single job interview I have had if I can "handle it." Do you think men get asked this? Nope. They sure don't. "Is the language going to bother you?" FUCK NO. And never ask me that again.

You know what is not going to change it? Us women folk sticking together. It's going to change by me showing up every single day and blowing those mother fuckers out of the water. By working twice as hard, being twice as good. Eventually, they will stop being surprised when I make good food. Eventually, they will not ask if I can handle something. 

Today, I was the only person in the kitchen who knew how to make polenta. One of the sous chef's mumbled under his breath how it pissed him off that I was a better cook than him. Fuck yes I am. When you are at home playing whatever new video game is out, I am reading cook books and making food. 

I have his back. I have my entire team's back. 

But, I am sure as fuck not going to have your back just because we both have a vagina. I will, however, ask you for a tampon if I forgot one. THAT is a reason to have vagina camaraderie. 

Press 2 If you want to bash your head in with the phone.

I think my finger may be infected. Well, that is not totally true. Everyone else thinks my finger may be infected and now I am getting paranoid. I think it is new skin and scar tissue, not redness and swelling. It doesn't hurt. Whatever. The moral of the story is that I was fear-mongered into going to get it checked out. Now, before you call me crazy, you should know that I have been getting staph infections since I was about 11. Anytime I get any kind of major cut, I freak out about getting a staph infection in it. So, I am normally a wee bit paranoid about flesh wounds.

I decide to go to the local urgent care. I gather my workers compensation paperwork and off I go. Now some of you may already be shaking your head at me, but in my defense, I had more faith in our medical system.

I walk in and start explaining what happened, where I got the stitches, etc. I DID NOT say anything about Worker's Comp purposefully because I went to this same place to attempt to get stitches out last time I cut myself and they refused. I planned on paying cash for this visit and sending the bill in. I also refuse to lie because, well, what's the point? She finally asked enough questions that I had to tell her it happened at work and yes, there was in fact a claim filed. She refused to give me medical care of any kind. She refused, really, to even discuss it further. She just continued to say that I needed to go back to the EMERGENCY ROOM where I was originally treated. Now. My finger is slightly red and a tiny bit swollen (I still think this is scar tissue.) There is not an open, pussing wound that screams "WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE" every time I look at it. This is not an emergency. The ER I went to was in the heart of downtown, so it is very busy all the time. With real emergencies. Violent ones. Not so much ouchies like I was walking in with. No. I would not go.

She said that I should have been recommended after care. I explained that I refused because I planned on taking out my own stitches. I never got the paperwork. I had nowhere to go other than the ER.

I told the woman, again, I would just pay cash. Pretend she didn't hear the term "workers comp." All I wanted was for someone to take two fucking seconds and say, yes, that could be an infection or nope, you are fine. If it was an infection, write me a 2 second prescription for an antibiotic and I would be on my merry little way. I didn't even care if I saw a doctor, I would trust a nurse. 

Refused. To. Even. Speak. To. Me. I was livid. What if I walked in and the stitches had been ripped out and I was bleeding everywhere? That is the closest medical facility to my house. I guarantee I would have been refused treatment. 

I was willing to pay the bill in full and accept full responsibility for it. I don't have health insurance, so there was no issue there. I just wanted to pay cash for a prescription or a simple "you are fine." 

Refused.

Tell me that there is something wrong with this...because I was BAFFLED. Totally confused. I needed medical assistance and was refused when I had more than enough money to pay the bill. The proper thing to do is go add to the patient load of an already busy ER so someone can look at a finger that is a little pink? Not to go to an urgent care with one family in the waiting room that has plenty of time to see me and take care of the problem. AND. The worker's comp card does not say there is a restriction. 

I was pissed. I still am pissed. I don't understand how medical care in this country can even claim to be slightly effective. 

What next, you ask? I am doing the only thing I think is reasonable. Wait until it gets worse. I am not going to a fucking ER unless I have a fucking emergency. And I sure as hell am not going to spend 16 hours on the phone with an office that is ONLY open while I am work. I can't just take a quick break and make a phone call. That isn't really the way my job works. I get zero breaks. Zero. I eat food hovering over a trash can in between rushes. There is no time to deal with "press 1 if you think we are ridiculous." 

Note: I do.

Beer and Food

This week has turned into craziness. Tonight we did a beer dinner at the restaurant for 20 people. Pictured above is the root vegetable salad with charred shrimp and trapist ale vinaigrette. Note: this is not my food. I just took a picture for the sake of bragging that I helped plate it.

Tomorrow we have a lunch for 45. Tomorrow night we have a benefit for the Columbus Public Library for 500 and I get to go and prep and serve the food. 

Today was a 12 hour day.

Tomorrow will easily be 15 hours.

You know what the difference is? I LOVE IT. LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT. 

AND! AND! I got my very own mead pairing dinner in January. Fuckity Fuck! 

They made me march out in front of all 20 people as they applauded. It was humiliating. And kind of awesome.

Sorry to be all Braggity McBraggerson, but today was a long, good day. And I wanted to share with all of you. 

Also, NCH is high as balls right now on cat nip. 

Also, also I got to drink the beer. It was delicious.

More on the dumb

I decided to take one of those left brain/right brain tests. I am sure I have taken something similar over the years, but shockingly, cannot remember the results.

I think that this is pretty funny, so I decided to share. The results came back that I was 69% (heh. 69) right brained and 31% left brained.

Left Brain Percentages

50% Symbolic

27% Sequential

16% Linear

14% Verbal

7 % Reality Based

5% Logical

Right Brain Percentages

67% Random

57% Fantasy Oriented

34% Intuitive

25% Nonverbal

19% Concrete

12% Holistic

I am not going to copy and paste what these numbers mean because it is pretty repetitive...but essentially, what they all mean is that I am fantasy oriented and don't necessarily follow rules. I don't read directions. I tend to see the whole picture and do not do well when having to follow instructions step by step. I am better at starting with the whole and working backwards. I am good at expressing myself with words, but often over explain myself because I don't think I am saying it right or can't find the right words. When giving directions, I am more apt to tell someone to turn right at the home depot than to say "go 7 miles, then turn right." I do well when I am emotionally tied to something, but tend to not do well if I do not have an emotional investment in something. I rely more on my "gut" feeling than facts and tend to do things intuitively.

What do you guys think, does this sound like me?