Archive for the ‘ Cooking ’ Category

Twenty-one, (That’s 21, people!), years ago today I married that man! I had to. He was begging me, and groveling!  Oh, the tears and wailing! He camped outside my window and sang serenades to me.

OK, that’s a lot of horseshit. Anyone who knows John, knows he can’t sing.

And, yes, the other bit about the begging and whatnot. It was pretty much a mutual decision. BUT, we’re both happy we made it and that’s what counts!

He woke me up this morning with gifts and I am totally thrilled with the new things. I… guess you could say I, “collect” wedding rings. I have several that I like to alternate and they are all very unique, not even necessarily wedding rings, just serve that purpose on that finger. He knows this and thinks I’m just quirky as opposed to nuts. I still haven’t told him he’s wrong. Please don’t spill the beans.

Aaaaaanyway, He got me a new ring from James Avery. I would show you a picture of it on my hand, but I don’t feel like getting the camera and downloading and cropping and adjusting lighting and all that crap. Besides, I need a manicure. So you are just going to have to deal with the links and know that I am wearing it right this minute. I love it. And he also got me a new dress I’d been eying at the mall. Maybe you’ll get a picture of that eventually. Maybe not. Remember- I’m nutz. 😉

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The other day I was over here at Nicole’s and she had this fab looking recipe for Spaghetti Casserole. I printed it up and made it soon afterward.

It was De-lish! as Rachel Ray would say. It made a full sheet-cake pan and we were loving it! Not to mention we dig leftovers! Maybe not the next day, but the day after. However with this recipe we were all over it the next day. Lunch’s were done! Or, you could just put one half in the freezer before baking like she suggested, and make it in two square pans.

Anyway, you need this recipe. I said so. 😉

Next up, I’m going to make JennyMac’s Savory St. Patrick’s Day Potato Muffins!

That’s all I got, folks!

The second day we were at my parent’s house we had to go to Greenwood to eat hamburgers at one of the three buildings that make up Downtown Greenwood.  Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.  There is no “downtown”… just Greenwood.  All three buildings of it.

This is the home of the best hamburger in Texas...and that's saying a lot.

This is the home of the best hamburger in Texas...and that's saying a lot.

The WHAT museum?

The WHAT museum?

And finally… it’s not a hick town without a volunteer fire department.

Impressive, no?  Greenwood isn't large enough to have it's own firedepartment so they share with Slidell.  They share TWO firetrucks.  Or at least they have two garage doors.

Impressive, no? Greenwood isn't large enough to have it's own fire department so they share with Slidell. They share TWO firetrucks. Or at least they have two garage doors.

The best part of going with the whole gang to Greenwood is that my great nephews and niece got to go too!  Get a load of these cuties!

Here's Tristyn, Pop, and Khristian

Here's Tristyn, Pop, and Khristian

Fine company, indeed!

Pop seems to think that Khristian is a hoot when he's sporting Nana's sunglasses.

Pop seems to think that Khristian is a hoot when he's sporting Nana's sunglasses.

And this beautiful little lady is just as lovely as her brothers are adorable.   Her name is Kayler.

And this beautiful little lady is just as lovely as her brothers are adorable. Her name is Kayler. Isn't she a doll?

Kes and The Boyfriend had a wonderful time as well.

Hamburgers?  You bet!

Hamburgers? You bet!

Here's a shot of the counter and gigantic grill behind it.  Can you say, "Hole in the Wall"?

Here's a shot of the counter and gigantic grill behind it. Can you say, "Hole in the Wall"?

Isn’t it funny that these types of places, inevitably have the best food?

So then we all went home, with VERY full tummy’s.  John, Pop and The Boyfriend went down to Grimy Gulch to target shoot.  John brought his S&W 357 with him and TB bought a 45mm Glock  while he was in town.  No telling how many boxes of ammo they went through.  Kes and Kee and I all had fun taking turns.  I am not nearly the shot I used to be.  (I SWEAR that sight is OFF!  I mean I can’t be THAT bad!)  I have pictures of them shooting, but they are on Keelan’s camera so I will have to go all the way upstairs, open the door to the black hole of despair that is her room her room and climb over mountains of shit enter and employ bloodhounds find said camera.

Maybe later.  🙂

We got back to the house and ate my mom’s GUMBO.  OH MY GAWD ya’ll!  It is the most wonderful thing ev-ah!  Sooooo good.  We ate tons of it!  I wish I had some more!  Right now!  MOOOOOOOOOOOOM!    I want’s me some gumbo!  You can ship gumbo, can’t you?  Why not?  Cost how much?  I’m worth it, aren’t I?

Oh.  I’m sorry.  I seem to have dragged all of you intertoob people into my side of the conversation that I know I could have with Mither.

The girls and TB and Mither and I all were watching TV in the living room when Kes, (who was sitting on the floor, said something like, “Ow… something stung me…” and she was looking at her hand.  She had felt something crawling on her arm or somewhere and flicked it off and when she did it stung the flicking hand.

The flicked item was, apparently, flicked on The Boyfriend.  Who was then stung on the arm.  Then we were all up and the lights came on and we were looking for the scorpion.  There would be no rest until we got the damn thing out. (Meaning dead.)

Finally.  We located and beat hell out of it.

Squished, mutilated, hard to recognize scorpion.

Squished, mutilated, hard to recognize scorpion.

The Boyfriend slept on the couch,because even though there is enough square footage in that place to put a hotel, it is only three bedrooms and John and I got one, Kes and Kee got the other and Mither and Pop, didn’t feel like vacating.

I bet he dreamed of scorpions, cause he was a tad freaked out.  Heh.

Karma got me this morning, though.

It’s midnight on Monday.  Or, actually, I guess I should say Tuesday morning.

I am sure everyone out there realizes that Sunday, May 10 was Mother’s Day.  Well, Saturday, May 9 was my birthday.  I am now 46 years old people.

Stop looking so smug.  I know I’m older than you.

So this is what happens at chez Lopez.  I am waited on hand and foot for my birthday, showered with gifts and treated like a queen.  Taken out to eat and pampered.  Hauled in the loot like you wouldn’t believe.  My family rocks.

THEN! The next day, Mother’s Day, a repeat performance.  For two days I only had to get H on and off the bedpan and diapered.   The SIL even came and stayed with her so we could all go out and eat together.  We didn’t get back until after 10:30pm and Kes got here a few minutes before John and I did.  John and I walked in the door and there was Henrietta sitting in her wheelchair in the living room.

The SIL left as soon as Kes walked in the door ahead of us by maybe three or four minutes.

SHE DIDN’T EVEN PUT HER IN BED!  We fed her before we left, (long before), and SIL just plopped her happy ass down and watched TV and didn’t even put her in bed or give her her pills or change her into a nightgown or change her nappy or anything.  I was pissed.  Not to mention tired after being pampered all day and then overstuffing myself on overpriced Italian food.  That can wear a girl out.

Now.  Down to the really, really serious matter at hand here.  I am looking for someone to sponsor me in a program for an addiction I have acquired this past weekend.  This sponsor wouldn’t need to have the exact same problem as me…  Perhaps someone out there started out just occasionally using, ooooh, I dunno, M&M’s.  Or, has been seen in line at Baskin Robbins a few too many times.

I’m not judging.  But when you find that you have fallen and fallen hard into a life where you have become totally dependent on bon bons to get you through your day, THEN you can judge me.

My bon bon addiction combined with my lack of motivation to move back into my regular life of being taken for granted, used and abused, coupled with the realization that I was making a HAUL on gifts there for a couple of days and like any toddler, DON’T WANT IT TO END, just HAS to be the reason I woke up today with nausea and actually REGURGITATED.  This? is monumental.  I cannot remember the last time I threw up.  I have a cast iron stomach and a similar constitution.  My family looked at me like I might be gonna die.  I must say this was disheartening.  I told them all where to go and crawled back in bed.  I got up long enough to feed H breakfast and she very sweetly insisted on staying in bed today so I wouldn’t have to breathe in her face haul her in and out of the wheelchair and get her dressed and all that shit.

So today, I blew “it” all off again.  Life in general.  No laundry got done.  I didn’t clean the kitchen, I didn’t cook supper.  It was all magically done by the little elves that run around here on magical days like May 9th and Mother’s Day and freaky puke days. Well, the laundry didn’t get done but if I have calculated correctly, at least three of us run out of underwear tomorrow.  (huh…better not be me…)

Next year Mother’s Day and my birthday are one and the same.  This happens every seven years or so.  Not THAT big a deal.  And I know what you’re thinking.  No.  I absolutely do not get shortchanged on gifts on these occasions.  I don’t think I would stand for that if it was ever attempted.  My loves know this.

I have been watching Craig Ferguson as I, er, composed this.  It is now 12:59 and I am about to throw it out to the blogosphere and see if it doesn’t get thrown back in my face.  Regurgitated, if you will.

Hoppy Easter!

Well, people, it’s been a while since I spat out whipped out a post and in retrospect it doesn’t seem like there’s too much to say.  But, let’s dig deeper… shall we?

The other day I decided to cook a chicken, rotisserie style, on the grill.  We have the gizmo that you plug in and it turns the bird on a spit via an electric box bolted to the side of our monstrosity of a grill.

This, in and of itself, is not that noteworthy.  However, I would pay big bucks, (if I had them), to have had someone take footage of me trying to get that damn chicken on that spit.  That sucker is 45″ long.  I looked like a dwarf trying to maneuver that stupid chicken onto that spit and not skewer anything or anyone else, (including myself).  WAY harder than you’d think!  I never never would have thought it would be so awkward.

See the two prong things.  Well you, (and of course by “you” I mean me), have to tighten one of them on there at the right spot that the chicken needs to be on the grill and then ram the bird down on top of them impaling it and not any part of yourself, most specifically your hands.  And, once again, by “you” and “yours”, I mean ME!

Then, you slide the other pokie thing down on the other end of the chicken, shoving it hard so that it impales the damn thing as you cuss and laugh manically.  Then tighten it down with a pair of pliers because your hands are too sore from multiple stab wounds to do it without them.

After shoving placing the spit into the hole of the turning deal and and resting the other end in the… other end receptacle, I flipped the switch on and left it alone on low for a solid hour.  It was about an 8 pound chicken.

It took every bit of that time to clean my kitchen with anti-bacterial spray everywhere some sort of raw chicken/chicken juice squirted and/or landed.  That was several days ago and I still don’t feel entirely clean.  I am probably a walking salmonella factory.

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I am now watching Craig Ferguson and it’s a rerun, (So much for up to the minute reporting.  Snort!), and he’s saying that Michelle Obama “TOUCHED the queen.”  I am guessing he’s talking about The Queen of England.  He’s acting like it was a mistake and a horrible faux paus, however he tends to be a tad sarcastic and facetious at the least, when it comes to anyone English. (He IS Scottish.)

I’m still wondering what the story is?  And how do you “make up” for “touching” somebody?

Henrietta had a visitor today.  Her next door neighbor from her old neighborhood that she hasn’t seen in about 5 years came to see her today.    My SIL, to her credit, brought her out to see her.   She was absolutely beside herself with joy.  It was so funny, she saw her from across the room right  when she entered the doorway and she practically yelled, “Barbara!”  They sat and talked for hours and hours.  It really did make Henrietta’s week to be able to sit and chat and get caught up on all the neighborhood gossip.  Especially what’s going on in the house she and Marcos lived in for close to 50 years.  Her eye’s grew huge as Barb related tales of how the woman that lives there with the three grown men is married to one of them, but she goes out partying till all hours of the night with the other ones and she’s had two babies since she’s been there and nobody in the neighborhood knows whose children they are!    THIS? Is exactly the kind of crapola Henrietta lives for.

She will be talking about this visit and all the accompanying gossip for a solid week.  To me.  And the really funny part will be the way the stories will grow and grow in her mind as time passes.  Eventually, her house will have become a brothel with a line of men outside and circling the block.

I will keep you appraised of the situation.  It’s only right. 🙂

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The… boyfriend-in-law was outside giving my yard a makeover.  That’s about the only way to describe the before and after shots that make a jungle look tame.  It was VERY bad.  He showed up about 1:00 and finished and left at 4:00.  Three hours to mow and weed-eat a front and back yard the size of mine if ridiculous.  THAT is how bad it was.

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Tomorrow is Easter and do ya wanna know what my plans are?  Do ya, huh, do ya?  Get a load of this!

Nothing.

The SIL and her bunch of people that descend on my house for every holiday, to consume as much as possible of everything I cook and then leave as soon as they’ve eaten, are… otherwise engaged.  Where?  Who cares.  It is going to be quiet and I might put a ham in the oven.  I might not.  I might cook the Easter bunny if he pisses me off.

WOO-HOO!  Reel me in, I am COMPLETELY out of control.

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Last night I called Mither and asked her what she was doing.  She told me she was about to watch a Maverick’s basketball game.

I had better preface this little rambling with the fact that there has never been a bigger Dallas Maverick’s fan than both Mither and Auntie-Poo.

Aaaaanyway, she mentioned to me, (not for the first time), at some point in our conversation that she was not supposed to be talking to anyone on the phone when the game is on because Auntie-Poo might call and yell at her if she wasn’t paying good attention to the game and couldn’t keep up with what Antie-Poo was talking about.

We laughed about this, just because they are both fairly hopeless and then I told her I was going to wait until the game started and I was going to call Auntie-Poo and chat aimlessly to her for a while and then call her back several times.  Just cause I’m that way.  Ya know?

All of the sudden I heard evil laughter and Mither said that I should call her at exactly 8:30 then she would call her at 8:33 and when Auntie-Poo told her she was on the other line talking to me, Mither would yell at her that she WAS NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ON THE PHONE WITH ANYONE ELSE DURING THE BALL GAMES!

So I did this and all went to plan and when Aunti-Poo came back to me after Mither called her I asked who it was and she said, “Oh, it was your mother and she told me I have to get off the line cause the basketball game is on.”  We both agreed it was absurd that SHE have to get off the line and when I told her that we set her up to be caught she decided that she would have all my cousins call Mither one at a time, just to “chat”, during the game.  There are four of them.

That was the last I’ve heard of them.  I haven’t talked to either one of them today and they are out of pocket.  I left messages for both of them to call me, so I will follow up sometime.

Sometimes I wonder at the mechanics of this family.

When all the planets align…

Some days are just what we need to get us through to the next day without fear of suicide attempts.  SSG, over at Confessions of A (Sometimes) Serendipitious Girl had a day like that on Friday.  It’s when you just stop and think, “Can it get any better?”.  Or, in my case, “When’s the other shoe going to drop?”.

Today is the day of the Murder Mystery Party that John and I are going to next door.  You may, or may not, remember that it is themed to ancient Rome.  When we got our invitations it consisted of two copies of the cast of characters with one highlighted on each copy.  They were:

Harangus Adnauseum– Harangus is the epitome of a  successful senator. He is a multifaceted man- part politician and part philosopher, but all Roman.  As a military tribune, years ago, he stormed the shores of Normandy…and conquered the Normans.  Harangus owns a considerable amount of land in and around Rome, but he does not crave wealth and property.  He holds closely to Stoic philosophy, maintaining complete control over his emotions and eliminating all wants and desires.  If given the opportunity, he will expound on the virtues of Stoicism for days on end, as he did in his now-infamous, three-day oration. “It’s my party and I’ll be Stoic if I want to.”

Rotunda Immaculata– The fate of the Roman empire lies in the able services of Vestal Virgins, such as Rotunda Immaculata.  The Vestals keep the eternal fires burning, thus ensuring the safety of the Roman ships, the strength of Roman legions. and the success of Roman government.  Rotunda comes from a prominent family, as all Vestals do, and she was chosen for her honored position at the tender age of 8.  Now she is a beautiful, but demure young woman looking forward to many, many more years as a humble servant of the empire.

Needless to say, I was unable to help myself.  I did a lot of fast talking and explained to John how funny it would be if I showed up as the Roman senator and he went as the Vestal virgin.  Apparently I am a very persuasive speaker.  Or I guess now it should be orator.  He, (a teeny bit grudgingly), agreed to this and he is going to be all outfitted as a Vestal virgin tonight, and I will be a pompus Roman senator.  Fun, fun, fun!

John was putting up a lame argument against his role and said, “It’s been a long time since I was a virgin… at least five years…”

He’s already having fun with this.

He made me swear, under threat of certain death, that I would not be posting any pictures of him as said virgin.  DO NOT WORRY.  I will simply see to it that he is sufficiently inebriated and extract a promise that I CAN.  cue the evil laughter…

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IN OTHER  HAPPY NEWS:

Henrietta got another catheter today!  WOO HOO!  No more wet diapers, just shitty ones!  No more changing her in the middle of the freaking night in a vain attempt to keep her dry and stave off bed sores.  No more going through three times as many diapers and latex gloves and her room smelling like urine all. the. freakin. time.  If even ONE diaper is in the pail with the lid on it and sealed shut, it still smells.  When I ask others if they can smell it, they all say no, BUT I KNOW THEY LIE.  It’s all part of the plot to drive me insane.  I may refer to this from time to time, as it is a long, ongoing, multifaceted, sick scheme and it is, apparently, not something my family and friends can get completely behind or motivated to carry out in a timely manner.

On the downside, it was immediately apparent that she has another UTI.   For those of you who are blessed and don’t know un-knowledgeable about this, it’s a urinary tract infection.  Her urine was all cloudy and had sediment floating in it in the tube leading to the bag.  As the nurse and I were standing there staring at this with crestfallen looks on our faces, a bunch of blood passed by.  Crap.  NO NO!  Not crap!  Crap is everywhere ELSE, but not in the catheter tube.  And THAT? is a good thing.

Anyway, on Monday she’s coming back out to take a urine sample cause the doc won’t let them give her the antibiotics she needs until the analysis comes back.  The quack.

Now, I’ve got to go and cook baklava for the party tonight.  I am in charge of dessert and that’s the only Greek one I could think of.  When googled, there’s not a lot more different things either.

Wish me luck!

OH!  Don’t forget to go here and enter in my contest for the lovely paintings by playing along and doing the unconscious mutterings.

Good luck!