Aselin

I have lots of family stories that shouldn’t be told in proper company. When Scott and I got married it was like the Cleavers were joining with the Addams. I tried to warn him; he didn’t believe me. “Every family is odd” he asserted. While this is true, some are odder than others.

One family story that gets retold every so often is about my cousin. I only have two official first cousins. Surprisingly they aren’t married to each other. One of them I met for the first time in 1999 at my grandmother’s funeral, when he wanted to beat up my dad, but had gotten too drunk to follow through with it. The other one I’ve known most of my life.

This cousin, married his sweetheart, a trapeze artist in the Barnum and Bailey Circus, and had two spunky kids. These kids are grown now, but how they made it to adulthood is a mystery to all of us.

Years ago we were all enjoying each other at a family gathering in rural Louisiana. Here on the bayou the scene was a bit like the beginning of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, only more light. It was early in the event so no one was drunk yet, and the bluegrass music had not begun to play. We were all enjoying a fabulous dinner when Nicole, the oldest of my cousin’s two children ran into the house, covered in mud, in full alarm mode.

“Mom! Mom! Mom!! Billy is eating frogs!”

Every plate was immediately pushed away as all of our stomachs turned.

Nicole’s mother, Lorna the Trapeze Artist, sprung into action. Pushing her chair aside with a swoop she was up and over the table with the skill of, well, a trapeze artist.

Nicole put her hands up to slow her mother’s advance, and with the aplomb of her wise five years said, “Don’t worry Mom, I made him peel them first.”

As I tried to explain to my disbelieving husband, my family isn’t like anything he could have imagined. Repeatedly he would pat my hand and shush me. That was until he actually met them.

Well, we did it! We lived for a week off of our food storage. Without dragging you though too many of the uninteresting details here’s the net of what I learned.

1. We don’t have enough water. While we made it through this week just fine, I was amazed at how quickly we would go through the 55 gallon barrel drums we’ve stored if we were really living off them. All of the long term storage foods I have require water to cook them: pasta, beans, rice, brownies. Since we live in the desert, water will be a huge commodity in even the tiniest of emergencies.

2. We have planned pretty well. Except for some fresh items we ate pretty normally, so we do store what we eat. I am going to get serious about adding a garden since I couldn’t coax the one tomato plant I’m growing to produce this week. I do know someone with a banana plant. I’m going to be better friends with her. I’m sure she’ll love the newfound attention.

3. While I think I would like chickens, I’m barely able to keep my dog alive. I need to coax my new best friend, the banana lady, to coop some chickens as well. That way I can still live the cavalier traveling life I love so much yet still have access to eggs. For those of you who also have a chicken shortage problem, really good egg substitutes are flax meal or unflavored gelatin. Although these are really only good substitutes in baking. In the breakfast burritos the kids noticed the difference.

4. The oranges I have are not a good bartering crop. While they are delicious, if the world falls apart and we are actually living off of our food storage, then everyone else around me will be as well. They all have oranges too. I’m pretty sure the neighbors, who have a garden, won’t want to trade me oranges for spinach. They already have oranges. As you read earlier this week, I gave away 1,318 oranges without batting an eye. I have thousands more oranges left. I’m going to have to consider some form of transportation to distribute my one commodity. Which brings me to number 5.

5. I need to convince one of you to get a cow. Banana lady will have reached her limit with the chickens, so please contact me if you will be willing to house a milking cow that also will pull a cart so I can send the kids to hock orange juice off I-10. In return, you’ll have all the orange juice you can drink.




Nemesis: 550 Me: 18

Nemesis: 497 Me: 16 (I'm accruing followers at the rate of one each day. She's been accruing followers at about 100 each day.)

Dinner tonight: Food Storage Potluck with the other participants of the challenge. I'm bringing pesto pasta salad with smoked ham and chocolate cake pumpkin pie bars. (I made them up) Pumpkin pie with a chocolate cake crust. The hostess of the party is making white chicken chili and didn't have enough beans so I made her a pot of beans in the magic pressure cooker. Dry to done in 1.5 hours.

Nothing says party like Food Storage!!

Each spring a flock of fruit flies move in to my kitchen. Likely this has to do with the fact that we have literally thousands of oranges that pass through on their way to the juicer. Since science class taught me that the fruit fly has a very short life span, I’m pretty sure they aren’t the same ones each year. However the same class taught me they also have an extremely short reproductive cycle so the one or two I start with quickly turn into a swarm that would make even Alfred Hitchcock uneasy.

Like the hiccup cure, there is a lengthy list of suggestions on how to rid your home of the noxious pests.

There is the “zip lock” trap - put a piece of overripe fruit in a zip lock bag leaving only a small part of the bag unsealed. Once the bag is full of flies, crush them with your finger. I’m not sure why I have to crush them, can’t I just zip and discard? This way I’m not directly responsible for their demise. They made a bad choice entering the small plastic enclosure and must bear the consequences.

The “funnel trap” instructions start with “make a paper funnel.” Have you ever tried to make a paper funnel? I’ve tried a couple of times, usually trying to fill a salt shaker or other small-holed spice container. Using the crooked ‘overlap and twist’ technique I’ve constructed a couple of good looking funnels. Unfortunately all of these design marvels have come apart during use leaving my workspace and forearms covered with substances like cayenne pepper. At this point I usually rub my eyes, become blinded and curse the paper funnel.

The trap I’ve been using is a complete enigma to me. I was taught that one catches more flies with honey than with vinegar. Yet the trap that’s been most effective is the bowl filled with cider vinegar, covered with plastic wrap. Poking a few holes on the top allows the flies to get in. A small amount of oil floating on the vinegar traps the flies. Soon I have a bowl full of fly carcasses.

Is carcasses a word? Spell check isn’t alerting me, but I would have thought it was carcai. Is it corpses? Corpi?

Well, at any rate, soon I had a bowl full of dead flies. We had company for dinner last night - yes during the ‘food storage challenge’. As I was preparing for their arrival I had to get rid of my bowl. Nothing says disgusting like a carcai bowl. Rinsing the evidence down the drain I thought my secret was safe.

Then, as we were sitting across the table from each other, enjoying our meal, my guests start swatting at the air. Lovely. At first I was wondering what sort of pestilence was accosting them until I looked down at my fork. A tiny fruit fly was staring up at me, shaking it’s little fruit fly fist. As I leaned in I distinctly heard his tiny fruit fly voice. He had a Spanish accent like Inigo Montoya (Princess Bride.) “You will never be rid of us! My family avows to avenge our forefathers.” He keeled over and died, having a short life span and all. His children greeted me at the sink this morning where I constructed another vinegar trap.

Apparently some adages are not accurate. You do catch more fruit flies with vinegar.

I didn’t date much in high school. Most of the boys who knew me tried very hard to avoid me. In college things picked up. One particular date made me want to return to my high school social situation. This particular evening combined a number of my least favorite things: crowds, guns and fire. By the end of the night my list of least favorite things had increased.

I am a fan of the Second Amendment. Everyone should have the right to own a gun. I just happen not to like them. I don’t like shooting them, the noise and the fact that most of the people I know who own guns make the honorable mention list of the annual Darwin Awards.

So imagine my delight to find myself on a date in the rural desert with 50 or so of my closest friends waving guns around a bonfire. I’m pretty sure it was an Amway style introduction meeting to the Aryan Nation.

While my date shot at aluminum cans, paper targets and cacti I entertained myself around the fire. There was a large pile of ammo next to the graham crackers and marshmallows. Surreal doesn’t even begin to describe the scene.

As the evening wore on, and I stress wore, the ammo ran low and the faces of the militia wanna-bees flickered in the light of the fire. I had taken to roasting marshmallows. Since we had eaten no dinner, and I wasn’t up to packing heat in search of a javelina to roast I decided to fill up on roasted sugar fluff.

I’m a really good roaster. I have the rare patience and stamina to achieve the golden brown toasty goodness while the mallowy inside is perfectly gooey. My date came up and asked me to cook him a mallow. As he speared it on the end of my coathanger he requested “well done.” This request was akin to asking Monet to draw you a stick figure. I was deeply offended but began to comply with his request. He specified he wanted it “burnt.”

So, I lit the confection on fire, carbonizing the exterior. As I drew the mallow to my face to blow out the flames it suddenly exploded with a loud “BANG!” Having listened to the gunfire all night I thought I had been shot. Dropping my stick, grabbing my ears and hunching to the ground I was completely disoriented. As I drew my hands from my ears, one of them was covered with blood. Looking around the campfire I expected to see everyone else in a similar state of alarm. Instead every single one of them was doubled over in laughter - including my date.

The clever little prankster had put a firecracker inside the marshmallow. When it exploded it blew out my left eardrum. Boy was I having fun.

Retreating away from the light of the campfire I tried to gain control of my tears. My date followed me and tried to get me to talk to him. All I would say was I wanted to go home. Now. Today’s amateur soldier apparently does not take classes in chivalry, and he found me a ride home with someone else.

I did have another friend in the group who had not witnessed the firecracker incident, she also was ready to call it a night. Waiting in the cab of a little pick up truck for the driver, my friend was extremely animated, having thoroughly enjoyed the evening of gunfire and arsenal display. This group bore all kinds of weapons.

She chatted as we waited for our driver. As we shared small talk, I was still very distracted by my injury and not paying much attention to anything else. My companion reached to the floor and picked up some sort of metal stick. She casually asked me if I would hold it for her.

I distinctly remember her yelling “NOOO!” as I firmly grabbed the end of the stick. Untold amps of electricity jolted from my hand, thorough my body and out my elbow that was resting on the metal door of the pick up truck. The searing pain was blinding and my whole body twitched uncontrollably. My former friend was yelling at my slumped frame like I was the biggest idiot she had ever met... “Don’t you know what a stun gun looks like?”

Well, apparently not. I thought I didn’t know anyone who had a stun gun. I thought I didn’t know anyone who carried firecrackers on a date. I thought the dried blood on my face gave me immunity from further mercenary pranks. I had reached my limit.

Unable to control my muscles I remained slumped over in the truck, completely incapacitated except for my incoherent whimpering.

Eventually I made it to the safety of my apartment. It took two people to help me stumble inside, where in the light they could see I was not only twitching uncontrollably but half covered in blood. Just wanting to be alone I sent them away and lay on my bed unable to feel my right side.

In the solitude of my convulsing stupor I realized what most women eventually find out: dating is entirely overrated.


______________________________________________________

Today's Menu
Breakfast burritos Dinner: Enchiladas

Come on!!!


Nemesis: 427 Me: 15


AAAAUGH!


Moving on to something I can win... where are my kids? Let's see...foot race? Canasta? Speed reading? Shoot, they've gotten sick of losing to me like I'm sick of losing to Nemesis. They can beat me in all of those. HA - Orange Juicing!!!

I'll be able to sleep tonight.

Kids: 137 Me: 1,318 Nemesis: 0

OK, I wanted to walk away. I tried to move on. You all saw how well that went with Earl the Doughnut. (See the March entry entitled ‘Self Discipline?’ if you missed it). I just can’t keep from peeking. My Nemesis, “Blog of Note”, has amassed well over 300 followers. In only three days, she doubled her followers. She’s squishing me like a bug in a competition she doesn’t even know she’s entered. Since the competition began I’ve increased my follower list by 8 percent. She’s increased by 50 percent. I’m like Uzbekistan in the world economy of blog followers.

What’s interesting about this story is not how I’m losing this competition so badly. Hardly an unpredictable headline. What’s interesting is how many people have signed up to follow the Blog of Note just because it was selected to be the Blog of Note. Her content is not that interesting. I’m confident it’s not important to know what kind of cat she would be if she were a cat, the countdown to the second that her semester ends, and how much money she spent on Starbucks (SBUX) in the last few years.

Are the masses that starved for information? It seems to me we are inundated with information each day. Is it this overload that prevents over 150+ people from sifting through it effectively. Is it the sign-up syndrome? Are there a number of people who need to be part of “the group” so badly it’s immaterial what the group is?

Still, I can’t quit checking on her. I thought I was in better control of my psyche, and while I haven’t signed up to follow, I do visit her site and huff at the increase in her numbers each time. Revealing yet another of my unhealthy fixations.

Ruminating on my defeat I realize that in the blogosphere, most of the information, including mine, is only entertainment. The masses have a right to choose their entertainment. In a moment of humility I become aware that my fending off a swarm of bees, leading a goat through town, and trying not to stare at the metal beaded thong is probably not more important than which Starbucks fare “Blog of Note” ordered yesterday.

Although I do hope mine is more fun.


BTW... I couldn't be a cat because I'd have to move out (hubby's allergies), My semester ends when I take the online final, and I've never (yes I did say never) been to Starbucks. Revealing yet another of my oddities.

Let's see if that increases my follower list...

_______________________________________________________

For those following our progress in the food storage challenge, the kids daily siphon water from our blue barrels before breakfast each morning. We use this for all of our cooking, teeth brushing etc. Drinking water comes from our 2 week per person supply of bottled water.

I was able to trade some food for some eggs, so they've requested eggs benedict for breakfast. Dinner will be pasta with bolognese sauce and spinach. I'm going to make the famous breadsticks as well, might even make a double batch and see if I can barter for something else.

_________________________________________________