Category: All Sorts

Like a lot of people I know, I watch a lot of HGTV and Food Network. One of my favorite shows is Chopped. If you’ve not seen it, basically, 4 chefs are given a basket of random ingredients that they must turn into a meal. Whoever’s is best wins. Now, I’ve watched enough to catch some tips and tricks, but I’ve also noticed that they often encourage chefs to cook from their cultural heritage. So if you are African, Caribbean, South American, or whatever, they like when you incorporate your culture’s traditional spices and flavors. I’ve never seen them say it to an American Midwesterner, so I wanted to imagine what it’d be like if they did. The idea makes me laugh anyway.

My fiancé and I own a 50 lb. boxer/pit mix who is possibly the sweetest dog in the world. I love her to pieces, but I am continually mystified by the way her mind works. We live in the city, so she is constantly bombarded by loud sounds, which she completely ignores. But then there’s thunder. When it starts to rain, she bolts to the bedroom and hides. If it starts to thunder, she runs back out, sits on my lap, shakes, and whines. If I’m asleep in bed, she jumps up and sits on my chest until I wake up and hold her.

She’s also terrified of cardboard boxes, but that’s a story for another day…

For those of you who don’t know, Hot Pockets are an American microwaveable meal. They basically consist of a filling such as meat and cheese baked inside a roll. They are cooked at the factory, then frozen for microwaving later as a fast, warm snack. I have to confess that I ate a lot of these when I was a teen. I grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago, where our only foreign foods were Taco Bell, Panda Express, and a local gyros place. I had never been exposed to anything else. As I got older and lived other places, I fell in love with other foods. Who knew there were delicious Hot Pocket equivalents from other cultures?

Being exposed to and trying new things can be scary. There’s a time and a place for playing it safe, but I think that overall, it’s always good to push your boundaries and horizons. Multiculturalism is a hot topic in the states these days. I don’t want to get too political, so all I’ll say is that I’m glad I live in a place where I can celebrate this concept (baked stuffed bread) in all of it’s forms (empanadas, samosas, calzones, and of course Hot Pockets).

There’s got to be a better way to buy glasses. Those of you with good eyesight and those of you who are far-sighted won’t relate, but this is a regular pain or those of us who are near-sighted. For the uninitiated, buying glasses typically starts with an eye doctor appointment. This takes about 10 minutes and is necessary to check both eye health and your prescription. When the appointment is over, you will be given a new prescription, which means you’ll need new glasses.

Eyeglass stores are fun. There are lots of shelves containing different styles of frames for men, women, unisex, kids, and sunglasses. Most places also have a ton of mirrors so you can try on different styles until you find the look you like. The frames all contain non-prescription lenses that are then replaced with your prescription once you make the purchase. However, that’s exactly where the process breaks down for us nearsighted folk. Without our prescription lenses, we can’t see what we look like. I can see clearly within a foot, but beyond that, everything is blurry. This means that when I try on glasses, I have to bend over and get very close to the mirror.

Maybe this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but think about it. These things will be on my face every day and they will be seen by everyone who looks at me. I can be confident about how they look when I’m crouched down within a foot of a mirror, but beyond that, I have no idea how they look. This means that I have no idea how I look. Do the fit my face? Do they fit my body type? Do they match the colors and styles of clothes I like to wear? I have no idea.

And so, I formally declare that there has to be a better way. Let’s get on it, eye glass vendors.

I’m constantly mystified by the way my dog’s mind works. You’ve already seen that Hurley is immune to trains, trucks, and motorcycles, yet is still somehow deeply terrified of thunder. Now you know that she sees pool noodles as a threat too.

My parents have a swimming pool and when we went there last summer, Hurley didn’t know what to do with it. She’d been in lakes and ponds before, but she’d never seen a pool. She was too scared to jump into it, so she circled it anxiously instead, trying to decide if it was a threat. And then we busted out the pool noodles and she lost it. She began carefully picking them out of the water one by one, shaking them vigorously, then piling them neatly by the corner of the house. We all found it hilarious.

I love this dog.