Was It Really the Best Years of Our Lives?

Oh god, someone hand me an afghan and some Geritol, because I am feeling old.... I just received an email inviting me to my ten year high school reunion, to be held summer of 2003. I need to go lie down.

Recipes

My friend wanted me to post a couple of recipes, so here they are. The Chimichangas in the Oven recipe is from allrecipes.com and the yummy Chocolate Cookies recipe is from a Martha Stewart magazine.

Chicken Chimichangas In The Oven -serves 4
� cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
� cup chili powder
2 cups salsa
3 tbsp water
� tsp ground cumin
� tsp ground cinnamon
1 pound cooked, shredded chicken breast meat
1 cup refried beans
8 10 inch flour tortillas
2 tbsp olive oil

Saute onion and garlic in a large saucepan until tender. Stir in chili powder, salsa, water, cumin and cinnamon. Mix together and pour mixture into blender or food processor; process until smooth. Pour back into saucepan and stir in chicken. Heat through. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Spoon a heaping tablespoon of beans down center of each tortilla, working with 1 tortilla at a time. Top with 1/2 cup of chicken mixture. Fold up bottom, top and sides of tortillas and secure with toothpicks. Place chimichangas seam-side-down in a lightly greased 10x15 inch baking dish. Brush sides with oil. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown and crisp, turning every five minutes. Serve with salsa, sour cream and guacamole.

Super Yummy Chocolate Cookies (Not their real name :P)
2 cups plus two tablespoons flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup butter
2 cups granulate sugar, plus extra for dipping
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about two minutes. Add eggs and vanilla, and beat to combine. Reduce speed to low and gradually add flour and cocoa mixture, beat to combine. Form dough into flattened disk, wrap with plastic wrap, and chill until firm, about 1 hour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line to baking sheets with parchment paper. Shape dough into 1 3/4 inch balls. Roll each ball in sugar. Place on prepared baking sheets, and 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake until set, 10 to 12 minutes, rotating halfway through. Transfer to a rack to cool for five minutes. Transfer cookies from baking sheet to wire rack. These cookies freeze well. Makes 3/12 dozen.

So the Friday Five bored me again. Questions about the seasons just don't whip me into a typing frenzy. So, I thought I would instead post my Top Five List of Songs for That Melancholic Time Between One Day and the Next. (And win the longest list title, while I was at it.)

1. Trouble - Cat Stevens
2. I've Got Dreams to Remember - Otis Redding
3. Both Hands - Ani DiFranco
4. 'Cause Cheap is How I Feel - Cowboy Junkies
5. Georgia On My Mind - The Righteous Brothers

For some strange reason, everyone in our building has decided that nearly midnight on a Friday is *the* time to do laundry. Very odd. This building is full of college students, shouldn't they be out testing the limits of their livers? Of course, it doesn't say much for my social life that I am doing laundry at midnight on a Friday night, now does it?

Even odder is that every time I go into the laundry room, the fish tank has either lost fish, or gained entirely new fish altogether. I am beginning to think that this particular fish tank is the equivalent of a dark, mouldering, haunted house in a teen horror flick...

Attack of the Lawn Bunnies

My friend was asking if there were any more horrifying Easter decorations gracing the shop I work at. I told her all about the crazy two foot tall white plaster bunnies with bendy ears and little pink jackets. What I forgot to mention (because we hid them down at the bottom of a display) were the incredible grass poohka's. These little gems are bunnies, about a foot tall, standing upright and carrying gardening "accessories". The kicker is that they appear to be made entirely of lawn clippings. In actuality, I think they are constructed of straw dyed a virulent green, but every time I look at them, they make me think someone's lawn has risen up and is about to go on a rampage.

Now, I should point out that most of the stuff we carry *is* really nice. I would say a good 90% of what we sell is quite attractive. The problem is, when we carry something awful, it is reaaaallly awful.

If I Ever Meet Steve, I Will Pass Along the Message

So last night we were at the pub, hanging out with some old friends and some new ones - always fun - when I discovered that someone had written "fuck you Steve" on one of the bathroom stalls. Which got me to thinking - what is the point? Will the mysterious Steve ever see this little message? It is unlikely, unless he spends inordinate amounts of time hanging out in the women's washroom, in which case, I guess I could understand the sentiment. I can't even understand how cathartic it could have possibly have been, as ballpoint pen flows so easily on a clean painted surface. So, I started wondering about who this Steve was, and the anonymous girl who was so upset with him she felt the need to vent her spleen on a bathroom wall. Did he break her heart? Irritate her with some intractable position on the literary importance of Tomson Highway? Skip out on his bar tab?

These thoughts skittered around my head until a half remembered story about a guy who was doing a travel book about public washrooms around the world vaguely came to the surface of my consciousness. If indeed, there ever was such a book, I would have liked it to include the women's washroom from Cafe Wim, during the mid 1990's. This washroom wasn't covered with the usual epithets and lovestuck declarations most washrooms are. This one, much to the chagrin of the owners I am sure, had every available inch of writable space covered with poetry, and long drawn out discussions about philosophy and the meaning of art, conducted entirely by strangers. People would write their poetry, others would deconstruct it, and long debates would be waged, all within the confines of this one small space, all happening between people who would perhaps pass each other in the hall, or sit next to each other in the small cafe, but never sign their names. A couple of years ago, Cafe Wim closed it's doors, and the space it used to gracefully occupy is now an aggressively upscale restaurant/martini bar. I met my husband at that cafe, so many years ago, and I must say, that although the menu was over priced, the owners kinda crazy, the service purposefully slow and the coffee really bad - I am so sad it is gone.

Work, Work, Work

Sadly, I haven't had much time to update this darn thing, but I have been working six days a week at my supposedly part time job. Certainly better than being unemployed, but it doesn't leave much time for blogging. Or laundry. Or dishes. Luckily, it doesn't leave much time for socializing either, so no one has had to suffer the disastrous state of my kitchen!