Good Day Sunshine

I hate Winter. I like Thanksgiving and Christmas, but that's about where my tolerance ends. If winter only lasted for a month, I'd be OK with it, but instead it drags on for an additional two months. And they are arguably the worst months of the year.

For a long time, I was opposed to Autumn as well, just on principle. I would get irritated when people said things like, "Hooray, Fall is here!" or "Yum, pumpkin spice lattes!" or "I'm so excited about cardigan weather!" I wanted to grab them by the collar and yell, You fools! Fall is bullshit! Winter is on its way! Also, you probably don't even like the taste of pumpkin. It's actually nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger that you're excited about.

Seriously, though, people need to calm down about pumpkin. It's a nearly inedible gourd, guys.

Anyway, over time I have loosened up about Fall. I can enjoy the changing leaves and crisp air without immediately being filled with despair. I still hate Winter, though. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I have seasonal depression, but there is something about the short days and the awful weather that make me start to think that life will never be good again. What's even worse about my hatred of Winter is that I live in the South, where the Winters are about as mild as you can get and still be able to formally call them "Winter." Imagine what would happen to me if I lived in Canada.

Here, let me illustrate for you the difference between Winter and Spring. The other day, I was out driving. It was 75 degrees, the sun was high and bright, I was barefoot and I had the radio turned up loud. Suddenly, I felt a tightness in my chest. Oh no, I thought, I must be anxious about something. What did I forget? Am I missing an important appointment? And then I realized that the feeling of fullness and expansion in my heart was not anxiety, but rather something that people often refer to as "happiness." Winter made me forget about it, but Spring is here to remind me at last.

When You Hear the Call, You've Got to Get it Underway

I was in marching band in college, and we used to play a lot of older songs from the 70s and 80s at the football and basketball games. We used to play this song, and I really enjoyed marching band, and that is basically the only explanation I can come up with for why I nearly cried today when it came on the radio.



Don't worry, it was a happy almost-cry. Maybe someday, when I finally have my nervous breakdown, we'll look back and recognize this as the first sign that I was losing it.

Make Your Heartbreak Into Tacos

If you live in Houston, which you don't, perhaps you are familiar with Escalante's. It is a "fine Tex-Mex" restaurant. From what I can tell, "fine Tex-Mex" basically means tacos and enchiladas, except with slightly fancier ingredients and presentation. Also, margaritas made with expensive tequila.

If I lived in Houston, which I don't, I would have an entirely unhealthy relationship with Escalante's. As it is, I demand to eat there at least once (I said at least) every time I visit. The worst part is, I have only ever tried one thing on their menu, and it is a salad. But it is the only salad I'll ever need for as long as I live.

Let me tell you about this salad. First, we have a bed of romaine lettuce, tossed in mango chipotle vinaigrette. I can see I've already got your attention. Greens are unimportant, though, they are merely a vehicle for deliciousness delivery. Next, we have avocado. So rich and creamy. Followed by the sweetness of fresh mango. Too sweet, you say? That's where the sliced red pepper comes in, to give it a kick. But where's the meat? Oh, I didn't mention? This thing is covered in shrimp ceviche, baby. It's true. Fresh shrimp, cold-cooked in lime juice until they're little maritime packages of zing, exploding in your mouth with citrus flavor. And finally, the coup de grace - a walnut-encrusted warm goat cheese medallion.

Is my love for this salad making you uncomfortable? Well it doesn't matter, because there is no Escalante's in North Carolina. It's OK, though, because what do we do when we can't have our favorite salad? That's right, scouts, we make it into tacos. Which is why I tried to make shrimp ceviche tacos last week. And now I'm going to tell you about it.

As I mentioned, shrimp ceviche is just shrimp, chilled and marinated in lime juice until the acid from the juice cooks the shrimp. I wasn't sure how many limes it would take to make enough juice to cover shrimp, so I bought several fresh limes, and some prepackaged lime juice (Flavored with extra chemicals!) just in case. I decided to only 'cevich' like 6 shrimp to start with, because I am but one person, and also I didn't want to ruin all of my high-quality frozen Target shrimp at once.


Turns out, though, that even just 6 shrimp require a lot of lime juice in order to cover them completely (which you must), so I decided to go with the fake lime juice. Spoiler alert, this was a mistake.

It's real because it's green!

The ever-overwhelming internet gave me wildly conflicting times regarding the length of time that shrimp must marinate before it is fully cevich-ed. The longest time I saw listed was 24 hours, so I got all responsible and proactive and prepared them the night before I really wanted to eat them. (That is a lie. I wanted to eat them right away.)

Because my shrimp were poorly covered, I had to check on them periodically and flip them over. It was fun, like tending a little garden. A seafood garden. That is ready to harvest within 24 hours. The next night, I excitedly pulled them out of the refrigerator, and removed their tails. (I do not know why I didn't do that sooner. I could have used less juice!)


The outsides looked pink and cooked, but I was suddenly less than confident in my ability to cook shrimp with nothing more than limes and enthusiasm, so I cut a few open. Sadly, they looked a little gray and raw on the inside. (There is no photo of the raw insides, because of lime fingers.) I tasted a piece of one shrimp as an experiment, and briefly considered the benefits of food poisoning, since I was pretty stressed out last week and would also still like to lose those extra pounds.

It was upon tasting them that I realized the fake lime juice was a mistake. Or maybe it was the 24 hours of marination. In any case, fake lime juice is concentrated, so instead of the fresh burst of citrus I expected, I was faced with overwhelming limeade flavor. It tasted like those commercials where the cheese scientists shove a giant wheel of cheese into a single Cheez-it, except in this case someone shoved a whole package of powdered lemon Kool-Aid into a single shrimp.

In any case, I'd come this far, and I wasn't about to walk away now. I decided against attempting to food-poison myself, so I had no choice but to just microwave the damn things for a few seconds. They came out fully cooked, and no less worse for the wear, in spite of being far less classy and French than originally intended. Whatever, limeade-infused hillbilly microwave shrimp, just get in my tacos. And subsequently in my belly.

Garnish!
(Red pepper, onion, and avocado)

Speaking of things that are classy, mangoes! They seem expensive, right? So instead I bought pineapple mango salsa from Whole Foods. It still cost me $95 for a small container, but at least someone did me the favor of cutting it all up, which has got to be worth at least $70.

Mmm... hundred-dollar fruit cubes.

This stuff is tongue magic, by the way, and it has taken quite a bit of self-control not to just eat the whole tub at once with a spoon.


I assembled the shrimp, veggies, and fruit salsa on fresh corn tortillas I made by hand, using corn from my own organic garden. (Heh.) The looked downright delicious, sitting there. You could barely tell by looking at them that the shrimp were radioactive. And yet there still seemed to be something missing...

Ooohhhh yeah.

Once I added some spicy sriracha sauce to my tacos, I was finally able to sit down and enjoy them. They were actually pretty good, and they only tasted a little bit like confusion and desperation.

P.S. I was halfway through eating the tacos before I remembered I had also purchased goat cheese (to replicate the salad, remember? from the top of this post? like, 3 years ago?). I made them again later, but instead of ceviching, I just sauteed the shrimp in butter and squeezed some fresh lime juice over them later. And I remembered to add a dab of goat cheese. It's no Escaviche Salad from Escalante's, but I'd be willing to eat it every day for the next 3 years or so.

P.P.S. Just to make sure we all learned something here... If you're going to make shrimp ceviche: 1) cut the shrimp into pieces first, and 2) use fresh lime juice.

A Perfect Body

I've got a perfect body, but sometimes I forget
I've got a perfect body, cause my eyelashes catch my sweat
- Regina Spektor

I've been having a hard time with my body lately. I've been trying to lose about 10lbs ever since the holidays, and I haven't been having much luck. Technically, I've already lost these 10lbs about 3 times in as many years, which makes their repeated return even more frustrating. In any case, losing them again has been difficult because the cold weather has destroyed my willingness to leave the house for exercise, and also I have a moral obligation to eat all of the chocolate in North Carolina.

I blame my dissatisfaction with my body on the fact that it's currently 10lbs larger than my arbitrary ideal, but in fact wasn't happy with my body even at my thinnest. My "thinnest" wasn't particularly slim, of course, but it was a perfectly average, acceptable weight, and probably fully 20lbs less than what I weigh now. But at the time I lamented my full hips, my thick thighs, and strong calves. I wasn't petite and top-heavy, and I considered it a serious injustice. (This was in high school, when most things were injustices.) When I look at photos from that time, I want to slap that girl. At this point in my life I don't even aspire to be that thin again, because I think it would be too difficult to maintain. That was probably a major high point in my physical history, and I wasted it. I should have been enjoying myself! I should have worn a bikini everywhere! I should have been taking nude photos every day and showing them to strangers!

Obviously, the irony is that a woman in her mid-30s, or 40s, or 50s, or anyone whose just had her first child, or really any number of people, could look at me now and think how ridiculous it is for a childless woman in her late-20s with a perfectly average body type to be lamenting "the good old days." They have a point. Sometimes when I'm standing in front of a mirror, scrutinizing the line between my eyebrows that comes from constantly judging stupid people, I try to imagine what I'll look like when I'm 80, and remind myself that some day I'll look back fondly on the time when I only had one slight wrinkle.

I also try to remind myself to stop making this face so much.

Likewise, I recently read a piece that was written by a gorgeous woman who had suffered a medical event that left her face substantially changed. She's beautiful in a different way now, but were I in her position I assume there would be days when I would miss the way I once looked, or the ways I used to express myself with my face. (Yes, even that hateful expression up there is something for which to be thankful.) It seems silly to nitpick over superficial things like acne and laugh lines when could suddenly find yourself faced with a much more deeply frustrating situation. And barring a medical catastrophe, that's what happens gradually as we age, anyway.

It's not just a matter of how much worse it could be. It's true that I could weigh 400lbs, or be 80 years old, or have a debilitating disease. It's also true that, regardless of your point of comparison, I have so much to be thankful for and excited about. Yesterday, I ran outside for the first time since early January. I always feel beautiful after I've been running. Not "pretty," not even necessarily "attractive," given that my face is usually beet-red, my hair sweat-soaked and in disarray, and my scent decidedly rustic. Nevertheless, I feel beautiful. The ache in my legs reminds me of their strength, and the rhythm of my lungs and heart are evidence of my vim and vigor, I suppose.

It's good to remember that I can run. I can jump. I can eat spicy food and chew gum. I can wear mascara, and put my hair in a pony tail. I can stand on my tiptoes and reach objects on high shelves. I can crochet, and paint bookshelves. There's a lot of joy to be had with almost any body, if we really look at what we've got and stop comparing it to some past or future ideal self.

Well, would you look at that. I've talked myself into a state of inspiration. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go put on a bikini and run through town. Locals, you have 20 minutes to don your sunglasses.

Indiana Jones and the Kitchen Nightmare

In August, shortly after I moved into my new apartment, I got a puppy.

Here she is back then, napping with some things she planned to destroy.

When I got her, she was about 4 months old. She was the product of an unplanned pregnancy on the part of my brother's beagle. (They considered sending her off to a boarding school for unwed mothers, but ultimately decided the tuition was too high.) I had wanted a dog for awhile but I felt like I should wait until I had a home with a yard, and possibly a dog butler, which is definitely a thing that exists. But then my brother had illegitimate mutt puppies, and one of the potential owners backed out, and, you know, puppies!! So now here we are.


Oh, sorry, let me just...

Ah, yes, HERE we are.

Objectively, I'd have to say that Stella is the best, most beautiful dog in the world. She is definitely half beagle, but she is also definitely half something-much-larger-than-a-beagle. We've visited her little beagle mom a few times, and Stella is at least twice her size. She weighs a little over 40lbs, although maybe that's too much, because a woman at the dog park called her fat a few months ago. (That woman is currently regretting her choice of words at the bottom of a river.) Mainly she's just built kind of like a golf cart, all small and square. She doesn't run particularly fast, but she is super strong, and could probably pull a smallish rickshaw given the right motivation.

Since her lineage was questionable, I'm lucky she turned out cute and relatively well-behaved. She whines a lot when she's bored (I am quite often boring to her), and I can't give her any toys that aren't made of steel, because she'll destroy them and swallow the pieces. But in general, she knows what is and isn't allowed, and she's friendly with people and other dogs, and she hasn't torn down the house yet.

Ok, enough of this online dating profile of my dog! Time for an interesting story! ... About my dog.

Like many dogs, Stella likes to lick the dirty plates as I load them into the dishwasher. A few weeks ago, she had her head pretty far in there, licking the plates at the back of the bottom rack. When she started to pull her head out, the whole plastic rack moved, and she paused for a second to think through the situation. About the same time I realized that she must have gotten her collar hooked on the rack, she decided that the best way to deal with this was with running away. She backed up again, the rack moved again,and so she backed up as fast as she could, dragging the entire rack out of the dishwasher. Luckily, at that point it came loose from her collar and crashed to the floor, showering her with a hail of silverware as she darted out of the kitchen and into the living room.

Which is where she spent the next hour, sitting as far away from the kitchen as she could get, staring wide-eyed and alert in the general direction of the dishwasher. And later, when she needed a drink of water, she went to the edge of the kitchen and kept her feet planted on the carpet while she streeeetched her neck over to her water bowl.

Needless to say, it was one of the most excellent things that has ever happened, and it totally makes up for all those trips outside in the cold to watch her pee.