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…And Then I Got In A Fight With Jesus.

So several years ago around Christmas I got into this insane argument with one of Justin’s aunts about charitable work.  Really.  It was crazy.  Crazy because this particular aunt IS the very definition of a charitable person.  Even her career – and that of her husband – is about providing comfort and support and a means for those less fortunate to navigate through this confusing system of ours.  She is compassion incarnate.  Or something.

So what was the argument?

It basically stemmed from the fact that I tied the act of giving to the idea of karma.

Huh?

Allow me to explain.  We were talking about charity and random acts of kindness and such.  I said the beauty of any giving act is that while it certainly does some good for the recipient, it also instills in the giver a feeling of happiness, and… dare I say it?… pride.  And the reason this is a good thing is because this feeling is likely to inspire the giver to give again, thus perpetuating the cycle of good deeds and good feelings.  The design is flawless.

Or so I thought.

The problem with the correlation I made is that Justin’s aunt is devoutly religious.  She was deeply and personally insulted by my apparent insinuation that people only do good deeds in order to reap karmic rewards.  (And I assure you that is not what I said.)

Moreover, she would never dream of leading a charitable life simply because it made her feel happy.  (Again, not what I said.)

In fact, it was her duty as a Christian to help those in need.  (I can hardly argue with that, now can I?)

I tried to explain that I meant a nice “side-effect” of showing kindness towards others is the inevitable little warm fuzzy that nestles up in your face, your throat, your heart.  It can’t be helped.  It’s there, whether you want it or not.  And, whether you realize it or not, it encourages you to continue to feed it by doing more nice things.

What’s wrong with that?  Sounds like a win-win to me…

So you’re saying there is no such thing as a selfless act???

Sigh.

Of course not.  All I’m saying is if a “selfless” deed just so happens to make you feel good about yourself, what is so wrong with that?  The worst that could happen is it will inspire more selfless deeds.

Why do you think we like this guy on HGTV?

Mike Holmes

Or this guy on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition?

Or this woman, doing what she does best?

Because they perpetuate the good.  But no one can say they don’t get anything out of it.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter why a person does something nice.  It’s just that he/she does it.

Which brings me to Part 2 of my personal Christmas reformation project.  Part 1 started here, when I realized there is no possible way for me to make everyone I love happy over the holidays.  Even so, I shouldn’t let that deter me from getting as much enjoyment as I can out of the things it will be possible for me to do.  Is that selfish?  Perhaps.  But I’ve noticed over the years that the happier I am, the happier it makes people around me.  Try it.  You’ll see.

My next selfish step (aka. part 2) was to get myself a Christmas present.  The gift of a warm fuzzy.

(Now before you stop reading because you’re afraid I’m going to ask you for money, don’t worry!  I know these are tricky times for everyone.  I will include a link at the bottom in case you are interested, but that’s it.)

In order to get my warm fuzzy, I made a donation to a charity I’ve read a lot about in recent months – one I’m confident will make the most of my meager contribution.  And trust me, it was meager.  And, just like I predicted, I now want to do a little more.

What I have decided is that no one will be buying me a wrappable gift this year.  I’m tired of trying to think of something easy and affordable that someone could buy for me that I couldn’t just as easily buy for myself (because let’s face it – no one I know really wants to buy me this, andMark Zuckerberg has yet to accept my friendship request on Facebook).  So if anyone asks, I will send them to my charity.  It will literally take them 30 seconds to buy my gift, and they can spend as much or as little as they’d like.  Then, if they really want to go above and beyond, they can email me (katie@domestiphobia.net) or leave me a comment  here to tell me about it.  I want them to get the warm fuzzy too.

Everybody wins – and really, I don’t mind if they feel good about it.

I realize this is not a groundbreaking idea.  It’s not even a… um… ground tapping idea.  But it’s new for me.  And even if just one person gets me what I want this year (*cough*mom*cough*), I can honestly say that it will be the best gift I’ve received in a very, very long time.

To cross me off your Christmas list, click on THIS LINK to read about the GOD’S CHILD Project and then click the yellow “Donate” button.  You can also read more about the GOD’S CHILD Project on this website.

Don’t forget to send me an email (katie@domestiphobia.net) or leave a comment on this post if you make a donation.  And even if you don’t make a donation but like the idea or are doing something similar, please share!

I Tart You.

Sometimes being part of the military means you can’t always visit family for the holidays.  But it also means you have family wherever you happen to be.  Thus, we celebrate Thanksgiving with other military families almost every year.  We can gather with friends, fry up a couple of turkeys, and everyone contributes one or two dishes.  It certainly beats cooking every part of the meal, and it’s definitely better than our Pizza Hut Easter tradition.

Ahem.

My contribution this year was a combination of 2 recipes:  Pecan Pie Tarts and Whiskey Maple Cream Sauce.  The tarts were delicious and bite-sized, and they tasted even better with this rich, creamy sauce drizzled over the top.

Since the sauce is supposed to be chilled, I started with that and made it the night before.

You will need:

  • 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream
  • 5 tablespoons of pure maple syrup
  • 3 tablespoons of light corn syrup
  • 1 tablespoon of whiskey

Easy peasy!

1.  In a sauce pan over medium-low heat, combine the first 3 ingredients and stir them constantly for about 20 minutes.  The mixture will bubble and thicken.

Whiskey Maple Cream Sauce

2.  Remove from heat, add the whiskey, and then put the pot back on the heat for another 5 minutes or so.

3.  Put in the fridge overnight to chill and thicken.  Doesn’t get much easier than that!

Now for the Pecan Pie Tarts.  I doubled the original recipe and used a bit more cream cheese than called for because I wanted to use the entire brick.

To make about 40 tarts the way I did, you will need:

  • 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons butter, melted
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 1/3 cups chopped pecans

1.  Beat together the softened cream cheese and butter until creamy.  Then add the flour and salt, and mix until it forms a dough.  I used my hands for this part.

Cover the dough and chill in the fridge for about an hour.

2.  While the dough is chilling, mix the eggs, dark brown sugar, melted butter and vanilla extract together in a bowl.

I cannot tell you how much I miss my broken low-light camera lens right now.

3.  Chop up the pecans (even smaller if they came pre-chopped), and mix those in as well.

4.  Now comes the fun part.  Okay, it’s tedious.  Very, very tedious.  But it’s worth it, I promise!  Preheat your oven to 325-degrees F.  Grease 2 mini muffin tins (this will make about 40 tarts) and press the dough into the bottoms and sides of the greased cups.  Then fill each one with the pecan mixture to just below the edge (these will rise a bit, so don’t fill right to the brim).

5.  Then bake these puppies at 325-degrees for 25-30 minutes.  Cool them in the pan on a wire rack, and then pop them on out.  They should come out fairly easily if you greased the pan well.  When you’re ready to serve them, drizzle them with some of the chilled whiskey cream sauce.

Wow.  This sauce puts these things way over the top on level of divine, splurging deliciousness.  WowWowWow.

Now I realize this is decidedly Thanksgiving-y-ish food, but I could definitely see this whiskey cream sauce making a comeback around Christmas.  Even if I have to pour it over my sugar cookies.  Even if I just have to drink a bowl of it for breakfast.

Would that be bad?

Or bad in a good way?

Deck the Halls, If You Must.

Okay, I’ll admit it.  In case you haven’t figured it out already, I’m not one of those, “Oooh I’m SO excited that the holidays are almost here!!!” kind of people.  Which I realize makes me a bit of an oddity because I am (usually) a chipper morning person who enjoys engaging in social activity (with people I like).

Stipulations aside, I think being a socially-engaging morning person would normally also qualify me as someone who just can’t wait to dig out the ol’ Christmas decorations and tune the radio to one of the 24-hour holiday music stations and pull out my Frosty-the-Snowman-meets-Rudolph greeting cards to fill out, address and stamp while sipping hot cocoa and eating snickerdoodles in front of a crackling fire.

But I’m not.  In fact, the very idea – aside from the hot cocoa and snickerdoodles because those sound delicious – inspires a giant lump of un-enthusiasm to well up in my soul.

I think it might have something to do with coming from a broken family. (As a child of divorce, I’m so fortunate that I will always have that excuse to fall back on for any of my own personal failings.)  You see, no matter who we go visit for the holidays, there is always someone who doesn’t get a visit, and the inevitable guilt-inducing remarks are made, feelings get hurt, and rather than just enjoying the company I’m with, I end up worrying whether I’ve made someone halfway across the country feel isolated and alone by not gracing him/her with my presence this year.

And the thing that I (and apparently they) keep forgetting is that I have a guest room too, you know.

If you come visit me, I can pretty much guarantee a stress-free time.  The house may not be in perfect order and filled to the brim with Christmas decorations; I may not have 32 different varieties of fresh-baked Christmas cookies on hand; I may not be sporting a 12-year-old red and green knit Christmas tree sweater; however, your sheets will be clean and your wine glass will be full.  And against my better nature, I might even cook.  (Drink enough wine, and it will taste just dandy.)  If you want cookies, we can bake them together.  It will be fun.  We will have fun.  And we won’t stress if the cookies burn or the pups knock over my 3-foot-tall Christmas tree because c’est la vie, you know?

And if you don’t come visit, it’s no big deal.  I won’t make you feel guilty.  Why would I make you feel guilty?  That just means more wine for me.

But really.  Isn’t that the point?  Celebrating the life we have?  Sure, we can get all deep and thoughtful and say the holiday season is about giving, about family, about love.  Which is true.  But since we seem to have such a hard time with all that, let’s just take this in baby steps, shall we?

When you feel the holiday stress start to get to you because you haven’t finished gift shopping or the grocery store is all out of your favorite eggnog, here’s a revolutionary thought: enjoy it anyway. When it’s all over and you have nothing left but 3 trash cans full of multi-colored wrapping paper and a carpet full of tinsel, people aren’t going to remember that you had an $80 wreath on the front door.  What they will remember is whether or not you smiled.  Whether or not you laughed.  Whether or not they made you feel happy because they chose to visit you this holiday season.

Stressing during the holidays defeats the purpose.  Whether you live for the holidays or would rather crawl under the covers until tax season, they’re coming.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it – and it IS a choice – is to take a deep breath, another sip of spiked cider, and love the crap out of all of it.

It sure beats the alternative.

What Are YOU Thankful For?

Today, just like any other day, I’m thankful for the usual:  my family, my friends, my health, my home.

But I’m also thankful I’m not my neighbors.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cup of Excuses

I know.  You don’t have to say it.  Erin and I have been extremely neglectful keepers of the blog as of late.  In our defense, it is a holiday week.  That makes it easier for us to justify other things – things like eating, sleeping, and eating – as more important than blogging.

And I have actually been keeping pretty busy.  I have about a million and a half recipes to share with you, I took Christmas photos of my neighbor and her family, I put together a gift package to send to our friends in Costa Rica, I ate 2 thin mints and a baby carrot at the same time (I’ll let Erin tell you more about that one), I vacuumed up a GIANT monster spider this morning without soiling myself, and I’m thinking about painting the office (the room is cleared out and everything).  All of this has been interspersed with sporadic, semi-desperate attempts to bring my hard drive back from the dead.

No, I haven’t yet disposed of the carcass.  Psycho, anyone?

I’m also dreading the fact that I have to venture out into the world today.  It’s about this time of year when I like to hole myself up in my cave – not just to stay out of the chilly air, but to avoid all of the absolutely insane shoppers out there who come crawling out of their usual 9-5’s to wreak havoc on the outside world, shoving and clawing and scrambling to get the absolute best deal on the next tickle-me-sponge-bob doll while trampling Wal-Mart employees to death.

To death, my friends.

On the plus-side, I had an absolutely ethereal cup of coffee this morning.  I mean, I couldn’t recreate this if I tried.

Now.  If I can just make it through the next few days without getting trampled to death in a Wal-Mart, I will consider this yet another holiday success.

I’m Only Mean to the People I Love

After much careful consideration and over 4 weeks home from Costa Rica, I’ve come to the conclusion that my friends must hate me.

I mean, why else would they be constantly bombarding me with environmental job listings, certification programs, grad school opportunities, and questions like, “What are you going to do now?” and, “Soo… what did you do today?” (always said with a sly grin because they know the answer is not, “Oh, I had a productive day at the office.”)

And really, there is nothing more humiliating than having to answer, “I’m not sure what I’ll be doing next – I’m still weighing my options” and, “Oh, you know… laundry, cleaned the house, cooked dinner…” when the truth is that I have no frickin’ clue what I’m going to do with my life and I spend my days trying to figure it out, writing, researching, weighing my options, and why are all of you rushing me??!!

Okay, in reality I know my friends are actually being helpful, giving me that nudge they know I need because they’re my friends and I deliberately surround myself with brutally honest people because I can’t stand it when anyone’s like, “Oh, you have all the time in the world to figure out what you want to do!” because we all know I don’t have all the time in the world because I’m 28, which isn’t old, but it’s kind of about that time where I should be figuring my sh*t out, you know?  So I know they’re on my side here.  They don’t want to see me fail.

Which is comforting.

And also a lot of pressure.  I mean, I created this opportunity for myself – this blank slate – and so far it’s been like I’m swimming against a rip tide of “shoulds” and “have tos” in search of the ever evasive “wants.”

Making the transition from a fairly successful, decent-paying job that fit my educational background to… whatever I end up doing, is easier said than done.  But let’s face it – now, when I no longer have that bi-weekly paycheck coming in – is not the time to freeze.  It’s time to press on, put myself out there, and avoid the need I feel to apologize for my self-invoked economic status every time it seems like someone looks at my apparent flounder with pity.

Because it’s important to remember that this isn’t flounder.  This is… something else.  It’s like my dad always told me – I might appear to be procrastinating to everyone else, but on the inside I’m constantly formulating plans, playing out hypotheticals, moving the chess pieces around.  It’s important to think before I act, because we’ve all seen how hard it is to jump the tracks once we get going in a certain direction.  I don’t want to make a habit out of this.  I want the next move to be right.

So bear with me, friends.  I haven’t fallen completely off the edge.  I just need to dangle here a bit before I take the plunge back into reality.  I’m lucky I can do that.

And in the meantime, I sure am glad I have you.

Tuscan Soup for the Soul

You may have heard that I recently lost the contents of my hard drive and have effectively been working my way through bottles of red wine at a fairly alarming pace.

IT’S ALL LIES!

Okay… I actually did lose the contents of my hard drive.  Which sucked.  And I am going through bottles of red wine at an impressive pace.  But that’s not unusual.  In fact, I think I’m handling the loss remarkably well.  It’s like I’m on the losing end of a one-sided breakup, and I have to work my way through the stages of grief.  Plus, the red wine therapy contains loads of antioxidants, so it’s really a win-win situation.

First, I was in denial.  What?  You’re leaving me?  Yeah right.  I’ll call your bluff.  Go ahead and leave.  See what it’s like to spend a night alone.  You’ll be back.

Once the shock wore off, the pain arrived.  In waves.  I might’ve cried a little.  You’re really gone?  You just took all my pictures and left?  I miss your smell.  My world is so EMPTY without you in it.

But once I realized how ridiculous it was to cry over a piece of electronic equipment, I got angry.  Very, very angry.  I blasted the angry chick music.  I paid for YOU.  You owed me at least the courtesy of a WARNING before you went off and took EVERYTHING I LOVE away from me.

And I might’ve bargained a little.  Okay, okay, I’ll tell you what.  Just give me back my pictures, and I promise I won’t put you in the freezer again.  Just a FEW of my pictures at least?  Or maybe a page of my writing?  Anything?  Just give me something and all this torture can stop for both of us.  Give me just one picture of a monkey in a tree and I’ll give you a nice, warm bed in the TRASH CAN WHERE YOU BELONG. (I wasn’t quite over the anger stage at that point.)

And now I’m entering the stage of reflection.  I’m only just realizing the magnitude of my loss, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say it hurts a little.  A lot.  And nothing you can say will make me feel better.  It’s just gone.

It’s times like these when I do what any normal woman does for comfort and support.  I’m turning to food.  The air is starting to turn brisk and the skies a little more gray.  Warm, chunky comfort food is the only cure-all – the only thing that will bring forth a warm, chunky Katie.

And since I just made chili this season, I started perusing the web for some more options.  Sausage.  Anything with sausage.  And I found this.

Spicy Tuscan Soup.

Spicy Tuscan Soup

And like any war-whithered woman post-breakup, I had to have some.  Now.

Here’s what I needed to make it:

  • You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette blasting background music
  • 1 pound Spicy Breakfast Sausage (I use Jimmy Dean’s Hot sausage)
  • 1 whole Medium Red Onion, diced
  • 2-3 slices Bacon, diced (I used 3 slices.  If you need me to explain why, then you really don’t know me like I thought you did.)
  • 3 cloves Garlic, minced
  • 3 whole Medium Potatoes
  • 1 quart Warm Water
  • 3 cubes Chicken Bouillon
  • ¼ bunch Kale, roughly chopped (I have never used kale before, either.  Don’t be scared.  And I actually have another recipe I’m going to try for the remaining kale from the bunch.)
  • ½ cups Heavy Cream  (This is breakup food, remember! Go with the good stuff.)
  • Salt And Pepper to taste

1.  Get your sausage cooking in a pot on the stove.  Once it’s brown, use a slotted spoon to remove it from the pot and set it aside.  If there’s a lot of excess grease left in the pot, dump  most of that out and dispose.  (Whatever you do, do not dangle your hard drive by its USB cord over the pot of hot grease and threaten to drop it if it doesn’t surrender your pictures immediately.  People will think you are crazy.)

Brown sausage

2.  While the sausage is cooking, dice up the red onion, 3 slices of bacon and 3 cloves of garlic.  And SING that angry chick music.  Just don’t close your eyes – that’s not a good idea when you’re holding a sharp knife.  Add the onion and bacon to the (now empty) sausage pot over medium-high heat.  When the onions are cooked (translucent), add the garlic and cook for about another minute.

3.  While the onions are cooking, scrub your potatoes (you can peel them too if you’d like, but tater skins don’t bother me so I left them on).  Cut them lengthwise and then chop them into 1/4″ slices.  You can cut them even smaller if it floats your boat.

Sliced Potatoes

4.  Then add the quart of warm water to the pot with the onions.  See all those yummy brown bits on the bottom?  Adding the water will “deglaze” the pot and get all that tastiness worked back up into the soup.  And if you’ve lost all of your pictures from Costa Rica, you need those brown bits.  Also add the 3 bouillon cubes and the sliced potatoes to the pot.  Let everything simmer for 15-20 minutes until the potatoes are soft-ish, but not quite fully cooked.

5.  Finally, add the sausage, chopped kale, 1/2 cup of heavy cream, and salt and pepper to taste.  It NEEDS salt and pepper.  Don’t skip this.  Just dip your special tasting spoon on in and don’t stop tasting until you get it the way you like it.  Even if you have to taste and taste and taste.  Let cook for another 5 minutes until the potatoes are soft and the kale has wilted.

Done!  Now eat it.

This hit the spot.  You know, that place on the inside of my upper thighs?  That spot.  And my love handles.  But it’s no big deal, because it’s almost winter and I’m getting over a loss.  I know this soup won’t bring my hard drive back, but it helped bring me to a place of peace and acceptance.

And the wine didn’t hurt, either.

 

Is This How the Grown-Ups Do It?

Last night a girlfriend of mine took me to a Festival of Trees.

The wha?

Festival of Trees.  It was an event located in the haughty-taughty area of North Carolina known as Pinehurst.  If you know anything at all about golf, you might’ve heard of it.  If you don’t know anything about golf, all you need to know about Pinehurst is that it’s home to several über prestigious golf clubs and even über-er prestigious-ier multi-million dollar homes.

Needless to say, I don’t find myself frequenting this part of the state very often.  But Christie, my girlfriend (that is – friend-who-is-a-girl – not lesbian lover), really wanted to see the Festival of Trees at the Pinehurst Resort, an event that raises money for the Sandhills Children’s Center by displaying and auctioning a multitude of beautifully decorated Christmas trees, wreaths, and other holiday-type décor.

My social activity list hasn’t exactly been bursting as of late, and although I (needless to say) don’t feel like an “insider” in Pinehurst, I was already jumping at the chance to go out.  Plus I heard there’d be wine.  So I put on my bestest pair of jeans (the dark-ish ones that only have a few frays along the bottom but fit so perfectly that no one really cares about a couple of love frays anyway, right?), a white button-up shirt, black boots with heels, my gaudy-but-beloved Ganesh necklace, and a pair of diamond stud earrings – it IS Pinehurst, afterall.  People there dress up.

When we arrived at the resort, I felt… um… a little out of place.

Pinehurst Resort

Photo courtesy of Pinehurst.com.

After wandering down an immaculate hallway with no less than what I estimate to be 5,837 white columns and 432 gold and crystal chandeliers, we stumbled into a bar area full of women in ball gowns and men in tuxedos.  Dear God, this can’t be the right place.

Moving on.

We ambled down another hallway and a set of stairs, and there, finally, was the Festival of Trees.  We still might have been the only people wearing jeans, but at least we were no longer in Tuxedo Ally.  Like any good friend of mine would, Christie steered us immediately towards the cash bar so we could each get a glass of wine.  While we knew we wouldn’t be able to afford any of the $300-$6,000 auction packages, a glass of cabernet was certainly not beyond our budget.  Even in Pinehurst.  And hey – it was for the children.

I’m not the type of person to spend a lot of money on holiday décor – hell, I don’t spend a lot of money on regular décor since I prefer to surround myself with photos or art that I love and acquire over time.  But I did enjoy looking at all of the creative tree ideas.  They had everything from under-the-sea themed trees to trees made entirely of wine bottles (my kind of tree).

Wine Tree

Blurry photo courtesy of my phone’s camera.

I also came away with an interesting ornament idea that I could easily make myself – and let’s face it – already have the major component on-hand:

Cork Ornaments

Blurry photo courtesy of my phone’s camera and 1.4 glasses of wine on an empty stomach.

After an hour of counting the number of Mr. Rodgers sweaters that crossed our path looking at decorations and well into our second glass of wine, Christie asked me to hold her glass while she used the ladies’ room.  So there I was, in a semi-buzzed happy place and double-fisting some ruby red while hoping no one noticed the button dangling from one precarious string off the sleeve of my peacoat, when a guy in a suit and tie approached me with a big smile and a jovial, “Where do I know you from?!”

“Um… maybe around Fayetteville?”  He seemed nice, late 20’s, and it was entirely possible we’d met somewhere, though I seriously doubted we swam in the same social pools.

“No, that’s impossible.  I never go out.”

Huh?

“Or, if I do go out,” he continued, “I usually get way too plastered to remember anyone I meet.”

Charming.

I gave the appropriate on-cue laugh and tried to figure out where we possibly could have met.  Eventually he asked if my husband and I lived in the area, and I explained that we lived in a town about 45 minutes away.  He seemed flustered for a second, but quickly recovered and mumbled something to the effect of, “Well, I’m still not going to pass this up.  Here’s my card.  Call me if you ever want to get together.”  And with a smile, he was off.

I was stunned.

Was I just hit on?  By a person in a suit with a grown-up business card?

I know, I know.  I should have realized this from the very beginning, but the approach, while completely cliché, was so convincing!  Is my cluelessness a result of the fact that I’ve been off the market for almost 8 years, or is it simply because I’m used to the forward, abrasive drunk guy at a bar asking my boobs if they want to go home with him tonight – not the guy with a suit and a business card, for crying out loud.

And here I thought the fact that I almost never get carded anymore was the only major indicator that I am, in fact, getting older.

For what it’s worth, I have the number for an apparently-eligible Assistant Golf Professional with an airtight approach if any of you single ladies out there are interested.

Any takers?

When You Wish Upon a Tree

Yesterday I lost everything.  Well not everything, everything.  I still have my health, my family and friends, and all of my material possessions.  Except one.  My external hard drive.  Actually, I still have the hard drive – or rather, the piece of plastic shell with an attached USB cord that you would look at and say, “Yep, that’s a hard drive.”  Except it’s  not.  Because yesterday it decided to eat my life.

It had things on there – important things, at least to me, that I will never be able to replace.  Photos from my trip to Costa Rica and paragraphs I added to my 9-page novel in bouts of drunken inspiration.  Those kinds of things.

Before you say anything, I realize the perils of using a backup system as my primary means of storage.  Now, more than ever.  So that’s fine.  Blame me.  But do we ever get to question – just every once in a while – why a $100 piece of electronic equipment can’t even last AN ENTIRE F*CKING YEAR WITHOUT GOING TO SHIT?!??!??!?$!*#&(!*!*&@^!(@&*~)

I’m just wondering.

But I’m actually not as upset as I feel like I should be.  I’m freakishly numb about the whole thing.  Maybe it’s because I’m still holding out hope that the  information can be saved.  Maybe Justin’s stick-it-in-the-freezer trick will work on the 8th try or my mom’s super computer-savvy boyfriend can figure it out.  If not, I can just defrost it and boil it up for dinner tonight – the makings of my soul served up on my favorite white platter from Bed, Bath and Beyond.  It’s low-cal, too.

In reality, there are many worse things that could happen.  And punching my fist through a wall – which is what I’d like to do but its such a guy thing to do and I kind of like my knuckles anyway – just isn’t going to fix it.  I was reminded of this when I wandered into a sculpture garden off to the side of the pedestrian mall in front of the capitol building in D.C. last Tuesday.

It mostly had strange statues…

Hirshhorn Museum Statue

And one I wouldn’t mind being for a day…

(I only still have these pictures, by the way, because I’m about as neglectful at deleting things off my memory card as I am about backing up my hard drive.  Maybe if I’d spent as much money on memory cards as I did on the hard drive, I’d still have my Costa Rica pictures.)

But the garden also had a tree.  A wish tree.  (I’m willing to overlook the fact that this tree is an art installation by Yoko Ono, the woman who could arguably be blamed for the breakup of the Beatles.  Because the tree is cool.)

Theoretically, spectators are supposed to whisper their wishes to the tree.  The sign didn’t say whether the wishes were supposed to come true – it just said to whisper them.  Apparently some people didn’t feel that was enough, so they scribbled their wishes on pieces of scrap paper and stuck them on the branches of the tree.

Some wishes were straightforward, general pleas for survival.

National Wish Tree

Some were a little more specific, a little less necessary for survival.

Some were simply a sign of the times.

And others were hauntingly cryptic.

But the point is, not one of the scraps, as far as I could tell, asked for a magically repaired hard drive.  I suppose it is a little shallow.  And definitely not worth the paper.

But if I were there right now, I still might whisper a little wish to the tree.  Nothing as ridiculous as asking it to magically repair my hard drive, of course:

Dear wish tree,

Please help me rewind time and have the sense to back up all of my data like everyone always said I should before my hard drive inevitably crashes, effectively destroying months of hard work and memories.  Thank you.

National Wish Tree, Yoko Ono

Sounds reasonable, no?

The Bigger, the Better. Right?

Several days ago we packed up the in-laws and my cold germs and struck out on the road for our nation’s capital.  Not one of us had ever been, and considering Justin and I live a ridiculously-close 6 hour drive from D.C., we decided that now, while the air is brisk-not-cold and the leaves are golden-not-gone and the sky is blue-not-gray, would be the perfect time to lay eyes on the sites that until recently I’d only recognized from high school history books, the occasional news story, and rerun episodes of the Simpsons.

We took a night tour of many, many of the landmarks for which D.C. is known.  Here are my gut reactions to a just few of our Capitol’s most famous monuments:

Abraham Lincoln – Cold, intimidating, foreboding.  This is the guy who was supposed to be the chummy, honest Abe?  I realize that many people – especially Americans – especially male Americans – equate size with grandeur, but really.  This nod to our nation’s 16th president strikes me as almost… overcompensating.  You know, like the 52-year-old man with a comb-over driving the cherry red T-bird through rush hour traffic.  I mean, he abolished slavery, for crying out loud.  He doesn’t need a T-bird to prove his accomplishments.  It just seems to me that the Abe I knew – the one I learned about in elementary school – would’ve wanted to be more… I don’t know… approachable?

Lincoln Memorial

Taken with my phone’s camera.  Sorry.

Lincoln Memorial

Taken with my phone’s camera.  Sorry.

World War II – Beautiful, peaceful, symbolic.  Fifty-six pillars stand in 2 semi-circles surrounding a large fountain.  It represents the 16 million people who served in the military during the war, as well as the 400,000 lives lost.  I’d like to have lunch there.  You just have to see it.

WWII Memorial

Taken with my phone’s camera.  Sorry.

FDR – Touching, quiet, understated.  This was my favorite memorial.  It’s like walking through a timeline strewn with his quotes and different symbology and statues representing the tough times through which he led our country.  It was a truly moving display, and I’d like to see it again in the daylight.

Taken with my phone’s camera.  Sorry.

FDR Memorial

Taken with my phone’s camera.  Sorry.

Washington Monument – Phallic.  Need I say more?

Washington Monument

If you’ve never been to D.C., I highly recommend a visit.  It helped me appreciate some of the things I learned in my history classes so long ago.  I just have 2 pieces of advice if you do decide to go:

1.  Don’t visit the Holocaust museum first thing in the morning.  It will definitely bring you down.

2.  Do ride the Metro – it’s public transportation at its finest, and the best way to study the locals in their natural element.

D.C. Metro

Taken with my phone’s camera.  Sorry.

Taken with my phone’s camera.  Sorry.