Month: December 2015

Including the kitchen sink

Posted on by bangscrafts

Today was devoted to unboxing, or so I said upon my waking.  Yesterday was only for finding a TV cabinet, and I did so.  So kismet is on my side, and I really want to unpack this place.

I placed my DVDs in my new TV cabinet.  I also watched a couple episodes of Friends, again, when that was not at all the plan for today.  Watching 20-somethings in the 90s be irresponsible makes me feel really great for being pretty responsible for 25 in 2015.  Ross says “you know, you reach a certain age where you’ve out grown a roommate…” and the whole ensemble looks at him glaringly.  It may be the only moment where I agree with Ross, but I really don’t want to live with some random person. And I’m not!

Today was made of good decisions, and I felt bored.  I rearranged the underlings of kitchen sink.  (My ceiling leaked this morning too, but that is a transient situation.)

Kitchen sink

Cascade.  Bounty.  Swiffer.  Fire extinguisher.  Me in my “Pirate Ride” Cedar Point T-shirt I got for Christmas two years ago.  I’m pretty much the biggest nerd.

I have made room for a table and more than one chair in my new apartment, now.  I know you’re jealous.  I am in disbelief still.

 

Araneae in my water closet

Posted on by bangscrafts

There was a serious minute when Molly and I were kids that we realized that killing bugs is incredibly cruel.  Our mother having written a children’s story about an adorable ant named Theodore certainly had a lot to do with it.  Although, at the same time, all of our favorite stuffed animals were technically rodents, and seeing a few dead mice in the basement makes you think about things.

We began to imagine there were ladybugs living on the ceiling fan, there were spiders in the drain of the kitchen sink.  (There’s some James and the Giant Peach influence here as well, I’m sure.)

At some point I think both Molly and I silently acquiesced that there’s an acceptable death-rate to bugs that infiltrate your house.  It may not be our proudest day, but it happened.  And as unfortunate to this story that it is, we were pretty okay with doing so.

Centipedes have their own rules though.  When there’s that many legs, there’s no expectation of being okay being near such a thing.

I have dated various calibers of bug people.  The main stay in my past was once very anti-insect, but grew up to be a crazy praying mantis PH.D. biologist guy (that is not his technical title, I’m sorry Dave).

I also have a sister-in-law (an influence on my sister certainly!) who loves bugs with the passion of a gross little boy.

Bugs are not my favorite things on earth.  However I would like to state that I am no damsel in distress when it comes to them either.

I know I’ve said I’m newly single, and I think that’s important to my encounter with my first apartment spider.  Having established my alignment when it comes to bugs, my story is short from here.

My ex-boyfriend was a twerp about bugs.  He’d spend decades of minutes in the bathroom, but heaven forbid a ladybug landed in there!

I encountered a gross spider tonight.  I apologize to the spider’s family, but I would like my bathroom walls to not be polka-spidered.  Thank you.

 

4:40 and counting

Posted on by bangscrafts

Boy I love my sleep habits.  I love waking up when it’s technically still night and deciding it’s better to cut my losses and putter around making myself breakfast.  The killer part is the diner around the corner isn’t even open yet, so I truly have to fend for myself.

Cream cheese and cucumber toast later, I’m still pretty grumpy.  I think I’ll probably still get an omelet from the Big Egg when the open at 6, which is a timestamp I had anticipated waiting for in my sleep.

I was at Dave’s Market yesterday and deliberately passed up buying eggs because I thought they would go bad before I had a chance to eat them.  Great job Shannon.

In other news, I can’t even keep a battery operated fish alive.

In twenty more minutes I’m going to be ordering the most feta-rific omelet the west side of Cleveland has to offer.  If you are jealous right now, I’d like you to remind yourself you were probably fast asleep at 4:40 am.

I knew the oven was something to fear.

Posted on by bangscrafts

I have been cooking for three plus years now.  In my mind, on a professional level.  Ask my sister, she might agree.

Ask my ex-boyfriend how difficult it was to make a darn cucumber and cream cheese sandwich.  He used to insist on making them for me, based on how easily I would slice skin when trying to slice cucurbitaceae.

What you need to know is that when I was a non-descript young age, my wonderful father told me about how when he was stove-height, that the hot electric coils looked cozy, and he put his chin on them.  I’ve never seen my father without a beard, but that’s a scarring situation..

Ergo, I inherited a stove and oven fear.

Then I was destined to be in a relationship where I was forced to make food.  Up to being 22, I avoided the oven like the plague.  But how do you just sit idly by when the person you want to be with is only heating up circular bread with pasta sauce?  Especially when that’s one of your least favorites?!

My first meal cooked was something out of an easy cookbook Molly gave me.  My third recipe, I swear to god, were these veggie pesto eggrolls that my entire family hold me accountable for now.

I just want to remind you that I was initiated in the land of food by a horror story from my young father.

My mother can tell you much better about my fear; she would ask me to get things out of the oven in attempts to save me from what my fate at that time was sealing.

I suppose it takes dating a baby to realize how much of an adult you are.  Ex-boyfriend guy wanted to make a frozen pizza every night.

This post isn’t about him actually.  You know who it’s about?  It’s about me, and this great new person in my life named Otto.

Jims words

It’s actually mostly about the fact that I didn’t realize that my “warming drawer” is essentially just a drawer to being 400 degrees.

But I would also like to mention that I am clumsy as fuuuurrrk.

This amazing person I literally just met nearly took care of my finger better than I ever could.  First of all, how cool is it to meet a person who wants to do that?

Second is, how cool is it that you do not need help to live?  You just thrive on loving those who want to help you, and you wonder how you got so lucky to meet them.

Don’t place your chin on a stove.  Don’t finger hot hot pans.  Do be careful when you’re cutting gourds.  I am a great chef.  Please ask me advice on how to cook and not how to be hurt.

 

Those cheese slice papers are a metaphor for something….

Posted on by bangscrafts

Late lunches for me mean dinner will be an afterthought, or just a few beers.

I’m still up and dancing in my kitchen, the eleventh hour chimes, and as a video game character, my life bar just plummets.  Blearily, I fall out of my leggings and Star Wars shirt, envelop myself in flannel and four blankets, lay my head down and BANG.  Hunger strikes.

As a newly single, fantastic-cook, apartment-renter, I of course had a few things in my fridge.  The story behind that is the burrito place I set my sights on for that late lunch was closed, and feeling like everyone was looking at me thinking “Wow look at that weirdo girl meandering around,” I bee-lined it for the supermarket around the corner, instead.  (Side note: I have a stubbornness with a vengeance when it comes to choosing those hand held baskets instead of carts….”oh yeah I only need a few things….” Typical Shannon.)

Needless to say, I bought sandwich-makings.  Sandwiches are the universal equalizer, so you probably know the pieces parts.

So I went to bed.  I was swaddled in blankets and warmth.  But then my stomach protested in a way I could not ignore.  I’m a firm believer in NO FOOD IN BED (do you put salad dressing on your pillow….no? Well then duh, don’t eat in bed!)

I made a sandwich.

As a millennial, I would like to testify against Subway as the sandwich makers.  You haven’t met me…I AM the sandwich maker.

I have bread.  I have cheese.  I have protein (I’ll take this moment to introduce myself as a vegetarian.  Get used to it.) I jumped out of bed knowing what Shannon was capable of.

I’ll remind you here, I’m a new apartment renter, and I have a lot of boxes.  I can tell you one thing; I can navigate boxes well enough to sandwich-away my hunger.

I realize how simple it is to stack bread and cheese.

Pleeeeeease.

All week I have been playing box-dodging acrobats in order to make myself some version of dinner.  I’m beginning to see the word “Uhaul” in my sleep because of how many boxes I’ve been living with.  I don’t care to admit it, but some of them have bested me at times, and I might have a bruise or two.

And I did so I began stacking.  Starting at 11:56 PM.  I was so ready for this sandwich, I was ready for the bare minimum in sandwich arts.

(As a vegetarian I decided to buy the newest Tofurkey “deli meat” option….bologna.)

Stacking whole wheat, Havarti, and Tofurkey bologna is really something to be done in the light of day apparently…

I took a big bite.

First instinct was that Tofurkey should not make bologna.  I’m nearly fighting this damn sandwich.  It’s tough as hell….and as a vegetarian, processed fake-deli meats aren’t usually very tough at all!

Lesson learned at the end of this day?  Havarti, as a very soft cheese (of course) comes with those cheese papers….and I ate a good deal of them tonight.  I would like for you to know that they tasted awful, but mostly they were an inconvenience to my teeth.

Being an adult means sometimes eating cheese papers.  Try to tell me otherwise, my friends.