adult

Groundhog Day 2016

Posted on by bangscrafts

Today was a good day.  I had my 90 day review at my job, and came out pretty shiny.  I didn’t have a hugely busy day besides that.  I worked out and felt strong.  I finally ate my chowder and it was delicious.

Getting home was even more productive.  I did all the things I planned to do today.  I put away the last two boxes.  I swept, I dusted, I tidied.  I cleared away all my mountainous paperwork.  I organized my overload books.   I swiffered up the salt-floor.  I emptied the dishwasher.  I hand-washed all the dishes in the sink.  And I deep cleaned the stove top.

Meanwhile I watched The Neverending Story Part II….which I haven’t seen in about 15 years, and it’s pretty awful.

How funny is it to be cleaning your stove and realize you’re exactly fulfilling your nightly plans.  I am an adult!

Good news is, I didn’t do it for approximately 34 years in a time loop.  And early Spring for us all!  Happy Groundhog Day!

My mama can dance, and my daddy does rock ‘n roll

Posted on by bangscrafts

My mom is pretty much my best friend, and there is little contestation in that.  (Except, as a friend pointed out, when it comes to my sister, my dad, or my sister in law).  I welcome the day with a “good morning” text to her; one of us always says goodnight before whichever of us heads to bed first.

On occasions people have asked me if I’m checking Facebook when I’m texting her.  For starters, I do not have Facebook, and I never have.  And since those circumstances, I have referred to my mother as my Facebook.  I told her that once and she sent me a blushy emoji face.

She is the most the most graceful person I know.  Whenever I have a tough conversation, or a bad day at work, I try to emulate her approach.  She invented devil’s advocate because there is always another side and usually it is important to see that.  My mother created in me someone who wants to be fair, to stand up for myself, but to also be patient and kind.

Mom and me

My dad is my dad.  He is exactly the exception of all the stupid He-Man bullshit the world puts out, while simultaneously being the most capable and coolest man possible.  He set the bar high, to put it simply.  When I was a kid all I wanted was to be exactly like him, even down to being an electrical engineer.

Once I hit the age where I realized literature was more my forte, I had to come to terms with being so different from my dreams.  But then I became an adult.  And I started asking to borrow the staple gun, or I got fed up with my landlord and I nailed down the floorboards myself.  It was a great day when I realized I become more like my father every one of them that I live.

phone-update-may-190

 

I hit the jackpot with these parent units o’ mine.  My favorite description of myself is that I am the perfect amalgamation of the two of them.  I have my mother’s beautification skills…with my dad’s power tools. 😉

“Oh there’s not too much in here,” and other dishwasher stories.

Posted on by bangscrafts

The kitchen was an oft used room in my childhood, for so much more than cooking.  My first dance parties were in that checkerboard titled room.

Our main chore was emptying the dishwasher.  Molly and I would take forever to load the 5-carousel CD player, that we knew full well only 4 CDs played from, we just never knew which CD wasn’t going to play…big mystery it was.  We’d each hold our huge CD booklet and select 2 each, and the fifth one had to be equally agreed upon.  And of course the whole lottery aspect of the player ruined our time consuming logic.

Every single time, or at least 95% of them, Molly would open the dishwasher and as she was easing the door down to the floor, she would explain (not merely say, no, exclaim!) “Oh!  There’s not too much in here!”  Because, of course, we never wanted to empty the damn thing, and when you’re a child, menial tasks take forever.  For about three years I believed she was actually stacking up memories of what the last load enumerated to be.  And then I became the wiser and realized that there was always not too much in there.

I have to say though, Molly did really try to make chores fun.  (I’ll have to go in pitchforking the woodchip pile at a later date.)  In retrospect, some of her tactics baffle me in the fact that they worked.  Such as the day she decided, “wouldn’t it be fun if we put item away at a time?!”  And then we continued to parade a fork, a bowl, the strainer, to their respective spots.

I have my own dishwasher now.  There’s a couple things I’m appreciating.  First of all, having my best friend be my sibling.  But also having literally the best sister you could ask for constantly there to make awful things awesome.  I can only hope for my future children to have a Molly.  But even then they probably won’t win as much as I have.

In case you ever wanted to have a Carroll dance party, I’ll make it easy for you:

Carroll Dance Party Playlist:

  1. The Go-Gos
  2. Backstreet Boys
  3. Shania Twain
  4. The Bangles
  5. Scorpions
  6. The Coors
  7. Pocahontas soundtrack
  8. Phantom of the Opera soundtrack
  9. Nightwish/The Ramus
  10. Bonus Track: “We didn’t start the fire” by Billy Joel (or Jimmy Bowl [another post])

You need to wear some solid-bottomed shoes, be able to pick up at least one family member, and dance like no one is watching.  Like any good Irish-person does.  Good luck, and tell me about it!

 

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.