I should be so lucky

image credit: xkcd comics

I'm sensing a pattern. I cannot fucking win. I'm beginning to hate Scrabble, and myself. This weekend Steve spanked me again at Scrabble. I tried all day not to play, and when I lost I was very, very close to pitching a hissy fit. I was also very, very close to cheating.

"Q-U-O-N-E. QUONE. You know, when a patient gets out of hand, you have to quone'em. We need a medical dictionary!"

Granted, I am showing improvement. I only gave him 2 Triple Word Score spaces, instead of setting him up for all 8, and I only lost by about 40 points. But when did I become such a poor loser?

I was never really big into sports in elementary or high school. First out in dodge ball in 4th grade PE? Oh well, I'll just sit over here and read "Incident at Hawk's Hill" again.

On the rare occasion when I wasn't riding the bench on my high school's varsity softball team, my sister and my best friend would eat my sunflower seeds and drink my Gatorade Ice, filling it back up with cloudy water from the team's water cooler, then laughing at me when I came back into the dugout. The three of us were also admonished by out coach for an inappropriate display of mirth on the bus ride home from a particularly bad loss. Apparently the appropriate attitude was one of despair and humiliation. We didn't get the memo. It was Friday, and we had a date with a handle of Aristocrat vodka and a henna home tattoo kit.

I hope our Technology department isn't monitoring my internet usage too closely today, lest they see a spike in Google searches for 'scrabble+tips for winning' and 'how to lose graciously.'

It's just like riding a bike, right? Right?!?

So I haven't blogged for a while (you didn't notice? oh well) which has created a backlog of post ideas that have leaked into my real life conversations. Prefacing a story with, "just a warning, this might be TMI," doesn't really work out well when you end up telling your mom how you know it's gross but you still sit bare-assed on the toilet seat at bars because the 'squat-and-pee' maneuver it too difficult to pull off after a few drinks, and no one really gets crabs from public toilets anyway, right?

Also I said 'fuck' in front of my mom and my 5 year old niece, but thankfully my family is too shocked to really address this issue, so after I weathered the 25-30 seconds of awkward silence I was home free.

So here's a quick recap of things that have happened to me in the past 2 weeks or so:

• I cut off all most of my hair. I love it.
  

I went sledding with my niece in Michigan. Being in the snow for less than 45 minutes rocks. After that...not so much.

Steve got drums. :(

That is all for today. Yay 2009!

*[Updated to add]: Why did no one tell me I spelled niece wrong?

Wine Eye?!? What happened to Notorious?

I was riding with J and Julie to a friend's wedding, when I over heard this half of a phone conversation between J and The Groom:

J: Yeah, we're almost there...I'm with Julie and Sarah.
The Groom: (inaudible)
J: Hahaha, yeah, Wine Eye Sarah.

Me: What? Who's Wine Eye Sarah?

WTF? I'd never heard that particular nickname. I interrogated J and Julie, but neither one of them was copping to any knowledge of the origins of the nickname. I barely made it through the ceremony before rushing The Groom and demanding an explanation. I walked away in a huff after he spilled the beans.

The backstory: I used to date The Groom's best friend a couple of years ago. We met at a local bar that had karaoke and 1/2 price bottles of wine every Sunday. Needless to say, I was there just about every Sunday.

The beans: Unbeknownst to me, drinking an entire bottle of wine all by myself causes one of my eyes to, well, there's no delicate way to say this, drift? Go lazy? How fucking embarassing. Karaoke Boyfriend and his boys were laughing at my lazy drunk eye and calling me Wine Eye. Granted, these boys gave everyone a nickname, but I thought mine was Notorious, since that was what they called me to my face and my signature karaoke song was (and continues to be) Notorious by Duran Duran.

I wanted to punch someone, but since Karaoke Boyfriend was safely in Colorado and The Groom was, well, The Groom, I had to laugh it off and pretend I didn't care. But I did, internet. I did.

But then I reviewed pictures from the wedding after-party and decided the nickname was warranted, after all. Still, that fucking sucks.

Ernie's imitation of Wine Eye Sarah.

Not funny, Ernie.

Anyway, if you've noticed a decline in pictures of the dogs over the past couple of weeks (come one, I know there's at least one of you), it's because Wine Eye struck again and I lost my camera. HOWEVER, Steve rocks and got me a brand spanking new camera for Christmas.

I totally would (with bonus Delicious Deliciousness)

So yesterday Nilsa over at SoMi declared it a De-Lurking Day. As I have a problem keeping my mouth shut, the holiday didn't really apply to me, but she did say that regular commenters could ask her a question. Any question. This is dangerous territory my friends.

Maxie's been doing a "Would you Wednesday" for a while now, and it's a game my friends and I play all. the. time. Usually it's along the lines of, "What if you met [insert name of current celebrity obsession], and the two of you fell in love, but he would only ever have sex with you doggie style? He would never want to look at your face when you were having sex?" Which typically leads to a 30 minute conversation in which we hammer out rules/details (could I look back at him? could we do it in front of a mirror? is it because he was molested as a child?) before finally deciding on a scenario all parties are satisfied with. Sometimes it leads to one party calling another party a psycho pervert, but it's all part of the game.

Anyway...so my question to Nilsa was:

Would you agree to wear a bag over your head (with eye holes cut out, but no mouth hole) every time you left your house in exchange for an enormous sum of money (enough to keep your immediate family financially comfortable without working for the rest of your lives)?

And you couldn't tell anyone (other than your significant other) why you were wearing the bag.

But last night Dexter had a bad case of Old Man Bladder, so after I had let him out a couple of times, I couldn't get back to sleep. I played the "What if?" game by myself. I thought up some new rules.

1. You could take the bag off to drive, because driving with a bag over your head is just dangerous.
   
2. You could not take the bag off to fly on an airplane. You'd probably look like a terrorist threat, so you'd either have to learn how to fly yourself (like driving, you could remove the bag while actually piloting the airplane) or resign yourself to only road trips for the rest of your life.
   
3. You could not embellish the bag, other than to cut the two eye holes. No drawing a face or bedazzling the bag.

I'm sure there were more but now I can't remember them.

So anyway, would you? And all you lurkers out there, would you, too? I want to know!

**Bonus Delicious Deliciousness**

Steve hasn't been feeling very well lately, and when he confessed to me on Monday that he was feeling "poopey," I promised to make him some chicken soup. How nice of me, right?

Well, it would be nice if I knew how to make soup. Which I don't. Really, I don't even like soup. But after the words were out of my mouth, I had to make some shit happen. We can't have little Stevie feeling poopey and disappointed, can we?*

Lucky for me, I found this recipe at epicurious.com and tweaked it a bit. Tortilla Soup with Chicken and Lime? Sounds like a winner!

And it was, internet friends, it was. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients
1 white onion (chopped)
1 jalapeno (de-seeded and chopped)
1 zucchini (chopped)
1 tbsp minced garlic

1 box chicken broth (I got the big one, I think it's like 36 oz.)
1 can corn
1 can black beans
1 can Rotel diced tomatoes (any variety would work, but I used "with lime and cilantro")
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper (more or less to taste)
2 green onions (chopped)
a handful of cilantro (chopped)
1/2 cup lime juice
2 cups Mexican cheese blend
1 ready made rotisserie chicken from the supermarket, about 4 lbs. (or you could poach your own***)

4 5-6 inch diameter tortillas (corn or flour)
no-stick cooking spray (I used Pam)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Stack up tortillas; cut in half. Cut each half into strips. Spread strips on a non-stick baking sheet and spray with cooking spray. Bake until light golden (about 12-15 minutes). Set aside to cool.

Saute jalapeno, zucchini, and 1/2 of the chopped white onion (reserving half to add just before serving) in garlic in the bottom of a large sauce pan (or you can use a good sized electric skillet, like I did). When onions and garlic are just turning soft, add broth, tomatoes, corn, black beans, bay leaf, cumin, and red pepper; bring to boil. Reduce heat; simmer 5 minutes.

While broth is simmering, remove the meat from the rotisserie chicken and shred. Set aside.

Before adding chicken to the broth, remove half of the solids from the broth and blend in a blender or food processor. This makes the soup less watery and more like a stew. Add blended solids back to the broth. Add chicken; allow to cook for about 5 more minutes. Stir in green onions, reserved 1/2 white onion, cilantro, and lime juice. Season with salt and pepper.

Ladle soup into bowls. Sprinkle with Mexican cheese blend and tortilla strips and serve.

---------------------------------
*No, we cannot.**
**I apologize for the footnotes. I don't know what's up with me.
***Show off.

Is it cliche to say that men are incapable of putting the seat down?

I grew up with three sisters. When I moved out and went to college, I went to a women's college. When I got my first apartment, I lived with 2 other girls. I have never (knock on wood) fallen into the toilet seat because a man has left the seat up. Dating Steve, though, has taught me to never take for granted that the toilet seat is as I left it. Up, down--you better check that shit unless you want to end up dunking your ass in some toilet water at 2 in the morning.

The other night I woke up, having to pee. I stumbled into the bathroom and turned on the light. As I approached the toilet, I saw that the seat was down.

"Aw," I thought. "Steve put the seat down. He really is such a thoughtful guy."

I got closer, thinking nice thoughts about Steve, but I soon noticed that something was amiss. The seat was sparkling like Edward in the sunshine. As this is not typical of Steve's toilet, I investigated further.

I think you know where I'm going with this. Steve had, in fact, not put the seat down, or up for that matter, but in a sleepy stupor had peed all over the seat. Thank goodness I turned the light on and noticed the sprinkle. Or I would have had to suffocate him in his sleep.