Don't hate me cause I'm beautiful...

Hate me cause you're jealous!  Haters!  Bitches!  And you KNOW who you are!!!!!!!!! lololol

Ah, I'm killing myself here!

Wanna know WHY?

Let your eyes flow over this shit my little cherubs!

Can any of the boys and girls guess what this is?



This is a crock boys and girls. Can you say CROCK? Can you say CROCK OF KRAUT? This is the food of the gods, the manna and ambrosia spoken of by the most ancient of Greeks. Ok, maybe not by them, but at least by all the good little German folk.

This is my magic crock with the lid off...see the weights holding the yummy goodness down below the fermenting liquid???



They are saving all the yumminess and keeping it safe. What's that? You wanna see what the yumminess looks like UNDER the weights? Oh, wow, boys and girls, your Krazee aunt doesn't know if she's got a picture of that...let me check...

nope, porn,

more porn,

oh look, chickens...

more porn...

pirate booty?

ah, found it...it was behind the shot of my honey in his brand new polka dot stockings.



BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, you wanted to see the KRAUT?! lolol My bad. I must have most grievously misunderstood. Let me find THAT shot...



And for all you kraut lovers...I used this wonderful woman's recipe.  I made one minor adjustment.  I was afraid of the amount of onions she looked like she was going to use so I used one onion  and one tablespoon each of kosher salt and caraway seeds per head of cabbages.  Using the wonderful crock I bought, I didn't have to worry about skimming the top of mold or throwing away the top 1-2 inches of kraut.  It was ALL YUMMY GOODNESS!

And, just as an aside...what did we have WITH that homemade kraut you might ask. Well, I'll TELL YA!



We had the ULTIMATE Michigan dinner:  Kowalski's kielbasa and some of that wonderful elixir that no one outside of our little cold corner of the globe has ever heard of.  POSERS!

And what was for dessert, you ask?  



Yeah, yeah, I know, mutant brownie snakes, you had those YESTERDAY!

Y'all are just jealous bitches, the lot of ya!

Hey honey...where'd that corner go? Darnit! That was the best part! He ate MY brownie! MOTHER! He ate it and didn't share!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ahem...shut up.

And now for something completely different...

I've been nice you know.  Quiet, demure even.  That's just not me, gotta tell ya.  I try to be sweet.  I try to be polite.  I try to listen to the generalized ravings of the world and respond with clarity and patience, cause you know, I should.

Well, seriously...

FUCK THAT!

Now is the time for me to SHINE at what I do best...tell the world exactly how it's managed to frost my ass this frelling time!

Please, you should strap in - it's gonna be a bumpy ride!

I'm getting dressed for work.  I do that sometimes.  I find that if I DON'T do that, what with the whole working in a medium security male prison thing, it makes for a somewhat more interesting day than I might have alternately planned for.  So...I'm dressed.  Downstairs.  Making coffee.  I do that too.  Because...ditto...see above!  Making coffee, drinking coffee, spilling coffee...

ALL DOWN THE FRONT OF MY FUCKING SHIRT!!!!!

Dammit it seven layers from Sunday, I'm late to begin with.  Let me just dab off the excess and I'm out the door.  You know what happens when you take THAT approach to messiness?  It don't get cleaned, that's what! lol  I'm starting my drive in and what do I notice?  I smell like a fucking coffee beanery.  I don't even LIKE coffee that much.  I like my one cup in the morning, for the drive, and then one little styrofoam cup at work.  That's it.  Now I smell like I've bathed in L'eau du Juan Valdez.  Shit.  Shit.  Shit.

Still driving...I've left late, hence the reason I'm wearing Juan's cast offs, but just how late am I?

FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCK!

I have no watch on.

Frell me dead.  I can't do my day with no watch.  How in the blazing holy hell of life am I supposed to know when to throw out the monkeyfucktard wizards sucking the milk of ever loving human kindness straight from the bite marks in my neck if I can't tell how long they've been in the office.  Dammit all.  I'm screwed.

Get to work, talking, listening, caring, curing, you know, I'm going the whole 9 here...manage to catch a break, open up email and what to my wandering eye should appear...but my notice that my certification is about to expire next year and I MIGHT wanna think about renewing it.

What is certification you ask?

It's that most noble of entities.  That bastion of education that certifies that I know more than a little about my chosen field of experience.  That sweet little piece of paper that cost me $300,000 in school loans, then another $2000 or so for the first initial cert, and now is gonna cost me another $1800 to renew.

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I'm sorry...you tell me I have to take a test to prove I'm smart enough to not kill people, you tell me you're the only one who can adequately determine if I'm smart enough not to kill people, you tell me I've got to pay you $1800 so you can give me said test and then score it?!

Are the pages of this test made of pure dilithium crystals? Titanium, perhaps? Gold? God's short and curlies????

Is the scoring system based on a template carved directly into marble or granite?

Is it being hand scored by Madonna or Lindsay Lohan  (both of whom may or may not be available at this moment?)

FUCKERY MOST FOUL that's what this is!

MOST HEINOUS FUCKERY indeed!

All I gotta say is I better pass this fucking thing first time out...I'm totally NOT paying the $1200 for the RETAKE exam fee too!

Jams - the Good, the Bad, and the Thrown Away!!!!

Well, here's the story that I promised for yesterday! lol  It really might not be all that worth waiting for...you don't get to taste it after all!

BUT YOU COULD!!!!  Really, it wasn't that hard.  I made some Banana Jam and I cannot recommend it highly enough.  But...beware (insert scarwwwy music here)...it's not for the faint of heart!

Ok, maybe it is.

First, you must get yourself a jam bible.  I recommend



It is cool, concise, and listed in alphabetical order by fruit.

So, let us begin at the beginning, eh?!  First...get book!  Next...go to B for nanners!  Then...realize you have nothing to make said nanner jam with...so GO SHOPPING!

Ok, maybe not everyone gets excited about shopping, especially shopping for fakeAmish stuff like canning equipment, but hey...I get no kick from champagne...alcohol doesn't thrill me at all, but I get a kick out of SHOPPING! lol  (I warned you in the side bar...I really am a bit of a nerd.)  For making this jam, you'll need nanners and assorted food type stuff.  A big bowl to mix stuff in.  A big pot, like you'd make spaghetti sauce in (or at least the size I'D  make spaghetti sauce in, lol).  You'll need some half-pint jars with 2 piece lids.  And a chilled plate (trust me on the illedchay ateplay).  You'll really only need the canning equipment if you're planning on keeping the stuff for a while.  You can certainly make a batch, put it in the jars, and frig it.  From the recipe, you'll get about 6 half-pints.  You'll want to give some away as I don't think anyone likes nanna jam enough to eat 3 pints of it in a month...unless you're a park ape!

(For the purposes of political correctedness...there's nothing WRONG with being a park ape and no slander, libel, illwill, antipathy, animosity, or general emotional stifling was meant or implied in the above comment. The writer of this here blog will be shortly sacked. Thank you - The Management)

(There are also banana jam recipes online so you could go there too...but I like having the book.  Books make me happy!)

Now look :



See that???  That's what you get when you combine the skills of a doctor, a card shark, and a chief cook/bottle washer ...bet you didn't even realize you needed 3 different people to make jam, didja?  That friends, is about 7 or 8 medium sized bananas with some sugar and some raisins, and some lime juice and zest, covered and resting overnight on the counter.

Or, in MY case, resting in a partially open oven so my nitwit cats (Flourish and Blotts) don't decide to paint the house banana yellow while I'm safe in the arms of slumber.  (Don't trust them slinky cats...they'll get'cha everytime dagnabbit!)

So...now on to the cooking...




This is what happens after a good amount of time and a fair amount of nanna mashing. I wanted sorta smooth jam like stuff so I mashed the crap out of it. You know, just a hint to the masses here...it's rather hard to mash raisins so be prepared you're gonna have SOME nuggets in there!

How can you tell it's done you ask? This is where the chilled plate comes into play. I put a saucer in the freezer when I started so the plate would be good and cold. Put a bit of jam on the plate (while it's cooking) and put it in the freezer for a minute. When you pull it out, it should be thick and mounded on the plate, not running all over. I also dragged a finger thru it and the jam leaves that clean streak in the middle. It won't fill that space back in. This shows it's gelled right.

Now from here you get to pour into fresh clean jars...



This is after jarring and cooking in the hot water bath to preserve them. You don't have to do that though, like I said.

Then YOU EAT! We had it on vanilla ice cream. Nothing better I tell you...unless it's that same said vanilla ice cream with blueberry jam on it, even if the blueberry jam is a weeeeeee bit stiff, lol.

Hmmm? What was that? Something about bad, thrown away jam? Well shit, you would have to remind me of that, wouldn't you. Just rub my nose in it while you're at it why dontcha? Bitches, all of you.

Ok, you wanna make me feel bad! FINE!



THAT is what you get when the aforementioned doctor, card shark, and chief cook and bottle washing mother get together to cut up the most perfect of sugar baby watermelons fresh and direct from a wonderful local farm market that's been here longer than I have (Carmen's if anyone would like to know...on Rt 322 fairly close to the Hamilton Mall here in south Jersey). It turns bad and gets thrown away when someone (ahem...coughdoctorbubbleheadcough) decides to try to speed the process along and BOIL said lusciousness to thicken the syrup instead of gently simmering for HOURS like the bible said to do.

Yeah, fuck you all...YOU'D have tried to speed up the process too! Hours man, HOURS, just simmering away looking all shiny and liquidy and not getting thick and all jammy preserve like.

So...my plans for this weekend you ask...it may include going BACK to Carmen's to check if they've got any more sugar babies, dammit! I'll get back to y'all on that one.

A great way to spend a Friday Night!

My goodness, who amongst my many many readers (BAH! I'm killing myself here!) doesn't know Little Big Town? Shame on you! Stop reading now, go to iTunes and start downloading, I'll wait.

NO REALLY I'll wait.

Ok...everybody back?

GOOD! Now turn it on in the background so you'll really get the most from this.

My mom, my beloved honey, his dad, and I all went to see LBT at the House of Blues in AC yesterday. It was such a blast! We met up with my BH's folks at Showboat and had a bite to eat at the HOB restaurant. This is the second (or is it third?) time I've been there. Still haven't had something I disliked. I had a VERRA nice medium rare burger with gobs of bacon on it. Mom went with the Cajun chicken pot pie which she loved. BH and his mom went with the catfish po'boy which they both seemed to really enjoy and his dad went with the jambalaya which he really liked...except for that first bite. He decided to bite into the jalapeno that came with the dish. I'm guessing he's not a fan of the real HOT hot. I don't think he was quite prepared for it to be that hot! lol I think he drowned it out with the rest of the dish and a big ole glass of soda. At least I hope he drowned it out with that! I hope he didn't pay for that later!

Right after dinner, we all split up and his folks headed to another casino (I think) to check it out, BH went walking on the Boardwalk in one direction and Mom and I headed in another. STOP it! He's allowed to go off and look at derelict construction sites if he likes! lol Me and mom, we headed to Steel Pier. I was THIS close to getting her to get a waterproof tattoo! lolol Get a little fairy for her, get me a little pirate head or something (you know International Talk Like a Pirate Day is approaching! Total personal threadjack here...but you DO know about ITLAPD,right? It's Sept. 19th. Get cracking! And I fully expect it to be celebrated in the Azores this year!!!!!!!). They would have worn off in about a week or so. She could have walked into work Tuesday and shown off her new tat...yelling at the rest of the loser bitches who don't have cool art like hers...all while pretending it wasn't going to wash off in the shower and be like the total adult version of the Cracker Jack tattoo prize! LOLOL But, we were running out of time and didn't think we'd get back for the meet up with everyone else! It might be something I talk her into later though! STAY TUNED!

Mom and I also got to check out the Rocket. Rocket hell, it should just be called the Vomit Comet and be done with it! It looks so cool but I really think I'd have to be falling down drunk and high as a kite to even CONSIDER IT! (And frankly even the THOUGHT of getting onto the thing under any influence of ill advised substances makes me nauseous. Without the benefit of ever having been high, I quite frankly cannot even imagine being such under THESE conditions!) For the brave...it's a big ball of metal with 2 seats in it. That's it! Then for the spankin' prices of $20 for one person or $55 for 2 (and coming with commemorative shirts for the riders and a SPESHIUL video capturing your vomiting all over God and Creation, how can you even think there's a better way to spend that paltry amount of money!), you get buckled into the thing while it kicks up up into the air on what seriously appears to be a giant bungee cord/rubber band thingie!

In fact, go HERE . The first picture...the two red lines... That's the guide posts for the Rocket! Then a shot of the cage and then one of the Rocket going up. But that really doesn't do it justice folks. The cage shoots UP AND OVER the top of the guide post things but at least a story...maybe TWO!

And again, in fact go HERE . That's a video of it! These folks are klearly krazee...but I'll admit it...it does look like heap shit fun, if you can keep the vomit off your new shirt that is!

After Mom and I got done investigating that, we headed back and caught up with BH and his dad. His mom didn't want to see the show, so she played while we were in there. We go into the area and find our way up to the seats...3 flights of stairs at a good incline. Remember me...sick...couldn't make it into work for two days leading up to this (stop it, only coma, death or paralysis was keeping me from this concert!). I wanted to stop 3 or 4 times along the way to catch my breath. You'd have thought I was dying! (I was, but let's not get caught up in the little things, shall we?!) We get to the top and the lady hears me sucking wind like a marathoner and she gets all annoyed. Apparently there's an elevator and she can't believe the crew downstairs aren't pointing that out.

um...no...they didn't. Oh well!

So Mom points out that we've got two sets of tickets - one for her and I and one for BH and his dad and that they're not together. So...the crew figures the show isn't sold out anyway...so they put us together...in a reserved section! lololol It was soooooo cool! We were about 2 rows back from where BH was gonna be sitting and about 4 back from where mom and I would have been. BUT! We got to sit together on a big old overstuffed leather couch with cute little tables and everything! It was really fun!

The opener (Jonathan Singleton and the Groove), I thought, was really fantastic! I love his raspy, not quite trained and rough around the edges voice. BH and his dad were not quite as impressed, lol but as my pop says, that's why they make vanilla and chocolate! They played for about 30-40 minutes or so. I really liked the songs, especially one called Living in Paradise and one called Why Don't We Just Dance that Josh Turner will be releasing Monday. Their version (it's their song) is killer good and quite rocky but they said Josh's is a wee bit slower and obviously deeper (LOL) so I can't wait to hear it. (I'm a huge JT fan anyway!).

LBT came out at 10pm and played for about and hour and a half. It was just great. They're harmonies are just so fantastic! There's no one out there like them. I think it is completely criminal the show wasn't sold out - but then again, we might not have gotten the cool couch seats so I guess that's ok. A great mix of both their albums and then a new song and a couple of Fleetwood Mac songs which are always good to hear - especially if they're going to be covered that well! I've always thought the harmony of LBT reminded me of Mac anyway so it works for me!

But you should all know that anyway, right?

Because you're all listening to them from your iTunes downloads...right?! lol

And stay tuned kiddies! Tomorrow...Banana Jam (hopefully with pictures if I can figure that part out!)

Well, I'm still here...

I haven't died, no matter how much I may have wanted to. I may still be dying though. I'm not sure. My honey is being a trooper about it. He asks if there's anything he can get me. He asks if I'm ok. He asks if I've taken anything. He asks if I'm going to go to the doctor.

It's these last two we are having issues with. See...I'm not a fan of cold medicine. I rarely find it helpful. The decongestants rarely decongest and the sleep aides rarely aid. I'm rather a fan of the old mantra that your cold will be better in 14 days if you take the medications, drink orange juice, and eat chicken soup. Your cold will also be better in 2 weeks if you don't do a damn thing either. He finds this information less than comforting. I find it to be reality - a very pricy reality bestowed on me thru the benefit of several hundreds of thousands of dollars, 4 years of general medical training and another 4 years of specialized training. (Ok. that training was in psychiatry but I really am a real doctor, dammit!)

I back these bits of information up with the sad sad truth that is...no doctor can help me. Not me, not my superdoc cuz (who has hightailed it to paradise apparently) and not my doctor. I just have to suck it up, put my biggirl panties on and get thru it. I know a virus when it jumps up and tries to kill me. I'm not sick enough for this to be bacterial and until it hits bacterial land, there's nothing anyone can do to speed up my sickly little immune system. My honey did not want to hear this. I think he was quite put out that I was sick and he couldn't offer any suggestions to fix it. He likes to fix it. I like him to fix it. He just can't fix this...

well, actually he can...in about 2 weeks!

Until then, I plan on trying not to whine, too much. I'm trying to bone up on the rest and the fluids - and not even the fun fluids either! And I plan on taking my sick ass back to work on Monday. I think it's been long enough to say I tried to keep from infecting the rest of the world. I took two days off. That's enough!

At least it better be.

A New Day

So...how can I possibly be so ill that I am unable to actually go to work, but am so healthy as to begin a blog? Well hell, that's easy. There's sick and then there's SICK! I can't say that I've ever been soooooo sick that I was too sick to bitch. That would be a mighty strong layer of sick. I'm not at it, yet.

See, I hate being late. It's a thing for me. I remember in college being told "to be five minutes early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late, to be late is totally unacceptable." I took that little pledge mantra to heart. I made it part of me FOREVER, lol. So, here's me rolling over and looking at my clock this morning, from under a haze of dying and no glasses wearing blindness to find it read what looked an awful lot like 5:48am. Now, I know, that CAN'T be possible. At 5:48, I'm in my car heading off for points unknown in south Jersey. I'm driving, yelling at idiot drivers who are too slow to be in front of me and too stupid to know that they were supposed to have gotten the hell out of my way. At 5:48, I'm not just waking up. Crap.

I just up, thinking, if I don't shower, if I just brush my teeth and throw on clothes, no one will notice. Sure, doc, no one will notice you're a skanky no showering dirty mess. Yeah. Then I hit the bathroom, thinking I would jump in the shower and just go into work one hour late, and the room began to spin when I sat down. That's when my demons started in on me.

You know those demons - they look an awful lot like twisted Dwarves. First there's Sleepy, then there's Grumpy, then there's Lazy (he was in the story! He just couldn't be bothered to be in the movie!) and they're all standing on your shoulders whispering into your ear.

Go back to bed, go back to bed, go back to bed.

Yeah, they won. I woke up in time to call out.

And, just as an aside, does anyone else see the ironic stupidity of having to wake up to call out. Can't I just call out the night before. I'm sick. I knew I was sick when I went to bed. You made me wake up to tell you I'm sick?!? Bad form, that's just bad form.

But, I'm awake now. I still feel like shit mind you, but I'm awake. I thought I'd tap a little on here and just send my thoughts into the nothing that is the interwebz. Now, I'm going to try to force myself to eat and then flop down in front the idiot box and feel my IQ drop a few points thru the wonder that is modern daytime TV.