Changing Lanes

You know what my biggest pet peeve is right now? People who don't wave nicely when you let them in while driving, especially if they did something stupid and you're letting them correct it, or there's a lot of traffic. It takes five seconds! Just raise you hand, twiddle your fingers a little and you're done. Simple, right? People who don't wave make me want to ram the backs of their cars until they at least acknowledge my existence in some way. Ingrates.

My other pet peeve is not having insurance. Seriously. It's probably the worst bit of not having a job (despite my fancy education and the giving up of the last 7 years of my life that I've wasted trying to make myself employable, moving all over the damn country and spending piles and piles of money. But no, that's apparently not enough. Way to graduate in a recession, Liza. Okay, I feel a little better now). Anyway, um, insurance. That's what I like for Christmas. Anyone know how to make that happen?

Well then, that concludes your daily rant. I'll be all over the place for the next two weeks or so, so the chances of my posting are pretty slim, but I'll be back after New Year's. I hope you all have wonderful Chrismahanukwanzakahs and get exactly what you want, and I hope that your New Year's Eves are exciting and sparkly and champagne-filled. Smooches!

Packing Light

I know I mentioned this briefly a few weeks ago, but the boyfriend and I are officially moving to DC shortly. Shortly meaning less than three weeks. There are a bunch of reasons for it, but it's kind of a weird move in that we're only sort of moving while maintaining ties here in Pittsburgh too. See, a family friend needs a housesitter from January through April, but because I don't have a job nailed down we're keeping the apartment here for a few months until I have something more definite, at which point we may or may not get our own apartment depending on whether the housesitting needs to continue past the beginning of April. Sound confusing? It sort of is, in that it puts us in a weird state of limbo for at least the next few months, which is kind of stressing me out. That, and because I'm kind of a weirdo I feel bad about leaving Pittsburgh, like I'm abandoning it without really giving it the old college try. Not to mention the fact that I really like this city and I'm getting really sentimental about it and doing things like briefly crying in the car because the dinosaur outside the Natural History Museum is wearing a scarf and looks really cute, and the museum with the dinosaurs was my favorite when I was a kid, and I was having a moment.

I can't believe I just admitted that. Moving on...

Anyway, so because the house is already furnished, we're not taking much with us. The question is, what do you take with you besides shoes, clothing, and laptop? It's forcing me to make a decision on what I can't live without for three months, which is hard, dammit! So, my box of stuff so far contains a rather strange group of items. We have, to start:

-The Bon Appetit cookbook, the Fanny Farmer cookbook my mom gave me, my binder of recipes, and boyfriend's diet cookbook. Cooking and baking calm me and make me happy, so I obviously had to include some cookbooks. Oh, and also some magazines with good recipes, which reminds me...okay, have added the last few months' Bon Appetit issues to the box.
- Some random colors of nail polish. Look, I have to have cute toes. One should not neglect her feet just because she's slightly unmoored geographically.
- Jewelry. Basically the same category as shoes and clothes.
- Grey's Anatomy Seasons 1 & 2, Legally Blond - like comfort food in DVD form.
- Life of Pi, Harry Potter 7, Breakfast at Tiffany's, a book on running - a small selection to keep me occupied if I'm having one of those days where I really just want to zone out on something I've read before.

That's all that's in the box so far. To be added shortly are a few trinkets that I've attached sentimental value to, my stuffed animal that I've had since I was a kid (his name is Poindexter, in case you were wondering) and the one that my best friend gave me in the hospital after I totalled her car (um, yeah), my basil plant (all that has survived my poor gardening skills), some photos, and possibly my Kitchenaid mixer. I can't really live without it for three months, but I'm reserving judgment until I find out if there's already one at the house.

So that's my must-have list. Kinda random. Apparently I'm a good cook who watches cheesy girly stuff on TV, kills plants, and likes to be nicely pedicured. I'd ask what's on your list, but I'm not sure if anyone reads this anymore. Comment!

White Knight

Of all of the things that periodically irritate me about being female, the biggest is probably the damsel in distress phenomenon. Most often, this occurs whenever I go to the gas station to put air in my tires. Random dudes catch a glimpse of me, air hose and pressure gauge in hand, and deduce from my capable handling of my own damn tires that I clearly must need help. It pisses me off to no end, whatever their intentions, because to me it conveys a totally caveman-ish attitude that the mere lack of a Y chromosome makes me incapable of handling something as simple as a tire refill. I'll add that the one and only time that I let a guy fill up my tires, because he was being annoying and I was in no mood to argue, he overfilled them, something that poor little helpless me wouldn't have done.

Anyway, gas station rant aside, the other day I posted an ad to sell the portable dishwasher, which I no longer need, on Craigslist. I got a response, set up an appointment, and a guy will be coming by this evening to pick up said dishwasher. Well, I told boyfriend this, expecting a simple response, and instead he tells me that I need to call maintenance and arrange for one of the guys to come hang out in the parking lot with me while the dishwasher transfer is made. Actually, first he told me to have one of them come chill in the basement with me, where the storage unit is located, but then I told him that I wasn't enough of an idiot to meet a stranger in the basement, so parking lot it is. This led to a bit of an argument. I'm not claiming that I was in the right by yelling at boyfriend that I was NOT a damsel in distress and perfectly capable of taking care of myself without a security detail, but...actually I'm claiming exactly that, minus the cranky yelling bit (I probably could've used a nicer tone of voice). But, because he's insistent and I'm incapable of saying "Okay honey" and then ignoring him, I called maintenance today. And arranged for dishwasher security. And now I feel like an asshole, because Bill from maintenance couldn't understand why I needed protecting either. He literally said "So what do you need me for?" after I informed him that I didn't need help hauling the dishwasher. Attempting to explain to someone that you need him to come hang out in a parking lot in the freezing cold for five minutes after his workday is over = really embarrassing conversation.

Oh well, at least boyfriend won't have to worry about my safety being compromised anymore, although I plan on whining about it just a little bit more, just to even the scales a touch.

Everything's Better with Bacon

If I may be so conceited, I just made a freakin' awesome BLT. Technically, it wasn't a BLT, more like a BSTAC, because I used spinach and put avocado and cheese on it, but it was fantastic. It was a glorious display of gluttony. Anyway, what made it so fantastic (aside from the cheese and avocado, which are awesome) was that instead of toasting the bread like I normally do, I decided to grill it in the leftover bacon grease. Did that make it exponentially more fattening? Yes. Was it worth it? Abso-freaking-lutely.

Is That So Much to Ask For?

Two things:

1. I would like for someone to realize that it's impossible to eat only one ounce of cheese at a time, and correspondingly reduce the calories so that I can eat a whole block at a time and not feel guilty.

2. I would also like for alcohol to have no calories, especially wine.

If someone could make that happen I would be eternally grateful.

Pay It Backward

Recently, the boyfriend and I got new phones. It was about time, since we'd both had hurricane-era phones and people would actually look at mine and say "what the hell happened to it?" It was sturdy, but time to go, and Verizon was overcharging us anyway. So, new phones. They're nice, and we'd had them about a week and a half when boyfriend lost his. It wasn't really his fault - he got into a friend's tiny sports car and it popped off of his little clip (if you know boyfriend, who is 6'8", you might understand how this could happen while folding himself into one of those bitty Nissan Z things). Anyway, he retraced his steps, but no luck. So he sent himself a bunch of texts, and there was a business card in there - basically, it would have been easy to return it. But of course, people are douchy sometimes, and the phone was gone for good. This baffles me. Now, I know that times are tough and all, but if it were me, and I found someone's brand new looking phone (or wallet, or anything for that matter), I would return it, especially when it's as easy as dialing a number. Maybe I'm naive, but I like to think that most people would. So anyway, he calls T-Mobile and asks them if there's any way to track the phone. You would think so, since you generally have to call the company to switch phones or get an unlock code. But no. Since it's T-Mobile, all you have to do is switch out the little memory card. I was sort of half-listening to his conversation with the rep, and out came this:

"So, basically what you're saying is that my best course of action would be to steal an identical phone and put my card back in it?"

Clearly he wouldn't do that, because he's not one of those douchy people that takes things that clearly don't belong to them, but I get his point. Apparently, when it comes to putting your faith in the basic goodness of people, the best course of action is to pay it backward.