White Girls Can't Stir-Fry

I LOVE good Asian food.

I'm not talking about the kind that is served at a place like this:



(I don't want to bite into an egg roll and see bavarian cream ooze out, nor do I want rainbow sprinkles floating in my wonton soup.)






  I'm also not speaking of truly authentic Asian food such as these "1000 year old" eggs:










Nor this plate of duck tongue:










No thanks. Just give me a bowl of rice or noodles with some nicely seasoned meat and a fresh veggie or two.

Not being able to afford to eat out at PF Chang's and Pei Wei's several times a week, I have experimented a bit with various recipes with very little good fortune.

Available at local markets are ingredients necessary for Asian delights like these noodles:




Unfortunately, there are no instructions as to how to cook them.

Or if there are, I can't read them.








 I think that bottom line in Vietnamese says, "Ha ha ha, just go to the restaurant already!"

I've purchased and prepared many different types of Asian noodles over the years and they just don't turn out right. Some batches have been okay and others have been downright nasty.

I've found there's one product I can always count on:


Now these are instructions I can read:

Actually, I haven't read them in years, but if I ever forget how to boil noodles for three minutes and then drain them, I'll know exactly where to look.

Yes, I realize that these things are virtually void of nutrition, but so is a big bowl of white rice that I could serve instead.

Isn't the main nutritional horror about these orange packets actually the little silver packet hidden inside?


That's where all the sodium, mysterious chemicals and most of the fat is contained, right? So if I use only one silver packet for every four packets of noodles then I'm not technically poisoning my family, right?



AND...if I pile a bunch of lean meat and fresh vegetables on top...

 ...then I'm kinda, sorta nourishing my loved ones, right?

Right?!?!

Yes, I realize that I began this post with the words, "I LOVE good Asian food" and I'm ending it with a confession about how I dish out ramen to the innocents in my care.

Feeling better about yourself yet?

Abrasive Advertisements

As I was jogging through the neighborhood this morning, I kept seeing these slats of wood blighting people's driveways. Upon closer examination, I saw that they were, in fact, advertisements for a company selling shutters, blinds and shades.


Apparently, some guy was in his workshop, staring at the heap of refuse that he was about to throw in the dumpster out back when a revelation hit.

"I know!!! I'm gonna paste my phone number onto all these useless scraps and litter the neighborhood!"

Great idea, fella.

Some other genius (of a tree-trimming sort) canvases my street a couple of times a year with little baggies full of pebbles and a business card.

Honestly, do these people think that as we're leaning over, cleaning up our previously tidy front yards, we're thinking, "Oh, I'll be sure to give these guys a call." ???

Here's an idea: Keep your window treatment waste and ziplock o' rocks to yourselves.

Don't you understand that if you want to increase your patronage, you shouldn't start by annoying potential customers? I haven't got an M.B.A., but that makes sense to me.

Who among us hasn't started our car and begun to exit a parking lot before noticing a flyer stuffed under our wiper blade?


You know that you're the one who'll get a ticket for littering if it flies off, so you have to stop your car, put on the e-brake, take off your seat belt and retrieve the stupid thing.

Which of us hasn't stumbled to our front door, arms overflowing with grocery bags, mail and a set of keys only to be greeted by one of these, dangling from our doorknob:


Now, in our complete vexation, we have to figure out how to detach it while unlocking our door and not dropping the watermelon we are precariously balancing between our shoulder and chin.

It's spilling out of our mailboxes, too. I can't count how many envelopes I get each week from Citibank and Chase, pathetically begging me to get one of their credit cards. One day, we literally received four solicitations from Chase Bank alone. (Go chase someone else, would you?) I've never stepped inside a bank run by either of these institutions and every unwanted envelope that emerges from my mailbox with their name on it convinces me further that I never will.

Probably the latest development in pestering commercialism is taking place on the Internet. Sometimes I'll be minding my own business lulled into a photon-induced stupor, staring at the screen when it's suddenly commandeered by some unknown evil force. The news article I was just reading is completely obscured by an ad for a mobile phone company. I guess they figure that since I waste so much time on the Net that I won't mind if they waste some for me.

Wrong!

Traditional TV commercials are a bit of a novelty to my family since at home we watch shows exclusively on the Internet or through Netflix. Therefore, when we are in a motel, we actually do watch the commercials, familiarizing ourselves with some present day Americana.

(The following isn't so much irritating advertising as it is just plain weird.) On a recent trip, we saw an advertisement for a hybrid car. The ad was progressive in nature so throughout the TV show's commercial breaks we saw the evolution of the car owner's experience. You see, he stopped at a gas station to use the restroom, but multiple people proceeded to badger him over his car. It culminated with the gas station attendant informing him that he could not use the toilet unless he purchased some gas.

Hmmm...Did the ad execs think we were going to watch that and say, "So if I buy this car, then I'll experience harrassment and wet underpants? I'll take two!"

Whatever...

Here's my advice to businesses: If you want a loyal clientele, then offer good products at good prices and LEAVE US ALONE!

Now, Now, Don't Panic

Jeff and I took a little field trip to the ER on Monday.

For the past couple of weeks he has had a sense of pressure on his chest, as if it was being sat on by one of these:

Well, by Monday, he was feeling as if he was being sat upon by someone more like this:

Therefore, he was finally willing to call our doctor. (WHY are men so obstinate when it comes to seeing the doctor???) Jeff was told to go directly to the emergency room.

He checked in at the front desk and was called back right away. (I've always heard that if you want fast service at the ER that you ought to complain of chest pain. Well, them liars were right.)

Within the first 15 minutes of being there, Jeff had been x-rayed, EKGed, had his blood drawn for a battery of tests and was tethered to a bed by multiple apparati. He had a pulse reader on his right ring finger, his left arm was encircled by a blood pressure cuff (which inflated occasionally, seemingly at its own whim), multiple electrode leads were stuck to his chest and an oxygen tube was simultaneously wrapped around his head and stuck up his nose. (That last one was his favorite.)

Oh, and of course let's not forget the fashionable hospital gown. When he decided to go use the restroom, (no, he wasn't catheterized) we undid all of his medical bindings and I tried to tie up the back of his gown. Unfortunately, it was missing a tie on one side. :)

This was the most disclosing photograph he'd allow me to take:


Not that I blame him, really.

Within a few hours, the doctor came to tell us that all of the tests had come back normal and that the pain might be due to a viral infection. So we removed his fetters one last time and left.

Jeff took another day off of work today and is feeling much better this evening.

However, he was so put off by the entire rigmarole (you know, the whole process they put him through in order to determine if they should intervene to keep him from dying or not) that he has resolved not to say anything next time he feels a heaviness on his chest, even if he feels like this poor fellow in orange:








Ughhhh! Men...