Grievance letters

Okay, I want to talk about frozen foods, and you have to read it because this is my blog. I'm the first person to have ever said that.

Because I'm a marginal wife and mother, sometimes we eat tv dinners instead of homemade food.  My husband favors Hungry Man, while I like a Marie Callender's, which almost gives the illusion of eating real food.  But at some point, many moons ago, their packaging announced a recipe improvement.  I don't like change, so I was predictably skeptical and grumpy as I microwaved my dinner that day.  There was no discernible difference, except for the vegetables, which tasted like chemicals. 

Every single Marie Callender's tv dinner meal that I've had since that recipe "improvement" has contained vegetables which taste like chemicals.  I can't even eat the vegetables anymore, and I love vegetables.  I have to microwave separate vegetables, which defeats the whole purpose of buying tv dinners in the first place: abject laziness.  Finally, I reached my limit - I had to write a grievance letter.

Which is exactly what I did - I sent an e-mail to ConAgra, a name which sounds like the beginning of aggravation.  Perhaps.  A representative - Teri - replied promptly, and explained that all they'd done to the vegetables was to reduce the sodium in the seasoning of the vegetables.  I don't think so, dear.  If that were the issue, the application of salt would solve the problem.  If lack of salt were the root of all strange flavor, then everything that didn't have salt would taste like robot food, which is how your vegetables taste, Teri.  We both know that lower sodium, like the cake, is a lie.

So, just between you and me - what did you really do to the vegetables?  Leave a comment, sweetie.

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While we're here, I'd also like to talk about Toaster Strudel.  Specifically, the cherry variety.  For those of you unfamiliar with the product, also found in your grocer's freezer, here's a visual aid:

Okay, so it's been quite awhile since I've had these, and maybe my memory's not so great, but when I took the pastry out of my toaster oven, carefully applied the icing and took my first bite, I was definitely not prepared for what I saw.  I hadn't really thought about it before I bit into the pastry, but I did have a certain expectation for how the filling would appear.  I had the picture on the box to go by, after all.  What I didn't expect was this:

Hot pink filling.  My camera doesn't even do it justice, it was practically neon in person.  Now, I'm well aware that I'm eating a product that I took out of my freezer, which was essentially made by a machine, but a visual cue such as this wildly unnaturally colored cherry filling really drives the point home that I'm eating artificial junk.  Don't these people want to do everything possible to help me keep my illusions that I'm not slowly destroying my spaghetti house every time I eat one of their delicious desserts?

So again I took finger to keyboard - this time to Pillsbury, a company whose name sounds like where you'd find a nice stash of Xanax, to see if I could solve the mystery of the unreal filling.  As of this posting, I haven't heard back yet.   

I play Sims (part11)

When last we left Rachel Zoe, she'd just made her first successful - albeit unconventionally constructed -cheesesteak sandwich.  After preparing a hot and tasty platter of them, at the request of her impossible to please supervisor, she decided to strike while the cutting board was still crusty, and hops right into her car to make the delivery.  She didn't even change out of her work clothes first.

Rachel's boss just happens to be standing at his mailbox when she pulls up, and immediately recognizes her as one of his employees from the office.

It's impossible to know exactly what Rachel says after she hands him the cheesesteaks, but if I had to guess, it looks a lot like, "Can I ask you something ... is there a chef's hat on my head?  I'm just curious because I was under the impression that I'm a divisional manager at that big office building downtown - yet I find myself here, delivering home made cheesesteaks.  I'm not having a psychotic break here, am I?

But she mustn't have said any of that, because her boss - for once - seems pleased.

Finally on good terms with her boss, Rachel decides that while she's here, she might as well schmooze.  She doesn't know anything about him, so she goes the very standard - and very safe - "nice house" route.

Rachel talks about her home life.

They exchange silly faces.

They even discuss their careers in the industry of business and how working in a nondescript office building segues naturally and smoothly into the subject of space shuttles.

The conversation is going so well, Rachel's boss even favors her with a graph-inspired interpretive dance.

Rachel chooses this moment to ask for a promotion, using what looks like facial expressions taken straight from a phonics instructions workbook.

Her boss answered with his own set of facial expressions.

So.

"Have I mentioned my daughter's head is completely devoid of hair?"

"It's as creepy as you'd think."

"I, uh ... at home - I left a ... thing on.  In the oven."









I Play Sims (part12)

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Insomniblargh Sunday

Before I get started, I just wanted to reassure my whole and fractional Sims enthusiasts that I am indeed working on an update.

So let's begin where the sleeping didn't.  Last night I got into one of those arguments you've had so many times, you start to think you're actually watching a rerun of Bullshit's Greatest Hits, when it actually does hit you that there's a new element to the same old argument that's been blooming below the surface so long, you can't believe it hasn't started writing its own blog that almost no one reads.  Without going too far off into a detail ditch regarding the aforementioned torture method, suffice it to say that it presented my brain with a problem so convoluted, so unsolvable, so circuitous that I was powerless to stop the continuous loop of failed attempts to de-problemate.

I tossed around for a few hours, took a hopeful dose of Benadryl and after awhile started to finally drift off  just before some lazy fuck decided to loudly honk their horn right outside of my bedroom window, rather than waste one of their precious minutes hauling their fat ass out of their car to knock on a door, or God forbid, lift a finger to push a button on their phone to alert their passenger of their presence - an act which probably would have required less pressure than laying on their horn.  But why be logical or considerate of others before 10am on a Sunday morning, when you can behave like an entitled buttface.  It's your world, you just allow me to live in it.

Once the adrenaline shock from that interruption wore off, it was time for our upstairs neighbors to start their day - which, for reasons I'll never understand, seems to involve master bedroom races.  Today's festivities also included something rattling at irregular - yet never ending - intervals against their bathroom floor.  All events that are ultimately not blocked out by the application of earplugs and a white noise machine. 

I gave up on sleep, hard.  The rest of my family eventually got up, and not soon after, wakefulness gave up on me.  I zombie shuffled back to bed and did my best to ignore the continuing 2nd floor Olympics while my husband took the kids to the park.  Once they all returned, I was forced to give up on sleep once again due to the blood curdling tones of an epic, hour-long meltdown. 

Nothing left to do at that point but sit on the couch with my face in my hands praying either for death, or for a cheeseburger so delicious it would almost be impossible to believe it ever really existed to materialize in my hands.  Neither came.  I did, however, manage to miraculously short circuit the toddler meltdown by using my primitive brain to suggest, "Give snack, even if he screams like he doesn't want snack." and then later offering him a plastic cup and a magazine.  Which really seems like a solution to a completely different problem, but when you're desperate, you go with whatever works.

Again, I attempted sleep.  I managed to wrestle a full 30 minutes from those asshole gods of sleep, where I had a quick dream in which an old male high school classmate of mine sat down near me in a restaurant, and said, apropos of nothing, "I only write comic books to pick up chicks." before shooting me a shit-eating grin.  Next, the server collected my plate of potatoes before I was done, right before a stranger stuck his finger in my mouth. 

I woke, noted the time, pin-balled myself against a few walls and pieces of furniture to use the toilet, and stumbled to the livingroom couch where I sat with an empty expression - quite expertly, I might add - until my husband returned from the wild with a hard-won Sonic crispy chicken salad for me.  They'd forgotten the dressing, made him wait 15 minutes for his food, and tried to keep a $7 tip on a $13 bill (and in the end, still shorted him $1 in change) so I'm not entirely certain the building still exists.  He did say we'd never be eating there again.

So how was your Sunday?

Size Matters (but not how you think)

When you find yourself thinking, "My kid dumped almost his entire sippy cup of milk on his face, head, back and our couch this morning - he's got to be thirsty at this point.  There's no way he'd do the same thing again this afternoon.  I can stand in the kitchen for five minutes to have a snack."

You are wrong.  Very fucking wrong.  Not only that, but he'll decide to dump the milk where you sit this time, and it will all happen on the day you finally, finally get the steroid injections in your knees.

Now that experience was a big party all by itself.  You get up an hour and a half early, and arrive on time for your appointment.  The doctor is over an hour late - without explanation, or apology.  When she does finally see you, she pulls out a needle the size of a god damned coffee straw.  Right.  She puts that needle in each knee three times: two on the top, one on the inside, under the kneecap.  Actually, it was twice in the right kneecap, because she didn't quite hit it right the first time. 

She tells you that you have a high tolerance for pain, probably because you didn't scream curse words at her.  Yet.  Then, like some kind of over-caffeinated cheerleader, she starts asking you how you feel.  How does it feel when you stand?  How does it feel when you sit?  Does it feel any better?  How does it feel when you move your leg?  How does it feel when you walk?  How about now? 

How about you just chill the french toast out, lady - you didn't sprinkle me with fairy dust, or wave a magic wand ... you just jabbed my knees several times with a needle the size of terrifying.  That didn't feel too great, and I'm still kinda sore from that - how am I supposed to tell the difference between the old pain and the new pain?  If I could get rid of headaches by punching you in the face, would you want me peeping in your ear immediately, "how ya feelin'!? feelin' better yet?!"

At this point, you realize you've been dicking around the doctor's office so long that you've got just enough time to get home so your husband can make it to work, but as you're walking out the doctor says - with no further explanation, "Take a seat out there."  At first you think she's just testing your ability to sit again, but when she walks away, you think, "fuck?" 

You question the receptionist, who informs you that they expect you to sit there for an additional 15 minutes, just to make sure you don't pass out.  This is the first you've heard of this waiting period.  You try to explain that you're already late because you didn't get in until an hour past your appointment, but no one really cares that your husband's job is looking for any excuse to fire people before they have to give them the severance package in a few months.  So you slump grudgingly into a chair, glaring at their stupid magazines, making a list of everything you hate, including pointless rule following, until the receptionist takes mercy on you and lets you go early.

Now you're sitting on a towel, so your butt doesn't get soaked with milk, your knees kinda hurt in a different way, and the day isn't even half over.  The only thing left to do is sigh, wait for the steroid migraines to start, and hope your husband doesn't have to work tomorrow.    

It might just be time ...

to generate some buzz about my blog - a la Tobias Funke in Arrested Development.  So I'm going to need you to stand around your water coolers (even if it's just the one in your kitchen) making off-hand comments about how fricking hilarious my blog is, and how many times you shook your fist at the heavens, demanding that I owed you a new keyboard for the countless times I forced milk through your nostrils.  When people ask you questions, you could answer with "Nico Morley." and a sage nod.  Don't give me that look, I do it all the time.

Conversely, if you've read my blog and you hate it, feel free to spread the word far and wide.  Get yourself an "I Hates Nico Morley" t-shirt.  Or you could tweet "nicomorley.blogspot.com?  feh.  I'd rather suck a fish head."  Change your Facebook status update to "What do I hate about Nico Morley's stupid blog?  Just the words and pictures."

In other news, the internet is trying to torture me:

Hand to God, all I was trying to look up was the phrase "good news, it's Monday".  If a suppository is the good news, I sure as fuck don't want to hear the bad news. 

I demand to know why

While I'm not going to explain to you why I was doing a Google image search for the word clam, I would appreciate an explanation for why Stephanie Pratt showed up on page 5, thank you very much.

I play Sims (part10)

Rachel Zoe's recent promotion has marginally improved her work uniform.

Unfortunately, her new boss is some sort of douche nozzle/canoe, or whatever other douche-related insult is most popular these days on the internets.

It's just impossible to keep the dude happy.  Today he asked Rachel to cook him up a family-sized batch of cheesesteaks to be delivered, hot and tasty, mid-week.  I guess it's time to race home dreaming about her happy place to try out some recipes.

Let's get this party started with some ingredients.

Disco moves, check.

Dropping spices from a great height, check.

I can't even begin to ask where you've disappeared the rest of your ingredients, now that I've noticed you're putting raw meat into the pan with your bare hands. 

Let's work on that pan-holding technique, while we're at it.

Progress.  To the stovetop!

Now we're cooking with what should be gas, but looks like electric.  *sigh*  What the hell.

Rachel.  Did you just put that pan in the oven?

Well, despite the lack of confidence I see in your face, Rachel, this is the Sims - so I'm sure that when you open that oven door, you'll pull yourself out a plate of cheesesteak.

On a hotdog bun.  Get me a vodka tonic.  Now.

I Play Sims (part11)

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What's in the blog? Pain.

(Dune reference.  I'm just saying.)

I'm here bitching to you nice people about my very boring knee condition to explain that despite my last post, I'm not actually for reals refusing to write entries and Sims updates because not enough people are reading my blog.  The last one was really kind of a joke, written for the benefit of those not reading my blog.  I know that doesn't make sense, but that's why I thought it was funny. 

I should have known better, since when I forced my husband to read it, he gave me that askance nodding "please stop making me read this shit, I already told you that at least 100 people should read your blog" look, and went back to whatever happens in the depths of his mind.

Anyway, I think my body is testing my resolve to live, through knee pain so ridiculous I'm actually willing to let my doctor stick needles into my knees to inject me full of a substance that gives me migraines.  This is the type of situation for which the word conundrum was invented.  The kicker is that because of our soul-sucking night shift schedule, I can't get an appointment for the demonic procedure until the 19th.  So that means 11 more fun-filled days of shuffling daintily around the apartment like some sort of pregnant zombie/Cotton Hill hybrid.  No, I am not uploading a video of it, so don't even ask, dicknose.

I'll update the Sims as soon as I can fuckstart my concentration for long enough to fire up the game and catch my faux friends being hilarious or ironic. 

Read This Blog, Please

I'm asking nicely, here.  I need a reason to keep writing it. 

In exchange, I can give you a good reason to read it - it fights terrorism. 

Hang on, hang on.  Don't shit spaghetti, I have a point, let me get you there.  What is one of the things that terrorists hate most about America?  That's right, Paris Hilton - and what is Paris Hilton known for?  Right again, brilliantbrains, doing absofuckly nothing of value and getting paid for it. 

Well, I'm doing the opposite.  I'm helping you waste your time and keep yourself amused, and it's free!  Much like this country.  So, I rest my case.  This blog is nothing like Paris Hilton, so it fights terrorism AND fights acne (if you wash your face after reading it).

Also, tell your friends to read this blog.  That is, if you don't want the terrorists to win. 

Halloween and Hunger

I've lived in the state I now reside since I moved here - for a handful of years (clear enough?).  I never really cared about handing out candy to the children of people I don't know.  But we've recently moved into apartments with nice people above and beside us.  I don't actually know them, but what I've observed of them from my hermit-like existence indicates niceness.  So I bought a bag of candy, just in case their kids came by, so I wouldn't have to hand them wads of disappointment.  As it turned out, no one came by.

For Halloween my husband put on my Facebook account (he doesn't have one of his own) for one status update.  It was actually kind of a dual costume, because I was wearing his words.  I was him, he was me.  Oh, how deliciously quirky we are!  When I gave him his assignment, I said to make sure that nothing he said sounded anything like something I would ever say ... and he succeeded in a manner that led me to believe that he'd consulted with students at MIT who helped him come up with some sort of mathematical formula that served as a  framework for the status update.  It was something special.  He used the word "Boosh!"  That must have taken at least a half page of math right there.

In other news no one really cares about: Topamax side effects. (Imagine this said in a booming voice with an echo.  I know I did.)

I'm not smelling much phantom cigarette smoke anymore, but my husband is thoroughly convinced it never was in my imagination in the first place.  Like Bunny Walker, he thinks I just have superhuman sense of smell.  I love him, but if that were true, there is no way he would be the only one complaining about the smell of his feet.  I'm just saying.

My husband has resigned himself to the fact that I'm going to have trouble remembering the names for things we all talk about every day.  He's learned to fill in the blanks when I have to go the long way around the word: "it's the stuff around the middle of the bread", or he just takes a guess when I pause for too long and start banging on my head with my fist.  Our life has become like a game show that sometimes ends up like Mad Libs.  Jealous?

Which brings us to the most recent development in side effects - appetite changes.  You know how there are degrees of hunger ranging from "dainty snack" to "goodly feast" or "I could eat" to "bring me Arby's or I'll eat you" and everything in-between?  My first clue that my appetite was changing was when these nuances disappeared and were replaced by a strict Boolean property* situation.  There are only two possible answers to the question 'Hungry?': true or false.  I either had no interest in food, or there were demons in the depths of my gut demanding to be fed - and there was no leading up to it.  One minute I was not hungry, the next I was crippled by hunger and chewing on my sleeve until I could reach food.

Now that has been overshadowed by a complete lack of interest in food at all, usually until the very end of the day, where I can muster up enough interest for dinner.  I still have demons rattling around in my depths, but it feels as though the only options I have to feed them are bowls of white rice or matzo farfel & milk, and I just can't be bothered to chew those things.  Trust me, I don't actually have matzo farfel in my house, and what I do have is way better - it's just that when you have no appetite, even a package of fudge stripe cookies will make you sigh. 

That's right, I have a package of fudge stripe cookies in my house that survived from Saturday through Tuesday.  It's unprecedented.

Don't worry, it'll probably go away and I'll eat all my fudge stripe cookies and then show up at your door to see what kind of cookie situation you've got going on at your house.


*Unless you're brainy and mathy, or familiar with Sims 2 cheats, you will have to use Google.     

I play Sims (part9)

Everyone has their own way of dealing with stress.  I make this look like tai chi.

The sound of almost constant xylophone playing seems to be creating an atmosphere of acrimony. 
Eh, maybe it's just me.  (Am I accidentally rhyming? Shit.  Next I'll start accidently speaking in Haiku.)

 Sometimes it's hard to know what Suri's thinking.  Other times you just don't want to.

The relationship between mother and son has become complicated, and at times ... inscrutable.

Stanley's started school, and he's been having a dozen great ideas per day ... and that's just in the kitchen!

What the hell is that?

Right there, next to the red arrow ... that can't be what I think it is.

Oh god, it is.

Stanley's doing his homework in the middle of nowhere on the sidewalk, like some sort of robot who does what you tell him to do at the precise moment you do.

Would it kill us to cross our legs?  I don't think it would.  I mean, do we have to look like we've been taking charm classes taught by Dina Lohan?  Honestly, I shouldn't even know who that is.  

You know, I think these next few frames caption themselves.  (Call me lazy.)

"Why didn't you ever marry dad?"

"Go take out the garbage."

Next up: Rachel's career and making cheesesteaks. 
Because this is the Sims, they have something to do with each other.  Awesome.

I Play Sims (part10)

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