Merry Streptococchristmas!!

I work at a soap/beauty/lotion store. As such, I am required to demonstrate any and all products ONTO my customers while saying encouraging things to them like, "This is SO good for you." Or, "Really, this is SOOO good for you."

Ergo (therefore) I am constantly touching people. It is winter, a month notorious for illness. Massaging every person to walk through our store during this heightened time of germ-trafficking may seem like a dangerous job and actually, you're right. It is. But somebody has to move that product, lest the children begin to suspect that there is no Santa Claus. 

Not surprisingly then, I fell ill on Christmas day.


Christmas Eve, however, was a helluva time. Myself and my Persian friend enjoyed a decidedly unchristian gluten-free meal while babysitting some sick rats. We watched about 20 minutes of Doctor Zhivago (starring Omar Sharif--oh my god what a babe, in fact let's take a pause here for a moment

--okay thank you.) we drank about 30 cups of tea between the two of us, and discussed the finer points of sex and sexuality until we fell asleep. All in all, a grand holiday. The next morning, however, I woke up feeling like my throat was full of garbage and a bit delirious with a fever. I took a cab home and proceeded to NyQuil myself into the land of Nod but not before creating a slew of rather bizarre "holiday" cards for my friends.


The next day I was feeling monumentally better and decided to cook a whole chicken that I had been saving for Christmas. But, now, woefully, Christmas had come and gone and my only memory of the day was being strung out on NyQuil and watching the pilot episode of Lost.

But who cares?!! I manically reassured myself on a wave of post-illness enthusiasm. For all I care today is Christmas all over again! To the kitchens with you, carcass of fowl!!!! And now I would like to share with you Mackenzie's recipe for TOO MUCH Soup.


TOO MUCH Soup

1 whole chicken
big ass pots
1 red onion
garlic cloves until you are crying
blatant disregard for internet recipes
potatoes
a desire to simultaneously make fried chicken
oil
salt
pepper
flour
sugar
coriander
oregano
frozen peas


The first step is to google something similar to this recipe, read half of the first paragraph and then simply forge ahead. Watching muted youtube videos that seem related to what you are doing is also a good idea:

Once you've gotten half way through making TOO MUCH Soup, you should try it and see how it tastes. If it doesn't taste the way you want, just add more pepper. If it tastes exactly perfect, add a dash more pepper and serve hot.

Pestilence

I just killed 6 cockroaches. With poison. It didn't make me feel good the way it should have.

Maybe killing things is overrated. According to all the James Bond movies I've seen and a wide assortment of TV shows and other media sources I am addicted to, killing things is easy, fun and exciting. But in the world of insects, it's actually very upsetting. This doesn't make sense because I'm like 4000x larger than most insects and they are fundamentally stupid, worthless and unwanted.

Okay a good for-instance is spiders. Gross, right? Yeah whatever they eat mosquitos but like...not in my house, okay? Get the fuck out. Do that outside. Lately, though, I've had this growing fear that there is an afterlife. And that this afterlife is ruled by spiders. What if that were true? I wouldn't want to kill spiders in my current life, you know? Then I would be severely punished -- for *eternity* -- BY SPIDERS. This frightens me and so I have stopped killing spiders because I can't handle the potential infinite exposure to 8 legs, hairy bodies and multiple roving, unfocused black eyes.

I did make an exception the other day though when THE BIGGEST SPIDER OF YOUR LIFE broke into my house and was just chilling out next to my bed. [Those weak of heart, beware the pictures below]

I stalk you gently, human. Practiced stillness yields not a limb to quiver.

Of course, killing this spider took an enormous amount of bravery, focus, and a heavy shoe. I was literally squealing with fear even as I towered like the world-dominating mammal that I am over this large-for-its-species-but-still-relatively-small creature. After I killed it, I had to quietly scream for a short while and dance around my house. Sadly for me, this particular insect had a twin brother that came looking for its brethren the following evening.

"Is tha--? SON OF A BITCH."

"AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIY!!"

Cockroaches are a different matter. I have no qualms about killing them but they kind of ruin my day, you know? It's like "Oh! I think I'll make some peanut butter cookies tonight" No. No you won't. You will discover an intimate get-together of cockroaches enjoying a sort of coffee-date around a stain on the counter top and have to top them off with a healthy dose of Raid.

Aaaaaaand peanut butter cookies no longer seem desirable. In fact, nothing does. Eating seems like a remote, impossible thing that isn't even worth thinking about.

Words of Encouragement

Friends! Luba has again graciously contributed yet another star burst of enthusiasm for etiquette and behavior to Drinks with Dinner. Today's post features a celebration of winter and all the pleasures of a cold morning.