Give Me Chili Or Give Me Death

There are three basic maxims to follow when you’re cooking chili. Number one: make sure it is not hot outside. Number two: make sure you have all the ingredients. And Number three: make sure you’ve got a pot big enough to hold all of it. Well, I am proud to say that I am sitting here, typing, and enjoying a delicious homemade bowl of chili that I made, and I failed to follow all three of the above rules.

But why would you do such a stupid, dumbass thing, Carrie? Well, I’ll tell ya. Last week was a cold week here in Fort Payne. When it gets cold, I crave chili. One needs three things in Fall: cold, chili, and football. So, I had the cold, I had the football, I needed chili. Alas, due to my procrastination of other things, I didn’t have time to make it ’till this week. And this week, it has been warm. Just my luck. But I’m not gonna let ten degrees’ difference of heat stop me from makin’ my chili. To solve the problem, I just turned the thermostat down about five degrees, a simple action. First maxim solved.

Second problem wasn’t quite so easy; some ingredients missing from the pot can mean life or death for any chili, no matter what oddball recipe you’re using. Mine wasn’t that dire of an ingredient (or else I would not be eating yummy chili right now), but I’ve never made chili without it before. I was lacking tomato paste. I realized this before I left work, so it was my intention to swing by the Foodland (I don’t like to brave Wal-Mart after 5 pm), and pick up a can or two. Soon after walking into Foodland, however, I soon realized why it is that I shop at Wal-Mart, and not at this store. They had no freakin’ tomato paste! Not a single can. They didn’t even have any tomato sauce, which can be used in a pinch. Then, just ’cause I needed something to come out of my visit to this store, I try to find some of the canned cat food that Renton likes. Would you believe they didn’t have that either? Foodland. They should call it FoodDesert. Or Foods R Not Us. Or something like We Only Sell Batteries And Depends. Boogers upon them. So, still not wanting to go to Wal-Mart (it was Hell there yesterday, absolute Hell), I decide to wing it without the paste. I scrounged the pantry, looking for something tomatoey that thickens. Tomato soup? Why not, better than nothing. Better than a trip to Wal-Mart. Tomato soup it is. Now, I possessed all the ingredients I needed, more or less.

Breaking the third maxim was a bitch. Especially ’cause it jumped out from the empty cabinets and bit me on the ass; I was not expecting it to be a factor at all. I had a stockpot, once. I know I did, ’cause I have memories of cooking a chicken in it at Auburn, and storing all the paper birthday napkins that I collected over the years. I had a stockpot. Apparently it ran away and took my napkins with it; didn’t leave me a note or anything. Just imagine this picture: I’m in the kitchen, on the phone with my mom (using my cell phone, which doesn’t like to cradle all that well between my ear and shoulder), Renton is at my feet having a fit because I’m not paying attention to him 100%, I’ve got ground beef browning in a skillet, and I’m just finishing cutting up an onion into little tiny pieces. A multitasking Carrie; it is possible. I’m ready to mix up all the ingredients, everything’s coming together, I just need my huge pot. It’s at this point that I realize my pot is MIA. Oh bugger. “Oh, don’t worry, you’ll rig up something,” Mom says. I’m so irritated at myself, but I am not giving up. I want my chili. Let’s see, skillets hold stuff, boilers hold stuff, let’s try using both! So now I was cooking two batches of chili, one in a skillet, and another in a boiler type pot thing. Double the fun. Double the stirring, the seasoning, the tasting, the reseasoning, the temperature adjusting, and even the mess cleaning. You name it, I doubled it. But I didn’t use a stockpot. I be a crafty Carrie.

So an hour and half a bottle of chili powder later, my creation of chili was ready, jerryrigged all the way. And it tasted fantastic. Probably not as good as I can usually make, and certainly not as good as my mom’s, but I made it, despite the obstacles in my path. Huzzah!

Now, a quick thought. Why in the world would I write so much about a stupid bowl of chili? ‘Cause, sadly enough, this was the most interesting part of my day. I suspects I need a bit more of a life.

And On A Side Note. . .

Yay to the Auburn University Fire Department, who swiftly hosed out the fire on The Trees at Toomer’s Corner after the game. I sincerely hope that the idiots who lit the toliet paper ablaze were sore-losing Tennessee fans; surely Auburn people wouldn’t do such a thing. One would hope.

Don’t believe the trees were set on fire? Go to www.theplainsman.com and see the video then.

I know those trees only have maybe another ten to twenty years left, but let’s not hasten the process, k? K.

Tiger Attack! (grrrr. . . .)

WOOHOO, WAR DAMN EAGLE!!! 28 to 21 man! That was the most nerve-wracking game; all of Auburn’s games have been boring one way or the other until last night. That was the team that was supposed to show up at the USC game; that was our Auburn. Tiger attack!!! Now, where’s Arkansas? We’re ready (Joannaaa. . .did you know. . .there was a razorback in my truck? Huh? Didya? There was a RAZORBACK in my truck!!!)

Too bad I wasn’t physically there in Auburn; I had to watch it on TV ’cause I had no ticket. I don’t get a Bama ticket either. I felt so homesick seeing Auburn on TV; they showed Samford Hall, and the band, and my Aubie, and the section I sit in. . . I wanted to BE there. ‘Course, if I had been, we probably woulda lost, so every little bit I can do to help. . . And I wore my Aubie pin, too. I forgot to wear it the first two games and look what happened; I’ve worn it since Vanderbilt. Us Auburn fans are very superstitioius people. At the last game Ken’s mom wouldn’t let Jeff sit in the same place he sat for the USC game. It worked, too; that and my Aubie pin. War damn superstitious fans!

Take that, Corso. Who’s a pigeon now? Ka-bong!

The Itsy Bitsy Spider Crawled Into Renton’s Mouth (Down Closed The Jaw And Swallowed The Spider Down)

Dance dance dance! Auburn won last week, 48 to 7. (I’m just gonna type out the score lazy-like from now on; I’m tired of drawing up the score all cool and making a link, yada yada). Anyhoo, yay!!! And yes, I know it was just western Kentucky, but us Auburn fans are hard-up for victories.

I really don’t like spiders. Apparently Renton doesn’t, either. I came out of my room one morning to find no less than three huge half-eaten spider carcasses in the dining room. Eww, I don’t know what’s worse, knowing those kind of spiders are in my apartment, or knowing my cat kills and ingests them for fun.

That’s one thing I’ve noticed about Fort Payne; they have a bunch of interesting, different bugs. Nope, not your normal houseflies and mosquitoes for this town. It is like Entomology 101 outside my apartment door. As I type, outside my door there lies a dead walking stick, cicada, grasshopper, beetle, various gnats, and a dead bird that the neighbor’s cat contributed, but that doesn’t count. At least they’re dead. The spiders in my apartment are alive and kicking, until they meet up with Renton the Spider Killer.

Stupid Georgia And An Old Friend

Damn near GameDay! Woohoo, it’s about time. Last week was an off-week, so I had to make do with watching the Tennessee/Florida game and the LSU/Georgia game. Speaking of which, stupid Georgia! It was hard to pick which one I wanted to lose in that game. At first I was pulling for LSU (cause Georgia needed to lose), until Cathy pointed out that it would be better for Auburn if LSU lost, since they are in SEC West w/ us, whereas Georgia is in SEC East. Alright, pulling for Georgia. I figured they’d win anyway. Stupid Georgia lost! The one time we needed them to win something, they lost! They probably did it on purpose, too. I bet they thought, “Now, what would be the worst thing for Auburn? Us losing? Okay, let’s do that. Anything to piss Auburn off.” Thanks a lot Georgia; see ya in November.

So this old acquaintance of mine showed up the other day, out of the blue. Haven’t seen him for four and a half years; I had figured he would never show up again. How wrong I was. He used to show up more often, usually around holidays, birthdays, or times when I had to go somewhere. Quite annoying, really. He’d just come on in, say hey how ya doing haven’t seen you in a while, and proceed to move right on in. But, like I said, I haven’t seen him in quite a while, and had hoped I’d seen the end of him. That’s what I told everybody who asked; he wasn’t coming back.

I have almost completely forgotten what it’s like with him here, and I regret to say that sometimes, back when I thought he wouldn’t show up again, I had slightly wished he would, just to remind myself how it was. I truly couldn’t remember what it was like; I thought surely it wasn’t that bad. Couldn’t have been that bad. Now I’m suffering the consequences of ‘be careful what you wish for, it might come true,’ and it sucks, and I just want to get to Auburn, and then I’ll worry about him. I can tolerate him ’till I get to Auburn, just let me get there.

Anyway, like it or lump it, he’s here again, and I can’t wait to get rid of him. Until then, I might as well be nice. . . so welcome back, Asthma, long time no see, and would you please get the f*** outta my life. Thank you.

And now, off to Auburn I go I go. Haven’t been to the stadium since the ill-fated USC game. GameDay makes everything better; always remember that. And I will feel good and we will win and it will not rain; always the optomist am I.

The Missing Tina

My phone rang this afternoon. I go to look at the Caller ID, and don’t recognize them; it’s a local number. I figure I’ll just let ye olde answering machine get it. The answering machine picks up, and before my recorded voice even has a chance to utter one syllable, the person on the other line goes, “Is Tina there?” then hangs up. “Hmmph,” I think, “she didn’t even get to hear my really great message.”

Well, not two minutes later, the phone rings again. Same person. This time, they do hear the message, which says, “Hi, you’ve reached Carrie’s apartment. Tina does not live here anymore. I do not even know who Tina is. If you want to leave a message for Carrie Paulk, please leave a tone after the message.” In case you didn’t notice, I get calls for Tina a lot. Mostly bill collectors. Anyway, the person on the other line hangs up again, leaving no message. “Hahaha, I finally got to hear my message in action,” I muse.

Two more minutes, and the phone rings again. Surely not the same person, though, right? Yep, one and the same. Message plays again all the way to the end, then the prompt beep is emitted, and she says, “Wrong number,” and hangs up. Wrong number?? It took her three times to figure that out? I worry about some people.

So what’s the story about this Tina character? She’s obviously popular, and not just with the bill collectors. This latest lady sounded like a friend. Where did Tina go, and why did she not tell anybody? There’s the usual guesses: she eloped with her cousin, she went into debt and is now on the run, she was attacked by rabid raccoons. All equally plausible. However, they’re not colorful enough. Here’s what I think happened.

Tina, mother of eight children and wife of some guy wearing a wifebeater, was living a typical normal redneck life, and quite happy, thank you very much. Well, mostly happy; she wished her husband didn’t stink so much. Sorta happy. A little happy. Oh, let’s face it, she was downright miserable; come on, she had eight brats and a stinky husband! So, after watching an episode of Matlock, which is a very educational show if you want to learn how to almost get away with it all, she whacked her husband on the head with a bunch of socks from the local mill that were starched together to create a vicious sock-bat, which killed him dead right then and there. Then, one by one as they came back inside from playing in the storm sewer, she whacked all of her kids as well. In the dead of night, she buried them all in shallow graves in the chert pit north of town. She knew they wouldn’t be missed, as her husband was unemployed, and she wouldn’t let her kids near that new fangled thing they call a school. The perfect crime.

The next day, she cancelled her power bill, newspaper subscription, and paid off the rest of her trailer, and took the rest of the money and headed north. Way north. She hitchhiked all the way to New York City, where she caught a plane to France; she read about their really nice beaches. Once in France, Tina adopts a new name (she is now Teena), buys a hat, chair, and suntan lotion, and headed for the Riviera. Now Teena, a widow, single and loving it, is sunning in the south of France, and is quite happy, thank you very much. Well, mostly happy; nobody told her how much these French stank. . .

That’s what I think happened to Tina.

Avast! Prepare to be swaggered, bilge rat!

Arrrrr. ‘Tis be Talk Like A Pirate Day. Time to be a conjugatin’ them verbals, and right smartly. Oi, and don’t ferget thar rum. And learn yer some poetry, ay?

We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot.
Drink up me ‘earties, Yo Ho!
We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot.
Drink up me ‘earties, Yo Ho!

Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate’s life for me.

We extort, we pilfer, we filch and sack.
Drink up me ‘earties, Yo Ho!
Maraud and embezzle and even hijack.
Drink up me ‘earties, Yo Ho!

Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate’s life for me.
Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate’s life for me.

We kindle and char, inflame and ignite.
Drink up me ‘earties, Yo Ho!
We burn up the city, we’re really a fright.
Drink up me ‘earties, Yo Ho!

Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate’s life for me.

We’re rascals, scoundrels, villans and knaves.
Drink up me ‘earties, Yo Ho!
We’re devils and black sheep, really bad eggs!
Drink up me ‘earties, Yo Ho!

Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate’s life for me.

We’re beggars and blighters and ne’er-do-well cads.
Drink up me ‘earties, Yo Ho!
Aye! But we’re loved by our mommies and dads!
Drink up me ‘earties, Yo Ho!

Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate’s life for me.
Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate’s life for me.
Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate’s life for me.
Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate’s life for me.

Friends Don’t Let Friends Eat Apricots and Ice Cream

I figured I’d be creative with my dessert tonight. But you know, I don’t think apricots and cream work as good as peaches and cream. It’s like apricots. . . with these cold bits of stuff on ’em. Well. . .I’ll eat it anyway. What the heck. At least I didn’t put chocolate syrup on it too.

Lately Renton has been chewing on everything. Everything. There are teeth marks in my lamp shade. I’m thinkin, if I wanted an animal that chews on stuff and poops in the tub, I’d’ve gotten a nasty ol’ dog. Yesterday, when he started going after my great grandmother’s quilt (I daresay I made mention of it in the last post), I thought enough’s enough; time to investigate! So after putting the quilt into the closet with all the other potential chew toys, I look up the prob on the internet. On all the sources I found (and I found quite a few), they started out with statements like, “. . .it’s a phase. . .they grow out of it. . . no worries”. Good, keep reading. . . then at the end of these oh so helpful paragraphs were phrases like, “. . . except for the Siamese breed. . . unless it’s a Siamese. . . .Siamese have a tendency to. . .” Yeah. Siamese cats are known to have this penchant for chewing fabric stuff for their entire life. Oh. Bloody. Boogers. I’ll be hiding sweaters and pillows for twenty years.

Who wants Trident? (I do, I do!)

Whew, I’m worn out. Not physically, just mentally. I’ve actually been working on my home website these past couple of days; finally got a few more things done with it. I got some stuff up for Renton’s section, and even a few pictures, though they’re just haphazardly slapped on there. I’ll beautify it later. I also got some stuff up in the Thoughts section. For all you Thompson band peeps, good news! Bubbettisms are online there! Bubbett quotes have gone digital. Good lord.

Renton has given up on red sweaters. He’s graduated to my great-grandmother’s quilt now. Good thing I caught him early. He had to satisfy himself with paper towels. What is with this cat? Steven thinks he doesn’t get enough fiber. I think I need to give him some Trident and see what happens.