« Day Sixteen - This is My Post | Main | Day Eighteen - I Need My Face »
November 17, 2006
Day Seventeen - Friday Shuffle - The Sick of Posting Every Damn Day Edition
Is it just me, or have all the NaBloPoMo posters and commenters hit the wall? I know I sure have. I have things to write, things to comment, and blogs I'd like to read but my brain simply won't let me.
In light of my bloggity boredom, I'm going to give you three little tidbits and the shuffle.
Tidbit #1 - Thanks to the still-downed tree lying on my fence, I've started playing a new game everytime I open the back door. It's called "Which Neighborhood Dog is in My Yard Today?" This morning, I discovered the neighborhood weiner dog running amok in my yard. When the fence in your yard can't restrain a weiner dog, it's no longer sufficiently doing its job well enough to be called a fence.
Tidbit #2 - Lately I've found myself concerned about how Clara Jane interacts with other kids. During daycare dropoffs and pickups, I never see her playing with other kids. When I ask her who she played with she tells me that she played with toys. I'm not going to make a big deal of this; if she's a loner, she's a loner. There are worse things to be.
At lunch today, any notion that she might be a loner was vanished. She noticed another little girl sitting a few tables away from us and promptly stood up, waved, and yelled, "Hello, Little Girl! How are you doing? Are you having a snack? I have an apple. I love my apple. Do you love apples? I have yogurt. Do you love yogurt? Hey! Little Girl! HEY!"
Now I'm concerned about her being The Pushy Kid.
Tidbit #3 - I can't recreate what I was writing yesterday, but I can do two things: tell you how it vanished and tell you about the $6 candy bar. It vanished because the ctrl-shift-w function in Firefox, coupled with the space bar, closes the window, particularly if your chubby little fingers are a lot faster than they look like they should be.
Now, the $6 candy bar. For years I've been fascinated with Vosges Chocolate. They're a Chicago-based high-end chocolatier that basically throws weird shit into really expensive chocolate and sells it to food nerds like me who think, "Mmmmmmmm ... white chocolate with Kalamata olives. I could go for some of that. Let's get a second mortgage on the house and eat up!"
Our local Whole Foods started selling a small selection of Vosges awhile back, but I just couldn't allow myself to part with $6 for a 3.4 ounce weirdo candy bar. But yesterday, for some reason, I decided it was time to part with my $6 in exchange for weirdo chocolate.
Alas, the weirdo chocolate I really wanted - Barcelona, which is darker milk chocolate with grey sea salt and smoked almonds - wasn't available. Which is too bad because I have a serious smoked almond monkey on my back. At some point when I was little my parents put a can of Smokehouse Almonds in my Christmas stocking, and that was all she wrote. Best flavor in the world. Ever. That was another one of those signs of adulthood: the day I realized that I could eat Smokehouse Almonds every single day for the rest of my ever-almond-loving life if I wanted. I'm eating some right now, as a matter of fact. I like strong flavors. The only thing better than smoked almonds and sea salt would have to be smoked almonds and bleu cheese. I'm surprised Vosges hasn't jumped on that idea.
Anyway, I did have some misgivings about spending $6 on a candy bar in a flavor combination that might be horrible, despite my food adventurer tendancies. So, I went with the one I knew I'd mostly like enjoy - Creole, 70% cacao (really, really dark) with espresso, cocoa nibs, and chicory. I love chicory coffee. I love mochas. I'm going to love this bar.
You know what you get when you get a $6 candy bar? You get instructions on how to eat chocolate. Those cheapos at Hershey's and Nestle, they just leave their customers to their own devices. Let 'em remain ignorant to what chocoalte is supposed to look like and smell like! Let the philistines eat their dusty-surfaced chocolate that smells like bald tires! And let them *gasp* chew it with their teeth!
For $6, I know to let the chocolate melt in my mouth, instead of cramming the whole thing down my gullet before someone can snatch it away from me, the same way my Basset hound Chloe once did with a Nestle Crunch bar.
I resisted the urge to eat the candy in the car. If I'm going to spend $6 on what should be THe Chocolate Experience of My Life, I don't want to be distracted. I also don't want to be behind the wheel in case the experience is so rapturous as to leave my vehicle unmanned on the highway.
I sat at my desk, read the instructions and did as it said: I looked at the chocolate. I sniffed the chocolate. I snapped off a piece of the chocoalte. I performed acts on the chocoalte that are only legal in the state of Nevada and France. Then I put the chocolate on my tongue and pressed it to the roof of my mouth, just like the instructions said. And sure enough, just like the package said, it slowly started melting around thirty seconds later.
The verdict?
Eh.
Tasted great, of course. The cocoa nibs were rough and irritated my tongue and the roof of my mouth. There wasn't a single point in time where my spirit left my body during the whole experience. A little naked man didn't pop out of the packaging when I opened it, either, and for $6 you'd think they'd include a special little thrill of some sort. While tasty, it did not satisfy my mind and body, as the package promised. I still had a slight backache when I was finished eating the piece.
I just popped another piece in my mouth. Yeah, good. But slightly painful and not decidedly different than a handful of chocolate-covered espresso beans. I keep encountering little pieces of hard, pod-like material. Perhaps that's what a flavanoid looks like.
Next time, maybe I'll shuffle through the display and buy a a horseradish chocolate bar. At least then my expectations will be in check.
1. Iko Iko - Dixie Cups
2. Baby Mine - Bonnie Raitt
3. East Virginia Blues - June Carter Cash (a woman who had enough good sense to not buy $6 chocolate bars, I bet)
4. Only Lie Worth Telling - Paul Westerberg
5. Tell Me That it Isn't True - Bob Dylan
6. Don't Get Me Wrong - Pretenders
7. Still Fighting It - Ben Folds
8. Close Together - Jimmy Reed
9. Rose Garden - Lynn Anderson
10. Walking the Dog - Rufus Thomas
The shuffle is filled entirely of artists who would most likely throw beer bottles at the heads of bourgeois idiots who'd spend $6 on a candy bar, and rightfully so.
Posted by Robin at November 17, 2006 04:06 PM
Comments
I think a lot of the NaBloPoMos are beginning to suffer from "must blog" stress. I'll admit it, I am not good at reading a lot of the other bloggers. (bad debra!!) And I've added less than a dozen to my rss feed all month. I'm going to add yours because I like your "shuffle" idea...
Posted by: Debra Roby at November 17, 2006 05:36 PM
I've definitely noticed the NaBloPoMo stress and the picking are getting slimmer and slimmer as the days go by. I'm thinking of blogging ideas and saying to myself "Nope...too good for a weekend entry." or "I'll wait on that one until I'm seriously desperate.".
I've hit on a couple keeper blogs though.
While we have chocolates with offbeat ingredients, I have to say that the strangest I've seen is in a Lindt bar - a 70%-er I believe but it could be an 85%-er - that has inside a combination of cherry and red chili pepper. I haven't tried it though because I don't like dark chocolate very much.
I got a little swoony when I saw East Virginia Blues and Rose Garden on your shuffle.
Posted by: Dixie at November 17, 2006 07:08 PM
Oh...and I forgot to say that when I was Clara Jane's age I was notorious for two things - I didn't like to eat and I didn't like to talk.
Yeah, you know that didn't stick with me.
Posted by: Dixie at November 17, 2006 07:10 PM
at least she's not hitting, biting, and scratching a little 4 year old that came over to play - and stomping on her 8 week old sister. please tell me this is a phase that will end soon. i'm seeing zero signs of empathy.
pods. yummers.
Posted by: kara joy at November 17, 2006 07:48 PM
Did the candy bar make your Basset sick? I know chocolate can kill dogs, your lucky if yours didn't get sick or die.
Posted by: Stephanie at November 18, 2006 12:07 AM
Debra - Thanks for the add. The shuffle thing wasn't originally my idea, but I've forgotten where it originated. It was a long-ago meme where every Friday, you set your MP3 player to shuffle and post the first ten songs that come up.
Dixie, chocolate with chilies has been big in the states for a few years now. It's the Mexican/Latin American influence. Personally, I'm not crazy about it. A few years ago I did an article about the Mexican grocers in my neighborhood. One of the things I bought was a bar of the authtentic Mexican chocolate with chilies that they melt with milk and froth with this special wooden tool to make hot chocolate. Good, but not my cup of, um, cocoa.
Kara Joy, it's phase. It'll end soon. Actually, I don't know. I wonder if that's one of those boy-girl differences. Clara Jane's had a few occasions recently where she's hit B. and me. So frustrating!
Stephanie, my Basset was fine. We got most of the chocolate away from her. It actually takes a great deal of chocolate to do harm, and it depends on the size of the dog. During a brief stint of working in a vet's office, I saw someone bring in a tiny miniature pinscher who'd eaten a whole bag of Hershey's Miniatures wrappers - foil and all. That was a teeny dog and a hell of a lot of chocolate and paper. The vet induced vomitting and the dog was fine. I also had a friend whose Airedale stole three pounds of chocolate chips from her kitchen counter. Again, induced vomitting and no problems. Not that I would purposefully give a dog chocolate, but it's not necessarily the huge, panic-worthy issue that a lot of people make it out to be.
Posted by: Robin at November 18, 2006 07:51 AM
I would rather dog-sit a Bassett that has consumed chocolate than on who consumed 10 gallons of baked beans:-)
Posted by: Mom at November 18, 2006 10:22 AM
When my niece was two she went through a stage where if she did not want a certain child in the same room as her, she would lift them...yes lift them, carry them out of the room and set them down in the hallway. I see some real serious shot putting in her future.
There is a chocolate shop in Asheville that sells chocolate with peppers and such. I have never had the guts to try it.
I teach high school English and I use that candy from hotlix, the candy with the insects in it, as modivation and prizes. It is very popular, though I do not think any of the kids have actually eaten it.
Kathie
Posted by: Kathie at November 18, 2006 10:46 AM
I'm with ya on the "sick of posting every day." The bit I wrote today was so short, even Clay said "That's All???"
Stickin' with it, stickin' with it... ;)
Posted by: Debbie at November 18, 2006 03:24 PM
Mmmmmm. Smokehouse Almonds. Drool.
On my very first commercial plane ride (in college) and the return flight, we had the wonderous things. And that was it. Next flight--peanuts. Recent past--pretzels. Now, we're just lucky they don't make us pay for the disgusting recycled air. Please don't let them see that and get ideas.......
Posted by: Jane at November 18, 2006 09:23 PM
My daughter is a pushy loner. Well, actually she goes back and forth on the loner thing -- can you be a part time loner?
Now I know how to eat chocolate -- something I would never have know if you'd not parted with your $6 for a bar that gives you instructions. :)
Posted by: Katya at November 18, 2006 09:37 PM
Just a note to any others that may have a problem with their Firefox or Mozilla windows getting wiped out in mid-rapidtype. Go out and find the keyconfig extension. It'll let you disable any of the keyboard shortcuts.
Posted by: B at November 19, 2006 01:48 AM
