That time my life was like Tommy Boy

When I was in college I loved the movie Tommy Boy. Classic Chris Farley kind of dumb humor, but hilarious in my mind. I discovered though, that sometimes when your life mirrors the movies it’s not as much fun.

The year after I graduated from college I moved to Oregon to work at a camp. As far as first jobs out of college go, it was awesome. I lived at camp, worked with high school kids and went mountain biking almost every day, new and exciting adventures were the norm. At the time I was driving my beloved Jeep Wrangler, the car I passed my driver’s test in and somehow convinced my dad to let me take with me when I went to Oregon. The thing about the Oregon high desert in the summer is that it rarely if ever rains. So I spent that whole summer with the top of the jeep down.

At the end of the summer camping season a friend and co-worker and I decided to drive up to Washington State and do a short camping trip in the Enchantments in Washington state. We took off in the jeep and as we transitioned out of the high desert and into the mountains it started to look like rain. No big deal. We pull over in a parking lot of a Target (or some such store) and start to put the top up for the first time in probably 4 months. At this point I notice that the seam where the front of the top connects to the windshield doesn’t look so hot. Remembering my dad’s advice that duct tape solves most problems I sent Ryan into the store for a roll and continue putting the top up. He returns with the duct tape, reinforce the front seam and get back on the road.

At this point we are way behind schedule and are never going to make it to a camp site before dark. No big deal, but we are hurrying to make up lost time. As we drive up a mountain pass maybe an hour from our final destination I hear the dreaded ripping sound. The front seam rips from side to side and the top is just flapping in the wind as we drive up the dark highway in the rain. It kind of ended like this, minus the deer:

Alas, we pulled over on a random logging road, set up a tent for the night and in the morning headed back home without doing any actual camping. We did drive the rest of the way into Leavenworth that next morning for breakfast, which is this really cool Bavarian town, and worth a visit if you are ever in that part of the country.

Moral of the story: I don’t even know- I guess don’t drive a jeep with the top down in the desert for months on end.

Obamacare Fail

We have a history of doing “surgeries” in our house.  Someone gets hurt and one of the other roommates tries to “fix” the problem without going to the Dr.  Although in our defense Joanna is actually a Dr. and is most often the one called on to execute the “surgery”.  I recently hurt my elbow in one of my running falls (see here and here) and rather than go to the Dr.  I called Jo to come over and take a look.  She brought her needles, and then this happened:

This is obviously not a failure of Obamacare, but more a reflection on my laziness and inability to function in the world as an adult.  Yes, sticking needles into your muscles to make them relax does hurt.  And while it sounds crazy, it sort of worked.

Sunday Breakfast

I fell again on my Sunday run.  Unclear why I keep falling, but this time I ran through it and although I cut the run short, I still managed to get a good 8 miles, so that’s good.  I’m undecided as to whether or not I should run the 1/2 marathon I’m signed up for in 2 weeks.

To reward myself for pushing through and running through the pain (and falls) I made biscuits and gravy when I got home.  Nothing like counteracting a really good run with a high calorie but delicious breakfast.  But I love spending my Sunday’s in the kitchen cooking.  It’s so restful for me.  Here’s how I did it:

Biscuits: 

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon of salt

1 tablespoon of sugar (I typically use a little less)

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 1/2 sticks of butter (sometimes I do 1/2 butter and 1/2 shortening, just depends on what I have on hand)

1 cup milk or 1 1/2 cups of butter milk (again depends on what I have on hand)

Mix try ingredients in a bowl.  Cut in butter/ shortening with a pastry cutter.  Pour in milk and stir until dough is just formed and still sticky.  The key to good flaky biscuits is not overhandling the dough.  Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and need about 4 times.  Roll out and use biscuit cutters to cut the individual biscuits out.  Bake on 450 for 12-14 min until just brown on top.

While the biscuits are baking start working on your gravy.  I didn’t use a recipe for this, but just kind of did it off the top of my head.

Sausage Gravy:

In a cast iron skillet brown sausage (I used a tube of Jimmy Dean medium).  Remove the sausage from the pan, leaving the grease. The sausage I used was rather lean so I added some butter to the skillet.  Once melted I added about 2 tablespoons of butter and whisked, you want to be careful not to burn it at this point.  And then I added milk- I didn’t measure, but just poured until it looked about right.  (probably 2-3 cups??).  Stirring constantly with a whisk bring the milk to a boil, and then reduce the heat.  Keep stirring, it takes a while but eventually the gravy begins to thicken… you should also have good little bits of sausage you are scraping from the bottom of the pan showing up too.  Once it thickens add the sausage back in and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Pour over biscuits and enjoy… (I highly recomment exercising before eating this breakfast so you can do it guilt free!)

Here’s a few pictures I snapped on my phone of the process.

Gravy at the early stages keep whisking!

Sausage added back into Gravy

Biscuits hot out of the oven

finished product… it was delicious if I say so myself.

That time I was sort of like Lucille Ostero

If you have seen Arrested Development you know that Lucille Ostero suffers from horrible vertigo.  If you haven’t watched Arrested Development, go rectify that situation right now.

I was reminded of this story the other day and it’s just too good not to share.  A few years back I was house sitting for my boss who lived in this huge mansion out in the suburbs.  I was staying by myself and had left my phone downstairs when I’d gone up to go to bed.  I didn’t want to be w/out it all night so I decided to get up and go down to retrieve it.  I took one step on the landing and slipped on my long pajama pants.  Next thing I know I’m lying on my back on the landing having just fallen the entire flight of steps.  I sat there for a few minutes stunned, but determined I was ok and other than some serious bruises I thought I was ok.

Fast forward a few months.

I’m training for a 1/2 marathon, and getting up to run in the mornings before work.  However, I’m noticing that I’m feeling dizzy a lot on my runs, like I’m drunk and have the spins, except it was 7:00 on a Wednesday morning.  After a few weeks of this I decide that seeing a doctor is probably a good idea.

My appointment fell on a busy Friday, but I figured it wouldn’t take too long.  The Dr. determined that I did in fact have a mild case of vertigo, likely the result of my fall down the steps, but that it was easily fixed with a short “adjustment”.  Great!  Let’s get it over with.  So he does this adjustment to realign my inner ear crystals.  It’s not until AFTER that he informs me that for the next 24 hours I will need to wear a foam collar, not move my head up or down, and not lie flat on my back.  Right.  This would have been good to know  BEFORE this “quick easy procedure”.  Things on my list to do in the following 24 hours:

1. Attend my company’s annual bowling day

2. introduce the guy I was dating at the time to my Parents

3. graduate from Grad School.

And I did it all in a foam collar.  Well to be totally honest, I took the collar off for the graduation ceremony.  I’m way to vain to walk across a stage in a stupid rob AND a neck brace.

I also learned that it’s while difficult it is possible to bowl without moving your head, you can drink beer out of a straw, and introducing your boyfriend with a potential drinking problem to your parents isn’t always the best idea.  But that’s another story for another day.

Seriously.  This stuff doesn’t happen to normal people.

Free Upgrades

I’ve got a theory about renting cars.  As a non-car owner I do it fairly frequently, and firmly believe that 9 out of 10 times you should get a free upgrade.  Typically my approach goes something like this:

Rental car dude:  “Ma’am I see you’ve reserved an economy car, is that what you’d like today?”

Me: “Well, I’d like the nicest car you can give me for the price I’m paying.”

Rental car dude:  “well lets see what we can do.”

And then I walk out in at least a mid-size.  The best I’ve ever done is to drive a mercedes for $9.99/ day one weekend. But that place shares a lot with a high end car dealer, and I get the impression it’s a fairly common occurrence.

A few years back on a trip to the West Coast I was renting a car to drive around and visit some friends and decided to employ this technique and see what I could get for the week.  At the Seattle airport you check in and do your paper work in the airport terminal before taking a shuttle out to the lot to pick up your car.  I flirted with the guy at the counter and asked him what I could get, and he said he’d see what he could do, but didn’t know what they had out at the lot.

So I get off of the shuttle bus and am greeted by another rental car dude (why are they never women?  seriously, I think rarely see women working at rental car companies).  He greets me with a “Ms. Huie, It looks like today is your lucky day and you are the recipient of a free upgrade!!!  The full size vehicles I’ve got left on the lot are a Ford F150 pick-up truck or a mini van, take your pick!”

I tried to politely decline and even pulled the “I’d rather get the better gas milage of an economy car”.  But he was nothing if not persistent and insisted that I needed the power windows and locks.  It was late at night and I still had a long drive down to Portland ahead of me.  So I did what any rational person would to get on the road as quickly as possible.  I drove my minivan off the lot and headed to Portland.

Apparently there is such a thing as a bad upgrade.

 

Metro Mishaps

There is this phenomenon in my life that certain things happen to me that don’t happen to other people.  They are almost always hilarious in hindsight, but often are not so much in the moment.  This is one of those stories.

I live in DC and rely on public transportation to get me around town.  One morning a couple of years ago I was on my way to work.  It was a damp spring morning.  One of those mornings that makes you think you have been unknowingly somehow been transported to Portland or Seattle with its almost but not quite rain.  I walked the four blocks from my house to the metro like any other day.  I was dressed to impress in my black business suit and cute ballet flats.

Here’s the thing, I am petrified that I will become one of those federal workers in DC who wears tennis shoes with their business suits.  I am vain and prideful, and refuse to become that person.  Thus, the cute but laceless flats.

As I head down to the train platform there is a train already in the station, but the doors are closed and I’m not rushing for the train.  I get to the bottom of the escalator make a u-turn to walk back towards the other end of the station when the morning starts to rapidly unravel.  I slip and to catch myself from completely falling I kick my foot out to catch my balance.

What happened next was in slow motion.  My shoe flies off of my foot and hurtles towards the train parked on the tracks.  It hits the closed metro door and drops directly onto the tracks.  Is I try and balance on one foot I look at the woman behind me and say; “Please tell me that didn’t just happen.”  to which she responds “Oh, that just happened”, with a horrified look on her face.  I peer over the edge of the platform and there lies my shoe.

At this point I have a decision to make- I can try and hop down the six feet and grab my shoe in the four minutes before the next train comes; I can go home and get new shoes; or I can continue on my way to work knowing that I have a pair of heels under my desk.  I did what I thought was most reasonable, which was to call the office and tell them I was going to be late as I walked out of the metro station and the four blocks back home with one shoe on and one shoe off.  I prayed the whole way that I wouldn’t see anyone I knew and have to try and explain this awkward walk of shame.

You can’t make this up, and it doesn’t happen to normal people.