PRK, Perks and Pasta

It's been a little bit since I posted and that is the result of two things. 1) Lack of anything interesting to say. If you're thinking that what I say is never interesting, well then why are you reading this? 2) I had PRK corrective eye surgery and couldn't see, therefore do much for about a week. I thought about Helen Keller during that week of eyes closed and laying on the bed quite a bit and wondered how on earth she made out. As in got by, not got her kissing game on, because you only need your lips for that! At least I had my book on tape, Their Eyes Were Watching God which was really interesting and made me think of love and being in love and how that changes everything and then I moved onto The Memory Keeper's Daughter which is not as great a piece of literature as the latter, but is still really interesting and I'm still listening to it. In fact, I apparently left a voicemail on my co-worker's cell with part of the book talking and it inevitably sounded really weird and random and she thought it was a joke but it was no joke, not funny, not at all. At least she thinks I'm a funny person who would play jokes. Guess I should play one now. Anyway, my phone randomly calls people. It's an IPhone so it's not like I can but dial someone. It's really annoying. But I have to say that phone is one of the only purchases I've ever made without regret. I have huge buyer's remorse, and even had with PRK a bit, especially since I'm not even sure I'l be 20/20 at this rate, but with the IPhone it just rocked my world and I am the happiest little camper around. And nobody's paying me to say that :)

There are always perks about those you date that are specific to that person, like I dated someone once whose family owned a hotel, so I could stay for free and I dated someone who was a gypsy who grew up in Italy so I could practice my Italian which was fab, then there was the guy I dated who was a musician, so I got to have one of my poem's recorded to his album as part of the song and sometimes he serenaded me from the stage just like is any girl's dream. Well he was the bassist so it was more of a serenade with his eyes, like "Babe, this one's for you" but there's been the singer serenader too, which girls, you know you like it.  Perks like that. Other perks could include getting discount furniture, VIP passes to parties, free Jambas whatever perk it is, there's usually something specific to that person. Like for the guys I date they get to hear an ear full about wearing seat belts and not texting and driving. Ya know, perks. So I met a guy this weekend who works for a bail bond company and he told me, "Not that you seem the type, but if you ever needed it..." Like I said, there are perks of all kinds.

Some people have these amazing talents of dancing, singing, playing music, creating the most beautiful paintings one could every envision and all I can do is practice the piano day after day and make about a snail's worth of progress. Not a painter, I can't sing, you already know about my dancing, but I do have a hidden talent. I can make a mean place of pasta. I don't cook a lot due to time, laziness and resources, but I can truly just know what needs to go into the sauce, know in my gut and put it together--a little bit of this, a lot of that--and voila. It's funny because when I was living in Italy, I did not have this gift and for a year or so after getting back to America it was even less evident and every pasta anyone made, especially my own, tasted gross, but after a bit of time, I suddenly started making these delectable dishes. I can even make the pasta without planning or buying anything, just letting my pasta intuition lead me to choose things around the house and after some concocting, people are scraping their plates. My error is that I don't write the recipes down and totally forget what it was that momentarily took away all sorrow, trouble or concerns for those partaking. The reason is because it takes like an hour to clean up the incredible catastrophe I cause in the kitchen and I'm too exhausted afterward to want to record anything. This gift is rather a miracle considering that no one believed anything I created by me would taste good since I baked my first batch of cookies in college. My sister even laughed out loud the first time she found out I was going to cook dinner. Whose laughing now, sucka! I understand more why the Italians are SO proud of their pasta, so possessive of it. It's against all rules to add salt to the pasta they make, you know. It's their masterpiece, their gift to their friends and should be perfect just like they made it. And served hot. I get so looney when people are slow arriving to the table. The pasta has to be served IMMEDIATELY. Hot. Tasty. Rich. Delicious. Mmmm. And I have to admit that I added this pasta section just because my title was really lacking with just "PRK and Perks" or "Perks and PRK" because they both seemed misleading. But how much better does my alliteration sound now? First time I've ever written to create a title, but now you get to know the joys of pasta and my hidden talent, so it was all for the best.

Recent Discoveries

Last week was a week of discoveries. First one, saltine crackers are MUCH better when they’re the mini-size. I even checked to see if it was butter or special of the week flavor and it was not. They were simply more delicious small size.

Next, adventures are always awaiting. I went up to Logan last weekend for work—Road Respect had a trailer at the MS-150 century ride and I asked people questions about safe cycling and driving and gave prizes. It was really cool, in fact, Road Respect is one of the favorite components of my job, but it got extremely cool once the crowd went back to their tents and it was just me and Smitty the Rat. I can imagine what you’re thinking will follow, but unless you’ve seen the 30-foot inflatable mascot that X96 so hilariously claims, you really have no idea what I’m about to say. This 30-foot inflatable rat has gangly teeth and a big fat belly and a long inflatable tail. It’s all quite ridiculous.

Well I ended up hanging out with some of the guys from X96 for a few hours playing the Wii on the belly of this inflatable rat Smitty. It was the most random and ridiculous thing I could have concocted for a Friday night. They ordered pizza after awhile and the delivery boy looked so petrified, truly nauseous when he came up, asking hesitantly, “Is..this the right place.” After seeing the instructions on his computer: “Look for the giant inflatable rat” I really wondered how he could have even been in question. I looked around. Nope, no other large inflatable rat in sight. So we ate pizza and started talking about politics, then religion, during which we looked up and remembered that the angry jaw of Smitty was literally looming over our heads and it kind of halted the conversation.

Another one, if your plans get thwarted by outside interferences, sometimes those interferences are worth using in a plan B. I went to the gym to swim laps and after about 10 minutes all of these old people started filling up the pool and they took out the lap divider. I realized there was an aqua class at the top of the hour. I was already wet anyway, so I joined ‘em. Me and all of Salt Lake City’s finest senior citizens doing our water aerobics together on a Thursday morning. And I’ll have to say, it was one of the most fun workouts I’ve ever done, and challenging too. I did have to chuckle to myself when I got out and noticed there was a walker near the pool stairs. Love those old people.  

Last discovery, I was sitting in church, feeling kind of blah and ugly, when it hit me that being good and cool is also attractive. Doesn’t sound so profound, I know. We all learned that lesson in elementary school in the warm and fuzzy lesson and hear it all the time, but obviously living in society can make us question those simple life lessons and what’s really important and worth working toward. Well it hit me hard that character and substance equate for a lot more than I was giving them credit for and after several weeks of having this deeper understanding and internalizing it, it’s really made a difference for how I’m able to view myself and others. I saw this young teen girl crying on the side of the road while walking to fireworks last night. Her cry sounded like a little animal, just desperate, scared, defeated. She said her boyfriend and her had gotten in a fight and had left her there and she was scared and didn’t want to get lost. I looked at this little girl, whose huge plastic blue glasses covered more circumference than her shorts and knew that her childhood understanding of worth was already lost, if not temporarily. It was clear that society had currently gotten the best of her, thinking that being sexy and accepted is the most important thing, as it’s gotten the best of all of us at one point or another. Now I’m hoping that I can hold on tight to this re-discovery of what I’ve always known but used to actually understand as a kid, and hoping that others can remember too.

Attack of the moth-bat

You know those weeks where you’re just exhausted ALL WEEK?  It was only Wednesday, but I’d felt that way since….thinking…..well, January, so it was one of those days where I was so excited to go to bed early. I was literally just about to fall asleep in my bed, the happiest moment of the day, when I remembered I hadn’t started the dryer because I had had to wait to clean the lint filter since I was brushing my teeth when I had put the tablecloth in it. I grudgingly got out of bed to start the dryer so the tablecloth wouldn’t have to sit wet all night and get that weird smell and have to be washed all over again…when I got attacked by a moth-bat.

Now if you’re unfamiliar with the monster, moth-bats are very evil things. They are very large moths that look like bats without your contacts in. Very scary, especially when you’re roommates are gone for the night.

The whole horror started when I heard this repeated thumping on the ceiling. I got scared, thinking it was footsteps upstairs, when I saw a shadow following the horrific thumping. I looked up (and not very far because I practically touch the top of my ceiling) and freaked out because something big was fluttering around right near my head, thumping its nasty self on my ceiling. I ran to my room and grabbed my glasses to discover, in full 20/20 vision glory, the most ginormous moth perched on my wall, wings spread and ready to attack. I’ve always had an aversion to anything that can fly, except, of course, fairies and butterflies. The evil twin of butterflies, the furry and up-to-no-good moth, is up there on my list of things to avoid, along with rapists, robbers, murderers, spiders, snakes and Savage Garden.

After a few moments of deliberation about how to proceed, I decide to kill it. I would man up and face this demon. I didn’t know what to kill it with since there’s no fly swatter in the world that would be strong enough to crush those thick, furry, disgusting wings—plus we don’t have one—so I grabbed the broom with the dustpan attached and planned my attack. I crept back down the stairs to the moth- bat still perched on the wall and took a deep breath, mustering all of the courage I had. I knew I had just one chance. One chance alone. I held that breath I’d just taken and lunged. If you saw me play softball last week, you may know that this story isn’t taking a good turn. I was the one where people kept saying to me, “Nice effort. That wasn’t so bad” when in reality, I struck out, so yeah it actually was so bad.  

As for the attempt to destroy my sickening predator, it all happened in slow motion. I guess I missed because suddenly, a hairy monster came flying angrily toward me. I couldn’t see where it went. I screamed bloody murder, shaking my hair up and down, sure it had nestled itself in those long locks that were very unruly from being previously in bed. Instead, it was actually flying crazily all around me, all around everything, unpredictable, dangerous. At least it didn’t get it my hair, holy heavens. I ran into my room and stuffed some pants in the small space under the door, my poor little heart pounding at full speed when it should have been peacefully beating, already in dream land. Then I waited…until tomorrow morning.

In the morning I had to watch every step, not a clue where the moth-bat had gone. It was the worst and most terrifying morning in the world. A fly buzzed in my face and I almost had a heart attack, thinking it was him, Barf-wings the Moth-bat. Although I could feel sickening fluttering and wings around me all day, I didn’t have a run in with him again until I came home from work and there he was, lying on my sofa, acting like he owed the place.

Fortunately, my friend was there and said he was dead. I couldn’t bring myself to go near the thing, so she took a napkin to crunch the thing and it was alive! It got angry and wanted to fly away so she threw it in the toilet where it started trying to fly around and around. As you can imagine, I was so scared I could have peed right there, but I couldn’t because Barf-wings was in my toiled!! Jessie had enough bravery to flush it down while I quivered in the corner of the bathroom, ready to die if moth-bat didn’t kill me first. And so it happened. He was washed down the toilet and my life began anew. Welcome, Lora, to a moth-bat-free life full of sunshine and peace.

I just hope he didn’t lay any moth-bat baby eggs anywhere.