Nina Lewis

Archive for January, 2010

Yesterday, I caught up on a  blog that I occasionally read.  I like it because it is so well-written — a perfectly worded phrase here, a fresh verb there — and funny, funny, funny.  And sweet.  She talks about clothes, shoes, her toddler, clothes, shoes, her current hair style, some of her daily activities — and did I mention clothes and shoes?

Now, these topics are not all-consuming to me.  Not even.  I hate shoes.  I prefer water boarding over shoe shopping.

I hate shopping for clothes.  Which fashion design straight out of Paris or which item off the rack at Wal-Mart looks even minimally decent on my sack-of-Idaho-potatoes figure, I ask you?

And I won’t even start in about my hate/hate relationship with my hair!

So why do I read the blog?  Because it is so well-written.  (Which proves that if you are an adroit wordsmith, your writing will be appealing even to those who are not really ‘in’ to your topic.)

Yesterday’s blog was a little bit different.  No shoe discussion.  Nothing about clothing.  However, she did discuss the fact that she had received a very hateful, repulsive-to-read comment on her blog.  I was floored!  How could anybody ever get upset over her writing?  Come on, folks.  It’s not like she’s talking about politics or religion or the one-and-only true method for cleaning the grout in your bathroom.  Sheesh!

My little pea-brain just couldn’t conjure up anything to be offended about from what she has written. Which surprised me because I often pride myself in my perspicacity.

I wondered why the person felt so compelled to write something so horrible on such a sweet blog.  Maybe s/he was forced to eat red beets as a child.  Maybe s/he was resentful of the seemingly perfect life this person was currently leading.  Maybe s/he was really the Joker from The Dark Knight.

I just don’t understand.

I’m standing at the water fountain at work filling my water bottle.  (Gotta drink those 6-8 glasses of water a day — which then necessitates the exercise of walking to the bathroom a hundred times daily . . .)

A faint odor assaults my nose.  I sniff.  I sniff again.  I vaguely recognize it.  I dig through all of those millions of synapses that my highly active intellectual brain has created.  Where, oh where now, did I place that smell memory?  Did  my hippocampus reject that little memory and send it packing into the black hole of forgetfulness (that is sadly getting bigger and bigger the older and older I get)?

Ah ha!  I remember now.  It smells like my son when he returned home from milking cows at a neighboring dairy.  And boy, he stunk stank stinked sure smelled horrid!

It was a combined smell of iodine and other chemicals that were nameless to me.  It came from the solution he used to sanitize the udders before he attached the milking machine.

His clothing absorbed the insidious smell so much that I made him keep his jacket out in the garage and we washed his clothing separately.  Even after being washed, they still came out smelling that nauseating smell.

When I recognized the smell, I stood aghast at the water fountain.  Surely, oh surely, the janitors don’t use the same solution to clean the water fountain that dairymen use to clean their cows?

I slowly backed away from the water fountain, my hands shaking from my olfactory memory.  I just couldn’t fill my water bottle after smelling THAT smell.

I just might be water-challenged today . . .

When I die and go to heaven (assuming that I’m going in that direction), there had better be a Cafe Rio there. Life — and heaven — just wouldn’t be worth it if I couldn’t eat at Cafe Rio.

Cafe Rio.  Sweet pulled pork burrito enchilada style.  Black beans and rice.  Salsa with cilantro.  Guacamole.  Sour cream.  (I think I’m hungry. . .)

Saturday, the local grocery store had a fabulous sale on pork.  I bought some to make sweet pulled pork.

Have you ever made it before, Nina?

Nope.  But how hard can it be?

I scoured recipes on the Internet.  I found a recipe that I thought was on my skill level (cocky-and-confident-but-woefully-lacking-in-real-skill).  It called for 2 cups of brown sugar.  TWO CUPS!  No wonder it’s considered ’sweet’ pulled pork.

I put the pork in the crock-pot.  I poured the salsa/brown sugar mixture over it.  I put the lid on the crock-pot and turned it on high.  Every couple of hours, I basted the meat with the sauce.  At times, I was concerned because there was so much liquid.  The recipe said not to worry.  I worried.

It smelled wonderful as it was cooking.  I gained ten pounds just from the aroma.

After cooking for 10 hours, the meat literally shredded itself as I stirred it.  And, amazingly enough, there was just the right amount of liquid.  (Guess I shouldn’t have been so skeptical.)

And how did it taste?  Mighty fine.  Mighty fine.

Now, I just need to find a recipe for the yummy green sauce that Cafe Rio uses . . . .

Fire-and-brimstone red eyes.

Fluorescent kryptonite green eyes.

Dull eyes.

Glowing eyes.

Small beady eyes.

Menacing eyes.

Eyes in the dark.

That’s what I see when I wander (sans glasses) through the house in the midnight hours.  These eyes are the light indicators on our TV, DVD player, computer, and digital converter boxes.  Lights from the microwave, the clock on the stove, and various digital clocks around the house.  (Without glasses for my 400/400 vision, these clocks look just as sinister as the other lights.)

Their reflection in the windows and on my spotless, high-gloss Formica countertops in the kitchen double the number of eyes in the night.  (Yes indeed, I did connect the word ’spotless’ with my countertops.  Oh you little skeptical person you.)

All of these eyes light my way through the night during my meandering.  Who needs a night light?  Certainly not me.

I just need courage as I make sure all of these eyes are not ghoulish fiends coming to attack poor little innocent me.

The U. S. Department of Labor states, “Hazard pay means additional pay for performing hazardous duty or work involving physical hardship. Work duty that causes extreme physical discomfort and distress which is not adequately alleviated by protective devices is deemed to impose a physical hardship.”

Soldiers in Afghanistan receive hazard pay.  One would expect that.  Policemen and firefighters get hazard pay.  Of course.  And I, in my highly dangerous, life-threatening office job, OUGHT to receive hazard pay.  After all, it’s my inalienable right.  I’m entitled to it.  I deserve it.  Right?

And what is so hazardous about having a day job in an mild-mannered office at a conservative university (other than associating with women who are freaked out because of PMS)?

I thought that you would never ask.

Today, my boss called me into his office.  I was told that my mission is to take five department chairmen out to lunch by the end of next week.  Five lunches in six working days. Five lunches at the fine dining restaurant on campus.  Oh, the horror of it all.

Can’t you just see the artillery tanks of cholesterol rumbling through my arteries setting up camp and hunkering down?  Can’t you hear my cellulite shout hosannas for the reinforcements that will be shoring up their numbers?  Can’t you hear the groans of my scales when I step on them after all of the food consumption that I am being forced to ingest?

I can hear the harpy cry of the chocolate dipped coconut macaroon cookies. “Eat me.  Eat me. Eat me.”

My spine tingles in fear of the onslaught from the mint brownies after my defenses are weakened by the macaroons.

Will I be given bullet-proof will power to resist the high-calorie food? What protective devices will there be to alleviate all of physical hardship from all of the food consumption that is bound to happen?  What relief will I be given for the extreme physical discomfort of heartburn and overeating?  Maylox?  Mylanta?

The fallout will be that I will still be too full to fix supper for my dear husband when I get home in the evening.  I fear his succulent meal will be a dried crust of bread and tepid water.

Friends and family members, rally ’round!  Take up arms!  Call my boss and demand, “Give Nina hazard pay or give her an early retirement.”

Call now.  My current weight is depending on you.