It may shock some of you to know this, but there are times when I miss certain aspects of the Midwest. Before any of you family members get excited about a shout-out (ahem, mom), what I'm currently referring to is the Anderson-Erickson Dairy. According to their website, they're one of the largest independent dairies in the country, at a time when most independent dairies have been bought out. If I move back to the Midwest, I had originally intended to move within a day's drive of my family--but perhaps I should move within the dairy's distribution range (currently covering all of Iowa, as well as parts of Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas). The reason that I am missing them tonight is because I just ate some cottage cheese that I bought a few days ago; it was fine, but it tastes like sewer slime compared to AE's old-fashioned small-curd cottage cheese. AE's cottage cheese is the stuff that dreams are made of. The only problem with moving back to AE's distribution range is that I will then be able to easily procure their french-onion flavored sour cream dip--and I love that stuff so much that a constant stream of it would put me in danger of becoming one of those people who has to be removed from their house with a forklift, weighed at the nearest grain elevator, and then taken off to a weight-loss camp sponsored by Maury Povich. Ugh. Anyway, in honor of AE, here are a couple of fun facts from their website: 1) At any one time, a cow’s udder can hold 25 to 50 pounds of milk; 2) AE was the first dairy in the country to put the photos of missing children on milk cartons, after 2 young Iowa boys disappeared.
In other news, I needed to go to work today, but I couldn't motivate myself to do it; I actually got myself into the office by around 1pm (after sleeping for eleven hours; I'm coming down with a cold and so didn't set an alarm), but I couldn't focus, and so I came home. Because I was desperately avoiding the stuff that I need to do for work, I actually devoted myself to cleaning my apartment, which is usually the most dreaded thing on my to-do list but was bumped down to #2 by the stuff I have to do for work. I left my bedroom alone because it's strewn with clothes that I need to launder (tomorrow), but I dusted and vacuumed my living room, cleaned my bathroom, mopped my kitchen floor, flattened and recycled a bunch of boxes that had been taking up space behind the loveseat for a couple of months, and finally got around to hanging the painting that I bought in South Africa. My living room has never looked better, and thanks to the ridiculously expensive candle that I bought at the mall last night, it has never smelled better either. The smell was temporarily replaced by some frying odors (I made eggs over easy and hashbrowns w/onions, green peppers, and cayenne pepper for dinner), but supper was well worth it.
Tomorrow, I have to buckle down and do the work stuff that I was avoiding today, as well as do some laundry, change the sheets on my bed, and fold and put away my clothes. Then, I need to start thinking about what I'm going to write for this quarter's fiction class--I got an email today from the lecturer, and even though class doesn't start until Wednesday, he's already looking for two people to volunteer to bring a story on Wednesday so that it can be workshopped the following week. I can't be ready by then, and I want to take enough time on the story that I can turn in a second draft rather than a first, but I do want to start soon so that I can volunteer earlier rather than later in the quarter. I'm excited about the class; it's 'writing comic fiction and memoir', which should be fun. I've already decided that I should focus on writing something that's truly fictional and can stand on its own as a short story. Both of my pieces for last quarter's class ended up being the start of something much longer, but I want to practice with a concise, compact narrative. Also, I could write any number of hilarious things about my life, given that I have a propensity for finding ridiculous situations, and I tend to repeat them after the fact in an almost story-like manner anyway, but I don't think that recounting my past will really help me to develop my skills. We shall see, though; I'll probably post whatever I write when I'm done, so then you can see it too.
Finally, you know how I sometimes mention how great I think Craig Ferguson is? Well, for some reason, I was surfing the net and decided to read up on him. While reading the wikipedia article on him, I found that he was nominated for an Emmy last year, mostly because of his 30 January 2006 monologue about his father's death. As I've said in the past, his monologues are really long, winding, 10-15 minute segments about whatever he feels like discussing. In this case, his father had died the previous day, and so Craig decided to do one show about his father--so he used his monologue to tell the story of his father's life and their relationship. It was one of the most moving things I've seen in a long time. I just wish that his show was on earlier in the evening; it starts at 12:35am Pacific time, which means that I'm pretty much screwed for work the next morning if I stay up and watch it.
Even though it's only eleven p.m. on a weekend night, I think I'm going to go to bed; as I said, I have lots of stuff that I need to do tomorrow, and I think I'm getting sick in the bargain, which is not good. Goodnight!
1 comment:
i cried during the craig ferguson monologue, it's moving anytime you hear somebody about how deeply they loved someone. it gives me even more reason to like craig.
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