i got the hook up

in between the meatloaf experiment and the massive house clean last night rogray attempted to set up our wireless internet router.

since he was taking a break from cleaning i took one too. i watched american idol. while my brain was rotting inside my head and i talked to sanjaya about how stupid his hair was like he could hear me and wondered aloud why people go gaga over that last dude -- chris? he's so boring. -- rogray was toiling away at the desk trying to do something useful and productive and getting visibly frustrated -- finally he threw his hands into the air and said "it doesn't work. i don't know what to do." he then got up and began cleaning the kitchen. which was very messy. see previous post as to why.

i decided to finish my assigned task of cleaning the bathroom and when i was done with that i decided to sit down at our desk and take a moment to investigate this whole wireless thing. . .and wouldn't you know it?

i got the fucker to work!!!!!!!!!

that's right ladies and gents -- i, shaygo, who has never set up a router of any kind, who still doesn't know the full capability of her digital camera, who has submerged her cell phone in both gatorade and the toilet (accidentally-i'm an idiot) set up the wireless internet router and now we have password protected wireless in our apartment.

i was (and am) soooooooooooooooooooooooooo proud of myself.

i'm not going to lie -- i was giddy with excitement. i don't need no geek squad. i am the geek squad!!!

rogray was excited but not nearly as excited as me. you know how i could tell? he sat in his chair and surfed the world wide web while i danced around, shaking what my mama gave me, singing "i did it. i set up the wireless. i'm so awesome. you are amazed by me."

now that i've calmed down we will be like that couple in the picture. released from the pesky confines of wires and free to sit on our asses together looking at things like this or if rogray has his way, this.

Whatcha Got Cookin: Like a Bat Out of Hell edition*

as some of you may know i've been attempting to go low-dairy and wheat free in my diet. so far so good -- i don't know if i feel any different but i have become much more aware of what i'm eating which can't be a bad thing.

since i'm trying to kick up my protein intake i decided to make a turkey meatloaf thinking that i would have plenty of leftovers to enjoy. i found a recipe from ina garten and set out to make my very first meatloaf.

everything was going great. my organic freshly ground turkey meat was thawed and ready to go. the onions were chopped and i had wiped away the subsequent tears and made the thyme-onion-worcestershire mixture. now it was time to beat a couple eggs into submission and mix it all together. but look what happened when i cracked the first egg into the bowl:



whaaaaaaaaat thehellisthat??

oh -- it's just two yolks in one egg -- you know -- the usual. i stared at the twins inside my bowl and thought to myself "great. now what? the recipe calls for three eggs not a freakish 4 yolk, 3 egg mixture." so what did any self-respecting 28 year old do?

i called my mom.

oh, she laughed and laughed and thought it was so silly i was calling but then agreed that yes, this was very weird and perhaps i should start with 2 eggs and if the mixture seems dry then put in a 3rd.

sounded good to me so as we chatted about other things i cracked the second egg into the bowl and HOLY CRAPBALLS!!!



the second egg ALSO had two yolks!!!!!! what are the odds? WHAT ARE THE ODDS? it took all the willpower in the world and rogray hiding the eggs from me to keep me from craking open every egg in the carton to find out if the whole dozen was a batch of freak show eggs. leave it to the organic farm in good ole' PA that distributes their eggs to the park slope food co-op to have bizarre twin eggs.

anyway, after recovering from the wacky world of the egg prep i soldiered on and finally was ready to mold the meat mixture into a rectangular loaf shape. what i never knew is how gross ground meat mixed with other things looks as you shape it into a loaf and then spread ketchup on it.

have any of you made a meatloaf? it looks like roadkill. the following is my experience with this hot meatloaf action, photographs by rogray:







and lastly:



so, wondering how something that looked like that was going to taste like something i would want to eat, i put it in the oven with a pan of hot water underneath so the top wouldn't crack and cleaned our apartment for the 1.5 hours it took for this dead monster to cook.

it came out looking like this:



it looked much more appetizing on the plate especially with a salad and alexia sweet potato fries:



yes, i know that's a crappy picture. . .

and now, the tasting:




and you know what? i realized something -- i don't really like meatloaf. i want to like. i try to like it. but i don't like it. so there you have it. after all of that i came to terms with my dislike of meatloaf.

but rogray found my 2 egg, 4 yolk roadkill meatloaf to be pretty tasty and that is why i keep him around.

*get it? meat loaf! i slay me.

this is how i feel today. . .

my grumpy pants are on and they are tight. . .

grrrrrrr. . .

my lovely lady lumps

would you rather be skinny but kind of look like a man or be chunky but totally look like a woman?

those are the pussycat dolls dolls and i think they suffer from the first part of this question. . .not the plastic dolls -- the actual people pussycat dolls -- which i'm guessing have some parts made of plastic. . .ba dum dum.

Put The Book Back On The Shelf

i would put the book back on the shelf -- i would put all 3000 of them back on the shelf if we had bookshelves to put them on. . .

rogray and i need to buy bookshelves -- i'd like to get ones made out of something that is not particle board while not emptying our bank accounts.

any suggestions?

right now i'm looking at this place. . .and something like this in the dark teak or dark mahogany stains. . .

pretty fly for a white guy

i would just like to point out that this guy...my rogray...can not only recite the nominees for president in every single presidential election in under 2 minutes but he can also tell you the year each of our 50 states became a state.

suck it!

Know your Chicken

last week i totally roasted a whole chicken for the first time and it was truly awesome!

thanks to the advice of the boys at paupered chef i just put the oven rack on the second to last slot in the oven, stuffed the bird with a shit-load of herbs like sage, rosemary & thyme, cooked it on 500 for 50 minutes in the roasting pan and voila!! delicious crispy skin, juicy meat chicken for our eating pleasure.

i also made a pan gravy that accompanied the recipe for the chicken. . .i highly recommend doing this -- it will feed you for a few days unless you're rogray in which case it will feed you for one meal. you'll be happy that you cooked something yummy with little to no effort -- you don't even chop up the herbs people!!

Oh, baby, won't you scratch my back?

every night, as part of my bedtime ritual when i was growing up, my mom would sing some short lullabies and scratch my back. i remember the happiness i felt as she gently moved her nails across my back and i would drift off to sleep. my level of childhood bliss was probably matched by her thinking "for the love of god, please go to sleep so i can spend some time with you father."

as i got older and it became absurd for a tween to have her mother scratch her back and sing day is done to her every night, i would feed my addiction by trading back scratches with my sister -- the problem with that being that you have to reciprocate which is lame. you can't just sit back and relax -- you have to share and you know what? sharing is lame. and you know what else? kids know it and that's why they don't want to do it.

for years i had a long and miserable hiatus from getting back scratches -- a period i call "the darkness." i blame any depression and misery i experienced on the lack of back scratches. but then rogray came into my life and at the beginning of our relationship he was happy to give me as many back scratches as i wanted because we were in the exciting stages of falling in love. you know -- when you think that the other person wanting back scratches all the time is like, so cute!

but oh how the years have weighed heavily on our relationship for now when i sit on the couch next to rogray and lift up the back of my shirt wordlessly requesting a back scratch i'm met with "i'm too sleepy to scratch your back" or "can i just give you a extra-long back scratch this weekend?"

but i am an addict. . .i want a back scratch all the time and he knows this. which leads us to this: rogray always has a bargaining tool. and he knows i will always submit if a back scratch is on the line.

he wants to watch meet the press or face the nation and i don't? he'll offer to scratch my back the whole time and i inevitably take him up on it. he wants to watch fox news to see how the other side thinks -- fine, as long as he scratches my back (although usually this one backfires as i get so angry and hot-blooded i start screaming at the t.v. threatening to throw it out of the window for spewing stupidity and horrific right-wing rhetoric.)

there's really no point to this to this post except to say that it's been a long time since my last back scratch and i'm going through withdrawal. . .hint hint mr. rogray.

Mr. Sandman

this set of photographs is one of the more intriguing things i've seen lately.

it's of people sleeping. i am fascinated.

i would love to see how rogray and i sleep throughout night -- i know it changes a lot because in the morning half of the covers are off the bed and rogray is inching onto my side of the bed while our cat deprives me of my pillow.

i would also like to see the difference between how i use the bed when i have to share vs. when i have the whole thing to myself.

my love for sleeping alone is no secret -- taking up the entire bed is an amazing thing --rogray has even offered to sleep in the living room so i can have a night with the entire queen size glory to myself. that is how much i rave about it -- every time he is out of town i get giddy with the excitement of not having to share an inch of the bed with anyone but our furry feline.

i haven't taken him up on his offer. . .yet.

my dream is to have a king size bed so rogray can take up 1/4 of it and i can sprawl across the rest.

i think sets 6 & 8 of the series are my favorites because you can see how crazy kids are when they sleep. . .hilarious.

from kottke

i did the image source thing jk! i did it!

waiting, waiting

i need to upload photos to flickr to do a post about how busy we've been which is why there's been no posting. . .also -- i haven't had a lot of inspiration lately. and also, i still can't figure out how to import images from a website that isn't flickr etc despite jk telling me 3 different times. . .it's making me crazy.

and lastly -- i'm considering going wheat-free -- how dumb is this? has anyone tried it? i should probably go dairy-free but the thought alone makes me want to kill someone so that probably won't really happen. . .