out of Kadesh

As many of you know, Mexican food is my Other Husband. I could eat it every night of the week, and that question “If you were on death row, what would your last meal be?” is absolutely chicken fajitas. With guacamole. And a frozen margarita swirled with sangria. (Ignoring, of course, the fact that this question is completely ludicrous. Really, if you were about to be poisoned to death by the justice system you would probably have the runs, and you wouldn’t have an appetite at all. You wouldn’t be “mmm I could go for a steak right now,” you’d be “HOLY SHIT I’M ABOUT TO MEET MY MAKER AND THERE GOES MORE OF MY POOP ALL DOWN MY LEGS.”)

Fortunately, I make amazing chicken fajitas (no imminent death required), and the hubbs frequently gets naked and swims in my guacamole. If you routinely orgasm after your first mouthful of fajita the way I do, this recipe post is for you. However, I’m not good at proportions. Keep in mind that I make everything for only two people, and all spices and extras are to taste.

Get-in-my-belly Guacamole
You’ll need: 2 avocados; some minced garlic; 1/4 small, chopped red onion; juice from 2 limes; chopped cilantro; a chopped tomato; 1/2 chopped jalapeno; salt and pepper
To make it: Mash the avocados in a bowl and mix in the rest of the stuff. Use tortilla chips for dipping, or get naked and commence swimming.

Orgasmic Chicken Fajitas

You’ll need (remember this is for 2 people): 1 or 2 chicken breasts; 1/2 red pepper, 1/2 green pepper, and 1/4 small red onion, each cut into strips; 1 minced jalapeno pepper (less if you don’t like that much heat); 1/4 cup chicken broth; juice from 1 lime; minced garlic; cumin; chili powder; coriander; red pepper (just a little bit of this… the spice this time, not the actual pepper); salt and pepper
Toppings: sour cream; shredded cheese (cheddar and/or monterey jack); chopped cilantro; jalapenos; salsa; Get-in-my-belly Guacamole. Also you need tortillas.
To make it: Heat some olive oil in a large skillet on medium high. Add minced garlic and chopped jalapeno pepper. Cut chicken into strips and add to skillet. While chicken cooks, mix chicken broth, lime juice, and spices. Add to skillet after chicken is cooked through, then add peppers and onion and cook until tender.
To have a food orgasm (no condom necessary): fill center of a warm tortilla with chicken and pepper mixture and aforementioned toppings. Serve with Spanish rice and refried beans. Keep a cigarette handy for after.

And now, a definition of work: 1 day of snarky emails, deadlines, and panic-induced headaches followed by 4 days of trying to strategically fall asleep at your desk without your boss catching you.

And to help you out, Reader, here are some ways I like to spend Tuesday – Thursday.

1. Lexulous. Formerly known as “Scrabulous” before those bitches at Hasbro got all “You stole our game and now you’re rich and famous and we’re going to sue wah wah wah,” Lexulous made its sweet and timely come-back on Facebook. Best of all, you can play against your friends on Facebook. Let’s face it… there’s really no other reason to get on Facebook anymore anyway. Many a long work afternoon has been spent messaging my coworkers nothing but the following conversation: “Turn.” “Turn.” “Turn.” “Turn.” “Lunch?” “Sure.” …. “Turn.” “Turn.”

2. Twitter. I love reading people’s status updates. Some people are boring, yes, like the people that write things like “Eating a sandwich” (who cares?) or “Updating my status on Twitter” (no duh), but most people make an effort to post interesting or amusing statuses. Sometimes you even get a funny article. Today, I saw a not-so-funny article about President Obama, and how he is shirtless on the cover of Washingtonian this month. If it weren’t for Twitter, I’d still have innocent, virgin eyes that HADN’T seen the Father of our Country’s bursting pectorals.

3. Google Reader. I admit it: I’m a nerd. When my friend Lauren told me about Google Reader (and Lance consequently explained to me how an RSS feed works), and how it pulls all the blogs you read into one, singular source for your reading/feasting enjoyment, I knew I had to try it. And indeed, I have found true love. I read about 30 blogs, so having them all together is a great way to waste my day without wasting my time. Brilliant!

4. Failblog. Ok I know I just explained about Google Reader, and yes it IS in my RSS feed thank you very much, but Failblog deserves its own category. Holy crap this blog is hilarious. I can’t say anything more about it; just go look for yourselves.

5. Online news. This is a last resort really… I’m already bored; why depress myself too, right? However, the news is (somewhat) important, especially when they feature pictures of the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief himself, in his boxers. LOVE IT.

6. Craigslist. Just found out about two nightstands someone is selling out in Woodbridge. They’re cheap. They’re lovely. Going to pick them up tonight.

7. Etsy. OMG this website is like an online flea market. The only problem is I love it so much I end up with $4,599 dollars worth of crafty love in my “shopping cart” before I realize how many things I’ve been clicking on.

8. Myrecipes. I don’t know if I’ve made this clear, but I love food. When I’m eating breakfast, I’m thinking “What’s for lunch?” During lunch I’m all “Hm, gotta figure out what’s for dinner.” And I love to cook. Which is lucky, because the hubbs doesn’t know how. He’s my kitchen helper. He pours me a glass of wine and puts on some killer tunes. His biggest task is grating cheese. He grates the crap out of that cheese too. Cheese doesn’t know which way is up!

So these are only a few of my time-wasters of choice. Others are walking to get coffee, walking to get a smoothie, walking to the bathroom, taking a lunch break with friends, and obviously posting to my blog. Fridays are a different story as we usually come up with a group activity, like printing out several dozen pictures of one of the actors with a thought bubble coming out of his open mouth and writing our choice of phrases on them. Or coming up with a new game like our most recent treasure called “SLOTH” (which is a version of basketball’s HORSE but for dancing. Ask me for details).

I hope you are able to stay sane on your job with the help of these great tactics too. Happy work week Reader!

Lance: “So what do you have to do for the rest of the afternoon?”

Me: “Well, I really can’t do anything, because the graphic designer left early today and my job is pretty much pointless without him.”

Lance: “Then why can’t you just come home?”

Me: “Because I can’t just leave in the middle of the day!”

Lance: “But if you’re not doing anything anyway…”

Me: “But that’s not how a 40-hour work week works. I can’t just leave whenever I want to… I have to request time off in advance, or I would have to be sick.”

Lance: …..!

Me: …..!

Lance: “I have a great idea… just make some instant oatmeal and put it all in your mouth, then walk into your boss’s office and spit it out and be like ‘oh no, I’m so sorry, maybe I better go home.’!”

Me: “That wouldn’t look like barf though; it would look like I put a bowl of oatmeal in my mouth. It wouldn’t come out like RAAARR it would come out like BLOOP.”

Lance: …..

Me: …..

Lance: “I still don’t understand though, why you can’t just come home if you’re not doing anything anyway. Oops, I just accidentally made eye contact with your coworkers over there but I didn’t wave or smile.”

Me: “Ugh, great. I gotta go back to work now.”

Lance: “Yeah. K-bye.”

There is a girl at the gym that makes me sick. I overheard her saying she was in her second trimester as she walked around the locker room with a towel on. AND YOU COULD NOT TELL SHE WAS PREGNANT, EVEN THOUGH SHE WAS NAKED.

I should not be jealous of the body of a pregnant woman.

Over the years that we’ve had Paddington Bear the Cat, I have learned what several of his meows mean. Here are some examples:

“Wow!” (with a nasally undertone) means “I’m not really hungry but I’m bored and I want to eat anyway, and you’re standing right by the pantry door, why not get me a scoop-full?”

“Wow!” in rapid succession, with alternating “Ow!” means “I’m starved! Open this door right now and put food in my bowl before I DO SOMETHING CRAZY!”

“Mew…” (said softly, with shifty or downcast eyes) means “I’m lonely”; alternately “I’m bored.” It’s a more noncommittal meow than the others.

“Reehhh!” is reserved for play with the dog. “Reehhh” means “I WILL KICK YOUR ASS!” Sounds following include rapid swatting and/or punching sounds, and dog whimpering.

“B-gow!” is my personal favorite. It’s usually uttered while sitting under the bathtub faucet. It means “Turn on the shower so I can drink compulsively from the running tap.”

A chirrup sound (harder to spell but something like “Brdddt”*) immediately precedes leaping onto a tough-to-reach-for-a-real-fat-cat surface (bed, counter, etc.).

“Ree-er!” and “Brrr!” usually get tossed around in moments of sporadic crazy-play (running up the stairs, down the stairs, in the bathroom, onto the sink, in the litter box, out of the litter box, down the stairs, up the stairs, etc.).

However. There is one cry: “Mow!… Mow!…” (pronounced like “cow” not like “doe”) that we are certain means “I don’t know what I want, I guess you can try to pet me for a while, but my litter box is clean and I have food and fresh running faucet-water, so I think I’ll just stand here and cry since it’s 6:30am and I don’t know what else to do, because I’m certainly through sleeping all cute at your feet.”

So the other morning, here’s what happened.

Pad: “Mow! Moowww!”

Lance and I groan, but then Pad goes quiet, so we gently begin drifting back to sleep… then

Pad: “Mow! MOOWW!”

Lance (in a sleep-induced stupor): “Can you see what he wants?”

Me: “Oh, sure! Hey Pad, what do you want?”

Pad: “Mow! Mrr…”

Me: “Ok, cleared that up. Glad I asked him, aren’t you babe? Anything else you want me to find out from the animal kingdom… what the dog next door wants when she’s barking incessantly? Or how about what that friggin’ singing bird just outside the window wants? Just let me know and I’ll ask ‘em for you!”

*Special thanks to the hubbs for help in spelling out this sound.

When my friend Nancy gave me this humungous remote control, we came up with this whole scenario where everything in my house should be really huge, like I’d use serving spoons for soup and use planters for tea cups and have a double king-size mattress, and when people came over Lance and I wouldn’t say anything; we’d just pretend like everything was normal. And that way WE COULD BE MIDGETS IN OUR OWN HOUSE!

Something has been troubling me, and I’ve been thinking about it all week (and of course have been wondering how best to blog the situation). In an odd turn of events, our pastor preached about this very thing last night, which led me to the conclusion that I am not alone in my pondering.

It started out with a conversation over lunch, where Person A wondered aloud if Jesus really fed 5,000 people with only 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, or if the person who wrote down the story was just in the front of the cafeteria line. And then Person B mentioned hearing a theory on Moses parting the Red Sea, that there was some freak tidal wave having to do with the salt content or something like that, and Moses might have known when this freak tidal wave would hit, which is why he was able to lead the Israelites across the freshly parted sea. Then Person A said probably Jesus never really “walked on water,” but was walking on some sand just underneath the surface of the lake.

It occurred to me then how simple it would be to take a look at every single miraculous instance in my life, and also in scripture, and fit it neatly into a Megan-sized box. I could go through and explain, in human terms, everything that people think is outside explanation. Noah and the flood? Noah had arthritis. He could feel the inclement weather coming on. Also he majored in Boat Architecture at the University of Ur, and can you believe his luck? Jonah surviving 3 days in the belly of a fish? Well that’s probably a made-up story anyway because there’s really nothing I can think to say about that one besides WOW. And Jesus turning water into wine? Well that’s simple, He probably just switched the barrels when those water-fetching fools weren’t looking, to make Himself look all cool. Mary, a virgin? Don’t even get me started on all the ways THAT could have been a big fat lie. And finally, the big one, the queen mother of all biblical miracles, the supposed Jesus dying and raising Himself from the dead 3 days later, which is the foundation of the Christian faith and also the reason we celebrate today. Well obviously He was just in a coma. Could have been sugar-shock from hanging on a cross for so long with nothing to eat or drink. Or He could have been taking a well-deserved nap. Maybe His heart slowed, making people think He was dead, but it was like Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet only looks dead, but when Romeo gets there she wakes right up.

Or how about when I went to the doctor in college because I was so tired all the time, and after a bunch of blood work he told me I was anemic and needed to start on daily medications right away. But then someone prayed for me, and I felt warmth in my veins at that very moment. I’m sure that could have been psychological, Reader. Then I went back to the doctor the next day and asked him to do another test, so he did, and he couldn’t explain why, but I wasn’t anemic anymore. I guess that first test was faulty.

This is what C.S. Lewis, the famous atheist-turned-theologian says: Either God is who He says He is, or He’s not.

People often say Jesus was a good teacher, or perhaps a prophet, and they recognize that He was very compassionate and so on. But they don’t believe He is the Son of God or that He really did miraculous things like healing people or feeding a bunch of people just because they looked hungry, or that He could have the authority to tell a raging sea to be calm, and have it listen to Him. But He doesn’t really give us the option to think He was just a good, nice guy. If you think He wasn’t God’s Son, the messiah, you have to think that He was either A) CRAZY (um, David Koresh anyone? Yeah sure I’m totally the son of God please drink this cyanide now?) or B) A complete liar that just hoodwinked a bunch of people into believing Him so He could obtain power (like Scientologists, holy yikes). No one thinks David Koresh was a good teacher or a kind prophet, and everyone I know is scared to death of Tom Cruise. Just sayin’.

So really the thing is, do you believe in God, and if you do, just how big is He or She? Because I know atheists, and they make a lot more sense to me than someone who claims to believe in God but doesn’t think He or She has any of the power that He says He has. You have to COMMIT to what you believe in, Reader!

I just feel like this. If I say that I believe in God, which I do, it’s only worth believing in Him or Her if I believe that He or She can do all these mind-blowing things, like, hello, creating the universe or coming up with the reproductive system. Because if I, with my human brain, could explain it all, it couldn’t be God. God doesn’t fit inside my logical left brain. I can’t make God in my own image. I recognize that some things are outside of my comprehension, because if I only believed in what I could perceive with my human senses, my world would be so very small. And I don’t want to live like that.

Spencer: “You know, I dated a guy named Lance once.”

Me: “Once you go Lance, you never go back.”

Spencer: “True statement.”

We went to Rehoboth Beach on Saturday, because it was gorgeous and I needed to get out of this city and see the ocean. Little did we know, there was a “Wind Advisory” in effect for Rehoboth. This means that when you sit on a blanket with a plastic package of salad, and you open the lid of the container, your lettuce and your croutons blow away, and you are very sad. It also means that you have to sit huddled up together to keep warm, and your clothes are trying really hard to give up the fight and fly away after the lettuce (really, can you blame them?), and so your back is all exposed so you get tiny flecks of sand embedded into your skin and they feel like pinpricks. So we sat there as long as we could, trying to enjoy the last remaining moments of beach before we were buried alive in the sandstorm, and when we were up to our ears, we shouted “I GUESS WE SHOULD GO!” to each other, then dug ourselves out of the sand and went back to the car.

It was such a lovely day, even with the tropical storm-like weather. Three words for you: OUTLET SHOPPING. ORGASM. They’re almost the same thing, except outlet shopping lasts longer. And similar to an incredible sexual experience, it also makes me exhausted, so I took a nap in the car while Lance read the local Delaware newspaper (of which an entire page article was devoted to saving cedar trees or something).

Of all the places to eat in Rehoboth, we chose Dogfish Head for dinner. There is a Dogfish Head about 10 minutes away from our house but it just looked so delicious sitting there wedged between a hotel and a t-shirt shop, so what can I say? I’ll tell you what I can say: CRAB DIP. ORGASM. During my second non-sexually related orgasm of the evening, Lance said something so funny I spit salmon flecks into his face. You have to imagine my skinny, hoodie-adorned husband shaking his fists in the air and making a face like he just smelled poo as he says this. ”Tomorrow, if we pick Lucy up before 1:00, we don’t have to pay for an extra day. So we should go in the morning. Oh hey! Since we’ll be way out there in Chantilly, let’s go to Chic-Fil-A-oh-DAMMIT. It’s Sunday and they’re closed mmmgrrrfff!! Damn those conservative Christians and their… really… yummy…. chicken!”

You could not possibly turn me on more than when you cook.