Tornado Alley, But Not Really

You know how the stereotypical awkward conversation goes, "Hi." "Hey." "How are you?" "Good." "...Interesting weather we're having." "Yep." "..."

Well, I'm going to be spectacularly lame and awkward and talk about the weather. Again.

Don't give me that look. The weather around here definitely merits discussion. Have you seen it? If you have, then you know that anyone brave enough to step outside is drenched within 3.25 seconds, due to the humidity. It's like you've had a tough workout, except without the tough workout. Gross, yes.

Also, there's the small issue with the summer storms, a.k.a Let's Have Another Tornado Warning Every Two Minutes Because It's Fun To Make People Drop Everything And Hide In The Basement. Thunder, lightning, pouring rain, ridiculous winds, and sirens. Fun stuff.

So far, though, no real tornadoes have come our way, which is a really good thing considering that our house is mournfully void of safe, windowless rooms.

Also, the lightning storms require me to turn off my computer, which is a bit of a problem because my computer is a stubborn little evil thing that refuses to turn back on after it's been shut down.

Enough weather reports for now...?

Caramel

Apparently we're all out of dulce de leche ice cream, which, in case you were wondering, is an extremely delicious sort of vanilla ice cream with caramel swirled into it. Having run out of it is deeply unfortunate.

Oh well. I'll survive until we go to the grocery store and buy some more of it. Hopefully. But in the mean time, I'll occupy myself by discussing caramel desserts.

First and foremost is creme brulee (which looks kind of lame without all of the fancy French accent marks, but what can you do?). I was lucky enough to try some on a trip to France, in what was quite possibly the best restaurant I've ever visited (so on a side note, if you ever happen to be in a small village in the Alsace called Saint Hippolyte - there's a bigger town with the same name, but I'm talking about the small village - please visit the restaurant that is also called Le Saint Hippolyte. It will be entirely worth your while). For dessert, I had the creme brulee. That's a picture of it over there. They served it on a slate serving platter, which was quite cute. Also, no one there spoke a word of English, which made it quite an interesting experience. But that's beside the point. Anyways, that creme brulee was possibly the best thing I've ever eaten. It was sooo good. Sigh.

Flan is my other caramel dessert of amazingness. Also known as creme caramel. My mother can make delicious flan, smooth and creamy and caramel-y and... sigh, again. There's also this little Mexican restaurant not far from here that serves amazing flan.

By the way, did you know that if you type "caramel" into Google, the first suggestion that comes up is "caramelized onions?" What the heck is a caramelized onion?

Foxes, Among Other Things

This is a picture of some baby foxes - last spring, seven of them moved in under our shed. They were adorable.

Unfortunately, it so happens that baby foxes apparently aren't the only creatures who seem to like us. A veritable army of ants has also decided to move in with us. They are everywhere, sneakily attempting to steal chocolate and marmalade. Actually, I suspect that they're spying and will shortly launch an intricate plot to take over the world.

Not to mention the mysterious thing that moved into the ducts behind the kitchen. It lived there for a few weeks. Emphasis on lived, past tense, because I'm pretty sure it's died. I no longer hear it scuffling around in there every time I go downstairs, and the kitchen smells like...

Oh, never mind. It's repulsive. I'd take the baby foxes any day.

Sandwiches

I was hungry, so I went on a mission to discover the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. After the use of much butter and various sorts of cheese, I seem to have been successful, although it required the consumption of not one but two enormous sandwiches. And by sandwiches I mean calories with bread.

I am now no longer hungry.

You know, it wasn't so much a grilled cheese sandwich as a fried bread sandwich. "Grilled cheese" implies that I went outside and plunked some cheese on the grill. This was not the case. Instead, I stayed inside and plunked some bread in a pan with butter. I would suggest renaming the sandwich in question a "fried bread with melted cheese sandwich," but, let's face it, grilled cheese sounds much better and takes about a millionth as long to say.

Yesterday I had a pretty interesting sandwich for lunch, too. It was a yogurt and tuna on cinammon bread sandwich, courtesy of a good friend of mine. Before you go throw up, let me reassure you that it was actually pretty good. And it attracted her cats.

Comment vas-tu? Pas mal. Et toi?

The World Cup started today! Eeeek! I spent three hours watching soccer today. There'll be three more games tomorrow, but I don't think I'll watch the first one because that would require me to get up at five thirty in the morning. But still! World Cup!
The games today were South Africa v. Mexico (1:1) and France v. Uruguay (0:0). Which reminds me - French. Is. So. Difficult. And by difficult, I mean impossible-to-pronounce-and-full-of-silent-letters. Learning rudimentary French has been my latest project, and it is dead complicated. For instance, let's translate the word rubber. It becomes le caoutchouc. Pronounce that for me, would you? Or how about the phrase, Today is June 11, 2010. It's Aujourd'hui, c'est le 11 juin 2010. Hopeless.
Although everything does look and sound prettier in French, doesn't it? I watched a French film with a friend yesterday, and they swore quite a lot, and my goodness, it sounded lovely. I'm almost a bit tempted to begin saying s**t in French because it just sounds so nice.
Je ne comprends pas.

Please Inform the Weather...

I love summer. This is largely because summer involves days that consist of 45% sleeping, 40% napping, and 15% doing nothing (I really hope that adds up to 100). But it's also because, in summer, it is no longer necessary to huddle three inches from the fireplace wearing so many layers that you resemble a human beach ball. In theory.

Let's take a look at the reality, shall we? I am sitting here in soccer shorts and a t-shirt and my toes are going to freeze off any second. Once I finish this post, I am going to go change. Outside, it's cloudy - wait, no, make that overcast - and I can only conclude that the sun's gone on its summer vacation without the rest of us. Because we're well into June and I still have to wear snowpants, apparently. What is wrong with this picture?
There's one thing I can't stand about summer, though. Mosquitoes. If you like mosquitoes, then there is something severely wrong with you. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes seem to have missed the memo that summer has decided not to show up, because they're here and they're hungry.

Well, someone go prod the clouds with a long pole and tell them to go away. And while you're at it, ask the sun to please please please come back from its vacation.

It Didn't Literally Fry My Brain

So the other day I was talking to someone who'd just taken the SAT, and I asked her how it went. She said, "Ugh, it was so long it literally fried my brain."
Not to be a word-usage witch, but...
Ahem. Wrong. Unless the SAT was some kind of stovetop and she took out her brain and plunked it into a frying pan with some grease, I seriously doubt that that the SAT fried much of anything. Now, if she'd said, "It was so long it fried my brain," I'd have been fine. But that's not what she said; she threw in literally for emphasis. Which implies that, well, her brain was literally fried. My deepest regrets and sympathies for this unfortunate development in her life.
I've also heard people say things like, "If he doesn't turn that paper in today, I am literally going to kill him," or, "That movie literally made my skin crawl." Person 1, I'm afraid, must be a murderer, and person 2 has the weirdest/creepiest skin I've ever seen.
So, lesson learned: literally isn't a word of emphasis. Don't use it.
Of course, there's always the possibility that these people were NOT misusing the word in question. In which case, I'm afraid.

Stop Your Analysis!

As I'm sure you know, English classes seem to exist to analyze the daylight out of all sorts of poor, unsuspecting books. Read... annotate... write essays... analyze. Fun, fun, fun. Not. I'm of the personal opinion that no one actually cares what the author meant or wanted, though. The analytic readers of the world simply attempt to pull symbolism out of books, even when there is none.
I recall that last year, a whole bunch of classes - mine not included - read Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I've got a copy of it in front of me now, and I will quote from the very first page:

"NOTICE: Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. By order of the author per G. G., Chief of Ordnance."

Now, let me point something out: this notice has unquestionably been blatantly ignored by English teachers everywhere. Obviously, no one listens to the author, even if the author includes a very conspicuous note stating that those who analyze will be shot. Shot. Do you want to be shot? I didn't think so. So, should you be one of those people who likes to analyze, stop. Unless you happen to enjoy persecution from the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps. In which case I wish you much joy and happiness.

With regards to the book-writing business, so far so not good. No ideas, no inspiration, no nothing. Oh well. Wait and see, I guess.

Hi

Okay. So. It's June now (or so they say; it's pretty chilly out and I'm not completely convinced). Done with ACTs, SATs, AP tests, finals, and all of that other nonsense. Next order of business: to start a blog.
I should mention that I dislike the word blog. It's such a sloppy-sounding word, like an unfortunate cross between blah and glog. The latter probably isn't actually a word, but I imagine that that's what it sounds like when someone either a) throws up, or b) wades through a thick, morassy swamp while wearing a pair of oversized galoshes.
Which is, by the way, a very entertaining word. Galoshes, I mean.
But I guess I'd better get over it, if I intend to write a blog.
Ick.
Anyways. This blog will be subject to my commentaries on words, people, events, music, food, ceiling fans, dandelions, and whatever else catches my interest.
Oh, and one other thing that's probably important. I've been challenged to write a novel within the next year. Although I've written a plethora of stories in a variety of genres, I've never actually written a book. So this might be difficult, and it may or may not work out. Just in case, I'll be blogging my progress. I need an idea first, though.
Let's hope I'm hit by a train of thought. (In case you were wondering, this is a term that was originally coined by a friend of mine. It's a bit like getting hit by a train... but not.)