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Our friend Cupcake was so sweet to remember us on our wedding day…he gave My Captain and me a generous gift certificate to Williams-Sonoma.   Williams-Sonoma is a store I never shop in because I’m filled with lust and desire, and that is quickly followed up by disappointment and resentment because I just can’t bring myself to spend that kind of money on the way cool stuff they sell there.

But Cupcake’s gift certificate was like…free license..to actually patronize these high-brow-kitchen-gadget-Elysian-Fields.  I was psyched!

It took me months to finally choose something…there were too many options.  My Captain realized quickly that he had no say in this particular purchase…and in that respect, Cupcake’s wedding gift to US was really for ME.  Someone ought to tell him he still owes My Captain a gift.

But that’s not for me to do.  I wouldn’t be so forward.

Well….are you all chomping at the bit to see what I finally chose?

Let me start by showing you what I HAD been using prior to Cuppy’s gift:

These are like, ten years old.  And even though I SWEAR to you they are clean, they are so stained and burnt and just plain nasty, that they carry an odor about them I cannot describe.  I guess we’ll just have to go with “Old Potholder Stench” or O.P.S.

Looks dirty…but it’s not.  That is years of lasagne sauce, melted cheese, broccoli casserole and pork fat all rolled into one four layer wad of cotton O.P.S., my friends.

Still, with all the other things a family our size requires, replacing them was fairly down low on the totem pole.

That is, until Cupcake’s Williams-Sonoma Gift Card.

Soooo without further ado, check out what my favorite U.P.S. guy delivered to me today!

They are SOOOoooOOoooOoo  PURTY!  And so sparkling clean and fresh!

And check it out….they don’t smell weird!

And look! I even have a snob tag now!!

And, I can’t tell you how good this action felt:

I wonder what is more disturbing: that my life is so simple I just spent several minutes composing a post about potholders, or that you just wasted several minutes reading about it.

He’s got no shame.  He’s all about savoring the moment.

Fully, and Whole-heartedly.

Unabashedly and unapologetically.

Repetitively and Redundantly. (See what I did there?  A little grammatical humor….)

He had the warm rays of the sun, the softness of the carpet, and the sweet quietness of a cottage who’s crazy kids were away at school.  He took full advantage of the situation and was thoroughly in heaven.

He’s got no modesty.

Look, I don’t begrudge him his moment of relaxation.  Not at all.  But the thing that irks me, or makes me rather jealous, is the fact that his big ol’ tuna fish belly:

FLOPS over and no one has a problem with it.  I mean, he is on his back, but his stomach is on its side…   People who see him like this just want to pet him and run their fingers through his soft flabby furry belly.

But this does not transfer over to humans.  I mean, I have the same phenomenon happen with my belly, but no one is rushing over to rub mine.  No one is remarking about how cute my flabby gut is.

Why is this?

Well, I don’t know why it is, but I do know what it is.

Discrimination, pure and simple.

I would wish better from my fellow humans.  You guys are worthier than that.  Try a little harder to be fair and equitable, people.

So the next time I’m sprawled and splayed out on the floor with my belly flopping over to the side, I expect someone to come over and rub it, dammit.

During one of our trips to Glacier Park, Montana, My Captain made the mistake of blinking, and lost me.  He found me days later, wandering aimlessly in one of the gift shops.  He got off fairly lightly that time.  I’d only bought a cookie jar and sugar/cream set.  Oh, and a drunken Duck (but he is for another post).

The cookie jar is by far my favorite.

Some women like jewelry.  Some like clothes. Some like flowers.

My Captain has learned that all he needs to do to woo me is present a tender moose.

Come On.  Look deep into his eyes.  Those eyes are full of promises.  Oh sweetheart….what do you have for me today as you spear my soul with those deep dark orbs?

Ah, Love…..you never disappoint.   All I need with these is a homemade cup of iced coffee…..

I am SO stoned right now.  Seriously under the influence.  I don’t think I could be held legally accountable for any major decision I make at this moment.  It all started when I took this:

From My Captain’s last mission trip to the Dominican Republic.  He tells people he went to help build an orphanage.  Really, he just went to get the coffee.

High Octane.  Seriously High Octane.  This stuff is occasionally used at Nascar as a fuel additive.

I took the contents of that bag, ground it up and put it in a Canning Jar.  I filled the rest of the jar with cold water and let it sit over night.  This morning I strained it, and wound up with this:

Liquid Gold, Baby.  Pure caffeine, with a little dental-staining color mixed in.

I took an empty glass, filled it with ice cubes, a couple tablespoons of sugar, a liberal splash heavy cream, and filled the rest of it with this coffee-syrup-from-hell.

And ended up with this:

(It was full when I started, and actually this is my second glass)

Starbucks has got NOTHING on this.  Nothing.   I saved, what, $4.00?  And for very little effort (if you don’t include the whole having-to-travel-to-the-Dominican-Republic-using-building-orphanages-as-a-ruse-to-buy-cheap-excellent-coffee-beans thing).

Since drinking this, I have had heart palpitations, nausea, jitters, I’m sweating, my hands are shaking, I’m talking at 150mph, and I’ve gotten more done in an hour than I usually do in a week.

Is it me, or is everyone else in the world moving in slow-motion?

During my time treating patients on the Ambulance and Medic unit, I transported people hopped up on Coke, Crack, and other Amphetamines.  They have the exact same symptoms.

The difference is that I am being perfectly, responsibly lawful.  I pride myself on being a good role-model that way.

This post is dedicated to my friend Lisa, who clearly was born with a birth defect.  She has no sense of taste or smell, apparently.

It’s tragic.

I don’t know this because she whined about it.  Nor did her friends or family tell me.  I figured out this sad little secret of hers when she began vociferously complaining about the difficulty of finding Scrapple Retailers.

Never heard of Scrapple?

Imagine going to a butcher and asking for everything that fell on the floor when they were cutting out the bacon, pork chops and pork loins.  THAT would be what you would find in Scrapple.  Along with a binder like corn meal or something.

In the south, people LIKE scrapple.  But I was raised in the Mid-West, so I find it something of an enigma.  Well, either an enigma, or a horror.  I haven’t yet decided which.

Doubt me?  Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

water

cornmeal

flour

meat (including pork head, meat, feet, heart, tongue, and other trimmings)

Salt and Pepper

Marjoram

Thyme

Mace

Nutmeg

Onions

Boil meat in water until the tissue separates from the bones, drain.  Add flour, cornmeal, seasonings. Grind the crap out of it.  Really pulverize it so it becomes a paste.  Refrigerate in shape desired.  When hardened, slice and fry.

Hold on, I just vomited in my mouth.

Ok, I’m back.

I can’t wrap my brain around this recipe.  But see, we’re used to what we are raised with.  And I wasn’t raised with that.  Had I been born on a farm or in the depression, or even just raised in the country, I wouldn’t bat an eye with this.  But I was raised in suburban Worthington, Ohio, when Kroger’s were around and all my meat was clean and saranwrapped.  And never was I ever presented with a package that read “trimmings”.

Yes, I eat Hot Dogs.  Please do not disillusion me with the facts.  No, I do not like SPAM.

My Captain likes scrapple.  But only when it’s well made.  I’m thinking, “Well made??!”

How the heck can you screw up that recipe???

He says it tastes like Liver.

I rest my case.