On Saturday, I stood within 5 feet of Tiger Woods in Kohler, Wisconsin.
We were standing between the 3rd and 4th holes, and he walked right by us on his way to the tee. He wore a dark blue shirt and grey pants, and only stopped his scowling long enough to lift a hand in acknowledgement of two bikini-clad girls screaming at him from a boat on Lake Michigan. I was crinkling my way through a bag of gummie bears (much to the chagrin of the "quiet please" ppl), and Tyler really wanted me to offer one to Tiger, but I was afraid that he'd either bite me (pun!) or his hoard of security ppl would throw me out. It was pretty cool though. He's much taller in real life than I thought he'd be. After he tee'd off, he slammed his club back into his bag (it only went partially in--how embarrassing) and stalked off towards the green.
I've never been to any sort of golf event before, so getting to go to the PGA Tour with Tyler and his dad was pretty exciting. It was super hot and humid, despite the cloud-cover. We were all sweating buckets and I made everyone put on sunscreen so we wouldn't get burnt to a lobster crisp.
Golf is a curious sport. For one thing, most of the bystanders look like wandered out of a prep school. I've never seen so many people wearing khaki shorts in one place! (Disclaimer: I was wearing khaki flood pants, not b/c I am a serious golf fan, but b/c they're the lightest pair of pants that I have.) The problem is that khakis are very unforgiving if you happen to sweat even a little bit. Lots of visibly damp butts walking around. You can tell someone's a really hardcore fan if they're wearing a ball cap, a short-sleeve polo and LONG khaki pants instead of shorts. It's intense, man. Their fandom radiates off of them in the form of intense silence when the PGA "quiet please" staff raise their arms. Woe to any person who might be walking on gravel or padding through the grass when those arms go up! This one lady was scolding her kid when the "quiet" arms went up, and instead of people being like "Well, I guess she's in the middle of child-rearing," it was like "Will that woman shut up already?! JEEZ. The NERVE of some people!" It really was quite amazing.
Anyway, the whole experience of it was pretty fun, but I'm glad it's only in Wisconsin every 5 years or something like that. Not sure if I can handle another one with Tyler, should we have the chance to go next year! It was a long day though, because we headed out around 5:30am, then basically drove straight back down to Danville, and didn't get in until around 1:30 or so this morning. I was fading hard...thank goodness Tyler was better at staying awake than I was, especially since he was driving!
So now I'm chilling out in the Blue living room (incidentally, it is filled with blue furniture), watching Sudden Death Golf with Tyler's dad and sister, Madeline. There is nothing quite like Sudden Death Golf, y'all...
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
foods i eat when no one's watching
Like most girls, I adore lists of any sort. "10 Tips to a Slimmer You." "10 Jeans Guaranteed to Make Your Butt Look Awesome." "5 Blouses to Boost Your Boobage." Etc. (And now you know what kinds of magazines I read after having a fancy-pants liberal arts education and a Masters degree from Northwestern.)
Today's list is inspired by a CNN article I read a few months back about the gross foods that we eat in secret when we think no one else is around. Because, let's face it--no one wants anyone to be watching when they eat packets of microwaveable Kraft mac 'n' cheese! (Not that I do, of course; that is what we journalists call "an example general audiences will understand, but not something that we do personally, especially not for four years in college.") But oh, how we love those guilty pleasures! Without further ado:
1. Raw cookie dough. Salmonella be damned, I love raw cookie dough for its smooth-yet-grainy texture, how you can kind of feel the sugar grains crack between your teeth. I love taking my time nibbling on the dough and the chocolate chipd and squishing it between my fingers. So I guess I don't eat it around people, not so much that it's a gross food, but that I like to take an embarrassingly long time to eat it.
2. Brussel sprouts. I know it's weird, which is why I don't tend to eat it around people. But I can't help but love brussel sprouts. Get a pan really hot and then melt some butter, throw in some Tony Chachere seasoning, cut the sprouts in half and pan-fry them until they're charred on the outside, flaky and tender on the inside. SO GOOD. Tyler thinks it's gross though, and has not let me forget the one time I made him eat ONE leaf, which he washed down with frantic gulps of water. (Not even the whole sprout! Just one leaf!)
3. Dried squid and fish snacks. Remember how we used to eat them in the Nicholas/Asian households? Those were the days! Remember how Benny bought a package of them and we roasted (okay, HE roasted) them over our stove so they got all hot and crackly? And all the squid and cuttlefish-related snacks that Sunny brought from Taiwan?? Haven't had the opportunity to be eating them these days, but it's something I know I would eat when no one's around. Mmm, savor that Asian goodness!
4. Rainbow frosting from the can. You know, the vanilla frosting that's got all the yummy roundish rainbow-colored candies inside? This is not to be confused with the kind that's got the flat sprinkles--the rainbow candies are like 12485231 better tasting and better textured than the sprinkles! I could just eat spoonfuls of this stuf, relishing every rainbow candy. So it's basically like eating butter and sugar and food coloring for a couple of hours. So gross, so delicious.
5. Ramen. Every bowl of Shin Ramyun takes me back to the good ol' Nicholas 107 days. Also, my mom used to only let us eat ramen on special days, like snow days, or if we had a bad day, so it's kind of become like my ultimate comfort food. Being alone out in the Midwest, I have had my share of nostalgia and homesickness, which means I turn to ramen rather a lot. I've gotten to the point where I've started to be all chef-y with my ramen. Like I'll mix different seasonings and sauces together or cook it with different kinds of stock (if you make it with chicken broth, it's basically healthy, right? Just like chicken noodle soup!). I also try varying combinations of what I call "ramen accessories": eggs, tempura, tofu, frozen corn, sausage. It's almost become like real cooking for me, which is kind of sick, if you think about it.
Some of you might be thinking "My gosh, Vicky, I never knew you liked rainbow icing that much," or "I never knew you were a ramen connoisseur," to which I reply "OF COURSE NOT, that's why they are SECRET FOODS that I eat when no one's watching!" These are foods that must be eaten with a certain lack of grace that just won't do with company around.
So now that you know my guilty foods, what are yours??
Today's list is inspired by a CNN article I read a few months back about the gross foods that we eat in secret when we think no one else is around. Because, let's face it--no one wants anyone to be watching when they eat packets of microwaveable Kraft mac 'n' cheese! (Not that I do, of course; that is what we journalists call "an example general audiences will understand, but not something that we do personally, especially not for four years in college.") But oh, how we love those guilty pleasures! Without further ado:
1. Raw cookie dough. Salmonella be damned, I love raw cookie dough for its smooth-yet-grainy texture, how you can kind of feel the sugar grains crack between your teeth. I love taking my time nibbling on the dough and the chocolate chipd and squishing it between my fingers. So I guess I don't eat it around people, not so much that it's a gross food, but that I like to take an embarrassingly long time to eat it.
2. Brussel sprouts. I know it's weird, which is why I don't tend to eat it around people. But I can't help but love brussel sprouts. Get a pan really hot and then melt some butter, throw in some Tony Chachere seasoning, cut the sprouts in half and pan-fry them until they're charred on the outside, flaky and tender on the inside. SO GOOD. Tyler thinks it's gross though, and has not let me forget the one time I made him eat ONE leaf, which he washed down with frantic gulps of water. (Not even the whole sprout! Just one leaf!)
3. Dried squid and fish snacks. Remember how we used to eat them in the Nicholas/Asian households? Those were the days! Remember how Benny bought a package of them and we roasted (okay, HE roasted) them over our stove so they got all hot and crackly? And all the squid and cuttlefish-related snacks that Sunny brought from Taiwan?? Haven't had the opportunity to be eating them these days, but it's something I know I would eat when no one's around. Mmm, savor that Asian goodness!
4. Rainbow frosting from the can. You know, the vanilla frosting that's got all the yummy roundish rainbow-colored candies inside? This is not to be confused with the kind that's got the flat sprinkles--the rainbow candies are like 12485231 better tasting and better textured than the sprinkles! I could just eat spoonfuls of this stuf, relishing every rainbow candy. So it's basically like eating butter and sugar and food coloring for a couple of hours. So gross, so delicious.
5. Ramen. Every bowl of Shin Ramyun takes me back to the good ol' Nicholas 107 days. Also, my mom used to only let us eat ramen on special days, like snow days, or if we had a bad day, so it's kind of become like my ultimate comfort food. Being alone out in the Midwest, I have had my share of nostalgia and homesickness, which means I turn to ramen rather a lot. I've gotten to the point where I've started to be all chef-y with my ramen. Like I'll mix different seasonings and sauces together or cook it with different kinds of stock (if you make it with chicken broth, it's basically healthy, right? Just like chicken noodle soup!). I also try varying combinations of what I call "ramen accessories": eggs, tempura, tofu, frozen corn, sausage. It's almost become like real cooking for me, which is kind of sick, if you think about it.
Some of you might be thinking "My gosh, Vicky, I never knew you liked rainbow icing that much," or "I never knew you were a ramen connoisseur," to which I reply "OF COURSE NOT, that's why they are SECRET FOODS that I eat when no one's watching!" These are foods that must be eaten with a certain lack of grace that just won't do with company around.
So now that you know my guilty foods, what are yours??
Saturday, August 7, 2010
conversations with my mother
Sometimes talking with my mom is like talking with a very demanding phrase-generator machine on crack. Don't get me wrong; I love love love her. But sometimes I get kind of light-headed after conversations because I'm all out of breath trying to keep up with her.
For example, on Saturday I called her while I was doing laundry and we started talking about plane tickets and when I should try to schedule my flight home for Christmas. This is a snippet of what ensued.
Mom: Remember to let me know when you'll be flying in because you might fly in late at night because sometimes you don't have a choice you know and we'll pick you up at the airport if you're not with Tyler because I don't want you to to take a taxi if you are not with Tyler and then when you get in Daddy and I are going to take you to Tachibana because I know you like that and--
Me: Uh, okay, yeah, I'll let you know about the--
Mom: I want to order you some pork jerky, do you want some? Do you like that? Do you need yellow noodles?
Me: Uh--
Mom: OH!!!! VEEKY!!!!!!! Let me ask you! What is the name of that store? It begins with 'A.'
Me: Um...
Mom: You have a jacket from there.
Me: Oh, yeah, okay. Uhhh. [racking brain trying to think of jackets I've gotten] I really don't know...what does the jacket look like?
Mom: I don't know.
Me: What?
Mom: Blue. It's blue. It's a blue jacket.
Me: I don't have a blue jacket.
Mom: I know. I know.
Me: What?
Mom: It's in your closet. I'll just check.
Me: What?? What jacket??
Mom: I know. Okay. So this store. A-something. Aaaaaaa. Blue jacket. Aaaaaaa.
Apparently she also bought me a light sweater in Taiwan, and it's blueish yellowish greenish. It's like her brain is going so fast, she has no time to process any details before she's onto the thing 8 or 9 steps ahead. Would not at all be surprised if the sweater was actually, like, pink.
I can't wait to do the same thing to my kids in 25 years or so.
For example, on Saturday I called her while I was doing laundry and we started talking about plane tickets and when I should try to schedule my flight home for Christmas. This is a snippet of what ensued.
Mom: Remember to let me know when you'll be flying in because you might fly in late at night because sometimes you don't have a choice you know and we'll pick you up at the airport if you're not with Tyler because I don't want you to to take a taxi if you are not with Tyler and then when you get in Daddy and I are going to take you to Tachibana because I know you like that and--
Me: Uh, okay, yeah, I'll let you know about the--
Mom: I want to order you some pork jerky, do you want some? Do you like that? Do you need yellow noodles?
Me: Uh--
Mom: OH!!!! VEEKY!!!!!!! Let me ask you! What is the name of that store? It begins with 'A.'
Me: Um...
Mom: You have a jacket from there.
Me: Oh, yeah, okay. Uhhh. [racking brain trying to think of jackets I've gotten] I really don't know...what does the jacket look like?
Mom: I don't know.
Me: What?
Mom: Blue. It's blue. It's a blue jacket.
Me: I don't have a blue jacket.
Mom: I know. I know.
Me: What?
Mom: It's in your closet. I'll just check.
Me: What?? What jacket??
Mom: I know. Okay. So this store. A-something. Aaaaaaa. Blue jacket. Aaaaaaa.
Apparently she also bought me a light sweater in Taiwan, and it's blueish yellowish greenish. It's like her brain is going so fast, she has no time to process any details before she's onto the thing 8 or 9 steps ahead. Would not at all be surprised if the sweater was actually, like, pink.
I can't wait to do the same thing to my kids in 25 years or so.
Monday, August 2, 2010
things that bother me
After a bit of a blog hiatus, today's post will be about Things That Bother Me.
1. "Convenience" fees when you buy tickets online. If it was so "convenient," why does it add so much to the tab that I could purchase at least one more ticket, or at least a dinner for two at a nice restaurant? It is most inconvenient! I don't understand.
2. People who light up cigarettes inside the bus shelter. Bus shelters are typically enclosed spaces, right, so when you smoke inside the bus shelter, it's like smoking in a very small room with a door propped open. So basically, instead of stepping outside for a smoke like a normal, courteous person, you're forcing all the other occupants of the small room to either cough through your cancer cloud or move to stand outside themselves. That is just rude! Especially when the other occupants are old grannies with canes or bags of groceries.
3. Couples that are inexplicably icky. You know what I mean: two people who are relatively attractive, fairly intelligent, reasonably sociable...but somehow make you feel so uncomfortable, you can't bear to sit next to them in a class or share a meal with them. It's nothing overt. It's not like they're groping at each other or passive/aggressive fighting all the time. But it's like something about their interactions or the way they look at each other that is just like "Ugh, I am in the presence of something that isn't quite right." Gross.
4. Overripe fruit when you're not expecting it to be. (I'm looking at you, banana-that-I-just-threw-out.) There is nothing more disgusting than peeling a banana that's greenish on the outside but is somehow all soft and mushy on the inside. Ugh. Just thinking about overripe bananas makes me want to gag.
5. People my age who have small children but don't have a firm grasp on the proper use homonyms, such as here/hear. Really? You're responsible for another human life but you can't pick out the right you're/your to use in a sentence?? Yes, I am judging your ability to teach your child the basics of the English language if you still can't tell which there/their/they're to use at age 24.
I possess a lot of spite. In case you couldn't tell.
1. "Convenience" fees when you buy tickets online. If it was so "convenient," why does it add so much to the tab that I could purchase at least one more ticket, or at least a dinner for two at a nice restaurant? It is most inconvenient! I don't understand.
2. People who light up cigarettes inside the bus shelter. Bus shelters are typically enclosed spaces, right, so when you smoke inside the bus shelter, it's like smoking in a very small room with a door propped open. So basically, instead of stepping outside for a smoke like a normal, courteous person, you're forcing all the other occupants of the small room to either cough through your cancer cloud or move to stand outside themselves. That is just rude! Especially when the other occupants are old grannies with canes or bags of groceries.
3. Couples that are inexplicably icky. You know what I mean: two people who are relatively attractive, fairly intelligent, reasonably sociable...but somehow make you feel so uncomfortable, you can't bear to sit next to them in a class or share a meal with them. It's nothing overt. It's not like they're groping at each other or passive/aggressive fighting all the time. But it's like something about their interactions or the way they look at each other that is just like "Ugh, I am in the presence of something that isn't quite right." Gross.
4. Overripe fruit when you're not expecting it to be. (I'm looking at you, banana-that-I-just-threw-out.) There is nothing more disgusting than peeling a banana that's greenish on the outside but is somehow all soft and mushy on the inside. Ugh. Just thinking about overripe bananas makes me want to gag.
5. People my age who have small children but don't have a firm grasp on the proper use homonyms, such as here/hear. Really? You're responsible for another human life but you can't pick out the right you're/your to use in a sentence?? Yes, I am judging your ability to teach your child the basics of the English language if you still can't tell which there/their/they're to use at age 24.
I possess a lot of spite. In case you couldn't tell.
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