Oooh! FACE!

Okay, so do you guys remember yesterday when I was all haughty and proud of myself for neglecting tedious, but necessary, tasks around the house? I was all "Who CARES if I sit around on the couch all day? I'm not HURTING anyone, am I?" Well, color me pwned. This morning, back in full swing of a work week, I woke up when it was still dark out. I finished getting ready and was on my way out of my room so I turned off the light, then remembered I needed my purse. I started to feel around for it in the pitch black room, when I tripped on a pair of jeans tossed on the ground, and SLAMMED my face into my door. "Slammed" as in: Ran into it at full speed, square in the kisser. That's right, people. The person I ended up hurting by my laziness, was in fact, MYSELF. And consider it a lesson learned, because my face still hurts (Well it's KILLING ME!) and the developing egg above my eyebrow is just noticeable enough to make me clean my stupes room out of fear that it will happen again.

How totally appropriate, don't you think? I was all parading around on my high horse because I hadn't had ONE major accident in 2010, which is quite a feat when you're as clutzy as I am. Then BAM! Face in a door. And not even like the front or back of the door. No, my face went smack into the side - that one inch death trap. I felt like a Looney Tunes character, what with all the stars I was seeing.

As my friend Allyson helpfully pointed out though, at least my latest face injury is not the worst. A few years back, I tripped on one of those enormous IKEA bags on the floor of my room (Seriously?! When will I learn to just keep my room clean?!) and skidded my face on the carpet. I had HUGE rug burns on the right side of my face. It was all scabby and gross. Gnarlesville. When I left my job at a magazine shortly afterwards, the staff made a mock up of an issue, with my mangled face on the cover, giving a big ol' thumbs up. I still keep it in my room because, well, it's pretty hysterical.

I suppose I can track all this crazy face-violence back to when I was about 5 years old. I was at the pool. My mom was wrangling us five kids to get home, but of course I was dawdling, eating ants or something. My mom said "Pharon! Come on! We're LEAVING!" She wrapped an enormous towel around me and I padded after her as fast as I could. Kids? There is a reason they tell you not to run at the pool. My bare feet were no match for the slippery cement, and, duh, I slipped. I crashed down, face-first on the cement. My arms were wrapped in my towel, so I just toppled over. I ripped up my chin, and I still have a teeny scar to prove it.

So, I guess in the grand scheme of all my facial mishaps, this latest one isn't so bad. There's no blood, no need for stitches. Nah, it's actually pretty minor. But frazzle! It hurt so freaky bad. It was the kind of pain that it takes like 3 full seconds to actually register in your brain.

Besides spending the night cleaning my room, I also chugged like 4 glasses of milk. A girl can't have too much calcium when she needs to keep her face bones strong. And despite the promises I make to myself to be more careful, there's no telling what kind of risk I run by boldly wearing high heels in Minnesota icy winters. Though, in hindsight, none of my facial boo-boos have had anything to do with wearing heels. In fact, it's almost like when I DON'T wear heels, I leave myself open to the perils that lurk at ground level. Mix that with my natural lack of grace and we've got an accident waiting to happen, folks.

Hopefully I got my annual Injury out of the way. I'd consider it a win for me if the worst thing I have to deal with is a cartoony bonk on the face. And, this might be a neural hematoma talking, but it was pretty funny.

Hey Good Lookin', Whatcha Got Burnin'?

Today, we’ll be baking some Choc-Oat-Chip Cookies. Now, first thing’s first: open the wine. There’s a wine for practically every cooking job. Tonight? I’m going with “Red Wine”. It also goes with cooking chili, salad, wontons, brownies, and cereal. Sip slowly, but generously. Cooking is all about the buzz.

So, go ahead an open that cookbook. Yes, you’d better have a cookbook, folks. Who do you think you are, Julia Child? Well guess what: you’re not. You can’t just throw a bunch of food together willy-nilly and hope for the best. No, no, no. That’s just, well, that’s just silly. You need the recipe. I, for example, tried to go off-recipe once and ended up with watery, flat, doughy balls of mush. What was I TRYING to make you ask? Cornbread. Don’t make the same mistake, folks. There’s simply nothing you can make that someone else hasn’t already made better, and then written down the instructions.

As you are measuring the ingredients into the proper bowls, make sure to google “Can I use baking soda instead of baking powder?” because surely you have forgotten to buy one or the other. Note: they are NOT interchangeable. Shrug your shoulders as needed, and consider the missing ingredient “optional”. Go ahead and mix that batter up. Take care to dump all the flour into the dough at once, sending a floury poof into the air and onto your face. Chances are, you’ve mis-measured the flour anyway, so the extra ounce or whatever flying in the air won’t cause any problems. Under no circumstance, however, are you to let the flour mix with your wine. Continue to add wine to your body liberally.

As the batter is mixing, feel free to stick your finger in the bowl as the little beater thing swirls around and around. If and when the beater thing snaps your finger away, loudly curse the inanimate object. Consume another slug of wine.

Next, search wildly for a clean cookie sheet. After discovering that a roommate has taken the cookie sheet to a friend’s house, make a sorry attempt at cleaning the dirty sheet. The heat of the oven will burn off whatever gunk you don’t quite get. Now that you’ve put your first batch of questionable cookies in the oven, pat yourself on the back and start maniacally cleaning the kitchen. Inevitably, the flour that sprayed the whole kitchen will be the toughest to clean. I suggest using 409. Warning: Do not attempt to spray the 409 onto the ceiling, though. It will fall in your eyes. Loudly curse gravity.

The smell of baking cookies is a wonderful aroma. You’ll want to prematurely remove the first batch from the oven, but fight the urge. Stand at the oven and obsessively open and close the oven door, making sure to not burn the cookies. When ready, remove pan from oven. Slide cookies off pan and onto a makeshift cooling rack. Now, this could be a paper towel, a pseudo-clean kitchen towel, or just a freshly 409’d counter. The fumes will affect the taste of the cookies, but not enough for people to really notice. After you’ve put the next batch of cookies in the oven, lick your fingers. It will be at this point that you will remember that you have forgotten to wash your hands. Wash hands.

Now, this is the most important step of the Pharon Square baking process. You must, and again, I cannot stress this enough, you must completely forget about the last batch in the oven. Yes, they will burn, but this is a necessary step which you must not fight. The smell of burnt cookies will quickly mask the previous yummy aroma. This is very important because 1) it will remind you to turn off the oven, and 2) it will take away your urge to inhale a dozen of the cookies.

The final step is to sit back, finish your wine if you haven’t already, and wait for the acclaim. More than likely, people will be perfectly happy eating fresh, homemade cookies. However, if for some reason some know-it-all asks if you forgot the butter, insult them back as needed, and blame it on the wine.

Bon apetit!

Snow Place Like Home

I don’t think I need to tell anyone that, well, it snowed a little bit in Minnesota on Saturday. And by “a little bit”, I of course mean that it is Armageddon. On Saturday morning, I made the very genius decision to go to the grocery store. By then it had only snowed about 12 out of the total 20 inches. I thought to myself, as I lay in bed with grumbling stomach, “Should I go to the grocery store NOW or LATER? The answer should have been “anorexia”. It was way too dangerous for me to be driving. All that crazy snow was blowing around like the inside of a Dyson vacuum. After the most treacherous 2 hours of my driving career, I pulled up at home to park in front of my house. I got stuck. I had to have Geo come outside and dig and push me into a spot.

As soon as I crawled my way up to my front door and dragged the groceries inside, I swore I wasn’t going back out there for the whole rest of the weekend. Unfortunately, I forgot that I had parked my car on the wrong side of the street, and hours later I was back outside, digging my car out AGAIN to move it to the other side so the plows could get through. It took a snowblower, 2 fully grown men, 2 shovels, and some creative driving, but I got out (also? All-Wheel Drive is a total lie. Total. Bold-faced. Lie). Then we dug out Sanna’s car, and our other neighbors truck, and some strangers car down the road. We hauled probably 100 tons of snow, but I believe I lost 5 pounds in sweat, so I guess that was okay.

Besides all the shoveling and shivering and tire-spinning, I just holed up in various different pairs of sweatpants all weekend. At one point, I asked Geo if it disturbed him that I had so many pairs of sweatpants, and that I just kept wearing different pairs. Luckily for everyone involved, he said it did not. But I mean, what else was I going to do? I couldn’t go out, nobody could come over, and I figured I may as well be warm.

I was, however, excited for the Vikings game today. Sanna came up with a couple extra tickets, and Geo and I were going to brave the snow to scream at people and cheer on our boys. Then this happened: Metrodome Roof Caves In. Needless to say, there was no game. But I luckily had a fresh pair of Vikings sweatpants to get me through all the naps.

Then, because I had gone through so much to get to the grocery store, I decided I’d just cook all weekend. Sweet potato fries, cornbread from scratch, cookies, and so much more. Instead, I found myself googling “Why won’t my oven turn on?” and “What is a pilot light”? And “How can I tell if I have renter’s insurance?” No oven + no clue how to turn on over + fear of blowing myself up so close to Christmas = sloppy joes and peanut butter sandwiches all weekend. Flurrrg.

But my God! I felt suffocated all weekend. I like to choose to be lazy. When the choice is taken away from me, I get a headache and start having thoughts like “I think I could look really good in bangs.” Luckily, our scissors were too dull from me using them to cut pizza and using them as a hammer.

Going to work tomorrow will be a mixed blessing, then. I’ll get out of this hellhole, yes. But I don’t think I’m allowed to wear sweatpants to work. Or CAN I? No, no I can't.

Ugh. Okay, well, if you have a heart, the least you guys could do is cheer on the Vikings tomorrow night when they play their rescheduled game in Detroit. Minnesota is hurtin’ pretty bad, and they have no home field anymore. And we really just need the pick-me-up before Round 2 of Doomsday hits us this week.

Well, stay safe and warm, everyone!

Don't Count On It

Another day, another failure at applying mathematics to real-world situations. I wish I would have worked a TITCH harder in 3rd grade math. Without that basic comprehension, I also have no concept of estimating, budgeting, or distance. Prinna and I did some shopping last night, and we were reminded why neither she nor I have any business using numbers. We stood at the check-out counter, trying to figure out the pricing, additional costs, a discount, and really trying to add everything up in our head (what are we, Einstein!?!). Then our heads exploded and flew across the counter, splattering on the register.

The whole mathy mess just reminded me that my life has been one long Numbers-Induced panic attack, interrupted by life, writing, talking, organizing closets, multi-tasking, shopping, and other things I excel at. I remember doing times tables in 4th grade, and that’s literally the last memory I have of learning math. After that, it’s just panic.

In high school, I called home in a whispering panic. Perek, who must have been like 14 at the time, picked up. “Perek! I’m in line in Target. I have like $8 in my account, and I’m buying gum and a diet Coke. How much is the tax going to be? Do I have enough or do I have to put back the gum?!” He was silent. He took a deep breath and said, “Pharon, yes. Tax is only going to be like 13 cents. It’s 7 percent of the total.” I stopped listening after “yes” and got both the gum AND the pop. Later that same year, I was working at Gap Kids. I rung someone up, and it came to something like $13.60. The woman handed me a ten, a five, and a dime. I stared at the dime, not knowing how to make change. The woman said, “Honey, just give me back $1.50.” Idiot.

I also have no concept of time or distance. The clock in my car is, obnoxiously, exactly 25 minutes fast. I explained my very complex reasoning behind the clock setting to Geo this weekend, but I totally lost him. I said, “If I don’t know how long it takes to get somewhere, I know I automatically have 25 minutes longer, instead of looking at the real time and having to guess based on the exact time.” I mean, even me just WRITING THAT OUT reminds me that it’s nonsense.

My poor, poor dad. My dad is THE numbers guy. He can add two sets of two-digit numbers IN HIS HEAD! Imagine his horrifying disappointment when I made it explicitly clear that I was a total math moron. I was in college, home for a break. I wanted to visit my friend Madeline in Chicago. My mom suggested, “Do you have any frequent flyer miles? Just use those.” So, I called to make the reservations. When I hung up the phone, I said “Huh, I didn’t realize Chicago was so far away.” My dad was standing next to me reading the mail and said “What do you mean?” I said “Apparently, it’s 25,000 miles away. I though it was a little less than that.”

He asked me what in God’s name made me think Chicago was that far away. I said “That’s how many frequent flyer miles it takes.” So, not only do I not understand distances, but I clearly have no concept of how airline miles work either. My dad sighed, and stared out the window as if he could see my college tuition flying out of it. “Pharon, Chicago is not 25,000 miles away. The entire circumference of the world is about 25,000 miles.” Facepalm.

Well, despite my lack of basic arithmetic abilities, I’ve managed to survive this long without them. I have tons of other stuff I’m good at that, in my opinion, totally outweigh the “cool” ability to figure out a tip at a restaurant (which, for the record, my phone calculator does perfectly every single time). I can organize anything, I‘m a sick doodler, I can small talk with the best of ‘em, and I can pull up any celebrity fact in any situation. My mind is already chockfull of that kind of useful information. So yeah, there’s no room at the Inn for math. You know what that means? Apparently, Math is my Jesus. Merry Mathmas!

Baby It's Cold Outside (DUH!)

Brrrrr! Minnesota is cold today. In other news, people are breathing air. Every single winter it gets cold here. Frigid, some would say. Yet every year, people seem to be shocked at the chilly temps. And then they’ll inevitably say something like “It’s soooo cold! Why do I live here?!” Sheesh. It’s not like it’s snowing in July, people. It’s winter, it’s Minnesota. It’s going to be cold.

I say that, however, after talking nonstop about how cold I was at work today. Some fluke accident thing happened and we had no heat all day. It was in the low 60s inside our office. But since it was INSIDE that was so cold, I can complain all I want. I wore a sweater, fleece, jacket, blanket, hood, and mittens for most of the day. Note: It is difficult to type emails in mittens.

Typically, Winter and I tend to get along just fine. I’m not a hater. Yes, every single task takes longer. Driving can be a nightmare, and downright scary sometimes, but I don’t have to shovel any sidewalks or driveways and I’m typically chauffeured around the town by means of public transportation. So, most days I am unaffected. Plus, I love chili and that’s only socially acceptable to make in the winter.

There was this one winter when I cursed the weather, the gods, the snowplows and everything else “Minnesota Winter”. It was when I lived alone in Uptown Minneapolis. There was a ginormous bizzard, that pounded the city with roughly 100 feet of snow in like 5 minutes or something like that. I had a parking spot in the lot behind the building. I also had an automatic car starter. So, I peeked out my window 15 minutes before I had to leave for work, pressed the little button on my keychain, and my car started right up. Yay! So, I threw everything in my purse, pulled on my snow boots and trudged out to my toasty car.

Okay, so I must explain something here. When you have an auto-starter, the car turns on and runs without the keys in the ignition. When you are ready to go, you put the key in the ignition, turn it half way and you’re off. However, my car also had this Auto Lock “FEATURE” that would engage after being started with the key.

So, I put the key in, turned it, and popped out of my car to brush off the top and back windows real quick. I shut my door so I didn’t let any snow in, and heard the car lock. While it was still running. I peeked in the passenger side window and saw my purse sitting there, with my phone and apartment keys inside it. I had locked myself out of a running car while it was still blizzarding. I, dear readers, am an idiot.

Long story short, I used a strangers phone to call Maintenance, who came and unlocked my apartment so I could get my spare car keys and could finally get in my car. It had been running for about an hour, and I had used like 1/4 tank of gas. Whoops! Sorry, Earth! But! It was definitely WARM inside. I used my phone to call work and explain what had happened, and that I was on my way through the treacherous roads. At that time, I learned that the weather had knocked the power out at work so I didn’t need to go in. I COULDN’T go in, as a matter of fact. Cue the cursing of winter weather.

Outside of that one stupes mistake, I feel like I’ve had a pretty drama-free relationship with the cold weather. I say that NOW, of course, right at the beginning. I give myself 3 weeks until a blog ranting against the ridiculous cold comes up. Feel free to set me straight at that time.

HEYYY YOUUUU GUUUYSSS!

Apparently, the gales of November are tearing through Minneapolis. And despite the bright lights and flickering TV’s across the street, our power is out. According to the very empathetic woman at the electric company, “power will definitely be restored by 7. IN THE MORNING.” Say whaaaa? I leave for work before 7 a.m., when it’s still dark out. I look bad enough when I can dry my hair and put makeup on with the help of LIGHTS, so if there’s no power tomorrow morning, I feel sorry for any people who may have to look at me.

So, here’s just a quick list of things I've tried (unsuccessfully) to do since the power went out:

* Turn on the kitchen light
* Turn on the TV
* Connect to the internet (which uses a router that runs with the power of ELECTRICITY)
* Toast my bread
* Boil water on the gas stove
* Microwave a potato
* Bake a potato in the oven
* Turn on the kitchen light AGAIN
* Charge my phone
* Charge my computer
* Google the phone number for Xcel on my computer

Well, at least no one can call me a quitter. I can’t seem to get it into my head what DOESN'T use electricity and what DOES. I just keep flipping switches and turning knobs. Luckily, after being abandoned in the pitch black hell hole by all my roommates, Liz has taken me in and is letting me pilfer her internet and watch Glee. God bless the Haves who share with the Have Nots!

I’m hoping that when I DO eventually go home, I’ll walk into a nightclub of lights, TV’s and music. That would be wonderful. I certainly don’t want to walk into a pitch black house and feel my way up to my room for bed. Though, it will be a little like Christmas if that happens, and I wake up and see what pajamas I’ve managed to put on.

Dye Job

This weekend I dyed my hair. My sister Padrin got hers done and I loved it, so I copied her. I opted for Coffee Crème, by Natural Instincts. The reason I chose the Natural Instincts brand is because, like my desire for a new hair color, it’s temporary. So, now I’m a slightly darker brunette than before. Pretty much no one noticed it, but I totally love it. I woke up this morning, forgetting I had done it, and as I brushed my teeth in the mirror I was totally checking myself out.

I’ve gone through some unfortunate hair coloring phases in my life. In middle school, some of my friends and I would have Glints parties. We’d get together for a sleepover and dye our hair in each other’s bathrooms. Glints was a semi-permanent color, with very limited color options available. For a week, I’d have this very awkward shade of like reddish-orangey-brown. I thought I looked fantastic. But I’m guessing between the odd hair color, the glasses, and the braces, I was quite a sight. I don’t seem to remember having too many boyfriends around that time.

During my freshman year of college, I went to Mexico with my family. I returned to school with the most perfect, deepest, darkest brown tan. After showering one day, I noticed how good my hair looked wet. A deep, rich black against my deep, rich brown skin. When my hair dried, though, it was back to a watery brown and looked so blah. So, I went ahead and used a permanent hair dye called Blackest Black. For the first couple weeks, it looked awesome. My friend Madeline called me a Hawaiian Princess. It was lovely.

The tan faded, the hair did not. I went from Hawaiian Princess to Dark Princess of the Underworld. My paling skin was emphasized by the black and it was, to say the least, unfortunate. It took two trips to the salon to have the dye “stripped” because black does not fade or grow out well at all. By the time the blah brown returned, though, I was ready for another change.

I love blonde hair. I’m fascinated by celebrities who walk into a salon with drab brown hair, and come out looking like the sunshine is growing from their head. So, I went to a salon and said “Make me a blonde”. The girl did the best she could. She herself has gone from brown to blonde and back to brown. I trusted her. It was a mistake. I came out with a mix of very light brown hair with highlights of orange Kool-Aid sprouting from my scalp. I was not blonde. I was blorange. Unfortunately, being in college, I couldn’t afford to get it fixed, and I didn’t trust myself to buy a box of brown and fix it myself. So I painfully grew it out. It took a looooooooong time.

After I returned, again, to the poop brown hair, I dyed it black again. I do not learn from my mistakes. This time, though, I bought a black hair dye that said “Semi-Permanent”, but that would be what is called “false advertising”. Black doesn’t wash out. It doesn’t gradually fade. Just ask anyone who’s accidentally written on a dry-erase board with a Sharpie. Again, I let it grow out, suffering through the inclinations to start drinking from a chalice and holding séances.

A few years back, there was a 3 week period where I had 8 hot pink extensions woven into my brown hair. Yikes. Let’s move on…

For the past few years, I’ve been pretty good about leaving my hair alone. I haven’t chopped it all off in a moment of tangled frustration, and it’s been humdrum brown ever since. Once I let my sister-in-law highlight it for her testing interview at a hair salon. It looked wonderful. Subtle, but beautiful. But I just couldn’t justify paying a bunch of money to make changes that made virtually no difference. So it faded back to dry-dirt brown.

Then this weekend, I fell off the wagon. I waltzed in to Target and chose the darkest brown that did not have the words “ebony”, “blackest”, “raven”, “ink”, or “jet” in the name. With nary a thought, I started slicking the gooey dye all over my head. Ten minutes later, voila! Coffee crème was achieved. It looks darn good, too. I’m just bummed it’s temporary. Although, knowing me, I’ll want to be a red head in two weeks anyway. I hear it’s a great color for fall.

Friday: So Close I Can Taste It!

We’ve all had a pretty long week, right? I just have this gut feeling that everyone is pretty ready for the weekend. It doesn’t matter if you worked 12 hour-days, stayed home with the unruly kids, went hiking in Appalachia and got stranded and had to be picked up by a helicopter, or just sat around all week waiting for other people to be free, the point is: it’s been a long week. I will not cry why I say goodbye to this week.

On that note, I’m phoning this one in. Go ahead, do a minimal amount of thinking, and tell me:

What Would You Like to Do This Weekend?

Feel free to explain any decisions or offer your own in the comments.

Have a great weekend everyone!