GetSheila

Healthy cinnamon rolls taste like ass

My sister brought home a box of "healthy" cinnamon rolls this morning.

Each huge roll contains 17 grams of protein and 23 grams of fiber. Wow, cool right? But let us not be hasty with our excitement. Each roll also contains 123 grams of carbohydrates.

If you are not quite sure what that means, the recommended daily allowance of carbohydrates for a person on a 2,000 calorie per day diet is 300 grams. One of these "healthy" cinnamon rolls amounts to 41% of your recommended daily allowance of carbohydrates.

Now, I could possibly live with that if not for the fact it tastes like ass*. I even slathered it with Betty Crocker Whipped Fluffy White Frosting (I was out of Buttercream), but it remained heavy and tasteless and generally unappealing. Thank god I only ate half and still have 80% of my recommended daily allowance of carbohydrates ahead of me. I feel a bout of sourdough toast with real butter coming on.

Your lesson for today: beware "healthy" breakfast foods.

__________________________

*Yes, I am trying to be hip and trendy by using the word "ass" to describe the taste of something in a negative and derogatory manner. It is all over the blogosphere. Just go with it and try not to picture me as a 40-something woman wearing pigtails and knee socks, trying desperately to fit in with the young, hip crowd. 

Tags: healthy cinnamon rolls, breakfast food

Freaky Friday 6/29/2007

Slim pickin's this week. Or maybe I'm just lazy.

• NEPAL SOOTHSAYER ARRESTED FOR FALSE PREDICTION. Now why can't we have a law like that in the US? (via)
• £1M PRIZE FOR PROOF OF THE AFTERLIFE. Not to be confused with James Randi's $1M prize for proof of psychic abilities. No, this is a £100 bet with odds of 10,000/1 that will pay out £1M if some guy from Glastonbury can provide proof of the afterlife by year end. (Yawn. Wake me when he succeeds...or my hair grows six inches, whichever comes first.) (via)
• SYLVIA BROWNE DEAD. Just kidding, but wouldn't it be great to wake up one day and find out she had been torn apart by a crowd of fervent Pat Robertson fanatics who got her confused with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez?

Tags: freaky friday

Repairman Report

Anthony, the AT&T repairman, was HOT. As in Hot Latino Lover hot! And he even fixed the telephone problem. Woo-hoo! Well, temporary woo-hoo. We have, apparently, had some work done in the past (which I swear I do not recall) that ran phone lines underground from the house to the street or wherever it is the lines go when they leave the mysterious metal box on the side of the house. Those lines have "failed" so Anthony ran a temporary line using teeny tiny blue cord and hiding it in our evergreen trees as it winds its way to the street. I keep looking for the "on" switch so I can light 'em up like Christmas trees.

Anthony assures me a contractor - not AT&T and, even more disappointing, not Anthony - will show up in the next week or so to dig holes in our garden. The garden my sister just had redone. At least it is only the side yard next to the driveway. So hey! Our phone makes full rings now as opposed to the anemic half rings it has been making for the past few months. It won't hang up on you after just a couple of rings any more, either. You can actually get all the way through to the answering machine. That part has not changed. We stopped answering the phone ages ago. It is such a bother. Do leave a message, won't you? If you don't, how will we know you called?

So, minutes after Anthony took his hot manliness away in his big manly AT&T repair truck, Aaron The Barefoot Plumber ™ arrived and promptly donned cute little booties over his shoes. Aaron is equally as hot as Anthony, yet in a completely different way. Aaron's hotness is of the intellectual, beatnik, goatee-wearing, he-probably-reads-poetry-on-Friday-nights kind of way. He found a giant hair clog *euw* in the sink trap, which was definitely the cause of my slow draining problem and also must have caused the leakage but, of course, the sink did not leak a bit when he was here. He was very nice and compared it to how your car will never make "the noise" in front of the mechanic.

In hind sight, I realize I should have heeded JCW's advice to make myself presentable. I did wash my hair but it is always a bit frizzy on Hair Washing Day One. And I wore outside clothes (as opposed to my usual pajamas), including the one and only boob shirt I own. But really, they had to walk into a house where many, many cats live. No one is pretty enough to overcome that. I satisfy myself with having made them smile and laugh a few times. Isn't that what life is all about?

And besides, maybe my sink will leak again.

Tags: repairman, home repairs

Some Things You Can't Do-It-Yourself

Tomorrow is repairman day. I will have an intense yet brief love affair with both the plumber and the telephone repairman in the afternoon. They are both scheduled to arrive after 1:00. Oh dear, what if they arrive at the same time? Things could get awkward.

For the past, oh, YEAR, the sink in my bathroom has drained so slowly the bowl is almost full of water by the time I finish washing my face. I come back after it drains to rinse the final soap bubbles down. Every once in a while I would find signs under the sink there had been a little water in there at some point. Yesterday I remembered the best way to check for a leak is to fill the bowl with water and examine the pipes as the large amount of water drains. How perfect! I can wash my face AND check for leaks.

Well, I opened the cabinet doors to discover two things. First, the washcloth I put under there months ago to sop up any small leaks - and promptly forgot about - was moldy, smelly, and stiff as a board. Second, water was literally gushing out of the trap. Holy crap! You would think finding a bunch of soggy Q-tips floating in their open box a few weeks ago would have been my first clue, but no. Apparently I am not that bright.

Date number one: The Barefoot Plumber.

Next I called the phone company. Did you know they can magically figure out if you have a problem while you are on the phone with them? The guy came back on the line and said, yep, you got a problem. We'll send someone out right away. Sheesh. Why did I wait a month? I know why. I figured I should try to determine if it was my phone, the phone cord, or one of the many peripheral devices the signal goes through before it actually gets to the phone, like the router, the all-in-one printer, or the answering machine. But it takes motivation to mess with cords and crawl around behind furniture to get to the virtually inaccessible wall outlet, then drag your butt down to the store to by a $4.99 phone to make sure the problem is not the phone itself. As you may have noticed, I have not had much in the way of motivation lately.

Date number two: The Probably Fully Shod Telephone Repair Person.

I think a man in jeans wearing big sturdy work boots and a work belt hung with tools and other things that jangle when he walks is sexy, don't you? 

Tags: home repairs

Additional thoughts on 'The House'

Realtors are funny. When I made my lowball offer on the house, I in no way expected it to be accepted. I also did not expect a counter offer, since I made it clear in my letter to the seller that I was "all in." They would either go for it or say no. No counter.

But then my realtor talked to the seller's realtor and came back all excited. She had found out a few tidbits about the seller:

• A little old lady owns the house, not a family with young children as I originally thought;
• BUT, her two daughters are handling the sale because they had to move her into a home. This made me think "convalescent home," not "fun retirement community."
• The daughters have been footing the bill for their mother's new living arrangement, thinking the house would have sold by now;
• The daughters will be out of money in July so are extremely motivated to sell.
• The daughers are so out of money their main worry is having to come up with $2,000-$3,000 to pay the escrow and title fees. (I was a little confused by this. Doesn't it just come out of escrow? They do not actually have to come up with the cash, do they?)
• Their realtor was happy I wrote a letter to the seller because he said they would totally understand the "taking care of mom" thing.

So my realtor was excited. My realtor said she had a good feeling. My realtor said she would pray really hard for me over the weekend.

(...)

I just let that last part pass. I did not have the heart to tell her I am a heathen. It was really very nice of her.

So my realtor's excitement rubbed off on me and I got a teensy bit excited where I had previously been sure my offer would amount to nothing. Damn, I hate when I go against my better judgment like that.

As you know, it all turned out for the best. Though I know it would be a relatively easy fix, I was dreading having to replace the linoleum and carpet before I moved in. I am all for paying someone else to do it for me, but I knew I would probably have to do it myself because I would not have any money left after buying the house. Having never actually installed carpet or linoleum before, I was a tad freaked out.

I am officially putting house-hunting on hold for a month to let the prices continue to come down and to keep from going insane spending all my waking moments trolling online real estate listings. Though I expect I will continue to do the latter because I MIGHT MISS SOMETHING if I don't.

I do think mom is still leaning towards moving in with me because she made a comment about how she does not like her neighborhood any more. She does not feel safe there like she used to when we were little. That makes me sad.

Tags: house hunting

I am not a homeowner

There is a virus going around at work. It is called the "I don't want to be here" virus. (I know. Not funny. I don't even have the energy to think up something witty. Sad.)

Five out of eight of us have the virus. Make that five out of nine. Damn perky intern.

What? You say you want to know what happened with the house? All right, but keep in mind the part where I just don't have the energy. How do you feel about bullet points?

• I found a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in a nice neighborhood
• It is really a 4 bedroom house but you are apparently not allowed to call a room a bedroom unless it has a closet so it had to be listed as a 3 bedroom with an "office/den"
• It has mint green carpet. Or perhaps seafoam. Is there a difference?
• Every instance of linoleum is curling up at the edges. Entire rooms of curling linoleum. (Okay three. Three rooms. Four if you count the laundry hallway you walk through when you enter from the garage.)
• The house has been on the market for 10 months
• The house has been vacant for most of that time
• The toilets have not been cleaned since it went on the market. I have no proof. I am simply judging from visual observation.

So I make an offer 25% less than the asking price because 1) the market is in the process "correcting" (a process which does not appear will end any time soon), 2) it is a fair price for the size, neighborhood, and condition of the house, and 3) that is all I got, babe.

Since I was making such a low offer, and since I watch a lot of home improvement / sell this house / buy me! programs, I wrote a letter introducing myself and telling the seller what I planned to do with the house, namely move my 80 year old mommy in with me once I got settled.

Yes, I played the 80 year old mother card. I have no shame.

As you know if you read the comments here, my offer was not accepted. But guess why! Oh wait, I have to tell you this part first. The pictures on the Internet listing showed a big screen TV in the living room (the giant, floor model kind from the 90's) and children's toys and plastic furniture on the patio. Naturally I assumed a family owned the house, headed by a macho man-person who needed a really big TV.

No! It is owned by a little old lady who has moved to a retirement community and needs the money from the sale of the house to finance her stay there and cannot take less than $35,000 more than I can afford.

Ha!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Fate is a cruel mistress.

Tags: house hunting

I Made An Offer

I made an offer on a house Friday.

I do not expect it will be accepted. I made a crazy low offer in comparison to the asking price. However, it is truly the most I can afford and I am a firm believer in asking for what you want because, really, what is the worst that can happen? They can say no. Big deal.

The house has been on the market for almost ten months and has been vacant for most of that time. It is not my dream home but it is perfectly functional and has space for both me and my mother (yes, I am still working on that) as well as storage space in the garage for all of my mother's stuff.

I call it "junk." She calls it "memorabilia." She is a kook.

There is only one problem with this house. Two, actually. First, the linoleum is curling up at the edges everywhere. Did they use bad glue? What could cause this? Second, the carpet is...um...well, let us just say it matches my Prius beautifully:

My car is green, by the way, in case you cannot tell from the picture. Sort of a light, seafoamy green. The carpet is in the living room, dining room, family room, hallway, and all four bedrooms. And no, the house is not old enough to have hardwood floors underneath the carpet. I am not that lucky.

But hey, it is all academic at this point. I will keep you posted.

Tags: house hunting

Happy Belated Blogoversary

Hey, I just realized my one year blogoversary was June 18th. Hooray for me!

I cannot believe I have been writing this blog for an entire year. Then again, it feels like I have always been writing this blog.

Behold my first post: Ode to Squeak. I had to put my favorite kitty Squeak to sleep June 1, 2006, and that post was my tribute to her. The whole grief thing is what got me blogging in the first place. I had no place to put all the emotions I was feeling so I sent them out into the blogosphere. I found it to be most therapeutic.

Please help me celebrate. The party in the comments starts now! Vodka and Seven-Up with a cherry and a splash of cherry juice? No? Name your poison.

 

Tags: getsheila blogoversary

Freaky Friday 6/22/2007

Fake psychics, religion, and other oddities. The usual Freaky Friday fare:

• An idiot poor schmuck falls for a PSYCHIC SCAM (via)
• But wait, there's more! DIFFERENT PSYCHIC, SAME SCAM. (via)
• SIGN FROM GOD. I am not so sure these people have correctly interpreted God's message. Maybe what God meant was, "Selling your cars and your house to begin the teeny, tiniest of financing for a multi-million dollar 3-D Christian movie was a mistake. Here is a new house to replace the perfectly good one you foolishly threw away. Now please start over with your lives. (via)
• SYLVIA BROWNE ON SUMMER HIATUS. Bummer.
• FULL MOON FACTS: 50 fun facts about the full moon (via)
• FUN WITH DEMOGRAPHICS. Find out where in the U.S. men outnumber women, and vice versa. Now if they would only tell us the gay vs straight ratios in those areas, then we could actually make an informed relocation decision.

 

Tags: freaky friday

The Intern

Our new intern started this week. The most important thing to remember about an intern is she is not a temp. Sure, she will only work for you temporarily, but you cannot give her crap jobs like filing and answering the phone like you can a temp. Unless of course she is interning for the position of administrative assistant. Ours is not. She is interning to be an accountant, with all that sexy *cough* tax stuff that comes along with it.

I was a bit shocked when I found out we were getting an intern. We have never had one before and summer is not exactly a busy time for us now that we are out of the audit business. But hey, no one asked me.

She is a lovely girl, our Young Apprentice: friendly, cheerful, and seemingly intelligent. I have not worked with her myself yet but the Big Kahuna says she seems to catch on quickly and asks good questions. Note that Young Apprentice has only been here two days. I shall reserve judgment for at least a full week or until such time that I actually work with her on a project.

The idea behind this particular student internship is so Young Apprentice can determine if she has an interest in accounting and tax. Most employers offer internships to incoming seniors with the hope the student will like it so much he or she will accept a full-time position with the firm after graduation the following year (provided, of course, the internship does not expose the student as a total slacker.) The big public accounting firms hire dozens of interns so they have a nice pool of resources to choose from come full-time hiring season.

We have a mere one intern who will not graduate for at least two years. She also grew up here. Can she possibly want to stay in town after she graduates? Young people notoriously flee from this area at the earliest opportunity. Perhaps the recent advent of the UC campus has infused Merced with hipness.

However it turns out, I am all for encouraging young things to grow. I wonder how many projects I can give her and still look like I have enough work to justify my salary.