7 posts tagged “did you know”

Today is Blog Action Day!  Take action by posting about the environment in your own way.

Who Would Win in a Fight X. Noodle Shapes? The Environment?

Vermicelli vs. Endangered Species

Well, first of all, vermicelli is better than spaghetti because it's slightly less wormlike, and that's a good quality to have in a food. For a noodle, it's got a pleasant texture, and still lets you slurp it if you want to. On the other hand, vermicelli is Italian for "rodent prison", so that takes away some of the appeal. Apparently eighteenth century Italians used vermicelli to entangle mice and rats that overran their kitchens and restaurants. I don't know which enterprising young chef came up with the concept of cooking vermicelli and serving it to people instead of using it to capture disease-ridden rodents, but I sincerely hope that person was shot.

The problem with endangered species is that most endangered species are gross, like the Coffin Cave Mold Beetle or delicious like the Giant Panda. There's not a lot of incentive to save a vanishing animal when you either want to eat it or want to smash it with a sledgehammer and run away screaming. And frankly, if you're trying to imagine a world without Coffin Cave Mold Beetles, you're probably not devastated and crying into your Pandaburger. Still, saving animals is something deeply ingrained into us from a very young age, thank you very much Wonderpets and Go Diego Go, so just rename it the Chuck Norris Beetle and call Pandas Vermiursas (Italian for rodent bears) and rescue the damn species. Doesn't that feel better?

Winner: Endangered Species

Elbow Macaroni vs. The Ozone Layer

I like Elbow Macaroni. Both Elbow and Macaroni are fun words, and it's fun to put them together, like "weasel plucker" and "bumpkin rumba" and "fashion nugget". They also made Kraft a household name, and are a major staple of life for toddlers and college students, both of whom are more than content to eat bowls of the stuff in front of Spongebob Squarepants and then leave the bowls anywhere sitting around the house for weeks. Elbow Macaroni is also the only pasta shape other than the medium sized shell that can justifiably be used in a tuna salad, and that goes a long way for me.

Remember when the ozone layer was disappearing? Those were troubling times indeed. Set one foot in the Arctic Circle and it would combust like an over-microwaved marshmallow. Everyone was talking about ozone back in the early 90s, which was kind of funny, because it sounds like a word that Cosmo made up ("Thirteen things you must know about your man's ozone!") Thankfully, someone managed to take care of that at some point, because no one really talks about the ozone layer anymore. Of course, nowadays you're supposed to slather sunscreen on in February even if you stay indoors, so maybe the problem didn't go away. We might as well work to bring it back, because you can probably never have too many ozone layers. You can restore the ozone layer using common elements found in your home, like antichlorofluorocarbons and ozone.

Winner: Elbow Macaroni
 

Farfalle vs. Littering

Why bow ties? I understand that, at some point, pasta manufacturers realized that people will eat pasta shaped like anything -- spirals, Scooby-Doo, Spaghetti-O's, genitalia -- seriously, what's wrong with you people?  But bow ties? The universal symbol for nerd? If I wanted to eat men's neckwear with my meal, I would have preferred some kind of garlic ascot. I guess the farfalle shape does act as a pair of little scoops for your marinara sauce, but why stop at two? Why not make a double bow tie and call it a windmill (actually, I'm sure those greedy pasta manufacturers already have. Is there no shape to which they will not stoop?)? Most of the points for farfalle come from the fact that it kind of reminds me of fahrfuerdnugen. Ich liebe fahrfuerdnugen.

Litter is a slap in America's face. Give a hoot, don't pollute. Keep America clean. Don't be a litterbug. Use the can, man. Littering makes aging Native Americans cry. As a kid, I equated littering with a crime somewhere between armed robbery and indecent exposure, all of which I figured were punishable by at least thirty years in prison, and eventually, hell. Of course, as a slightly older kid, I loved to open the car window as we were driving and throw out pieces of candy wrapper and watch them flail on the wind like a woefully unprepared skydiver, often supplying little screaming sounds. I'm not sure how I resolved these beliefs. I still bristle at littering when I'm not the person doing it. Also: the first time I saw a sign that said $1000 fine for littering, I figured it meant that someone thought it would be just fine if you threw a few hundreds out the window.

Winner: Littering, and the preventing thereof

Lasagna vs. Global Warming

It is a family tradition for us to have a lasagna every New Year's Day. It is an ordeal. It has six cheeses, five meats, two sauces, and it takes three days to make. By the time the lasagna is done, my parents are ready for the year to be over already. I like lasagna. I kept reading Garfield for years after everyone else had given up on him because I felt a real lasagna kinship. That, and Garfield's name for his teddy bear was my father's nickname for boogers. But mostly for the lasagna. It's like layer upon layer of different Italian cuisine, and also, lots of extra cheese.

There are plenty of scientists who will tell you that global warming is a hoax, but then there are also plenty of scientists who will tell you that cavemen used to ride dinosaurs to the cave-store, and the pyramids were designed by ghostly martians, and Cella's chocolate covered cherries are not good for you, so screw them. All I know is that as soon as we get one warm day in April, everyone's all "Is this global warming? This is global warming, isn't it?" and then when it gets chilly again in May everyone's all "Well, so much for global warming. What a crock." It's more complicated than that, people. Is there empirical evidence that global warming is a legitimate phenomenon, with causes that can be controlled by human behavior? Well, yes, but not on this blog, and face it, that's really as much as you're willing to search right now, isn't it?

Winner: Lasagna

Manicotti vs. Preserving the wetlands

My dad calls manicotti "sewer pipes." And you thought vermicelli was unappetizing.

Did you know that watering your lawn does not count as preserving the wetlands? This tidbit brought to you by the Preserve the Wetlands in Actual Ways Instead of Just Watering Your Lawn Association.

Winner: Preserving the wetlands

Use your noodle! Don't pollutle!

Some disturbing discoveries I made today:

1. I got a book about fathers and toddlers from the library as well as an I Spy book for Aaron. Both were written by Jean Marzollo. That's right, Aaron and I are reading books by the same author.

2. My set of Hungry, Hungry Hippos (the big one, the one that Aaron prefers over the medium sized one and the two little ones) is down to twelve marbles and five hippo eyes to share among the four of them. Troubling.

3. I own more unmatched socks than matched socks. Literally. I matched them today, and after seven matches or so, they were all different. I don't remember buying eighty seven different kinds of socks, but that's what I had left over.

4. I've been wondering what happened to our corkscrew. I couldn't find it anywhere. I checked every drawer in the kitchen, looked behind the pots and pans, under the sink. It was nowhere to be found. Until today, when it was revealed in the bedroom closet.

5. Did you know that fruit cocktail has no nutritional value?  Even the kind with extra cherries. If you're trying to increase your toddler's fruit and vegetable intake, you'd be better off just giving him another bag of Dora fruit snacks. The  promotional nutrition information pretty much sticks to the fact that fruit cocktail has very few trans fats. Like four of them.

I'm in the self-service fruit of the month club. It takes a little extra work than the kind you sign up for through Harry and David's or whatever, but it's cheaper, there's no contractual obligation, and you don't get stuck with a month's worth of something ridiculous, like limes.

Here's how it works: When you go to the grocery store, buy fruit. Try to change it up every month. That's it.

You don't have to be a fanatic about it. I tend not to run out on the first of the month with visions of plums dancing in my head; instead, I'll gradually shift over from one fruit to the next. If it's a particularly good fruit, like cherries, and they stay in season and don't skyrocket in price, unlike cherries, I'll go longer than a month if I can. Flexibility is a real selling point in the self-service fruit of the month club.

Some people measure their year by sports; to them, fall is when all the baseball teams I like stop playing and all the football teams I like start sucking right off the bat. Other people, especially elementary school teachers, measure their year by holidays. Aaron's doing this right now. He knows it's Mommy's birthday, then Halloween, then Thanks-for-giving, then Christmas, and then his birthday. (He's really excited about his birthday.) Unfortunately, in his head, these are all occurring in the next two weeks. I'm expecting a significant amount of righteous toddler indignation right around October 20 or so. These are fine methods, but they lack edibility.

I measure my year thusly:

January - Oranges. For whatever reason, the oranges in the grocery store look pale and lifeless until some point in January, usually January 9th and about 11:24 AM. Then they turn day-glo orange and expand to twice their normal diameters and that's good orange eatin'. Right now, the thought of eating an orange fills me with distaste, ennui, and a little sleepiness, but come January, and I'm ready to sign up for Navel Academy. Sorry.

February - Tangerines. While others are shopping for their valentines and chasing groundhogs and revering presidents and just generally wishing that February would be over already, I find myself thinking of crated fruit. I've gotten my first dried-out, mealy orange and I'm ready for something new. Preferably something I can peel with my fingernails. And not a banana. So I pick up a crate, wondering if we'll eat them all before they go bad. Then I pick up another crate, and then one more. And then they go bad.

March - Pears. It's time to move away from citrus, because starting in March, it's nothing but heartbreak. In fact, March is a dismal time of year for fruit. It's like the good fruits are observing Lent and giving up their own existence. Except Easter doesn't arrive until late May. Pears are pretty much the same any time of year, so I turn to them when my options are limited. So March comes in like "Hey! A pear!" and goes out like, "Huh. A pear."

April - Green Grapes. How could it be April already and still no cherries? How could it be April already and still snowing? How could it be April already and school is still going, there have been no work-free holidays since New Years, TV shows are all in reruns, and all is bleakness and despair? Guess I'll eat a few grapes. That didn't help.

May - Rainier Cherries. I have an annual ritual. Every year I notice that Rainier cherries are cheaper than Bing Cherries. I do a double take. I think, will I be eating mostly Rainier cherries instead of my old favorite, the Bing? I wonder how that might impact my life, my marriage, my career. Then, a week later, Rainier cherries get more expensive, Bing cherries get less expensive, and I forget about the whole thing. Every year.

June - Bing Cherries. Is there anything better than a bing cherry? For your sake, I hope you're shaking your head right now. Shake it! There are so many things to love about June. Or so I'm told, I'm too busy gorging myself on Bings to notice.

July - Peaches. Late July, the cherries disappear from the shelves, but rather than wear black all month and weep and rend my garments and gnash my teeth, I eat a bunch of peaches. Did you know that cherries and peaches belong to the same family as almonds and cyanide? It only makes sense that four delicious tastes would all have to be related. Hey kids! Don't really eat cyanide. It may be really ultra-delectable, but it's also pretty poisonous. Yes scrumptious cyanide is a mouth-watering and deadly food best left uneaten.

August - Nectarines. By late August, I've usually eaten a mealy peach, and that's downright heart-breaking. So I switch to nectarines. Surely this nearly-identical fruit won't suffer the same fate! Surely!

September - Honey Crisp Apples. A good Honey Crisp tastes like someone replaced your apple's juice with sparkling apple cider. It's the champagne of apples, except it's good. Like Bing cherries, Honey Crisps don't last very long in the grocery store, so enjoy them while you can. Here's a recipe I like with Honey Crisps. Take one Honey Crisp, and three Nutter Butter cookies. First, eat the Honey Crisp. Then eat the cookies. If you're still hungry, have another cookie. This is a great recipe for parties.

October - Granny Smith/Harrelson apples. By now, I've given up on the pretense of eating fresh fruit, and my fruit purchases are used for cooking into dessert. An October without apple crisp is like a cryptic crossword with out an anagram -- pointless.

November - Cella's. By now I've given up on the pretense of buying fruit at all, and I'm just eating desserts. Technically, Cella's have a cherry inside, but it's really less the kind of cherry they grow on trees and more the kind of cherry they create in a lab out of sugar and bits of angels. Sure, Christmas items have been on the shelves since late August, but the Cella's tend not to make their appearance until the day after Halloween, when Christmas is practically over.

December - Enormous Red Delicious Apples. If you want big red delicious apples, you can find them pretty much any time of year. If you want mutant apples so big that two or three of them overwhelm your crisper drawer, you have to wait until December. These juicy monstrosities have been a part of stocking-stuffing tradition in my family for years, so I always have to pick a couple up. Plus, the Christmas stocking I made for Aaron is large enough to hold most of a Buick, so these gigantic mega-apples help take up some of the space.

Oh, and in case you're wondering who would win in a fight, it's Cella's.

The ingredients that make up cola flavor are cinnamon, orange, lemon, and vanilla.

Source: I forget, but it sounds interesting, and possibly right, so now you can tell all your friends that you heard it on the internet.

 

Today is an unhappy day at work. In an effort to create a better living environment for our family of freshwater fish, we accidentally killed them all. We will miss Jaws, Gus, and Jimmy Page, as well as Larry, Darryl, Darryl, and Fred, for their joviality and their sense of trust, and we are sorry that said trust came at so high a cost.

We have all learned something important from their lives and from their passing. Did you know that when you clean a fish tank, you're only supposed to change out five to ten percent of the water? Fifty percent is too much. It is not good for a fish's delicate pH balance.

We will miss you, fishes.

Also, no one wants to clean the bird cage now.

 

Did you know that there's an entry in the For Dummies series of books called Puppies for Dummies? That sounds like a really horrible charitable organization. Doubly horrible, in that they're referring to their clients as dummies, and then they're giving them puppies.

There's also a Senior Dogs for Dummies, but I don't know if that means the dogs have seniority or the dummies do. Or maybe it's a reference guide to Senor Dogs, the poor-spelling but fun-loving Latino heartthrob that dummies can't get enough of.

Those lucky dummies!

In May 2004, Jenna and I went to Kansas City. She had a conference. I had a hankerin' for some ribs. It was a fun trip. Did you know that Crayola is a subsidiary of Hallmark, which is based in Kansas City? It's true! Of course this was just before we realized that we'd be reacquainting ourselves with the good folks at Crayola very soon. Anyway, while the Sociologists were conferring, there was also some pharmaceutical meeting going on, where I swiped a bunch of their free pens.

One of them, the Toprol XL (metoprolol succinate) pen, had a fancy ergonomic grip and was easily my favorite. I took that pen with me to work at the Bosnian Center, and it was the only pen that I brought with me to Stoelting. In that amount of time, I've lost countless pens, pencils, notepads, CDs, credit cards, cell phones, wallets, even a car, but I still have my Toprol XL pen. The label is a little faded, and there's a crack in the area next to the grip, but it still writes like new.

I have no idea what Toprol XL does, other than succinating metoprolols and causing people to abruptly cease therapy (which the pen warns sharply against doing), but the pen writes real good, even after steady use over three years. It's like it uses an extended release ink tablet. If a doctor told me I might be a candidate for Toprol XL, I might have to consider it. although I woudn't necessarily still want to be using it three years later.

The Toprol XL pen is recommended for writers with jobs in neurological or Bosnian-helping fields. Pregnant women, women who might become pregnant, or women who have a family history of pregnancy should not steal this Toprol XL pen. Write only as directed: do not use Toprol XL pen rectally. Consult a doctor before writing a perscription with a Toprol XL pen. Side effects may include smudging, streaking, hearts over i's, misspellings, sore throat, or dry mouth. If a Toprol XL pen gives you an erection for more than 4 hours, consult a physician and stop writing slash fiction. If consulting a physician gives you an erection for more than 4 hours, check to make sure you haven't just stuffed your Toprol XL pen down your pants.