Once Upon a Time There Was Pi(e)

I don't keep it a secret - I LOVE PI DAY! (March 14 or 3.14 for those of you non-math-sided-brained people). I like to order a whole pie for lunch and eat it each year. Last year a gang of us from work went to a lovely place called Smiley's. I was worried that there may be no pie left because of the special day but apparently I underestimate the rest of the world's collective enthusiasm/devotion to this day because there were plenty of delicious pies waiting to be chosen by me.

This year the gang headed back to Smileys and I walk in AND THERE WERE NO PIES!

me: Where are all the pies?

Smileys: oh we're backed up, I have some in the oven but they're all for special orders

me: oh no...I was planning on coming in and enjoying a whole pie

Smileys: oh sorry, we will be back to having more ready-made pies in the coming weeks. I can maybe let it slide if it's for a good reason

me: it's PI DAY!

Smileys: I have a strawberry rhubarb pie about to come out of the oven--it's yours.


That's what pi day is all about, people--hijacking other people's pre-ordered pies. It's not as rude as it seems. Pi day is a happy day because it is meant to be filled with pie. My happiness was maintained by scoring a pie, and in return the intended recipient will get an even fresher one which means more happiness. Sounds like paying it forward to me! The person who ordered it should probably thank me...by bringing me a pie. I might've missed the point of "paying it forward."

Now today is the Ides of March. So watch your back--the person you were happily enjoying pie with yesterday could literally (and lethally) stab you in the back today. I suggest you brush up on your latin

Et tu, _(insert name of stabber)_ !

Also, I don't know how long they keep it up but if you like puzzles, check out www.pidaychallenge.com then get ready to be frustrated...but it's better if you have pie to console you in those times.

Once Upon a Time I'm Pretty Sure I Invented a DIY

First, a quick update on my chicken I recently cooked: I put most of it in the freezer then last night I wanted it for dinner. I somehow knew that there had to be a better way other than the microwave to heat it up (this chicken is my culinary baby so I wanted to treat it right until I ate it for good). So naturally I googled "how to heat up already cooked frozen chicken." Work friend gives me a hard time because I tend to google full sentences rather than keywords but I often google weird enough stuff that I feel I need to be extra specific to get better results. This particular search isn't a good example. Well I found one site that said to heat it up in a frying pan with broth/dressing/marinade. I looked in the bearded man's fridge and saw that the dressing they had said Great as a Marinade! right on the bottle so I went with it. I felt like a real cook making the decision on the fly to turn my lemon-pepper chicken into a new dish I called lemon-pepper chicken in a zesty italian dressing. In the end it turned out just fine and I ate it, although admittedly I did have my doubts for a few minutes:

I'm just glad neither the bearded man nor his
ginger roommate walked in to judge me or yell
at me for using the wrong spatula or something dumb.

I did all of this with only my left hand not just to prove I could but also because I broke my right wrist last weekend. While snowboarding at Breckenridge I finally decided it was time for me to spread my wings and grow up from the learning area. This video gives the general idea of what kind of riding I was doing. I'm far too humble to let anyone record me, but luckily Shaun White is not:

TTR Tricks- Shaun White Back to Back Double... by WorldSnowboardTour

 I thought it was just sore and I only needed to move it back and forth a lot then cautiously continued down. I quickly thought it might be badly sprained so made my way to the base then agreed to let someone look at it. At a glance the doc told me exactly what happened

Dr: that's broken. You fractured your distal radius...(medical speak above my level)

Me: you took the words right out of my mouth...I guess you've seen this before?

Dr: all the time. It's the most common snowboard injury.

Me: ...this must make me a real snowboarder now! ...can I have a beer while I wait to get taken for xrays?

I could never call myself a surfer in Hawaii so feeling like a real snowboarder (and not injuring myself on a green) made me forget for a bit that I managed to injure myself right after I finally got the hang of it and could start having more fun.

I got my cast a few days ago and the guy who did it is a Gamecock fan so I had fun talking to him. I told him that I plan to try doing half days on easy greens and he kept reassuring me they have plenty of fiberglass. I didn't know what exactly he meant by it but then learned (thanks to google) that fiber glass casts are the preferred method over the traditional plaster for various reasons. One big issue I quickly discovered however is that it snags clothes like crazy. So after a day of covering it with dish rags I came up with the idea of cutting the sleeve off an old pullover to keep on it. Voila! It just looks like I'm wearing one long sleeve and keep my elbow at 90 degrees (I did always love geometry)! Here's a before/after:

If I didn't have to enact a self-imposed ban on Pinterest this is surely better than a lot of other stuff on there. And it cost me free.99!

I'm hoping I'm only in the cast for 6 weeks but this whole learning to be left handed has not been awesome so far. It has also made me super aware of how unmarried I am. I'm not trying to get married soon, but it would be nice to have someone there every night and morning obligated to help with bras, and to wash my hair, etc.

Once Upon a Time It Was "The Birds" All Over Again...almost...sort of

So I hate scary movies...even the ones that are supposed to be scary but everyone's all "whatever it wasn't scary." That being said, I've never actually watched Hitchcock's The Birds and have no intention of doing so. I do however know the premise of this movie and it scares the shit out of me.

Remember when I was getting all happy about the weather warming up? Well apparently in Colorado I'm not the only one who loves it. Moths apparently do, too. Saturday night I get home late and am exhausted, ready to climb into my bed when I turn on the light in my room and a SWARM of moths start fluttering about. The little moth-erf******s were having a party in MY bedroom and I wasn't even invited. I called a friend to ask what I'm supposed to do but I keep interrupting him with worst-case scenarios involving waking up with my face half eaten by moths and he's all "I'm trying to comfort you and be supportive but you're making it difficult!" and I'm all "have you seen The Birds? They are just waiting for me to go to sleep so they can bring in the army and attack." then he's all "moths don't have razor beaks" and I'm all "you don't know that....shut up."

So I resolve to let them have my room for the night (hospitality is one of my gifts) and left the light on to contain them, and I slept on an air mattress in the living room. I woke up Sunday morning and right before I start getting ready for church, I decide it is a good idea to Google "moth infestations." Well church was placed on the back burner as I start freaking out about the moth party I allowed to happen the night before. I don't know much about moth parties, but if this one got crazy who knows how many eggs were laid and if there was larvae feasting on my clothes. Anxiety kicked into full swing (I am more and more my father's child) and I imagine the worst and immediately start re-washing all of my clothes and putting my wool jacket in the freezer (I work for a non-profit...I can't afford clothes...okay I can afford clothes but I'd rather spend my money on other stuff instead). I thought it was a good idea to read up on as many moth infestation horror stories I could find for tips (although none seemed to have a happy ending resulting in no more moths...). I also spent the better part of the sabbath murdering the stupid things but when I killed one, 2 more seemed to come out. Not only was I losing the battle, I was slowly losing my sanity (okay, slightly dramatic but it didn't seem so at the time). I called up work neighbor who came over to help calm me down. We took a walk around the block because I needed to be out of the house then she braved the war zone with me.

When we got into my room, each of us armed with a shoe, at first I thought the moths had gotten smarter. They were "stationed" in hard to squish places, unlike the ones I had been killing who just landed on walls. I was wondering how they could learn so quickly then it hit me.

I had been killing the dumb moths all day. They had sent in the front lines to see how I would respond and now the smarter ones were moving in. Even worse, by killing the dumb ones, I was only aiding in survival of the fittest which means only the smart moths are left to breed which will result in even smarter moths. Then what if these smarter moths learn how to develop razor beaks so they can become the 21st century birds. I mean, isn't remaking old movies the "in" thing right now?

Anyway, I did eventually learn that apparently this time each year miller moths are in a migratory pattern to higher elevation and this is the worst it's been in 5-6 years. Also they aren't the clothes eating kind - just a nuisance and everyone has stories of them flooding their houses.This did calm me down a bit (although I am in the processing of sealing off windows in my room and have yet to sleep in there since this weekend) but with my recent thought process of what the future holds for these things I'm still a bit uncomfortable. I guess I can at least take my jacket out of the freezer.

Colorado Springs score: 1 (-2 because NOBODY WARNED ME ABOUT THE MOTH-ERF*****S)