Over Under Around and Through

JAKE- Are you riveted yet? Well, her comes chapter 2 for you. This is a short little section, but it sets up the rest of the story.

Foreplay

It was early in freshmen year that I met a girl. I was just settling in, maybe the third week or so of classes. I had carried over a few friends from middle school and I was finding myself. I walked out of math class to greet a familiar face. Tia was there and she was more excited that usual.

“Hi, Lennon!” Oh, yes Lennon. The nickname originated in middle school for a reason I don’t remember now (nothing to do with John though). “There is this girl that likes you; I want you to meet her.”

I just smiled and let out a laugh that was mostly air. Frankly this was nothing new. Freshmen year I guess I was cute or mysterious, something that attracted a few ladies to me and back in those days they did not hold things back, they let you know. Tia snatched me by the arm and dragged me along.

“Her name is Lindsay,” is the only preface she gave me to the meeting. We muddled past kids in an overcrowded hallway before we reached a group of Tia’s friends standing in a circle and talking outside the door of their next class.

“Hi guys this is Jake,” she said. The introduction was generally for all but was really directed at Lindsay. I said nothing. This also was nothing new. I was quiet and shy. A black baseball hat flipped backwards on my head was standard attire, so was a black t-shirt. The group of friends continued to gab at each other until the bell rang for the next class to start. I looked at Lindsay. Exceptionally beautiful she was not. She had small features on an otherwise plain face. Her hair was dark and somewhat scraggly and hung down to her shoulders. She was skinny, plain, and tall for a girl. She smiled nervously at her friends and only for a moment at me while they all finished talking. I don’t think this little meeting was her idea. I followed Tia into the door of the classroom. She took her seat at the front of the class.

“What do you think?” she whispered. Lindsay sat in the back of the class. They were friends I guess but not good enough to sit next to each other.

“About what?” was my brilliant response.

“Whatever, Lennon,” she said. Truth is I had met a lot of girls in ways similar to this so far in my young high school career, and many of them were more worthy of report than this one. The bell rang for class to start and as I walked toward the door I made no movement to even acknowledge Lindsay. This was my usual MO. Ignore them because goodness knows I am to shy to talk to them anyway. But before I walked out the door, something happened. I walked up behind Lindsay sitting in her chair on the back row ready for class to start, I leaned in near to her and said “Bye, Lindsay.”

“Bye,” she said sweetly as she could with being half startled and caught by surprise. Then I stood back up straight, and walked out of the room. I hadn’t even done this to the girls that I found attractive that expressed interest in me. What just happened? How had I summoned the courage to utter this simple goodbye? “Whoa,” I thought, “I’ve never done that before.”

You better call somebody

or

The way to a man's heart is through his thoracic cavity

JAKE- I have just finished the final draft to one of the larger writing assignments in my Writing A Personal History class. Over the next couple of weeks I will be posting portions of it in the order they were written. You, my friendly readers, will be taken on a strange and perhaps unpleasant journey through much of my young adulthood. Remember, this was all written from memory and while needing to be true, it also needs to be a good piece of literature. It is like in the movie Jurassic Park, where portions of the Dino DNA are missing, they just filled it in with modern amphibious DNA to make the end product whole. If it were Shakespeare, i guess this story would be a tragedy, more or less, but do not get too sad for me, things worked out really well eventually.

Being Young and Rather Unaware

By Jacob Reynolds (Online Eng 320)

"Everything We Do" by Peter Meinke

Everything we do is for our first loves
whom we have lost irrevocably
who have married insurance salesmen
and moved to Topeka
and never think of us at all.

We fly planes & design buildings
and write poems
that all say Sally I love you
I'll never love anyone else
Why didn't you know I was going to be a poet?

The walks to school, the kisses in the snow
gather as we dream backwards, sweetness with age:
our legs are young again, our voices
strong and happy, we're not afraid.
We don't know enough to be afraid.

And now
we hold (hidden, hopeless) the hope
that some day
she may fly in our plane
enter our building read our poem

And that night, deep in her dream,
Sally, far in darkness, in Topeka,
with the salesman lying beside her,
will cry out
our unfamiliar name.

My Place or Yours?

It was hard to sleep. It was always hard to sleep on the night before something big happened. I lay in my bed, the top bunk of course, although there wasn’t anyone in the bottom bunk to feel lessened by my being higher up than them. On my floor lay neatly the outfit for tomorrow. It was something new, every part of it. Mom always made sure we had new clothes for the school year. The tags have been freshly removed and the blue long-sleeve t-shirt lay above the jeans, just as they would be worn the next day. I stared up at the ceiling; the glow-in-the-dark stars shined their dull green.

I remembered something a girl had said just a few months ago. She and her high school buddy sat with four or five of my fellow middle-schoolers in a circle on the floor of some hallway at school. Soon we would be in high school and she was dishing the dirt on how to get by as we made the big leap. She seemed knowledgeable enough as her long blonde hair flipped side to side while she gabbed a mile a minute. A smiled spilled across her face; she must have thought she was doing us the biggest favor. “Without me these poor kids would be utterly lost,” she must have been thinking. Then she said something that actually stuck in my head. She said that it didn’t matter what you wore in high school, nobody cared. As I lay in bed listening to various family members shuffling in the hallway outside my bedroom door, I wondered if that was actually true. I would soon learn it was not.

The high school was this brown monstrosity planted seemingly right in the middle of town. All brick with a small incove before you reached the front doors. Upon entering, your options are to turn right for the cafeteria or left for the classrooms. It was a big school and there was much more to it than that, but for an incoming freshman, that was all I needed to know at this point. Also right next to the front doors, on either side, was an oxymoron of what the whole purpose of high school was supposed to be as far as I knew it. Behold, The Chairs. The Chairs consisted of a row of benches where all the cool kids from a given grade would gather. To the left of the front doors was the bench the Freaks would sit at; the Freaks having taken over the freshmen chairs some time ago. To the right of the doors was a much longer bench where would sit the sophomores, juniors, and seniors in ascending order, seniors closest to the cafeteria. Only cool kids allowed of course. At times I would wonder why the high school, a self proclaimed champion of diversity, would allow for these clique-making machines to exist at all.

If you want to keep writin', writin' along...

or

The proudest tradition of exposition.

JAKE- My new online class has me writing again,and i think that is a good thing. Oh my and what a treat for all of you out in blog world. You see, the class is entitled Writing A Personal History, and it is all about creative nonfiction and writing your own memoir. So, Chelsea has demanded in her sweet way that I post some writings for your pleasure. Friends be prepared. Family be prepared. You are all now characters in a more-or-less true story about my life. If you think my portrayal of you is inaccurate, if you think i describe you as some sort of caricature the likes of which causes you to cringe, if you think that there is no way you said those things, well you may be right. Memory is tricky. Hey, don't take it personally. Here is an excerpt I wrote for one of my first assignments in class. I think it is mostly true.

The Oasis

Having a day without a purpose may have been my greatest inspiration when I was young. Scurrying down the stairs with their brown shag carpeting I caught myself wondering if it was possible that the banister could actually be older than the house itself. But thoughts like these leave the mind of a half naked eight year old almost as soon as they enter. My purpose was indeed a grand one this sunny summer morning. Mom tried to stop my as I stormed the kitchen, but to no avail. I think she mentioned something about breakfast or lunch… never mind. The sliding glass door that led to the back yard always seemed so heavy. My little arms would have to give a full heave-ho to budge that monstrosity, but with motivation like mine, no obstacle was too great. I stepped onto the concrete patio with my bare feet. Oh feel that heat. It shot up through my legs and all over my small frame.

The back yard was well groomed. It had a border of grass with a tree placed every few yards. A swing set and a sandbox to the east, not today. An open patch to the left for any number of ball-related activities, nope not that either. And there in the middle of it all, the pool. Yes, don’t mind if I do. Surrounded by a concrete walkway and a thin strip of brown tile, it stood there like a sentinel. Summer was no match for this childhood best friend. The crystal blue water shimmered. Into the shallow end with a cannonball splash. Directly across the street was a field of green grass that formed the center of our cul-de-sac. Neighborhood baseball and football games were the norm, while my brother sat on the roof picking the participants off with his air rifle. But alas, no b.b. riddled baseball game could pull me away today. Right now I was all wet and hoping to stay that way for some time. I think lonely is a state of mind. Right now I was by myself and loving it. However, no contented part of existence remains so for very long. Eventually we are all invaded.

Sure enough here came my brother and his friend. They were intimidating high school kids with only enough patience for a young person to annoy me for a while and then be finished with my presence. They jumped in the pool and made a few snide remarks. Maybe it was something about the way I looked in my swimsuit. Needless to say it was not uplifting. They offered a game of marco polo. I don’t remember accepting, but I do remember being “it” and being thrust into the middle of a game I couldn’t win. My fear of the deep end of the pool was something of family lore, and I could well assume this was the reason for their entertainment. I hip hopped along the rough pool floor arms outstretched, eyes tightly shut. Following the call of “polo”, “polo” I tried to find one of these teen aged miscreants and get this thing over with. Higher and higher on my tippy toes and I knew I was approaching certain death, the deep end. Were they trying to drown me? Perhaps they wanted me dead so they could take my carcass into the high school and hide it somewhere as their senior prank. Finally, I could go no further and opened my eyes. They were out of the pool, a clear violation of the rules of the game, and when they saw me look they ran away, laughing. Each of them swung open the wood gate that led to the front yard and ran through. Suddenly I was alone again. The big brown fence that encircled the back yard separated me from the rest of the world and I was alone. I wondered if that was the way you had to act when you grow up. Maybe you sign a contact guaranteeing that you will be a complete moron at least 70% of the time. As the sun beat down on my face and my body bobbed up and down in the pool, I thought I might choose never to grow up.

And a pair of fancy boots fancy boots fancy boots...

As always, food comes first.
Here are some black bean burgers I made from scratch. I know Hannah will be jealous!
I also wilted some spinach with olive oil and cracked pepper to put on top. They were very good.

After we made them we put some in the freezer for later, and they were just as good if not better! Although next time I think we will cook them on the grill so they can get a little bit crispier.

So here is that Cowboy Spaghetti I've been prattling on about. It really is delicious. A fiber-riffic vegetarian delight! Just get a can of black beans, kidney beans, and corn (remember low sodium...and rinse them well to clean off any of that canned sticky sodium-laden juice) and heat it all with a jar of non-chunky marinara sauce. Then throw in some of that crushed green chile I do love so much, some chili pepper, and some cumin and you will be good to go. I like it over thick spaghetti noodles. It is so good, and I must toot my own horn for this one.

I am a culinary genius.

This shows the difference in portion sizes between Jake and I. Usually I eat on a salad plate (I'm trying to drop 12-15 pounds...there, I said it for everyone to see) and so I have been trying to control my portions. Whatever I eat for dinner has to fit on a salad plate. --I know the corner of that roll is hanging off a titch...I'm so bad-- However, because we live with other people, it's always a gamble as to what will be actually in the kitchen at any given time, so sometimes I have to limit myself to the middle section of the big plates. As you can see, Jake does not limit himself much. However, he is trying to gain 12-15 pounds...so...there.



In other news, our heat has been going out on occassion. There have been two weekends now where the heat has just stopped working. And because if you stand next to a window and can literally feel those icy Maine winds gently caressing your skin, whatever heat we do have does not last long. This is how a few Saturdays ago was spent until we finally had to leave the house to go to for a drive. I know it's not the most earth-friendly activity, but it was so darn cold.


It was 49 degrees in the kitchen.

51 degrees in our room.

We had just got back from doing laundry so the clothes on the bed were still a little warm. I stayed in this exact position for over an hour.



In other SoRoHo news....

what are those, you may ask?

WE HAVE NO IDEA.

For some utterly bizarre and completely inexplicable reason, these dirty carrots were soaking in a cup of water on the counter for weeks. We don't know who put them there, or what they were doing with them, but they did occasionally switch them around so the other side could soak for a few days. They swelled up (as the picture details) to quite a hefty size, and then when they got switched they would shrink back down to smaller than they were before.

Really people, weeks of soaking carrots in a cup on the counter.

Then one day, they mysteriously vanished. The cup was gone, the carrots were gone, we didn't see them in the garbage...

Just another day at the South Royalton House--

you really should come visit.

All you need is Positivity!

Okay, for those of you that read comments, read Lynley's comment with the lasagna recipe and make it. It was so good and so easy. BUT, use a 16 oz. jar of cottage cheese.

I have a job here on campus that is going quite well. I am the Communications and Media Relations Assistant. I get to write press releases and update website content. I also get to do some less fun things like digital archiving and hole-punching stacks of news clippings and putting those stacks into the appropriate binder. I had a lesson in CMS today to do website stuff, and it was pretty cool. Maybe I should go back six years to junior year of high school and stay focused on Graphic Design. Maybe I can find that perfect job that melds environmentalism and graphic designism into one far-out title. 

Graphic Environmentalist.

Not bad. I kind of like how it sounds a bit risque. It's me all over.

A little hitch may have been thrown into our Arizona plan. Many of you already know, as plenty of my readers already reside in AZ. Arizona State University, Jake's school, is undergoing a serious budget crisis with the state and has threatened to close down one or two campuses (Jake's being the first to go) and cut numerous programs (health programs the first to go). Now me being the healthy skeptic that I am, seriously doubt that the largest university in the country can just shut down entire campuses and programs in the span of one semester. However, the president of the university keeps sending out massive panic emails telling us that the threats are real.

So there you have it. I'm almost positive everything will go according to plan for us. But, as Batty makes so eloquently clear in that classic of animation Fern Gully: the Last Rainforest (it was in the $5 movie bin (my favorite of all bins) and I couldn't resist...it does have a great environmental message...and Tim Curry) 

ONLY FOOLS ARE POSITIVE.

So I'll let you know how that goes.

One of Jake's phlebotomist buddies is studying for the MCAT. It is good for him to see that this is something people do, and is actually possible. He has this theory that:

1) Only geniuses can be doctors

2) He is not a genius.

ERGO...he can't be a doctor.

In my book, the logic is fine, but I disagree with both of the premises, which as all Logic 101 passees know, invalidates the conclusion.

coming soon: Cowboy Spaghetti with photos! Oh!

Cooking wifey

Here are some recipes:

The green chile crusted chicken I completely made up and got lucky. My mom brought me home a bag of crushed green chile from New Mexico and I had to use it somehow! I found a place online where you can order the same stuff. I would try out just a packet first (crushed green chile) and then go for the pounder. It's got a real kick, so depending on how much you like it, you can crust accordingly.

Green Chile Crusted Chicken

Drain, rinse, and dry a can of black beans (preferably low sodium...got to watch that sodium intake). I let the beans sit out on a plate in a thin layer covered with a paper towel. I like them to have a little bit of crispness when they come out of the oven. Put the beans in the pan in a thick layer. Coat chicken breast with the crushed green chile all over and put chicken on beans, sprinkling a little chile over the beans. Thinly slice an apple and cover the chicken (this can be removed before the cheese goes on, I find it gives the chicken a nice flavor and keeps it moist). Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes. Discard apples (or not) and cover with Mexican cheese. Put back in the over for about 5 minutes so the cheese gets nice and melted. Let it sit out of the oven for about 5-10 minutes before serving. Serve with cilantro-lime rice. I like lime, so I put a squeeze of lime on mine right before eating.

Braised Balsamic Chicken
6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
ground black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon garlic salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 (14.5 ounce) can petite diced tomatoes 
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

For those spices I used an Italian Herb Grinder and really went to town. McCormack's Italian Herb Grinder is my favorite kitchen item and I go through one pretty fast.
Season chicken breasts with ground black pepper and garlic salt. Heat olive oil in a medium skillet, and brown the onion and seasoned chicken breasts. If you really want to go above and beyond, you can saute up some minced garlic in some olive oil and rub that into the chicken instead of garlic salt. Do still use the fresh ground black pepper though; it gives the chicken a really nice look.
Pour tomatoes and balsamic vinegar over chicken, and season with basil, oregano, rosemary and thyme. Simmer until chicken is no longer pink and the juices run clear, about 15 minutes. It goes really great with garlic mashed potatoes, and the sauce is amazing, so don't leave it in the pan, pour it on everything.

If people want the granola bars I can post that too, but I really made up most of it so I have to figure it out. 

I think people should also try swedish meatballs, if you are a fan. They have been a consistent hit with everyone. Just heat up some frozen TURKEY meatballs (I know they make frozen swedish meatballs, but the turkey ones taste so much better) in the microwave, heat up two cans or bottles of brown gravy (it's good with beef gravy too, it just tastes less swedish) and add a little less than a cup of sour cream and the warm meatballs. Let it boil and it will change colors and consistencies. Serve over egg noodles. It truly is a taste sensation.

Now go cook.

Everything I Do, I Do It For FOOOOOD

Okay that's a bit of a stretch. But I do enjoy food. A lot. And with one of my current plans allowing for slightly less food than I normally enjoy, I have been realizing my growing obsession with tasty tasty food.

I have never been one for cooking.

But there's something about this teensy tiny kitchen with half-size everything that really brings out the chef in me. I have been making everything lately. I think part of the fun of it all is having our roommate Emily come into the kitchen every day and say, "What are you making today?" and me answering pretentiously, "Well, my dearest Emily, we're starting with a mild tomato and cucumber bruschetta and finishing out the evening with braised balsamic chicken breast and garlic potatoes."


It doesn't really go like that.

But I am having fun making things, and I have the pictures to prove it. Here are a few little dishes I have whipped up recently:

This is a dried green chili crusted chicken breast on a bed of black beans with thin Vermont apple slices on top to keep the chicken moist, then sprinkled with Mexican cheese. It was served with cilantro-lime rice and it was delicious. We also have these funny little mini personal casserole dishes that are proving to be both fun and fundamental to my growth as a culinary artiste.

I wasn't kidding about the bruschetta. These are Vermatoes (Vermont tomatoes) and local cucumbers on local bread. I'm a localvore now. Jake has been loving all the fancy food, as evidenced by his face above.

The bruschetta again. It was tasty, and I don't even like bruschetta. Jake had six pieces the size of my hand, and then a whole bowl of Tuna Helper (I have yet to outgrow my love affair with Helpers of all nations).

This is the braised balsamic chicken with garlic mashed potatoes. I guess I wasn't kidding about that either--though this and the bruschetta were not on the same night. This was phenomenal and my favorite thus far. Let me know if you want the recipe, it was so easy, and it's very healthy.

Did I also mention that I make my own granola bars now? It's cheaper than buying them and they are way healthier, plus they actually fill you up. Also (bonus), no packaging=easier on the landfills=environmentally friendly=good for me!

So I have really been liking making things. Swedish meatballs and chicken stroganoff have become a weeknight staple for us. I feel very strange getting out of the Top Ramen and Mac 'n Cheese world, but it is a beautiful world, and I would like to stay here.