Cooking with Braddy (and Rarity, I Guess): Black Bean Burritos

Look, it was either leave them in the picture or clean off my kitchen table, and ain't nobody got time for that!

I'll admit it - I've long disparaged the idea of the "dump and run" dinner, consisting mostly of opening various cans and jars of stuff and throwing it all together into a bowl before putting you face in it. Last night, though, I broke out another recipe from my mom's old Desperation Dinners book and learned just why the "dump and run" dinner is so delightful:

It's FAST.

The most time-consuming part of the preparation was cutting the onion and grating the cheese. As a whole, it took maybe twenty minutes to get dinner on the table. Which, you know, is good, cuz I didn't get to eat until after nine o'clock.

This is a recipe which will call for some fiddling. The core is good and simple - beans, cheese and tortillas are kinda hard to screw up - but the flavor's really missing something. I'll need to add something spicier. Maybe just "hot" salsa.

What Do New Friends Do?

They don't have much in common, do they?

Taller and Taller

So my plants aren't dead yet:

In fact, they seem to be doing pretty okay. I've noticed they've started curving off in the direction of the window, getting as much of that morning sun as they can. I worry - are they getting enough sun? Am I a negligent daddy.

No new work on the garden wall this week, but I did get some pruning done on my apple tree. Also started spraying it with those weird... spray... thingies you're told to use.

Above: artist's approximation of a dude with a sprayer thingie.

The pruning itself is kind of difficult. I don't think anyone's ever really cared for this tree, and so there are just branches and branches and branches. The bark's pretty flaky, almost papery, in some places. Oh, yeah, and my tree's got some really weird fruit growing in it.

I'll keep at it, but I expect that the tree might need some long-term caring before it stops looking like it's been horribly abused by some Captain Planet villain.

Wherever You Go

I'm glad we're together... But you pick the strangest vacation spots...

Inch by Inch

Well, I guess it's about time I picked up a new hobby. How's gardening sound?

Actually, that sounds like a terrible idea.  I'm really not that great with plants. See, I got this nifty little flower pot as a housewarming gift.

The reason the pot is empty is because the houseplant that came in it died.

I'm not sure how it happened, exactly. I woke up one morning, and the leaves had gone brown and limp. I watched it carefully, watered it, wrapped it up in a blanket, and fed it with chicken soup. Poor thing never recovered.

So I thought I'd try again.  I lined the bottom of the flower pot with rocks to better facilitate drainage... or something. I'll admit, I'm not too clear on how this all works yet.  But I have to say, it looks like it's working so far:

Those little green things weren't there last week!

Oh, and then there's this thingies I've been working on:

I bought a bunch of these rough-looking paving stones from Lowes to build a little planter bed in my back yard. It's really little, but that's the point. If I'm going to try to grow a bunch of living little things, I'd like to limit my liability when they all die horrible, malnurished deaths.

I'm not quite done with the little garden wall yet. I've got two course of stones laid down and glued together with Elmer's, but I'll need to build it up at leastne more level, I think.

One more trip to the hardware store!

Too Timid for Tindr

So I've been thinking about online dating recently.  I don't just mean in theory, although I do consistently wonder why people would choose to limit their interactions to a string of text, devoid of all other social cues like tone of voice and body language.  Actually, I have to say that the older I get, the more that sort of separation actually sounds kind of appealing.

A bit of context, perhaps.  The other day, I ran into a friend on the bus.  Well, I say "friend" - she was actually a former romantic interest.  We talked a few times, went out once, and that's... that's about where the association ended.  I think I was pretty into her, but I guess I didn't feel she was too interested in me.  Anyway, we fell in to talking - she told me about her life, I told her about mine.  She seemed interested that I'd recently purchased a house and asked if I had a roommate.  I told her no.  I have the option of renting a room out, but I like to be alone.

Her response?  "Yes, you do, don't you?"

Of course, as I am wont to do, I've spent the few days since then wondering, "Well, what did she MEAN?"  My cousin, often funny and insightful, said that was the sound of dodging a bullet, but I got sort of a different impression from the exchange.  I mean, I was there:  she got this kind of sad look in her eyes, and her voice was sort of... I dunno, compassionate or something.  Emotions are still a weird thing for me, you guys.

I came away thinking that she really understood that I don't really like being around people.  Heck, I think that was a topic of a few of our conversations two or three years ago.  There was no condemnation there, but rather an acknowledgement that I like to keep myself apart.

I dunno, maybe that's why our relationship never really moved on past a casual friendship.  Or maybe I just thought that was the reason.  Either way, there was some truth to it - I'm a solitary person.  I'd call myself an introvert, but that to me sounds like a ^&%$in' copout.

So, heck, what better way for a guy like me to meet people than to use an electronic medium that would keep me from actually having to meet meet them?

So that leads me to online dating.  I've thought about trying it out.  I've got a few friends who have found some moderate success by using Match.com or even (shudder) LDS Planet.  Most recently, I've had some people recommend the app Tindr, which I guess is sort of an evolution from "Hot or Not."  You flip through the profiles of people in your area, look at their pictures, read their profiles, and decide whether or not you'd be interested in getting to know them better.  Meanwhile, they're all doing the same thing, and if the app recognizes that two people have expressed interest in each other, it lets them know so that they can start up an online conversation.  They flirt, or tweet, or sext, or whatever the heck those crazy kids are doing these days.

But that route would lead to all sorts of maddening questions.  Mainly, what the HECK would I put into an online dating profile?  

"Is mostly not bald"?  

"Makes good money, but is dead inside"?

"REALLY likes cartoons zomg!"?

Plus, I'm a little leary of dating sites that focus making judgments based on photographs.  Yeah, it's a bit shallow to judge people based solely on their looks,but I'm really more concerned about limiting my exposure to pictures of man bits.  And I hear dating sites are FULL of man-bit pics.

...or am I just looking into the wrong sites?

La-la-lapocalypse!

Anybody else feel like whistling? I sure do!

The Witch Queen

Any resemblance to trademarked characters from prominent animated properties is purely coincidental. Please don't sue me, Disney!

BONUS SKETCH:

Just an experiment. 

Catching Up with the Classics: Safety Last

Wheeeeeee!

I don't know that I've ever seen comedies quite as engaging as silent comedies.  There's a cartoonishness to the slapstick that I've only ever seen elsewhere in the Looniest of Tunes, and the actors' ability to express their emotions with their faces is truly impressive.  It's almost gotten to the point where I get disappointed every time a tile card comes up, because I find I don't really care what the actors are actually saying.

Of the trinity of silent film comedy gods - including Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, of course - Harold Lloyd is the one I've known the least about.  I caught one of his pictures at Salt Lake's Organ Loft some time ago, but, beyond that, I had no experience with him.  I had, however, heard of the clock scene from Safety Last, so I decided to pick the movie up the last time Barnes and Noble had a sale on their Criterion Collection DVDs.

Now that I've finally seen it, I've gotta say... Harold Lloyd was REALLY DARNED GOOD!  His grasp of physical comedy and spectacular stuntwork is surprisingly sophisticated.  His face is just so darned expressive, and those glasses he wears are simply iconic.

Of course, the film really grabs you at the climax, when he scales a twelve-story building without any sort of safety harness.  Now, APPARENTLY he actually did have a stunt double, and APPARENTLY he is climbing a fake wall built atop a skyscraper, so he's not REALLY in as much peril as he appears, but the danger Lloyd is in as he performs these stunts is still palpable.  It's a revolutionary film from the perspective of stunt work and spectacle, and it's still incredibly entertaining today.

Pepin and the Tower

Just a picture from a short story I've written (and rewritten) a couple of times.  I think the cloud turned out well, but the rest of the picture I'm not so sure on.

BONUS COLOR UPDATE:

Braddy Reads Crossing to Safety

I've found that, for most of the books I read as part of my book club, I walk away with the same impression of the book:  "The writing was good, BUT..."  Now, whatever follows that big "but" can vary.  "BUT I thought the characters were unlikeable."  "BUT I found the plot derivative."  "BUT I got too caught up watching TaleSpin on DVD to actually finish the book."  If I'm being honest with myself, though, I find that all my big "buts" are actually deflections, ways of coping with the fact that I just don't fully understand what I've read.

My opinion of the books I read for book club usually goes up after discussion.

Speaking of things I don't understand, Wallace Stegner wrote this book called Crossing to Safety, the story of a pair of married couples and their friendships and hardships during the years of the Great Depression.  One couple - made up of the story's narrator and his wife - come from a poor background, and they struggle finding financial security.  The other couple, Sid and Charity Lang, are wealthy beyond most people's imaginations.  Together, they form a friendship that lasts longer than I've even been alive.

I've got nothing in common with these people, except for perhaps an irrelevant love of literature.  I can't relate to any of the experiences described in the book:  there's no recounting of their courtship, except for a speculative bit on the Langs' past which sounds like something out of Pride and Prejudice.  The couples' experience during the Depression doesn't resemble any of the financial hardships I've ever endured - thanks to the Langs' affluence, neither couple really feels the pinch of their circumstances.  Even the marital strife that permeates their relationships doesn't really feel that much like the spats I've had in my few romantic encounters.

There's more I could talk about - brushes with illness, the fear of suffering, the struggle to age gracefully - but, again, these aren't really areas I've had much experience with, and very few of these issues are dealt with personally.  In fact, even though the whole story is supposedly told from the perspective of Larry Morgan, we get very little idea of how all of these experiences affect him.  Rather than dwelling on his response to trial, he chooses instead to speculate on how their trials impact the Langs.

Actually, now that I think about it, that sort of voyeurism is something I really can relate to.

I've been somewhat fascinated with the idea of telling more "slice of life" stories - stories without obvious antagonists or terribly dramatic conflicts.  Very few people actually have experiences that fit into that sort of three-act structure; rather, our lives lead us from one crisis to the next, usually without the satisfaction of denouemont.  In that regard, I'd say Crossing to Safety is massively successful, and satisfying.

Oh, and the writing's good.  I look forward to the book club's discussion.