Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

I couldn’t believe that Marianne* didn’t know what pretzels were. It came up when we were talking about sweet/salty combo foods in the car last night on the way home from the airport. So I did what I had to do: went to the bulk section of Sunflower Market in Orem and bought four different flavors: chocolate, chocolate with toffee bits, blueberry, and strawberry. They also sell regular yogurt and cherry yogurt flavors. They are all YUM.

Behind the pretzels is our evening entertainment—Ticket to Ride – Nordic Countries (a limited edition version) happened to color-coordinate with the pretzels. Totally unplanned, and totally awesome (if you’re amused by things like that, which I am).

Sorry for the yellowish photo… I need to learn more about the white balance settings on my camera, and I’m too lazy to fix the color in Photoshop before uploading these fine and vital to documenting my exciting life photos.

I should also mention that a thieving hand sabotaged my arteestic still life photography. I was not surprised. They were delicious!

*my “Norwegian little sister” who is visiting this week

Not really a Norwegian invasion. My little Norwegian sister (who was four years old when I lived with her family as an exchange student) arrived this evening. We have all had a long week, but at least I’ve slept a little more than she has in the last 24 hours. This is what she looked like this past summer when we made and attempted to decorate cupcakes. It was hot and the frosting was melty! They tasted delicious.

After I posted yesterday’s blog about the outdoor wall urinal, I started clicking on interesting links. I passed through 2leep.com, then clickety-clicked through several articles on oddee.com—stopping on 12 Creative Beverage Packing Designs (the last one is mildly NSFW, depending on whether or not you could tell what it is without the label). Which has a “related” link below to what I really want to talk about:

Vodka in a crystal skull.

It’s a real product and, better yet, the website features an auto-play infomercial hosted by Dan-freaking-Akroyd.* So bizarre. I want one, no matter how crappy the vodka might be. I’ll set it (empty or full) next to the bust-of-Napoleon brandy bottle I brought home from France many years ago. I think it’s appropriate timing for me to discover Crystal Skull Vodka since I just recently met Karen Allen at the Sundance Film Festival. Even though I didn’t think too highly of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, it’s hard to argue with the awesomeness of crystal skulls.

Too bad Crystal Skull Vodka is not currently sold in Utah (and I doubt they ever will be). I’ll have to travel to Wyoming or depend on the kindness of an out-of-state friend to bring me one (and for the record, I’m okay if the vodka is pre-drained. I can find something else with which to fill its head!)

* * *

A former coworker, younger than me, once told me that he didn’t go on the internet much because he got bored. The internet bored him. I was flummoxed and fell into a mild state of shock. Obviously we never became friends. When I came to, I still should have punched some sense into his face.

*Tmesis in action.

(Even if I did suffer from all the dairy products involved.)

This cheese plate goes well with wine and friends. And chocolate fondue. And lots of snacks and a little beer. That’s about all I have tonight!

It was a dreary day that didn’t start off so well. No classes for me and Ben also had the day off. Would a little sun or snow or blue skies really have been too much to ask for?

We didn’t eat lunch so opted for an early dinner. We thought about driving to Salt Lake to try one of the restaurants on our list, but were kind of blah about driving very far, and ended up going to Outback Steakhouse. It’s been a long time since we’ve eaten there. Neither of us are big steak eaters, but that’s what we felt like tonight.

We arrived at 3:55 without realizing that they didn’t even open the doors until 4pm. I am accustomed to closing the place, not opening the place. That was odd. Though considering it was technically lunch for us, we were right on track.

I got the smallest “signature steak” or whatever but I sprang for the sautéed mushrooms. Mmmmm… they were really good. But they were lukewarm when they arrived and cooled quickly. Not enough to complain about, but the very eager-to-please waiter asked, so I mentioned it. He jumped to get me more, and I was like, no, really, there are plenty here and it’s not a big deal. He insisted, and brought me out another small bowl of them. Ben sneaked a couple, but I ate the majority of what I got because, like I said, they were goooood.

There were some left over that I packed with the remaining broccoli and chunk of steak. The waiter asked if I wanted more mushrooms to take home. That surprised me, and on another day I might have said yes. Instead, I declined and just wondered how broke he really was since he seemed to teeter on desperately working for a bigger tip.

Whether or not that’s the case, it was interesting to me how closely desperation and eager-to-please look from the outside.

I have a “first world” problem. It’s a problem that people in third world countries* would probably love to have because it involves an excess of food. Specifically, food that is purchased but not eaten before it goes bad.

But first I should tell you that I don’t really think it’s a problem, per say. Yes, I admit to buying fresh fruit and vegetables, and on rare occasions meat, that goes bad before it is consumed. Usually it’s a banana or two** from a bunch, a few inner stalks of celery, or a whole cucumber that gets buried in the crisper drawer and forgotten until it’s too late. That’s not too bad, right? Maybe you do it too?

Well, in Ben’s mind, when even a single banana has to be thrown away, it is more than a minor regret.

Nevermind that I do most of the grocery shopping and the two of us usually manage to eat a 4-or-5-banana-bunch within a couple days without incident. It’s not like I buy a bunch of bananas and think to myself, “these are going to smell great when they’re rotting on the countertop underneath a pile of unopened mail!”

Letting a single banana go to waste is apparently a Shameful Travestry. Worse than buying something because it’s cute, worse than stealing, worse than killing another human being. Each crime is a festering black wound on my body that would even make biblical lepers cringe.  Each crime demonstrates my deep-seated desire to plunge us carelessly into financial ruin.

And that’s all information I get just from the red-hot look he gives me before vocalizing this little pet peeve of his! (It’s an impressive power, when you think about it.)

So. Guess who went grocery shopping early last week and bought a bunch of bananas? Ben. And guess who said he was going to eat that last banana when it was looking too brown and spotty for my taste? Ben. And guess who, a couple days ago when it was clear to me that The Rotting Banana was going to have to be thrown away, puffed up his chest and said “I’M GOING TO EAT IT DON’T THROW IT AWAY” and put it in the fridge? Ben and his annoying sidekick, Pride.

Tonight, Ben pulled out a frying pan and said he was going to make a Bananas Foster-ish dessert for himself with The Rotting Banana. I shook my head at the lengths he was going to avoid hypocrisy and went to my office to blog about this fiasco. A few moments later, he appeared in my doorway and said with a scrunched face, “fine, you win.”

Is it okay that I cackled a bit and was delighted by his willingness to admit his fallibility? And then blogged about it? I don’t blog with the express purpose of embarrassing my loving husband or pointing out his faults, but this time I just had to share my fruitful victory (HAR HAR!). I leave you with the state The Rotting Banana when Ben made the (wise) decision to finally toss it:

* Are there actually any countries considered “second world?” I can’t seem to think of any examples.

** Sometimes I’ll use the ripening-too-fast bananas to make banana bread, but I don’t always have the time or motivation. I don’t like wasting food either, really!

I need to share some other braintastic stuff I’ve come across recently. First, there’s the Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art in Oregon. Its images stimulate my crafty nerd synapses and make me squee! My favorite is the Knitted Brain, which took one year for Dr. Karen Norberg to knit. There’s an article about her project here. It reminds me of the knitted digestive tract I came across last year but looks a lot more labor-intensive.

And then there’s the recipe for chocolate ganache-filed brain cupcakes by notsohumblepie in Seattle. “Because it is a well known fact that human brains are filled with chocolate ganache,” she says. Tee hee! They look delicious, and could be easily translated to a zombie-themed fest if the decorative icing were placed on a red velvet cupcake.

If you are in any way geeky, nerdy, or offbeat, you really need to check out her recipes… especially the ones labeled science and weird. They’re all complete with mouthwatering photos. Well, all of the photos are mouthwatering except the petri dish cookies. Having been a biology major at one point in my life, and having a vivid smell memory of petri dishes in the lab, the execution of her design with all their isolated colonies kinda makes me want to hurl. But you go ahead and enjoy!

To continue the new (and probably short) string of geeky artwork by moi… here is my graphite rendering of Darth Vader: The Cookie Jar.

I got this 10-inch tall plastic cookie jar a few years ago by collecting UPCs from cereal boxes and sending them in. His helmet comes off to reveal room for about 2 cookies inside… so he’s used as a bust on the mantle instead of a cookie jar.

I have 4 more sketches to complete by Wednesday, plus 1 self-portrait and 1 abstract drawing collage-type thingy that I’ve already started. I’ll take a quick final for that art class on Wednesday morning, then I’ll leave that afternoon for Denver, where I will watch my little sister defend her PhD thesis on Thursday! Holy crap! On many levels!

I forgot to mention the whole POINT of our trip to Boise, which was going to Colleen’s housewarming party on Saturday evening! Their house is adorable, with a backyard full of foliage and a very nice deck. We met their cool and laid-back Boise friends, snacked on snacks, drank some beer, and disappointed Colleen’s ten-year-old by not bringing Mario Party 8 with us so he could play it on his new Wii. Sorry, kiddo! We’ll bring it next time if you don’t have it by then.

Okay, so. Sunday morning, after being a little disturbed by how well I could hear the male and female voices in the hotel bathroom next door, Ben and I walked a few blocks to Boise’s Basque Block on Grove Street. Say what now? That’s right, Boise is home to the largest community of Basques (approx. 15,000) in the United States. We met up with Colleen, her hubby, her son, and her mom for brunch at Bardenay, a very cool restaurant and distillery.

It was a beautiful morning, but we opted to eat inside. After living in Utah for a few years, Ben and I were perhaps overly impressed by the beautiful bar taking up the length of the restaurant without any barriers or weird liquor laws. But we were rightfully impressed by their selection of breakfast cocktails on the menu. I opted instead to drink coffee and eat “Bardenay French Toast,” which was a miracle breakfast food dipped in orange/cinnamon batter and dusted with powdered sugar… served with a side of Basque-style chorizo and rosemary red potatoes. Except I substituted eggs for the potatoes because, truth be told, I’m not a huge fan of potatoes. So, no, I didn’t eat any Idago potatoes.

The meal was still delicious, and the company was lovely. We parted ways, promised to come back to Boise, and took a nice stroll back to the hotel parking garage. The Basque Museum and Cultural Center was right across the street from Bardenay, but it was closed, so, with a sigh of relief from Ben, we kept walking. He hates going to museums with me because I find EVERYTHING interesting. Sor-ry!

According to Colleen, the sheep-friendly Idaho hills attracted the Basque people. I can see that. I visited my grandfather while he was still alive and living in Hossegor, which is a resort town in Southwestern France very close to Basque country. I’ve tasted Basque cuisine and driven through the hilly countryside, where at times the car was stopped on the narrow road by a herd of sheep passing by with a lone (and very tan) sheepherder. Like to the point where we couldn’t open the car doors because the sheep were thumping against the car on all sides. So I can see how the Idaho countryside would attract people from that area.

(When I was 13 and stayed in Hossegor for a few weeks, my step-grandmother took me to a Basque museum/store where I learned about the culture and famous tradition of high-quality weaving and subsequently fell in love with the style of traditional Basque linens (linge Basque in French). It was something like the Basque Eco-museum in St Jean de Luz, but that was established in 1999 which was a few years too late for me to have visited. Maybe I saw an early version of Jean-Vier’s headquarters before it was an official museum. My mom gave me a set of linge Basque table linens a few years ago after her last trip to France, but I’ve never used them because there hasn’t been an occasion special enough, you know?)

Right. Boise’s Basque Block evoked some older memories beyond the cool factor. Another cool thing in Boise was this faux-crack on the side of this building (maybe Colleen can enlighten us in the comments section with what building this is?). It had little misting jets to cool down passersby—not to worry, we did not let them dampen our spirits, hardee har har!

We finally made it back to the car and returned to Interstate 84 less than 24 hours after arriving in Boise. Based on the information we received at the Twin Falls Visitor Information center on Saturday, however, we elected to take a detour along Route 30, the “Thousand Springs Scenic Byway,” which followed the Snake River. So we ditched I-84 at Bliss, population 275.

Bliss was podunk and sadly desolate; truly the antithesis of its name. Its few businesses were in disrepair or perhaps closed forever. If it ever had a prime as an amusing stop for motor tourists like us, that time has long past. We saw one resident while we stopped to stretch our legs and take a photo of the welcome sign, and he was driving a bright red truck with two happy dogs in the truckbed, kicking up clouds of dust from the dirt road next to the silent railroad tracks. There was also a shrieking killdeer bird hanging around the sign that clearly wanted us out of his insect territory, dammit. So we drove on and left Bliss in the dust, so to speak.

We stopped at a “Fossil Beds” National Monument outside the tiny town of Hagerman—which boasted “Library of the Year” on a sign outside its library that was seriously smaller than a bookmobile. The “monument” consisted of a roadside sign and a gorgeous view (my photos do not do it justice). I’ve never seen black rocks before, and these looked particularly brilliant against the bright green hues from a rainy spring. Back in the car, this is what the road ahead of us looked like. Not too bad, eh?

There was another fossil bed scenic view not too far away, with a wooden plankway to a spot overlooking a crook in the Snake River. It was serene and quiet and I kind of wanted to build a house on top of all those fossils (that were supposedly somewhere in the striations of the cliffs; they were too far away for me to make anything out) just for the view. Oh, and the birds. There was a pelican in the water and what we determined (with the help of a sign nearby) was an osprey flying overhead. But it might have been an American White Pelican based on what Teh Internet is telling me today. Either way, that thing was huge.

There was a smaller bird that kept shrieking at us from the top of a telephone pole to leave his habitat, just like the killdeer in Bliss, so we moved on. We wanted to stop at Shoshone Falls and get back on the freeway before dark.

Shoshone Falls, according to the Twin Falls Visitor Center Man, has been dry for the last six years because of drought. This year there the falls were running again, and we happened to be driving through during the peak three weeks of rushing water flow. So we veered down a windy road lined with rocky cliffs and ponied up three bucks to enter a park… and suddenly found ourselves facing the 212-feet-high “Niagara of the West.” Once again, my photos do not do this place justice. There are lots more on my Flickr photostream.

The roaring water, the fine mist swirling around faces and through parched desert-lungs. People of all kinds lingering, drawn to this place for their own reasons. We hung around for a while, enjoying the day, enjoying the view, and enjoying each other’s company. We haven’t celebrated the anniversary of our first date since we were married, but May 11, 2009 marked ten years of us being a couple. As the sun started to set, we returned to the road—one decade of adventures, misadventures, accomplishments, and changes of direction behind us, and hopefully many more in our future.