A hamburger stacked tall with delicious vegetables and condiments and cheeeeeese,

Boutique cupcakes with probably the best frosting I have EVER tasted,

and Bacon Salted Caramel Brownies homemade by my friend Jodie. Surprisingly good, and I even thought they could handle more bacon flavor! They’re the perfect breakfast-dessert treat because both bacon and chocolate go well with coffee.

After all that, I made to sure to break a sweat while riding my bike around the neighborhood this evening. (And then I made cookies.)

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

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.)

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.

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!

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!

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!