Why, why, why???

You have been warned: this is a rant. Read at your own risk.

I do not and will never understand this. Why do so many people of my acquaintance think it necessary to find me someone to marry? I do not wish to marry! Not yet! How many times must I say that before all these people will get it?

(If you are a regular reader, you are not one of those people. I only give out my blog address to the people who don't try to force things on me.)

Do I look that desperate? Do I look as though I need someone to help me find a "nice young man"? Why do so many people bombard me with this unwanted affection and with offers to help?

If I want to find someone, I will find someone -- or he will find me. God will bring him along someday if it's meant to be. It's not up to all the would-be matchmakers to find a "nice young man" for me. They get such a kick out of it -- and they all act like they're doing me the world's biggest favour by digging up some "nice young man" and bullying him into asking me out.

What nobody seems to understand is that the reason I get mad is that no one will take NO for an answer! If I tell people, "NO, don't set me up, I'm not looking to find anyone right now," they laugh as though I've said something terribly witty and then go on with their plans.

"Oh, ha ha," they chuckle, "everyone who's single says that just because they can't find anybody! Don't worry, I'll find you a nice young man. Just you wait and see. No, don't thank me -- it's perfectly all right. I don't mind at all. Oh, I can't wait to see how this turns out. I have several nice young men in mind for you right now! Don't forget to tell me how the dates go. And just remember, tee hee, I want to be invited to the wedding!"

Oh my goodness, people -- when I say no, I mean no!

Somebody set me up with this guy once...I told him in no uncertain terms to back off, and he informed me loftily, "Girls only SAY no because they actually want the guys to chase them! So, when can I see you again? Tomorrow night?"

"Aiee, the ego, the conceit!" said Judy Garland in a movie once (The Crimson Pirate). I might add to that,"the STUPIDITY!"

Who TOLD him that?!?!?!

Suffice it to say I was sorely tempted to bash him over the head with the nearest blunt object. "Officers, I am here to turn myself in. Lock me away for the next fifty years -- solitary confinement, please! No one will be able to bother me in there!"

I've had at least two people try to set me up this year and three guys ask me out. You remember the FBI agent, right? Look back through my posts and you'll find him.

Most recently, one of my co-workers came to talk to me over his lunch break -- he was the one who inspired this vent. He sat down near me and, without preamble, said, "So, you go to school here?"

"Yes," I said.

"You married?"

"No," I spluttered, laughing.

"Why not?"

"Umm, because I don't WANT to be right now -- and besides, nobody's asked me." (Well, that's not entirely true -- a bluebellied Yankee scoundrel asked me to marry him once, on a Civil War train ride. I believe his exact words were, "Let's get hitched!" But he was just kidding around. It was part of a skit, so that doesn't count. Thank God.)

The persistent co-worker continued to ask me probing questions and finally ended the conversation with, "Well, I'll have to see what I can do about finding you a nice young man --"

I cut him off right there. "No. Just don't even go there. I've had enough people trying to set me up. I don't need any more."

"Well..." he hesitated. "I'll just tell him to come talk to your father then, how's that?"

What is it about "no!" that these people don't understand? Am I not speaking clearly enough? Is the word NO not in the dictionary anymore?

*clears throat daintily*

Well, dear readers, that is all I have for your entertainment today. Look for two more blogs in the near future, one of them the promised post on consumerism.

WHEEEEE!!!!!!

OH MY GOODNESS!!! I'm so EXCITED!!! Wegmans has CLOTTED CREAM!!!!

Next thing you know, they'll be bringing in Vegemite! LOL! Actually they probably already have it there somewhere. Wow, she really is the Queen of Supermarkets. Amazing!

Oh, you want to know why I'm so excited about this seemingly trivial discovery? Well! I'm so glad you asked. You see, in Anne Chotzinoff Grossman and Lisa Grossman Thomas's Lobscouse and Spotted Dog: Which It's a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels there are several receipts that involve clotted cream.

I thought it was an exclusively British thing. Well, it probably is. But Wegmans actually carries it!! C'est incroyable, ca! Now I can make those receipts that I thought I would never be able to make.

Ah, I amuse myself intensely, and not always in a good way. My mind works strangely. Remember the blog I wrote way back when, the one about superfine sugar? Same thing happened with the clotted cream. People going by me in the market probably thought to themselves, "What is she doing? Why is she smiling at the clotted cream? Did she escape from the loony bin?"

I was not actually in the market looking specifically for the clotted cream, believe it or not. I just happened to see it when I was looking for feta cheese for the pizza I was making for dinner. My friend Lea has this awesome pizza receipt...I'm sure she won't mind if I share it.

Start with anywhere from .68 kg. to .9 kg. of pizza dough (1 1/2 lbs. to 2 lbs.). Spread it on a holy -- oops, I mean HOLEY -- pizza pan. You know, the kind with holes in it. That's what I meant. Have fun with the spreading -- I hate that part. It never spreads evenly and it gets all over my hands.

Anyway, spread a thin layer of oil on the dough (not with your hands; use a brush, ya nong!). Dab off any extra with a paper towel, or with the hem of your shirt -- whatever works.

Spread on a generous layer of Classico Basil Pesto. If you don't-a know what-a Classico is-a, any basil pesto will-a work. OK, sorry. I'll stop now. No, I am not Italian, if you couldn't tell. But I do happen to like Rosemary Clooney's Mambo Italiano!

Finely chop some fresh garlic -- one or two cloves. (Wow, that is such a strange word, cloves. There are so many other meanings to the word "clove.") Evenly sprinkle the chopped garlic over the pesto.

Next, spread a layer of any kind of tomato sauce over the top. I just used a bit of plain, regular tomato sauce. *Ugh, hate tomatoes!*

Shred some fresh mozzarella cheese and sprinkle generously over the top.

Add a nice layer of fresh feta cheese crumbles.

Dust a layer of spices over the top -- herbes de provence work well, but any kind of mixed herbs and spices will do. Not Mrs Dash. You know what I mean. The dried, shredded GREEN stuff!!

Add pepperoni or whatever your little heart desires in the way of toppings.

Bake in an oven at, oh, 176 C (350 F) or whatever. Somewhere about there. It should take between half an hour and 45 minutes. Enjoy!!!

"The Jungle Books" and other topics

Did y'all ever read Kipling's The Jungle Books? If not, go pick up a copy and do some reading. They're great. I just bought myself a new copy after having lived for over a year without the one I lent to someone.

They're nothing like Disney's version, and while I adore that one too, I do think I like the original Books much better. They're wilder, more real, humourous and visceral at the same time. They teach you lessons without your knowing you're absorbing the lessons.

I like the poems and the other stories included in most copies of the Books. One of my favourite of the short stories is called The Undertakers. Very funny, and quite realistic. And one of the best poems, IMO, is A Ripple Song. Morbid, yes, and sad, but well done.

You're going to think I am a very morbid person, given what I've been talking about on this blog at certain points (Egyptology, bog bodies, &c.). Sometimes I am, I will admit it. But not always. I just talk about things that interest me, and it so happens that this morbid stuff is interesting. Egyptology is interesting for many reasons, not the least of which is paleopathology and its relationship to the diseases suffered by modern Egyptians.

There's this little microorganism (or whatever) in the water of the Nile that causes a disease called schistosomiasis (bilharziasis). Ancient Egyptians nearly all had the disease -- and almost all modern Egyptians who bathe in/drink from the Nile have it too. It's inescapable for them as of right now, but so debilitating that one would have thought there'd have been a cure for it found many years ago.

I think this kind of thing is very interesting. Though many people have studied the disease, no one has yet found a cure. Why? Lack of funding? Lack of interest? Lack of available information? It makes me wonder -- and wish that I could help.

But alas, to study these things and/or produce any effective answers to questions such as the ones I have just posed, one needs to have more than a passing familiarity with mathematics and science -- which I do not. I am woefully ignorant of these two fields of study and think that anyone who knows anything about either of them is a genius.

Thus I bow to Jess's wisdom and expertise, since she is in nursing and therefore knows way, way more about math and science and chemistry and physics than I ever will. Go visit her blog and you will see what I am talking about. http://clairbannerman.blogspot.com

And by the way, Jess darling, fair's fair: I'm going to say it 'cos you said it first. "Jess is drop dead gorgeous, and since it's my blog, she can't say any different! Muahaha!"

Tee hee! :)

I am sitting at my desk at work right now and looking at a list of food supplied by the college campus's cafe -- and am wondering what exactly "gourmet buffalo fries" are, or if I even want to know what they are. This question, and perhaps others, will sustain my mind during the long and boring class I have tonight.

It's very strange that when I sit down to post a blog, almost every topic I'd been meaning to discuss disappears from my mind. Why is that?? I am quite unsettled by this. Before I came to college, I could remember everything I had to do for an entire week without once putting pencil to paper. Now, however, I write myself notes that include the most basic instructions. Sample note for one day of my life at college is as follows:

"Get up. Take bath!!! Write paper. Print book review. Eat lunch. Go to school. Classes. Meeting with professor 3 p.m. -- don't forget!!!!! Get petrol after school. Go home. Eat dinner. Sleep."

I kid you not, this is what my mind is like these days. I can't remember anything. Oh, wait, yes, I do remember some things. Prison Break is on FOX, 9 p.m. Monday night, followed by CSI: Miami on CBS at 10 p.m. New Lost episodes are, sporadically, on ABC Wednesday night at 9 p.m., which is unfortunate because I don't get home until 9:25 p.m.

Yeah...my mind's completely gone. Now the question remains: is this because of the horribly devastating influence of the telly or because I have to remember so much in order to succeed at college?

I prefer to think it's the latter. I can't help it if my mind retains random information from the telly and not from my textbooks! The telly is just so much more interesting!! ;)

Now I am off to ponder another meaningless and interminably-present question: Will "Kate" (or The Rabbit Girl, as I call her) ultimately choose Jack or Sawyer???

Tune in next week for the next thrilling and terrifying episode of Lost, in which someone will suffer a horrific injury, find a mysterious yet vitally important artifact all by itself in the middle of the jungle, get into a rollicking good fight with another survivor, create a whole new way to be nails-on-the-chalkboard annoying, be captured and brainwashed by the Others, or discover a fully-operating discotheque populated entirely by polar bears.

My Day at Work: Exciting or Routine?

Well, I have had yet another day that would qualify for me as exciting, but which for most of the rest of you would qualify as just another boring, routine, mundane day.

Want to know what made it so bouncingly exciting for me? Well, I was reading about bog bodies for my current attempt at a piece of CSI: Miami fanfiction, the first installment of which may be found on my little website...

http://indiamackenzie.tripod.com

...and I found out lots of new information that I had not known before! For instance, there was the case in which a couple of bodies were buried in a bog for 30 years and came out looking pink and fresh and newly-dead. Isn't that just the most fascinating thing you've ever heard?

What?! You say you've heard more fascinating things than that? I don't believe you.

All right, since that isn't enthralling enough for you lot, the rest of the excitement in my day came from the fact that I got to drive the office golf cart! I work on a fairly small college campus, and though the spaces between the buildings are relatively small, it does take a good 10 minutes to walk from one end of the campus to the other. I didn't particularly feel like doing that, especially not while wearing stiletto heels.

(No, wearing stiletto heels does *not* make me a bimbo, contrary to what some of my peers think. I am simply fashion-conscious with an eye for beauty. And I can even walk in them. So there.)

So anyway, I gathered all the requisite information (how to start the thing, how to back up, etc.) and embarked on my journey. It was quite neurally stimulating. The weather is absolutely lovely; we are in the middle of our Indian summer and it is just gorgeous. The wind was whipping my hair and my skirt, the sun was shining, the coloured leaves were swirling in the air...*sigh!*

And I got to go fast!!!!!!!!!!!

I love going fast!!!!!!

*big cheesy grin*

So what do y'all think? Was my day boring or exciting? Leave me comments!! :)~