oh yeah, and...

the previous post was brought to you by fighting cock whisky, beverage of titans.

rock ROCK fighting cock!

it has been a strange coupla days. laid back and lazy, but strange. i wrote a whole post about it the other day, but then deleted it thinking i had gone too far. i'll paraphrase here.

christians should stay the hell off my porch.

if i put a no soliciting sign on my door, will that work? i have never been prostelytized more than here in ol' virginny, which is weird cause most of the people on my street are old. you'd think that the evangelists would mark this street "old people who have already committed to a religion" and go somewhere else more ripe for the convertin'. i mean, does it ever work? do they ever roll up on a crack den and come in to talk to them and change them all from their evil ways? can you peddle religion the same way you peddle vaccuum cleaners? w suggested a sign for our front door that said "want to talk to us about religion? that'll be $50." he thinks that would keep them away.

i should have known by the tepid knock...my landlord knocks the loud knock of someone who knows it's inappropriate to just stop by unannounced but doesn't care, and my friends don't come by unannounced. i should have just let the loud ass muthafuckin' barkin dogs scare them away, but like my mother i am physically incapable of ignoring a knock at the door or a ringing phone.

i had just snagged a leftover porkchop from the fridge for my breakfast and set it on the bistro table beside me. i got up to answer the door (dirty stringy hair, covered in naught but a smelly bathrobe), far-too-politely shooed away the overly make-upped zeealots on my porch, and turned around to see...

emma. eating my fucking breakfast.

i mean look, i tried religion. all growing up, i went to church and the thing i prayed for constantly, ceaselessly, was faith. faith like other people seemed to have, so effortlessly and completely. it seemed so comforting, and i was always deeply jealous.

it just never came to me. and i am certainly not going to let two crazy ladies with bibles into my hovel of a living room (filled with last night's wine and beer bottles, ashtrays and other scandalous detritus) to try to give me the "good news." cause i had already heard the good news--

"mel, there's a delicious left over pork chop in the fridge for your breakfast! enjoy!"

then i saw the bad news. the dog, though she didn't have time to devour the whole thing, had sullied my yummy breakfast with her doggy mouth. i got one delicious (and i mean SUCCULENT, that was a fucking good pork chop) bite, and the rest went to the dogs quite literally.

i generally ascribe to a very "live and let live" kind of credo. but this will not stand, this agression will not fucking stand, man. i feel like going to their fucking church, three days without a shower in nothing but my filthy robe, and telling them exactly what i think of their organized religion door to door nonsense.

and the turn around

-went back to the coffee shop. told cutie boy my plight and he gave me another one, free of charge.
-as i was doctoring it up, the other barista was like "dude, you just gave her a large glass of iced espresso, not coffee." this explains why the first one was so sinfully delicious and why it didn't whiten as much as it usually does. i kindly reject his offer to "fix it" and rush out the door, clutching my prize in both hands.
-make-up class is unremarkable, though i was not called on which is good.
-i return home, sit down a play a poker tourney in which i win 1st and make $215.

why today blows already (or "sonofamotherlesswhore!")

-alarm set for 7:15 due to make up class at 8 on a day when i could wake up whenever cause my regular class is cancelled and i would only have to be here from 4-6pm.
-waking up cold and unable to go back to sleep from a dream that was more bizarre than scary, but one which i did not want to start dreaming again if i went back to sleep.
-it's still totally freezing here in the morning, and my car seemed to be only wet but was in fact covered with ice, obscuring my view for most of the drive to the coffee shop.
-ordered my "usual" at the coffee shop, and the hot young barista was like "i don't think they left me any, let me go check."
-he finds it and my day seems to turn around. i doctor it in my "usual" way (i bullet of creamer, half a splenda) and notice that it doesn't get as white as it usually does--bonus! i need a strong coffee this morning. i take a single divine sip and shudder with anticipation at how delicious the whole thing will be. place it in the cup holder and drive to school.
-get out of the car, coffee in hand, and place it on the roof of car while i open teh back door to retrieve purse and school bag.
-remember that part about the frozen car? well the windows have thawed, but NOT THE FUCKING ROOF. coffee slides of immediately and violently, smashing on the ground.
-the intense smell of the groundcoffee brings a tear to my eye. i can still smell it on my hands too. fuck it, i'm not reading for this make up class. i'm going back to the coffee shop.

yet another reason why i need to live near the beach

i got an intense craving for this crab salad that we used to have at lemongrass in nola. i cobbled together a recipe and went to three different grocery stores to secure all the ingredients. it's not exactly what i imagined, but not too shabby. here's the recipe.

Mel's Wasabi Crab Salad
1# jumbo lump crabmeat (i think it's best that way, i like the big chunks)
(the first thing you should do is set up a colander lined with a paper towel and dump the meat onto it, picking out any stray orange bits of fat you see and letting it drain)
1 c. mayonnaise
2 tbsp wasabi powder
1 tbsp olive oil
splash cream until proper consistency is reached
a spoon of horseradish to taste
a squeeze of dijon mustard to taste
one packet of sweetener (i used stevia) to taste
a bunch of cilantro diced
half of a large tomato, diced
1 whole avocado, cubed
2 or so limes for juice
1/3 of a colored bell pepper, diced

mix up the mayo, wasabi, oil, horseradish, dijon, sweetener and cream. squeeze a little lime juice into teh sauce and a little over the crabmeat itself. mix in cilantro and tomato. this is the tricky part here--to really keep the jumbo lumps of crab meat nice, you have to mix gingerly. i used tongs and just sort of carefully turned the meat and avocado into the sauce to mix and coat. ooh, i almost forgot, squeeze a little lime juice over teh avocado before you mix it in, and squeeze the reamining juice into the salad while you mix it. i think the flavors work best if you let it sit overnight.

i can't emphasize enough how important it is to taste the sauce before you put in the crabmeat. depends i'm sure on where you live, but around these parts it was $26. too expensive to come out gross, i'm so cheap i would have to eat it anyway.