I Made This! Celebratory Multicultural Ambiguously Ethnic Tacos Edition.

Today, Schmoobs finally came home after spending the near entirety of June traveling to and fro, hither and thither, participating in a multitude of musicky symposiums and workshops and such. The good news is that we have had plenty of experience dealing with long summertime stretches apart (read: Nerd Corps and summer festivals), but it's still always a nice return to banal normalcy when he comes home. Fast forward to two days later when he has an errant sock or something on the living room floor and I'll be ready to send him away again. Hahaha. (I KID.)

Also, while I was playing Miss Independent for the past month, I have been trying really (really really) hard to maintain a somewhat healthy, disciplined, and responsible lifestyle, in the way of not buying convenient and easy fast food. And since I am completely incapable of cooking meals for only one or two people, I usually ended up cooking one meal that yielded enough to last me an entire week. Which is fantastic in theory, given my aforementioned goals. But no matter how delicious a home cooked meal is, there are only so many straight days of eating the same thing that you can take before your taste buds begin waging protests. Long story short, I made this tasty spaghetti dish at the beginning of this past week. It had chicken, and marinara sauce, and watercress (healthy super food!), and vegan cheese (blergh). It also yielded about twenty servings. I was pretty over it by Wednesday. And really over it by Thursday. But I pushed through like a champion and ate that goddamn final serving for dinner on Friday and dreamt that night of the Trader Joe's cabernet beef pot roast thawing in the refrigerator just waiting to be turned into a New Freaking Meal At Last the next day, just in time for Schmoobins to come home!

So here's what I did:

Dog Vlog!

Yes, my dog has a vlog. It is the twenty-first century.

I Made This! Hipster Toad-in-the-Hole edition.

I present to you a breakfast specially curated for Instagram if ever there was one: Hipster Toad in the Hole. This toad carries organic beard wax in his ironic fanny pack and brings his own French press out to brunch. Rye sourdough pumpkin seed bread, two eggs, butter, and avocado.

Recipe:

1. Go to Costco and buy this amazing looking and tasting rye sourdough harvest bread with pumpkin and other seeds, at a very reasonable price. Do not tell anyone that it is from Costco because it can totally pass as being from a local organic bakery. Hipstergrammers prefer local organic things over Costcto things. Damnit, I already messed up on the first step of this recipe. Oh well.

2. Slice off as many slices of this Secret Costco Bread as people you are feeding. On this morning, it was just one (me.) as Schmoobles has been away on work trips for pretty much the entire month. HEY WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT EMOTIONAL EATING? Oh I did. Then carve out a hole in the middle of the bread slice. Large enough to hold the number of eggs you envision cooking in there. (I did two. #emotionaleating) You can eat the bread scraps, or, do what I did, which is head outside to your backyard wearing only an oversized t-shirt, and toss the bread scraps onto your lawn while singing Mary Poppins tunes while your neighbors call 911.

3. In a large pan (preferably copper because copper cookware is freaking beautiful and if you're not cooking for Instagram, who even are you cooking for I don't get it), melt some butter. Jesus, we're not on a diet here. Put more butter in there. Make sure your pan is on medium or medium-high.

4. Place your Secret Costco Bread Slice in the pan and allow the butter to work its magical sexiness on that toast. Leave them to do their business for, what, like a minute? Two? I don't know. Just don't burn it like I came about ten seconds away from doing. But when one side is golden and toasted and buttery, flip it over and do the same on the other side.

5. BUT immediately after you flip it over, quickly grab your butter and put some more inside the Secret Costco Bread Slice hole. Don't be scared. You need to make sure there is plenty of butter in the pan in preparation of the eggs.

"Be not afraid. I come before you always. Come, follow me, and I will give you rest." - The butter singing gently to your eggs, probably (Is this joke sacrilegious? Do I have to go to confession now?)

6. Crack your eggs gently into the buttered Secret Costco Bread slice hole. Depending on how hot your pan is and how much butter you put in there, the length of time it will take to cook your egg whites will vary. If you are getting impatient and are worried that the bottom of your toast and eggs may burn before the eggs fully set to your liking, you can always put a lid on the pan. Just know that this will facilitate more cooking through of the egg yolks, and you may not get as Instagram-worthy of an egg action shot.

7. While you are waiting for the eggs to cook, you can go ahead and slice half an avocado. Again, make sure it is organic. Avocados don't even show up on Instagram unless they are organic. But not local, unless you live in California or a south American country. I mean, what even is a Kentucky avocado, or a Michigan avocado? Crap, that's what.

8. When everything is ready, plate your Hipster Toad in the Hole on your favorite social media-worthy serving dish (I prefer plain white dishware myself, so as to not distract from your Instamasterpiece). Arrange the avocado slices on top in an aesthetically-pleasing manner, being careful not to completely cover the eggy center. After all, you want everyone to know that this is not just some stupid ordinary boring old avocado toast. Sprinkle on top with some type of pretentious salt: Himalayan pink? Volcanic black? At the very least, make sure it's not granulated table salt *shudder*. Also add some freshly ground black pepper. And then some red chili flakes. Not necessarily because you are fond of chili flakes, but because it looks good. 

9. Position your plate casually next to a carefully-chosen ironic coffee mug, find the best natural light in your kitchen (or, hell, go outside to snap your photo), and set the world ablaze with your Instagramtastic meal. 

10. Enjoy your delicious Hipster Toad in the Hole. (But never forget that eating your dish is only secondary to posting a photo of it on social media.)

But what if I'm a little stubborn and a little nutty?

So I started this other other blog a while ago. Again, I kind of got distracted by life and forgot to write in it. Whoops. But now I'm kind of getting the blogging itch again, and can't decide whether I want to forge ahead with Stubborn Tomato or Acadaemia Nut. Well, I mean, seeing as how I'm writing this new post here, I guess I've decided to go along with Acadaemia Nut, mainly because it has more already-existing posts.

It's been a Q.U.I.E.T. summer. My office desk job is in an arts center on a University campus, so, while there is still the occasional event that takes place during the summer months, 99.9% of the time I can be found sitting at my desk, propping my eyelids open with toothpicks, browsing the internet, occasionally reading about sixteenth-century Spanish mystics, engaging in stressful and frustrating political discussions with Bossman, refreshing all my social media accounts every ten seconds, daydreaming about what I am going to cook and eat that evening, and generally feeling guilty about not spending more time dissertating. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Anyway. This week our arts center is hosting the big State Pageant, and on the schedule for today are talent rehearsals in preparation for the first official evening of competition tonight. The best part is that my office is separated from the main concert stage, so Bossman and I are being treated to a wonderfully eclectic office soundtrack today:

Pageant contestant: *general caterwauling*
Bossman: "Oof. Terrible."
Me: "I don't even recognize what that song was."
Bossman: "Nobody would."

Hahaha.

I may spend a portion of my day transferring some old posts from Stubborn Tomato on over here. And maybe some past recipe/cooking posts that I've been wanting to blog. Anything to get the sounds of Aretha Franklin and Adele songs being sung a semitone flat over a canned orchestral track out of my head.

Update: One of the pageant contestants just wandered into the office hallway and started warming up her Smooth-Criminal-on-violin routine. Bossman immediately banished her. Hahaha.

Stating the obvious.

Hey, you know what's way better than peeing every two minutes and suffering from sizzling ladybits? NOT peeing every two minutes and having totally normal non-sizzling ladybits.

Hooray for antibiotics!

If my ladyparts could just stop being a dick already, that'd be GREEEAAAT.

What would also be great, is if the website you are reading AT WORK to learn about treatments for your freaking annoying bladder infection didn't look like this:

Leap Day 2016

Um, hi.

Just popping in to say that I'm still here. The last month was a crazy one. In some good ways, in some bad ways. But crazy. And I'm so excited that tomorrow is that start of a new one.

Man, there is so much to catch up on in this blog. 

It's seriously only Tuesday?

Here's the thing about working in the office of your school's director of graduate studies ("Office Job 1"): You develop a level of collegiality and familiarity with this Very Important Person in your doctoral program that not many other graduate students attain. However, this also means that, if you screw up -- like, say, completely miss the registration deadline for your dissertation residency course and run the risk of losing your full-time student status -- and have to go to said Very Important Person for help, the groveling intrinsically comes with an added bit of personal shame and embarrassment. Luckily, I am exceptionally good at simultaneously accepting blame and groveling for mercy. It's one of my many charms. Honestly, I find that the combination of ownership, proaction, and a sprinkling of humor can get you out of almost any bind. And doubly luckily, I was not the only graduate student in my program to make the same mistake, so I was able to pull him down along with me to bask in the combined groveling.

"Dear Dr. ---,

Please remember, first, that Scot and I are two of the best -- Musicology students {happy face emoticon}.
But our conversation reminded me to check, and I had not registered for MUS 767 this semester! Neither had Scot, it turns out. But, do not fret! I have already spoken to the Registrar's Office, and they will register us for the 'course' with your signature on this form. Thank you!

Mea culpa

Mea culpa

Mea culpa"

Long story short, our director of graduate studies signed our Late Add forms, I was able to register for the course two weeks (oops) after the deadline, and all's well that end's well. I actually saw him later that afternoon and he greeted me with "Well, if it isn't one of our best Musicology students...!" Haha.

By the way, I'm too tired to blahg about it right now, but someday I will write an angry post about this ridiculous dissertation residency "course" and the also ridiculous fee (over A THOUSAND DOLLARS) that we are required to pay EVERY SINGLE SEMESTER. So, basically, our funding support is cut off at the same exact time that the University requires us to pay this fee to take a "course" that basically entails you trying to research and write a dissertation while concurrently having to work a day job (or two or three) in order to live and eat and pay this stupid bogus course fee. Ugh. Acadaemia win. Hency, my ever ongoing quest to obtain a full-time job on campus so that I waive that freaking bane of my existence fee.

Anyway.

The other day, I purchased a new squeaky toy for BB. 1) It's a freaking turtle with an opening in its belly where you stuff squeaky turtle eggs inside. And 2) I obviously couldn't resist. Come on. I also realized that I could also stuff its belly with BB's absolute favorite most treasured toy, which is her corduroy Santa bear squeaky head that has long since been disembodied from its tennis ball body. So now it looks like the turtle is in the midst of a c-section with this disembodied bear head. Awesome! 

Oh, and we decided to have just a few people over for Superb Owl Sunday this past weekend. Professor Schmoobles had just returned from a professional state conference the day before, so we weren't sure if we even wanted to do anything. But, you know. An excuse to have chicken wings and such. And since we are who we are, we also did shrimp cocktail and oysters. Oh, us.

Guess who's stomach felt like a vat of fiery hot bile later that night and into the next day? Ugh, even looking at that picture of spicy fried wings makes my stomach turn. Was it worth it? DUH. But spicy wings and I probably need to take a little break. 

Not.

My favorite is when you don't realize that you have claimed 3 allowances on your employer's W-4 and so that when you file your tax return on your two measly $10/hr part time student jobs, you end up owing money.

SERENITY NOW!!!

Had myself a little sacrifical purge action last night.

Epiphany: Part Two.

I want to be self-employed. And I want to make things.

Commentariat of the mundane: a photo dump!

"Gee, I love going back and forth between the frozen windy weather outside and overly heated indoors during the winter!" -- nobody with extremely sensitive skin and eczema ever

Here, I took a selfie:

Who needs face skin, anyway?

Sometimes, I look in the mirror to check on the whole face situation when I have these extreme dry skin spells and it looks like a patch of my skin has dried donut glaze on it. Which, considering I scarfed down a half dozen glazed donut holes in my car this morning after I parked because I had two minutes before my 8am appointment, is actually entirely possible. 

Anyway, not much terribly exciting news on the front line, or even the back line. I achieved decent office time dissertation progress last week, which is what I am going to assume caused the acute right wrist pain that I am currently suffering from. You know what are daily actions that you totally take for granted until you decide to develop a mystery wrist injury on your dominant hand? Opening doors, turning the steering wheel, and...um...cleaning yourself after a visit to the Little Disgruntled Doctoral Student's Room. Anyway. Dissertating is a dangerous business, especially when trying to do it while working an office job! I'll probably have to start using one of those ergonomic mouse/keyboard wrist cushion things that old people or nerds use.

In any case, lots of mundane things have happened in the last couple of weeks. I took pictures (doy):

Snow Day check-in!

Today's Bro Award goes to our postman, who just delivered our mail in this arctic tundra. I think we could have waited for the one envelope of Costco coupons, but the effort was appreciated nonetheless.

Honorable mention goes to the guy who just BICYCLED past our house on the sidewalk while pulling his little kid behind on a sled. That's Snow Day-ing and adulting right. Ah well, back to my fireside blanket burrito.

Epiphany.

I want to be self employed.

When in Acadaemia...

When a student identifies a piece by Machaut as chant:

via GIPHY

Email fun with Acadaemia Nut and Professor Schmooblebottoms!

From: Acadaemia Nut
To: Professor Schmooblebottoms
Sent: January 12, 2016, 3:30pm
Subject: Watcha doooin?

Watcha doooin?

---

From: Professor Schmooblebottoms
To: Acadaemia Nut
Sent: January 12, 2016, 3:43pm
Re: Watcha doooin?

watching tv. recovering from my overindulgence in pizza.

---

From: Acadaemia Nut
To: Professor Schmooblebottoms
Sent: January 12, 2016, 3:45pm
Re: Watcha doooin?

If I give you directions, would you be able to get dinner started?

---

From: Professor Schmooblebottoms
To: Acadaemia Nut
Sent: January 12, 2016, 3:46pm
Re: Watcha doooin?

Depends on the complexity.

---

From: Acadaemia Nut
To: Professor Schmooblebottoms
Sent: January 12, 2016, 3:50pm
Re: Watcha doooin?

Easy. 

1. Locate slow cooker. It is in the bottom cupboard underneath the Keurig.
2. Drizzle bottom with olive oil (shelf on top of stove).

3. Cut up an onion. Toss in slow cooker.
4. Get stew beef meat (in refrigerator drawer) and put in slow cooker.

5. Cut up six or so of those tomatoes on the counter (Reminder to self: I need to use those up.) and put in slow cooker.

6. Plug it in and turn it on to low.

---

From: Professor Schmooblebottoms

To: Acadaemia Nut

Sent: January 12, 2016, 3:56pm

Re: Watcha doooin?

how much should i slice the onions and tomatoes? diced or what?

---

From: Acadaemia Nut
To: Professor Schmooblebottoms
Sent: January 12, 2016, 4:04pm
Re: Watcha doooin?

Just chunks. Medium. No big deal--it'll all turn into a stewy mush anyway. You can throw in some carrot and celery in there too if you don't want to use them all up for juicing. I'm thinking maybe tacos for dinner?

Oh, and toss in some salt & pepper if you can. Or I can add it later when I get home. Whatever.

***

Fast forward to that evening. I come home and see that Schmoobles has dutifully done what I had asked him to do and the slow cooker is slowly bubbling and steaming away as a vaguely meaty aroma wafts through the house.

In the back of my mind, I notice that the rice cooker, without the cooking bowl, is sitting unplugged on top of the kitchen counter. But I think nothing of it. A couple of hours later, we are standing in the kitchen getting ready to serve up dinner. And I notice that the rice cooker bowl is sitting in the sink.

Me: "Wait. Did you think the rice cooker was the slow cooker at first?"
Schmoobles: "...Yes..."

Me: "And you tried to cook raw meat in there?"
Schmoobles: "...Yes..."

Me: *starts cracking up*
Schmoobles: "You should have told me exactly which one the slow cooker was!"
Me: "I actually thought to myself, 'Maybe I need to explain to him the difference between the rice cooker and the slow cooker.' But I didn't want you to think I was being patronizing!"

Schmoobles: "No amount of detail is enough for me when it comes to the kitchen."

Hahaha. Poor Professor Schmooblebottoms. I think this means that he needs more practice cooking dinner.

Dissertation update: Mary is simply the breast.

"So great was [Juana de la Cruz's] renown that in 1512, a certain Franciscan visionary, convinced that he was predestined to engender a sort of Messiah, wrote to Mother Juana, inviting her to be the mother of the future prophet. ...Juana refused to be swayed."

Nice try, man. Sounds like the poor little horny Franciscan sure could have used online dating. You don't have to be lonelyyy at Spanish Mystics Only dot com...

The past two hours of reading has been completely overtaken by the topic of the Virgin Mary's breasts. Like, how, in Juana's sermons, she describes the Virgin Mary as a naked child, but whose breasts begin to grow as she dances for God. It's all very symbolic and metaphorical. I'm still skeeved out by it, though. I guess I'm Catholicing properly. How ironic.

Important dissertation progress milestone!

I reached fifty pages!

Those dissertation pages sure fly when you're sitting at an office job all week with absolutely nothing to do.

I (and by "I" I mean "Professor Schmoobles") rewarded myself with chicken wings and a martini after work yesterday. Because what else does one reward oneself with after reaching a dissertation progress milestone?

Precioussss.

That being said, fifty pages is like NOTHING BARELY ANYTHING in Ph.D. dissertation terms. It's still all just introductory exploratory stuff. But whatever. I'll take it. Here's to the next fifty and my next round of celebratory fried food products and martinis!

Back to work.

Both in the office drudgery sense and in the dissertation progress sense.

Ugh.

Is it just me or did last week go by in exactly ten seconds? More sleep please.

Anyway, two important dissertation-related things happened yesterday:

1. I  learned that a sixteenth-century Spanish mystic shares the same name as a current-century *ahem* adult film thespian. Things I will not be clicking on on my work computer for 400, Alex.

2. A 15-16c. Spanish mystic named Juana de la Cruz, who is not to be confused with 17c. Spanish mystic Juana Ines de la Cruz (somebody tell me how to get the hour of my life that I wasted trying to clear up my confusion), dressed as a man to escape her family's attempts to marry her off to a man at the age of fifteen. Years later, she would claim that God had designed her at conception to be male, but that the Virgin Mary intervened in utero and requested she be changed into a female. This was why she was left with an Adam's apple. Scholars have suggested that this androgyny (or maybe transgender...?) allowed Cruz to arbitrate more successfully than most in her time the different levels of power assigned to males and females--she was allowed to publicly preach, which was an extremely rare allowance for a woman. Her writings also blur the distinction between male and female, resulting in the elevation of the female as an authoritative voice. FASCINATING! I mean, for me. Anyone else? Bueller?

Oh, also I was able to finish putting in information about one key figure into my ever-expanding Excel Spreadsheet of Dissertation Doom and even managed to add maybe a page worth of text into my actual dissertation document. Woo hoo!

Speaking of deserving a reward, Bossman said yesterday that he was going to bring in donuts this morning. I literally planned out my entire morning around this. And by "planned out" I mean "planned to eat donuts." But we've both been in the office for ten minutes now and there is zero evidence that he brought in any donuts. Grumble.

IMPORTANT UPDATE 30 minutes later: I think Bossman could feel the heat emanating from my fingertips as I typed that last paragraph because he just got up and said he was going to go take a walk to the fancy donut place near campus and pick up some donuts. SUCCESS!