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.