The Cheeseblog

I didn’t realize until recently that there is an alternate mutation of of Reality TV – Daytime RTV. It’s like the two worlds have collided and everyone was too busy eating sushi and drinking flavoured vodka to notice.

I watch TV while I eat lunch. It’s just something I can do because I’m a half-assed slacker who doesn’t have a full time job. (go on, pretend you’re surprised) Usually I watch the news but I’m off the news and I’m also off the news’ schedule, as I am eating lunch at 1 pm. At 1 pm on weekdays, there is a one hour program called Starting Over. It’s about 5 or 6 women who want to accomplish a goal and need to be away from their families and friends to do it. They all move into a really nice house in Chicago, are led by two “life coaches” and spend their time bickering and hugging each other as they each attempt to achieve, or at least get closer to, their individual goals. As bizarre as it may seem, I actually understand this as a concept. It’s 1 pm, soap opera (and Vicki Gabereau) hour, and with the amount of people who are home, not working, for whatever reason right now (I mean, I know 17 at least!!), I’m not surprised that the RTV is going all daytime n’ shit.

The women are all different ages and some of them smoke and some swear and it’s all very tense. It’s just like you’re watching your old office job unfold before your eyes. Except they get to live for free in the house in Chicago. I love Chicago. I’m thinking maybe I should Start Over in Chicago. I could set an impossible goal, like being a ballerina, and then I could stay in the beautiful house until I was voted off..er, I mean, asked politely to pursue my impossible goal elsewhere and on someone else’s dime, just like now!

OK so no problem: RTV for chicks. S’alright. At 2 o clock I still had a couple of rice cakes to eat so I was flipping channels and on the channel for women (the actual WTN) found something called The Ex Factor. It’s a half hour show about (I’m presuming, as I will only ever see one episode) women who want to talk to their exes. Today’s episode filmed a woman as she met with first her first husband, to whom she was married for 3 years and then her second, to whom she was married for 6 years.

The first husband used to go out at night and not come home for days. She walked out on him, taking their two daughters and then spent the next 30 years wondering where he went when he didn’t come home for days. (apparently he doesn’t know either because he was drunk off his nut the whole time.)

The second husband had an affair and then they broke up and she wondered if maybe he was ready to date again and whether he was sorry he had the affair. Or something. Or she just wanted to see him.

That was it. Two stilted, bizarre conversations between this woman and the two men. When she asked the second ex whether he remembered the circumstances around their break up, he didn’t. She reminded him of the affair and he said he couldn’t really recall. Lady! It’s time to go!

If my marriage ever breaks up, I’m going to go to the trouble of finding out why at the time and then move on. I wouldn’t be able to wait 30 years to meet at Au Bar to find out why it didn’t work. But that’s just me. Everyone’s personal situation is different and difficult – of course I get that. But why does the actual show exist? I’m sure plenty of people wonder about their exes. Tracking down your ex is easier than ever with the use of google and if you really need the resolution, then it’s an excellent idea to find the bridge, cross the bridge, burn the bridge, whatever. But who’s the audience? Do you really think you’re going to see your own ex husband on someone else’s show? Do you even want that? Go live your life and then that gets to be your show.

Jay! Where are you? We never even had a chance!

Gruyere is a really nice cheese. I used to think it was too sweatsocky but it really is nutty, like the people used to say. If Gruyere was a person, it would be Quentin Tarantino.

Man, he’s ugly.

Radio Paradise keeps playing Pink Floyd. I mean, not over and over again but at least twice a day. Perhaps it’s the global climate.

Oh! Bran Van 3000. Go buy their CDs. Here’s a bit that’s stuck in my head from Montreal off 2001’s “Discosis”:

…see Kermit the frog was one day daydreaming
thinking ’bout himself at a red light, he thought
it ain’t easy being green
and the cars behind him kept honking and honking
and Kermit’s last words as he flipped the bird was
damnit you muppets just keep on taking!

Technically, it’s cheese. But they know it’s cheese. No fools, them.

Anyway, eat Gruyere. It melts real nice.

real, live clouds over Saskatchewan

My horoscope in the Globe and Mail:

As the Sun crosses the midheaven angle of your chart today you must set your
sights high and refuse to settle for second best in any area of your
existence. You were born to be special and your were born to make a
difference and now, more than ever, you can start fulfilling your
birthright. Be the best, the very best, at whatever you do.

Isn’t that great? Today’s the day!

I should just rename this the food blog. Or the grocery shopping blog.

Went to the groceryveggie market and got the cheap vegetables. It blows my mind that red peppers are $0.79/lb at this place and still $1.99 at the big grocery store. My mind has been BLOWN!

Anyway, the groceryveg market sells all kinds of fun vegetables: hot peppers, kale, things from China. Wacky fun! I usually buy some hot peppers because I like them and usually they are kind of Dilbert-hot, y’know, not, like, Lynda Barry-hot. The kind of hot where I can eat a whole one and still add black pepper to whatever I’m eating. For lunch I made some pasta with vegetables in olive oil -red pepper, mushroom, garlic, one hot pepper. These little buggers are orange and look like this:

with catt

with Ozzy’s foot

with a duck

and with a squirrel

No animals were harmed in the production of these photos. This is because none of the above pictured actually consumed the pepper in question. You’ll notice there is no picture of me.

I was happily chopping and humming to myself and just threw the whole pepper into the pan. It’s not very big, I reasoned. Cutting it didn’t make my eyes water. I sniffed it: it smelled good but my nose didn’t burn to a crisp in an instant. No, I did not lick the pepper.

Once in the pan, there were no fumes, there was no fire alarm, nothing went amiss. I put the pasta in the bowl, put the vegsauce on top, grated some nice, sharp parmesan (I cheaped out and bought the padano but it seems against the law suddenly to sell reggiano in pieces that cost less than $20) on top and even took the hot chili flakes and the black pepper mill to the table with me, just in case the pepper wasn’t hot at all, but sweet or sour or something. I ate a piece of pasta and a bit of sweet, red pepper. Whoo! Things are looking hot! I gleefully took another bite, as I have a fairly high tolerance for hot things. Jumpin’ squirrel jujubes! It weren’t so much hot as it were a carpeted van with velvet seat covers and no air conditioning, driving across the southern US in August.

I ate a few more bites, and one slice of mushroom (as you may know, mushrooms just absorb everything they’re put anywhere near, which is why they’re hardly ever invited to the beach) and my face became a sweaty beet. The catt watched me even closer than usual. He put a paw tentatively on my knee but withdrew it quickly. His fur was singed.

Along with my nice, light lunch, I consumed seven slices of bread and eight pieces of mozzarella because otherwise I couldn’t have finished the small bowl of pasta and vegetables. It’s too bad I can’t abide creamy textured things because there is peach yogurt in the fridge and that would have cooled me off – but it also would have made me vomit and then we’d have to start all over again.

If you choose to take a lesson from this, let it be to always lick the end of a cut hot pepper before adding it, scarity-woo, to your food. And don’t forget to clean the cutting board and knife or you just know the next thing you (or the person you live with – hee!) eat will be the spiciest peanut butter sandwich EVER.

Off you go.

– just found some Mashi Maro writing paper in my desk (envelopes too!!) It says (and I think this is good advice for everyone):

Please remember: A friendship based on power and influence stops going when authority and rights have gone. A friendship based on financial reward comes to an end when interests and profits disappear. If the door of friendship is shut, you will feel lonely like a blade of grass in a wilderness and you will be poorer than a solitary wild goose.

I think I’ll write someone a letter right now! lest I become poor like goose. I wonder if they mean “Goose” from Top Gun. He dies. But it’s not his fault – it’s Maverick’s fault. Everyone know that.