Frootcamp: Week 8, Blackberry

Posted by Marpoo on

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So, blackberry, we finally meet. You have fuzz, seeds, and little bulges–all the reasons why fruit is untrustworthy. I gave you a lick, but your sour, seedy skin greeted me with a grimace.  What’s a girl to do, then, but smother you in Greek yogurt? Eating my “berries and cream” concoction was grueling on day 1, but by the end of the week was a pseudo welcome distraction from my otherwise warm, dry lunch. In other words I bludgeoned myself into dealing with it for so long that my taste buds stopped fighting, in the same way that my mother actually thinks diet coke tastes great now (she conveniently forgets about the years she spent calling it “bug juice” while giving me her sales pitch for why I should switch). I get it. It had potential. I like yogurt, and in theory I do like berries and cream…. ice cream, that is. But this notion in healthy form? Eh, diets be hard, y’all.

I’m holding a brunch in two weeks, and I was actually inspired by week 8 to create this wonderment of foodie jello shot, the blackberry bramble jello shot. I may even go through with it! But this brings me back to my blackberry experience: shall I incorporate berries and cream into my normal regimen? It wasn’t awful, but it also wasn’t amazing. I might do it again…. But for now, I’ve decided to go with the time-honored tradition of “let’s not and say we did.”

On a related note, this week was littered with my mind singing this song unsolicited at 9am:

Facebook and Politics for the lulz

Posted by Marpoo on

There are those Teapartiers on your newsfeed that you always suspect don’t fully understand their positions…. And then an application like Facebook just makes it so much easier to confirm that suspicion when they press “like” on an article that not only disagree with but outright debunk their position simply because they misunderstood the title, proving once and for all that they share articles only in an effort to appear as informed as their opposition.

Frootcamp: Week 7, Elderberry (or in this case, realistically blueberry)

Posted by Marpoo on

Ah, the letter E. I chose elderberry for this week, although wikipedia failed me. There was a strain listed as “American Elder”, which was suypposedly available in the eastern reaches of the continent. …And perhaps it is during summer. I don’t know, friend. What I do know is that it’s freaking April; time to start pounding some berries in my oatmeal, and in my DC metropolis of Wholefood markets there was not an elderberry to be found. I settled for generic blueberries, likely from El Salvador, as I acknowledge it is far from berry season.

Honestly, it wasn’t awful. Blueberries are at least not cantaloupe-level awful. That’s my current scale right now, with apple being “all right, I can handle this 5 times a week” and cantaloupe being “why, oh gods, why this torturous goop?” My success lies in the fact that I ate the entire bowl of berrylicious oatmeal and will likely not give up on this fruit before week’s end. I might switch to blackberry just to balance my taste buds towards a more realistic area of where an elderberry might fall…. and who knows, maybe blackberries will be awesome. I’m not a genie. I can’t just guess. It occurs to me that while previously I had at least an inkling of how a fruit might taste, I haven’t the foggiest foreshadowing for blackberries. To be continued…

By the way, it’s all well and good to plan a healthy and pinterest-inspired snack at work. But don’t be disappointed when it doesn’t quite feel the same as snacking on your country home porch.

Having blueberry oatmeal at work: The Idea

courtesy of starbucks.com

 

Having blueberry oatmeal at work: The Reality

Frootcamp: Week 6, Grapefruit

Posted by Marpoo on
Now my desk is sticky--big surprise there.

the view from my desk throne

I get it. It’s cirtusy, it’s called “ruby red”, it’s the picturesque healthy woman’s breakfast. I appreciate the semantics. But don’t think I’ll go easy on you because I didn’t need to add sugar, grapefruit. This species’ leniency in the “tart” arena is not enough to mollify my disapproval. We aren’t bffs…. but we did speak this morning and put each other’s numbers in our phones for a tentative brunch date. So, progress?

Firstly, the whoreson took 10 minutes to eat, and I feel like all I’ve done is slurp a few spoonfuls of pulpy juice. If I were on a desert island I’d need to slice into and anxiously scoop through 5 grapefruits to get the feelings of fullness I could otherwise receive from a serving of Ritz Bits. Secondly, now I am sticky. Thirdly, my right eye stings because every attempt to carefully excavate the next segment of the grapefruit shot a projectile tart stream into my cornea  Clearly, eating this is an acquired skill.  While the taste isn’t deplorable, the consumption experience is. Mayhaps I’ll just juice you at night and drink your entrails in the mornings from a safe and easy thermos. …Then we can end our tango.

In conclusion, grapefruit… You looked so delicious when I google-imaged you, but then you wiz’d in my eye.

Why I Hate Myself

Posted by Marpoo on

Aspirations for my 3-Day Weekend:

  1. Write a few more pages for my novel
  2. Read a few more chapters of the book I bought
  3. Finish the two songs I’m supposed to have ready for band practice next sunday
  4. Blog two more fruit weeks
  5. Clean the bedroom
  6. Prep the garden for April

What I actually did:

  1. Sleep until noon
  2. Watch a three-day total of 15 episodes of Mad Men

Troll’d by myself.

The Art of ‘Getting Chummy’

Posted by Marpoo on

When dilly dallying on your computer at a new Starbucks, do you ever feel like you’re cheating on your normal spots? Somewhere 30 miles away there is a barista wondering where I am today, with a register that has 6 less dollars in it because I took my business elsewhere purely by chance. 30 miles away a wifi is struggling less because my superfluous file downloading and inconvenient streaming isn’t straining it and ruining everyone else’s evening. *shrug*

The reason I’m even giving it thought is because sitting in this particular one makes me feel awkward and nostalgic. 7 years ago I applied to be a barista here, young and cocky, fresh from my 9 month stint as a barista elsewhere and sure that I would be selected because of it. But, as life would have it, I never got a call back. When I ran into the manager again that summer by chance, I, in my most awkward verbal vomit showing that I can’t be relied upon to be around anyone in a pinch, rubbed it in her face that someone else had hired me–as though she had somehow missed out on this near identical copy of a progressive, 19 year old pseudo barista (they are in fact a dime a dozen). She then told my own manager about the incident, because, who wouldn’t? I was a subordinate who was acting out of turn to a manager at a different store. Ah, to be 19 and sure of one’s self. Well, here I am, back at where I started that nascent summer, but with my own apartment, a life, a partner, and a cashflow. One could say I’ve come up in the world, but I might not. I still can’t be relied upon to avoid verbal vomiting to someone important in a pinch. I do it almost daily. Surely I’ve reduced the frequency, but it still happens. My filter is older but not really wiser.

My solution now is to just never open up to people at work. I’ve worked with my team now for two years, and they know no more about me than when we began. Meanwhile, the newcomer is going on shopping outings with my own teammates and sharing inside jokes, discussing in the open matters which I know nothing about…. carrying on secret lives publicly. It’s my own fault. I thought by making friends in the office I would risk my job again. I do it everywhere I go. I get too close, allow folks in, and then they turn on me or they drag me down with them during their descent. Thanks to my “friendship” at my last job, I was the second one fired when the ship ran ashore. Who stayed afloat? My “friend” who I’d covered for so many times and helped at every turn…. The job prior to that, well, becoming friends with the boss only gave him an easier way to blame someone for his lack of management and communication abilities, as he blamed me for not performing my new tasks (after denying my request to increase my hours so that I could fulfill the aforementioned tasks. I apparently was supposed to work for free).

Maybe someday I’ll get over how every job I’ve ever held I lost by getting chummy with colleagues and learn to trust at work again. But then again, maybe it’s better that I don’t. After all, my current boss seems to appreciate our drama-free working relationship even if others scoff at my aloofness.

That’s enough self indulgent moroseness for now….