Failed ravioli, banana whipped cream, and starving savages.

Yesterday was BEAUUUUTIFUL.  One of those perfect fall days where you try to cherish it but can't help thinking about whether you're actually cherishing it to the full extent it deserves.  You know?  It's like the day is guilt-tripping you if you're not outside picking pumpkins or going on hayrides.  Tucker and I were planning on having a mega touristy day at the Shelburne Museum and probably some foliage drives, etc etc.  Instead, we ended up hangin' out cooking and knitting all day.

Here's our day of food (all gluten free/vegan):

Breakfast: chocolate chip pancakes

Lunch: grilled cheese with pesto and apples, butternut squash soup

Dinner: failed pumpkin ravioli, so it became rice pasta with a pumpkin/walnut sauce

Dessert: surprise pie

The evening plan was to head to my friend's apartment for a classy dinner party.  The only problem?  Nothing being served was gluten free.  Hence, the gluten free pumpkin ravioli idea was born!  

The original plan for the pumpkin sauce was to use it as filling for the homemade ravioli.  The filling was mashed pumpkin, an onion, and walnuts.  Yumm.  Buuuuuut, we tried to make the ravioli pasta from scratch, but that shit is harder than it looks.  So we mixed it into some rice pasta and all was good with the world.  Sort of.  It didn't taste fantastic, so all was not really good with the world, but whatever.  It actually kinda looks barfy in the picture below.  We scarfed it at the party anyway.  Literally, scarfed it.  Right out of the serving bowl.  Before everyone else got their food.  In a dark corner of the room.  ...It's safe to say we were the savages of the classy dinner party.  Not sorry.

And then we were planning on bringing a dessert to the dinner party, so we whipped up a surprise pie-- one of Tucker's family's secret recipes.  (The recipe's not really a secret, but they call it surprise pie because the fun part is getting people to guess the ingredients after they take a bite).  The only problem?  Whipped cream is supposed to be the top layer of the pie and I'm dairy free.  So we did some google searching and found a whipped cream recipe using a mashed banana and an egg white.  It turned out WONDERFULLY.  Look at the picture, doesn't that look like whipped cream?  YEAH!

We ended up not bringing the pie to the party... because we wanted to eat it.  Sooooo... this morning, after Tucker, my roomate Hannah, and I worked on it, there's not a whole lot left.  It's that good.  It'll probably be gone by the end of the day.

Oh, and here's Tucker knitting his first scarf.  Adorable.

Trashy sushi

It's been kind of a slow start on the trash-pickin' scene so far this semester. It's harder to find stuff when you're not living in the dorms.  But every once in a while...

There I was, 12:45pm in the fishbowl at the Davis Center.  I had just scarfed a hummus-on-gluten-free-bread sandwich and was still feeling kinda hungry.  I got up to throw my trash away and go grab an apple or something, when all of a sudden, some girl scooted right in front of me to get to the trash can first.  I was momentarily pissed off, but then noticed the glory that is a half-full box of California sushi rolls heading straight for the abyss.  I casually dropped my trash and scooped up hers all in one fell swoop.  Luckily, it was almost full, so I didn't have to climb in.  It was a beautiful, beautiful thing with very convenient timing.

The sushi at school is notoriously pretty good.  And it's kind of a treat-- it's over 6 points per box and with a (very) limited amount of points, sushi is a luxury.  Finding a relatively untouched box was a MIRACLE.  Ya know that little chunk of pickled ginger they always toss in next to the wasabi?  Nobody ever seems to eat that... and it's my FAVORITE part.  Looks I'll I'll have to go trash diving just to find all that wasted ginger.

Microwavable cake. Mmm, college.

Heyyy, bloggy blog friends!  It's been about 16 years since I last wrote a blogpost, even though there have been PLENTY of blog-worthy experiences... For example, last week I went to get my teeth cleaned and my hygienist and I really hit it off.  She ended up sneaking me out with 5 toothbrushes, 6 boxes of floss, 4 boxes of toothpaste, a handful of stickers, and her email address.  SCORE.  Another blog-worthy find that I didn't end up posting about was a lime green garbage can Tucker and I found in a dumpster.  Trash can in a dumpster, how ironic.  ANYway.  Back to the real subject.

Today was my dear friend Mackenzie's birthday, so we decided to do some cake experimentation... A few days ago, I was spelunking around on the interwebz and found a bunch of single serving cake recipes.  I was like, "DAYUMMM, I'MMA MAKE DIS SUMDAY."  And that day was today.  Taylor, Karen, Myria, and I scrounged up an impressive amount of mugs, made a quick grocery trip, and then proceeded to spend 2 hours making microwave cake.  Mmm, the sweet taste of college.  Here's a shot of my dining room table in the throes of dessert-making.  It was a mess.  A delicious, peanutbuttery mess.

Here's the end result.  10 mugs are chocolate cake with homemade reeses frosting and the 2 mugs in the middle are peanut butter chocolate chip cake.  It doesn't look very appetizing in this picture... actually, it looks like dog poop in a cup, but I assure you they tasted better than they look.  In retrospect, we probably should've mixed the ingredients in a separate bowl so the sides of the mugs wouldn't look all drippy.  Whatever.  It's cake.

I made one that was gluten free fo' meeee  :)

Then for Mackenzie's birthday dinner we got a huge group together to go downtown to the Asiana Noodle Shop.  I'd never been and was nervous about finding gluten-free options, but HEY whaddaya know-- the place was full of crap I could eat.  Pictured below is avocado maki, something with seitan and mysterious goop, and salad.  

The menu was a little bit scary.  It was like 15 pages long and had a lot of words that are not in my vocabulary (I'd never even heard of a sushi boat.  I basically live under a rock).  So I decided to play it safe-ish and get the avocado tofu salad.  It also had seaweed salad in it!!!!! Do you guys remember all my posts about seeweed salad?!?!?! Well guess what!  Still obsessed!!!!!!!!!!

Here we are... humongo, obnoxious group.  It took us at least 20 minutes to divvy up the bill.  There is a reason I'm not a math major. 

Want to make your own single-serving cake-in-a-mug?  Go HERE.  My next conquest will be the carrot cake, I think.  

Banana stuff with stuff in it!!!!!!!!!

I can't remember whether or not I've already written a post about this, but WHATEVA DOIN' IT ANYWAY.  Today, as I was driving my friend Haleigh home, she wanted to stop at Scumberland Farms and pick up some Ben and Jerry's.  That got me hankerin' for ice cream, but since I'm still all dairy free and stuff, me and Ben and Jerry can't hang out.

And then I got home and went to stare into the freezer.   LO AND BEHOLD, there was a bag of frozen banana slices.  And ohhh, what you can do with banana slices!  Popped 'em in the food processor and obliterated them into infinity.  Jk, lol, I obliterated them into ice cream consistency.

And then, since plain ol' banana ice cream is meh, I tossed in some vanilla protein powder, cocoa powder, a bit of peanut butter, and some dry oats.  Banana stuff with stuff in it!!!!!!!  (Please appreciate how well my baby spoon matches the purple on my pajammies.  It's Thursday and my day off, so obviously pajammies will be worn all day).

Ya know what's great about obliterated banannies with stuff in 'em?  It's cheap and fast (literally, took less than a minute (not including clean-up time (oy))) and pretty healthy depending on what you chuck in there and dairy free and you can share with all your friends or not if you're in your pajammies and feeling antisocial like meeeee!  Mmmm, run-on sentence.

Sweet Apple Sammies

For the past couple years (and by a couple, I actually mean a few, and by a few I mean more like 7) I've had a subscription to Seventeen Magazine.  It used to be my favorite magazine.  I loved articles like, "get your crush to notice you" and "I was robbed in a parking lot and survived now listen to me preach about how life is precious." All that crap.  Needless to say, I was an avid Seventeen follower.  In the past year or two though, I chose to cancel my subscription due to all the bullshit and body image distortion, blah blah blah... also the fact that I am no longer anywhere near 17 years old.  But the magazine just keeps showing up on my doorstep anyway.

So today, because I have a stack of magazines taller than the world's second-smallest woman (that's Madge Bester, in case anyone was wondering.  She's 2'2" tall), I've been doing some collaging.  While viciously ripping through page after page searching for images that weren't skinny white girls or nail polish ads, I found a recipe or "sweet apple sammies."  And then I made one and it was delicious.

Wanna know how to make one?  Even though you can probably tell from the picture?  OKAY!

1) Take an apple, cut it down the middle, then chop off the stemmy ends.  Cut out the core, and voila, you've got yourself a coupla apple donuts.  You can just stop right there if you want.  They're so cute, it's hard not to eat them right away.

2) If you make it past step 1, smear some peanut buttery goodness on there.

3) Throw some chocolate chips into the peanut butter for the "sweet" aspect of the recipe title.

4) Smoosh the two apple donuts together and BAM you've got an adorable sandwich thing that is decently healthy.

After 7 years of receiving this magazine, I think this is the first time I've actually made one of the dumb "get fit now!" recipes they always throw in for shits and giggles.  Maybe I'll give Seventeen another chance... HA, JUST KIDDING.  So done.

Batman at the Bees Knees

My mom, brother, and I went to the Bees Knees for dinner tonight.  The Bees Knees is the "bees knees."  Har har.  But really.  The food is great, the live music is great, the local art is fantastic, and you have not truly experienced the Bees Knees until you've been in the creepy, painted bathroom and looked at all the foot-less cartoon people that watch you pee.

The one downside to the restaurant is that it takes a while to get your food.  Luckily, someone had left behind a battered Batman figurine on the table for us to play with.  This particular Batman was, ahem, a little loose in the crotch area.  Please enjoy this short video of my brother flailing Batman around.

I got the black bean burger with some potato wedges.  I didn't have time to take a picture of it because it was somehow in my mouth before I could even reach for my camera.  In the competition between my camera and my stomach, the stomach usually wins.  This is again demonstrated in the picture below where, as you can see, we bought some gluten-free cookies, but they disappeared before picture-time.  So instead, here's a picture of the empty cookie bag with loose-crotch Batman inside.  How cute.

 

The cookies are from Liz Lovely and the brand name does not lie-- they are lovely.  We got plain' ol chocolate chip (chip-eee-i-oh!) cookies.  They looked like huge, dry dog treats but actually tasted like raw Tollhouse cookie dough and happiness.  While trying to find that clip of Spongebob eating his grandma's cookies (you know the one..) in order to demonstrate the absolute joy experienced with Liz Lovely's cookies, I stumbled upon this weird little tune instead.  Then I promptly got sucked into the obscure section of youtube filled with indie Australian bands with less than 5,000 views.  Who gives a crap about Spongebob clips when you can stare at cute Aussie boys with ginger afros?

Challenge me to a game of Bingo and I will WINNN.

I don't know if it's something I ate or something specific I did, but my lucky streak today is way out of control.  No one deserves to be this lucky.  That said, I'm NOT complaining; today was awesome.  The first miracle of the day came when I woke up and knew exactly what I wanted to wear.  This may seem like no big deal, but lemme tell ya, sometimes I just don't feel like wearing anything.  Those are the days I remind myself that technically, it's not illegal to go around naked in Vermont as long as you don't strip your clothes outside or some mumbo like that.  But nine times out of ten, I end up putting clothes on.  Whatever.  Anyway, so that was a big deal.

Big deal numero two: I was driving home from Burlington half-listening to the radio just trying to make it through those damn commercials when I heard "free tickets" and a phone number.  I (unsafely, whoops) whipped out my phone, tapped in the number, and voila!  I was caller #7 and won two tickets to go see Sweeney Todd in Lebanon this weekend.  THAT NEVER HAPPENS.  I've never called to win anything before because what're the odds I'd call at the exact right moment?  Also lucky thang numero 2.5: I didn't crash while using my phone to win things.

           

                                 

Big deal numero tres: BINGO, BABAAYYYY.  Every Wednesday night during the summer, Elmore hosts a community bingo as a fundraiser for the milfoil problem in the lake.  Tonight I scored so hard.  I won the first round with a straight-across bingo ("Hoooorizontal!  Vertical!  Diiiiii-agonal!") and won some fresh raspberries.  

Then I won AGAIN and picked up one of those nifty stench-spreaders.  When I brought it home and showed it off to my mother, she gasped.  Apparently she's desperately allergic to the scent "gardenia."  Rats.

Last week, I won a wiffle bat and a plate of cookies.  I am KILLA at bingo, but only in Elmore.  During finals week at UVM, my friend Shannon and I went to a bingo game hosted by the inter-residence association and things got stressful.  When you're winning raspberries and wiffle balls, it's not such a big deal, but when the prizes are a bit more appealing, it becomes a sweaty, hostile event.  I'd much rather play bingo in Elmore than with a bunch of rowdy, technology-hungry college kids.  Oops, looks like my transformation into a grandma is almost complete.  And speaking of grandmas, the theme for next weeks in Elmore is "bring your grandma to bingo!" SO EXCITED.

A bajillion macaroons, mini pumpkin muffins, and disastrous peppermint patties.

I woke up today wanting to bake anything and everything, preferably things that involve mini cupcake wrappers since I have 19 boxes.  I looked up a bunch of recipes and couldn't decide, so I ended up making 3 different things.  It's a risky business having me in the kitchen...baking things...using the oven... 

1) Coconut macaroons.

These turned out pretty darn well!  Since they're so small I had to do multiple batches, so there are a HUNDREDS of them.  And by hundreds, I mean maybe around 60.  But still.  That's a lot of macaroons.  There woulda been more, but I'm really bad about eating it before it goes in the oven... 

2) Peppermint patties.

As you can tell from this picture, these did NOT turn out well.  The main problem was that the recipe called for agave nectar and I didn't have it, so I used sugar water.  Also, the main ingredient is coconut oil which is gross and tastes like coconut-flavored crisco.  Also, I didn't melt the chocolate properly, so when it came time to dip the crisco/sugar balls, it didn't work.  Instead, we ended up pouring the chocolate onto the patties instead, which melted the oil.  Hence, there is a big sloppy mess.

Both Dad and Tucker tried a piece of the peppermint patties and both were unable to swallow it.  They're that bad.  The pan is now stashed in the freezer in hopes that someday one of us will rediscover them and magically think they're delicious.  But until that day comes, I'd steer clear of the freezer.

Tucker sharing the pot of burnt chocolate with Callie.

Tucker sharing the pot of burnt chocolate with Finn Hudson.

3) Pumpkin muffins

I cheated with this one and used a gluten-free mix.  They turned out normal, but bland.  Ah, well.  At least they're mini and adorable.

Aaaaand now I'm sick of baking.  At least it wasn't all a complete failure!  Macaroons are obviously my calling.

More cupcake wrappers than you can shake a stick at!

You know those questions that keep you up at night?  Where will I be in 5 years, how many cats do I have to adopt to consider myself a cat-lady, what's the secret ingredient in krabby patties, etc etc?  Well,  I stumbled upon another of those thought-inducing questions tonight at work: Why the HECK are there 19 boxes of mini cupcake wrappers chillin' in the kitchen?!

Tonight at work, I was given the task of going through the kitchen and cleaning out the junk we don't use.  I uncovered a gold mine of cupcake wrappers.  You know someone had a wrapper-collecting problem when you can make a 5-tiered pyramid out the the unopened boxes.  Just sayin'.

We don't make cupcakes or muffins or anything that needs a wrapper at work (and even if we did, they'd be normal-sized because bigger is better when it comes to dessert.  Duh), so these things were useless laying around the kitchen.  I salvaged them.  I WILL find a way to use them.

Tomorrow, you can find me in the kitchen baking mini delights and/or desperately gluing little paper cups to everything.  Come on over and eat some mini junk or take a couple boxes off my hands.  (seriously, take these wrappers away).

I wasn't joking when I said this stuff would go in my blog...

Here I am (another 3 am-ish post) blogging about the cast party immediately after arriving home from said party.  What a lame-o.  Anyway, here are my 3am thoughts.

1) This has been my favorite cast of all time.  Holy cow, I love allllll of you guys... even the divas and my Chinese boyfriend.  Especially my Chinese boyfriend.

2) My hairspray helmet is so hard, Mark thought maybe it could cut glass.  Gonna need a bathtub full of conditioner to even think about getting these curls out.

2) Katie-Caney crump time is going to be sorely missed.  Who the heck am I gonna crump with now?  Myself?!  Yeah right-- unlike Billy Idol, I'd rather not dance with myself.

Katie, my 10-year old best friend and crumping partner,
made this collage of me being weird.  She's the best.

                                  

3) I forgot to take a picture of it, but I'm MEGA proud of the gluten free/dairy free blueberry crumble I made.  It tasted normal and the pan was scraped clean by the time I left the cast party.  Granted, I probably ate half of it myself and might've been the one to scrape the pan, but ya know what?  I don't blame me.  It was darn good.

4) Oops, this should be number 5, not 4.  Goodbye, math skillz.

Whatever, I've lost count.  Anyway.

The point of this blog post is to talk about the cast superlatives.  Before the show, we all filled out little ballot thingers with categories like, "best on-stage disaster," and "messiest backstage," etc etc.  I won several and I can't for the life of me remember exactly how they were phrased, but here we go anyway.

I think the pumice stone was won for the "worst dancer" category. I'm actually a bit confused here.  My on-stage dancing was meh... but backstage?!  I was a whirlwind of non-stop crump-age and new groove moves!  Whatever, I'm just happy to have won a pumice stone.  Wait.  Read that sentence again.  Who in their right mind would be excited about receiving a foot-scraper?  THIS GAL.

This was my favorite win of the night.  Obviously, how could it not be?  It's a SIPPY CUP PANDA BEAR.  WHAAAT.  It has nothing to do with the category, but I think it was "best pre-show pumper-upper" or something along those lines.  Who cares, it's a SIPPY CUP PANDA BEAR OMG OMG.  Look how cute he is.  I just want to snuggle with him and drink lemonade all the live-long day.

And best for last, the lovely Ms. Leslie gave us each a little parting gift: a Thoroughly Modern Millie poster with each of our faces photoshopped in.  AHAHAHAHAHA.  I think my favorite moment of the cast party was when everyone opened them all at once and there was a collective scream of surprise.  I LOVE this.  I wanna hug everyone.  And then laugh about how dumb they look in a feather headdress.  And then feed them my blueberry crumble.  And then stay in touch forever.  

Goodnight.  I'm sure I'll wake up and read this and be completely horrified at how weird I am at 3am.

The Book Dumpster

Scored a motherload of books today, thanks to my parents and their perfect timing.  Every year on the 4th, the local library has a book sale from around 10 am - early afternoon.  Up until now, I was always there right as it opened, ready to spend my life savings on $2 books.  This year, my parents and I opted for a day at the beach instead of sticking around for the book sale, parade, and all that other July 4th crap, so we got there around 4pm when everything was free.

My dad volunteers to help set up all the tables and books, so he got the inside scoop.  Once the parade rush is over and people gradually leave, the price of the books goes down.  Eventually, they're free and then at the end of the day they get tossed.  Holy cow. This reminds me of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," in which all the books in the world are destroyed and burned.  Such a sad fate for some books that people have loved and may have loved in the future.  Gah, that's so sappy, but SERIOUSLY.  Look at this: 

That's right, I'm in a dumpster full of books.  And all those boxes on the right?  Those are all full of books too.  If they're gonna be thrown away, at least recycle.  Geez.

I scavenged quite a few, but there are only so many books I can save before my bookshelf collapses.  I wish I could save them all.  :(  Happy birthday, America, I hope you're proud.

Miracle pizza

Today's adventure: gluten and dairy free pizza.  Insane, right? ...Since gluten and dairy are what make pizza so gosh darn delicious.  I was expecting a humongo taste bud explosion-- and not the fun firework kind; more like the Fukushima meltdown kind-- but, surprisingly, it was FANTASTIC.  Let's recap, shall we?

Step 1: Make the dough.
I made the dough from a mix, but it was like no mix I'd ever seen.  For starters, I had to add like 20 separate ingredients (I was expecting the equivalent to a brownie mix-- egg, oil, and water: BOOM, DESSERT).  And then the baking directions were cryptic and it was like one of those "choose your own adventure" books because they kept sending me to the middle of different paragraphs.  Get your shit together, mix-makers!

And then I carried that bucket of dough around with me for an hour, waiting for it to rise.  Looking back, I could've left it on the counter, but it ended up coming with me to the grocery store, a thrift store, and the bank.  Me n' ma bread baby.  D'aww.

Step 2: Roll out the dough.  

Yeah, see, this sounds a lot easier than it actually is.  The dough was so sticky, there was no way I was going to be able to roll it out without the help of flour, which is definitely not gluten free.  Instead, I found some parchment paper and put it between the dough and the rolling pin.  Voila!  It looked like shit!  As you can see in the picture above.

Step 3: Dump some crap on it.

Once the dough looked sufficiently stupid, I poured all my ingredients on top.  The only dairy free cheese I could find at Hannaford was Daiyea brand pepperjack.  Pepperjack cheese is not the greatest pizza cheese, but for a desperate dairy-free gal, it was sufficient.  

Step 4: Leave pizza in the oven for twice as long as the riddle box tells you.

After the suggested 15 minutes of bake time, the middle of the pizza was still as doughy as my stomach after Thanksgiving.  Another 15 minutes in there and then I said fuck it and just ate some.  Life's too short to burn the edges of your pizza just to cook the middle.

Step 5: Go back for seconds.  And then thirds.  And then congratulate you and your food baby with a well-deserved nap.

Overall, the pizza was darn good.  It may have been 2 inches thick with not enough sauce and the wrong kind of cheese, but hey!  It was my first attempt and it wasn't a complete disaster, so that's kind of encouraging.  I'm on an upswing, ladies and gentlemen.  For the first time in Demars household history, I have made food that was edible and delicious and didn't make me want to throw up.  Me and my food baby are gonna go take another nap now.

That one time I tripped an Argentinian baby.

This blog post has nothing to do with the theme of my blog, but I hope it makes you laugh.  It made me laugh.  Holy shit, did I laugh.

WELL.  There I was at work, being all front desk-y and whatnot at the Mountain Road Resort in Stowe.  It was a bit of a slow night, so I was in the middle of the Gossip Girl season 1 finale (I know, the trashiest of trashy shows, sorrynotsorry) when a man walked in looking for a last-minute place to stay for the night with his wife and 2 children.  I gave them a room and the keys and one of those infant playpens for their toddler.   

Here's the room they ended up staying in.
Pretty swanky, eh?

Next thing I know, the guy is back and said they were having trouble getting the room door open, which isn't uncommon.  Some of those locks are finicky, lemme tell ya!  Since it was pouring rain and their room was in the far building, he offered me a ride and I gladly obliged... until I saw the car.  It was a tiny Honda Accord JAMMED to the roof with road-trippy things and the front seat also had the folded-up playpen.  His 2 children were also in the car and they were both sobbing.

I somehow squeezed a butt cheek onto the passenger's seat next to the playpen and the guy HANDED ME his wailing baby and then started speaking to him in Spanish.  He calmly explained that they were Argentinian and were bringing their children up to be bilingual.  And then they were all screaming in foreign languages and I felt a liiiiiittle out of place.  I was just like, petting the baby and cooing all the Spanish words I knew at him (agua, banyo, senorita... that's about it) and he pretty much calmed down immediately.  At the same time, I was small-talking with the parents and willing my butt to stay balanced on the stack of travel books I was perched on.  That 30 second car ride felt like 3 hours.

When we finally made it, and at the sight of the indoor pool, the older child finally stopped sobbing.  Miracle of miracles.  I finagled the key to get the door open and held it open for them.  The baby immediately toddled through the doorway, tripped over my extended foot, and face-planted onto the rug.  The wailing started, my face turned redder than a lobster on Sunday, the Spanish started up again, and I felt terrible.  


Overall though, it was just hilarious.  I felt horrible for tripping their baby, even if it was an accident, but at the same time I almost couldn't help but laugh.  The situation was just so ridiculous.

Welcome to my life, everyone.  It's always an interesting time at work.  Maybe I'll post a few more hilarious hotel stories soon.  They're actually just as funny in print as they are in my head.  Weird.

That time Eliza gooped mayonnaise in my hair...

Let's start with some background information for this blog post:

1) I'm in a play. (Thoroughly Modern Millie, COME SEE IT!)

2) I have to curl my hair every night.  The heat from the steam rollers has fried it beyond belief and I feel like a crispy piece of toast.

3) I like avocados so much I'm willing to mush them all over my head.

And there you have it, all the information you need to know to understand why I'm smearing goop in my hair.  Regular conditioner was just not cutting it, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and concoct a secret potion to give me sleek and shiny and healthy and un-crispy locks.  It consisted of 1 avocado and 1 cup of mayonnaise.  Oops, I guess it's not so secret anymore.  I love both avocado and mayonnaise, so it was a challenge not to forgo the hair conditioner and just eat the stuff.  Eww, just kidding.  I do love mayonnaise, though.

The mixture basically just looked like light
green guacamole.  Break out the chips!

 We set up in the bathroom and my trusty hair stylist, Eliza, volunteered to get her hands goopy.  What a trooper.  As you will see in some of the following photos, deep conditioning your hair is a lot like dumping a bucket of green vomit on your head.  It's chunky, sticky, has a pungent smell, and drips down your neck.  Mmmm.

Wouldja look at that schnozz?  Dang, that's huge!

Eliza's hands post-application.  She licked them clean.  (Just kidding.  (but really))

And then I had to let it sit for 20 minutes.  I found a shower cap I had swiped from a hotel and voila!  I look like a glowing spa patient.  Right?!

After 20 minutes, I hopped in the shower to furiously rinse my hair out and, surprisingly, it didn't take long.  And now, about 2 hours later, I feel.... LIKE A WHOLE NEW GAL!  Well.  Sort of.  The new me smells faintly of mayonnaise, but whatever.  I could get used to that.

Bruce Bogtrotter and the stinkiest breath I've ever had.

Bejeezus, I have not blogged for a solid 2 weeks.  That's a disgrace.  Unfortunately, nothing spectacular happened to me within those two weeks, hence no blogging material.  Actually, that's a lie.  Plenty of junk happened to me and I got plenty of free food, but who has time to write about what's already happened when there's so much other crap happening all the time?!  I can't keep up with myself, guys.  I'm a whirlwind of activity.

So anyway, here I am at 2am.  I should be sleeping because I have to wake up in 3.5 hours, but YOLO I'M BLOGGING INSTEAD.  Tonight was such a great food night.  The majority of the cast went to Frida's in Stowe for dinner before our 8pm show (remember last time I went to Frida's?  Read about it HERE.)  I went with some plain ol' corn tortillas and frijoles-- played it safe and delicious.  And, of course, we ordered chips and guacamole.  4 platters of guac, to be exact.  That's enough avocado to choke a horse, lemme tell ya.  It was vuuuundaful.  The only downside: Mexican breath for the rest of the night.  I chomped on gum and breath mints, but to no avail.  I'm still a stinkmonster at this very moment.  I'm going to keep track of how long it takes to become an unoffensive breather again.

                                   

And THEN, after the show we had a cast party.  Potlucks are always difficult because 1) being gluten, dairy, and meat free makes me an extremely annoying party guest and 2) I always forget to bring something, so I'm the douchebag freeloader all the time.  However, this time was a little bit different.  There's another girl in the cast with a gluten allergy and a few others who are lactose intolerant, so one of our lovely production team members made a gluten-free, dairy-free chocolate cake.  With raspberry sauce.  Drool.  As I was leaving, she asked if I wanted to take any home and I was like, "aw, no, but thank you, it was delicious, blah blah" and then she said, "okay, well then it's going in the garbage...."  I bet you all know what that means.  As soon as she said that, I knew I was going to end up taking it home because I'd feel guilty if I didn't.  Ugh.  So now, I have not one, but TWO plates of chocolate cake.  What am I going to do with all this cake, you ask?  Wellllllll.....

It'll probably end up something like Bruce Bogtrotter in that scene in Matilda.  You know the one.  Gross.  But oh-so victorious.

And while I'm here talking about chocolate and gluten free junk, shout out to Judith and Katie for bringing gluten/dairy-free cookies to the cast party!  I may not have been able to eat much of the dinner-ish food, but I was SET on dessert.  I love my cast, I love dessert, I love everything.

And there you have it.  The fastest way to my heart-- provide food that I can actually eat and I'll like you forever.

The most pathetic blog post I've ever written.

My well of word-vomit has run dry for the moment, so here are more pictures than usual to make up for it.

Homemade gluten-free and vegetarian spring rolls!

Gluten-free s'mores.

Bonfire.

Goddamn, this is a pitiful excuse for a blog post.  Whatever.  I'm gonna go take a nap.

Expensive food + me = not BFFs.

I had an awkward amount of time between rehearsal and work today.  My body was like, "TAKE A NAP" and my brain was like "GO DRESS SHOPPING" and then while they were bickering I went out to lunch.  Sneaky move, eh?

I ended up at the Green Goddess because all I wanted was a huge ass sandwich (huge-ass sandwich, not huge ass-sandwich, because those are two completely different things. Wink.) I was positive they'd have gluten-free bread.  They were out (dagnabbitblargheddycrap), so I ended up choosing the make-your-own-salad option.  I don't remember all the junk I told them to dump in there, but can you really go wrong?  No.  Not when there are grapes involved.  Finding grapes in your salad is sort of like walking into a hotel in Chinatown where the floor is cut into little bridges and there are goldfish swimming all over the place.  It's surprising and I never get sick of it.

Look at the SIZE of that thing!  That bowl is literally larger than my head.  You're probably wondering how much it cost.  I know I was when they handed it to me... but I'm not going to tell ya.  I'm kind ashamed to have paid so much for one salad, especially since I was still hungry afterwards.  Ugh.  It looks hearty and wonderful, but 95% of it was just greens.  Not to say it wasn't delicious, I just happen to be a black hole and I demand sufficient feeding.

So.  Lesson learned: don't go out to eat unless a) your mom is paying for you, b) you're prepared to barter your first born child, or c) you were gonna go blow it on more clothing you don't need anyway. 

Living on my death bed.

HEY, EVERYBODY.  I don't suppose you're curious about my current bodily functions, are you?  You are?!  Great, well let's talk about them.

I'm sick as can be.  Well, yesterday I was sick as can be.  Today I'm still pretty darn sick, but at least I can walk.  For the most part.  Anywho, I spent all of yesterday either in a semi-coma or reading trashy romance novels (nothin' keeps me awake like one of those tired ol' forbidden love plot lines!)  So that was that.  Until yesterday, I'd never spent an entire day in bed.  I must say, it was actually quite nice not being able to move.  No one expects you to be anywhere or do anything because you're too sick to function.  It was great.

And then I woke up this morning and was able to ingest solid foods and my fever was relatively under control and I was LOVIN' LIFE.  But then all of a sudden I couldn't swallow and things got really uncomfortable really fast.  This might be TMI, but it got to the point where I couldn't swallow without feeling like I was going to split apart, so I just started spitting in a bucket.  It's disgusting, I know.  But hey, kind of amusing right?  "Hey, there goes Caney with her bucket of spit!"  It's not really very funny to me right now, but if (WHEN) I get better, I'll probably be mortified and a little bit proud of my problem-solving skillz.  Ya gotta do whatcha gotta do.

Me with my bucket.  D'aww.

So.  Turns out I have almost-strep.  I went to the doctor and she couldn't see past my tonsils because they grew to the size of baby elephants.  The swab test came out negative, but she gave me the antibiotics anyway because it looked like strep and because I was so pathetically whiney.  

On a better note, I finally got to use the cute little tissue wallet my play director gave me!  It's been sitting untouched in my bag for a week, so I'm a little bit overly excited to be using them.  Thanks, Amena!  This pack'll be gone in no time.  Literally.  I'm like a faucet.

I was trying to look excited, but it came out as... sickly.

And there you have it.  I'm a disgusting human being.  I hope, for your sake, you haven't come into contact with anything I've touched recently.  I've got the Midas touch... but with germs, not gold.  Hopefully tomorrow will be an even better recovery day... Fingies crossed.