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.