Treading.net

DBF attempted to fly to Vermont last night, but his plane got delayed from taking off. During his hour and a half delay, he penned this rather genius email:

I’m sitting on the tarmac, waiting to take off…an hour and fifteen minutes late…again. This time, the cabin crew that’s coming in from a connecting flight are held up because there was a brawl on the plane between a few men and security quarantined the plane. So we’re here waiting for the crew to be allowed out of the plane and onto ours. Lame. I think Jetblue makes this shit up to keep people complacent at getting fucked over by their incompetence or something.

I think I mentioned on the phone…there’s a seriously morbidly obese woman carrying a huge stick. She has quite the tragic front-butt. she’s wearing a lime green Nautica tent/poncho/
tarp/t-shirt…which is ironic since she probably can’t even find her own feet with such a mammoth reverse-posterior. I don’t know where she’s sitting, probably in the back, but she HAS to be taking up more than one seat. There’s a couple kids across the isle from me I’d like to feed to her.

I had an aisle all to myself for a while till this disgusting douchebag moved up to sit near me from the back since there were free seats. After inhaling a sub sandwich and dropping ham in his lap, he’s now watching TV, occasionally snorging back snot loudly, while chewing his nails and flicking the guck and nail bits in my general direction. Hate him. Great, now he’s actively reading what I’m typing. DOUCHEBAG!!! He’s got a totally fake orange tan and is wearing ankle socks.

Now they’re saying 20 more minutes, which is what I’ve been hearing before I even got on the plane.

OMFG, get this fricking plane airborne. Never thought I say that. [DBF hates flying.]

Adults with braces are creepy. I rode the train home standing next to this woman who A: looked Amish or Mormon B: had braces C: was butt-ass unfortunate in the makeup and hair skills dept. and D: was shit fucking insane. She kept pulling her lips back and grimacing her braces at the people on the train, all the while having this expression that either said “I’m about to go flywheel loose and start licking the floor” or “OMG, I just took the most grevious dump in my grannypants” or both, I’m not a mind reader.

Uh oh, the toddler across the aisle is starting the apeshit stage. He’s staring at me too. If I was a real man, I’d offer the mom ten bucks for her kid and tell her it was because whale in the back of the plane was in the mood for some ribs. Baby-back, bitch.

The stewardess-dude is shaking his head like we’re all doomed. He has braces too.

Great Jehovah’s ball-sweat…the Stewardesses have arrived! Oh great, now they’re all chatting. Alright…off goes the laptop.

This morning I woke up to find both of the cats sprawled out on the bed with me: George smushed against my head, as usual, and Gracie near my feet. The three of us had a groggy, simultaneous head-lift when the alarm clock flipped on WNYC at 8 AM. George’s head collapsed back into the bed, as if to say, “Too…early…for…StoryCorps…”

So the T-shirt arrived, and Sunday afternoon, DBF proudly donned the shirt in preparation for our agreed-upon stroll down 7th Avenue in Park Slope. Unfortunately, a massive street fair was in full swing, which, at first, we thought would give the shirt even more viewing eyes. But alas, the allure of cheap jewelry, sketchy rides, and questionable food stalls distracted most of the parents from viewing the shirt. DBF says he got a few dirty looks as we walked along Sterling before we hit 7th Ave., but that’s about it. One guy laughed. Even the doofus waiter at Dizzy’s, who we overheard gushing to another table about his newborne, failed to say anything.

Park Slope, you disappoint me.

Since the desired effect was not achieved in Brooklyn, DBF will take the shirt to Burlington, to wear to a party in which many parents will be in attendance. He also might stage a mock confrontation with his best friend. He also might use his best friend’s child as a prop in which to spark confrontation with other unsuspecting parents. When it comes to unnecessarily pissing people off, DBF goes to great lengths.

I’ve made countless batches of oatmeal raisin cookies, which are my favorite type of cookie (well, in the top 5, at least). And their ingredients pretty much jive with my diet, so I’m especially fond of them. I’ve modified the recipe on the back of the Quaker Unprocessed Bran box to suit my dietary needs, and they’re good!

5/8 c. Splenda brown sugar blend
1 c. butter, softened
4 full droppers of clear Stevia extract
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. almond extract
7/8 c. whole-wheat flour
3/4 c. unprocessed bran
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 c. oatmeal
raisins and/or chocolate chips as needed.

I also suggest putting a moistened cotton ball inside the tupperware that you store the cookies in. It’ll keep them from drying out.

They’re still not as chewy as the amazing oatmeal cookies at Au Bon Pain (go figure), which I’m still trying to replicate. I think it’s going to involve white flour, which I’d rather not use. The experimentation continues!

We’ve had George and Gracie for about a year and a half now, but it wasn’t until last night that we realized we had a champion mouser on our hands.

Of course, I’m talking about Gracie (aside from the opportunity for hilarious photo ops, we expect very little from George). Beneath her super-soft, beautiful smoke grey coat and big blue-green eyes, lies the heart of a ferocious killer.

Last night, DBF and I were playing with George and trying to capture more airborne pictures, when we heard a crash in the bedroom. We thought Gracie might’ve accidentally jumped onto George’s food bowl, so we didn’t investigate. A few second later, Gracie comes padding into the living room where we sitting.

DBF: "Oh, Gracie’s got a mouse."

Me: (Jokingly) "Are you sure it’s not real?"

DBF: "No, it’s one of the little toy mice."

(Pause.)

DBF: "Oh my god. It is real."

After I screamed and scrambled into the corner of the couch, and DBF told me not to scream at Gracie, we watched as she tormented the mouse, which was petrified, but not dead. She’d set it down. It’d run around a bit, and she’d trap it and pick it up again, only to repeat several times. After it seemed like she wasn’t going to go in for the kill anytime soon, DBF trapped the mouse and we threw it out on the street.

This incident reminded of the time, several years ago, when Scooby (R.I.P.) came bounding into the kitchen from the backyard, and set a dead gopher at my feet. He was wagging his tail, so happy, until I realized what it was and screamed. After my Dad explained to me that it was wrong to scream at him for what was essentially a gift (not to mention a good thing that he was eradicating the backyard of gophers), we tossed it in the trash and rewarded him with a treat.

So that’s what we did with Gracie after we threw that mouse on the street, where if it’s not as good as dead, it’ll at least run and tell its mouse-friends to not mess with our apartment, in which resides a ferocious almost-killer kat.

Outside of the occasional grilled cheese or Elvis, I’ve never been a big sandwich person. But since starting my new job downtown in the Financial District, I’ve found that the only edible, reasonably priced food can be found at Pret.

I’m partial to a sandwich that has avocado, arugula, tomatoes, pine nuts, basil, and grana padano. And today I had a most delicious sandwich at the Aquavit Cafe: the gravlax club with gravlax (naturally), avocado, tomato, dijon, and arugula. So delicious. It was the best brunch I’d had in a long time, and it was less than $10!

Maybe a long as a sandwich has arugula and avocado in it, I’ll like it.