Startled Into Action - OH SHIT!

My Special Man Friend ("MSMF") and Jaja were sweetly cuddled up on the couch together while I was upstairs working the other day. I came down to see how they were both doing and laughed to myself with just how comfortable Jaja was.

I have definitely lost favor with her ever since MSMF and I started dating. MSMF will deny it but it's true.

Jaja is such a daddy's girl now. If we're sitting on separate couches, Jaja will pick laying next to MSMF on his couch. I've even had him switch couches with me and sure as shit she'll get up and move to his new couch. If I leave the room, meh. But if MSMF leaves the room, Jaja is perched at the edge of the couch checking to see where he went. She not only begs him for her treats now but insists that MSMF play fight with her. This was something only I could get Jaja riled up enough to do. Now I'm just chopped liver.

She was completely stretched out against MSMF's leg, her head slightly tilted back with a little kitty smile and her eyes closed in bliss. As she stretched further, grinning as she slowly twisted onto her other side, Jaja must have sensed that I was there watching or caught sight of me because all the bliss left her body as she froze awkwardly in place for a second, eyes bulging out of her head.

If that wasn't funny enough, she started meowing way too loud to fit the mood all while suddenly writhing around, struggling to get up onto her feet. It was as if she was the secret mistress and I came home early to discover them cuddling on the couch - OH SHIT!

MSMF and I both started laughing as it was totally obvious that's what she was thinking, oh shit. MOM! OH SHIT! Meow meow meow meow! OH SHIT! Meow meow. You're my favorite, really. Meow meow. I love you more, believe me. We're just friends. Meow meow meow.

Now any time something happens that we weren't expecting or we're watching a show and someone gets caught off guard, MSMF and I will look at each other all bugged eyed and say:

OH SHIT!

He Just Crawled Away & DIED!

I got bit by something in the middle of the night a few weeks ago.

I can still see the lingering spots left by the huge welts I got from the bites. The bites were not completely uniform but it looked as though something with two mismatched fangs chomped into my upper thigh, about 6 inches from my hip. That or whatever bit me decided the first bite was so good it went in for round two.

Now I don't know about you but shit crawling around, biting you in the night annoys and creeps me the fuck out. I always wonder what it was that bit me and how the whole thing happened. It never fails in the Summer months that a few mosquitos find their way into the apartment, inevitably make it upstairs, and proceed to annoy me all night with little buzzing flybys. It's just insult to injury because they know as soon as you go to sleep you're going to toss the sheets off you, which you've been using as some magically impenetrable fortress. And you know they're going to come and chew on your ass as soon as you let your guard down, unaware and drooling on yourself.

As My Special Man Friend ("MSMF") and I lay in bed the next morning, I felt that familiar twingy itch. A bite itch. Sure enough there were the puncture marks.

Pissed and grossed out, I lamented to MSMF that I didn't want to be chewed on again later that night. Here was his sweet reply:

"He ain't coming back."

"He just crawled away and DIED."

Jesus. Thanks honey.

The way he said 'crawled away and DIED" was dripping with disdain and loathing. What was not so indirectly implied by MSMF was that whatever bit me wasn't coming back for seconds because I killed it. It was dead. Whatever I'm made of, in my blood and bones, sent this thing to its grave. Now, I found this mostly humorous and we've had a laugh about it ever since but am I not worthy of being bitten a second time? Is the poison within better than Raid or whatever the fuck you kill human feeding bugs with?

Again, still think it's funny. But... I also haven't been bitten again. So. There's that.

Shut Up So I Can Hear You

I fucked up tonight.

Big.

I went to an event that I was told was COVID safe and it wasn't.

I was planning to see my two favorite people on this Earth aside from my cat, my partner, and my Mom two days from now and instead I have to cancel with them because I fucked up.

I'm pissed.

Trusting people has come at a massively heavy price lately. And I'm tired of paying it.

I care more about my favorites living, in case I was exposed to the virus, than I am about seeing them Sunday. The disease has never been fully real to me until being grossly exposed to an overly dumb population of people that were being flagrantly nonchalant about the fact that they weren't wearing masks and could potentially be infecting one another - or even infecting the next group of people that they talked to. 

God damn it.

I've always been much more cavalier about the COVID bullshit than My Special Man Friend ("MSMF") but now I find myself having to make the call to tell him to fuck off because I care about him and because I got got. I James Bonded into the lion's den of COVID. It's an intense soundtrack that ultimately has a prophetic ending - Bond trips and falls and succumbs.

I'm the white night without a horse.

You're not doing anyone a favor. You fucked up and now you have to ride into town looking like the asshole that you are. On a donkey no less. It's not heroic or pretty.

No one wants to be the bad guy. The fall guy. The one that got all their family sick with COVID. That's what we've all been fearing right? You'd see some friends or go to the store or do your job that's high exposure and then suddenly - BAM! COVID. No one wants that burden or guilt. God forbid anyone get really sick or worse...

There were so many weird things that happened tonight. Like dominos laid up to inevitably fall. Was I a part of the plan or did I help lay the dominos?

There's so much sound in the deafening silence. Of my experiences these days. Of my mind.

Shut up so I can hear you.

Sports Hostage

My Special Man Friend ("MSMF") is a slave to sports. Basketball and football specifically.

Maybe slave isn't the correct word because he loves it. Longed for it and craves it now that it's made a COVID comeback.

Me on the other hand... I could give two fucks about sports.

Having swam and played water polo from high school through college, even participating in an olympic camp, most other sports were just not in my wheelhouse. And though I'm right at six feet I have had zero, ZERO interest in volleyball or basketball or any other sport that some dumb ass would ask me if I played.

What I find obnoxious about people that love sports is how all consuming it is. To their energy. To their time and to their life.

I just love when people jump off their barstools or hop off the couch to yell at the TV. Saying "we" when talking about the plays or the team. Pissed if their team lost, souring their mood for the day/night. Dude. These guys are professionals being paid millions to run back and forth with a ball up and down the court or field. What are you getting so worked up about? You're coming apart at the seams, taking hours off your life while these guys are banging hookers and doing blow in their off time. They're not flipping their shit or losing any sleep.

In the last month I have watched more basketball then in the last 40 years. Sure it's fun when some guy hits a sweet three point shot or the stupid announcer gives a live advertisement for a hamburger and over emphasizes the "pickles on a BRIOCHE BUN!" The same announcer also overuses the term "FROM WAY DOWN TOWN!" There was one game he must have said it 10 times in 3 minutes. I swear to God if I hear that guy say "from way down town" one more time I'm going to be the one beating my partner and the cat.

From what I'm told, MSMF has lost two relationships during the football season. His friends have reasoned that his love for the sport was a key factor. I don't believe that something you love or enjoy should be a factor in ending a relationship. That says to me there are bigger problems. I support MSMF's sporting vice. I've even enjoyed the Chargers pre-season documentary, Hard Knocks. What I don't support is his enjoyment of gambling on sports. But while he's busy watching games, it allows me to write or dick around with any number of other things that I don't get to do during the workday.

I'm just looking forward to the holidays and to the end of the basketball and football seasons, whenever the hell that is.

Dick Pillow

My Special Man Friend ("MSMF") has a dick pillow.

He calls it a "leg pillow" but we both know it's a dick pillow.

What else would you call a normal pillow wedged all up in someone's balls? A dick or balls pillow, right? See? I told you.

MSMF's body temperature runs unfortunately higher than most. Great in the winter for me, terrible in the summer for both of us. He says the leg pillow cools him off but I don't believe it. How can something stuffed all up in your sweaty parts make you somehow cooler? This kind of science just baffles me.

There are leg and contour pillows online that cater to every ache and pain in the body. Help with alignment and stability of your back and hips and provides overall support to your lower extremities. But not one of these products claim to "cool the balls" or "reduce the overly warm body temps of your sweaty ass".

As it is MSMF sleeps with 3 pillows. I sleep with 1. MSMF has 1 for his head, 1 to hold onto, and 1 for his dick. Thing is, and this always cracks me up, is that the holding pillow and dick pillow are really not differentiated from one another. So how does MSMF know if he's cuddling the holding pillow or nustling the sweaty dick and balls pillow in his face?

MSMF doesn't seem to care which pillow it is but I've taken to washing the pillow covers a lot more frequently.

Just in case.

And I know the below photo would be more suitable as a female version of MSMF's dick pillow but it was just too good not to share.

Pleasant dreams.

Chocolately PayDay Bar Epilogue - Ungettably Got

So, it turns out you CAN find a chocolate PayDay bar in Los Angeles.

As a follow-up to my blog post, Chocolatey PayDay Bar - The Ungettable Get, I'm here to tell you with a lack of enthusiasm that My Special Man Friend ("MSMF") triumphed in his mission.

I'm really happy for him, honestly. But it's just a fucking naked Baby Ruth.

https://thesillyshitwesay.blogspot.com/2020/09/chocolatey-payday-bar-ungettable-get.html

I thought after weeks of searching every grocery and drug store, gas station, and bodega in Ventura and Los Angeles that MSMF had given up his obsession with finding the latest release chocolate version of the original peanut and caramel PayDay.

I was wrong.

I should never infer that seeming resignation and disappointment on the part of MSMF means that he has given up. On the contrary I should remember that MSMF and I share this personality trait in common; an obsessive, die-hard stubbornness to not throw in the towel. I should have known that he was going to will the damn chocolate bar into existence or keep searching every candy isle for the next 10 years.

I should also always assume that MSMF has ulterior motives. He says he doesn't but experience and his willingness to admit the truth has proved otherwise on more than one occasion.

He said he just wanted to get out of the apartment and go on a bike ride.

He said it was just by chance that he saw the gas station 7-11.

He said it was just luck that they had the chocolate PayDay bar.

But I smell a rat! He may not have known that the 7-11 was the secret hideout of this otherwise elusive candy bar but why the bike ride? Why the bike ride past one of the few places MSMF has NOT checked?

The bike ride was just an excuse to check yet another place. If MSMF had asked one more time to check out this place or that place, he knows I probably would have rolled my eyes, laughed a little and said "Babe, really?!" So he goaded me with cooler temps outside the apartment and exercise. Two things I couldn't say no to. And it worked.

I'll say it again, honestly, I am happy that he found the damn chocolate PayDay bar. I love him and just want him to be happy. Even if that means being on an obsessive mission to find a mediocre Snickers knockoff. Now we're just going to be onto the next thing, whatever the hell that may be.

The sweetest part wasn't the candy bar but the sound MSMF made when he threw open the 7-11 glass doors and yelled, "BABY! THEY HAVE IT!", scaring the living shit out of me and almost knocking me off my bike. He was so happy he couldn't wait the minute and a half to make his purchase and then triumphantly tell me. He had to tell me the second he spotted the brown box.

After I steadied my feet and realized he wasn't being robbed, I told him to take my wallet out of the bike basket and grab the few remaining bucks for his bar. I should have known 1 wasn't going to be enough. MSMF walked out with 4 and the biggest smile on his face.

He immediately tore the wrapper off the first bar and chomped down, Mmm-ing away as he did a little happy dance right there is the 7-11/76 gas station parking lot.

Bulgur - The Bane of My Existence

Bulgur. Middle Eastern cuisine staple. Whole grain superstar. Bane of my existence.

Frankly, I don't even remember what recipe I needed bulgur for but what I do know is that I have a metric ton of the shit sitting in my pantry cupboard taking up way too much damn space.

I should have known the dish was going to be some bullshit when I searched every nearby grocery store, including my local Indian and Thai bodegas, and couldn't find bulgur. If you can't find whatever exotic shit you're looking for at your little niche bodegas, move on and throw that recipe away. It's not worth the headache.

But we're talking about me here. And I'm stubborn, persistent, and wanted to try something new. There's only so many times My Special Man Friend ("MSMF") and I can do variations of meat and veggies or pasta before you want to flip the fuck out.

So I did what anyone on the verge of flipping out would do when they can't find something. I checked Amazon. And let me just say there are dedicated memes and reddit chats dedicated to the shit people thought they bought on Amazon vs. what showed up in the mail.

I am one of those assholes.

Popped onto Amazon, bing bang boom, and ordered up some bulgur for next day delivery. I thought I had bought a typical sized plastic bag of the stuff, like you'd find beans or rice in at the store. What I ended up receiving that next fateful day was a SANDBAG size of bulgur. A family dedicated to eating a dish everyday with bulgur wouldn't get through this fucking thing in a year. Or maybe even two. This is the pitfall of buying from Amazon; if you don't check the price WITH the product details you really are buying blind. Case in point - check out this Bored Panda article.

https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-online-shopping-scams-fails-expectation-reality/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

Annoyed with myself I figured, ok. There's got to be a way to save this. So I Googled "what can I do with leftover bulgur". Turns out a lot of shit I don't want to make and that sound terrible. Cilantro Lime Tuna Bulgur Salad, Jesus no. Bulgur Bell Peppers, nope. Bulgur Zucchini Patties, yeah if I need a door stop or two. The only thing that looked mildly good was the Bulgur Falafel but the amount of bulgur needed for the recipe wouldn't even make a dent in the bag.

The best part about my quest to figure out what the fuck to do with all this bulgur was an article titled, "Good Question: What Can I Do With Bulgur Wheat? posted by kitchn. One of their daily food magazine readers, Nathan, had submitted the same question I was pondering - what can you do with bulgur? Reading his post had MSMF and I rolling with laughter. This guy, our unkhown homie Nathan, bought WAY too much like we did. Doesn't know what to do with it, except eat tabouli for the next five years. And better yet called it a 'sizeable bag' of bulgur. I'm dying laughing even now.

https://www.thekitchn.com/good-question-what-can-i-do-wi-1-82011

How many homes are being plagued by oversized bags of bulgur? How many Nathans are there in the world pinned down in their kitchens, their cat slowly eating them instead of the bulgur in hungry desperation?

I feel for my kindred brobro that I never met. RIP Nathan.

Corned Beef Conundrum

What's the deal with dishes that are described as having corned beef but have very little corned beef?

For example, corned beef hash. This was the first dish I ever ordered with corned beef. It came highly recommended by the restaurant and just sounded good; home-style potatoes, grilled onions and peppers, egg whites scrambled (my preference) and in-house made corned beef hash. Makes my mouth water just writing about it. But when this meant to be glorious dish was placed in front of me I couldn't help but wonder - where was the fucking corned beef?

I mean seriously. Is there a reason to be stingy with corned beef? Is there some secret restaurant rule that you can only put so many grams of corned beef on any one plate or in any one dish?

My original corned beef experience was good, considering I never order something new off a menu. I'm a stickler for routines and liking what I like. I was happy with the change of habit but it left something to be desired. Namely more damn meat on the plate!

The first case of corned beef missing in action ended up not being the last time. Every time, and I mean every time, I have ordered a corned beef dish it is served with the smallest amount of corned beef allowable to not be sent back to the kitchen. I just don't get it.

I have since looked up the mystery of corned beef hash, whether it's expensive or if there's some other reason for it being a no show in it's own name sake dish. I hate to break it to you but there is no mystery. No rhyme or reason. You don't use the leanest or most expensive piece of beef on the market and you douse the shit out of it with salt. Both things making it fairly unhealthy but that can't be the reason. When you're at a diner do you think they give a shit about the calories you're consuming? Hell no.

So why the lack of fucking corned beef!? It's ponderous.

Way too much butter on your toast? Check.
Overly greasy, gristly bacon strips? Check.

Cinnamon rolls larger than basketballs? Check.

There are tons of other things that restaurants love to serve you that will damn near clog your arteries and kill you on the spot. So it's not about price and it's not about how unhealthy corned beef hash is.

I may never learn this great mystery but my quest for a decent ratio of corned beef to eggs and hash browns continues...

What's Your Chowder?

"Would you rather have New England or Manhattan clam chowder?"

My Special Man Friend ("MSMF") always has the funniest thoughts and questions for me in the mornings. I love it.

Me: "Neither? I'm not the biggest chowder person."

MSMF: "Really?"

Me: "I mean, I do like it. But not on its own. It needs to be in a sourdough bowl or something like that. I just don't like the funky chewiness of the clams. Grosses me out a little."

MSMF: "Hmm."

Me: "Which one do you prefer?"

MSMF: "The creamy New England."

Me: "I wonder how many different chowders there are?"

MSMF: "I'm not sure."

Curious, I whipped out my phone and googled how many kinds of chowder are there. Turns out there are quite a few. Mushroom chowder. Corn chowder. Seafood chowder. Many are just variations of either the clam chowder or some other version of seafood or vegetable with bacon. Bacon makes everything better.

MSMF: "So what's my over/under on chowders that you're going to make me in the next 40 years?"

Me: (laughing) "What?"

MSMF: "What are my odds of you making chowder?"

Me: "Zero? Not that high. And why are we only going to live until our 80's?"

MSMF looked pretty disappointed even though he's not a soup guy. But I could be an everyday souper I love it so much. LOVE IT. So I thought about it a bit more and figured I could totally get on board with a corn chowder or some other version with bacon. And with the cold months fast approaching I could totally add a chowder recipe to the mix.

To lift his spirits I told MSMF we'd put a chowder into the mix while saying chowder as silly as I could, because it made him laugh. More like chow-da or ciao-da. CIAO-DA. Trying to think up different ways of saying it silly, I blurted out chode-r. CHODE-R. MSMF immediately stopped laughing and wanted me to stop saying chowder. In fact he was over talking about chowder altogether. I knew exactly what I was saying and thought it was funny but our silly morning bedtime chowder banter abruptly came to an end.

So what's your chowder?

Chocolatey PayDay Bar - The Ungettable Get

Who gives a fuck about PayDay bars? Seriously though.

My Special Man Friend ("MSMF") has been obsessed with finding a new version of the original PayDay bar.  Apparently, Hershey's has re-released an oldie but forgetie - a repeat performance of the 90's version PayDay bar WITH chocolate.

I wasn't aware that there was an audience for the original PayDay, let alone the need to reinvent it by dipping the bar in chocolate. And it's not just making a seasonal debut. It's back permanently. Praise the candy bar Gods! The Snickers bar runner up has made a return!

Early in MSMF's pursuit of the nutty chocolatey PayDay bar I wanted to know WHY he wanted one so bad. I'd love to say it's in homage to his belated father or some other noble quest but it's not. He read an online article hailing it's return and just had to have it, figuring it must somehow be better than the original. Or at least worth the time it took someone to write the comeback article, let alone read it.

In obsessive pursuit of the 2.0 PayDay MSMF and I have been to at least 5 liquor stores and 6 grocery or drug stores. Each time MSMF left empty handed his craving to find the elusive sweet and salty treat only got stronger. Tired of all our running around, sneaking peaks at check out lane candy racks, I suggested MSMF look online. eBay or Amazon must be selling these damn bars. Turns out to get 3 chocolate PayDays shipped from an online candy store it would cost over $20 in shipping. To hell with that.

MSMF has now, in desperation, decided to make his own chocolate PayDay. I reason it'll be just like the real thing, if not better. But I think we both agree that it'll probably still suck.

It's a fucking PayDay bar. It's only going to be so good.

https://thetakeout.com/taste-test-chocolate-payday-hersheys-upgrade-on-a-neg-1844611581