The Engineer and I Archive

I few months ago I joined this community that uses ‘local currency’ for goods and services. I’m not expecting much out of it. I thought I would create a couple websites or something to get my name out and then go back into the freelance world again. The one problem is that I’m stick and tired of web stuff. I just like tinkering for myself as a hobby and not having any type of deadline pressure while I’m doing it, so I started making tamales instead. The friend that introduced me to this community was my first customer and the next one was the person that introduced my friend to it. Both of them gave my tamales glowing reviews / high praise and all that jazz. The third person was a little different. She lives quite a ways away from me and so delivery was difficult. I had to give them to my friend who dropped them off at her friend’s house and then called this third tamale buyer to her house. Once she finally got the tamales this is what she emailed to me…

We finally got the 4 pkgs of tamales from **friend of my friend**. Thanks! I posted the **money**’s.
We steamed some up and had a meal. **boyfriend’s name** is from Tamale country - Arizona and had a few bits of imput. Tasty chicken flavor, traditionally the olive is whole to signify the baby Jesus wrapped in the corn mother - Mary…..sweet huh?

He found the corn pretty dry and lacking good flavor. We steamed them all just right, so I asked him what they needed and he said he didn’t know but the masa his Momma and Hispanic neighbor use is VERY flavorful. He’s also had bluie corn ones…..Hmmm??
We’ve ended up putting chipotle sauce on them to moisten them but then they have lost some of your original flavoring which I really like.

I wanted to give you feedback but not directly to your **local currency** account. I am wondering if you mess around with the recipe or if it’s solidly yours, perhaps passed down recipe you love dearly?

Also, he was curious why you put potatoes in there. He had never seen that before…….:) **her name**

PS Your Tamales are the only ones I have ever tried, so now I’m excited to embark on a new culinary adventure. Yours’ll always be my first……..wink wink

This is what I wrote back to her…

**her name**,
I’m glad you got your tamales. Thank you for the **money**s. I have heard of making tamales with a whole olive, but I’ve never heard of the olive having that sort of meaning behind it. I’m glad **boyfriend’s name** enjoyed the chicken flavor. It is unfortunate the flavor of the masa was not to his liking, but I can’t imagine that it was dry. I ate several from that same batch I gave to you and they were as moist as my usual, which are much moister than tamales I’ve had from others. My mother and I have been using this recipe for 30+ years; it is from the Sinaloa area of Mexico.

So now Kurt has made it a joke. Last night Kurt and I were playing City of Heroes with his friend in Wiscaansssseeennn and so we had tamales for dinner. I left my third tamale because it got cold before I could get to it, and I don’t like them cold. (We were playing while eating) This morning I went downstairs and noticed a 2” x 3” white paper folded in half so that it would stand up in the plate that was mine. On the note paper was written, “What’s the matter? Was it dry and tasteless?”

Kurt had created Fluffy Pink Bunny and thought it would be funny to have two bunnies hopping around and saving the day, so I created Fluffy Purple Bunny. I wrote up a long biography for him too. Unfortunately it didn’t all fit.

This is what I wanted to say, “Jack served his country as a Marine for six years. The military doctors say he lost touch with reality sometime during the war. He believes the government is always plotting against him, and that it takes pleasure in making people believe they’re incompetent so that they mindlessly obey orders. He simply refuses to believe that the government is by the people and therefore always acts in the best interest of the people. Jack’s life coping skills have deteriorated significantly - Even something as mundane as watching M*A*S*H is too much for him to take. He would rather sit in a dark room with a bowl of Lucky Charms and watch cartoons, Bugs Bunny is his favorite. He identifies with super hero cartoons and believes that he has the power to make others believe in things that don’t exist and that he possesses the ability to draw energy from people. While these symptoms fall in line with classic schizophrenia we would like to observe more before making that diagnosis. Jack truly wishes to do good with his ‘powers’. We have therefore concluded that he is a better than acceptable risk to society (30%), and we are sure that he will not add to the list of Marines that climb a clock tower armed to the hilt with the mindset of gunning down several people before committing suicide or being gunned down by local police. We hereby declare him free to reenter society as an outpatient, Fluffy Purple Bunny.”

I shortened it, so now this is how it reads, “RE: Competency Assessment of Fluffy Purple Bunny
Patient Jack, 6 year active Marines. Patient has lost touch with reality during the war. He believes the government plots against him ands actively attempts to make him feel incompetent so he will obey orders. Jack’s life coping skills have deteriorated significantly - Even mundane shows like M*A*S*H are too much for him. He would rather sit in a dark room with a bowl of Lucky Charms and watch cartoons, Bugs Bunny is his favorite. He identifies with super hero cartoons and believes that he has the power to make others believe in things that don’t exist and that he possesses the ability to draw energy from people. While these symptoms fall in line with classic schizophrenia we would like to observe more before making that diagnosis. Jack truly wishes to do good with his ‘powers’. We therefore concluded that Patient Jack poses an acceptable risk to society (30%) and should therefore be released to society.

Arkham Asylum”

I seem to have an obsession with mind controllers the other two characters that I’ve created were called, Mental Mayhem and Cerebral Carnage - do you see a theme here?

On Sunday November 19th I went to Costco. I knew that my truck tires were bald and required replacement before winter just in case it actually gets cold enough to freeze or something. Costco didn’t carry the size tire I need for my small truck so I ordered some. They told me that the tires would probably be in on Saturday, but that they would call me.

The other thing that Kurt has been pestering me about is a cell phone. Ok fine it comes in handy during emergencies. On Saturday November 25th we went out gift shopping. I was looking for a laptop (gift for myself), and Kurt kept flashing different cell phones at me. I broke down and finally decided that a cell phone isn’t the end of the world and picked a prepaid type without any extra crap. – The store was sold out, so we went to two other stores and same thing. That night I hopped online to buy the phone.

Costco hadn’t called on Saturday so on Sunday we stopped by to get some doggie treats and see what was going on with my tires. The guy that took down my number the previous week had sloppy writing so they couldn’t call to tell me that they only received three of the tires. As we left the store it was snowing and not just a few little flakes that don’t stick – it was actual snow. That night I sent out an email to all my friends saying, “I’m finally as hip as my grandma, I don’t have it in my possession yet, but I finally broke down and got a cell phone. My number will be ***-***-****. I should have the phone by Friday-ish.”

Monday morning I wake up at 7am without power. I know it was seven because I have a laptop. We don’t have a corded phone, so when the power goes out so does the phone. I tried to get online to email work that I would be late but my wireless router also requires power. I went to the kitchen to get the flashlight so that I wouldn’t have to shower in total darkness, and hopped in the shower before all the hot water turned cold. I did all the rest of my normal work morning routine and then went out to wipe all the snow off my truck and get it warmed up. I did take the time to note that I could not see the tracks from Kurt’s car. He leaves for work at five. At 7:30 it was still snowing. I backed out of the driveway, but as soon as I hit the center of the road, I was stuck. If only I had traction.

The neighbor behind my house was in the middle of helping someone that was stuck beside my house (I’m on a corner lot), and came over to help me after pushing the other person. He helped me back into my driveway and let me borrow his phone. All that and it turned out to be a snow day – I didn’t even have to go in.

At 8:30 my power came back on and I open my email to see that one of my 50-something year-old friends replied to my cell phone email with, “Hahaha. As hip as your grandma! Now you need a MySpace page (like me).” I spent the day deleting accounts I no longer use and then added MySpace.

*** Update January 1, 2007 ***

I deleted my myspace.com account. As I expected it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I did find a couple people I never thought I’d get in touch with again, so I don’t think it’s entirely evil. I’m just not interested in the sparkly little comments and it seems a lot like match maker and classmates.com type of sites as in it’s just a place to hook up then promptly loose interest and leave as I did. The biggest difference is that you can change the background other custom things as long as the advertisements aren’t affected. I loved the Borat theme I put on my account, but I’d rather not resort to using a bunch of css hacks to achieve a pseudo personal space. The community aspect of myspace isn’t that appealing either. I don’t usually spend a lot of time with online communities or forums because sticking to the same topic is boring and forums that allow users to wander off topic usually get out of hand and become a drag to the moderators.

Spontaneity scheduled every Thursday at 8pm.

After having a discussion about favorite childhood board games at work I hopped on eBay to find a hand-made board of my favorite game just like the one I had as a kid. Well it finally came in the mail last week and on Saturday Kurt and I brought the game to our friends’ house.

Most of our games are some kind of useless trivia thing, which everyone sucks at except my darling fountain of useless knowledge, Kurt. So when we play those games everyone just resigns themselves to loosing while we listen to Kurt drone on and on about the history of something that we didn’t ask about (I love him, I really do, he makes for a great sleeping pill). Now the game I bought on eBay I thought it would be a great game to play because it’s only about 5% strategy and 95% luck, but I really should have known better than to buy a game that has aggravation in the name…actually that’s the whole name.

Since there is no control in the game it drove Kurt absolutely bonkers. On our first round of this game our friends and I had at least one marble moving out around the board, but for the life of him Kurt couldn’t roll a one or six to get his going. Kurt sat there and worrying that the game would finish before he even got one marble out, and he wasn’t quiet about it either. Aggravation is really an under statement. He bitched and moaned and pretty much did everything but throw himself on the floor and hold his breath (we would have preferred that actually – it would have been funnier and maybe even quieter).

After all his complaints he not only got a marble out on the board, but he eventually won the game. So we played again…and again it starts…

See Apostate, Kurt isn’t just a sperm donor he’s also blog fodder.

On Valentines Day, all of the other women were receiving flowers and things from their husbands or boyfriends except me. One of the managers asked me if we celebrated it because as far as she could tell I hadn’t received anything. I told her yes, we do celebrate it, and he gave me a card. She couldn’t believe that I found that acceptable and so I went on to tell her that if he gave me flowers at work I would kill him in his sleep. “In his sleep?” she asked, “wouldn’t you want him to be awake?”
“No, it’s much harder that way.”

A few days later, on our seventh anniversary (Saturday February 25th) Kurt gave me a book, “The History of Torture & Execution” by Jean Kellaway. He bought it as an actual gift because I collect books about serial killers and other such things that many people consider grisly and just plain sick. But then he realized the oddity of it being our seventh anniversary and he was getting this as an actual gift, so he signed it…

I laughed and brought it to work for that manager to see the book and the signed note in it. I tapped on her door and ask if she had a minute while holding the book. I explained that it was our seventh anniversary on Saturday, show her the cover to which she got a chuckle over and then I open the book to the note he wrote:

“Happy Anniversary Sweetie
Celebrating seven years of torture for us both
Love,
Kurtie”

I turned to the manager and said, “Now you can’t tell me he’s not romantic!”

On Friday we went out to dinner and a comedy show for a friend’s birthday. Somehow the dinner conversation drifted to the old TV show, “Little House on the Prairie”. I’m sure it was Kurt’s fault. He was talking about the friend the Ingles had and kept calling him, “Mr. French”. All of us were confused, because none could remember a Mr. French in that show. Since all of us except Kurt agreed he eventually gave in, but not before remembering the real name - Mr. Edwards. Kurt also recited the song that this character always sung fully and loudly for most of the restaurant to hear. This morning went I checked my email at work this was waiting in the inbox…now remember the night I was just talking about was FRIDAY and it’s now MONDAY MORNING…

So I’m not completely crazy.
Mr French was the butler on Family Affair.
Mr Edwards was the friend of Mr Ingles on Little House on the Prairie.
That character was played by Victor French.
It’s amazing what your sleep muddled brain will think of when the alarm goes off at 4:15am.

And now for the song:

Old Man Tucker was a fine old man,
Washed his face in a frying pan,
Combed his hair with a wagon wheel,
Died with a toothpick in his heel

Get out’ the way of Old Man Tucker,
It’s too late to get his supper,
Supper’s over and dinner’s cookin’,
Old Man Tucker just stand there lookin’……

He sent this to everyone that was at the birthday dinner, and by the time I got into work one person had responded with…

Freak!

To which Kurt replied:

But I’m not crazy.

Yesterday Kurt and I didn’t get anything to eat all day until late afternoon. Typically when we do this, which tends to be every Sunday (especially when my ex doesn’t show up or even call to let us know he’s can’t come help us with the bathroom) both of us are a little grumpy and deciding what to eat becomes a major production. This time when he asked the question I answered, “I feel like having hot dogs.” I said it with a sneer because I’ve never cared for hot dogs – I mean they’re good when we’re camping (mostly because everything tastes better when you’re camping), but other than that I rate them as almost as foul and disgusting as water. Needless to say Kurt was shocked, but pleased since he would have no problem living off of nothing but hot dogs, hamburgers, and pizza. He then asked, “Well what kind of hot dog?” and he listed off regular hot dogs, Kielbasa, bratwurst, etc. “I don’t know! I don’t know the different between all those!” - Remember I said we get a little snippy? “I just want a hot dog with kraut.”

We wound up going to this fast food hot dog place in Everett. I forget the name of it, but fast is just the type of food served not the speed of the workers. Although in their defense there were only two of them and they were working the kitchen, counter, and “drive-thru”. I put drive through in quotes because in order for them to actually hand the food off to customers going through there the worker had to open a door and walk to the vehicle.

Kurt and I ordered our “food” at the counter. I chose the turkey dog with kraut and chili cheese fries, which for me (at least recently) is a guaranteed stomachache in a bag. After watching them make a few of the meals for the drive-thru customers I turned to Kurt and said, “Should I just call in sick now?”

We got our meal and went to my truck to eat it. I finished my order first and Kurt looked at me as if I had just eaten a 20 pound live turkey in front of him feathers and all. “So how was it?” he asked. I told him that I actually wanted another turkey dog, and honestly I’m still right now at this very moment craving another. Kurt insists this means I must be pregnant.

Kurt actually changed the windshield wipers on his car!! – It’s good for another six years now.

My birthday was phenomenal. – Horribly embarrassing at times, but very fun. It started after lunch when one of my co-workers marched up to me with what at first looked like a backpack. Out of the corner of my eye I watched as she unzipped it and pulled out a violin. I flipped around, “Oh NO! – Oh, I could kill you.” was what I apparently said about four times. She had me hold her music sheet up as she played “Happy Birthday” to me. I turned every shade of red humanly possible and less than halfway through I started to cover my face with the music sheet.

I sent an email to Kurt and carbon copied it to my co-worker with the subject line “I give my permission” and in the body wrote, “You may kill her…she brought her violin to work and played ‘Happy Birthday’ to me”. Kurt replied with, “Ha ha ha ha ha!!!! All is forgiven for ruining the surprise about the Aerosmith tickets. Bravo!”

Ahhh the Aerosmith tickets… On Friday my co-worker received an email from her husband telling her that Aerosmith tickets for February 15th would go on sale on Saturday. Both of us were incredibly excited. I sent an email to Kurt to see if he would want to go. I didn’t get an answer all day so I told my co-worker that I would ask him when I got home. She was house sitting that weekend so I told her to give me a call.

When I got home I asked Kurt about Aerosmith. He said he didn’t want to go because it’s at the Tacoma Dome and that venue sucks, it’s too far away, and the concert is on a Wednesday. I went upstairs pouting. A few minutes later I went downstairs again, “What if we made it an anniversary thing?” I asked referring to the concert again. “No, it’s ten days from our anniversary.”

“But we could take Thursday off work”

“No”

I went upstairs pouting again. A few minutes passed and Kurt came upstairs. I asked him if he had made the reservations for Buca Di Beppo yet.

“No I don’t have the number” He started to go over to turn on his computer.

“I already have it on my screen – Here, it’s right here.”

“No.”

“But it’s already on my screen…”

“Stop being such a control freak!” he snapped. Control freak? I couldn’t figure out why Kurt was being such an ass (more so than usual). I went downstairs to pout some more. Later that evening Kurt wanted to go somewhere. I told him that I was waiting for my co-worker to call.

“Why?”

“Because we were going to go to the concert together.”

“AAHH! – God Damn it! – I hate her!”

“What?”

“Happy Birthday” he said dryly, “I was going to surprise you with tickets.”

So Monday evening came around, and we had eleven people show up (including myself) to dinner at Buca’s. I had so much fun, even though someone leaked to the waitress that it was my birthday. She came by with a candelabrum containing five candles. She said I get five wishes. I looked up over at Kurt, and loudly announced to the whole table, “I don’t think Kurt wants FIVE.” I slouched and started to pat my belly. Kurt leaped up and ran to the candles acting as if her were going to blow them all out himself to prevent me from my wishes.

I tried to blow out the candles, but none went out. One of the guys yelled, “Oh come on I heard you could blow harder than that.” Then someone else said, “No wonder Kurt is always so stressed out!” The waitress told that person, “I can’t believe you said that!” I told her to have a seat and stick around. – That’s nothing!

It was a great night with many stories told, one about the first time we ever went to Buca Di Beppo’s, and some about me. Two that came up about me were the cat traveling Northwest Airlines story and the rum & grapes story.